Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

By Kedar Nath Pandey

The Congress President, Sonia Gandhi, has hinted that "The present political situation is pregnant with many possibilities." She did not spell out the nature of possibilities she had in mind. The next year's assembly polls results will raise a host of issues - sharply focusing on the virtues and vices of coalition as well as single party rule in the country. It is an age-old debate, ...more

In line of lies

By Allabaksh

A more apt name for the book ghost written for the Pakistani dictator, Gen Pervez Musharraf, would have been 'A Pack of Lies' or 'In Line of Lies'. In Line of Propaganda could also have be an appropriate title since many are of the view that the timing of the release of the memoirs, 'In The of Fire' and the kind of publicity it expectedly generated was chosen to win over critics back .......more

World Food Day

By G. L. Khajuria

Child is the Father of man" has been rightfully quoted by the poet words worth in his Book "My heart leaps". True is the adoration of our revered late Prime Minister, Pt. J. L. Nehru who was much affectionate and compassionate towards children. As such his birthday on November, 14 each year is celebrated as the 'Children Day' A child is the pillar upon which rests the ......more

EDITORIAL

Elusive right?

It is a matter of deep regret that the pace of implementation of the Right of Information Act in the State is extremely slow. As a report in this newspaper has recently revealed over 95 per cent government departments have yet to follow the mandatory guidelines. As many as 130 of the total 133 such bodies have not so far issued the obligatory citizens' charter and publicised it through websites and newspapers. Inquiries have shown that an overwhelming number of them have not even prepared the charter leave alone making it public. A dozen or so have completed this preliminary exercise. For some inexplicable reason, however, their officials in charge have kept it close to their chests. The ubiquitous General Administration Department (GAD) has also not got its act together. It is ironical for, the GAD exercises overall control so far as the implementation of the Act is concerned. As it turns out it has not still launched its own website which it expects to do "very soon". It is aware that Section 3 of the Act enjoins upon all officials to notify the charter. This action needs to be taken in order to inform the people at large about procedural formalities and the sort of information they can rightfully secure from the Government. The State Vigilance Organisation (SVO) stands out for being the first to come out with the charter followed by the police and rural development departments. It is a silver lining in an evidently hopeless milieu which is marked by lack of concern. The scenario on the whole is disappointing. It has compelled the GAD to think of issuing a fresh directive to remind everybody of his or her responsibility in this behalf. Indeed, it is a pity. The Act had come into force way back on January 5, 2004. By now nuts and bolts ought to have been tied for its smooth operation. Is this too much to expect?

The Government should start making amends without further delay. Few pieces of legislation have evoked such wide appreciation as this Act has done. The aim of this extraordinary law is to usher in a regime in which citizens can on their own test the efficacy and accountability of the officialdom. It thus fulfils the basic premise on which a democracy functions: nothing shall be hidden because nothing can be hidden. The people can use it as an effective instrument to find out each step taken in decision-making processes. This removes the veil of secrecy that has covered the administrative functioning for decades. In the case of our State the people have greater difficulty in accessing the corridors of power. They have to bump into tough restrictions imposed by security considerations. For this state of affairs the ruling political elite and bureaucracy can't be blamed given the militancy-affected environment in which they have to function.

However, they can certainly make good the loss of contact on this count. All that they are required to show is much more sensitivity in dealing with ordinary masses. They must come forward to reach the people. With this objective in view the Information Act can come in as handy for them as for the people. It provides the officials with a readymade route to gain credibility in the eyes of common folks.

Heed it

It is high time that Pakistan took seriously the advice proffered by the United States on stopping terrorism in this country as a whole and the State in particular. US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns has revealed that his country has already told Pakistan to use its influence with "terrorist groups to curb and stop altogether any attacks on India." Mr Burns has elaborated: "We obviously wish to see no more terrorism emanating from Kashmiri militants." Arguably this may not be the first time that the US has expressed such sentiments. It has been concerned with the situation in the sub-continent ever since 9/11, 2001. Having been exposed to the ugly and brutal face of terrorism it is in a better position to appreciate the horror that India has been living through. It has enlisted Pakistan as an ally in its mission to "smoke out" Osama bin Laden. However, it has been consistent in telling the neighbouring country to behave at least on two fronts: it must restore democracy and completely shun the terror apparatus. Clearly the world's sole superpower is anxious that its own image may be eroded if it is seen working closely with a country openly parading its militant credentials across the globe. It must be worried that any retaliatory Indian action may derail its current agenda in this part of the world. That is another reason it keeps sharing New Delhi's fears. Of course, the fact that both America and India are democracies and the latter is emerging as a powerful economy has also drawn the two countries together. The US has been careful in its dealings with Pakistan. Off and on it has humoured its chosen partner in the drive against Al Qaeda with economic incentives. At the same time there have been occasions when it has discreetly told Pakistan that it is not doing enough There is more than one indication that the US's practical experience has made it conscious of the larger gory picture of terrorism. Its immediate priorities notwithstanding it will like the earth to be exorcised of the evil. However, its brusque manner of functioning now and then --- a case in point is its haughty intervention in Iraq --- leaves its admirers confused. For its part Pakistan will do well to heed to Mr Burns' words. Our neighbour must realise that it is counter-productive to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. It is just a coincidence that Mr Burns' assertion has coincided with a somewhat positive statement by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. Addressing a gathering in his country the General has stated: "We are against terrorism and the Mumbai blast is a terrorist act." He has added that Pakistan will be "no more" if the extremists wrest control. He has described himself as "a moderate" who strongly believes that "the moderates must win."

For many the General's expressions will carry no conviction. It is not easy to take the author of the Kargil conflict and a "uniformed" President on his word. His earlier pronouncements against extremism and sectarianism have not been equipped with deterrent actions. There is only one way by which he can prove that he means all that he says. It is by starving terror shops of arms, funds and indoctrinated youth.

Coalition politics

By Kedar Nath Pandey

The disagreement between Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are insightful for assessing the viability of coalition governments in India. Arguing from a Utilitarian standpoint, Bentham believed that society would benefit as a whole if people were allowed to pursue their individual goals without hindrance. Mill however, found this utilitarian scheme lacking as it did not provide explicit justifications for the freedoms of thought, speech and expression. For Mill these freedoms were not abstract virtues because they concretely helped people to grow and develop from what they used to be. It is only with these freedoms that knowledge is available to individuals who can now rationally assess their original positions, and alter them if necessary. This is where the strength of liberal democracy lies.

Thus Bentham emphasised in his single-minded advocacy that individuals should freely pursue their interests, Mill contested the claim by saying that this freedom is meaningless unless people are given options and alternatives that help them to assess and re-assess their initial positions. For Mill the free pursuit of an individual's private interests would have little to commend it if people knew no better, and if the conditions for knowing and evolving are absent. What if they have all been "brainwashed"? The advocates of coalition underline, in a Benthamite fashion, the importance of representing the diversity of interest groups that make up India. Given the bewildering array of variations in this country, only coalitions, they argue, can be properly representative. It is, therefore, through a faithful pursuit of these sectional interests that the nation as a whole can benefit.

What stands undermined in these exhortations for coalitions is the paramountcy of debating over alternative plans for national development which might alter the present nature of interests. Advocates of coalitions invariably see interests and interest groups as static entities which are waiting to be represented. This leaves little scope for altering one's current set of priorities which, in turn, seriously inhibits awareness and promotion of one's true interests. It is not simply a question of standing firm by one's sectional interests, or that the aggregation of all these particular interests makes for political viability. The real issue is that of transcending the limits of the present by debating over the many options available for the future. In a country like India, the question of development is a real one and almost every party has elaborated its own specific variation on this theme. This is what makes parties in India very different from one another.

When these parties enter into coalitions, they must necessarily downplay these differences no matter how grave they might be. In this process developmental considerations get sidetracked first, for this is where major disagreements between parties reside. For example, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Yadav and Ms Mayawati must abandon all talk of casteist politics if they have to survive in the contemporary politics. This encourages a consolidation of the present distribution of power between different parties in the coalition. Indeed, a vested interest develops within these coalitions to maintain the status quo. Coalitions, thus, tend to stamp out the conditions that would let people rationally evolve and realise their interests in terms of developmental alternatives. Politics is seized within a time warp. This can hardly be seen as a desirable goal which is worth promoting especially in an under - developed country like India.

In many western democracies, coalition governments are hardly exceptional: nor do they signal something abnormal or disagreeable. In contrast to the developing world western societies possess one exceptional feature that allows them to function effectively with coalition governments these countries have a large middle class, and an overwhelmingly uniform pattern of consumption and lifestyles. This not only accounts for the similarities between parties in Europe and North America, but also marginalises the significance of development issues in their politics. In fact, many western scholars have commented on the post-modern exhaustion of experience where nothing new can be added in substantive terms. What is left is but to play with commodities. As planning for the future has no allure in such societies, western democracies provide congenial settings for coalition governments.

The situation is vastly different in an old-new, rich-poor, multi-cultural country like India. Masses of poverty and a fragile middle class make development programme a primary concern here. A person's interest is linked not only to the here and now, but also to what development alternatives exist so that classes and groups can collectively evolve and better themselves in the future. The relevance of what Mill said against Bentham is thus not limited to the realm of theory alone, but can have wider and more cross-cultural application. To believe that India is ripe and ready for coalition governments is to give too much credit to political actors and to their many ad hoc justifications for seeking power. It undermines the urgency to articulate developmental issues and overvalues instead the preservation and protection of specific interests. Given the vast disparities in living conditions in India, coalitions have the dangerous potential of exaggerating these painful diversities even further. Sometimes, of course, an electoral verdict leaves no option other than a coalition government, but there is no need to make a virtue of necessity.

It is not as if non-coalition governments have been models of political rectitude in India. Far from it. Even so, on pain of extinction, the party in power in non-coalition regimes must acknowledge, however grudgingly, that outside of its own bailiwick there is a larger "public" out there that matters and must be catered to. As this public is far from being homogeneous and uniformly prosperous, it is only through developmental programmes that the existing heterogeneity of groups and interests can be realistically addressed. It is also through these developmental alternatives that different classes can judge the different routes to development, but attempts to win a large consensus around these goals keeps ideologies in circulation and the notion of the public alive. Without these futures democracy in India would be an exaggerated version of the Benthamite world where each section selfishly aspires towards its won aggrandisement within a static framework of interests. Fortunately, the Indian electorate still regards social development as a desirable goal. This is probably why every time a coalition has fallen, a single party Government has invariably replaced it - often with an impressive majority. INAV

In line of lies

By Allabaksh

Many in India think that the book's chief 'merit' lies in being the first Pakistani collection of jokes penned by a dictator. One of the reasons for this assessment could be that Musharraf maintains that the Indian nuclear programme is a copy of his country's nuclear programme which is globally (in) famous for its proliferation.

It was from the Dubai branch office of AQ Khan clandestine nuclear racket that Indians working there stole the Pakistani designs for uranium enrichment, says the General.

Perhaps, the General forgot to add that soon after the 'father of Pakistani bomb', AQ Khan, was put in the doghouse for running a nuclear black market the Pakistanis were alleging that the Iranians had received the designs for uranium enrichment from Indian scientists, not the Pakistanis!

It is not just Musharraf's wild imagination at work here. There may have been a well-calculated plan behind it. He was hawking his book in America where the nuclear energy agreement signed by the US with India is going through its last legislative hurdles.

Pakistan has been spending a lot of its energy on ensuring that the deal fails to go through. It has offered all help to the American Ayatollahs of nuclear non-proliferation. Men like David Albright have been doing a great 'service' by accusing India of nuclear proliferation-not Pakistan.

That many Indians have reacted angrily to the surfeit of lies in the book is not surprising. However, it will be really surprising if the unleashing of vicious lies by the General does not cast its shadow over talks with the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh that the lisping former Pakistani commando officer so desperately wants to resume. This is the route he has chosen to mislead his patrons in the US and the West into believing that he has changed his spots and is now a man of peace.

The expectation that Manmohan Singh would be eager to fly to Pakistan at the first available opportunity would now have to be lowered because the Musharraf's bibliographic endeavour has surely enlarged the 'trust deficit' between the two countries. Manmohan Singh had calculated that his meeting with the General would reduce that 'deficit'. But that was before the torrent of lies rushed out from Musharraf's book.

It will be clear to the prime minister and his advisers that talking to a man of Musharraf's bent of wayward mind will do no good to the country or whatever they are to discuss. He is bound to blame the Indian leader should anything go wrong or not proceed on the lines he wants but take full credit should if there is a positive result. Of course, the fresh revelations about his mindset make it almost impossible to expect anything positive from a meeting with him, now or in any distant future.

Having authored the Kargil invasion it is only to be expected that Musharraf would see the outcome of that war as 'victory' for his forces which are apparently drawn from supermen as virtually just a handful of them took on the entire might of the Indian army. At least that is his claim in the book, based on the old Pakistani myth that a 'Hindu' country was no match for the Pakistanis.

The Pakistanis, particularly their army, have been fed the belief from the inception of their country that one Pakistani solider is equal to the strength of 100,000 'Hindu' Indian solider. So one small unit of the Pakistanis can easily vanquish several divisions of Indian army!

The only problem here is that even with this alleged superiority, the Pakistanis could not prevent their country being cut into two, by their own admission by the Indian army. Worse, nearly 100,000 of their soldiers, including hundreds of officers, meekly surrendered to the Indian army in 1971.

It is easy to see why Musharraf says that Kargil was 'won' by the 'freedom fighters' with only a token help from the regular Pak army. The taped conversation between Musharraf and his number two, secretly recorded when the Pak General was in Beijing pleading for military help to fight India, had established that he had left instructions that the soldiers taking part in the Kargil war were to be described as 'Mujahideens'. In the taped conversation Musharraf's minion implicitly tells him that the 'Mujahideens' were given the credit for shooting down an Indian aircraft, as instructed by him.

Interestingly, even after the end of the Kargil war, this policy was scrupulously followed and Pakistan refused to accept the bodies of its soldiers and officers killed by the Indian army. As against Musharraf's claim of almost no casualty among the Pakistanis, many in his own country, both military men and civilians, have spoken of heavy Pakistani casualties. The man Musharraf overthrew as Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, says that the Pakistani casualty figure runs into thousands.

Ved Malik, who was the army chief during the Kargil war, has called Musharraf a 'timid' General. This comment was in the context of Kargil war. He could as well have alluded to the fact that a few strong words from US deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, (no, he did not speak of 'stone age') was enough to see this 'brave' General do a complete summersault and genuflect before the Americans, carrying a begging bowl in one hand and an arms shopping list in the other.

Some 'fire' in the bragging General!

(Syndicate Features)

World Food Day

By G. L. Khajuria

"Child is the Father of man" has been rightfully quoted by the poet words worth in his Book "My heart leaps". True is the adoration of our revered late Prime Minister, Pt. J. L. Nehru who was much affectionate and compassionate towards children. As such his birthday on November, 14 each year is celebrated as the 'Children Day' A child is the pillar upon which rests the nation and beyond doubt, is the pivot around which revolves the whole nation. The progress of the nation is indeed weighed with the genius of child.

God has his own perception as to who amongst all shall incarnate as 'Avtar' like Lord Rama or Krishna or for that mater amongst masses who shall emerge like Bapu Gandhi, Nehru, Indira Gandhi or worldly knowned scientists and literary genius et. al. Guruji, Newton, Kalam, Socrates, Shakespear, Aristotle and the like.

Taking all pros and coins in consideration, it the mother alone who exclusively gives birth and rears in aptitude and adoration in her lap. I remember Madalasa as exists in our revered scriptures. Maladasa was God fearing lady and she sang spiritual lully (Lorry) to her children. Her cradle song was "O, child you are pure, as pure as nectar or honey, you are illumined and are free from the clutches of Maya (power of ignorance), that is your real nature". The result was that when her children grew up, they were self realized saints and sages. Similarly, Gaursanga's mother also sang noble and holy songs. "Hari Hari Bol, Bol Hari Bol". Cradle songs instill the basic ideas in the mind of the child.

If the mother is properly disciplined and dedicated, she can bring up her child in the most pious and healthy atmosphere eight from cradle or to say infancy. The child to be looked after like a tender sapling and none else than mother can bestow love, affection and above all consideration upon the child more profusely. It was this idea which glaringly prompted Lord Macaulay to remark, "In after life, you may have friends, fonds, the most dear friends, but never will have again the inexpressible love and gentleness lavished upon you which none but mother bestows."

It is well known fact that impression formed in the earlier part of 1 life last till end. And this is too true in the lives of all great men like Napoleon, Alexander, Mahatama Gandhi, Shivaji, Swami Vivekananda, Vidya Sagar and their lives have shown the powerful impact of their mothers in shaping their character. Rightly it is said that character is destiny and if a mother has properly moulded that character of her child in the most formative period, she has infact build his destiny.

A simple remark proved to be the turning point in the life of Shivaji, Napoleon, who were so much beholden to their mother for their success that they remarked' the further destiny of child is always the work of mother. Ibrahim Lincon was equally grateful to his mother for his phenomenal rise on the ladder of progress. He gratefully acknowledged his debit to the mother in these words, "all that I am' or hope to be, I owe to my angle mother " Though ironically or some other reasons, this ever lasting love between "Mother and Child" has off-tracked, but truthfully it is being honoured since times immemorial. Natural delivery as has been provided by nature ensure breast feeding after birth, preferably within half an hour and thence exclusively feeding six months, nothing beyond mother's mild and constantly upto the age of 12 or beyond that. But see, and imagine today's scenario, mothers mostly elude breast feeding for fear will known to them. Not only that, mothers avoid natural deliveries and go in for "Caesarean section"- probably to elude labour pains and their husbands proudly anticipate. Remember, those in this 'arena' should not fight against nature, otherwise nature shall defy their all designs. "Nature is nature and its Devine laws are to be honoured with reverence."

Now coming to breast feeding, the author has exclusively elaborated "Mother's milk", which though indeed needs to be supplemented with the scientific studies made over the years, besides natural food stuffs such as fruits, seasonal vegetables, and the milk products etc. the intake of vitamins A, B, Iron Zinc, Iodine i.e. multivitamins have nourshing effects, besides fortifying immune system and above all keep the babies hygienically fit as otherwise their absence shall breed contamination, thus giving birth to many ailments.

Besides, the infants need immunization periodically which is the call of the hour and so, let us as a strong nation put in all outlet efforts in action to imbibe, promote nutrition and accelerate the pace of nation - "Mother India" to create strong kids who can prove to be the proud sons of nation.