|
|
Message for Pakistan
Loans have to be paid |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Spate of compromises
A new beginning?
Homing pigeons
In sports, old is not gold
Mumbai Diary
|
Message for Pakistan
The
trial and conviction of Pakistani national Ajmal Kasab for his involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack has highlighted how Pakistan-based extremist outfits have been planning and executing their destructive projects against India. Kasab and the nine others who reached Mumbai using the sea route and killed 166 innocent persons were part of a large terrorist network, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), working against India. The LeT has a well-organised training arrangement that got exposed during the trial of Kasab. What the 10 Pakistani killers and their handlers sitting back home did could not have been possible without the support of the ISI and other official agencies, as India has been stressing. And had Kasab not been captured alive, the Pakistani authorities could have gone away by just saying that the Mumbai massacre was the handiwork of some “non-state actors”. As Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram commented after the special court handling the Kasab case gave its verdict on Monday, Pakistan must stop exporting terror to India. “The judgement is a message to Pakistan…” If Islamabad continues to indulge in such heinous activity and “if the terrorists are apprehended, we will be able to bring them to justice and give them exemplary punishment,” Mr Chidambaram asserted. India should not keep quiet at this. Efforts must be intensified to bring greater pressure to bear on Islamabad to force it to expedite the process of punishing those arrested in Pakistan in connection with 26/11 like LeT functionary Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Abu Hamza. LeT chief Hafiz Saeed should also be made to pay for what he and his organisation have done against India. Once again Pakistan has been exposed as a country pursuing a policy of using terrorism to achieve its geopolitical objectives. The whole world knows that Pakistan remains the epicentre of terrorism. Since terrorism is a two-edged weapon, Pakistan too is suffering as a result of its own dangerous policy. Thus, it is not only in the interest of peace and stability in South Asia but also in Pakistan that Islamabad is ruthless in dealing with anyone indulging in terrorism whether he is Hafiz Saeed or anyone else.
|
|
Loans have to be paid
Six
farmers have been arrested and 1,500 more face arrest for defaulting on bank loans. A similar situation had arisen in December last year. The Punjab Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, who intervened, got the arrests stayed, but the problem persisted. The bank gave more time for repayments to farmers, mostly in the cotton belt comprising Faridkot, Ferozepur, Moga, Mansa, Muktsar and Bathinda. The area had suffered in the past due to consecutive crop failures. But the introduction of Bt cotton two years ago has improved the farmers’ lot to some extent. The recovery of farmers’ loans is usually deferred in the case of a crop failure or natural calamity. In the present case the bank has dubbed them “willful defaulters” and hence the large-scale issuance of arrest warrants. Punjab had a fairly good level of recovery in the past until short-sighted politics introduced loan waivers. Though the latest Central loan waiver, announced two years ago, did not benefit many Punjab farmers due to the state government’s failure to put up their case effectively, politicians and kisan unions have kept alive farmers’ hope that their loans too would be waived. An acquisitive culture, a rising lifestyle and falling farm incomes have unsettled household budgets and driven many to desperation and suicide. Many youngsters are migrating abroad or taking to drugs in despair. The political leadership has failed to come up to the people’s expectations. It instead plays politics, blames the Centre for the state’s ills and pleads for loan waivers and bailouts. The simple fact is: Banks cannot stay in business if loans are not repaid. Due to poor recoveries, banks have stopped giving loans in the cotton belt. This will turn poor farmers to exploitative arhtiyas. A Moga farmer, driven to suicide by a pestering arhtiya on Sunday, is a reminder of the expensive alternative lending if banks shut shop.
|
|
|
Spate of compromises
Politics
makes for strange bedfellows and coalition compulsions keep them together. Telecom Minister A Raja was not Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s first choice for the position; in fact, he was not the PM’s choice at all. Raja got the portfolio simply because DMK chief M Karunanidhi ordained that it be so. Raja has now been embroiled in the scandal regarding the allocation, in 2008, of 2G spectrum, the existing second-generation mobile services that are available in the country, providing primarily voice services and some data. At the heart of the 2G spectrum issue is that telecom licences and spectrum were awarded to new players in January 2008 on a first-come-first-served basis on price levels prevailing in 2001. No provisions were made to ensure that the companies did not dilute their shareholding and profit massively, literally by selling just their licences. Three major government bodies, the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) are all investigating the case. The UPA government faced a tough time in Parliament when the Opposition charged that the CBI had evidence of corruption. The Congress has defended the Minister, but somewhat half-heartedly. The UPA is looking more and more beleaguered as it faces attacks from the Opposition on issues like the rising prices on the one hand, and controversies arising from the conduct of its Ministers on the other. In 2008, Raja garnered a meagre Rs 1,651 crore for pan-India 2G spectrum. With the auction of the 3G pan-India spectrum raking in around Rs 8,000 crore, recently, the Opposition’s charge of Raja’s action costing the exchequer hugely doesn’t seem far-fetched. The Dalit bogey raised by Karunanidhi cuts no ice. The issue is corruption, not caste. The government sacrificed a Minister to keep its hands clean from the IPL mess. It is, however, fast moving towards the dark end of the spectrum of compromises by propping up a tainted Raja.
|
|
|
If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean. — Henry Clay
|
A new beginning? AT the end of the Thimphu SAARC summit and after the one-on-one meeting between the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan, the Indian Foreign Secretary made a rather bland announcement while summing up the bilateral interactions of Dr Manmohan Singh with other SAARC leaders. She said the two Prime Ministers had agreed that the Foreign Ministers and the Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan would be charged with their responsibility of working out the modalities of restoring trust and confidence in the relationship and thus paving the way for a substantive dialogue on all issues of mutual concern. Many in India are disappointed with this very unspectacular announcement. They expected that Dr Manmohan Singh should have berated and held Pakistan responsible for inadequate progress on the trial of 26/11 accused and not taking vigorous action against Hafiz Saeed and the Lashkhar-e-Toiba. A section among them was even opposed to continuing any dialogue with Pakistan till Islamabad acted against the LeT. In Pakistan, the development has been welcomed as a U-turn by India under international pressure. Such an interpretation is likely to add to the unhappiness of the Indian critics who complain that the Indian Prime Minister has been soft on Pakistan since Sharm-al-Sheikh and this is attributed to US pressure. The issue of how India should deal with Pakistan will continue to be debated endlessly in this country. What does the present announcement mean? Both sides now accept that there is an enormous trust-deficit between the two nations, which is not news. But what constitutes a departure is that for a substantive dialogue on all issues to start, it requires that the way should be paved for it through restoring confidence, and for that modalities need to be worked out by the Foreign Secretaries and Foreign Ministers. While Kashmir, trade, water, Siachen and Sir Creek are all substantive issues, ensuring that there are no terrorist attacks on India and taking action on internationally recognised terroristic organisations are steps in confidence building and bridging the trust deficit. With the present formulation, the order of business and priorities of tasks have been clarified. Confidence building and bridging the trust deficit call for the issue of terrorism to be addressed first. Secondly, it will also call for each party to explain to the other that to promote confidence building and for bridging the trust deficit, what it is doing to address the concerns of the other on terrorism. While it will be open to Pakistan to put on the table its alleged concerns on Indian actions in Balochistan and FATA, it must also explain what investigations it has conducted on the activities of Hafiz Saeed and the LeT beyond repeating that evidence supplied by India is not enough. In other words, the confidence building and trust restoration exercise will be a free and frank exchange of views on the action taken by each country against terrorists threatening the other country. While Pakistani allegations of Indian activities in Balochistan or the FATA have not evoked any international credibility, US National Intelligence Adviser Dennis Blair in his annual threat assessment to the US Congress has stated, “Islamabad’s conviction that militant groups are an important part of its strategic arsenal to counter India’s military and economic advantages will continue to limit Pakistan’s incentive to pursue an across-the-board effort against extremism.” Therefore, it is inescapable that terrorism will be the core issue on which the confidence building and trust restoration exercise will be conducted. In that sense, there has been no U-turn by India. All that has happened is the Pakistan has agreed to discuss terrorism as the core issue in confidence building and trust restoration while saving its face by its being presented to the world as the resumption of the Indo-Pakistan dialogue. Pakistan’s agreement to get into a dialogue at the Foreign Secretaries and Foreign Ministers level has to be viewed in the light of the impending military developments in the war in the AfPak area. The US troop surge will be completed by May-end. Operations against Kandahar to free it completely of the Taliban is scheduled in the next few weeks. The drone strikes against the various extremist groups in the FATA area are being intensified and are likely to gather further momentum in June. That will be a moment of truth for the Pakistan Army. What will the extremist groups like those headed by Haqqani and Gul Bahadur do when directly attacked by US forces? Will they fall back into the safe haven of Pakistani plains with all the consequent implications for the Pakistani state, or will the Pakistan Army act to stop them from doing so? It is reported that the Pakistan Army has shifted 100,000 troops to their western front. That shows a newly acquired confidence in India that it will not come in the way of the Pakistan Army acting against the extremists. The dialogue between the two sides can be a channel to reassure Pakistan that India has a stake in the Pakistan Army taming the terrorists on the western border. By July-August there will be monsoon rains in Punjab and that is not the preferred season for military activity on the eastern front of Pakistan while it will permit activity in the FATA region and beyond. In his two speeches during his six-hour stay in Kabul on March 29, 2010, President Obama made two points clear. First, he said, “And I want to send a strong message that the partnership between the United States and Afghanistan is going to continue…. But we also want to continue to make progress on the civilian process of ensuring that agricultural production, energy production, good governance, rule of law, anticorruption efforts — all these things end up resulting in a Afghanistan that is more prosperous, more secure, independent, is not subject to meddling by its neighbours, a transition will be able to occur so that more and more security efforts are made by the Afghans.” He further said while addressing the American troops, “We did not choose this war. We were attacked viciously on 9/11. …. Plots against our homeland, plots against our allies, plots against the Afghan and Pakistani people are taking place as we speak right here. And if this region slides backwards, if the Taliban retakes this country and Al-Qaeda can operate with impunity, then more American lives will be at stake. … And as long as I’m your Commander-in-Chief, I am not going to let that happen. That’s why you are here …….. Our broad mission is clear: We are going to disrupt and dismantle, defeat and destroy Al-Qaeda and its extremist allies. That is our mission.” Al-Qaeda and its allies are not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan. It is against this background that Pakistan has agreed to discuss the confidence-building and trust restoration measures with
India.
|
|||||
Homing pigeons When I built my house about 12 years ago, I had to take the walls up to a height of 30 feet in order to provide for an adequate slope of the roof. The height proved to be ideal for roosting pigeons. The flutter of wings, and the cooing added a touch of quaintness to the already rather old-fashioned house. Some years down the line, a very fastidious caretaker, bothered by the constant need to clean the droppings, had the space below the eaves bricked up. For days after that each evening would bring a flight of pigeons to the house who would flutter around disconsolately, sit for a while on the roof and then fly away. It was an expression of the legendary homing instinct that pigeons have, an instinct which has proved immensely useful to mankind. The homing pigeons have been used by star-crossed lovers to send epistles to each other, by Army Commanders to carry instructions to far- flung posts and even by hospitals to get quick results of diagnostic tests. Though the homing instinct of pigeons is legendary, other species too share this instinct . Cats, we know, are not willing to change their homes –they will, if necessary, change their owners in order to retain their homes. A Hollywood film in the early sixties told the true story of a dog travelling the breadth of North America to get back home. As a child, I too had this instinct. As the train slowed down for my hometown, I would feel a rush of adrenalin, a lifting of the spirit. A Nina and Fredrick ditty of the time summed up this feeling most aptly. The words went something like this: “I took a little trip to my home town/ I only stopped just to look around/ And as I walked along the thoroughfare / I heard music singing everywhere/ The music came from within my heart. / How did it happen, how did it start?” Like so many other urban dwellers today, I too lost my home and became a restless, rootless drifter who moved from town to town, from house to house, never again able to hear that music. Lured by ambition we move to better-paid jobs in bigger cities, leaving our homes and our childhood behind. Moving up the economic ladder, we feel ashamed of our old-fashioned homes and move to ever more luxurious living spaces and, in the process, lose that wonderful homing instinct that we were born with, that we share with all other species. I will be moving to my house in Dharampur in a few months’ time. One of the first things I will do is to open up that bricked-up space under the eaves. I know the pigeons will return and make my house their home once again, and perhaps, just perhaps, in their cooing and fluttering I will hear once again that long-lost music of the
heart.
|
|||||
In sports, old is not gold
Will
Union Minister for Sports and Youth Welfare Manohar Singh Gill succeed where his predecessors since 1975 have failed in enforcing the guidelines to regulate the functioning of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and its affiliate National Sports Federations (NSFs)?
Given the current political landscape and affiliations of those afflicted by the guidelines issued by the Union Ministry of Sports on May 2, the sports administration in the country is heading for a toss. In less than six months, India will be playing host to its biggest-ever sports event – the Commonwealth games. Laxity in enforcing the guidelines that are of the 1975 vantage has been the single largest factor for the uproar now. Aggrieved at the directions, the top brass of both the IOA and the NSFs has been quoting autonomy of the sports bodies and sports as a state subject as its biggest defence, terming the guidelines as a brazen attempt to browbeat them into submission. Trading guns at Gill, they want him to go first as he himself is over the retirement age his Ministry is proposing to impose on the elected office-bearers of the IOA and the NSFs.
Arguments by either side apart, the sports administration in the country needs a total revamp. There is no dispute that it has been overdue for a long time. There is some weight in the argument of the aggrieved sports officials that no International Sports Federation would accept a team or athletes from India for participation in any global meet if they do not come through the National Sports Federation. Even the FIH, the world hockey body, threatened to withdraw the World Cup Hockey Tournament from India in case it did not have an elected body in place in time for the event. It is, however, a different issue that FIH did not carry out its threat and instead has allowed Hockey India to complete its election process by the end of May this year. The guidelines do not prevent those holding key posts of President, Secretary and Treasurer either in the IOA or the NSFs from continuing their association with the sports beyond their prescribed tenures or retirement. As long as they want to remain associated with sports, they can but not at these specified positions. They can help, guide and associate themselves with their successors, giving the IOA or the NSFs a fresh lease of life or infusing some fresh ideas in these autonomous bodies. “Autonomy” of the IOA and the NSFs is again subjective. Can the IOA or the NSFs survive on the strength of their own fiscal health? Probably they cannot. They have to depend upon states and the Centre for virtually everything, from infrastructure, coaches and also for sending their teams abroad. The argument that sports is a state subject carries little or no weight as IOA as well as the NSFs always look towards the Centre for financial grants and assistance every time teams are to be sent abroad for participation in international events. If one looks at the present general house of the Indian Olympic Association, one finds nearly 80 per cent of the faces have been there for more than two decades. At the same time, there is some credence in the argument that why have guidelines for sports bodies alone, why not in other spheres of public life, including politics? The argument of the affected sports officials that their bodies have been functioning in a democratic and transparent manner need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Not many in sports circles had any inkling of the advanced notice of general house meetings of the IOA where Suresh Kalmadi was re-elected for his second and third terms. Also, the IOA let itself to be hijacked by certain influential people in the manner the affairs of the ad hoc committee of the Hockey India were handled. Leaving out units like Punjab, Mumbai, Tamil Nadu from the affiliated members’ list put it in the suspect category. A little more needs to be done to ensure and practise autonomy and transparency. The Union Ministry of Sports, however, denies all such allegations of the IOA and the NSFs saying its latest guidelines neither violate the IOC charter nor it intends to intervene in their functioning. It also maintained that the functioning of the NSFs was a subject matter of debate in Parliament as recent as April 22 this year. The issue was also raised at the meetings of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on Youth Affairs and Sports. The guidelines that have created an uproar are only one part of the larger guidelines issued by the Ministry of Sports. There are guidelines that govern the association of members of the central civil services with the sports bodies. Again this set of guidelines has remained in paper only. Not many bureaucrats seek approval of the State before accepting or contesting an election to become the President/Secretary or Treasurer either in the IOA or any of the National Sports Federations. Again these have never been enforced. Interestingly, the May 2 guidelines are silent about the Board for Control of Cricket in India. Do they apply to cricket too? What IOC charter says
President: Eight years renewable once for four years. Total maximum of 12 years. Vice-President and 10 Executive
Committee members: Four years each, maximum two terms followed by a cooling off period of two years. Retirement Age: 70 (for those elected after December, 1999)
Practice in international
federations
World Badminton Federation: Maximum 2 terms for President and other office-bearers. International Hockey Federation: Maximum 3 terms for President, Secretary-General and Treasurer (Total 12 years) International Swimming Federation: Maximum two terms for President, Secretary and Treasurer.
Government’s guidelines
Indian Olympic Association/ National Sports Federations: President for a maximum of 12 years. Secretary/Treasurer — Two terms of four years each with a cooling off period of four years before the third term IOA/ NSF retirement age
for President/ Secretary/Treasurer is 70 years.
Delhi High Court verdict (March 2, 2009)
* Parliament has the power to legislate on the regulation of NSFs *
The guidelines for recognition of NSFs are valid, binding and enforceable, and *
The tenure clause is not in the
violation of the IOC charter.
|
|
Mumbai Diary Harbhajan Singh has a way of hogging the headlines during the IPLseason. In the very first instalment of the tourney Bhajji had the spotlight turned entirely on himself when he got into a brawl with PunjabKings XI speedster Sreesanth and slapped him across the face.
Harbhajan followed it up the following year by criticising his friend and captain Sachin Tendulkar in a television interview. This time round, the storm over Lalit Modi and allegations of
corruption and match fixing ensured that Bhajji’s antics did not get newsprint space as in the past. The guy was fined $15,000 for abusing Deccan Challengers batsman T Suman, but it hardly merited a mention when far less misdemeanors had the commentariat tearing their hair. But as they say, one cannot keep a great man down for long. After the Mumbai Indians’ semi-final victory against Royal Challengers Bangalore, team owner Nita Ambani rushed down to hug Bhajji for his performance. And Harbhajan gamely lifted her off her feet to make what could be the best television moment of the controversial tournament. Short and far sighted Engineering biggie Larsen and Toubro hasn’t forgiven Anil Ambani for his Reliance Power placing huge orders from Chinese companies for equipment to power ultra mega power plants across India. The move two years ago sent a chill down the spine of L&T, which suddenly looked uncompetitive in the face of low-priced Chinese competition. But the engineering giant hit back by unleashing a media offensive questioning the quality of equipment supplied by the Chinese. The
sustained campaign paid off and L&T continues to enjoy the trust of India’s other power producers. At a function recently, Ravi Uppal, CEO, L&T Power, at the end of a long diatribe against Chinese competitors, warned that power equipment needed to last at least 30-35 years. “Some people think they can just put up a plant at low cost and forget about it,” Uppal remarked. There was no mention of Anil Ambani or Reliance Power. But effusive praises came for ‘far-sighted’ companies like Tata Power and JP Power Ventures, who took a long-term view of their businesses. Movie on Modi As l’affaire Lalit Modi drew to a close, the rise and fall of the flamboyant IPL boss is all set to be captured on screen. The biopic of Modi was originally plotted as the story of the struggling scion of a business family who finally redeemed himself by shaking up the India’s cricket body. The movie was planned a few months ago when Modi was still riding high on the euphoria of two successful IPL tourneys. Though the tide has turned against him since, Modi, the buzz goes, hasn’t really given up and hopes to make a dramatic comeback. The IPL boss is said to be closely monitoring the script and working on other minute details. The Commissioner, helped by film-maker Shailendra Singh, is due to hit the floors later this year, depending on Modi pulling out a few more rabbits from his hat, that is. |
||
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
