Uma’s return - A sign BJP is back on track

The New Indian Express
Last Updated : 08 Jun 2011 11:54:37 PM IST

It is too early to assess the impact of Uma Bharti’s return to the BJP, but it is clear indication that BJP president Nitin Gadkari has been able to assert himself on this score despite reservations from a section of party leaders. Gadkari had announced his wish to take back estranged party leaders immediately after taking over the reins of the party. Now he seems to have found an opportune moment to implement his agenda. In this he appears to have full backing of the RSS, which was not exactly happy with the present drift in the party.


This time, the BJP leadership wants to use Uma Bharti to regain its lost paradise in Uttar Pradesh. A firebrand leader of the Ayodhya movement, Uma had demonstrated her combative powers when she demolished Digvijay Singh’s 10-year rule in Madhya Pradesh in 2004. While helping the party regain its Hindutva plank, she can also make the BJP an attractive prospect for a section of the backward classes, which could otherwise go to Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh. Interestingly, Uma would be facing her old political adversary in the battleground of Uttar Pradesh, where Digvijay Singh is in-charge of the Congress affairs with Rahul Gandhi as the mascot.

If other estranged leaders like Sanjay Joshi and K N Govindacharya return to the party fold this will be an unmistakable signal that the party is reverting back to its core political constituency of Hindutva. Hints of this were available to the BJP’s national executive held in Lucknow recently when it reiterated its commitment to build the Ram temple at Ayodhya — an issue that the party seemed to have put on the back burner after the demolition of the disputed structure in 1992. Shorn of a sharply defined ideology and lacking an astute leadership, the BJP is behaving as the B team of the Congress, instead of performing the role of a combative Opposition. It needs to get back its organisational élan and ideological sharpness to convince the people that it presents a viable alternative to the Congress

Ramdev must talk less, stick to issues

The New Indian Express

Last Updated : 10 Jun 2011 12:04:04 AM IST

Baba Ramdev has done his image as a widely respected spiritual guru as well as the movement against black money led by him immeasurable harm by threatening to raise a private militia to take forward his mission. It is obvious that the brutal manner in which he and his supporters were evicted from the Ramlila grounds in the dead of night has hurt his ego so much that he has begun to think in terms of resisting such onslaughts in future in the name of self-defence. However, any such endeavour will be extremely unwise not only because of the inevitable possibility of violence, but also because that is exactly the excuse which the government needs to crack down even harder on him and give the civil society activists, including those with Anna Hazare, a bad name.


The resultant demoralisation among them will not be easy to overcome if only because there are sections in the political class and in the media who will not be too unhappy with such a turn of events. As it is, the government has made its intention clear by targeting the yoga guru’s business enterprise to undermine his position. The very timing of the official move shows that the government is guided not so much by a desire to check whether everything is aboveboard as to discredit Baba Ramdev and ensnare him in legal difficulties so that he will not have much time to carry on his campaign.

Baba Ramdev’s decision to declare his assets shows that he has seen through the government’s game, but he has to be careful not only with his deeds, but his words as well because any loose talk, as about the militia, will have long-term debilitating consequences. Nothing can be more disheartening for his many admirers because his highly laudable effort to unearth black money, along with Anna Hazare’s focus on the Lokpal Bill, have cornered the government far more effectively than what the Opposition parties could do. The next stage is crucial because any misstep by civil society will mean playing into the government’s hands

Jayalalithaa exposes DMK’s stand on SL issue

The New Indian Express
Last Updated : 10 Jun 2011 12:08:20 AM IST

Kudos to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa for moving the resolution in the State Assembly urging India to ask the United Nations to declare as war criminals all those who committed excesses in the war in Sri Lanka. The brave stand of the state government, which has also demanded economic sanctions against the island nation, is only a reflection of the aspirations of the people. In the process, Jayalalithaa has also exposed the DMK regime’s lackadaisical approach in saving the Tamil people when they were being ruthlessly butchered. This has now been brought to light by a United Nations expert committee report.


On April 17, 2009, M Karunanidhi sat on a fast between breakfast and lunch at Marina in Chennai demanding an immediate ceasefire in Sri Lanka. He abruptly called it off, saying that all will be well for the Tamil people there. We know now that most of the war crimes that have been brought to light by the UN were committed after that fast.

The Tamil Nadu chief minister has been right in pointing out that thousands of Lankan Tamils lost their lives because of the selfishness of the DMK government. Being an ally of the Congress, the DMK did not want to stand up against the Centre. After the end of the war, when the skeletons started tumbling out in the form of photographs and video clippings, reaffirming the atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan army, too, Karunanidhi maintained a stoic silence. That he never spoke against the Sri Lankan government or the Centre, even when civil rights movements were making shrill noises, was nothing but a betrayal of trust as he had crowned himself as the leader of the Tamil people world over.

Jayalalithaa has set in motion a process that would pave the way for the international community to not only proceed legally against Sri Lanka for war crimes but also rehabilitate the internally displaced Tamil people.

West’s dominance of IMF must end

The New Indian Express
Last Updated : 12 Jun 2011 11:24:04 PM IST

The sudden vacuum in the IMF’s seniormost position caused by its former managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest on charges of sexual misconduct has given an opportunity to recast the organisation’s hierarchical structure. There is undoubtedly a consensus outside the western hemisphere that the time has come to end the practice of having a European at the head of the IMF and an American at the World Bank by choosing a person from what is known as the developing countries to be the next IMF managing director.


The case for ending the European monopoly has already been made by the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Now, since the governor of the Mexican central bank, Agustin Carstens has thrown his hat into the ring, New Delhi should play a more proactive role in favouring his candidature. The stance will be in keeping with the role in resisting the West’s habitual hegemonic tendencies which India played in the time of Jawaharal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Atal Behari Vajpayee. Any hint that New Delhi’s outlook is being influenced in this matter by the present perceptible tilt towards the US will be unfortunate.

It is difficult to assess in this context the veracity of the reports that an Indian minister made known his preference for the candidature of the French finance minister, Christine Lagarde. If so, New Delhi should reverse its stance even if Lagarde is seen as the odds-on favourite at the moment presumably because Europe’s and America’s clout still outweighs that of the “emerging countries”, to use Carstens’ phrase.

There is much to be said for the Mexican contender’s view that the 65-year-old ‘tradition’ of European dominance of IMF should end not because it had been so prolonged, but because of the rise of the non-European countries in the world economy. If this reality of a new global order was ignored, the IMF would lose its legitimacy

Treat Maoists as enemies of the nation

The New Indian Express
Last Updated : 12 Jun 2011 11:27:37 PM IST

Striking for the third time in succession, the Maoists on Saturday ambushed a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) team in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district, killing three security men. They had killed five security personnel in Bastar district on Thursday and another 10 in a landmine explosion the same night. The killings signify the renewed offensive by Maoists in the Bastar region, where they had been lying low since the massacre of 75 security personnel in April last year. Significantly this coincides with the army’s entry in the region to train its commandos in jungle warfare. Add to this statements made by a spokesman of the Maoists which made it clear that such attacks will continue till Operation Green Hunt is dismantled, the Maoists and their supporters in jail are released and the proposal to set up a training college, where the army will teach jungle warfare to paramilitary forces, is reversed.


No self-respecting government can give in to such demands and the only option for the state is to meet aggression with aggression. For this security personnel will have to be better trained, better equipped and, most important, adequately motivated. Unfortunately the UPA government’s attitude to the Maoists’ challenge is far from clear. While Union home minister P Chidambaram is concerned with the slowdown in anti-Maoists operations, the appointment of known Maoist sympathiser Binayak Sen on a Planning Commission committee sends a contrary signal.

This is bound to impact adversely on the fight against the Maoists. The UPA government must not vacillate on handling the Maoist menace and take a firm stand that there can be no dialogue with them unless they are willing to voluntarily lay down arms. The Maoists must be treated as enemies of the poor and anti-nationalists and dealt a decisive blow. The war against the Maoists should be stepped up as a national priority and partisan political considerations should not be allowed to blur its edge. If the UPA government dithers on this front, it would be failing to discharge its constitutional obligation to protect the life and liberty of the people

Bring Dey’s killers to book, root out Mafia

The New Indian Express
Last Updated : 12 Jun 2011 11:19:21 PM IST

Speculations about who killed journalist Jyotirmoy Dey in Mumbai on Saturday might not be in order but it would not be surprising if it turns out that it had a link with his profession. This is because he had a formidable reputation as an investigative reporter and authority on Mumbai’s underworld. It would be proper to hold a comment till the police are able to lay their hands on his killers. However, the manner in which he was bumped off in a posh locality raises fears of the return of the mafia raj in the metropolis, where Haji Mastans, Varadarajan Mudaliars and Dawood Ibrahims called the shots once. It is only by bringing to book all those involved in the conspiracy and killing of Dey that the Mumbai police can scotch such fears. Otherwise, India’s commercial capital will soon become a crime and terror capital and lose international credibility.


The murder is also a pointer to the threat investigative journalists generally face in the country. Very often, they are seen as adversaries of the state, though their intention is to expose corruption and, thereby, cleanse the system, rather than imperil the system of governance. But in the pursuit of their vocation, journalists become enemies of persons who enjoy money and muscle power. Therefore, they need support and protection. Over a decade ago, Kamala Saikia, a well-known journalist of Assam, was kidnapped and killed, allegedly by the Ulfa militants, but the murderers are still at large. Laws, however imperfect they may be, are now in place to protect whistle-blowers. A similar attempt to protect the interests of journalists, who face similar threats, needs to be made, for at stake is the freedom of the Press, without which democracy would lose much of its meaning and appeal

Jaitapur is core meltdown of Indo-US N-deal

Prabhu Chawla

Express News ServiceLast Updated : 24 Apr 2011 03:19:40 AM IST

The cacophonic victory of falsehood over the bitter and silent truth doesn’t last long. Castles built on sand crumble in a strong wind.


As powerless protesters from the sleepy hamlet of Jaitapur in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district choose darkness over doom from the nuclear power plant, the truth about a nation betrayed is haunting the country with the dangers of a deal that was sold as the most powerful panacea for all the ills that plague poor Bharat. While those who sold the mesmerising mirage of a brighter countryside are simply keeping quiet over the rising protest against setting up the massive 9,900 MW nuclear energy plant, the radioactive waves triggered by Fukushima nuclear disaster are demolishing every iota of faith in the virtues of nuclear energy. Looking at the ferocity and determination of the local residents, it is evident that they are now determined to call the bluff. They just don’t want energy that would splash venom on the future. They prefer poverty to poisoned prosperity.

But trust our avaricious politicians. They are quick to put the blame on adversarial politics behind the Jaitapur agitation. Quite expectedly, Minister of State for Environment Jairam Ramesh, better known for his turns and about-turns, was the first to blame the rudderless Shiv Sena for fomenting trouble. Unable to comprehend the public outrage against the fear of the unknown, Ramesh arrogantly thundered, “It (Jaitapur) stays. We need nuclear power as an alternative source of energy. I haven’t called for re-think.” How could he? Only a month ago he was singing a different tune when he said, “If additional safeguards have to be built in, we will certainly look into it.” But he had to beat a hasty retreat when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stepped in and defended India’s nuclear energy policy while on a tour to nuke-hit Japan.

Singh had repeated his resolve to pursue nuclear energy projects with added vigour.

The belated popular anger against India’s civil nuclear energy programme stems from the realisation that Western countries are hawking their plants to India for reviving their own sinking economies. The Jaitapur plant will cost over Rs 100,000 crore and a huge amount of agricultural land will have to be taken over.

It is being built in collaboration with a French company, Areva.

Foreign companies made their triumphant business entry into India when the UPA leadership bulldozed the nation and Parliament into conceding a one-sided Civil Nuclear Energy Agreement with the US. In fact, a powerful coalition of the corporate-politician- bureaucracy nexus and foreign lobbyists maimed and massacred every dissenting and contrarian voice against the deal.

The passage of the Bill was touted as a paradigm shift in India’s economic diplomacy and the end of our nuclear apartheid. All those who promoted and fought for the Indo-US Nuclear agreement were handsomely rewarded with sinecures— both in India and abroad.

Ironically, the target of people’s anger on Jaitapur is Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who was at the forefront of pushing the N-Deal when he was a minister in the PMO. He is now not as aggressive as he used to be in the company of nuclear netas in Delhi. Chavan is feeling the heat and so are other Congress leaders who are now speaking in whispers about the political fallout of India’s disastrous nuclear energy policy.

Not only has the agreement crippled India’s defence-related nuclear programme, it has allowed the country to become a market for the most expensive power to be generated by foreignbuilt reactors. Nuclear energy will cost the consumer twice of what he now forks up for his power needs. The people’s outrage against nuclear power has been fuelled by the rising suspicion about their security, particularly after the Japanese tragedy. Those who are opposed to India’s N-policy argue that even the Americans haven’t been encouraging the setting up of new nuclear energy plants in their country. According to published reports, of the 253 nuclear power plants commissioned to be built in the US since 1953, over 48 per cent were cancelled and 11 per cent prematurely shut down. In real terms, only one-fourth of those ordered or just about half those completed are still operating. Even other members of the exclusive Nuclear Power Club are discarding and discouraging nuclear plants, but are very aggressively lobbying for their nuclear power companies to open markets in countries like India. Taking advantage of India’s acute power shortage, they and their mighty lobbyists succeeded in forcing the American agenda on us. None has ever raised the question as to why India is not able to lift 40 million tonnes of coal lying in stock at its coal mines to be supplied to thermal power plants. Those who are in charge of the infrastructure development have never pushed the railways to provide additional number of rakes to take the coal. Why has the Planning Commission not encouraged public undertakings like the National Thermal Power Corporation to add and build new thermal power plants? It is only now that private operators are setting up new power plants.

The megaphones sponsored by the establishment and the multi-national corporations have begun to blow loudly to suppress the movement against nuclear plants. Since $100 billion is at stake, those who stand to lose the market and the money will unleash the worst-ever propaganda to seduce the protesters of Jaitapur.

For them making money is the mission, no matter if it endangers life in the process, not only of the current generation but also of those yet to come. But the people are also prepared to die now rather than wait and die later.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com