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Speaker rushes to help Killings at Shalimar Badal on a binge |
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Gender, or seniority
Wonderful ploy
India must match China
in manufacturing Gorbachev supports “authoritarian” Putin Delhi Durbar
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Speaker rushes to help The
Congress government in Goa may have survived the floor test in the State Assembly on Monday, but with questionable help given by Speaker Pratapsinh Rane in conducting the floor test. Even before the proceedings of the Assembly began, Mr Rane chose to come out with an interim order, restraining the Congress member, Ms Victoria Fernandes, and two members of the Maharashtra Gomantak Party (MGP) from participating in the vote of confidence, maintaining that petitions for disqualification had been filed against them. By restraining the three MLAs from casting their vote, the Speaker reduced the Assembly’s strength from 40 to 37 to tilt the balance in favour of the Congress. To ensure that the Congress government does not go out of power, the Speaker himself decided to cast his vote in favour of the ruling party. The Digambar Kamat government had been reduced to a minority after Ms Fernandes (who quit the Congress a few days ago), an Independent and two MGP members had withdrawn their support to it. They later pledged their support to the BJP-led coalition headed by former Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. In a show of strength, the BJP paraded all 20 members before President Pratibha Patil at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Saturday. However, the delegation was rightly told to face the floor test in the Assembly. What causes surprise is the Speaker’s unprecedented action in restraining the three members opposed to the government from participating in the confidence vote. The Opposition has strongly objected to the Speaker’s interim order on the disqualification petitions, claiming that Governor S.C. Jamir had directed that the floor test be conducted first before taking up the House business. The Speaker’s actions like restraining members from casting their vote (or even his power of disqualification) can be challenged in the High Court or the Supreme Court. But the process is time-consuming, and that, too, after he has already done the damage. Apparently, the Speaker thought of coming to the rescue of the Congress government in distress. In the context of increasing instances of Speakers playing a partisan role to bail out the government of the day, there is need for a review of their powers under the Tenth Schedule. The Speaker’s office is coming increasingly under disrepute in many states. |
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Killings at Shalimar Defence
Minister A. K. Antony declared in Srinagar on Saturday that the situation in Jammu and Kashmir was fast improving. The next day terrorists proved him wrong by triggering a bomb blast in a tourist bus near Shalimar Gardens on the banks of Dal Lake, killing six people and injuring many. It is surprising how the minister made this sweeping statement when already an exodus of non-Kashmiri workers from the valley is on following a threat issued by the Hizbul Mujahideen. The apparent provocation for the terrorist outfit’s ire against the migrant workers is the rape and murder of a class VIII student. Terrorists suspect the non-Kashmiris of being police informers. Whatever the belief of the militants, this is a new challenge to the authority of the state. The government must prevent the flight of these workers, skilled or otherwise. Their departure from the state is bound to affect the J and K economy adversely. These two lakh-plus non-Kashmiri workmen have never faced this kind of a situation earlier. The government must assure them of protection to their life and property. Under no circumstances should the writ of terrorist outfits be allowed to run in the state. The terrorist menace in Jammu and Kashmir remains as real as it has ever been. This shows that the demand for troop withdrawal or reduction has no meaning at this stage. Over two weeks earlier terrorists made an unsuccessful attempt on the life of National Conference leader Omar Abdullah. Adequate presence of the troops in J and K works as a check against terrorism. Any laxity in providing security will send a wrong signal to such elements. The security forces must maintain as strict vigil as possible so that militants are unable to regroup and strengthen themselves again. |
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Badal on a binge Punjab
has many firsts to its credit. But Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is not one to rest on his laurels. A firm believer in the axiom that charity begins at home, Mr Badal is determined to race ahead with his achievements. And, how can he race ahead unless he and his family, including the extended family, are provided with unlimited free fuel for the battalion of vehicles in the clan. It is said that nowadays a suit length cannot be given as a gift unless it is accompanied by the tailoring charges. Similarly, two months ago when the Punjab Government decided to splurge Rs 5 crore for adding 25 vehicles —including high-end luxury SUVs — to Mr Badal’s fleet, it was only to be expected that the Chief Minister and his family would be spared the cost of running these. What use a free car unless it comes with free fuel? And, then it would be utterly selfish to restrict this privilege to himself and his wife. Thus, with characteristic generosity, the perquisite will be enjoyed by one and all in the family. The benefit of unlimited quantities of free fuel will extended to not only his wife but also brother, son, daughter-in-law, the daughter-in-law’s brother, nephew and son-in-law. It is risky to hazard a guess about the number of vehicles that are covered. However, reports — before the announcement of free fuel — estimated that the Chief Minister and his family had about 40 vehicles, which were to be increased to 65. The number does not include the 60-odd vehicles provided by the Punjab police for security reasons. Only the mean and miserly would carp about free fuel for the vehicles of Punjab’s first family. Anyone with an iota of economic sense would concede that given the size of the fleet, without free fuel it would be impossible to run these cars; and run they have to be after being purchased at such great cost to the public exchequer. One hopes this is the first step of a progressive people’s government to explore the feasibility of providing free fuel to not just ministers, MPs, MLAs and officials but to all the people in the state. It is but a small step from free power to free fuel. Free country, no? |
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Discretion is not the better part of biography.
— Lytton Strachey |
Gender, or seniority India is a land of many inequalities, none greater than the plight of women in society. They range from female infanticide and malnourishment of the girl child to such evils as bride burning and the lowly status accorded to women in the home and in society. Some of these evils flow from the traditional conservative mores of a patriarchal society and others from greed and the vested interests that defend their turf. It is a reflection of societal mores that those representing the country in Parliament cannot give their consent to legislation reserving a percentage of seats for women, choosing various stratagems to push the problem in somebody else's court. Deep down, cutting across most party lines, there is aversion to giving women equal status. True, some government measures have struck a blow for women, as in reserving places for women in panchayats, and despite the obvious ploys employed by men to treat women sarpanches as proxies, they are gradually making their presence felt. Symbolically, the election of a woman President for the first time in 60 years represents a victory for women although it has been robbed of glory. Mrs Pratibha Patil was a last-minute compromise choice and attracted so many charges about her past conduct as to cause embarrassment to her benefactors in the Congress. In any event, no one can claim that the cause of women's rights has been sufficiently or fully addressed. That there is a glass ceiling for women professionals in various sectors is true, again a product of deeply ingrained prejudices of traditional societies. But there are growing numbers of competent, brave and remarkable women who have made a place for themselves at the top. It is, indeed, true that it takes extra effort for women to reach the top although neither India nor its neighbours have been found wanting in catapulting women leaders to the top of the political ladder. Perhaps the most powerful politician in India today is a woman — Mrs Sonia Gandhi. It is, of course, arguable that invariably women politicians reaching the top in the subcontinent have used family dynasties or husbands or fathers as essential props in their political advancement. But at least some of them — Indira Gandhi, to take an example — have made good by virtue of their abilities and political acumen. Ironically, women political leaders have accomplished little for their gender while in office to ensure that they are not dubbed as partisan. But it is particularly unfortunate that in two recent instances, women professionals have taken upon themselves to compromise women's cause by fighting battles on a wrong premise. Both Mrs Kiran Bedi and Mrs Veena Sikri have publicly taken up their cases, blaming their failure to secure advancement to discrimination because of their gender. Mrs Bedi was passed over for the Delhi Police Commissioner's post and Mrs Sikri for the post of Foreign Secretary. Essentially, their argument is that their seniority in service entitled them to the jobs they were denied. One can understand the disappointment of these two professionals for their failure to reach the top in their professions, but their argument is all the more extraordinary because they should know that the higher you go up the professional ladder, decisions on who should reach the top are determined by several factors in which seniority is only one — and often not the vital — consideration. We would be living in a very different and more inefficient world if a country's civil services were to be manned by men and women simply because they had put in the longest years of service. Indeed, much of the blame for the inefficiencies of the Indian bureaucracy can often be laid at the door of seniority alone being the criterion for advancement. This has resulted in the anachronism of having the senior-most officer in a ministry serving for a ridiculously short time before he retires. How can such a person put in his best or promote the interests of his ministry? In a modest attempt at administrative reforms, a minimum tenure of office has been fixed for secretaries in key ministries, but India has still a long way to go to achieve efficiency in the government bureaucracy. In the British system — one we have borrowed from so generously — a person destined for the top job in the civil service in the Foreign Office, for instance, is picked in mid-career and inducted into the under-secretary's post early enough to give him time to shape and guide his charge. In no efficient organisation in the world is seniority alone the criterion for advancement. The absurdity of Mrs Bedi or Mrs Sikri making their pitches — the latter through the Right to Information system — is the greater because, however high an opinion they have of their achievements, their length of service should have made them aware of the laws of efficient administration. But the greatest harm they have done to the cause of women's rights is to confuse their own disappointments with demanding a rightful place for womenfolk. Independent India has often done the right thing for women on paper; we must remember that women's eligibility to vote in elections in the advanced West is of rather recent vintage. The problem for India, as for many other countries, is to implement measures to give women their due. We have an anti-dowry law that continues to be breached almost every day. Anti-child marriage laws are routinely flouted and the ability of women to file a first information report at a police station is restricted more often than not. Ultimately, the answer is to change the mindset of men steeped in the virtues of a patriarchal society, aided and abetted by the stereotypical soap operas of today's television serials and the selective depiction of feminine virtue from ancient tales to further the political objectives of right-wing Hindu parties. The last thing women need is to be subjected to high-placed women professionals blaming their own disappointments in advancement on their gender.
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Wonderful ploy
The
final score, 6-1, made it look like a tennis match. Actually, it was the Seven Wonders World War between the West and the Rest. The latter won quite convincingly, with six of its architectural marvels finding a place in the elite group — the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Ruins of Petra (Jordan), the Statue of Christ the Redeemer (Brazil), Machu Picchu (Peru) and Chichen Itza (Mexico). Had the Roman civilisation not built the Colosseum for all those barbaric games, the West would’ve been whitewashed, or rather, “brownwashed”. One wonders — pun not intended — why no man-made creation from the major white nations, especially the English-speaking ones, figured in the top seven. In the mother of all SMS polls, why didn’t the Americans vote their hearts out for the Statue of Liberty? Why didn’t the Britons root fervently enough for the Stonehenge? Why did the Aussies not show their famed aggressiveness while campaigning for the Sydney Opera House? Multiple questions, single answer — the inside story is that people of these countries didn’t want their beloved national treasures to figure among the Seven Wonders. Believe it or not, this was the least they could do to prevent a repeat of the World Trade Center catastrophe. According to highly replaced sources, die-hard patriots from the US & Co deliberately didn’t vote for their respective country’s famous structures. With a heavy but steely heart, they sacrificed national pride for the sake of national security. This was a ploy aimed at ensuring that these tourist attractions didn’t attract the attention of West-hating terrorists. After all, no suicide bomber in his right mind would target a “not-so-wonderful” building — or would he? However, being citizens of vibrant democracies, the Westerners couldn’t help voting for something. A lot of them chose the Taj, not out of appreciation of its Mughal splendour, but because it’s milky white colour matched their skin tone! As we celebrate the victory of the ultimate memorial to love, let’s not ignore the contribution, albeit unintentional, of all these phirangis. There’s also a lesson we Indians can learn from them: National monuments can’t be taken for granted. They are vulnerable to decay, defacement and destruction. It’s our collective duty to protect them — by hook or by
crook. |
India must match China
in manufacturing China
and India have both made great inroads into the American market which happens to be their biggest client for goods and services. Recently, there has been stiff consumer resistance to Chinese manufactured goods in American supermarkets. Some Chinese products are facing consumer rage in the US with stories about contaminated toothpaste, dog food and seafood products. Yet the streets of New York continue to be filled with Chinese goods of all types. Everything from handbags to costume jewellery, household goods, children’s books, toys, office supplies are all made in China. Basically, it is a story of a fight back by helpless American consumers against a system which relies on Asian countries to keep the supply chain going. There could be a similar backlash against outsourced services to India in the future. It happened in the past and it can happen again. India has to go beyond the expansion of its service exports and go for more manufacturing. China can perhaps withdraw a little on its merchandise export and diversify to other products and markets. It can become more careful about quality control also. India’s presence in the American market in manufactured goods is still small as compared to China’s and in very few stores can one find the ‘made in India’ label on consumer goods in abundance. India could send out much more manufactured, value added exports to the US and perhaps it can easily do so when Chinese goods are facing consumer resistance and flak. Both India and China have been beneficiaries of globalisation. China started the process of opening up in 1979 in the aftermath of its Cultural Revolution while India launched its economic reforms in 1991. Chinese economy’s transformation took place through trade and foreign investment and China increased its manufacturing activity rapidly to become the biggest supplier of consumer goods to USA. This take over of the US market took several years and was the result of rising wages in US and high productivity growth in China. As wages started rising in the US, American companies began investing in China and sourcing their products from factories based in China using Chinese labour which was relatively inexpensive, efficient, educated and skilled. The great advantage that the US derived from cheap Chinese imports was low inflation over the years, which has benefited the average consumer and has stabilised the economy and guaranteed steady economic growth. India too benefited from globalisation quite unexpectedly, when Silicon Valley entrepreneurs – many of whom were Indians, started outsourcing software services from India. Outsourcing caused jobs to be shifted to India and there was much resentment during the last US election against President George W. Bush’s policies that allowed outsourcing to take place freely. Today, India is still an important outsourcing destination and though resentment continues, it has not surfaced so vociferously as to make a huge difference to India’s export revenues. But just like there is a reaction against food products and pet foods from China, there could be a reaction from consumers on services from India. Major hospitals in New York and the rest of US are outsourcing most of their patient care systems including doctor’s reports to typists and word processors in India. Currently, most of the menial jobs of cleaning, cooking, waiting in restaurants, are already being done by low paid immigrant workers. America’s dependence on the long distance workers in India sitting at their computer terminals at odd hours of the night to be available to American citizens who cannot get their own people on line to answer their queries, is bound to create a strong reaction sometime or other. Even if the Indians across the thousands of miles are quite competent and alert, American consumers are bound to be dissatisfied. Basically the dependence is growing, because the American system is such that people are highly paid but workers are keen on their leisure and prefer working less and enjoying holidays and weekends more. The American economy is running on debt in which people are consuming more than they earn, borrowing against future incomes. They need Chinese goods no matter what they say about contamination in some products because the truth is that America cannot revert back to producing simple consumer goods that are stocked in supermarkets. They cannot go back to making their own garments, shoes, bags anymore. Their costs would be too high. Manufacturing activity has thus irreversibly shifted to the Asian continent. China has an upper hand on the Americans in another way also. It has the highest dollar reserves ($1.3 trillion) in the world and is the biggest holder of American Treasury bonds. Their sticking to holding of dollar reserves is propping up the dollar in the world markets. India is also an integral part of the same system because Americans are not going to go back to providing services for themselves. They have long got used to them being outsourced. India and China have the upper hand in both these activities. India has to undertake more manufacturing in the future. India has to concentrate on manufactured exports more as it will lead to higher employment and incomes for a vast majority of the labour force. India has to opt for more-labour intensive manufactured exports and probably try to fill the space left by China in the American markets as it is forced to withdraw a little from its export explosion of consumer goods. |
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Gorbachev supports “authoritarian” Putin Putin has chosen “to use certain methods ... that were even authoritarian to some extent,” the Nobel Peace Prize winner said in a recent interview. “But even though he used those methods sometimes, he continued to have the same goals – the goals of moving toward democracy, toward market economics.” Gorbachev blamed tensions between Washington, D.C., and Moscow on the “victory complex” of some US leaders, and said Washington and Moscow should tone down harsh rhetoric and work together to solve global problems. Asked what advice he would have for Putin and President Bush, Gorbachev replied: “First of all, to preserve the climate of trust that emerged during the years of perestroika, when we were able to work together with the United States to discuss the issues and ultimately to end the Cold War. I believe that this trust is now in jeopardy.” But in the past few years, tensions have grown again. Dissatisfaction in the United States has been fueled by a perceived rollback of democracy in Russia, Moscow’s alleged linkage of oil and gas export contracts to political demands on its neighbors, differences over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program, a dispute over the future of Kosovo and other issues. Russians have been angered by US plans to install an antimissile system in Eastern Europe. Washington, D.C., says it is needed to defend Europe and North America, citing the possibility of missile attacks by Iran. Moscow has expressed fears that the move would be a step toward a global missile-defense system aimed at devaluing Russia’s and China’s nuclear deterrents, and also that the system could be modified for offensive missiles that would be close to Russia’s borders. Tensions have been stoked further by the radiation poisoning in London last year of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent turned fierce Kremlin critic. In a written statement prepared shortly before his death, Litvinenko accused Putin of ordering his killing, a charge the Kremlin has dismissed as “nonsense.” The widespread perception in the United States is that the deterioration of US-Russian ties has been caused by the Kremlin’s actions. But Gorbachev said much of the blame for current tensions should go to what he described as a “victory complex” held by some top US officials who believe that pressure exerted by former President Reagan brought about defeat of the Soviet Union in the Cold War. He included Vice President Dick Cheney among this group. “I believe that this victory complex is very dangerous,” Gorbachev said. “The United States has really not achieved anything alone. I believe that only when the United States worked with others was it able to achieve anything. Where they acted alone the result was a real mess.” Gorbachev said he was encouraged, however, by the atmosphere of the Bush-Putin summit held in early July in Kennebunkport, Maine. Although Gorbachev typically defends Putin in public comments, at the same time he is the key political backer and an important financial supporter of the country’s most fiercely independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, which frequently carries reporting and commentary sharply critical of Putin. Copies of the newspaper prominently are displayed in the lobby of the Gorbachev Foundation, which studies social, economic and political issues. Gorbachev portrays his backing of Novaya Gazeta as support for democracy, not an anti-Kremlin line. At the same time, his support for Putin is not so one-dimensional as seen in much pro-Kremlin media. His argument is that what Putin is doing, with all its flaws, should be seen in its historical context. “I believe that re-emphasising the role of the state, consolidating the state, which is what Putin did, is justified,” Gorbachev said. By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post |
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Delhi Durbar The
UPA-Left vice-presidential candidate Mohammad Hamid Ansari’s campaign has a Himachali connection. Since the former foreign service officer resides in East Delhi, Ansari’s poll managers arranged temporary accommodation for him at the Himachal Sadan to make it more convenient for their nominee to keep his appointments in Lutyen’s zone, where most leaders reside. The entire UPA-Left top brass went through some anxious moments on the day Ansari filed his nomination papers. A key document was missing and had to be fetched from his house, located some distance from Parliament House. Two cars were despatched on separate routes just to make sure that at least one vehicle would be able to make it back on time in case the other got stuck in a traffic jam. Keen to avoid any such hassles during his campaign, temporary accommodation was hurriedly arranged for Ansari at Himachal Sadan. Anasri did not stay there but used the place for his meetings and other campaign-related work.
Gender debate The Centre’s decision to overlook India’s first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi for the much coveted post of Delhi Police Commissioner has sparked off a furious debate in the Capital. It was ironic that Bedi’s supercession came on the same day the country’s first woman President was sworn in. Bedi is not the only woman bureaucrat who has been bypassed in recent days. Veena Sikri from the foreign service and IAS officer Reva Nayyar were denied the posts of Foreign Secretary and Cabinet Secretary, respectively. They have naturally come out in full strength to support Bedi. Nayyar says Bedi has vast and varied experience but failed to make it to the top post as she is much too straight forward and cannot be easily coerced. The Haryana cadre officer retired last year when the then Cabinet Secretary, B.K. Chaturvedi was given an extension although she was very much in the race for the top post. Men are not willing to accept women in a position of authority in services and have an informal networking club, says Nayyar.
Dubious praise When suspended Congress leader and former external affairs minister Natwar Singh praised the UPA-Left vice-presidential nominee Hamid Ansari in the presence of mediapersons, everybody was mystified, since Singh has been flirting openly with the opposition. The mystery has finally been solved. Given the line-up of political parties in Parliament, it is quite clear that Ansari will be the country’s next vice-president, who is also the Rajya Sabha chairman. The Congress had moved a petition seeking Natwar Singh’s disqualification from the Rajya Sabha but the former vice-president and Rajya Sabha chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat did not take a decision on it. Ansari will now have to take a view on it. Contributed by Prashand Sood, Tripti Nath and Anita Katyal |
Look at these rituals “when the fire is lit.
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MOSCOW – Former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, whose reforms played a major role in freeing the Soviet Union from totalitarianism, defended authoritarian moves by Russian President Vladimir V. Putin as necessary “to prevent the disintegration of the country.”