Not an inspiring feat
THE induction of three Cabinet Ministers and one Minister of State in the Union Council of Ministers is part of the politics of convenience practised by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Purge in Prasar Bharati
PRASAR Bharati, which controls Doordarshan and Akashvani, is being made squeaky clean in the time-tested Sangh Parivar style. On the day two members of the Prasar Bharati board were ousted, the government partly saved the situation for itself by establishing a three-man panel to revamp the whole setup.

Pittance for justice
THE Chief Justice of India, Mr Justice A. S. Anand, has rightly observed that without financial and administrative independence the judiciary cannot fulfil the obligation of speeding up the process of delivering justice.

SECRET PAPERS ON B'DESH
The untold story of 1971 war
by Kuldip Nayar
WASHINGTON has released some secret papers concerning the birth of Bangladesh, which will be 18 years old in the next few days. India’s role has also been commented upon.

Unsavoury goings-on in Goa
by Inder Malhotra
HAVING been colonised by the Portugese, rather than by the British or the French, Goa returned to the motherland as late as 1961. But its integration with the mainstream has been so thorough that it can teach the rest of the country a thing or two in the fine art of political chicanery, trade in loyalties and making and breaking of ministries.

Archer affair puts Tories in sleaze spotlight
from Michael White, Kevin Maguire, Julia Hartley-Brewer and Nicholas Watt in London
BRITAIN’S Conservative Party is facing the prospect that another of its stars may go to jail in the wake of Lord Archer’s enforced confession to a 13-year-old alibi conspiracy in a libel case about his allegedly paying for sex.

Media deals: sleeping with the enemy?
from Jane Martinson in London
AS the printing presses of the Washington Post gear into action each night, the reporters prepare themselves for their nightly TV appearances. At the same time, The Post’s top stories are flashing the most widely viewed online news service in the USA.

Mighty! Yet helpless
by J. L. Gupta
THE summer of 1958. I was just 16. Had just finished my intermediate examination. I was free. A young man at large. No job. No work. Totally idle. Seeing that I was at a loose end, my cousin had offered to take me to Barnala. A small township. Not famous for anything. But, my cousin had a brick-kiln there. I had the temptation to see as to how the bricks were made.

75 Years Ago

November 24,1924
Labour and India
IT was a manifestly absurd statement which Mr Clynes made in an interview with the Daily Herald. “Labour”, he said, “had done its best in India to lay the foundations leading to democratic Government”. Nothing of the kind. Labour had only made promises at the start for which it subsequently took no steps.

Not an inspiring feat

THE induction of three Cabinet Ministers and one Minister of State in the Union Council of Ministers is part of the politics of convenience practised by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. His pragmatism is basically meant to keep his partymen as well as his allies in good humour. This has nothing much to do with the quality of governance. Of the four persons, three new entrants belong to the BJP. The entry of Mr Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa of the Shiromani Akali Dal has been long overdue. He missed the bus last time because of certain disquieting trends in Akali politics. Good sense has at long last prevailed in the Akali leadership and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has been gracious enough to allow Mr Dhindsa to join the Union Cabinet. Among those who have found berths in the government, Mr Arun Shourie is bound to draw special attention. This is not only because of his past as a fiery journalist but also as an "ideologue". He is known for his set views and has a reputation for being a crusader. How he will adjust himself in the 24-party coalition and the country's status-quo-loving bureaucrats will be watched with keen interest. He has been given the charge of Planning, Statistics and Programme Implementation. He will also look after Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances in the Ministry of Personnel. A certain "built-in safety device" has been ensured in the sensitive Department of Personnel. This is clear from the Rashtrapati Bhavan communique which says that Ms Vasundhara Raje would assist the Prime Minister in the Department of Personnel and Training. Be that as it may. Mr Shourie has acquired the requisite maturity in handling men, matters and issues. He is sure to exhibit pragmatism while pursuing his pet goals and targets as per the tasks assigned to him.

Besides fresh inductions, the Prime Minister has also made certain changes in the allocation of work. A new Ministry of Information Technology has been created. Mr Pramod Mahajan will look after it apart from functioning as the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs. Information technology is a crucial area in the country's leap forward in the next century. Such an important portfolio should have been entrusted to a technocrat or a scientist and not to a flamboyant person who is known more for showmanship than for any work of substance. This once again shows ad-hocism and the absence of vision. The people do not expect this from Mr Vajpayee. He seems more busy doing adjustment and readjustment than showing a degree of innovativeness and rationalisation in creating new ministries. His whole exercise in bifurcating and reshuffling various departments reflects haphazard thinking. Certain ministries have been bifurcated as a convenient device to accommodate different group interests and not as a rational approach to evolving a new management ethos for the efficient running of the government. Take the case of Mr Dhindsa. Logically speaking, he should have been given the Ministry of Agriculture. This important portfolio has been entrusted to a reluctant Mr Nitish Kumar. Mr Dhindsa, in turn, has got a newly carved out Ministry of "Works and Estate." Mr Jagmohan will henceforth be known as Minister for Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation. How come poverty alleviation has been clubbed with urban development? The country's depressing poverty scene is as much rural as urban. Poverty alleviation in itself is a gigantic task and requires expert handling, including the perennial problem of slums. Then while we have the full-fledged Ministry of Telecommunication, the portfolio of Science and Technology will henceforth be with Mr Bachi Singh Rawat. On the face of it, this is the right move but the moot question is: will not some related departments work at cross-purposes? It is in the country's interest to avoid the duplication of efforts and an increase in overhead costs. What is needed is administrative coherence and harmony. Mr Vajpayee is a well-meaning person. It will be worthwhile for him to give a hard look at the various ministries with a view to rationalising their functioning for better performance and better results.

Purge in Prasar Bharati

PRASAR Bharati, which controls Doordarshan and Akashvani, is being made squeaky clean in the time-tested Sangh Parivar style. On the day two members of the Prasar Bharati board were ousted, the government partly saved the situation for itself by establishing a three-man panel to revamp the whole setup. Thus the retiring of Prof Romila Thapar and writer Rajendra Yadav deceptively appeared as part of a bigger plan to restructure the broadcasting conglomerate. The new committee is a professional team with a software star, a marketing consultant and a long-time television man. Mr N.R.Narayanamurthy, the chief of Infosys, a runaway success as an information technology company, will provide the necessary technical input, although the type of software he is an expert in is vastly different from the software requirements of television. Mr Shunu Sen’s presence is easily explained. He specialises in assessing and enlarging market for products and will thus be expected to sharpen the skills of DD men to secure advertisements. As it is, the government-run but “autonomous” organisation is losing out on raking in revenue and private channels are far ahead in earnings. Mr Kiran Karnik is the real television pro, having run an experimental education programme in Gujarat and now heading the US-owned Discovery Channel, the exclusive information network. He was the forerunner to succeed the sacked Chief Executive of Prasar Bharati, Mr S.S.Gill, but he pulled out when the salary on offer did not enthuse him. Thus the committee is both competent and compact and should come up with practical and profitable ideas.

Praiseworthy as the selection of the three specialists is, the retiring of two eminent individuals smacks of a mindset which cannot stand dissent. The two had for long been branded as ideologically biased and all three BJP Ministers did not hide their desire to show them the door. Mrs Sushma Swaraj resorted to several policy contortions to ease out Mr Gill. Mr Pramod Mahajan wanted to scrap the board itself, saying that the emergence of private channels made government control over DD and AIR necessary. Mr Arun Jaitley was only slightly circumspect. “We also should have our men on the Board,” he once said. Both Ms Romila Thapar and Mr Yadav are Left-leaning, the prominent historian more so. Mr Yadav is a tireless critic of the saffron brigade and had a running battle with Mr Mahajan during the election campaign; he said DD officials were being armtwisted to give undue publicity to the BJP. Both of them kicked up a ruckus when popular psephologist Yogendra Yadav was taken off the panel to do election coverage. They had been energetic dissenters with an ideological frame which clashes with official thinking. As a public broadcaster, Prasar Bharati should not only entertain but also inform and educate. And for this purpose the board should have experts from different fields and their opinions, particularly if they conflict with the official stand, should be valued as inputs. But the present dispensation has other ideas.

Pittance for justice

THE Chief Justice of India, Mr Justice A. S. Anand, has rightly observed that without financial and administrative independence the judiciary cannot fulfil the obligation of speeding up the process of delivering justice. That people have lost faith in the judiciary because of the excruciatingly slow pace of settling disputes and awarding punishment to the guilty through legal means is evident from the disturbing increase in incidents of lawlessness. For ensuing respect for and protecting the rule of law from being subverted it is necessary to create mechanisms for ensuring compliance and prompt punishment to violators. Mr Justice Anand referred to the little-discussed aspect of financial and administrative constraints in delivering "speedpost" justice during his visit to Chennai for inaugurating the computer cell of the Madras High Court. In the popular perception the subordinate courts are dens of corruption. Why? The reason was explained by the Chief Justice of India without actually bringing up the subject of complaints of corruption in the corridors of the lower judiciary. The backlog of cases in any tehsil or district level court is simply mind boggling. In such a situation, it is evident, that touts play an important role in helping a litigant by-pass the traffic jam of pending cases. Political leaders have cultivated the habit of promising judicial reforms during elections and then forgetting all about it without displaying any sense of shame. It is startling that only 0.20 per cent of the gross national product is earmarked for the judiciary, which on its own generates over 50 per cent of its resources through the sale of stamp paper and court fee. The number of judges per million population is less than 10 in India compared 50 in Pakistan, 100 in the UK and 130 in the USA.

The 20th Law Commission had recommended a substantial increase in the number of judges for clearing the backlog of pending cases and coping with future needs. Instead of going up the number of judges has actually come down since the recommendation of the Law Commission was made public some years ago. The political leadership should be made to understand that without a well-oiled system of delivering speedy justice the existence of civil society itself comes under a self-created threat. Without the oil of financial and administrative freedom the judicial system will continue to creak if not collapse. It is a matter of shame that against a requirement of 75,000 judges for the subordinate courts there are currently only 13,000 serving judges across the country. The situation in the higher judiciary is no better either. Out of a sanctioned strength of 610 over 150 posts of High Court judges are lying vacant. It is indeed true that the amount of money required for improving the financial and administrative health of the judiciary may be difficult to raise unless dispensation of speedy justice is accorded a higher priority than it enjoys today. In the meantime, a suggestion made by a section of the legal fraternity may offer a way out. The inspiration has evidently come from the various "tatkaal" schemes introduced for eliminating touts and earning the premium on the products to the agencies concerned. In the civil courts at least the omnipresent touts play an important role in speeding up the process of justice. The flip side is that litigants themselves are willing to pay for getting "instant justice". The suggestion in favour of a "tatkaal" justice delivery system for deciding civil matters by the subordinate courts for parties willing to pay an additional amount of money as court fee or stamp duty indeed offers an outlandish solution to an otherwise seemingly intractable problem.

SECRET PAPERS ON B'DESH
The untold story of 1971 war
by Kuldip Nayar

WASHINGTON has released some secret papers concerning the birth of Bangladesh, which will be 18 years old in the next few days. India’s role has also been commented upon. As early as April 16, 1971, eight and a half months before Bangladesh became independent, a paper entitled, “The Reassessment of Pakistan-American Relations” said: “The Pakistan government will not only have to maintain itself in power by force in the East but will have to deal with complicated constitutional problems in the West.”

This assessment was supported by “a special intelligence estimate,” which was sent by the State Department to President Nixon. The intelligence estimate said: “There is little if any long-term prospect for a politically united, Pakistan except through the continued use of force.”

The State Department’s own recommendation was that relations with West Pakistan should be maintained “while not alienating East Pakistan Bengali leaders.” It was stated then (June 5, 1971): “In the long run they may be running their own show separately or with the loosest possible lines to West Pakistan.”

There are many telegrams and memos containing the repeated requests by Gen Yahya Khan, then the President of Pakistan, to America to intervene. The reply of the White House wars: “Foreign involvement” would create new problems and compound difficulties for securing an ultimate settlement. “We have been in touch with the Government of India and have discussed the implications of the present situation. We have stressed the need for restraint,” said the White House. During May itself the Secretary of State sent a memorandum to President Nixon warning against a “possible India-Pakistan war”.

The released papers reveal that America was worried not only about East Pakistan but also about the disintegration of Pakistan. One assessment note said: “The four regions of West Pakistan have also been seeking enhanced autonomy. Pressures for constitutional change from the constituent units, notably the Northwest Frontier and Sind, are likely to increase. These may place additional strains on the political viability of the Yahya government. While we do not anticipate demands for independence from the units of West Pakistan, there will be growing demands for a transfer of power to elected representatives. In the case of Punjab and Sind, the radical and militantly anti-Indian People’s Party of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto would be the immediate beneficiary of a return to parliamentary government. If these pressures are not met, there could be violence and disturbance of the severity which brought down the Ayub government in 1969.”

Apparently, Bhutto was not popular with Washington. In a telegram the State Department informed its Ambassador in Islamabad and New Delhi: “As you know, Bhutto does not enjoy high degrees of popularity here, although we recognise importance taking account of his present influence as well as future political potential in the event representative government is restored at national and or provincial levels.”

There is a vignette on Bhutto by the American embassy in Islamabad. It said: “It seems that every time Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto moves into the Intercontinental (at Lahore), a certain matron who controls a stable of girls moves in at the same time. Each evening the girls go to Mr Bhutto’s suite where they perform songs and dances.”

The intelligence note dated September 27, 1971, said that Yahya Khan went to Teheran to appeal to the Shah to use every influence he could to arrange a summit meeting between himself and Mrs Gandhi in order to avert war as he had been rebuffed by Mrs Gandhi. The State Department’s own assessment was: “It seems implausible, however, that Yahya went to Tehran solely to try to revive the idea of conciliatory meetings. While the subject may have come up in his talks with the Shah, Yahya’s probable primary purpose was to seek reassurance of Iranian support.”

Probably, the most interesting part is the exchange of correspondence between the Indian Prime Minister and President Nixon. She wrote on December 15 that “the tragic war, which is continuing, could have been averted if during the nine months prior to Pakistan’s attack on us on December 3 the great leaders of the world had paid some attention to the fact of revolt, tried to see the reality of the situation and searched for a genuine basis for reconciliation. I wrote letters along these lines. I undertook a tour in quest of peace at a time when it was extremely difficult to leave, in the hope of presenting to some leaders of the world the situation as I saw it. It was heartbreaking to find that while there was sympathy for the poor refugees, the disease itself was ignored. War could also have been avoided if the power, influence and authority of all the states and, above all, the United States, had got Sheikh Mujibur Rahman released.”

“Instead,” she said, “we were told that a civilian administration was being installed. Everyone knows that this civilian administration was a farce; today the farce has turned into a tragedy. Lip service was paid to the need for a political solution, but not a single worthwhile step was taken to bring this about. Instead, the rulers of West Pakistan went ahead holding farcical elections to seats which had been arbitrarily declared vacant....

“We are asked what we want. We seek nothing for ourselves. We do not want any territory of what was East Pakistan and now constitutes Bangladesh. We do not want any territory of West Pakistan. We do want lasting peace with Pakistan. But will Pakistan give up its ceaseless and yet pointless agitation of the past 24 years over Kashmir? Are they willing to give up their hate campaign posture of perpetual hostility towards India? How many times in the last 24 years have my father and I offered a pact of non-aggression to Pakistan? It is a matter of recorded history that each time such offer was made, Pakistan rejected it out of hand.”

In reply, President Nixon wrote: “The United States did not condone Pakistan’s use of force in March of this year, but this action by the Pakistan government does not justify the use of force by India to dismember another state, particularly when there were proposals available to you and your government which could have started the process of military disengagement and political accommodation. Your insistence that political accommodation could only come by immediate release of Mujibur Rahman amounted to a precondition which the Government of India was fully aware could not be accepted by the other side. It is for these reasons, Madam Prime Minister, that United States officials have said privately and publicly that India bears the main responsibility for broadening the hostilities in the subcontinent. The subsequent disregard of the Indian government of the repeated calls of the UN for a ceasefire and withdrawal of military forces confirm this judgement.”

One vainly searched in the papers for President Nixon’s order to the Seventh Fleet, led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise to go to the Bay of Bengal. News of this development first came from Moscow, which had monitored a message to the Seventh Fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of North Vietnam. The Indian Embassy in Washington soon after confirmed it; a senior US marine officer had unwittingly revealed it in a conversation with an Indian Embassy official. An Arab diplomat in New Delhi also openly talked about the Fleet moving to the Indian Ocean.

American columnist Jack Anderson said the USA wanted (a) to compel India to divert both ships and planes to shadow the US Task Force; (b) to weaken India’s blockade against “East Pakistan”; (c) to divert the Indian aircraft carrier Vikrant from its military mission; and (d) to force India to keep planes on advance alert, thus reducing their operation against Pakistani ground troops. “Evacuation of American citizens was clearly a secondary mission,” Anderson wrote, “adopted more as the justification than the reason for the naval move.”

Unsavoury goings-on in Goa
by Inder Malhotra

HAVING been colonised by the Portugese, rather than by the British or the French, Goa returned to the motherland as late as 1961. But its integration with the mainstream has been so thorough that it can teach the rest of the country a thing or two in the fine art of political chicanery, trade in loyalties and making and breaking of ministries. If Haryana is the birthplace of the breed of Aya Rams and Gaya Rams, today the tiny state Goa stands out as the prime example of single-minded pursuit of office and power by hook or by crook.

It is barely six months since the present state assembly in Panaji was elected. But already Goa, which has known no stability all through the decade of the nineties, is in the midst of turmoil. The collapse of the Congress ministry that looked quite stable until the sudden eruption of the crisis last week seems very likely, if not almost certain.

At the root of this legislative upheaval lies a lethal mixture of overweening ambitions, clashing egos, lust for power and an almost total lack of political scruples. As if this was not enough of a witches’ brew, the situation is aggravated by the flexible standards and amateurish style of what pass for “high commands” of the two all-India parties, the BJP and the Congress. Let the stark facts speak for themselves.

In the Goa assembly, elected in June last, the Congress had won 21 of the 40 seats. The remaining 19 were shared by the BJP (10), the Maharashtra Gomantak Party (4), the United Gomantak Democratic Party (2), the Nationalist Congress Party of Mr Sharad Pawar (2) and an Independent. Admittedly, the Congress majority was wafer thin. Even so, with a modicum of cohesion in its ranks, it could have ruled the state. However, in Indian conditions this is easier said than done.

The first problem the Congress faced was the choice of the new Chief Minister. There were no fewer than five contenders, three of them former Chief Ministers. One of the other two was Mr Fransisco Sardinha, who has now revolted and defected from the party with a sufficient number of followers to reduce the ministry, headed by Mr Luizhino Faleiro, to a minority.

Before proceeding further it is instructive to ask: how did Mr Faleiro get the prized post, coveted by so many? Through the time-honoured Congress technique of leaving the decision to Soniaji, of course. She did the best she could. While picking up Mr Faleiro for the top job, she also directed that one of the former Chief Ministers, Mr Pratap Singh Rane, be made the Speaker and all other contenders be “accommodated” in the Faleiro ministry. The dispensation seemed as fair as possible. But it also contained within it the seeds of its own destruction.

In next to no time those denied the crown discovered that the “style of functioning” of the Chief Minister was unacceptable. For his part, Mr Faleiro felt that his adversaries within were sharpening their knives. He therefore, resorted to the standard technique of winning over defectors from the opposition parties to strengthen his own position. The two-member United Goan Democratic Party was the first to be “gobbled up”.

Thereafter, Mr Faleiro engineered a split in the Maharashtravadi Gomantak Party, enticing two of its four members to join the Congress fold. One of the two defectors was Mr Ramakant Khalap, a former Union Law Minister in the Cabinets of both Mr Deve Gowda and Mr Inder Kumar Gujral. However, there was a quid pro quo for Mr Khalap’s change of heart. He had to be given the Congress ticket for the Lok Sabha election due three months after the formation of the Faleiro ministry.

This was duly done. But Mr Khalap was thrashed at the polls. Not only that, the Congress lost the second parliamentary seat, too. Within a short period of 120 days the electorate’s mood had changed radically. From this, two consequences followed.

In the first place, several of Mr Faleiro’s critics were blamed for the ignominious setback to the Congress. Mr Sardinha and another minister, Mr Ravi Naik, were particular targets of attack, but the Congress President declined to take action against them. Secondly, Mr Faleiro, in his head-hunting mission, won over one of the two MLAs owing allegiance to the NCP and Mr Pawar. Needless to add that the Maratha warrior was infuriated and set into motion, evidently in consultation with other actors in Goa, counter-manoeuvres of his own.

It should thus be clear even to a political novice that the far from savoury goings-on in Goa are not confined to that state but are nicely interlinked with national politics. The unstable edifice of a coalition ministry that the Congress and the NCP have built up in Maharashtra is a classic example of political opportunism at its murkiest.

The purported justification for this descent into crass opportunism is that Maharashtra should be “saved” from the communal rule of the Shiv Sena and the BJP. But, pray, wasn’t it even more necessary to save the whole India from “communal rule”? Why did Mr Pawar split the Congress on election-eve and why was Mrs Sonia Gandhi unable to meet the Maratha leader’s point about the prime ministership going only to Indians and not to any foreign-born naturalised citizen in the usual democratic manner?

In any case, despite their cooperation in Maharashtra, the two sides are merrily busy denigrating and subverting each other. Mr Pawar goes on with his litany of “Raj karega Hindustani”. His colleague, Mr P.A. Sangma, a former Speaker of the Lok Sabha, has announced that he would sponsor a private members’ Bill to disqualify citizens of foreign origin from holding the office of President or Prime Minister, now that the BJP has resiled from its earlier promise to introduce an official piece of legislation for this purpose.

And, in Goa, Mr Faleiro quietly split the NCP and inveigled one of its two MLAs. No wonder he is now being hoist with his own petard. Eleven Congress MLAs, led by Mr Sardinha, have ratted on their party. With this, Mr Faleiro heads a minority ministry. To have wooed and won over five defectors has proved to be of no avail.

Again in the well-established traditions of Indian politics, the 11 Congress defectors are “holed up” in one of Goa’s many luxury resorts, lest some of them might be “persuaded” to re-rat in the reverse direction. After all, hadn’t Mr Shankersinh Vaghela in Gujarat taken the precaution of airlifting his band of BJP defectors to Khajuraho to keep them out of harm’s way. In 1984, when the Telugu Desam Ministry of N.T. Rama Rao in Andhra was summarily dismissed, NTR had put his supporters in the assembly, constituting a clear majority in the legislature, in luxury buses and driven them to Rashtrapati Bhawan in New Delhi.

Surpassing all this is the puerile behaviour of the Congress “high command”. Rather than pronounce anathema on the defectors, it is busy trying to bring them back to the fold through “reconciliation”. But Mr Sardinha has spurned all such attempts. Rather haughtily he had proclaimed that he was not interested in returning to the Congress “even if they make me Chief Minister”.

Meanwhile, Mr Faleiro has not been idle. He has expelled from the party only five of the 11 defectors, leaving open the possibility that the other six might come back to restore his lost majority. This trickery has been tried before. In Manipur by Rajiv Gandhi, as Congress President, and in New Delhi by Mr V.P. Singh. When Mr Chandra Shekhar ditched him in November, 1990, the Raja of Manda expelled only 25 of the 54 Janata Dal MPs who had gone with the Young Turk of yore.

A delighted BJP and other parties in opposition have promised full support to Mr Sardinha, at the same time angrily rejecting the Congress charge that he had acted in “collusion” with them.

Under these circumstances it matters little whether Mr Faleiro goes or manages to survive. Either way, Goa will know no stability. And no one will need to ask why this country’s democratic politics is plummeting to such low depths.

Mighty! Yet helpless
by J. L. Gupta

THE summer of 1958. I was just 16. Had just finished my intermediate examination. I was free. A young man at large. No job. No work. Totally idle. Seeing that I was at a loose end, my cousin had offered to take me to Barnala. A small township. Not famous for anything. But, my cousin had a brick-kiln there. I had the temptation to see as to how the bricks were made. So, I had accompanied him. Almost readily.

Day 1. The lunch was a feast. Of fresh and juicy mangoes. From my cousin’s garden. Soon after, he enquired — “Want to know your past, present and future? A person in the neighbourhood has a part of the Bhrigu Granth. If one is lucky and the horoscope is found, it tells everything. Almost.”

The future is always a mystery. The mysterious makes a man curious. Even at the age of 16, I was interested in knowing the unknown. What lay ahead for me? The curiosity was aroused. I would have paid anything. Within my means. And I enquired — “How much would it cost me?”

“Just Rs 21. And only if the horoscope is found”, was the quick response.

I gave it no thought. I had that much. We went. Some people were already sitting. ‘Panditji’ was the man in-charge. He was asking a few questions. Making some calculations and preparing a horoscope. For everyone. In turn. He called it — “Prashan Kundli”. After a few moments, he told me that my horoscope should be available. He gave us a bundle of papers wrapped in a piece of cloth. Not too neat. We were told to look for a paper that had a horoscope matching the “kundli” prepared by him. We had proceeded.

The papers were loose sheets. Apparently old. Had gone almost yellow with years. Handwritten. In what appeared to be the Devanagri script. However, it did not read like Hindi. After a few minutes, we came across a paper that had the horoscope we were looking for. Just at a glance, I could read my name. But, that was all.

Panditji was watching. He had not missed the changed look on my face. He took the paper. Read out each sentence. Explained it. He continued till both the pages had been completed. In a nutshell, the paper gave my name; the time at which I had reached there; the details regarding my last life; the issues which were now uppermost in my mind and the course of my career. Despite my father’s desire that I should study for a degree in engineering, it declared that I shall delve in law. Would marry a girl whose name would start with the letter — M. And more. The last sentence was — “The rest I shall tell some other time”.

Every event occurred exactly as predicted. Yet, I did not go again. Till September, 1993. Despite the fact that there were occasions when I was curious. Even anxious. This time too, the horoscope was found. And yet again. Every time the past and the future were described. Even the initials of the names of the children were mentioned. The ailment. The treatment. And so on.

The normal belief is that past is history. The future is a mystery. Why ruin the present by worrying about the future. Live only in the present. Enjoy it. Perform your duty. The future shall take care of itself. But, what can the man do? Even the name that the parents give to the child is preordained. The place of birth. The parents. The station in life. The wealth or the loss of it. All events occur as designed and decreed by destiny.

Then, why all the struggle? Why all the mad rush? Why all the tension and stress? What for?

Man can do nothing. Just nothing. He can only follow the divine dictates. He may think that he is mighty. Yet, he is helpless. Totally.

Archer affair puts Tories in sleaze spotlight
from Michael White, Kevin Maguire, Julia Hartley-Brewer and Nicholas Watt in London

BRITAIN’S Conservative Party is facing the prospect that another of its stars may go to jail in the wake of Lord Archer’s enforced confession to a 13-year-old alibi conspiracy in a libel case about his allegedly paying for sex.

The revelation by the News of the World (NoW) that he persuaded a friend to lie about potentially crucial details of the Monica Coghlan case not only ruined the novelist-peer’s campaign to become London mayor next May, it also threatened him with the prospect of a two-year jail sentence if Scotland Yard’s new investigation leads to criminal proceedings and has left Conservative leader William Hague with a revival of the taint of Tory sleaze he has tried to put behind him since 1997.

At the end of an extraordinary 24 hours, which began when Lord Archer was effectively ordered to step down as Tory candidate for mayorship, the party’s London leadership met in an emergency session on Sunday night. It agreed to reopen the contest next month and pick a candidate by January 19.

But the Archer affair is far from over. Scotland Yard confirmed that it is investigating a complaint lodged by the owners of The Daily Star — which paid £ 500,000 ($800,000) and an estimated £ 1m ($1.6m) costs to the risk-prone multi-millionaire in 1987.

Lord Archer’s confession of his own part in concocting an alibi by his “friend” Ted Francis — who was paid £ 10,000 ($16,000) by the NoW — could mean perjury charges or, more likely, those of a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, even though the alibi was not needed as the case developed.

The former Tory Cabinet Minister, Jonathan Aitken, is currently serving an 18-month jail sentence for similar offences and Neil Hamilton, another central figure in the sleaze controversies of the Thatcher-Major years, has faced fresh allegations during the first week of his libel suit against Mohammed Fayed.

Aides to Lord Archer dismissed talk of criminal charges. “I don’t think there is any chance of this going to court,” said one.

A civil action to recover the damages is also threatened. “Express Newspapers [owners of The Daily Star] will be consulting its lawyers about these developments as a matter of urgency. If grounds for appeal are found, then appropriate action would be taken. Maybe as the week unfolds, there will be more to add,” the newspaper’s spokesman said. The Daily Star’s front page headline this morning says: “Give us our cash back.” Max Clifford, the publicist who brokered Francis’s confession, also predicted fresh revelations about 59-year-old Lord Archer’s career which has seen him bounce back from a succession of controversies involving his basic honesty or judgement. They forced him to quit as an MP and later as deputy Tory chairman.

Clifford has arranged for Francis to appear on Talk Radio on Monday. Ominously for Lord Archer, he explained: “I know there is a lot more to come, in all areas. I mean, Ted Francis has known Jeffrey Archer very well for a long, long time and from the conversations I have had with him over the last few months there is some pretty sensational stuff which is still to emerge.”

Doubts about Lord Archer’s conduct have long been known in Tory circles — despite cries of betrayal by some MPs who claimed to feel having been let down by the ex-candidate. Mr Hague’s judgement was under attack from some Tory MPs, though one senior ex-minister said: “The Tory party is full of people who go to Jeffrey’s parties and then attack him behind his back. We all knew he was a card, a bit of a chancer, a bit of a risk.”

For a man who has spent much of his life seeking the media spotlight, Lord Archer himself was uncharacteristically shy. The millionaire novelist and his wife Mary were holed up behind the wrought iron gates of the Old Vicarage at Grantchester, outside Cambridge — immortalised by the poet, Rupert Brooke.

The electric gates remained stubbornly closed all day except for the arrival of Lord Archer’s erstwhile campaign adviser, Stephan Shakespeare, followed a few hours later, by his 24-year-old son, James. Blessed with the family talent for controversy, James Archer was one of the “Flaming Ferraris,” young city traders who lost their jobs this year over allegations of improper share dealing. Driving a sedate VW Golf and accompanied by a friend he came armed with two baguettes and the rest of the evening’s supplies in grocery bags.

Stephan Shakespeare told reporters: “Of course he regrets what he did. Yes, he clearly regrets that he has let people down and he’ll be thinking about that. Clearly he is not relishing the attention, but he’s very keen to get back to work next week.”

He also announced imminent publication of his boss’s latest novel, entitled “To Cut a Long Story Short.” Losing the mayoral candidacy would give him more time to write. “Knowing Jeffrey, he is probably starting the next one right now,” he quipped.

Steve Norris, the former Tory Transport Minister, on Sunday night refused to throw his hat back into the ring when the Conservative party re-opened its selection contest to choose a candidate for next May’s London mayor elections.

An angry Mr Norris, who was runner-up to Lord Archer in the party’s initial contest last month, said he was uncertain whether he could face a re-run of the gruelling selection process.

The former MP, who became more famous at Westminster for his string of affairs than for his achievements as a minister, had hoped that the Tory leadership would ask him to replace Lord Archer as the party’s candidate after the novelist’s sensational fall over the weekend.

His hopes were dashed when the party leadership, which believes that Mr Norris’s philandering makes him vulnerable to the tabloids, announced that it would re-run the entire selection contest in the hope of attracting fresh heavyweight candidates. —The Guardian, London

Media deals: sleeping with the enemy?
from Jane Martinson in London

AS the printing presses of the Washington Post gear into action each night, the reporters prepare themselves for their nightly TV appearances. At the same time, The Post’s top stories are flashing the most widely viewed online news service in the USA.

A new alliance announced last Wednesday has rewritten the ground rules for sharing news stories across a range of different media. The alliance involves The Washington Post company, which owns the venerable daily as well as Newsweek, America’s second-biggest selling newsmagazine, linking up with MSNBC and NBC News, which jointly produce two cable television channels and two websites.

This unusually wide-ranging partnership underlines the fact that the net is calling old rivalries and working practices into question. Does the brave new world of multimedia now make 24-hour newsgathering an inevitability? How do you control the quality of that news? The broad alliance between independent organisations is one attempt to answer those questions.

When Leonard Downie, executive editor of The Post, was asked what had led his organisation to do such a deal, he answered “Internet”.

The deal is yet to be finalised, but changes have already been made. The homepage of MSNBC.com prominently displays The Post’s lead story, as well as the latest news from NBC’s flagship shows such as Today and Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. It is also to detail Newsweek articles. A new site, Newsweek.MSNBC.com, will be launched early next year.

Among the questions raised by the deal is why The Post, one of the best-known papers in the world, did not feel it could rely on its self-branded website. Most UK newspapers, including The Guardian, have devoted their efforts to improving their own websites rather than offering their news stories to others.

Downie says simply that The Post did not have the video facilities it needed. “The future of sites clearly includes videos of live events such as presidential press conferences,” he said. “And we don’t have video.” He denies that the move is a cost-saving exercise, believing the deal will lead to more people “seeing, hearing and reading” The Washington Post.

As part of the deal, the daily’s, reporters will also appear regularly on MSNBC news programmes as well as on NBC. Full details of the news sharing are still to be worked out. Foreign correspondents may offer reports to both NBC and The Post, but this is likely to be rare. Downie said it might work “on the off chance that they are somewhere important where we are not”.

Media analysts are particularly excited about the prospects for MSNBC.com, the online news site, because the arrangement adds the buzz word of “enhanced content”. Peter Kreisky, head of the publishing and entertainment practice at Mercer Management Consulting, said: “This move reflects real dissatisfaction among Internet users over the editorial quality of the news that appears on most websites.”

Most of the popular news sites, he says, offer a diet of “undigested wire service news’’. On the eve of an election year in the USA, MSNBC now has access to the renowned political reporting of The Post and the analytical skills of Newsweek.

Such perceived quality attracts advertisers. According to Media Metrix, the research group, MSNBC.com attracted 10 p.c. of web surfers clicking on news sites in September, higher than its nearest rival, CNN.com. The site can charge higher fees and/or attract more advertisers if it can claim a better “quality” of user.

Tom Wolzien, an analyst with Sanford Bernstein, said: “What we’ve got, both with the web but also with TV and cable, is a recognition that depth of content, depth of proprietary content, counts.’’

This analysis has prompted several tie-ups in the USA. Indeed, The Post deal ends an existing arrangement between The New York Times and the daily MSNBC news programme.

Immediately after the deal was announced, The New York Times revealed that it was considering an alliance with ABC, the cable channel owned by Disney. The paper owns 6 p.c. of The Street.com, a financial news site; it will now start publishing breaking financial news “with a depth and texture well beyond what’s available from newswires and other websites” as part of a venture with The Street.com.

Significantly, it also told users that it was increasing the number of exclusive online news stories to answer “one of the most pressing questions we’ve faced . . . how to bring the quality and authority you expect from The New York Times to our website in the hours after the newspaper is published each day”.

Financial papers, perhaps more conscious than others of the potential impact of the web on their services, have been particularly aggressive in starting alliances. The financial news sister channel of MSNBC, which is jointly owned by Microsoft and NBC, has a long-standing arrangement with The Wall Street Journal. Pearson, the parent company of The Financial Times, is also relatively unusual for a UK-based news organisation in forming such alliances. Last week it bought a stake in Marketwatch.com, part owned by CBS, the media group.

Amid the rush to form cross-media alliances, the performance of some media giants such as News Corporation appears lacklustre. Kreisky says there is little to stop such organisations sharing newsgathering except the strongly held - and maybe peculiarly British - sense of editorial independence. He also suggests that News Corp’s tardiness is another sign that the group has been “asleep at the switch” over the net. News Corp has this year adopted a more aggressive stance towards online involvement. — The Guardian, London

75 YEARS AGO

November 24,1924
Labour and India

IT was a manifestly absurd statement which Mr Clynes made in an interview with the Daily Herald. “Labour”, he said, “had done its best in India to lay the foundations leading to democratic Government”. Nothing of the kind. Labour had only made promises at the start for which it subsequently took no steps. It may be because of the difficulty of the conditions in which it held office, to redeem, while it did take many a measure which showed only too clearly that the difference between it and other Governments was no greater than the difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Its last action in India, the sanctioning of a repressive policy of terrible proportions, has made even its best friends in this country lose their faith in it.