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Heed the EC
Pains of plenty |
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Is Mulayam serious? “Off with English, computers” plea is weird AT a time when India is struggling earnestly to be in synch with the 21st century and become a world power, the Samajwadi Party has come up with a manifesto which is guaranteed to take the country back to the 19 th century and even beyond. It has vowed to abolish expensive English medium schools, stop the use of this “foreign language” in administration and in courts, and also banish computers wherever their functions could be carried out manually.
The enemy within
Remembering Ambedkar
North Korea’s Kim is back
Corrections and clarifications
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Heed the EC
THE Election Commission’s advisory on Sunday night to the leaders of all political parties to exercise restraint and maintain highest standards of poll campaign was much needed. The commission was forced to issue it because all political parties have been brazenly violating the code of conduct. Unfortunately, even senior leaders have been indulging in name-calling and abusing their political opponents, sullying the campaign. Hitting rivals below the belt and fomenting passions and hatred through hate speeches were unheard of earlier. At times, the campaigns have crossed the limits of decency. Of what use is the code if leaders indulged in provocative and inflammatory statements? The code of conduct is rightly a “unique document”. It was evolved with the consensus of all the political parties. Its sole aim is to ensure a level-playing field for all and help the Election Commission conduct free and fair elections — and in an atmosphere devoid of acrimony and hatred. The commission has also taken the politicians to task for distributing money to voters. In particular, it has deplored some leaders’ attempt to justify it in the name of “local custom”. It has reiterated that bribing voters with gifts or cash is a crime punishable under Section 171B of the Indian Penal Code and a corrupt practice under Section 123 (1) of the Representation of the People Act. Recent experience suggests that the commission, other than issuing notices and warnings, doesn’t have adequate powers to punish the violators. Surely, it should be given more teeth to take stringent action against those flouting the code of conduct and the law. Having felt that the campaigning by the parties might reach a crescendo in the days to come, the commission has, in its advisory, issued a set of do’s and don’ts to the parties to maintain decorum and help conduct peaceful and orderly elections. In particular, it has drawn their attention to the Supreme Court ruling in the G.Y. Kanakarao vs E.V. alias Balasaheb Vikhe Patil case in which the court advised the senior leaders of all parties to disseminate the poll code to all the functionaries at various levels and help reverse the disturbing trend. There is merit in the Election Commission’s advice that the politicians ought to campaign on the basis of their policies and programmes so that a “congenial atmosphere” can be created for holding the elections.
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Pains of plenty
FIRST, untimely rain accompanied by squally winds flattened the wheat crop in large parts of the northern region. Thanks to the approaching elections, the Punjab government has displayed extraordinary efficiency in announcing relief for the rain-hit farmers. However, unionised farmers in some areas still took to protests as the official agencies dithered in lifting wet grains. Then there is the chronic shortage of storage space and gunnysacks. Even as the fresh produce has started arriving in mandis, godowns are overflowing with foodgrains procured last year, which saw a bumper crop. The inclement weather notwithstanding, this year too the harvest is promising, which, instead of spreading joy, is giving jitters to the government. Where to keep foodgrains is the problem. That huge quantities of farm produce, fruits and vegetables are lost due to inadequate storeage facilities is well known. Due to the shortage of godowns and silos and the manual handling of foodgrains, not only a large chunk of the produce is lost to bad weather, insects and rats, but is also pilfered in transit. Yet not enough has been done, either at the state or Central level, to encourage private/public investment to improve and expand the existing infrastructure. High taxes in Punjab and Haryana keep off private buyers. Driven by offbeat showers, farmers are keen to dump their produce at the mandis, where officials are under pressure not to lift rain-soaked grains. Appeals to farmers to bring dry produce go unheeded. Instead of resorting to protests, farmers should be happy that at least official agencies are buying wheat at the minimum support prices. Otherwise, wheat prices have crashed globally and exports make no sense. The FCI is already having a buffer stock three times more than the prescribed requirement of four million tones. That’s why someone at the Centre had this bright idea of passing on surplus foodgrains to starving Afghans as a goodwill gesture. |
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Is Mulayam serious?
AT a time when India is struggling earnestly to be in synch with the 21st century and become a world power, the Samajwadi Party has come up with a manifesto which is guaranteed to take the country back to the 19 th century and even beyond. It has vowed to abolish expensive English medium schools, stop the use of this “foreign language” in administration and in courts, and also banish computers wherever their functions could be carried out manually. That means most of the public schools would have to close down. And since the world was functioning even before computers came in, they too would have to be dumped in totality. That is not all. It also wants to do away with machinery, stock-trading and shopping malls. No wonder, everyone — including allies — has been asking: “Is the Samajwadi Party serious?” How one wishes it was only a bad joke, but the party seems to be serious. And that is dangerous. Similar “friends of the poor” have played havoc with education and administration in Bihar, Gujarat and Bengal in the past leaving at least two generations without adequate knowledge of English. The only ones who would be happy with such turn of events would be India’s competitors like the Chinese who are spending billions of dollars on making their populace English-proficient. What is particularly distressing is that even when faced with a barrage of criticism and objections from friends and foes alike, the Samajwadi Party has only tried to tone down its anti-English and anti-computers tirade with hardly any retraction. All this has been done in the name of the downtrodden, without appreciating that depriving them of English and computer literacy would condemn them to even more poverty and joblessness than what they currently suffer. The hypocrisy of it all is too blatant. Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav has sent both his sons to English-medium institutions – in fact also to Australia and Britain. We should oppose even if the former Defence Minister were to practice his weird agenda at home. Why should his children be made to unlearn their English for their father’s outdated opinions? |
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All empire is no more than power in trust. — John Dryden |
North Korea’s Kim is back There was pomp and circumstance, huge adoring crowds — not to mention lots of choreographed propaganda. A frail-looking Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s paternal “dear leader,” appeared last week before a newly elected Supreme People’s Assembly that reappointed him as the nation reigning military chief. The 67-year-old leader, who reportedly suffered a stroke last year, bringing rumors of a possible succession, has turned North Korea “into an invincible political and ideological, military and scientific and technological power,” trumpeted the government-controlled Korean Central News Agency. A photograph released by North Korea shows thousands of smiling celebrants in Pyongyang, North Korea’s Kim Il-sung Square. Many are dressed in traditional Korean garb. All are clapping in unison under a banner that reads “Hurray for Great Victory of Songun (Military First) Politics.” Kim’s reappointment comes amid tension on the Korean peninsula as the international community seeks unison in responding to North Korea’s satellite launch that ignored international pleas for restraint. The U.S., Japan and South Korea have turned to the United Nations Security Council to seek a rebuke of the launch, while members China and Russia have urged caution. U.S. intelligence reports have characterised the test of an experimental communications satellite as a failure, saying the craft failed to reach orbit and splashed into the Pacific. The regime’s public relations machine has told the North Korean public that the launch of the Kwangmyongsong No. 2 satellite was a total success. North Korea’s state-run television rebroadcast footage of rocket launch, interspersed with undated photos of the Kim with his signature bouffant hairdo meeting with citizens and observing bears at a zoo. Kim was also reported to have watched the satellite launch. But one former defector called the public events staged. “People do not join voluntarily. If the party calls them to the rally, they are obligated to attend,” Hyun In-ae, 53, a former professor who escaped in 2004, said of the celebrations. “This is not an election in democratic society. People are told to stand up and applaud when a certain line is being read.” The Supreme People’s Assembly, elected last month, had been expected to rubber-stamp Kim’s grip on power, including control of the isolationist regime’s million-man military. Under Kim’s leadership as “general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and supreme commander of the revolutionary armed forces,” according to Thursday’s release by the state-run press, “the Party, the army and the people (stand) as firm as a rock.” But questions remain about a succession of power since Kim reportedly suffered a stroke last August. Many analysts believe Kim is leaning toward handing the reins to his youngest son, Kim Jong-un. “Many elites in Pyongyang believe that a successful rocket launch was a prelude to a change of power,” said Young Howard, who runs a Seoul radio station that broadcasts into North Korea. “They think that Kim will say the launch was guided by his son and that he deserves to step up to power.” This marks Kim’s third term as North Korean leader since he emerged to replace his father, Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994. Analysts say Kim will continue to insist that his satellite is orbiting the earth, beaming back patriotic music to the faithful. “North Korea gives a sense of stability to its people when saying that things like the rocket protect people from threats by the United States,” said Lee Woo-young, a professor at University of North Korean studies in Seoul. “The rocket launch was a political ad, which I think had some effects domestically and internationally.”
— By arrangement with |
Delhi Durbar A
stickler for propriety, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh flatly refused to organise his interaction with the Capital’s women press corps last week at his official 7, Race Course Road, residence in view of the elections. With the Opposition indulging in personal attacks on him, Singh obviously did not want to hand them over an issue. He bluntly told Congress functionaries that the press interaction could be organised anywhere but not at his residence. Finally, a five-star hotel was chosen as the venue for the media interaction at which Singh scrupulously avoided having any PMO official around him to assist him in the question-answer session. In fact, it was the Congress party’s main spokesperson Janardhan Dwivedi who assisted the PM. Soon after the interaction with women journalists, the PM released the Congress manifesto in Urdu for which Urdu journalists had been invited by the party office. This week the PM is convening a meeting of the Editors Guild of India and the venue again may be a hotel and not his residence.
Tytler’s detractors
Apart from the media and the Opposition (BJP and Akali Dal), Jagdish Tytler has blamed his detractors in the Congress party for whipping up the controversy against him through the shoe incident to tarnish his image and hinder his
political career. Tytler may not have mentioned his detractors publicly. But it is well known that since arriving on Delhi’s political scene, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and the Tytler-Sajjan duo have not been able to see eye to eye. Both Delhi stalwarts, who have remained electorally invincible in Delhi, consider Sheila an outsider, transplanted from Unnao, which brought her in Parliament and then in the PMO as Minister of State under Rajiv Gandhi. Anyway now with both out of the way, the only one who can create trouble for Sheila is Ajay Maken. And if Maken also loses the electoral battle from
New Delhi, there is no stopping Sandeep Dikshit inheriting his mother Sheila’s mantle in Delhi.
Women power
Apart from Sonia Gandhi, two women who are likely to play a dominant role in the formation of the next government in an uncertain post-poll scenario are Mayawati and Jayalalithaa. And both are getting ready for a long haul in Delhi, should the polls throw up a
hung Parliament. Final touches are being given to the ‘BSP House’, the office-cum-residence of Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Sardar Patel Marg. The grapevine has it that the accommodation will be ready by the time the results of the Lok Sabha elections are out. AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa, who is expecting a reasonably rich
harvest in the elections in Tamil Nadu, also is said to be planning to move to Delhi as soon as the results are out and become a major player in the formation of the new government with her
flock of MPs.
Contributed by Anita Katyal, Faraz Ahmad and Ashok Tuteja
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Corrections and clarifications l
The front page report on April 11 (Another shoegate in Kurukshetra) states, “police could not question him as he was not in an inebriated state”. It should read, “as he was in an inebriated state”. l
The report on ‘Chandigarh Plus’ page about sales tax refunds was meant to say that the amount in excess recovered by the authorities, and not illegally recovered, would be refunded in 48 hours. l
On the Haryana page , in a report about a 65-year-old woman who was beaten to death, it should read, “The accused trespassed…” and also she lost consciousness. l
A headline on the World page of the edition dated April 12, “American Indian to head India affairs” was misleading in so far as it gave the impression that it had something to do with India. The report actually related to the US Bureau of Indian Affairs, which deals with original American Indians as opposed to NRIs. Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error. We will carry corrections and clarifications, wherever necessary, every Tuesday & Friday. Readers in such cases can write to Mr Uttam Sengupta, Associate Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is uttamsengupta@tribunemail.com.
H.K. Dua,
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