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Spotlight on jobs Carry on, comrades |
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Central Asia calling
Three red musketeers Flight of fancy Delivered to death As US cap on work visas rises, so does confusion Chatterati
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Carry on, comrades
THE deliberations and resolutions at the 18th party congress of the CPM deserve more cheers than sneers. At the level of both symbol and substance, the congress sent out significant messages. There is more than ritualistic importance in the CPM deciding to abandon its long-professed objective of working for a "dictatorship of the proletariat". This is the triumph of the realities of parliamentary politics over presumptions of ideological purity. It implies that the Marxists, who are practising social democrats in the Indian context, are no longer apologetic about this 'deviation' from their proclaimed Stalinist path. In fact, it is their social democratic character more than class struggle that has enabled their endurance in office for 28 uninterrupted years in West Bengal and shorter, but recurrent, runs in Kerala and Tripura. Equally significant is the resolve to work towards a third front in three years. This is a clear signal that the CPM would neither engage in nor encourage any attempts to destabilise the Manmohan Singh-led UPA Government. This Left-handed assurance of support is based on feedback from states and delegates, despite their reservations about the UPA's economic policies. Even as the Congress takes comfort in this, Congressmen would do well to reflect on how a Communist party is much more democratic in arriving at its resolutions. On the tasks ahead, the party has vowed to fight communalism and neo-liberal economic policies, and champion agrarian issues. As a secularising force, the CPM's credentials are unquestionable. However, its economic world-view is way behind the times and the ideological blinkers are firmly in place except when it comes to West Bengal. While the old guard taking a bow would be welcomed, some of the new, urbane faces at the top are more familiar as television personalities than as representatives of the rural poor and the peasantry that the CPM intends to focus on as a rallying point for Left and democratic forces. |
Central
Asia calling
THE just concluded visit to India by Uzbekistan President Islam Abduganievich Karimov underlined the significance of the Central Asian republics for India’s growing energy requirement. Uzbekistan has opened its doors to the Oil and Natural Gas Commission of India and the Gas Authority of India so that the two countries can benefit from each other’s achievements in the oil and natural gas sectors. Uzbekistan is among the 10 largest producers of natural gas. The two countries have had traditionally friendly relations, going back to the days when Uzbekistan was an important part of the USSR. In fact, the whole of Central Asia has been occupying a key position in India’s scheme of things, particularly from the energy and security points of view, for a long time. That is why India has been showing keen interest in the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project. The time has come to increase the focus on this project in view of the strong reservations of the US against the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline idea. Of course, India will have to take its own independent stand on the crucial issue. The Iranian gas project cannot become a reality if Pakistan backs out under US pressure. In the post-Cold War period, Central Asia has often been in the news because of the Great Game being played there with an eye on its vast oil and gas reserves. Besides the US and Russia, which have struck big deals with the former Soviet republics, China has invested millions of dollars in the region keeping in view the region’s significance for its future role as a world power. Pakistan has been developing close relations with Central Asian countries using the Islamic card. India too is there with a military base in Tajikistan. But that is not enough. In its long-term national interests, India will have to increase its presence in Central Asia using the enormous goodwill it enjoys in the region because of historical reasons. |
Three red musketeers
There are apparently three CPMs in India today. One is in West Bengal, which is in favour of economic reforms. Another is in Delhi, which is against reforms, while the third, in which the "M" stands for Maoist and not Marxist, as in the other two, has its base mainly in the jungles of Andhra Pradesh and is pro-revolution. Though claiming to be votaries of "scientific socialism", they clearly have huge differences among themselves, which means that their "science" is more like voodoo than a genuine academic discipline. The CPM of West Bengal is perceived to have a solid base since it has been continuously in power since 1977. Despite its obvious political influence, it has decided of late, to pursue a policy of courting the corporate sector, which is among the "class enemies" of the Marxists. The most reviled of these adversaries are the multinationals - the "B-52s of capitalism", as pro-reforms economist Jagdish Bhagwati describes them in his book, "In Defence of Globalisation". Unlike him, rapacious is the word which most Marxists would use to describe the MNCs while the Maoists would reach for their Kalashnikovs on hearing the loathsome word. But the comrades of Bengal seem to have a different take on the matter. Instead of abusing these organisations, Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya even flew to Italy to court one of them, the Gucci, which makes expensive shoes and other leather apparel for the bourgeoisie. Now he has sent off a team to Sweden to woo the Ericssons, the telecom giant. According to a West Bengal government advertisement, "the rigid doctrines of the Marxist-led Left Front … are giving way to pragmatism". Since "scientific socialism" was apparently too rigid for the state's good, it is being shed to make the state "industry-friendly". This phrase, which would make any Marxist recoil in horror, occurs twice in another advertisement. After noting that McKinsey (rings a bell?) had found that West Bengal had access to 10 per cent of India's market, the ad lauds the emergence of malls and "shopping chains selling major brands" and points to the promotion of an "industry-friendly work culture" in the state. And what does such a "work culture" signify ? That the Bengal Marxists wouldn't look kindly on militant trade union tactics, an assertion which has been made by Mr Bhattacharya more than once when he referred to the "mistakes" of the past in this field. None of this can be music to the ears of the CPM leaders of Delhi - the Prakash Karat-Sitaram Yechuri camp with its base in TV studios and the JNU campus, which recently threw out the anti-people MNC, Nestle, from the university premises. Perhaps, it is possible only in India that the same party can speak such widely different languages and still claim to be one. What is noteworthy, however, is that their hidden agenda for doing so is not all that hidden. If the Karat-Yechuri duo poses as the champions of the revolution to which their party is formally committed, the reason is that there is little at stake for them. They do not have to win elections, except at JNU. Nor do they seriously expect that their professed doctrine advocating the overthrow of the bourgeois-landlord state will be winning millions of adherents in the foreseeable future. Ensconced in the comforts of the metropolis, they can safely preach the virtues of their incendiary dogma in a desperate attempt to hold on to their dwindling support base — the trade unions. Having lost their earlier marginal grip on the middle class, the Marxists of Delhi are now banking only on stoking the embers of their old agitational politics aimed at their vote bank — the working class. Not only are they asking the proletariat - the designated vanguard of the revolution - to shun the "industry-friendly work culture", but also to shed their customary lethargy, induced by a somnolent economy dominated by the public sector, to rail against the economic reforms, with its threat of competition. The Marxists of Delhi also have a thin lifeline to the few remaining fellow-travellers in the academic world who, also ensconced in their comfortable homes in the campuses, sell the dream of a workers' paradise. Moreover, their fiery rhetoric gives them some kind of a talking point and hold on to the opposition "space" which, they fear, might otherwise be grabbed by the BJP. If the CPM of West Bengal has strayed from this line, the reason is that it has to win elections. Notwithstanding its success in doing so since 1977, it has become uncomfortably aware that the tattered vision of communism is no longer deluding enough people to ensure future victories. The number of "whole timers" in the state is said to have dwindled to a miserable 2,700 cadres. The urban middle class has already drifted away while the agrarian success in the aftermath of the land reforms in the early days of Marxist rule has produced a new generation in search of jobs. In addition, the decline in the moral calibre of the party personnel has robbed the communists of their earlier appeal. The problem of degeneration is not new. Way back in 1987, an internal document of the CPM mourned the fact that the "call to communism has considerably waned among the youth … the Communist Party is no longer seen as a totally different party from the other political parties … all the aberrations of the petit bourgeois class have pervaded our party today … our image before the people is blurred". Hence, the makeover being attempted by Mr Bhattacharya even if it is two decades too late. Arguably, if the Delhi CPM is serious about its anti-reforms line, it should take Mr Bhattacharya to task. If it does so, it won't be the first time that the central committee has differed with the state committee. In 1979, when the central committee sided with what veteran Bengal leader Promode Dasgupta described as the Soviet lobby to bring down the Morarji Desai government and pave the way for Indira Gandhi's return, E.M.S.Namboodiripad lamented that "we of the PB (political bureau) … found ourselves in a position where a majority of delegates were opposed to the line of the central committee … the confrontation between the central committee and the state committee constituted a problem". The central committee's minority view prevailed in the end presumably because the concept of "democratic centralism" was given the go-by, and the state committee's view that "the C.C. took wrong steps" by exaggerating the "Jana Sangh-RSS danger" and enabling the "authoritarian forces led by Indira Gandhi" to return to power was ignored. It is unlikely, however, that there will be a similar confrontation between the two this time. For one thing, the Delhi CPM knows that it cannot afford to antagonise the party's sole surviving base of support in West Bengal. (Kerala swings back and forth between the CPM and the Congress while Tripura is too small.) For another, it knows that destabilising the polity will only help the other CPM - the Maoists - and, even worse, revive the BJP-RSS
"danger". |
Flight of fancy
A WORKING group constituted by the Civil Aviation Ministry has recommended the constitution of a “no-frills” airline to bring air travel in the country within reach of the common man. “This is your captain speaking and welcome aboard the inaugural flight of the new Government of India owned Tughlaq Airlines. As you perhaps know, this is a no-frills airline which means we have dispensed with all non-essentials like wings, fuselage and fuel tanks and even passenger seats. I don’t have navigation equipment in the cockpit and I shall be much obliged if one of you passengers will kindly lend me his pocket transistor so that I can tune to the Vividh Bharati channel of All India Radio, Delhi, and get my bearings and find out just where the heck I am. “To save on fuel, lest the government auditors object against wasteful expenditure, I switch off the engines while in flight depending solely on luck and a heart-felt prayer to stay aloft. “I don’t have a co-pilot with me and I would be much obliged if one of you able-bodied passengers will help me manually to push down the landing gear. “Being a no-frills airline, we don’t have fashionable, young air hostesses flashing winsome smiles as they serve you eight-course gourmet lunches. Instead, a toothless old ‘ayah’ will trundle down the aisle pushing a wooden cart and you may buy your requirements of sliced cucumbers and raw mangoes garnished with chilly powder. This is the choice cuisine our no-frill airline offers. “We might occasionally hit an air pocket and for reasons of economy, we haven’t provided vomit bags. Kindly therefore feel free to ‘throw up’ on the kurta pyjamas of your fellow passengers. If at all there is a vomit bag around, you might find it stuffed with pan masala and beedis. “In an emergency, it might become necessary for all of you to jump out without parachutes. Kindly open your umbrellas and hop out and best of luck. “I regret that passengers in the executive and business class who are mostly captains of industry and top corporate honchos have to stand. Being a no-frill airline, we haven’t provided seats as a daily-rated second division clerk in the Civil Aviation Ministry ruled that seats were an avoidable frill. Please hold on to the shoulders of the passenger standing next to you. “I request people standing near the door to be extra careful as it doesn’t have a secure locking arrangement. A temporary peon working in the office of the Airport Authority of India, in a file noting to the Civil Aviation Minister, has said that secure door locking arrangements were an unnecessary frill. The door is held together with a rubber string and some chewing gum. “Please ensure that your children don’t put their hands out as the windows don’t have plexiglass. “A casual driver working in DGCA, in a note put up to the Cabinet, has ruled that fuel tanks are a wasteful frill. I’m, therefore, carrying the fuel for this flight in standup, pearlpet pickle jars kept under my seat. “I thank you for patronising our no-frills airline and I wish you a pleasant flight. We’re great people to go down
with.”
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Delivered to death Today, as every day, one woman will die every five minutes in India from maternity-related causes. While the murder of a celebrity, a model or even a politician’s guard grabs headlines and fills our television screens, it is apparently not news that in India over 100,000 women die each year from pregnancy-related problems. It is estimated that for every 100,000 live births in India, 407 mothers die. Almost all these deaths can be prevented. Women in India have been dying during child birth and from child-bearing related causes for centuries. It is this numbness towards the issue that needs to be pierced, punctured or violently jabbed so that the centuries of pain, suffering and indignation of faceless women is addressed. The system has to be cleansed of callous disregard towards the loss of a woman’s life. The life that bequeaths life itself. It should be a matter of great concern that nations that are in economic terms less vibrant than India are doing far better in taking care of women during the child-birth period. The Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) in Bangladesh is 230 per 100,000 live births, in Bhutan it is 255, the Maldives 160, Myanmar 255, and Sri Lanka 59.6. It seems the only other country that has recorded an MMR higher than that of India is Nepal, where around 540 women die from pregnancy related causes. Comparing the health status of women globally, in Malaysia maternal mortality is as low as 39 per 100,000 live births. The West European and Canadian societies have almost forgotten what a maternal death is. Cold statistics do not lessen the pain. They ought to shake society out of complacency. It is not just the rural poor who die giving birth to a child. Even in the Capital’s up-market neighbourhoods, women die due to neglect and old-practices. The loss of a mother hits a household in many ways. It is not just the loss of an extra earning hand that may lead to debt and destitution but also throws the children to a motherless childhood. The childhood that is supposed to be the time for receiving love, warmth, joy, attaining growth and healthy development is cruelly wrenched away. According to the Registrar General of India’s 1998 data, Kerala has the lowest MMR in the country — 198 per lakh live births — whereas Uttar Pradesh tops the list with 707 maternal deaths, followed by Rajasthan (670), Madhya Pradesh (498), Bihar 452), Assam 409), Orissa (376) and West Bengal (266). Both Punjab and Haryana recorded around 199 and 103 deaths respectively. The difference tells another story behind these statistics. It shows a wide disparity in public health services and facilities, and health standards and perceptions of health care seeking behaviour in different states of the country. The wide inter-state disparity also implies that for the poor and vulnerable sections of society access to public health services is nominal and standards are grossly inadequate. An urgent improvement in availability and access to health services is also needed in Rajasthan, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar. In addition, it is also important to break the cycle of poor governance and management that aggravates poverty, maintains low per capita income, low literacy and a high-birth rate coupled with high MMR and CMR (child mortality rate) in the poor performing states. In spite of this data, evidence available shows that MMR figures are under-reported and misclassified. A mother often dies outside the health system which makes accurate registration of deaths difficult. Health workers may not know why a woman died, or whether she was or had recently been pregnant. Often deaths associated with clandestine abortions are intentionally misclassified. An accurate and complete registration of births and deaths is vital for monitoring the health status of a population. Most statistics such are general and not area specific. Recently, an MP suggested that data should be collected constituency-wise and further broken down to the administrative and law and order districts so that there could be transparency and accountability in relation to programme implementation. A most striking exclusion from all these statistics is the non-existence of data pertaining to caesarean sections as a percentage of births in the population and case fatality rate. It needs to be understood that every woman is at risk of developing a serious complication and, therefore, disability and death, during child birth. About 15 per cent of all pregnant women will suffer a complication that cannot be predicted, or prevented. But 80 per cent of deaths result from one of the five well-understood and relatively common obstetric complications that can be readily treated with existing, inexpensive medical or surgical interventions. Some among these are infection during delivery leading to fever and convulsions or blurred vision, haemorrage, disorders related to high blood pressure, and long and obstructed labour. A woman with lower per capita income is over 100 times more likely to die than a woman from a high per capita income background. This is a result of wide disparity in all human development indicators. Similarly, women from developing countries are at greater risk than those from the developed nations. Countries that have successfully reduced maternal mortality have had high levels of access to a skilled attendant at birth (a nurse or doctor with midwifery skills). Skilled care refers to the care provided to a woman and her newborn during pregnancy, childbirth and immediately after birth by an accredited and competent health care provider who has at her disposal the necessary equipment and support of a functioning health system, including the services of an anesthetist, a blood bank, transport and referral facilities for emergency obstetric care, if needed. However, all this requires an efficiently functioning health care system. No amount of information and education or community mobilisation or even poverty reduction will make a major dent in MM unless accompanied by health institutions that are available and accessible. Each death is a reminder of everyday denials of a woman’s right to life, the most fundamental of all rights. The other rights that remain unrealised are the right to health care, non-discrimination, and reproductive self-determination. On this Safe Motherhood Day, it is time to reflect on the causes that lead to maternal deaths, shake off the helplessness and pledge to take up the challenge to meet the millennium development goal of reducing maternal mortality. The commitment to the MDG is reflected in the National population policy, (national social demographic goals) which is to reduce the MMR to 100 per 100,000 by
2010. — The writer is a journalist specialising on development issues |
As US cap on work visas rises, so does confusion The two engineers have been ready for months. One waits in Colombia, the other in Argentina. They are experts in wind technology, a fast-growing segment of the electricity industry. Their employer, Tampa-based Granite Services Inc., says projects have been delayed as it awaits their arrival — and their visas. So the company’s human resources manager keeps an Internet browser open to the Federal Register, clicking its refresh button every few minutes. How many visas remain? Should applicants hold a master's or Ph.D? Will a bachelor's do? The agency in charge is also looking for answers. Last month, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, said it would issue an additional 20,000 visas for highly skilled foreign workers because this year's cap had already been met. All 65,000 of the H-1B visas for this year were filled by U.S. businesses on Oct. 1, the first day of the government's fiscal year. In response to complaints from businesses, Congress in November passed legislation approving the additional visas, saying they should go to graduates of U.S. institutions with an advanced degree. But last month, the immigration agency said the visas could go to anyone with a bachelor’s degree, confusing businesses and immigration lawyers. As of last Thursday, agency officials said Homeland Security and the Office of Management and Budget were still reviewing the criteria for the 20,000 visas. Christopher S. Bentley, a spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Services, said businesses will have to wait for guidance advising them on who qualifies and how to apply. The discrepancy in details underscores the business community’s criticisms of U.S. immigration policy. It also foreshadows a growing debate between government and business over immigration, one that has not been as fervent since the tech boom of the late 1990s. Back then, as programmers worked to stop anticipated Y2K problems, the industry lobbied Congress hard to increase the number of foreign workers they could hire, successfully increasing the cap to as high as 195,000 in some years. These same companies recruited engineers from overseas with competing offers, expense accounts and limousine rides awaiting their arrival in the United States. The H-1B visa allows holders to live and work legally in the United States for up to six years. Many go on to receive green cards and live permanently in the United States; others go home. When boom went bust, many did go home as the hunger for overseas workers — and the visas — waned. Last year, the cap on H-1B visas returned to 65,000, a number established by Congress in the 1990s. Now, as the tech economy attempts a comeback, buoyed by security contracts and federal investments, lobbying efforts to raise the H-1B cap have resumed. Critics of the visa program say employers aren’t looking hard enough in the United States and have used the program to import cheaper
labor. — La Times-Washington Post |
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Chatterati The YWCA in Delhi celebrated its annual day last week with the energetic Lily George, wife of Gandhi loyalist V. George at its helm. The event moved from being a institutional celebration to a more enthusiastic and extended audience. Raw talent that the YWCA has brushed up and polished into superb and marketable skill was there for all to see. Lily George ensured that she pulled in a wide variety of celebrities to witness all this at the YWCA’s central Delhi facilities. The most charming part of the programme was an impromptu prayer by children of snake charmers and rag-pickers. They also then staged a brilliantly choreographed dance sequence that left the audience thrilled. Lily and her team at the YWCA reach out to over 3, 000 children from among the poorest in the city. Education, discipline and hope for the future are some the qualities they imbibe. This was followed by extraordinary well designed efforts by students of various courses that the YWCA runs. The fashion shows — four sets of them — were carefully crafted to highlight the talent that girls who otherwise would not be able to access such creativity actually had. The secretarial courses that followed also proved that students had skills to go well beyond the routine. Two excellent choreographed pieces had the crowd clapping enthusiastically based on the patriotic Vande Matram and the other inevitably on a film song. Hey! the best was yet to come. The show ended with a moving tribute to the victims of the tsunami that combined dance with prayerful candles and white flowers held by children, dancers, teachers and the audience. Well, the audience included Mrs Asha Hooda, Mrs Rani Sharma, Mrs Suresh Pachouri, Mrs Ahmed Patel, other school heads and the chief guest was Vandana Luthra of VLCC, herself a student of the YWCA in her youth. All set for cricket match
Delhiites
are not at all concerned about the cricket match at Kotla. Most of them will watch it from the confines of their bedrooms. Who wants to go through series of security checks and sit on wooden planks with the blazing sun and still no view of the field? Anyway, there are no tickets already. After all it’s the cricket officials, bureaucrats, policemen, politicians and their hangers on who dominate. And, of course, the history of the DDCA is well known as to how memberships were freely distributed years back by one set of people to maintain their grip over the body. No Test cricketer has yet become the President of any state board. Always politicians, who manage more through their political clout than a state management. Petty politicking in the name of cricket is desperation to hold power, fame and money. Look at list of C.Ms and their faithfuls in the board. Cricket may be the only sport played in only 11 nations the world over, but it’s not everyday we have likes of Musharraf and Gandhi siblings with the media glare on them. What a hoo haa! In all this, no doubt, Delhi can boast of a stadium, half complete, to hold the match, thanks to intervention from the PMO. Interaction with Pakistani kids
Stalls
of bangles, Mehndiwalas and chat apart from folk singers made an afternoon memorable for Pakistani kids visiting India. Najma Heptullah, Chairperson of the ICCR, was the hostess. They exchanged notes on the two countries. For the students from across the border the local students went out of their way to explain and make them a part of their life. Various schools from Delhi mingled with guests and, I am sure, made life-long friends. The visiting delegation was overwhelmed by the warmth and culture of our nation. Gifts and addresses were exchanged. Pratiba Advani and her mother, along with many Opposition M.Ps, enjoyed the interesting
afternoon. Since Najma’s term as Chairperson comes to an end soon, wonder what she will do. She surely is in very bad books of the Congress after she ditched them for another term in the Rajya Sabha. That also after enjoying a privileged political arena with the Congress for decades. |
It is impossible for a person to see Me by the merit of sacrifice, austerity, charity or by the study of the Vedas or by performing the scriptural rites, if he is devoid of devotion to Me. — Sri Rama Religion is that which sprouts from within you. It is not something stuffed from outside. — Swami A. Parthasarathy
The four fruits or the four Purusharthas or goals of human life are: Dharma, righteous deeds; Artha, material riches gained by honest means; Kama, fulfilment of desires in accordance with Dharma; and Moksha, release from the bondage of wordly existence. — Sri Hanuman There can be no salvation without dwelling upon the name of God. — Guru Nanak Such is your greatness, bounteous Lord! Within you are endless forms. Millions are in your million. Or you are a billion in yourself. — The Vedas Just as even people possessing eyes cannot see things clearly in the night, but they can see their steps well when a light is brought, so also in those having devotion towards Me, the self becomes self-effulgent. — Sri Rama Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. — Jesus Christ |
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