By Lucinda Marshall/04 May, 2009/Countercurrents.org
For the last eight years, there has been no shortage of things to worry about--
Bin Laden, Al Queda, Saddam Hussein, Anthrax, Bird Flu, Katrina, sub-prime mortgages, health care costs, gas pump prices, unemployment, stock price plunges and now we have H1N1, the non-Kosher virus formerly known as Swine Flu.
The news media is pigging out (sorry, I’ll try to contain myself) with 24/7 coverage of the potential pandemic and breathless reports that this is the new Black Death and millions could die. According to MSNBC, “H1N1 swine flu is seen as the biggest risk since H5N1 avian flu re-emerged in 2003, killing 257 people of 421 infected in 15 countries. In 1968 a “Hong Kong” flu pandemic killed about 1 million people globally, and a 1957 pandemic killed about 2 million. Seasonal flu kills 250,000 to 500,000 people in a normal year, including healthy children in rich countries.” However, as I write this, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that, only 12 people have died so far of this outbreak of H1N1.
To put all of this in further perspective, it is useful to compare these numbers to the annual number of deaths from other causes. According to WHO:
1 million people die from malaria each year
2 million from AIDS
2 million from air pollution
7.4 million from cancer
17.5 million from cardiovascular disease
1.6 million from tuberculosis
In other words, we KNOW that 31.5 million people will die each year from causes that in large part could be prevented, but 7 deaths a pandemic makes? Have we, as Simon Jenkins suggests in The Guardian all gone demented? Perhaps. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that WHO knows what it is talking about and that a lot of people could get sick from this virus, the question then becomes whether it is the virus we should fear or our ability to react to it.
Like any other disease, the first question should always be what is causing it and how can we prevent it, not the pharmaceutical industry driven approach of how can we (profitably) treat it with drugs such as Tamiflu, which as I noted during the bird flu scare is made by a company in which former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield has a significant financial stake.
Another critical point is that unlike birds that can fly pretty much anywhere, human and pig interaction is for the most part limited to farms, especially factory farms and circumstantial evidence indicates that this outbreak may have originated at a Smithfield Foods facility in Perote, Mexico. Grist reports that, “Smithfield operates massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated. The operations, grouped under a Smithfield subsidiary called Granjas Carroll, raise 950,000 hogs per year.” According to Grist, 30% of the population living near the plant have become ill with flu-like symptoms which they believe is due contamination from the hog factory.
But as Narco News points out, the real culprit in swine flu may be NAFTA which went into effect the same year that Smithfield opened its Mexican facility in the aftermath of being hit with huge fines for environmental pollution in the U.S., “The so-called “swine flu” exploded because an environmental disaster simply moved to Mexico where environmental and worker safety laws, if they exist, are not enforced against powerful multinational corporations.”
The issue of whether agri-business run factory farms are the source of the problem has been all but ignored by the U.S. media. Instead we are being told to stay home if sick and seek medical care if really sick. Nice advice presuming you have paid sick leave benefits and health insurance. And even for those able to seek medical care, there are real questions about the adequacy of whether our problem-plagued healthcare infrastructure to handle a massive additional medical incident. As John Nichols points out, we need to reinstate funding for pandemic response; disaster preparedness and infrastructure maintenance aren’t luxuries, they are a necessity, something we surely should have learned from Hurricane Katrina.
So while we need to take this threat seriously, we need to do so in the context of the many existing health pandemics that already exist, we need to take steps to insure that our healthcare system itself is healthy and we need to address the root causes of what allowed the conditions in which the H1N1 virus manifested and take the necessary steps to correct policies that endanger public health.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
Welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi
By Roger Alexander
Now that I have your attention...
A carefully placed remark by Arun Shourie that Narendra Modi should be the prime minister of India and Arun Jaitley's quick endorsement - “Gujarat under the leadership of Narendra Modi has emerged as a role model for India” - has unleashed paroxysmal excitement in media circles. And true to form, most corporate media outlets in the country are spending considerable resources to follow and interview not the Butcher of Gujarat but the state's “saviour”.
Not surprisingly, the BJP has been quick to cash in. So what started as a ringing endorsement of Narendra Modi's “industry and business-friendly” policies by “captains” of Indian Inc, including Anil Ambani, Sunil Mittal and Ratan Tata, is now being palmed off as gospel truth.
Indeed, even the Supreme Court's recent direction that Modi's role in the 2002 Gujarat riots be probed by the Special Investigation Team is being termed a “shot in the arm” for the chief minister by self-appointed TV commentators and pollsters.
Their electoral calculations point out that this investigation will “enhance Modi's standing”. BJP spokesman also gleefully point out that the SC's directive will help the BJP in electoral arena.
These shameless apologists don't care that Modi's so-called “Vibrant Gujarat” is a figment of their warped imagination, a PR coup. But fortunately, truth is stranger than fiction.
Vivian Fernandes of CNBC-TV18, a pro-business channel, reported from Ahmedabad recently, “The land of the Nano is not just hungry for investments, it is just plain hungry. Also, it fares even worse than Orissa.”
According to the first-ever India State Hunger Index there is not a single state in the country where hunger levels are low or moderate. In most, they are alarming. The index is a combination of three measures: calorie deficiency, underweight children and infant deaths.
Of 88 countries studied internationally, Indian ranks 66. And within India there are wide variations. The index paints a grim picture of Gujarat under Modi's rule. The reports reveals that despite double digit overall economic and agricultural growth, Gujarat is 13th on the Indian list, below Haiti which is ranked 69. So despite double digit overall economic and agricultural growth, Modi's “Vibrant Gujarat” is at the same level as Orissa.
The BJP's drummer boys claim, “Under Modi, Gujarat has become an economic dynamo.” They point out that the state grew at approximately 12 per cent in 2006-7 against India’s overall growth of about 8 per cent that year.
But what is so great about this statistic? In 1994-1995 Gujarat surged at the rate of 13.2 per cent. There was no Narendra Modi then. In the years 1994-2001, Gujarat’s state domestic product registered a growth average of between 10 and 13 per cent. There was no Modi then either. He stepped in only at the tail end of this period so obviously he has done nothing special.
On the other hand, despite decades of growth, as much as 93 per cent of Gujarat’s workforce still toils in the informal sector. This is why growth is not always development. In fact, on the Human Development Index, Gujarat fell one place in 2003-2004, and now ranks below Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka. In terms of rural prosperity, Gujarat is at number five and well behind Punjab, the front ranker.
There is more. Workers employed under the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme in Gujarat receive half of what their counterparts get elsewhere. Interestingly, this fact was recently released by a Parliamentary Committee headed Kalyan Singh, once Hindutva's poster boy.
According to Ernst and Young, hired by Modi as consultants for the Vibrant Gujarat conclave of 2005, in terms of investment climate Gujarat ranked behind Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and on par with Karnataka at that time.
In terms of Workforce Quality, the same professionals gave Gujarat a very average “B grade” as it failed to measure up on a number of counts. It may be recalled in this connection that the Asian Development Bank in 1996 had ranked Gujarat as number two in India in terms of its investment climate. But in 2005, it was rated at number five.
So it is obvious that it is Modi’s highly personalized executive style, rather than his gift for economic miracles that attracts India Inc. “They give as much thought to Gujarat slipping in the development index as they would a drain inspector’s report. What matters to them is the manner of delivery. Modi did not just give Nano shelter, but also readied permits for Ratan Tata in three days flat...Here is a man who can bend the law at will, but you have to be good to him. Sweetening politicians is easier than playing by the book,” observes JNU professor Dipankar Gupta, adding, “CEO’s now look at Modi just as the ancient Israelites must have looked at Moses.”
Not surprisingly they don't give a damn about Modi's abysmal human rights record. The latest statistics put out by National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) reveal that Gujarat stands third in the list of states of complaints about human rights violation.
According to Vijay Zala and Zahid Quereshi reporting for the Ahmedabad Mirror on March 16, 2009, “A total of 3,813 complaints of human rights violation were received from Gujarat. That’s a notch higher than Bihar, much maligned for its lawlessness.” Overall, Modi's Gujarat ranked third in the rogues' gallery.
The Ahmedabad Mirror reporters talked to noted human rights activists, police brass and representatives of NGOs to know how bad the situation was on the ground level. Among those who gave an insight into the human rights situation in the state were senior lawyer and rights activist Girish Patel, NGO Citizens for Peace and Justice’s Teesta Setalvad, senior lawyer Mukul Sinha and social scientist Achyut Yagnik.
According to Girish Patel, violation of human rights is rampant in Gujarat. “This is the only state where ‘state terrorism’ prevails, where encounter deaths, forced disappearance of people, custodial violence, misuse of POTA and illegal detentions are common.”
He said district magistrates in Gujarat invoke Section 144 for long duration, which is an infringement of citizens’ human rights. The Gujarat Human Rights Commission is left non-functional, which burdens NHRC with a lot of monitoring in the state.
Patel said civil and political liberties of people are being violated in Gujarat in the name of development. Many projects launched in the state have taken away shelter and means of livelihood of poor people. The Kankaria lake front and Sabarmati river front projects in Ahmedabad have displaced a number of marginalised people, who were promised rehabilitation but never provided.
He said Modi claims to make the state free of fear, corruption and hunger. But while the three scourges remain, what has gone is the state of being ‘free’. Coining a new term - Unfortunate Resident Gujaratis (URG) - Patel said that is what has become of the state’s people.
Teesta Setalvad encapsulated the human rights situation in the state. “The mismatch between industrial and economic progress of Gujarat and its abysmal human rights record only points at how low the level of human development index in the state is. People must be provided health care, education, employment etc for Gujarat to be truly vibrant,” she says.
Social scientist Achyut Yagnik said three sections — Muslims, Adivasis and Dalits — have all along faced atrocities and human rights violations in Gujarat. The frequency and intensity of atrocity on these sections have increased since 2002. “There are two Gujarats – the ‘aam’ and the ‘khaas’. Of the two, the ‘aam’ Gujarat has been suffering badly at the hands of the ‘khaas’ Gujarat,” he points out.
Senior lawyer and social activists Mukul Sinha said incidence of human rights violations have increased in Gujarat since 2002. “Victims don’t get compensation, legal aid and proper rehabilitation. Crime against women has also increased. And disturbingly, rights violation cases occur more in the developed areas of the state,” he observes.
Yet, Narendra Modi, the chief minister of this state, is actually being seriously promoted as the Prime Minister of India!
The likes of Prannoy Roy, Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai may think that Narendra Modi and Varun Gandhi make for great prime time television. So besides giving the BJP the boot in these elections, it's time right-thinking viewers gave these shameless media pundits the thumbs-down as well.
Roger And Out
Now that I have your attention...
A carefully placed remark by Arun Shourie that Narendra Modi should be the prime minister of India and Arun Jaitley's quick endorsement - “Gujarat under the leadership of Narendra Modi has emerged as a role model for India” - has unleashed paroxysmal excitement in media circles. And true to form, most corporate media outlets in the country are spending considerable resources to follow and interview not the Butcher of Gujarat but the state's “saviour”.
Not surprisingly, the BJP has been quick to cash in. So what started as a ringing endorsement of Narendra Modi's “industry and business-friendly” policies by “captains” of Indian Inc, including Anil Ambani, Sunil Mittal and Ratan Tata, is now being palmed off as gospel truth.
Indeed, even the Supreme Court's recent direction that Modi's role in the 2002 Gujarat riots be probed by the Special Investigation Team is being termed a “shot in the arm” for the chief minister by self-appointed TV commentators and pollsters.
Their electoral calculations point out that this investigation will “enhance Modi's standing”. BJP spokesman also gleefully point out that the SC's directive will help the BJP in electoral arena.
These shameless apologists don't care that Modi's so-called “Vibrant Gujarat” is a figment of their warped imagination, a PR coup. But fortunately, truth is stranger than fiction.
Vivian Fernandes of CNBC-TV18, a pro-business channel, reported from Ahmedabad recently, “The land of the Nano is not just hungry for investments, it is just plain hungry. Also, it fares even worse than Orissa.”
According to the first-ever India State Hunger Index there is not a single state in the country where hunger levels are low or moderate. In most, they are alarming. The index is a combination of three measures: calorie deficiency, underweight children and infant deaths.
Of 88 countries studied internationally, Indian ranks 66. And within India there are wide variations. The index paints a grim picture of Gujarat under Modi's rule. The reports reveals that despite double digit overall economic and agricultural growth, Gujarat is 13th on the Indian list, below Haiti which is ranked 69. So despite double digit overall economic and agricultural growth, Modi's “Vibrant Gujarat” is at the same level as Orissa.
The BJP's drummer boys claim, “Under Modi, Gujarat has become an economic dynamo.” They point out that the state grew at approximately 12 per cent in 2006-7 against India’s overall growth of about 8 per cent that year.
But what is so great about this statistic? In 1994-1995 Gujarat surged at the rate of 13.2 per cent. There was no Narendra Modi then. In the years 1994-2001, Gujarat’s state domestic product registered a growth average of between 10 and 13 per cent. There was no Modi then either. He stepped in only at the tail end of this period so obviously he has done nothing special.
On the other hand, despite decades of growth, as much as 93 per cent of Gujarat’s workforce still toils in the informal sector. This is why growth is not always development. In fact, on the Human Development Index, Gujarat fell one place in 2003-2004, and now ranks below Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka. In terms of rural prosperity, Gujarat is at number five and well behind Punjab, the front ranker.
There is more. Workers employed under the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme in Gujarat receive half of what their counterparts get elsewhere. Interestingly, this fact was recently released by a Parliamentary Committee headed Kalyan Singh, once Hindutva's poster boy.
According to Ernst and Young, hired by Modi as consultants for the Vibrant Gujarat conclave of 2005, in terms of investment climate Gujarat ranked behind Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and on par with Karnataka at that time.
In terms of Workforce Quality, the same professionals gave Gujarat a very average “B grade” as it failed to measure up on a number of counts. It may be recalled in this connection that the Asian Development Bank in 1996 had ranked Gujarat as number two in India in terms of its investment climate. But in 2005, it was rated at number five.
So it is obvious that it is Modi’s highly personalized executive style, rather than his gift for economic miracles that attracts India Inc. “They give as much thought to Gujarat slipping in the development index as they would a drain inspector’s report. What matters to them is the manner of delivery. Modi did not just give Nano shelter, but also readied permits for Ratan Tata in three days flat...Here is a man who can bend the law at will, but you have to be good to him. Sweetening politicians is easier than playing by the book,” observes JNU professor Dipankar Gupta, adding, “CEO’s now look at Modi just as the ancient Israelites must have looked at Moses.”
Not surprisingly they don't give a damn about Modi's abysmal human rights record. The latest statistics put out by National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) reveal that Gujarat stands third in the list of states of complaints about human rights violation.
According to Vijay Zala and Zahid Quereshi reporting for the Ahmedabad Mirror on March 16, 2009, “A total of 3,813 complaints of human rights violation were received from Gujarat. That’s a notch higher than Bihar, much maligned for its lawlessness.” Overall, Modi's Gujarat ranked third in the rogues' gallery.
The Ahmedabad Mirror reporters talked to noted human rights activists, police brass and representatives of NGOs to know how bad the situation was on the ground level. Among those who gave an insight into the human rights situation in the state were senior lawyer and rights activist Girish Patel, NGO Citizens for Peace and Justice’s Teesta Setalvad, senior lawyer Mukul Sinha and social scientist Achyut Yagnik.
According to Girish Patel, violation of human rights is rampant in Gujarat. “This is the only state where ‘state terrorism’ prevails, where encounter deaths, forced disappearance of people, custodial violence, misuse of POTA and illegal detentions are common.”
He said district magistrates in Gujarat invoke Section 144 for long duration, which is an infringement of citizens’ human rights. The Gujarat Human Rights Commission is left non-functional, which burdens NHRC with a lot of monitoring in the state.
Patel said civil and political liberties of people are being violated in Gujarat in the name of development. Many projects launched in the state have taken away shelter and means of livelihood of poor people. The Kankaria lake front and Sabarmati river front projects in Ahmedabad have displaced a number of marginalised people, who were promised rehabilitation but never provided.
He said Modi claims to make the state free of fear, corruption and hunger. But while the three scourges remain, what has gone is the state of being ‘free’. Coining a new term - Unfortunate Resident Gujaratis (URG) - Patel said that is what has become of the state’s people.
Teesta Setalvad encapsulated the human rights situation in the state. “The mismatch between industrial and economic progress of Gujarat and its abysmal human rights record only points at how low the level of human development index in the state is. People must be provided health care, education, employment etc for Gujarat to be truly vibrant,” she says.
Social scientist Achyut Yagnik said three sections — Muslims, Adivasis and Dalits — have all along faced atrocities and human rights violations in Gujarat. The frequency and intensity of atrocity on these sections have increased since 2002. “There are two Gujarats – the ‘aam’ and the ‘khaas’. Of the two, the ‘aam’ Gujarat has been suffering badly at the hands of the ‘khaas’ Gujarat,” he points out.
Senior lawyer and social activists Mukul Sinha said incidence of human rights violations have increased in Gujarat since 2002. “Victims don’t get compensation, legal aid and proper rehabilitation. Crime against women has also increased. And disturbingly, rights violation cases occur more in the developed areas of the state,” he observes.
Yet, Narendra Modi, the chief minister of this state, is actually being seriously promoted as the Prime Minister of India!
The likes of Prannoy Roy, Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai may think that Narendra Modi and Varun Gandhi make for great prime time television. So besides giving the BJP the boot in these elections, it's time right-thinking viewers gave these shameless media pundits the thumbs-down as well.
Roger And Out
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Getting The Left Right
By Roger Alexander
For the Left the Day of Judgement has arrived. Starting today, April 30, polling starts in West Bengal over three phases. With Nandigram and Singur (and also Lalgarh and Darjeeling) staring them in the face, the comrades will get their just deserts. And rightly so, sing the choirboys of the corporate media.
The refrain over the past month has been that, thankfully, the Left will be unable to “call the shots”, or enjoy “power without responsibility” anymore. This will be the last charge of the Red Brigade. And Prakash Karat, we are told, will be lucky to put even 40 MPs in the next Lok Sabha.
With the Left “projected” to win as few as 5 seats from Kerala and 2 from Tripura, Karat has his task cut out. Unless it wins 33 seats from West Bengal, it's curtains for the Left Front. “Good riddance,” is the unanimous verdict.
Representatives of the Left parties invited as punching bags at prime time debates have literally been at the receiving end over the past month. And with programme anchors jumping into the debates as inquisitors, the Left seemingly doesn't stand a chance. No wonder stockbrokers are cheering.
Time now, therefore, to examine the facts. Is the Left Front in Bengal in for a hiding? We know that in 2001, when the Trinamool and Congress forged a Mahajot against the Left, the alliance came a cropper, winning only 88 seats in a 294-member house. The Left Front won 199 seats.
In the 2006 assembly elections, the Trinamool won just 30 seats and the Congress 24. The Left Front won 233 seats. In the 2004 Lok Sabha election, Mamata Banerjee was the sole Trinamool MP from West Bengal. That she hardly participated in parliamentary proceedings is another matter.
But those were the halcyon days of the Left's supremacy, we are told. Let's talk about now. Let's talk about Bengal and the Left post-Nandigram and Singur. These two villages will determine who is the winner in 2009, it is claimed.
If you look at the picture of last year's Panchayat polls, the Left has certainly lost considerable ground. Here's what happened: The Left lost considerable ground. Its vote percentage at the Gram Panchayat level came down from 65.7 per cent in 2003 to 52.3 per cent in 2008. But the point to be noted is that it still won more than 50 per cent of the vote.
In the interregnum, i.e. since June last year till now, the Left has been in firefighting mode.
To begin with, the Left was quick to accept that the results were not what had been expected even though “the level of victory was politically significant and important” (meaning they could have done worse).
But in the final analysis the Left Front came through generally triumphant even in places where the chips were down, and things weighed heavily especially against the CPI(M).
Still, the bottom line is that the CPI(M) especially did rather badly in some districts. The reasons are obvious. First, the Left failed to effectively counter the Trinamool campaign against land acquisition for industry and development. Indeed, it failed miserably to convince even its own supporters with hard data.
This happened because the politically important issue of involving the participation of the aam admi in the running of the Panchayat institutions was neglected, more so because of the disunity within the Left Front which had a “baneful effect” on the poll outcome, as the CPI(M) State Committee's analysis quaintly put it..
However, Karat & Co came to the conclusion that “the adverse results would not constitute a permanent political process, or event. The CPI(M) can and shall forge ahead in an organised way with a mass participation of the entire Bengal Party unit along with, and standing shoulder-to-shoulder to the Party’s sympathisers and supporters.”
Then Mamata delivered a Puja gift. Tata Motors was hounded out of Singur. The industrialise-or-perish debate was revived and now forms the crux of the debate in the present election campaign.
So now we have the CPI(M)'s fabled party machine pitted against a Mahajot backed by the anti-Communist media, creating a level playing field, as it were.
In this high-stakes contest, who will triumph? My own take is that an opportunistic Mahajot has its own internal contradictions. There are reports of Congress workers refusing to campaign for party turncoats who have been given the Trinamool ticket. And of Trinamool rebels contesting against Congress candidates.
Suitably chastened by the debacle in the Panchayat elections last year, the Left parties seem to be more united and working resolutely to recover lost ground.
Ironically, Ratan Tata's decision to drive out of Singur in search of profits elsewhere has given a fillip to the Left's industrialisation campaign against Mamata's save-farmlands rhetoric, enabling the former to aim for a win in at least 30 constituencies.
Game on!
Roger And Out
For the Left the Day of Judgement has arrived. Starting today, April 30, polling starts in West Bengal over three phases. With Nandigram and Singur (and also Lalgarh and Darjeeling) staring them in the face, the comrades will get their just deserts. And rightly so, sing the choirboys of the corporate media.
The refrain over the past month has been that, thankfully, the Left will be unable to “call the shots”, or enjoy “power without responsibility” anymore. This will be the last charge of the Red Brigade. And Prakash Karat, we are told, will be lucky to put even 40 MPs in the next Lok Sabha.
With the Left “projected” to win as few as 5 seats from Kerala and 2 from Tripura, Karat has his task cut out. Unless it wins 33 seats from West Bengal, it's curtains for the Left Front. “Good riddance,” is the unanimous verdict.
Representatives of the Left parties invited as punching bags at prime time debates have literally been at the receiving end over the past month. And with programme anchors jumping into the debates as inquisitors, the Left seemingly doesn't stand a chance. No wonder stockbrokers are cheering.
Time now, therefore, to examine the facts. Is the Left Front in Bengal in for a hiding? We know that in 2001, when the Trinamool and Congress forged a Mahajot against the Left, the alliance came a cropper, winning only 88 seats in a 294-member house. The Left Front won 199 seats.
In the 2006 assembly elections, the Trinamool won just 30 seats and the Congress 24. The Left Front won 233 seats. In the 2004 Lok Sabha election, Mamata Banerjee was the sole Trinamool MP from West Bengal. That she hardly participated in parliamentary proceedings is another matter.
But those were the halcyon days of the Left's supremacy, we are told. Let's talk about now. Let's talk about Bengal and the Left post-Nandigram and Singur. These two villages will determine who is the winner in 2009, it is claimed.
If you look at the picture of last year's Panchayat polls, the Left has certainly lost considerable ground. Here's what happened: The Left lost considerable ground. Its vote percentage at the Gram Panchayat level came down from 65.7 per cent in 2003 to 52.3 per cent in 2008. But the point to be noted is that it still won more than 50 per cent of the vote.
In the interregnum, i.e. since June last year till now, the Left has been in firefighting mode.
To begin with, the Left was quick to accept that the results were not what had been expected even though “the level of victory was politically significant and important” (meaning they could have done worse).
But in the final analysis the Left Front came through generally triumphant even in places where the chips were down, and things weighed heavily especially against the CPI(M).
Still, the bottom line is that the CPI(M) especially did rather badly in some districts. The reasons are obvious. First, the Left failed to effectively counter the Trinamool campaign against land acquisition for industry and development. Indeed, it failed miserably to convince even its own supporters with hard data.
This happened because the politically important issue of involving the participation of the aam admi in the running of the Panchayat institutions was neglected, more so because of the disunity within the Left Front which had a “baneful effect” on the poll outcome, as the CPI(M) State Committee's analysis quaintly put it..
However, Karat & Co came to the conclusion that “the adverse results would not constitute a permanent political process, or event. The CPI(M) can and shall forge ahead in an organised way with a mass participation of the entire Bengal Party unit along with, and standing shoulder-to-shoulder to the Party’s sympathisers and supporters.”
Then Mamata delivered a Puja gift. Tata Motors was hounded out of Singur. The industrialise-or-perish debate was revived and now forms the crux of the debate in the present election campaign.
So now we have the CPI(M)'s fabled party machine pitted against a Mahajot backed by the anti-Communist media, creating a level playing field, as it were.
In this high-stakes contest, who will triumph? My own take is that an opportunistic Mahajot has its own internal contradictions. There are reports of Congress workers refusing to campaign for party turncoats who have been given the Trinamool ticket. And of Trinamool rebels contesting against Congress candidates.
Suitably chastened by the debacle in the Panchayat elections last year, the Left parties seem to be more united and working resolutely to recover lost ground.
Ironically, Ratan Tata's decision to drive out of Singur in search of profits elsewhere has given a fillip to the Left's industrialisation campaign against Mamata's save-farmlands rhetoric, enabling the former to aim for a win in at least 30 constituencies.
Game on!
Roger And Out
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Who's Afraid Of The Third Front?
By Roger Alexander
Blessed are those who do not watch TV news channels or read newspapers, for they have missed nothing. Indeed, even as the month-long election process come to a close on May 13, newspaper readers and TV addicts alike remain clueless. This is not an election in which there will be winners and losers; this is a “game of numbers”, we are told.
The most important number – indeed the “magic number” - is 272. Any party that can can “cobble together” 272 MPs will form the next government. In other words, we are told the best cobbler will win.
So there's a catch, and it's called Catch 272.
No political party can claim it can win 272 seats on its own. Indeed, no pre-poll alliance can reach the magic number. So the media has gleefully job of the cobbler. And self-appointed pollsters/opinionators are busy dreaming up scenarios of post-poll tie-ups.
The easiest way to build castles in the air is to first knock the Third Front as a serious contender out of the picture. You see, if the Third Front is allowed to remain in the reckoning as a bloc, even if the Congress and BJP join hands they do not add up to 272 and therefore unable to form a national unity government, a concept that has fund favour with many commentators. You see, in this scenario the Left parties have no role to play; good riddance.
Rather than recognise the Third Front, our pollsters/opinionators are more comfortable with a category labelled “others”. In this discourse, it's easier to steer “flotsam and jetsam” towards one or the other “national party”.
The high falutin “analysis” from the likes of Prannoy Roy and Rajdeep Sardesai is that almost all regional parties will happily join either the Congress or the BJP and some, like Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP or the AIADMK can do business with both.
In this scenario, even the Congress and BJP would not be averse to ditching existing allies and align with their opponents to reach the magic number, we are told. This is not rank opportunism, for long the hallmark of the so-called national parties, but a legitimate democratic exercise to form a “viable and stable government”.
What we are not told is that these so-called national parties do not exist in large swathes of the country. The Congress has virtually disappeared from the Gangetic plains. Mulayam Singh Yadav was willing to give Sonia Gandhi just 17 seats of the 80 from UP. Lalu Prasad was willing to concede just three of the 40 in Bihar. And Mamata Banerjee has parted with 14 seats (most of them “unwinnable”) in West Bengal that elects 42 MPs.
In Tamil Nadu/Puducherry Karunanidhi has allotted just 16 seats to the Congress from the state's quota of 40 constituencies. In Maharashtra, once its bastion, the Congress is contesting just 25 of the 48 seats, the rest going to Sharad Pawar's NCP. Together, these states send 250 MPs, i.e. nearly half the Lok Sabha's strength. And this party and its cheerleaders in the media insist it is a national party.
Similarly, the BJP just does not exist in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. In Bihar it has to ride piggy-back on Nitish Kumar and in Maharashtra Bal Thackeray is its big brother. In Haryana its fate is decided via an alliance with Om Prakash Chautala and in Punjab, it has to be content with the crumbs that Prakash Singh Badal throws its way. Together, these states account for 256 seats, i.e. nearly half the Lok Sabha's strength. And given its emasculation in Uttar Pradesh, one wonders what kind of national stature is the media talking about.
If you look at vote share, the Congress and BJP respectively attract around 25 per cent of the votes nationally; and in this election both parties combined will win less than 50 per cent of the votes. Yet both fancy themselves as the natural party of governance. And the cheering media is determined to perpetuate the myth.
However, voters are not buying this argument. Voters, more than the media, are acutely aware that India is a complex and diverse country. They have different loyalties and identities that drive their aspirations and actions. They may not have enough to eat, but they know that they have a vote in a country where electoral democracy is deeply entrenched and difficult to dislodge.
Not surprisingly, regional parties have grown from strength to strength in the last two decades, making coalitions an indelible part of the national political discourse. Remember, since 1996, a motley bunch has ruled from New Delhi. The NDA was an amalgam of around two dozen parties and the UPA's survival was dependent on a similar number of allies. So why does the media scoff at a Third Front, which is also a potpourri in the same mould?
The most significant fact behind the rise of the Third Front as a serious challenger to the status quo the corporate media favours is that the bulk of people who have been adversely affected by neoliberal economic policies - workers and peasants, students and self-employed, those searching for jobs and those working at multiple jobs to make ends meet – are seriously looking for alternatives that can deliver.
The smaller regional parties have very different bases, perceptions, identities, ideals, political strategies and forms of organisation and mobilisation. Some of them have already been, or continue to be associated with fronts formed by one or the other of the two large parties. But the current evidence of the disintegration of these fronts is not without significance.
Among other things it indicates that the smaller parties recognise that the role and power of the larger parties is likely to be further constrained in the near term. Otherwise, the likes of Lalu Prasad, Ram Vilas Paswan, Naveen Patnaik and Mulayam Singh Yadav would not have cut themselves from loose from the apron strings of the big parties, especially at this juncture.
This is what the current election is all about. The electoral outcomes in the past decade reflect the political churning that is going on at a furious pace. It continues apace and it is likely that it will throw up newer and different combinations of parties in power (who would have thought that the Congress would dump its myopic Panchmarhi Resolution to always go it alone in the dustbin of history?).
Indeed, what we are witnessing is a work in progress. The Third Front is a sign of a national polity that is emerging out of an immensely complicated reality, in a process that has taken several other countries much longer - often as much as a century - to complete. But we Indians are an impatient lot. We want it here and now.
For the likes of Congress and BJP spokespersons and their drummer boys in the media, democracy is only a game of numbers. It’s not about real people and their real lives or real problems; it’s not about the future of India and her children. But alas, even the numbers do not stack up for either the Congress or the BJP.
By my reckoning, the Congress will be lucky to get more than 100 seats and the BJP will manage to win a few more since it can boast of a few strongholds like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat whereas the Congress has none (yes Zero, unless you count the Andaman& Nicobar Islands where the party has only lost once since Independence).
I'm not making this up. Just over a month ago before the election process got underway (and before Lalu Prasad threw the Fourth Front bombshell) the then UPA was supposed to be winning 257 seats, well within striking distance of the magic 272 mark, with the BJP a distant second with with 210 seats and “others” with 76 seats. Game, set and match Congress, was the verdict.
In the last week of April, the figures were revised drastically. A headline in DNA, a Mumbai daily, said it all: “The 'Others' Are Back”! The breakup was: Congress+ 188, BJP+ 183, Others 172. Obviously, parties like the MNF, NPP, SDP, MIM, PMK, KC, ADMK, PRP, LCP, BNF, FPM, IFDP, JSS, JMM, PWP, PMK, TRS, UDGP will all be “kingmakers”.
And therein lies the rub.
Roger And Out
Blessed are those who do not watch TV news channels or read newspapers, for they have missed nothing. Indeed, even as the month-long election process come to a close on May 13, newspaper readers and TV addicts alike remain clueless. This is not an election in which there will be winners and losers; this is a “game of numbers”, we are told.
The most important number – indeed the “magic number” - is 272. Any party that can can “cobble together” 272 MPs will form the next government. In other words, we are told the best cobbler will win.
So there's a catch, and it's called Catch 272.
No political party can claim it can win 272 seats on its own. Indeed, no pre-poll alliance can reach the magic number. So the media has gleefully job of the cobbler. And self-appointed pollsters/opinionators are busy dreaming up scenarios of post-poll tie-ups.
The easiest way to build castles in the air is to first knock the Third Front as a serious contender out of the picture. You see, if the Third Front is allowed to remain in the reckoning as a bloc, even if the Congress and BJP join hands they do not add up to 272 and therefore unable to form a national unity government, a concept that has fund favour with many commentators. You see, in this scenario the Left parties have no role to play; good riddance.
Rather than recognise the Third Front, our pollsters/opinionators are more comfortable with a category labelled “others”. In this discourse, it's easier to steer “flotsam and jetsam” towards one or the other “national party”.
The high falutin “analysis” from the likes of Prannoy Roy and Rajdeep Sardesai is that almost all regional parties will happily join either the Congress or the BJP and some, like Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP or the AIADMK can do business with both.
In this scenario, even the Congress and BJP would not be averse to ditching existing allies and align with their opponents to reach the magic number, we are told. This is not rank opportunism, for long the hallmark of the so-called national parties, but a legitimate democratic exercise to form a “viable and stable government”.
What we are not told is that these so-called national parties do not exist in large swathes of the country. The Congress has virtually disappeared from the Gangetic plains. Mulayam Singh Yadav was willing to give Sonia Gandhi just 17 seats of the 80 from UP. Lalu Prasad was willing to concede just three of the 40 in Bihar. And Mamata Banerjee has parted with 14 seats (most of them “unwinnable”) in West Bengal that elects 42 MPs.
In Tamil Nadu/Puducherry Karunanidhi has allotted just 16 seats to the Congress from the state's quota of 40 constituencies. In Maharashtra, once its bastion, the Congress is contesting just 25 of the 48 seats, the rest going to Sharad Pawar's NCP. Together, these states send 250 MPs, i.e. nearly half the Lok Sabha's strength. And this party and its cheerleaders in the media insist it is a national party.
Similarly, the BJP just does not exist in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. In Bihar it has to ride piggy-back on Nitish Kumar and in Maharashtra Bal Thackeray is its big brother. In Haryana its fate is decided via an alliance with Om Prakash Chautala and in Punjab, it has to be content with the crumbs that Prakash Singh Badal throws its way. Together, these states account for 256 seats, i.e. nearly half the Lok Sabha's strength. And given its emasculation in Uttar Pradesh, one wonders what kind of national stature is the media talking about.
If you look at vote share, the Congress and BJP respectively attract around 25 per cent of the votes nationally; and in this election both parties combined will win less than 50 per cent of the votes. Yet both fancy themselves as the natural party of governance. And the cheering media is determined to perpetuate the myth.
However, voters are not buying this argument. Voters, more than the media, are acutely aware that India is a complex and diverse country. They have different loyalties and identities that drive their aspirations and actions. They may not have enough to eat, but they know that they have a vote in a country where electoral democracy is deeply entrenched and difficult to dislodge.
Not surprisingly, regional parties have grown from strength to strength in the last two decades, making coalitions an indelible part of the national political discourse. Remember, since 1996, a motley bunch has ruled from New Delhi. The NDA was an amalgam of around two dozen parties and the UPA's survival was dependent on a similar number of allies. So why does the media scoff at a Third Front, which is also a potpourri in the same mould?
The most significant fact behind the rise of the Third Front as a serious challenger to the status quo the corporate media favours is that the bulk of people who have been adversely affected by neoliberal economic policies - workers and peasants, students and self-employed, those searching for jobs and those working at multiple jobs to make ends meet – are seriously looking for alternatives that can deliver.
The smaller regional parties have very different bases, perceptions, identities, ideals, political strategies and forms of organisation and mobilisation. Some of them have already been, or continue to be associated with fronts formed by one or the other of the two large parties. But the current evidence of the disintegration of these fronts is not without significance.
Among other things it indicates that the smaller parties recognise that the role and power of the larger parties is likely to be further constrained in the near term. Otherwise, the likes of Lalu Prasad, Ram Vilas Paswan, Naveen Patnaik and Mulayam Singh Yadav would not have cut themselves from loose from the apron strings of the big parties, especially at this juncture.
This is what the current election is all about. The electoral outcomes in the past decade reflect the political churning that is going on at a furious pace. It continues apace and it is likely that it will throw up newer and different combinations of parties in power (who would have thought that the Congress would dump its myopic Panchmarhi Resolution to always go it alone in the dustbin of history?).
Indeed, what we are witnessing is a work in progress. The Third Front is a sign of a national polity that is emerging out of an immensely complicated reality, in a process that has taken several other countries much longer - often as much as a century - to complete. But we Indians are an impatient lot. We want it here and now.
For the likes of Congress and BJP spokespersons and their drummer boys in the media, democracy is only a game of numbers. It’s not about real people and their real lives or real problems; it’s not about the future of India and her children. But alas, even the numbers do not stack up for either the Congress or the BJP.
By my reckoning, the Congress will be lucky to get more than 100 seats and the BJP will manage to win a few more since it can boast of a few strongholds like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat whereas the Congress has none (yes Zero, unless you count the Andaman& Nicobar Islands where the party has only lost once since Independence).
I'm not making this up. Just over a month ago before the election process got underway (and before Lalu Prasad threw the Fourth Front bombshell) the then UPA was supposed to be winning 257 seats, well within striking distance of the magic 272 mark, with the BJP a distant second with with 210 seats and “others” with 76 seats. Game, set and match Congress, was the verdict.
In the last week of April, the figures were revised drastically. A headline in DNA, a Mumbai daily, said it all: “The 'Others' Are Back”! The breakup was: Congress+ 188, BJP+ 183, Others 172. Obviously, parties like the MNF, NPP, SDP, MIM, PMK, KC, ADMK, PRP, LCP, BNF, FPM, IFDP, JSS, JMM, PWP, PMK, TRS, UDGP will all be “kingmakers”.
And therein lies the rub.
Roger And Out
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Congress Ki Jai Ho!
I'm back after a long lay off. Many thanx for the good wishes while I was convalescing after surgery.
-------------------------------
Jai Ho!
Five years ago, the media hailed the victory of the BJP-led coalition even before the first vote was cast. The reason? India was shining and Atal Behari Vajpayee's popularity was unmatched, they proclaimed. Stunned silence was followed by convoluted arguments to explain how the supposedly unbeatable BJP snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Jai Ho!
Now that another general election is upon us, the same self-styled pundits are back on the idiot box to hand a victory to the Congress. Price rise, unemployment, terrorism, urban angst, rural suicides, the exit of allies from the UPA, the absence of a party machine to fight elections, reliance on turncoats, the threat of rebels et are of no consequence as the Congress will manage to form the next government through a process of elimination of its opponents, our pundits insist. Jai Ho!
To begin with, the Congress will “sweep” the polls in Delhi and Haryana, the two states it rules on its own in north India. Sikh anger, though present, will not add up to much, so there's not much to worry about on this score. In the rest of the region – Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand, and Jammu and Kashmir – the Congress will reverse its losses in the Assembly polls, thanks to anti-incumbency against the Akali Dal and BJP, to come up trumps. Jai Ho!
In the 'Cow Belt' comprising 134 constituencies, the Congress need not worry, we are advised. Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad and Ramvilas Paswan (the Fourth Front) , despite their current stand-off which is only a normal ghar-ghar-ki-kahani, will deliver enough MPs, “post polls”, to make up the numbers for the next Congress-led government. Of course, both Mayawati and Nitish Kumar pose a “stiff challenge”. But even if they manage to best the Fourth Front, “post polls” they can be cajoled into supporting the Congress since in the Cow Belt they follow a herd mentality. It's a “win-win” situation for Sonia and Rahul Gandhi here. Jai Ho!
In the eastern seaboard states it will be a “cakewalk” for the Congress, we are told. This region sends 146 MPs to the Lok Sabha. In West Bengal, the Left will face humiliating losses “post Singur and Nandigram”. Naveen Patnaik will rue his comeuppance in Orissa. Even though the Congress's “tallest leader”, JB Patnaik, has been denied a ticket by Sonia, the party will reap “handsome dividends” in a three-cornered contest. In Andhra Pradesh YSR Reddy will beat anti-incumbency and the Grand Alliance of the TDP-TRS-Left handily. Otherwise, Chiranjeevi can always come to the Congress's rescue as he does in the movies. And in Tamil Nadu plus Puducherry, Karunanidhi will prove history wrong by winning at least half of the 40 seats. Even if he fails, a “temperamental” Jayalalithaa can always switch sides and support a Congress government in New Delhi in return for keys to Fort St George. Jai Ho!
In the western seaboard states that send 127 MPs to the Lok Sabha, the Congress is “sitting pretty”, we are informed. The Congress will “decimate” the Left in Kerala. Our pundits claim there is a pro-Congress wave in the country's most literate state. The Congress will also create “upsets” in Karnataka. And in Maharashtra, the Congress, in an alliance with Sharad Pawar, will “steamroller” the opposition. You see, the relief packages for suicide-prone farmers and other “sops” have had a salutary effect. And India Inc's support in Mumbai will weave its own magic in urban pockets. Only Narendra Modi in Gujarat will put up some resistance, but his effort will not halt the Congress juggernaut. Jai Ho!
That leaves only 55 seats in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh for the Congress to take care of before a triumphant return to New Delhi. The Congress has already “proved” that the BJP can be beaten in its strongholds. And Ashok Gehlot's “victory” in Rajasthan has only demonstrated that the Congress can wrest more seats from the BJP than it did in 2004 in Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh since the “momentum” is with it. Besides, the saffron party is in “disarray”. So regardless of how brave a fight the BJP puts up in central India, it would be futile. “Too little, too late,” we are instructed. Jai Ho!
The wins in the northeast, though few, will only be an icing on the cake. Jai Ho!
To be fair to the pundits, none of them gives the Congress a chance of winning more than 150 seats. nevertheless, these worthies feel that this less than stellar performance still makes the Congress the natural party of governance. This was underscored by Manmohan Singh when despite his recent heart surgery he undertook a “whirlwind campaign” to address members of Assocham, CII, FICCI and sundry Merchant Chambers in a string of meetings in five-star hotels. The captains of India Inc wholeheartedly agreed while beseeching Manmohan carry on with the good work and quickly wrap up the “reforms” in the banking, insurance, FDI in retail, labour, disinvestment and other sectors. Jai Ho!
Our pundits insist Manmohan Singh will remain prime minister, so what if he cannot win a Lok Sabha seat for himself. The fact that he is not even confident of contesting from a 'safe' Congress seat - there seems to be none besides Amethi and Rae Bareli – is conveniently forgotten. What is more important that India Inc has reposed its faith in him; that he is an economist of “international repute” without having written a a book or published papers; that his “integrity cannot be questioned” even though money changed hands to buy MPs to save his government last year; and that his love for George W. Bush stems from deep rooted conviction to “make India a superpower”. Jai Ho!
The “findings” of our pundits have given a new meaning to Benjamin Disraeli's famous observation about statistics. Their first round of polling in January and February gave the then UPA a shade less than 272 seats, enough to form the government, especially after Naveen Patnaik ditched the BJP. But then came the double whammy - Lalu Prasad, Ramvilas Paswan and Mulayam Singh ganged up against the Congress and the incipient Third Front actually took shape. In double quick time, the pundits changed the rules of the game. By the end of March it was not which alliance – UPA, NDA or Third Front – that mattered; the race to emerge as the largest single party that would form of the core of the next government became the leitmotif of all the projections. Naturally, with a nudge here and a wink there, statistics were trotted out to give the Congress that honour. Jai Ho!
To make up the deficit of around 175 seats; i.e. more than the number than the Congress is expected to win, our pundits have designed elaborate scenarios to install a Congress government. The first to fall in line will be, of course, the Lalu Prasad-Ramvilas Paswan-Mulayam Singh triumvirate. If they do not “have the numbers”, Mayawati can be roped in and so can Nitish Kumar and Naveen Patnaik. KC Rao of the TRS is a “natural ally”. Jayalalithaa can fill in for Karunanidhi is need be. Deve Gowda can be enticed. Sundry regional outfits in the northeast can be bought. Independents will automatically gravitate to the largest party. And if after all this the numbers still do not add up – the worst case scenario – the Left would be forced to support a Congress-led government to “keep the communal forces at bay”. Jai Ho!
-------------------------------
Jai Ho!
Five years ago, the media hailed the victory of the BJP-led coalition even before the first vote was cast. The reason? India was shining and Atal Behari Vajpayee's popularity was unmatched, they proclaimed. Stunned silence was followed by convoluted arguments to explain how the supposedly unbeatable BJP snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Jai Ho!
Now that another general election is upon us, the same self-styled pundits are back on the idiot box to hand a victory to the Congress. Price rise, unemployment, terrorism, urban angst, rural suicides, the exit of allies from the UPA, the absence of a party machine to fight elections, reliance on turncoats, the threat of rebels et are of no consequence as the Congress will manage to form the next government through a process of elimination of its opponents, our pundits insist. Jai Ho!
To begin with, the Congress will “sweep” the polls in Delhi and Haryana, the two states it rules on its own in north India. Sikh anger, though present, will not add up to much, so there's not much to worry about on this score. In the rest of the region – Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand, and Jammu and Kashmir – the Congress will reverse its losses in the Assembly polls, thanks to anti-incumbency against the Akali Dal and BJP, to come up trumps. Jai Ho!
In the 'Cow Belt' comprising 134 constituencies, the Congress need not worry, we are advised. Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad and Ramvilas Paswan (the Fourth Front) , despite their current stand-off which is only a normal ghar-ghar-ki-kahani, will deliver enough MPs, “post polls”, to make up the numbers for the next Congress-led government. Of course, both Mayawati and Nitish Kumar pose a “stiff challenge”. But even if they manage to best the Fourth Front, “post polls” they can be cajoled into supporting the Congress since in the Cow Belt they follow a herd mentality. It's a “win-win” situation for Sonia and Rahul Gandhi here. Jai Ho!
In the eastern seaboard states it will be a “cakewalk” for the Congress, we are told. This region sends 146 MPs to the Lok Sabha. In West Bengal, the Left will face humiliating losses “post Singur and Nandigram”. Naveen Patnaik will rue his comeuppance in Orissa. Even though the Congress's “tallest leader”, JB Patnaik, has been denied a ticket by Sonia, the party will reap “handsome dividends” in a three-cornered contest. In Andhra Pradesh YSR Reddy will beat anti-incumbency and the Grand Alliance of the TDP-TRS-Left handily. Otherwise, Chiranjeevi can always come to the Congress's rescue as he does in the movies. And in Tamil Nadu plus Puducherry, Karunanidhi will prove history wrong by winning at least half of the 40 seats. Even if he fails, a “temperamental” Jayalalithaa can always switch sides and support a Congress government in New Delhi in return for keys to Fort St George. Jai Ho!
In the western seaboard states that send 127 MPs to the Lok Sabha, the Congress is “sitting pretty”, we are informed. The Congress will “decimate” the Left in Kerala. Our pundits claim there is a pro-Congress wave in the country's most literate state. The Congress will also create “upsets” in Karnataka. And in Maharashtra, the Congress, in an alliance with Sharad Pawar, will “steamroller” the opposition. You see, the relief packages for suicide-prone farmers and other “sops” have had a salutary effect. And India Inc's support in Mumbai will weave its own magic in urban pockets. Only Narendra Modi in Gujarat will put up some resistance, but his effort will not halt the Congress juggernaut. Jai Ho!
That leaves only 55 seats in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh for the Congress to take care of before a triumphant return to New Delhi. The Congress has already “proved” that the BJP can be beaten in its strongholds. And Ashok Gehlot's “victory” in Rajasthan has only demonstrated that the Congress can wrest more seats from the BJP than it did in 2004 in Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh since the “momentum” is with it. Besides, the saffron party is in “disarray”. So regardless of how brave a fight the BJP puts up in central India, it would be futile. “Too little, too late,” we are instructed. Jai Ho!
The wins in the northeast, though few, will only be an icing on the cake. Jai Ho!
To be fair to the pundits, none of them gives the Congress a chance of winning more than 150 seats. nevertheless, these worthies feel that this less than stellar performance still makes the Congress the natural party of governance. This was underscored by Manmohan Singh when despite his recent heart surgery he undertook a “whirlwind campaign” to address members of Assocham, CII, FICCI and sundry Merchant Chambers in a string of meetings in five-star hotels. The captains of India Inc wholeheartedly agreed while beseeching Manmohan carry on with the good work and quickly wrap up the “reforms” in the banking, insurance, FDI in retail, labour, disinvestment and other sectors. Jai Ho!
Our pundits insist Manmohan Singh will remain prime minister, so what if he cannot win a Lok Sabha seat for himself. The fact that he is not even confident of contesting from a 'safe' Congress seat - there seems to be none besides Amethi and Rae Bareli – is conveniently forgotten. What is more important that India Inc has reposed its faith in him; that he is an economist of “international repute” without having written a a book or published papers; that his “integrity cannot be questioned” even though money changed hands to buy MPs to save his government last year; and that his love for George W. Bush stems from deep rooted conviction to “make India a superpower”. Jai Ho!
The “findings” of our pundits have given a new meaning to Benjamin Disraeli's famous observation about statistics. Their first round of polling in January and February gave the then UPA a shade less than 272 seats, enough to form the government, especially after Naveen Patnaik ditched the BJP. But then came the double whammy - Lalu Prasad, Ramvilas Paswan and Mulayam Singh ganged up against the Congress and the incipient Third Front actually took shape. In double quick time, the pundits changed the rules of the game. By the end of March it was not which alliance – UPA, NDA or Third Front – that mattered; the race to emerge as the largest single party that would form of the core of the next government became the leitmotif of all the projections. Naturally, with a nudge here and a wink there, statistics were trotted out to give the Congress that honour. Jai Ho!
To make up the deficit of around 175 seats; i.e. more than the number than the Congress is expected to win, our pundits have designed elaborate scenarios to install a Congress government. The first to fall in line will be, of course, the Lalu Prasad-Ramvilas Paswan-Mulayam Singh triumvirate. If they do not “have the numbers”, Mayawati can be roped in and so can Nitish Kumar and Naveen Patnaik. KC Rao of the TRS is a “natural ally”. Jayalalithaa can fill in for Karunanidhi is need be. Deve Gowda can be enticed. Sundry regional outfits in the northeast can be bought. Independents will automatically gravitate to the largest party. And if after all this the numbers still do not add up – the worst case scenario – the Left would be forced to support a Congress-led government to “keep the communal forces at bay”. Jai Ho!
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
The Obama Presidency and Some Question marks
(Excerpts from an excellent crtique in The Hindu by Aijaz Ahmed)
Barack Obama won as a progressive populist. However, his campaign also raised far, far more money than any other U.S. presidential candidate in history. His camp likes to claim that most of the money came from small donors. The fact is that while fewer than 2,600 contributors to Mr. McCain list their occupation as “chief executive,” nearly 6,000 of Mr. Obama’s contributors are chief executive officers. Huge sums came from Washington lobbyists and lawyers, the communication industry and the electronics industry, healthcare-related private interests, nuclear and pharmaceutical industries, and so on. When lobbyists alone have given $37 million, it is naïve to believe that they would not be rewarded. The same applies to all the big corporate donors.
Mr. Obama’s voting record is not inspiring either. That he made a speech opposing the impending Iraq war in 2002, before he came even into the Illinois Senate, has been cited ad nauseum. Since becoming a U.S. Senator in 2005, however, he has voted in favour of every war appropriation bill that the Bush administration brought forth. He was the Editor of the Harvard Law Review, taught law at Chicago University, and was a civil rights lawyer before coming into politics. However, as a Senator he had no difficulty in voting for the Patriot Act 2, possibly the most sweeping attack on civil liberties in recent U.S. history. Together with Mr. McCain, he voted in favour of the recent bailout plan which gifts hundreds of billions of dollars to the very financial institutions which caused the recent meltdown. And now as President-elect he has urged the Bush administration to bail out General Motors as well.
That past is a mere prologue. As President-elect, Mr. Obama awarded the seniormost White House position to Rahm Emanuel who holds American as well as Israeli citizenships and is associated with the most conservative wing of the Democratic Party. In 2006, he co-authored a book with Bruce Reid titled The Plan: Big Ideas for America. The authors write there: “We need to fortify the military’s ‘thin green line’ around the world by adding to the U.S. Special Forces and Marines, and by expanding the U.S. Army... we must protect our homeland by creating a new domestic counterterrorism force like Britain’s M15.” Mr. Obama has adopted the plan for just such an expansion and it is possible that Mr. Bush’s Department of Homeland Security was inspired by the thinking of men like Mr. Emanuel.
No other senior appointment has been made as yet. However, the names in circulation — of men such as Richard Holbrook and Dennis Ross for Secretary of State, and Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers for Treasury — are not reassuring. Mr. Obama’s Brain Trust and Transition Team are studded with such names. Paul Volcker, the legendary chairman of the Federal Reserve, has made a comeback as Mr. Obama’s key adviser on the economy. This caused the Wall Street Journal to quote a ‘Republican supply-side economist,’ John Tamny, as saying that “Volcker whispering in Mr. Obama’s ear will make even Republicans comfortable, because he is a hero of the Right.” So are Mr. Rubin and Mr. Summers, who were Treasury Secretaries under Bill Clinton.
The enormity of the ongoing economic crisis may yet force Mr. Obama to scrap this whole trajectory and re-make himself into a latter-day FDR, as many are hoping. This is all the more likely if the electoral mass that put him in the White House becomes a mass militant movement from below. What is clear, though, is that the kind of military policies Mr. Obama is advocating are incompatible with the kind of investments he proposes to re-build America’s failing physical and social infrastructure. Something will have to give.
Roger And Out
Barack Obama won as a progressive populist. However, his campaign also raised far, far more money than any other U.S. presidential candidate in history. His camp likes to claim that most of the money came from small donors. The fact is that while fewer than 2,600 contributors to Mr. McCain list their occupation as “chief executive,” nearly 6,000 of Mr. Obama’s contributors are chief executive officers. Huge sums came from Washington lobbyists and lawyers, the communication industry and the electronics industry, healthcare-related private interests, nuclear and pharmaceutical industries, and so on. When lobbyists alone have given $37 million, it is naïve to believe that they would not be rewarded. The same applies to all the big corporate donors.
Mr. Obama’s voting record is not inspiring either. That he made a speech opposing the impending Iraq war in 2002, before he came even into the Illinois Senate, has been cited ad nauseum. Since becoming a U.S. Senator in 2005, however, he has voted in favour of every war appropriation bill that the Bush administration brought forth. He was the Editor of the Harvard Law Review, taught law at Chicago University, and was a civil rights lawyer before coming into politics. However, as a Senator he had no difficulty in voting for the Patriot Act 2, possibly the most sweeping attack on civil liberties in recent U.S. history. Together with Mr. McCain, he voted in favour of the recent bailout plan which gifts hundreds of billions of dollars to the very financial institutions which caused the recent meltdown. And now as President-elect he has urged the Bush administration to bail out General Motors as well.
That past is a mere prologue. As President-elect, Mr. Obama awarded the seniormost White House position to Rahm Emanuel who holds American as well as Israeli citizenships and is associated with the most conservative wing of the Democratic Party. In 2006, he co-authored a book with Bruce Reid titled The Plan: Big Ideas for America. The authors write there: “We need to fortify the military’s ‘thin green line’ around the world by adding to the U.S. Special Forces and Marines, and by expanding the U.S. Army... we must protect our homeland by creating a new domestic counterterrorism force like Britain’s M15.” Mr. Obama has adopted the plan for just such an expansion and it is possible that Mr. Bush’s Department of Homeland Security was inspired by the thinking of men like Mr. Emanuel.
No other senior appointment has been made as yet. However, the names in circulation — of men such as Richard Holbrook and Dennis Ross for Secretary of State, and Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers for Treasury — are not reassuring. Mr. Obama’s Brain Trust and Transition Team are studded with such names. Paul Volcker, the legendary chairman of the Federal Reserve, has made a comeback as Mr. Obama’s key adviser on the economy. This caused the Wall Street Journal to quote a ‘Republican supply-side economist,’ John Tamny, as saying that “Volcker whispering in Mr. Obama’s ear will make even Republicans comfortable, because he is a hero of the Right.” So are Mr. Rubin and Mr. Summers, who were Treasury Secretaries under Bill Clinton.
The enormity of the ongoing economic crisis may yet force Mr. Obama to scrap this whole trajectory and re-make himself into a latter-day FDR, as many are hoping. This is all the more likely if the electoral mass that put him in the White House becomes a mass militant movement from below. What is clear, though, is that the kind of military policies Mr. Obama is advocating are incompatible with the kind of investments he proposes to re-build America’s failing physical and social infrastructure. Something will have to give.
Roger And Out
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Obama - Hossanah?
By Roger Alexander
As much as I'm relieved Sarah Palin will not become president in the near future, I'm alarmed Barack Obama is now the new messiah.
Take it from me, he's only a guy with dark skin practicing the white man's politics (see my blog).
Consider the wimpish Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times today (Nov 9): “Barack Obama’s election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.
Maybe, just maybe, the result will be a step away from the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life. Smart and educated leadership is no panacea, but we’ve seen recently that the converse — a White House that scorns expertise and shrugs at nuance — doesn’t get very far either.”
Do I say more?
Roger And Out
As much as I'm relieved Sarah Palin will not become president in the near future, I'm alarmed Barack Obama is now the new messiah.
Take it from me, he's only a guy with dark skin practicing the white man's politics (see my blog).
Consider the wimpish Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times today (Nov 9): “Barack Obama’s election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.
Maybe, just maybe, the result will be a step away from the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life. Smart and educated leadership is no panacea, but we’ve seen recently that the converse — a White House that scorns expertise and shrugs at nuance — doesn’t get very far either.”
Do I say more?
Roger And Out
Friday, November 7, 2008
Protecting India from the Global Economic Crisis
(This is the Communist Party of India (Marxist) view on how to meet the global economic meltdown challenge)
Introduction
It is clear by now that the global financial crisis has graduated into a global economic crisis of serious proportions. The advanced economies are set to experience a protracted recession and the developing countries across the world, including the Indian economy, will also be adversely affected.
The UPA Government's responses to this evolving situation, however, have been extremely disappointing. Ever since the Government has come out of its initial state of denial, the measures adopted by it reflect on the one hand a sheer lack of comprehension of the causes behind and the proportions of the current crisis and on the other hand a proclivity towards appeasing myriad financial interests and corporate lobbies. The fact that the UPA Government is relying upon only one policy instrument, namely the interest rate, to both control inflation as well as reverse the growth slowdown betrays the illogic behind its policy paradigm. It is a rudimentary lesson in economic theory that two policy goals cannot be achieved using a single policy instrument.
The UPA Government has so far chosen to meet only the corporate bigwigs and bankers in order to discuss policy responses; neither have the State Governments nor other political parties, trade unions, farmers' organisations and other organisations representing crucial stakeholders been consulted. It is indeed strange that at a time when the neoliberal vision of putting corporate profits over peoples' interest and relying upon 'trickle down economics' is getting discredited across the world, the economic managers of the UPA Government are clinging on to it. In this backdrop, the CPI (M) is putting forward a set of concrete suggestions in order to tackle the adverse impact of the global recession on the Indian economy and protect the interests of the people.
Broad-based Growth through Fiscal Stimulus
* A special fiscal package should be announced by the Central Government directed at increasing public expenditure in ways which increases the income and consumption of the working people, especially the vulnerable sections, and ensure broad-based growth.
* This is an appropriate time to expand the fiscal deficit not only by the Central Government, but also the State Governments. The FRBM Act should be scrapped and a comprehensive debt relief scheme for the State Governments adopted to encourage them to adopt expansionary fiscal stances.
Protecting Existing Jobs
* Protection of domestic jobs must be the priority of the Government in the backdrop of the global recession.
* The Government should announce a moratorium on job or wage cuts in the organised sector, in the interest of the national economy, since such job or wage cuts would further depress demand and aggravate the situation. The extant labour laws should be duly invoked by the State Governments to prevent retrenchments and lay offs.
* The burden of cost adjustment should first fall on profits and executive pay, which have ballooned during the recent period. India requires an Inco3mes Policy whereby executive pay is linked to prices and the minimum wage earned by workers.
Specific Measures to Boost the Real Economy
* The Government has to undertake massive public investment directed at sectors which are employment intensive and capable of creating employment demand for those likely to lose jobs in the export-oriented sectors.
* Employment Guarantee: The NREGA should be strengthened and extended to the urban areas. Extending the period of guaranteed employment beyond 100 days should also be considered.
* Agriculture: Foodgrains production has to be encouraged and public procurement operations expanded for all major crops across the country. The allocations for the Food Security Mission and the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana should be enhanced substantially. Public investment in irrigation also needs to be stepped up substantially. For cash crops like cotton and oilseeds, import protection should be accorded through higher tariffs. Protection should also be extended to cash crops like rubber, cashew etc. to prevent sharp falls in prices.
* Food and Fuel Prices: The hikes in the prices of diesel and petrol by Rs.4 and Rs.2 respectively, must be withdrawn without further delay, in view of the sharp fall in international oil prices (which have fallen below $60 per barrel). The PDS needs to be universalized and strengthened drastically by reducing the issue price so that subsidised foodgrains can reach every settlement in the country. This is essential for boosting consumption demand in the economy.
* Retail Trade: With slower growth in consumption, the businesses of small and unorganised retailers are bound to be hit, affecting their livelihood. In this backdrop, allowing big organised retailers to expand their businesses and capture greater market shares would only aggravate the situation. A policy to strictly regulate the operations of domestic corporate retailers and restrict their unbridled expansion is urgently required.
* Small-Scale Industries: Crisis affecting the small-scale industries would cause massive job losses and affect livelihoods on a massive scale. The Government needs to devise sector specific relief packages, especially for export-oriented and labour intensive sectors like garments and leather, keeping the interests of the small-scale industries and their workers in mind. The relief packages should include rescheduling of bank credit as well as direct subsidies and should also incentivise job protection.
* Tariff Protection: In order to ensure that the demand injected into the economy through public investment does not leak out through increased imports, increasing customs duties should be considered. Further tariff concessions under NAMA or entering into structurally unequal trade agreements like the proposed EU-India FTA should be ruled out.
Tightening Financial Regulation and Reviving Development Finance
* Regulation should be strengthened in the financial sector and state control over finance need to be reasserted in order to revive development finance. While curbing reckless flow of credit to fuel elite consumption and asset price bubbles, credit should be directed towards employment intensive sectors like agriculture and small-scale industries.
* Capital Account Convertibility: Measures undertaken to liberalize the capital account as per the Tarapore Committee recommendations need to be reversed and strict controls reimposed on the outflow and inflow of capital.
* Participatory Notes: PNs, which are non-transparent derivative instruments used by the FIIs to invest money in the Indian capital market on behalf of undisclosed entities and individuals, should be prohibited. Allowing speculative hedge funds and other dubious entities to invest in Indian markets without any adherence to disclosure norms is the antithesis of prudential regulation.
* Banking and Insurance Sector Deregulation: The Government should abandon the moves to further deregulate the banking and insurance sectors through legislation like the Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, the State Bank of India (Amendment) Bill and increasing the FDI cap in the insurance sector from the present 26% to 49%.
* Pension Reforms: Pension reforms should be abandoned by the UPA Government and the PFRDA Bill scrapped. The Pension Scheme for Government employees should be reworked to ensure minimum guaranteed pension.
Roger And Out
Introduction
It is clear by now that the global financial crisis has graduated into a global economic crisis of serious proportions. The advanced economies are set to experience a protracted recession and the developing countries across the world, including the Indian economy, will also be adversely affected.
The UPA Government's responses to this evolving situation, however, have been extremely disappointing. Ever since the Government has come out of its initial state of denial, the measures adopted by it reflect on the one hand a sheer lack of comprehension of the causes behind and the proportions of the current crisis and on the other hand a proclivity towards appeasing myriad financial interests and corporate lobbies. The fact that the UPA Government is relying upon only one policy instrument, namely the interest rate, to both control inflation as well as reverse the growth slowdown betrays the illogic behind its policy paradigm. It is a rudimentary lesson in economic theory that two policy goals cannot be achieved using a single policy instrument.
The UPA Government has so far chosen to meet only the corporate bigwigs and bankers in order to discuss policy responses; neither have the State Governments nor other political parties, trade unions, farmers' organisations and other organisations representing crucial stakeholders been consulted. It is indeed strange that at a time when the neoliberal vision of putting corporate profits over peoples' interest and relying upon 'trickle down economics' is getting discredited across the world, the economic managers of the UPA Government are clinging on to it. In this backdrop, the CPI (M) is putting forward a set of concrete suggestions in order to tackle the adverse impact of the global recession on the Indian economy and protect the interests of the people.
Broad-based Growth through Fiscal Stimulus
* A special fiscal package should be announced by the Central Government directed at increasing public expenditure in ways which increases the income and consumption of the working people, especially the vulnerable sections, and ensure broad-based growth.
* This is an appropriate time to expand the fiscal deficit not only by the Central Government, but also the State Governments. The FRBM Act should be scrapped and a comprehensive debt relief scheme for the State Governments adopted to encourage them to adopt expansionary fiscal stances.
Protecting Existing Jobs
* Protection of domestic jobs must be the priority of the Government in the backdrop of the global recession.
* The Government should announce a moratorium on job or wage cuts in the organised sector, in the interest of the national economy, since such job or wage cuts would further depress demand and aggravate the situation. The extant labour laws should be duly invoked by the State Governments to prevent retrenchments and lay offs.
* The burden of cost adjustment should first fall on profits and executive pay, which have ballooned during the recent period. India requires an Inco3mes Policy whereby executive pay is linked to prices and the minimum wage earned by workers.
Specific Measures to Boost the Real Economy
* The Government has to undertake massive public investment directed at sectors which are employment intensive and capable of creating employment demand for those likely to lose jobs in the export-oriented sectors.
* Employment Guarantee: The NREGA should be strengthened and extended to the urban areas. Extending the period of guaranteed employment beyond 100 days should also be considered.
* Agriculture: Foodgrains production has to be encouraged and public procurement operations expanded for all major crops across the country. The allocations for the Food Security Mission and the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana should be enhanced substantially. Public investment in irrigation also needs to be stepped up substantially. For cash crops like cotton and oilseeds, import protection should be accorded through higher tariffs. Protection should also be extended to cash crops like rubber, cashew etc. to prevent sharp falls in prices.
* Food and Fuel Prices: The hikes in the prices of diesel and petrol by Rs.4 and Rs.2 respectively, must be withdrawn without further delay, in view of the sharp fall in international oil prices (which have fallen below $60 per barrel). The PDS needs to be universalized and strengthened drastically by reducing the issue price so that subsidised foodgrains can reach every settlement in the country. This is essential for boosting consumption demand in the economy.
* Retail Trade: With slower growth in consumption, the businesses of small and unorganised retailers are bound to be hit, affecting their livelihood. In this backdrop, allowing big organised retailers to expand their businesses and capture greater market shares would only aggravate the situation. A policy to strictly regulate the operations of domestic corporate retailers and restrict their unbridled expansion is urgently required.
* Small-Scale Industries: Crisis affecting the small-scale industries would cause massive job losses and affect livelihoods on a massive scale. The Government needs to devise sector specific relief packages, especially for export-oriented and labour intensive sectors like garments and leather, keeping the interests of the small-scale industries and their workers in mind. The relief packages should include rescheduling of bank credit as well as direct subsidies and should also incentivise job protection.
* Tariff Protection: In order to ensure that the demand injected into the economy through public investment does not leak out through increased imports, increasing customs duties should be considered. Further tariff concessions under NAMA or entering into structurally unequal trade agreements like the proposed EU-India FTA should be ruled out.
Tightening Financial Regulation and Reviving Development Finance
* Regulation should be strengthened in the financial sector and state control over finance need to be reasserted in order to revive development finance. While curbing reckless flow of credit to fuel elite consumption and asset price bubbles, credit should be directed towards employment intensive sectors like agriculture and small-scale industries.
* Capital Account Convertibility: Measures undertaken to liberalize the capital account as per the Tarapore Committee recommendations need to be reversed and strict controls reimposed on the outflow and inflow of capital.
* Participatory Notes: PNs, which are non-transparent derivative instruments used by the FIIs to invest money in the Indian capital market on behalf of undisclosed entities and individuals, should be prohibited. Allowing speculative hedge funds and other dubious entities to invest in Indian markets without any adherence to disclosure norms is the antithesis of prudential regulation.
* Banking and Insurance Sector Deregulation: The Government should abandon the moves to further deregulate the banking and insurance sectors through legislation like the Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, the State Bank of India (Amendment) Bill and increasing the FDI cap in the insurance sector from the present 26% to 49%.
* Pension Reforms: Pension reforms should be abandoned by the UPA Government and the PFRDA Bill scrapped. The Pension Scheme for Government employees should be reworked to ensure minimum guaranteed pension.
Roger And Out
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Obama's Victory: A Marxist Viewpoint
By Sitaram Yechury/ The Indian Express
The remarkable ascendancy of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America brings to mind an ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times”. When my generation was growing up, Hollywood, in late 1960s, captured the conflicts of American society in the film ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’, the dilemma of an all white family whose daughter invites her African-American boyfriend to dinner. Sidney Poitier poignantly conveyed the insecurities of racial prejudices. This film strengthened the resolve amongst many of us to fight discrimination of all sorts. On my first visit to New York in the early Seventies, it was common place to find an African American on the streets asking for change. Today, one has walked into the White House on a popular mandate for Change. In this sense, history is, indeed, being made.
Fidel Castro had described Obama as “the most progressive candidate for US Presidency” from the “social and human points of view”, but warned that it would be an illusion to presume that the character of US imperialism would undergo any decisive progressive shifts. Marx had once said, “Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past”.
Obama inherits a past: US imperialism’s hegemonic drive to impose a global unipolarity under its tutelage; US strategic doctrine of ‘preemptive strike’ against any sovereign independent country in the world; the US’s self-declared right to militarily attack and occupy any country in the name of the‘global war against terrorism’. He inherits the notorious history of ‘state terrorism’ practiced by successive US governments. He has declared to continue the criminal economic blockade against Cuba. He inherits the presidential sanction for torture in Abu Ghraib, or Guantanamo.
US support to Israel has denied the Palestinians their ‘home land’ all through the 20th century. Will this change now? Pertinent to us, in India, is that, with this unprecedented Democratic sweep in the US Congress and Senate as well, the pressures for resurrecting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will mount. With the Indo-US nuclear deal’s attendant pressures on India, this has serious implications. Further, Obama has already displayed keen interest in resolving the Kashmir dispute when India has consistently maintained that there is no scope for any third party intervention in this Indo-Pak bilateral issue. Obama has declared this as a priority in order to have Pakistan’s undistracted attention in helping the US militarily to combat the Taliban.
Surely, on these and many other important issues, the official US position will be known once Obama assumes the reins of office. So also will the world know how the US administration, under him, intends to tackle the current crisis of global capitalism. A recession has already begun in the US and fast spreading to other industrialised countries. Definitive positions can only be taken subsequently.
The moot question, therefore, is: will any of this change? While there are expectations, the track record of US imperialism renders all such hopes illusiory. US imperialism’s earlier preoccupation with its ‘war on communism’ led to the unilateral aggression against Vietnam, will the pressures of the current ‘war against terrorism’ propel the Obama administration into more horrendous acts of ‘state terrorism’?
Obama concludes his book, The Audacity of Hope, by dedicating himself to the process that built the US: “those like Lincoln and King, who ultimately laid down their lives in the service of perfecting an imperfect union. And all the faceless, nameless men and women, slaves and soldiers and tailors and butchers, constructing lives for themselves and their children and grandchildren, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, to fill in the landscape of our collective dreams...It is that process I wish to be a part of.”
Indeed laudable. But will this process be confined to some 300 million people that account for less than 5 per cent of the world population? The fate of the remaining 95 per cent of humanity, war or peace, air that may be fit to breathe or not, their quality of life, as Fidel Castro said, will depend to a great extent on the decisions of the Empire’s institutional leader.
Return to the Chinese curse. It contains a belief that in every crisis situation, there is also the path for hope. Will this be used for creating a better world? The past experience of US imperialism, however, has shown that the leopard never changes its spots. If so, then the struggle shall continue for the triumph of hope over experience.
(The writer is Rajya Sabha MP and member of the CPM politburo)
Roger And Out
The remarkable ascendancy of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America brings to mind an ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times”. When my generation was growing up, Hollywood, in late 1960s, captured the conflicts of American society in the film ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’, the dilemma of an all white family whose daughter invites her African-American boyfriend to dinner. Sidney Poitier poignantly conveyed the insecurities of racial prejudices. This film strengthened the resolve amongst many of us to fight discrimination of all sorts. On my first visit to New York in the early Seventies, it was common place to find an African American on the streets asking for change. Today, one has walked into the White House on a popular mandate for Change. In this sense, history is, indeed, being made.
Fidel Castro had described Obama as “the most progressive candidate for US Presidency” from the “social and human points of view”, but warned that it would be an illusion to presume that the character of US imperialism would undergo any decisive progressive shifts. Marx had once said, “Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past”.
Obama inherits a past: US imperialism’s hegemonic drive to impose a global unipolarity under its tutelage; US strategic doctrine of ‘preemptive strike’ against any sovereign independent country in the world; the US’s self-declared right to militarily attack and occupy any country in the name of the‘global war against terrorism’. He inherits the notorious history of ‘state terrorism’ practiced by successive US governments. He has declared to continue the criminal economic blockade against Cuba. He inherits the presidential sanction for torture in Abu Ghraib, or Guantanamo.
US support to Israel has denied the Palestinians their ‘home land’ all through the 20th century. Will this change now? Pertinent to us, in India, is that, with this unprecedented Democratic sweep in the US Congress and Senate as well, the pressures for resurrecting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will mount. With the Indo-US nuclear deal’s attendant pressures on India, this has serious implications. Further, Obama has already displayed keen interest in resolving the Kashmir dispute when India has consistently maintained that there is no scope for any third party intervention in this Indo-Pak bilateral issue. Obama has declared this as a priority in order to have Pakistan’s undistracted attention in helping the US militarily to combat the Taliban.
Surely, on these and many other important issues, the official US position will be known once Obama assumes the reins of office. So also will the world know how the US administration, under him, intends to tackle the current crisis of global capitalism. A recession has already begun in the US and fast spreading to other industrialised countries. Definitive positions can only be taken subsequently.
The moot question, therefore, is: will any of this change? While there are expectations, the track record of US imperialism renders all such hopes illusiory. US imperialism’s earlier preoccupation with its ‘war on communism’ led to the unilateral aggression against Vietnam, will the pressures of the current ‘war against terrorism’ propel the Obama administration into more horrendous acts of ‘state terrorism’?
Obama concludes his book, The Audacity of Hope, by dedicating himself to the process that built the US: “those like Lincoln and King, who ultimately laid down their lives in the service of perfecting an imperfect union. And all the faceless, nameless men and women, slaves and soldiers and tailors and butchers, constructing lives for themselves and their children and grandchildren, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, to fill in the landscape of our collective dreams...It is that process I wish to be a part of.”
Indeed laudable. But will this process be confined to some 300 million people that account for less than 5 per cent of the world population? The fate of the remaining 95 per cent of humanity, war or peace, air that may be fit to breathe or not, their quality of life, as Fidel Castro said, will depend to a great extent on the decisions of the Empire’s institutional leader.
Return to the Chinese curse. It contains a belief that in every crisis situation, there is also the path for hope. Will this be used for creating a better world? The past experience of US imperialism, however, has shown that the leopard never changes its spots. If so, then the struggle shall continue for the triumph of hope over experience.
(The writer is Rajya Sabha MP and member of the CPM politburo)
Roger And Out
Saturday, November 1, 2008
A Scary Halloween With Sarah Palin
("Spreading Wealth?" See how scared even impoverished Yanks view socialism. - RR)
In central Pennsylvania, the Republican base is afraid of Obama, and lost in fever dreams of a neo-Soviet nightmare. But it's all in God's hands.
Roger And Out
read more | digg story
In central Pennsylvania, the Republican base is afraid of Obama, and lost in fever dreams of a neo-Soviet nightmare. But it's all in God's hands.
Roger And Out
read more | digg story
Fawning & Uncritical Media Boosts Obama Campaign
By Harold Evans/The Guardian
What's troubling to anyone old-fashioned enough to care about standards in journalism is the news coverage in mainstream media. Forget the old notions of objectivity, fairness, thoroughness, and so on. The nastiest rumours on both sides haven't been published, but the coverage has been slavishly on the side of "the one".
Read the excellent piece from the former editor of the London Times at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/01/elections-obama-press-bias-mccain
Roger And Out
What's troubling to anyone old-fashioned enough to care about standards in journalism is the news coverage in mainstream media. Forget the old notions of objectivity, fairness, thoroughness, and so on. The nastiest rumours on both sides haven't been published, but the coverage has been slavishly on the side of "the one".
Read the excellent piece from the former editor of the London Times at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/01/elections-obama-press-bias-mccain
Roger And Out
BJP denies tickets to quarter of MP MLAs
Nov 1, 2008
The BJP has denied tickets to nearly a fourth of MLAs in Madhya Pradesh, in its first list of candidates, reports The Economic Times. The list, announced on Friday, comprises 115 candidates, accounting for half of 230-member assembly. As many as 28 sitting MLAs, including one minister have been dropped.
Minister in the public works department, Narayan Prasad Kabirpanthi, has been dropped. He had contested from Naryaoli in the last elections and will be replaced by Pradeep Lariya. Of these 115 seats, the BJP had won 75 in the last assembly elections; 47 of the sitting MLAs have been given a ticket.
This exercise of letting go of MLAs to counter the adverse effects of incumbency proved to be succesful in Gujarat. The party has stuck to this formula in Chhattisgarh as well. It is expected that a similar exercise will be undertaken for Rajasthan.
Madhya Pradesh is one of the three poll-bound states where the BJP has been in power for the past five years. The BJP brass, in consultation with the local units, has decided to neutralise the damage by denying tickets to candidates whose report cards as sitting MLAs in the past five years were not found up to the mark.
In its first list the party has fielded 14 women candidates, 19 OBCs, 20 Scheduled Caste and 33 Scheduled Tribe candidates. Ram Pal Singh, who represents the Vidisha parliamentary seat, which he contested in a bypoll after he vacated his Budni seat in favour of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, is marking a return to state politics.
He will be contesting from the newly formed constituency of Shilvani. Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan will contest from his home constituency of Budni. other notables who have been given a ticket are Sundarlal Patwa’s nephew Surendra Patwa from the Bhojpur seat, which he lost to Congress candidate Rajesh patel in the last elections.
Assembly speaker Ishwar Das Rohani will be contesting from the Jabalpur Cant seat.
Meanwhile, the Congress stuck to the quota script and awarded nominations to loyalists of powerful state leaders in Madhya Pradesh. While backers of Mr Digvijay Singh and Mr Kamal Nath walked away with a major share, the party took care to guard political interests of Mr Arjun Singh, Mr Suresh Pachouri and Mr Jyotiraditya Scindia.
The first list of 117 candidates released by the Congress clearly indicated the party was adhering to the ‘quota system’ although there was talk of abandoning it.
Mr Digvijay Singh and Mr Pachouri will not contest the assembly poll. Raghogarh, which is being represented by Mr Singh, has gone to his associate Mool Singh. Mr Singh was chief minister of the state for 10 years.
The list released by the party for the next month’s poll includes several former ministers and senior leaders including leader of opposition Jamuna Devi and former deputy chief minister Subhash Yadav.
While Ms Jamuna Devi has been renominated from Kukshi, Mr Yadav will contest from Kasrawad. Mr Ajay Singh, son of Mr Arjun Singh, has been renominated from Churhat. Former assembly speaker Sninivas Tiwari is the party nominee from Sirmour.
Hazarilal Raghuvanshi, who is the deputy speaker, has been nominated from Seoni-Malwa. Among former ministers who have been given tickets include Satyadev Katare, Mahindra Bodh, Raghavendra Singh, Parvatlal Ahirwar and Radnesh Solomon, brother-in-law of former chief minister of Chhattisgarh Ajit Jogi.
Roger And Out
The BJP has denied tickets to nearly a fourth of MLAs in Madhya Pradesh, in its first list of candidates, reports The Economic Times. The list, announced on Friday, comprises 115 candidates, accounting for half of 230-member assembly. As many as 28 sitting MLAs, including one minister have been dropped.
Minister in the public works department, Narayan Prasad Kabirpanthi, has been dropped. He had contested from Naryaoli in the last elections and will be replaced by Pradeep Lariya. Of these 115 seats, the BJP had won 75 in the last assembly elections; 47 of the sitting MLAs have been given a ticket.
This exercise of letting go of MLAs to counter the adverse effects of incumbency proved to be succesful in Gujarat. The party has stuck to this formula in Chhattisgarh as well. It is expected that a similar exercise will be undertaken for Rajasthan.
Madhya Pradesh is one of the three poll-bound states where the BJP has been in power for the past five years. The BJP brass, in consultation with the local units, has decided to neutralise the damage by denying tickets to candidates whose report cards as sitting MLAs in the past five years were not found up to the mark.
In its first list the party has fielded 14 women candidates, 19 OBCs, 20 Scheduled Caste and 33 Scheduled Tribe candidates. Ram Pal Singh, who represents the Vidisha parliamentary seat, which he contested in a bypoll after he vacated his Budni seat in favour of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, is marking a return to state politics.
He will be contesting from the newly formed constituency of Shilvani. Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan will contest from his home constituency of Budni. other notables who have been given a ticket are Sundarlal Patwa’s nephew Surendra Patwa from the Bhojpur seat, which he lost to Congress candidate Rajesh patel in the last elections.
Assembly speaker Ishwar Das Rohani will be contesting from the Jabalpur Cant seat.
Meanwhile, the Congress stuck to the quota script and awarded nominations to loyalists of powerful state leaders in Madhya Pradesh. While backers of Mr Digvijay Singh and Mr Kamal Nath walked away with a major share, the party took care to guard political interests of Mr Arjun Singh, Mr Suresh Pachouri and Mr Jyotiraditya Scindia.
The first list of 117 candidates released by the Congress clearly indicated the party was adhering to the ‘quota system’ although there was talk of abandoning it.
Mr Digvijay Singh and Mr Pachouri will not contest the assembly poll. Raghogarh, which is being represented by Mr Singh, has gone to his associate Mool Singh. Mr Singh was chief minister of the state for 10 years.
The list released by the party for the next month’s poll includes several former ministers and senior leaders including leader of opposition Jamuna Devi and former deputy chief minister Subhash Yadav.
While Ms Jamuna Devi has been renominated from Kukshi, Mr Yadav will contest from Kasrawad. Mr Ajay Singh, son of Mr Arjun Singh, has been renominated from Churhat. Former assembly speaker Sninivas Tiwari is the party nominee from Sirmour.
Hazarilal Raghuvanshi, who is the deputy speaker, has been nominated from Seoni-Malwa. Among former ministers who have been given tickets include Satyadev Katare, Mahindra Bodh, Raghavendra Singh, Parvatlal Ahirwar and Radnesh Solomon, brother-in-law of former chief minister of Chhattisgarh Ajit Jogi.
Roger And Out
Friday, October 31, 2008
Is Obama A War-Monger With A Different Face?
(As the US Presidential race reaches it denouement, Barack Obama's 'Change We Can' mantra is under the scanner. Indeed, the more things change, the more they they remain the same! - RR)
The media establishment has been careful to portray Obama as a fresh voice, the “anti-war” candidate. Yet, Obama has already said that he will evaluate his withdrawal plan “at the time,” pledged a massive increase of troops in Afghanistan, and has threated Iran with nuclear annihilation. This is an “anti-war” candidate?
Roger And Out
read more | digg story
The media establishment has been careful to portray Obama as a fresh voice, the “anti-war” candidate. Yet, Obama has already said that he will evaluate his withdrawal plan “at the time,” pledged a massive increase of troops in Afghanistan, and has threated Iran with nuclear annihilation. This is an “anti-war” candidate?
Roger And Out
read more | digg story
Events may make Obama adopt radical positions
By Seumas Milne/The Guardian
What seems certain is that Obama's election will be a catalyst that creates political opportunities both at home and abroad. The Obama campaign grew out of popular opposition to the Iraq war and its success has been based on the mobilisation of supporters who will certainly want to go further and faster than their candidate.
Roger And Out
read more | digg story
What seems certain is that Obama's election will be a catalyst that creates political opportunities both at home and abroad. The Obama campaign grew out of popular opposition to the Iraq war and its success has been based on the mobilisation of supporters who will certainly want to go further and faster than their candidate.
Roger And Out
read more | digg story
The Pornograph-izing of Sarah Palin
Strip club look alike contests and the 'Nailin Palin' porno by Hustler are not in good fun
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Thursday, October 30, 2008
How Gibbering Numbskulls Dominate Washington
By George Monbiot
The Guardian
How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the US come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind's closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle and other such gibbering numbskulls get to where they are? How could Republican rallies in 2008 be drowned out by screaming ignoramuses insisting that Barack Obama was a Muslim and a terrorist?
See this fabulous comment at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/28/us-education-election-obama-bush-mccain/print
Roger And Out
The Guardian
How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the US come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind's closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle and other such gibbering numbskulls get to where they are? How could Republican rallies in 2008 be drowned out by screaming ignoramuses insisting that Barack Obama was a Muslim and a terrorist?
See this fabulous comment at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/28/us-education-election-obama-bush-mccain/print
Roger And Out
Sangh Parivar & BJP Can't Disown Role In Terrorism
By Kavita Krishnan
29 October, 2008
Countercurrents.org
No longer can the Sangh Parivar and BJP ever disown its role in terrorism. A former firebrand ABVP leader and so-called 'sadhvi', Pragya Singh Thakur, has been arrested for her role in the Malegaon blasts of September 2006 as well as in the more recent Modasa blasts. Even more ominously, two ex-Army officers are implicated in the blasts, and it has come to light that an institution called the 'Bhonsala Military Academy' in Nagpur has been imparting arms training to the Bajrang Dal.
Read the whole story: http://www.countercurrents.org/krishna291008.htm
Roger And Out
29 October, 2008
Countercurrents.org
No longer can the Sangh Parivar and BJP ever disown its role in terrorism. A former firebrand ABVP leader and so-called 'sadhvi', Pragya Singh Thakur, has been arrested for her role in the Malegaon blasts of September 2006 as well as in the more recent Modasa blasts. Even more ominously, two ex-Army officers are implicated in the blasts, and it has come to light that an institution called the 'Bhonsala Military Academy' in Nagpur has been imparting arms training to the Bajrang Dal.
Read the whole story: http://www.countercurrents.org/krishna291008.htm
Roger And Out
Death Knell Of Print Journalism?
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD (NYT)
Published: October 28, 2008
After a century of continuous publication, The Christian Science Monitor will abandon its weekday print edition and appear online only, its publisher announced Tuesday. The cost-cutting measure makes The Monitor the first US national newspaper to largely give up on print.
See this story at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/business/media/29paper.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Roger And Out
Published: October 28, 2008
After a century of continuous publication, The Christian Science Monitor will abandon its weekday print edition and appear online only, its publisher announced Tuesday. The cost-cutting measure makes The Monitor the first US national newspaper to largely give up on print.
See this story at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/business/media/29paper.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Roger And Out
India must look after its own interests first
By Ashok Mitra
Hell has finally been let loose. It may look like the end of the capitalist order to those done in by the holocaust. Capitalism, with its feline features, has however proved it has more than nine lives. What is more legitimate to claim is the end of the officiousness of the ideology of laissez faire, which has for this long buttressed capitalism. Recent weeks have decisively settled the issue: the so-called free market does not raise human welfare to its highest possible level, allowing the animal spirit in man to roam unfettered does not lead to either an equilibrium of bliss or to the emergence of a just society, the animal spirit actually wraps within itself such evils as greed, envy, ill-will, skulduggery and a fearsome lack of moral principles.
Since luminaries from the United States of America were the most vocal votaries of the free market, it was almost inevitable for that country to be the first and severest victim of the catastrophe that has set in. The long, dismal procession of financial collapses, insolvencies, take-overs and whining pleas to the government to bail out the wrongdoers — and those at the receiving end of their wrongdoing — is almost a re-run of the Great Depression. Quite a few of those at this moment importuning with the begging bowl were, till yesterday, holier-than-thou specimens. In that sense, it has been a great leveller: the high and mighty mortgage financiers Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, for more than a century the majordomo in investment banking Lehman Brothers, other investment banking giants such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, the grand insurance conglomerate, the American International Group; the mega stockbroker Merill Lynch, have all bitten the dust. The individual tales of how they came a cropper have their specific nuances, but the basic malady is the same: overreaching ambition goading those in charge of these institutions to cut absurd corners. The entire American nation has now to pay for the sins of a collection of private sharks, big and small. Because over the past decades so much gibberish has been talked, and listened to, on the necessity of financial integration on a global scale, Europe — and Asia too, at least partially — are also at panic’s door. What in the jargon is known as the elasticity of expectations has gone haywire: since people expect the market to crash, the market is crashing — and keeps crashing — all over.
Hard times call for hard decisions. Whatever the wrench in the heart, dogmas have to be thrown into the wastebasket. Can you believe it, George W. Bush presenting himself before the world’s media and thundering in no-nonsense terms: the government must intervene in the affairs of the economy? The free market is officially buried. The State must reassume centre-stage, the treasury and the federal reserve board will be handing out rescue money right and left in order to save banking and non-banking institutions alike. Even when such entities have gone bust entirely on account of devious doings on their own part, State generosity will not be denied. After all, the survival of American capitalism is at stake. Saving a crooked and corrupt Wall Street is saving the capitalist order.
At the same time, it is being rubbed in even to the thugs in trouble, there is no free lunch. The US Congress, representing the American nation, has assumed the role of a stern taskmaster. State agencies will henceforth oversee and regulate the activities of institutions receiving government bounty. In some instances, such institutions — including banks — will have to part with a segment of their equity to these agencies, a euphemism for semi-nationalization. That is to say, American capitalism, in sackcloth and ashes, has agreed to the shackles of a regulatory regime. Even salaries and perquisites going to the executive personnel of quite a few fund-receiving institutions will be subject to public scrutiny. Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, equally hard hit by the blowing typhoon, has gone even further, to the extent of nationalizing, in full, some of its largest banks.
Will the message reach the shores of India, where the authorities, bewitched by liberalization, have been obstinately anxious to integrate the domestic financial market with miracle-making Wall Street? Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar: it is only determined resistance by the Left which has stood in the way of a greater exposure of our financial system to American banks and insurance firms. Notwithstanding that piece of luck, share prices here are behaving like Nervous Nellies. And this for a solid reason.
Short-term capital funds from abroad have parked in our stock exchanges in substantial quantities. Foreigners have purchased a sizeable slice of equity of not only many Indian industrial and commercial ventures, but of some of our leading banks as well. If, because of uncertainties originating in the US and Europe, these equity investments are withdrawn at an extraordinarily fast pace, it could cause a debacle in both share prices and our foreign exchange holdings. The nervousness on our bourses is largely on account of contemplation of that prospect, which can be avoided only if the authorities, without losing a moment, re-clamp restrictions on capital movements on the current account.
The neo-colonial grip on North Block is yet to slacken. Even as both Sensex and Nifty show signs of a free fall, the prime minister, his finance minister and their cronies persist in glib talk about the “strong fundamentals” of the Indian economy, a copycat version of the assertion of the US Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain that the American economy is “structurally sound”. Hope is being pinned exclusively on providing additional liquidity to participants in the share markets. Official verbiage continues to avoid mentioning the most crucial fact though. Foreign institutional investors at present hold around 70 billion US dollars —equivalent to Rs 350,000 crore — in Indian stocks, including equity of major banks and corporate bodies. If worst comes to the worst, foreigners could all of a sudden begin to sell short, dump these stocks, take their pickings and depart from the scene. The consequences could be frightening for share prices, the external value of the rupee and the country’s foreign exchange reserves. The Reserve Bank of India’s pump-priming would be hopelessly inadequate in that kind of a situation.
Is not what is immediately called for is, if not a total ban, at least a strict regime of controls, on taking short-term capital out of the country? Those at the helm of our affairs, overly concerned about possible negative reactions from their patrons in Washington DC to exchange control proposals, would like to perish such a thought and mumble inanities like the necessity of a global solution to a global problem. But the rude fact will not go away: finance ministers of the Western countries will lay stress on solutions which save their own skin; India and other developing countries are not at the top of their agenda.
What should worry our policy-framers is that, in case, while they do nothing, foreigners scoot with their loot, the stock markets collapse, foreign exchange assets shrink and some of the banks go under, the so-called “fundamentals” of the economy might cease to stay “strong” for any length of time. To cling to the notion of globalization together with liberalization leading us to an Arcadia would be plain silly in this season. The Americans and the Europeans are taking care of themselves, and have returned to the shelter of the State. In our country too the State has to step in and choose the most efficacious instruments, including those which foreigners disfavour: our own interests should precede the interests of foreigners.
The town cynic would conceivably chip in here. He would contribute a further argument against financial accommodation to save speculators in the stock markets. Why not let those who live by share prices, he would suggest, die by share prices too? After all, they constitute at most three per cent of the national population. Why not invest the money for an alternative purpose, for bettering the lot, for instance, of the agrarian community, which makes up close to two-thirds of the nation? That would, he would add, contribute much more towards strengthening the “fundamentals” of the economy.
(Courtesy: The Telegraph, Kolkata)
Roger And Out
Hell has finally been let loose. It may look like the end of the capitalist order to those done in by the holocaust. Capitalism, with its feline features, has however proved it has more than nine lives. What is more legitimate to claim is the end of the officiousness of the ideology of laissez faire, which has for this long buttressed capitalism. Recent weeks have decisively settled the issue: the so-called free market does not raise human welfare to its highest possible level, allowing the animal spirit in man to roam unfettered does not lead to either an equilibrium of bliss or to the emergence of a just society, the animal spirit actually wraps within itself such evils as greed, envy, ill-will, skulduggery and a fearsome lack of moral principles.
Since luminaries from the United States of America were the most vocal votaries of the free market, it was almost inevitable for that country to be the first and severest victim of the catastrophe that has set in. The long, dismal procession of financial collapses, insolvencies, take-overs and whining pleas to the government to bail out the wrongdoers — and those at the receiving end of their wrongdoing — is almost a re-run of the Great Depression. Quite a few of those at this moment importuning with the begging bowl were, till yesterday, holier-than-thou specimens. In that sense, it has been a great leveller: the high and mighty mortgage financiers Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, for more than a century the majordomo in investment banking Lehman Brothers, other investment banking giants such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, the grand insurance conglomerate, the American International Group; the mega stockbroker Merill Lynch, have all bitten the dust. The individual tales of how they came a cropper have their specific nuances, but the basic malady is the same: overreaching ambition goading those in charge of these institutions to cut absurd corners. The entire American nation has now to pay for the sins of a collection of private sharks, big and small. Because over the past decades so much gibberish has been talked, and listened to, on the necessity of financial integration on a global scale, Europe — and Asia too, at least partially — are also at panic’s door. What in the jargon is known as the elasticity of expectations has gone haywire: since people expect the market to crash, the market is crashing — and keeps crashing — all over.
Hard times call for hard decisions. Whatever the wrench in the heart, dogmas have to be thrown into the wastebasket. Can you believe it, George W. Bush presenting himself before the world’s media and thundering in no-nonsense terms: the government must intervene in the affairs of the economy? The free market is officially buried. The State must reassume centre-stage, the treasury and the federal reserve board will be handing out rescue money right and left in order to save banking and non-banking institutions alike. Even when such entities have gone bust entirely on account of devious doings on their own part, State generosity will not be denied. After all, the survival of American capitalism is at stake. Saving a crooked and corrupt Wall Street is saving the capitalist order.
At the same time, it is being rubbed in even to the thugs in trouble, there is no free lunch. The US Congress, representing the American nation, has assumed the role of a stern taskmaster. State agencies will henceforth oversee and regulate the activities of institutions receiving government bounty. In some instances, such institutions — including banks — will have to part with a segment of their equity to these agencies, a euphemism for semi-nationalization. That is to say, American capitalism, in sackcloth and ashes, has agreed to the shackles of a regulatory regime. Even salaries and perquisites going to the executive personnel of quite a few fund-receiving institutions will be subject to public scrutiny. Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, equally hard hit by the blowing typhoon, has gone even further, to the extent of nationalizing, in full, some of its largest banks.
Will the message reach the shores of India, where the authorities, bewitched by liberalization, have been obstinately anxious to integrate the domestic financial market with miracle-making Wall Street? Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar: it is only determined resistance by the Left which has stood in the way of a greater exposure of our financial system to American banks and insurance firms. Notwithstanding that piece of luck, share prices here are behaving like Nervous Nellies. And this for a solid reason.
Short-term capital funds from abroad have parked in our stock exchanges in substantial quantities. Foreigners have purchased a sizeable slice of equity of not only many Indian industrial and commercial ventures, but of some of our leading banks as well. If, because of uncertainties originating in the US and Europe, these equity investments are withdrawn at an extraordinarily fast pace, it could cause a debacle in both share prices and our foreign exchange holdings. The nervousness on our bourses is largely on account of contemplation of that prospect, which can be avoided only if the authorities, without losing a moment, re-clamp restrictions on capital movements on the current account.
The neo-colonial grip on North Block is yet to slacken. Even as both Sensex and Nifty show signs of a free fall, the prime minister, his finance minister and their cronies persist in glib talk about the “strong fundamentals” of the Indian economy, a copycat version of the assertion of the US Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain that the American economy is “structurally sound”. Hope is being pinned exclusively on providing additional liquidity to participants in the share markets. Official verbiage continues to avoid mentioning the most crucial fact though. Foreign institutional investors at present hold around 70 billion US dollars —equivalent to Rs 350,000 crore — in Indian stocks, including equity of major banks and corporate bodies. If worst comes to the worst, foreigners could all of a sudden begin to sell short, dump these stocks, take their pickings and depart from the scene. The consequences could be frightening for share prices, the external value of the rupee and the country’s foreign exchange reserves. The Reserve Bank of India’s pump-priming would be hopelessly inadequate in that kind of a situation.
Is not what is immediately called for is, if not a total ban, at least a strict regime of controls, on taking short-term capital out of the country? Those at the helm of our affairs, overly concerned about possible negative reactions from their patrons in Washington DC to exchange control proposals, would like to perish such a thought and mumble inanities like the necessity of a global solution to a global problem. But the rude fact will not go away: finance ministers of the Western countries will lay stress on solutions which save their own skin; India and other developing countries are not at the top of their agenda.
What should worry our policy-framers is that, in case, while they do nothing, foreigners scoot with their loot, the stock markets collapse, foreign exchange assets shrink and some of the banks go under, the so-called “fundamentals” of the economy might cease to stay “strong” for any length of time. To cling to the notion of globalization together with liberalization leading us to an Arcadia would be plain silly in this season. The Americans and the Europeans are taking care of themselves, and have returned to the shelter of the State. In our country too the State has to step in and choose the most efficacious instruments, including those which foreigners disfavour: our own interests should precede the interests of foreigners.
The town cynic would conceivably chip in here. He would contribute a further argument against financial accommodation to save speculators in the stock markets. Why not let those who live by share prices, he would suggest, die by share prices too? After all, they constitute at most three per cent of the national population. Why not invest the money for an alternative purpose, for bettering the lot, for instance, of the agrarian community, which makes up close to two-thirds of the nation? That would, he would add, contribute much more towards strengthening the “fundamentals” of the economy.
(Courtesy: The Telegraph, Kolkata)
Roger And Out
Monday, October 27, 2008
The Real Story Behind the US-India Nuclear Deal
By Subrata Ghoshroy, AlterNet.
Roger And Out
The legislation signed by Bush is technically known as the 123 Agreement because it amends section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which regulates U.S. cooperation with other nations in nuclear matters and prohibits trading with states that have not signed the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Not only is India a non-signatory to the landmark treaty, it is, along with Israel and Pakistan, also in contravention of its underlying principle, having secretly developed the bomb by transferring fissile material from its civilian program.
But while the point of the legislation was ostensibly to enable India to meet its energy needs, in reality it was about much more than that. The primary motivation is the U.S. embrace of India as a strategic partner.
Read the whole report: www.alternet.org/audits/103313/Roger And Out
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Congress, BJP Groping In The Dark In Madhya Pradesh
By Roger Alexander
Exactly a month from now, Madhya Pradesh goes to the polls. Yet, both the ruling BJP and the Opposition Congress have failed to announce their candidates for the 230 seats even though some names have been cleared by the respective ‘high commands’. Indeed, both parties had said earlier with a lot of fanfare that the names of candidates would be announced well in advance but nothing of the sort has happened till now.
Reports in the media suggest that the lists will be made public only after Diwali and campaigning in earnest would start only in November 10, giving candidates three weeks to reach out to the electorate.
According to speculative reports, one factor that could be responsible for the delay could be that neither the BJP nor the Congress wants to be the first to declare candidates and both appear to be waiting for the other to make the first move. Besides, Bharatiya Janashakti Party president Uma Bharti has queered the pitch for both parties by holding out hope for aspirants who fail to get tickets from either the BJP or the Congress to contest elections on her party’s ticket. Similarly, Mayawati’s BSP and Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party are also eyeing rebels from the Congress and BJP, though to a lesser extent.
If reports are to be believed, the BJP is toying with the idea of adopting the “Modi formula” of dropping unpopular legislators as a strategy to minimise the anti-incumbency factor. Speculation is rife that around 40 of the 173 MLAs in Madhya Pradesh may miss their names in the list of candidates as the party leadership feels that the state government has done well and cannot afford to lose because of the unpopularity of individual leaders.
The Congress, as usual, is groping in the dark. Even though around 70 candidates have been approved by the ‘high command’, their names have not been made public for fear of driving the losers to revolt (as if they won’t later). Besides, the four top leaders from the state – Arjun Singh, Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia – are pulling in different directions.
To complicate things further, the BSP has emerged as a strengthened force after the elections in Uttar Pradesh. It has used its base among the Dalits to build a wider coalition of caste politics in the areas adjoining UP, besides the tribal areas. Indeed, the party will be an important factor in Madhya Pradesh even though it has announced that it will not ally with any other party for the elections.
In the 2003 assembly elections, the BSP had obtained 7.6 per cent of the vote resulting in two seats. In the present scenario, it will certainly play the spoiler because it remains squeezed in between the Congress and the BJP which have not declined in the state as in Uttar Pradesh. However, some observers feel that the BSP will hurt the Congress more than the BJP as it draws on same social combination of Dalits and Muslims as the Congress.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) has announced it will field its candidates in 12 of the 230 constituencies in Madhya Pradesh for the assembly elections on November 25. The party will contest the elections in coordination with the CPI and other secular forces, including the JD(S). The Left parties would appeal the voters to give an opportunity to a third alternative, whether it is the BSP or any other party, to form the government in the state.
Roger And Out!
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Political Uncertainty In Rajasthan
By Roger Alexander
Rajasthan elects its next legislature in six weeks and politics in the hot weather state is hotting up further. While it is a direct contest between the ruling BJP and Congress, a new set of political developments are queering the pitch for the traditional rivals.
The most important, of course, is the rise of the BSP and Mayawati’s growing popularity in the state. The other is the ‘Gujjar conundrum.
The BSP may not have big names on its rolls but has an early-bird advantage of starting is poll campaign much before the BJP and Congress. In fact, the party released its list of 155 candidates for the Assembly polls in Rajasthan and 13 for Lok Sabha elections way back on September 1.
The list included the name of Jagat Singh, son of former External Affair Minister K Natwar Singh. The remaining 45 candidates will be named in the next few days. “We are hopeful of the successful implementation of the UP formula that brought us to power in
Apart from the traditional Dalit votes, the party is likely to garner sizeable minority and Jat votes. The inclusion of former Congress MP Natwar Singh and his son Jagat Singh has facilitated its entry into Bharatpur district, a Jat stronghold.
The Jats are visibly upset with Congress over the issue of making a Jat CM. They can vote in favour of BSP with the hope of a Jat CM in Natwar Singh. Also, the minority, having tested both the Congress and BJP can give a chance to the BSP following its favourable attitude towards them in UP.
In the last elections, the BSP polled 5 per cent of the votes to win two seats out of 124 constituencies it contested. “Last time, we went for the poll with only eight-month preparations. Even then, the margin between our candidates and the winning MLAs was barely 4-5 per cent. This time, we are fielding our candidates on all the 200 seats. We have our plans cut out with hard work of four-and-a-half years behind us. We will definitely upset all political calculations,” claims Gader.
Indeed, the BSP has already fielded its grass root workers in a door-to-door campaign in areas where it hopes to make inroads even before the Congress and BJP have finalised their candidates. With a strong presence in eastern Rajasthan districts adjoining Uttar Pradesh — Bharatpur, Karauli and Sawai Madhopur — the BSP is also trying to make its presence felt in tribal areas of southern districts Udaipur, Banswara, Pratapgarh and Dungarpur.
“We have the right mix of candidates. We have given tickets to candidates belonging to 40 castes. Around 100 are Meenas while 40 are Brahmin and Rajput candidates; we want to give a comprehensive image to the party,” claims Gader.
Besides the BSP, the Gujjars too have skewed all political calculations. The Gujjars can tilt the scales in around 17 seats in the Sawai Madhopur, Dausa and Bharatpur districts and their leader Kirori Singh Bainsla could well play the role of kingmaker in Rajasthan in the case of a hung assembly.
There is said to be huge pressure building on Bainsla from within the community to float a Gujjar-specific party. However, this commentator believes that it is rather late in the day for such a move, even if the limited aim is to win a few seats and a voice in the state assembly.
Indeed, Bainsla has indicated publicly that rather than float his party, he would rather support the BJP, which means he’d rather extract as many tickets from the BJP for the Gujjar candidates. However, that is easier said than done as the BJP has a strong following among the rival Meenas. So watch out for some tightrope walking from Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje.
She is sure to make the pitch that she was instrumental in carving out a special quota for them. Indeed, recently at a public meeting in New Delhi Bainsla said the state BJP had done whatever best it could for the Gujjars and that it was Congress-led UPA which was refusing to grant the
The waters may be muddies at the moment and a clearer picture will emerge next week when electioneering will resume in right earnest after Diwali.
Roger And Out
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Friday, October 24, 2008
Barack Obama For President
(Roger Reports: Barack Obama may not be bring about much change - he's a Democrat - but his election will ensure that Sarah Palin does not become President of the US. For that reason alone he should be sent to the White House.)
October 24, 2008
NYT Editorial
Hyperbole is the currency of presidential campaigns, but this year the nation’s future truly hangs in the balance.
The United States is battered and drifting after eight years of President Bush’s failed leadership. He is saddling his successor with two wars, a scarred global image and a government systematically stripped of its ability to protect and help its citizens — whether they are fleeing a hurricane’s floodwaters, searching for affordable health care or struggling to hold on to their homes, jobs, savings and pensions in the midst of a financial crisis that was foretold and preventable.
As tough as the times are, the selection of a new president is easy. After nearly two years of a grueling and ugly campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has proved that he is the right choice to be the 44th president of the United States.
Mr. Obama has met challenge after challenge, growing as a leader and putting real flesh on his early promises of hope and change. He has shown a cool head and sound judgment.
We believe he has the will and the ability to forge the broad political consensus that is essential to finding solutions to this nation’s problems.In the same time, Senator John McCain of Arizona has retreated farther and farther to the fringe of American politics, running a campaign on partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism.
His policies and worldview are mired in the past. His choice of a running mate so evidently unfit for the office was a final act of opportunism and bad judgment that eclipsed the accomplishments of 26 years in Congress.
Given the particularly ugly nature of Mr. McCain’s campaign, the urge to choose on the basis of raw emotion is strong. But there is a greater value in looking closely at the facts of life in America today and at the prescriptions the candidates offer.
The differences are profound.Mr. McCain offers more of the Republican every-man-for-himself ideology, now lying in shards on Wall Street and in Americans’ bank accounts. Mr. Obama has another vision of government’s role and responsibilities.
In his convention speech in Denver, Mr. Obama said, “Government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.”
Since the financial crisis, he has correctly identified the abject failure of government regulation that has brought the markets to the brink of collapse.The EconomyThe American financial system is the victim of decades of Republican deregulatory and anti-tax policies.
Those ideas have been proved wrong at an unfathomable price, but Mr. McCain — a self-proclaimed “foot soldier in the Reagan revolution” — is still a believer.Mr. Obama sees that far-reaching reforms will be needed to protect Americans and American business.Mr. McCain talks about reform a lot, but his vision is pinched.
His answer to any economic question is to eliminate pork-barrel spending — about $18 billion in a $3 trillion budget — cut taxes and wait for unfettered markets to solve the problem.Mr. Obama is clear that the nation’s tax structure must be changed to make it fairer.
That means the well-off Americans who have benefited disproportionately from Mr. Bush’s tax cuts will have to pay some more. Working Americans, who have seen their standard of living fall and their children’s options narrow, will benefit. Mr. Obama wants to raise the minimum wage and tie it to inflation, restore a climate in which workers are able to organize unions if they wish and expand educational opportunities.
Mr. McCain, who once opposed President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy as fiscally irresponsible, now wants to make them permanent. And while he talks about keeping taxes low for everyone, his proposed cuts would overwhelmingly benefit the top 1 percent of Americans while digging the country into a deeper fiscal hole.
National Security
The American military — its people and equipment — is dangerously overstretched. Mr. Bush has neglected the necessary war in Afghanistan, which now threatens to spiral into defeat.
The unnecessary and staggeringly costly war in Iraq must be ended as quickly and responsibly as possible.While Iraq’s leaders insist on a swift drawdown of American troops and a deadline for the end of the occupation, Mr. McCain is still talking about some ill-defined “victory.”
As a result, he has offered no real plan for extracting American troops and limiting any further damage to Iraq and its neighbors.Mr. Obama was an early and thoughtful opponent of the war in Iraq, and he has presented a military and diplomatic plan for withdrawing American forces. Mr. Obama also has correctly warned that until the Pentagon starts pulling troops out of Iraq, there will not be enough troops to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Mr. McCain, like Mr. Bush, has only belatedly focused on Afghanistan’s dangerous unraveling and the threat that neighboring Pakistan may quickly follow.Mr. Obama would have a learning curve on foreign affairs, but he has already showed sounder judgment than his opponent on these critical issues. His choice of Senator Joseph Biden — who has deep foreign-policy expertise — as his running mate is another sign of that sound judgment.
Mr. McCain’s long interest in foreign policy and the many dangers this country now faces make his choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska more irresponsible.
Both presidential candidates talk about strengthening alliances in Europe and Asia, including NATO, and strongly support Israel. Both candidates talk about repairing America’s image in the world. But it seems clear to us that Mr. Obama is far more likely to do that — and not just because the first black president would present a new American face to the world.
Mr. Obama wants to reform the United Nations, while Mr. McCain wants to create a new entity, the League of Democracies — a move that would incite even fiercer anti-American furies around the world.Unfortunately, Mr. McCain, like Mr. Bush, sees the world as divided into friends (like Georgia) and adversaries (like Russia). He proposed kicking Russia out of the Group of 8 industrialized nations even before the invasion of Georgia.
We have no sympathy for Moscow’s bullying, but we also have no desire to replay the cold war. The United States must find a way to constrain the Russians’ worst impulses, while preserving the ability to work with them on arms control and other vital initiatives.
Both candidates talk tough on terrorism, and neither has ruled out military action to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program. But Mr. Obama has called for a serious effort to try to wean Tehran from its nuclear ambitions with more credible diplomatic overtures and tougher sanctions. Mr. McCain’s willingness to joke about bombing Iran was frightening.
The Constitution and the Rule of Law
Under Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the justice system and the separation of powers have come under relentless attack. Mr. Bush chose to exploit the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, the moment in which he looked like the president of a unified nation, to try to place himself above the law.
Mr. Bush has arrogated the power to imprison men without charges and browbeat Congress into granting an unfettered authority to spy on Americans. He has created untold numbers of “black” programs, including secret prisons and outsourced torture.
The president has issued hundreds, if not thousands, of secret orders. We fear it will take years of forensic research to discover how many basic rights have been violated.Both candidates have renounced torture and are committed to closing the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
But Mr. Obama has gone beyond that, promising to identify and correct Mr. Bush’s attacks on the democratic system. Mr. McCain has been silent on the subject.Mr. McCain improved protections for detainees. But then he helped the White House push through the appalling Military Commissions Act of 2006, which denied detainees the right to a hearing in a real court and put Washington in conflict with the Geneva Conventions, greatly increasing the risk to American troops.
The next president will have the chance to appoint one or more justices to a Supreme Court that is on the brink of being dominated by a radical right wing. Mr. Obama may appoint less liberal judges than some of his followers might like, but Mr. McCain is certain to pick rigid ideologues. He has said he would never appoint a judge who believes in women’s reproductive rights.
The Candidates
It will be an enormous challenge just to get the nation back to where it was before Mr. Bush, to begin to mend its image in the world and to restore its self-confidence and its self-respect.
Doing all of that, and leading America forward, will require strength of will, character and intellect, sober judgment and a cool, steady hand.Mr. Obama has those qualities in abundance. Watching him being tested in the campaign has long since erased the reservations that led us to endorse Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries. He has drawn in legions of new voters with powerful messages of hope and possibility and calls for shared sacrifice and social responsibility.
Mr. McCain, whom we chose as the best Republican nominee in the primaries, has spent the last coins of his reputation for principle and sound judgment to placate the limitless demands and narrow vision of the far-right wing. His righteous fury at being driven out of the 2000 primaries on a racist tide aimed at his adopted daughter has been replaced by a zealous embrace of those same win-at-all-costs tactics and tacticians.
He surrendered his standing as an independent thinker in his rush to embrace Mr. Bush’s misbegotten tax policies and to abandon his leadership position on climate change and immigration reform.Mr. McCain could have seized the high ground on energy and the environment. Earlier in his career, he offered the first plausible bill to control America’s emissions of greenhouse gases. Now his positions are a caricature of that record: think Ms. Palin leading chants of “drill, baby, drill.”
Mr. Obama has endorsed some offshore drilling, but as part of a comprehensive strategy including big investments in new, clean technologies. Mr. Obama has withstood some of the toughest campaign attacks ever mounted against a candidate.
He’s been called un-American and accused of hiding a secret Islamic faith. The Republicans have linked him to domestic terrorists and questioned his wife’s love of her country. Ms. Palin has also questioned millions of Americans’ patriotism, calling Republican-leaning states “pro-America.”
This politics of fear, division and character assassination helped Mr. Bush drive Mr. McCain from the 2000 Republican primaries and defeat Senator John Kerry in 2004. It has been the dominant theme of his failed presidency.The nation’s problems are simply too grave to be reduced to slashing “robo-calls” and negative ads.
This country needs sensible leadership, compassionate leadership, honest leadership and strong leadership. Barack Obama has shown that he has all of those qualities
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
