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Newspaper Analysis and Summarry– 22nd February 2015
NATIONAL
AAP protests Centre’s ‘anti-farmer’ ordinance on land acquisition – The Hindu
Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Yogendra Yadav on Saturday said his party would not
allow the government to acquire even an acre of land in Haryana under the provisions of
the ordinance on land acquisition. He along with a large number of supporters pledged to
fight for farmers‟ rights in the State.
Mr. Yadav was addressing a meeting at Kamla Nehru Park here at the launch of his party‟s
State-wide “Jai Kisan Abhiyan” in Haryana. Under the campaign, the party would give
memorandums to all the ten Members of Parliament of Haryana and hold marches in
respective constituencies with a request to oppose the ordinance.
Stating that the ordinance was anti-farmer, Mr. Yadav said: “We would oppose in every
possible democratic manner the acquisition of land under the ordinance.”
Saying that the Modi Government had brought in a new law on land acquisition through
backdoor, Mr. Yadav demanded that Haryana MPs oppose it. He said the government had
changed the rules in awarding compensation for land acquisition thereby reducing the
amount being given to farmers by half. “We demand that the government ensures complete
compensation to the affected farmers and not leave them in the lurch.”
Mr. Yadav also raised the issue of scarcity of urea in the State and demanded to know as to
who was benefitting from it. He sought impartial probe into it. “In its Lok Sabha and
Vidhan Sabha manifestos the BJP had promised that the minimum support price would be
fixed at more than 50 per cent the cost of produce, but the two governments have not even
ensured that the MSP equals the cost of produce and even failed to lift some crops,” said
Mr. Yadav, demanding that the BJP governments at the Centre and the State keep their
words.
Later, Mr. Yadav along with a large number of farmers and partymen marched up to Sector
14 residence of Gurgaon MP and Union Minister of State for Defence Rao Inderjit Singh
and submitted a memorandum.
India’s coal-based thermal power plant most inefficient in the world: CSE
report – The Hindu
Indian coal-based thermal power plants are some of the most inefficient in the world, noted
a two-year-long research study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
Conducted under CSE‟s Green Rating Project (GRP), the study is the first of its kind done
for this industrial sector by evaluating its environmental performance and compliance.
Explaining the study released by M.S. Swaminathan, the „father‟ of India‟s Green
Revolution, here on Saturday, CSE director general Sunita Narain said: “The objective of
the study was to give a clear picture of the environmental performance of the sector.”
“Our finding is that in India, where the demand for power is increasing, power plants are
performing way below the global benchmarks. Given the rapid increase in coal-based
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power projected by the government, stress on precious resources like water and land will
increase and air and water pollution will worsen, unless corrective measures are taken by
the industry and policy-makers,” she noted.
Also present at the release was Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate
Change secretary Ashok Lavasa, and chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian.
The plants were rated on around 60 parameters covering everything from coal and water
use and plant efficiency to air and water pollution and ash management. Local community
views and impact on them were given due weightage along with the plants‟ compliance
record and environment policies. The ratings involve comparing the performance of the
plants against the best practices.
Priyavrat Bhati, programme director of CSE‟s Sustainable Industrialisation team (which is
behind the project), said: “The most striking part of the ranking is that 20 plants did not get
a single leaf, which is a reflection of their particularly poor environmental performance.
Some of the plants did not want to participate. Yet, we assessed them on the basis of field-
level surveys and publicly available data.” He added: “We were encouraged by the
transparency showed by a number of State-owned plants that disclosed data despite being
inefficient and highly polluting.”
Govt.’s new approach on new education policy a non-starter – The Hindu
The Union Human Resource Development Ministry‟s effort to introduce a bottom-up
approach to generating a nation-wide discourse on a New Education Policy (NEP) remains
a bit of a non-starter nearly four weeks after it was launched on January 26.
All that the NEP Group on the Modi government‟s online portal „mygov.in‟ has attracted
since its Republic Day launch are random jottings though all stakeholders — people and
State governments included — have been invited to join it.
Though Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani has been asking the
States to give their suggestions on the portal so that the exercise can be wrapped up by
August, the State governments are still awaiting clear directives from the Ministry. Several
State Education Departments, including West Bengal, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, when
contacted over the last couple of days said they had not received any communication in this
regard from the Ministry.
Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were among the few States which had received letters from
the Ministry asking for inputs on 13 thematic areas in the School Education Department
and 20 in Higher Education. Madhya Pradesh officials said they got a letter directing them
to the website. As of Friday, they were unable to access it and, in turn, wanted to know
whether anyone was able to log on.
Naresh Pal Gangwar, Principal Secretary (Secondary Education, Rajasthan), said the State
government had been informed that the Ministry would be seeking suggestions from
stakeholders. “We have been told to have consultations, but the modalities are not very
clear. We will seek clarifications,” he told The Hindu .
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A cursory look at the 33 thematic areas listed in the NEP Group on „mygov.in‟ showed that
each had attracted less than 200 posts till date and most read like the chatter on any online
comments section.
“What else can you expect from such an exercise?‟‟ said a senior bureaucrat from a State
Education Department, adding that briefs provided by the Ministry for each theme cannot
substitute for a broad policy outline.
Mamata relents on Teesta deal, LBA – The Hindu
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has told Bangladesh that breakthroughs will
be achieved in the Teesta water-sharing deal and the Land Boundary Agreement, which
have been hanging fire since she blocked them four years ago.
Meeting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina exclusively for half an hour at the end of her three-
day visit here on Saturday, Ms. Banerjee said the Land Boundary Agreement was likely to
go through in the Rajya Sabha session beginning February-end.
Ms. Banerjee, who was served hilsa for lunch at the Prime Minister‟s official residence,
Ganabhaban, said the famed fish was now unavailable in West Bengal. “You give us water,
we will give you hilsa,” Ms. Hasina quipped.
The Prime Minister reminded her of the problems being faced by the people living in the
enclaves, referring to the delay in the ratification of the Land Boundary Agreement. Ms.
Banerjee said she had seen their problems.
In 2011, she stalled the two deals on the ground that West Bengal‟s interests would be
affected. The Bangladeshi leadership hopes Ms. Banerjee‟s visit will pave the way for a
solution.
On Friday, addressing a gathering in Dhaka, she asked the Bangladeshis to repose faith in
her to deliver a settlement to the Teesta issue. She said she wanted to act as “a bridge”
between the two countries. The Chief Minister visited Dhaka with 39 people, mostly from
West Bengal‟s cultural fraternity and including two Ministers and big businessmen.
Before visiting Ms. Hasina‟s residence, Ms. Banerjee paid tributes to the Bengali language
martyrs by placing a wreath at the Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka.
High pollution cuts short Indian lives by 3 years – The Hindu
Over half of India‟s population is exposed to deadly air pollution and live in areas where
fine particulate matter pollution is above the country‟s standards for what is considered
safe.
Using a combination of ground-level in situ measurements and satellite-based remote
sensing data, a new study by economists from three U.S. universities — Chicago, Harvard
and Yale — has calculated that 660 million people live in areas that exceed the Indian
National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter (PM 2.5)
pollution.
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The study „Lower Pollution Longer Lives, Life Expectancy Gains if India Reduced
Particulate Matter Pollution‟, by Michael Greenstone, Janhavi Nilekani, Rohini Pande,
Nicholas Ryan, Anant Sudarshan and Anish Sugathan was published in the Economic and
Political Weekly on Saturday. It shows that if India reverses this trend to meet its air quality
standards, those 660 million people would gain about 3.2 years onto their lives, and
compliance with Indian air quality standards would save 2.1 billion life-years.
It suggests improved monitoring, civil penalties and pricing scheme to reduce pollution.
Mr. Greenstone, an author of the study and director of the Energy Policy Institute at the
University of Chicago, told The Hindu on phone that all 600 districts were covered in India
and wherever available, direct measurements from the Central Pollution Control Board
(CPCB) monitoring stations were used and when that was not available, satellite data was
used.
He said air quality and economic growth do not have to be in conflict. The study draws
from an earlier study he carried out in China in which he and his co-authors compared
pollution in north China — where a policy subsidised coal use for home heating — with
south China.
High health costs
“We used the relationship between particulates and life expectancy estimated in the China
study and applied it to the Indian levels of air pollution to produce our central estimate of
about three years reduction in life expectancy. We also compared this to estimates from
other studies that say something about life expectancy reductions or infant mortality and
reported those results in the paper. The general message of high health costs remains
unchanged,” said Mr. Sudarshan, one of the authors, in an e-mail response to questions.
“Using only CPCB data, the highest air pollution levels on average have been recorded in
the National Capital Region of Delhi, followed closely by Gwalior,” he said.
India, Russia sort out differences on project – The Hindu
India and Russia have generally agreed upon the amount and division of work during the
research and development (R&D) stage of the fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA)
project.
A contract for the R&D phase is being prepared and expected to be signed this year, said
Yuli Slyusar, president and chairman of Russia‟s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) at
Aero India 2015 in Bengaluru.
“The Russian and Indian parties have generally agreed on the work share of each,” said
company officials but refused to divulge specific details at this stage.
The work share of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has been a contentious issue as
the project will have equal investment between India and Russia and is likely to cost over
$30 billion for about 400 aircraft. India plans to induct 144 of them.
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But HAL‟s share in the work has been limited to a meagre 13 per cent so far which will not
build any critical technological gains. Both sides have been holding discussions to sort this
out before the final agreement.
FGFA is crucial for Indian Air Force‟s evolving structure as was recently acknowledged by
the air chief recently. The final announcement could come later this year with President
Pranab Mukherjee visiting Moscow in June, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi expected
to visit Russia twice.
Kolhapur bids farewell to Pansare – The Hindu
Thousands of mourners, Communist Party of India workers and activists gathered to bid an
emotional farewell to eminent party leader Govind Pansare in Kolhapur in western
Maharashtra on Saturday.
There was a strong undercurrent of anger as mourners demanded speedy justice for
Pansare, 82, who was shot at outside his home earlier this week. He died of bullet wounds
on Friday night.
Thousands of workers from various social strata gathered at Dasara Chowk to pay their last
respects to their beloved “Anna.”
Defiant cries of “We are all Dr. Dabholkar, We are all Comrade Pansare” rent the air as they
demanded an end to murderous attacks on prominent liberal intellectuals in the State.
Leaders from both sides of the spectrum were present.
Joining the CPI in 1952, Pansare transcended Communist politics by embracing a wide
array of issues, fighting for the eradication of superstition and taking on the toll mafia.
“It is painful to think that the spot where Pansare was to address the annual State CPI
convention would tragically transform into the place where people would pay their final
respects to him,” said Marathi writer Vidya Bal.
Bemoaning the slow death of the liberal tradition in the State, Ms. Bal said that while
Pansare fought for issues affecting the poor, it was Shiv Sena scion Aditya Thackeray‟s
proposal to extend Mumbai‟s nightlife that was being enthusiastically taken up by the State
government.
Swabhimani Paksha president Raju Shetti said that while Pansare had passed away, his
killers would never be able to efface his ideas.
Implying the hand of right-wing forces in Pansare‟s death, Mr. Shetti, whose party is an ally
of the BJP, warned that the Paksha would never support a government that subscribed to
views of Nathuram Godse.
Ordinary workers stressed Pansare‟s tireless efforts to educate them, recalling how his most
famous pamphlet, Shivaji kon hota? (Who was Shivaji?), did much to recast King Shivaji
as a social reformer.
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“His equanimity was remarkable. When his son Avinash passed away, Comrade Pansare
rhetorically asked, standing beside the body: „Who will complete his unfinished task?‟ —
„We will‟, he himself answered,” recalled a CPI activist.
Push for heritage cities in Tamil Nadu – The Hindu
The State is set to witness a renewed push for development of some of its heritage towns
soon with the Centre taking the lead by sanctioning about Rs. 45 crore for two cities,
Kancheepuram and Velankanni.
The two cities have been chosen under one of the flagship schemes of the present Union
government - the National Heritage Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY),
which has been billed as an initiative towards “reviving the soul of cities” that have a rich
heritage.
Though the inclusion of Kancheepuram and Velankanni under HRIDAY was announced at
the time of presentation of Union Budget last year, the Centre‟s sanction has come only
recently, official sources here say.
The detailed guidelines for the scheme have been made public. The allocation of funds has
been made on the basis of population, says a senior official, adding that the State is yet to
receive the funds.
Essentially to be carried out through the local bodies concerned, the scheme allows the
participation of reputed NGOs, besides government agencies of both the Centre and the
State. “It will fund projects which have a direct bearing on heritage,” says the official.
HRIDAY can support either restoration of heritage monuments or provision of basic
services or development of heritage walks/religious trails or GIS-based mapping of cultural
and natural heritage assets or promotion of local heritage industry, including cottage
industries managed by women. Most of the projects under the funding would be taken up in
the vicinity of heritage monuments, say officials.
In the weeks to come, the local bodies of Kancheepuram and Velankanni will be busy with
preparing heritage management plans (HMP). Subsequently, they will have to prepare
detailed project reports for specific projects. “Sooner the better,” responds the official to a
query whether any timeframe has been set by the Centre.
Even though two of Tamil Nadu‟s heritage cities have been included, the State has many
towns and cities that deserve to be brought under the scheme.
“The State government has already urged the Centre to include Srirangam. There are many
more,” says K.T. Narasimhan, former Superintending Archaeologist in the Archaeological
Survey of India (ASI) and now, Archaeological Consultant in the State government.
Tiruvannamalai, Madurai, Thanajvur and Kumbakonam can all easily fulfil the criteria of
the Centre. Each of these cities and towns has unique features and their antiquity is beyond
doubt, he asserts.
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Mystery continent holds key to mankind’s future – The Hindu
Earth‟s past, present and future come together here on the northern peninsula of Antarctica,
the wildest, most desolate and mysterious of its continents.
Clues to answering humanity‟s most basic questions are locked in this continental freezer
the size of the United States and half of Canada: where did we come from? Are we alone in
the universe? What‟s the fate of our warming planet? “It‟s a window out to the universe and
in time,” said Kelly Falkner, polar program chief for the U.S. National Science Foundation.
For a dozen days in January, in the middle of the chilly Antarctic summer, AP followed
scientists from different fields searching for alien-like creatures, hints of pollution trapped
in pristine ancient ice, leftovers from the Big Bang, biological quirks that potentially could
lead to better medical treatments, and perhaps most of all, signs of unstoppable melting.
Antarctica conjures up images of quiet mountains and white plateaus, but the coldest, driest
and remotest continent is far from dormant.
About 98 per cent of it is covered by ice, and that ice is constantly moving. Temperatures
can range from above zero in the South Shetlands and Antarctic Peninsula to the unbearable
frozen lands near the South Pole. As an active volcano, Deception Island is a pot of extreme
conditions. There are spots where the sea boils at 100 degrees Celsius, while in others it can
be freezing at below0 degrees Celsius. And while the sun rarely shines on the long, dark
Antarctic winters, night-time never seems to fall on summer days.
While tourists come to Antarctica for its beauty and remoteness, scientists are all business.
What they find could affect the lives of people thousands of miles away; if experts are
right, and the West Antarctic ice sheet has started melting irreversibly, what happens here
will determine if cities such as Miami, New York, New Orleans, Guangzhou, Mumbai,
London and Osaka will have to regularly battle flooding from rising seas.
Antarctica “is big and it‟s changing and it affects the rest of the planet and we can‟t afford
to ignore what‟s going on down there,” said David Vaughan, science director of the British
Antarctic.
About 4,000 scientists come to Antarctica for research during the summer and 1,000 stay in
the more forbidding winter. There are also about 1,000 non-scientists — chefs, divers,
mechanics, janitors and the priest of the world‟s southernmost Eastern Orthodox Church on
top of a rocky hill at the Russian Bellinghausen station. But the church on the hill is an
exception, a glimmer of the world to the north. For scientists, what makes this place is the
world below, which provides a window into mankind‟s past and future. — AP
INTERNATIONAL Deal cancels out austerity: Tsipras - The Hindu
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Saturday a deal with EU leaders to extend the
country‟s huge debt bailout would end hated austerity measures, but his government faced
scaling back its leftist agenda.
In a national address after Greece was given a crucial four-month extension to its bailout in
negotiations late Friday, Mr. Tsipras said “this deal cancels out austerity.”
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But the bailout extension came at the cost of concessions including a commitment to spell
out reforms within two days.
The reforms would be aimed at persuading its European creditors to extend further loans.
Athens received no immediate loan assistance.
Mr. Tsipras however argued that his government had foiled a plan by “blind conservative
forces” in Greece and abroad to bankrupt the country at the end of the month, when its
European bailout had been scheduled to expire.
At the same time, the 40-year-old Prime Minister warned that the “real difficulties” lie
ahead. He said his government would now focus on negotiating a new reform blueprint
with Greece‟s creditors by June.
The new leftist Greek government, which came to power last month pledging to end deeply
unpopular austerity measures, had asked for six-month loan assistance until it can submit
its four-year reform plans. The government said it had averted threatened cuts to pensions
and tax hikes, and had persuaded its European creditors to drop unrealistic budget demands.
To win the hard-fought deal, Athens agreed to submit a list of economic and other reforms
by Monday.
The government pledged to refrain from one-sided measures that could compromise
existing fiscal targets, and had to abandon plans to use some €11 billion in leftover
European bank support funds to help restart the Greek economy.
On Tuesday, the hated “troika” of creditors will decide whether to proceed with Friday‟s
agreement, with the chance that the compromise could be scrapped if they are not satisfied.
— AFP
War on terror: France seeks Silicon Valley support – The Hindu
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve met on Friday with Apple, Facebook, Google
and Twitter to discuss ways to thwart terrorists from using the platforms as stages for
propaganda.
“We had frank, rich, deep discussion,” Mr. Cazeneuve said during a press conference at the
French consulate in San Francisco.
He said his mission was to foster closer relationships with the Silicon Valley titans so
online terrorist propaganda could be more swiftly removed or countered with opposing
viewpoints.
Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter executives were invited to a follow-up meeting in
Paris in April to delve deeper into the issue and collaborate on a proper code of conduct.
“We are clear there is no place for terrorists on Facebook,” the leading social network told
AFP after meeting with Mr. Cazeneuve.
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Mr. Cazeneuve said he wanted to work together with Internet firms in the fight against
terrorism and that regulation alone wasn‟t the solution to the problem.
While he did not call for Internet firms to take on the burden of automatically censoring
photos, posts, video or other digital content uploaded to websites, Mr. Cazeneuve urged
rapid cooperation when it comes to removing terrorist propaganda reported to the services.
— AFP
Pakistan’s plutonium plant ‘operational’ – The Hindu
Pakistan may now be on the fast track to weaponising spent nuclear fuel through its
plutonium reprocessing plant in Chashma in Punjab, according to recent satellite imagery,
which indicates that all the ongoing construction around a tall building, suspected to be the
reprocessing facility in question, has been completed.
Increased capability
In its report, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a think tank here,
said that while the operational status of this reprocessing plant was yet to be confirmed,
“satellite imagery signatures suggest it may have recently become operational, [a
development that] would significantly increase Pakistan‟s plutonium separation capability
and ability to make nuclear weapons.”
Speaking to The Hindu one of the report‟s authors, Serena Vergantini, said that ISIS had
determined from open source information that there was a plan to build a reprocessing plant
at Chashma several years ago although it was difficult to know which building was the
reprocessing facility.
However, in 2007, ISIS located a tall building in a site southwest of the Chashma Nuclear
Power Complex, which incidentally hosts Chinese-supplied nuclear power reactors, where
“a considerable amount of construction” had taken place between 2002 and 2005, including
ponds nearby excavated, roads paved and a potential plutonium management building and
waste facility built nearby.
The latest satellite imagery obtained by ISIS through Digital Global indicates that all such
construction work appears complete, which makes it most likely that the reprocessing
facility is “close to complete,” and “possibly operational,” Ms. Vergantini noted.
Last month, another ISIS report had hinted that Pakistan may have accelerated its covert
nuclear weapons development programme and rendered operational a nuclear reactor
structure located at its Khushab plant, some 120 km by road from the Chashma site.
However given the plutonium output from the Khushab reactors‟, Islamabad, needed to
find a way to chemically separate it from the irradiated reactor fuel, a complex process
requiring plutonium reprocessing plants. When its contract to receive such a plant from
France was cancelled by suppliers in France in the mid-1970s, Pakistan constructed a small
indigenous facility near Rawalpindi.
Although it came online to reprocess plutonium after Pakistan brought into operation its
first Khushab reactor in 1998, the three additional reactors there were possibly producing
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more irradiated fuel than the Rawalpindi plant could handle, prompting the “secret”
construction of the Chashma plutonium separation plant.
ECONOMY Bimal Jalan endorses higher deficit to bolster Indian growth - The Hindu
The man who Prime Minister Narendra Modi appointed to fix public spending has some
plain advice as the Government prepares its first full-year Budget — do not be so dogmatic
about trimming the fiscal deficit that you crimp economic growth.
Bimal Jalan, a 73-year-old former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), heads a
panel tasked with suggesting measures to reduce India‟s subsidy bill and create space for
capital spending without compromising fiscal discipline.
In an interview with Reuters, Mr. Jalan said Modi should not shy away from loosening the
deficit target to ramp up public investment.
“What I am trying to get at is that nothing should be cast in stone,” he said. “Your policy
should be in tune with the changing economic dynamics.”
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has vowed to stick to strict deficit targets inherited from the
previous government, despite opinions expressed by several top government advisers that
the economy would be better served by stimulus spending focused on relieving
infrastructure bottlenecks that constrain growth.
With debt servicing devouring 42 per cent of federal revenues, a higher deficit could delay
further interest rate cuts by the RBI and revive threats from global credit rating agencies
who have urged New Delhi to invest more without increasing borrowing.
Higher deficits, the agencies warn, would pressure India‟s credit rating, which is now just a
notch above „junk‟ status. Mr. Jalan did not reveal what recommendations he has made in
his report but he said the government needed to identify high priority areas and spend
accordingly.
Economic reality
While a change in the methodology to measure India‟s national output has made it the
fastest growing major economy in the world, economists say it needs to expand annually by
8 or 9 per cent for decades to create jobs for a burgeoning workforce.
The new growth numbers have confounded policymakers who say the real economy does
not appear so rosy.
Mr. Jalan said with corporate investment showing little sign of recovery, merchandise
exports falling, rural demand floundering, and inflation tumbling to a multi-year low, India
can afford to use fiscal policy to lift economic growth.
“I don't think with changing economic environment, both domestic as well as international,
we should keep our eyes shut,” he said.
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“My personal view is that we should take into account the ground reality rather than go by
a target.”
Mr. Jaitley has committed to trimming the fiscal deficit to an eight-year low of 3.6 per cent
of gross domestic product (GDP) in the year that begins in April and 3 per cent the
following year.
He has promised to honour his commitment, and has been given more space by lower oil
prices that allowed him to end diesel subsidies and save money on other fuel subsidies.
Even so, depressed tax revenues, at just 10 per cent of GDP, compared to a peak of 11.9 per
cent in 2007-08, have left him hard pressed to provide funds for new roads, rail lines and
ports.
“Obviously, you can‟t say instead of 3.6 per cent, it should be 6.8 per cent," said Mr. Jalan,
who as the RBI chief in 1997 played a key role in shielding India‟s economy from the
aftermath of the East Asian financial crisis.
“But if it is 3.8 or 3.9 per cent, instead of 3.6 per cent, obviously that could be done,” Mr.
Jalan said, referring to the fiscal deficit.
FEATURES A question of hegemony - The Hindu
Women are not allowed to enter some or all Muslim graveyards in my hometown any more.
This is new; while women could not participate in funeral processions in the past, they
were free to visit graves until very recently. I have heard of camels being sacrificed for Eid
in Bihar, a state where camels are not seen and where, until recently, Muslims would
consume camel meat with great reluctance. A recent Facebook debate about the legitimacy
of celebrating Prophet Mohammad‟s birthday was dominated by voices from South Asia
asking if the Arabs celebrated the occasion, for, in that case, it would be justified. Also,
during festivals in India or Pakistan, you increasingly find some Muslims dressed in Arab
garb. Until two decades ago, this was unheard of, except in fancy dress parties in
metropolitan circles. I will not say anything about what Muslim women have started
encumbering themselves with in recent decades.
The list is long. Behind it lies a number of factors, all of them associated with notions —
correct or not — of the authenticity of Arab culture and practices in an „Islamic‟ context.
When I say „Arab‟, I need to apologise to my Arab acquaintances, all of whom would find
it difficult to relate to such manifestations of „Arabness.‟ Just as many Americas are
contained within the rubric „USA‟ and many Indias under the rubric „India,‟ there are many
versions of Arabness. And still, one can talk of a kind of Arab cultural imperialism; an
increasingly muscular and hegemonic version of being „Muslim like an Arab‟ rooted in the
official Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia and exported, with petro-dollars, elsewhere for at least
three generations now.
The legitimate leftist critique of western imperialism in India has unfortunately failed to
address the even more damaging element of Arab cultural imperialism among Muslims in
the sub-continent. Metropolitan leftist scholars in India can never cease talking back to the
defunct or totally metamorphosed „colonial empire‟, a fact partly predicated by their
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education as well as the greater inroads (positive and negative) of western imperialism on
their daily existence. But it is time to address Arab cultural imperialism, because it is far
more dangerous today at least in the sub-continent.
There are various reasons why it poses a greater danger to us in India. First, let us be honest
about „Western imperialism‟: much of it is largely due to the dominance of western nations
in the world of capitalism, partly due to the colonial past and partly due to various
hegemonic factors (including institutions like IMF) today. But, despite this, the common
leftist belief that somehow nations, and in particular the U.S., should play Mother Teresa in
the world is simply ridiculous. Nations and people and even individuals look after their
own interests first. This does not mean that they are selfish; it just means that they protect
themselves first, in most cases, before lending a helping hand to someone else. Sometimes
this bid to protect their economy or society might be misplaced, even xenophobic, but it is
naive or dishonest to blame Western nations for successfully doing what every other nation
in the world tries to do or would do.
Moreover, despite the various problems of Western imperialism, Western nations are
largely democratic and secular, and pay at least lip-service to democracy internationally.
This enables them to create some space for difference internally and internationally, despite
what radical leftists or religious fundamentalists (Hindutva or Islamist) might claim. This is
not the case with what I have referred to as Arab cultural imperialism: its purest form is the
draconian, undemocratic, sexist and discriminatory monarchy of Saudi Arabia, and what it
spawns, even as „opposition‟, is an organisation like ISIS! Moreover, under global
capitalism, at least large consumer/producer countries, like China and India, have a degree
of leverage with Western imperialism, which can only be frittered away by bad leadership
and corruption.
However, there are other reasons why Arab cultural imperialism poses a greater danger in
India. For one, it erases and destroys the traces of a rich and distinctive history of Muslim
cultures in India: the great Muslim empires of India, such as the Mughals, were not
culturally „Arab‟. Even the narrowly „Islamic‟ Aurangzeb was far from being a Wahabbi.
Subcontinental Muslims have a rich, syncretic and diverse heritage; it should not be
destroyed by a narrow form of „20th century‟ Arab cultural imperialism, rooted in the petro-
wealth of a handful of Arab states, and percolating into the subcontinent for three to four
generations now in the shape of Gulf jobs as well as madrassa and related funding.
We are not talking of terrorism here, which is another matter altogether and should not be
associated solely with either Muslims or Arabs — actually, according to Europol statistics,
less than three per cent of all acts of terror in Europe in recent years have been committed
by „Islamists‟. But we are talking of cultural hegemony, and I consider this far more
dangerous in the longer run. Moreover, the kind of Arab cultural imperialism that I am
alluding to is intellectually and morally hollow to an extent that cannot be indicated in
words.
Unfortunately, I doubt that the Hindutva forces currently running India can distinguish
between Muslims in India, who are part and parcel of the Indian heritage, and the creeping
influence of Arab cultural imperialism. Their more vicious ideologues tend to paint all
Muslims with the same brush, unable or unwilling to see the historical variety of Muslim
and other cultures, practices and identities in the sub-continent. This, finally, is another
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reason why Arab cultural imperialism is more dangerous than western imperialism in India.
It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy on the part of Hindutva fanatics by erasing the
distinctiveness of Indian Muslims.
Lost livelihood – The Hindu
The even greater tragedy of the coordinated murderous December 23, 2014, attack on
unarmed Adivasi forest dwellers in Assam, which left dead more than 70 people including
children and women, is that the assault targeted one of the most oppressed and dispossessed
communities in that entire region.
A meticulously researched paper titled “„Lazy‟ Natives, Coolie Labour, and the Assam Tea
Industry” by Jayeeta Sharma recounts the grim history of their settlement as indentured
labour in Assam since the mid-19th century as an element of the great colonial capitalist
enterprise. The discovery that Chinese tea flourished in the hills and plains of Assam led to
the clearance of vast forest tracts for tea plantations. They originally relied briefly on labour
imported from China, but they were found unequal to the hard labour required for clearing
the thick jungle undergrowth.
This gave way to employment of workers from indigenous tribal communities like the
Nagas, who they found sturdy and hard-working and often willing to work in return for as
little as some rice, shells and beads. But they worked when they chose, and refused to be
regimented and controlled. They experimented with other local tribes, but the problem of
their resistance to the iron discipline of the tea gardens led them to search for outside
workers.
Around that time, tribal communities from the Chotanagpur plateau of Central India were
recruited in large numbers to labour at dirt wages in sugar factories, indigo plantations and
railway construction. These workers abundantly met the standards of tough, resilient and
acquiescent labour that the plantation owners were seeking. Sharma recounts, “Men,
women, and children were sent from Central India; a long, difficult journey by steamers,
roads, and later railways, into the jungles and gardens of Upper Assam.”
These indentured workers and their families were housed in cramped and poorly serviced
workers‟ lines. Sharma records: “Flight was almost impossible since ignorance of the
terrain, coupled with bounties offered to hill people to track runaways with dogs ensured
that the plantation existence had to be borne against all provocation.” To make matters
worse, British planters were armed with private penal powers to arrest workers who tried to
leave before their indenture contracts were completed.
The availability of large forest tracts attracted workers to remain in Assam even after their
contracts ended. They cleared forests to carve out paddy fields, and were also available as
contract labour, called faltus , during peak plantation seasons. Gradually settlements grew
in erstwhile forests in which indigenous tribal communities like the Bodos, former „coolie‟
Adivasis, caste Hindu Assamese, and Nepali and East Bengali new settlers lived side by
side. Their links with their original homelands gradually snapped; although they spoke their
original Adivasi tongues, they learnt Assamese and often Hindi.
The system of virtual slave labour continued right up to the 1920s, when a nationalist
agitation led by Gandhi and C.F. Andrews finally resulted in the ending of the indenture
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system. But even though they were now nominally free, these workers remained
submissive and severely exploited, and continued to work under near-colonial conditions of
employment and housing long after Independence.
It is estimated that the so-called „tea-tribes‟ constitute between 15 to 20 per cent of the
population of Assam today, but they survive with the poorest human development
indicators in the state. The tea-tribes are not notified as Scheduled Tribes in Assam;
therefore they are deprived of the benefits of reservations. Labour economist B. Saikia
reports in 2008 that tea-garden labourers are typically paid wages lower than the minimum
and even paid partly in kind. Tea-garden labour lines have been always kept
underdeveloped and dependent for their basic survival needs of the tea-garden
management, so that they can procure cheap labour.
The misfortunes of this oppressed and deprived people were compounded following the
creation of the Bodoland Autonomous Council in 1993. In this region, indigenous tribal
Bodos, the Bengali Muslims and the tea tribes each constituted roughly 30 per cent of the
population. Waves of violence successively targeting Bengali Muslims and Adivasis were
unleashed by armed Bodo militants. Some of the most brutal attacks on Adivasis were
mounted in 1996 and 1997, at the peak of which three lakh Adivasis escaped to relief
camps. Some of these camps have not been disbanded even nearly two decades later.
Indentured labour from the same regions, who were transported to countries like Fiji and
Mauritius, have today acquired education, economic strength and on occasion risen to
positions like the Prime Minister. It is a dishonour to India‟s democracy that in their own
country, this gentle and industrious people still remain exiled to the outer margins of
survival, exploited, malnourished, uneducated, and defenceless before wave after wave of
targeted violence.
Oceans of fantasy – The Hindu
Awhale with airplane landing gear. A giant lobster with gear wheels; another with machine-
clamp claws. A swordfish loaded for a very bloody war. A whale shark with a reading light
scanning arch-punctuated walls. These images could be from a potentially terrifying future,
a deadly dream, or perhaps just a mind rich in imagination and adept at creating adventures
in an alternate universe. This is the supra-imaginative creativity of artist Preetha Kannan.
Some years ago, Kannan spoke of her plans to focus on the elements: soil, water, air, fire
and sky (ether). This passion for the environment and its preservation was given fillip by
her stint with Baba Amte many years ago, her involvement with the anti-Narmada dam
campaigns, and her work with organisations dealing with women‟s issues and the basic
amenities for slum dwellers in Chennai.
She uses a method of laying on strata of paint with little dots, almost like pointillism,
colours set one atop the other to create depth and shade that could be straight out of a
digitally manipulated photograph. Her latest collection, which includes just seven paintings
and two installations, takes her audience underwater to a strange new world that holds
surprises around every marine rock. “It is a complete change from my older work; my last
show was more ideal and balanced,” Kannan explains. This time she focuses on “facets of
contemporary activity that pollute the air and water”, from industries to automobiles. “The
great oceans are being negatively impacted by human activity and that led me to a very
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surreal speculation. Perhaps one day the destruction of the habitat will be so far gone that
life will have to adapt to survive a new environment!”
Gaia Reloaded is Kannan‟s vision of the oceans “with the environment degraded and a new
form of life populating the depths”. And in the bizarrely predicative paintings she has tried
to show “familiar forms melded with elements of plane tyres, circuitry, night lamps,
pulleys, pianos and robotic hands, machine parts, bullets, missiles, war machinery, and
more, merged with the aquatic creatures.” These surreal beings are recreated in two resin
installations. One is an eight-foot-long shark with objects within its transparent body.
“Look inside and you can see all those day-to-day bits and pieces, from pistons and cycle
chains to elements of gas stoves, all completely rusted, as if they have been in the ocean for
so long” that they have lost their original form and gloss. Included are skeins of electrical
wires that would bring power to these internal elements, almost like veins would in a live
fish. The other installation is a group of 30 fish, each about seven inches long; a school
swimming along suspended on fishing wire. “Each contains plastic of some kind,” Kannan
says, “a portion of a single-use toothpaste tube, a fragment of a quick-fix noodles packet, a
little segment of detergent wrapping, a bit of a cola can…basically everyday plastic that we
all use. These things are polluting the seas. I placed them inside the fish as I cast each one.”
„Just seven paintings‟ is a deceptive statement. Each work is astonishing in its intricacy,
stunning in its complexity. It is amazing to find that it is all done with paint, not using
computer imagery or photography. Kannan describes her work as having “details like
pixilation, with constantly changing hues, suggesting abstract harmony of colour. It is from
far away that this becomes obvious. It is all just paint, done with a brush, with gradients of
colour.”
Each painting took her about two-and-a-half months to complete. According to Kannan,
“This series is more surreal. I‟ve been wondering how to depict what is happening today in
my small way. I live near the ocean and have mangroves in front; they are dying out slowly,
being replaced by roads and buildings and the coastline is slowly moving. We hardly have
anything planted to save it. We also know that the fish are suddenly disappearing. These are
simple concerns that made me think of the whole thing in a very dynamic way.” And maybe
with this representation of a possible future, we as inhabitants of this planet will also share
Preetha Kannan‟s concerns some day.
Saga of the Shaman’s Stone – The Hindu
It was the setting for a grey, gritty, Scandinavian myth. Out of Finland‟s Lusoto we drove,
through an icy drizzle, to a bleak and rocky hill. Ari, our driver-guide, geared into his four-
wheel drive and we ground, groaned and churned shards of slate from our wheels before
reaching the top. Dark wooden shacks loomed out of a rubble-strewn field and a few
ghostly conifers stood like spectral sentinels. The only spot of colour was a tall man in a red
parka. He strode up to us, crunching rubble and frost under his sturdy boots, and said, “I‟m
Fred. Welcome to the Arctic Amethyst mine of Lampivaara!”
Both his voice and his handshake were warm and his accent had a slight Afrikaans ring. We
didn‟t dwell on that, preferring to hurry into a log hut where a fire blazed in a stove. It was
warm and there was a faint fragrance of resin. Fred hung up his parka, gave us a hot berry
drink and wove the Saga of the Shaman‟s Stone. While a knife-edged Lappish wind keened
outside, we fled back four milliard — four thousand million — years when the world was
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very young and very violent. Deep below the surface of the earth, two great tectonic plates,
churning on their oceans of molten magma, collided. “It pushed up mountains four to five
kilometres high,” Fred‟s voice was suitably hushed at the enormity of it all. The berry juice
was sweet and tart and we unzipped our anoraks. “Now, 10 Ice Ages followed covering all
this where we are sitting, under two or three kilometres of ice. It wore down the high
mountains till, today, Lampivaara is only 400m high.”
The warmth and the berry juice, fermented perhaps, had made us feel a bit drowsy. “Now,
the amethysts began to form!” Our drowsiness vanished. “The melting ice had minerals in
it. Silica in the water crystallised into quartz, often called Mountain Crystal. It‟s used in TV
sets, watches and solar panels. In the 1800s they made spectacles of it.” This is probably
why spectacle lenses are sometimes referred to as „pebbles‟.
Fred refreshed our mugs. We sipped warily. He reached behind him and held out chunks of
rock. “When the radiation is high, the quartz turns black and is known as Smoky Quartz.”
The quartz sat in our palms, winking in the light. Sci-fi tales created ET beings of crystal.
We recalled reading that when viruses are dormant, they are crystalline waiting for a living
host to propagate. In our flights of fantasy we had lost some of his words. He was now
saying “When the spirit doctors, the Shamans, discovered that sparks fly when crystal is
rubbed and that there is a smell like the odour of a thunderstorm, they said such crystals
were a gift of the Thunder God, Ukko.”
Fred‟s words wove magic. “Traditionally” he said. “Bishops wear amethyst rings to guard
against temptation!” He grinned, finished his drink and said “Come, we will see the mine”
We stepped out. The berry juice must have worked its spell; we didn‟t feel so cold now,
though it still seemed like a setting from Macbeth . The stones and slivers of rock moved
under our feet, as we trudged across the exposed crest of Lampivaara to a wooden arch
leading into a corridor built into the side of a quarry. Wooden stairs, rafters, led down the
rocky hillside. We turned into a narrow passage and saw an uncovered spot where visitors
toiled to find their own amethysts. A basin sat on a table, a chipping hammer beside it.
There were rough lumps of matrix looking like glistening chunks of nutty toffee: the
mother rock holding amethysts in its grasp.
That‟s when it dawned on us. The owners of this mine did not have to employ miners to dig
out the magical stones of the shamans. There were hordes of tourists eager to flock in and
pay to work in the mine. We were in Lapland, after all: legendary home of Santa Claus.
Things here are not always what they seem to be as we recorded in our travel diaries.
The tall guide stood framed in the door as we walked away, his figure blurred by drifting
veils of mist. He said, “I must let you into a secret. I‟m not Finn. I‟m from the
Netherlands.”
“What made you come here?”
“What makes many men come here: beautiful, blonde, Finnish girls!”
Amethysts were supposed to save senior prelates from temptation. Clearly, they had not
affected Fred.