P A G E
Saturday, February 27, 1999
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Saturday, February 27, 1999 |
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Cellular
tangle
BUS
YATRA TO LAHORE
St. George of Indian politics |
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Pakistanis
now pine for peace
Doordarshan
wins hands down
Convict
stabs Sub-Inspector |
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Cellular tangle A MAJOR legal and political battle is shaping up between the Department of Telecommunications and the cellular telephone service operators. And flashpoint may come as early as on Monday, a day after the extended deadline. The tussle promises to be exciting what with the Prime Minister taking a hand, speaking on behalf of the defaulting operators. The core of the issue is about the payment of licence fee. The government wants a token payment of 20 per cent of the original licence fee, which works out to Rs 700 crore. Of the 25 operators, only 13 have cleared the dues and the others are both defiant and angry at the Communications Minister, Mr Jagmohan, for setting a deadline. Until now, the issue lay dormant with successive political bosses not wanting to rake up the issue or not having time. Mrs Sushma Swaraj held the portfolio as an additional charge and was happy to concentrate on Information and Broadcasting. Her predecessor, Mr Beni Prasad Verma, did not feel quite secure in the Ministry which was vacated by the redoubtable Sukh Ram. But Mr Jagmohan is made of sterner stuff and never shies away from a controversy. And he has taken up the issue of collecting the outstanding licence fee of Rs 3500 crore as a priority task and is going about it with his customary tenacity. In the process he had to indirectly take on the Prime Minister’s Office, which is quite partial to the operators. In fact early this month, the Prime Minister wrote to the Minister asking him not to insist on the earlier deadline of February 15, but allow time until March 31. But he only partially resiled and gave just two more weeks. March 31 may well be a
crucial date. By then the new telecom policy will be out
and the operators will be able to decide on the most
beneficial road to take. They have only themselves to
blame. When the cellular telephone circles were opened
for bidding three years ago, there were many wild offers,
the result of gross over-estimation of the number of
subscribers and the volume of cash flow. Since then, many
have taken losses and are pleading for reworking the
original contract. They have the Kamath committee report
on their side. The panel has recommended that there
should be an entry fee and revenue sharing, in place of
the present licence fee. But law is on the
Minister’s side. The Attorney General has said that
changing the contract with retrospective effect will be
illegal and also will create two sets of operators, those
who have paid part of the fee and are serious and those
who have not and are non-serious. More, all those whose
bids were rejected will now demand to be reconsidered,
thus causing enormous delay in cleaning up this vital
sector and by holding up the reform process. But with the
PMO very much in the picture, with Mr Jagmohan unwilling
to revise his opinion and the operators unable to raise
the necessary funds in view of the impending policy
change, a multifaced problem is about to surface. One
easy way out will be to refer the whole issue to the
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), but the
mandarins in the ministry are quite opposed to the idea. |
Haryana’s tryst with light HARYANA, which has for years remained an area of virtual darkness because of the non-availability of round-the-clock electricity supply, is gearing itself to become an exemplary state in provision of power. The history of electricity distribution in the state has been gloomy because of mechanical problems aggravated by human failure, at the centre of which there has been a series of malpractices ranging from power theft to corruption rampant among the staff. What Mrs Krishna Gahlawat, the Minister of State for Agriculture, said by way of assurance on power supply on Thursday has been promised by the Governor and the Chief Minister time and again. For instance, on January 29, Mr Mahavir Prasad expressed his "confidence" that the ongoing power reforms would make available additional 1,200 MW of power in the "next 18 months". He made a pointed reference to the revival of the Yamunanagar thermal project and to the floating of global tenders for the selection of producers for 500 MW thermal power. Long-term contracts had been signed with the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and a number of reputed companies abroad. There was some concrete evidence of the advent of a new era of light. The strengthening and modernisation of the transmission and distribution system have since been given top priority and the Governor could legitimately claim that "against the daily availability of 348 lakh units in the previous year, power supply every day this year is 371 lakh units". Mr Bansi Lal, a man of determination, made a firm commitment on February 2 in the Vidhan Sabha that he would see to it that round-the-clock availability of electricity would be ensured by June 30. The Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam (HVPN) has successfully tested its transmission system. In a three-day regular trial, 24-hour uninterrupted availability of electricity was made possible from November 25 to November 27. Some loopholes were detected in the course of the study and experiment. The highest shortfall was 34 lakh units on a single day. The HVPN would arrange 89 lakh additional units from various sources. Two units of the Faridabad gas-based plant of the NTPC would supply 58 lakh units per day. The refurbishment of four units of the Panipat thermal plant would be completed soon which would generate four lakh units daily. There is no end to
possibilities. At least 10 lakh units can be bought from
Punjab and about seven lakh units from Himachal Pradesh.
World Bank help is at hand and so is assistance from the
Department for International Development (DID) and
private under takings. What is most encouraging is the
government's attitude towards indigenous capability. Mr
Bansi Lal has sent an open invitation to "all
planners and environmental engineers" to suggest
such options for power generation as can mature quickly.
However, he must be cautious against the hazards of
environmental pollution. Ecological issues are important
and these have to be addressed simultaneously with the
expansion of the network. The potential of the sources of
non-conventional energy is limited. Policies always look
attractive. Their implementation, however, poses gigantic
problems. Greed and sloth combine and sabotage
well-intentioned projects. Is Mr Bansi Lal looking for
solar energy and electricity from biomass waste? Is he
taking into account various micro hydel projects also?
June is not far away and the Chief Minister has announced
a futuristic tryst with light just 123 days from now! |
BUS YATRA TO LAHORE THE full outcome of Mr Vajpayee’s bus yatra to Lahore will not be known for some days as yet, possibly for some weeks, months. This is because the documents signed and released in Lahore probably do not tell the full story. In fact both Prime Minister Vajpayee and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told questioners at their joint Press conference on February 21 to wait for the “appropriate time” (Mr Vajpayee) and “due course of time” (Mr Nawaz Sharif) for answers to their questions. But at the same time, they have also said that details regarding some critical issues “will be worked out by experts of the two sides in meetings to be held on mutually agreed dates, before mid-1999 with a view to reaching bilateral agreements.” Now, these critical issues are as much the “core” in Indian eyes as Kashmir is in the eyes of Pakistan. In fact, they relate to the very purpose of the yatra, namely how to ensure that peace in the region and between India and Pakistan is not threatened by any intended or unintended actions of either of the two countries, both of whom are new to their nuclear weapon capabilities. The issues relate to “security concepts”, “nuclear doctrines”, “confidence building measures” and much else. These are weighty words, and are made all the more so by the context. Experts can veer sharply towards success or failure as they “work out” “concepts” and “doctrines” in an area which is unfamiliar to both countries. This is the tricky crossroads at which the bus will wait for some time, watching whether the light will turn to green or red or will go on blinking on amber till “mid-1999” or perhaps beyond. The crossroads would have been slippery in any case but has been made much more so by the specific context. India has always been, and remains, ready to respond to Pakistan’s security concerns, whether in the field of nuclear or conventional weapons. But India will remain responsive only so long as Pakistan, whether acting on its own or on behalf of other countries, does not expect India to do something which would be adverse to India’s own security interests. This is precisely the slip that India has to guard against as it tries to reassure Pakistan and at the same time does not lower its guard against the threat from China. Similarly, New Delhi has also to ensure that certain nuclear and missile constraints, which India did not accept when they were pressed upon it by other countries, are not slipped in by Pakistan in the name of its own security, whether Pakistan does so innocently, or mischievously on behalf of the USA or China. A concept or a doctrine which might suit Pakistan, and which India might be willing to concede to Pakistan in the bilateral context, might not suit India’s security in the context of China, especially in matters relating to nuclear, missile, or fissile material capabilities. Hence the very first task enjoined by the two Prime Ministers on their respective “experts” under the very first item in the Memorandum of Understanding which was signed by the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries at Lahore. It says, “The two sides shall engage in bilateral consultations on security concepts and nuclear doctrines with a view to developing measures for confidence building in the nuclear and conventional fields, aimed at avoidance of conflict. An illustrative case is that of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. India is in deep negotiations with the USA in which it is carefully weighing the conditions on which it may be able to sign the Treaty without jeopardising its security interests. The USA on the other hand is trying to persuade Pakistan to sign the Treaty unconditionally, because then American pressure on India to do likewise can be stepped up. Pakistan is of the view, at least for the present and at least on record, that it will sign the Treaty only when India does so and will sign it on the same terms as India. Therefore, it would serve Pakistan’s relations with America if, in the name of its own security interests, Pakistan could persuade India to sign up unconditionally. The main opposition leader in Pakistan, Ms Benazir Bhutto, is of the view that this is exactly what Mr Nawaz Sharif should have tried to do in his talks with Mr Vajpayee, and the day after the summit ended she publicly criticised the Pakistan Prime Minister for missing the opportunity. She has her own reasons of course for blaming it on Mr Sharif, who is her arch enemy in the politics of Pakistan. Mr Sharif would also have his own reasons, and so would Pakistan as such. But India’s security interests have their own logic. The bus yatra diplomacy steered past this dangerous corner with the help of three precautions. The first, quoted above and contained both in the Lahore Declaration and in the Memorandum of Understanding between the two Foreign Secretaries, will engage both countries in a joint search for mutually suitable “security concepts” and “nuclear doctrines”. The second, contained in the memorandum, binds both countries to continue to abide by their respective unilateral moratorium on conducting further nuclear test explosions unless either side, in exercise of its national sovereignty, decides that extraordinary events have jeopardised its “supreme interests”. And third, the two countries will have bilateral consultations regarding negotiations on these issues on other fora. All the words emphasised above illustrate how much care will have to be exercised in reconciling the preferences and security interests of the two countries with each other, and in ensuring that the preferences and interests of third countries do not deflect India and Pakistan from their own and from their bilateral interests. Hence, on the one hand the moratorium is embodied in a bilateral document, which is for the first time that this has been done. On the other it is clearly defined as a unilateral option, which either country is free to depart from if in its national and sovereign judgement extraordinary events warrant such a step. The journey upto “mid-1999” will thus require speed as well as great watchfulness, and it should not be distracted by any back seat driving by anyone. One would have liked to see the memorandum specifically recommend consultations on the most important confidence building measure between the two countries in the nuclear field, namely a decision, treaty bound if possible, not to use nuclear weapons against each other, or at least not be the first to use them. But this has not happened. The two countries have committed themselves to “immediate steps for reducing the risk of accidental or unauthorised use of nuclear weapons”. But apart from the chilling thought that “unauthorised use” could also occur, this commitment does not rule out deliberate use, which a treaty bound non-use agreement would have done. Nor has the memorandum said anything about another confidence building step that would have been useful, namely to expand the scope of the existing agreement not to target each other’s nuclear installations. The agreement could have been expanded to cover population centres and major economic installations. There was talk of such an expansion before the yatra but it did not materialise. Of course, the other core issue for India and Pakistan, severally as well as jointly, relates to Jammu and Kashmir. The Lahore summit has contributed something to this as well, both directly and indirectly. The Declaration proclaimed by the two Prime Ministers has committed both countries to “intensify their efforts to resolve all issues, including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir”, and in addition to this specific commitment it has more widely reiterated “the determination of both countries to implementing the Simla Agreement in (the) letter and spirit”. The agreement is, of course the principal document in India’s eyes in connection with Kashmir, not the UN resolutions, to which Pakistan attaches greater importance. (By reiterating commitment to the agreement without any reference to the UN resolutions the Declaration might have exposed Mr Nawaz Sharif, unintentionally, to some embarrassment at the hands of the Jamaat-e-Islami.) But this part of the Declaration does more than to reaffirm the Simla Agreement: it relieves the agreement of the baggage of the circumstances in which it was signed, in 1972. Pakistan signed the agreement as a defeated country. India did everything to encourage Pakistan to come to terms with the realities. But, understandably, in Pakistan’s mind the agreement remained associated with humiliation and, therefore, unable to attract the energies of Pakistan for its implementation. Now, however, and at least in its own eyes, Pakistan has achieved equality with India because, like India, it can claim to have become a nuclear weapon power. This should enable Pakistan to invest some of its energy in implementing the refurbished agreement. Whether this will happen remains to be seen. Neither India nor Pakistan can make light of the fact that both of them now face stronger internal and external compulsions than they have faced for some time for getting on with the agenda which has been on their table for a couple of years already. The main elements of this agenda were drawn up by an earlier duo, Mr I.K. Gujral for India and Mr Nawaz Sharif for Pakistan. More items were added to it by the present duo after India and Pakistan carried out their respective nuclear tests, and the whole agenda was then consolidated into “a composite dialogue”. The Foreign Secretaries of the two countries kept up the dialogue for some time but then it began to sag. The pace picked up again after directions flowed to them from another meeting between their superiors, and quite possibly the same thing will happen again. But if the yatra is to
live upto the label “historic”, which was stuck
on it in the pre-yatra publicity, then the two countries
will have to ensure that the script does not sag again
even if there are changes in the present duo of the main
actors. In the meantime the contrast between India’s
and Pakistan’s enthusiasm for the yatra should be
taken note of by countries which have been pressing both
New Delhi and Islamabad to try harder to resolve their
differences. |
St. George of Indian politics FOR quite some time how I’ve been pondering the prickly personality of India’s most controversial radical, George Fernandes, for I find the George phenomenon explicable more and more in terms of stereotypes. For politicians with “over-vaulting” ambitions in the end tend to follow a sliding line of thought and action when baulked in their dreams of power. That l’affaire George seems to fit into such a frame only shows that when the dreams turn sour, the politician in question would be prepared to do dirt on his enviable past, and walk into a minefield of low pragmatic compromises. For somehow George’s role as a ramshackle, crumbling government’s “think-tank”, energising agent and “fire-extinguisher” throws up a new avatara, a person whose imago, cultived with core over a long number of years, is disintegrating before his own unbelieving eyes. It’s thus that his recent pronouncements and disputable decisions (as in the Vishnu Bhagwat case, for instance) can be understood. These were the doings of a dreamer whom the uncomfortable reality had tainted en route. If, then, we are to reach the heart of the matter, it’s important to understand the dynamics of his personality, the compulsions of his “persistent self”, and the long route it has taken to reach the point where it has become subversive of the energies that, in the first instance, propelled it into the world of politics. Political history is full of such examples, and that’s why when a politician of vision and promise does a “u-turn”, the imagination of affront seeks comfort in the ironies of history. I guess, considering the circumstances, it may be in order to start the story on a personal note. I recall my first visit to George Fernandes’s bungalow in New Delhi soon after Operation Bluestar at a time when the Sikh psyche, traumatised and wounded, was in a state of turmoil, and I too was in search of an anchor for my bruised and rocking spirit. He had read some of my troubled pieces in The Illustrated Weekly and elsewhere, and knew the nature and quality of my engagement. My visit, therefore, was an act of faith in a man whose credentials appeared to me as impeccable, and whose guts, outspokenness and readiness had impressed me deeply. In these years after the infamous Emergency when Indira Gandhi had become a common bete noire, one could expect George to put on armour like a fabled “Knight” in behalf of lost causes. And later when he used a couple of my articles for his magazine, The Other Side and put me on the mailing list, I began to get a deeper insight into the intriguing and charming personality of a homo politicos who would be “king”. I saw in those pages the making of a persona which was, in reality, a complex structure of idealism, exhibitionism and ambition. I could, in other words, see ambiguities now overshadowing his earlier transparencies. Or, maybe, the masks of the ageing radical were beginning to wear thin and show at last in the course of stress, attrition and failing vision. That’s why, in retrospect, the crucial turning point in his case came with the breakup of the Janata Party over the issue of the insufferable and tainted Laloo. Something must have been brewing silently in the chambers of his consciousness well before the showdown in Bihar, and the birth of the Samata Party in pique and revenge. His primal self which he had strenuously sought to mould in the high European Socialist cast (in the tradition of Dr Lohia and Willy Brandt, among others) in opposition to the Stalinist ideology was thus being eroded as he moved more and more towards the dream of power at all costs. Even now, despite this tragic shift in his worldview, and his hooking of the stars to the extreme Right does not strike one as a Machiavellian act or trait, as we understand such a phenomenon. It’s clearly an unhappy, unwanted alliance which shows up now and then in his familiar utterances and statements. Still, the fact remains that he has helped come into power an outrageously communal party tied to semi-fascist, obscurantist, and even criminal elements at the Centre, and in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, repudiating a heritage of years earned in labour and insight. It’s an act of amazing irony that while the buffoon of Bihar sticks in his craw because of the stink of corruption, the Great Amma of Chennai with even a more shameful record of venality is wooed by St George whenever the Southern “Deity” frowns! Such, such are the enticements of the sirens of power! The key-post of the Defence Minister was then the prize a “defrocked” priest of radical thought had to win. A plum prize that now reduces him to a politician for all seasons! That’s how the deserting radicals and revolutionaries gradually slip into inauthenticity, and their rhetoric becomes more and more insincere and more and more a form of doublespeak. By still sporting a care-free sartorial stance, and an air of nonchalance, George Fernandes hopes perhaps to purchase peace for his unquiet heart. If so, he’s sadly mistaken, for this dubious symbolism can deceive neither the radicals nor, indeed, his own inner self. I’m tempted at times
to see him as an archetypal labour leader such as the one
in Howard Spring’s celebrated novel, Fame is the
spur. The hero, Shawcross, starts as a coal-miner union
leader, ends up as a conservative Cabinet minister, and
eventually as a Labour Lord in ermine and plush! You
never can tell where a politician will go when the line
of vision changes. That, in sum, is the moral of St
George’s story! |
Pakistanis now pine for peace
MORE Indian journalists went to Pakistan last week than the total number visiting that country in the past 50 years. There were so many of us on the special chartered flight arranged by the Ministry of External Affairs that we joked about the fact that if something big happened in India, there would be nobody to cover it. We were the biggest media circus I have ever seen. The problem was that more than 90 per cent were people who had never been to Pakistan before, which is probably why almost nobody has written about just how much the atmosphere there had changed, how much more friendship and warmth there is compared to when I was last in Lahore five years ago. Many have, in fact, brought back the opposite impression so it will reinforce the general Indian view that we are the most reasonable people in the world and that if we have problems with Pakistan it is entirely because Pakistanis are incapable of reason. As someone who has been a frequent visitor to Pakistan in the past 15 years I feel obliged to try and rectify this impression. I began to notice that things had changed from the first conversation I had with a Pakistani in Lahore who happened (as usually happens with hacks in foreign countries) to be the taxi driver who took me shopping on our first evening in Pakistan. He was a Kashmiri, he said, and felt so deeply about what he had heard the Indian army was doing to his brethren in Kashmir. But, he quickly added, he was thrilled with the idea of the Indian Prime Minister’s bus ride across the Wagah border because he believed that the time had come for peace. He was an educated man, a graduate, and so paid attention to what was going on in the world. “Look how we have been left behind by other countries,” he said, “and this is because we have spent so much time fighting each other instead of on development in our countries”. Did other people think the way he did, I asked, and he said that more and more people were beginning to think on these lines. “Of course, there are fundamentalists here but they are in very small numbers and then you also have your fundamentalists. Look at that Bal Thackeray”. Thackeray is better known in Pakistan than he is in India. Most ordinary Pakistanis I talked to mentioned his name as India’s “leading fanatic” and found it hard to believe that his influence was confined to only one Indian state. On that first evening in Lahore while most Indian journalists attended a dinner given by the Indian High Commissioner, I went off with Pakistani friends to a party given by a local politician. Naturally, all conversation veered towards the impending arrival of the Indian Prime Minister and, yet again, everyone thought that it was a good thing that was happening. Even the sceptics and cynics in the gathering said it was a good thing “even if its happening under American pressure”. Pakistanis are used to their own governments acting under American instructions and find it hard to believe that the same is far from true in India. In the old days, during earlier visits to Pakistan, I would have spent more than half my time at a dinner party like this explaining why India was always so “rigid” on the Kashmir issue and why we did not simply have a plebiscite and be done with the whole thing. This time, on the other hand, we danced to Daler Mehndi’s monotonous tones and other Indian songs and there was so much bonhomie and warmth that I was overwhelmed. The next day, before we set off for the Wagah border, I went to see Aitzaz Ahsan, Benazir Bhutto’s former Interior Minister and one of her closest associates. Aitzaz said that the PPP position was that Mr Vajpayee’s visit was a good thing but it would amount to nothing unless something concrete came out of it. He doubted that this would happen. He said that all past attempts at dialogue had got mired in the “core” problem. We would like to talk to Pakistan about improving economic, cultural and other ties but leave Kashmir on the backburner. Pakistan, on the other hand, insists that there isn’t much point in talking about these other things unless we first try and come to grips with the “core issue”. Aitzaz said he did not think that there could even be an agreement on Siachen despite the fact that such an agreement had nearly been reached between Benazir Bhutto and Rajiv Gandhi in 1989, when there was ‘much less room for manoeuvrability than there is now’. Why is there more room now, I asked, and he gave me the following four reasons. “One because on both sides of the border the hawks are in power that is a definite advantage since we are a much more responsible Opposition. Secondly, there is no heat in Kashmir as there was then and thirdly because the euphoria over the Afghan war is now over. At that time we were caught in the tailwind of the Afghan victory so people were saying if the Soviet Union can be beaten, then why not India. Finally, since both sides are now nuclear the possibility of a movement towards lasting, permanent peace is much greater today.” Can we then, at last, start hoping for peace on the sub-continent? In my view it depends entirely on India. If we can start behaving like the big country we are, instead of bringing ourselves down to the size of Pakistan then there is hope. If we don’t we could be throwing away the best chance for peace we have so far had. On our last afternoon in Lahore there was a civic reception at the Governor’s residence. The city’s more important citizens had been invited and far outnumbered the visiting Indians and the applause that greeted Vajpayee’s remarks about friendship told its own story. The applause began with his opening sentence: “I came yesterday and I am leaving today. That is how it is with the world but I believe that in my 24-hour journey the distance between Lahore and Delhi has lessened slightly”. He then went on to talk of
the years of enmity there had been and the importance of
giving friendship a chance now. “There has been more
than enough enmity. It is now time to try friendship.
Enmity is something that you can end up, getting quite
tired of. Friendship, on the other hand, you can never
have enough of. Personally, let me reiterate that despite
what you may have read in your newspapers I have never,
in all the years that I have visited Pakistan, seen a
better moment for leaving the bitterness and enmity of
the past behind and making a new beginning,” he
declared. |
Doordarshan wins hands down IT is not often that one awards the top prize to DD, but there is no doubt that over the bus trip to Pakistan it left every other channel far behind. Its coverage was better planned and executed and by sticking to the basics, it allowed one to concentrate on the visual drama that unfolded before us. It kept its political and other chats as fillers or links and did not let them interfere with the bus. Whenever the bus and the PM came in view Vinod Dua’s chat with Mahesh Bhatt and J.N. Dixit was put on hold while we got on with the trip. Also put on when necessary was Ananya Banerjee’s college of reminiscences and verbal tit-bits so that while the nostalgia always hovered in the background it did not overwhelm the actuality coverage. Star News, on the other hand, mostly kept the bus and other doings in a corner of the screen while Chopra and Bajpai did a continuous political commentary, even at the expense of the bus. So naturally, when DD filled the screen with the helicopter shots of the golden bus speeding past green fields to the Wagah border, I kept glued to DD. At that moment, with that entrancing visual, I was simply not interested in Chopra and Bajpai’s thoughts on the Vajpayee-Sharif meeting. I think most viewers would agree. In fact, I would have struck to DD but DD’s commentators at Amritsar, with their cliches and platitudes, were so poor that one hardly wished to listen. DD’s best commentators were that couple on the road, half way to Wagah, where DD’s hardware was based. They were unpretentious, to the point, factual and gave some interesting comments on the response of villages along the route. The only time Star News beat DD was at the Wagah border, where Rajdeep Sardesai had stationed himself in advance. But having got there, he was simply unable to cope. Doing political commentaries in a studio is vastly different from doing a factual ball-by-ball running commentary. It is a strict discipline with a strict code of its own. The first one of which is not scowling and snarling when the technical arrangements break down or what appeared to be a shout for help to someone by name in the studio. Vikram Chandra also faced the technical breakdown in the studio but dismissed it with a smile and a light comment.... A running commentary needs continuous, informed pattern and no room for as I said before or of course. Yet, when silence was needed, it failed. It is simply not protocol to say anything, (not even that this is the Pakistan national anthem) when an anthem is being played. Also, the solemn military ritual is usually allowed to come over without any comments, except a minimum of words on the regiment concerned or the implications of a particular ritual. One does not say during it. “We are looking for Shatrughan Sinha, we hope to get him in a moment.” It was all acutely embarrassing. Even in the matter of spot interviews Star was left behind. Sanjeev Thomas of DD got no less than six of them, including one with Satish Gujral. It was just a matter of seizing the moment. In fact, the only Sardesai moment I enjoyed was his stroll round Government College, Lahore, with Dev Anand. But that was hardly difficult. The moral of the story remains, that Indian TV sadly lacks good, trained running commentators, and this includes Star News. It is a very specialised branch of broadcasting and is worth flying out experts from abroad for some much-needed training. The Minister for
Information and Broadcasting or Promote Mahajan, as he is
now known, is really on a roller coaster ride. On the one
hand, he has to be quoted as official spokesperson and on
the other DD as usual is falling over backwards to quote
him as minister. But he is not having as easy a time with
chat shows. It was left to a lively woman in Rajat
Sharma’s programme Awaaz to ask him what he was
doing about vulgarity, sex and violence on Doordarshan
itself. (Our moralists always talk as if only the foreign
channels need watching if not banning, whereas I feel
they operate within their own cultures. But to have sex
and violence in the Indian cultural context is much more
harmful). The minister was quite cornered. Then Karan
Thapar’s series of interviews had quite a few points
to make. On the Record is about the only worthwhile panel
show on DD, so naturally it is tucked away on the Metro
channel at 10.30 p.m. when it should rightly follow the
English news on Channel 1 at 9.30 p.m. But then, DD never
learns. |
Convict stabs Sub-Inspector CALCUTTA: Prakash Chandra Bose, Sub-Inspector of Comilla Kotwali, was stabbed in the face this morning in jail, while attending the parade of prisoners, by Nagendra Chakraverty, a prisoner who was convicted of theft of a cycle. Chakraverty beckoned Mr Bose and stabbed him with a sharp weapon when he came near. Mr Bose had investigated the convict’s case. The wound is reported to
be serious. |
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