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Friday,
June 29, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Dissolve
the corporation Plan
platitudes |
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by Hari Jaisingh
Export
subsidies for farm commodities
Suing
your law professor
Will
China back Maoists in Nepal?
No
change in foreign policy: Nepal
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Dissolve the corporation AFTER Wednesday's fiasco Union Territory Administrator J. F. R. Jacob may have to perform the unpleasant duty of recommending the dissolution of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation. It would be unfair to blame just one individual or group for the unhappy developments which have converted the CMC in to the worst managed civic body in the region. The Bharatiya Janata Party members of the corporation are as guilty as those of the Congress in the matter of not letting the forum discharge the duties for which it was set up. Wednesday's meeting was to decide the future of the civic body. In the past six months the members have met seven times, once under instructions from the Administrator, but have failed to transact any business. At the heart of the controversy is the continuance of Mr Raj Kumar Goyal as Mayor. Although he belongs to the Congress, for reasons which are not difficult to understand both the Congress and the BJP have closed ranks against his continuing in office. Of course, Mr Goyal is not the only politician to have been accused of having abused his official position for personal gains. But what has evidently made him unpopular among his own partymen is his singular inability to play the role of an effective team leader. When Administrator Jacob had ordered a special sitting of the civic body it was expected that the members and the Mayor would bury their differences rather than risk the dissolution of the corporation. The special sitting failed to break the deadlock. As a survival strategy, Mr Goyal launched the "Mayor aap kay dwar" programme with great fanfare for establishing direct contact with the people. But the Congress, more than the BJP, opposed it. On the first day he was shown black flags in the Sector he chose to start his campaign from. After a woman Congress member promised him more of the same treatment if he did not give up the direct contact programme, Mr Goyal literally beat a hasty retreat With the Congress and the BJP having joined hands for giving political teeth to their "Mayor hatao" movement, the Chandigarh Administration now has only one option available to it. It cannot remove the Mayor, but has the power, under the relevant rules, to recommend the dissolution of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation. The sooner the unworthy members are removed from office the better for the residents of Chandigarh. Fresh elections should not be ordered in a hurry. Administrator Jacob should convene a special meeting of the elected members of the corporation and give them a bit of his mind in his typical no-nonsense fauji style. After all, Chandigarh is not just another city which needs a municipal corporation for managing its civic affairs. It is a city of artists, scientists, and, above all, well educated and aware citizens. The current stock of city fathers in no way reflects the true picture of what was deservedly called the City Beautiful. Chandigarh deserves a better corporation, than the one which is in the grip of a group of self-seekers, for managing its civic affairs. |
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Plan platitudes AN approach paper to a five-year Plan is a road map to economic and social development during the next few years. It is a theoretical exercise and sets up broad goals without necessarily explaining how to reach them. The draft Plan, hopefully to be ready by September, will not be of much help either. It will be packed with rows and rows of mind-boggling statistics, leaving a mere mortal feel lost in figures. Still what does the approach paper indicate? It sets an 8 per cent growth rate, a bold downgrading from the Prime Minister-mandated 9 per cent. As a cantankerous economist points out, the trouble starts here. These are days of an consequence, lower tax and non-tax revenue. Public and even private investment will be scarce and investment is what pushes up the growth rate. Well, there can be higher growth of the GDP if the services sector does exceptionally well. But as the US experience shows, this sector can generate jobs but at low wages. In a country like India where planning is inextricably linked with mitigating poverty, low wages and high food prices defeat the basic aim. Thus, the growth target depends on agricultural output going up by 4.5 per cent a year during the five years from 2002. That will add tens of millions of foodgrains to the FCI buffer, sinking it in a sea of rotting stock and crushing debt. Prime Minister Vajpayee has asked the Planning Commission to refix the policies and priorities to dovetail growth with improving the living conditions of the poor. In theory it is laudable, but in practice it is impossible. And the Planning Commission itself admits this. The Centre spends about Rs 35,000 crore on social service, essentially to help the rural poor. There are several programmes to achieve this goal. In its approach paper, it confesses that the state governments have more or less disowned these centrally sponsored programmes with obvious results. Only about 10 per cent of the allocated funds reach the beneficiaries and therefore it is better to freeze the budgetary figure at last year’s level. This is a cry of despondency and will do no good to boost the morale of development economists. Then there are the alarming findings of national and international think-tanks. The system tends to marginalise the poor in terms of education, healthcare and even food. A top retired bureaucrat says that the FCI’s near terminal trouble of mounting food stocks alongside a starving population (most optimistically 25 per cent) is because there is no fair price shop in the very poor states like UP, Bihar, MP and Orissa. Then there is regional disparity. Some states are developing at a trot while others are falling behind. If the very poor try to migrate to the fairly comfortable states in search of jobs and food, there will be a social unheaval. The Planning Commission has no clue to the deeper issues, and threats. And it is a pity. |
The cat that can catch mice AS two ancient civilisations in Asia, India and China, are always special themes for a comparative study of their progress and performance in critical areas of economy and technology. We in India, of course, tend to be emotional in the face of global challenges and often boost our ego with the slogan of Mera Bharat Mahan. India is surely a great nation with a rich civilisational past. However, in today's globalised order what tilts the scales in favour of one nation or the other is the economic and technological power. Money talks. Economic muscle ensures supremacy in power game. We will have to judge this country's standing vis-a-vis China on the touchstone of its competitive edge in the economy, science and technology and human resources. Here the democracy card can be an advantage provided the country's economy is fighting fit. What is India's balance-sheet like? A simple answer will be: from poor to average. The Chinese are a hard-headed and pragmatic people. They are more disciplined and determined to achieve goals and targets than we are. As a people, we allow things to drift, not realising that in the process we hurt ourselves both at the community and national levels. Take the population boom. Very soon we shall derive the sadistic pleasure of having left behind China as No 1 on the population front. Is such an achievement worth bragging about? Certainly not—at least not in today's competitive world where the stress is on the quality of products at low costs and higher standards of living of the people. Indian leaders are a gullible lot. They think of everything except the national interests. Small wonder then that we have both communalised and politicised the population issue, with the result an Australia is added every year to the country's demographic chart. And whatever progress has been achieved is more than neutralised by the new arrivals in thousands every day. The country has the potential to grow big. It can compete efficiently and effectively on the economic front. In the IT business, young Indians have shown their class. They can work wonders provided we ensure the right environment for work. Why are we not able to develop work culture and work discipline is a million dollar question. Perhaps, the present mindset and red-tapism are playing havoc with the system, but to the advantage of vested interests and operators. We must fight against such in-built obstacles if we have to compete with China globally. During my visit to China three years ago, I was impressed by its progress, especially in the development of infrastructure. The Chinese are very clear about their short-term and long-term goals. They know their areas of strength and weaknesses and accordingly adjust their policies and programmes. Indeed, in today's globalised economy, productivity and efficiency count. The problem with us is that we continue to suffer from the hangover of past politico-ideological economic policies and allied instruments of governance. Of course, the poor and the have-nots have to be provided a protective umbrella of social security. The weaker sections, irrespective of their caste, colour, creed, religion and community, must be taken care of so that they move up on the ladder of development. Not that there is a dearth of welfare schemes. Still, it is regrettable that nearly 40 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line. This is because of the rusty tools of administration in which only 10 paise out of a rupee earmarked for development reach the poor. The rest of 90 paise are gobbled up by middlemen, petty contractors, politicians and big and small babus of the bureaucracy. This is a major area of concern. Unless we enforce correctives right at the grassroots, we cannot compete with China at the global level. The Chinese economy today is rated as the third largest in the world. It is way ahead of India and is expected to be No 1 in 20 years or so. India may then occupy the third place. How to explain this amazing success? To say that they are industrious, meticulous and sharply focused may not be enough, though these are some of the primary factors for the Chinese performance. The help from "satellite Chinas" — that is, from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao— has also made a big difference. They have not only invested in the mainland but also provided the necessary technologies. Above all, they have helped market the products of China in the capitalist West at a low cost. During the seventies, the American market was thrown open to China. And Deng Xiaoping emerged as the man for the occasion with the Mao doctrine of "the cat that can catch mice." Thus began the "Chinese miracle". China's trade with the USA is around $75-90 billion today — with Japan about $60 billion, with Taiwan about $20-25 billion, just to give a few figures. With Moscow, it is no more than $5-7 billion. The high point of Mr Clinton's eight years' presidency was to grant permanent normal trade status to Beijing. Although China is yet to become a member of the WTO, it has not suffered much because of this. In any case, since it is a major trading nation today, it cannot be kept out of the WTO. The Bush administration is not ready to treat China as a "strategic partner." It looks upon Asia's communist giant as a rival and competitor. Will this make any difference to China's trade? I do not think so, since trade with China is of great advantage to the Americans. As already stated, the main achievement of the communist regime is to keep its economy a low cost one. No doubt, it has been achieved at the cost of the rural poor. That is the way it was able to attract large foreign investment. Almost every major multinational corporation (MNC) is established along the coasts of China. And everyone of them is engaged in export. There is little scope for domestic sales in China for want of purchasing power. Foreign companies find export hugely profitable. To give an example, the USA can manufacture a T-shirt for $10 a piece. But a Chinese T-shirt is available for $2 and of the same quality. As is evident, it is highly profitable to MNCs and advantageous to American consumers. It keeps the US cost of living — a major objective of both the Democrats and the Republicans — low and thereby reduces the pressure for higher wages. If Americans and others are less enthusiastic about investing in China today, it is because they see no prospect for exploiting the domestic market. But then 80 per cent of the foreign investment in China is accounted for by overseas Chinese. And Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao continue to play a crucial role in Beijing's economic development. As against this, what is the Indian position? Although India took to socialism, about 80 per cent of its economy was in the private sector. Only the government could have developed major industries. Since the Congress party was dominated by capitalist interests, it kept the prices of public sector products and services, which were mainly used by the private sector, very low. While this helped in the rapid growth of the private sector, it had a negative effect on the public sector. For example, while prices of steel products were kept very low, the steel fabricators of the private sector made super profits. In short, we allowed the cost, price and profitability to be controlled by the private sector. As a result, India became a high cost economy. This was possible because Indian manufacturers relied on the domestic market. Even when we opened up the economy and invited foreign investors, they were reluctant to take up export obligations because of the high cost of the economy. Thus, if India produces a T-shirt for $ 6-8 a piece, there is no incentive to export it to the USA or the EU. In any case, it stands no chance against China. In fact, what the MNCs did in India was to capture the Indian market. They took to various measures to increase their market share and profit margins. That is why the Indian economy has become a very high cost one. In the circumstances, it can hardly compete with China. Today, with better political relations with the USA, there is a false hope that Indian exports to that country will pick up. Nothing can be further from the truth. For, imports in the USA are in private hands. India has only one option: it has to bring down the cost. This will not be possible unless New Delhi applies the market principle fully, including labour. We have refused to accept this reality because political parties find it risky for their survival. So, what does it all come to? It means that the economy of this country is run in the interest of political parties and not in the interest of the country or the consumers. |
Export subsidies for farm commodities THE government is proposing to give direct budgetary subsidy for the export of agricultural commodities. The proposal is conceived as a quid pro quo for the lifting, as ordained by the WTO, of the quantitative restrictions on their import. The opening up of the Indian market for the import of agricultural commodities, processed and unprocessed, evoked strong opposition from commercial farmers and agricultural processing industry in India. It is being claimed that budgetary subsidy for the export of farm commodities — wheat, rice, sugar, etc — would assuage the ruffled sentiment of the farmers. This is supposed to be in conformity with the Prime Minister’s assurance of “full protection” to farmers under the WTO regime at the recent conference of the Chief Ministers. The proposed subsidy would, however, be actually paid to the traders-exporters of agricultural commodities. This is justified on the ground that the subsidy covers the difference between the high “incentive” prices paid by the government to procure wheat, rice, sugarcane, pulses, etc, and the relatively low net earnings of traders from their export. This arrangement is claimed to be WTO compatible. But the proposed export subsidies are obviously at odds with the clamour of the self-styled economic reformers inside and outside the government for drastic cuts in all subsidies, including the foodgrains subsidy for domestic consumers. The case of over-smart reformers seems to be that subsidised export of farm commodities, above all foodgrains, is part of the globalisation mantra. They have been encouraged to take this odd position because the developed countries too heavily subsidise the export of their farm commodities. But they do not realise that as against the commodities surplus to domestic demand generated by the developed countries for gainful export, the subsidised export of farm commodities from India would be out of step with the stage and level of the development of agriculture in India. The implications of subsidised exports of wheat, rice, sugar and pulses are highly adverse for the mass of the people in India. Surpluses of agricultural commodities for exports in India arise from the want of purchasing power of the large segments of domestic consumers, rural as well as urban, who suffer from malnutrition and hunger. It is also not realised that the developed countries ruling the roost in the WTO are bound to drag India into disputes on subsidised exports of farm commodities for settlement in their favour. They will not allow India to enter the global market and make dent in the global trade in farm commodities, processed and unprocessed which they control to serve their economic as well as political interests. It is indeed incredible that, with one-third of the population barred access to food at affordable prices, India has still accumulated huge stocks of foodgrains. There are, therefore, cries of “crises of plenty”. The Prime Minister and his colleagues often go to town to ask the farmers not to produce wheat and rice, and switch to what are euphemistically called cash crops which, according to their fanciful thinking, will fetch handsome incomes for the farmers by their export. The problem of “plenty” in foodgrains has swelled to such absurd proportions that their subsidised sale in the domestic market as well as export is being arranged. But this only hides the ugly reality that their subsidised sale in the domestic market even under the public distribution system is facing demand recession for want of purchasing power. Their export will entail heavy losses which, it is now proposed, would be covered by budgetary subsidy. The bulk of the incremental production of foodgrains in India after the launching of the market-friendly production policy has tended to come from large and medium farms and is the root cause for the emergence of the problem of marketable surplus. This is because the pattern of land ownership is highly skewed. The socially meaningful way to resolve the unsavoury phenomenon of co-existence of food surplus to market-demand and hunger and malnutrition on an intolerable scale can, therefore, be only radical reforms of land-holdings so that the share of the small and marginal farmers in farm operations is at least protected, if not enhanced. Growth of farm production will then not yield surplus to effective market demand but would be available for the self-consumption of the mass of the poor farmers and farm workers. This would be the only effective way to alleviate mass poverty. Policies supportive of increasing the production and productivity in the farm sector through the application of appropriate technologies extension services, adequate credit for the cultivating small farmers who constitute the bulk of the farm population in India can also produce adequate foodgrains and other agricultural commodities for the domestic consumers at affordable prices. There will then be no need for elaborate schemes of subsidised export of agricultural commodities either. The rich farmers and traders would naturally be delighted by the idea of subsidised export of farm commodities. But the interests and needs of the mass of the farmers as well as of the consumers would tend to be marginalised in the market-friendly development of Indian agriculture. The prices of agricultural commodities in the market have been rising sharply because the prices for their procurement by the government have been hiked beyond a fair determination of the cost of their production on the basis of fair wages for family and hired labour as well as reasonable return on capital and land. The large commercial farmers have gained enormously from what their political lobby applauds as a welcome shift in terms of trade in favour of agriculture. Public distribution of foodgrains is, however, now a shambles because it is unable to sell foodgrains to the mass of the consumers at affordable prices. While procurement prices have been rising and open market prices of foodgrains have become competitive to PDS prices, the cost of holding of the burgeoning stock of the government has become prohibitive. The rich commercial farmers, the traders in farm commodities and corporate industry processing farm commodities have become economically strong and politically influential, are now pressing their claims hard on the government. The government is succumbing to their pressure on procurement as well sale of foodgrains in India and abroad. Security of tenure for farming, let alone land redistribution, is no longer admitted in official policy-making as an essential pre-condition for overcoming bottlenecks to higher production and productivity in agriculture. Business corporations are being allowed to take over large tracts of agricultural land under contract farming. The rich gentlemen-farmers have built large landholdings for “modern farming” on land leased from small farmers. Under the market-friendly policy dispensation, subsidies for agriculture and related activities are being taken advantage of by the big farmers as well as foodgrain traders and the agricultural commodity processing industry. |
Suing your law professor
Gary Munneke’s best selling-book How To Succeed in Law School is full of good advice: how to take good notes, study effectively, get the most out of library research, keep stress at bay. But it is silent on the correct course of action to adopt when a lecturer whips a chair out from under you. This left Denise DiFede to act on her own initiative and now she is demanding US dollars 5m in damages. Ms DiFede, 30, says that Professor Munneke called her to the front of the class at the Pace University law school campus in White Plains, New York state, to illustrate a point about a personal injury case. “He asked her to sit down and as she was sitting down he pulled the chair out,” said her lawyer, Susan Dennehy. “It was humiliating. There she was in front of all her peers with her dress up around her waist and injured. It was pretty traumatising.” The class was looking at tort, a wrongful act for which a civil suit may be filed. Ms DiFede, a financial analyst, did not return to the night classes after her fall. She had completed a course of therapy six months before the tumble and had had an operation on her spine some years earlier. “No one denies that it happened, it happened in front of the whole class,” said Ms Dennehy, who described her client as having an “eggshell” body. The former student might have been chosen as a guinea pig because she had told Prof Munneke that she had been unable to do her homework because she was busy at work, said the lawyer. The lawsuit filed in Manhattan state supreme court names the university, its law school and the professor as defendants. All declined to comment.
The Guardian
Three Cs to save marriage
U.S. couples got a dose of three Cs to save their marriages: communication, common sense and conflict resolution. The lessons were imparted at the fifth annual “Smart Marriages, Happy Families” convention at Orlando, Florida. Experts discussed with couples how to make marriages last and battle divorce. Members of the clergy, researchers and family therapists attended the meet. Couples were told that proper communications, resolution of conflicts and anger management could prevent divorce. The convention took place at a time when 43 per cent of marriages in the USA end in divorce and more than 50 per cent of the population is single. Only 25 per cent of U.S. households are traditional. The convention hosted marriage covenants and coaches for couples, premarital inventories and divorce-busting courses, marriage enrichment classes fit for the military and the newlyweds. Vendors, who did brisk business at the convention, sold a six-hour set of videotapes on “Sex and Romance in the Biblical Marriage”, a Bahamas cruise with tips on “How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk” and an audiotape of “A Woman’s Guide to Changing Her Man”. Some offered the services of personal marriage trainers. “Marriage education didn’t exist five years ago, and now it’s rolling off everybody’s tongue,” Diane Sollee, founder and director of what was formally the Coalition for Marriage, Family, and Couples Education, said in her welcoming address. “American couples don’t think marriage is extinct. They just think it’s impossible.”
IANS
Big is brainy
How well you eat while you’re pregnant may have a significant effect on your baby’s intelligence, according to researchers at University College, London University, who have concluded that heavier babies are consistently more intelligent than their lighter counterparts, possibly because their heads, and therefore brains, are larger. The research, published in the British Medical Journal, is based on tests carried out on 4,000 individuals born in 1946, whose progress through life has been monitored by the UK-based Medical Research Council’s National Survey of Health and Development. Cognitive-skill tests carried out at ages eight, 11, 15, 26 and 46 showed that the
'big-baby' effect remained significant until the age of 43, by which time it had probably become overshadowed by environmental
factors. The Observer |
Will China back Maoists in Nepal? AFTER
the conquest of Tibet by China, the Chinese Communist Party sent a message to the Communist Party of Nepal in the middle of 1951 saying: “After the liberation of Tibet, the Chinese people and the Nepalese people will unite in close solidarity in the common struggle for the sake of defending Asia and world peace.” This is gibberish, in which the Chinese mandarins are adept. It did not take more than a few months to know what was China up to. It tried to make Nepal a Chinese satellite. In January 1952, the Communist Party of Nepal made an attempt to seize power. It was aborted, and Dr K.I.Singh, its leader, escaped into Tibet, where he was given an honourable asylum by the Chinese authorities. (But when India gave asylum to the Dalai Lama, China denounced India.) This episode revealed the true nature of China’s intentions. Nepal refused to have any diplomatic relations with China until 1956. In 1956, China entered into a trade agreement with Nepal, which allowed it to open trade offices in that country. This marked a turning point in Nepal’s life. So far, the Nepalese politicians looked up to the Indian political parties in their menoeuvres within Nepal. Now they looked towards China as well, and those who had grievances against India did indeed turn to the Chinese. Thus began troubles for both India and Nepal. In October 1956, China offered Nepal a loan of Rs 60 million. Over the years, Chinese assistance has grown. But as the border problem between India and China began to worsen, it also affected Sino-Nepal relations. In 1959 a large-scale rebellion broke out in Tibet. It was at this time that China advanced its claim on Nepalese territory as also on the Everest. In 1960 China engineered a conflict along the Nepal-Tibet border. All these were done to frighten the Nepalese government into submission. As usual, China staged these with consummate skill. At about this time, India made a significant policy statement in which it said that it was prepared to defend Nepal in case of an external threat. This did not please some Nepalese politicians and the Chinese. China fully exploited it to its advantage. In April 1960, Chinese Premier Chou En-lai and Foreign Minister Chen Yi visited Nepal. Chou urged Kathmandu to allow China to construct a highway connecting the Nepalese capital with Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. The plea was that this would facilitate trade between Tibet and Nepal, and also because Nepal had given similar facilities to India. But the then Koirala government did not agree to this proposal, though it had earlier concluded a border agreement with China and conceded the northern slope of Mt. Everest to China. Following the dismissal of the Koirala government by the king and the abrogation of the Constitution in December, 1960, Nepal’s relations with India reached a new low. Nehru’s remark that Nepalese developments were anti-democratic further angered the royal regime. As India’s stock in Kathmandu began to sink, that of China rose. The Chinese took this opportunity to press their highway proposal again. They pointed out that effective help to Nepal’s established government could come from them to “frustrate any design” of India, but only if Nepal agreed to the construction of the highway. Possibly out of nervousness, Nepal succumbed. By October 1961, Nepal also completed its border demarcation, but made a series of concessions to China. During and after the 1962 India-China war, India continued to honour its policy towards Tibet, but China decided to undermine India’s influence in Nepal. When the highway was completed, the Nepalese strategists realised that it had breached Nepal’s security, for the Chinese had designed it for military purposes. The road made it possible for China to have direct access to the Himalayas and also to the whole of the Gangetic plain. Speaking in Parliament, Nehru had stated: “We cannot allow that barrier (Himalaya) to be penetrated because it is the principal barrier to India. Therefore, much as we appreciate the independence of Nepal, we cannot allow anything to go wrong in Nepal or permit that barrier to be crossed or weakened, because that would be a risk to our own security.” It was a strong statement with implications for Nepal. But neither India nor Nepal initiated any new policy. So, China continued to put pressure on Nepal. At the end of 1967, the Chinese Charge d’ Affaires in Kathmandu was reported to have presented a note to the Nepal Foreign Ministry incorporating six demands, in effect demanding parity with India in all matters. These included facilities for recruitment of Gurkhas in Nepal, demand for Chinese technicians to be posted in the southern checkposts along the Indian border just as India had been allowed the stationing of wireless operators in the northern checkposts of Nepal. The Chinese also claimed equal trade facilities for their nationals as enjoyed by Indian traders and Indian nationals. They also asked for unrestricted circulation of Chinese propaganda materials. As the Chinese persisted in their demand, the Nepalese government was forced to ask India to give up these facilities. Years have passed, but there is no change in China’s ultimate goal. It is not merely to secure parity with India, but also to expel Indian influence from the Himalayas. Only then can China bring Ladakh, Sikkim, Bhutan and Arunachal under its sway. What is India’s policy? I raise this question because it is time we knew the answer, for the Communists are likely to take over the kingdom in the near future. Only the Nepal army can prevent it, but it is not beholden to the politicians of Nepal. And it is doubtful whether it owes the same loyalty to the present king as it did to Birendra. In the meantime, frantic work is going on in Tibet region to improve its infrastructure. For example, a major railway line is being constructed to link the plains of China with Lhasa, a project which is considered as one of the most difficult. The idea is to have an all-weather route throughout the year. This will speed up economic development of the region and Han occupation of Tibet. There is also considerable activity along the Line of Actual Control with India. About 65 new checkposts have been constructed along the Nepal border. But why China keeps saying that the border is peaceful. Either it is telling a lie or it is planning new adventures. According to Indians long resident in Kathmandu, the Maoists are working in close cooperation with the ISI of Pakistan and the Chinese army. But there had been no move from the Nepal government against the Maoists. In fact, King Birendra did not want to make any move against the Maoists. And his brother Gyanendra supported him. If the Maoists take over, they will first abolish the monarchy. This is a prospect which the Nepalese army may not be willing to accept. So, will it fight the Maoists? The Nepalese army is 40,000 strong against the 4000 guerrillas of the Maoists. |
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No change in foreign policy: Nepal NEPAL’S Foreign Minister and former Ambassador to India Chakra Prasad Bastola has struggled his way to the Cabinet. The 55-year-old minister and MP of the Pratinidhi Sabha talks freely about his militant past when he along with 11 other activists of the Nepali Congress hijacked a Kathmandu bound RNA carrier in Forbesganj in the mid-seventies. The motive was to loot Rs 28 lakh of the Rashtra Bank for the purchase of arms. He was arrested and was in Araria and later in Bhagalapur jail in Bihar for two and a half years. The charges were withdrawn when his name was proposed for a diplomatic assignment. He served as Nepal’s Ambassador to India from 1992 to 1995 and resigned a year before completing his four-year term to contest mid-term elections in 1995. Mr Bastola joined the Nepali Congress as a postgraduate student of Benaras Hindu University in the late sixties’ in response to former Prime Minister B P Koirala’s call for armed struggle. During the Bangladesh liberation movement, Mr Bastola carried a truckload of arms as a gift from the Nepali Congress to the Mukti Bahini. The Foreign Minister also holds additional charge of agriculture and has been Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation in Sher Bahadur Deuba’s Cabinet. Excerpts from an interview: Q: How do you assess the present situation and how do you think Nepal will overcome this tragedy? Time is a healer. It has been a shocking, unnatural and unimaginable incident. Death of an entire family is incomprehensible to the general imagination of the people. They are facing the hard and harsh realities. There are three dimensions to the present situation — the law and order problem posed by the Maoists which has been going on for sometime, the immediate and subsequent reaction of the people to the palace incident and the Budget session of Parliament. I don’t want to jumble up all these issues. This is not to say that they don’t touch or bear upon each other but they have to be looked at separately. Q: Do you perceive any threat to Nepal? I don’t see any threat in the immediate future but the various kinds of ethnic, religious and global tensions could have a bearing on the security situation. Q: Do you think the palace bloodbath will affect Nepal’s image in the international arena? Nepal needs to enlarge the confidence-building between the institutions of monarchy and democracy. If this comes about, neighbours and friends will repose their confidence in the joint effort. We cannot undo what has happened. All we can do is to improve, strengthen and consolidate ties for the future. Q: How is your party going to handle the pressure in Parliament? Noises in Parliament is not a problem. The problem is a non-functional Parliament. It is bad for democracy, bad for the country and bad for our international image. Q: A section of the Indian media has reported on King Gyanendra’s pro-China leanings and anti-India stand. Do you share this perception? What I want everyone to do is to take into account the fact that the views of King Gyanendra expressed or held not as a ruling monarch must not be taken as a pointer to the opinion he might hold now as a constitutional monarch of Nepal. We should judge him not from the past but from the present. Q: Do you see a shift in Nepal’s foreign policy towards India? No, I don’t think so. International relations the world over are evolving because of technology, globalisation and ethnic and religious tension which have posed new security problems. So all this will show up in foreign policy of countries in days to come. To that extent, it will affect bilateral relations also. I do not think a change of the monarch would mean a change in policy. We would like to take the monarchy as an institution rather than a change in person. |
Bank Accountant arrested
Bombay: News has been received that L. Evans, Chief Accountant, Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, Bombay, who had proceeded to England on leave on the 12th instant has been arrested at Aden and is being brought back to Bombay for alleged discrepancies discovered in accounts by his successor, amounting to over five lakhs of rupees. |
He who would practice the art of tolerance must guard well against an attitude of superiority, smugness, indifference and coldness.... Tolerance is warm. It reaches out the hand of friendship in spite of all differences. ***** Tolerance is understanding.... He who is tolerant is always eager to explore viewpoints other than his own. ***** Tolerance is deep. It creates a foundation of faith in humanity underneath disagreements, thus preventing prejudice and resentment. ***** Tolerance radiates good will.... It unites men in spirit even though they are a thousand miles apart in their convictions. — Wilferd A. Peterson, More about the art of living ***** All human beings who are seeking to approach the mystery in order to direct their lives in accordance with the nature and spirit of Absolute Reality or in theist terms, with the will of God, all these fellow seekers are engaged in an identical quest. They should recognise that they are spiritually brethren and should feel towards one another, and treat one another as such. — Arnold J. Toynbee, a British historian ***** When a man knows God all fetters are loosed. Sorrows are no more; birth and death cease. By meditation on him, at the body’s dissolution, there comes the third state, that of supreme mastery. His desires are fulfilled; he is absolutely free. — Shvetashvetara Upanishad, I.11 ***** The comforter’s head never aches. — An Italian proverb |
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