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Gas from Iran Pipeline is taking shape INDIA and Pakistan have agreed to go ahead with the construction of a gas pipeline by mid-2007 for the supply of cheaper Iranian gas to meet their growing energy demand.
West Asia today
Guest control
AP media under fire Nine-time wonder Delhi Durbar
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Fatal relief THE dilemma of the poor people of Tamil Nadu could not have been more harrowing. Even if they somehow manage to escape the jaws of recurring floods, they can fall a prey to relief operations.
Forty two were trampled to death and 37 seriously injured in a stampede at a relief centre in south Chennai in the early hours of Sunday. As it normally happens in such cases, women bore the brunt of the tragedy. Although an inquiry has been ordered into the incident, this is a clear case of administrative failure. A large crowd of relief seekers was very much anticipated, considering that they had started queuing up the previous night full 24 hours before the relief coupons were to be distributed. Yet, there were inadequate security arrangements and little crowd control. Heavy downpour and darkness in the area added to the chaos. What makes the incident all the more horrifying is that this is the second of its kind in a Chennai relief centre. On November 6 also, a similar stampede had taken place, resulting in the death of six women and injuries to 15 persons. Apparently, no lessons were learnt from the earlier tragedy. It was only after the second stampede had taken place that it was announced that the relief material would be sent to the houses of the people. What had stopped the government from adopting such an arrangement right at the beginning? While those who have died or have suffered injuries have been given some solatium, it is regrettable that politicians are still giving a political colour to the human tragedy. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa has alleged that “some miscreants” had spread rumours on the timing of the distribution of ration coupons to “bring a bad name” to her government. The Opposition on its part has demanded her resignation surmising that the tragedy occurred because the Chief Minister in her arrogance had refused to appoint all-party committees to oversee relief operations. Couldn’t they have postponed their sparring for some time as a mark of respect to the dead?
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A modest success THE global trade pact reached at Hong Kong on Sunday is at best a modest success for the 149 WTO members. Expectations were the Hong Kong talks, a part of the Doha round started in 2001, would collapse as the Cancun (Mexico) dialogue did two years ago. However, the weeklong efforts finally yielded a face-saving deal. Any failure at Hong Kong would have hurt the WTO credibility and encouraged protectionism and bilateral deals. The agreement has paved the way for concluding a new free-trade accord by April 30, 2006. Commerce Minister Kamal Nath is selling the trade pact as a success for India. On the most crucial issue of agriculture it is the European Union that had its way. The EU had insisted on 2013 as the year for progressively eliminating farm subsidies, though the US and the developing nations pressed for an earlier cut-off year, preferably 2010. Thanks to a monumental display of unity, the developing countries managed to preserve their domestic support for farmers and fend off unfair competition from cheap imports. Another gain is India will have to make smaller duty cuts than the developed nations on imports of industrial products. The third benefit is India and other developing countries have not been compelled to open their service sector. The 2006 deadline for axing cotton subsidies will help African nations, while the least developed nations have got easier access to developed markets. While the devil, if any, might be in detail as is common in such pacts, the concept of free trade needs a wider debate to reach a consensus. Anti-globalisation protests were more strident this time than before. NGOs like Greenpeace, Oxfam and Public Citizen have called the pact “scandalous” as the rich have gained concessions merely by promising to scrap subsidies. Oxfam has termed it as a “betrayal of development promises by rich countries whose interests have prevailed yet again”. However, the Government of India, the CII and FICCI have welcomed it. It all depends, through what ideological glasses one views it.
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Gas from Iran INDIA and Pakistan have agreed to go ahead with the construction of a gas pipeline by mid-2007 for the supply of cheaper Iranian gas to meet their growing energy demand. Now that there is a will to make the pipeline a reality by 2010, finalising the project schedule during the coming tripartite meeting in Teheran should not be a problem. Already, India and Pakistan have constituted a sub-group to sort out issues like the price mechanism, transportation tariff and the transit fee to be paid to Pakistan. There was an exchange of views on these subjects during a two-day meeting in New Delhi last week. There are international practices on the subject to serve as guidelines. What is most significant is that the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project is being pursued vigorously despite the open US objection to it. The US has been opposed to the very idea of the $7-billion project because it will lead to not only economic gains to Iran but also some diplomatic advantages at a time when it has emerged as a major threat to the super power’s interests in the West Asia-Persian Gulf region. Maybe, the policy-makers in Washington have begun to realise that it will not be in the long-term interests of the US to come in the way of India and Pakistan finding a solution to their energy problem. The US cannot gain by antagonising the public in the two South Asian countries by its moves on Iran. In fact, no country can afford to ignore its own national interest in deference to the wishes of even a super power. Thus, India and Pakistan cannot go slow on the long-pending project, whose economic advantages are now too well known. It is not their problem if it also brings some benefits to Iran. There is no better alternative to getting Iranian gas through the proposed pipeline to tide over the energy crisis. Economic pundits foresee an industrial transformation in the region if there is an abundant supply of gas. It is not without reason that China, too, is interested in associating itself with the pipeline project.
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A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. — Oscar Wilde
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West Asia today WEST Asia has relapsed into a pregnant pause, with the United States in an uncertain mood in its desire to build a New World Order. Although the Iraq quagmire has taken centre-stage in American concerns for reasons other than those envisaged, events in Syria, Lebanon, Iran and the Palestinian territories have taken turns that do not brighten the American mood. In fact, sober Americans are coming round to the view that President George W. Bush’s empire-building exercises have gone awry. President Bush, of course, is putting the best face on the recent Iraqi parliamentary elections, but a major American focus is on how soon US troops could be withdrawn in stages. In other words, American policies towards Iraq will be increasingly determined by domestic factors, rather than the ground situation
in that country. Having met the kind of reverses it has in West Asia, there is a perceptible softening of US approach to Syria and Lebanon. The UN inquiry into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has not led to threatened sanctions against Syria, but rather to an extension and widening of the inquiry. Russia and China had successfully blocked more severe action, and Washington was happy to sail along. On Iran, the Bush administration realises that there are no quick answers to the nuclear issue presented by Tehran’s insistence on conducting the full nuclear cycle, as it is entitled to do under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Russia’s compromise formulation that Iran could conduct the last stage of the nuclear operation cycle in Russia under Russian supervision remains on the table. The American hope is that the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad will discredit himself sufficiently internationally by his intemperate statements on Israel to make Washington’s task of taming Iranian nuclear ambitions easier. The Bush administration realises that, given the play of domestic political forces, it can do little to address the elemental issue of West Asia: the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation. Israel’s Ariel Sharon has succeeded in divesting his country of the Gaza Strip liability while converting it into a vast prison house and is fast achieving his objective of walling off the occupied East Jerusalem to deny the Palestinians a viable state. The work of grabbing more occupied land in the guise of building a new wall continues apace. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s success in giving Palestinians a few crumbs of access to the occupied West Bank did not last long. And with the approaching Israeli elections, Washington has a readymade excuse of doing
nothing of substance. It is a self-evident truth that Israel drives the US policy towards West Asia. There was no greater instigator of the American invasion of Iraq than Israel and there is no greater cheerleader of a hard policy towards Iran than Israel. An unfortunate side effect of the foolish invasion has been the strengthening of Iran’s regional position, having gained an ally in a Shia-dominated government in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Israel has denied reports that it plans to bomb Iranian nuclear installations, but its new nervousness over the emerging regional
scenario is obvious. These developments indicate that the US badly needs a new blueprint for West Asia that brings some coherence to its geo-strategic goals in the region. At least some American observers have voiced the view that Washington needs to separate its interests from those of Israel, but such a goal would seem to be outside the realm of pragmatic politics, given the hold of the American Jewish lobby and the born again Christian evangelical lobby that forms the support base for the Bush presidency. In this case, the tail will
continue to wag the dog. The reverses in Iraq have already led the Bush administration to temper its rhetoric in its second term, but there is no indication about the extent of changes it will make in pursuing its goals. Recent parliamentary elections in Egypt have brought home to Washington the perils of opening up the region to even a limited version of democracy; nor can the Iranian experiment in democracy bring Washington much comfort. Indeed, Washington needs to re-examine its premise that the spread of democracy would make the United States safer and West Asia less hostile to American interests. Developments in West Asia are moving towards a confrontation between forces of modernisation and Islamists who are gathering followers on the basis of their social welfare activities and articulation of the humiliation of the Arab world through the buttressing of the state of Israel at the expense of Palestinians and other Arabs. In the brave new world President Bush had painted on coming to office, he had berated previous US administrations for propping up dictatorships in West Asia. Assuming that he meant what he said, Washington is in the process of reversing course although the rhetoric on democracy will continue to be in full flow. Plainly, the US cannot tolerate the prospect of a string of hostile governments in the rich oil-bearing area even as it makes attempts to cultivate the energy-rich states of Central Asia by overlooking their systems of governance. The US is not the first state, nor will it be the last, to attempt to reconcile principles with realpolitik. Rather, the American problem is that it seeks to pitch its evangelism in such stark terms and, in President Bush’s case, in such absolutist logic of good and evil that any retreat from the high pedestal for reasons of state makes the US look sordid. Its dilemmas in West Asia have been long-standing, at least since it espoused Israel’s cause at the expense of Palestinians and
the Arab world. At one stage, the US had coined the policy of dual containment - of Iraq and Iran, and it took American administrations long to abandon it. The Bush administration then hit upon the idea of reordering the Arab world through the invasion of Iraq, facilitated by Nine Eleven, given the shock effect of the terrorist attacks. The consequence of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq has been quite opposite to the one intended. Instead of Iraq being the spearhead of a democratic revolution, it has become a new base of terrorism where none had existed, and is presenting Iran with an opportunity to expand its regional influence through the newly empowered
Shia majority. The Bush administration has been mending its relations with Saudi Arabia after the tensions created by the majority of the hijackers causing carnage and destruction on September 11 being Saudis. The US needs the world’s biggest oil producer, whatever its system of governance. Indeed, a strengthening of relations with the Arabian Gulf states is one answer to America’s problem. Palestinians will continue to be sacrificed at the altar of the Israeli state. But there could be a give in America’s hard posture towards Syria while Washington should remain content with leaving the Iranian problem in the lap of the European
Union.
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Guest control
I
had just shifted from Mumbai to Chandigarh when an invitation for the marriage reception of my nephew was received. Having lived out of Northern India for more than three decades I had lost all track of norms of marriage invitation and hotel receptions. The reception was to be held in an international hotel in South Delhi. It was summer. As we entered the main gate at 9 pm, we saw bright lights emanating from two different lawns inside the large hotel premises. It appeared that there were two separate marriage parties occupying two different lawns. There was no visible indication of names of persons hosting the two marriage parties. We understood that the names of hosts were displayed in the foyer adjoining the main reception office located about 200 metres away from where we were standing. We decided to enquire from guests themselves and advanced towards the first lawn where dozens of guests had already arrived and were having their drinks. In the right hand corner of this spacious lawn I spotted a conspicuous group of seven well dressed youngsters with whisky glasses in their hands munching snacks while engaged in muted conversation. I approached them with a view to engaging in conversation with one of them. I was not sure whether I was in the correct marriage party place booked by my host. I wished him good evening and enquired from him whether the gathering was being hosted by Mr and Mrs Narula of Amritsar. The person listened and smiled but regretted any knowledge on this matter so I advanced towards the second person and asked him the same questions. Also, I enquired whether he knew the name of the host of the party which he was attending. He too expressed ignorance. The third person was also clueless. This raised serious doubts in my mind as I had heard that in New Delhi, during combined parties, unauthorised persons frequent five star hotels to enjoy free entertainment. I asked my wife to wait a while. I walked towards the reception. The receptionist directed me towards the correct gathering but asked me to join the hotel staff to grill the uninvited ones. Intruders admitted that they had come to avail of free food and drinks amongst party crowds and din of music. Under threat of police action they admitted that they also often bring along foreign tourists to show them Indian bhangra and participation in typical Indian marriage without seeking any invitation. The hotel enforcement department started questioning the group further. Meanwhile, as we turned to greet our hosts on the lawn I put my hand in my pocket to make sure that I had my own invitation card intact!
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AP media under fire Andhra
Pradesh has a vibrant print and visual media, with five major newspapers and three news channels in Telugu. The governments have been in awe of the power of the Press, especially the vernacular dailies, which relentlessly pursue and expose corruption in public life with a missionary zeal. The media, indeed, had a field day during the Chandrababu Naidu regime as the TDP chief projected himself as a media savvy politician. Instead of trying to confront the media in the face of negative reports, Mr Naidu would make deft attempts to convert hostile publicity into a source of drawing political mileage. Some even accused him of “media manipulation.” Things have changed dramatically for the media after the Congress government led by Mr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy took over in May 2004. Mr Reddy has an almost dismissive attitude towards the media. While he doesn’t crave to be on the front pages of newspapers everyday a la Naidu, the disturbing aspect is the Chief Minister can be vindictive when things don’t go his way. Since taking over as CM in May 2004, Mr Reddy has made no bones about his dislike for Eenadu and Andhra Jyothi, the two leading local newspapers which have been carrying a campaign against his government and his policies. While not every one probably agrees with the shrill tone that is adopted by these papers, attempts by the government to muzzle the dissenting voices have assumed new and worrying dimensions of late. Because Eenadu is the largest circulated Telugu paper and is the flagship daily of one of the biggest media groups in the country, the Reddy government, understandably, could do little to unsettle the paper except accusing the management of bias. However, Andhra Jyothi, which has been doing well after its relaunch under a new management, has become the object of the ruling party’s unconcealed hostility. Mr Rajasekhara Reddy minced no words against the paper on more than one occasion. He went on record several times with his threats to withdraw advertising support, which he later did. Andhra Jyothi approached the AP High Court, which issued a directive to the state government not to discriminate against the paper. But newspaper officials say that the government has been honouring the directive more in breach. Last week the state government issued, perhaps for the first time in the history of the country, a notice under Section 144 of Cr.P.C. asking the paper to submit all new items to a screening committee set up by the government before they were published. The latest move to muzzle the editorial freedom, though hastily withdrawn in the face of vehement opposition from all sections, is ingenious, to say the least. The notice was issued through the Revenue Divisional Officer of Visakhapatnam on the instructions of the district collector. The notice says that various news stories published in the newspaper against some IAS and IPS officers and local MLAs recently “have the effect of eroding the faith of the people in public servants.” These news items may “lead to serious disturbance of public tranquility” and may even result in “riots.” Therefore, the RDO ordered that “any news item in your newspaper which maligns the personal character and value system of any public servant should pass through a screening committee.” The committee was to consist of local district PRO and correspondents of three rival newspapers. The notice also directed the Editor of the paper to “reply as to why not a detailed code of conduct be made for your newspaper with regards to such news items so as to prevent the publishing of similar news items in future.” Asking the paper to comply with these instructions “with immediate effect,” the official also wanted the Editor, based in Hyderabad, to “explain in person” as to why this interim order should not be made final. The order was issued on December 7 and asked the Editor to appear before it by December 9. However, it was hastily withdrawn the next day after the government sensed that the move could boomerang. A press note issued hurriedly on the same evening by the Chief Minister’s Office said that Mr Reddy was furious on learning about the notice. The Chief Minister, according the note, was pacified only after he was informed that the Additional District Magistrate had stuck down the notice earlier in the day. Mr Reddy reiterated his government’s commitment to freedom of the Press and asked the District Collector to give a clarification on the ruckus. There has been no clarification till date nor any action taken against the RDO for resorting to such an unheard-of move. The reason, obviously, is because it was the Chief Minister’s Office which was behind the notice. Not happy with the negative coverage his government is attracting from the Press, Chief Minister Rajasekhara Reddy, through his businessman son Jagan Mohan Reddy, is said to be seriously planning to come out with a news channel to provide the “real picture!”
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Nine-time wonder
EVEN now I have no clue as to why the late Nikhil Chakravarthy asked me to bring letters of introduction from two MPs when I requested him for an opening in the India Press Agency. Perhaps, he thought anybody who is fresh from college and is able to persuade two MPs to give such a letter would also be able to bring news. It was to get such a letter that I went to P.M. Sayeed’s house in South Avenue. For the few minutes I had been with him, I could find a lot of people — all from his constituency —trooping in and out of his house. Sayeed had earned considerable fame as the youngest MP when he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Lakshadweep, an island off the Kerala coast in 1967. A second-time MP when I met him in 1973, he was only too willing to give me the letter though he was as puzzled as I was about the need for it. That was my first and last contact with Sayeed, on whose political career I have been keeping a tab. Before electronic voting machines were introduced in the country, the result of his constituency, which is an archipelago, was invariably one of the first to be flashed on radio and television. The result was always predictable. Lakshadweep was considered his pocketborough. In 1977, Doordarshan repeatedly showed his victory for quite some time till the official media reconciled itself to the fact that the ruling Congress had lost the election elsewhere in the country. In an interview, he claimed that he knew every voter in the Union Territory, who found in him an incorruptible, simple and unassuming MP. These were the qualities that enabled him to become the Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha in which capacity he earned the goodwill of both the ruling combine and the Opposition. But for a Sayeed-watcher like me, it was obvious that the ground was slowly slipping from under his feet. With each passing election, his share in the votes polled had been declining. It was, therefore, not surprising that he lost the last election by a record margin of 71 votes. As he confessed, he had a greater surprise than his defeat when Congress President Sonia Gandhi nominated him for a ministerial assignment. It was a measure of the confidence she reposed in him that he was brought to the Rajya Sabha to enable him to remain a minister even after the six-month grace period. Winning an election consecutively for nine times from the same constituency is an achievement few share with him. He might not have ranked among the great parliamentarians or ministers but he was highly respected for his qualities of uprightness, good conduct and probity. These are precisely the reasons why I felt more than happy when recently P.M. Sayeed (1941-2005) graced the centenary celebration of the Marthoma Church at Kappil in Kerala as the chief guest. The church was founded by my own grandfather, who was a priest.
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Delhi
Durbar THE
hoax threat to Parliament has given a wake-up call to all and sundry that parliamentarians should be put through a drill so that evacuation is smooth, orderly and quick. Some MPs did not know what had happened as the presiding officers adjourned the Houses abruptly. Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani suggested that MPs should be put through a the drill of what to do in an emergency. It is widely felt that the upgraded security apparatus in the Parliament House needs to be fine-tuned and certain other features added to it. Home Minister Shivraj Patil says that certain measures will be taken after discussions with the authorities concerned.
Ministerial hopefuls Having missed on the last Cabinet expansion-cum-reshuffle lobbyists have again become active. The Prime Minister is expected to expand the Cabinet after the winter session of Parliament. Those being approached for ministerial berths are Ambika Soni, Ahmed Patel and Oscar Fernandes, all considered close to party President Sonia Gandhi. Some making a pitch for a ministerial berth insist that they deserve to be at the Centre without losing their organisational post.
MPs’ income, expenditure The recent cash-for-questions scam has started a debate about the earnings and expenses of MPs. A three-time MP said “Those from the northern states find it difficult to meet the expenses of Delhi life and have to bring our ration from our respective constituencies. The poor and less influential get caught while the prosperous and well connected never get trapped. Nevertheless, the sting operation has led MPs to think of acquiring devices which detect or jam secret recordings.
IAS officer in a new role At the much-publicised “Jagran Forum” the master of ceremonies was an IAS officer. Formerly a private secretary to a former Prime Minister, the officer seemed happy with his new found role, while the rest of his tribe seemed unimpressed. Some questioned the protocol that was breached, others pondered whether the officer was considering a career switch as an MC or perhaps a plum job with the newspaper group.
MP uses Hindi to raise issues A first-time woman MP from Kerala, C.S. Sujatha of the CPM has won kudos from her colleagues hailing from the Hindi heartland for asking questions and raising issues in Hindi. This is all the more so as people from Sujatha’s state are not too comfortable with Hindi. In her debut speech on Monday, Sujatha urged Tourism Minister Renuka Chowdhury to set up a hospitality institution in her Mavelikkara constituency. On speaking in Hindi, Sujatha said wanted to draw the attention of the House on issues she wanted to raise and she has succeeded.
**** Contributed by S. Satyanarayanan, Prashant Sood, Satish Misra and Smriti Kak Ramachandran.
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From the pages of A colossal blunder IT is done. The bureaucracy has taken the fatal plunge. The blunder which the country had for weeks been asking it through myriad voices to avoid is all but an accomplished fact. The worse and more important of the two Rowlatt Bills has passed through all its stages in the Legislative Council and only awaits the Vice-regal assent to become the law of the land. With the passing of this Bill the already attenuated liberties of the people cease to have any meaning and any reality in the English sense, and the paramountcy of the executive becomes complete. The most fundamental of the rights of the people, the right which, in the absence of representative institutions, is the chief security for all their other rights, the right of open and regular trial by ordinary courts and on the basis of lawful and adequate evidence before a hair of one’s head is touched by way of punishment, comes automatically to an end. The reign of law under which public life has grown to its present state of efficiency and power is now superseded by the reign of discretion.
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Where the impulses of the body and mind no longer stir us, we find Heaven. —The Upanishads Bondage is of the mind and freedom is also of the mind. — Ramakrishna
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