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Licence raj Greater vigil needed |
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Obama makes headway Round One throws up new possibilities in US The Iowa caucus victory for Mr Barak Obama, leaving national favourite Hillary Clinton at the third place in the race for the Democratic nomination, does not mean much to indicate the final outcome in the US presidential elections. It also does not indicate that the US voters may prefer to allow the first African-American to occupy the White House instead of having the first woman President in the country’s history.
End of truce
Dignity of labour
How Iowa plotted a polite insurgency Nigeria’s ‘Nollywood’ springs a surprise Chatterati
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Licence raj IT is one thing to insist that everybody out on the streets in Delhi from January 15 must carry some identity proof and quite another to ask every motorist entering the city state to have his licence authenticated by the Delhi Transport Authority. Lt-Governor Tejinder Khanna has clarified that any identity proof, be it a ration card or a voter’s identity card or a driving licence, will suffice. It is a small step in the national goal of providing every citizen with an identity card and instilling in him the need to carry it always. Innumerable are the benefits of an identity card, in not only weeding out the undesirable elements but also in helping in easy identification of the person should something untoward happen to him. In many countries, including the US and the European Union, the citizens are expected to carry an identity card at all times. The same cannot be said about the Delhi government’s fiat on driving licence. The argument trotted out is that drivers from other states are not familiar with the traffic conditions in the national Capital and they cause accidents. As it is, there is no data on this specious theory. A driving licence issued by a state authority has all-India validity. There is no reason to believe that a driver, who can drive vehicles in, say Mumbai, cannot do so in Delhi. The solution the government has come up with is that the licence should be okayed by the Delhi Transport Authority. As it is, the test for driving licence in Delhi is not different from such tests in other states. In any case, tests are not conducted in real traffic conditions. There is, therefore, nothing to suggest that someone holding the Delhi licence is better placed to drive vehicles in Delhi. It is no secret that in Delhi, too, licences can be obtained on payment with minimal test as in other parts of the country There are touts everywhere doing good business. The only beneficiary of the new order will be the traffic policemen who can harass those driving vehicles from other states into Delhi. It can cause an infringement of the right to drive vehicles all over the country. If Delhi can get away with such an order, other states, too, will be empowered to make such rules making the life of drivers miserable. The earlier the idea is given the burial the better it will be for the country. Maybe, the Delhi administration wants to earn additional revenue by excessively issuing challans to motorists from other states.
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Greater vigil needed The
arrest of four terrorists allegedly belonging to the Babbar Khalsa International by a special cell of the Delhi Police just before they were trying to eliminate certain VIPs in Punjab, including religious guru Baba Piara Singh Bhaniarawala, is a chilling reminder of the efforts being made to revive terrorism in the state. While the Punjab police can also compliment itself for seizing large quantities of RDX and also unravelling the Shingaar cinema blast case, all such subterranean activities should also steel it for the long haul that is in store in the never-ending war on terror. It is well established that the network of these terrorists is fairly well spread and their foreign mentors have been providing them financial and logistic support. The government will have to mount stricter vigil to foil their nefarious designs. One eventuality they must guard against is the desire of the killers to foment communal trouble. That can cause commotion which is ideal for the spread of militancy. What is a matter of particular concern is the role being played in crime by those below 25 years of age and having no previous criminal record. For instance, almost all those arrested for the Shingaar blast belong to this group. That shows how successful the attempts of the enemies of the nation to get new recruits are. They have been focussing on children of the killed, missing or arrested terrorists. The police was supposed to keep a special eye on them but this vigil has got relaxed over the years. The most important factor in the fight against terrorism is the will of the government. It should have the strength not to succumb to militant pressure. But the way it allowed the portrait of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale to be installed at the Darbar Sahib complex was not a good augury. Even otherwise, radical literature and posters of the killed terrorists have been allowed to be sold all over the state almost freely. Such dereliction can have a deleterious effect. The militants have proved time and again that they don’t belong to any religion. Allowing them to wear this misplaced halo can lead to horrifying consequences yet again in Punjab, which suffered for nearly a decade not too long ago.
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Obama makes headway The
Iowa caucus victory for Mr Barak Obama, leaving national favourite Hillary Clinton at the third place in the race for the Democratic nomination, does not mean much to indicate the final outcome in the US presidential elections. It also does not indicate that the US voters may prefer to allow the first African-American to occupy the White House instead of having the first woman President in the country’s history. But the Iowa primary results are encouraging for Mr Obama as this marks intimations of a change in the popular mood in the US. He may now have greater media attention than he has had so far. This may strengthen his drive for a repeat performance in New Hampshire, where the primaries are scheduled for January 8. If New Hampshire goes the Iowa way that can be treated as a serious threat to Ms Clinton’s claim to the US presidency. Most opinion polls in New Hampshire have given the former First Lady a six percentage points lead over Mr Obama. The Iowa results may help Mr Obama to narrow down this gap or even score a victory for Democratic nomination. There appears to be a clear message for Ms Clinton. She has to rework her campaign strategy, as the US voters are believed to be looking for a change at the White House. Her experience at the White House and her argument that she can easily claim to have a better understanding of the responsibilities of the most powerful Head of State in the world only go to prove that the US presidency under her will reflect the Bill Clinton days. As studies show, the US voters wish to see the new White House occupant bubbling with fresh ideas. Ms Clinton has to overcome this image problem to retain her lead, using her husband’s appeal as needed. Very few people are surprised over the developments in the Republican camp — the victory of Mr Mike Huckabee, who has won the Iowa primaries as the party’s contender for the White House. His background as a Baptist preacher has helped him secure considerable support of the Iowa Republicans as the state’s population comprises over 60 per cent Evangelical Christians. For the Republican contenders, the real beginning of the primaries lies ahead — in New Hampshire. Opinion polls show a neck-and-neck race between Mr Mitt Romney, who stood second in Iowa, and Mr McCain in New Hampshire. Wild swings apart, reports from the US suggest the people are watching the outcome of the race for the White House more in the Democratic Party than among the Republicans.
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Must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those that have no imagination? — George Bernard Shaw
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End of truce
THE Sri Lankan government’s formal termination of the truce with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that lasted nearly five years could not have been more ill-timed or ill-advised. The ceasefire agreement (CFA) was all but dead during the last two years which saw a revival and escalation of armed violence. Violations of the CFA by both sides had become routine and the truce had ceased to prevail except on paper. Yet, the fiction of the CFA’s existence provided a point of reference if only to benchmark violations, and sustain the hope, even if illusory, that there was a basis on paper to which the two parties could return. The fiction also sustained the hope, despite its being dashed all too frequently, that the on-going war since 2005 did not signify the death of the political process for the resolution of the Tamil-Sinhala conflict. Now, all that pretence has been shredded. There is no room even for political posturing, and instead of a clean slate, what both parties, India and the international community, are confronted with is a bloody battleground that promises to get bloodier. Colombo, for all its protestations about pursuing a politically-negotiated solution, is aggressively seeking a military solution with the sole objective of exterminating the LTTE. This course is fraught with disastrous consequences and Sri Lanka has to brace itself for a prolonged period of violent attritions amidst growing political, economic and military uncertainties. The LTTE — being a brutal, militarised outfit which has preferred war to peace, violence to talks and killings to political options — can hardly criticise the turn of events it has brought upon itself through its own predatory strikes and intransigence. However, at issue is not whether the LTTE can or should be eliminated — though that, too, is an issue. At issue is whether the Sri Lankan government is at all serious about conceding the legitimate rights and aspirations of the Tamils as citizens of that country. While the military campaign against the LTTE has been intensified, there has been no advance whatsoever towards implementing the devolution proposals that would meet the aspirations of all ethnic groups. There has been a conspicuous withdrawal from dialogue and discussion with an equally conspicuous emphasis on military objectives. As a result, though the target is the LTTE, the victims are the very Tamil population that Colombo should be trying to win over. A weakened LTTE would find such a militarised power struggle very useful to reinforce its own position as the only shield against the atrocities of a government driven by the Sinhala-Buddhist establishment’s vision of a unitary state. By terminating the truce, all that President Mahinda Rajapaksa has assured himself is the continued and deeper disaffection and distrust of the Tamil population. This is a critical shift from Colombo’s policy, also pursued by both Mrs Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe, to win over the Tamils while, at the same time, dealing with the LTTE to either alienate it from the Tamils or bring it to the negotiating table. It is the dislodging of this cornerstone of policy, rather than the targeting of the LTTE, that has given rise to alarm in the region and in capitals further away about President Rajapaksa’s direction. In embarking on this path of militarist confrontation, President Rajapaksa has undone whatever was achieved when the truce prevailed in principle. The most important gain of the truce was an end to war; and even when the period of no-war ended in 2005 and peace proved elusive, there remained benefits to be counted. The LTTE and the supremacy of V. Prabakaran had not only been broken but it was established that the peace process could be also used to further weaken his stranglehold over the LTTE and the areas it controlled. The emergence of a breakaway faction led by Col Karuna all but “liberated” the eastern territories controlled by the LTTE and Colombo found uses for Karuna’s services. This, in turn, led to other chinks in the LTTE’s armour being laid bare. In fact, the Sri Lankan military’s targeted bombing of the leadership that led to the death of S.P. Thamilselvan in November last was, perhaps, the most devastating hit suffered by the LTTE. Without this “smiling face”, and bereft of Anton Balasingham, the LTTE’s international appeal, too, had declined. The LTTE leadership, holed up in the northern jungles under mounting military pressure, was also disabled by reports of Prabakaran being seriously injured, if not killed, in an attack. Those concerned with the developments in Sri Lanka and looking to sustain the smallest openings for peace are already speculating, and openly, on the post-Prabakaran scenario. Even without Prabakaran, the LTTE will not disappear in a day. It may be less effective as an organisation, but as a terrorist outfit — and with the likelihood of rogue squads coming to the fore in the absence of Prabakaran — there may be no immediate end to terrorist strikes. Even assuming that without Prabakaran at the helm, the LTTE’s inexorable decline is inevitable in a short span of time, the Tamil question will not go away; and there is no predicting what forms the struggle for Tamil rights and aspirations may take. If the LTTE has been cornered and its leadership wounded enough to retreat, President Rajapaksa should have seized the moment to proclaim a more vigorous pursuit of a political solution. Instead, he has chosen to intensify the military campaign. This can only strengthen the Sinhala-Buddhist unitarian establishment, fuel further chauvinism, erode the regional and international goodwill that was invested in Sri Lanka because of the peace process, and vitiate the political climate further along divisive lines. The ceasefire agreement may have been deeply flawed, and neither side may have put away its arms. Yet, it could be invoked because it existed, and that precluded a formal declaration of war, which is what the CFA’s termination means. Now, the war against the LTTE will be perceived as a war against the Tamil population and their grievances, rights and aspirations. If the alienated minority begins to feel disowned by the state in its own country, this condition can no longer be attributed to the LTTE alone. President Rajapaksa can also take some of the
credit.
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Dignity of labour
Coming
across a child selling cold drinks or chips may not be new. But, finding someone with great self-esteem among them was a new experience for me. On my way to Delhi a few years ago, I had an encounter with such a personality, who was talented and was proud of being employed. I boarded a train from Ludhiana and after crossing Rajpura, a child aged around 12 years, dressed in dirty shorts and shirt appeared before me. “Didiya, Chips le lo” (sister, take chips). My reply was “no” with a rude accent, but he disappeared smiling. Though his appearance was not appealing, he left me confused. Being a student, I was a little hesitant to start a conversation with an unknown, that too who is selling chips on train. After sometime he appeared again and asked the same question, this time I bought one packet and from that time whenever he would go past, he would give me a smile. Finally breaking deadlock of facial expressions, I started a conversation with him. He revealed his name was Kashi, unaware about his parents and family. Born and brought up at Ludhiana railway station, he called that railway station his place of residence. Talking about his daily routine he told me: “Didiya, poora din train mein attae jatte hain, aur raat ho jati hai.” Having sweet and very soft voice was his biggest asset, as it seemed to me, he disclosed about his hobby. He was a film buff and singing songs was his passion. When I asked him to sing one for me, he sang it without any hesitation. I was amused at his confidence. When I appreciated him for his voice, he smiled shyly. Slowly the conversation, which lasted about 15 minutes, came to an end. I offered him a 100-rupee note, and was surprised at his reply. “Didiya mein khud kamata hu, mujhe iski zaroorat nahi hai. Maine socha ki aap ko mein accha laga, apne is liye baat ki hai, par aap to dusro jaise nikle” and he disappeared. His words left me puzzled and embarrassed. I didn’t even have a chance to explain to him, why I interacted with him? I tried a lot to find him but couldn’t find him again. Even today, I always board a train on the Ludhiana-Delhi route with a hope to meet
him. |
How Iowa plotted a polite insurgency Barack Obama
sprinted up the podium, like the basketball player he is, to the wild and enthusiastic cheers of his overwhelmingly youthful supporters. “They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided; too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose,” he told his audience.
“But on this January night and at this defining moment in history and you have done what the cynics said we couldn’t do; what the state of New Hampshire can do in five days; what America can do in this New Year.” Standing in the crowd, with tears of emotion rolling down his cheeks was Ben Schneider an 18-year-old college student from Maryland who had volunteered to work for the Obama campaign and had been camping out on floors for the past week. “Three of us came out and we’ve been staying in a place with no furniture, but it has been amazing,” he said. “What I admire about Obama is that he is bringing a new type of politics into play, he works across ideological and partisan lines. “Look, we even have Republicans working for him,” he added. “All this stuff about him being too young or not having enough experience to be President is nonsense. Look at how he laid it on the line his whole life as a community organiser in Chicago, turning down high-paying corporate jobs.” “He’s a genuine guy and we have never seen anyone like him in my lifetime,” he added. “What we have seen here in Iowa is a grassroots local campaign on steroids.” Back in the Fort Des Moines Hotel there was a forlorn mood in the Clinton camp. There was not a single high-powered guest to be seen on the floor, until the results came out and Hillary Clinton’s staff quickly ushered a crowd to appear behind her as she addressed a battery of television cameras. Yet even hours before the voting began, it was becoming clear that the game was up for Mrs Clinton. As she and her husband perfectly coiffed and wearing matching green scarves came striding through the lobby of the hotel after lunch, there was a look of bleak despair on their faces. As the door of their waiting secret service Limousine clunked shut, Mrs Clinton, looked towards Bill and made an angry gesture with her hands. For a woman who never tired of telling the plain folks of Iowa of the inevitability of her election as President, it was evident that as far as Iowa voters were concerned, there would be no restoration of the Clinton White House in the near future. On Friday, there was disbelief at how an overwhelmingly white state, with a long legacy of racial bigotry, managed to choose a 46-year-old African-American as its Democratic nominee for the White House by a thumping majority. The high priests of the Republican party were equally mystified as to why well-drilled party activists had opted for Mike Huckabee, an electric-guitar-playing former Baptist televangelist who was a virtual unknown until a month ago. But as neighbours met, in church halls and schoolhouses across the state to partake in the archaic but highly democratic caucus system, it was clear that the Iowa electorate and flinty, clear-eyed, and polite to a fault had insurgency in mind. Democrat or Republican, their genial nature betrayed a seething anger at what they view as the brazen incompetence of President George Bush. Other factors in the inflammatory mix were despair at the needless deaths of the country’s young soldiers, fears for their own jobs, their rickety healthcare system and the future of the planet. At the Emanuel Elementary School in Des Moines, Bill Brauch a Democrat caucus supervisor repeated over and over that the turnout was “beyond belief, absolutely beyond belief”. There were, he said, 10 times more people at the school than the last time a caucus was held. Among them was 89-year-old Jim McCollum, a former actuary. He was not in the slightest bit interested in Hillary Clinton. “I’ve knocked around for a bit and attended caucus meetings since the1940s,” he said, “but I have never been more convinced than now that we have a real leader in Obama.” “He’s the only one not in the pocket of special interest (groups) and lobbyists and the only one who can bring about fundamental change in America’s way of doing business.” As the voters poured into the school auditorium, it was clear that the night was going to be Obama’s. His supporters, as close to a cross-section of America as it is possible to find in Iowa, sat cross-legged on the stage, passing out bottles of water and checking the results from other precincts on their Mac-books and Blackberries. After the first headcount, the horse-trading was supposed to begin, but with the Obama faction more than double the size of its two closest rivals, the Clinton campaign and that of the old-style left-wing populist John Edwards, a quiet victory party got under way. Then, furiously, the Edwards camp lobbied for the votes of candidates who had not made the threshold and by the end of the evening, their man had knocked the Clinton camp into third place. By the end, it was an astonishing 155 votes for Obama, 78 for Edwards and 69 for Clinton. The pattern would be repeated in hundreds of similar meetings across the thinly populated farm state. Later, as she drank from the bitter cup of defeat and congratulated her two main rivals, Mrs Clinton repeated her mantra of “change”, even though she had Bill on one side and Madeleine Albright, his former Secretary of State, on the other. But after coming third in Iowa, Mrs Clinton has just four days to prove she is electable. If Mr Obama wins the New Hampshire primary, the expectation is that he will also win South Carolina with its large number of black Democrats. With the wind in his sails and huge momentum generated by three consecutive victories, he will be in the best place possible on “Tsunami Tuesday” on 5 February when 22 states go to the polls in one day. The Clinton campaign must now reassess why the combined message of experience and change made no real impression in Iowa despite bombarding the population with slick television ads until an hour before voting. Iowans, it seems, were looking for authenticity more than experience and they found it in Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee, two people who give straight answers on the important questions. A secret service agent, a die-hard Republican who works for both the Obama and Clinton details came away from the campaign so impressed by the former’s decency that he voted for him. “He looks you in the eye, calls you by your name and says thank you,” the agent confided, “Hillary just cuts you dead.” By arrangement with
The Independent |
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Nigeria’s ‘Nollywood’ springs a surprise You’ve
heard of Hollywood and Bollywood. But Nollywood? Well, Nigeria’s $500-million film industry that is the world’s third largest, will make an impact globally this year, says a top US ad agency. JWT, one of the largest advertising agencies in the US, ranks ‘Nollywood’ high for 2008 in its just-published report. “These people, products, places, services and shifts will help define 2008,” Ann Mack, director of trend spotting at JWT, was quoted as saying. There is a huge difference between the flourishing filmmaking industries Hollywood and Bollywood on one hand and Nollywood on the other. Unlike the first two, filmmakers in Nigeria make films under the worst circumstances and the budgets are minimal. An average production takes just 10 days and costs approximately $15,000. Yet in just 13 years, Nollywood—as JWT calls it—has grown from nothing into a $500 million-a-year industry that employs thousands of people. Currently, some 300 producers churn out movies at an astonishing rate—“somewhere around 2,000 a year”. The credit for the dramatic growth in the Nigerian film industry goes to entrepreneurship and digital technology. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Lagos and other Nigerian cities faced growing crime and insecurity. Theatres were closed down because people were scared to venture out after dark. Videos for home viewing imported from the West and India were mildly popular. That’s when Nigerians grabbed the opportunity and decided to fill the gap with their own products. According to experts, the credit for making Nollywood goes to a businessman who needed to unload thousands of blank tapes and to the 1992 video release of Living in Bondage, a movie featuring a tale of the occult that was an instant success. It wasn’t long before other would-be producers jumped on to the bandwagon. Nigerians are tech-savvy and adopt new technologies as soon as they become affordable. The technological invasion replaced bulky videotape cameras with digital descendants, which are now being replaced by HD cameras. Editing, music, and other post-production work are done with common computer-based systems. The interesting part is that the films go straight to DVD and VCD disks. Every week, Nigerian filmmakers are delivering about 50 new titles to shops, where an average film sells 50,000 copies. A hit movie sometimes crosses several hundred thousand. Disks sell for around 200 naira each ($1=118.5 nairas), making them affordable for most Nigerians and providing astounding returns to producers. Shooting is inevitably delayed by obstacles unimaginable for Hollywood or Bollywood but the filmmakers brave the odds to entertain their countrymen. For instance, Lagos, which is home to 15 million people and is expected to have 24 million by 2010, is a nightmare of snarled traffic, pollution, decaying infrastructure and frequent power outages. Actors frequently don’t show up when they’re supposed to because they are overloaded. Local thugs disrupt location shooting. They extort money for protection before they allow filming to take place in their territories. Yet Nollywood producers are undeterred. They know they have struck a lucrative and long-neglected market—movies that offer audiences characters they can identify with in stories that relate to their everyday lives. Western action-adventures and Bollywood musicals provide little that is relevant to life in African rich districts, slums and remote villages. Nollywood stars are native Nigerians. Films have familiar settings and the film plots depict situations that people understand and confront daily like romance, comedy, the occult, crooked cops, prostitution and HIV-AIDS. “We are telling our own stories in our own way. That is the appeal to both filmmakers and the audience. The appeal stretches far beyond Nigeria. “Nollywood films are becoming popular all over English-speaking Africa and have become a staple on M-NET, the South African based satellite television network,” said Nigerian director Bond Emeruwa. The last few years have seen the growing popularity of Nollywood films among African Diaspora in both Europe and America. —
IANS |
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Chatterati I cannot stop myself from commenting on Dhumal’s swearing-in ceremony because no Chief Minister has ever done something so ostentatious. There were a half dozen BJP Chief Ministers who flew in for the ceremony. Would the swearing of the Congress result in so many of his fellow Chief Ministers attending? Well, at the moment, there are so few of them around that they would not add up to a crowd in any case. Being sworn in at the Ridge is an excessive act of public display. It is really absurd. Maturity and humility is what makes a leader. Vir Bhadra Singh, the former Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, was sworn in five times as Chief Minister quietly as is traditionally done at the Raj Bhawan. Running the government is a serious business and Dhumal has serious work on his hands. Getting concessions from the Centre on an extended industrial package and providing jobs to the new and young workforce of the state is not going to be easy, certainly not as easy as gathering crowds on the Ridge. Bonanza of benefits In the preparations of the Commonwealth Games, Delhi citizens will get a bonanza of benefits that are designed to make the Capital friendlier and more fun. Revelry and Delhiites don’t seem to mix well. But this is something the Capital will have to get used to very fast hopefully from a vigilant police force. We must however keep in mind that it’s not easy that some trends are extremely easy. The severe cold that made Delhi freeze on the New Year eve ensured that the year started with fewer incidences of drunken misbehavior and roadside chaos. But given that, Delhi is soon going to have more liberal rules on bars and clubs we may have to watch carefully. Delhi is now the crime capital of the country as far as women are concerned and that does not seem to change or go away. Delhi seems to buck the trends of the other metros. Can anybody help? The latest in town are the laddus Rs 7,000 per kg. They may not be exactly easy for the common man to digest, but for those who can afford the price it is a delicacy to be savoured at leisure. The Ganesh Special Modak laddus which have made a debut in the market this year are made from desi ghee, sugar and nuts and are sealed with pure gold foil. These laddus have a much longer shelf life and are highly nutritious too. The ‘Laxmi Special Kamal’ is available at Rs 4,000 per kg while the ‘Mamra Badam Launj’ at Rs 2,000 per kg. These sweets are couriered to foreign destinations. Then there is another almond sweet, wrapped in gold foil that is priced at Rs 17,000 per kg. And this premium variety of sweets has already found many takers. Initially, there were not many customers but now especially politicians are clamouring for the gold almond sweets. With more and more people becoming health and calorie-conscious, the focus this shifted from the ordinary “khoya” sweets to premium varieties and chocolates.
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