O J's Corner : Reflections

Communist touch
is evident

It is still not time to assess the functioning of the Communists-led V S Achuthanandan Government in Kerala. Then, to leave it untouched with all these uncalled for actions within a short span of its administration would be unpardonable.

An analytical observation of the moves of the Achuthanandan Government can be summed up by saying that there is a traditional Communist touch for all actions of omission and commission.

The meaning is clear: the regime is essentially meant for the followers of the Communists. The Government would go the whole hog to support its cadre. Whatever wrongs the Communist-acolytes have committed are being condoned.

This is not an attempt to ask the Government to harm the innocent, but to make it adhere to the golden rule that justice should not only be done, but  should be seen to have been done.

The mindset has been amply demonstrated by the Chief Minister who retorted let it go anywhere else it wants, when it was pointed out to him that Smart City project might have takers outside the State.

With this observation it is not intended to justify the UDF Government’s trajectory to have the Smart City project set up at Kochi. If there are cogent drawbacks, the LDF Government has genuine right to correct them.

Take the self-financing professional courses for instance. It appears the Government is not bothered about the students making a beeline to Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh to secure seats for medicine, engineering, nursing, and other professional courses.

It has little concern whether they pay hefty sums there to corner a seat. Let the moneyed class make payment if it wants the seat. It is not the concern of the Government that its actions are driving the students to go after the private institutions outside the State which have increased the rates after Kerala Government passed the bill to bridle private managements. The approach is: let them go anywhere they want.

What about the law and order situation? Criminals have found the State a haven for their illicit activities. Housebreaks, mugging, robbery, are the order of the day.

Those who have been put in jail for various felonies have been let loose.

The Goondas Ordinance is not being re-issued saying ordinary laws are enough to deal with felonies. There is scope for misusing the provisions. So let there be no Goondas Act, according to the Chief Minister.

The other day, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi warned felons to keep off, otherwise he would clip them using provisions of the Goondas Act.

The meaning is crystal clear. There is no harm in the State retaining the Goondas Act. The State is at liberty not to use the provisions, if it can deal with felonious activities with the help of ordinary laws.

The fact that the State has the Goondas Act will put fright in the minds of persons indulging in unlawful activities. Does the Government want to release certain felons of its choice who are behind bars now on the plea that the Goondas Act is no more there?

Taxing people for purchasing TV, refrigerator and washing machine exposes the old mind-set of Communists that they are all rich people. The Communist touch is everywhere.

O J's Corner : Reflections

Lip service to farmers
will not do

Indian farmers are not comparable to farmers of America and other Western world. Our farmers are puny in terms of the extent of cultivable land he possesses, the production and productivity, as well as finance and subsidies available for cultivation.

For him the land area was small, the tools available were his hands and shovels and irrigation was what the rain Gods provided by way of their bounty. If the rains failed, his crop failed and his future was dismal.

In the West, green revolution and the industrial revolution grew hand in hand. The farmers who possessed land in quantities of ranches benefited from the innovations of the industrial revolution. Large-scale mechanisation was introduced to deal with the vast extent of cultivation. Productivity and production increased by leaps and bounds.

Since independence, Indian farmers were not given a fair deal. The plan allocation for agriculture in all the five year plans were negligible. Farmers somehow continued their agricultural operations.

Introduction of green revolution through the services of Dr Norman Borlaug helped them a lot. The US had helped us with grains through PL 480 supply scheme, when we were going abegging for grains.

For geo-political reasons we gravitated towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Our leaders cannot be faulted for taking decisions with the intention of reaping concurrent benefits.

Now times have changed and we must grab all opportunities to improve the lot of the farmers with the help of others, if needed, be they Americans, Israelis or Chinese who can help us increase our productivity.

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, after taking a tour of the Vidarbha region along with Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, has pointed out that the Central Governments from time to time since Independence have failed to provide succour to the farmers.

Pawar said 16,000 farmers ended their lives during the last 10 years, which constituted 15 per cent of the total suicides in the country.

Only 2.5 per cent of the budget was being allocated for agriculture. Irrigation got 0.35 per cent while telecom got 14 per cent

Pawar suggested that the government should increase procurement price and hike food subsidy. This should ensure an optimum situation under which the common man should not be burdened with soaring prices.

Irrigated areas of cultivation should be increased, instead of leaving the farmers at the mercy of the monsoons.

Pawar also pointed out that when the rains failed, the farmers were not able to pay up the loans they had taken from banks. Then they took recourse to private money lenders at unaffordable interest rates.

I would say more than all these factors, we have assumed that our farmers can be left to fend for themselves without sufficiently caring for them all these years.Now we have exposed them to competition from farmers of the Western countries where they get all the comforts from governments.

O J's Corner : Reflections

Consumer is the king,
Right of choice is his creed

When consumer is the king, his fiefdom should have the right of choice. Nothing should be thrust upon him by monopolies. In other words, consumer comfort cannot be ensured when only a single player calls the shot. There should be different options for him to enjoy a service.

Which means there should be many service-providers for any commodity from which the consumer can choose the brand he likes.

For long, India had a closed mind about allowing many service-providers. Telecom, television and many other sectors had only single players. These were a hard-nut-to-crack for ordinary consumers.

Think of the gamut of services provided by various players in the field of telecommunication now. Telephone user can now choose from any of the numerous service providers. That these service-providers are competing with each other is good for the consumer who would get better services at lesser cost. Long-distance telephone call rates, for national and international destinations, have become dead cheap compared to earlier times.

Television channels are aplenty for the subscriber to choose programmes that he wants to enjoy. In the wake of private channels beaming variety of programmes, Doordarshan also had to enhance quality and content.

These are all good, but there is one crucial sector where the consumer feels trapped. This is the power sector. Every human being has to get electricity for his daily needs. One hour of power failure creates a ricocheting effect for the problem it creates.

But we have only State-provided power. The State generates power the way it wants. It decides the tariff at its convenience. The consumer has no say in the generation, transmission, and supply. Neither has he a say in tariff determination.

This should go at one time or the other. The agency which provides power should be held responsible for power failure and distribution flaws. At one time or the other, private players have to come into the picture. The sooner the better.

When there are several agencies to generate or procure and supply power, there would be competition resulting in better quality of services. Electricity forms part of the basic services essential to human beings just like they need food, clothing and shelter.

Considering the magnitude of consumers of Kerala State Electricity Board, which is the only agency operating in the power sector, people cannot expect competition and enhanced quality. KSEB has to cater to the needs of 82 lakh power consumers. The State hardly has a household which is not electrified.

It is a miracle that the people get this much of services from a monolith, which has to handle 82 lakh consumers and thousands of workers. Other State-owned services are not this much monopolistic. For example, Kerala State Road Transport Corporation operates services in the State which has private bus services as well.

Power sector is the key sector where the consumer has no say, no choice and no quality discrimination. The Board proposes and it disposes. The consumer is a mute witness.

Let more players be activated in the State so that various agents would compete with each other to corner the patronage of the consumer who would then get quality service at less cost.

O J's Corner : Reflections

Let us not be arrogant about
Becoming a military superpower

Pre-1945 Japan under King Hirohito arrogated to itself militarily to attack the US fleet, which eventually led to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. The rest is history. Japan had to kowtow to the US.

History teaches us that over-enthusiasm backfires and boomerangs on the swashbuckling power-monger.

Let us have enough fire-power to face any threat of our neighbours, particularly Pakistan and China.

I don’t think Pakistan, despite its fulminations on launching a nuclear attack, if it wishes, would go berserk as its leaders from time to time have been clinging on to the coat-tails of the US Presidents.

China is a responsible nuclear power and it has already committed to itself about no first use, like India.

There could be tensions for China when Taiwan might go in for an independent regime. In the normal course, India would not come into the picture of a China-Taiwan show-down.

Where is the need for India amassing stockpiles of nuclear weapons on a continuous basis?

The Indo-US nuclear agreement is a milestone beyond which we are allowed to traverse with the US on nuclear energy, space research and explorations, agricultural research and the like.

It seems the US went out of the way to recognise India’s potential and acknowledge its prowess in many fields and to change its stance of equating India and Pakistan at various levels.

India also has to reciprocate the gesture. There should be give- and-take without compromising with the security needs of the country.

We can keep the atomic arsenal we already have. The separation of civil and nuclear installations have been recognised. The civil nuclear structures would be subject to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Only because we have come to an agreement with the US, could Russia supply nuclear fuel for nuclear reactors which were running short of uranium.

The fear that India would lose if we ally with the US on any matter is superficial. I can understand the opposition whipped up by the Communists for whom any understanding with America is tantamount to our subservience and imposition of colonialism by the US.

What is intriguing is the stance of the BJP which had been spearheading moves to achieve this trajectory of Indo-US co-operation to achieve greater benefits in many realms at the international level where we would not be vetoed or held in check by camouflaged means by the US.

Actually, the US-India bonhomie offers a window of opportunities for an emerging economy like India.

Space-based research and development of space applications would be a stronger weapon for technologically advanced countries. Nuclear arms on earth would be peanuts compared to space-based control systems which, one day, could put to disuse any nuclear war-head that flies out into the atmosphere and beyond. Why not go in for better space research?

India is poised to take greater strides in space-based innovations. Our proposed moon mission lists us among the few countries which are capable of being there.

Instead of berating the Dr Manmohan Singh Government, the Communists, the BJP and other parties should offer critical support to enable the country to reap the fruits of new-found relations with the US.

O J's Corner : Reflections

Let there be no politicking
on farmers’ woes

Amidst thousands of fraudsters, our rural farmers, who are the most honest folks in the country, are burdened with debts and liabilities beyond their control.

Thousands of our farmers, who are the real sons of the soil, have taken their lives in States like Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

They could not repay the loans taken from banks and private financial institutions. They have committed suicide to save their honour. In villages and countryside, family honour stands above all other issues. That they cannot repay a debt itself is unbearable for them. Their personality is conditioned to abiding by gentleman’s agreements.

Another tragedy is that the banks and other lenders would get the farmlands attached. For a farmer, loss of his farmland is unthinkable.

They are not like politicians and operators who can withstand any sordid situation.

The country, which is being reckoned as one of the major world players, cannot afford to ignore the genuine woes of the farmers. Whether they are cultivating wheat, rice, cotton, sugar-cane, oil seeds, cash crops or hill produce, they contribute to the backbone of Indian food and other requirements.

I would say farmers should be respected more than anyone else. Think of the days when because of their sheer gut wisdom and planting amidst the vagaries of nature, they replenished the granaries.

They were on the vanguard of introducing modern techniques of cultivation when scientists advised them to switch over to high-yielding varieties. Now also they are prone to accepting genetically-modified and exotic varieties.

Their intention is clear and pure. They want to produce more. It is the duty of the government to ensure sustenance to them, sot that they would not commit suicide.

Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, a no-nonsense man who is not a core politician, is visiting Vidarbha region of Maharashtra today. As many as 592 farmers there have preferred to embrace death to living in abject misery for failure of paying off debts and forfeiture of lands.

It is agonisingly  apprehensive that Maharashtra strongman and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar is not accompanying the Prime Minister during his visit to the Vidarbha region.
There can be so many arguments and alibis, but refusing to meet the farmers when the Prime Minister himself is taking stock of the field situation will not help the ryots. The plea that Congress is set to take credit for announcing ameliorative schemes by the Prime Minister does not warrant playing truant on the occasion.

It seems a lot of bad blood has been generated in the relations between the Congress and Sharad Pawar’s party, the NCP. Standing on ceremonies when the farmers are in dire straits cannot be condoned.

It is not that the Prime Minister is addressing the problems of Vidarbha farmers alone, but similar projects can be worked out for adversesly-affected farmers of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere. Think about the plight of a farmer who had chosen the office of a co-operative bank from which he had taken loan to end his life!

WTO, World Bank regimes or subsidy constraints, farmers have to be led out of the Green House effect of their lives.

O J's Corner : Reflections

Rajiv Gandhi’s killers

The confessions of Anton Balasingham, the ideologue of LTTE, that the terrorist organisation deeply regrets the assassination of Indian icon Rajiv Gandhi do not create a bit of pathos. The remarks do not generate feelings of sadness and sympathy.

On the contrary, his statement does provide moments of comic bathos. It has been a U-turn from the terrorist organisation’s assertions on the assassination. By doing so the LTTE has trivialised the most brutal elimination of the scion of a family that has been the heart-throbe of millions of people right from the pre-Independence days.

Some of Rajiv’s actions, committed out of political immaturity among the wily tribe of opportunists here and elsewhere in the world, might have been flawed.

Balasingham’s was not an outburst to the NDTV interviewer, but calculated tactics to involve India one way or other in the conflict causing conflagration in Sri Lanka these days. LTTE is at war with the Sri Lankan Government. That is its business. It thinks that this outfit alone is capable of protecting the Tamils in the island nation.

It may have its strengths, but a close confidant of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the chief of an outlawed outfit and wanted by India in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, making suggestions to draw sympathy from Rajiv Gandhi’s family and the people of India to fetch intervention for the terrorist organisation to wriggle out of the war in Lanka is far-fetched.

LTTE may want the hawks in Tamil Nadu to implead its case before the UPA Government led by Dr Manmohan Singh. That by being terribly sorry about the “monumental historical blunder” of eliminating the soul of Indian progress, it thinks that political parties in Tamil Nadu would clamour for India providing help to it.

Balasingham had said if the past was put aside and a new approach made, the possibility of India playing a positive role in bringing a resolution to the conflict in Lanka would be available.

The LTTE did not want India to intervene militarily. Neither did it want India to play a mediator’s role as long as it kept LTTE outlawed.

India banned LTTE as a terrorist organisation in 1992 and Prabhakaran is wanted in the country for Rajiv Gandhi’s killing.

India should persuade Sri Lanka politically and diplomatically to seek a negotiated settlement as made out by Balasingham.
Dr Manmohan Singh had urged Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to keep the armed forces at bay from killing innocent civilians. Also there should be ways to provide some form of regional autonomy.

Tamils’ plea for honorable living conditions in Sri Lanka cannot be faulted. That there should be or should not be armed conflict, terrorist operations and guerrilla warfare for achieving their objective is their look-out.

I don’t think LTTE would come to terms with anything short of a separate Tamil eelam in the long run, whatever its professions on the contrary when confronted with short-term solutions. It is already a country within a country.

America will not condone its terrorism anymore. On that strength, Pakistan’s  ISI cannot contribute much to its kitty.

Let us better be hands off Lanka, for LTTE cannot be trusted. Its emissaries had met Rajiv Gandhi early in May 1991. Within a fortnight, it had killed India’s most promising Prime Minister.

O J's Corner : Reflections

Criminalised politicians or
politicised criminals ?

I have been an admirer of the vibrancy of Indian democracy. Soviet Union was as diverse as India with a plethora of languages, cultures and religions. Now we know that the Soviet Union was held together by the steel hand of Stalinism.

The moment Mikhail Gorbachev followed up perestroika and glasnost, people began breathing fresh air of freedom. Then there was no going back. The people had won when the Stalinist State had lost. When a lot of intellectuals throw stones against Gorbachev for “causing the disintegration” of Soviet Union, I salute him for providing freedom for a mass of humanity. I consider him as the saviour of Soviet people.

By eulogising Gorbachev, this is not an attempt at denigrating Communism, but praising him for providing an opportunity for the Communist Party to work in a multi-party set-up. Let it exist in Russia, China, India, America and elsewhere among other parties. Let it not be a one-party monolith.

The point is the Soviet Union had crumbled, whereas India with similar multiplicity of languages, people, culture and religion holds forth as one entity. It has its strengths and weaknesses. Its people, most of them uneducated, are wise enough to boot out the no-good governments from time to time.

But that is the only thing they can do. They cannot root out corruption in public life, let alone do anything against criminalisation of politics, even though they express their strong resentment at the hustings.

Democracy has been spick and span in the country so far, but a large number of politicians don’t mind committing , condoning, abetting and suppressing criminal acts. Conversely, criminals infiltrate the political spectrum to get away with their wrong-doings.

The killing of Pramod Mahajan by his brother, the cocaine acts of his son Rahul Mahajan and the dope death of his secretary Vivek Moitra cannot be considered as mere family tragedy.

Was it not criminalisation relating to some aspects of the lives of these people that ended up in this tragedy? Dubious sources hold sway over politicians and they wield power, with someone holding the reins from behind the curtains.

Manu Sharma, son of Congress Minister Vinod Sharma, was seen shooting Jessica Lal. He, however, managed to get acquitted.

There were cogent pieces of evidence against Vikas Yadav, son of former Rajya Sabha MP, in the Nitish Kataria murder case. But he has escaped conviction.

Amarmani Tripathi, Samajwadi Party Minister in the Mulayam Singh Yadav Government, has not been convicted for murdering his girl-friend Madhumita Shukla.

There are umpteen instances of escape of criminalised politicians or politicised criminals.

Sanjay Singh and Amita Modi went scot-free in the Syed Modi murder case.

Sanjay Singh’s present wife Amita was the wife of Syed Modi when the badminton champion was shot dead in public. Sanjay Singh was former Janata Dal Minister. Now he is a Congressman. Amita is BJP’s MLA.

Criminals have crept into realms of money, power, caste and culture. The process is capable of eroding the democratic edifice, which the 100-crore mass of imageless people have kept strong and safe.

O J's Corner : Reflections

India magnified

Indian tag appears to be pre-eminent the world over these days. The picture about the country is clear now unlike in the past when the world view was confined to a hazy vision.

The foggy-eyed foreigners have to change their perception about India as the land of snake charmers, sadhus and slum-dwellers. Of course, all these elements make a mark, which actually define our multi-coloured entity.

Think about the dichotomy. When 700 million Indians are living in poverty, the country has been generating millionaires.

The number of High Net Worth Individuals in the country went up from 70,000 in 2004 to 83,000 in 2005, each worth more than $ one million, according to a World Wealth Report. The growth in this category last year was by 20 per cent. India was second only to South Korea which produced 21.3 per cent more millionaires. Russia accounted for 1,03,000 millionaires, a growth registering 17 per cent.

The millionaires club in the US registered a slump from 9.9 per cent to 6.8 per cent.
That does not mean that the Americans are pass compared to Indians. One in 100 Americans is a millionaire while only one in 13,000 made the mega buck in India.

With 700 million poor inhabiting the country, the 83,000 millionaires roaming around is a fabulous achievement.

Let us consider some of the issues which received world attention these days.

India would be factored in by the world community when the US passes legislation to endorse the US-India civilian nuclear agreement exempting India from fulfilling certain requirements.

The US House of Representatives’ International Relations Committee has finalised the draft of the legislation. It will be placed before the House of Representatives on July 4, the US Independence Day.

July 11 would be the D-day for the House of Representatives to take up the legislation to exempt India from the purview of certain provisions in the US Atomic Energy Act 1954. President Bush is optimistic about the legislation being carried.

Another important development relates to the candidature of Shashi Tharoor, a Keralite, for election as the UN Secretary-General. Three other Asian candidates from Sri Lanka, South Korea and Thailand are in the fray, with Singapore’s former Prime Minister  Goh Chok Tong poised to join the race.

The decisive moves would gain firm ground only in October since the post falls vacant only on December 31, when Kofi Annan calls it a day as UN Secretary-General after completing a two-term tenure.

Well, the fact that Shashi Tharoor could establish his candidature has thrown light to the world on India’s prospects. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council have to clear the names for anyone to don the mantle. That India is in the reckoning is its strength re-inforced.

Another episode may have nothing to do with actual Indian achievement, but it has  Indian roots. Mittal-Arcelor merger to become the worlds’ largest steel venture has an Indian-origin connection. Lakshmi Mittal, the owner of the Mittal Steel Company, is an NRI. He has been living in London and his company has headquarters in Luxemburg, but he is a person of Indian origin.

Fellows, we are really a force to reckon with in the world view not only regarding physical wealth and power, but also metaphysical wealth in the form of Vedas and Upanishads.

O J's Corner : Reflections

What is crucial about
July 25, 2007?

What is the importance of July 25, 2007? That is the day when President A P J Abdul Kalam’s term of office would be over. Unless the Government gives him a second term, he might go back to his pet profession of honorary teaching. He revels in being a professor.

However, his exit from the Rashtrapati Bhavan might coincide with the entry of new and younger heavy-weights in the Indian political panorama.

What I mean to say is that Rahul Gandhi is poised to enter active service by that time.

Corridors of power in Delhi are abuzz with hush-hush tit-bits of conversation about  Dr Manmohan Singh calling it a day as the Prime Minister.

It does not need much hair-splitting about Dr Manmohan Singh only filling the gap for a while for Rahul Gandhi to groom up.

The people had given the mandate for Sonia Gandhi to rule the country. But by quirk of circumstances, on May 19, 2004, Dr Manmohan Singh was invited by the President to become the Prime Minister of India. For Sonia Gandhi had decided that if she could not become the Premier herself, the next best ad hoc choice was Dr Manmohan Singh only. On the occasion, she had mollified the party acolytes that the country was in the safe hands of Dr Manmohan Singh.

Whoever says otherwise, I don’t believe  when  a jubilant Sonia Gandhi met President Abdul Kalam after winning the elections and confidence of various allies, including the Left, she thought circumstances would turn topsy-turvy for her.

The country was boiling over during the time as the BJP had stepped up its campaign against the foreigner tag of Sonia Gandhi. Even though constitutionally there was nothing to hold her back, communal forces would have been successful in fomenting trouble.

It may be noted that in the surcharged circumstances, Dr Abdul Kalam had invited Sonia Gandhi for discussions and not for swearing her in right away.

Taking everything into consideration, and concerned about the disruption of tranquillity of the country, it was most considerate of her to have renounced the opportunity.

She had offered the post on a platter to Dr Manmohan Singh who cannot feel hurt when he would be offered senior assignments to give way for Rahul Gandhi to take over.

And it should be the bounden duty of the countrymen to compensate her sufficiently for her sacrifice. If the Congress and allies decide to bring in Rahul Gandhi, communal elements would not be able to kick up a groundswell of opposition.

But India being a vibrant democracy, the BJP cannot be flawed for its campaign against dynastic rule.

In fact, they should discharge its democratic duty and deal with the rivals politically. The Congress should do its bit to settle down.

But all should wait till the induction of another President in Rashtrapati Bhavan which would augur well for re-arrangement of spoils of office and finding space for the present incumbents.

O J's Corner : Reflections

Education, the Achilles’ heel
for Communists

Communists see red when it comes to the subject of education. Their avowed aim is to secure education for all. Rather, opportunities for all to have education, including professional education.

They vouchsafe it for a fact that the State cannot provide education, let alone professional education, to all aspirants.

I think they have come down from the age-old conviction that everything should be State provided.

Do they want private agencies to impart education to all, including professional education where the State has failed?

It is pure bravado on their part to force the private agencies to set up infrastructure, admit students and impart quality education at the rate of fee being fixed by them. Trying to do so is an extreme step.

The managements on their part should come clean on certain issues. There cannot be hanky-panky in admitting students only to corner fabulous amounts by way of fee or other pretexts.

The confusing state of affairs prevalent in the State centres round the rigidity of both the government and the managements to have their way about education. Dogmatic approach of the Communists and free-for-all demand of the managements would run on  parallel lines. Both should come to a compromise.

It appears fear of the opposite party is the stumbling block for a rapprochement. Who is there to act as an arbitrator? Or at least who will inspire both sides to take confidence-building measures?

That the government will not allow the managements to have their own common entrance test for admission of students in their institutions may not hold good before a court of law. There has not been any complaint before a court of law about mala fide in the conduct of the common entrance test conducted by them.

That the managements levying the fee fixed by Justice K T Thomas, appointed by the Supreme Court, cannot be conceded would end up in being dubbed as dialectical over-enthusiasm.

Control measures being adopted by the government at the instance of the Communists is on the premise that all professional colleges can be brought under governmental supervision considering all of them as similar players in the field.

For one thing, they are not on an equal footing. A majority of the private professional course operators are from the minority communities. They may not be running the show in all justice and fair play.

But they have the great weapon of Article 30 (1) of the Constitution guarding them. They can have educational institutions of their choice by which admission and appointments are within their purview. This has been settled by the Supreme Court umpteen times. Which means the issue has been challenged all the times in all futility.

The challenge to the minority status conferred on institutions by the Minorities Commission as demanded by the private managements concerned would only distance some sections of the society from the government.

Ultimately, who will suffer the in-equity? With the sole intention of reining in the minority institutions, the government has brought in the bridling provisions. When they get away with their affairs through the apex court, the other institutions would be left high and dry as they would have to bear the burden of government fiat on fee.

O J's Corner : Reflections

Mega Soft Bill Gates

Suppose a hard-working man works for 14 hours a day and he is worth a million dollars per hour. His worth is further computed to 300 dollars per second.

Should he drop a $ 1000 bill on the ground, it is not worth his time to bend over and pick it up, assuming that it takes four seconds to bend down and pocket the bill. Of course, he can afford to hire people to pick up the bill for him.

Wonder, who would be this chap? None other than William Henry Gates III, born on October 28, 1955, who married Melinda French Gates on January 1, 1994. People call him simply Bill Gates. And they have three children.

Forbes International Rich List has ranked him as the world’s riches person for the last 12 years running.

Fortunately the richie does not think much of his wealth or time the way his moment’s worth is computed.

He is chairman, Microsoft Corporation, and its former chief software architect and  chief executive officer. He has announced his retirement from day-to-day activities at Microsoft, to take up philanthropic activities along with his wife.

He will devote his energies to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation activities for which he has committed $ 28.8 billion.

Hats off to him who has bestowed half of his personal fortunes to philanthropic deeds, including fight against AIDS, malaria, TB and other diseases in India and elsewhere.

Famously known as a Harvard drop-out, don’t think for a moment that he was a lazy absentee from classes. He was too brilliant to spend his time in classes when he could, on his own, launch software entrepreneurial venture.

He introduced Windows in the eighties and revolutionised computer applications at the click of a mouse.

Call him wonder kid, whiz kid or wizard, this software genius has proved to be mega soft to problems confronting the world such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

In 1999, Gates wrote Business@the Speed of Thought, a book that shows how computer technology can solve business problems in drastically new ways. The book has been published in 25 languages and is available in more than 60 countries.

His speed is in terms of the frequency of thought. No wonder Gates was briefly jailed in Albuquerque for racing his Porsche 911 in the New Mexico desert.

His love of computer and software is unsurpassed. But he has also founded Corbis, which is developing one of the world’s largest resources of visual information, a comprehensive digital archive of art and photography from public and private collections around the globe.

Gates has turned a new leaf in the history of billionaires, for whom lust for power, riches and influence is insatiable. The more they indulge in, the greater will they lust after these. They don’t know when to stop.

But here is the mega soft moneyed man for whom money is not the be-all and the  end-all. His calling is to serve humanity now. I am sure he will prove to be the most innovative service provider.

O J George, the creator of this blog, is the Executive Editor of Nattupathram, a local Malayalam eveninger, which is akin to a county paper.

As part of digression, he writes a column in English titled, O J’s Corner, every day.

Nattupathram is different from other Afternoon papers and eveningers. It follows the edict, “Facts are sacred, Comment is free”. It is a no non-sense newspaper. It does not flourish on murder, rape and other sensational stories.

It stands for people’s welfare through positive journalism.

O J's Corner : Reflections

Depleting grain buffer

People take stock of the trends of prevailing as well as promising production to predict the futures market of any commodity.

We have stumbled upon a world situation in which food grain production is dwindling, so much so that it is a matter of concern.

Washington-based Earth Policy Institute has drawn a grim picture of world food grain production this year.

It would have a cascading effect on overpopulated Indian sub-continent and sub-Saharan Africa, where most of the world’s hungry people live.

One should not be baffled by the statistics reeled out by world watch bodies, but statistics apart, the situation would be serious in price fluctuation.

The world food grain production would be down by 61 million tonnes for people’s consumption.

At the end of the year, the buffer stock would be sufficient to feed the people for 57 days only. This is going to be a record, rather bad record, for the have-nots. When prices soar, the hungry would face serious starvation problems.

We have not faced such an eventuality since 1972, when the buffer stock had come down to 56 days. The consequences were phenomenal, the prices had doubled and inflation had shot up, forcing the people to squirm. It worked like a double jeopardy as the earnings were poor.

Thank God, India had woken up to the scenario and invited bids to import 3.5 million tonnes of wheat. The US had predicted that wheat prices would increase by 14 per cent this year.

Worried by booming oil prices which had sent shivers down the spine of   importing countries, India being in the ring, the country has to hunt for food as well. Importing both would stymie the economy. The negative potential would be far more remarkable for other importing countries.

In spite of the best efforts of providing irrigation facilities, Indian farmers have been at the mercy of the vagaries of the monsoons. It appears the total rainfall would not be wholesome for the farmers.

Rise in summer temperature during the growing season results in considerable decline in the harvest output.

Moreover, the water table in most of the grain-growing countries is depleting. This is more true in the case of India and China who harbour half of the world’s population.

One should note that India has called for a second green revolution calling for better production and productivity. We should produce more from less extent of land.

Norman Borlaug had taught us how to leapfrog into grain production when we were on the verge of starvation. Messiahs come when the people need them.

By statistics, rate of population is slowing down, but the number of people being added on earth every year is 70 million. We have to provide them food, for which production should get a boost one way or other.

The point of concern is that this additional burden of human resources would be largely confined to the Indian sub-continent and sub-Saharan Africa.

In the face of it, our estimates of wheat production this year has fallen from 73 million tonnes to 68 million tonnes.

Let us manage the situation, and manage it sumptuously, going in for better irrigation and consequent production as well as requisite import to feed us all.

O J's Corner : Reflections

Signs in the Sun,
Moon and Stars

Humanity’s pursuit of knowledge has been there from the time of Creation, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

Man must go on probing, inventing and finding new destinations.

He was created in the Image of God, who did not sit idle. In the Beginning God went to work, He created. Genesis focuses attention on the creative, hard-working God, who found every work of creation good.

Therefore, human beings should not sit idle. They conquered the land and explored the vast expanse of the Oceans before launching on the Space Odyssey.

President John F Kennedy had annuounced Man would land on Moon within a decade. Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin landed on the  Moon on July 19, 1969.

Several missions followed before America called off their manned Moon missions.

Later manned missions have been taking off for exploring the space. Now there is an international space station occupied by Americans and Russians.

Unmanned missions have been sent out to Mars. Pictures have come from Mars.

In this indefatigable ingenuity of man, there have been disasters. Columbia had disintegrated in space wiping out all the crew members, including Kalpana Chawla of India.

That should not deter the “crown and glory of all creations” from probing beyond the known. What majesty it is to delve deep into the unknown?
Now it is the turn of another woman of Indian origin to be part of the next international space station expedition.

She is none other than Sunita Williams who can be dubbed as a sort of NRI. Sunita is an American citizen and was born and brought up there.

She will be the flight engineer in the three-member crew for this six-month long expedition to the international space station. She is expected to join the crew in the international space station in December.

The mission will be commanded by veteran astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria. The other member is Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin.

Sunita is endowed with a unique family background as being born to father Dr Deepak Pandya, who was originally from Gujarat. He lectures on neuro-science at the Harvard and Boston University medical schools. Her mother is Ursaline, an X-ray technician of Yugoslavian descent.

Come to think of her ambitions. Unlike Kalpana Chawla, she did not want to become a pilot, let alone an astronaut. In her childhood she wanted to become a veterinarian.

The gamut of her aspirations changed when she joined the US Naval Pilot School from where she graduated in 1993. The career graph rose when she was selected by NASA as a trainee astronaut in 1998. From then on there was no looking back. Brave woman, all of us are proud of you.

By now she has logged over 2770 flight hours in more than 30 different aircraft.

She is married to Michael J Williams, a US marshal.

Jesus Christ had said of the end of the age. There will be signs in the Sun, Moon and Stars.

Our compatriots are looking for signs everywhere floating in the space.

O J's Corner: Reflections

O J George, the creator of this blog, is the Executive Editor of Nattupathram, a local Malayalam  eveninger, which is akin to a county paper.

As part of digression, he writes a column in English titled, O J’s Corner, every day.

Nattupathram is different from other Afternoon papers and eveningers. It follows the edict, “Facts are sacred, Comment is free”. It is a no non-sense newspaper. It does not flourish on murder, rape and other sensational stories.

It stands for people’s welfare through positive journalism.

O J's Corner : Reflections

Good we are in the fray
For UN post

India has told the world that it is a force to reckon with when it comes to UN  matters. We have already announced the candidature of Sasi Tharoor for the post of UN Secretary-General.

He has been working as Under Secretary-General (Communication and Public Information) of the world body.

The vacancy would arise on December 31, when Kofi Annan would demit office after a second five-year term.

The Security Council should give its recommendations to the General Assembly about the new incumbent.

Which means the five permanent members, the US, Russia, Britain, France and China, can exercise their veto power.

There is no covenant, but by tradition, the post is occupied by persons chosen from regions by rotation.

The UN has 191 member nations, of which a majority belong to African and Asian regions. They believe that now it is the turn of Asia to get the post.

The only previous Asian Secretary-General was Burma’s (now Myanmar) U Thant who served from 1961 to 1971 when Cold War was at its climax.

Kofi Annan of Ghana was chosen after Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt exited on the plea that the African had completed only one term.

Indian media have, justifiably, been concentrating on the candidature of Sasi Tharoor. Pakistan is angling to field its own candidate or seeking ways to oppose the Indian choice.

As enlightened public we should know that there are other aspirants.

The Big five nations have so far been keeping out of the fray ostensibly because the UN was their pocket borough for all practical purposes as they have the veto power.

Now some of them are on the look-out for the possibility to corner the world body’s hot seat.

It was rumoured that former US President Bill Clinton had the inclination to try his hand. Former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos was also named in various reports earlier. Lately, Clinton and Lagos have bowed out of the race.

Clinton himself  has suggested Tony Blair, the controversy-marred Prime Minister of the UK. It is public knowledge that he will have to make way for his colleague Gordon Brown before his second term ends as British PM. People are looking for a way-out for Blair.

China appears to be backing the candidature of Thai Deputy Surakiart Sathirathai, who claims to have the support of the US, Russia and most of the Association of South-East Nations.

Former UN disarmament chief Jayanta Dhanapala of Sri Lanka is also a strong contender for the post.

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, Finland President Tarja Halonen and Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga have set their sights on for  grabbing the post.

There is another angle about the fair sex having been denied the post all these 60 years since the inception of the UN.

Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway and former Director-General of WHO is touted to be a possible candidate in addition to New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and New Zealand Governor-General Dame Sylvia Cartwright.

Of course, many of the aspirants would vanish when a consensus is reached among the big powers about the Asian claim. It is certain that Pakistan would play foul with Indian candidature. But we have raised our banner high. Let us hope it will flutter atop the UN.

O J's Corner : Reflections

By all means try
alternatives

India is a vibrant democracy which can try all sorts of alternatives to the present UPA dispensation at government formation.

In fact, the Left parties have made it clear that they would try to cobble together a third front in Indian politics. They have always been fed up with the BJP and now they cannot stand the Congress.

With Left-dominated Governments formed in West Bengal and Kerala, they are itching for a show-down with the Congress at the Centre, thinking that they have renewed strength.

In the Lok Sabha, their strength remains the same at 60. The NDA has 185 MPs and the UPA conglomeration is supported by 217 MPs. The Left offers outside support. Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav has been supporting the UPA Government, in spite of Sonia Gandhi berating him in UP and vice-versa.

CPM general secretary Prakash Karat has, of late, been showing a tendency to browbeat Congress and its leader Sonia Gandhi by flaunting new-found friends for the Communists.

The CPM has forged an understanding with Telugu Desam Party of Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh for the ensuing panchayat elections there. Paradoxically, the CPI and Congress are fielding candidates by common understanding.

Another development is that NCP leader Sharad Pawar has fallen out with the Congress in Maharashtra over support to industrialist Rahul Bajaj in the Rajya Sabha. Congress had wanted Pawar to support its candidate, but he chose to give a helping hand to Bajaj.

There are reports that Pawar is gravitating towards Shiv Sena, the situation promising to snowball into a showdown with the Congress.

The bargaining by the Left to have a good say in the UPA affairs had not been clinched to its satisfaction. The Left has been following a carrot-and-stick policy in supporting the UPA Government led by Dr Manmohan Singh. The carrot has been its outside support and the stick its fulminations as an Opposition Party.

In opposing the Congress policies, it has been sticking to out-Herod the Herod. BJP was nowhere near the Left in opposing the Congress policies and practices with regard to foreign and economic affairs.

With the possibility of   Sharad Pawar stamping out of UPA,  Mulayam Singh Yadav and TDP offering an olive branch to the Left’s efforts, Karat thinks that an alternative could be worked out.

With its 60 votes in the kitty, the Left hopes to garner support from Pawar ( nine MPs), TDP (Five MPs), Mulayam Singh Yadav (36 MPs) and many others. Lalu Prasad Yadav has 21 MPs, Mayawati  18 and the like.

But when it comes to brass-tacks, the government is formed by sheer numbers. The Congress and BJP together have more than 270 members. If the Left cannot ensure their support, how will it be possible for forming a third front government?

Don’t lose heart, comrades. Politics being the art of the possible, there will be other alternatives. Perhaps it can think of outside support from the NDA, if it works out.

Nothing can be ruled out in the present-day politics. Who thought that a so-called secularist like former Prime Minister Deve Gowda would secretly agree to his son forming a government with the support of the BJP in Karnataka? Now he has openly sided with this coalition.

What I mean to urge the third-front gazers is, by all means deal with Congress politically. Try to forge another government. At the same time, let the Congress and the BJP pursue their policies and programmes. Let the best emerge out of the manoeuvres. This is the strength of dynamic democracy of India.

O J's Corner : Reflections

Father’s Day

Years ago I read an article in the Readers’ Digest about what the author remembered most about his father.

The family members were returning from the city after shopping. It had turned dark and they had to drive along a foresty patch. They could see a lot of glow-worms in the bushes. The children rushed towards the spot where their father also joined them. He helped them collect the fire-flies in a jar, which they carried home and frolicked with the twinkling beings.

A small incident has got etched in the hearts and minds of younglings. The gesture may be puny, but the impact is prominent.

I remember my father in our village home making coir ropes for us to be used as swings during Onam time every year. He did not have the confidence to use the coir ropes we could purchase from the store. He thought such ropes were not strong enough to carry our weights and these might break. All of us children had a gala time on the home-made swing for about a fortnight.

I don’t know what my son regards me for most. But I remember he had filled up his best-friend column in the school notebook with his father’s name. I think that is the best tribute I can get as father.

My father and I were walking back home in the dark one day when I was a kid. There was a house strutting the road from which a mongrel puppy rushed under my feet. As a matter of quick reflex I stamped on the bitumenised road. The puppy got scared and started bawling. The householder, a father figure, age-wise, came out and thrashed me verbally for no fault of mine.

I could not forget this incident whenever I chanced to see this fellow afterwards. During his old age he was milk and honey in his behaviour towards me. Even as he breathed his last, the memory lingered on. That is the other side of Father’s Day memories.

Great Malayalam literary critic M Krishnan Nair had written in his column about the ill-treatment he had received from his father who was a cop. He would not call the old man father, but only progenitor. Sad state of affairs in a family.

Father’s Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June. This year it falls on June 18.
Let us leave a trajectory of fond memories for the children.

Humour, typically, has been the language when we remember about our father. The guy always teased, cracked a joke, found lots of ways to make us laugh and never missed an opportunity to embarrass us in front of our friends.

Rarely would he have said he loved us, but the children felt the warmth in his glance, care and protection which carried us through thick and thin.

Fathers Day is an opportunity to improve a relationship, reconnect if it is ruptured and say “thank you” for all the good things he had provided us.

O J's Corner : Reflections

Tap Chinese connection

Good news has come from Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee after his visit to China that there would be space for India and China to develop the way they wanted.

For the first time, there have been indications of both the countries establishing defence ties.

As a prelude, there would be joint military exercises between Indian Army and Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Defence and military exchanges would be institutionalised.

The 2.5 million-strong PLA is double the size of Indian forces.

By establishing military rapport and an annual defence dialogue for “a frank exchange of views on all military matters of mutual concern”, the two countries are embarking on confidence building, leaving aside suspicions which had lingered on since the 1962 war.

Now it is old story that NDA’s  Defence Minister George Fernandes had portrayed China as our “potential threat number one”. That comment was made close on the heels of our detonating a nuclear device, inviting heavy objection from world powers.

Pakistan’s special relationship with China is no bar on India to have strategic ties with China.

Another piece of good news is that the border trade between the two countries would resume on June 30 through the Nathu La Pass in Sikkim, after a gap of 44 years.

Resumption of trade between the two Asian giants through the Himalayan Pass would cement bilateral relations.

Another area for osmosis between the two peoples is cultural-filmy. People thought Raj Kapoor craze was confined to Russia. But Indian films were a rage in China as well, though the Cultural Revolution had squeezed out the arts from the minds of the people.

Song and dance and music shots are thrillers for them now. With China having 5000 movie halls, there is untapped potential for Indian movies to hang out there.

India and China are great repositories of wealth by way of massive stocks of human beings. Indian workers do not labour for more than the minimum essential duration.

The Chinese counterpart grabs the opportunities and contribute to massive production.

After World War II, which humbled Japan, the people, though few in number compared to China and India, toiled hard for upto 18 hours a day. The industriousness of the people made the country rise from the ashes, Phoenix-like.

That is why wealth got accumulated there.

The US and the UK also derived  wealth in different ways. The US acquired it from mass production in farms and cotton fields using the services of slaves and then growing from this wealth industrially. The first wave had given them enough resources to excel in the second and third wave phases.

The UK, with colonial grip worldwide, amassed wealth over a period of centuries. After leaving the colonies, the country, comprising small islands, could thrive on the spoils.

Development cannot happen in a cash vacuum. The developed nations had got enough resources through plunder.

Tenacity and hard work is the alternative for growth as exemplified by Japan.

China and India have the common resources of human potential. With education picking up, the two countries would soar to new heights.

This best explains the fear of the developed countries about the two Asian giants emerging to occupy the centre space of world affairs in future. So, hang on with the Red Dragon.

O J's Corner: Reflections

O J George, the creator of this blog, is the Executive Editor of Nattupathram, a local Malayalam  eveninger, which is akin to a county paper.

As part of digression, he writes a column in English titled, O J’s Corner, every day.

Nattupathram is different from other Afternoon papers and eveningers. It follows the edict, “Facts are sacred, Comment is free”. It is a no non-sense newspaper. It does not flourish on murder, rape and other sensational stories.

It stands for people’s welfare through positive journalism.