O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Murder, pure and simple
‘Honour’ killings are a shame
IT is tough being a woman. The threat does not come from outsiders alone. They are the target of their own family members as well. The few that survive female foeticide and infanticide may very well fall a victim to “honour killings” as 24-year-old Rajbir Kaur of Amritsar did the other day. Her fault? She wanted to marry a boy of her choice who happened to be from a lower caste. Come to think of it, her father is a Sikh, ostensibly a committed follower of the Great Gurus who ordained a casteless society.

Spectre of Pak nukes
A worried world looks for an answer
PAKISTAN’S nuclear arsenal, comprising about 40 warheads, has been a subject of intense discussion for some time. The world community began to feel uneasy about the security of these weapons of mass destruction after the terrorist and extremist threat to Pakistan’s political stability assumed alarming proportions with the suicide bombings last year. Even International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei expressed fears about these weapons falling into the hands of rogue elements a few days ago. 

Biggest-ever fraud
There are lessons for all from SocGen 
THE revelation that a single trader caused a $7.1-billion loss to France’s second largest bank, Societe Generale (SocGen), rattled global financial markets last Thursday. The bank discovered the fraud by one of its own employees, Jerome Karviel (31), who acted individually with no personal gain, but made it public on Wednesday after unwinding the positions the rogue trader had unauthorisedly taken in European stocks. 

• Thought for the day

ARTICLE

US presidential polls
Recession fears replace Iraq war as top issue
by S. Nihal Singh
IT has become a characteristic of an American presidential election campaign that it gets longer every four years, involves more and more money and vastly enriches the country's television channels. Whether it brings clarity to the issues debated or those left undebated is another matter. But the noise, hoopla and the induced enthusiasm of the primaries are there for the world to see, courtesy satellite television.

MIDDLE

What parents say
by Harish Dhillon
Teachers talk often of the delightful things that children say, but rarely about the priceless gems that sometimes come from the parents. There was a girl who was chronically late to school. No amount of counselling, cajoling or reprimand had any effect. Finally at the insistence of the Housemaster, her mother was sent for.

OPED

Rate cut could help shore up markets
by Jayshree Sengupta
There are a number of reasons for the recent meltdown in the stock markets but the main reason seems to be emanating from outside India. All major Asian markets have been experiencing a bloodbath at the bourses and India too had its share when the 30 share Sensex shed nearly 16 percent from its record high on ‘Black Monday’, January 21.

“Education is the best dowry”
by Aruti Nayar
Empower your daughters before you marry them off abroad,” says Raminder Dosanjh, founder-President of the Indian Mahila Association set up 35 years back in Vancouver to give a voice to South Asian women. Meeting Raminder Dosanjh was refreshing because unlike most activists who blow their own trumpet, she stresses how it is always collective effort that carries an organisation forward.

Delhi Durbar
‘Ravandoss’
Union Health Minister Ambumani Ramdoss, who is better known as the Minister of AIIMS, has a deep grudge against scribes from the national capital whom he considers anti-Dalit and anti-lower castes. These journos, according to him, took sides and wrote against him and in favour of former AIIMS director P. Venugopal.

• Road to honour

• Luncheon surprises

• Racy models

EDITORIALS

Murder, pure and simple
‘Honour’ killings are a shame

IT is tough being a woman. The threat does not come from outsiders alone. They are the target of their own family members as well. The few that survive female foeticide and infanticide may very well fall a victim to “honour killings” as 24-year-old Rajbir Kaur of Amritsar did the other day. Her fault? She wanted to marry a boy of her choice who happened to be from a lower caste. Come to think of it, her father is a Sikh, ostensibly a committed follower of the Great Gurus who ordained a casteless society. But then, this evil is not confined to any particular caste or religion. There are parents who still live in medieval ages and have no respect for the feelings of their children. Even when it comes to such major decisions as marriage, girls are supposed to be like dumb cattle to go where their parents want them to.

There are many Rajbir Kaurs who have either been done to death or have had their lives ruined because of this caste and class divide. The pity is that the division is so strong that leave alone evoking social censure, the perpetrators of such crimes get away lightly. After all, many of the constabulary also comes from the milieu where inter-caste marriages are frowned upon. While the government should take the lead in ensuring that such crimes get the harshest possible punishment in the shortest possible time, social organisations, too, should do a bit of introspection as to how to fight these evils.

We are saddled with caste panchayats which actually order such honour killings secretly or force the marrying persons of different castes to separate. Surely, right-minded persons can come together to counter this patent illegality and put social pressure on those who either kill their daughters young or when they decide to marry out of caste. The message has to be disseminated to every level that these are not honour killings but dishonour killings. 

Spectre of Pak nukes
A worried world looks for an answer

PAKISTAN’S nuclear arsenal, comprising about 40 warheads, has been a subject of intense discussion for some time. The world community began to feel uneasy about the security of these weapons of mass destruction after the terrorist and extremist threat to Pakistan’s political stability assumed alarming proportions with the suicide bombings last year. Even International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei expressed fears about these weapons falling into the hands of rogue elements a few days ago. The Pakistan Army has never faced suicide attacks targeted at its personnel as it is experiencing today. There are reports of desertions by Army personel in protest against the operations in the tribal areas like Swat to clear these of Al-Qaida and Taliban elements.

Strangely, the US is not as critical of the disturbing scenario in Pakistan as it ought to be. But there must be some reason why President Pervez Musharraf keeps assuring the international community every now and then that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are as safe as such weapons are anywhere else in the world. He told a gathering in Brussels during his latest visit to Europe that Pakistan’s “nuclear weapons have been dispersed to various locations” and “no common access is possible”. Last Saturday, Pakistan’s nuclear establishment organised a third unusual briefing for foreign journalists to reassure the world that there can be “no conceivable scenario, political or violent,” in which its nuclear assets can come under the control of extremists.

Of course, it is true that Pakistan’s nuclear establishment remains in the tight grip of its Army. Even Pakistan’s Air Force and Navy have no role in its operations, what to talk of a civilian president or prime minister. But the power dynamics in Pakistan is such that no one can be sure of a Talibanised general staging a coup to wrest control of the country’s administration. It is not easy to weed out all those sympathising with extremists or having faith in their negative ideology. After all, it is the same army which created the Taliban and supported Kashmir-centric jihad not long ago. Can the world feel at ease under such circumstances? 

Biggest-ever fraud
There are lessons for all from SocGen 

THE revelation that a single trader caused a $7.1-billion loss to France’s second largest bank, Societe Generale (SocGen), rattled global financial markets last Thursday. The bank discovered the fraud by one of its own employees, Jerome Karviel (31), who acted individually with no personal gain, but made it public on Wednesday after unwinding the positions the rogue trader had unauthorisedly taken in European stocks. The stock sell-off had aggravated the global meltdown, which led the Federal Reserve to announce an emergency rate cut. Karviel worked on the bank’s equities derivatives desk and took huge bets on the future movement of European stocks and covered his tracks with fictitious transactions. Now sacked along with six seniors, he faces a police case.

Ironically, SocGen claims to be a pioneer in derivative trading. Still it could not detect shady deals right in its backyard. Founded during Napolean’s days, SocGen has weathered two world wars and hopes to survive the latest hit. A possible takeover target, the bank expects to make a small profit and plans to come out with a rights issue to raise $8 billion. Only recently it had lost $2.99 billion in the US subprime crisis. Other banks in France have come out with all-is-well assurances. The faith of bank customers everywhere stands shaken.

This is the biggest fraud in investment banking history and brings back memories of Nick Leeson, who brought down England’s Barings Bank in 1995 by causing a loss of $1.4 billion, which now seems a paltry sum in comparison. With globalisation, complex new financial instruments and large deals, banking has become more risk-prone. After the Barings’ collapse, banks worldwide had become alert and installed the sophisticated blackbox technology to avoid similar scams. However, the SocGen disaster has made all security claims sound hollow and rings another alarm bell for banks worldwide to make their transactions more transparent.

Thought for the day

See, the conquering hero comes!/ Sound the trumpets, beat the drums! —Thomas Morell 

ARTICLE

US presidential polls
Recession fears replace Iraq war as top issue
by S. Nihal Singh

IT has become a characteristic of an American presidential election campaign that it gets longer every four years, involves more and more money and vastly enriches the country's television channels. Whether it brings clarity to the issues debated or those left undebated is another matter. But the noise, hoopla and the induced enthusiasm of the primaries are there for the world to see, courtesy satellite television.

The exaggerated importance being given to the primary contests around the world is an indication of American influence and power — for the better and worse. Yet it would be only fair to read the tea leaves of the election campaign thus far to determine what the main contestants think the public wants to hear, with each politician tailoring his or her views to suit the occasion.

The contest is more interesting on the Democratic side than it is among Republicans, if only because of the general perception that the Republican era is coming to a close. In any event, the Republican front-runners are a ragtag bag of conservatives of hues ranging from a Mormon to a pale clone of President George W. Bush's born-again Christian tribe to a former New York mayor who is advertising his credentials as a resolute leader on the strength of his conduct in coping with the Nine Eleven emergency.

Mr John McCain, a Vietnam War prisoner whose attempt eight years ago was floored by the present occupant of the White House, is presenting himself as a serious candidate with ample experience in the Senate and a capacity to take unpopular decisions. But Mr McCain supports the Iraq war and, even more strangely, believes the US can win a war that is already lost.

The Democratic field is more exciting because it is fielding the first serious woman candidate, Ms Hillary Clinton, and the first black candidate, Mr Barack Obama, who has proved to be exceptionally articulate in presenting himself. Both these aspirants and the Republican hopefuls are calling themselves agents of change. Indeed, President Bush has proved so unpopular at home because of the Iraq war, for besmirching America's name around the world and, most importantly, for precipitating an economic crisis that politicians have come to one conclusion: the country wants a change.

Ms Clinton has shown that she is the most prepared candidate and has been spelling out her mantra of change. Both she and her main rival are, of course, for better distribution of wealth and medical care in contrast to the current President who believes in giving tax breaks to the rich and turning a blind eye to the real needs of the poor and the middle class. But Ms Clinton, for all her criticism of the Iraq war and its mismanagement, supported the American invasion. Mr Obama is on stronger ground for opposing the war although both would want to see the prudent withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.

The Iraq war, however, seems to be taking second place to the economy and fears of recession depriving more people of jobs. And, inevitably, any downturn makes the matter of controlling immigration an appealing tub-thumping issue. Ironically, the US is a nation of migrants, but the process of coping with millions of illegal migrants, many of them from next-door Mexico, that provide cheap labour for the Sun Belt's agricultural industries is a vexatious issue.

Next only to the Iraq mess and the economy, the American political class is very conscious of how unpopular America is around the world, thanks to President Bush's policies. The Nine Eleven terrorist attacks on American soil merely accentuated the Neoconservative inclination to employ the circumstances of American power after the Soviet Union's demise to proclaim the US as the king of the world, the Second Roman Empire, to invade Iraq and re-make the Middle-East as a prelude to re-making the world.

No one can accuse the Bush administration of hypocrisy. It was publicly proclaimed in the 2002 strategy declaration that the US reserved the right pre-emptively to strike a country of its choice and would ensure that no other nation or collection of countries could challenge America far into the future. The doctrine implied that there was no room for equal partners in the new equation. There was room only for satellites of the variety of Mr Tony Blair's Britain. Regional alliances and international institutions were to be employed as and when it suited Washington's interests.

These policies of the Bush administration came packaged with changes in domestic law that constrained much-vaunted freedoms of Americans and, more significantly, of foreigners leading to such abuses as Abu Ghraib tortures, vociferous attempts to cast prisoners at Guantanamo into a black hole and the pursuit of the macabre policy of "renditions", secretly depositing persons in countries with a reputation for extracting confessions through torture.

Such policies could hardly endear the United States to the world, and in recent years, the plot has become murkier. For instance, two non-partisan American organisations have discovered that President Bush lied a few hundred times in manipulating his country to support the invasion of Iraq. Few, if any, US secretaries of state have had to live down the shame of Mr Colin Powell in making patently untrue statements to the UN Security Council to justify his country's policies towards Iraq.

Ironically, President Bush went into Iraq ostensibly to promote democracy with American bayonets even while wounding it at home. His bulwark remained the "war on terror" to protect his country's interests. One consequence was to turn Iraq into a factory, producing terrorists where none had existed. But the public mood in America remains divided between those who blame President Bush for the invasion and the post-invasion blunders and supporters of the war grasping at straws, such as the relatively reduced carnage after the military surge of troops in the hope that the administration would avert a defeat.

Nor are the current election campaigns and their extravagance and hyperbole even before the two main parties have chosen candidates a flattering advertisement for the merits of the American practice of democracy. A taboo topic no American candidate for presidency can dare debate is the justice of the continuing Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Israel is above criticism.

MIDDLE

What parents say
by Harish Dhillon

Teachers talk often of the delightful things that children say, but rarely about the priceless gems that sometimes come from the parents.

There was a girl who was chronically late to school. No amount of counselling, cajoling or reprimand had any effect. Finally at the insistence of the Housemaster, her mother was sent for.

"What can I do?" she said, exasperation writ large on her face. "She never wakes me up in time."

"You mean she never wakes up in time," I corrected her.

"Oh, she wakes up well in time, dresses up, packs her bags and cooks and eats her breakfast. I have no complaint on that score. But she doesn't wake me up in time to drive her to school."

The Housemaster and I looked at each other, both at a complete loss for words.

Even more amusing are the reasons that parents give for seeking hostel facilities for their child even though they themselves live in the city.

"I want to punish him," said one. "He does not listen to me and sits in front of the computer all through the evening. Once he is in the hostel, and deprived of the luxuries of home life, he will come to his senses."

"My house is being whitewashed and I want him out of the way," said another.

"What about the other members of the family?" I asked. "What will you do with them?"

"Oh, there's only my husband and I've sent him away already."

"I want my son to lose weight," said a third. "At home I cannot refuse him food and he eats all the time."

For the record, we did admit this child and he did lose weight.

In order to give a boost to academic standards, the school places the weak children on the Housemaster's list and they are issued a card on which the teachers assign extra work that the children have to do in their weak subjects. The teachers then enter a report on how well the work has been done. The children have to report with the card to their Housemaster, once a fortnight. Children who are extremely weak are placed on the Principal's list and have to follow a similar procedure, reporting once a fortnight to the Principal.

A very happy and excited father arrived at my office with a box of sweets. He pumped my hand vigorously.

"I am so grateful to you sir — it is all your guidance and blessings that has enabled Vivek to achieve this success." I had no idea what he was talking about, but experience has taught me to play along in such a situation. So I too pumped his hand and murmured.

"I am so glad. I am so glad".

"With God's grace and your support my son has, this time, made it to the Housemaster's list. I am sure if he continues like this he will soon be on the Principal's List."

I did not have the heart to disillusion him.

OPED

Rate cut could help shore up markets
by Jayshree Sengupta

There are a number of reasons for the recent meltdown in the stock markets but the main reason seems to be emanating from outside India. All major Asian markets have been experiencing a bloodbath at the bourses and India too had its share when the 30 share Sensex shed nearly 16 percent from its record high on ‘Black Monday’, January 21.

All stock markets work on ‘sentiments’ and the future of the biggest economy in the world, is of great concern to the market operators. The news of a coming recession in the US is enough to cause jitters in the world bourses because its future spending pattern and demand is linked with the global economy’s production and output.

The US economy was doing fine till the housing and credit bubble that was fuelled by low interest rates, burst. It led to the ‘subprime’ mortgage crisis in which it was clear that the banks had been lending without checking the credentials of the borrowers. Default after default by ‘subprime’ (below par) borrowers forced some of the top banks to go into red.

As happened in the past financial meltdowns, the effects of the subprime crisis took time to surface but recently, it started to cripple the entire banking system. When the scene became quite murky, the Federal Reserve chairman Ben Barnanke told the US Congress on January 18, 2008, “ the downside risks to growth have become pronounced”.

This rang alarm bells because Barnanke said quite clearly that though recession was not in view this year, slow growth of the economy was a certainty this year and the next. Recently the IMF has also predicted a downturn of the US economy.

When India is so closely linked with the US economy through software and services (outsourcing) exports as well as commodity exports, there is bound to be a repercussion on the Indian economy and its growth prospects. Services contribute to around 60 percent of the GDP and therefore all the new wealth and the spending power that India is currently famous for, comes from this sector.

Even if ordinary people may not foresee any changes, the Foreign Institutional Investors ( FIIs) can sense the vulnerability of the Indian economy to the downswing in the US because ‘decoupling’ by India is not feasible in the short term and the projected growth of 8.5 percent could well be dented.

In fact the future of business process outsourcing from India by US companies could be at stake. It has become a hot topic in the current Presidential election debates especially in places where joblessness among American software engineers has been rising. Even Hillary Clinton who has supported outsourcing in the past is now sounding more cautious.

Should the new government in Washington in the autumn of 2008 legislate a ban on outsourcing, Indian IT companies would be in trouble even though they have employed top class lobbyists to promote their cause and dispel any false propaganda. Even India’s burgeoning foreign exchange reserves of $270 billion could be affected as they are dependent on the forex earnings from the service sector, remittances from abroad and capital inflows.

The government has been complacent about last year’s heavy FII inflows and despite urgings from various quarters to put a curb on them or at least regulate them, nothing much was done to control the hot money coming in. The FIIs have been in pursuit of higher returns that Indian companies have been offering and higher interest rates.

Some of the big FIIs coming from US have been scarred by the subprime mortgage crisis and brokerage firms like Morgan Stanley incurred a loss of $18 billion. They were the first ones to sell heavily on Monday.

The other FIIs which have been flooding the market and boosting the stock market ( through the Promisary Notes route) in recent times also sold their shares, booked profits and quit when they heard about the recession warnings in the US. Their sudden withdrawal has been a big blow to the stock market – a blow unforeseen and unanticipated.

Another contributing factor has also been the lack of sufficient liquidity in the market. Many brokers experienced a lack of liquidity because when clients saw the markets crash and the value of their shares plummet, they did not pay the required ‘margins’ and shares were unloaded as a result-causing a glut and further tanking of the Sensex.

Day two of the crash was better. With the Federal Reserve of America taking a very bold step of cutting the rate for overnight loans between banks by .75 percent, to 3.5 percent, the market got a breather even though it had very little impact in the US stock markets. In India this step and the promise of big package of $150 billion ‘emergency spending plan’ by President George W. Bush have been viewed positively by the Indian stock market which has responded well with signs of recovery.

Since many shares have become cheaper, some big players have been fishing at the tank’s bottom. LIC and SBI have bought Rs 1500 crore worth of shares and loans have been extended to market players to help them with liquidity. But the recent scam in France’s second biggest bank Societe Generale of 4.9 billion euros ( $7 billion) has again caused some panic.

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has assured that nothing is wrong with the fundamentals of the Indian economy and it is on a high growth trajectory. This has helped to sooth frayed nerves but market sentiments have their own barometer for gauging which way the economy is going. Even the political scene has a role to play and if the market perceives that the government is weak or is a lame duck government, it may move in an unpredictable manner.

If the RBI also announces a rate cut, it would help shore up the market sentiments but then the RBI has to be cautious as it has to do a balancing act between curbing inflation and helping recovery of the stock market. A rate cut would however bring about some parity between Indian and international rates, as Indian rates are currently much higher.

Otherwise, Indians would be borrowing more from abroad and a large outflow of funds could take place. Another surge in FII inflow could also take place but this time round, the government may take some steps towards regulating the inflows-especially because exporters cannot compete globally if the rupee strengthens further against the dollar. In these troubled times, the strength of the manufacturing sector and the agricultural sector could assist in ‘decoupling’ the Indian from the US economy somewhat, and avoid a severe downturn.

“Education is the best dowry”
by Aruti Nayar

Empower your daughters before you marry them off abroad,” says Raminder Dosanjh, founder-President of the Indian Mahila Association set up 35 years back in Vancouver to give a voice to South Asian women. Meeting Raminder Dosanjh was refreshing because unlike most activists who blow their own trumpet, she stresses how it is always collective effort that carries an organisation forward.

Raminder Dosanjh — Tribune photo: Vinay Malik

The pioneering association was founded by a group of five women to serve as a platform for women from the community to articulate their concerns. A purely voluntary effort, they raise their own money by organising charity dinners, shows or voluntary work. Says Raminder: “We have scrupulously avoided getting funding because money is the root cause of organisations falling apart.”

Raminder’s father, an Army officer, believed in educating girls and that is what stood her in good stead. Born in Amritsar, she graduated from St John’s College, Agra, before doing her B.Ed from Government College for Women, Amritsar. She even taught for a while at a school in Dagshai. When she expressed her desire to go to Canada, her mother insisted that she must marry if she wanted to go abroad. She rejected the proposals outright and went to Canada with $7 in her pocket.

When she landed in Vancouver in 1971, it was a huge culture shock for her because the community seemed frozen in a time warp. The socio-cultural practices were antiquated but they forced themselves to wear western clothes to signify assimilation. Raminder, however, continued to wear her saree proudly and revel in her ethnic difference.

There was a strict segregation of the sexes and only muffled voices or whispers were heard if a woman was maltreated or unhappy. People would not discuss these issues openly the way they do nowadays, there was so much of shame attached. She started doing community work and it was during the course of her voluntary work that she met and married Ujjal Dosanjh.

“He was called a rabble-rouser those days because he spoke against exploitation of workers and against the establishment.” Ujjal motivated Raminder to take up cudgels for issues that she firmly believed in. As a well-known attorney and later the Premier of British Columbia, Ujjal continued to stand by Raminder and even when in social gatherings men would joke about her activism.

As she says, “Ujjal would forcefully say we need to change and look at what’s wrong in the community and the men need to change too.” If he was supportive of her work, she too stood by him in the rough and tumble of politics. And she managed to sensitise her three sons to ensure that they respected women even while they were dating.

Now there are many organisations that represent women but way back in the 1970s, there were merely one or two organisations which were headed by men. Says she, “The major part of the work was done by women who worked backstage as secretaries and office-bearers while the men took all decisions. But that changed once we set up the association.”

Even if not dramatically, the situation has changed and as far as markers of change go, there are a lot more South Asian women in the universities as compared to before. Attitudes too have changed and become more liberal. Young couples are open to the idea of divorce rather than leading separate lives under the same roof or torturing each other. Girls also feel if they do not stand up for themselves, no one will and are learning to negotiate their way through the dynamics of relationships.

Many young women are joining social work and often volunteer to help. It is a sea change from the days when Raminder and her group was labelled as ‘homebreakers’ when they had just started out. “We had to work extremely hard to sensitise the community and counter well-entrenched feudal attitudes that led to treating women like objects or commodities.”

Recently, an Indo-Canadian in the suburb of Delta, Vanouver, slit the throat of his third baby daughter because he was unhappy after her birth. Raminder describes how it was violent events like these, a young mother jumping from a bridge with her two children and a father hiring contract killers to murder his daughter and her family (because she had married into a lower caste) that had left a deep impact and spurred her on to set up an organisation for South Asian women.

Raminder describes how the association took up cudgels for the rights of the girl child to be born when a doctor across the border in British Columbia started targeting the community by placing full-page advertisements in local papers for sex determination tests. The association wrote to mainstream political parties and local politicians to stop this violence against the unborn girls.

Raminder strongly feels the need to cross-check the antecedents of the groom before marrying daughters abroad. Raminder implores parents and guardians to be doubly cautious.

According to Raminder, “The girl should be empowered before she is sent abroad. Often they are not even fluent in English which is a handicap, leave alone have a knowledge of the law and her rights. Education is the biggest dowry that you can give your daughter.

“Gold and diamonds will vanish but education will be a permanent asset that will stay with her forever and take care of her at every stage of her life.” Raminder also debunks the practice of watta-satta, which is like an exchange offer, a business transaction. If a girl marries someone to go abroad, in exchange someone else from the girl’s family is married off.

The Indian Mahila Association will complete 35 years in a couple of months and Raminder has the satisfaction of seeing more and more young women from the community speak up for themselves as well as work for the community.

Delhi Durbar
‘Ravandoss’

Union Health Minister Ambumani Ramdoss, who is better known as the Minister of AIIMS, has a deep grudge against scribes from the national capital whom he considers anti-Dalit and anti-lower castes. These journos, according to him, took sides and wrote against him and in favour of former AIIMS director P. Venugopal.

But now Ramdoss, if his staff is to be believed, is out to settle scores. Journalists, who have been beneficiaries of the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) for over a decade, are being told that they cannot avail this facility in the new year as the Minister has not given the green signal. Suffering from the indecision of the Minister, a harassed coreespondent was heard saying "he cannot be a Ramdoss, he is Ravandoss".

Road to honour

Union Minister and LJP chief Ramvilas Paswan, who apparently sees BSP chief Mayawati as his main rival among the Dalit leaders in the country, is unhappy over the way the media has sought to equate his demand of Bharat Ratna for Jagjivan Ram with that of the UP Chief Minister, who has sought the same award for Kanshi Ram. Paswan says his demand is not new and he had raised it over a year back while Mayawati had made her pitch following the Leader of Opposition L K Advani's suggestion to give the highest civilian award to former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Paswan does not agree with the demands, being linked to the RSS, that the award should be given to Bhagat Singh, saying that freedom fighters were above such honours.

Luncheon surprises

Mediapersons who had come to the lunch recently hosted by AICC leader Veerapa Moily at his residence, were taken by surprise when they learnt that party general secretary Rahul Gandhi would be among the leaders coming to meet them. Rahul, who was expectedly mobbed by mediapersons, spent time answering questions. There was some drama towards the end when eunuchs came to the venue. Most of the senior leaders had left by then but Minister of State in the PMO Prithviraj Chavan had to make a hurried exit as he was spotted by the vocal visitors. The minister apparently doled out some cash before speeding away.

Racy models

The recently concluded Auto-Expo was a phenomenal success with no fewer than 25 automobile models being launched, including the world's cheapest car – the Tata's Nano. The turnout at the Auto Expo was itself a record. More than 1.2 million people flocked Pragati Maidan for the event. Besides the Nano, the other main attractions at the Auto Expo were the foreign models whom the various automobile manufacturers had specially flown in from different parts of the world and positioned them with the new models of their cars.

Skoda India, launching its Fabia, had brought along 20 Australian models. In their microminis, they became an instant hit. To avoid any embarassing or untoward situation, the auto company quickly put up barricades to keep the Australian models out of harms way.

Contributed by Satish Misra, Prashant Sood and Girja Shankar Kaura