E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Reform or perish
What needs to be done is well known
The pace of reforms in most states, particularly Punjab, is at best tardy. And yet, whenever experts deliberate on this subject, the focus is on what should be done, as if that is not already known. The July 2 roundtable conference in Punjab was no exception.

Justice must be done
If necessary, shift the Best Bakery case from Gujarat
NOW the whole world knows why all the 21 accused in the Best Bakery case were let off. The reference here is not to the court's own comments on the haphazard manner in which the prosecution went about its task of marshalling evidence against the accused.

Shift offices, not capital
Address congestion in Shimla
All well-wishers of Shimla agree that there is an urgent need to save the Capital of Himachal Pradesh from population explosion, environmental pollution and a wild growth of concrete structures. 

• Thought for the day

OPINION

Creative leaders can change India
Vision and policies are a must
by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
A knowledge society can be one of the foundations for the vision of a developed India. Knowledge has always been the prime mover of prosperity and power. The acquisition of knowledge has, therefore, been the thrust area throughout the world and sharing the experience of knowledge is a unique culture of our country.

MIDDLE

Yugoslavia that was
by Madan Mohan Puri
So, the map in the Balkans is being redrawn. “Lawmakers in Belgrade’s federal Parliament consigned the troubled name Yugoslavia to the history books endorsing the Constitution of a new, less binding union between the republics of Serbia and Montenegro”, reports the recent New York Times.

No change in constituencies for Lok Sabha poll
Justice Kuldip Singh: lack of latest census data is the cause
by Prabhjot Singh
The next Lok Sabha elections will be held as per the existing parliamentary constituencies, says Justice Kuldip Singh, Chairman of the Delimitation Commission, holding unavailability of the provisional village-level 2001 census figures responsible for the delay in the completion of the delimitation work.

DELHI DURBAR

Badal battle spills over to Delhi
The battle of political one-upmanship between Capt Amarinder Singh and Parkash Singh Badal has spilled over to the national Capital. While Badal continues to charge the Punjab government with political vendetta, the Chief Minister maintains that he has never threatened to arrest the senior Akali leader.

• Imperfect relations

• Defence Secretary

• A worried BJP

EDITORIALS

Reform or perish
What needs to be done is well known

The pace of reforms in most states, particularly Punjab, is at best tardy. And yet, whenever experts deliberate on this subject, the focus is on what should be done, as if that is not already known. The July 2 roundtable conference in Punjab was no exception. The conclusion was that the state could be pulled out of the quagmire in which it is today only with good governance, efficient service delivery to the people and their empowerment. Any man on the street would have given the same advice to Mr Amarinder Singh, if at all the Chief Minister did not know about it. There is no confusion about the direction in which the state has to move; the problem is only about how to go about it. The task is not as difficult as it is made out to be. All that is required is political will. Vested interests are well entrenched and they make every government nervous by spreading the canard that taking tough measures will be politically suicidal. Nothing of the sort may actually happen, because the public has slowly come to realise that reforms are to their own advantage. There may be vociferous protests to begin with but these would die down once the message goes across that the government means business.

All that is needed is sincere implementation. There should be regular monitoring of the initiatives taken and the results obtained. Target-oriented, time-bound execution of reform measures can break down the inertia. The mortality rate in reform schemes is exceptionally high. Either the government loses steam or the affected persons make a common cause with self-serving bureaucrats and politicians to scuttle these. Since the general impression is that the government is itself not serious about reforms, nothing much gets done.

Instead of pushing various schemes down the gullet of the public, the administration will do well to start with itself. The Chief Minister has to become a role model by cutting down the size of his ministry and also curbing the huge expenditure incurred on it. Those used to living lavishly on taxpayers’ money will crib but once they have been broken in, it will be much easier to sell the reforms lower down the order. But if the austerity measures and the resultant hardship are heaped only on non-VIPs, there is bound to be tremendous resistance. 

Justice must be done
If necessary, shift the Best Bakery case from Gujarat

NOW the whole world knows why all the 21 accused in the Best Bakery case were let off. The reference here is not to the court's own comments on the haphazard manner in which the prosecution went about its task of marshalling evidence against the accused. There is enough proof to suggest that pressure was exerted on the witnesses to turn hostile. One of them, Zahira Sheikh, who is also the main complainant, is on record that it was "trembling with fear" that she "lied in court". As many as 41out of a total of 73 witnesses turned hostile. In yet another twist to the case, a bakery worker who claims to have witnessed the massacre of 14 people in the bakery, said that he was branded as mentally retarded so that he could not depose. Given this background of the case, the National Human Rights Commission was quite right in describing the verdict as a "miscarriage of justice."

The Commission has sent a team to Vadodara and other places to ascertain facts about the case. Suggestions varying from retrial of the case to action for perjury against those responsible for the investigation have been made. On its part, the NHRC has asked the Gujarat Government to take necessary action to ensure justice. But the government has not so far shown any inclination in taking remedial action. When the court blamed the prosecution for its lapses leading to the acquittal, its reference was not merely to those who handled the case. Needless to say, they were just cogs in the government wheel. Let there be no mistake, it is the Gujarat Government which is to blame for the diabolic attitude towards the cases in which members of the minority community were the victims.

Under these circumstances, it is futile to expect the Gujarat Government to make up for its failures. This does not mean that those who enacted one of the most inhuman acts in the Best Bakery in March last year should be allowed to go scot-free. Non-governmental organisations, People's Union of Civil Liberties and human rights bodies and other political and non-political organisations should join hands to ensure that those guilty of roasting 14 people alive are brought to book, if necessary, by forcing a retrial of the case in another state and under a new dispensation. The Best Bakery case cannot be allowed to lapse without justice having been done.

Shift offices, not capital
Address congestion in Shimla

All well-wishers of Shimla agree that there is an urgent need to save the Capital of Himachal Pradesh from population explosion, environmental pollution and a wild growth of concrete structures. Over the years, Shimla has lost much of its pristine beauty and glory as also much of its appeal as the queen of hill stations. Those familiar with what Simla used to be in the good old days are dismayed by its haphazard growth in the last few decades. As work expanded, the successive state governments kept raising new structures to house new offices. As a result, there was a concentration of offices in the capital itself. The number of employees also kept swelling year after year. To cater to their demand for accommodation, new housing societies mushroomed.

The pressure on the hill station’s space, civic amenities and resources increased tremendously. Had the successive state governments paid equal attention to the development of other district headquarters and evenly spread out offices, the present concentration of offices and employees’ population in Shimla could have been avoided. The Shimlaites would have been spared the agony of a severe water crisis or the alarming level of pollution caused by vehicular emissions.

What can be done now to salvage the situation? There has been a suggestion to shift the Capital from Shimla to a smaller town like Dharamsala. Politicians have voiced this demand off and on, but there has been no consensus. The move is seen as a political gimmick which can lead to the wastage of limited resources without providing a lasting solution to the problem of congestion in Shimla. Instead of shifting the capital, it is better to move out some of the government offices to places where these can be within the easy reach of the maximum number of people. Right now people from all over the state have to visit Shimla to get their work done in government offices. With efficient means of communication and transportation now available, it would not be difficult to scatter offices all over to reduce the pressure on the capital. There is also need to develop other places of tourist interest in Himachal so as to divert the Shimla-bound tourist traffic to these areas. This will also ensure a more balanced development of the state. 

Thought for the day

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

— Martin Luther King

OPINION

Creative leaders can change India
Vision and policies are a must
by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

A knowledge society can be one of the foundations for the vision of a developed India. Knowledge has always been the prime mover of prosperity and power. The acquisition of knowledge has, therefore, been the thrust area throughout the world and sharing the experience of knowledge is a unique culture of our country.

India is endowed with natural and competitive advantages as also certain distinctive competencies. But these are scattered in isolated pockets and the awareness on these is inadequate. During the last century the world underwent a change from an agricultural society, where manual labour was the critical factor, to an industrial society where the management of technology, capital and labour provided the competitive advantage. Then the information age was born, last decade, with connectivity and software products driving the economy of a few nations.

In the 21st century a new society is emerging where knowledge is the primary production resource instead of capital and labour. Efficient utilisation of this existing knowledge can create comprehensive wealth for the nation and improve the quality of life — in the form of better health care facilities, education, infrastructure and other social indicators. The ability to create and maintain knowledge infrastructure, develop knowledge workers and enhance their productivity will be the key factors in deciding the prosperity of the knowledge society.

After 55 years of Independence (which was our First Vision), the aspirations are mounting that India should become a developed country — the Second Vision for the Nation. How can we prepare ourselves for achieving this Vision? To become a developed India, the essential needs are:

(a) India has to be economically and commercially powerful, at least to be one of the six top nations in terms of the size of the economy. Our target should be a GDP growth of 9-11% annually and that the people below the poverty line to be reduced to 10%.

(b) Near self-reliance in defence needs — of weapons and equipment — with no umbilical attachment to the world outside.

(c) India should have a right place in world forums.

Technology Vision 2020 is a pathway to realise this cherished goal. It consists of 17 technology packages in the core sectors. The task teams with nearly 500 experts of the country have worked for two years, deliberated the status of various branches of national development and generated 35 documents detailing the steps to be taken for creating wealth and the well-being of our people. "Technology" is the most vital key for achieving the goal.

We have identified five areas where India has a core competence for an integrated action: (1) Agriculture and food processing — we have to fix a target of 360 million tonnes of food and agricultural production. (2) Education and health care — we have seen, based on the experience, that education and health care are inter-related. (3) Information and communication technology. (4) Reliable and quality electric power for all parts of the country. (5) Critical technology and strategic industry.

These five areas are closely inter-related and lead to national food and economic security. A strong partnership among the R&D sector, the academia, industry and the community as a whole with the government departments will be essential to accomplish the vision.

India is a vast country with tremendous natural resources apart from qualified, talented human resources. I firmly believe that with such rich resource potential, our country, through appropriate policies and initiatives, can easily surpass any other in the field of economic development in the shortest time. All of us need to work together to make it happen. We shall certainly succeed.

We need balanced inter-sectoral and inter-regional development so as to ensure that the gulf between the rich and the not-so-rich is narrowed to the maximum. Our GDP has to double itself if we have to develop the way we want.

Economic development of the nation is a joint effort of the people's movement and governance. There was a time when one used to think that bringing about development was the main task of the government alone. In fact, I would go to the extent of saying that the government has to facilitate and monitor growth.

We all know that 70% of our population lives in rural areas and development of rural infrastructure cannot be viewed in isolation. In future, the development of urban infrastructure will further widen the urban-rural divide. Therefore, an integrated strategy is required and the villages have to be connected suitably to form urban areas. An example of this in PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) that will bring rural wealth and prosperity. This model envisages a habitat designated to improve the quality of life in rural places and makes special suggestions to remove urban congestion also. Naturally, our most pressing urban problems are congestion removal, efficient supply of water and effective waste disposal in every locality.

Physical connectivity, electronic connectivity, knowledge connectivity and economic connectivity will make the cluster of villages with urban facilities. PURA will tremendously boost the economic development of the country. Industrialists and NGOs must come forward to adopt many PURAs.

What is needed for building a developed India? We have natural resources and we have human power. There are 700 million people below 35 years in the country's population. The nation needs young leaders who can command the change for transformation of India into a developed nation embedded with a knowledge society from now to 2020. The leaders are the creators of new organisations of excellence. Quality leaders are like magnets that will attract the best of persons to build the team for the organisation and give inspiring leadership even during failures of missions as they are not afraid of risks. I have seen and worked with creators of vision and missions. The vision ignites the minds and many missions emerge, with definite goals to achieve.

One of the important ingredients for success of the vision of transforming India into a developed nation by 2020 is the evolution of creative leaders. I am giving a connectivity between a developed India, economic prosperity, technology, production, productivity, employee role and management quality, all linked to the creative leader. Who is that creative leader? What are the qualities of a creative leader? The creative leadership is exercising the task to change the traditional role from a commander to a coach, a manager to a mentor, a director to a delegator and from one who demands respect to one who facilitates self-respect. The higher the proportion of creative leaders in a nation, the higher the potential of success of visions like "developed India."

Reverence for life is indeed possible in the real sense if a philosophical thought of reverence can be transformed into actions by empowering various components of society. When a child is empowered by the parents at various phases of growth, he gets transformed into a responsible citizen. When a teacher is empowered with knowledge and experience, good young human beings with value systems emerge. When an individual or a team is empowered with technology, transformation to higher potential for achievement is assured. When a leader of any institution empowers his or her people, leaders are born who can change the nation in multiple areas. When women are empowered, society with stability gets assured. When the political leaders of a nation empower the people through visionary policies, prosperity is certain. When religions are empowered and become a spiritual force, peace and happiness will blossom in people's heart. Such an empowered stage will lead to the creation of enlightened citizens with a value system.

Here I suggest a solution by the evolution of enlightened human beings with a combination of education with a value system, religion graduating into spiritualism and visionary policies for prosperity. We should not allow any religion or any individual fanaticism to endanger our nation. The nation is very important compared to any individual or party or religion.

This article is based on extracts from the Shri Dhirubhai Ambani Memorial Lecture delivered by the President of India in Mumbai on July 6.

MIDDLE

Yugoslavia that was
by Madan Mohan Puri

So, the map in the Balkans is being redrawn. “Lawmakers in Belgrade’s federal Parliament consigned the troubled name Yugoslavia to the history books endorsing the Constitution of a new, less binding union between the republics of Serbia and Montenegro”, reports the recent New York Times. This brings on a wave of nostalgia about my unforgettable seven weeks of summer 1957 in the Marshal Tito-created socialist Yugoslavia, composing Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Slovenia with Serbs and Montenegrins.

A 26-year young post-graduate student at The Hague, I was invited to a four week international conference on European security in August through September, 1957, at the small town, Kranj, near Ljubliana and Lake Bled in Slovenia. Prime Minister Nehru was on a state visit to the Netherlands in early July, and I had committed myself to the six-week summer session of the University of Osla. It was possible to combine the two engagements, and I did. On Oslo to Yugoslavia, hangs another tale that can wait.

The train from Oslo reached Munich around 7 a.m. and the one to Kranj was to depart at about 1 p.m. On arrival, all I had in pocket was about 3 DM, utterly inadequate to buy any breakfast, particularly after as a DM as charge for keeping my suitcase in the cloakroom. And I was famished. Stepping out of the station on a hungry stomach in that early autumn morning I saw luscious peaches of the size I had never seen before being hawked. A Mark bought me three. I gobbled one, but as I raised the second to my mouth somebody in a rush from the station bumped into me and there flew the remaining two on to the pavement. So the five hours I had on hand I listlessly roamed around the Munich station neighbourhood consumed by a ravenous hunger to get back a good an hour before the scheduled departure.

I was not sure of the platform from which the train to Kranj was to leave. Lugging my suitcase I approached a young friendly face to enquire if I was on the right platform for the train. He looked me over and said, “Mein Hindi boal sakta hoon”! Before I could come out of being dumbtruck, the train steamed in and we got in Mika Adamovic- the friendly face— en route for Zagreb, helped me with my suitcase. We had hardly settled in the crowded compartment when I blurted out: “Have you anything to eat?” Sharing his cheese and salami, and in his halting Hindi Mika narrated how as a student learning the language at Allahabad University a couple of years ago, famished he had boarded the train at Pathankot with just four annas and train ticket in his pocket, and when he finally got down at Allahabad after a good 30 hour journey he still had his four annas! The co-passengers had shared their food, tea and Red Lamp cigarettes all through, without letting him spend a paisa!! This unforgettable spontaneous sharing and kindness he will always cherish, and thus could well appreciate my condition. We got to Kranj at about 10 in the evening and said our goodbyes.

The conference concluded towards the end of September and my class- fellow, Beni Madhav Chakraverty — Binu, for short — and I felt that to go away without seeing the remaining vastness of the inviting land would indeed be a pity. With not enough cash between us the prospect of adventure seemed exciting. We decided to hitch-hike and take the rest as it came.

After a night at a youth hostel in Ljubliana, we set off on the long road to Beograde [Belgrade], attired in blue suits lugging our respective suitcases. The autobahn [highway], under construction then, had barely been completed till Zagreb - halfway to Beograd—and the sight of two blue-suited, suitcase lugging, youthful foreigners, made the highway patrol Jeep to stop and interrogate — for it was forbidden to hitch-hike on a highway — naturally in their native tongue left us blank. ‘You speak English, French, Dutch?’ we asked; they shook their head. We threw up our hands. A while, and we gathered they were asking where we were from. “India !” we said. “Aaa, Krishna Menon!”, they responded with their fists clasped and waiving, pumping high above their heads!!

We nodded vigorously, but were floored. One had, in the ’fifties heard of Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore as the face of India; but to hear of Krishna Menon as its identity, from a highway patrol in far off Yugoslavia on a glorious summer morning of 1957, was extraordinary, to say the least. Apparently, they were not only somehow aware of Krishna Menon’s recent 20-odd hours marathon speech on Kashmir at the United Nations, were he had to say that the British delegate, Sir so-and-so, had picked up his English from the gutter, had delighted them and left a titilating impression. To the extent that they stopped a gleaming new Mercedes-180, fresh out of the outlet in Ljubliana, and ordered the hapless owner to take us as far as he could — which happened to be Zagreb. Did we travel in style, and were we treated to the generous, and welcome, hospitality of the non-too-willing owner of the Mercedes! Thereafter the stretch to Beograd was on a heavy duty truck that got us into town well past midnight.

No change in constituencies for Lok Sabha poll
Justice Kuldip Singh: lack of latest census data is the cause
by Prabhjot Singh

The next Lok Sabha elections will be held as per the existing parliamentary constituencies, says Justice Kuldip Singh, Chairman of the Delimitation Commission, holding unavailability of the provisional village-level 2001 census figures responsible for the delay in the completion of the delimitation work.

In an exclusive interview with The Tribune at his Sector 10 residence in Chandigarh on Sunday, Justice Kuldip Singh said that the commission has started working afresh on whatever provisional census figures are being made available to it. He says “since the Director-General-cum-Commissioner, Census, has promised to supply to us provisional village-level 2001 census figures in October this year, it will take us about a year to complete the process of redelimitation of all States and Union Territories into territorial parliamentary and assembly constituencies .

“The final figures of the 2001 census are still not available. Based on the provisional figures up to the district level made available to us, we have started our work. Even if the commission works overtime and completes the entire process within its stipulated term till July next year, the Election Commission of India will need a minimum of one month for revising electoral rolls for the delimited parliamentary constituencies before holding the elections. Besides, the delimited constituencies are to be sent to the President with a request to notify the date from which they become effective. This long drawn process makes it impossible for the coming Lok Sabha poll to be held in accordance with the delimited constituencies ,” he says.

For Justice Kuldip Singh, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, delimitation is a challenging task. Unlike other commissions, the Delimitation Commission has executive, legislative and quasi judicial powers and is the only commission of its type. “It is a high-powered body whose orders have the force of law and cannot be called to question before any court,” he added. The present commission is the fourth. The last commission, set up in 1973 and headed by Mr Kapoor, took a little more than three years to complete its work.

When the Commission was set up in July, 2002, it was felt that it would be able to finish its task well in time before the 2004 general election to the Lok Sabha. But changing the very basis of the delimitation — from the 1991 census to the 2001 census — may delay the completion of work by a minimum of four to six months.

Since the total number of seats as allocated to various States in the Lok Sabha and in the state assemblies remains frozen till the first census after 2026, the omission will redefine new territorial jurisdictions of all 543 Lok Sabha and 4,500 assembly seats in the country.

Besides the Chairman, the commission has two more members — Mr B.B. Tandon from the Election Commission of India and the Chief Electoral Officer of the State or Union Territory concerned as an ex-officio member. Besides, five MPs nominated by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and five members of the State Legislature nominated by the State Speaker are taken as associate members for redrawing the boundaries of all assembly and parliamentary constituencies of the State concerned.

“Since the earlier notification required the 1991 census to serve as the basis, we had by December last year finished two-third of our work of redelimiting all States and Union Territories into territorial parliamentary and assembly constituencies . Then came the 96th Constitution amendment to make the 2001 census as the basis of the delimitation. We had to start our work afresh.

“In December last year, the commission had written a letter to the Union Law Minister that since delimitation work was being taken after a gap of 26 years, why the clock is being put back by 10 years in taking the 1991 census as the basis and suggested that the census of 2001 should serve as the basis. The suggestion was accepted and the 96th Constitution Amendment made. The amendment is yet to be ratified and made a law.

“After renotification, the commission has done the preliminary work in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh. We held a meeting with the associate members of Haryana in New Delhi last month. And on July 8, we have called the associate members from Punjab for preliminary discussions. From July 16 to 22, we will be holding our sittings in Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh,” he said.

After the last delimitation completed in 1976, there has been an 84.7 per cent increase in the population. The growth has been more in North as many States, including Kerala and Tamil Nadu have virtually nil or negligible growth.

According to the mandate given to the commission, all assembly and parliamentary constituencies are to be delimited on the basis of the 2001 census. Each constituency in a State shall be so delimited that the population of all shall, as far as possible, be the same throughout the State with a provision of 10 per cent deviation.

Besides, seats have to be reserved for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in proportion to their population of the State.” Had we followed the 1991 census, the number of seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in the Lok Sabha would have gone up by eight. But now, the increase would be by a minimum of 12 seats,” revealed Justice Kuldip Singh.

Justice Kuldip Singh gave an illustration of outer Delhi which has a population of 38 lakh compared to the 4.5 lakh population of the Chandni Chowk parliamentary constituency. Naturally, when delimitation is done, several pockets of outer Delhi will be taken off and merged with others to make each parliamentary constituency, as far as possible, to have an equal population.

In Punjab, the present Ropar Parliamentary seat excludes Ropar town and spreads over four districts. In redelimitation, when territorial limits are decided, it will become more compact and contiguous.

“The basic principle of our democracy is that every person has one vote of same value which means that every vote in a democratic polity must get equal value and no less. Though the Constitution provides for delimitation after every census, no delimitation was carried out after 1981 and 1991,” he said.

“This time, there is going to be stiff resistance because boundaries are being redefined after a long gap of 27 years. Had the delimitation been ordered in the 80s and again in the 90s, things would have been normal as changes would have been negligible and on expected lines.

“I am sure that delimitation will not only throw up new-look constituencies, both for the Lok Sabha and the assemblies, but also break monopolies. There will be new faces and new alignments and the whole exercise will refurbish democracy at all levels”, adds Justice Kuldip Singh.

DELHI DURBAR

Badal battle spills over to Delhi

The battle of political one-upmanship between Capt Amarinder Singh and Parkash Singh Badal has spilled over to the national Capital. While Badal continues to charge the Punjab government with political vendetta, the Chief Minister maintains that he has never threatened to arrest the senior Akali leader.

Capt Amarinder Singh insists on carrying out the Congress party election pledge of fighting corruption at all levels in Punjab and that the law will take its own course. At the same time, Badal is sore that the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre has failed to as much as lift a little finger against the Amarinder Singh regime for meeting out special treatment to the Akalis in blatant violation of democratic norms and the Constitution.

In a rebuff to the Centre’s non-chalance to the goings-on in Punjab since August last year, Badal has made it clear that he does not want the NDA to hold a rally in Amritsar on July 16 when he and Gurcharan Singh Tohra will be attending an akhand path in the Golden Temple. The special prayers were in culmination of the unity among the Akali factions. Badal informed the NDA leadership that he had not invited any political leaders for the akhand path. At the same time Badal and company expect a huge turnout of supporters as a show of strength of the SAD.

Imperfect relations

Parkash Singh Badal has hired a well-known public relations company for organising his press conferences in Delhi. The PR company turned out to be ill-informed and ill-prepared. Most correspondents got to know of the press conference hours or minutes before the event. There were hardly any seats available for the print media at the conference venue of 12, Safdarjung Road, the residence of Sukhbir Badal. The Badals had to face the brunt of agitated mediapersons. As a result, the press conference had to be conducted in batches. No prizes for guessing that the electronic media was in the first batch.

Defence Secretary

Ajay Prasad is expected to take over as the new Defence Secretary shortly. Defence Minister George Fernandes had specially sought the services of Prasad, an IAS officer of the 1969 batch belonging to the Himachal Pradesh cadre, because of his associatation with the reorganisation of the Ministry of Defence and rapport with senior armed forces officers.

Prasad, who is yet to be relieved as Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani’s officer on special duty, in all probability will assume charge as Defence Secretary after Fernandes returns from an official tour to Brazil on July 12.

Meanwhile, Subir Dutta is handing over charge as Defence Secretary to the seniormost officer in the ministry and taking up his fresh appointment as a member of the Union Public Services Commission.

A worried BJP

The BJP top leaders are a worried lot. The party’s in-house surveys of the electoral prospects of the party in Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have given them little to cheer about. Reports say that with the sole exception of Chattisgarh, where the BJP has still not projected any candidate to challenge Chief Minister Ajit Jogi, in states like Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh the party is facing waves of dissent where Madan Lal Khurana, Vasundhara Raje and Uma Bharti respectively have been declared CM candidates. They have hardly been able to electrify party workers for giving the party a decisive edge over the Congress. Even the anti-incumbency factor is not coming to the rescue of the BJP in these three states, say surveys.

The arrival of a timely monsoon is another factor which will nullify the anti-incumbency feelings among the electorate. Now the latest one hears is that the BJP top brass is contemplating to commission another agency for another survey.

(Contributed by TRR, Satish Misra, S. Satyanarayanan and Rajeev Sharma)