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Power of atoms A lucky escape The biotech track |
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Trek to Nagpur
Top
secret
Food
security of India not tenable Delhi Durbar
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Power of atoms Energy demand has always outstripped supply, particularly in India where the gap is huge and expanding. Thermal power has proved to be a curse in disguise and hydroelectric generation has not grown at the pace at which it should have because of various reasons. Under the circumstances, atomic energy should have been the cutting-edge technology but in their misplaced eagerness to prevent proliferation, the developed countries turned the screws on India, unmindful of the fact that it was studiously avoiding misuse of atomic energy, whereas others were brazenly making nuclear weaponry available to others in none too clandestine a manner. This was akin to rewarding the outlaw and punishing the well-behaved. But that is the way the world functions. Despite this serious handicap, Indian scientists have kept the mission going. A new stage in this endeavour was reached on Saturday when the country finally began the construction of its ambitious prototype fast breeder reactor near Kalpakkam. Designed and developed by the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, the Rs 3,500-crore prototype can begin to generate 500 MW of power by 2010. What is more important, the fast breeder reactor programme has the potential to generate a few hundred thousand megawatts of nuclear energy. That can not only take care of the long-term needs of the country but also leave it with power to spare. It will also multiply its fissile material inventory and lead to the introduction of thorium-based atomic power system. Our scientists who have toiled for more than a decade to make this dream a reality deserve kudos. Ambitious that the project is, it can be a greater success if the international community realises its totally peaceful nature and promotes it in place of scuttling it. Indian scientists have proved that they can find their way out even if the world shuts various doors. But their misplaced zeal will amount to making the country rediscover the wheel. If India is lent a helping hand in this technology which is available with very few countries, it can not only meet its own needs but also provide electricity to its neighbours. |
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A lucky escape NATIONAL Conference President Omar Abdullah and his father and former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah have luckily escaped when an explosive device detonated by the militants failed to hit the target. They have squarely blamed the state government for the security lapse. On his part, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed has ordered an inquiry while Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil has reviewed the situation with senior officials. Mr Omar Abdullah was obviously rattled when he accused the government for the attack. Given the fact that such incidents are all too common and that two ministers of the Farooq Abdullah government were gunned down by the militants, not much credence needs to be given to his allegation. Even so, the Mufti government as well as the security forces cannot overlook the failure of the system. The two leaders had gone to Anantnag to attend the mourning prayers for a former minister who was killed by the militants a few days earlier. There can be no disputing that the father and son face the greatest threat from the militants and they are, therefore, entitled to security of the highest order. Under the circumstances, an attack on them could have been anticipated. Yet, reports suggest that the jammer device given to the security personnel protecting the two did not function enabling the militants to trigger the bomb. It is a lapse which cannot easily be explained away. Also, the Chief Minister cannot take lightly the fact that the incident occurred in his own constituency. The inquiry he has ordered should pin the blame on those who have failed to provide a proper security cover for Mr Farooq Abdullah and Mr Omar Abdullah. It is pertinent to mention that there has been no let up in terrorist activities in the state. On Monday, even before the shock of the attack on the Abdullahs could subside, militants struck at a BSF patrolling unit near Srinagar. The explanation that the Chief Minister himself had been attacked in the past will not serve any purpose. The threat to the National Conference leaders has not waned just because they are no longer in power. They are the ones who squared up to the militants when the latter came like droves from across the border. They should not be allowed to fend for themselves just because there is a change of guard at Srinagar. |
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The biotech track Hopefully, the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Punjab Government and Canadian company Ag-West Bio Inc would give a push to biotechnology in the state. Punjab set up a centre of excellence for biotechnology in 1995 and the Centre agreed to sanction a grant of Rs 61 crore on the condition that the state government would contribute Rs 10 crore from its own kitty. But that never happened and the project failed to take off. That shows how little the then state government cared for the development of science and technology. The subsequent governments have fared no better. The role of biotechnology in boosting agricultural productivity is widely known by now. Yet a heavily agriculture-dependent state like Punjab has lagged behind in this field. Its so-called farmer-friendly politicians do not think beyond playing politics. In information technology, the state is already a laggard. Trained IT professionals have to move out of the state, and even the country, for jobs. The government’s IT park project with the Mahendras dragged for years without any progress and then was abandoned mid-way. Now all eyes are on the QuarkCity project in Mohali. The MoU with the Canadian firm has, once again, raised hopes for a fresh impetus to biotechnological research in the state. Due to the short-sighted politicians and a conflict of interests, the north-western states and the Union Territory of Chandigarh are competing with one another in attracting private investment in IT and biotechnology. Each state and the UT are creating their own infrastructural facilities. If they collaborate and pool in resources to develop world-class infrastructure and market this region as a single entity, all would stand to gain. Himachal, for instance, is ideally suited for research in biotechnology, but it lacks funds to tap its potential. Why should the UT of Chandigarh have separate IT facilities so close to Mohali? There is obviously need to rise above narrow interests and politics to develop this region. |
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Home is the girl’s prison and the woman’s workhouse. — George Bernard Shaw |
Trek to Nagpur If the Congress ran to the Nehru-Gandhi family in its hour of crisis to seek Mrs Sonia Gandhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party has opted for the tried and tested leadership of Mr L.K. Advani as it seeks a way out of its acute difficulties after the double whammy of defeats in the general election and in Maharashtra. At the very least, he will bring a measure of discipline to the party rocked by the solo acts of self-perceived prima donnas and second tier leaders aiming for high office. More than that, the BJP seems to have decided to return to its moorings in the shape of reactivating its own politburo to check the ideological health of its members and give them guidance. The fact that Mr Advani's first port of call after assuming the party presidency was the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh headquarters in Nagpur speaks for itself, as does the curious mascot he carried with him in the shape of Varun Gandhi. Together with selected Muslims, Mr Gandhi will do duty for the party's nod to the country's plural society. The symbiotic nature of the relationship between the BJP and the RSS has been self-evident. Tensions between the two while the BJP led the coalition at the Centre waxed and waned with issues, given the compulsions of office and the nature of the National Democratic Alliance. Even while Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee deftly charted a centrist course, he had risked controversy on occasion by swearing his allegiance to the RSS. Mr Advani has now made this allegiance more explicit. The BJP leadership has taken the decision to relegate the problems of coalition building to the back- burner in order to concentrate on revitalising the party. The RSS must inevitably play a major role in this process because the corruption of the BJP rank and file through the exercise of power has been as catastrophic as it has been rapid. Inevitably, a ruling party at the national level attracts its fair share of opportunists and even those imbued with ideology can fall prey to the lure of power. Unlike during his previous stints as party president, Mr Advani faces a very different picture as he sets about his Herculean task. In 1990, he found the magic wand of the Ayodhya issue to set the country alight through his rath yatra to take his party to soaring heights ultimately wresting power in New Delhi. But losing power after exercising it for six years seems to have had a devastating effect on the BJP and the impact of the Maharashtra defeat has been all the greater, coming as it did after the loss in the general election. The RSS, as the spiritual mentor of the BJP, takes a long-term view although there are differences in the organisation between those seeking to achieve goals, however long it takes, and others keen on acquiring power quickly in order to force the pace of change by using the official machinery. But the more the party presents the RSS and the Sangh Parivar as its torchbearers, the greater will be the risk of alienating the broader national constituency. The BJP realises that, however it seeks to explain it, Hindutva has become a charged concept, but the party has had little luck with expropriating the symbols of the Independence movement from Mahatma Gandhi down or the national flag or popularising alternative leaders. Mr Advani's first priority must therefore be to seek to reconcile the central contradiction of marrying the human resources and devotion of the RSS to rebuilding the BJP with its more diverse and disparate membership. Down the road, he must also look at the possible disappearance of the National Democratic Alliance, kept together by the cement of power and pelf. It is difficult to see what reasons other than opportunistic an avowed socialist such as Mr George Fernandes had in aligning with the BJP. Politics, it is universally realised, makes strange bedfellows. The irony is that before the most recent setbacks, Mr Advani had let it be known that both he and Mr Vajpayee would be too old to contest the next general election. But the grooming of the second tier of leadership has proved to be less than successful, with the dethroned party president given to gaffes and unable to control the more prominent members who have been ploughing their own furrows. There is no more telling proof of this failure than the fact that a 77-year-old leader has to be re-elevated to the party presidency. Mr Advani might claim, as he did in Nagpur, that the RSS has always been his mentor and inspiration, but he has to revive the party as a political organisation and thus must set out the terms on which to deal with the RSS even in the party's hour of dire need. Merging the two entities would be disastrous nor is it open to the re-installed president publicly to give the RSS a veto over its activities. And what is Mr Advani to do in the face of the second tier of leadership having failed to deliver the goods while showing a propensity for self-aggrandisement? To begin with, Mr Advani will try to extract much profit from the concept of nationalism. Already, he is beginning to give the BJP the overtones of being a strong party zealously guarding the country's security, painting it in almost US Republican colours of President George W. Bush's "war on terror". His barbs have been pointed at the troubled North-East and other parts of the country. This security-oriented nationalism gels with the RSS view of militant Hinduism. Mercifully, the Indo-Pakistani dialogue has been spared for the present because the Manmohan Singh government is essentially continuing a process initiated by Mr Vajpayee. Increasingly, Mr Vajpayee will be a titular leader, with Mr Advani's attacks taking on a shriller tone. The latter has still to build on the platform of a security-biased nationalism because it is not sufficient to talk about the weaknesses of the present coalition or deride the alleged demotion of the office of Prime Minister. Nor is the litany of Mrs Sonia Gandhi's foreign provenance proving a great vote-catcher. Mr Advani is still scouting for
ideas. |
Top secret One of the most popular tools in the stock-in-trade of bureaucratic subterfuge is oft-used and frequently misused epithet “top secret” usually marked on files of restricted circulation. It is, unsurprisingly enough, always an open secret clothed in a shroud of mystery. It often carries a statutory warning “ to be opened by the adressee only”. To further reinforce the secrecy it is contained in a double envelope scrupulously stamped with sealing wax and often so unimaginatively wrapped that it gets torn even on most careful opening. Occasionally it also carries a double staple driven in the middle perhaps to ensure its safety not caring for the mutilation it suffers in securing access to the sacrosanct “secret”. Let me trace the journey of a ‘top secret’ missive meant to be opened by the “addressee only”. First of all it is never handwritten or typed by the despatcher. Very often it is dictated to a ubiquitous stenographer who is certainly not authorised to be privy to the “secret” that he handles. He quite types it out on an electronic typewriter or a computer which have undoubtful capacity to duplicate . That the shorthand scribe can replicate the “secret” from his notebook or the typewriter is scarcely taken into account. The boss is far too complacent to go into petty intricacies of destroying the notebook. In the case of a “secret” missive of larger circulation it even gets cyclostyled by the persons who are engaged in the semi-skilled process. Then it passes through the next stage of evolution. It goes to the despatcher who wraps it up, allots it a number — “a local habitation & name”. The despatcher not only knows the contents but also the identity of the sender and the receiver. He is most certainly a very powerful secret-holder. (‘Knowledge is power’) Therefore, the man who handles the despatch of the secret is a person to be dreaded and watched. The “top secret” directive is mostly of an executive nature — its implementation involves sharing the wisdom of the secret with a large army of cutting-edge recipients who are supposed to act according to it. When the secret is widely shared the inverted commas are scrupulously avoided but the spirit and contents of it are left inviolate. That in essence is sharing the secret with typical bureaucratic casuistry. And then the docketing — a euphemism for consigning it to perpetual limbo of oblivion. Whenever a reference is made in a subsequent reminder the keys of the secret almirah are laboriously retrieved to dig out the “secret” as if from the archives. The autopsy is conducted and once again it is consigned to the dangerous-looking almirah often marked with a diagonal cross. Most of the “secrets” are supposed to be consigned to memory only as they contain a tailpiece direction — “Destroy after reading”. More often than not they are destroyed before reading so that the secret remains a secret. Excellent transparency, isn’t
it?
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Food security of India not tenable
It is well known that the progress of agricultural production, particularly on the food front in the country, has been remarkable. In spite of a fast growth of population, a healthy interaction of farmers, agricultural scientists, policy planners and agencies associated with agricultural development has relieved the economy form heavy foodgrain imports and even generated exportable surpluses. During the 1950s the compound growth rate of foodgrain production was as high as 4.27 per cent, which was contributed both by the expansion of area and per hectare productivity. The growth in area dampened in the next decades, while the yield maintained the tempo making the situation quite comfortable. The 1980s witnessed growth at 3 per cent per annum, resulting in fast accumulation of surpluses. In the wake of inconsistent export policy, falling global prices, lack of proper distribution within the country, the problem of surpluses persisted till the end of the century. The two draught years — 2001-01 and 2002-03 — resulted in a fall in foodgrain production by 13 and 38 million tonnes and have washed away the food stocks from 63 million tonnes in 2001 to only 24.4 million tonnes in January, 2004. Due to this, the net availability of foodgrains has gone down to 416.2 and 438g/cap/day in 2001 and 2003 respectively, which are the lowest levels when compared with the past two decades. More serious concern is the fall in the availability of the poor man’s proteins i.e. pulses to just 28.2 g/cap/day, the lowest level since Independence. No doubt, the availability of high quality foods like fruits, vegetables, fish, eggs, milk, meat etc. has increased, but their high prices leave the poor with no option but consumption of cereals. Against the minimum norm of 16.8 million tonnes foodgrain stocks, the nation piled up the stocks of rice and wheat to more than 60 million tonnes during 2001-02. The problem of management of stocks has generated sufficient heat in economic, political and environment circles. Maintaining the minimum support prices of cereals at a level, which does not discourage production and keeping the issue prices of low levels to keep it within the reach of the poor is an arduous task. The government provided food subsidy of Rs 6,066 crore in 1997-97, which is expected to swell to Rs 27,746 crore in 2004-05 i.e. beyond the economy’s manageable proportions. The economic cost of rice and wheat account for procurement and distribution cost amounting to about Rs 300/qtl, which needs to and can be minimised through effective, efficient and economical handling of the produce. The monoculture of the rice-wheat system has created problems. Punjab and Haryana, which account for about 20 per cent of foodgrain production of the country, are genuinely crying for diversification due to severe environmental problems such as a fast decline in the watertable, deteriorating soil fertility, perpetuation of pests, air pollution etc. Thus the emerging stagnation in production during the 1990s and the wake of these problems remaining unaddressed, and some areas shifting over to an alternative crop pattern, the food security of the country would be further jeopardised. The economy appears to have a weak digestive system, where a little surplus production is unmanageable and a little deficit can cause serious problems of malnutrition and under-nutrition. In spite of the fact that pulses worth Rs 3,000 crore are imported every year, the per capita availability is falling at a fast rate. An effective price support to the pulses should be an essential feature of the national price policy at this stage. Checking of stocks should be regularly monitored in terms of quantity as well as quality whether these are fit for human consumption. Nearly 2 per cent exponential growth rate of the population is unsustainable and can land the economy in serious food insecurity. About 10 per cent loss in the process of transmission from the produce to the consumer is too heavy. Scientific storage is, therefore, of utmost importance. Withdrawal of the price support policy or even freezing of the MSP is not advisable at this stage. Although it can led to diversification from rice and wheat to alternative crops, yet reverting to rice-wheat by farmers would be a still more difficult task. The problem of environmental degradation should be addressed by various other means such as providing more water to high potential rice-wheat areas, recharging ground water and encouraging other water-saving practices. The writer is Professor, Deptt. Of Economics, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana |
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Delhi Durbar On the day when it was known that the old war horse of the BJP, L K Advani, will take over as its chief, VHP leaders Ashok Singhal and Pravin Togadia reacted sharply and insisted that Advani’s appointment would dilute the “Hindutva” agenda. The RSS, however, backed the decision. The RSS leaders assured the top leadership of the BJP that it would restrain the VHP leaders from making statements which could embarrass the BJP, especially Advani. With the VHP itching to rake up Hindutva issues like Ram Temple construction in Ayodhya, Uniform Civil Code, the “Iron man” of the BJP will be required to use all his authority and experience to deal with the situation.
Back to 20-point programme
There appears to be some trepidation about implementing Indira Gandhi’s 20-point programme. The Congress has given its nod and programme implementation minister Oscar Fernandes is keen to ressurect it. However, senior Congress leaders believe it might be objected to by the Left as it is outside the agreed Common Minimum Programme of the UPA government. The programme had gained notoriety during the Emergency in the country in the mid seventies.
Political parties and polls
Exit polls to provide an overview of the outcome of the Lok Sabha or assembly elections create problems for political parties. During the general election the BJP-led NDA was gung ho that the predictions had favoured it, but the end result was to the contrary. In the just concluded Maharashtra assembly elections, at least one TV channel gave a clear advantage to the Congress-Nationalist Congress party combine.l Certain Congress leaders
remained highly circumspect on the ground that such predictions would lull their workers into complacency and spoil their chances. That did not happen. On the other hand, the BJP’s laptop wizard Pramod Mahajan, who has been at the receiving end after the general election and now with the debacle in Maharashtra, is regretting that such labels have damaged his image.
New gurdwara
in the UK
A new gurdwara opened recently in multi-cultural Peterborough. Built at a cost of nearly 5,00,000 pounds, the gurdwara replaces an earlier smaller one in the city which had been built in 1974. In the early 1970s there were only about a dozen families in Peterborough. Now that Peterborough has grown over the last 30 years, so has the Sikh community. Today there are more than 1,000 Sikhs living in Peterborough. A larger gurdwara means being able to do much more for the community as it is more than a place of worship.
BJP fishing in troubled waters
The Congress-NCP feud over the issue of Chief Minister in Maharastra and NCP supremo Sharad Pawar going to the extent of offering only outside support in the event of the Congress insisting on the post gave the opposition BJP an opportunity to fish in troubled waters. The BJP has accused the Congress of not respecting the “coalition dharma” of offering Chief Ministership to a party within the coalition which had emerged as the single largest entity. Contributed by S Satyanarayanan, Prashant Sood and Gaurav Choudhury |
Lord grant That I may not so much seek To be loved as to love. — Saint Francis of Assisi Do not be cross with the Lord and drink His nectar, as you are not to stay in the world permanently. — Guru Nanak People of this age care for the essence of everything. They will accept the essentials of religion and not its non-essentials (that is, the rituals, ceremonials, dogmas and creeds). — Sri Ramakrishna Everyone has an opportunity within the limits of his present development of making himself better. — Swami Vivekananda A noble part of every true life is to learn to undo what has been wrongly
done. — Rivarol |
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