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Gas
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PM’s
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Courtesy
calls Babus won’t leave anything to chance So, it is not such a good idea, after all, to count the votes three or four weeks after the polling date. It only means that for so much longer there would be no governance. Forget good governance, this country could do with some governance to begin with. That requires an administration, and what is an administration without administrators.
Goa mess only a
symbol
Words and meanings
Dithering on
diversification Delhi
Durbar
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Gas for growth India’s decision to go in for talks on gas pipelines involving Iran, Pakistan and Turkmenistan is significant from various angles. It has come at a time when Iran and Pakistan were about to issue tenders for the project. Now they may postpone the move for including India as one of the partners. India’s association will enhance the economic viability of both pipelines tremendously. It is primarily the security aspect of the pipeline idea that has been behind India’s reluctance so far. Any success on the Pakistan front may have its impact on the attitude of Bangladesh, which has plenty of gas to sell, but would not sell it to India. India’s requirement for natural gas, the cheapest industrial fuel today, is going to increase considerably. The indigenous supply will be sufficient to meet hardly 50 per cent of the country’s needs and import of gas is likely to go up. Countries like Iran have always been willing to oblige, but the cost multiplies if gas is supplied by sea. Hence the efforts for joint pipeline projects. While India is now willing to go ahead on the pipeline projects, Pakistan should respond to New Delhi’s suggestion for granting it the most-favoured nation status (MFN). India has already put Pakistan in the MFN category. Along with this the implementation of the South Asian Free Trade Agreement can increase manifold the trade volume between the two countries. There are certain bottlenecks which can be removed if these are identified during the coming meeting of trade secretaries of the two sides on February 22-23. An idea about the Indo-Pak trade potential can be had from the fact that the trade volume has been constantly rising since the composite dialogue process began. It jumped to Rs 300 crore in December 2004 from Rs 150 crore in 2002. An upswing in business activity will improve the climate for tackling political problems, which for decades have been the cause for Indo-Pak tensions. |
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PM’s action plan Dr
Manmohan Singh announced on Wednesday an “action plan” with a six-month deadline for the ministries to show results. Pushing official machinery into action can be an uphill task even for a Prime Minister, especially when hobbled by coalition
politics. The UPA partners spend more time on planning and squabbling in public about what should or should not be done than on making efforts to achieve the targets. If the government takes two steps, one is to appease the Left allies, who still go on to the street to protest the government initiatives they don’t approve of. That this government still has been able to carry forward bits and pieces of reforms like hiking the FDI cap in telecom is itself commendable. With an agreed Common Minimum Programme to guide government policies and a soon-to-be-out Budget setting the government’s agenda for the coming year, was an “action plan” required? Maybe the Prime Minister wants to be focussed. The thrust areas the Prime Minister has selected for time-bound action are important: scrapping subsidies, a comprehensive FDI policy, a White Paper on disinvestment and a war on terrorism. Differences among the coalition partners on the first two are sharp and known. It may be hard, if not altogether impossible, to reconcile these in six
months. The Left will not let subsidies go. The middle way is to trim and target subsidies at the poor. What the Prime Minister has left out is no less significant. Reining in the ballooning fiscal deficit is a challenge for the economist-led government. Committing huge funds to employment and pro-poor schemes without plugging breaches in the system goes against the past experience. The reform package of Dr Manmohan Singh and Mr P. Chidambaram does not go with the outdated agenda of the Left brigade. Until this policy confusion is sorted out, every action of the government will be misunderstood by its allies. |
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Courtesy calls So, it is not such a good idea, after all, to count the votes three or four weeks after the polling date. It only means that for so much longer there would be no governance. Forget good governance, this country could do with some governance to begin with. That requires an administration, and what is an administration without administrators. As it is, the Central Election Commission leaves our babus little time to attend to administering the affairs of state. When elections are announced, the code of conduct comes into force and all decisions are required to be put off till the elections are over. Now the electoral process is getting longer and longer, what with staggered polling dates and staggering gaps between the date of voting and the day of counting. Now, one cannot expect careerist babus to sit back in their plush offices and keep twiddling their thumbs. Now the Haryana babu, like bureaucrats elsewhere, is a
pastmaster at serving present and future political masters. They have taken to calling on state Congress politicians with an eye on plum postings in the new dispensation. No one knows which of the Congress contenders may become Chief Minister, but why take chances. It is best to court all of them, especially when time hangs heavy and there is not much else to do by way of career advancement. The politicians are having the last laugh: bureaucrats may berate them behind their backs, but at the first sign of a change in the wind, the politico knows that the babu will come fishing, if not crawling, for a prize perch. Perhaps it is all to the good, that a nexus, other than criminal, is also being forged between politicians and bureaucrats. Civil service has come to mean literally that: being civil by paying courtesy calls and at the service of the political bosses — present and future. |
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The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
— Bertrand Russell |
Goa mess only a symbol WHAT has gone on in Goa over the last few days is a shame not only on that tiny and notoriously unstable state but also on the country as a whole, especially on its political class. To say this does not absolve the actors in the sordid drama in Panaji of blame, but the depressing fact remains that the Goa goings-on are only a symbol of a wider and deeper disease afflicting the entire polity. To put the matter bluntly, every political party, big or small, without any exception, has become the perpetrator of a two-fold perversion of the democratic system. First, all political parties have conspired to destroy any respect for rule of law, constitutional niceties and political proprieties. Each one of them is hell-bent on winning the elections, by hook or by crook, and having done so to hold on to power by which way it can. The ruling doctrine of the world’s largest democracy has boiled down to the monstrosity that, as in love and war, everything is fair in the struggle for power. The second element in the raging political perversity is the unfailing adherence by every political formation to double standards. When in the Opposition, every party pretends to be high-minded about democratic norms and their inevitable violation by the ruling party or combination. But when in office, the same party or set of parties does exactly the opposite of what it preaches during its years in the wilderness. Witness, the campaign — more loud than vigorous — that all the top leaders of the BJP, including Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, have launched against the “murder of democracy” in Goa. The question is: why didn’t these wise leaders do anything during its six years in power to build a bulwark against the kind of abuse of power as has doubtless taken place? Equally remarkably, the Congress that had raised hell against similar actions by the BJP-led government in New Delhi in the past is busy justifying its ugly misdeed in Goa and cursing the Goa BJP for having “strangulated” all democratic values. The scandalous developments in Goa have also disproved as complete nonsense the widespread belief that the phenomenon of Aya Rams and Gaya Rams or the brisk sale and purchase of legislators is the monopoly to states like Haryana, Bihar or UP that are illiterate, caste-ridden, poor and infamous for cosy partnership between criminals and politicians. Here is Goa, with a 98 per cent rate of literacy and a relatively high standard of living, and yet its political record is as abysmal as that of BIMARU states. Indeed, in some respects the performance of Goa’s politicians is worse. In Bihar, for instance, Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav has ruled for 15 years either directly or by proxy from behind his wife’s throne. In Goa, during the same period, there have been 15 different ministries. It is also worth stressing that the dismissed Chief Minister, Mr Manohar Parrikar, had acquired that position by bringing down a previous ministry! An IIT graduate, he has had a rather good reputation so far. But he has now tarnished it by becoming an unabashed accomplice in the gross political and constitutional wrong committed by the Speaker, Mr. Vishwas Satwarkar. To say that the manner in which Mr. Satwarkar first threw out an Independent MLA and then so manipulated the proceedings as to reduce the “floor test” of Mr Parrikar’s majority to a farce would be the understatement of the decade. So far, so bad, and one can even understand the Congress party’s indignation against Mr Satwarkar. But nothing can be more ridiculous than the Congress’ absurd claim that after the Speaker had committed the “original sin”, the Goa Governor, Mr. S. C. Jamir, only “did his duty” in instantly sacking Mr Parrikar and swearing in the Congress party’s Mr. Pratap Singh Rane as Chief Minister. The period of a whole month given to the new Chief Minister to cobble a majority seems rather generous, compared with the Governor’s earlier insistence that Mr Parrikar could not be given 72 hours to face the legislature and that this exercise should be completed within 48 hours. The role of the Central leadership of the Congress and that of the Union Government has also been dubious, indeed deplorable. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that at every step the Goa Governor appeared to be acting at New Delhi’s dictates, according to the established practice whenever the ruling party at the Centre chooses to oust a state government owing allegiance to a different party. Obviously, some legal brains were also hard at work in devising the plan to remove Mr. Parrikar. For, had Mr. Jamir taken recourse to Article 356 to get rid of the BJP-led Goa Ministry, the Union Government and the Congress would almost certainly have courted double trouble. One, to get the proclamation under this Article approved by the Rajya Sabha could have been problematic. Secondly, and more importantly, the Supreme Court would have immediately invalidated the Governor’s action because it runs palpably counter to the apex court’s long-standing judgment in the Bommai case. The Governor’s invocation of Article 164 of the Constitution and withdrawal of his “pleasure” from the Parrikar Ministry is no less arbitrary a violation of the Constitution. But so far the higher judiciary has had no occasion to adjudicate this kind of misuse of the Governor’s powers. The Congress is thus smug in the belief that litigation by the BJP in the Bombay High Court - that the saffron party has reportedly by entrusted to the former Attorney-General, Mr. Soli Sorabjee - would drag on for years during which it would be time for fresh elections in Goa. The altogether tragic situation in Goa is not without its comic side. Having got rid of the BJP-led ministry, the Congress is finding it hard to muster a ministry of its own, notwithstanding Mr Rane’s long experience in shoddy political manoeuvring. Ironically, it is the enemy within that might scuttle the Congress game plan, not the enemy without. As Mr Rane had to admit ruefully at one stage, too many of his MLAs were demanding ministerial office and it was impossible to accommodate them all. Especially when a berth is reserved for an MLA who had to be eased out of the previous ministry because of the Congress party’s charges of corruption against him. He has now changed sides and without his vote the Congress cannot hope to have even a wafer-thin majority in the
legislature! |
Words and meanings “Hail to thee, blithe spirit”, words from Shelley’s “To a Skylark”, chanted by my 11-year-old son, resounded through our home one evening. “What does blithe mean”? asked the young one. Reference to a dictionary yielded four meanings: cheerful, carefree, lighthearted and gay. With typical 11-year-old instincts he settled for the smallest and simplest meaning: gay. I wondered then, whether I should tell him that gay no longer referred to just joie de vivre. But then I postponed the decision to another day and another time. Innocence is like the skylark, “bird thou never wert” and I did not want to snatch it away from my little one. All went well until one day when I was interrogating my older son, who happened to be in a black mood, on his return from school. The little one very helpfully informed me that his older brother and his friends were quite gay in school and only pulled a long face at home. My teenaged son cried blue murder while I hastened to admonish the little one and tell him that thenceforth gay was not to be used as a synonym for happy or cheerful because it had several other meanings. But I left it at that yet again. Honestly, I couldn’t fathom how to explain sexual preferences to a 10 year old. We live in the information age and satellites beam the world into our bedrooms. Another day and another time came sooner, than later. Watching the news on television, there was a report on San Francisco’s high-profile celebration of some 3,000 homosexual marriages and the subsequent call by the US President George Bush to amend the American Constitution to ban gay marriages. His pre-election rhetoric was, “If we’re to prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever, our nation must enact a constitutional amendment to protect marriage in America”. The report was accompanied by visuals of placard carrying protestors. What are they protesting queried my son. Why can’t they be gay and get married? Don’t you and dad have a gay marriage, he asked. While my husband’s jaw dropped I decided that the time had come to grab the gay word by the horns. As I fumbled, the dictionary came to my rescue, yet again as I read out: “Gay refers to homosexuals and homosexual refers to persons who prefer the same sex”. I carried on with increasing confidence, “While it is usual for persons to have a preference for the opposite sex, however those that prefer the same are gay.” Like that movie “Girl Friends” and “Will and Grace” on television, added my cynical teenager!. But I wondered then about who had thought of using a word that connoted fun and cheerful, lighthearted happiness for an unusual preference. It had certainly taken the innocence out of being happy and gay and as the newly anointed American President fears, changed its meaning
forever.
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Dithering on diversification
It was in 1985 Punjab realised that the production of foodgrains in wheat -rice rotation was neither very remunerative in view of the totality of individual and social costs involved in their production nor it was sustainable in the context of resource endowments of the state. Above that, huge stocks of foodgrains had accumulated and there was no space in the godowns to accommodate additional stocks. There was, therefore, a need for diversification of the cropping pattern to improve stagnating incomes of the farmers on a sustainable basis and to check the over-exploitation of the production base in terms of water balance and soil degradation as well as negative agro-ecological externalities of the wheat-rice production system. A long range programme was drawn out to shift area from under wheat and paddy crops. But a severe continuous drought for five years blunted the thrust of the core recommendations. As a consequence, as the drought cycle passed off, the food stocks again started accumulating fast. Since 1991-92 under the pressure of fast accumulating foodgrain stocks, the procurement prices did not increase in keeping with the escalating production costs. The farm sector in Punjab, the production pattern of which is dominated by the wheat- rice rotation, came under an economic squeeze. Driven by the urge to improve farm incomes and rationalise the scarce resource use, specially the irrigation water and soils of the state, another road map was drawn for structural adjustments in the cropping pattern in 2001. This road map incorporated the state interests in the context of the national scenario on demand and supply of foodgrains. The parameters that necessitated the change were: the huge buildup of food stocks, the government losing substantially on exports of foodgrains, an economic squeeze on farmers due to the unremunerative minimum support/procurement prices, declining world market prices, depleting underground water resources, degradation of soils, declining factor productivity, deteriorating environment, fast increasing soil-water and air pollution and tremendously increasing social costs of production of these crops, specially paddy. The daunting situation was that (1) in comparative sense, rice and wheat crops were providing the farmers with returns that were better than those from any other alternative crop (2) these crops suffered the least from production risks and market uncertainties and (3) the government was obligated to purchase, as a buyer of last resort, whatever quantities of the produce were brought to the market. These constraining factors could be countered through (1) compensating the farmers partially for a few years till they get used to the alternative production patterns and a reliable market clearance system gets stabilised for these alternative products, (2) strengthening the research, specially the bio-technological research to improve and adapt the alternative high value crops and farm enterprises in order to produce cost effective quality products that are competitive in the domestic and world market, (3) encourage processing of raw produce into value-added products that would fetch higher incomes to farmers and generate additional employment in the state, (4) creating crop zones based on types of farming areas determined by agro-climatic conditions and suitability of alternative crops (5) encouraging animal husbandry enterprises, specially the dairy enterprise that will demand an enhanced area under fodder/forage crops and (6)encourage contract farming to involve small and medium size farmers in the process of diversification. Unfortunately, the effort on all these fronts has remained lackadaisical and the progress below expectations. The Central Government in its wisdom preferred to continue losing huge amounts on exports of foodgrains than compensate the farmers of this surplus producing state with only one-thirds of the amount of loss, saving thereby two-thirds of the loss the government suffered on compulsive exports. Had it been done three years ago, the Central Government would have saved more than Rs 8,000 crore loss they have suffered. Also the proposal to divert one million hectares of land from under rice to pulses and oilseeds production could substantially save on imports of these products. The economics is simple, it is understood and is appreciated, but the issue has perpetually remained “under consideration” and action a big zero. Focused research on chiseling the production technology of alternative crops received no priority because no funds could be spared for the purpose; rather the meager funds made available under the second push to agriculture were diverted elsewhere. The trappings of contract farming, meant for roping in small and medium farmers were not properly understood, which has resulted in a sort of disorientation like the deaf dragging the blind. Processing industry for value addition could not be attracted because of lack of facilitation and availability of low cost regular supply of power and infrastructure. Crop zones could not become operative because there was no effort to effectively demonstrate the comparative advantage of the zone-specific alternative enterprises. Animal husbandry did make some progress, yet below expectation. Also the government’s effort and concern for market clearance of wheat and rice due to which farmers did not have to wait in the market for disposal of their produce even for a single day did not dissuade them from producing rice and wheat. No effective market clearance for alternative crops could be ensured on the other hand. Above all, the effort at diversification suffered due to the total lack of coordination. Every department has been playing its own solitary tune and there is no orchesterisation of the effort. As it is, we are as yet nibbling at the margin of the problem only and this seems to be leading us to nowhere. |
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Biding time All those Congress leaders with an eye on the Chief Minister’s chair in Haryana are biding their time. Since the counting gets under way on February 27, the scene has shifted to Delhi amid efforts to catch the eye of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. While Bhajan Lal and his son, Kuldeep Bishnoi, were in the vanguard of providing the ticket to their supporters, Ch Birender Singh joined hands with Union Ministers Rao Inderjit Singh and Selja in recommending a combined list of candidates to the party high command. Some in the Haryana Congress insist that there is a three or four way fight for the Chief Minister’s job. At the same time a deep throat in the Congress high command tells us that Ch Birender Singh could well be the dark horse in the leadership stakes of Haryana with the proviso that the choice rests entirely with the Madam (Sonia Gandhi).
Governors’ meet President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s decision to cancel the Governors’ conference after he slipped during a walk in Rashtrapati Bhavan and hurt his shoulder requiring a surgery has left many in the UPA government perplexed. The feeling in the Manmohan Singh government is that the Governors’ conference could have been held with Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat presiding over it. Nevertheless, Mizoram Governor M.M. Jacob, being the seniormost, chaired an informal conference of those holding the gubernatorial office on Monday. The First Citizen, who underwent a non-invasive corrective procedure on his shoulder, has since returned to Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Padma Shri for Mathew One of the Padma Shri awardees from the media this year was Malayala Manorama’s Editor Mammen Mathew, who is also Chief Editor of The Week. He has made a name for himself beyond his publications. Mammen is the first Indian to become a Reuters Trustee and Director. He has also been a member of the Press Council of India for two terms and President of the Indian Newspaper Society and the Editors Guild of India, besides heading the Indian chapter of the Commonwealth Press Union.
Proving Indian nationality Conceding that it is difficult to prove one’s nationality, Justice Rajinder Sachar has confessed that if he were asked to prove his being an Indian national, it would be no cakewalk. “I was registered as a lawyer in Lahore in 1946. If today I am asked to prove I am an Indian, I am sure it would be difficult”, he said. Justice Sachar was addressing a conference organised the other day by the Citizen’s Campaign for Preserving Democracy that highlighted the need to have a proper procedure to identify and deport illegal residents.
Croatia offers India a fort Is India making waves internationally and getting a fort on lease for 99 years to showcase its myriad culture and achievements in various spheres? It seems so as the country has been offered a fort in Croatia to showcase brand India in Europe. It is the Fort of St Georgia, a 19th century structure at Pula, near the Italian border. The idea is to set up a permanent exhibition of Indian science, technology, culture and tourism. The region attracts four million tourists and if the lease comes through, it will be the first such venture outside the country. Contributed by Gaurav Choudhury, R. Suryamuthy and Smriti Kak Ramachandran |
Do you wish to know what is serenity? The wise experience it when they understand the truth. Then their minds are like deep underground lakes, completely still, unruffled by any stray thought or desire. — The Buddha When a young sets out what other old and renowned warriors could not, there are some who encourage him. They praise his strength. Above all they praise his lofty will to dare. — The Mahabharata
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