EDITORIALS

Pervez wins, but…
Doctrine of Necessity working in his favour

General Musharraf’s victory of sorts in Saturday’s presidential election in Pakistan was a foregone conclusion. He had to work hard to achieve even this. A formal declaration by the Election Commission will be made only after the Supreme Court gives its opinion on his eligibility to contest the poll on October 17. Thus, the ball is now in the judges’ domain. Will they undo the legitimacy claimed by the General? The Opposition has been apprehensive of the thinking of the judges who constitute the 10-member Bench hearing the petitions challenging the General’s candidature while he remains the army chief. The non-PPP Opposition was taken aback when on Friday the apex court allowed the election to be held as scheduled. His undeclared electoral success may work as a pressure on the judges, who even otherwise must be facing pressures from the Musharraf regime not to disturb the status quo in the interest of peace and stability in Pakistan.

The General must be feeling relieved with the way things are moving despite the uncertainty involved in waiting for October 17. He has succeeded in ensuring legitimacy of the electoral college by entering into a deal with PPP leader Benazir Bhutto. Had the lawmakers belonging to the PPP, the single largest party in the National Assembly and the Sindh Assembly, resigned along with the members of the All Parties Democratic Movement, the General’s victory would carry no meaning. The PPP has, therefore, facilitated his re-election even if it had to go in for a boycott of the poll instead of “abstaining” from it as reportedly promised to the ruling camp. The last-minute change in stance became unavoidable for the PPP because of the mounting pressure from the party’s dissenters.

The way the apex court has been handling the issues related to the presidential election shows that it is going by the Doctrine of Necessity, something unique in the case of Pakistan. This was, perhaps, the basic factor behind the court declaring the earlier petitions against the General’s candidature as “non-maintainable”. It seems there is a feeling in the judiciary that any attempt to prevent him from continuing to rule as President will amount to inviting more trouble for Pakistan, already finding it difficult to control the situation, particularly in the NWFP. The situation will be clear on October 17.

Ugly drama
Hopefully, polls will clear the air

The unseemly drama of political opportunism and blatant self-seeking continues to be played out in Karnataka. Former Prime Minister and JD (S) President H.D. Deve Gowda has blithely reneged on a power-sharing agreement with the coalition partner BJP, the single largest party in the last polls, and has refused to hand over the reins of government. The several parleys between party leaders has only served to prolong the inevitable. The BJP’s announcement of withdrawal of support to the Kumaraswamy government, which finally came on Saturday, may pave the way for fresh elections.

Karnataka has yearned for a stable government ever since the last Assembly polls threw up a fractured mandate. The BJP was happy with its single largest party status, but did not have enough numbers to form a government on its own. As for the Congress and the JD (S), they had fought a bitter election as rivals, marked by much abuse and violence on the streets. Mr Gowda had vociferously gone on opposing both the Congress and the BJP. After the numbers came in, he and the Congress entered into an uneasy pact, putting in place the Dharam Singh-led Congress government. Mr Dharam Singh came in when Mr Gowda made it clear that his truck with the Congress would not extend to the earlier Chief Minister, Mr S.M. Krishna, or any of his supporters. That government did not last more than the expected couple of years, and the period also saw Mr Gowda’s ruthlessness against leaders in his own party, like Mr Siddaramiah.

That was when Mr Gowda’s son H.D. Kumaraswamy “broke away” from the father to join the BJP and form the next coalition government. There was much drama and shedding of crocodile tears by Mr Gowda. There were few takers for his supposed anguish, and with the latest series of shenanigans, it is clear that the JD (S) has ended up participating in two coalition governments with the partners it had furiously opposed, only to ditch both. A drama of a floor test is in the wings, and it is now only to be hoped that it does not further muddy the waters, and the state gets the deliverance it has been yearning for.

Armed and ready
Agni-I should be a potent deterrent

Tried, tested and inducted, Agni-I has now completed the process by which India’s strategic forces have at their disposal a potent ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Agni-I has a range of 700 to 850 kilometres, and it was actually developed later than the 2500-kilometre range Agni-II. Though officially Agni-I was inducted in 2004, this was the first of the “training trials” where the Army personnel themselves take on the entire handling, targeting and launch processes. It would have given our commanders a very good idea of the procedures and logistics that need to be in place to quickly launch the missile, and just how long it would actually take.

While Agni-I can certainly carry conventional warheads, it is unlikely to be used in any such capacity. Its nuclear deterrent role, therefore, squarely puts it in a scenario were no one would really want it to be fired in anger. But deterrence works only if a threat is entirely credible in terms of both capability and intention. Quick reaction times, survivability for a “second strike” when reacting to nuclear attacks on our soil, accuracy in targeting, guaranteed delivery, and a potent warhead capability have all to be clearly demonstrated. The right signals thus are sent out to a potential adversary. Agni-I’s range will enable it to be safely deployed well inside the border, even as key installations in enemy territory are effectively targeted.

The Agni missile has come a long way since the first technology demonstrator flew in 1989. Agni-II, the centrepiece of the programme, was first tested in 1999, but it was the Kargil war which spurred the development of a shorter range Agni to eliminate the gap between the 250-kilometre range of the Prithvi and the Agni-II. Its successful induction will be a great source of satisfaction to both its developers in the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the armed forces. The DRDO has now successfully tested the 3500-km Agni-III and is working on more advanced variants, which also play a critical role in India’s defence. 

Thought for the day

If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means. — Alan Bennett

ARTICLE

Nepal on a knife-edge
Peace process being cut to pieces
by Shastri Ramachandaran

This is the way the peace cookie crumbles. Those outside the parliamentary game clamour to be let in. And they are, on the promise that they will stick to the rules. Once in the ring, they go along with the rules as long as it suits them. When it doesn’t suit them, they first change the rules of the game and then the game itself.

This is what is happening in Nepal. This is precisely what happened in Sri Lanka. The separatist Tamil Tigers found they had more to gain by holding on to what they grabbed in the short term by entering the peace process than going the whole length towards a democratic conclusion. The guns fall silent and the peace process gets frozen into a state of non-war. That is where Nepal stands now. The Maoist rebels have forced the Seven-Party Alliance led by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala to put off indefinitely the already-postponed election to the constituent assembly that was to be held on November 22.

The elections are now unlikely to be held before May 2008 and this is a long period during which kuch bhi ho sakta hai. In this twilight zone there is no immediate return to warfare. All parties are on a knife-edge. The one who blinks first loses. The rebels can hold out indefinitely; consolidate their gains, mobilise men, resources and firepower, and await that tipping point in the “strategic balance” when the endurance of the parliamentary parties would break. And, they will make the one mistake the rebels are waiting for to take up arms again.

In the present situation of a face-off, whatever the government does — whether it opts for a confrontation or negotiations — the rebels gain the upper hand. The government, in this case the Koirala-led SPA, is in the dock for any and all reasons: for letting the Maoists into the game; for giving in to their demands as well as for not doing their bidding; both flexibility and firmness are criticised. No matter what it does, the situation keeps slipping out of control.

It may be premature to ask whether the Maoists in Nepal — who manouevred their way into parliament and government, and then jettisoned the government to hold parliament hostage to their politics — would take up arms again like the Tamil Tigers did after they wrecked the peace process in Sri Lanka. But it would be well to remember that this is a tried and tested route, which has proved rewarding for the rebels who are good at prodding and provoking their opponents into a trap of their own making.

The roots of the crisis leading to the postponement of elections can be traced to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed last year to pave the way for the Maoists to end their 10-year People’s War that claimed over 13,000 lives. The CPA opened the doors for the Maoists to enter the mainstream political arena, with a place in parliament and the government subject to their renouncing the armed struggle and laying down weapons under UN supervision. At every stage — before being sworn in as MPs and again before taking up ministerships — the Maoists kept creating new conditions and raising new demands.

Only Mr G P Koirala — who has been prominent in every democratic movement since 1950 with his experience in the government, leadership of alliances and trans-party equations — could have negotiated and succeeded in bringing in the Maoists as he did and put the autocratic monarchy out of political business. His stature, acceptability at home and abroad, organisational and administrative skills and political acuity made possible the peace process.

The Maoists seized the moment knowing that Mr Koirala was their best bet to join multiparty politics on their terms. They also knew that once Koirala set out on the path of the peace process, more than the Maoists it is he who would have to go the extra mile and carry the burden of delivering on the promise of peace, democracy, elections and a republican Nepal.

Like the monarchy, the Maoists, too, are fearful of democratic elections if only because the outcome is not predictable. And, their power in government and on the ground would certainly be circumscribed if not vastly curtailed, compared to what they enjoyed in civil war conditions. This alone may explain the Maoists quitting the SPA government of Mr Koirala despite their 84 members in a House of 327.

When the Maoists signed the CPA and consequently joined hands with the SPA in parliament and the government it was agreed that the constituent assembly would decide the fate of the monarchy (and declare Nepal a republic); it was also agreed that the assembly would be elected by the prevalent mixed system. These are provided for in the interim constitution to which the Maoists are a party. Yet, their 22-point charter — the acceptance of which was made a precondition for continuing in the government and “allowing” elections — demanded that Nepal be declared a republic by the present interim parliament and that the system of full proportional representation be adopted for the November 22 election.

The argument against declaring Nepal a republic before the elections is that such an act would be lacking in popular legitimacy; and that it would not make a material difference when the monarch has been stripped of his powers and privileges. In raising this issue and to such a pitch, the Maoists have brought the monarch back to the political center-stage; and by repeatedly asserting that he was striving for a bigger role, the Maoists have drummed up sympathy for King Gyanendra and reinforced a politics-weary people’s prejudices against mainstream parties.

It is evident that the Maoists were determined to get the elections postponed indefinitely. More than the demand for a republic, their insistence on a change of the electoral system - just weeks before nominations were to open —was calculated to wreck the election timetable. They knew that this demand could not be met because it was impossible to make the systemic switch in the time left before the elections. It no longer matters what the special session of the Interim Parliament, on October 11, decides on these two demands of the Maoists. The fact remains that the Maoists have derailed the elections, which can be held only at a time of their choosing.

The message is that henceforth the Maoists will call the shots; that they are not bound by the agreements to which they are a party. And, if they continue to swear by the peace process it is only to bind the SPA to abide by the terms the Maoists dictate.

This bodes ill for Nepal and is the most serious setback to multiparty democracy since the elections in 1991. The political parties are forever thwarted by non-elected forces, be it the monarchy or the Maoists. Unless Nepal breaks out of this pattern, representative democracy will remain the mirage it has been since the first movement in 1950.

MIDDLE

Rubik cubes
by Harwant Singh

In olden days in a Divisional HQ of the army, which was headed by a General Officer Commanding (GOC), a Major-General, there was no Deputy GOC or other senior officer. There were two main branches, each headed by a Lieutenant-Colonel. The age and seniority gap between the GOC and these officers was very large.

The GoCs, deprived of the company of any one of similar age group, often felt lonely, specially in the field areas. To offset that drawback, it was rumoured that an appointment, tenable by an elderly officer, was created. This appointment was that of Assistant Director Medical Services (ADMS), a full Colonel of the Army Medical Corps (AMC), often quite an elderly one. He headed medical branch of the Divisional HQ and supervised all medical facilities/installations of the division.

To give company to the GOC on his walks or otherwise and to generally keep him in good humour were his unwritten duties in field areas.

The army being generally very healthy, there was hardly any work for an ADMS in peace time. When I was posted to a Mountain Division in Nagaland as GSO-1 (operations), also a newly created appointment, there was a very learned and active ADMS. He had views on strategy, tactics, logistics, military training, office routine, administration and morale or anything else under the sun, whether military or otherwise. He had taken upon himself to “advise” and “help” each and everyone of us and would visit us almost daily for a “looksie”.

He had the knack of landing in your office when you were neck deep preparing an important report for the higher HQ or compiling a brief or in any other “time sensitive” activity . He had the sixth sense of knowing which officer was working on such papers and would be there to “help” and “advise”.

Being venerable, of course, he had to be shown due courtesy and utmost respect even if it meant you missing the deadline and facing the music for the same later on. If you decided to work at your residence (being field area we all lived in the Mess) or late in the office, the ADMS was there with a benign, “How are you? I thought I should look you up ……” All our discreet efforts to convey to him that we would be better off without his “help” and “advice” were of no avail . It was a “No Win” situation .

It was time to buy stores out of Annual Training Grant (ATG) and all branches gave their demands. As I was scrutinising the lists, I noticed a demand for three “Rubik Cubes” from the “Q” Branch. Rubik Cube was recently invented and I thought that perhaps it was intended to sharpen “sequentially analytical” faculties. But why from “Q” (Materials) Branch? If the demand was from “A” (Personnel) or GS (Training) Branches, it was OK.

I asked the officer concerned how those cubes were meant to be used . He promptly replied that those were meant for the ADMS, to keep him busy. But why three? The answer was: “One each for his office and residence and one reserve, if he loses one”. I not only approved the demand but made it four cubes, one to be kept on my table for use by ADMS during his (frequent) visits . If he happens to read this, hope he doesn’t take it a amiss, for he was a loveable senior officer.

OPED

Trade across borders
India and Pakistan must keep the momentum going
by Ranjit Singh Ghuman 

The beginning of land route trade between India and Pakistan is a historic event. The first Indian truck, loaded with fresh tomatoes, crossed the Radcliff Line (Wagha Border) on October 1, 2007. The very next day witnessed the crossing over of 19 Indian trucks full of tomatoes and two trucks carrying meat. From the Pakistan side, three trucks carrying consignments of fresh melons and dry fruits, all the way from Afghanistan, entered Indian territory on October 3, 2007.

Soon we shall witness Indian sugar, cotton, and engineering goods going to Pakistan and Pakistani cement, rock-salt, leather and textile goods coming to Indian through land route.

It is important to note that during 1948-49, nearly 70 per cent of trade between these two countries was through land routes. At that time, India's share in Pakistan's global exports and imports was 23.6 and 50.6 per cent, respectively. Pakistan's share in India's global exports and imports was 2.2 and 1.1 per cent, respectively.

Their importance in each other's trade suffered a serious decline since then. India's share in Pakistan's global exports and imports dwindled to 1.3 and 0.06 per cent in 1975-76; and 1.1 per cent and 2.7 per cent, respectively in 2005-06. Compared to it Pakistan's share in India's global exports and imports shrinked to 0.02 and 0.4 per cent in 1975-76 and 0.7 and 0.13 per cent in 2005-06.

Economic rationality succumbed to political irrationality as a short bout of the 1965 War between India and Pakistan led to a nine-year trade-embargo between them. The fact of the matter is that trade relations between these two neighbouring countries is a natural phenomenon and any effort to create hurdles in the way would be unnatural. Moreover, economic rationality is in favour of promoting their mutual trade and economic relations.

The mutual trade between the two neighbouring countries has started increasing since 1989 in spite of the fact that Pakistan is yet to accord MFN status to India. The total trade turnover between India and Pakistan increased from US $63 million in 1989-90 to US $859 million in 2005-2006 and has already crossed US $1000 million in 2006-07. In addition to it, an unofficial trade worth about US $2000 million is taking place, between them, annually.

This trade is being routed through third countries like Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Afghanistan and Gulf-States. This tortuous route costs both India and Pakistan dearly in terms of foreign exchange outflows as well as third party trading commission. Besides, illegal trade (mainly smuggling) worth about US $1000 million is also taking place.

It is amply clear that there are high trade potentialities between the two neighbour countries. Both the countries can exchange a large number of goods with each other. A comparative analysis of India's global exports and Pakistan's global imports, during 1997-2004, shows that Pakistan could import goods worth US $3616 million in 1997 and US $6495 million in 2004. However, Pakistan's actual average annual imports from India during 1997-2004 were only 4.8 per cent of the potential imports. Had the potential been realised, Pakistan could meet 40 per cent of its import requirements from India during 1997-2004.

A comparative analysis of the global trade of two countries, during 1997-2004 again, shows that India could import 11 items from Pakistan. The value of these items comes out to be US $781 million in 1997 and US $2307 million in 2004. India's actual imports from Pakistan, on an average, were just 6.4 per cent of the potential during 1997-2004.

Non-realisation of trade potentialities have caused immeasurable financial loss to both the countries. Both could have gained somewhere between Rs. 20,000-25,000 crores during the last 57 years (from 1951 onwards) had they fully exploited their mutual trade potentials. The gains were mainly in terms of lower prices, compared to global prices, and much lower transport and transshipment costs due to proximity with each other.

It sounds very strange that trade between the two neighbouring countries has been materialising mainly through sea-routes. It is irrationality of the highest order that goods are first transported to Bombay, then to Karachi and then to Lahore and other regions of Pakistan and vice-versa. It involves huge transport and transshipment cost in addition to 20 to 30 days time to reach the consignments at the destination.

The opening of Wagha border for land route trade is certainly a saner political decision. The people and political leadership of both the countries deserves appreciation. It is important to note that the distance between Amritsar and Lahore is just 50 kms.

A simple calculation, from the actual trade data of both the countries for the year 2004-05, shows that they have actually gained worth US$ 1077 lac (US $ 486 lakh by India and US $ 591 lakh by Pakistan) by trading with each other. These gains were just in terms of lower prices, compared to global prices. The mutual gains from trade could, thus, be enormous if we add savings in transport and transshipment costs and realise the full trade potential.

Besides, the friendly relations with each other can save a lot of expenses being incurred on defence. Pakistan has been spending about 5 to 7 per cent of its GDP on defence for the last about three decades. Compared to it, Indian expenditure on defence has been between 2 to 3 per cent of its GDP, during the same period. A major proportion of this expenditure may be attributed to the fear-psychosis and threat perception from each other. Besides, their acrimonious relations has resulted in an immeasurable human cost.

The neighbouring, but poor, countries can ill-afford the "luxury" of having acrimonious relations with each other. Both should understand that the real might and security of a country lies in its economic strength and stability and not merely in military strength. They could not solve any of their long standing problems, even after fighting three and a half wars and numerous skirmishes. Rather, the problems have gone more and more complex. Thus, the saner political leadership and people in both the countries must come forward to normalise and strengthen relations between them.

The writer is a professor with the department of economics, Punjabi University, Patiala

Return to traditional farming
by Barbara Kingsolver

In my neighborhood of Southwest Virginia, backyard gardens are as common as satellite dishes. Jars bobble quietly in water-bath canners on our stoves: tomatoes, allspice pickles, whatever the garden has overproduced today.

I face this work each year with satisfaction, but not without self-consciousness. I come from a line of folks with some dirt on our jeans who’ve watched the long exodus from the land that seems inevitable to our species. As a popular World War I song asked, “How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Par-ee?”

Paris I have seen, and places beyond, where many different languages assign similar scorn with the phrase “dirty work.” My generation has absorbed an implicit hierarchy of values in which working the soil is poor people’s toil. The real labors of keeping a family fed are presumed tedious and irrelevant.

A woman confided to me at a New York dinner party, “Honestly, who has time to cook anymore? My daughter will probably grow up wondering what a kitchen is used for.” The lament had the predictable blend of weariness and braggadocio, unremarkable except for this woman’s post at the helm of one of the nation’s major homemaking magazines.

This is modern thinking. Even keeping house does not dirty its hands with food production. Sorry, but we have WORK to do, the stuff that happens in an office or agency or retail outlet. We have risen above the muddy business of an agrarian society. People in China and India do that for us now.

On the other side of the world from that New York dinner party, another influential woman gave me an opposite perspective on leaving behind the labor and culture of food: that it’s impossible. We only transform the tasks, she claims – and not necessarily for the better.

Vandana Shiva, director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy, is an elegant scientist in her silk sari. Trained as a physicist, she is best known for her work for farmers’ rights. The soil of her country, India, is home to one-quarter of all the world’s farmers. Increasingly they grow commodities for export rather than traditional, locally adapted foods for their own communities.

This strategy was laid out by the technological Green Revolution, as it was called in the 1970s (when “green” was not the word it is today), which promised that one farmer with the right tools and chemicals could feed hundreds, freeing the rest of us for cleaner work.

It sounds good unless you’re that one guy on a tractor in Nebraska and the price of soybeans won’t quite refuel your tank and pay for your fertiliser. Elsewhere, it’s worse. In India, Shiva says, thousands of farmers have committed suicide after being bankrupted by costly chemicals in a cycle of debt created by ties to corporate agriculture.

Centralised food production requires constant inputs – fertilisers, pesticides and irrigation – that in some settings are impossible to sustain, and chemical-based farming damages the soil over time, whether in India or Nebraska.

Traditional farming retains soil structure, but intensive modern agriculture does not: Since the 1970s, while global grain production has tripled, an estimated 30 percent of the world’s farmland has become too damaged to use. Also shrinking are the fossil fuel reserves for a system that requires petroleum to run the farm machines, serve as the chemical base of fertilisers, fuel the milling and processing plants, and drive the food to widely dispersed consumers.

Farmers come to Shiva’s farm-based institute in Derha Dun to learn how to free themselves from chemicals, indebtedness and landlessness. Shiva’s research has shown that returning to more traditional multi-crop food farms can offer them higher, more consistent incomes than modern single-crop fields of export commodities.

She identifies the extinction of traditional seed varieties as the principal threat to food security here; to name an important example, South Asian farmers once grew about 50,000 varieties of rice, a number that has dropped to around 5,000 as a globalized seeds-and-chemicals industry displaces tradition.

The institute, Navdanya, is a small, green Eden framed against the startling blue backdrop of the Himalayas. After a tour through the fields, we took off our shoes to enter the seed bank room: oilseeds, mustard greens, wheats and barleys, 380 varieties of rice. Other farmers nationwide are building different seed banks of locally appropriate varieties, all replanted in the fields each year as a living catalogue. “This is the basis of Indian farmers’ sovereignty,” Shiva said. “Our traditional crops.”

Industrial farming - however destructive to the land and our nutrition - has held out as its main selling point the allure of freedom: Two percent of the population would be able to feed everyone. The rest could do as we pleased. Shiva sees through that promise: “Most of those who have moved off of farms are still working in the industry of creating food and bringing it to consumers: as cashiers, truck drivers, even the oil-rig workers who generate the fuels to run the trucks.

Those jobs are all necessary to a travel-dependent, highly mechanised food system. And many of those jobs are menial, life-taking work, instead of the life-giving work of farming. The analyses we have done show that no matter what, whether the system is highly technological or much more simple, about 50 to 60 percent of a population has to be involved in the work of feeding that population. Industrial agriculture did not `save’ anyone from that work, it only shifted people into other forms of food service.”

Surprise: There is no free lunch. No animal can really escape the work of feeding itself.

By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

Chatterati
Filmi politics
by Devi Cherian

A book on legendary film personalities Nargis and Sunil Dutt, written by the daughters of the late couple, promises to tell the poignant story of a family in a way “no other writer can”. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, senior ministers, Congress leaders and officials were present at the launch.

Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister were of the opinion that film personalities and other professionals entering politics and public life would help the national cause. Sonia Gandhi talked about the personal tragedies that the family had to face, particularly the untimely death of Nargis due to cancer, and said that Sunil Dutt’s “dignity in moments of anguish” was extraordinary.

Sanjay Dutt, along with his girl friend, were the most sought after. Priya Dutt with the other sister and brother-in-law were present. Whispers were anyhow doing the rounds of how the Dutt kids are highlighting their parents’ connections in Delhi to the maximum. Sanjay was only out on bail, but he has signed three new films.

Zest for life

If there is one person whom Lalu Yadav holds in high esteem, it’s lawyer-politician Ram Jethmalani. What zest for life! At a dinner hosted to celebrate Jethmalani’s birthday, the railways minister was seen shaking a leg with his friend who turned 84, just a couple of days ahead of actor Dev Anand, born on the same day as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Subbarami Reddy hosted a dinner for Dev saab’s birthday where Jethmalani was as much a hit with other guests. The day was marked by the launch of Anand’s autobiography Romancing with Life. As the PM and Congress president Sonia Gandhi walked in, Anand presented them with bouquets. The charmer that he is, he gave a single red rose, which symbolises freedom and patriotism, to honour Mrs Gandhi.

Dev said: “I was a non-entity and today, here I am, in the prime minister’s presence. This is the success of people who have loved me through the years, and now I am giving something back to them.”

Iftar returns

Banned from Rashtrapati Bhavan by her predecessor five years ago, the Iftar party is back in the presidential palace. President Pratibha Patil hosted her first Iftar Party on Friday, laying out a sumptuous spread for the 200-odd dignitaries including Vice-President Hamid Ansari and Sonia Gandhi.

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had decided against hosting Iftar parties when he moved into Rashtrapati Bhavan, saying he would rather spend the money to feed hungry children. Patil’s party was very lavish and the spread ranged from murg korma, mutton shammi kebab and bukhara dal for vegetarians like Patil herself. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, recuperating from his prostrate gland surgery skipped the party.

Rashtrapati Bhavan is, of course, going to be much different now then when the bachelor Kalam was there on his own. The difference is there for all to see, from the way the kitchen functions to the changes in the rooms.