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SIMIwadi
Party Schools of
failure Heart of
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Beyond
Eelam and Tigers
It
happens only in India!
Document When the
Army strayed into Tibet G-8:
Expect only a ‘common minimum’
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SIMIwadi Party
IT is the height of irresponsibility that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav has given a clean chit to the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which has been under the scanner following the Mumbai blasts. While his PWD Minister and brother Shivpal Singh Yadav was certain that SIMI was “not a terrorist organisation”, the CM was sure that it had no involvement in the Varanasi blasts and the attack on the Ayodhya shrine. Juxtapose these statements with reports of SIMI activists caught in Tripura and West Bengal for fomenting trouble and the Maharashtra police coming to the conclusion that it was involved in the Mumbai blasts, one is bound to realise the stupidity of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav’s statement. But is the Samajwadi Party leader really stupid? On the contrary, Mr Yadav has political reasons to be in the good books of SIMI. Recently, his government withdrew the charge of treason against SIMI chief Shahid Badr Falahi, who had been in jail for nearly 30 months. With elections to the UP Assembly round the corner, the SP leader does not want to take any risks with the Muslim votes. In the last elections, the Muslims were generally with him. But he is no longer assured of such solid support given the inroads the Bahujan Samaj Party has made into the Muslim vote bank. Mr Raj Babbar, who has drifted away from the SP, has also been nibbling at the Muslim support. That the film star-turned-politician has the support of former Prime Minister V.P. Singh is something which he cannot wish away. Besides, there is also an attempt to bring all Muslim groups under one banner as in Assam. These churnings have made Mr Yadav so desperate that he could not take action against a minister who publicly offered Rs 25 crore for anyone killing the Danish cartoonist who drew a caricature of the prophet. It is not for no reason that SIMI was banned. The police suspect that it had a hand in the Mumbai blasts. It is for the investigating agencies to look into all aspects of the charge against the organisation and conclude about its culpability. Until then, politicians like Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav need to keep their mouths shut. |
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Schools of failure
THE government spends more money per child than what a parent pays for a child in a private school, yet when results come it is invariably the children who study in private schools who get more marks. Even to a public that had got immune to the inverse logic of this reality, it has come as a shock that in many government schools hundred per cent students fail in their board exams. There are many schools in Punjab where all the students who appeared for the Class VIII examination failed. The demographic profile of these schools is not very clear in the absence of data that the Punjab School Education Department failed to provide. However, a report in this newspaper on Friday shows how schools in the sensitive border belt in Amritsar and Tarn Taran districts are particularly vulnerable, though the situation is not much better in the rest of the state. All students who took the matric examination failed in the government high schools at Boparai, Saidpur, Harike and the like. In some rural schools, only one or two students got through. This shameful situation can only be attributed to the total administrative failure of the department and the officials concerned. Government schoolteachers are, as a rule, better paid and more qualified than their counterparts in the private sector. It is true that the government schools do not get the best students. But then, it is the job of the teachers to put in extra effort to bring them up to the standard. That is what the parents expect from the teachers. Far from that, absenteeism has become the norm in government schools. Job security has, in this case, led to a feeling of complacency where some teachers even hire surrogates while they take private tuitions. Some schools don’t have any teachers, many have too few, while some are overstaffed. The government must link performance and pay, shake itself out of its indifference and lethargy, streamline the administration and fill up vacancies in order to ensure a better future for schoolchildren. |
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Heart of the matter
It is quite well known that Punjab along with Kerala and Andhra Pradesh figures among the states with the highest incidence of heart disease in the country. Haryana lags behind Punjab, though in terms of per capita income it has taken the lead over the Big Brother. The observation of a reputed cardiologist comparing the causes of heart disease in Punjab and Haryana, as reported in The Tribune on Monday, makes interesting reading. Dr Sudheer Saxena, an expert of international repute, claims that Punjabis suffer from heart problems due to high cholesterol and diabetes, while Haryanvis’ habit of smoking gets them heart attacks. It is not clear whether the doctor’s startling observation is based on some survey or it is just an off-the-cuff remark. Now, how different can be the lifestyle of the residents of Panchkula in Haryana and those of Mohali in Punjab? And, for that matter, where does Chandigarh figure? Maybe the cardiologist had a traditional hooka-smoking Haryanvi in mind when he talked of smoking. Going by the rush of patients in hospitals and the number of heart specialists mushrooming in this region, one can safely conclude that heart diseases are fairly common. And only a scientific survey can tell people in which areas heart diseases are getting more prevalent and why. With agriculture increasingly becoming mechanised and cheap labour flowing in hordes from UP and Bihar, Punjabis have started taking it easy. However, their love for food and liquor remains undiminished. This does not mean Haryanvis do not love their food, but maybe they have not yet fallen prey to the sedentary lifestyle in that large a number. The use of chemicals in food and the rising level of pollution of underground water are also matters of concern to all those health-conscious. Happily, awareness about the heart and other diseases is spreading, more so in urban India, but efforts to take preventive steps are still half-hearted. |
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Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
— Robert F. Kennedy |
Beyond Eelam and Tigers
Truly trite, by now, is the crack about the “Tigers” not changing their stripes. The past few weeks have revealed the more notable fact that political opinion in Tamil Nadu remains unchanged and predominantly indifferent to their fate. This, however, does not mean that the long-festering problem, of which a fresh refugee influx has come as a reminder, can be forgotten. The virtual end of “Eelam” politics in the southern State, in fact, brings to the fore the problem of Sri Lankan Tamils, misrepresented once as only pertaining to a group of armed militants. For India, misled once into a military intervention in the island-nation’s ethnic conflict, the present offers an opportunity for an involvement in efforts towards a peaceful and political internal settlement of the issue with a fallout that cannot be contained within Sri Lankan frontiers. Tamil Nadu’s indifference to the series of appeals from the “Tigers” for sympathy and solidarity - the latest one from Mr Anton Balasingham eliciting no less a rebuff - testifies to the enduring public memory of the “Eelam” politics and what it entailed. A generation has passed since then, but the State still remembers what followed in the wake of an earlier refugee tide in the eighties. The situation then was preceded by a Central folly in bringing up the infant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, (LTTE) and other Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups, with mandarins in New Delhi putting fond faith in the capacity of “our boys” to further India’s perceived foreign policy interests. With the refugees, the “Tigers” and their armed Tamil rivals came into Tamil Nadu. Regionalist politicians could be counted upon to try and encash the emotive issue, and they did so in reckless disregard of consequences for country and its polity. The militants were highly honoured guests in their Tamil Nadu hideouts, and the then Chief Minister M. G. Ramachandran made publicly extravagant gestures of support to them, on the safe assumption of Central approval. They were soon to provide ammunition to the other Dravidian party then in the opposition. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) headed the pro-”Eelam” campaign as it was carried to a shrill anti-Centre pitch and spewed Tamil chauvinism of a particularly obnoxious perversity. Soapbox orators screamed of an “invasion” on Sri Lanka and compared this with myth-magnified conquests of the past. Communalism compounded the mischief, with the RSS and the UHP joining the campaign with gusto and calling for a war of Hinduism on Buddhism, the religion of Sri Lanka’s Sinhala majority. The later alliance of the Dravidian parties with the BJP, with its place in the “parivar” or the far-right “family”, was foreshadowed in those distant days. The “Eelam” influx also brought the intraethnic conflict into the Indian State. Chennai was a horrified witness to shoot-outs between Tamil militant rivals in its crowded bazaars. The “Eelam” politics brought the cult of explosives, too, into Tamil Nadu, which recorded scores of bomb blasts in the period. The equation of violence with the “Eelam” camp and cause became so close in public mind that no political party or group has questioned, openly or seriously, the categorical official condemnation of the LTTE as responsible for Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. An unfortunate result of all this has been the equation of the ethnic issue itself with the “Eelam” politics. An LTTE-centred perspective has dictated a policy of India distancing itself from the issue that is actually inescapable as events have now shown. The reminder, served by the refugee influx, cannot be ignored without imponderable consequences. The number of fugitives from the Tamil-majority north-east of Sri Lanka had crossed 4,000 even last month. With the United Nations agencies putting the number of Tamils displaced (including those moving elsewhere within Sri Lanka) at half a million, an unchecked influx can increase over the coming period to a point where “Eelam” politics returns in a new form. The influx will also have serious economic and other consequences. It is, obviously, in India’s legitimate interest to check the influx and to prevent large-scale recurrences of the problem. An Indian initiative to help efforts for a peaceful, political settlement of the ethnic dispute cannot thus be dismissed as interference in the neighbour’s internal affairs. An essential condition for the success of such an initiative, in fact, is that it is not seen as such interference. More concretely, the condition is that no scope is allowed for speculation about the possibility of India even contemplating an external military intervention. The possibility appeared to be distinctly ruled out for over a decade. The ignominious experience of such intervention in the eighties through the ill-fated Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) was supposed to have ensured that it was not repeated. There is reason for revival of apprehensions in this regard. India had cited, at least semi-officially, an international context for its policy of the eighties on “Eelam” and Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. J. N. Dixit, India’s High Commissioner in Colombo during 1985-89, wrote years later: “Tamil militancy received (India’s) support...as a response to (Sri Lanka’s)…concrete and expanded military and intelligence cooperation with the United States, Israel and Pakistan....The assessment was that these presences would pose a strategic threat to India and they would encourage fissiparous movements in the southern states of India…a process which could have found encouragement from Pakistan and the US, given India’s experience regarding their policies in relation to Kashmir and the Punjab.” An international context is being cited again in a post-9/11 campaign for a “smart intervention” by India in Sri Lanka. Contrast Dixit’s argument with what current National Security Adviser M. K. Narayanan wrote in a website article in 2003: “The US often expresses concern about the security situation in South Asia. It has, however, remained a passive spectator to the depredations of the LTTE - one of the most dangerous terrorist outfits ever. It behoves of the US to utilise the ‘coalition of the willing’ to effectively deal with the LTTE brand of terrorism”. Mr Narayanan added: “For its part, India must not remain oblivious to the ominous drift in the situation in Northern Sri Lanka. It must seriously consider what options to exercise, both to sustain the integrity of Sri Lanka and curtail the LTTE’s terrorist activities, as also to fulfill its responsibility as the dominant power in the region”. This, it must be hoped, does not indicate India’s official willingness to intervene in Sri Lanka as part of a US-headed “alliance against global terror”. Such an indication cannot help the success of any Indian initiative in support of a settlement of Sri Lanka’s primary internal
problem.
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It happens only in India!
THE summer this year was special. Amidst soaring mercury and long power cuts, some people of North India discovered a goddess of electricity - Bijli Devi. News channels carried visuals of frenzied sweaty devotees singing bhajans to placate the elusive goddess amidst rancor of whirring generator sets. I live and work in the hills where power is plentiful and the summer very bearable. No takers for Bijli Devi here. But my life is not bereft of interesting godly experiences. On an undercover mission, I found myself in the august company of an informer and a very interesting drug dealer. We sat in a small chai shop in a beautiful picturesque place sipping sweet tea, listening to trance music being played at some distance. Hippies smoking chillums and eating hot pakodas made the setting perfectly heavenly. Only god was missing. Our friend, the druggie loved the sound of his voice. He kept on mumbling incessantly while we were mentally sifting the information. Suddenly all eyes were drawn to a large framed male. He had a flowing unkempt beard and locks tied into a shaggy bun on his head. He held a trishool with a dumroo tied at the top. He was bare-chested and had a piece of deer skin tied around his waist. It seemed as if Shivji had miraculously responded to the calls of Alakh Niranjan and Bum Bum Bholey let out by the hippies at regular intervals. The druggie saw our jaws drop. With a smirk he said: “Look at this man! He is actually a Firangee. He has been here for as long as I can remember. Smokes charas all the time. One fine day he started claiming that Shiv Bhagwaan visited him in his dream. Ever since he lives like this pretending to be Shivji himself. He destroyed his passport and started roaming around in this attire. Bloody joker!” Like a good suspicious cop I didn’t quite believe that. The man spoke the local dialect perfectly and was too dark to be a Firangee. Our friend responded: “You stay here for 20 years and walk around naked. Soon we will have a Negro speaking fluent pahadi!!” Minutes later our Shivji moved to a table where some real Firangees were sitting and he spoke to them in perfect German. At that point our druggie exclaimed, “Did you hear that? Shivji, who speaks chaste German! Now, are you convinced that this guy is a fraud” The evidence was pointed and very revealing. Later as Shivji started to leave he walked past our table. Very obviously our friend knew him well and the Bhagwaan smiled at him. In a split second our man was prostrate on the floor, in a complete dandwat pranaam. We were doubly shocked. They exchanged pleasantries. Shivji blessed him and walked away. As he resettled I asked, “A moment ago you said he was a fraud Firangee. Then why did you seek his blessings?” His reply was a classic: “What if he is actually Shivji! Which ordinary mortal can roam around like this all year long? Why take
chances?!!” |
Document The Asia-Pacific region is at the forefront of globalisation – with some of the world’s fastest rates of growth in international trade. East Asia led the way, but now South Asia too is making its presence more strongly felt. Myriad goods, from shirts to footwear to computers, are crisscrossing the region – often in integrated international production systems – before being dispatched across the globe. Not just merchandise goods but services too: from Bangalore to Manila, hundreds of thousands of workers are assisting customers and clients in Europe or the United States or Japan as though they were sitting in an office just down the street. Trade can certainly enhance human development – but it can also hinder it. In the face of rich country subsidies and distorted prices, agriculture has stagnated and Asia-Pacific has become a major importer, affecting both food security and rural livelihoods. The region, particularly East-Asia, is experiencing jobless growth. The situation in South Asia is different, where employment has continued to rise modestly. With the phasing out of quotas in textiles and clothing, the region as a whole has gained. India and China are the major gainers while Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand and the Phillipines are among the losers. It might be thought that the best solution would be a simple division of responsibilities: let free and liberal markets take care of economic growth while requiring governments to address market failure and take responsibility for the implications of rising inequality – for social concerns and for human development priorities. However, this division ignores the fact that trade, economic growth and human development have a symbiotic relationship. Each needs the other. How should the countries of Asia and the Pacific respond in a demanding new environment for international trade? Clearly, there can be no standard blueprint, especially for such a huge and diverse region. The analysis in this Report suggests eight priorities that have a degree of general application: 1. Invest for Competitiveness Governments will need to ensure that they have the roads, railways, ports and telecommunications systems that align with national needs and also with the requirement of getting goods and services quickly and cheaply to international markets. But just as important as the physical infrastructure is human capital. Education has to start with strong and universal primary schooling, but nowadays all countries need to make sure they have sufficient people with technical and managerial skills. 2. Adopt Strategic Trade Policies In a world of giant global players and fierce competition, no developing country now has the luxury of entering global markets and hoping for the best. Instead, states have to identify a few sectors and industries that have both short- and long-term potential in international markets and guide enterprises towards them. Enterprises should be subject to a domestic competition policy designed to prevent them from abusing a monopoly position. Higher tariffs should be rigidly time-bound, in order to avoid creating cosy monopolies that never mature into vigorous export enterprises. Tariffs should automatically be scaled down after a predetermined period. 3. Restore a Focus on Agriculture A trade strategy based on human development has to have agriculture at its core. This is not because agriculture offers export opportunities, but because in many countries farming is still the primary source of income for the poor; so no trade strategy that undermines rural livelihoods can claim to be promoting human development. For food-importing countries in particular, it will often, make sense to maintain tariffs on food imports so as to protect poor producers. If this results in higher prices that cause hardship for the poorest consumers, governments will need to prepare appropriate social safety nets. This also has the strategic advantage of preserving national food security in a world that in just a few years could be moving towards higher food prices. 4. Combat Jobless Growth Most countries that embark on industrialization typically do so with labour-intensive production in industries like garments, textiles and footwear that take advantage of ample supplies of low-cost labour. But as industrialization proceeds, they tend to move higher up the value chain and also become more capital-intensive. As a result, the most successful trading countries, primarily in East Asia, are now creating jobs far more slowly – the phenomenon of ‘jobless growth’. To some extent this process is understandable. Less comprehensible, however, is why governments should exacerbate this trend by maintaining low interest rates – effectively giving capital preference over labour. This may seem like the best strategy for rapid growth but it is storing up problems for the future. By all means allow enterprises to choose the lowest-cost option for production, but this choice should not be biased away from labour: interest rates should, therefore, reflect the real price of capital, not the rate that industrialists would prefer. In a similar vein, states should phase out fiscal incentives to enterprises since these raise the return on capital and again encourage capital-intensive investments. Another reason why enterprises may be reluctant to take on new workers is that labour contracts can be too rigid. Instead, more workers should steadily be absorbed into formal employment but on contracts sufficiently flexible that they can readily be deployed to other sectors or companies as trading conditions change. 5. Prepare a New Tax Regime Governments need to have an alternative tax regime in place before embarking on liberalization. Care will need to be taken, however, to ensure that these new taxes are progressive and do not hurt the poor. Corporate taxes can be levied progressively, though many people escape the net since the lawyers of the largest corporations are skilled at techniques of tax planning, while most enterprises in the informal sector simply evade tax collectors altogether. Much the same is true for income tax, which tends to be paid more by middle-income workers in government or the formal sector. 6. Maintain Stable and Realistic Exchange Rates One thing that hampers international trade and discourages investment is a volatile exchange rate that makes it difficult for states or enterprises to plan ahead. But it is important too that the rate is realistic: too high and it will jeopardize employment prospects for the poor by penalizing exporters as well as farmers and other local producers who will face increased competition from imports; too low and it will raise the domestic price level and affect the cost of living of the poor. 7. Persist with Multilateralism In human development terms bilateral agreements typically involve much deeper tariff concessions from the developing countries. 8. Cooperate with Neighbours Another good alternative is to seek trade and other agreements with other countries in their region or subregion. Regional pacts like SAFTA have the advantage of being quicker to negotiate than multilateral agreements while posing less of a risk to human development than bilateral ones. The above is excerpted from the Asia-Pacific Human Development Report, "Trade on human terms", UNDP, 2006.
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When the Army strayed into Tibet
Tibet, the Roof-of-the World and Lhasa, the forbidden city have held special fascination for travel-adventurers and missionaries for a few hundred years past. Rugged terrain, in-hospitable, high altitude climate and primitive communications combined to deter and defeat all clandestine attempts to be simply the first foreigner in Lhasa. Till the 1960s, the shortest and comparatively the earliest land route lay from Kalimpong-Gangtok over the Nathu la-Jelap la, through the Chumbi Valley onto Gyantse and less than a week later to Lhasa, the ultimate destination. For those very reasons the Chumbi valley was kept under constant surveillance and all incursions were thwarted at Yatung-Chumbi itself. The two names of trespassers that come to mind always are of Annie Taylor and Alexandra David-Neal. The former was a Catholic missionary who wanted to live in Lhasa to proselytise Buddhist monks to Catholicism! She made at least four attempts, was intercepted at Yatung itself and escorted back to Kalimpong. Marvelling at her perseverance, the Tibetan authorities finally allowed her to set up a dispensary at Yatung where she remained till her death sometime in the 1920s. Alexandra David-Neal on the other hand wanted to reach Lhasa because she was a devout Buddhist. An elegant French lady, a talented stage actress, a post-graduate in philosophy from Sorbonne in Paris, she was simply infatuated with Buddhism. She had an audience with the ninth (?) Dalai Lama during his visit to Kalimpong. He was most impressed by the depth of her knowledge of Buddhism but refused her permission to enter Tibet. She next befriended the King of Sikkim, a product of Harrow, who advised her to take a “retreat” to further master the precepts and practices of Buddha’s teachings. Alexandra spent two solitary years in a cave in NW Sikkim doing just that. Perhaps it was during this period that she met Yongden, a Lepcha (the original Sikkimese tribe) whom she adopted as her son. She spoke Sikkimese and Tibetan dialects fluently and attained deep insight in Yoga and Tantra. Her purpose to enter the Chumbi valley was to ultimately reach the Drepong monastery to live with enlightened lamas. But the Government of India and the King of Sikkim would not relent. Undeterred, in February 1921, she travelled to Peking and made four unsuccessful attempts to reach Lhasa, first via outer Mongolia through Sechuan. She next entered the Yunan province, and crossing the Mekong River near the China-Burma-India tri-junction, she headed due west to Lhasa. This was a route no one had ever attempted before and therefore was not under surveillance. Yongden was in a Lama’s disguise and Alexandra, a Tibetan beggar’s. At last, three years later and after 8,000 miles, almost all of it on foot, the duo entered Lhasa in February 1924! Alexandra was 54 years old. She was the first woman of any foreign nationality to set eyes on the Pota la. Two months later, Alexandra felt that their disguise might be blown. So she made haste to get to Gyantse. Once there she revealed her identity to David Macdonald, the British trade agent at Gyantse. For diplomatic reasons, Macdonald had no choice but to secretively extrude the duo to India, via the fastest route through the Chumbi Valley! Forty years later in 1962, the Chumbi Valley was firmly shuttered down to the outside world by the Chinese. The PLA maintained a sizeable presence in the valley and axiomatically the Indian Army in Sikkim. Both sides believed that not a bird could fly across the ridge separating them without their knowledge. That complacency was shattered one misty day in 1981. Twenty soldiers of the Indian Army led by a smart Captain set out on a routine four-day patrol. For the first day they were to go due North, keeping a thousand metres from the International Border along the Chumbi-Sikkim crest. It was a misty day which soon turned into fog so dense that you could not spot the man five metres ahead. By the afternoon they would reach a rock cliff-face at about 15,000 feet above sea level from where they to go due West for an hour, before bedding for the night. That is precisely what the young Captain did using his prismatic compass. Only the compass was faulty by 180 degrees! There was no fog the next morning and they soon hit the track which by about 3 pm would take them to a tributary of the Teesta river. Once there, they would turn left and in an hour hit the bridge on the Teesta river itself. All this while they were walking right into the sun, but never mind, the compass pointed West. As they hit a tributary and turned left, soon they heard cheering and laughter. Surely, that was the Border Roads detachment at the Teesta bridge making merry? Yes, they were having a volley ball match and the patrol marched past them smartly, heading for the bridge. As the last Indian soldier marched past, the referee gathered his wits. He blew the whistle and gesticulating excitedly, brought to end all activity. The Volley ball ground was in fact the PLA helipad at Yatung in the Chumbi Valley. The Indian troops were marching nonchalantly on the road to
Lhasa! |
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G-8: Expect only a ‘common minimum’
The big question: what does the chairmanship of Russia say about the future of the G8? Why are Russia and the G8 under scrutiny? The meeting of the G8 - US, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia - takes place in Russia's second city, St Petersburg, this weekend. Russia's preliminary agenda had featured education and world health. But G8 summits have a history of being overtaken by events - last year's, at Gleneagles, coincided with the London bombings - and the St Petersburg summit takes place at an especially tricky juncture in international politics. With world oil prices at record levels, Russia's energy stocks have made it an attractive partner for most of the other G8 countries which are net importers. The quest for reliable energy supplies - or "energy security" - will be a central theme at St Petersburg. But so will the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea - where Russia is playing a key diplomatic role - the upsurge in violence in the Middle East, and terrorism, as just experienced in Mumbai. What is the point of the G8? A good question, and one that is asked every year. The original purpose was to give the leaders of the richest countries an opportunity to discuss global issues in an informal atmosphere. In 1975, when the first summit was held in the shadow of the oil crisis, this was a novel idea. As time has gone on, however, the occasions on which the same leaders meet has multiplied, so the G8 summit has ceased to be so special. And although security has dictated ever more secluded venues, the media circus around the meetings has only grown. In one sense, with the focus returning to energy and economics, the G8 has come full circle. In another, though, the rise of China and India has made the concept look rather tired. President Putin has invited the Chinese and Indian leaders to join some of the discussions this year, and there are suggestions that the group could soon be expanded and revamped. Why is Russia in the G8 at all? The first time Russia attended what was then the G7 was in 1991, when the summit was held in London. Mikhail Gorbachev was given observer status in his capacity as Soviet president and the man Margaret Thatcher had said she could "do business with". With Russia internationally recognised as its successor state, a fudge allowed it to become a member of the non-economic part of the summit in 1994. In 1998, Russia was admitted as a full member, and the G7 officially became the G8. The other members saw membership as a way of anchoring Russia in the Western world and encouraging it to further reform. Russia's GDP, both net and per capita, however, still lag far behind those of the other G8 countries. If the admissions criteria had been purely economic, Russia would never have qualified. Why did Russia want the chair so badly? Above all, for status. Vladimir Putin has made the restoration of Russia's national dignity a priority of his presidency. He wants Russians to feel good about their country after what many saw as the humiliation of the Soviet Union's collapse. He would have seen it as an insult to him personally, and to Russia, if the other seven had decided that Russia was unworthy to hold the chairmanship when its turn came round. What, if anything, will come out of St Petersburg? The usual outcome of a G8 summit is a collection of carefully worded communiques representing the lowest common denominator position on the subjects discussed. We can expect statements on energy security, development, and perhaps also on nuclear proliferation and the Middle East. More interesting, if less predictable, will be the talks before the summit and in the margins. Yesterday, Russia announced that it had met the conditions for joining the World Trade Organisation. A multilateral agreement of some sort on what to do about Iran and its nuclear programme cannot be ruled out either. By arrangement with
The Independent |
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From the pages of Prime Minister Shastri Dead
We deeply regret to announce the death of the Prime Minister, Mr Shastri, in Tashkent early this morning. He died of a heart attack. The death was officially confirmed at 2.30 a.m. (I.S.T.). Sardar Swaran Singh said that Mr Shastri complained of heart trouble and within minutes an Indian doctor was with him. Mr Kosygin arrived within minutes after the heart attack. Soviet doctors also arrived immediately and tried to revive his heart, but it was of no avail. The last words uttered by Mr Shastri were addressed to President Ayub Khan after the banquet. He told Mr Ayub Khan: “This is a good agreement we have arrived at.” Mr Ayub Khan replied that God would make everything all right. |
It is only through the grace of the Master — Guru Nanak An angry man cannot think coherently. Incoherent thoughts lead to wrong decisions. Wrong decisions lead a man
astray. — The Bhagavadgita Friend, the more I live the more I
learn. — Ramakrishna |
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