VOX POPULI by Aam Admi

Issue: 109

Date: 21.04.2012

Contents:

1. Subhash Ghai's Confusion

2. Sharad Pawar: The Champion of Farmers!

3. Rahul Gandhi's Genealogy

4. Sharad Pawar - The ‘Bheegi Billi’ in Delhi

5. Bengal's Image At Stake

6. India’s Foreign Policy In A Shambles

Subhash Ghai's Confusion

The Subhash Ghai & his Whistling Woods acting school issue of the land he got in Goregaon in which Vilasrao Deshmukh, the then CM has been shown to be complicit is representative of the deeper rot of corruption that is part of the body politic particularly of the Congress party today. People like Subhash Ghai are no babe in the woods and consort with politicians for obtaining precisely these kind of favours and once caught in the act, play holier than thou. Thus we should not listen to people like him since for a similar land allocation issue again for his Whistling Woods acting school he has been hauled up again in Andhra Pradesh. The adage of the thief not giving up but striking again with the same modus operandi thus becomes true once again. Therefore people from the film fraternity like Shabana Azmi and Govind Nihalani whom people of this nation respect should not get involved in these controversies. Subhash Ghai has created the problem and therefore let him fend for himself. He has also been bluffing that he can easily move the acting school into new premises in Mumbai. Then what is he waiting for? Is the stricture of the Supreme Court not enough? Let him vacate the existing land immediately. He has also been lately canvassing for support from politicians of various hues claiming that he can prove that he is innocent of complicity in the land allotment. Then for a man of his resources why could he not get the best lawyers and do it before the High Court and then the Supreme Court to clear his name. A clear case of bad judgment or crying now after the milk has been spilt.

Sharad Pawar: The Champion of Farmers!

Sharad Pawar currently championing the ‘cause’ of farmers in the case of pursuing cotton and sugar exports has also the ‘credit’ of having the largest number of farmer suicides during his continuing tenure as Agriculture Minister. In cotton, the export benefits the traders lobby through whom exports are done. Pawar’s logic that banning exports helps the cotton mill owners among which the government also figures as a large owner through NTC is not understood. This is the existing system which has been going on and should domestic cotton mill owners not get their requirements locally? Is the need to clothe our own people not important? If there had to be a change could Sharad Pawar not have initiated it early enough so that a proper application of mind was possible. The hurry to allow cotton exports to resume smacks of underhand dealings with the cotton export trade lobby. The same is also true for sugar exports where despite the Commerce & Food Ministries following the guidelines set up by Pawar himself while he was heading the Food ministry and surprisingly now he himself is finding fault with it now. If the EGOM decision on sugar exports policy changes are not notified then what Pawar has to do is until then to follow the present rule until the new one comes into force. Here again Pawar is blaming the Shipping & Ports ministry since per his estimates Indian ports can handle only 3 lakh tones of sugar exports in a month and therefore the currently approved 3 Million tonnes of sugar exports will take 10 months by which time another harvest would have come in. The questions that begs asking by the common citizen is that inspite of all this surplus sugar in the godowns why is the price of sugar not coming down? There are also reports given the massive foodgrain stocks in our godowns far exceeding the recommended buffer stock of 30 million tones, the government is thinking of distributing these stocks in lieu of wages for the MNREGA program. On this again Sharad Pawar has got together with Food Minister Thomas when they rarely see eye to eye since Pawar quit the Food ministry which is a good idea. But it is bound to create a mess under the public distribution program where BPL and APL families are supposed to get subsidized foodgrains. There are two other problems with this idea. First, we were all told that the public distribution system is not able to reach the rural areas with any degree of regularity. So how would the grain payments under the MNREGA program reach the beneficiaries? If it is through the same leaky public distribution system or a separate network then it is yet another harebrained scheme to benefit vested interests and for traders to hijack these stocks easily. Secondly, the MNREGA program beneficiaries cannot live with grains alone and that is where the wages they get would have got, enabled them to buy other things that they need like edible oil, salt etc. The payment by foodgrains for MNREGA program beneficiaries is ostensibly since our FCI and other food godowns are full and with the new harvest coming in there is no place to keep the grains before the next monsoon sets in. Did we not know this for the last 3 years since when we have been talking of limited godown storage capacity and grains rotting everywhere inside godowns and what is stored in the open? If so, why were no arrangements made to build warehouses or at least temporary shelters in this period? Why are these ministers coming up with these brilliant suggestions just a couple of months before the monsoon sets in? Is it to take shelter under the standard recourse – I told you so, when the problem really sets in? When will our ministers learn to take action in time.

Rahul Gandhi's Genealogy

One of the national papers reported on the review by the Congress party of its debacle in the UP Assembly elections as - Matters came to an interesting point during a recent review meeting when the upper caste/Brahmin argument was invoked by a local UP leader saw Congress leader Rahul Gandhi rebutting the claim by remarking "I am a Brahmin...and general secretary in the party." Correction according to genealogy, Rahul Gandhi is ½ Italian and only ¼ of a Brahmin while the remaining ¼ is Parsi.

Sharad Pawar - The ‘Bheegi Billi’ in Delhi

Sharad Pawar had recently criticized CM Prithviraj Chavan in Mumbai for his ‘bhakri’ lunch with villagers stating that having just one lunch does not help one become aware of farmers problems. But what should be seen is that the CM has at least made a start to evolve an informal consultation with villagers. Sharad Pawar has been Agriculture Minister for donkey’s years, how many times has he had a meal with the villagers? One hand should be probably enough to count this number. Surprisingly in the lead-up to the UP Assembly elections when Rahul Gandhi was spending some nights in the houses of UP Vilagers mostly Dalits and sharing meals with them, there was nary a peep from Sharad Pawar on this. Back in Maharasthra he is roaring for the same matter against the incumbent CM. Talk of being a ‘bheegi billi – wet cat’ in Delhi and a lion in his home State.

Bengal's Image At Stake

Mamta Banerji is making a mess of governance in West Bengal. Not realizing that the people of that State have sent her to Writer’s Building after throwing out 34 years of Communist rule is a God-sent opportunity to her and the TMC, she is squandering all the goodwill that she has received until now. She keeps mouthing the words – ‘34 years of Communist rule’ but uses it to justify her misrule and excesses. Her party members have blatantly said that for the 34 years we suffered, we will extract our revenge. Otherwise why should babies continue to die in State Govt. hospitals, women continue to get raped and random fires continue to happen. The latest is the needless persecution of Prof Mahapatra of Jadavpur University for an assumed insult where there is nothing of the kind. The moment Mamta Banerji became aware of the incident she should have diffused and doused it from getting adverse publicity. She is a woman of letters and claims to be a poet which requires her to take a broader view of things. She has also been a long-time politician where it is expected that she have a sense of humour which she has also exhibited at times in the many Railway Budgets she has presented. All this seems to have left her once she climbed into the CM’s chair in Writer’s Building. Also the transfer of the lady Addl. Commissioner (Crime) who in spite of Mamta Banerji’s utterances to the contrary proved that the woman in the Park street case was indeed accosted and raped in a moving car by people who used false identities. Being quick in judgment is a virtue but it has its pitfalls in the sense that at some times the decisions may be erroneous. That is where a quiet moment of reflection is required. This is something that Mamta Banerji should learn and learn quickly. It is still not late and though she may have disenchanted the intelligentsia in Bengal, she has still not alienated them. Therefore what she should do now is to withdraw the case against Prof Mahapatra, reprimand her goons who attacked him and the other elderly man of the housing society and assure the victims and their families security of life and limb. In these incidents it is not only Mamta Banerji and the TMC’s image that is at stake but that of Bengal where once upon a time it was considered that it was a land of culture and that women and elderly people were safe compared to the rest of the country.

India’s Foreign Policy In A Shambles

India’s foreign policy is in a shambles. The latest on this was the vote in the UNHRC against Sri Lanka. What a dramatic reversal from the 1980's when Rajiv Gandhi sent the IPKF into Sri Lanka to fight the Tamil rebels (LTTE) and now we vote against a neighbour at the behest of the US. The best thing would have been to abstain. The problem has been that this UPA-2 government led by Manmohan Singh lacks the spine to stand up to its coalition partners, the DMK in this case. Jayalalithaa promptly also jumped onto the Lanka Tamils bandwagon and in a rare moment echoed the DMK’s demand. Sri Lanka has had good relations with us and but for some fishermen issues confused with the Lankan Tamil matter there have been few run-ins with that country in the recent past. Both countries need each other to keep the Indian Ocean a zone of peace. With Maldives liberal government being thrown out in a coup which India could and did little to avoid, we have an Islamic government in the saddle there. Thus exhibiting a disregard for our immediate neighbours and not nuancing our relationships with them, we are risking that we will be ringed by China into whose arms we have literally thrown Sri Lanka. Pakistan’s strongest ally today is China though they have lately been critical of Pakistan for sponsoring terror. Nepal’s Maoists are more comfortable with China than with the strangling hold of India. Thus instead of being afraid of the Chinese Navy’s dominance in the Indian Ocean region with the port of Guadar in Pakistan being developed by them, we have to look at our own foreign policy in throwing our neighbour countries into China’s arms. No amount of taking credit by our Foreign Ministry for the $10 Million bounty announced by the US on the head of Hafiz Saeed, the LeT leader based in Pakistan will take away the reality that on 26/11 our hands have been tied in trying to prove that Pakistan had a hand in it. Not only that we have spent Rs. 18 crore on keeping one of the principal attackers in the 26/11 incident, Ajmal Kasab alive in Mumbai. Talk of wasting good taxpayer’s money on garbage! India has seen a slow but steady erosion of its influence among the SAARC countries. This has led to piquant situations like Sri Lanka now raising an objection to the Kudankulam NPP, though it is some 250 KM. away. These are all reactions to the vote against Sri Lanka at the UNHRC. Even against Iran, India has been blowing hot and cold after the vote against Iran in the IAEA against their nuclear program on the prompting of the US where again India should have abstained. Where China has been outspoken about the US sanctions against Iran and even going to the extent of cautioning the US against unilateral sanctions against third countries, India has been trying to find a place to hide. India is among the countries being arm twisted by the US to reduce dependence on Iranian oil and we seem to be acquiescing to that dictat with MRPL announcing a reduction of close to 40% on receipts of Iranian crude ostensibly on ‘payment issues’. Though India has partly got Iran to accept payments for oil in Indian Rupees and to move more of its trade with India in our currency and expand volumes, these are all in the nature of the threshing of fish once it is out of the water and it is only a matter of time before we toe the US line on Iran because we have not thought of anything better to do. It is time therefore for India to take a stand with some bold initiatives on foreign policy that may come its way in the near future or even recast some of its steadfastly held current positions to retain our prestige in the South Asian region and in the rest of the world.

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