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Death for rapists
The idea of justice
Punjab needs N-plant Russia’s strike shows power
of pipeline Delhi Durbar
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Pay them more THE 21 per cent hike in salaries, announced by the UPA Government on Thursday, comes ahead of elections as a nice Independence Day gift for more than 50 lakh Central employees. The Sixth Pay Commission’s recommendations had disappointed sections of the employees, particularly in the defence services. The IAS was accused of getting away with a larger share of the cake. The final report will, hopefully, remove the sense of perceived discrimination. The defence personnel, according to the approved report, will get at least three assured promotions after eight, 16 and 24 years of service. The government has raised the minimum entry-level salary of an employee to Rs 7,000 from Rs 6,600 suggested by the commission. The dissatisfied employees, if any, should remember that a vast majority of people in the unorganised sector has no regular income or protection from rising prices. The salary hike will put a burden of Rs 17,798 crore on the exchequer annually and the arrears, to be paid from January 2006, will mean an additional outgo of Rs 29,373 crore. The RBI, which has been tightening money supply, rather harshly to tackle inflation, must have kept in view the possible release of this huge sum in the system. While the Central finances, despite the heavy oil, fertiliser and food subsidy pressure, are still in a reasonably good shape, state finances are likely to go haywire as employees press for a similar wage increase. This will mean more borrowings and diversion of money from development works to salaries and pensions. Since the cost of living is going up as also people’s aspirations for a good quality life, it is natural for employees to expect a higher take-home income. People in general also expect more from the government employees: efficient services, polite behaviour and an end to red tape and corrupt practices. The government should take this opportunity to push harder administrative reforms. The Fifth Pay Commission had recommended, along with the pay hike, downsizing of the administration. This part of the report has remained unimplemented.
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Keep off The
coalition government in Islamabad, it seems, has forgotten its real concerns. Instead of controlling the situation in various parts of Pakistan, becoming grave with every passing day, it has started poking its nose into what is happening in India’s Jammu and Kashmir. First the Pakistan Senate went to the extent of passing two resolutions on the protests in Jammu and the valley. Then Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and its Foreign Office spokesman described the police effort to prevent the protesters in the valley from marching towards the Line of Control as the “excessive and unwarranted use of force”. On Wednesday, the Pakistan National Assembly passed a resolution, appealing to the international community to end “atrocities” on the people in Kashmir in the wake of the Amarnath yatra controversy. It again mentioned the UN resolutions on Kashmir, which are no longer relevant. President Pervez Musharraf, who is fighting for his survival, in his address on the eve of Pakistan’s independence day also brought up Kashmir. Pakistan this way has shown lack of sense of responsibility. It is not for Pakistan to feel “deeply concerned over the deteriorating situation” in the valley, “resulting in the loss of life and property of the Kashmiri people”. If those suffering because of the crisis in the state are the “Kashmiri people”, they are also citizens of India. Their welfare is the responsibility of both the Government of India and the Government of Jammu and Kashmir. India obviously is worried about the hardships of its citizens there. It has to do all it can to defuse the crisis quickly. As a mature nation, India knows how to weather such storms and find a solution for the problem. Pakistan’s uncalled for remarks constitute a clear interference in the internal affairs of India, as New Delhi has officially protested. Islamabad should learn to keep quiet when a neighbour’s sensibilities are involved. External Affairs Ministry spokesman has rightly said that Pakistan’s irresponsible behaviour cannot help in “creating the atmosphere necessary for the dialogue process between India and Pakistan to move forward”. There are still a number of hurdles to be crossed for the peace process to achieve its desired objectives. If it gets derailed that will amount to promoting the cause of terrorists and their sympathisers. This will not help Pakistan, except perhaps for diverting attention from its internal crisis.
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Death for rapists FEW will regret the death sentence awarded to two Delhi cab drivers for raping and killing an Australian lady in Delhi four years ago. According to the prosecution, they had gagged, throttled and raped 59-year-old Dawn Emilie Griggs before killing her. They had also gouged out her eyes with a screwdriver and smashed her face. Not surprisingly, the judge likened the case to the Supreme Court judgement against Dhananjoy Chatterjee, the Kolkata watchman, who was executed four years ago for raping and killing a minor girl in 1990. Disturbingly, the increasing incidence of rape and murder not only reflects badly on the system of governance but also the inability of the police to protect women. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, rape is the fastest growing crime with a woman being raped every 27 minutes. Worse, as the Griggs incident shows, there is a great degree of violence during the rape. Rape is as devastating as an acid attack on which the law of the land should come down heavily. It should be the endeavour of the criminal justice system and society as a whole to ensure that no case of rape, however influential its perpetrator maybe, goes unreported. Thereafter, the effort should be to investigate it properly in order to present all the facts to the court in as efficient a manner as possible. Sadly, there is no fear of the law among the people today. If exemplary punishment for rape and murder is made a certainty to the wrongdoer, things may improve. Though the Supreme Court has placed the maximum reliance on the victim’s statement and the circumstantial evidence, many rape cases fail at the trial stage itself. This calls for efforts to plug the loopholes and streamline the criminal justice system. To supplement the role of the law enforcement agencies in checking crime against women, community participation is a must. This is all the more important in remote villages as the best protection comes from the people’s own vigilance and alertness.
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But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve/ For daws to peck at: I am not what I am. — William Shakespeare
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The idea of justice
THE subject of social justice has been discussed over the ages across the world, but the discipline received a powerful boost during the European Enlightenment, in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in the rebellious thoughts closely aligned in many ways to the intellectual background of the French Revolution as well as the American Revolution. When people agitated for the abolition of slavery in the 18thh and 19th centuries, they were not labouring under the illusion that the abolition of slavery would make the world perfectly just. It was their claim, rather, that a society with slavery was totally unjust. That much, they argued, was absolutely clear, even if it might be very hard to identify (not to mention, achieve) a perfectly just society. Abolition of slavery was a matter of prevention of severe injustice and a significant advancement of justice; it was not meant to be an answer to the transcendental question of identifying a perfectly just society, or ideal social institutions. It was on that basis that the anti-slavery agitation, with its diagnosis of intolerable injustice, saw the pursuit of that cause to be an overwhelming priority. That historical case can also serve as something of an analogy that is very relevant to us today in India. There are similarly momentous manifestations of severe injustice such as appalling levels of continued child undernourishment (almost unparalleled in the rest of the world), continuing lack of entitlement to basic medical attention of the poorer members of the society, and the comprehensive absence of opportunities for basic schooling for a significant proportion of the population. It is easy enough to agitate about new problems that arise and generate immediate discontent, whether it is rising petrol prices or the fear of losing national sovereignty in signing a deal with another country. These too are, of course, issues of importance but what is to me amazing is the quiet acceptance, with relatively little political murmur, of the continuation of the astounding misery of the least advantaged people of our country. The crowding out of political interest in the colossal and persistent deprivation of the underdogs of the Indian society through the dominance of more easily vocalisable current affairs (important as they may be) has a profound effect in weakening the pressure on the government to eradicate with the greatest of urgency the most gross and lasting injustice in India. There is something peculiarly puzzling about the priorities that are reflected in what seems to keep us awake at night. Would it make a real difference whether we pay more attention to actual realisation of societies, rather than sticking to our favourite recipes about rules and institutions, be it free market, state enterprise, or support for or opposition to globalised economic relations? Is there a case for judging our favourite recipes through examining how they would influence the lives of people? And can we make the working of institutions and rules better in terms of their impact on social realisations? Consider the place of unions of organised workers in the social fabric of the country. It is often pointed out that only a very small proportion of the working population of India belongs to any union. However, the life of nearly everyone in the country is affected in one way or another by the activities of unionised workers. What their rightful role should be in generating social realisations is, thus, a momentous issue. One difficulty in getting to the right question arises from the fact that trade unions tend to excite two quite divergent reactions, neither of which is very helpful. Fierce critics of unionism very often have an unconcealed disdain for the unions as just a nuisance (the less of them, the better), while other less hostile to the unions, tend to treat them as being just fine - in no need of alteration - no matter how broad or narrow the goals are that they pursue. What is needed, instead is a kind of constructive partnership that gives the unions an integrated role as important partners in social and economic progress for the people as a whole, not just to serve as watchdogs of sectional interest represented by the respective unions. One of the areas that call for urgent attention in India is the efficiency of delivery of public services. That there is a large lacuna here has been brought out recently by a number of empirical studies from different parts of India, including some that we have done ourselves for the Pratichi Trust - a charitable trust I had the opportunity to set up about a decade ago with the help of my Nobel money. While our studies indicate some reason for celebration, there is a remarkably high frequency of neglect and lack of accountability in the primary schools and health services. Consider the working of state-run elementary schools. Even though a great many primary school teachers are extremely devoted to their work and to their students, we observed a shocking incidence of absenteeism and delayed arrival on the part of many teachers in other schools. The reliance on private tuition, which is unnecessary in primary schooling, has been quite widespread among those who can afford it. The neglect of teaching responsibilities is particularly strong, when the students come mostly from underprivileged classes, for example from families of landless labourers and very low earning workers. And this has a profound effect on the schooling of poor and underprivileged children - sometimes first-generation school-goers unsure of their rights and unable to raise their voice. The fact that the inspection system of schools has broken down fairly comprehensively in many parts of India makes the problem harder to tackle, and there are administrative reforms that are urgently needed. However, the problem cannot be tackled by administrative changes alone. There is a similar picture of uncertain and disparate functioning in the delivery of primary healthcare. The reliance of even very poor people in India on private healthcare providers - sometimes even medical pretenders who combine quackery with crookery - is caused not only by the lack of enough public health institutions but also by the poor functioning of existing public institutions for which government financing is actually available. In reforming the culture of work and in cultivating responsibility and accountability, the unions can have a hugely positive and constructive role. Bringing about the necessary changes across the board in public sector performance through active cooperation of the union is not an easy task. But the need for such a reorientation and change is urgent and extremely important, and it calls both for greater recognition and respect of the place of unionised labour in the society, and for more deliberated determination of the unions to play their part in their progress of the country. While it is often assumed that the only responsibility of the unions is to enhance the well-being of its members, and to look after their sectional interest, the union movement across the world has, in fact, been inspired time and again by broader objectives and commitments. But is such a change really feasible in India? I would argue from my own experience, limited as it is, that is very much a possibility. Indeed, the Pratichi Trust has been working very closely with the primary teachers unions in West Bengal. The Trust has had several joint meetings with the ABPTA (All Bengal Primary Teachers Association), which is by far the largest union of primary school teachers in West Bengal. The leadership of ABPTA and also that of the other unions of primary teachers have been remarkably cooperative in trying to change the culture of work in the delivery of school education, emphasising, for example, the need for guaranteed and timely presence, as well as the urgency of paying greater attention to the content and style of teaching and of regular discussion in parent-teacher meetings. Perhaps there is too much pessimism - indeed fatalism - in India about the alleged inalterability of the working of established institutions and of behaviour patterns. Despite our lapses, which are large, our ability to respond positively to reasoned appeal and arguments remains strong enough. We have reason to be proud of our determination to choose democracy before any other poor country in the world, and to guard jealously its survival and continued success over difficult times as well as easy ones. Democracy can be plausibly seen as a system in which public decisions are taken through open public reasoning for influencing actual social states, namely the elimination of the large-scale famines that India used to have right up to its independence from British rule. The fact that famines do not tend to occur in functioning democracies has been widely observed also across the world. How does democracy bring about this result? In terms of votes and elections there may be an apparent puzzle here, since the proportion of the population affected, or even threatened, by any famine tends to be very small - typically less than 10 percent (often far less than that). So if it were true that only disaffected famine victims vote against a ruling government when a famine rages or threatens, then the government could still be quite secure and rather unthreatened. What makes a famine such a political disaster for a ruling government is the reach of public reasoning and the role of the media, which move and energise a very large proportion of the general public to protest and shout about the “uncaring” government when famines actually happen - or come close to happening. The achievement in preventing famines is a tribute not just to the institution of democracy, but also to the way this institution is used and made to function. In general, Indian democracy has been far less effective in dealing with problems of chronic deprivation and continuing inequity with adequate urgency, compared with the extreme threats of famines and other emergencies. Democratic institutions can help to create opportunities for the opposition to demand - and press for - sufficiently strong policy response even when the problem is chronic and has had a long history, rather than being acute and sudden (as in the case of famines). The weakness of Indian social policies on school education, basic healthcare, elementary nutrition, essential land reform, and equal treatment of women reflects, at least partly, the deficiencies of politically engaged public reasoning and the reach of political pressure. Only in a few parts of India has the social urgency of dealing with chronic problems of deprivation been adequately politicised. It is hard to escape the general conclusion that economic performance, social opportunity, political voice and public reasoning are deeply interrelated. In those fields in which there has recently been a more determined use of political and social voice, there are considerable signs of change. For example, the issue of gender inequality has produced much more political engagement in recent years (often led by women’s movements in different fields), and while there is still a long way to go, this development has added to a determined political effort at reducing the asymmetry between women and men in terms of social and economic opportunities. There has been more action recently in organised social movements based broadly on demands for human rights, such as the right to respect and fair treatment for members of low castes and the casteless, the right to school education for all, the right to food, the entitlement to basic healthcare, the right to information, the right of employment guarantee, and greater attention on environmental preservation. There is room for argument in each case about how best to proceed, and that is indeed an important role of democratic public reasoning, but we can also see clearly that social activities are an integral part of the working of democracy, which is not just about institutions such as elections and votes. A government in a democratic country has to respond to ongoing priorities in public criticism and political reproach, and to the threats to survival it has to face. The removal of longstanding deprivations of the disadvantaged people of our country may, in effect, be hampered by the biases in political pressure, in particular when the bulk of the social agitation is dominated by new problems that generate immediate and vocal discontent. If the politically active threats are concentrated only on some specific new issues (no matter how important they may appear), rather than on the terrible general inheritance of India of acute deprivation, deficient schooling, lack of medical attention for the poor, and extraordinary undernourishment (especially of children and also of young women), then the pressure on democratic governance acts relentlessly towards giving priority to only those particular new issues, rather than to the gigantic persistent deprivations that are at the root of so much inequity and injustice in India. The perspective of realisation of justice is central not only for the theory of justice, but also for the practice of democracy.n Excerpted from the Inaugural
Prof. Hiren Mukerjee Memorial Parliamentary Lecture delivered by the writer at the Central Hall of Parliament House on August 11 at the initiative of Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath
Chatterjee.
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Punjab needs N-plant Punjab
needs a vibrant industrial sector. This is possible only if there is enough power. Only an atomic power plant can meet the growing needs of power. Power available from thermal, hydel and solar sources is quite meagre to fulfil the needs of the state. As far as hydel electric power is concerned, the inflow of water at the Bhakra has gone down from 49,400 cusecs a day to 34,000 while its release/outflow has increased to 21,000 cusecs a day from 19,000. The inflow to the Pong Dam has reduced from 49,400 cusecs a day to 8,800. The inflow to the Ranjit Sagar Dam has reduced from 11,800 cusecs a day to 9,000. The water level in all these dams has fallen drastically. The thermal power plants in Bathinda and Ropar provide only a fraction of the electric power required. There is no coal in Punjab. Its transportation from Bihar makes it costly. Moreover, thermal power plants heavily pollute the environment. In 2007, the IAEA reported that there are 435 nuclear power reactors operating in 31 countries. Together, they produce about 17 per cent of the world’s electric power. The US, France, and Japan together account for 49 per cent of all nuclear power plants and 57 per cent of all nuclear electricity. In India there are only eight power reactors. The number is quite small compared with 60 power reactors in Japan, 35 in France and 28 in South Korea, though these countries are quite small in area and population compared with India. There is not a single power reactor in Punjab, though the Centre has declared the installation of one atomic power plant at Fatehabad in Haryana. About 3000 MW of power is currently generated by nuclear power plants in India. The government is planning to raise the capacity to 40,000 MW in 15 years in the country. The hydro carbon and coal reserves are getting exhausted. As such atomic energy remains the only source for electricity in India. Breeder reactors using thorium as a fuel can also be installed since there is a lot of thorium in India. Compared to thermal and hydro electricity, nuclear power is the safest and cleanest from an environmental point of view. And uranium, the fuel a nuclear plant uses, is more abundant than fossil fuels and hydro potential. Coal is a much less safe source of energy. In addition to the pollutants and carcinogens coal delivers into the atmosphere when burned, 100 coal miners are killed each year in the U.S. in coal mine accidents and another 100 die transporting it. Hydro power causes 110-fold, coal 45-fold and natural gas 10-fold more deaths than nuclear power. As Petr Beckmann, founding editor of Access to Energy, shows in his book nuclear power is the safest source of energy in all aspects, not excluding terrorism, sabotage, accidents and waste disposal. From an environmental standpoint, nuclear power is far superior to coal or hydro power. The kind of accident which took place in Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union will not happen in any other nuclear power plant because all the reactors currently in operation around the world are placed inside containment buildings whereas the Chernobyl was not. When burned, carbon in coal combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (CO). A large coal-burning plant that produces as much electricity as a nuclear power plant burns three million tonnes of coal annually, which generates 11 million tonnes of CO2 (700 lbs. per second). Coal contains sulfur, 0.5 to 3 per cent by weight, which combines with oxygen to form sulfur dioxide, the principal cause of acid rain; and nitrogen in it produces nitrous oxide, a major pollutant (a 1,000 megawatt coal plant produces as much nitrous oxide as 200,000 automobiles). As a result, a coal-fired plant releases up to 50 times more radioactivity than a nuclear plant, where radiation emitted by uranium and its byproducts is contained. Nuclear energy emits no harmful gases or toxic metals into the environment. And, unlike hydroelectric dams, it does not alter a region’s ecosystem. Furthermore, despite what activists and the media say, the waste nuclear power creates far less of a problem than that produced by coal or the silt that builds up behind dams. A nuclear power plant generates (high-level) radioactive wastes the size of one aspirin tablet per person per year (a plant’s yearly wastes fit comfortably under a dining room table). Coal-fired plants generate 320 lbs. of ash and other poisons per person per year, of which 10 per cent is spewed into the atmosphere. Disposal personnel encapsulate nuclear waste in (fireproof, water-proof, and earthquake-proof) boron-silicate glass or ceramic and then bury these now effectively as non-radioactive artificial rocks. Uranium, which is used as a fuel in an atomic power plant, has the advantage of being a highly concentrated source of energy, which is easily and cheaply transportable. The quantities needed are much less than for coal or oil. One kilogram of natural uranium will yield about 20,000 times as much energy as the same amount of coal. It is, therefore, intrinsically a very portable and tradable commodity. A major European study (2001) shows that nuclear energy incurs about one-tenth of the cost of coal. Nuclear energy on the average costs about 35 paise per unit, which is much less than that from hydro (about Rs 4.00 per unit) and coal (about Rs 3.50 per unit). The argument that being a border state with Pakistan and in close proximity with Kashmir, such a plant can become an easy target of attack is totally erroneous. Rajasthan is equally close and vulnerable and yet has four units (400 MW each) already working there. The fact is that both India and Pakistan possess short, medium and long-range missiles, which can target any installation in either country. The existing eight Indian nuclear power plants can be considered safe as these are robust structures designed to withstand even earthquakes. The writer is a senior Professor of physics at GND University,
Amritsar.
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Russia’s strike shows power
of pipeline It
was surely not lost on Russia’s bully in chief, Vladimir Putin, that the oil giant BP decided to shut down the pipeline that runs through parts of Georgia controlled by Russian troops. Indeed, that was one of the aims of the cross-border incursion. Putin understands better than anyone that oil and gas are the source of Russia’s resurgence as a military and economic power and his own control over the Russian government and key sectors of its economy. It is oil and gas that provide the money to maintain Russia’s powerful military, along with a vast internal security apparatus and network of government-controlled enterprises that allow the president-turned-premier to maintain his iron grip on the levers of political and economic power. A little pipeline history: It was just as Putin was coming to power in 1999 that an agreement was reached to create the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. The project would allow Azerbaijan and its production partner, BP, to bypass Russia and transport their newly drilled oil instead through Georgia and Turkey to a port in the eastern Mediterranean. Because of its control of the only pipeline system linking former Soviet republics with the West, Russia had been able to extract most of the profit from any oil and gas that these newly independent countries could produce. But with BTC, which had the active support of the U.S. and European governments, Russia would lose its monopoly chokehold, opening the way for Western oil companies to make multibillion-dollar investments in the energy-rich Caucasus states. No sooner was BTC completed, however, than Western officials began exploring the possibility of other pipelines that could reach beyond Georgia and Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan, which was thought to have some of the world’s largest gas reserves. Their interest was not only in “energy security” and the prospect of oil riches for Western energy companies, but also in promoting Western-style democracy and free-market capitalism in the former Soviet republics. In time, much of their efforts focused on a $12 billion project known as Nabucco, named after the Verdi opera, that would take gas across the Caspian sea, through Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, finally reaching a terminal near Vienna. With Europe already dependent on Russia for a quarter of its natural gas, and that number set to rise with construction of a new northern pipeline running under the Baltic Sea to Germany, European leaders were keen to find alternative sources of natural gas. The effort took on greater urgency in winter 2006 after Russia briefly cut off supplies in its gas-pricing dispute with Ukraine. Nabucco also became a top priority of the Bush State Department — in particular, of Matt Bryza, a deputy assistant secretary of state, and C. Boyden Gray, a Bush family confidante who was named a special envoy for Eurasian energy, who began courting the leaders of Azerbaijan. Putin, quite correctly, viewed Nabucco as part of a larger campaign by Washington to contain and isolate Russia and limit the expansion of its burgeoning energy empire. With Gazprom, the state gas monopoly, Putin launched his own competing proposal called South Stream to build a new pipeline to the Caucasus. Suddenly the Russians were offering to pay Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan multiples of what they had previously offered to secure long-term supply deals. They penned an agreement with Italy and its oil company, Eni, to build a pipeline that would run under the Black Sea from Russia to Europe and end up at the same Austrian terminal as Nabucco. And Russian officials offered highly favorable transit agreements, ownership shares and guaranteed gas supplies to secure transit agreements from Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary. To industry observers like Ed Chow, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Nabucco has always looked more like a diplomats’ pipe dream than a viable economic project. Its promoters had not only failed to secure supply and transit agreements but also had yet to identify an oil company eager to champion the project and finance the pipeline. Now, with its successful military incursion, Russia has raised serious doubts in the minds of Western lenders and investors that a new pipeline through Georgia would be safe from attack or beyond control of the Kremlin. By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post
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Delhi Durbar The BJP, which had been berating the CNN-IBN news channel for not showing its “cash-for-votes” sting operation, was a wee bit embarrassed and uncomfortable when the channel telecast the film eventually last Monday. When the channel’s Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai decided not to telecast the film on July 22, the day of the trust vote, he was harangued by the BJP for having succumbed to the pressure of the government and corporate houses. On his part, Sardesai had clarified that the channel decided against telecasting the sting as investigations were yet to be completed but the BJP jumped the gun by displaying the currency notes in the Lok Sabha. Why did Rajdeep Sardesai decide to show this half-baked story, much after it had lost all its political relevance? One theory doing the rounds is that Rajdeep goes for a morning walk with BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley in the vicinity of Delhi’s Siri Fort. After this incident, Rajdeep had to face daily barbs from “walking friends”.
Straight talk Amartya Sen made the government eat a humble pie when he delivered the inaugural Hiren Mukherjee Memorial Lecture in Parliament House earlier this week. His scathing criticism of the government and the Opposition’s lack of focus on social justice priorities earned him tremendous appreciation from several quarters. But the powers-that-be were somewhat unnerved when Sen pointed out that the Indo-US nuclear deal was a more important issue for Indian politicians than child under-nourishment. Dr Manmohan Singh had asserted that the intellectual intelligence for the UPA governement’s common minimum programme came from the world view Amartya Sen had come to represent. Sen, however, was quick to point out that such programmes were not good enough; deliverance from suffering was what mattered.
Leftist ‘concern’ With Left-bashing a favourite pastime with the yuppy crowd, even Abhinav Bindra’s historic win at Beijing Olympics became an occasion to poke fun at the communists. A lengthy SMS dripping with sarcasm is doing the rounds. It says “The politburo of the CPM expresses deep concern at the defeat of a Chinese player by an Indian bourgeois - Abhinav Bindra. What is being termed here as a proud moment that has come India’s way after 28 years is never going to change the life of 77 per cent of those who earn Rs 20 a day. Various state governments are busy announcing hefty sums for Abhinav which will further broaden the gap between the haves and the havenots. What is more worrying is to know the fact that the pistol used by Bindra was made in the US. This is further going to promote neo liberal policies in the region. The politburo demands that the medal be returned to the Chinese player”. Contributed by Faraz Ahmad, Aditi Tandon and Ajay Banerjee |
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