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Emotional victory Justice for Bilkis |
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Age of gizmos
Identifying Benazir’s killers
Saving with style
Triangle of violence in West Asia Constitutional battles roil South America Chatterati
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Emotional victory FOR
the second time in history, an Indian team ends Australia’s winning streak of Test matches. It was Sourav Ganguly’s team in Kolkata which stopped Steve Waugh and his mates in search of their 17th consecutive win in 2001. Anil Kumble’s resurgent team have now arrested Ricky Ponting’s marauding pack, again on match number 17. Team India was going into the Perth match at the WACA after the turmoil-filled events of the first two Tests on the tour, and into what was being described as a return of one of the fastest wickets on the cricketing circuit. Visions of Brett Lee and newcomer Shaun Tait tearing into the Indian batting, bowling them out with terrifying speed, bounce and movement, were invoked. And in the end, India outplayed Australia in all departments of the game with a great team effort. Anil Kumble’s captaincy has been outstanding, and his steel and dignity were constantly on call as there was much that was not cricket going on during the tour as well. He did well to put it all behind for this match, urging his boys to do so as well. Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar led the batting in the first innings, and the bowlers then did a fantastic job of swing and length bowling, whittling out the Australians for a low score. That set the match up nicely, and another classic by V.V.S. Laxman ensured a solid target for the Aussies. The bowling was again excellent, with new boy Ishant Sharma putting in heartening performances, including a memorable spell against Ricky Ponting; Virendra Sehwag chipped in at crucial times. Irfan Pathan’s was a fine all-round effort. India came to Australia entertaining visions of following up series victories in the West Indies, in England and at home, with the big one of an away-win against Australia. Lack of proper preparedness took them down in the first Test, and in spite of playing good cricket, they were outdone by other factors in the second. They have come back from the dumps, and while the Border-Gavaskar trophy cannot now be wrested from the Aussies, they will definitely be looking to square the series at Adelaide. All they need is the same attitude, skill and application. Expect a humdinger there.
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Justice for Bilkis THE conviction of 12, including a policeman, by a Mumbai sessions court in the Bilkis Bano case is bound to restore people’s faith and confidence in the judicial system. When rioters gang-rape a pregnant woman and kill her four-year-old child right in front of her by smashing her head on a rock, they are worse than beasts and deserve the severest punishment. Though the quantum of sentence will be pronounced on Monday, they deserve no leniency. More important, the case exposed the Narendra Modi government’s wilful strategy to bail out all the accused and circumvent justice. The judgement vindicates the Supreme Court’s decision to transfer the case from Gujarat to Maharashtra. The apex court was greatly disturbed over the “monstrosity of the manner” in which Gujarat’s courts handled the riot cases. Exercising its inherent power, the court shifted the case out of Gujarat, as it did in the Best Bakery case. Bilkis Bano’s bold and resolute stand throughout the trial needs to be commended. Even though the rioters snuffed out the lives of her child and two brothers and outraged her modesty, she fought the battle relentlessly. She refused to succumb to various threats and inducements during the trial and firmly fought the case to bring the culprits to book. Ultimately, it is her eyewitness account of the gory incident that convinced the court of the culpability of the accused in the crime which finally led to their conviction. CBI Director Vijay Shankar aptly hailed Bilkis’ remarkable courage and said that “similar justice can be done in several other cases of this nature”. The verdict in the Bilkis Bano case is not the end of the horrendous story. There are over 4,000 cases related to the Gujarat riots that are pending in various courts. So far, only a few verdicts have come. Most rioters are roaming about freely because of a friendly government, a communalised police force and a biased administration. The people have no faith in the lower judiciary. This is indeed a challenge to the criminal justice system. The Bilkis Bano case is a reminder what a determined victim can accomplish even under the most trying circumstances.
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Age of gizmos THE ruling Akali Dal in Punjab may be criticised for not lending an ear to people’s grievances. But, surely, no one can accuse the government of not having an eye on the people. Obviously, keeping an ear to the ground or eyes open to what is going on in the state is no longer enough for the Akali Dal-led government. Which explains the Home Department, headed by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal himself, ordering a range of hi-tech gadgets that boggle the mind and dazzle the eye. Reports are that the government has ordered sophisticated cameras so tiny that they can be fitted in a pen or the button of a garment. Next time you see a pen pusher from the wooden enclaves of the bureaucracy in a buttoned-up bandhgala, it might be more prudent to smile rather than sneer; because it will be caught on camera. And, woe betide anyone who is caught displaying his contempt or disrespect for the gizmo-laden babu. They can be party poopers, too, where by simply standing around, a spying eye on a shirt can pick up the less-than-respectable doings of his own colleagues, especially if they are his superiors. Provided, of course, he has not lost his buttons in the excitement. The best part is that the government will decide who and what can and should be picked up. For instance, fifth columnists who infest the corridors of power will no longer be able to pick up secret nuggets from high-level meetings by planting a bug; nor by tapping the telephone of officials and politicians. The bug de-activator will render dead any bugs planted in a conference room or tapping devices attached to a telephone. Then there are tap nullifiers which are to be used to make calls in ‘secure’ mode; meaning if the secret-ary picks up the extension to eavesdrop on his boss’ conversation, the latter will be instantly alerted. Doubtless, all these should make for more intelligence gathering. Whether this will make for intelligent governance is a question that cannot be asked aloud for fear of being recorded secretly.
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It’s often better to be in chains than to be free. — Franz Kafka
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Identifying Benazir’s killers
During the night after Benazir
Bhutto was assassinated, a telephonic conversation with a Pakistani friend in Boston brought out interesting information. He is one of the most well-informed journalists on jihad and radical Islamic groups. One of the questions put to him was why it was so difficult for Pakistan’s omnipotent and omnipresent intelligence agencies to eliminate Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. His cynical response was that the time for this had still not come. The reason is that a whole lot of other crimes will be heaped on Baitullah’s head before the Pakistani state eliminates him and proclaims victory. After this astounding answer he was asked if he actually believed that the Pakistani establishment was getting its own people killed in suicide bomb blasts and guerrilla attacks. He responded by saying that things were a little more complicated than they appear. For one, getting a few thousand soldiers killed is not something that bothers Pakistani generals too much, especially since this is in pursuit of a larger strategic game plan - keeping alive their leverage in Afghanistan and also keeping the NATO troops embroiled in that country so that it remains a cash-cow for both the Pakistan Army and the Pakistani state. Secondly, the fight is not so much against radical Islamists (or the Taliban) as it is against recalcitrant Islamic militants who are not willing to toe the line set for them by the Pakistan military. The Pakistan army, according to him, has no problem with radical Islamic groups provided they operate on the directions of the military and intelligence agencies. Third, jihadi organisations have over time splintered and hardcore and highly committed jihadis, who do not appreciate the finer nuances of the jihad strategy of the Pakistani state, have broken off from leaders like Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil of the Harkatul Mujahedin and Maulana Masood Azhar of Jaishe Mohammad who continue to enjoy state patronage. Perhaps this analysis is a little too far-fetched because if there is even an iota of truth in it then there is absolutely no hope for Pakistan. But equally far-fetched is the claim of Baitullah Mehsud or Al-Qaeda being responsible for Benazir’s assassination. If anything, these are convenient scapegoats for the Musharraf regime. Such is their notoriety that any and every crime can be easily heaped on their heads. It is also so much easier for the Pakistani authorities to convince their patrons in the West that these elements were behind the heinous assassination of Benazir. What is more, once the finger is pointed at the Islamists, nothing further needs to be done by the state agencies. After all, who in his right mind will expect the police or investigating agencies to go into the tribal badlands to apprehend these people, bringing them to book! Ignorance about the radical Islamists, and prejudice against them, often cloud any objective assessment of the possibility of their involvement in an outrageous act of terrorism. Most analysts like to imagine that the jihadis are mad mullahs, who will brainlessly attack anyone and everyone who they perceive to be their enemy. But the sooner we disabuse ourselves of this notion the better. If anything, the mullahs are among the most astute and wily political minds in Pakistan. Partly because of their training in madarsas where logic and debate form an essential part of the curriculum, most leaders of jihadi organisations have developed the art of thinking three steps ahead. Every action of theirs is measured and designed to achieve maximum benefit for their cause. And while their philosophy, objectives and methods might appear antediluvian and barbaric to us, unless we can learn to think like them we will always be one step behind them. In a sense, jihadi networks mirror conventional armies. A suicide bomber who willingly blows himself up for his cause is as crazy or committed as an infantry soldier who in the face of unremitting fire rushes up mountain peaks or storms an entrenched enemy position. Jihadi networks function like the conventional armies, which have their foot soldiers, generals and strategic thinkers. The suicide bombers, the fidayeen and the guerrilla fighters are merely the foot soldiers of jihad. But the jihadi networks also have their generals and strategists who make the plans and the strategy of their war. And, just as conventional soldiers sometimes turn into mercenaries, so also do the jihadis. It is this factor that has today given rise to a market in which suicide bombers are bought and sold to the highest bidder who could be a politician, businessman, senior intelligence official or even a General. If for nation-states, war is politics by other means, for the radical Islamist networks, terrorism is politics by other means. It is in this context that the Islamists had really nothing to gain by killing Benazir Bhutto. If anything, Benazir as Prime Minister would have served their interest much better than anyone else. For one, Benazir could not have done anything more than General Musharraf in terms of military action against the Islamists. Benazir’s threat of allowing US troops into Pakistan, in fact, suited the Taliban because this would provide them with whatever justification they needed for escalating their armed insurgency. Politically, Benazir would have sharpened the ideological battlelines between the moderates and the Islamists. Her ascension to power in Islamabad would have resulted in the elimination of the large grey area of Pakistani politics in which a person can be both a moderate and an Islamist at the same time. With Benazir adopting a pro-West, anti-jihad stance, people would have to choose their side - Islam or un-Islam. Such a division is exactly what the Islamists want because not only would it add to the strength of the Islamists, it would also open Benazir to the charge of acting against Islam. This in turn would force her to moderate at least her actions, if not her rhetoric, against the Islamists. Something of this sort had already started happening with lines of communication being opened between the PPP and the Pakistani Taliban. Some Islamists also believe that unlike Nawaz Sharif, Benazir Bhutto was always soft on them and let them be whether it was in Kashmir or in Afghanistan. They also saw her anti-jihad rhetoric as a mere political slogan aimed at stealing General Musharraf’s pro-US thunder from under his feet. All this is not to deny the possibility that Benazir might have actually meant everything she was saying. But even if that was the case and she actually tried to end the Pakistani military establishment’s ambivalence towards the Taliban, she would have had to ultimately fall back upon the very same army to carry out operations against the Islamists. Indeed, had she tried to push the Army too hard, it would have reacted by sabotaging the move to dismantle the jihadi networks. This would have been done for two reasons: one, to destabilise Benazir’s government; and two, destroy her credibility in the eyes of her international patrons and at the same time increase their own importance. The confusion that would have resulted from this double game would have benefited the jihadis and weakened the Pakistani state to a point where the jihadis could take it over. Therefore, neither Al-Qaeda nor its associates like Baitullah Mehsud had anything to fear from Benazir coming into power. Given the dialectics of the situation, it is highly unlikely that the jihadis would want to target a potential asset like Benazir simply to spite the Americans as is being alleged by the Pakistan
government.
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Saving with style IN the bygone days, the man who deprived himself and saved was called a miser. But nowadays when prices are sky-rocketing, he is a wonder. That way my friend Khushal Chand is a double wonder because he is not only able to save, but save with aplomb. True to his name, KC is a happy-go-lucky man. Not that he doesn’t have his share of worldly problems but he is the one who has learnt to take things in his stride. No, he does not drown his worries with the bottle. His attitude to life has given him better options. The spiralling prices do not make him jittery. In fact, each price rise in consumer durables and items of daily consumption is for him an exercise in adjustments and an opportunity to save. Years back when petrol was cheap, both KC and his Morris Minor were young and he used the car freely. When he found that the ageing car’s appetite for fuel was going up with the continuous increase in petrol price, he took recourse to a two-wheeler and started saving. That incidentally made him look younger, or that’s what he thought. He continued to run the Morris Minor sparingly till it graduated into a vintage car bracket with a high price tag. Eventually, a vintage-car buff gladly offered a price much more than what KC had once paid for it. Two to four packets of cigarettes a day is the bane of a chain-smoker and that’s exactly what KC was at one time. Each successive budget saw the prices reach newer heights, making bigger and bigger holes in the pockets of the smokers. Lesser men changed to cheaper brands or vainly tried to tame their smoking habits. But KC was made of a sterner stuff. One fine morning he made the irrevocable decision to say goodbye to smoking and has never looked back. KC was not perturbed when his landlord approached him to increase the monthly rent by Rs 200. The man had come prepared for sure resistance but consider his surprise when KC readily agreed to pay the enhanced rent from the following month. However, in the bargain, he persuaded the landlord to allow him to sublet a small spare room to a needy student. Thereby, he netted a cool Rs 300 and got a helping hand who brought his daily requirement of milk from the market. To top it all, his better-half has been displaying the needed sagacity in equal measure to run the household. Without diluting the lifestyle, she has been managing the affairs remarkably well. Citing the advice of the venerable Swami Ramdev, she has started serving nimbu-paani to the guests instead of aerated cola drinks. The last time I ran into KC was at our local market. He had a load of latest magazines under his arm. He could guess the hint of surprise in my eyes. “Oh, these magazines I have procured from the newsagent on small reading charge. Earlier I used to buy just one or two. Now I read many more at a fraction of what I spent
before.
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Triangle of violence in West Asia
THE Israeli-Palestinian conflict has gone from a violent, intractable, clear-cut duel to a violent, intractable, three-way chess match. Today, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas each fears that the other two will reach a deal at its expense. And each is determined to prevent that outcome. For Hamas, a rapprochement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel represents a threat. The closer Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas move toward a negotiated settlement, and the more they can point to concrete achievements, the more difficult it will be for the Islamists to maintain and expand their support. An effort by Israel to suffocate Gaza, which Hamas now controls, together with attempts by the Palestinian Authority to further squeeze Hamas's infrastructure in the West Bank, where it is under pressure, and to round up its West Bank militants, who are in hiding, also would expose the Islamist movement. Israel worries that Abbas, pressed by Palestinian public opinion, Arab countries and his party's fear of a Palestinian civil war, will reconcile with Hamas. Not a day passes without some unofficial contact between Abbas's Fatah party and its Islamist counterpart. Beyond that, Palestinian unity comports far more with any Palestinian leader's instincts and inclinations than Palestinian discord. A renewed national compact and the return of Hamas to the political fold would upset Israel's strategy of perpetuating Palestinian geographic and political division. It also would thwart the expectation that Palestinian security forces might go after the Islamist movement and do to Hamas what Israel, with all its might, has been unable to do. Abbas and his colleagues fear an understanding between Israel and Hamas that would bolster the Islamic movement at Fatah's expense. They are worried the two may find common ground, striking a deal involving a mutual cease-fire, an easing of Gaza's blockade and a prisoner exchange. This concern is not unfounded. Despite the death and destruction in Gaza, reports of indirect dealings repeatedly surface. When hawkish members of the Israeli establishment, including Ephraim Halevy, a former head of the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency; Giora Eiland, who served as national security adviser to Ariel Sharon; and Shaul Mofaz, a former defense minister, openly advocate some form of engagement with Hamas, Abbas and his Fatah cohorts cannot help but notice. An arrangement between Israel and Hamas could advance both sides' interests. Israel has been unable to quell incessant rocket fire from Gaza, and the release of a soldier captured in the summer of 2006, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, remains a key objective. For its part, Hamas seeks to strengthen its grip on Gaza, re-establish law and order, and demonstrate that it can govern. A deal with Israel would go a long way toward accomplishing all three. It would boost Hamas's legitimacy, show that the movement can deliver, and undermine the notion that it can be defeated through military action and economic strangulation. Nervous about being left out, all three parties are laboring mightily to avert an understanding between the other two. Hamas threatens the nascent Israeli-Palestinian political process, challenging its legitimacy and intimating that it could resort to more violence. Israel warns that renewed Palestinian unity will bring that process to an abrupt halt. Abbas actively discourages any third-party contact with Hamas. The end result is collective checkmate, a political standstill that hurts all and serves none. The truth is, none of these two-way deals is likely to succeed. In tandem, no two parties are capable enough to deliver; any one party is potent enough to be a spoiler. There can be neither Israeli-Palestinian stability nor a peace accord without Hamas's acquiescence. Intra-Palestinian reconciliation will not last without Israel's unspoken assent and willingness to lift its siege. Any agreement between Hamas and Israel over Abbas's strong objection is hard to imagine. For any of these dances to go forward, all will have to go forward. Synchronicity is key. Fatah and Hamas will need to reach a new political arrangement, this time not one vigorously opposed by Israel. Hamas and Israel will need to achieve a cease-fire and prisoner exchange, albeit mediated by Abbas. And Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will need to negotiate a political deal with Abbas, who will have to receive a mandate to do so from Hamas. The current mind-set, in which each side considers dealmaking by the other two to be a mortal threat, could be replaced by one in which all three couplings are viewed as mutually reinforcing. For that, the parties' allies ought to cast aside their dysfunctional, destructive, ideologically driven policies. Instead, they should encourage a choreography that minimizes violence and promotes a serious diplomatic process. Otherwise, no matter how many times President Bush travels to the region, there is no reason to believe that 2008 will offer anything other than the macabre pattern of years past. Hussein Agha, a senior associate member of St. Antony's College, Oxford University, has been involved in Israeli-Palestinian affairs for four decades. Robert Malley is Middle East program director at the International Crisis Group and was special assistant to the president for Arab-Israeli affairs from 1998 to 2001. By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post
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Constitutional battles roil South America
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Movements to rewrite national constitutions are dramatically changing the political paths of several South American countries, triggering bitter debates over whether new charters will benefit future generations or simply serve the political ambitions of current presidents. In three Andean countries –Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela – political leaders recently have pursued constitutional rewrites that would make it more difficult for future administrations to reverse the policies they instituted while in office. But in recent weeks, the proposals have reenergised opposition movements, which complain that their governments are tilting toward authoritarianism. “In all of these cases, the constitutions will only last as long as the ruler does,” said Allan Brewer-Carias, an opponent of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who participated in a constituent assembly in the 1990s. “The main changes that they are calling for are to centralize the government and to concentrate power in that central government. If you want to reinforce democracy after that, you have to change them again to decentralize the governments and the power.” In trying to rewrite the charters, Chavez and his allies in Bolivia and Ecuador hope to forge new national identities – and awaken a strong sense of hope among their poorest citizens. They speak of their proposed changes in revolutionary terms, advocating a stronger state role in the economy and less reliance on global markets, which they say favor more-developed countries. No one in South America is talking about abandoning electoral politics, but each of the three countries undergoing constitutional battles is experimenting with what the Venezuelan president calls “21st-century socialism.” The experiment has not been easy, partly because determining exactly what 21st-century socialism looks like on the page has sparked painful periods of self-evaluation. Both Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales proposed changes that would do away with current term limits for presidents, and Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa’s supporters advocate permanently dismantling the country’s opposition-controlled legislature. To those who don’t share their ideologies, the proposals appear to be attempts to win a tighter hold on power and silence the opposition. The opposition, though, has only gotten louder since the changes were first proposed. After nearly two years of bitter deadlock, an elected constitutional assembly in Bolivia passed a draft of a new constitution last month - only to see it fiercely opposed by large sectors of the population. The controversy sparked riots and led Morales to call for a referendum on his own rule, and that of regional governors. In Ecuador, a similar assembly made up primarily of Correa’s allies effectively dissolved the National Congress. Critics cast the developments as the end of democracy, though judges reviewing the matter upheld the action. And in Venezuela, voters last month dealt Chavez his first electoral defeat by narrowly refusing a set of constitutional changes that would have given him even more authority. Though Chavez and his supporters have hinted they could press for the proposals through other means, such as new laws or decrees, the constitutional referendum for the first time forced Chavez to rethink the nature of his self-styled “Bolivarian Revolution.” “It would be a mistake if we ignored this and tried to increase the pace,” he said this month. “I’m forced to put on the brakes.” The current constitutions are not exactly musty documents on yellowing parchment. Bolivia substantially revised its constitution in 1994, Ecuador’s was ratified in 1998, and an assembly in Venezuela dominated by Chavez allies drafted that country’s charter in 1999. In 2004, the legislature in Colombia, a U.S. ally, changed its constitution to allow presidents to be reelected, permitting Alvaro Uribe to win another term two years later. Just as Chavez did before being elected in 1998, both Morales and Correa campaigned on the promise of creating constitutional assemblies to dramatically alter what was perceived by many as the failure of government institutions and of the rule of law. “Large-scale constitutional reforms are extremely popular with citizens,” said Jonathan Hartlyn, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina who has studied constitutional politics throughout Latin America. “They’re particularly popular in a context of perceived economic and social exclusion, and in places where political parties and politicians are both weak and extremely unpopular and are blamed for the crisis.” The political tension has been worst lately in Bolivia, where thousands of people took to the streets last month, many of them advocating a break from the central government. Several regional governors created “autonomy statutes” calling for more independence and local decision-making power. A draft of the constitution was passed Dec. 9, but the opposition continues to protest some of its articles, including those that would give the federal government more control of local tax revenue and limit the size of individual landholdings. Jaime Aparicio, a former Bolivian ambassador to the United States who also helped oversee Ecuador’s constituent assembly elections last year, places the blame for Bolivia’s constitutional problems on the makeup of its assembly. “The problem in Bolivia is that Morales’ supporters elected people based on their loyalty to the party and on their political activism experience,” said Aparicio, who also serves as vice president of the Inter-American Juridical Committee, based in Rio de Janeiro. “So once they were seated there in the assembly, there was clearly a problem that was very simple - incompetence.” That’s exactly the kind of statement that angers Morales’ supporters most. They have argued all along that the constituent assembly should give more power to grass-roots movements – not lawyers or the political elite.
By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post
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Chatterati THE icing on the 52-kilo pink cake for Mayawati in Lucknow, were the calls from Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi to wish her Happy Birthday. She cut the cake surrounded by more than a hundred IAS and IPS officers. She also laid the foundation for the Rs 40000 crore eight-lane Ganga Expressway, through video-conferencing. Her Cabinet colleagues sought her blessings by touching her feet while she criticised the UPA government for “its insensitivity in understanding the plight of the people of Bundelkhand and eastern UP”. The new jet and the chopper that the UP government is buying for the use of the chief minister were not delivered in time for the birthday. Later in the day, cutting yet another cake in Delhi. Resplendent in pink and flashing diamonds, she was fed pieces of the cake by the two families as they sang the birthday song. Mayawati also released the third volume of her autobiography, Mera Sangharshmay Jeevan – BSP Ka Safarnama. Now every year Maya Behanji says she will write a book and release it on her birthday. Well, in a new turn of events the Finance Ministry will move the Delhi High Court to challenge the order of the Income Appellate Tax Tribunal, which said that gifts in cash and property to Mayawati were not taxable. The department could file the appeal by April against the ITAT order which held that the BSP supporters had given gifts out of ‘love and affection’. The case pertains to the assessment year 2003-04. Bindra’s
post The BCCI is flexing its muscles again at the International Cricket Council as it is more or less certain that its candidate I.S. Bindra will be nominated as ICC’s chief executive officer. So, even as Indian cricketers are battling out the tough as nails Australians Down Under, the BCCI top brass is in Dubai trying to get Bindra this ‘post.’ The post is decorative but Bindra has tasted power before, first as a bureaucrat, then as chief of BCCI. Bindra has the backing of Pawar too. Bindra’s credentials as a cricket administrator cannot be questioned and perhaps with India set to host the 2011 World Cup, it would be good to have this man there as a member. Not for Sonia BJP leader Sushma Swaraj insists that Atal Bihari Vajpayee get the Bharat Ratna. The BSP wants Bharat Ratna for Kanshiram, while Rashtriya Lok Dal says Chowdhary Charan Singh should be awarded. Biju Janata Dal said Biju Patnaik was the most deserving candidate while the Rashtriya Janata Dal said Karpuri Thakur is the right choice. Meanwhile, the Left promoted Jyoti Basu’s name and Ram Vilas Paswan says it should be Mohammad Rafi. But the government, so far, has remained immune to the various demands and attacked the BJP for igniting the unwanted controversy. With more and more names of Bharat Ratna “aspirants” coming out, the political circles in Delhi are intrigued about why nobody has taken Sonia Gandhi’s name so far. But it seems the lady at 10, Janpath has issued a diktat discouraging partymen from raising such a demand. They have been informally told that the price for proposing her name for the prestigious civilian award would be quick disciplinary action.
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