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Slowdown
in prices Sale of
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Students
as criminals
Bail out
Pakistan
Daughter’s
song
Don't
count on a new Bretton Woods Punjab poet cast in
German stone Teenager sparks
right-to-die debate
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Sale of tickets
THOSE sitting in glass houses should not throw stones at others. The BJP would have learnt this bitter lesson when party MP Vishvendra Singh quit the party and Parliament in protest against the “sale” of party tickets in Rajasthan. The BJP has been going to town particularly in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh over Mrs Margaret Alva’s allegation that the Congress had taken money while allotting tickets during the Karnataka Assembly elections. The BJP cannot dismiss the MP’s allegation as he is a senior leader and has been the political adviser to the Rajasthan Chief Minister. The reason that prompted the scion of the royal family of Bharatpur to go public on the issue is precisely what compelled Mrs Alva to raise a banner of revolt against the Congress leadership forcing the latter to remove her from the post of general secretary of the Congress. In Mrs Alva’s case, what upset her was the Congress failure to accommodate her son as a candidate during the Karnataka elections. If the party had obliged her, she would not have said a word about nepotism in the Congress. It is not known what exactly upset Mr Vishvendra Singh as to quit the BJP also. The party might not have given tickets to all his nominees. Or, he might have realised, rightly or wrongly, that the party was not likely to return to power. In any case, he has a record of changing parties to suit his personal conveniences. For the BJP what matters is how his departure will affect its fortunes in Bharatpur and nearby areas. Except, perhaps, among the Left parties, the practice of selling tickets for money is prevalent among almost all political parties. In the Delhi Assembly elections, the candidate who has declared the maximum assets - over Rs 150 crore - is a Bahujan Samaj Party nominee. There is little to suggest that he bought the BSP’s ticket but people are bound to make their own inferences, not necessarily wrong. Political parties see tickets as one way of generating funds, though they seldom admit it. That the victims are their own cadres is of little concern to them.
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Students as criminals
THE manner in which some students were mercilessly beaten up by a group of students in Chennai’s Dr Ambedkar Law College on Wednesday needs to be condemned in the strongest possible terms. The chilling episode, covered by television channels, sent shivers down the viewers’ spine. Surprisingly, the culprits, who did not like the ‘Dr Ambedkar’ part of their college name, are studying for their law degree. Imagine what kind of justice one can expect from them when they become advocates and, then, judges! These casteists deserve no leniency. They must be tried by a fast track court and given the severest punishment for their bestial action. They should also be rusticated from the institution forthwith. Students who don’t appreciate and value the worth of fellow beings and behave worse than animals have no right to continue as such and study. Equally disturbing was the attitude of the Chennai police. Televised evidence showed total police inaction when the students were being beaten up blue and black. Though a few policemen were standing right near the college gate, they looked the other way and didn’t consider it their duty to save the victims from the clutches of the monsters. Opinion may be divided over the right of the police to enter a college without the principal’s prior permission. But the police do have the inherent powers to enter anywhere, save victims being attacked by criminals and restore law and order. Nowhere does the Police Act say that the police must remain a mute spectator to such a shocking spectacle. The Tamil Nadu government has taken a series of measures like shifting the Chennai police chief and four sub-inspectors of police and arresting seven students. But these are perfunctory and inadequate. A strong political will is needed to check hooliganism on the campus. The malady is not confined to Chennai as it has spread far and wide. A well-coordinated and non-partisan approach has become imperative to root out campus violence in the country. One way of tackling it is by scrupulously implementing the report of the J.M. Lyngdoh Committee, appointed by the Supreme Court.
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We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love. — Tom Robbins
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Bail out Pakistan If, as an economist, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh takes BOP to mean balance of payments, he would be right, albeit partially. Balance of payments support is after all an important component of a “Bail out Pakistan” plan that India needs to consider supporting, and do this not by merely voting in favour of an IMF programme for Pakistan. India has long maintained that a stable, prosperous and friendly Pakistan is in its vital interest. Quite aside the fact that this policy position has been, more than anything else, only a statement of desire, if India really believes that a stable Pakistan is better than no Pakistan, or a Talibanised Pakistan, then perhaps the time has come for India to put its money — say, a billion dollars — where its mouth is. To not put too fine a point on it, if the Pakistani economy tanks, the already precarious political and security situation in the country can easily spiral out of control, destabilising the entire region. India will, therefore, not be helping Pakistan because it has suddenly fallen in love with its old adversary, but because it serves India’s vital strategic interests. Any assistance to Pakistan must be shorn of sentimentalism and should be based on cold-hearted diplomatic calculations of deriving the maximum bang, or if you will, benefit — economic, political, and strategic — for the buck. As a country that aspires to join the high table of great powers, India needs to set its backyard in order. Nepal is a mess. Bangladesh is no better, exporting not only millions of economic refugees to India but also radical Islamists. Sri Lanka is wracked by civil war, the reverberations of which are being felt in New Delhi and Chennai. And then there is Pakistan, which is trouble when stable, but even bigger trouble if destabilised. Unless India can first emerge as the paramount regional power, looked up to not in fear but awe by all its smaller neighbours, India will find itself hobbled on the world stage. In any case what’s the sense in wanting to strut on the global stage when your own neighbourhood is in an utter mess and there’s precious little that you can or want to do about it. This is where a BOP plan can serve as an instrument in India’s diplomatic arsenal, not just in relation to Pakistan but also for the rest of the region. At a time when Pakistan has been forsaken by all its friends, India has got a tremendous opportunity to take a calculated risk and make a grand reconciliation gesture that will not only reassure Pakistanis that India does not pose a threat to Pakistan’s security, but also create some breathing space for an economy that has all but collapsed. The political impact of such a gesture will be far greater than Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore to signal to Pakistanis that India does not question the existence of their state. Not only will it be a shot in the arm for the growing lobby inside Pakistan which is advocating normalisation of relations with India, it will also be a slap in the face of anti-India forces working overtime to sabotage any possibility of good relations. There is a very good chance that Pakistan might even reject India’s offer, in which case India will have gained tremendous diplomatic mileage without spending a dime. But if Pakistan accepts the offer, the potential economic benefits of a BOP plan will have a multiplier effect on India’s efforts to open up trade, commerce and travel in the region and to use this as a lever for achieving diplomatic ends. A billion dollar balance of payments support to Pakistan can be used by India to pump prime the Pakistani economy by seeking repayment of this money in the form of exports to India. Alternatively, the money can be used as investment capital inside Pakistan to either purchase units being privatised or to set up greenfield projects. In either case, the end result will be the demolition of artificial trade barriers and the creation of economic inter-linkages that will develop vested interests in Pakistan for normal relations with India. Concerns in India that any financial assistance to Pakistan will be used to procure weapon systems which will ultimately be aimed at India are somewhat misplaced. While there is no fail-safe measure of ensuring that the funds are not misused, a billion dollars from India will in no way obviate Pakistan’s need for an IMF programme which will almost certainly come with stiff riders on reducing expenditure. And, despite Pakistan army being embroiled in combating Islamist insurgents, defence expenditure will almost certainly be affected. There is, of course, a real possibility that some of these cuts will be made up by military assistance from countries like the US. But this will be nowhere close to bridging the ever growing gap between the resources India devotes to defence and what Pakistan is able to muster up. The problem in a BOP plan is, therefore, not so much economic or strategic; rather it is India’s domestic politics that hinders such a plan, especially since general elections are just around the corner. The last thing the ruling coalition will want is to go to the hustings by giving the opposition an issue that it can use to devastating effect against the incumbent government. Adding to the government’s difficulty is the economic downturn in the Indian economy. Clearly, a BOP plan is not going to win votes if the government to be seen to bail out a hostile neighbour when the same money could be used to improve the lot of people back home. There is also the problem of the fiscal profligacy of this government which has robbed it of the fiscal space that could have been used to promote diplomatic objectives. The biggest stumbling block, however, is the continued violations of ceasefire in Kashmir, the involvement of the ISI in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul and the lingering suspicions of its continued patronage of terrorist groups in India has meant that there aren’t too many people in the policy-making establishment who are willing to think out of the box and unveil a plan to bail out Pakistan. The question is whether these actions are the result of Pakistan’s inability to get over its ingrained hostility towards India, or is there something else at work? There is a belief among some people in India that the economic meltdown coupled with the deteriorating security situation on its Western border, Pakistan is desperate for a settlement with India which will more or less be on India’s terms. In support of this argument they point to the discernible change in perception of India among many Pakistanis. Perhaps it is to disabuse India of the notion that it can treat Pakistan like a pushover that a strong message is being sent from across the border. But even if this is the case, it makes it politically impossible for any Indian government to make a gesture towards Pakistan. The dilemma and indeed difficulties in coming up with a BOP plan are obvious enough. But given India’s economic strength and its soft power, it is ideally placed to try a bold initiative aimed at breaking the mould of hostility. If the initiative fails, India will still gain diplomatically. But if it works, it can bring about a paradigm change in the relations between the two
countries.
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Daughter’s song She
was a vivacious young girl, forever giggling, singing film songs, the romantic ones, you bet. Her spiritedness often earned her the wrath of her elder brother who missed no opportunity to give her a sound thrashing for her “misdemeanours”. Then the unthinkable, nay the forbidden,happened. She fell in love. Ideally her choice — he was from the same caste and fairly well educated —should have posed no problem. But her family was aghast. Entrenched on centuries of feudal thinking, their response was typical, chauvinistically male and archaic — how dare she? Who gave her the right to choose for herself? Only her mother Munni understood her daughter’s predicament. She pleaded with her family but to no avail. Each day she was torn between the pinning in her daughter’s eyes and the growing hostility of other members of the family. One day as she along with her husband planned a visit to her native village, she gave her daughter the green signal. In what must have been an act of tremendous courage the young lovers eloped. When Munni returned, all hell broke lose. She was beaten black and blue by her sons and her good- for- nothing husband too joined in. After all, it was her womb that had nursed this black sheep who had sullied the family honour. The brother who saw red at the slightest provocation was now fury personified. There he was all set to finish off the sister to avenge the family’s izzat, if only he could lay his hands on her. But his ‘dear sister’ had vanished without a trace. Two years have passed since. Munni hasn’t seen her daughter but thanks to the telecom revolution she is in constant touch with her. With an element of pride and loads of delight she shares the news of birth of her granddaughter, content in the realization that her daughter is enjoying marital bliss. As my eyes pour over the news of “honour” killings, of irrational bigoted men sniffing life out of their bubbly young girls in cold blood, I can’t help but salute Munni. If only more mothers could listen to their daughters’ hearts, many a daughter would have reasons to rejoice. And sing joyous songs, as and when it pleased
them.
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Don't count on a new Bretton Woods
Let
us assume – because it is now the accepted wisdom – that the world cannot be the same after this credit crunch, that its international institutions will have to be radically revised, that the balance of power has shifted to the East and that a new President of the US opens up a whole new world of possibilities of multilateralism. What no one seems prepared to say, however, is exactly what all this means in practice. Gordon Brown has talked grandly of new global institutions for a new global age (with himself leading the way together with the US). President Sarkozy has blithely pronounced that the Anglo-Saxon model of unregulated markets has been found wanting and a European-style controlled capitalism must be developed to take its place. Others have talked sweepingly of the death of western capitalism and the installation of a whole new Bretton Woods agreement for controlling capital flows and dispersing aid. Well, that may or may not be the end result of the seismic shifts going on in the world's economy. But you only have to look at the world leaders now gathering in Washington to see how far we are from any such revolution. Yes, the fact that 20 countries are meeting together is proof of the world's wish to co-operate and co-ordinate their responses to the global recession. But co-operation in meeting the recession is a long way from embracing a new world order. It's easy to talk of a new Bretton Woods, but that agreement, it should be remembered, was born in 1944 out of the devastation of the Second World War and the emergence of a US that was richer and more powerful economically than virtually the rest of the world put together. The international community, victors and defeated alike, was desperate for a way to the future and Washington had both the resources and the leadership to guide them there. A system of fixed exchange rates was established as a framework for international capital flows and the IMF and World Bank set up to channel aid and support struggling economies. None of that applies today. Fixed exchange rates collapsed 30 years ago and would be almost impossible to re-institute today, even if the dollar were still the undisputed currency of the world. America, which has been the source of so many of the financial woes that have beset virtually every other country, has neither the authority nor the funds to institute a new world order. Indeed it hasn't even got a government with the authority to launch great international initiatives at this moment. If Barack Obama has declined even to attend the Washington conference this weekend, it is not just because he wishes to observe the precise proprieties of there being only one President at any one time. It is that he has no intention of being drawn into open-ended commitments at the behest of a Bush administration he is determined to keep his distance from. Without him the summit is Hamlet without a prince. And in that, it has to be said, he is no different from most of the 20 nations attending the Washington summit. The credit crunch has had a Janus-like effect on the countries concerned. On the one side, the global nature of the financial crisis has drawn the world closer together. All sorts of countries who never thought they would be dragged into the banking problems of New York have nevertheless found themselves swept up by the ensuing maelstrom of credit crunch and economic recession. They want help, and even more reassurance, that the world's leaders will act to protect them. On the other hand, the instinctive response of most countries is to concentrate on their own difficulties. Precisely because most countries do not feel themselves responsible for the crunch, they feel wary of being sucked in by the perpetrators in the solution. The sense of being in this together will encourage moves to co-ordinate plans to prop up the banks and reflate economies through interest rate reductions and tax cuts, in marked contrast to the beggar-my-neighbour policies which propelled the 1929 crash into the 1930s recession. It will also encourage moves to impose tighter controls on the banking industry and a degree of co-operation on monitoring capital flows and adjusting exchange rates. But the way in which countries feel recession individually will equally stall efforts at a grander programme of controls on capital movements, limits on exchange rate movements and more supra-national direction of finance. Of course countries such as China, India and Brazil want a greater say in international institutions such as the IMF, even more so after the present debacle. But, believing that they have been the victims not the authors of their woes, they are in no mood to sink their own sovereignty in global institutions, just because the US and Britain may wish to share out the burden of their own mistakes. Change will come. In a cascading world, institutions will have to adapt and expand their membership if they are to survive. But it won't be in the form of a new Bretton Woods orchestrated by the old Anglo-American alliance. Those days are over. — By arrangement with
The Independent
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Punjab poet cast in German stone
Trier
is an ancient town dating back to Roman times in the extreme west of Germany, right on the Luxemburg border. Thousands of people visit it daily, mainly to see
the house of Karl Marx, who was born and brought up there. The town now boasts of an Indian connection. German poems of Rajvinder Singh, a poet from India, have been immortalised on stone and installed at various places in Trier. The ceremony took place last week (November 7). This is an honour which any country rarely gives to its poets of national importance. Such monumentalisation of a poet of foreign origin is rarer still. But then, Rajvinder is a rare entity on the German scene today. The Kapurthala boy has been living there for the past 28 years and has in the last 10 years been thrice made Poet-Laureate of various German regions. Last year, he was made the first Poet-Laureate of Trier and dedicated his poetry as well as prose solely to Nature, and particularly to the trees, penning their importance for the life of mankind on earth. His aim was to cure our blindness towards trees, whom Rajvinder describes as “our outer heart”. Last Friday, seven of his poems were carved in stone and installed at various places. The main ceremony of planting an oak tree and erecting a “poem-monument” took place at the centrally located park adjacent to the historic Porta Negra. Before that, a ceremony of planting a tulip tree and erecting a “poem-monument” symbolically by Rajvinder took place in the court of the Auguste Victoria Gymnasium. The poems were also displayed at various high schools. His term as the Trier Poet-Laureate came to an end that day with a reading by him at the House Franciskus in the Christophe Street, opposite the park. Rajvinder Singh was born in 1956 in Kapurthala and started writing poems at an early age of 11. He published his first poetry book in Punjabi in 1975 and was already a well-known poet before he went to Germany in 1980 for further studies. Just four years after learning the German language – which he calls his stepmother-tongue -- he started writing poetry in German. So far, this multilingual poet, cultural organiser and translator has published nine volumes of poetry in German, one collection of short stories, and two volumes of poetry in Punjabi, one of which is a course book for M.A. at Kurukshetra University. He has also edited a book of Maltese literature in German translation. An untiring traveller giving creative writing workshops throughout Germany to students as well as grown-ups, he has been repeatedly decorated for the stunningly original quality of his poetry in German both by the governmental and non-governmental organisations. Becoming the first-ever non-German Poet-Laureate in Rheinsberg in 1997 he was awarded Federal President’s Scholarship for three years in 2003. In recognition of his contribution to the further development of German language and literature the Federal President of Germany has in 2008 yet again awarded him a Scholarship for Prolific Writers for another five years. Rajvinder describes himself as a poet of longing, rather than of belonging. Before becoming a freelance writer, he has held a research fellowship in Literary Theory and Semiotics at Technical University, Berlin, from 1988 to 91. From 1991 to 96, he was a cultural organiser at the House of World Cultures, Berlin, and helped organise the Festival of India in Germany.
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Teenager sparks right-to-die debate Hannah Jones
needs a heart transplant. But after nine years of battling leukemia and heart disease, she has had enough of hospitals, operations, drugs and constant pain. So she has opted to skip the surgery and die at home in the company of her family. Hannah is 13 years old, and her case has prompted a wrenching public debate in Britain. Her story has dominated headlines this week, and people have found themselves staring sadly at her serious young face, unsmiling and freckled, looking back at them from newspaper pages. "I'm not a normal 13-year-old," she told reporters this week, short of breath and speaking in clipped sentences. "I'm a deep thinker. I've had to be, with my illness. It's hard, at 13, to know I'm going to die. But I also know what's best for me." The case has raised complex questions about children's legal rights to decide their own medical care, and whether such cases are private tragedies or matters to be decided by governments and courts. Hannah's mother, Kristy, a former intensive care nurse, and her father, Andrew, an auditor, have backed their daughter. "Until you have walked 24 hours a day, seven days a week in my shoes, you don't understand," Kristy Jones told the Daily Mail. "Doing my job, as a nurse in intensive care, I have seen so many children suffering like Hannah. Of course, I want them to survive as long as possible, but I also understand that death can sometimes be a merciful relief." Hannah was diagnosed with leukemia in 1999, when she was 4. Chemotherapy sent the cancer into remission but caused her to lose hair and skin. Amid all the strain on her young body, she developed a hole in her heart. In March 2000, she came home from the hospital weighing less than 30 pounds. She had to be fed by tube and needed an oxygen cylinder to help her breathe. Her leukemia remained in remission, and at age 9 she started school for the first time. But last year, when she was nearly 12, she fell ill in class and doctors determined that her heart had become so weak that her only option was a transplant. "My parents have always encouraged me to make my own decisions. When it comes to my heart, I'd much rather do things my way than have other people decide for me. "It wasn't an easy choice, but being in hospital reminds me of bad times," she said. "I've spent long enough in hospital. I just want to be at home, even if that means my life might be shorter." At first, doctors at Hereford Hospital, about 120miles northwest of London, accepted Hannah's decision. But in March, the hospital called her parents and threatened to send police to forcibly remove Hannah from their care, saying they were not acting in her best interest. Hospital officials threatened to seek a court order forcing her to have the transplant. "It was very emotional trying to reach the sort of decision you would never wish on your worst enemy," Andrew said. "My wife and I agreed that whatever Hannah wanted, we would support her." — By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post
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