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It’s not just getting gas Snub for the Captain |
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Devaluing political parties
Ups and downs
Neta hotel
Human Rights Diary The climate and African food woes Delhi Durbar
From the pages of
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It’s not just getting gas INDIA and Pakistan have finally agreed to move forward on the Iranian gas pipeline project. During their meeting in New Delhi that concluded on Wednesday the two sides sorted out their differences on its security, legal and technical aspects, raising the hope for the commencement of work on the project early next year. This means the supply of the Iranian gas to an energy-deficient India may become a reality, most probably, by 2010. Pakistan and Iran have ultimately accepted the Indian condition to deliver gas at the India-Pakistan border, so that India does not have to worry about the security threat to the pipeline in Pakistani territory. The success on the gas pipeline front is bound to be seen as a major achievement made possible by the India-Pakistan bonhomie. Both countries are confident of overcoming the US pressure which has been there because the pipeline will bring substantial economic and political advantages to Iran, considered by Washington as a “rogue” state. India and Pakistan have been arguing that the controversy over Iran’s nuclear ambitions should not be allowed to come in the way of the pipeline project as it is essentially an economic project. How can India and Pakistan be prevented from translating it into a reality when US multinationals are not hesitating in striking deals worth millions of dollars in Iran? When supplied through the pipeline the Iranian gas will be the cheapest source of energy available to the Indian industry. Indian power and fertilizer plants are eagerly looking for the arrival of the gas from Iran. It will be available in abundant quantity as Iran has the world’s second largest natural gas reserves. The significance of the pipeline project has got enhanced with China too taking keen interest in it. In the case of India and Pakistan, it may emerge as a major factor helping the ongoing peace process. The pipeline may prove to be an excellent example of how the two neighbours should develop stakes in shared economic growth. |
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Snub for the Captain THE elevation of former Lok Sabha MP Shamsher Singh Dullo as Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president looks like a deliberate snub to Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh who had been lobbying forcefully for the continuation of Mr H.S. Hanspal. This has come after his Canada and Dubai misadventures that have not made him popular in Delhi. The high command seems to have ignored all his pleas forcefully. That, in effect, means he has earned the displeasure of Mrs Sonia Gandhi, which could spell trouble for him if he does not mend his ways. The Captain tried to make light of the embarrassment caused to the party when he was found to have delivered a speech at a Dixie gurdwara with the “Khalistan Zindabad” slogan prominently displayed in the background. He was yet to recover from the PR disaster when he went on an unannounced trip to Dubai violating rules and guidelines meant for a Chief Minister’s travel. The explanation that he had informed the “high command” was too facetious. Such activities were bound to catch up with him sooner or later. Mr Dullo is a Dalit. His choice makes a lot of political sense in a state which has a large concentration of Dalit votes. Since the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister happen to be Jat Sikhs, the new appointment may help considerably in improving the caste balance the party is attaching importance to. This will also help in removing the impression that the party has passed into the hands of feudal lords. All that should not take credit away from the personal qualities of Mr Dullo. He has proved himself to be a man with an independent mind – and voice. The party badly needs a leader in the state who has grassroots contacts and can function independently instead of living in the shadow of the Chief Minister. He has a reputation of calling a spade a spade. If he can combine the frankness — that the party’s culture badly needs — with the capacity to withstand various pulls and pressures he will prove himself worthy of the confidence reposed in him by the high command. |
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Devaluing political parties THE goings-on in the Bharatiya Janata Party are instructive about the larger concerns – rather than the mere continuance of Mr L.K. Advani as party chief – that should engage national attention. The most important of these is the role of extra-parliamentary forces, such as the RSS and other sections of the Sangh Parivar. These unelected, unaccountable and avowedly non-political outfits have arrogated to themselves the power to decide what parliamentary parties should and should not do; and also who shall or shall not hold what organisational post. In submitting to these extra-parliamentary and extra-constitutional power centres, the BJP leadership has vastly devalued the party’s very rationale for its role in electoral politics. How else is one to interpret National Democratic Alliance Convener George Fernandes being attacked by leading lights of the Sangh Parivar for his so-called intervention in the BJP imbroglio? As the NDA’s anchorman, Mr Fernandes has every right to express his views; in fact, not only Mr Fernandes but every citizen has the right to intervene in issues of paramount public interest. Although the Sangh Parivar may choose to treat the BJP as its parliamentary arm, the BJP operates in a public space and has won acceptance as a party that owes allegiance primarily to the Constitution. It has been in government and, for much longer, in the Opposition. Nothing that happens in the BJP or, for that matter, in the Sangh Parivar and has a bearing on public affairs can be treated as something to be negotiated between warning groups motivated by dubious agendas. Those in the BJP who feel that they are beholden to serve as proxies of the RSS and other extra-constitutional authorities have no legitimate role in parliamentary politics. The current crisis is both a challenge and an opportunity for the BJP to break free of the bonds that disable it from functioning freely and responsibly. |
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Having money is rather like being a blonde. It is more fun but not vital. — Mary Quant
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Ups and downs
THERE are times when Delhi’s political scene seems unchanging rather like a stagnant pool. Occasionally, there are short, sharp bouts of what look like convulsions. Some of them, such as the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance’s raucous bid to paralyse Parliament, are spurious. Others, having some reality about them, are best typified by the withdrawal of Congress support to the governments of Mr Deve Gowda and Mr Inder Kumar Gujral - for flimsy, indeed farcical, reasons in both cases. Most of the time, however, political currents, crosscurrents and under-currents intermix so slowly and sporadically that they cannot set the Yamuna on fire. This is precisely the case with current developments that remind one more of a shift of the kaleidoscope than of a volcano’s eruption. Worthy of the greatest attention is the clear escalation of the strife between the Left Front that, with 60 solid votes in the Lok Sabha, supports the United Progressive Alliance government “from outside”, and the Congress, the ruling coalition’s core. As of now, there is no intention on the Left Front’s part to bring down the present dispensation and make the country endure another general election so soon after the last one. This is what makes the Left’s obduracy in upping the ante all the time so incomprehensible. Particularly so is the fury with which the front, under the leadership of the CPM’s new General Secretary, Mr Prakash Karat, is opposing the disinvestments of a mere 10 per cent of the equity of Bharat Heavy Electricals. Even after the contemplated sale of shares, BHEL would remain under the state’s ownership and control. Moreover, the Manmohan Singh government is committed to never privatising any of the public sector “navratnas” and to meet BHEL’s future requirements of capital. Yet the front would not settle for anything less than a “roll back” of the decision it abhors. Until then its boycott of the UPA-Left Front Coordination Committee will continue. More importantly, if the Left Front has taken such an inflexible position on the relatively small issue of BHEL equity, wouldn’t it be more aggressive in its opposition to elements in the qualitatively changing relationship between this country and the United States on which it is looking askance anyway? The CPM has already adopted a resolution denouncing the Indo-U.S. agreement on defence cooperation. Its message should be clear enough. In all fairness, one must not overlook the flip side of the situation. Why, in heaven’s name, can’t Dr Manmohan Singh and Ms Sonia Gandhi consult their allies before taking a decision rather than get embroiled in an acrimonious controversy later or roll back the disputed decision under pressure from obstreperous allies? That even the dispensation skilfully held together by Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee for six years had earned notoriety for being a “roll-back government” cannot be an excuse for the UPA, especially because in its case, the Leftists think they can “appeal” to the Congress president over the Prime Minister’s head. Sadly for the Congress, its relations have become uneasy not with the Left Front alone. Despite Dr Manmohan Singh’s impeccable courtesy, the Congress has managed to displease such other important allies as the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra — a singularly ill-timed misfortune in view of the split in the Shiv Sena caused by Mr Narayan Rane’s expulsion at the diktat of Balasaheb Thackeray - and the DMK in Tamil Nadu. The Telengana Rashtriya Samiti has already walked out of the state government in Andhra Pradesh and is threatening to withdraw from the Central government, too. Ironically, this is precisely where the most paradoxical twist in the shifting pattern of the power game comes in. Normally, the BJP, the principal Opposition party, would have been in an excellent position to exploit the Congress party’s growing difficulties with its allies within the UPA and its Leftist supporters without. But that is far from being the case. On the contrary, the saffron party has landed itself into such an awful mess that its continuance in one piece has become open to question. Mr L. K. Advani, the man in the eye of the storm since his Jinnah fiasco during his visit to Pakistan, is only a lame duck president of a badly shaken party. No one knows what possessed him to adopt Mohammed Ali Jinnah, of all people, as his secular icon and invite the RSS, the unquestioned head of the entire Sangh Parivar, including the BJP, to have a “debate on Jinnah”. He then capitulated and withdrew his resignation on the terms of the RSS that included a strong condemnation of Jinnah. Neither this nor Mr Advani’s subsequent decision to placate the RSS bosses by sacrificing his principal aide, Mr Sudheendra Kulkarni, assuaged the anger of the RSS top brass. Then came the terrorist attack on the makeshift temple at Ayodhya and Mr Advani perceived it as a “window of opportunity” that he thought might enable him to regain the favour of the RSS. But his clumsy attempt to lambast the governments in Delhi and Lucknow for security lapses inevitably boomeranged on the BJP. Nor was the RSS leadership amused. Whatever happened during the hectic, indeed frenzied, confabulations among the saffron crowd’s bigwigs on Monday is not yet fully known. However, those tongue-tied on Monday night were chirping on Tuesday that there was no “crisis” and at no stage had the RSS asked for Mr Advani’s resignation. Only the gullible would believe this. What Mr Advani has managed to get is a reprieve, not redemption. He may have to go well before the year’s end. This surely is a source of comfort to the UPA and the Congress. But surely the Congress cannot expect to be congratulated on the way it is tearing apart the already tattered fabric of political ethics or loyalty to secular ideology. When Mr Sanjay Nirupam, a fire-eating Shiv Sena member of the Rajya Sabha, was thrown out of the Sena recently, the Congress welcomed him to its fold with open arms, forgetting the foul abuse he had heaped on the Congress and other “secular riff-raff”. This had infuriated Sunil Dutt, then Union Sports Minister, who tragically died soon afterwards. Unmindful of this, the Congress leadership is now trying hard to persuade Mr Rane to join it. But the shrewd former Maharashtra Chief Minister is keeping all his options open. He is parleying with both the Congress and the NCP. In short, national politics today is like the proverbial hamam (bath house) in which everyone is naked. |
Neta hotel
THE hotel industry owes a big thanks to politicians for providing it bulk business even at times when tourism as a whole is in the doldrums. No, the reference is not to politicians of the Rajiv Pratap Rudy kind who frequent five-star hotels and then forget minor details like paying the bill. We are talking about big-spending netas who defect en masse and also travel the same way. After almost every election, the leader of the brood feels that he has to protect the siblings from predators. So, it is customary to take them on “Bharat Darshan”. Ah, that smells money for the hoteliers because the newly elected MLAs like the good things of life while moving from one tourist destination to another. Only the best of hotels and service for them. Similarly, whenever there is a faction fight in any party, the splinter groups have to be kept away from the corrupting influence of the rivals. Again, it is time to be sequestered in some hotel where there can be no poaching. The ingenious ways of reaching this safe haven also give birth to adventure tourism. Keeping in view the growing demand, tailor-made packages should be offered to the travelling leaders. In fact, new hotels must be constructed to suit their special needs. These should be located near inter-state borders and categorised as A, B or C depending on whether they are located in states ruled by party A, B or C. Those escaping from the clutches of party A should quickly head towards B or C category hotels. Helipads will be a necessity to bring them in and whisk them away without the public and the media getting to know about it. Since the hotel sojourns can extend indefinitely, all material comforts should be provided, including leg and peg. But the most important is the security factor so that the netas cannot be hijacked by rivals. Former NSG commandos should provide day and night vigil. (In fact, there is a good case for politicians to go on a global tour at state expense to study security measures available in hotels abroad.) MLAs are becoming more and more precious, with rates having already gone past the crore-mark. To keep them secure, aerial surveillance may also have to be mounted. In smaller states where even one or two MLAs can topple a government, each should be protected like an endangered species. The hotels should be secure not only against intruders but should also have adequate arrangements to keep under lock and key those wanting to escape. Learning from past experience, care must be taken that no MLA is able to slide down a sewerage pipe and make a freedom dash. But under freedom provisions, it is OK if one-third of those cloistered in a hotel want to run away to the highest bidder. The hotels must have a well-equipped communication centre-cum-horse-trading ring for the purpose. Tunnels must connect hotels of A, B and C category so that the en-bloc change of heart and label can be effected quickly and efficiently. |
Human Rights Diary IT was the 30th anniversary of the Emergency of 1975-77. Many human rights associations and civil liberty organizations gathered at the Constitution Club in New Delhi to recall the brutalities of those days. Unlike the last year, this time the hall was full. There was also a smattering of young men and women. Speakers were also well known. But there was none from the media, neither a reporter, nor a TV cameraman, not even a freelancer to cover the meeting. Not a word appeared in the press. I imagined that Barkha Dutt, who prided herself in reporting the tragedies of the people would have the Emergency as a topic in her weekly Sunday programme. June 26 was a Sunday - the Emergency was imposed on that day. Instead, Barkha Dutt’s topic for discussion was wild life. Indeed, India had gone wild on that day but in a different way. Not many among the youth have read about the Emergency. They should. They should also recall the Emergency every year because that was the time when we nearly lost independence. One hundred thousand people were detained without trial; the voice of dissent was smothered, the press was gagged, and civil servants became willing tool of tyranny. It was the biggest onslaught on human rights after independence. The worst was that a thin line which divided right from wrong, moral from immoral, got effaced. It is yet to be restored. One is bound to feel disappointed to find some of those who were part of the constitutional system during the Emergency are in high positions. They are in the central cabinet and the Congress high command. They should have withdrawn voluntarily from public life. At least, they should have offered an apology to the nation. Instead, most of them behave in the same old manner, arrogant and dictatorial. * * * * * The Congress-led UPA is trying to rule not through the law of the land but by introducing draconian measures which have further curbed even the fettered rights of the Emergency days. The Janata government had dropped the 1977 MISA, a detention law. But Rajiv Gandhi brought back the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (TADA) and the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) to subvert civil liberties. Rajiv’s successor, Narasimha Rao, allowed TADA to lapse under public pressure. But the BJP enacted the Prevention of Terrorists Activities Act (POTA). Gujarat played havoc with it during the carnage a few years ago. The UPA dropped some of POTA’s provisions but retained its worst parts. What is shocking is that Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, known to be a liberal, has given the idea of reviving draconian measures in his inquiry report on the AFSPA. It has reportedly given legal cover to the atrocities committed in Manipur, other states in the North East and Jammu and Kashmir. True, the old act may be repealed. But what is the use when the commission has favoured the inclusion of objectionable provisions of AFSPA in the diluted version of POTA, already applicable in the country. The agitation is against the law as such because it allows the security forces to commit heinous crimes with impunity. Fears of people in Manipur, North East and Jammu and Kashmir cannot be allayed if the Reddy’s commission remedy is that other states in the country will also be under the measures. The AFSPA is bad per se; its application in any shape at any place is unjustified. The new contemplated law, if the commission’s recommendations are accepted, will have the repugnant clause 6 of the AFSPA which protects the armed forces from any prosecution or legal proceedings for its wrong doings. Strangely, the National Human Rights Commission upholds the AFSPA. What the commission is upholding is the power by the Armed forces to continue to use force and kill provided they are convinced that ‘the individual is acting in contravention of law in a disturbed area’. This is a mockery. The safeguard Justice Reddy has provided is that the force should be used only after the army is ‘reasonably convinced’ that the individual is carrying out subversive activities’. I know of no case where the armed forces after killing have not argued that the individual was carrying out subversive activities. The commission may argue that it has included safeguards in the contemplated law. But they will stay on paper. July 15 is the anniversary of Manorama’s rape and death in Manipur. Even after the country wide protest, there has been no action against the guilty. What course the government has left for the people except that they voice their protest relentlessly? Let New Delhi show a gesture and withdraw the AFSPA on July 15. When it was promulgated in 1985, the government’s defence was that it needed it because ‘violence had become a way of life in North Eastern states’. Twenty five years later it is the same old argument. Such laws in a democratic society encourage state terrorism and they cannot be justified on any ground. In fact, the government has come to monopolise power. It is much too concentrated at New Delhi. It needs to be decentralized and humanized. Over and above is the misuse of authority by police. It knows no law when it comes to taking action against a suspect. It picks up even his relatives and keeps them at the thana without any written order or authority. Punjab has experienced this. So have North-Eastern states and Jammu and Kashmir. The police system has got used to extra-constitutional methods. In fact, the fault is that of chief ministers who have their own way of dealing with “subversive elements”. What remedy does an individual have if a political boss or the police official has a personal account to settle or some other purpose to serve. Hapless human rights activists are the ready-made victims. |
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The climate and African food woes AFRICA may seem incapable of growing enough food to feed its starving millions, but in the fields of South Africa’s Free State, farmers are taking in more maize than they know what to do with. While most African countries run at a substantial food deficit, with millions dependent on food aid and malnutrition rife, South African maize yields per hectare are the highest on record — and farmers say it is not just down to good weather. “If you look at rainfall patterns, a lot of other African countries get more than we do,” says Laurie Bosman, President of South Africa’s commercial farming union Agri SA. “Only 14 percent of our country is suitable for agriculture.” This year’s rains were good, but even in a bad year South Africa produces a surplus. This year, farmers say new improved seed types — some genetically modified — have helped the white-dominated commercial farming sector to the highest yields on record, and prices so low farmers fear they may go bankrupt. But across most of the continent, food production is dominated by small-scale subsistence farmers, much less sophisticated in their techniques and much more vulnerable to climate shocks such as sudden rain failure. From Niger to Zimbabwe, Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, crop failure leaves millions hungry. In Southern Africa, the World Food Programme says 10 million will need aid after rains failed. Climate is not the whole story. In Malawi, well-irrigated sugar plantations sit next to villages that have seen almost their entire harvest shrivel up and die. And only a couple of miles from full silos and healthy fields in South Africa’s Free State, Lesotho’s maize production continues to dwindle, with yields falling to 450-500 kg a hectare against 1400 in the 1970s. With almost a third of the population HIV positive, many farmers have died or are either too sick to tend their fields properly. AIDS and crop failure lead to an increasing cycle of poverty that leaves them unable to buy seeds or tools. While HIV is the dominant issue in Southern Africa, elsewhere war and locust plagues have done damage. In Eritrea, landmines left over from a border war with Ethiopia prevent cultivation, while conscription takes workers from the land. In Angola, weather is almost irrelevant if farmers cannot get their crops to market because roads have been destroyed by war and neglect. In the worst affected countries, war, illness and poverty combine with ever-worsening drought — which environmentalists fear could become worse as climate change bites. “Yearly rainfall rates have been decreasing since the late 1990s, falling from about 500mm to nearly 200mm,” said a United Nations report on Eritrea earlier this year. Two thirds of the population now rely on food aid. Teaching new techniques to minimise soil erosion and protect crops may help. “When the right crops are grown in the correct ecology they should do well to resist a normal drought,” said Nancy Matuga, of U.S. funded famine monitor `Fews Net’ in Kenya. “This year, you can’t say it wasn’t the climate,” said Catholic Relief Services Zambia Country Representative Michele Broemmelsiek. “Up until the early part of the year we thought it would be a normal year. Then the rain just stopped.” (Additional reporting by Ed Harris and George Obulutsa) — Reuters |
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Delhi Durbar THERE is palpable unease between CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat and high profile party colleague Sitaram Yechury. Thus, many in the dominant Left party were surprised when Karat readily agreed to Yechury’s nomination to the Rajya Sabha from West Bengal. However, party sources do not think that the rivalry is over. In the CPI (M)’s style of functioning, elevation to the House of Elders is the surest way of marginalising a leader. This is evident from the fact that CPI (M)’s Rajya Sabha MPs do not have much of a major role in the decision-making process of the party. And importantly, those who are in the forefront are the likes of Harkishen Singh Surjeet in the recent past or Karat and S Ramachandran Pillai at present who rarely make their advent into Parliament. No to Miandad’s bash? With former Pakistan cricketer Javed Miandad announcing the date of ‘Nikah’ of his son with Dawood Ibrahim’s daughter on July 23 in Dubai and wedding reception there on August 4, all eyes are now focused on the Ministries of External Affairs and Home Affairs. As Miandad is expected to invite some of the top Indian present and past cricketers as well as administrators, there is speculation in government circles that the Indian Government may issue an advisory asking the invitees from India not to attend the wedding as Dawood Ibrahim is one of the most wanted criminals and a prime accused in the serial Mumbai Blasts case. Whether there will be a formal advisory in this regard from the UPA government remains to be seen.
Money bills Three major bills relating to the financial sector are expected to come up for discussion during the forthcoming monsoon session. All the three Bills — the Pension Fund Regulatory Development Authority Bill, the Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill and the Reserve Bank of India (Amendment) Act — had been referred to the Standing Committee on Finance. The passage of these Bills, however, is unlikely to be smooth with a vocal Left airing its opposition in no uncertain terms. A determined government, however, may push for the Bill with the most unlikely support coming from the BJP as it was primarily the NDA government’s reforms programme that are being carried forward.
BHEL not vegetables UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s meeting with the Left leaders raised the hope that the two warring parties would find a solution to the vexed BHEL disinvestment issue. With reports that the Congress chief could only propose five per cent disinvestment instead of 10 per cent as decided by the Manmohan Singh Cabinet, all eyes were on CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat to spell out the party’s stand in the trade-off. He quipped “we did not go to the mandi to buy vegetables to bargain for 10 or 5 per cent. Ours is a principled stand. The UPA government has violated the CMP `Bible’ and has to pay the price by reversing its decision.” Quite a hard bargain, or perhaps not. Contributed by S Satyanarayanan, Gaurav Choudhury, Prashant Sood and R Suryamurthy. |
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From the pages of Great wall of China
It would seem from accounts of this extraordinary work (Chinese Wall) that there was a time when the Chinese possessed a most remarkable persistence and were masters of what is even now one of the greatest wonders in existence. The great wall was recently measured by Mr Unthank, an American engineer on a survey for a Chinese railway. His measurement gave the height as 18 feet. Every few hundred yards there is a tower 25 feet high. Mr Unthank brought with him a brick from the wall which is supposed to have been constructed in 200 B.C. In building this immense stone fence to keep out the Tartars, the builders never attempted to avoid mountains or chasms to save labour or expense. For 1300 miles the wall goes over plains and mountains, and every foot of the foundation is of solid granite, and the rest of the structure is solid masonry. It surpasses everything in ancient or modern times of which there is any trace. The Pyramids of Egypt are nothing compared with it. |
When you speak, you expose your inner self to the whole world. A man with good words for none reveals his own deficiencies. Just as a man who speaks well of everyone earns goodwill. — Book of quotations on Hinduism Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it … Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle. — Book of quotations on Success Four Boundless States: The boundless states or brahmaviharas are considered friends on the way to Nirvana. They help in dissolving the idea of a separate self. Loving kindness; Compassion; Sympathetic Joy; Equanimity — The Buddha Do not suppose of those who rejoice at what they have brought about and love to be praised for what they have not done, do not suppose that they have escaped torment; for theirs is a painful chastisement. For to God belongs the dominion over the heavens and the earth, and God has power over everything. —Book of quotations on Islam Tame the mind. This is the greatest challenge before you. It rushes here and there, swifter than the wind, slipperier than water. If you can arrest the flights of mind to your will, happiness will be assured to you. — Book of quotations on Success There is to be no compulsion in religion. True direction is in fact distinct from error: so whoever disbelieves in idols and believes in God has taken hold of the most reliable handle, which does not break. For God is all-hearing and all-knowing. —Book of quotations on Islam By obeying him, man leaves this world with honour and glory.
—Guru Nanak  |
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