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Coyness won’t do Crude nears $100 Height of folly |
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Dark side of dogma
Lessons from yonder
Democracy held
hostage in Nepal Russians return to
ethnicity with valenki Delhi
Durbar
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Crude nears $100 The
rising global crude prices, nearing $100 a barrel, have started causing jitters across the world. Stock markets are on the retreat. The Union Government, which had earlier ruled out an oil price hike until March next year, has been forced to reconsider its decision. Political factors had perhaps weighed more with the government then with Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh going to the polls in December. Media reports indicate an increase of Rs 2 for petrol and Re 1 for diesel after Diwali. This would raise the cost of transportation resulting in a cascading effect on prices of general commodities. Different global factors are driving up the crude prices. The two rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve have released large funds which are finding their way to the share and commodity markets. Because of a weakening dollar, investors are buying shares in the emerging markets and commodities like gold and oil. Secondly, the demand for oil is steadily rising in China and India as also in the US on hopes of a possible pick-up in economic activity and the approaching winter. Thirdly, though OPEC has agreed to hike the output for this month, it had started reducing production to stem the fall in oil prices in 2006. Fourthly, oil supplies from Iran and Nigeria have dwindled due to uncertain conditions there. If the crude prices stay at $100, the government oil companies will lose Rs 70,500 crore this fiscal. To offset the losses the government had last month allowed the oil companies like IOC, BPCL and HPCL to raise Rs 30,000 crore through bonds. Profit-making ONGC and other upstream companies will share 35 per cent of the losses. Thankfully, the appreciating rupee against the dollar has softened the impact of the oil blow. The government has three options: slash the excise duty on oil, increase the size of the oil bonds or raise the oil prices marginally. The third option is risky. An oil price hike will push up inflation, which is a politically sensitive issue, especially when elections are round the corner. |
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Height of folly The
proposed cricket tournament at the Gorak Shep Glacier on Mount Everest is a folly because of various reasons, including the height of the venue, 17,000 feet above sea level, extreme temperature (minus 10 degrees Celsius) and the hazards it is likely to impose on the players and spectators, if any. There was a degree of unbelief when it was announced that three teams of British players, both professional and amateur, are moving towards the base camp of the highest peak in the world. The announced objective of the tournament is to play there to set the world record. Sport is all about challenges—facing them, meeting them and proving your mettle against them. In this context it would seem that the match will take “cricket to a new height” as the publicists would have us believe. What was a gentleman’s game has been reduced to a series of commercial events that generate publicity for the sponsors, money for the organisations that run the game and some for the players, both on field and off field. Disquiet over Twenty20 matches that are more geared towards the needs of the electronic media rather than the game had hardly settled when cricketing fans have to face this new googly. This is an ill-conceived venture from the point of view of both, the game and the venue. The route to the highest peak in the world is literally littered with garbage. That is the accumulated muck of hundreds of expeditions. Now we will have a cricket tournament at the base camp. What will be played is not cricket— the UK-based Professional Cricketers’ Association has “modified” the game by reducing the players to six for each team and the matches to five overs each. The avowed purpose of the tournament is to raise money for cricketers who face a hard time. By proposing this tournament, the organisers have brought hard time on the game and the Nepalese authorities would be well advised not to allow this tournament. Cricket deserves much more than 12 players battling for air and putting up a spectacle near the highest summit of the world. |
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I know, and all the world knows, that revolutions never go backward.
— William Seward |
Dark side of dogma Several
commentators have expressed their admiration for the uncompromising stand on the nuclear deal taken by the CPM general secretary, Mr Prakash Karat. His commitment to ideology at a time when principles are observed more in the breach has been noted with approval even when the relevance of Marxism in today’s world has been questioned. Mr Karat’s earlier opposition to the move by the secular parties in 1996 to make Mr Jyoti Basu the Prime Minister has been mentioned as yet another example of how the party chief places ideological considerations above seemingly opportunistic deal-making. Mr Karat was not the general secretary in 1996, but it was his arguments which won the day. His submission was that the purity of the party’s doctrines would be tainted if it entered into a makeshift political arrangement where it would not have the final say. He carried the majority of the central committee with him even though the then general secretary, Mr Harkishen Singh Surjeet, and Mr Basu himself were in favour of the latter accepting the post. Mr Basu was to subsequently describe the party’s stand as a “historic blunder”, suggesting that he did not think the CPM would have committed an ideological heresy if it cohabited with other “bourgeois” parties. Even if Mr Basu was guided by personal ambition, he evidently believed that the party would have gained in stature if one of its members held the highest political position in the country. Mr Karat’s opposition, however, provided the clue to the single-minded nature of a dedicated communist’s political line in a parliamentary democracy. It is this mindset which explains his aversion to the nuclear deal and any resultant proximity to America. Central to this attitude is a disjunction between the party’s immediate and ultimate objectives. While pursuing an inflexible line, the hardliners evidently believe that even if the party loses ground in the near future, it will gain in the end apparently because, as the Marxist textbooks say, “history” is on their side. It is in the hope of achieving this final victory that the CPM and the other Left parties associated with it are unwilling to become fully involved in the “bourgeois” system. Hence the refusal of the hardliners to join the Manmohan Singh government although both Mr Basu and Mr Surjeet wanted the Leftists to do so. Not only that, the CPM is currently even willing to suffer an electoral setback as a result of its resistance to the nuclear deal. It is not unknown that the comrades have calculated that they will be unable to retain their present strength in the Lok Sabha in the next polls not only because they have angered an already alienated middle class, but also because their parties are facing enormous difficulties in their two strongholds of West Bengal and Kerala. Such an attitude, where the party is virtually courting defeat because of its dogma, is inexplicable to the “bourgeois” parties. The latter prefer to use all the tricks in the book, including unsavoury ones like wooing the dissenters among their opponents with offers of money and ministerial posts, or by shelving their agendas, as the BJP has done. If the communists refuse to indulge in such dubious tactics, thereby earning a reputation for honesty, the reason is not so much their essential integrity as the belief that their basic objective is to replace the “bourgeois” and, therefore, anti-people parliamentary democracy with a proletarian people’s democracy. Although, unlike the Naxalites, the mainstream communists are still working within the system, it is not to sustain and strengthen it, but to exploit it to spread their revolutionary message and to weaken it, if possible. To this end, they purposefully use the trade unions to mobilise the workers and organise strikes. Arguably, the Left still represents the “yeh azadi jhooti hai” brigade of B.T.Ranadive and P.Sundarayya of the immediate post-Independence period, when they refused to recognise the fact that India had been liberated from British colonial rule, and launched an armed struggle to win “genuine” independence. Like their predecessors in the late 1940s, Mr Karat and Co. are now battling American neo-colonialism and are convinced that their willingness and intensity to wage this struggle will be undermined if they endorse the nuclear deal or the economic reforms, which have the blessings of “pro-imperialist” organisations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. If they had their way, the commissars would scrap the economic reforms and join Cuba, Venezuela and Iran to lambast the US. It is clear, therefore, that the Left has little stake in the kind of future for India which the government envisages. In fact, the government’s vision, according to the comrades, will tie India ever more closely to the rapacious imperialist world, entailing a continuance of the “jhooti azadi” of 1947. The commissars are not overtly concerned, therefore, with India’s energy security and certainly not via one which entails a dependence on reactors provided by US manufacturers. Hence Mr Karat’s observation that he did not want 30 or 40 Enrons to come to India when Mr Buddhadev Bhattacharjee signified his preference for nuclear power. The CPM general secretary would rather prefer the Indian public sector to do the job in accordance with Kim Jong Il’s theory of juche or self-reliance. Nor is the Left bothered about the continuance of the post-Pokhran sanctions affecting India’s technological progress. These are, after all, matters concerning the bourgeois world which an India inspired by juche and run by a people’s democracy can take care of when the forces of history install a pro-people government. Considering that the government’s and the Left’s visions run parallel to one another, it would seem that the negotiations between the two on the nuclear deal resemble a dialogue of the deaf. The government’s hope apparently is that the Left can be convinced by its arguments about what Lalu Yadav has called a “unique” deal since it enables India to break out of three decades of nuclear apartheid and secure access to nuclear fuel and dual-use technology. But the Left is unwilling to sell its soul for these 30 pieces of silver since it will mean turning its back on revolution. In addition to this fundamental objection, there is perhaps another reason why the commissars are uninterested in the nuclear deal. They are fully aware that irrespective of the stand they take, their parliamentary strength will hover around 50 or 60 seats. The 61 seats which they won in 2004 is their highest ever tally. Earlier, the CPM, the CPI, the RSP and the Forward Bloc won 52 in 1996, 48 in 1998 and 43 in 1999. What this means is that the Left can never be a major player like the Congress and the BJP. Instead, it will be like any other regional party, like the RJD or the DMK or the Telugu Desam, and function as an appendage of the first party in a coalition. This limited influence evidently restricts their vision. Parties of this genre fail to acquire a national, let alone international, perspective, constrained as they are by their regional or caste- and-class-based preoccupations. The fallout, as is evident over the nuclear deal logjam, is that they can hinder development. It isn’t surprising, therefore, that the Left has been obstructing economic reforms to retain its hold on the trade unions, and the nuclear deal to flaunt its revolutionary credentials to its dwindling band of middle and lower-middle class
supporters.
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Lessons from yonder It
is never too late to learn, especially when the classroom is the one of life . The learning experience is all the more “eye opening” when the teacher happens to be “Uncle Sam”. Seniors visiting their children in the world’s most developed nation are often bedazzled by the development undergone by their progeny. Setting foot on the haloed land for the first time, naturally one is brimming with excitement and joy, nurturing hopes of bonding with children and grandchildren. But to fully enjoy this organised and fast-paced society, alien culture and to stay comfortable with fast-paced life of one’s sons/daughters, especially the Americanised grandchildren, there is a need to learn a few lessons. The first and foremost lesson is to never ever interfere in the day-to-day life of your children, their dressing style, food habits, grandchildren’s hairstyle etc. Your culture-based advice could also result in heated arguments in your children’s household. Like the Indian traffic scene just watch your children with detachment. The lesson here is to desist from making a judgmental remark. You have plenty of opportunities for moral discourses back home. Second lesson — comp-letely “delete” the concept of dignity of labour as practiced in India, and learn its new real meaning as prevalent there. If your children have a house you can clean the garage, mow the lawn, cut grass in the backyard. Welcome to acquiring new skills in this land of opportunity. After all now you are not “sahib bahadur”, only “bahadur”. Hence do not shy away from washing utensils too as plenty of hot/cold water is always available. Moreover, your better/bitter half will also push you to extend such “value added” help to prove your usefulness. Of course, displaying instant motherly affection, she has swiftly moved to home cooking but for her too there is a lesson to be learnt that the boss of kitchen is not the boss of house there. Bahu’s word is supreme so don’t fret to see your son attend babycare classes and wash nappies. And mind you, be careful in doing hardwork lest it may cause a dislocation, a health problem which can completely upset your children’s budget as doctors only dispense “dollar advice”. Another lesson awaits you as far as social skills are concerned. While interacting with local people don’t get fooled by the broad smile and a warm hug or a friendly peck with which they, including those of the fair sex, always greet you. There is nothing more to be read into this “innocent” display of affection. This lesson is all the more important for the sake of peace at home. So keep your eyes open and see nothing till you are back in Mera Bharat Mahan and to your desi
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Democracy held hostage in Nepal
In
politics, good is often made the enemy of the best. So it is in Nepal where parliamentary democracy has been derailed in pursuit of a republic. As a result, not only is there uncertainty over when the postponed elections will be held, political parties are reconciled to coasting along without elections. Political parties are forever hostage to non-elected forces – earlier the monarchy and now the Maoists. Before the triumph of the People’s Movement in April 2006, that forced the monarchy into a disgraced retreat, the king called the shots and the political parties were sidelined. After the success of the People’s Movement, the alliance of seven parties in the revived Nepalese Parliament which formed a government, functions at the mercy of the Maoists. The mainstream parties are not just prisoners of the Maoists; they are also stricken by the Stockholm syndrome. So much so that they not only advance the objectives of their political captors but find it advantageous to rationalise the anti-electoral politics of the Maoists as being in their own interest. Fearful of facing elections to the Constituent Assembly that was scheduled to be held on November 22, the Maoists forced it to be put off indefinitely after pulling out of the government of the Seven-Party Alliance headed by Prime Minister G P Koirala. The two stated demands of the Maoists -- declaring Nepal a republic before the elections and adoption of the system of full proportional representation -- has little to do with the real reasons they wanted the elections postponed, to which the SPA caved without the least resistance. In the short period that the Maoists turned ‘politicians’ to swim with the mainstream current, they found that far from enjoying huge mass support, they were actually losing support among the people as well as their own cadres. Their support base had always been limited. It was the firepower, the resolute cadre of rebels, the terror they struck as armed guerrillas and the mystique of their revolutionary leaders that enabled them to control vast areas of Nepal. Once the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed, the underground heroes surfaced as another set of politicians; with the arms surrendered and the cadres confined to cantonments, the Maoists were up against serious internal challenges. The Maoist hardliners began opposing the participation in “bourgeois democracy” and the compromises this entailed without anything in return for those who had waged the “People’s War” for 10 long years. The condition of thousands of former rebels interned in seven cantonments is wretched. They have survived long months of extreme deprivation and misery. Poor shelter, inadequate food, absence of clothing and little or no protection against the elements through monsoon and winter are just a few of what these soldiers of the “People’s War” have had to endure. Inevitably, the dejected cadres feel that their leaders, preoccupied as they are with parliamentary politics, have dumped them. The Maoist leadership blames the SPA government for not releasing the funds necessary to provide for the minimum needs of the cadres in the cantonment. The cruel fact is that while the government has released substantial sums, chunks of these have disappeared ‘en route’ including into the pockets of Maoist commanders. The government cannot release further funds unless the earlier amounts are accounted for by the camp commanders. And, no one is in a position to enforce accounting, least of all the Maoist leadership which is unable to face the fury and frustration of these former soldiers. These neglected cadres are the natural constituency of the hardliners within the Maoist party who mounted pressure on Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai to return to their core mission. In the event, those who favoured the parliamentary option found they could not keep their commitment to multiparty politics without further alienating the hardliners and restive cadres. And, they were hardly in a position to make the party fall in line when their support base was getting eroded. The demand for elections through a system of full proportional representation was useful and necessary to achieve a number of objectives. First and foremost, it meant that the Maoists would not have to face elections, and without the pressure of electoral politics they could return to resolve their internal problems. Second, the Maoists realised that under the present arrangement where half the members of the Constituent Assembly are to be directly elected while another half through proportional representation, their chances of winning even 10 per cent of the 580 seats were very slim. Their electoral prospects appeared so dim that they had to either opt out of contesting or get the elections postponed. This also restored their acceptability somewhat among the hardliners, who were straining to split the party. Yet, elections could have been held if the mainstream parties had decided to call the Maoist party’s bluff, which Prime Minister Koirala was not prepared to risk. At 84, his future and that of democracy in Nepal are at stake, and the two are inextricable as he sees the situation. He would like to go down in history as the one who unified disparate ideological forces and transformed them into the vehicle for Nepal to break through from a feudal autocracy to a shining new republic. If he has to wait for that hour of glory, then he will, as long as he can rule as the uncrowned king of a flawed multiparty democracy. In the meanwhile, there are small party games going on to keep everyone engaged. The Seven-Party Alliance is now precisely that including the Maoists after the Nepali Congress faction headed by Sher Bahadur Deuba merged with the dominant one led by Mr Koirala. The Maoists and the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) struck a deal and got their respective proposals on declaring Nepal a republic and the proportional electoral system passed in the special session of the interim Parliament. True to the spirit of party games, there was no division in the House. The proposal does not say that the monarchy should be scrapped before the elections or when the electoral system should be changed. None of the parties is bound to act on these proposals. Implementation requires the interim Parliament to amend the interim Constitution, which requires a two-thirds majority. Thus Nepal marches on as an interim democracy unsure about its hour of reckoning in the hope that it will occur before kingdom come. |
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Russians return to ethnicity with valenki Called valenki, they are in fact the heaviest wool sock imaginable. Russians are falling in love with the boots again despite, or perhaps because of, their primitive appearance. Even the real fashion-killer, ankle-high galoshes worn over the felt boots to ward off rain, are enjoying a resurgence. In the 1990s, the ugly-duckling boots became deeply unpopular with increasingly fashion-conscious urbanites. But last month, the Mir Shersti (Felt World) store in Moscow sold 40 to 50 pairs a day. Business is up next door at the valenki museum and store. “Last year at this time, we weren’t selling any,” said Elvira Garaeva, the museum’s director. Customers pay $130 and up for a pair of handmade valenki that she embroiders. Revitalized valenki have begun to appear in nightclubs and bars - people are batiking, painting and burning images on the felt. Russian and Ukrainian designers have featured the boots in fashion shows, using nontraditional colors such as orange and yellow or decorating the boots with ribbons and brocade. Moscow designer Olga Soldatova takes things a step further, creating oversize bags from the same felt, with famous Soviet-era paintings depicted in beads on the front. Some fashion-forward Russians have become bored with the European brands they embraced so slavishly a decade ago. They are returning to what fashion observers call “Slavic style.” “You see a lot of ethnic clothes on women now,” Garaeva said. “In Russia, people pay more attention to restoring traditions and history.” Not everyone loves the look, and it is hard to say whether valenki will catch on outside Russia and the former Soviet republics. However, some fashion Web sites are suggesting that valenki could become the next Ugg – the bulky, hot and increasingly expensive sheepskin boots from Australia. Handmade valenki are produced through a painstaking process of brushing and folding the wool and then shrinking it in water. The handmade versions are much less coarse than the factory-manufactured pairs that are standard issue for Russian soldiers and police. Craftsmen roll the wool by hand and mold the bottom of the foot. The loosely woven and extremely large sock is then taken to a traditional Russian steam bath and dipped into hot water several times to shrink it. The boot is placed over a wooden mold, beaten to shape with a stick and left to dry overnight over a fireplace. For hundreds of years, handmade valenki covered the elite feet of the Russian empire, from Peter the Great to Nicholas II. Felt boots were very expensive in the 19th century, and the average family could afford only one pair, so they would be worn in shifts, according to historians. In the Moscow museum, a nostalgic photo montage of soldiers in felt boots at the front exploits the legend that valenki helped Russians prevail in the Napoleonic wars and World War II - the Western European leather boots worn by the enemy were inadequate for the Russian winter. During the political opening that began in the 1980s, valenki fell on hard times. Twenty-five percent of valenki factories closed and the valyalshiki, the craftsmen who made them in the villages, took other work. Many Russians banished the boots to the sheds at their country homes. But now young Russians have rediscovered them. Twins Olga and Galina Shantseva, 19, paint their felt boots - the footwear is popular with their art student friends. “We like to wear them when we go to nightclubs,” said Galina, who stopped by the museum recently with Olga. It’s hard to imagine dancing in the boxy boots that have no left or right, but the twins say the things eventually mold to your feet. “It’s a new style and original,” Olga said. By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post |
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Delhi Durbar Minister of state for external affairs Anand Sharma apparently had a tough time in China when he accompanied Congress president Sonia Gandhi on her recent trip there. Being a vegetarian, Sharma apparently did not quite relish the special Chinese cuisine dished out for the high-level delegation. His craving for good old dal chawal led him on a hunting spree and the minister ultimately succeeded in finding an Indian joint for his daily fix of desi khana. Despite his modest diet and hectic schedule, Sharma found time for his daily work-out in the hotel gym. And who did he have for company…none other than Congress scion Rahul Gandhi. Little wonder Sharma is on cloud nine. Desi not classy? Trying to find the right Diwali gift for the right person has become a major exercise these days, given the wide choice available to the consumer. While traditional items like sweets, dry fruits and choclates continue to be hot favourites, minister of state for commerce Ashwani Kumar decided to be different. He apparently identified the “classy people” in the government, or, more precisely, people who matter in the Prime Minister’s Office and gifted them packs of CDs of Western classical music of all-time greats like Mozart and Chopin. When an appreciative recipient called to thank him, Kumar’s typical response was, “ I couldn’t think of a classier gift for a classy person like you.” The upcoming assembly poll in Himachal Pradesh has generated considerable excitement among the seven lakh-odd people from the state residing in Delhi. Many of them like to go back home and canvass for the candidates and parties of their choice. Congress leaders appear to be more organised than the BJP in cultivating this section which keeps a strong connection back home. The districts of Kangra, Hamirpur, Una, Bilaspur and Mandi contribute the maximum to the strength of Himachalis in Delhi. There is an interesting story of an enterprising leader from Kangra who utilised the services of fellow Himachalis from his constituency in Delhi quite effectively. He sent them money and asked them to write letters to their relatives in his constituency extolling his virtues. Apparently, the move helped to mobilise opinion in his favour. Lavish spread When external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee hosted a lunch for West Bengal Congress leaders at his residence recently, his guests were a little nervous as they were not sure about the meal they would be served. They remembered an earlier occasion when they had to make do with a sandwich and a mithai for a meal. But this time, they were in a pleasant surprise as they were treated to a lavish spread, served by liveried waiters. The state leaders, who could not stop talking about Pranabda’s hospitality for hours after the meal, were particularly happy to find that the senior minister did not discriminate between his loyalists and detractors. Contributed by Anita Katyal, Prashant Sood and S. Satyanaryanan |
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MOSCOW — Russia’s epic winter is fast approaching, the time of year when traditional felt boots come out of hiding. No longer the standard cold-weather look merely for soldiers and street police, the oversize footwear is now sported even by Moscow teenagers.