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Package for farmers Dirty game |
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F-16s
for Pakistan
A Tiger’s tears
The pull of the past
UPA stability depends on sticking to CMP: Raja A rail on the
roof of the world Chatterati
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Package for farmers As expected, the Prime Minister announced on Saturday a Rs 3,750-crore package for distressed farmers of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala to address the problems of rural indebtedness, crop failure and water deficiency, which have led many farmers to commit suicide in various parts of the country. Vidarbha in Maharashtra, which Dr Manmohan Singh visited on Friday and Saturday, is one such region. An expert group will study threadbare the issue of indebtedness and submit its report in three months. Exploitation of farmers by private moneylenders is widely known. Equally well known is the inability of banks to provide timely credit to the needy farmers. Self-help groups floated by some banks have been quite effective in meeting the credit needs at the grassroots level. Fortunately, Dr Manmohan Singh did not announce any loan waiver. It would have revived a wrong trend, which had in the past saddled banks with huge NPAs (non-performing assets). He only waived overdue interest of Rs 712 crore and rescheduled the payment of loans. But why limit the package to four states? In Punjab, too, mounting individual debt and declining returns from agriculture have forced some farmers to end their lives. The state, too, needs similar incentives. There is no dearth of ideas on tackling the agrarian crisis in India. The National Commission for Farmers chaired by Dr M.S. Swaminathan has studied the issue in detail and sounded a note of caution that the “cost-risk-return structure of farming has become adverse”. The UNDP Asia Pacific Human Development Report, 2006, released on Thursday last, has warned that global trade expansion can damage the interests of poor farmers by bringing down prices and raising input costs. To ease the farmers’ plight, the Centre and the states should make coordinated efforts to ensure better water management and introduction of crop insurance. There should also be a safety net for farmers apart from saving them from the clutches of moneylenders. |
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Dirty game Conventional wisdom in international relations is to “talk talk”, rather than “fight fight”. Even if the talks don’t bear any fruit, at least there is no bloodshed. But for this option to be explored properly, the two sides at least have to have the basic sincerity. That, unfortunately, is lacking in the case of Pakistan. While it ostensibly claims to be engaged in talks with India, it continues to kill also at the same time. Every day, there are incidents of militant violence in the Kashmir Valley and elsewhere and there is no doubt in anyone’s mind about who is supporting these. In one such incident on Friday, a Lieutenant-Colonel lost his life in an encounter with militants at Bandipore in Baramulla district. There is a mountain of irrefutable evidence that it has continued to train and push in terrorists, which Islamabad cannot make to vanish. Because of such repeated acts of perfidy, even committed peaceniks in India are finding it unable to engage in negotiations with it. After all, what is the point in wasting one’s breath if it has to do exactly the opposite of what it says? All this forms part of its devious plan to make India bleed from a thousand cuts. Limited resources which could have been utilised for improving the life of Indians are tied up in defending the country against the unholy designs. But what Islamabad does not seem to appreciate is that for every two wounds that it gives to India, it gives at least one to itself as well. While India may be able to absorb the thousand cuts, the latter may succumb to the 500 which it gives to itself. It is fast turning into a basket case, thanks to foolhardy military adventurism. Not only that, it is also annoying the international community no end. The news of its duplicity is no longer a secret. The US may not be taking any action against it because it is a useful ally in the war on terror. But such a long rope may not be extended to it in perpetuity. There are saner sections in Pakistan. They must prevail on the government to genuinely stick to the basic canons of good
neighbourliness.
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F-16s
for Pakistan Whatever
the US explanation, the sale of F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan makes
one believe that the Americans say something and do something else, at
least in the India-Pakistan context. The Bush administration has been asserting after the signing of the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal that India and Pakistan are placed in different situations and have different requirements. It has also been pointed out occasionally that the days of hyphenated relationships are over. But now comes the announcement from Washington offering a liberal package of F-16s to its “key ally” in the fight against global terrorism. This is besides the $370-million arms package —- sale of Harpoon anti-ship missiles and other weapon systems —- to Pakistan for which the Pentagon Defense Security Cooperation Agency had notified to the US Congress in June last. Obviously, these are aimed at cooling the frayed tempers in Islamabad. This “significant upgrade to Pakistan’s existing systems” will obviously bolster the morale of the Pervez Musharraf regime, which has been throttling democracy on different pretexts. Is this what the US wants? The US is rewarding a regime which has delivered very little in the fight against terrorism. The Taliban remnants, a major destabilising factor in Afghanistan, giving sleepless nights to the US forces there, continue to get training in Pakistan. Some time ago the US administration had declared that it could not allow the sale of F-16s to Pakistan after the exposure of its nuclear proliferation activities involving the A. Q. Khan network. What changed the US thinking is not difficult to understand. Since it has refused to entertain Pakistan’s request for the kind of civilian nuclear deal offered to India, it is indulging in a balancing act. This has happened in the past too. But then the US did not claim that it had a policy of “treating each country individually”. Making claims which cannot be justified leads to avoidable misunderstanding. The US should review the F-16 sale to Pakistan in the interest of its own credibility as also peace and stability in South Asia. |
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One hears only those questions for which one is able to find answers. — Friedrich Nietzsche
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A Tiger’s tears
If a tiger can shed crocodile tears, a super Tiger has done it. Anton Balasingham, described as the chief negotiator on behalf of the Tamil secessionists in Sri Lanka, is obviously skilled in the art of saying one thing and meaning another. The years spent by the Tamil Tigers in “negotiations” with Colombo must have taught him that. But obviously he could not shed the habit even when appearing to regret the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the mother of all suicide bombings, as a “monumental tragedy.” There are obvious contradictions in the condolences expressed by Balasingham in an interview with NDTV. But they are not only misleading. They are false. He blames the “tragedy” on what he considers to be shortcomings in India’s policy about Sri Lanka. For example, he argues that though India did help Sri Lankan Tamils against “state oppression”, Rajiv Gandhi did not help the Tigers to create “a separate state”. He chooses to ignore the cardinal fact that India had never advocated dismemberment of the island state. He admits that the Tigers rejected the Indo-Sri Lanka “peace pact” of 1987. But he claims they did so because the pact “ did not satisfy the political aspirations of the Tamils”. He forgets that no agreement can be called a “peace pact” if it is as one-sided as the Tigers might have wanted it to be. The Tigers rejected India’s federalist ideas because these were “totally inadequate” for meeting Tamil demands”. But no idea can be “federalist” if it fails to harmonise the interests of all constituents of the projected federation. While he regrets the “monumental tragedy” , he also sullies the regrets with a warning to India. He says, “there is a possibility of a war emerging”, and instead of remaining “quiet”, India must make “ a positive gesture” towards the Tamils. And what should it be? His answer is that India should move towards “ a new foreign policy” in the interests of what in his view were India’s “geopolitical interests”. Balasingham’s “regrets” are thus a unique example of condolences which are also a demand for help or else. They read more like an attempt to entice India into a new round of talks which, if the face of Balasingham is the true face of the Tigers and if they are the true face of Sri Lanka’s Tamils, are bound to be as futile as the earlier rounds turned out to be. The cause of the failure then might have been the obduracy of the Tamils or the differences among the Sinhalese or, most likely, a mixture of both. But a major additional cause was that all Tamil elements which could have contributed to a Tamil consensus first and then to an island-wide consensus were eaten up by the Tigers. Nor did India help much when its Sri Lanka policy came to be driven more by the vigour of youth than by mature experience. There are lessons to be learnt from the contrast between India’s response to the crisis in Nepal in recent weeks and its response to the Sri Lanka crisis in the mid-1980s, when the people in charge in New Delhi felt that dummy Indian air raids over Sri Lanka and a show of force by India’s Navy right in the face of the government in Colombo were the right elements for a successful Indian foreign policy towards Sri Lanka. I was appalled when, during a working visit to Srinagar, I heard that the Indian Air Force had been ordered to drop a few Indian “food packets” somewhere in Sri Lanka. A few packets could not have fed many Sri Lankans, Tamil or Sinhalese. I thought their message could only be that next time round the packets would not contain food but something else. I dismissed the thought then as uncharitable. But it came flooding back when, during the next among my many visits to Sri Lanka at that time, I saw that some ships of the Indian Navy were now the most prominent landmark on the seaward skyline of Colombo Port. Whether they were inside or just outside Sri Lakan waters became an academic issue when they stayed there for weeks, within swimming distance of the coast opposite the parliament building. A few days later I chanced upon a more generous - but not for that reason a less rational - explanation of India’s military presence in the affairs of Sri Lanka at that time, whether in the form of these ships, very unpopular with the Sinhalas, or the Indian Peace Keeping Force, (IPKF), which I found to be equally - if not even more — unpopular with the Tamils whom I met in the Jaffna peninsula. I was walking along a busy street in the Port area of Colombo when I heard the sounds of a lecture coming out of a hall. Curiosity took me through the door, and minutes later I was glad it did. A Sinhala communist leader who I came to know better in the succeeding days but whose name escapes me now (I think it was something like Abheywardene ) was arguing before an agitated crowd that the Indian presence was not such a bad thing for Sri Lanka. The burden of this song, which gradually pacified the crowd, was that the country was caught in a fierce civil war between its two major communities, and the only possible outcomes were the following: Either the Sinhalas would try to destroy the Tamils; or the Tamils would try to destroy the Sinhalas; or the two would fight each other to a standstill and in the process destroy the country. The first possibility would trigger India’s domestic compulsions and force it to intervene. In the second possibility the victorious Tamils would surely gravitate towards Tamil Nadu and possibly bring about a greater Tamil state. India would resist that possibility but the residual Sinhalas would have to swallow it. Of course, the third possibility would finish both Tamils and Sinhalas and no one would be left to rue the day. At this point the Sinhala friend who was helping me to understand the song gave a broad smile because the speaker had come to his final point. He drew closer to the mike and asked his audience in a subdued voice which of these three possibilities they would prefer to the only other possibility he could think of : that someone should intervene between the two warring groups, and keep them separated for long enough for them to work out an agreement between themselves, and whose intervention would be more prompt and possibly more effective than of something like the IPKF, he
asked.
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The pull of the past
Everybody is nostalgic about his past. As distant hills look charming, so do the days gone by. With the passage of time, rough edges of life get rounded and a rosy picture of the past gets pasted on our mind, as if we have left a golden era behind. Earliest memories of my life belong to Jaitu, a marketing town of the erstwhile state of Nabha. We then lived there on the first floor of an old “haveli”. When I was around two and a half,my mother undressed me for a bath and then went to the kitchen to fetch warm water. My attention all this while was riveted on a star-studded red cap kept there that I could not wait to wear. I put on the cap and quietly slipped down stairs to the road below. On her return, my mother found me moving among the bullock-carts and camels.Her heart came to mouth and yet, such was then the tradition of “purdah” that she could not come down to retrieve me. I am able to recall many more such incidents of my babyhood and boyhood at Jaitu. This, however, is not the only reason why the place has been showing up in my dreams for the last over 50 years. Jaitu occupies a pedestal of pride in the history of our freedom struggle. It was here that late Pt. Nehru was put in handcuffs during the historic Babbar Akali Movement and taken to Nabha to stand trial before an illiterate magistrate! It is also the place where I,as a curious child, sat before late Giani Zail Singh in a “dharamshala” in one of his election meetings some 60 years back. Gianiji went on to become the First Citizen of our country. Besides,the town was then home to many other freedom fighters like Seth Ram Nath and Mansa Ram who suffered terrible police tortures in the surrounding princely states. Recently,while returning from my new native place, Bikaner, I got as close to Jaitu as Bhatinda. Though it was then the dead of night and I was booked and bound for Delhi, I could not resist the temptation of visiting the land of my childhood. The next train took me to Jaitu before the dawn broke.Walking in a sort of Arabian Nights trance, I first got to the once imposing circular building in the centre of the town. Gone were the feared police post, the state bank and other key government offices and gone also was the sentry who struck the gong there 24 times a day.Instead,an ugly shopping complex had cropped up there. I walked in the direction of our “haveli”. I had difficulty in even locating the site where it
stood. I had similar experience when I went to see my school and other places in my memory. These were all gone or had changed beyond recognition. I looked for acquaintances but could not locate anybody who knew us. The town seemed to have forgotten us completely. First time I felt that there was no point in looking back in life. I do not think I would see Jaitu in my dreams ever
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UPA stability depends on sticking to CMP: Raja
D Raja, the National Secretary of the Communist Party of India is
an ideologically committed communist in an era of liberalisation. He
does not mince words when getting his point of view across. In a
no-holds-bar interview to the Tribune, he spoke at length on the
present controversy of disinvestment of profit-making public sector
undertakings. Raja said the rift between the Left and the UPA was
widening and the stability of the Manmohan Singh government depended
on its implementation of the NCMP. Excerpts: Q: The
Left and the UPA seem to be on a collision course again on the
disinvestment issue. Earlier, it was "navratnas" BHEL, and
now it is about NALCO and the Neyveli Lignite Corporation Ltd (NLC).
Is the NCMP ambiguous on the disinvestment issue? A: As for as we
are concerned there is no ambiguity and the NCMP is very clear on this
issue. It says that profit-making PSUs will not be privatised. The two
PSUs, NALCO and NLC, where the government wants to dilute its stake is
just privatisation. NCMP says that only unviable and sick PSUs on a
case to case basis will be taken up for private partnership to turn
them around. Q: How does the disinvestment of 10 per cent of
government stake amount to privatisation when it would continue to
hold more than 75 per cent equity in these companies? A: The
question is dilution of equity. The quantum of dilution is only
technical – whether it is 51 per cent or more. Disinvestment of
profit making PSUs is contrary to the letter and spirit of the NCMP.
It is because of the public sector character of our economy that our
economic fundamentals are strong. It is these fundamentals which
helped us avoid the crises faced by Mexico and the South East Asian
economies. Q: The UPA contends that the disinvestment proceeds
would be used to fund social sector projects and revive sick PSUs. Don’t
you think that the government, by disinvesting its stake in PSUs while
continuing to maintain its public sector character, raises capital for
these projects and is a step in the right direction? A:
We do not agree. There are other ways to raise resources for social
sector projects and the Left parties have given several suggestions to
the UPA in this regard. We have suggested increasing the tax-GDP
ratio, imposition of capital gains tax, taxing the corporate sector,
scientific detection of tax evasion and recovery of NPA and debt. Q:
Don’t you think that the UPA government with its increased pace of
economic reform is adopting a confrontationist approach with the Left
parties which have been vocal in their criticism. It seems the noise
by the Communists is falling on deaf ears. There were even reports
that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, disgusted with the attitude of the
Communists, had virtually challenged the Left to withdraw support if
it did not agree with the views of the government? A: There are
differences between the UPA and the Left and they are widening by the
day. The stability of this coalition government depends on its sincere
implementation of the NCMP in letter and spirit. Our support to this
government is strictly on this aspect and we voice our concerns
whenever the UPA deviates from it. And the reports about what the
Prime Minister said are not true. He was expressing concerns about our
differences. Q: Do the Left parties feel that the outside support
to the UPA is becoming a liability? The UPA continues with the
economic reform agenda despite the concerns expressed by the
Communists. Is the present political structure helping the Left to
grow outside its non-traditional areas? A: I do not consider the
outside support to UPA a liability to the Left parties. Nor do I agree
with the term non-traditional areas. Such a term cannot be used for
political parties. The outside support to the secular democratic
government of UPA coalition has facilitated the Left to articulate its
alternative points of view and it is being welcomed at the national
level. Our perspective is being considered in the national policy
formulation. The support has certainly helped the Left to strengthen
its presence in those areas where we were not there and consolidate in
other areas. The recent assembly polls clearly manifested that. Q:
How far is the Left from providing a third alternative to the people?
Can we see that happening before the next general election? A: The
third alternative is not an alliance for electoral gains. It is a
perspective with alternate set of policies and programmes. It has to
evolve and would emerge from the peoples’ movements and campaigns.
It would be a non-BJP, non-Congress alternative, which is being
strived at. One cannot give any time frame for it but it would
certainly emerge. Q: Has the CPI chalked out its political
strategy for the forthcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh and
Punjab? A: In UP, the party in association with the Jan Morcha
and Kisan Manch have launched campaigns to highlight the people’s
issues. But we have not decided on electoral alliances and political
strategy so far. We have not decided whether to align with Samajwadi
Party or not. It is early days now. The same is the case in Punjab. We
will take appropriate decision on the electoral strategy after holding
consultations with our party units in the state. |
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A rail on
the roof of the world The
inaugural journey for the world’s highest railway began on July 1, a
technological feat improving China’s access to one of the most forbidding
corners of the Earth. The quest to link China to the snow-covered plateaus of Tibet, known as the roof of the world, had been an unfulfilled dream of Chairman Mao’s that dates back five decades. Technical difficulties in laying tracks over frozen mountain paths and on oxygen-starved peaks made it an impossible task at the time. But the Chinese government took up the challenge about five years ago and turned it into the centerpiece of a new drive to modernize western China. For the Tibetan people who have been fending off Chinese cultural and political infringements since they lost their independence, the iron tracks mean something quite different. “The Chinese see it as a great technical achievement. We see it as a very sad moment in our history,’’ said Tsering Jampa, a Tibetan who fled her homeland with her family after the 1959 uprising and now works as executive director of the Netherlands-based International Campaign for Tibet. “It’s the final nail on the coffin to bring Tibet under Chinese control.’’ Chinese officials are billing the $4.1 billion project not as a commercial venture but as a public works endeavor designed to boost local development. Sun Yongfu, vice minister of railways, told the official China Daily that it would help improve the competitiveness of Tibetan products by cutting transportation costs and also make Tibetan-bound consumer goods less expensive. One of the new train’s biggest draws, however, will be Chinese tourists. Initial runs are expected to ferry about 2,700 passengers a day and could help double tourism revenue by 2010. The train enables travelers in Beijing to reach Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, in 48 hours. Critics say increasingly populating Tibet with ethnic Chinese has been one of China’s key strategies in gaining control over this impoverished and restive territory. In Lhasa, Han Chinese outnumber Tibetans. The natives live primarily in the rural areas and have the highest illiteracy rate of all major ethnic groups in China. Impact on the fragile ecosystem is another reason the railway has been controversial. The new 710-mile stretch from Golmud in western China’s Qinghai province to Lhasa traverses some of the most pristine landscapes on Earth, as high as 16,640 feet above sea level. Some of the ground is so frozen and unstable that engineers had to build elevated bridges to ensure a smooth ride. In other places, they had to install cooling elements to prevent the ground from melting. The government says it has done everything it could to minimize environmental damage during construction, which involved about 20,000 workers. Authorities also created special passageways for native animals to continue roaming, and set up special garbage collecting trains to make sure rubbish from the new trains was not cast to the winds. Windows on the train making the trip to Lhasa are equipped with ultraviolet filters to protect passengers from the sun at high altitude. The train’s windows are also sealed shut to prevent the thin air from getting into the oxygen-regulated cabins. Such preparations have not swayed skeptics. Some environmentalists say that global warming, could melt the frozen ground beneath the railway and threaten its viability in as early as a decade. By arrangement with
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Chatterati Kolkata
may be a communist headquarters but the rich there do not mind forking out Rs
36 crore for a single watch. International super-brand Omega has released a
special edition of a handcrafted wristwatch cased in 22 carat gold, encrusted
with over 50 diamonds on a platinum dial, with the inner mechanics crafted in
gold and platinum. It makes only 25 such watches every year on demand. This
year, three such watches made their way to Kolkata. The first two have already been hand delivered under tight security and the third is in transit. The watches, kept in a bank vault, were taken out under security only after the buyers arrived at a fixed hour to take possession. “The down payment has to be made in cash, half of which is the booking money. After a customer places an order, Omega gets in touch with its Geneva unit, which takes around nine months to craft one watch. It is then delivered to the buyer and the remaining Rs 18 crore is paid on delivery.” Mall showrooms sell premium wristwatches worth Rs. 2.25 crore every month. They are priced between Rs. 60,000 to Rs. 12 lakh. The brands include Omega, Rolex, Dior, Rado, Longines and Tag Heuer. Even lesser known ones like Frederick Constant and Franck Muller Geneve are in demand here. High value wristwatch dealers sell nearly five watches each of these brands every month. Changing lifestyles and exposure to global markets are responsible for the spurt in sale and growing demand in this city of communists.
Marking attendance The Chief Minister of Maharashtra has decided to keep a register to track the attendance of his ministers. Apparently, ministers will have to be in the Mantralaya for at least four days a week. In case of long periods of absence, they have to submit written explanations. Wouldn’t it be fun if these explanations were made public? It would be really fun to read some of the explanations which could range from touring the constituency trying to get full truck of loads of people for a national leader’s rally or making a trip to the Capital and having to wait for days to report to a general secretary of a party. In any case it will be a good idea if all states follow this rule.
Dog custody A divorce can actually make your life miserable. For all you know, you might have restrictions on not only meeting your kids, if any, but also your pets. Recently a court ruled that dogs should not be treated like children with allocated visiting rights when it comes to divorce cases. The whole episode started with a resident of Delhi, whose wife initially allowed him to see his pet Yako, a golden retriever. Later, she had problems with him seeing the dog every weekend. The man then approached a lower court with an appeal to grant him permission for the same. The court ruled in his favour and set up some specific visiting hours for the meeting. But the provincial court of Delhi then overturned that decision, saying it set a precedent for pets to be treated like children in divorce cases. “This sort of litigation is rare, given that common sense and reason dictate that people should not take such cases to court,” says a judge. That’s not completely illogical but the poor man is so attached to his dog that he couldn’t help but take a legal permission to see his beloved pet ‘at least once in a week.’
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From the pages of State of emergency
New Delhi — The President today proclaimed a state of emergency to enable his Government to meet the situation arising from the Chinese aggression on India. A communiqué issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs tonight announced the promulgation by the Head of the Union of a proclamation under Article 352 of the Constitution declaring that a state of emergency exists “because of external aggression.” The communiqué also announced the promulgation by the President of the Defence of India Ordinance. This is the first time after the Constitution came into force that the emergency provision has been invoked. |
Others may say good things or bad things about you. If you can listen to both with complete indifference, you have advanced much on the path of self-realisation. Do not allow either to disturb you. Because, you cannot control others but can certainly control yourself. Apply the collyrium of God’s fear to your eyes and deck yourself with the love of the Lord. Then alone you would be reckoned happily wedded when your spouse would like and love you. If a man cheats innocent men thinking that he will not be caught, he is mistaken. His evil will fall back upon him like a light dust thrown against a mighty wind. It is God who has produced you all from a singe self; so here is an abode, and a lodging. We have defined the signs for a people who understand. Why should we endeavour in the way of evil as we ourselves have to bear the consequences
there from? Why run away from a tiger which is also a manifestation of God. The answer is: Those who tell you to run away are also manifestation of God; why shouldn’t you listen to them? |
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