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The scholarship route Fed at it again |
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Sense
and Sensex
India at sea
Pinkies
on a platter
Hot love and Cold War NRIs should help the
weaker among themselves Delhi Durbar
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The scholarship route At
a time when the efficacy of reservations and quotas in ameliorating the lot of the downtrodden is under a cloud, the government has done well to take the scholarship route to help the minorities. In today’s world, the basic requisite for a worthwhile existence is employment commensurate with one’s capability and qualification. The minorities suffer because they lack adequate education and the skills that equip the youth for jobs. This fact has been underlined forcefully by the Sachar Committee and many other such probe panels. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has now decided to spend over Rs 1868 crore during the 11th Five Year Plan to give 25 lakh pre-matric scholarships to meritorious minority students. These will not only empower the minorities but will also improve their education levels. There can be no reason why this well-meaning gesture should generate misgivings in any quarters. A little helping hand should gradually be extended to every poverty-stricken child, irrespective of the community to which he or she belongs. For the time being, the scheme is to apply to all those communities notified as minorities under Section 2 (C) of the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992. The fact that the scholarships are not Muslim-specific must be publicised forcefully. One hopes that the distribution of scholarship money will not be mired in red-tape as has been the case in many other such schemes in the past. On its part, leaders of minority communities should exhort their followers to make the fullest possible use of such scholarships. Unfortunately, there is no dearth of misinformed zealots who want their community members to have nothing to do with modern education. They want them to remain limited to religious teaching alone. Such leaders are the worst enemies of their community and must be discouraged by the enlightened leaders who know better.
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Fed at it again The
US central bank, Federal Reserve, has set a precedent by slashing interest rates twice in less than two weeks. Yet business and consumer sentiment remains abysmally low. Normally, expectations of a Fed rate cut trigger a rally in global stock markets. Now even the cumulative 1.25 percentage point rate reduction has failed to cheer them up. President George Bush has stitched a package to prop up the deteriorating US economy severely hit by a credit crunch and a housing slump. The package aims to put $146 billions into taxpayers’ pockets latest by April to boost consumption. Critics say Americans already over-spend and over-borrow and the consumer has been given “more rope to hang himself with”. The aggressive rate cut and the fiscal stimulus, partly prompted by the presidential elections, are seen as acts of desperation taken by a President who seems to have in his last year in power run out of breath. Corporate America is clearly bracing itself for a recession. The cheer that Mr Bernanke’s rate cut spree and President Bush’s fiscal stimulus were supposed to spread has been wiped off by a series of dismal news. The latest GDP growth figures paint a bleak picture. The US economy grew at just 0.6 per cent in the last three months of 2007 and consumers curbed spending. The IMF has calculated that the US growth will fall from 2.2 per cent to 1.5 per cent and the slowdown will spill over into Europe. All economies, cautions the IMF, need to be alert to “signs of a sharper global downturn”. India has limited trade linkages with the US and so the damage here too will be limited. Foreign institutional investors have been net sellers of Indian stocks for the past some days. It is common to book profits at one place to meet losses or writedowns elsewhere. But the high interest rates and good corporate performance in India will continue to attract foreign investment. There lies some hope for investors in India—and may be for Mr P. Chidambaram. |
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Sense and Sensex The
story of the falling Sensex is all bullish – in a way. The market experts have no clue to the stock market and why equities rise or fall. The real mover of the Sensex is the bull, literally and also metaphorically. All these months when the sensitive index of the Bombay Stock Exchange was on the up and up, everyone knew that the bulls were charged and racing. There were no bull stops, and it looked like the bears had not only taken a beating but had also gone underground. It was only to be expected then that the bull would be enthroned in all his glory in the forecourt of the Bombay Stock Exchange. And, some three weeks ago, the five-foot-tall, bronze statue —symbolising the strength and surging power of the stock market — was placed outside the eastern entrance. As luck would have it, the unveiling of the statue happened around the time the market was being hammered by the bears. Bombay’s brokers, and a lot of losers, promptly concluded that the statue of the bull was inauspicious. Since installing the statue of a bear is unthinkable, the superstitious lot of traders, or those whom fate made losers during the last couple of weeks, felt that the direction the bull was facing – with its back to the BSE building – had brought about this sharp downturn in the market. The BSE management quickly consulted the wise (may be the astrologically wise) who know about such exalted matters and decided that the bull had to be re-located; after all, only if the bull faces north can the Sensex also go north was the argument. Now, if this really works, India would no longer need a Reserve Bank or a Finance Ministry, and Mr P. Chidambaram sitting in North Block in Delhi would not have to necessarily claim credit for the 9 per cent growth rate. The direction the bull faces will decide the fate of the stock market, and, of course, the economy. In that case it would be more practicable to place the bull on a revolving platform to make it more convenient to keep changing its direction according to the direction desired for the market and the economy. Since the Sensex is all about sentiment, some sense and some nonsense, those who think this is a load of superstitious claptrap should just grin and bear it. |
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Assassination has never changed the history of the world. — Benjamin Disraeli
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India at sea Soon
the Indian Navy will host a seminal event termed the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) in New Delhi. Heads of navies and delegations from 28 countries in the region, including Pakistan, have been invited to present their views. Not all might be able to come for different reasons, but even if many do as they are likely to, it will be an occasion of great significance. Over a period of three days, the invitees will discuss matters of mutual interest concerning cooperation at sea. For the last 10 years, the Navy has been conducting the Milan series of biennial meetings, which involve maritime forces of neighbours in the eastern seas. It also hosted an International Fleet Review in Mumbai 2001 for which ships and delegations from 21 countries showed up. So, the IONS is a logical follow up and a timely step in the right direction. Unlike the other two major oceans of the world — the Pacific and Atlantic, in which 75 per cent of all seaborne commerce is consigned to or comes from their own regional states — the situation in the Indian Ocean is very different. Here, 75 per cent of all trade moving at sea is consigned to or comes from countries external to the region, and more than $200 billion of it is in the form of oil and gas. The US is the largest importer of Gulf energy followed by China and Japan. France procures more than half of its oil and gas from this region. It is not surprising, therefore, that these countries, though external to the region, have important stakes. The US maintains large military, mainly maritime, forces in the Indian Ocean. France has forces stationed in the Reunion Islands in the southern Indian Ocean and has access to a very large Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) where it exercises sovereign rights over exploration and exploitation of undersea resources. This 24/7 military presence of externals, which cannot be wished away, has its own impact on the political dynamics of the region. In earlier times, it was the maritime power of countries like Great Britain, France, Portugal and the Netherlands which enabled them to colonise and then rule over almost the entire Indian Ocean littoral. Of the regional countries, few can lay any pretensions to maritime power. To our west, Pakistan, Iran and South Africa have competent but small navies; others are merely coastal forces. Eastwards, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia have navies but none of them can really be said to be sea-going. India alone maintains maritime forces — the Navy and the Coast Guard — which can be considered to have credible ocean-going capability. Therefore, if at all a regional maritime nation has to make an effort to coordinate cooperative engagement at sea, it has to be India. Why cooperation is needed at all is a question that a layman might ask. In the security environment today and likely to be prevalent in the years to come, threats of conflict between nation-states have dwindled sharply; on the other hand, those from non-state entities are increasing. Groups like Al-Qaeda in the Gulf, the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines and the Jemaah Islamia in Indonesia have already been involved in terrorist acts at sea. More of these, not less, should be expected. Whether in narrow and constricted waterways like the Malacca Straits in the east or in the Gulf of Hormuz or the Gulf of Aden in the west, or in ports, piracy and maritime terrorism constitute a real threat. The scenario is trans-national; a ship belonging to an owner in one country is often registered in another whose flag it flies, and its crew has people of several different nationalities. When such a vessel is attacked or hijacked, it has on board cargo belonging to many countries. After being hijacked somewhere, it is taken to another region that might be quite far away and then deployed in unlawful activity elsewhere. Prevention of such crimes at sea and apprehension of hijacked vessels which can potentially be used for terrorism can only be ensured if there is close coordination between several agencies within a country and between countries. Safety at sea and search and rescue are areas of common concern as also environmental degradation. Maritime forces have to be the lead players in promoting such coordination as they are the ultimate implementers. The interface should cover an exchange of visits by ships and people, discussions at professional seminars and conferences and joint exercises and patrols. Some interoperability is important as without it standard operating profiles cannot be developed. Only then can the desired confidence and trust be built. India’s own interests at sea are quite substantial and increasing rapidly. Nearly 70 per cent of all our energy imports are from the Gulf and this dependence may reach 80 per cent or more by 2020, making us the third largest importer after the US and China. Almost all our overseas trade — about $320 billion this year which is likely to reach $500 billion in 2010 and over $1.5 trillion by 2020 — is moved by sea. In addition, energy exploitation going on in our offshore waters is spread over more than 50,000 square kilometers, and this area is likely to double in the next 15 years. The assets involved in this activity are extensive and represent very sizeable and critical national investment. Safety of these maritime interests, from state and non-state actors, is imperative as it impacts directly on the nation’s economic growth. As India’s economy grows, so will its maritime interests. Conversely, unless these are safeguarded, economic growth is certain to be compromised. Taking a proactive lead role in affairs at sea in our region is, therefore, a desirable initiative, and the Navy and the government must be complimented in moving in this direction. One must wish that the forthcoming IONS achieves all the objectives that have been set before it and becomes a promoter of more active cooperation at sea in our
region. The writer is a former Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command
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Pinkies on a platter A
special
talk on how to befriend pets in the homes of our host families was a surprising part of preparation for my group study exchange tour to the US. We sure were representing the tolerant, progressive and intelligent face of India to the world’s most progressive nation and embarrassing anyone was certainly and strictly not on our agenda. So we, a group of four, got a low-down on how to deal with pets. There sure were a few skirmishes here and there over the next few weeks as one of my team members spent sleepless nights as her host had a number of black ominous cats who climbed onto her bed at night, then there were ducks, rabbits, dogs etc etc. But the most revealing experience was at the home of my host, a former journalist, in a city next to New York. Bob, the quintessential American and his pretty Italian wife were the picture-book American couple, with a busy work schedule, grown-up children and no trace of empty nest syndrome troubling them. While introducing me to his ‘‘family’’ on the very first day of my stay with them Bob took me to a glass case and with the pride of fatherhood lighting up his face, introduced his pet, hold your breath, a lizard (gecko, to be precise), a lazy looking spiky creature that was lounging in the virtual forest that was his home. “This is my step son’s pet and he’s left it with us so I take extra care of it,” announced Bob. And he did care a lot for the pet. He was in the habit of talking to the lizard (even discussing a former President of US) and even left the radio on before leaving for work so that the animal did not feel lonely in his absence. But the highlight was when the couple invited their Indian friends on dinner and decided to serve Italian food to them. So I was excited at the prospect of learning a few Italian dishes and getting to taste lasagna, olives and mozzarella cheese as Bob and me went to shop for dinner. On our way back Bob stopped at a pet food store as he wanted “Mr Lizard” too to have an exotic dinner. “Six crickets and two pinkies,” he told the attendant nonchalantly. And the word pinkies raised my curiosity as I leant forward on the counter to see kind of a delicay it was but my heart skipped a beat when these enigmatic pinkies were produced. These were just a few hours old ‘‘mouselings’’ with soft hairless pink skin. I don’t know whether it was love or pity or a cocktail of both, but my heart went out to them at the first sight. On getting back ‘‘father’’ Bob magnanimously opened the bag and released the crickets into the glass case and put the pinkies on a platter. And Lo! in a split second they were gone as the lazy lizard gobbled both with a swirling swish of his tongue before I could even blink in horror. The hapless pinkies had drowned in a sea of gastric juices as I tried not to register Bob’s goading about a satisfied grin on the lizard’s lips. It was gross and grotesque and gone was my appetite for the Italian fare as I nibbled on lasagna while mourning the loss of pinkies for the rest of the evening. Even at the risk of being termed an anti-pet person, I can’t resist asking how love for one animal can make one ruthless to another one? But for all ye pet lovers may be that is the secret of ‘‘petology’’: ‘‘Feed pinkies to make your pet lizard
happy’’.
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Hot love and Cold War In a question-answer format, Castro encapsulates his life that began on a farm where he remembers that when he was three or four years old, “the cows slept underneath the house”. He grew up watching cockfights and listening to the battery-run radio that gave news of the Spanish civil war and to his father’s bookkeeper who loved talking about Greek orator Demosthenes. It was a time when “boys are brought up watching violence from the moment they are born”. Small wonder that what strikes Castro most about the Bible are the punishment of Babylon, the enslavement of the Jews, the crossing of the Red Sea, Joshua and his trumpets bringing down the walls of Jericho, Samson and his Herculean strength, able to pull down a temple with his own hands and the Tablets of the Law he learnt from the First Grade as Sacred History. Circumstances made Castro a rebel. He rues his father’s decision to send him to a teacher at Santiago, who did not give him enough food, let alone any education. There, he was often hungry which he thought was not hunger but appetite. Years later when he read Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, they reminded him of his own days of penury. Such experiences steeled his resolve to fight injustice. Fulgencio Batista was in power at that time. For Castro and his followers, he was the most hateful, diabolical ruler who needed to be removed at any cost. He is at his best when he waxes eloquent about the days of revolution when he and his comrades disembarked from the motor yacht, the Granma, ending their self-exile, to begin their violent struggle. Revolution had its setbacks as when Castro’s force was reduced to three men, with two rifles and 120 rounds. But that did not deter him. Three more years of guerrilla activity saw him seizing power in Havana in 1959. Whatever might have been the designation or title he had chosen for himself, Castro has remained in complete control of Cuba since then. When, last year, reasons of health compelled him to abdicate in favour of his brother Raul, many mistakenly saw the end of an era. Neither Castro nor Cuba can be written off. The revolution has not crumbled when he was put on a ventilator as his enemies had imagined. The transition was smooth, though Raul is only four years younger to him. My Life is a litany of his achievements and struggles. Though it was Batista against whom he revolted, he considers the US as his greatest enemy. What transformed him is the CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion soon after Castro captured power. He can be merciful to Batista but not to the US which, he believes, made 600 assassination attempts on him. The book is more or less a diatribe against the Americans who ‘even tried to undermine the agricultural wealth of Cuba by exporting worms and pests’. In between, Castro makes some comments on world events and statesmen, some hilarious, some enlightening, which enable the reader to plough through the 724-page tome. He blames the imbecility of Khrushchev for the USSR’S surrender during the missile crisis. It was President Kennedy’s warning of a full-fledged war that forced the Soviets to take the missiles back. Castro quotes extensively from the letters he exchanged with Khrushchev on the subject to suggest that it was the “hot love” of the superpowers during the “cold war” that did Cuba in. Itching as he was to fight the imperialists, he was not impressed by Khrushchev’s logic that “it is difficult to say how a thermonuclear war would have turned out. In the first place, the fires of war would have burned Cuba”. How truthful Castro is when he says “the eyes of many men, Soviet and Cuban, who were willing to die with supreme dignity, wept when they learnt of the surprising, unexpected and practically unconditional decision to withdraw troops” is difficult to say. At no point of time did the world heave such a sigh of relief as when the Soviets withdrew the missiles and a war, possibly nuclear, was averted. But Castro is not impressed. Nothing seems to have impacted Castro, a beneficiary of Cold War, more than the collapse of the Soviet Union. He blames Gorbachev for putting the nation on a self-destruct mode little realising that the USSR was an artificial construct. Of course, allowance has to be made for his ability to survive even after Soviet tankers stopped arriving in Cuba with cheap oil. If survival is an achievement, Castro is an achiever. He has figures to parrot about the significant strides Cuba has made. Few countries, including the US, can compete with the island nation in life expectancy, infant mortality, literacy, housing, educational opportunities, provided we depend on his words. He calls Cuba a medical superpower. Under Batista, Cuba was a major producer of sugar and cigar. Fifty years under Castro, it produces nothing but these two items, though in smaller quantities. But that does not prevent him from boasting about how he sent his men to fight other’s wars in as far away as Timbuktu. Often, fact and fiction merge in Castro’s life. It was Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls on the Spanish civil war that allowed him and his fighters “to actually see” the experience of an irregular struggle, from the political and military point of view. “That book became a familiar part of my life. And we always went back to it, consulted it, to find inspiration”. One can only imagine the ragged, bearded, carbine to hand, reading the Spanish translation of Hemingway in the rugged wilds of Cuba while fighting the Batistas. If anyone gets unqualified praise, it is Che Guevara. His account of dragging the asthmatic Argentinian through the Cuban hills in a downpour with hundreds of government troops in wet, cold pursuit is gripping, though his account of his death in the jungles of Bolivia – incapacitated because a bullet had hit his gun and made it in-operational – is unbelievable. Amazingly, he has only words of praise for Kennedy, who inflicted the worst shock of his life during the missile crisis. Castro is a relic of a past when Tito, Nasser and Nehru thought they were non-aligned, despite their ideological proximity to the USSR. While the world has changed, Castro still has no regrets that he cheered the Soviets as they descended on Prague in the spring and later on Kabul. While he enjoys providing salacious bits about Clinton’s Monica connection and Francois Mitterand’s lovechild, he does not mention a word about his wives, past and present, and a large brood of children. The interviewer is only happy to play along, for he is not a detached observer who can ask him tough, uncomfortable questions but a sympathiser, who believes every word of what the Cuban leader says. In the process, My Life turns hagiographical with little light on Castro, the lover, the husband, the father and the grandfather. Instead, we have an abundance of Castro, the revolutionary who can never make
mistakes. *Fidel Castro with Ignacio Ramonet, Penguin, 2007, 724 pages, Rs 795.
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NRIs should help the weaker among themselves It
has become a year-end ritual for NRIs from abroad to return to their native soil for a few days of meets, conferences and seminars. Programmed in between this little, sunny, winter sojourn is of course the obligatory visit to the ancestral village, to meet up with the folks who have remained behind. There are power presentations enunciating the ‘Vision of the State’, interviews to the press by some of the ‘ VIP’ delegates who are media savvy, the making of financial commitments – sometimes just by an SMS – to invest heavily in the state, and MOUs for setting up international level airports. Having some first hand knowledge of some of these conclaves, where the firangi half now settled abroad is expected to invest in the home state for his personal benefit, as also that of the less fortunate who have stayed on behind, is a touchy issue often avoided. But none the less it is worthy of a deeper analysis. There can be no debate on the nagging question of family support that has always troubled the minds of those whose close kith and kin have now settled overseas, far from the caring eyes of their elders. Issues of property inheritance, family law, marriages, divorces where a girl is left high and dry on alien shores by the husband without any financial support, immigration obstacles, especially for those seeking political asylum, fast track resolution of criminal cases registered in India against NRIs, and the repatriation home of funds, have been some of the issues that have never been resolved to anyone’s satisfaction so far. Yet, each such conclave promises, year in and year out, that those now in power will set matters right -- possibly even before the delegates have had time to reach their dispersal stations on the way back home. Many have opined that the NRI sammelans are nothing beyond periodic visits by the politicians and a few of the bureaucrats to alien shores, where they are looked after by affluent Indians. They are in turn welcomed with open arms by the powers that be back in India, on a similar reciprocity basis. There have often also been allegations of the rich abroad providing money to individuals and the political party back home, for privileges to be extended in turn, for any corporate ventures or schemes that they might be contemplating in their native country. Care has to be taken by the state government before they make any promises. They must carry out a realistic appraisal of the feasibility of the concerned project. What would be the time lag and costing aspect of the air complex that is to come up at S.A.S Nagar, burdened as Punjab is with a cash stricken government and an Airport Authority of India which unfortunately so far has shown little alacrity or concern for projects located within this border state? There is another issue that begs an honest answer. Are the NRI conclaves by and for the rich and the affluent, or are they also meant to benefit those not that well-off, but who are also settled abroad? A rich Indian abroad involved in a daughter’ s divorce or intimidation suit does have the necessary money and clout to take care of expensive lawyers and the case, but this is certainly not true of one from a poorer segment who is driving a cab or working as a waiter somewhere and just making both ends meet. There have been so many cases where the affluent Indian abroad is just not bothered with the sad plight of one from his race. He is quite unlike the Jews who gather together to help out those in adversity. Very often it is the lesser educated if not the totally uneducated Punjabi abroad who has to bear the brunt of living away from his village and the buddy system that still prevails there. The old and the infirm is the other cross section of our society that needs special care abroad, for often they have been turned away by their own children after having been milked off of their old age pensions and social security cheques. It is in such cases that the NRI conclaves and the state governments need to get themselves fully involved, so as to lend a helping hand. There is also a need in these yearly get-togethers to involve the Punjabi diaspora and their representatives in East Africa, the South East and the Middle East-Iran and Afghanistan, which part of the world is hardly ever, if at all, represented. Do the organisers in India, and that should include the MEA, besides looking after the pravasi meets, ever focus on this large agrarian segment that has many problems but battle it out all by themselves? Looking after the diaspora is not only the concern of a state government, but also that of the Centre.
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Delhi Durbar Notwithstanding the Hooda government's figures on investment and growth, Congressmen in the state want the focus more on issues touching the common man. The impression about certain sections not being happy with the power situation has been reflected in the meetings of some party leaders with their constituents. Union minister Kumari Selja, who has been holding meetings in her parliamentary constituency, has received complaints of inadequate power supply from villagers. Another complaint has been of a large chunk of jobs going to a particular area of the state. Congress leaders feel that unless people are convinced that their complaints have been addressed, the party will have its back to the wall in the next election. Already, the electoral contest has become tough with former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal parting ways with the Congress.
JD (U) drive The Janata Dal (United) is gearing up for its organisational elections due in mid-April. JD(U) president Sharad Yadav's two-year tenure comes to an end on April 14. The party has started a membership drive and set the target of enroling 10 per cent of the total electorate in each state. While calling upon all workers to promote membership, senior party workers have been entrusted the task of taking care of the drive in select states. For instance, party general secretary Javed Raza has been given charge of Chhattisgarh, Dadar and Nagar Haveli, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Pondicherry. The party claims to have sent the election calendar to its sulking former president and MP George Fernandes and is awaiting his response. Meanwhile, the National Returning Officer will be elected in a couple of days.
Rabindra sangeet The India International Centre has good news for lovers of Rabindra Sangeet. The IIC Diary (November-December 2007) has announced a four-day Tagore festival commencing March 27. Scholars and artists from Dhaka, Shantiniketan, Kolkata and Delhi are expected to participate in the festival titled "Tagore in the 21st century". The festival will have numerous sessions of Rabindra Sangeet apart from a workshop on Tagore's songs, a concert by the Bangladeshi diva, Iffat Ara Dewan, a dance-drama by Abhimanch in Delhi, and Tagore songs choreographed in Odissi by Madhvi Mudgal.
Cocktail launch It was an eye catching assemblage at a book launch recently. The book was Polo in India, a game patronised by the erstwhile royalty. Those in attendance included union minister Kapil Sibal, Delhi CM Shiela Dikshit, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka and her husband Robert Vadra. The actual book release, by Chairman of the ICCR Karan Singh, was delayed by an hour. Tongue in cheek, Karan Singh observed that the invite specifically mentioned the launch of the book followed by cocktails and chided the gathering that the cocktails had begun
beforehand. Contributed by Prashant Sood, Tripti Nath and S. Satyanarayanan
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CUBAN leader Fidel Castro’s is the kind of life legends are made of. Son of a poor Galician emigrant who went to war as a replacement for a rich man, he is arguably one of the most charismatic leaders of the world. Given his oratorical skill that has dazzled his countrymen for over half a century, he could have taken to writing like fish to water. Instead, he found a new stratagem – “a revolutionary has to be one up always” – to produce My Life*. He granted 100 hours of his precious time to Ignacio Ramonet, a long-time editor of the French magazine Le Monde Diplomatique.