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Right to recall
Triumph of policy |
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Crash of titans
The rise of Sarah Palin
Bhatia, carrom and those guys
Israel’s hope
Central status for PU to promote growth of Punjabi
Delhi Durbar
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Right to recall
LOK SABHA Speaker Somnath Chatterjee’s well-intentioned suggestion to empower the people to recall their representatives in Parliament and state legislatures needs careful examination. He said that the right to recall would be an effective instrument in the hands of the electorate to deal with those representatives who ignored the interests of the people and were “guilty of malfeasance and improper conduct or indulge in corrupt or criminal activities”. Mr Chatterjee, who expects MPs and MLAs to be society’s “role models”, feels that the right to recall would rectify the distortions in the functioning of democratic institutions, enforce accountability among the elected members and infuse a modicum of discipline in the conduct of the proceedings of the House. While the objective is salutary, it is indeed doubtful whether the right to recall would be practical in a country like India where elections are conducted on the first-past-the-post principle. The proposal would be effective only in countries where a proportional representation system is in vogue. True, other than periodic elections once in five years, the people have no other mechanism today to throw non-performing MPs or MLAs out of office. But the right to recall is no answer to periodic elections because the remedy may prove to be worse than the disease. At a time when governments at the Centre and in the states run with wafer-thin majorities where the vote of every single member counts for their survival, the recall of representatives, if guaranteed to the people, may make their tenure insecure and unstable. Worse, this mechanism could also be misused to settle political scores. Over the years, the right to recall has been mooted by many leaders like the late Jayaprakash Narayan and the late Krishna Kant, but a plausible method by which it could work is still elusive. This right exists in countries like Canada, Venezuela and Switzerland but the conditions there are quite different from that of India. First of all, it would be difficult to establish the veracity of those who sign a petition for recall. In fact, many countries have considered this proposal but did not accept it because of the practical difficulties involved in implementing it.
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Triumph of policy
THE start of oil production by India’s top private company, Reliance Industries, in the Krishna-Godavari basin is a landmark development. It is as significant as the launch of Bombay High 40 years ago. In the months to come the company will produce up to 5.5 lakh barrels a day and, based on a global price of $100 a barrel, will help save the country Rs 90,000 crore in oil imports. It will supply gas to 100 million kitchens apart from power and fertiliser plants at government-approved rates. The national policy of involving the private sector in the exploration of oil and gas stands vindicated. Given the soaring oil prices, it is necessary to make all-out efforts to ensure energy security for the country. Conscious of the role of energy in maintaining the country’s growth momentum, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, has suggested appropriate energy pricing to attract private investment in this sector. What the Prime Minister has emphasised is that energy should be priced at market rates by cutting down subsidies and checking leakages. Subsidies should be better targeted to benefit the poor. The market-determined pricing of energy becomes imperative if India is to attract foreign investment in this crucial sector, especially nuclear energy, which has unlocked huge potential with the signing of the 123 Agreement by India and the US and the grant of a waiver by the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group. A country heavily dependent on oil imports becomes vulnerable as producers and speculators jack up prices and supplies tend to get erratic. The recent oil shock has forced many countries to cut consumption and look for alternative sources of energy. In this context, the UPA government is pushing for an integrated energy policy, which the Union Cabinet is expected to consider next month. At present different ministries like power, coal, petroleum and finance follow different policies. The proposed integrated energy policy will bring about uniformity in policy. |
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Crash of titans
PITY the misguided environmentalists who have been raising hell about a black hole in the earth’s ozone layer caused by the toxic emissions of mankind. Pity also those who screamed ‘Apocalypse now’ to warn that the Large Hadron Collider experiment would create a black hole under the Swiss Alps. Because, the real, big, bad Black Hole was in neither of these places. It was in Wall Street. Yes, the same Wall Street where Bear Stearns disappeared in March this year. Yet nobody wanted to believe that a black hole was developing on the Street, which even if not paved with gold and good intentions is flush with a variety of paper that passes for wealth. Truly has it been said that modern man will meet his end buried under mountains of paper - currencies, share certificates, bonds, depository receipts and securities of various kinds. This chase of securitised paper, infinite in its deceptive variety, was bound to end badly. And, it just did. After Bear Stearns — with a name like that the bulls in the market could never have won — there came Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie and Freddie are not stand-up comedians who collapsed on stage at the end of a rollicking show. They are mortgage investment banks that kept the great American economic dream going, and there was nothing funny about their collapse. Big time, deep-pocketed investors, lenders and insurers with forbidding and respectable names like American International Group (AIG), Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, too, have crashed. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. And, guess what? The mightier American state, champion of free enterprise and eternal opponent of the state in capitalism — at least in other, poor countries — has rushed to rescue these rogue titans who gambled away in the market the hard-earned money of millions. Like death, debt is a great leveler. The mightiest on Wall Street as much as the lowly farmer in Telengana when driven by debt turn to the state — sarkar is mai-baap. When it comes to the crunch, richman, poorman, beggarman, thief all put more faith in government than God. God bless America. |
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Skill to do comes of doing. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Corrections and clarifications
Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The
Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error. We will carry corrections and clarifications, wherever necessary, every Tuesday. Readers in such cases can write to Mr Amar Chandel, Deputy Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is amarchandel@tribunemail.com. H.K. Dua
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The rise of Sarah Palin SHE is more than a new kid on the block. To understand the phenomenon of Mrs Sarah Palin, Mr John McCain’s running mate on the Republican ticket for US presidency, one has to dig into American nativist beliefs. The irony is that a nation of great innovators and cutting-edge technology is so deeply in thrall to beliefs of creationism, as opposed to evolution, and so hung up on the issue of abortion. So you have the phenomenon of Mrs Palin (she would presumably object to being called Ms Palin), a gun-toting mother of five addicted to skinning the moose, a hockey mom totally against abortion. She has even ridden out the storm caused by the pregnancy of her unmarried teen daughter because she is having the baby, instead of aborting it. Every country has contradictions, but in America they are amazing. A growing number of Americans have gone over to the born-again Christian Right, evangelicals who see America as the shining city on the hill and contemptuous of the big, bad world, except for Israel. They form a significant section of Republicans, God-fearing, kind in their own way. Many of them are creationists, anti-abortionists and anti-globalisation advocates for the world takes away their jobs. And Mr McCain hit upon the idea of Mrs Palin mopping up the Christian Right votes, together with the disaffected women supporters of a Hillary Clinton ticket. And she has youth on her side, at 44 a foil to Mr McCain’s 71 years, the oldest President to be elected for the first time, were he to win. And Mrs Palin has been an instant success — now available in doll form. Never mind that Mrs Palin is the first time governor of the remote sparsely populated Alaska State and was mayor of Wasilla, population 9,000. She has hardly travelled abroad and derives her knowledge of Russia from the fact that she can see Russia from her home in Alaska. In a rare one-to-one interview, Mrs Palin had not heard of the Bush Doctrine of 2002 under which President George W. Bush had expounded his theory of the American right to a pre-emptive invasion of a country of its choice and a pledge to maintain America’s superiority in military might well into the indefinite future. Tutored in instant lessons, Mrs Palin was suitably hawkish on Iraq because Mr McCain is, and indulged in some Russia-bashing on Georgia because that is the flavour of the season. But she is in distinguished company because in his first interview after nomination, Mr George W. Bush did not know who Pakistan’s President was. Besides, more recently Mr McCain placed Spain in Latin America. In fact, it is the American practice to learn on the job. The Palin phenomenon reflects another American dimension. There are winners and losers in an era of globalisation. In America, the most disaffected are poorer White semi-skilled males, particularly in the South, unable to adjust to new times. Others higher up the ladder resent jobs going outside the US because the mantra of globalisation is that jobs go with competitive advantages. There are other disaffected people in the West, symbolised by the French farmer Jose Bove, the basher of McDonald restaurants, who spent some time in jail and became a folk hero for the anti-globalisation lobby. So a country that is the guru of globalisation prospering on the strength of the worldwide network of multinationals produces a significant number of anti-globalisation advocates. The explanation is not far to seek. In America, the hurt that is causing sections of the people has merged into the myths of the American nation state to create a peculiar state of mind. The American myth is of the frontier man living in a shining city on the hill, aloof from the cynical Old World of the wicked Europeans. They are the good people, as against the evil that resides elsewhere, God-fearing people leading a virtuous life. Part of the reason for the love-hate relationship Americans harbour for the United Nations is due to the popular conception of the world organisation being peopled by men in striped pants. Despite such cosmopolitan centres as New York and San Francisco, Americans are for small towns as against the big cities breeding evil thoughts and deeds. And Mrs Palin, a small town girl, is “one of us”. How then would Mrs Palin shape up as Vice-President? She will be a foil to the cerebral, if not evil, role the present Vice-President, Mr Dick Cheney has been playing. Even some Republicans have come out against Mrs Palin for lacking foreign policy experience, but if America is not ready for a black President promoting change, despite eight years of the Bush presidency, she would be the proverbial heart beat away from the presidency. Perhaps with her self-righteous streak so characteristic of the Christian Right, she would be in her own way as bossy as Mr Cheney has proved to be. Mr McCain is still feeling his way to what policies he should propagate, apart from his promise of “winning” the war in Iraq America has already lost. He has tweaked his traditionally liberal conservative views as a gesture to the vote-winning Right lobby, but this key constituency does not quite trust him. He had, therefore, to produce a rabbit out of the hat to convince the evangelicals that his heart is in the right place. And Mrs Palin has proved to be a winner. The neoconservatives, downcast after the Iraq misadventure, have not given up hope. They believe they are the realists with a tinge of idealism. In their view, America must exploit its immense military power to impose solutions in the country’s interest on the world. For them, American interests merge with the world’s interest because of the high levels of wisdom and idealism to be found in the United States. Mrs Palin has been making the right noises about relentlessly drilling for oil in the pristine Alaska environment because the country would then be less dependent upon the unstable problem countries of the Middle
East.
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Bhatia, carrom and those guys Short, chubby, bespectacled and reasonably intelligent is how someone would describe him after meeting him for the first time, but the Bhatia we knew was much more. Bhatia joined the Chemical Engineering course at Roorkee in 1965 and contrary to everyone’s expectations, cleared it in the stipulated period of four years. Bhatia had many passions, but two things he loved most were sleep and carrom. Bhatia was average in studies, but when it came to carrom, he was the undisputed champion. It was a treat to watch him play, making the “men” and “queen” dance to his tune. Bhatia’s day usually started at noon after a late-night session of carrom with his friends. Teachers who took the morning classes were aware of his gingerly ways and knew that if they had to meet Bhatia, it had to be in the afternoon. Bhatia’s secret of success in the examinations was his flair for filling answer sheets. He would fold the answer sheet to make a three-inch column on the left and do the same on the right, leaving only three inches for him to write on. Add to this his highly illegible handwriting where all one could see was the first letter of a word followed by a straight line and you can imagine the plight of the examiner correcting his copy. While most of us would be struggling to fill one copy, Bhatia would fill four. “Sir, kaapeeee”, said loudly with a nasal twang, used to echo in the examination hall whenever Bhatia was around! An interesting incident that comes to my mind about Bhatia is his final year project viva voce. Teachers in the department had briefed the external examiner, an IIT professor, about Bhatia and had requested him to take it easy. “So, you are Bhatia?”said the examiner with a cocky smile. “Yes, Sir” said Bhatia with a bowed head. “What are your favourite subjects, Bhatia?” asked the examiner. Looking down and ensuring his eyes didn’t meet the examiner’s, Bhatia said “Sir, all my subjects are the same.” “Should I ask you something in Heat Transfer?” asked the examiner. “Sir , I had just passed in Heat Transfer,”said Bhatia. “O.K., then should I ask you something in Fluid Mechanics?”asked the examiner. “Sir, in Fluid Mechanics I had a supplementary”, said Bhatia. The conversation went on for another five minutes till an exasperated examiner said “O.K. Bhatia, then you tell me what is your favourite subject.” “Sir, carrom”, said Bhatia motioning a carrom shot with his thumb and index finger. The examiner could not help himself laughing and, seeing Bhatia’s friends wave at him from the window, said “Bhatia , I think your friends are waiting, would you like to go?” “Yes , sir” said Bhatia with a bowed head. “To play carrom, I suppose?” said the examiner with a smile. “Yes sir”
said Bhatia and ran out of the room. When the results came, everyone was surprised to see that Bhatia had passed. After graduating in 1969, Bhatia went to the U.S.A. for higher studies and settled there. In the first letter he wrote to his friends in India, he said “In Roorkee, I used to copy your tutorials. Here, these guys copy mine”, referring to his fellow American students. Keep up the good work,
Bhatia!
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Israel’s hope
This
is the story of two debates that have been unfolding in rival nations, in rival tongues, on a skinny patch of land in the Levant. In Israel, Kadima – the main governing party – has been deciding who should be its new leader. In Palestine, the population has been mooting a dramatic shift in their struggle for liberation. Soon, these debates are destined to collide – in either blood or peace. The Israeli debate had an air of willed evasion. The military’s blockade of Gaza – reducing it to rubble just a short drive from hi-tech Tel Aviv – was barely discussed. The candidates seemed to be carefully avoiding taking a position on anything. One Israeli newspaper noted: “Ask Tzipi Livni what time it is, and she will reply, after carefully examining Israel’s position in relation to the global time issue and the international date line, she has a very definite position, but isn’t willing to specify it to the media.” It’s a sign of how desensitised Israel has become to the violence committed in its name that the potential indictment for war crimes of Livni’s main rival, Shaul Mofaz, was barely an issue. It is alleged that when he was the military chief of staff in 2001, he ordered his troops to fulfil a “daily quota” of killing 70 Palestinians a day, and there are calls for him to face prosecution. He came within 431 votes of winning the election. From the wispy clouds of this contest, what has emerged? In theory, the winner Livni should be in a strong position to understand nationalist “terrorists” who have planted bombs on buses and in cafés – because she was raised by them. Her father was the Military Director of the Irgun, the underground Jewish militia that spent the 1930s and 40s targeting the British occupying forces and Arab civilians who were trying to prevent the creation of the state of Israel. Livni was brought up to revere their tales of blowing up marketplaces, cafés and hotels; she proudly defends them to this day. How would Livni’s parents have responded to mass punishment – blockades, checkpoints, bullets? Would they shrug and surrender? The leader of the Irgun, Menachem Begin, wrote that every British attempt to “break our backs... only made us stronger and more determined”. The same is happening with Palestinian nationalists today. Stripped of a state, they are fighting for one – and every Israeli attack makes them more radical and enraged. But does Livni see the parallel? In the abstract, she advocates a two-state solution – but in Israel she has been dubbed “Ms. Not-Right-Now” because she always says she believes in compromising for peace but “not right now.” Her husband said she decided to become a politician because of her “scathing” disapproval of the Oslo accords, signed exactly 15 years ago. She reiterated this during the campaign. But Oslo was rigged in Israel’s favour: while it lasted, the number of Jewish fundamentalist settlers on Palestinian land nearly doubled, and Palestinian movement was harshly curtailed. It is a myth that the Palestinians were offered a real two-state solution and rejected it. Even Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israel’s Foreign Minister at the time, says: “If I were a Palestinian, I would have rejected Camp David as well.” If even this was too much for Livni, what practical peace can she achieve? This is the debate too many Israelis dodged this summer; they chose instead to block their ears, and ascribe the thud of rockets hitting their outskirts to raw evil. This is where the parallel Palestinian debate needs to be heard above the Separation Wall. For decades, the demands of the Palestinian leadership – and the Israeli peace camp – have focused on the division of the land between Israeli and Palestinian states. There is still in principle a slender majority supporting this on both sides. But after 15 years of stillborn promises, that vision is rotting. Unless there is a swift shift, the two-state vision will be supplanted – by a vision of a “binational” one-state solution. Several leading Palestinians – including the late Edward Said, the former Prime Minister Ahmed Queri, and Sari Nusseibeh – have begun to outline this idea. In one of those strange whirls on the roundabout of history, they are actually reviving an old idea pioneered by Zionist left-wingers. The Middle East conflict would shift from being a tricky-but-soluble crisis to an insoluble civil war. Michael Neumann – the author of The Case Against Israel – warns: “One-staters apparently believe that Israel will give up the reason for its existence and at the same time expose itself not to the risk but to the certainty of being ‘swamped by Arabs’. The window of opportunity for two-state peace is closing. Before it jams shut, the Israelis need to hear the plea coming through the checkpoints. Divide the land. Divide it now. Divide it properly. Or we will all end up battling forever – over nothing but soil soaked in blood and cordite. By arrangement with
The Independent
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Central status for PU to promote growth of Punjabi The decision of the Union Government to grant central status to Panjab University and establish two other new central universities in Punjab has a historical significance not only for this state but also for northern India. Earlier, the Government of Punjab had taken the issue in positive terms and, after thinking about the interest of the people of Punjab in a broader perspective, gave a conditional “no objection certificate” to Union Government to grant the central status to PU. But some so-called intellectuals and academicians of Punjab intentionally projected the wrong side of the situation and succeeded in misleading the people and also the state government over this issue. These short-sighted intellectuals, including former Vice- Chancellors, misled their political masters and pushed the state government into withdrawing the letter. They falsely projected that it was a demand of a small section of the university faculty, which was seeking the benefit of the enhancement of the age of retirement from 60 to 65years, and had no qualms about transferring the “precious land of Punjab” to the Centre and was also backing down on the territorial claim of Punjab on Chandigarh. One must be clear that giving the Central status or setting up new Central institutions have no relationship with the territorial disputes at all. In the present case, the Union Government did not ask or inform the government of Haryana for granting central status to PU. Even then, the Government of Haryana has an equal claim on this disputed territory. Similarly, the transfer of any land for the establishment of Central institutions is not a loss to any state; rather it is a gain as it helps in generating huge employment opportunities and also chances of multiple growth. In the case of academic institutions, the development of human resources further plays a fundamental role in the overall growth of the state as well as the nation. But it is difficult to understand that in the case of Panjab University how people, academicians and intellectuals have arrived at their skewed logic that the precious land of 500 acres is going to be transferred to the Centre, as the assets of an institution, regardless of its location, always belong to that very institution. One can ask that why this issue was not raised at the time of the acquisition of land for Asia’s largest cantonment at Bathinda, Longowal Institute at Engineering and Technology, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, Guru Gobind Singh Refinery etc. If all these institutes belong to the state, then how is Punjab losing its hold over PU in the event of this university getting Central status? Let us think about the possibilities that would emerge if PU is granted central status. All the vacant posts, incomplete research projects and insufficient academic infrastructure that exist in PU due to the scarcity of funds can be streamlined. If the Government of Punjab is really serious about the development of Punjabi language, only PU can play a fundamental role in this field because a large number of colleges already affiliated with it and situated in a large region of Punjab are teaching Punjabi as a compulsory subject. But in the present situation, there is no possibility of overcoming the issues and problems of teaching and research in the subject of Punjabi. At present, more than 60 per cent of the total posts of Punjabi i.e. four chairs, two professors, four readers and six lecturers have been lying vacant in this university for almost a decade. This has derailed the overall academic activity of Punjabi studies. Similarly, two dictionaries, last volume of “The Panjab University History of Punjabi Literature”, “Glossary of Punjabi Literary Terms” and a large number of issues of Punjabi research journal “Parakh” are pending and awaiting funds to get published. Other valuable projects related with Punjabi language, literature, culture, history, diaspora and Punjabi identity and Guru Granth Sahib are also waiting to become a part of an advanced research based upon the contemporary inter-disciplinary studies and analytical systems. The same kind of possibilities will emerge in other disciplines such as social sciences, life sciences, engineering and technology etc. The Government of Punjab should reconsider its decision for the sake of poor parents, future of students, the academic growth of the region and multifaceted development of the Punjabi community along with its language, literature, culture and identity.
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Delhi Durbar Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s 10-day trip to New York and France is turning out to be a veritable farewell gift for the officials in the PMO probably because it is his last visit to the UN. South Block is virtually empty as a large contingent of officers is travelling with the PM this time in stark contrast to his earlier visits. While National Security Adviser M.K.Narayanan and Principal Secretary T.K.A Nair are permanent members of the PM’s delegation, others like joint secretaries Pankaj Saran and R.Gopalkrishnan along with Director Atiq have also been included in the team this time. Shyam Saran, the PM’s interlocutor on the Indo-US nuclear agreement, is travelling separately to the US to be on hand for the last-stage talks on the N-deal. The PM’s former media adviser Sanjaya Baru, who also travelled regularly on his foreign visits to deal with accompanying presspersons, will be a notable absentee as he has left the PMO to take up an academic assignment in Singapore.
Anti-climax
The Nepalese embassy announced that Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Sahal Prachanda would hold a press conference after his talks with Indian leaders last week. Journalists fought with security people to enter the Taj Hotel, the venue of the press conference, as invitations were sent to only a handful of journalists. However, media persons were quite disappointed when Nepalese Foreign Minister Upendra Yadav arrived to address the press conference, instead of Prachanda. To add to this, Yadav committed a faux pas by declaring that the two prime ministers would hold a joint press conference to announce the decisions taken to enhance India-Nepal ties. What he actually meant was that the two countries would issue a joint statement on the outcome of Prachanda’s visit. Yadav was also found struggling for words when journalists asked him to spell out the parts of the Indo-Nepal treaty of peace and friendship about which Kathmandu had objections. The two countries have since agreed to revise and update the 1950 treaty.
Royal tiff
It is no secret in Congress circles that Digvijay Singh (often referred to as raja saheb) and junior minister Jyotiraditya Scindia are not exactly on the best of terms. The differences are becoming increasingly apparent as the year-end MP assembly elections draw closer. According to the party grapevine, the two leaders had an argument at a recent meeting of the Pradesh election committee called to shortlist candidates. Digivijay Singh apparently made some cutting remarks about Jyotiraditya’s late father Madhavrao Scindia, which were not liked by the son. Junior Scindia flew off the handle and insisted that Digvijay Singh tender an apology, which he eventually did. As somebody remarked, it was a clear case of a battle between the raja and the maharaja. Contributed by Faraz Ahmad, Ashok Tuteja and Anita Katyal
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