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Badal’s U-turn Pulling down the barriers |
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Doing a Packer New move can throw up new talent Several recent developments clearly point to where Indian cricket should be heading — towards fresh talent, and the creation of a larger pool from which match-winning teams can be drawn up. The Zee group’s announcement of an Indian Cricket League is a welcome move, and it is to be hoped that the group, which is still in the play for the BCCI’s telecast rights, is serious about such a league and will have more staying power than our top cricketers have managed at the crease.
Turmoil in Persian Gulf
From Zaidi, with love
Cornered Iran on
the offensive TV actor emerges new Republican contender Dynamics of a Nobel
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Badal’s U-turn Punjab
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s proposal to appoint 14 more Chief Parliamentary Secretaries (CPS) — in addition to three CPS already appointed last month — is unwarranted. The move is definitively aimed at circumventing the letter and spirit of the Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act, 2003. The Act has circumscribed the Chief Ministers’ right to go in for jumbo-sized ministries. Consequently, Mr Badal is trying to accommodate as CPS those ruling coalition candidates who were either defeated in the Assembly elections or could not be included in the Council of Ministers because of the constitutional cap on the ministry’s size. His proposal to revive the Legislative Council is also aimed at fulfilling this objective. In fact, if the Council is revived, he can give a few more ministerial berths to his favourites. Unfortunately, the Chief Minister, like his predecessor Capt Amarinder Singh, does not seem to bother about the financial implications of the proposal. He must be knowing that the government will be forced to spend on the salaries, perks and allowances of so many parliamentary secretaries. The state can hardly afford the expenses on such a large contingent of supplicants he wants to induct in his team. When Mr Badal was in the Opposition, he vehemently fought the appointment of parliamentary secretaries. However, after winning the elections, he has taken a U-turn. Mr Badal has even defended his right to formulate policies diametrically opposite to each other on the issue - one in the Opposition and another in the ruling party! In this game of distribution of political patronage, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh is also not far beyond. Even though the Himachal Pradesh High Court set aside appointments of 12 CPS and PS, he got the State Assembly pass a Bill approving of such posts. In response to the state government’s petition challenging the High Court’s order, the Supreme Court has directed the Centre to “take a clear stand” on the issue in various states, especially Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Gujarat. The Centre needs to respond to the apex court’s directive promptly. All the states, including Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, would do well to wait for the Supreme Court’s ruling.
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Pulling down the barriers India’s
unilateral decision to allow to its vast market duty-free access to goods from SAARC’s less developed member-countries (LDCs) can lead to a new business climate in the region. The beneficiaries will be five SAARC countries — Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, the Maldives and Bhutan — the entire grouping except Pakistan and Sri Lanka, which do not fall in the LDC category. The gesture reflects India’s confidence as the emerging economic power in Asia as also its desire to promote an atmosphere so that the people of the region develop a stake in shared growth. India has demonstrated its readiness to help its less developed neighbours in realising their full growth potential. They now don’t have to worry about a market for their finished and unfinished products. If the beneficiary-nations take full advantage of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s “zero-duty access” policy vis-à-vis some of the countries in India’s neighbourhood, the trade volume within SAARC can go up considerably. What could have been achieved by implementing the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) agreement may be possible through India’s latest policy initiative. Now there is an opportunity for SAARC members to do their utmost to push up intra-SAARC trade, which stands at 5 per cent of the member-countries’ total trade. This is peanuts, if we have a look at the trade within the European Union (55 per cent) and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (25 per cent). Announcing liberalisation of visas for students, teachers, journalists and patients, India has forcefully conveyed the message that the time has come for the SAARC nations to allow the movement of people as freely as possible. India’s proposal to enhance regional connectivity deserves serious consideration with a view to promoting intra-SAARC trade and tourism. The first step in this direction can be the linking of all regional capitals with direct flights, as Dr Manmohan Singh said at the SAARC summit’s opening session on Tuesday. There is also a need for a liberalised visa regime for businessmen. All that is required for banishing poverty from the region must be done without any lingering reservation. SAARC should not be allowed to remain hostage to the negative thinking of any member-country if the grouping has to play the key role in the evolution of the coming Asian century.
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Doing a Packer Several recent developments clearly point to where Indian cricket should be heading — towards fresh talent, and the creation of a larger pool from which match-winning teams can be drawn up. The Zee group’s announcement of an Indian Cricket League is a welcome move, and it is to be hoped that the group, which is still in the play for the BCCI’s telecast rights, is serious about such a league and will have more staying power than our top cricketers have managed at the crease. It will be a shot in the arm for Indian cricket if the BCCI’s monopoly on the game is loosened a bit and talented cricketers have an alternative avenue to display their abilities. Whatever noises the BCCI may eventually make against the emergence of unseemly rivalries, we might indeed end up producing 11 brilliant players who can actually win games. There are indeed several parallels to the Kerry Packer revolution. Packer bought top players with big money and staged his own matches on his own Channel Nine. The coloured clothing, the day-night fixtures, and the white ball are now an entrenched part of the game. And players are paid much better today. If Zee’s Subhash Chandra wants to do a Packer, he will have to pull out all stops. He has already said that he does not intend to rival the BCCI, but “complement it,” and has even sought the BCCI’s “permission” for the league, and access to stadiums. Already, there are signs of BCCI resistance. But there is no doubt that tired fans want genuine change, and there is space out there for a rival league. As for the unholy row that has erupted between Coach Greg Chappell and a bunch of entrenched seniors, the ideal direction from here is fairly clear. A purge has become inevitable, and Indian cricket can only benefit from the jettisoning of Sachin, Sourav, Sehwag, and a couple of others. Why blame the coach? It is the seniors who lost the matches in the field. Chappell’s position had become untenable after the players’ outburst against him, and it is no surprise that he has now quit. It is time for the BCCI to be decisive with the seniors. |
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Nothing is illegal if one hundred well-placed businessmen decide to do it.
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Turmoil in Persian Gulf
Iran's
former President Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami was in Delhi last week. Those whom he met were fascinated by his candour on issues like Islamic jurisprudence, where he acknowledged that Islamic laws had to be amended to meet the imperatives of modernity, his commitment to the rights of women and belief that the future of mankind lay not in a "clash of civilizations", but in a "dialogue amongst civilizations". Mr Khatami spoke with the pride of Iran's historic contributions to human civilization and progress, in its pre-Islamic days. But, when the discussions turned to Iran's nuclear programme, the normally soft-spoken Khatami asserted that surrendering Iran's rights and forsaking Iranian national pride was unthinkable for any self-respecting Iranian. Iran has many reasons to be satisfied with actions of President Bush, which have led to its emergence as the dominant power in the Persian Gulf. The ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan (who persecuted the country's Shias) and the invasion of Iraq, which led to the end of the secular but Sunni-dominated Baathist regime there, have resulted in a situation where Iranian concerns about border security have been largely assuaged. Iran's Arab neighbours led by Saudi Arabia are now left with the difficult choice of either recognising Tehran's strategic importance, or facing the prospect of restive Shia populations and growing Iranian popularity among the Arab masses. It is in this context that one has to see recent Saudi initiatives like the kingdom's effort to broker a peace between the Fatah and Hamas in Palestinian territories and King Abdullah's unprecedented comments at the Arab League Summit in Riyadh, where he described Iraq as being "under the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation". The seizure of 15 British military personnel patrolling the contentious Shatt-al-Arab waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf was another example of Iranian muscle flexing. Many would, however, argue that the seizure was a response to American and British attempts to destabilise the clerical regime in Iran. These developments have arisen just after the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1747 banning Iranian arms exports (that are insignificant in any case), freezing the overseas assets of 28 additional officials and institutions linked to Iran's nuclear and ballistic programmes and restricting financial aid and loans to Iran. The resolution gives Iran 60 days to comply with UN demands to suspend uranium enrichment, or face further "appropriate measures". China's Permanent Representative to the UN Guang Ya said that China supported the resolution because it was concerned about nuclear proliferation. (This was clearly a case of Satan rebuking Sin, given China's transfers of nuclear weapons technology and designs to Pakistan, its characterisation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as an instrument of "hegemony" for over two decades and its readiness to cooperate with Iran on nuclear enrichment till 1995, when American pressure forced it to back off). The passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1747 demonstrates the growing assertiveness of Russia and China to protect their respective national interests. China imports 13 per cent of its oil requirements from Iran. In November 2004, China was given a 50 per cent stake in Iran's Yadavaran Oilfields and has concluded a
"Memorandum of Understanding" to buy 250 million tones of LNG estimated at $ 100 billion from Iran, over 30 years. China would thus not countenance any sanctions that undermine its energy interests. The Russians have emerged as major weapons suppliers to Iran and Russian firms have a keen interest in the development of Iran's gas and oil resources. Thus, while Russia and China may pay lip service to nuclear proliferation, they will not back sanctions that hurt their interests. What remains to be seen is how Iran stands up to American pressures on international banking and financial institutions to desist from lending to Iran. There are indications that these measures are increasingly pinching Iran. There is no provision in the NPT that debars Iran from enriching uranium under IAEA safeguards. Under its earlier safeguards agreement with the IAEA, Iran was under no obligation to report the existence of its uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, while it was still under construction. On October 21, 2003, pursuant to negotiations with the European Union (EU), Iran agreed to suspend its nuclear enrichment and permit the IAEA more intrusive inspections under an Additional Protocol. In return, the EU explicitly recognised Iran’s right to undertake its nuclear programme under the NPT. The EU shifted the goalpost in August 2005 and demanded that Iran should end its enrichment programme. Iran retaliated by resuming enrichment. Subsequent discussions in the IAEA and the Security Council have led to a standoff, with Iran refusing to suspend its nuclear enrichment (still under IAEA inspections) as a precondition for a comprehensive dialogue with the US and the EU. Iran appears determined not to buckle under US pressures to end its uranium enrichment programme. Development of nuclear weapons by Iran will, however, evoke concern in its Arab neighbours and have a profoundly destabilising impact in the Persian Gulf, from where we get 70 per cent of our imported oil and where 3.8 million Indians who remit back over $ 15 billion annually reside. Any US military action against Iran will have disastrous consequences, which would make the US misadventure in Iraq seem like a picnic. Any diplomatic solution will, therefore, have to involve recognition of Iran's right to have uranium enrichment facilities, with an international equity stake in these facilities and strict controls on the levels and quantum of enrichment, under IAEA safeguards. Iran, in turn, will have to stop acting as a spoiler in the West Asia peace process by cooperating with the approach of its Arab neighbours and eschewing support for extremist groups. India should not be deterred by external pressures on its energy and other cooperation with Iran. In January 2005, Iran agreed to supply LNG for a 25-year period and gave India a stake in the development of its Yadavaran and Jufeir oilfields. India should make it clear that it would not be possible to enter into new agreements with Iran in the energy sector unless Iran honours these agreements. With Pakistani pipelines being blown up virtually daily in Balochistan, building an Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline is a recipe to promote energy insecurity. India should agree to the pipeline only after General Musharraf addresses Baloch aspirations and peace is restored in Balochistan. Finally, having rejected the NPT, we would be well advised to stop preaching its virtues to Iran. We would be better advised to work with the Arab Gulf countries to enable them to cooperate with Iran on their proposals to make the Persian Gulf a nuclear-weapons-free
zone.
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From Zaidi, with love
We went to Lahore recently for an ILO sponsored five-nation meet on child labour. My wife came along. She is Lahore born, 7 Club Road to be precise, which turned out to be a rather prestigious address, being the official residence of the Punjab Chief Minister. Suddenly, I had an idea. Why not drop in at 7, Club Road, to see what it was like? Without a warning to anybody, we took off in the car provided to me by the State Government, our police escort dutifully behind. When we drew up at the bungalow around 11.00 p.m. its gates were closed. The police van sounded its hooter, and the guards opened up. We parked inside, stood on the lawns, silently took in the scene before us, and left. On day 2, my wife and I went over to Zaidi’s, a famous photographer located at 23, Mall Road. My parents’ post-wedding photograph was taken by the late Syed Mohd. Ali there. The establishment, which first set up shop in Allahabad way back in 1904, is now owned by his son, Shahid Zaidi. We were met by his shagird, one Mr Yunus, who surprised us by rolling out the old records and, voila, there was my dad’s name in one of his registers which showed that the photograph adorning our drawing room in New Delhi was clicked by Zaidi’s in Mall Road, Lahore, on March 12, 1945, a month and a half after their wedding in Hardwar. Here I was examining it under a lamp, on November 21, 2006. On an impulse, I asked Mr Yunus whether he could take a snap of ours. When he heard of the connection with my parents’ photograph, he suggested we could go to the Gulberg Shop “where Shahid Saheb sits”, but we said, no, it had to be the same place on Mall Road! So he took us inside, and with great professional ease, snapped us in about a dozen postures. On Thursday, my wife went and selected the print of our photograph at Zaidi’s, with the promise to pick it up on Friday at 5 pm on our way to the airport to catch the return flight to Delhi. At 5 we were back to Zaidi’s. Yunus Saheb gave us our framed photograph, and when we asked how much, he said it was complimentary, ‘‘on instructions of Shahid Sahib”. I then requested him to connect me to his owner in Gulberg, and when he came on the line, I thanked him for his gesture, and told him I was leaving a token of my feelings for him - an Indian silk tie and a packet of Darjeeling tea. I also told him that, maybe, a day would come when my daughter would land up at his establishment on the Mall with her husband, for yet another takeaway to complete the picture, if that is the expression. Thank you, Shahid Saheb, for rekindling my past, and for holding an opportunity for my daughter in the
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Cornered Iran on the offensive TEHRAN, Iran – It seemed like a good idea at the time: increase the military, diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran in order to get the country to bow to the international community on its nuclear enrichment program and curtail its alleged trouble-making in Iraq. But now, with 15 British sailors held captive and Tehran threatening to withhold its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, that strategy has apparently backfired. Months of hard-nosed US political and military pressure on Iran may have further radicalised and emboldened an already paranoid regime, undermining Washington’s stated aim of neutralising the Iranian threat without resort to war, analysts say. Elements of Iran’s government, painted as a rogue regime for its refusal to halt its uranium enrichment program, responded forcefully to the US-led challenge, those analysts say. Not only have they sparked an international crisis by capturing the 15 Britons in disputed Persian Gulf waters, and airing alleged confessions on television, they’ve ramped up security operations in the gulf with a massive war games and missile launches. The regime has blamed a fear of US airstrikes for its decision to stop disclosing non-required information about its nuclear program, according to a series of memos described by The Associated Press. “Iranians are on the offensive because they’re in a defensive posture,” said Patrick Cronin, a former State Department and Pentagon official now the director of research at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. Cronin, US Navy intelligence officer in the Persian Gulf during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, called the capture a “horizontal escalation” meant both to shift the domestic discussion and to gain leverage against the West. “They have to go on the offensive to change the narrative,” he said. “There’s a domestic audience and a fight over who is the rightful voice of Iran. If they don’t have outside threats, they’re going to lose power. If we slap on sanctions, they can blame the West.” Overstretched militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan and facing no easy options on confronting Iran’s rising regional ambitions, the Bush administration appeared to settle months ago on a hard-nosed strategy earlier this year, according to US officials and analysts. Ranking US officials for months insisted that “no option was off the table” as far as possible military action against Iran. The Pentagon flooded the gulf with US military hardware and leaked word of a policy to “kill or capture” suspected Iranian agents stirring up trouble in Iraq. As a result, many Iranian officials are convinced that the US remains committed to regime change and plans to bomb Iran. “You can’t divorce (the detention of the sailors) from all the saber-rattling against Iran,” said Kaveh Afrasiabi, a former political science professor at Tehran University, now based in Cambridge, Mass. “There’s a concern of a US-British concert to control the Persian Gulf waterways.” But instead of cowing before the west’s superior military power, Iran sought ways to step up its own pressure. “Because the US military configurations in the Persian Gulf are very similar to those before the Iraq invasion, and because the neoconservatives in the American administration are prone to this sort of stupidity and craziness, we have been fully prepared in terms of hardware and military arsenals but also software and information for electronic warfare,” said Hamid-Reza Teraghi, head of the international affairs office of the Islamic Coalition Party, a conservative parliamentary group close to the Iranian leadership. The clang and clatter of military hardware and rhetoric from all sides has trickled into Iran’s daily discourse. Ordinary residents say they fear an imminent US attack, but are powerless to prevent it. “Will the Americans attack?” is the question on the lips of every Iranian who meets a foreign reporter. Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker articles detailing US plans to attack Iran, and a Russian newspaper report specifying April 6 as the day for US airstrikes have made the rounds of blogs and Farsi-language satellite channels. Ahmad Bakshayesh, a professor of political science at Tehran’s Allameh Tabatabai University, suggested Iranians thought the sailors were assigned to test Iranian military readiness. “One scenario is that their intrusion was a prelude for a large-scale assault,” he said. This week, Maj. Gen Hassan Firoozabadi, Iranian armed forces chief of staff, predicted that US and Israel would launch a massive attack on the region sometime this summer. Instead of opening its nuclear technology facilities to inspectors, Teraghi said, the government is more cautious than ever about revealing details of its nuclear program to inspectors so that the information “cannot be used against us in any likely war waged” by the West. Iran says its program is intended for peaceful purposes. Western nations allege it is the prelude to a nuclear-weapons program. The UN Security Council has imposed sanctions on Iran over its disclosure shortcomings. British prisoners as propaganda tools have shocked those who advocated cautious diplomacy for addressing the dilemmas Iran poses. By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post
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TV actor emerges new Republican contender A generation after one actor-politician transformed their party’s fortunes, could today’s battered and demoralised Republicans look to another one to carry their banner in next year’s Presidential election? A few months ago, even a few weeks ago, the question would have been fanciful. But no longer, after Fred Thompson – one time performer in The Hunt for Red October, former US Senator for Tennessee and now to be seen in TV’s Law and Order series – let slip recently he might enter an already crowded field of White House contenders. The buzz began last month when the 64-year-old Thompson remarked during an appearance on Fox News that he was “giving some thought” to running – even though he has not even the framework of a formal organisation in place, and has done no campaigning. But those words alone were enough to stir the Republican presidential pot. A poll of likely party voters a few days later put him in third place with 12 per cent. Another poll showed him beating Hillary Clinton, the current Democratic frontrunner, by 44-43 per cent in a general election match-up. The result amounts to a statistical dead heat, but is nonetheless a remarkable feat for a man long out of the political limelight. The reason however is evident. Thompson not only possesses that elusive political star quality. He also is tailor made to fill the opening for a viable, high profile standard bearer of Republican conservatives - the party’s ideological driving force since that earlier actor-politician Ronald Reagan won the White House in 1980. As yet, none of the three leading declared contenders - former New York mayor Rudi Giuliani, Arizona Senator John McCain, or Mitt Romney, businessman and former Massachusetts governor – greatly appeals to conservatives. Giuliani is a social moderate, whose views are anathema to the Christian right, while Messrs Romney and McCain, who have lately shifted to more conservative positions, are suspect for that very reason. Thompson however has no such problems. He is a genuine southerner, who was born in Alabama and cut his political teeth in Tennessee. During his Senate years, between 1994 and 2003, he compiled a solid conservative voting record. Best of all, perhaps, he is the closest available approximation to Reagan, the greatest modern hero of the Republican party faithful; one of the several unofficial websites promoting a Thompson candidacy is even called ‘anotherronaldreagan.com,’ and ails the former Senator as ‘a real conservative.’ The similarities even extend to a certain indolence. If there is a complaint against Thompson, it is the one that used to be aimed at President Reagan, that he is lazy and unwilling to put in the long hours required of a candidate in an era of 24/7 campaigning. On the other hand, if the former Senator falls short in the department of hard toil, he makes up for it in terms of image. His screen portrayals of military commanders, top government officials and gruff lawyers, combined with a folksy southern style, have blended life and art into a familiar and distinctive political persona. Thompson started out as a lawyer and prosecutor before moving to Washington where he served as a Republican counsel during the Watergate hearings. In that capacity, he achieved immortality as the man who asked White House aide Alexander Butterfield the key question about the secret Oval Office taping system, whose existence led to President Nixon’s downfall. Even after leaving elective politics in 2003, he remained a sought after figure, with a prominent speaking slot at the 2004 Republican Convention, even as he was appearing on TV as the New York prosecutor Arthur Branch in Law and Order. The following year, he helped shepherd John Roberts through his Senate confirmation as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. But will Thompson now make good on the hint he dropped last month? He is said to be personally keen on a run. In a fortnight, he is due to get together with some 30 to 40 Republican Congressmen. The result of that meeting will give the firmest clue yet of his intentions. By arrangement with The Independent
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Dynamics of a Nobel IN the normal course, we English literature students would not have gone for a lecture organised by the Science Forum of our alma mater – St. Thomas College, Kozhencherry. What appealed to us was the subject of the lecture – “Thermodynamics of the Idli”. For most Malayalees, idli is a favourite breakfast dish. Another reason was that the speaker was touted as one of the greatest physicists of the world, whose work would fetch him a Nobel. Small wonder that the Principal, who was a zoologist, introduced him as the next “C.V. Raman”, someone in the mould of Albert Einstein. He was Prof E.C.G. Sudarshan, who now teaches at the University of Texas, Austin, in the US. It was with great expectation that we sat down to listen to his lecture. Very soon, we realised it was more about thermodynamics and less about idlis. For most of us, it did not make sense, though the students of physics would have found it very enlightening. After the lecture, we returned to our class where our most popular teacher, the late George M. Philip, was there to teach us Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw. GMP, as he was affectionately called, was unconventional in the sense he considered students as his friends. He would rather blush than get angry when we pulled his leg about his soft corner for a particular student, whom he soon married after an intense courtship. GMP was at his mocking best when he asked whether any of us understood Prof Sudarshan’s lecture. That prompted one of us to retort, “Sir, if you understood it, please explain it to us”. He fell for the bait and began explaining, “When the water in the idli vessel boils, steam passes through the container in which the batter is kept. Then thermodynamics occur…” He fumbled for words. And we knew that he understood as much as we understood about the thermodynamics of idlis. A little annoyed, GMP suddenly began teaching Bernard Shaw. Later, after the class, we complimented him for his excellent “explanation”. Every year the Nobel Prizes were announced, I would look for his name. As he says, “my work got a Nobel, not me”. In 2005, when Roy J. Glauber of the US shared the Physics Nobel for his theoretical description of the behaviour of light particles, some Indian scientists petitioned to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences that Prof Sudarshan had worked more independently on the subject and had produced more lucid results. It was not the first time he had this experience. In a recent interview to the Hindustan Times, he referred to being denied the Nobel in 1979 as well, “Steven Weinberg, Sheldon Glashow and Abdus Salam built on work I had done as a 26-year-old student. If you give a prize for a building, should not the fellow who built the first floor be given the prize before those who built the second floor?” The Swedish Academy may have overlooked him but India has not, as Prof E.C.G. Sudarshan was the proud recipient of the Padma Bhushan this year. |
Running away for fear for death, leaving one's dear ones, temples or music to take care of themselves, is irreligion; it is cowardice. Purify the spectacles of your mind and you will see that the world is God.
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