P A G E
Monday, October 4, 1999
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Monday, October 4, 1999 |
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Cash
crunch in Punjab
LESSONS
FROM PARTITION |
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Job
quota, again, is not basic right
The
Vollard collection at National Gallery
In defence of goatees
October 4, 1924 |
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Cash crunch in Punjab FOR months the Punjab government has tried to underplay the mounting financial crisis which has hit it with a fury never seen before. There is no money to pay the employees their full pay and allowances, contractors are told to wait and state-run corporations are asked to help out with their surplus or by taking loans, as is the unedifying case with Markfed. Until now corrective steps are confined to setting up a committee of secretaries to suggest financial reforms and an inter-ministerial group to study the problem and recommend solutions. The fact is that the Punjab financial problem has been gone through with a fine tooth comb by several individuals and institutions and their reports contain all the necessary ideas to act on. Of action there has been none, and a friendly — some would say, a dependent — government in Delhi has so far been accommodative. The RBI once stopped overdraft facilities and that was a wake-up call, but the state administration continued its slumber landing in the present mess. The Akali government is right when it says that it inherited a strained financial situation. More than a decade of terrorism had devastated the state and its public finance. But it is also true that the Akalis and their coalition ally, the BJP, have contributed much to the current woes. The subsidy bill ballooned and revenue collection sagged, a lethal recipe for a meltdown. The free power supply and sundry concessions may not have cost Rs 1330 crore, as a private television channel reported, but it certainly drained the state exchequer much more than Rs 250 crore estimated by Finance Minister Kanwaljit Singh. Recently rice exporters received a gift in terms of waiver of sales tax and receipts from this source dried up as every type of transaction was shown as export. In fact, sales tax is one item that provides enormous income to evaders and not to the government, and it is a public scandal. The BJP, the party of traders, is widely believed to be protecting the violent demonstrators in Ludhiana and Patiala who resist sales tax raids. For a state with a booming demand for all types of goods — one scooter brand sold a lakh of vehicles last year — the growth in ST is a sluggish 9.6 per cent, far lower than in the not-so-rich neighbours. This year the budget hoped for a realisation of a modest Rs 2000 crore; now it appears that with the no-tax drive the total collection may plummet to Rs 1700 crore. An energetic crackdown on ST cheats will immediately lift the clouds and the ongoing crisis provides the psychological momentum. All other steps are so
many soft options. Also short-term measures. Sale of land
can spin out of control into an embarrassing scandal.
Forcible transfer of PSU funds may end in public snubs
like the Markfed board refusing to loan any money.
Deferring payments is not even a pain-killer. Dusting off
old files or reshuffling study panels have ceased to
enthuse anyone. The crisp report by the Finance Secretary
some months back (in the wake of the “bankrupt”
newspaper headline) showed how money can be generated and
also saved. That should be put into practice. There will
be much political grumbling which should be ignored.
Punjab should live up to its image of being a rich state
and the Rs 24,000 crore public debt and diversion of
nearly half of the revenue to servicing this debt sully
that image. Prudence and belt tightening and, well,
denying the sales tax dodgers the crores of ill-gotten
wealth, can no longer wait. Capt Kanwaljit Singh, you can
turn out to be the man of the crisis provided you handle
the messy situation seriously and professionally. |
Murder at HAU THERE are few universities in the country which can claim to have a blemish-free record as far as campus violence is concerned. But when violence comes knocking in the form of pre-planned murder, the university authorities must be made to pay for not doing their duty efficiently. Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agriculture University in Hisar, in any case, is not counted among the centres of academic excellence. But the murder of a student in a hostel room and the subsequent incidents of student violence last week have sent shock waves in the academic community. The university authorities cannot claim to have been taken by surprise by the unhappy turn of events. They were aware of simmering tension on the campus because of rivalry between two groups of students. There had been unpleasant incidents in the past which led to the suspension of nine students belonging to the two factions. Their suspension was later revoked to save their academic career. Although the HAU central disciplinary committee is still investigating the case, the authorities evidently failed in their duty of keeping the conduct of the members of the two groups under close scrutiny. According to the story pieced together by students, Manav Marwaha from Jalandhar, belonging to one faction, lived in a hostel on the campus. On the fateful night his rival Ashok Mann visited him in his hostel room. Around 1.30 a.m., Manav asked Ashok to leave. As Manav got up to get into bed Ashok fired at him from behind. The alleged killer is absconding. What provoked the
students to go on the rampage the next day was the
indifference of the authorities in providing medical aid
to the injured hosteller. While Manav was bleeding to
death the chief medical officer, the DSW and the security
officer ignored the students’ plea for prompt
hospitalisation. Violence cannot be condoned but the
reason why the students were angry can be explained. They
took out their anger against the indifference of the
authorities by damaging the jeep of the security staff,
locking up the office of the Vice-Chancellor and the DSW
before forcing the administrative staff out of their
offices. Manav’s life may have been saved had the
authorities concerned acted promptly and taken him to the
nearest medical centre for treatment. What added to the
students’ anger was the callous attitude of the
staff of the local hospital which declared Manav dead
without even bothering to examine him. The driver of the
ambulance should count himself lucky that the students
did not break his bones for cooking up excuses for not
taking the critically injured student to Rohtak Medical
College. Manav was taken to Rohtak over three hours after
the incident. The Vice-Chancellor later assured the
students that the guilty would not be spared. The police
have registered a case of murder against Ashok Mann. It
goes without saying that the assurance of action against
the guilty would not bring Manav Marwaha, a final year
B.Sc. (Vet) student, back to life. However, had the
security staff been vigilant, the incident of murder on
the campus could not have taken place. The killing has
made another student, suspected to have committed the
crime, a fugitive from the law. Who is to blame? The
least we expect from the university authorities is that
they should do their duty efficiently and professionally. |
LESSONS FROM PARTITION WATCHING Deepa Mehta’s film, “Earth 1947,” my first reaction was that a star (director) is born. The skill, grace and courage with which she handles the worst tragedy of our times, and makes her conclusions acceptable to all, or leaves them open for debate, is certainly an achievement. In her Anne Frankish way, Bapsy Sidhwa, the author of the book, has created three ordinary individuals — an ayah, a masseur and an ice-candy vendor — and Deepa Mehta has breathed life into them. It makes a story of small people fighting the cataclysmic wave of hatred that swept over our land. Where the film fails is in the shots of rioting. Not all people in a riot are dressed the same way in clean white clothes. I wish the film had created that awful sense of terror that pervaded both sides of the border in 1947. Perhaps it was not required in the story. The question that haunted me throughout the film, and has haunted me for years, is why Partition led to such terrible consequences, such a long tragedy of death, kidnapping and the migration of millions from their homes. My generation has to face the question squarely. We were responsible. Why could we not foresee the consequences of uncontrolled agitation over the years ? Why were we so totally unprepared when we had seen the shambles created by communal rioting in undivided India ? Was it the prospect of freedom that made us complacent: made us disregard the murder and mayhem for all the fun of the festivities? It was not religion that was the only cause for the debacle. True, it provided the opening. We never fully explored all that went into the Partition riots. The method was to create terror and take what you want. One fact that needs emphasis regarding Partition is that it was brigandage or crime that caused the most damage in the name of religion. What seized people on both sides was avarice, a desire to dispossess someone of house, factory, field, woman and property. The sheer criminality that drove our people from both sides must be exposed; we have always striven to cover it up with religious fervour. When we look back at those terrible months, when the future of our subcontinent hung in the balance, do we know how close we were to a rejection of the whole idea of Partition? Sind passed a resolution in favour of Partition but with an extremely narrow majority. Punjab was undecided; J&K positively against it, and the North-West Frontier Province, the home of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, was against it from the start. If we had waited a year Jinnah may have changed his mind owing to the disease he suffered from. What tilted the balance was the induction of Muslim League hoodlums in the NWFP who systematically began to drive out the Hindus from Dera Ismail Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan and other places. Revenge appeared owing to train killings. Soon avarice raised its head in Punjab, and that had repercussions on our side, and the whole area drifted into a cauldron of crime which was marked by looting, kidnapping and murder of the worst type. The terror, the panic, the horror that it generated can hardly be conceived by people of this generation, and we were probably so far down the slippery road to destruction that only large-scale military and police domination could have saved us, and that was hardly possible because the military itself was in a state of division, and the British officers at the top were not sure as to what should be done to curb the carnage, or whether anything at all could be done to stop an earthquake. It was a big mistake not to have prepared the Army and the police/Home Guards for dealing with disorder in the years before 1947. If we had saved this subcontinent from Partition, we would have been among the first three in the world today. Then as soon as a new government was installed in Karachi, one hope of ours that Jinnah would realise the need for balance was lost when he fell sick and could not enforce his views on the rulers of Pakistan. The saddest man on the subcontinent at that time must have been Jinnah, who saw all his dreams of two sister democracies being shattered by mobs. So whom do we blame for the damage of Partition — Mountbatten and the British, who must have foreseen what the consequences would be but refrained from action, needled as they were by the agitation to oust British rule ? They even drew forward the date of the transfer of power, fearing that disorder would be difficult to control. Nehru and the Congress were undoubtedly complacent about the murder and pillage that would arise, and the hatred that would consume people who had lived as neighbours for centuries. Also to blame were the seniormost Army and police officers who had not organised themselves to face the situation firmly even when they saw that things were going out of control. In a sense, we were all to blame even the media, the executive, the judiciary, the common people who were so entranced at the prospect of freedom that they discounted the dangers. My generation brought more damage to India than it had ever received in the past owing to our lack of unity and sense of purpose. Are we better prepared now if such a breakdown occurs ? Examples of rioting in Ahmedabad, Jabalpur, Biharsharif, Bhagalpur, Aligarh, Coimbatore and so many other places would indicate that even today the administration is not firm, not in its policy of secularism. In fact, all the indications of the Ayodhya breakdown were clear from the beginning, but what did the politicians do? Pour fuel on the fire. What did the police administration do? Wait for orders. What did the judiciary do? Look the other way. Is that what we would call disaster management ? And what was the result? Disorder that shook almost every district in India: and that happened only a few years ago in 1992-1994. We are now more over-crowded; more educated young men are looking for jobs, more people are below the poverty line. The laxity in the criminal justice system is far greater. Our military forces are being politicised. Would that indicate that we are quite safe, that we will not have massive disturbances again? Or spend lavishly to deal with compulsive hostility? I am prepared to accept
that politics is difficult to control or even to guide,
but what I certainly will not accept is that the
administrative machinery and the law cannot be made firm
enough to deal with any disturbance. It is a strange fact
that in this large country there is no unity worth the
name between the executive, the military, the police and
the judiciary, primarily responsible for peace. There is
no common meeting ground, not even a club, as there was
during the British days where views could be exchanged.
Each section of the administration lives in total
isolation, and in pursuit of its own designs. There is no
way that we can bring about consensus in the land that
justice will be done. After 50 years of Independence we
are worse than we were in 1947. |
Does FDI generate employment
? AT the onset of liberalisation there were great expectations that foreign investment will create employment and also lead to increased wages across the economy. A decade down the line the reality is coming out. According to the World Information Report-1999, released recently by UNCTAD, the net impact of foreign investment on domestic workers may well be negative. UNCTAD says that, though comprehensive data are lacking, some studies suggest that the workers directly employed by MNCs do secure better conditions of work than domestic firms. This is due to three reasons. One, FDI tends to be concentrated in more capital-skill-and-marketing-intensive industries than domestic firms. Productivity in such industries is generally higher. Two production for the world market requires a reliable workforce which can ensure both quality and timely production. Therefore, MNCs invest more in training and also pay better wages to retain their workers. Three, the size and visibility of MNCs makes them more prone to trade union activity which, in turn, exerts an upward pressure on working conditions. These may indeed be a correct description of the situation. But it seems that similarly placed domestic firms would be subject to the same pressures. It is difficult to believe that Reliance Petroleum or WIPRO would be paying less than their MNC counterparts. Therefore, if at all MNCs have a positive impact on workers on these scores, this has to be attributed to the nature of industry, not to “foreignness” of investment. The second argument made by UNCTAD is that a high investment in education and skill development can attract specialised MNCs. For example, says UNCTAD, “the world’s leading semiconductor maker, Intel, cited the availability of skilled workers as the major factor in choosing to locate its new Latin American plant in Costa Rica.” It goes on to add that Singapore continues to attract large amounts of foreign investment on the basis of its highly qualified workforce despite high wage levels. This seems to communicate that all developing countries would do well to follow this approach of attracting education-and-skill-based MNCs. There are problems with this approach. Firstly, Costa Rica and Singapore with populations of 34 million and 30 million are a different ball game than say India with its nearly one billion population. Such skill-based employment may have a limited impact in our country. The proof lies in the absence of widespread impact of software industry on the average wages of the Indian workers. Secondly, the total number of such high-skill job openings in the world economy would be limited. At a global level, then, the gain of one country would become the loss of another. There is likely to be no net addition to the worker’s wages when reckoned globally. It is well known that high-skill software experts in the USA are often rendered unemployed as those jobs shift to developing countries like India and Jamaica. The gain of India then is the loss of America. In fact, globalisation can lead to lower global wages. The wages paid to the now employed Indian software engineer are lower than the now unemployed American technocrat and, therefore, the total wages paid may be lower. But, of course, this would not be visible if we look at Costa Rica in isolation, as UNCTAD does. Having dealt with the allegedly positive impact of MNCs on local workers, let us now turn to the various negative impacts of MNCs on domestic wages which have been mentioned by UNCTAD. (1) The real wages of workers have often fallen after liberalisation and globalisation. (2) For the same work with the same level of productivity the wages paid to a worker in a developing country are lower than those paid to a similarly placed worker in an industrialised country. (3) Even if there are productivity differences due other factors such as better infrastructure in industrialised countries, the “wages paid by affiliates in developing countries may be at times far lower than warranted by productivity differences”. (4) MNCs often invest in Export Promotion Zones only because they want to benefit from low wages which are often lower than in the mainstream host economy. Many countries have made labour laws inapplicable in EPZs. There are restrictions on trade union activities, and regulations of working hours and minimum wages are not applicable. (5) While MNCs may directly provide increased employment, the same may be offset by closure or downsizing by domestic companies due to the loss of the market share. The net impact on employment in the developing country may not be positive. (6) One of the first things undertaken by MNCs upon the acquisition of a company in a developing country is the shedding of excess labour. Howsoever legitimate this may be, the impact on labour cannot be said to be positive. (7) MNCs in labour-intensive sectors such as garments, floriculture, footwear and electronics assembly often “put out” work to the workmen on a piece rate basis to be undertaken in their homes. It has been found that the daily wages actually secured by them are often below even the statutory minimum wages. Further, they are subject to long hours of work in order to meet supply deadlines and the contribution of work by the family members often remains unpaid. (8) In many such labour-intensive operations MNCs often prefer to employ young, low wage, semi-skilled women who are perceived as “docile and undemanding”. In some EPZs wages paid to such women are 20-30 times lower than men’s in similar jobs (while in some others it is not so). (9) The net impact of FDI on domestic employment is unclear. The employment by American and Japanese affiliates in Asia increased by 10 to 20 per cent annually, but only till the crisis of 1997-98. The growth of employment by American affiliates in Latin America has been about one-third of that in Asia while that of Japanese affiliates has been negative. The employment in foreign affiliates in Africa decreased during 1990-96. Thus, even the direct increase in employment is suspect. (10) The MNCs take a global view of employment and are willing to close down operations in certain countries in response to changed circumstances. They are, relatively speaking, “footloose”. Thus, the employment created today may well evaporate tomorrow. This is the commentary of UNCTAD which is fundamentally a pro-FDI organisation. It is time for us to re-examine the net impact of FDI on our people’s welfare. That, however, does not mean that we need to revert to the pro-labour policies of the sixties. We certainly need the loosening of our labour laws. Today businessmen invest in order not to employ more workers rather than to employ them. The laws relating to retrenchment and many other labour practices reduce the flexibility of businesses in responding to the ever-changing market conditions. All this needs to be changed. Some downsizing is inevitable. There is a difference
though when the labour laws are modified in response to
FDI, rather than domestic, pressures. FDI is footloose.
It can create a loss of employment in domestic industries
today and tomorrow it may move out itself. That would
leave our workers high and dry. Therefore, let us reform
our labour laws but in order to make our domestic
industries competitive, not in order to force them out of
business under pressure from MNCs. |
In
defence of goatees TO those of the select and exclusive fraternity who sport a sprightly little fungus on their chins and flaunt them defiantly, like a battle pendant, at a disapproving world, it is heartwarming news that no less an institution than the Karnataka High Court has upheld the inalienable and constitutionally guaranteed right of an individual to grow a beard without being summarily sacked from his job without the due process of law and sent home packing without pensionary benefits. Full credit goes to the bearded cop who unflinchingly took up cudgels against protagonists of clean-shaven chins and emerged triumphant. Latter-day mores are harsh and uncompromising. Conformity is venerated and none dare step out of the line and a bearded bloke, like Jews and Masons belongs to an oppressed minority with none to champion his (hirsuite) cause. A man who is an asset to the community and minds his own business can’t do a little thing of his own like growing a goatee without having a thousand eyebrows raised at him. Clean-shaven chins are all very well as advertisements for teflon and platinum-coated razor blades, French after-shave colognes and shaving creams, but where would the cerebral world be without beards? Can you imagine a firebrand, coffee-house Marxist-Leninist revolutionary or an intellectual (or even an amateur with pretensions to being an intellectual) without a beard? It is axiomatic that revolutionaries and pretender intellectual should always sport a five-day beard for, shaving is considered a bourgeois and revisionist activity. Of course, a rookie revolutionary or an intellectual would find it a little trying to shave in such a manner that after a five-day beard is “torched” so to say, a three-day ration is left on the chin, but practice and perseverance will bring home the bacon. Beards and unshaven chins are indispensable adjuncts to certain occupations, writing, for instance. It is not likely that Rex Stout could turn out a Nero Wolfe mystery story once every 24 hours without constantly running his fingers thru’ his luxuriant beard. With the Karnataka High
Court handing down its landmark judgement, let’s
hope the persecution of our bearded compatriots would
soon be a ghost of the past. Tut, tut, the world has
certainly come to a sorry pass if an otherwise
law-abiding citizen can’t grow a goatee without
having to go in fear on his sinecure job. |
Job quota, again, is not basic right
IS there any fundamental right to reservation under the Indian Constitution? Does the Constitution, in other words, merely permit the State to make reservations if it so likes, or does it impose a duty, an obligation on the State to do so? Restoring the law as it obtained three decades ago, the Supreme Court excelled itself on September 16 by posing this question as clearly and starkly as I have put it. And answering it no less plainly. “In view of the overwhelming authority right from 1963,” said the Constitution Bench, “we hold that both Articles 16(4) and 16(4A) do not confer any fundamental rights nor do they impose any constitutional duties but are only in the nature of enabling provisions, vesting a discretion in the State to consider providing reservation if the circumstances mentioned in the Articles so warranted.” That was the view first propounded by the court in Balaji’s case in 1963, in relation both to Articles 15(4) and 16(4). The former permits reservation in admissions to educational institutions, the latter in public employment. Five years later in Rajendran’s case, it was reiterated directly in relation to Article 16(4). Like the verdict on September 16, both Balaji and Rajendran were decided by Constitution Benches. Then, starting 1986 (with K.S. Jagannathan’s case) and continuing deep into the nineties, came a populist onslaught on the constitutional text. What was merely an enabling provision (“Nothing in this Article shall prevent the State” from making reservations) was transformed into a constitutional command. The discretion became a duty, a “power coupled with a duty” as goes that old lawyers’ phrase otherwise a contradiction in terms. “The duty to implement the rule of reservation is a constitutional duty,” the court said recently in 1997, in Superintending Engineer, Public Health vs Kuldeep Singh, a case from Chandigarh. “A public servant entrusted with the duty and power to implement constitutional policy under Articles 16(4), 16(4A), 15(4) and 335 ... should be accountable for due effectuation of constitutional goals.” The Administrator of the Union Territory, Chandigarh, was accordingly directed to take appropriate action against the erring officers and report compliance to the Registry of the court within two months. The Constitution Bench made amends last fortnight. If the State is of the opinion, it held, overruling Jagannathan and Kuldeep Singh, that in the interests of efficiency of administration, reservation or relaxation in marks is not appropriate, the court cannot issue a mandamus to provide for such reservation or relaxation. Also overruled was Ashok Kumar Gupta’s case of 1997, which had held the “right to reservation itself” to be a fundamental right under Article 16(1). Obliterating altogether the distinction between social discourse and legal statement, that case in fact, goes to the extent of describing “social justice” and “economic empowerment” as fundamental rights. “We ... make it clear,” said the Constitution Bench on September 16, “that what we are deciding today is based on principles already laid down by this Court since 1950 and in particular since 1963.” This is a seminally important statement made by the Anand Court, the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice A.S. Anand, in the post-activist phase, and there is no reason to doubt it. An earlier part of the same statement is open to question, however. “At the outset we make it clear (says the Bench) that in this judgement we are not concerned with the reservation policy of the State ....” From Balaji’s case of 1963 where the court, in a remarkably sapient example of “social engineering” by judicial action, prescribed a reservation ceiling of 50 per cent of the total number of seats or posts, to the Mandal Commission case (Indra Sawhney vs Union of India) 29 years later, the reservation policy of the State, and the wisdom and merits of that policy, has always been the principal justiciable issue before the court. Here, unlike any other sphere of constitutional adjudication, the policy is the issue. And from Justice P.B. Gajendragadkar in Balaji to Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer in N.M. Thomas (decided in 1976 by a Bench of seven Judges) to Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy in Indra Sawhney’s case speaking for the majority among nine Judges, the best and the tallest on the apex court have distinguished themselves by a full-throated discussion of that policy, its pros and cons. Education and employment being what they are in a country like India, there is no way that challenge can be evaded. As for the Anand Court, its unhappiness over the excesses of reservation is apparent from the September 16 verdict. Coupled with its two earlier Constitution Bench decisions involving the PGI, its determination to undo the damage done in this area by some recent judgements of the court unable to transcend sectional perceptions, is also beyond dispute. Its contribution to the reservation issue is, in fact, immense already. The caveat (cited above)
that the court is not concerned with the reservation
policy of the State is, thus, more tactical than true.
And it is in that spirit that it should be read. |
The Vollard collection at National Gallery
THE week lay packed. Packed with programmes but fortunately or unfortunately the same faces seen at each one of these. In fact not only the faces but even the venues remain more or less the same — primarily it has got to be the India International Centre or the India Habitat Centre (the latter has anyway come into sharp focus after Pakistan’s former Foreign Secretary, Naiz Naik, was spotted staying there — yet to be ascertained whether he was a guest of the government or of a corporate setup). Another ‘active’ venue, especially become so in the last couple of years, is the National Gallery of Modern Art. Midweek it lay alive with French avant garde — The Vollard collection from the Leon Dierx Museum on Reunion Island. At the preview itself one was left absolutely taken aback — after all, the 63 artists whose 114 works are part of the Vollard collection are not only well recognised but famous indeed and these include — Picasso, Renoir, Gauguin, Cezanne, Maillol, Valminck, Rouault, Caillebotte. And that’s precisely why security was absolutely tight — never before witnessed such tight security in this Gallery. In fact it is for the first time that this rare collection is travelling outside the Reunion Island (A French Overseas Region close to Mauritius). And after its month-long presentation in Delhi it travels to Bombay and thereafter it will be presented in Singapore, then in Paris and after that in South Africa, before it finally returns to the Reunion Island. And I am told that as a return gesture an exhibition of Indian art will be taken to Paris in the coming year. The details of that exhibition are still awaited. A look at this reality Focus has finally been brought about on the old and elderly of this country. In keeping with this, October 1 — Day for the Elderly — didn’t pass off as any other day. Functions marked the day, the President hosted a special reception and an exhibition “Ageing in India” opened at the IIC Annexe. Put together by two young brothers — Samar and Vijay Jodha — and presented by UN Information Centre HelpAge India it has ‘captured’ a hundred old people of India. Though only 37 of those photographs were displayed but the actual disappointment came in because none of those photographs portrayed hard hitting realities that invariably come along with age, at least in the great majority of cases. By and large, it’s those urbane, sophisticated, the successful, the healthy who have been photographed and projected. What about hundreds if not thousands of our elderly who lie dumped and abandoned in old age homes or even by the roadside? What about those who are awaiting death, lying in filthy congested hospital confines and makeshift sheds? I wish more realistic and grim images of the elderly were shot and shown. For though the numbers of the elders are fast rising but we are not equipped to meet their special needs. Combination that worked And just after viewing this exhibition ‘Ageing in India’ as I reached the IHC to witness the epic Yudhishtira and Draupadi brought to life by Shovana Narayan’s dance, the very first sight that touched was Pavan K Verma very, very gently escorting his aged mother towards one of the seats in the auditorium. This when Pavan Verma was one of the main characters of that evening, for let’s not overlook the fact that it is on his poetic verses (Penguin has brought them out in the form of a book titled Yudhishtira and Draupadi) that Shovana based her dance. Narrations from that book were read by Sunit Tandon and as the words flowed Shovana danced. And there has been much appreciation of this combination, so much so that there will be a repeat performance of this very combination, in Kathmandu, on October 12. Whilst on dance let me quickly fit in New Delhi Municipal Corporation’s enthusiasm, bordering on sheer insistence, to expose the citizens of this city to the cultural beat. First it was ragas-in-the-garden series and now this weekend there came up a three-day dance festival, at the Talkatora Gardens. The inaugural dance on September 30 by Pt Birju Maharaj, was, however, a complete washout. Before guruji could start kathaking, rains lashed and the downpour continued unabated. So much so that evening’s dance programme had to be cancelled. I am told that now it is being rescheduled for October 3. Some political news The who’s who of
the political circle(s) seem to have vanished (though not
banished!) — what with most of them concentrating on
the last phase of these elections in Uttar Pradesh. Try
getting in touch with even a junior rung BJP or Congress
person and he is said to be away in that “bhaiyya
and behna land’. And since Priyanka Vadra
Gandhi’s inlaws are anyway based in UP’s
Moradabad town so probably it wasn’t very difficult
for them to move bag and baggage to Amethi. One is told
that several members of the Vadra clan are camping in
Amethi, along with Priyanka. Not to miss the other clans
camping in the various towns of that particular state.
That of — Salman Khurshid, Dumpy Ahmad, Deepa Kaul,
Capt Satish Sharma, Sanjay Singh, Karan Singh, the Kidwai
clan backing Mohsina Kidwai. And since they cannot
survive without coteries so it is almost like the biwi,
bachcha and woh (log) scenario. |
October
4, 1924 IN the last number of the “Agricultural Journal of India” is reproduced an interesting paper on “The Future of Cotton-growing in Sind under perennial irrigation” by Mr T.F. Main, officiating Director of Agriculture, Bombay. The writer points out how the American output of cotton decreased from 16 to 11 million bales during the past decade and how her own mill consumption increased during the same period from 4 to 6-1/3 million bales, so that Lancashire and other mill centres had a decreasing supply of American cotton with consequent high prices. He then explains that there is a good prospect of growing excellent cotton in Sind and the Punjab, where new and important schemes of irrigation are to be undertaken which will bring extended areas under cotton. He gives interesting
details of the Sukkar Barrage Scheme and the canal
systems which are expected to bring vast areas of fresh
land into cultivation and raise the prosperity of the
province. |
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