Rani's Report

My review of a cultural biography of Barack Obama

2012-02-10T00:24:00.002Z

Dinesh Sharma was up against tough competition when he decided to write a biography of President Barack Obama given the hundreds already published. But he has taken a completely different angle to everyone else; focussing hard on the first 18 years of Obama's life and really studying the seminal influences of what happened in Hawai'i and Indonesia. He interviewed Obama's sister and many others involved with Obama's early years and adolescence to present an easy to digest, well researched biography that's an easy read and respectfully references other Obama biographers in the text. He's also very lucid in interview. He spent a few years in his research, which seems to be the norm for bios of major political leaders -except where a publisher like mine wants to maintain their reputation of being first off the block with their subject!

15 Feb 2012 Book Launch at the Exclusive Laya Lina Privee, Knightsbridge

2012-02-09T00:48:00.006Z

With the kind permission of the owner we have exclusive use of this select lounge bar with pretty aquaria in a cosy luxury setting in Knightsbridge, a stone's throw from Harrods (it is the preferred venue for Harrods staff functions).

The book launch series has provided different dream events, each with its own flavour and constituency.

One of the speakers at Laya Lina Privee on February 15 2012 is Lynne McAlister, who writes for American in Britain magazine. Lynne is on the Board of Directors of the American Women's Club of London and the Board of Federation of American Women's Clubs Overseas. Since the book is published by an American house for an American readership in the first instance, it was important to remember that constituency this time around. So we have some important Americans in London coming along.

David Nash, Executive Officer and Board Member, JX Nippon Oil and Gas Exploration Corporation, Japan's largest natural resource company, is also going to speak. He is the only non-Japanese member of his board.

When I was doing some live performing for charities like UNICEF in the early nineties, organised and directed by Vanessa and the late Corin Redgrave, I learnt that serious themes could be highlighted with a mix of poetry and music. So it was my wish for tenor George Anthony to consider what appropriate songs would capture aspects of the book and my subject's life; despair, hope, salvation, and her love for India.

I am delighted with his moving selection and am really looking forward to the event. There is an interesting, eclectic audience, with a preponderance of defence and military experts from the British side.

"Sonia Gandhi" now in the library of the Indian Habitat Centre, Delhi

2012-02-04T08:18:00.004Z

Former director of the Indian parliament library, Frank Christopher, emailed me to say that the biography has been highlighted in the "new arrivals" section of the library of the prestigious Indian Habitat Centre, Delhi.

This is a great place for its members and a cool hangout for upper middle class Delhi-ites and their visitors.

The restaurants are quite comfortable; I've eaten Chinese and European food there. The Habitat centre holds talks and also houses several office complexes.

You can stay there, it has rooms for hire, and there is a gym which is used not only by Harrie, the husband of my friend, artist and teacher Sujata Singh, but also by Robert Vadra, husband of Priyanka Gandhi, who arrives with his security entourage whenever he trains.

Harrie travels a lot but when he is in Delhi, he tends to use the gym every day after work before going home for dinner. When I was staying with them Harrie would regale us at meal-time with stories of the aforementioned arriving on some expensive motorbike or in a four-wheeler, and how he liked to discuss new toys-usually his own. Harrie said that the Habitat Centre's facilities are so popular that when the aforementioned's security personnel are in attendance with their vehicles it causes a problem for other Habitat users as it is hard to find a parking place.

REPUBLIC DAY

The Indian Republic Day evening function this year was held at the Sheraton Park Lane. Those who had been to the Australia Day event too told me the latter was bigger.

I noticed a lot of defence officials from the various embassies with the hearty British army types swopping fighter aircraft memories with their Indian counterparts.

When asked about the Typhoon deal, one of the British said, "The Indians would be advised to go for the deal where the risk is spread."

The Indian army officer standing in front of him said nothing.

A few days later, the news broke. The advice was clearly ignored.

Chatham House was Fun!

2012-01-29T23:35:00.004Z

There was a full house in the Henry Price Room at Chatham House Wednesday January 18 2012 as I spoke for half an hour on the subject of Sonia Gandhi; her journey into politics and style of governance in India followed by a Q and A for another half an hour. Before the session started one of my friends, Wadham college alumnus Lawrence Peters showed me a board where Indian speakers at Chatham House were listed; Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Dr Manmohan Singh and at least one current cabinet minister were there.

The event was organised and chaired by Dr Gareth Price, Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House's Asia Programme with the rest of the Asia Programme team. I found no difficulty in filling my time up and I could see several participants taking notes, while three eminences in gilded frames looked down at us from the walls, one of them being Henry Price himself.

The Asia Programme team had asked me if I wanted any photographic illustration to accompany the talk and so Macmillan sent them the photos from the book, one of which showed Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi on tour in the North East state of Mizoram while Rajiv was prime minister. Both husband and wife were standing in a jeep, waving to local people who had lined the street.

There have been many instances of serendipity to do with this biography and a remarkable one came to light on this occasion. Assistant Professor in Political Science who is currently at the India Research Centre at the London School of Economics, Dr Anup Shekhar Chakraborty, put up his hand to ask a good question but before he did so he told us all that he was one of the young schoolchildren in the photo up on the screen. He had been five but distinctly remembered that occasion. The representatives from universities, banks, the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and three different embassies smiled in amazement.

Former Observer Middle East Chief of Bureau Shyam Bhatia asked three challenging questions which I had not prepared for so answered simply and truthfully - he seemed satisfied.

Palgrave's person sold a number of books after the session and as we packed up to leave the security guard came in rather breathlessly to tell me that he had held a family at the door as they did not appear to be on the guest list. I asked him to bring them in; it was Dr Vijayanand Kowtha and his family who had just flown in from Washington and were keen to attend the talk but had not registered in time. They seemed so disappointed to have missed the content I showed them my mind map of the speech and answered all the rapid fire questions they had for me - so they got a mini-session all to themselves. They were excited to visit London again- Dr Kowtha was formerly at Chatham House which is how he knew about the talk.

Chatham House Book Event 18 Jan 2012

2012-01-09T23:47:00.002Z

The Royal Institute for International Affairs, one of the most important of the Britain based think-tanks, is hosting a "Sonia Gandhi" themed talk on January 18, 2012. This is the first of the book events for 2012, and instead of a panel this time I will be the sole speaker, as suggested by my organiser, senior Asia Programme Research Fellow Gareth Price, who will be chairing.

The institute is also known as Chatham House, and gives its name to the famous "Chatham House rule" by which sources at an event cannot be named as providing information.

The event was initiated by nuclear energy specialist Ashutosh Shastri.

I am looking forward to it.

" A Good, Warm, Indian Story"

2011-12-18T00:43:00.005Z

This review by the Afternoon Despatch and Courier follows a trend in many other reviews of quoting verbatim from my book and presenting the facts exactly the way I did. I guess that's a compliment!

The writer called the book "A good, warm, Indian story."

Anecdotally, Crossword bookshop Pune reports that they keep selling out of "Sonia Gandhi" as the book is doing well and they have to keep ordering in new stock. I am glad certain Pune-ites like the work.

Through the reviews I am discovering a plethora of outlets in India; it seems that there the media world does not stop growing. May it power on even as its western counterparts bemoan shrinkage and cutbacks in their recessionary spheres.

The Free Press Journal; Indian review

2011-12-11T19:49:00.009Z

A review published December 11, 2011 written by M.V.Kamath demonstrates more understanding of the book than many of Mr Kamath's compatriots show. He appears to have read it with fewer preconceived notions than many, though he raises a point made by some, not me, about certain "options" Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi may have been considering during India's internal Emergency years imposed by the Prime Minister Gandhi from 1975 to 1977.

The reviewer has picked out some pertinent quotes from the book and it is heartening to note that he observed the details I wrote about Indira Gandhi's prayer room; the Sanyo cassette player sitting on the window sill with Hindu devotional music all ready to play, and the icons from different religions preserved there.

It's nice to come across those who show some measure of respect for the work undertaken by writers as opposed to the supercilious who just like to demonstrate their own pseudo cleverness with sarcasm and a pithy turn of phrase. I know that the different kinds of detail I put in the book are of interest, since journalists I spoke to told me they just don't get information on the kinds of things I have discussed; yes, that even includes what my subject eats and drinks and what exercise she takes.

The distinguished Mr Kamath is a prolific author and veteran journalist of repute. I do not know him personally, and have never met him, but he has written in his review,

"By and large Rani Singh has got it all right."

Asian Age interview

2011-12-08T01:09:00.006Z

This interview appeared first in the Asian Age's Kolkota version I believe. I have a special relationship with Calcutta, as I like to call it, as my mother Parsan was educated there in an Urdu-speaking school. She still makes Bengali speakers smile as she grew up in that town and also speaks fluent Bengali. I haven't been back there since I was a child- my parents took me out of public school in England, Haberdashers' Aske's, for an extended tour of India to visit friends and relations around the country and I recall a lovely long stay with the Bala family in Calcutta.

While I am grateful for all the newspaper space being afforded me, I am highly intrigued by the way in which my answers are subbed.

My original answer to the Asian Age's first question ran;

1. how did u come to the decision on writing a biography on sonia gandhi. was the idea brewing in your mind since a long time or a particular incident provided you the impetus to write sonia gandhi's biography?

I had been covering Indian politics and quite a few Indian elections. In 2009 I provided the political analysis for Sky News for television and online for the Indian general election. Sonia Gandhi had featured in my work. Palgrave Macmillan in New York City had already decided that they wanted to produce a book on the life of Sonia Gandhi, and they were searching for a suitable writer. They had been reading my work. One day I found an email from them in my Googlemail asking me if I would be interested in writing this challenging book. I was and so I did. It was actually their idea, not mine.

Subbed to

Like many foreign reporters looking for newsworthy plots in the heat and dust of India, London- based author Rani Singh’s journalistic pursuits would often bring her to the subcontinent. The 2009 Indian election coverage proved pivotal, as it was during this particular assignment, she managed to have a closer look at Sonia Gandhi, yet little did Rani know that her trail would eventually pave the way for her to write one of the most talked about book on the iconic Gandhi bahu. Talking about how the idea for the book unfolded, the author says, “In 2009, I provided the political analysis for Sky News television for the Indian general election. Sonia Gandhi had featured in my work. Palgrave Macmillan in New York City were keen to publish a book on her life and they were searching for a suitable writer. My work caught their attention and one fine day I received an email enquiring about my views on writing this challenging book. Of course my answer was an instant yes.”

Spot the differences?

I am so grateful to journalists from newspapers and journals who read the book and take the time to construct lengthy interviews for me to answer on email.

Palgrave in New York City has just given me an update on current sales figures which they are monitoring; sales in India alone have already topped 15,000. Buyers would be from among the English non-fiction literature buying public, I am assuming, which is, after all, a fraction of the overall population.

December 2011, still in the IANS Books Non-Fiction Top Ten, and I adore "Seal Team Six"

2011-12-03T19:19:00.005Z

Thank you so much buying public, in India, the book is still in the IANS top ten non-fiction list for the week of December 1st 2011. I see that the books move around the list somewhat but to stay up in this reputed lists of bestsellers is a real honour. Clearly many are finding the book of interest!

I would love to get time to read all the other books in the top ten. How long does it take you to read a book?

I am absolutely rivetted at the moment by "Seal Team Six, Memoirs of an Elite Navy Seal Sniper" authored by Howard E. Wasdin and Stephen Templin.

The level of detail in the book in itself is fascinating; the kind of guns and equipment used, where the Navy Seals place them on their bodies, what face camouflage is used and when, how the helicopters need to compensate or risk danger when they are letting the Seals drop down by rope, these matters and many more make up the bread and meat of an incredible narrative. Wasdin turns out to be a Seal par excellence, not only because of his strength and physical abilities, but because of something he learnt at a young age due to a brutal stepfather who belted him at the drop of a hat-sometimes for no fathomable reason at all.

Wesdin says quite frankly that he learnt as a child to control his feelings to the extent that he could block out the pain of excessive beatings, which were so severe that they marked his body for lengthy periods. It gave him the ability to withstand the various training stages he went through in the US navy as he climbed higher in the elite forces to eventually reach his zenith. He could stand having his body drop to near freezing temperatures for a long time, he could manage sleep deprivation, hunger and complex procedures deep underwater with his hands tied behind his back because none of it, he says, compared to being woken up in the middle of the night when he was fast asleep and being beaten without logic or explanation.

He also writes of being taught in the Seals to only exercise the level of violence that was strictly required on the ground; unneccesary killing is not encouraged. And on one operation, he describes vividly about when he fed 14 captured starving enemy soldiers his own rations, and how he learnt to see the humanity in those he was fighting.

I would love to know what you think of "Seal Team Six" or if you have any similar recommendations.

Forbes India; The world's Most Powerful People

2011-11-30T00:56:00.003Z

This special issue loudly proclaims on the front, along with a raised fist; "Exclusive" "Decoding Sonia" which is a great title given by the editors for an article I wrote for them in a couple of days and which is now available in the magazine on Indian news stands and online.

I was beautifully briefed down the phone from Mumbai by Executive Editor Charles Assisi and the Editor for Special Features and Social Media, Peter Griffin before I started writing - I really relish the human touch with editors as a rule, to listen to what questions they want answered - then I do my best to meet the brief. I enjoyed talking to Charles and Peter who were patient, sensitive and gentle during our brainstorming session.

This edition is packed with power players, not just Sonia, and makes for very interesting reading. Economists like Larry Summers have been asked to list out their own choices separately, giving their reasons. Forbes is a great brand and Forbes India seems to have a good editorial team in place. Editor Indrajit Gupta handled the final copy and gave some excellent suggestions. The intake people were all kind and efficient too. I like the way I was given a chance to review the final text after a rewrite before it went to print. That doesn't always happen and demonstrates a high level of respect for writers.

The Hindu chooses "Sonia Gandhi" for its "Print Pick"

2011-11-27T23:12:00.003Z

For the week of November 27, 2011, The Hindu places Sonia Gandhi in a list of ten books, titled "Print Pick," in its popular Life and Style section.

Is this the first time the work has appeared on this list?

Still in the IANS Books Non-Fiction Top Ten

2011-11-27T00:10:00.001Z

It's been a great run of quite a few weeks now, nearly the end of November 2011 and the book is still hanging in there!

The Washington Independent Review of Books

2011-11-26T22:10:00.003Z

This esteemed website has some distinguished reviewers writing for it. Since America is the home market for my book, though it is also aimed at international readers, the response is gratifying as the US is "getting" Sonia Gandhi, so to speak. Amy Schapiro is a biographer par excellence

and, along with Kitty Kelly, is a member of the Biographers International Organization. Amy has a really interesting website for her biography about New Jersey Congresswoman Millicent Fenwick with a link to America's set of Presidential Libraries - does any country have more of these than the US?

It's funny - the majority of the Indian critics do little more than scribble a few hundred words about Sonia Gandhi and it is hard to find one who has even written a book -biography or any other genre-let alone one about Sonia Gandhi.

The Americans seem to be much more careful about who they ask to review the book - it has to be someone of high literary standing in their own right - hence the more measured responses which show a much better understanding and grasp of what has been written.

"Inside Story" on Al Jazeera English for the trial of the biggest ever corruption scandal in India

2011-11-21T23:49:00.002Z

Over to Knightsbridge again recently for a half hour discussion show on the start of the trial of the Telecom scandal. My two panellists were in India, one on Skype (her connection broke early on so she couldn't participate until she reconnected) and the anchor in Doha was Englishman James Bays.

I enjoyed the long-form nature of the show and it was, everyone remarked, unusual to have three women on the panel. I like the Inside Story format and also the way in which Bays doggedly pursued the question of "how much does corruption affect every day life in India?" when it wasn't answered the first time around.

Really nice of the producer to make sure the book title was mentioned when James introduced me and my colleague Tarique Ghaffur is always happy when his company is identified.

Hard News Review

2011-11-21T00:25:00.005Z

A fairly balanced review from India's Hard News magazine that doesn't hold back from saying what the critic would have liked to see in my book. As I have said in several interviews, there was so much material I gathered that the editors and I had to make stringent decisions about what to leave in and what to leave out. The material that is left in drives the narrative forward and any background history is there to provide some hinterland to the action. Also, given that the book was written for the American market in the first instance, it could not afford to go into the kind of detail that Indian critics may wish for -though as I have also stated, I can't see why certain armchair reviewers don't write their own biographies of Mrs Sonia Gandhi rather than the 1,000 words or so they are paid to scribble after receiving their free copy.

I was also keen to only put in what could be substantiated or had been told to me by a primary source - rumour and inuendo just would not wash in a book which has to stand the test of time and which is already appearing in libraries round the world.

As for the quality of my interviewees, and whether they are "people who matter," the people who mattered to me were those who have been and are up close and personal with my subject -who have interacted or worked with her and who are qualified to make intimate observations. That was the only criteria in my choice of interviewee. Many of my interviewees had not spoken at all on my subject before so I am pleased that they did.

I haven't revealed who spoke to me off the record so no-one will ever know which important names are in that part of my extensive audio archive on Sonia Gandhi -that information remains between those anonymous people and myself.

And the book is still in the top ten list of IANS non-fiction titles this week!

The Irish So Get It

2011-11-18T23:32:00.003Z

When I went on Pat Kenny's RTE radio show for an extended interview I was really impressed with his level of knowledge and research. (He mentioned the names of an Irish crew waiting to film Indira Gandhi being interviewed by Peter Ustinov the day of her assassination in October 1984). I also liked the way he walked the listener through Sonia Gandhi's life asking me questions along the way, ending with "What is the reaction to Sonia Gandhi in India?"

Following the broadcast Kenny's producer received a lengthy email from the same Irish film director whom Pat had mentioned live on air, with a written account of his own of that fateful day, October 31st. It was fascinating and I intend to write to him.

And now, with all the hullabaloo of the Indian print and TV publicity around our ears, with critics endlessly pontificating and telling it like they think it should have been, seizing on one mistranslation as though it were a hanging offence (though I take full responsibility for it) here comes another Irishman who gets the book, Peter Hegarty, writing in the Irish Catholic. Is there something about the Irish?

Anyhow, despite my misdemeanour of the mistranslation I was very pleased to see "Sonia Gandhi" at number two for two weeks running in the reputed Indian IANS non-fiction best selling books list, just behind Mark Tully the first week and Steve Jobs the second. Not bad role models to be runner up to!

Back to Al Jazeera English to talk about the biggest military aviation deal in the world

2011-11-15T00:23:00.003Z

It was nice to get a call from Doha to go back into the Al Jazeera English London studio in Knightsbridge to talk about the Indian aviation deal that broke Washington's heart back in April this year, 2011. I couldn't do any studio visits earlier on because of the intensity of the book workload and it is a good broadcast test to see if I can get my act together and be in a studio in under two hours -whatever I am doing and wherever I am!

India has been planning to upgrade its defence capability for some time now, given the volatile nature of the immediate neighbourhood.

The country has been shopping for 126 fighter jets and in April the US, Russia and Sweden fell out of the race to sell. After Obama's visit to India in 2010, his country had been very hopeful of securing the deal.

Left in the running now are the Eurofighter Typhoon Consortium and France's Dassault, the maker of Rafale aircraft. The previous offer of $11bn has been revised up to $20bn making it the largest defence deal by a single country anywhere in the world - which is why it is making headlines. India claims that the earlier figure was based on 2007 calculations, which begs the question, why was it so?

See the analysis here.

Oh, and hello Claudio! One of my favourite newsroom editors is now on an AJE posting to Rome! I miss you in London!

Asian Voice Celebratory lunch for "Sonia Gandhi" went really well

2011-11-10T00:37:00.004Z

Read the write up in this issue of the Asian Voice, and check out the photos. Asian Business Publications Ltd, courtesy of Publisher/Editor CB Patel and Associate Editor Rupanjana Dutta, had pulled out all the stops for ABPL's very first literary lunch. By the way, the Indian High Commission's Press Attache, Sanjay Bihani, found the book "very detailed!" He liked it, he told me.

Former CNN consultant and President Indian Journalists Association Ashis Ray confirmed for panel to discuss "Sonia Gandhi"

2011-11-01T11:39:00.003Z

It is getting close now and most of my guests have confirmed for the Asian Voice lunch and panel discussion Thursday November 3rd 2011. Lord Dholakia, member of the Privy Council, has been in Australia for the Queen's visit there but is back in the UK tomorrow Wednesday one day before the event and Ashis Ray, top journalist and broadcaster who feared that he might be needed to go to Cannes for the G20 summit, can now join the panel. He has personal experience of the Nehru- Gandhi family so will reveal his observations exclusively for us. My associates who are interested and may be involved in other events down the line are joining us in the audience. I look forward to this unique occasion- CB Patel and the Asian Voice host such events rarely, according to Asian Voice Associate Editor Rupanjana Dutta - so I am honoured and humbled.

Health and Fitness; Matthew Fox rocks with his "Thug Workout" and "Body Blitz" classes

2011-10-30T08:28:00.019Z

When I joined my gym the first class I did for the trial day was Matthew Fox's cardio session.

His cardio workouts were nice and tough; one of his USPs was that he loves House music and always tended to have a dance while he was yelling at us to "Drive through them legs," and "pump them arms!" As we got into the working minutes Matthew had a habit of loudly commenting "EASY!" which it most certainly wasn't and I told him so. (I often said "No!" to some of his more challenging instructions; he just gave me a look and ignored my protest).

All my instructors are ambitious and Matthew devised, along with a colleague of his, a lethal Body Blitz 45-minute class. It is a fast-moving workout; a hardcore attack on each area using our own bodyweight; the sessions varied each week. My legs ached so much after my first sessions -for four days no less- that I adopted Matthew's suggested remedy of sitting in a cool bath with my lower body submerged for four minutes after each session until I got used to the leg exercises after a few weeks. Body Blitz is as near to a military workout as I can imagine. To get us to do 40-50 reps or more for each exercise, we worked in pairs opposite each other on mats and swapped places after every 10 or 20. He also had us sometimes ourselves count the reps in turn which was a neat interactive tactic that maybe helped to take our minds off the difficulty of what we were doing.

Matthew is developing his own brand of classes. He is in demand at Gymbox and teaches in all of their London venues. Along with his colleague, he has developed the Thug Workout which is what he teaches at Gymbox; it is a calisthenics-based bodyweight class using outdoor frames, like bars for pullups, inside.

Matthew also does Body Blitz type sessions in Notting Hill Gate at BodyWorksWest and it is in that part of London, popular with some of the arty clique of the capital (though Ealing has a high percentage of media workers too) that he does personal training. Matthew is definitely heading in the direction of being at the top of the next generation of celebrity trainers. We will all miss him.

Frank Gardner's "Blood and Sand"

2011-10-30T08:06:00.004Z

My son Sukh gave me the paperback of this book a few years ago but I only started reading it recently as I had other things on my mind over the last year and a half.

It is a great introduction to certain areas of the Middle East that Frank has travelled to through his student years and in his twin careers of banking and the BBC. Through his own passion for the region, he unfolds the language, culture and the political scenario of each country.

After years of freelancing and paying for his own travel, he eventually lands a contract job with the BBC (the corporation loves folk to freelance and send stuff in from abroad or at home completely at their own cost - a tried and tested way for people to get longer contracts) Frank became Security Correspondent and was immensely valuable due to his knowledge of Arabic and the Middle East.

On 6 June 2004, he and his very experienced cameraman Simon Cumbers were ambushed in a carefully planned attack by Islamist gunmen in Riyadh. Simon was killed immediately. Frank was hit in the shoulder and the leg. As he lay on his stomach in agony, pleading for his life in Arabic, four more bullets were pumped into his body at point-blank range by an unknown killer.

The chapter dealing with the detail of Frank's injuries and treatment was so graphic it made me feel physically nauseous (the first time I've ever had that reaction to a piece of written text), and the episodes describing coming to terms with his paraplegia were extremely moving. I could sense him willing himself to carry on and pick up his life despite what had happened. An unforgettable book.

Book Talk followed by Lunch at the Asian Voice Group

2011-10-30T00:17:00.005+01:00

I was so thrilled when C.B.Patel told me over a lunch in parliament earlier this year that he planned to hold a launch for the book "Sonia Gandhi."

He kept his word. Before I knew it, he and his associate editor had organised the lovely event taking place Thursday November 3rd 2011 at the Asian Voice offices in Hoxton Market, in the city. Lord Navnit Dholakia, a great friend and supporter, has agreed to chair. Lord Dholakia is not only Deputy Leader of Liberal Democrat party and one of the highest ranking Indian politicians in the West, he is also a member of the Privy Council, the group of advisers for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second.

Ashis Ray, President of the Indian Journalists Asssociation, will also be on the panel.

CB Patel is an amazing pillar of the community. Always elegantly dressed in a suit, slim and happy-looking, CB gets up at 4am every day to practise yoga and follows a strict diet. He looks much less than his 75 years and is every bit as alert and sharp as when I first knew him some 20 years ago. His group of newspapers in English and Gujarati is very popular and the magazines and special issues the conglomerate produces are must-haves for every South Asian household in the UK and abroad.

This event is by invitation and we are expecting an interesting set of people in the audience; some old friends, some new acquaintances. There will be a delicious vegetarian lunch after the talk which will give guests a chance to network and mingle.

CB makes really personal, kind speeches which cut straight to the quick and stop me in my tracks as they are direct and, when aimed at me, deeply affectionate. He will speak on Thursday and already I anticipate I will be moved by what he will say. He is not afraid of anyone and speaks his mind. Yet he is respected all over the world and if he invites a government representative, British or Indian, to his events, it is unlikely that that person would ever dare refuse. When CB calls, people will jump through hoops to do his bidding.

DSC Closing Gala; Reuniting with Friends

2011-10-27T23:09:00.003+01:00

The closing event of the DSC South Asia Literature Festival at the Globe Theatre in London, home to Shakespeare's plays, brought me into contact with some gifted people I had not see for years. Tabla maestro Talvin Singh was mesmeric as always, very much at the top of his game.

Romesh Gunesekera, whose new book, The Prisoner of Paradise, is being published February 2012, looked no older than when he came in for a writers'event I organised for Radio 4 executives in 1997 when I was producing and presenting over there. (He was shortlisted for the Booker Prize with Reef.)

On my father's side,we are from the Chowdhry clan originally located near Rawal Pindi in Pakistan and my nephew ( a couple of times removed) Paul Chowdhry was on sober form as host for the evening. I am really glad that Paul now has a regular spot on Channel 4's Stand Up for the Week; he is certainly the best and most dangerous British Asian comic in the country.

October 18, 2011; Launch Day for "Sonia Gandhi" in India!

2011-10-18T16:11:00.003+01:00

September 2011 was the US release, and last week saw the UK launch. Pan and Palgrave Macmillan told me the interest in the book was so high in India that the release date was brought forward from late November to today. So I am doing print interviews back to back as well as television news.

The questions are really good and tough and testing. I am needing to think on my feet, which is always a good thing.

Pan Macmillan Delhi called this morning to discuss my schedule, I then did my cardio class and raced home from the gym, finished one interview, had lunch and dressed for the TV crew, now on with the next ones!

Can I keep to my gym commitments and other daily tasks while all this is going on?

Health and Fitness; Paul Stribling and Eivissa

2011-10-15T20:29:00.007+01:00

As I wrote earlier, I need to attend my gym, the privately owned Eden Fitness, pretty often to get my fitness level back to what it was 11 months ago when my writing started to become become more intense and needed all my energy.

I regularly have cardio classes with Paul Stribling and they are a real treat. Paul is gentle, always asks me how I am before we start, and always has a ready smile for me. The cardio classes operate on the principle of interval training, so we do one minute of hard work followed by one minute which is less intense. We rotate through six machines for a total of 45 mins.

One of Paul's Unique Selling Points is that he monitors everyone and will go to each of us, check our numbers and give us something he thinks we can strive for.
He will change my goals if I am struggling and would rather I reach a lower target at the right speed than go slower and fall way below.

Paul's manners are impeccable and he always makes time for me. He'll stop and check my stance on the gym floor, and is generous - he happily explains things in simple terms.

Each of my instructors has something different to offer. Paul loves Ibiza, and has set up a company, Eivissa mind, body and soul with his mother Maria, an experienced yoga teacher. Together they offer packages on the island.

A qualified football coach who has taught at Queens Park Rangers, Paul plays tennis and has attained Level 3 Status on the Register of Exercise Professionals having completed a Diploma in Advanced Personal Training.

He has a great energy about him - calm and quiet, and his sessions always contain an element of humour. Here is Paul's website.

Talking about "Sonia Gandhi" brings in interesting nuggets of gold

2011-10-14T23:07:00.002+01:00

Appearing on "Today with Pat Kenny" yesterday a listener with a special interest wrote into the show. It was the producer who had led the film crew that was supposed to interview Indira Gandhi, Sonia's mother in law, the day she got assassinated. This is what he wrote, and it is a really good eye witness account. He saw a momentous event in Indian history.

"Lovely piece on new book About Sonia Gandhi this morning. For the record, Seamus Deasy, although he always was my favourite cameraman, was not there when Indira Gandhi was assassinated. The programme ‘Peter Ustinov’s People’ was produced by me with Rory O’Farrell directing that episode. Here is an excerpt from original manuscript of my book , OFF SCREEN – A Memoir’:

Early in 1984 I met my old friend Peter Ustinov in London. I proposed making a series of television programmes, “Peter Ustinov’s People”. Peter was enthusiastic. Over lunch we came up with a list of names which included Indian Premier, Indira Ghandi.

I approached Indira Ghandi through Kiran Doshi the Indian Ambassador to Ireland. Within a few days he confirmed that Mrs Gandhi would be delighted to participate in the programme. Three weeks later having negotiated a deal with controller of programmes, Muiris MacConghail that RTE would substantially finance the project, I acquired a German co-producer. We set out for New Delhi. I would produce the programme; Rory O’Farrell my business partner at the time would direct. Our German co-producer engaged a local Indian film crew.

I met Mrs. Gandhi before at the New Delhi Film Festival. She was then an opposition politician. I was impressed by her. She was very attractive, smaller than I had imagined. Then in her mid 60’s, dressed in a colourful sari she looked younger. Certainly a person who would make a charming and interesting dinner companion. She talked of Indian and world affairs. She told of a meeting with the Irish harpist, Grainne Yeats and how she loved classical music. She mentioned that because of the presence of grandchildren in her home, the only music she ever heard there was that of Michael Jackson!

On this occasion she was in fine health and ebullient spirits as she prepared to seek a fifth term as prime minister of the world’s most populous democracy. Mrs. Gandhi invited us to travel with her on her pre-election visit to the state of Orissa where she would hold a series of political meetings. These public meetings always followed the same pattern. The Prime Minister would emerge from her helicopter to orchestrated shouts of “Zindabad Gandhi” (Long live Gandhi). She would then stand in the front of a jeep and be driven slowly round the inner perimeter of the meeting ground, waving and being showered with flowers. Then she would mount a small concrete grandstand. She made her speeches in Hindi and spoke in a weak unresonant voice, completely devoid of oratorical tricks. The average attendance at these rural meetings was 100,000.

Mrs. Gandhi told us with evident satisfaction that these were small meetings compared to most. She seemed to be a microcosm of India, as capable of calmly ruthless decisions - like the storming of the Sikh Temple at Amritsar- as she was of most engaging and even humorous banter. Five months earlier, she had sent the army into Punjab and into the most sacred of all Sikh shrines, the Golden Temple, which Sikh extremists had turned into a sort of holy fortress. At least 600 people were killed in the ensuing battle.

The main interview with Peter Ustinov would take place in the garden of the prime minister’s residence at 9 a.m. on the morning after our return from her political tour. This had included the laying of the foundation stone for a new ordinance factory in Saintala, a helicopter ride from Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa which was our base during the trip. On the return journey to New Delhi in the Prime Minister‘s private aircraft, Indira Gandhi told me about her son, Rajiv, a former airline pilot who had reluctantly given up that career to become a politician and his mother’s heir apparent. After the death of her younger son, Sanjay, four years earlier, she had been grooming Rajiv for leadership of the party. He was currently conducting similar campaign meetings in West Bengal and would not return to the capital until after our departure. However, as I proposed returning to India later in the year, she said that we would have an opportunity to meet then. Little did she or I know that within twenty-four hours of this conversation, Indira Gandhi would be dead and her son, Rajiv would be sworn in as Prime Minister of India.

On the evening of our return to New Delhi, I received a ’phone call from the Prime Minister herself to ask me what she should wear for her interview the next day. Over the previous few days, we had seen a wide array of saris, so I suggested one which was predominately orange coloured. She agreed with this.

We arrived at the official residence at 8.30.a.m. the next morning. Our camera was set up on a large lawn in the extensive garden. This was no ordinary suburban garden but rather a small park. At the appointed time, the Prime Minister’s press secretary went to fetch her. I followed a little behind in order to meet her as she entered the garden from the living area. I carried a gift-wrapped present, an Irish linen tablecloth. As I approached the high fence which divided the garden from the residence three shots rang out. Behind me in the interview area, the Indian cameraman explained to the other members of the crew. “Firecrackers” he said. “They are quite usual in these parts”. Then came a burst from an automatic weapon. Clearly not fireworks. I briefly glimpsed the figure dressed in the blood-stained orange sari lying on the pathway surrounded by security guards. Shocked, I slowly walked back to the film crew. Peter Ustinov later described me as “looking white and shaken”. I told them that the Prime Minister had been shot. The whole situation seemed unreal. The early morning birdsong in the garden which had ceased momentarily when the shooting started created an eerie silence. One recalls film and television footage of public assassinations in other countries which take place in public with the attendant panic, shouting and general confusion. In India it was different. Indiria Ghandi’s assassination took place in her garden, in silence as had been in the case of her distinguished predecessor, Mahatma Gandhi, the father of modern India many years earlier.

Indira Gandhi had been shot by two of her Sikh bodyguards who then calmly dropped their guns and were seized by other security guards. A fight broke out and both of the assassins were shot dead. The day before her death, Indira Gandhi had told a large enthusiastic crowd in Orissa’s capital city, Bhubaneswar “I am not interested in a long life. I am not afraid of these things. I don’t mind if my life goes in the service of this nation. If I die to-day, every drop of my blood will invigorate the nation”. These words are now displayed in a shrine erected in the garden of the Prime Minister’s residence along with other memorabilia including Indira Ghandi’s diary. The page open for the last day of her life includes two appointment entries, one for the early morning and one for the afternoon with “Sheamus Smith and Irish television crew”.

As ever

Sheamus

As "Sonia Gandhi" launches in the UK, "Today" with Pat Kenny for RTE

2011-10-13T15:25:00.004+01:00

I really liked being interviewed by Pat Kenny for RTE, a great current affairs programme which an awesome reputation. He had read the book closely and came up with some interesting information of his own from 31st October 1984.

It was nice the way he gently led me through Sonia's life to date and it felt like a real conversation because he had many ideas of his own.

Here is the 20 mins.

Talking about "Sonia Gandhi" on BBC World's "The Hub" with Nik Gowing

2011-10-04T12:34:00.001+01:00

I first met Nik Gowing more than a decade ago when I took a group of South Asian journalists into Television Centre for a high level meeting with BBC World TV. I'm not sure that Nik remembered that event last evening, as he breezed onto the couch near his set and said "I haven't got much time now" before telling me in one minute flat what he wanted to talk about. Having said that, anchors tend to avoid talking about meeting up outside the newsroom close to or during transmission time as they are so "in the zone," their heads full of notes and what the gallery has been saying to them. The best time to talk is when they finish their shifts -then they relax.

Nik wanted to look at the current situation rather than the past and was on top of the story but -and I guess it is only to be expected these days with cutbacks etc- his researcher or whoever had briefed him had clearly been in a hurry. He announced that Sonia Gandhi was an unelected member of government (not true, she is an elected MP from the constituency of Rae Bareli) and he was also given the wrong figure for the amount of time she was out of India for surgery this Summer.

He was quick to press me on a couple of things I said and and as it was the first interview I had done on TV for the book, it was a little surreal to have my own words quoted to me - but nice, on reflection, and showed that he had read the text carefully. All in all, interviewing for the biggest TV audience in the world is stupendous and I experienced a real feeling of nostalgia being back in the newsroom where I cut my broadcast journalistic teeth and felt, over many years, the elation of compiling reports which went out to millions of listeners.

I love that newsroom. It has always been my favourite place to be on a Saturday night - or any night of the week for that matter.

Lady Olga Maitland hosts Literary Dinner for my "Sonia Gandhi" biography at the Defence and Security Forum

2011-09-21T23:05:00.003+01:00

Lady Olga Maitland, President of the Defence and Security Forum, hosted a wonderful Black Tie literary dinner last night- with a sumptuous three-course meal and candles to a packed room - for what was the very first official outing of my biography of Sonia Gandhi published by Palgrave Macmillan in America on September 13, 2011.

I was in distinguished company because Lady Olga knows everyone- from British cabinet members and prime ministers to foreign heads of state. Previous speakers at the Defence and Security Forum include Sandy Berger, Adviser to President Clinton, HRH Prince Michael of Kent,and author Frederick Forsyth.

She had read a proof copy prior to last night as the book has only just been published and finished copies are only now available. She was so complimentary and enthusiastic I was quite overwhelmed. Lady Olga had placed a wonderful collection of people on our table,and after my 23-minute talk some great, piercing questions were asked- all under Chatham House rules. While her aristocratic ancestors smiled down at us from their large gold -framed portraits on the walls, the conversation flowed and there was clearly a lot of interest.

It is wonderful to see the first responses to the book after a year and a half of hard labour on this challenging project.

The upcoming speakers for the Defence and Security Forum include His Excellency Sir Mark Lyall Grant, KCM UK, who is the British Permanent Representative to the U.N., and General Sir David Richards, GCB, CBE, DSO, British Chief of Defence Staff.

British armour steel deal inked with Tata Steel and Ministry of Defence

2011-09-14T13:55:00.004+01:00

The MoD announcement today read, "UK INVENTION BRINGS SOVEREIGN CAPABILITY FOR ARMOURED STEEL"

The UK now has its own onshore supply of high-performance armour steel, thanks to a UK invention and a new manufacturing agreement.

Known as super bainite, the new armour steel has been developed to have outstanding ballistics properties and, in tests, it has performed better than ‘normal’ steel armour.

The Ministry of Defence has signed a licensing agreement with Tata Steel to manufacture the steel in the UK.

Showcased at Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEi) today, the material was invented and developed in the UK, with production ear-marked to take place in Port Talbot, South Wales. Under the agreement the steel will be turned into seven different items, including perforated armour plates that could be used on future frontline armoured vehicles.

Visiting the UK Capability Showcase at DSEi, Minister for Defence, Equipment Support and Technology, Peter Luff, said:

“This cutting-edge UK invention and the manufacturing agreement mean that the UK now has its own onshore supply of high-performance armour steel. Super bainite has both military and civilian applications providing Tata Steel with important export opportunities.

”The application of new, battle-winning technologies is what gives our troops the edge. This demonstrates, once again, that investing in research and development, in partnership with industry, means that our troops can have the latest innovations in frontline equipment.”

Super bainite was invented by Defence Science and Technology Laboratory’s (Dstl) Professor Peter Brown, Professor Harry Bhadeshia, Tata Steel Professor of Metallurgy at Cambridge University and Dr Carlos Garcia-Mateo, previously at Cambridge University and currently at the National Centre for Metallurgical Research, Madrid.

The outstanding protection properties of super bainite are down to unique production processes. Traditionally, steel is covered with water to get it to room temperature quickly before structural weaknesses can form. But with super bainite, a whole variety of cooling methods, using air or even molten salt, are used throughout production. Combining drilling and hole-punching during the cooling process results in ultra high-hardness perforated plate.

Dstl’s Professor Brown said:

“The ballistic performance of perforated super bainite steel armour is at least twice that of conventional rolled homogenous steel armour. This is because the introduction of perforations creates a large number of edges which disrupt the path of incoming projectiles, significantly reducing their potency.”

Dstl owns the patents relating to the chemical composition and processing of super bainite. The licence agreement was signed between Ploughshare Innovations and Tata Steel. It allows Tata Steel to manufacture and process super bainite in the UK and in Europe and to export it globally.

Dr. Paul Davies of Tata Steel hoped defence equipment manufacturers, especially armour systems specialists, will recognise the steel’s potential for appliqué up-armouring applications. He said:

“Tata Steel has spent significant effort developing this unique product and we are delighted with its performance. We have outlined our market strategy. Tata Steel is well positioned to support the market, both in the UK and across the remainder of European markets by exercising existing infrastructure to produce and process the material for future customers.”

British Foreign Secretary talks about Britain's new diplomatic thrust

2011-09-12T12:17:00.002+01:00

Thursday September 8, Foreign Secretary William Hague outlined Britain's new foreign policy outlook in a speech at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London. I have picked out the most interesting points from his talk; strikingly, the admission of Britain's waning influence across the world.

"We are significantly increasing our diplomatic presence in India and China, the world’s two emerging superpowers by increasing the number of frontline staff in each country by 30 and 50 positions respectively, and focussing on their fastest growing cities and regions in each country, some of which have GDPs larger than whole European countries.

We are substantially expanding our diplomatic strength in Brazil, Turkey, Mexico and Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, South Korea, North Korea, Mongolia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Angola, Botswana, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Panama, Peru, Pakistan, Vietnam, the Philippines and our presence in Taiwan, maintaining the strength of our delegations to the United Nations in New York and Geneva, NATO and the European Union and keeping our network of Consulates General across the United States.

We have made a firm pledge that this Government will not close any of the existing 140 UK Sovereign Posts overseas - which means Embassies or High Commissions - during the lifetime of this Parliament; and we will open six new Embassies and up to seven new Consulates General in the emerging economies, including one in Recife in Brazil.

Our new Embassies are in South Sudan, where we opened our new Embassy the day that new state came into being;

In Kyrgyzstan, where our new Embassy will open later this year;

In Côte D’Ivoire, where I announced this week that we will re-open the Embassy that was closed in 2005;

In El Salvador and Madagascar where we are also reopening posts closed by the previous government;

And in due course, we hope to open a new Embassy in Somalia. It is not possible now because of the security situation, but we will be ready as soon as we judge that circumstances permit, and in the meantime we will set up an Embassy for Somalia in Nairobi.

This effort is aimed at preventing what I call the strategic shrinkage of Britain’s influence in the world.

In the countries where Embassies had closed that we are now re-opening, we are sending a signal that Britain is back in the business of serious diplomacy with them. Where we are increasing the numbers of FCO staff and consulates, we are able to build deeper diplomatic relationships and do more for British business and British citizens."

The first time ever on British television; the Life of The Prophet

2011-08-21T23:19:00.002+01:00

Three one hour television documentaries for a series called “The Life of Muhammad” were on BBC Two recently. It was the first time that British television had shown a biography on the Prophet, whose message forms the religious base for one and half billion people round the world.

Filmed on location in Saudi Arabia, Jerusalem, Turkey, the USA, the UK and Jordan, all the drama, tragedy and triumph of the epic narrative of the life and teachings of one of the most important religious figures of all time was laid out for the viewer. One of the biggest names on the subject was part of the production team; author, scholar and broadcaster Ziauddin Sardar wrote the whole series.

The documentaries traveled to the place of the Prophet’s birth, and re-traced his actual footsteps from his early years in Mecca, his struggles with accepting his Prophetic role, his flight to Medina, the founding of the first Islamic constitution, his successes and failures, militarily and politically, through to his death and his legacy.

Mr Sardar, who agreed to be interviewed by email, said that non-Muslims could “learn a lot …and get a thrilling story as a bonus” –while Muslim viewers might discover things from the series that they did not know before. He said, “We based the film on classical biographies –particularly Ibn Ishaq’s Life of the Prophet, regarded by all Muslims as the first and most authentic biography.” The program makers interviewed with, among others, John L. Esposito, professor of religion, international affairs and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, H.R.H. Princess Badiya El Hassan of the Jordanian Royal family, author Karen Armstrong and Sajjad Rizvi, associate professor of Islamic intellectual history, Exeter university.

Mr Sardar explained that he wanted to show that the details of the life of the Prophet are alive and vivid for Muslims today, so image sometimes contrasted with narrative. “We often used contemporary scenes and related them back to the time of the Prophet.”

The first episode, which got 1.8million viewers, was acclaimed for its sensitivity and intelligence in dealing with the visual challenge of finding ways of talking about the Prophet without depicting him. (Depictions of the Prophet are not allowed in Islam).

“Another challenge was to get the balance right, and ensure that the diversity of Islam, and all the different views – from the orthodox to the liberal, Sunni, Shia, Sufi, as well as western critics, and the voices of women –are all represented…we had a Shia consultant, an established scholar in the field, who advised us and made sure we took his views into account. Yet another challenge was to explore how Muslims today use the Prophet as a model, how close or [how]far they are to the spirit of his life. It was like walking a tightrope”

In keeping with Mr Sardar’s back catalogue of books and television programs, authenticity and respect were hallmarks of the series. “We took particular care to be respectful to the Prophet. As Muslims we could not do otherwise.”

Mr Sardar wrote all of the presenter’s links, including the introduction, in which the narrator said “Peace be upon him” after the name of the Prophet. It set the tone of the films.

“But we also had to deal with the controversial aspects of his life fairly and objectively. So we took particular care both to be deeply respectful and honest in our treatment of difficult subjects.” Using excellent sources and referring to them constantly gave the series an authoritative platform.

The writer’s role in this series cannot be overstated, for it is through the words and stunning images that programs about the past can work best. “The Life of Muhammad” is the first biographical documentary that not only features no visual images of its subject; it also has no dramatic reconstructions of the subject’s life. Strong landscapes, art and architecture accompanied by atmospheric music work well with the powerful narrative and set a benchmark which led one Guardian reviewer to write; “Visually at least, many television directors should consider converting to Islam.”

Rani's physical health - I love my gym!

2011-08-20T21:26:00.009+01:00

I've been a gym member for over a decade and in 2010 when I wanted to find a new one I did a thorough survey of all the good gyms in West London. Some of the prices were astronomical.

The one I settled on is part of a set owned by Charlie Bourne, called "Eden Fitness" in Ealing.

The main reason I joined was because this gym offers a class I haven't found anywhere else; Total Cardio, which is 45 mins of interval training on three separate machines- the treadmill, the crosstrainer, and the cycle. Sometimes we play the Fish Game on the rower. It is such a simple concept and so many gyms have dedicated cardio sections I am really surprised not to find it anywhere else.

The second thing about Eden is the amazingly high level of hygiene- the facilities and cloakrooms are always clean and the pool area has a special "saunarium" -ideal for relaxing.

But I think what is really adding to the quality of my life is the standard of the staff. Reception people are chatty and friendly.

I adore all my instructors in the cardio teaching team; Carlos Newton,Paul Stribling, Matt Fox, Steve Perkins, Roz Gerber, Darren Carroll and Gavin Mehta. It has taken me quite a long time to appreciate how prodigiously talented my instructors are as they don't do any hard selling on special trainer sessions -I just found out they are good by talking with them and having classes with them. Each of them has a different technique -so the blend of working out with them all over a fortnight is a perfect, heady cocktail. They all keep an eye on me when I am on the gym floor -proactively checking
my posture etc as opposed to some instructors in other West London gyms who practically ignore members.

Gavin has been introducing me to kickboxing over the last few weeks and since he is a martial arts specialist I am hoping to get some self defence training from him further down the line. After returning from India last year and seeing how the Special Protection Group, in common with other international military units, study Krav Maga, I approached Gavin. He has devised his own form of self defence suitable for someone like me- using techniques from many established styles, including Krav Maga.

Lastly, I love my yoga teacher -Shanti Gill -who teaches a special class of Chiyoga- a blend of Tai Chi and yoga- as well as the more intense forms the rest of the week. If I concentrate, I can feel my mind going into a meditative state during Chiyoga.

During the English riots last week, Charlie Bourne, his wife and around eight others spent the night on the couches of the reception area to protect the premises in case of attack so we didn't lose access to the gym though the hours were shortened on the worst days.

I lost some fitness toward the end of 2010 and during the first six months of this year while I was writing intensively so I will need to work hard over the next few weeks to return to form.

Eating right will be my biggest challenge!

India's Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee meets UK Minister George Osborne

2011-08-13T19:51:00.003+01:00

Last month journalists had quite a day with the Indian finance minister and his delegation to the UK.

On the 25th of July 2011, there was a morning press conference in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with the two gentleman, their heights in inverse proportion to their numbers of years in government, when they expressed deep satisfaction with trade relations between their two countries.

They proudly stated that India is now the third largest investor in the UK, and the UK is the fourth largest investor in India.

They announced that billions of dollars' worth of trade deals had been signed, and pointed to a recent BP/Reliance deal which represented the single largest foreign investment ever in India.

They both sidestepped my question to them about which country had greater need for the other, replying that each had a healthy respect and need for the other, refusing to be drawn on the precise balance of power.

The press conference finished before 12.0pm. Some of the Indian journalists were going to wait around for another briefing with Mukherjee at India House, the Indian High Commission, at 5.0pm that day. One of them said, "It's going to be a very long lunch."

A little bit of Thailand in West London

2011-07-31T14:58:00.003+01:00

Walking home from my yoga class taught by Shanti this morning, I was distracted by the sound of Thai music and the sight of different nationalities queueing up in an orderly fashion to buy tickets for the Thai festival on Ealing Common. Huge security guards in shades and dark blue T - shirts contrasted with the diminutive orientals by the entrance to this event, now in its second year, organized by Nikie Chumai.

Mr Chumai is a restaurant owner who spends nine months of the year in Thailand, three in the UK, and aims to develop closer cultural ties between the two countries; one of his plans is to organize a British event in Thailand with the help of the British embassy in Bangkok.

The festival covered two days, and was opened by a member of the Thai royal family accompanied by the Thai ambassador to the UK.

Large carved statues of Buddha reclining or sitting smiling benignly inside the barriers appeared alongside intricately carved vegetables and pastel colored soap bars. There was delicious food and drink served by Thai restaurant owners who were making sure that everyone paid -cash, and no freebies.

At a small stage, exquisite dancers and musicians performed for an interested public relaxing on the grass in the sunshine. The festival can be compared with the mega Asian melas running up and down the UK over the Summer- this one is much more sedate, with between 3-6,000 visitors each day.

The Thai population in the UK is estimated at 30,000.

Interviewing Queen Noor in London

2011-07-17T13:41:00.003+01:00

The Global Zero summit in London in June gave me the opportunity to meet and talk to some very interesting people, like Queen Noor of Jordan who gave me an exclusive for Al Arabiya English.

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/06/24/154672.html. She was frank and expansive, confident and friendly, though I had been warned that she would not be too comfortable commenting directly on the Arab Spring.

Surprisingly, I was practically the only broadcaster/journalist to sit through the summit sessions -most just turned up for specific interviews or the official press conference.

Global Zero has a team of big hitters and their US based PR includes Trevor Fitzgerald, who worked on Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.

Tea and biscuits with the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Department of the Indian National Congress party

2011-05-13T20:54:00.009+01:00

Dr Karan Singh, from the former royal family of Jammu and Kashmir,met with a small number of Indian journalists in London Friday May 13 2011 for tea and a chat in the Nehru Centre, belonging to the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (the arts wing of the Indian government). He was frank, honest and jovial, and broke into Urdu poetry occasionally. India's former ambassador to Unesco, member of the Indian parliament's upper house, was candid on the results of state elections today ("I'm very happy with the result") and his heartbreak over young people killed in Jammu and Kashmir in 2010 ("perhaps the police could use rubber bullets or some kind of gas")Indian foreign policy, the death of Bin Laden and corruption. He was charming all the way through, answered all questions, and after finding out how many Indian journos there were in London, remarked that there were only two in Paris compared to 100 Chinese.

He has revived the concept of cultural diplomacy through Festivals of India started by Indira Gandhi. There have over the last few years been Festivals with Japan, Russia, China and France.

Britain developing stronger international ties- has the empire really vanished?

2011-05-11T13:11:00.003+01:00

Today we learn that the Foreign and Commonwealth office is increasing its diplomatic representation in specific countries.

"This means increasing the FCO’s presence in the major emerging powers such as China and India. We will have 80 more staff in the biggest and fastest growing cities and regions of these countries. There will be a substantial expansion of our diplomatic strengthen in Brazil, Turkey, Mexico and Indonesia as well as additional diplomatic staff in a host of other countries."

The FCO will open five new Embassies in El Salvador, Kyrgyzstan, South Sudan and, when local conditions permit, in Madagascar and Somalia. Right now the FCO has 140 Embassies and High Commissions around the world.

The Foreign Secretary said:

“We will embark on a substantial reinvigoration of the diplomatic network to make it ready for the 21st century; to expand our connections with the emerging powers of the world, and to signal that where Britain was retreating it is now advancing.

“The only way to increase our national prosperity and secure our growth for our economy is through trade, and our Embassies play a vital role in supporting British business.

“Our decisions mean that our reach when British companies need assistance or British nationals are in danger goes further and is stronger.”

The FCO says that it will withdraw some diplomatic staff from "European subordinate posts"

For the above, read, "we need to rethink ways of making money in the new world order, we no longer have our empire, we now need to do serious business fast and bigtime with the power players to retain legitimacy."

British Royal Navy begins exercise around Cyprus

2011-05-11T12:07:00.002+01:00

Seven Royal Navy warships with Royal Marines and helicopters, will converge on waters off the British Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus this week for a series of long-planned naval exercises designed to demonstrate the versatile capabilities and high readiness of the Response Force Task Group (RFTG).

Exercise Cypriot Lion combines air defence exercises and live firings out at sea with amphibious exercises in coastal waters involving Royal Marines of 3 Commando Brigade.

It will be the first major exercise of the complete RFTG in the Cougar 11 deployment.

Three ships, HMS Albion, HMS Sutherland and Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Cardigan Bay, left the UK with elements of the commando force at the beginning of April and were in Cyprus last month for a series of amphibious exercises. For Exercise Cypriot Lion, they will be joined by a second group of ships – the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean, landing ship RFA Mounts Bay, fast fleet tanker RFA Wave Knight and supply ship RFA Fort Rosalie.

In addition to 40 Commando Royal Marines and elements of 3 Cdo Brigade Headquarters, the Task Group also includes marines from the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps, with whom the UK has a long standing association. Both countries have a history of cooperation in the field of amphibious warfare that dates back to the siege of Gibraltar in 1704 and was cemented through the creation of a joint UK-Netherlands-Landing Force in 1973.

Commodore John Kingwell, Commander UK Task Force (COMUKTG) said:

“The Response Force Task Group enables the Royal Navy to respond at short notice to unforeseen events in an unpredictable and fast moving world”

“Naval forces are ideally placed to respond to a range of missions central to UK defence and security. The involvement of marines from the Netherlands underlines the role that the RFTG can play alongside our international partners in support of wider maritime security and regional stability.”

Colonel Haydn White, Deputy Commander, 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines, added:

“For the second time in the Cougar 11 deployment, the support of British Forces Cyprus has been invaluable in providing realistic and innovative training scenarios, whether at sea, along the shore, in the harbour and on land”.

“Cypriot Lion is the ideal opportunity for Royal Marines from 3 Commando Brigade to exercise their core amphibious skills”.

Are the British becoming conscious about the American Navy Seals grabbing all the attention recently?

New British High Commissioner to India announced

2011-05-09T12:43:00.002+01:00

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office has announced that Mr James Bevan KMG will replace Sir Richard Stagg KCMG in Delhi in November 2011.

He has been the Chief Operating Officer and Director General for Corporate Affairs at the FCO since 2007, and before that he was a visiting fellow at the centre for international affairs at Harvard University.
He has been a secretary in Paris, Washington and in Brussels, where he was with the UK delegation to NATO.

At the FCO, he headed up departments for Africa, the Balkans, and the European Union.
He goes to Delhi at a time when the former imperial masters have more to gain, arguably, from the ex-colony than the other way around.

Check out Anna Hazare

2011-04-08T16:25:00.005+01:00

If you haven't already clocked the fast-unto-death of Indian Anna Hazare, the social activist famed for transforming his village and those around it into models of prosperity and clean living, note that he is attracting international and national support from Indians for his plea for an anti-corruption bill to be put in place, one of the few methods -perhaps the only one - which is causing the government to react.

Hazare is using a peaceful, Gandhian technique. The United Progressive Alliance government cannot afford for him to sacrifice his life in the name of one of India's biggest diseases.

Thousands have gathered at the site in Delhi of Anna's fast, and as he wants no politicians around, any who visit to express support are shooed away.

A team of volunteer doctors is checking his condition round the clock, ensuring there are free medicines on tap. 150 others have joined Hazare's fast. Newspapers are publishing updates on his blood pressure and other vital statistics,
TV anchors have now arrived at the site and are linking from there, while reporters provide latest news.

Spokesmen are negotiating with the government on Hazare's behalf, and Hazare is holding out for terms on agreement.
Bollywood and sports stars are publicly declaiming support.

British RAF Eye in the Sky Hits 20,000 hours over Afghanistan

2011-04-08T12:01:00.001+01:00

Reaper, the RAF’s Remotely Piloted Aircraft has reached a landmark 20,000 operational flying hours over Afghanistan, the MOD announced today. The 39 Squadron aircraft have proven themselves as the eyes in the sky for front line troops.

Reaper was introduced in October 2007 and with its array of high tech sensors and precision guided weapons, it can carry out a wide range of missions to support forces in Afghanistan. It can gather pre-raid intelligence on target compounds, assist in countering IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and provide surveillance for routine patrols and supply convoys.

Reaper can use its sensors day and night to spy on insurgent activity for hours at a time and at a range where they are undetected from the ground. The images are complemented by radar, mounted in the nose of the aircraft, gathering another dimension of detailed imagery that is analysed by a team of highly trained intelligence specialists in military bases around the world.

If necessary, Reaper can also strike at insurgents with a range of precision guided weapons.

Reflecting on the achievement, Air Officer Commanding 2 Group, Air Vice Marshal Philip Osborn, said:

“The RAF’s Reaper force has proven itself time and again in combat and is an essential element of the RAF’s combat intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance capability. The real time, day and night video coverage of the battle space combined with the extensive use of onboard radar provides a unique, cost effective and sustained capability that enhances the safety of troops on the ground.

“This cutting-edge remotely piloted aircraft provides an impressive range of capabilities that are saving lives and making a real difference to the troops in Afghanistan.

“The aircraft is only as good as the individuals operating it though and I am most grateful for and must praise the dedication and operational focus of all the members of 39 Squadron, who are drawn from across all three Services, in achieving this milestone.”

A Reaper pilot from 39 Squadron, spoke of his experience after a recent tour in Afghanistan:

“When you're assisting troops on the ground and insurgents are trying to take shots at them we can be called to use the Reaper’s precision weapons. As with fast jets, you're still speaking to the troops on the ground and feel immersed in the operational environment.

“In many ways, you actually feel better connected to the situation on the ground than you do in a fast jet - the detailed computer systems that we've got with Reaper make it easier to get better intelligence pictures.”

I give in; only one subject dominates in South Asia now

2011-03-12T11:49:00.002Z

Seeing as everyone I know wants to watch the cricket, (even one of the BJP leaders, Arun Jaitley, has been lending a comment to radio) I have little option but to post this from M.J.Akbar for cricket fans everywhere

Stars and Style
M.J. Akbar

Style is the yeast of leadership. The league rounds of this World Cup Cricket are not designed to offer much by way of excitement since it would require too much stupidity on the part of the Biggies not to qualify for the knockout stage, which is when the mercury will start rising. England, possibly in honour of its long sporting tradition, is trying very hard to fail, but I suspect that it might very well fail to fail. I hope Bangladesh marches into the quarter-finals, precisely because it is the very opposite of England: its spirit is greater than its ability, unlike England, which brought along quality to the Cup but mislaid its spirit somewhere on the flight to the subcontinent.

The one fascinating aspect of this tournament so far is the difference in the management style of its captains. The test of a captain lies, obviously, in adversity, and Bangladesh’s Shakib al Hasan is blessed with the courage of self-belief. He could have fallen into that worst of all traps, sulking self-pity, when angry fans broke his windowpanes after his team’s pathetic loss to the West Indies. Instead, he picked himself and the team up, and led them to a famous victory against England. It does not actually matter now whether he goes into the next round. He has restored his nation’s pride. Bengali fans are right. They do not expect Bangladesh to win the Cup, but they will not tolerate a team that betrays its honour.

The surprise is Shahid Afridi, who could easily join Pakistan’s Foreign Service after this swansong. The man who has tweaked a ball or two in his time, has flowered into a diplomat. He soothed ruffled feathers after defeat against New Zealand through a brilliant strategic pincer movement: he invited the huge Pakistani media contingent for dinner with the players. Mollifying the messenger is the best treatment for the ache of bad news. Afridi is clearly aware that contemporary Pakistan has only two powerful institutions, the Army and the media. The Army has only cursory interest in cricket during wartime, so an alliance with the media is sufficient for crisis control. Pakistan remains the contrarian’s favourite; and if Afridi can handle his temperamental eleven with the kind of aplomb he has shown off the field, then watch out for the Greens. Predictably Pakistan’s erratic, slippery-fingers wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal has induced the best joke so far: “What is Akmal’s favourite pick-up line? Can I drop you anywhere?”

In contrast, Mahendra Dhoni is so laidback he could have been training in a sauna. Dhoni is proponent of the Yawn School of Business. When asked why India had made such heavy weather of defeating less-than-ordinary sides like Holland, he replied with a verbal shrug. India was winning, wasn’t it, and that was good enough for him. Well, he might lose when there is no second chance left. It may not be much of a problem for him personally, since the advertisement deals are done, cheques are in the bank, and he probably thinks that the Great Indian Public is fickle in its affections anyway. Somebody should tell him that the symbol of India is the elephant, and while the elephant treads with a light step, it also has a long memory.

The captain who really knew how to lie on his back was the incomparable Viv Richards, but he had a few advantages over Dhoni. He was a genius with the bat. He was fearless [he disdained a helmet, trusting his eye and instinct instead]. And he had a set of bowlers who could break your hand when you were looking and crack your head when you took your eye off the ball. Dhoni has fashioned half a team for this tournament, just a set of brilliant batsmen, on the assumption that opponents will get themselves out. We shall see what we shall see.

The finest gentleman ever to captain England was surely Colin Cowdrey. In his last match as captain Cowdrey walked to the pitch for the toss, dressed in immaculate whites. And waited. Richards sauntered up twenty minutes late, wearing a T shirt and bandana in more colours than a rainbow would dare to advertise. The coin was tossed. Richards won. Richards looked at the prim and proper Cowdrey and asked the Englishman what he wanted to do, rather than exercising his right of decision. Once Cowdrey had recovered, he said England would like to bat. Okay maan, said Richards, you bat.

The West Indies won that Test match by ten wickets. That is why it was Cowdrey’s last match. And that is why few lovers of cricket can remember Cowdrey, and no one has forgotten Vivian Richards.

Style is an art, particularly if it can be complemented with swagger. But style is not a substitute for substance.

P.Sainath- again. He has been covering poverty for 30 years.

2011-03-11T21:59:00.001Z

His latest piece for The Hindu, called Gates, Buffet and the Art of Giving

The latest Forbes billionaires list is out. A mere 10 per cent return on the wealth of Indians in it would cover Health, Higher Education, MGNREGS and Handloom budgets for years and years.

Some suggestions for Bill Gates and Warren Buffet who plan to visit India and encourage philanthropy amongst India's super-rich.

Dear Bill & Warren,

Delighted to learn that you plan to tour India, among other countries, to inspire and ‘grow' the practice of ‘giving' among our super-rich. Indeed, to have them follow in your charitable footsteps and part with vast sums of their wealth as you have, for a good cause. This does get to be a bit of a problem with those for whom charity begins at home and stays there. And for a corporate world which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh concedes, (much like your own corporate world) suffers from a perceived ‘ethical deficit.' On the bright side, Dr. Singh's government also generously concedes billions of dollars in freebies each year to the ethically-challenged, doubtless to bridge that deficit. Close to $20 billion in corporate income tax write-offs in this year's budget alone. This offers your campaign a vantage point, surely. No need to ‘give-till-it-hurts' here. All that's been done with public revenue. Now they can give without hurting.

Moreover, your pal Steve Forbes has just brought out his new list which, taken together with our budget, lends powerful ammo to your proselytisation project. Stevie's list tells us India's billionaires have done us proud again. There are now 55 of them. That's more than last year despite a few unfortunate dropouts — Shahid Balwa of DB Realty among them — who have plunged into the misery of barren multi-millionairehood. And while China may have posted a list of 115 billionaires, theirs are mainly Little Leaguers, with an average net asset worth of no more than $2.5 billion. Way below our own $4.5 billion average. (It was over $6 billion in 2008, till those twits on Wall Street blew it). That places us above — and China below — the $3.7 billion global average net asset worth of these super-rich. And there is also our obvious moral superiority over the Russians who keep sending their billionaires (101 of them) to prison. We send ours to Parliament. And while China and Russia might have sneaked ahead of us on the numbers, we've knocked those Germans off their perch (52).

I'm eager to help with the planning of your trip. Let's start with the pre-visit homework. There are now 1,210 dollar billionaires on the planet, the Forbes list tells us. We don't believe this for a moment, though we agree it's a fun exercise to undertake each year. Our own number has to be much higher. But concealed income in India is so huge that it, firstly, denies a number of our billionaires due global recognition. Secondly, it leads to their being grossly undervalued. Anyway, 14 of those Indians whose wealth can be established in the 10-digit range occupy slots within the top 15 per cent of those 1,210 super-rich. The top seven of these make it within the first 100 of the Forbes list. And two — Mukesh Ambani and Lakshmi Mittal — make it to the list of the 10 richest men in the world. True, unlike both of you, swanking around at ranks two and three, they languish lower down at ranks six and nine. But we do have the policy structures in place to remedy that in a while.

The net asset worth of our boys (and three girls) is around $246.5 billion (Rs. 11,13,750 crore). This, of course, does not include unaccounted income, or stuff stashed away from public gaze. But even on this modest sum of wealth, let's assume they earn an equally modest annual return of 10 per cent. (Now we know that for the super-rich, anything less than 30 per cent's a joke, but let's just assume 10? At least as the part they will be persuaded to give away, by both of you.) Then you might want to glance at these humble calculations before you make it here to inspire ‘giving' among the Indian super-rich.

A return of 10 per cent on the declared wealth of Indian billionaires comes to over $24 billion (Rs. 1,11,375 crore). Let's recall for a moment that 836 million Indians live on a daily expenditure of less than 50 cents (Rs.20 or even much less). We might have clocked in fourth on the billionaire stakes, but in the share of poor people, those in hunger, those getting the lowest number of calories, fastest rising food prices — we're up there at the top of the world.

Well, the modest interest amount of $24 billion would easily cover the annual consumption expenditure of 150 million poor Indians. If the return on wealth was actually 20-30 per cent, then the numbers whose consumption could be taken care of each year would be twice or thrice as many.

Take our health budget — now around $6 billion (Rs.26, 897 crore) after Finance Minister Pranabda hiked it by 20 per cent over last year. That 10 per cent return on the wealth of the dollar billionaires — let's call them DB for short, a now familiar acronym that's almost a household word here — would cover that budget for four years at least. Or the health and higher education ($4.8 billion) budgets together for two years. On a return of just 10 per cent, that's a bargain. The more so when you consider that health and higher education budgets together are just a little more than half the nearly $20 billion (Rs. 88,263 crore) Pranabda is writing off in corporate income tax, apart from other freebies for struggling billionaires.

Now that $20 billion would run our Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme at present levels ($ 8.8 billion) for at least two years. But Pranabda probably realised, shrewdly, that a 10 per cent return on the wealth of the richest would provide over $24 billion — and provide that each year. Which means all three — health, higher education and rural employment programmes — could be run for many, many years (assuming the banks stay afloat). And there would a bit left over for covering budget allocations for sectors like Handlooms. Somewhere between five and ten million families with perhaps the finest weaving skills in the world, have to depend on a fraction of the $95 million (Rs. 431.61 crore) given to the handlooms sector in the present budget. Who knows we might even be able to cover the whole central Textile budget, a piffling $1.2 billion or Rs. 5,855.75 crore. (Come to think of it, the total value of our Flying Fifty Five at $246.5 billion is just a little short of the total expenditure proposed in our Central budget at $278 billion. But let's not go there just now).

Pranabda also probably knew that the two of you were coming down to persuade our guys to part with a fraction of their wealth for noble purposes. He's a wise man, our Finance Minister. I think he's also figured that if he could get 10 per cent of the interest on the funds the Indian super-rich have stashed away overseas, we could probably bridge our deficit as well. So he's thinking of offering them an amnesty on their little fiddles. That way we could access those funds painlessly. I can't help thinking you ought to meet Pranabda too, when you visit. Like both of you, he believes in persuasion and his skills in that direction are unique. He's working hard to ensure that the men you will persuade to ‘give,' accumulate more each year and thus have more to give. After all, more giving leads to more giving. He's also thoughtfully creating more hungry people they can help.

Looking forward to your visit and a year of giving.

Sainath

M.J.Akbar's comments on the week past

2011-03-05T10:20:00.002Z

One of Akbar's stronger recent pieces, but at the end of the day, what difference does it make? Who takes notice or cares? Rani

Byline for 6th March 2011

I regret to inform you...

M.J. Akbar

Friday the Fourth of March should be declared the International Day of Regret by the United Nations. Regrets flooded Saturday's newspapers, in stories from east to west; it came in many forms, from eyes-lowered-acknowledgment to muted-murmured-sorry to the antithetical no-regret accompanied by a brash to-hell-with-you.

The most creative instance was surely that of Bangladesh cricket fans: they did not quite rue stoning the West Indies team bus after their side was hammered into oblivion; they merely regretted the fact that they had got the wrong bus. What they wanted was to throw some accurately-aimed stones at their own players. They atoned for their mistake by breaking window panes of their captain Shakib al Hasan's home. That should put Hasan in a good frame of mind for the next match. To be fair, Bengalis don't mind defeat; they just can't take humiliation, whether in Dhaka or at Kolkata's Eden Gardens.

The most ingenious example was from the London School of Economics, which had, in its infinite wisdom, awarded a doctorate to surely the most intellectual thug of the 21st century, Saif al-Islam, the second son of Muammar Gaddafi, in 2008. Saif's supervisors detected neither irony nor plagiarism in the Saif thesis on "The role of civil society in the democratisation of global governance institutions: from 'soft power' to collective decision-making?" Don't miss the deliciously academic question mark at the end. The director of LSE, Howard Davies, has resigned, but can probably expect to head the Saif Conglomerate of Universities for Economics and Mercenary Operations just as soon as Saif has reconquered Libya. It was, but naturally, a complete accident that LSE got a 1.5 million pound donation from Saif's dad soon after the doctorate, since British institutions can never be accused of corruption. London must be full of people nostalgic for the old days: this was exactly how it happened during those good old days of the Raj, when the British gave a gong to natives and took the jewels in return. The natives, however, have got cleverer. Saif actually gave only 300,000 pounds of the promised 1.5 million. He must have learnt something about economics at LSE. Regret, though, is not in his DNA; his father Muammar has at various times imagined himself as either the Queen of England or the Prime Minister of India, but is really a French Bourbons who, famously, learnt nothing and forgot nothing.

But the real market for regrets has surely opened in India. There is explicit or implicit regret wherever you look. The disgraced Chief Vigilance Commissioner P.J. Thomas must be seething with them; if he had quit in the first week of December he would have lost his job but not his grace. That is not a bad trade-off. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh still has the quality to dignify regret, which is why his acknowledgement of responsibility for Thomas' appointment received such a civil response from the BJP leader of the Lok Sabha Opposition, Ms Sushma Swaraj. But Dr Singh has not revealed what he truly regrets: that his leadership is under question today because he has been misled by his own side. He signed off on the decision, but the choice was not his. He would not have dismissed Ms Swaraj's objections as politics if his own civil servants had briefed him better.

Two points arise. First, is regret sufficient? In the case of Thomas, yes, since the CVC has not done anything to besmirch the CVC's office. The real problem before the Prime Minister is that the list of things he should regret during the tenure of the UPA2 government is slicing off its credibility, day by day, both in sequence and consequence. What he should truly regret is that a man like Hasan Ali Khan, fingered by Indian police for stashing away 8 billion dollars in Swiss and other banks on behalf of an elite bunch of crooks, is still breathing free air. Khan has the mysterious ability to fall ill whenever the police want to question him; and the police have the even more mysterious desire to accept Khan's word for it. Khan used this excuse again about an hour of his latest meeting with the Enforcement Directorate, and the very solicitous police officers agreed. There is something deeply rotten in the system.

The saddest non-regret is surely from those leaders of Pakistan who have chosen silence as their response to the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti, the only Christian minister in the Cabinet, killed for his views on the blasphemy laws. According to Ahmed Rashid, the doyen of Pakistani commentators, army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani refused to condemn the killing of Salmaan Taseer, former governor of Punjab, for similar reasons, because there were too many soldiers under his command who sympathised with the assassins.

That is the transition of regret to fear; how long before fear mutates into dread?

BBC News Channel; the assassination of Pakistan's only Christian minister

2011-03-03T11:28:00.003Z

The carefully planned assassination of Pakistan's cabinet minister for minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, by three gunmen waiting for him as he left his mother's house yesterday managed to find a place in the news bulletins despite events in Libya. The Pakistani Taliban left leaflets at the site of the murder. I was able to squeeze in a studio appearance during an evening's break in my current major project and turn my attention to the deteriorating security situation in Pakistan which has ramifications for the region.

MP Sherry Rahman, the only other politician to publicly back reform of the draconian blasphemy laws and call for the death penalty to be removed has now gone into hiding. She has stated that she is receiving death threats every half hour.

One of my excellent former interviewees, human rights lawyer Asma Jahangir, whom I last spoke with a week or so ago, courageously continues her work. What will happen to the liberal, moderate voice of intellectual Pakistan in the face of the rise of the hard right religious extremists?

British Petroleum places largest Foreign Direct Investment in India

2011-02-21T12:48:00.003Z

Mukesh Ambani for Reliance Industries and BP CEO Robert Dudley have announced the biggest ever largest single foreign direct investment in India in a deal between BP and Reliance Industries worth $9 bn.

The partnership will be for the sourcing and marketing of natural gas in India.

P.Sainath's latest (one of my favourite columnists)

2011-01-28T14:27:00.001Z

P.Sainath's latest column from The Hindu newspaper

With 2G, Radia, illicit funds, and a stubborn CVC, the UPA government's scams are multiplying faster than Lemmings, the little rodents that live mostly in and around the Arctic.

One of the most enduring of media-created myths is that of mass suicide amongst Lemmings, the little rodents that live mostly in and around the Arctic. A 1958 Disney documentary film staged scenes of large numbers of Lemmings marching mindlessly off a cliff to their doom in the waters below. Actually, Lemmings can swim. The rodents see major migrations when they multiply rapidly and their population grows. And when this dispersal finds big numbers crossing large bodies of water, some of them drown by accident, not by intent. However, the Disney film — where they were actually forced off a cliff — and earlier articles, created a false notion that still holds: that Lemmings commit mass suicide by leaping off cliffs and drowning in the waters below. This is also the origin of the political slang: ‘Lemming-like behaviour,' to describe a suicidal course of action.

Political scientists in India 2011 can now be forgiven a rethink on the whole fraud. You begin to wonder if there was some truth in it, after all. The ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) seems determined to prove that this instinct of the little creatures was no myth. The race off the cliff is real, with Congress Lemmings leading the charge of the light-footed brigade. The massive hike in petrol prices at a time of raging food inflation was merely one among such efforts. In just seven months, the price of petrol has gone up by over Rs. 10. The new hike came even as the government announced that it was taking the price rise seriously and has formed yet more panels and Groups of Ministers to study the problem.( Another Group of Ministers was to have met in December 2010 to decide on whether to hike diesel and LPG prices as well. Yet another was to take a call on raising APL foodgrain prices.) Lemmings, after all, mostly act in large groups.

Now that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic, the impression of a collective rush to mass drowning only grows. Handing the rural development portfolio to a man just trashed by the Supreme Court for protecting moneylenders in Vidharbha while he was Chief Minister of Maharashtra, has a Kamikaze-like courage about it. Not only did the Court admonish Vilasrao Deshmukh in scathing terms, it also enhanced the fine levied by the Bombay High Court's Nagpur bench on the government of Maharashtra in the same case from Rs.25,000 to Rs.10 lakh. Now in normal and non-Lemming circles, this would have led to his unaccompanied exit off the Cabinet Cliff.

Justice A. K. Ganguly in his judgment on the case involving Mr. Deshmukh says, among other things: “The message conveyed in this case is extremely shocking and it shocks the conscience of this Court about the manner in which the Constitutional functionaries behaved in the State of Maharashtra.” The judgment goes on to say “it is clear that the Chief Minister was aware of various complaints being filed against the said family [the moneylenders: PS]. Even then he passed an order for a special treatment in favour of the said family which is unknown to law.”

The judgment notes the debt-induced plight of farmers in that very region and also says of Mr. Deshmukh's action: “This amounts to bestowing special favour to some chosen few at the cost of the vast number of poor people who as farmers have taken loans and who have come to the authorities of law and order to register their complaints against torture and atrocities by the moneylenders.”

Obviously, in Dr. Singh's view, the perfect candidate to preside over the destiny of rural India and its development. A man during whose eight years as Chief Minister of Maharashtra, well over 30,000 farmers took their own lives in the State — a feat unrivalled anywhere in the country. Mr. Deshmukh's most famous remark on the farmers: “Committing suicide is an offence under the Indian Penal Code. But did we book any farmer for this offence? Have you reported that?” (The Hindustan Times, October 31, 2007). Just after the terror attacks of 26/11, he went to the Taj hotel, with his actor son and Bollywood filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma in tow. This provoked outrage in a public which saw them as disaster tourists checking out the rich cinematic promise thrown up by the tragic events. Sacked from his post, Mr. Deshmukh spent some months in cold storage before being elevated to the Union Cabinet.

His successor lost his job over the Adarsh episode and also earned notoriety over the ‘paid news' scandal. On the latter, Ashok Chavan faces a case in the Election Commission and might run into yet more trouble. His successor, imported from New Delhi, gives non-entity a bad name. The NCP, once a declining force, gets a new wind with his arrival. And that party gets more aggressive towards the Congress at the Centre as well, sensing the mess it is in. In Andhra Pradesh, two successive Chief Ministers have spent over a year fighting their own party in a State that contributed 33 MPs to the Congress at the Centre. In West Bengal, the Congress has written itself, with almost Lemming-like fatalism, into a distant third place.

If you watch your Animal Planet you'd expect that, like in other social hierarchies, there are alpha male Lemmings. It requires rare qualities of leadership to guide a bunch of sharp front-toothed mammals off a cliff. Heading the charge means there are lots of large gnawing incisors just behind you. This is no role for the faint-hearted, as Kapil Sibal demonstrated in his stinging attack on the CAG. This was also what happened in the Bofors case, a blistering attack on the then CAG (among other things). The results of that strategy included a government drowning. But history is not the Lemming's long suit. Mr. Sibal might yet learn that the CAG is not a cowering witness in a court room, but the drowning will probably have begun by then. Meanwhile, with 2G, Raja, Radia, illicit funds, and a stubborn CVC, the UPA government's scams are multiplying faster than Lemmings.

Pranab Mukherjee, meanwhile, has made it clear — wagging a finger while doing so — that the government is not about to reveal the names of any tax evaders. Mr. Mukherjee, who heads more Groups of Ministers than have ever been Empowered, suggests there might be one more group soon. That is, to work out Amnesty schemes for tax evaders and those who have illegally siphoned funds out of the country to secret offshore accounts. No one can be named till they are prosecuted, says he. In other words, we will never know the names of those the government chooses not to prosecute.

A Global Financial Integrity Report (The Hindu, Nov. 17, 2010) estimates that India has lost almost half a trillion dollars in illegal capital flight since Independence. As much as $125 billion, or more than a fourth of the total, vanished between just 2000 and 2008. The government plans amnesty for such offenders and arrests for those protesting high prices.

The line has also been laid down on food security: forget about it. There will be neither a universal PDS nor even an enhanced one. Feeding a hungry corporate world takes all the resources we have. Things are about to get much tougher for the whole team. India's premier Lemmings are simply too busy to pay any attention to their day jobs. Even as the onion season winds down, the World Cup Cricket and IPL seasons are about to begin. This means, of course, that we will still see no Agriculture Minister for a further two months. (Unless someone provokes him with a comment on Lavasa.)

Back in 2008, as global food prices soared, Mr. Pawar revealed to the daily, DNA (Page 1, April 2), that the real reason why wheat prices were soaring was that south Indians were eating too many chapathis. In this, he echoed the view of noted nutritionist George W (then also working part-time as President of the United States). Mr. Bush declared that the world food prices were soaring because millions of Indians and Chinese were eating so much more. (Global prices fell sharply just months later. Were millions of Indians and Chinese suddenly starving? Or were big-time speculators giving prices a yo-yo ride?).

Dr. Singh and Montek Ahluwalia have also bought into the Bush Food Doctrine: the huge price rise in food items suggests that the poor are doing better, eating more. The cliff runway is free and the Lemmings have been cleared for takeoff.

Security breach at Rahul Gandhi's vehicle

2011-01-14T18:38:00.003Z

Rahul Gandhi, from India's Nehru-Gandhi family, was on his way to his ancestral home when opposition youth party members waved black flags at his vehicle and managed to get right up close. It appears he had just one car of security men with him and the footage of the protest, up at www.pressbrief.in, shows the clash quite dramatically. It is part of a political game being played by the state's ruling party, which should provide adequate protection to Gandhi when he is there. It often does not, and the incident shows just how close to danger Rahul sometimes is. A couple of Special Protection group guys hanging off Rahul's jeep were the only thing preventing the protestors from climbing on the vehicle.

British PM message for New Year; belt tightening in order!

2010-12-31T15:40:00.001Z

Prime Minister’s New Year Message
After eight months in this job, I am acutely conscious of the challenges we face as a country. But I begin this New Year in the same positive frame of mind as when I set out the task of starting a new government back in May.
By nature I am an optimist – about people, about human nature and, above all, about the future of our great country.
If we sort out our problems, and make the most of our many opportunities, we can be one of the international success stories of the new decade.
As for politics, my approach is simple: politics is public service in the national interest.
We all have our dreams, ambitions and principles that we cherish and want to put into place.
But most important of all, particularly at times like this, is to deal with the real problem in front of us.
And there can be no doubt what that is: the state of our economy and the budget deficit.
We have been living seriously beyond our means.
We have to sort this out.
Every sensible person knows this.
The national interest dictates that we do the right thing, which is to act, not the easy thing, which would be to delay.
In doing so, we should be clear: Britain has a really bright future to look forward to.
2011 is going to be a difficult year, as we take hard but necessary steps to sort things out.
The actions we are taking are essential, because they are putting our economy and our country on the right path.
Together, we can make 2011 the year that Britain gets back on its feet.
Eight months ago we inherited an economy in deep trouble.
The previous government had racked up the biggest budget deficit in our peacetime history.
We only have to look at what’s been happening in Greece and Ireland to see the kind of danger we were in.
Rising interest rates. Falling confidence. Others questioning whether you are still credit-worthy as a country.
And, remember, the deficit we inherited back in May was actually forecast to be bigger than that of Ireland or Greece – or any other developed country for that matter.
But we’ve pulled Britain out of that danger zone.
Through the Budget and the Spending Review we've taken some really tough decisions to rescue our public finances and fundamentally change the direction of our economy.
The new independent Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts the economy will grow continuing into 2011 and to rise further in 2012.
So we have a credible plan for restoring confidence in our economy.
But we have to see it through.
A lot of the heavy lifting will happen in 2011.
Each and every Minister in this Government is acutely aware that the plans we have in place are tough, in fact incredibly difficult, but we are clear that the alternative – indecision and delay – would mean taking unacceptable risks with our economy, our country and our people.
I didn’t come into politics to make cuts.
Neither did Nick Clegg.
But in the end politics is about national interest, not personal political agendas.
We’re tackling the deficit because we have to – not out of some ideological zeal.
This is a government led by people with a practical desire to sort out this country’s problems, not by ideology.
When we talk of building a bigger, stronger society, we mean it.
These debts are not the government’s debts, they are the country’s debts.
We’re all in this together.
As we deal with the deficit we are protecting the things people cherish the most - like the National Health Service and the old age pension that we are re-linking to earnings.
We want to take people with us.
The Coalition - two distinct political parties, working together to tackle a national economic emergency - is the embodiment of that spirit.
Of course Coalition politics is not always straightforward.
We don’t agree on everything. We never said we would.
But I believe we are bringing a new style of government.
A more collegiate approach. One where we’re prepared to argue things out and then act to do what we both believe is in the national interest.
The political risks are greater this way.
But so too are the rewards.
As a Coalition government we are governing to the needs of the country.
And, in the last eight months, I believe that the government has been decisive, bold and determined.
We must maintain that drive in the months and years ahead.
As we start 2011, our priorities should be about enterprise, aspiration, the modernisation of our public services and the security of our people.
First, enterprise.
Uppermost in my mind as we enter the New Year is jobs.
Now ultimately it’s not government that creates jobs, it’s businesses, entrepreneurs, wealth creators.
And that is particularly true when governments are so deeply in debt that they have to cut back their own spending programmes.
So small and growing businesses will be our most important job creators.
And I want us to look at all the reasons why people find it hard to start a business and all the barriers that stop a small business growing and really get tough with ourselves in addressing them.
I want us to create a new economic dynamism in our country.
I want to see more bank lending, particularly for small businesses.
More deregulation.
More investment in the sectors of the future – like with our reform of the electricity markets which will help to create tens of thousands of new sustainable green jobs.
From the start of the year right through to the Budget and beyond, we are resolved to be relentlessly focused on supporting growth and driving job creation across our economy.
Second, aspiration.
In spite of some good measures in recent years – Sure Start and the Academy programme for instance – social mobility has stalled.
Bright children from poor backgrounds do much better in other countries than here in the UK.
That shames us.
It is in the very earliest years of a child’s life that disadvantage really takes hold.
That’s why we are protecting schools spending and enhancing it for the least well-off, offering free nursery education for disadvantaged two-year-olds and introducing a pupil premium, worth hundreds of pounds for each disadvantaged pupil.
But unless we modernise our public services, like education, we will never build a country of real opportunity.
Nor will we ever sustainably live within our means with outdated public services, pensions and welfare.
So our third priority must be to modernize those public services.
We will shift power away from central bureaucracy and give choice to the parents, patients and local citizens who use public services.
This will mean more open public services, more innovative, more responsive to what people want, and better value for money.
Fourth and finally, I want to say something about our national security.
For many years now we have been aware of the threat we face from international terrorism.
Recent arrests show that that threat is still very much with us.
And it is as serious today as it ever has been.
As we enter the New Year our police officers, together with their colleagues in the security and intelligence agencies, are working round the clock to foil plots that would do terrible harm to our people and our economy.
This government will be unstinting in the support it gives them.
But they also depend on the support of the public as they go about their work: together we will defend our values and way of life and defeat those who threaten them.
But we must ask ourselves as a country how we are allowing the radicalization and poisoning of the minds of some young British Muslims who then contemplate and sometimes carry out acts of sickening barbarity.
And the overwhelming majority of British Muslims who detest this extremism must help us to find the answers together.
But in the fight against terrorism we cannot just protect ourselves at home.
We also need to take action with our international partners abroad.
Just before Christmas, the Prince of Wales and I visited service personnel being treated at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine in Birmingham.
It was a stark reminder of the incredible bravery and sacrifice being made by all our servicemen and women who put their lives on the line to keep us safe.
For those serving in Afghanistan, 2011 is a crucial year in which we will start to transfer security responsibility for districts and provinces to Afghan control.
As the Afghans become steadily more capable of looking after their own security, so we will be able to start to bring our own forces home.
Enterprise, aspiration, public service reform and national security - these are the things that will determine whether in 2011 we take the steps towards the better, stronger, safer Britain that is within our grasp.
I am determined that we will.
That together, we have the right plan to pull through the tough times ahead.
And that if 2010 was the year we stopped the rot, we can make 2011 the year that Britain gets back on her feet.

P Sainath on Farmer Suicides in India

2010-12-27T22:10:00.002Z

(First published in The Hindu)
Even as the media celebrate the Mercedes Benz deal in the Marathwada region as a sign of “rural resurgence,” the latest data show that 17,368 farmers killed themselves in the year of the “resurgence.”

When businessmen from Aurangabad in the backward Marathwada region bought 150 Mercedes Benz luxury cars worth Rs. 65 crore at one go in October, it grabbed media attention. The top public sector bank, State Bank of India, offered the buyers loans of over Rs. 40 crore. “This,” says Devidas Tulzapurkar, president of the Aurangabad district bank employees association, “at an interest rate of 7 per cent.” A top SBI official said the bank was “proud to be part of this deal,” and would “continue to scout for similar deals in the future.”

The value of the Mercedes deal equals the annual income of tens of thousands of rural Marathwada households. And countless farmers in Maharashtra struggle to get any loans from formal sources of credit. It took roughly a decade and tens of thousands of suicides before Indian farmers got loans at 7 per cent interest — many, in theory only. Prior to 2005, those who got any bank loans at all shelled out between 9 and 12 per cent. Several were forced to take non-agricultural loans at even higher rates of interest. Buy a Mercedes, pay 7 per cent interest. Buy a tractor, pay 12 per cent. The hallowed micro-finance institutions (MFIs) do worse. There, it's smaller sums at interest rates of between 24 and 36 per cent or higher.

Starved of credit, peasants turned to moneylenders and other informal sources. Within 10 years from 1991, the number of Indian farm households in debt almost doubled from 26 per cent to 48.6 per cent. A crazy underestimate but an official number. Many policy-driven disasters hit farmers at the same time. Exploding input costs in the name of ‘market-based prices.' Crashing prices for their commercial crops, often rigged by powerful traders and corporations. Slashing of investment in agriculture. A credit squeeze as banks moved away from farm loans to fuelling upper middle class lifestyles. Within the many factors driving over two lakh farmers to suicide in 13 years, indebtedness and the credit squeeze rank high. (And MFIs are now among the squeezers).

What remained of farm credit was hijacked. A devastating piece in The Hindu (Aug. 13) showed us how. Almost half the total “agricultural credit” in the State of Maharashtra in 2008 was disbursed not by rural banks but by urban and metro branches. Over 42 per cent of it in just Mumbai — stomping ground of large corporations rather than of small farmers.

Even as the media celebrate our greatest car deal ever as a sign of “rural resurgence,” the subject of many media stories, comes the latest data of the National Crime Records Bureau. These show a sharp increase in farm suicides in 2009 with at least 17,368 farmers killing themselves in the year of “rural resurgence.” That's over 7 per cent higher than in 2008 and the worst numbers since 2004. This brings the total farm suicides since 1997 to 216,500. While all suicides have multiple causes, their strong concentration within regions and among cash crop farmers is an alarming and dismal trend.

The NCRB, a wing of the Union Home Ministry, has been tracking farm suicide data since 1995. However, researchers mostly use their data from 1997 onwards. This is because the 1995 and 1996 data are incomplete. The system was new in 1995 and some big States such as Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan sent in no numbers at all that year. (In 2009, the two together saw over 1,900 farm suicides). By 1997, all States were reporting and the data are more complete.

The NCRB data end at 2009 for now. But we can assume that 2010 has seen at least 16,000 farmers' suicides. (After all, the yearly average for the last six years is 17,104). Add this 16,000 to the total 2,16,500. Also add the incomplete 1995 and 1996 numbers — that is 24,449 suicides. This brings the 1995-2010 total to 2,56,949. Reflect on this figure a moment.

It means over a quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide since 1995. It means the largest wave of recorded suicides in human history has occurred in this country in the past 16 years. It means one-and-a-half million human beings, family members of those killing themselves, have been tormented by the tragedy. While millions more face the very problems that drove so many to suicide. It means farmers in thousands of villages have seen their neighbours take this incredibly sad way out. A way out that more and more will consider as despair grows and policies don't change. It means the heartlessness of the Indian elite is impossible to imagine, leave alone measure.

Note that these numbers are gross underestimates to begin with. Several large groups of farmers are mostly excluded from local counts. Women, for instance. Social and other prejudice means that, most times, a woman farmer killing herself is counted as suicide — not as a farmer's suicide. Because the land is rarely in a woman's name.

Then there is the plain fraud that some governments resort to. Maharashtra being the classic example. The government here has lied so many times that it contradicts itself thrice within a week. In May this year, for instance, three ‘official' estimates of farm suicides in the worst-hit Vidarbha region varied by 5,500 per cent. The lowest count being just six in four months (See “How to be an eligible suicide,” The Hindu, May 13, 2010).

The NCRB figure for Maharashtra as a whole in 2009 is 2,872 farmers' suicides. So it remains the worst State for farm suicides for the tenth year running. The ‘decline' of 930 that this figure represents would be joyous if true. But no State has worked harder to falsify reality. For 13 years, the State has seen a nearly unrelenting rise. Suddenly, there's a drop of 436 and 930 in 2008 and 2009. How? For almost four years now, committees have functioned in Vidarbha's crisis districts to dismiss most suicides as ‘non-genuine.' What is truly frightening is the Maharashtra government's notion that fixing the numbers fixes the problem.

Yet that problem is mounting. Perhaps the State most comparable to Maharashtra in terms of population is West Bengal. Though its population is less by a few million, it has more farmers. Both States have data for 15 years since 1995. Their farm suicide annual averages in three-five year periods starting then are revealing. Maharashtra's annual average goes up in each period. From 1,963 in the five years ending with 1999 to 3,647 by 2004. And scaling 3,858 by 2009. West Bengal's yearly average registers a gradual drop in each five-year period. From 1,454 in 1999 to 1,200 in 2004 to 1,014 by 2009. While it has more farmers, its farm suicide average for the past five years is less than a third of Maharashtra's. The latter's yearly average has almost doubled since 1999.

The share of the Big 5 ‘suicide belt' States — Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh — remains close to two-thirds of all farm suicides. Sadly 18 of 28 States reported higher farm suicide numbers in 2009. In some the rise was negligible. In others, not. Tamil Nadu showed the biggest increase of all States, going from 512 in 2008 to 1060 in 2009. Karnataka clocked in second with a rise of 545. And Andhra Pradesh saw the third biggest rise — 309 more than in 2008. A few though did see a decline of some consequence in their farm suicide annual average figures for the last six years. Three — Karnataka, Kerala and West Bengal — saw their yearly average fall by over 350 in 2004-09 compared to the earlier seven years.

Things will get worse if existing policies on agriculture don't change. Even States that have managed some decline across 13 years will be battered. Kerala, for instance, saw an annual average of 1,371 farm suicides between 1997 and 2003. From 2004-09, its annual average was 1016 — a drop of 355. Yet Kerala will suffer greatly in the near future. Its economy is the most globalised of any State. Most crops are cash crops. Any volatility in the global prices of coffee, pepper, tea, vanilla, cardamom or rubber will affect the State. Those prices are also hugely controlled at the global level by a few corporations.

Already bludgeoned by the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA), Kerala now has to contend with the one we've gotten into with ASEAN. And an FTA with the European Union is also in the offing. Kerala will pay the price. Even prior to 2004, the dumping of the so-called “Sri Lankan pepper” (mostly pepper from other countries brought in through Sri Lanka) ravaged the State. Now, we've created institutional frameworks for such dumping. Economist Professor K. Nagaraj, author of the biggest study of farm suicides in India, says: “The latest data show us that the agrarian crisis has not relented, not gone away.” The policies driving it have also not gone away.

Cameron's Eid event speech

2010-11-23T11:13:00.000Z

TRANSCRIPT OF SPEECH
GIVEN BY THE PRIME MINISTER, MR DAVID CAMERON
AT NUMBER 10, DOWNING STREET
ON MONDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2010

PRIME MINISTER
Thank you very much for that, and can I say how incredibly welcome you all are.

There are really three things I want to say tonight. The first is that I think we should be a country that celebrates and looks up to faith, rather than thinks of faith as somehow a problem or an embarrassment. I think what Sayeeda has spoken about on this subject is absolutely brilliant, and I am glad that she has made those speeches.

I had a wonderful reminder of the importance that British Muslims attach to their faith, and the importance of faith in general, when I went to stay with a British Muslim family in Birmingham. One of my duties was to take their very wonderful daughter and son to school in the morning, and I found out that I was taking them to King Edward’s Jewish School in Birmingham. When I asked the parents why they were sending their children to a Jewish school, they said, ‘We are all Abrahamic faiths and we want our children to understand the importance of faith, and this is a very good school.’ I thought that was a wonderful example of the important role that faith organisations play in our society.

I think we should try and do more to examine and understand how much our faiths all have in common, because they do have so much in common: teaching us, trying to do good works and live a good life, as well as to worship our God, and I think that is an incredibly important message. So you are very welcome here, it is great to be having this celebration and can I thank everyone who has made it possible.

The second thing I wanted to say is just to celebrate the immense contribution that British Muslims make to our national life. There are two-and-a-half million Muslim people in Britain and – it is not a well known fact – I gather the first Mosque was established in Cardiff 150 years ago. I am not quite sure why Cardiff was chosen but there we are! I think it was something to do with Yemeni seamen arriving in Cardiff and wanting somewhere to worship.

Today, if you look at our armed services they are the largest non-Christian group in our armed services, and serve valiantly in Afghanistan; I have just talked to two brave British Muslims who are serving in the armed forces there. After Christians, British Muslims are the largest religious organisation in our police force as well. A huge amount is given by British Muslims into business life, into cultural life, and we should also remember the huge contribution that Muslim charities like Islamic Relief make to the relief of suffering around the world, as I myself have seen both at their depot in Birmingham, but also their amazing work on the ground. I think tonight is a good opportunity to recognise the massive contribution that British Muslims make to our national life.

The third point I wanted to make – and it has been wonderful that so many people have mentioned it to me just walking from that door to standing here. The point many people have made to me is the important role that British Muslims want to play in building a big society.

I think this is crucial, because what this is about is just asking ourselves what more can we do not just for ourselves and our families, but what we can do to build a stronger community, what we can do to take more control of our lives, what we can do to actually help solve some of the social problems we have in our country. When you look at what British Muslims do think and take part in, I think they have – you have – an enormous role to play in that more generous and tolerant and open society that we all want to build.

So, for all those reasons, a very warm welcome. Please enjoy the refreshments there are and listen to the band, who I think are absolutely outstanding, and I want to thank them for coming all the way from Birmingham today. I think Eid has messages for all of us about family, about friendship and about worship; that whatever religion we belong to we can take very seriously.

I want to pay a huge credit and compliment to my friend Sayeeda, who I think has done more than any other single person to connect British politics with people in the British Muslim community.

To all of you: Eid Mubarak. Thank you.

(END OF TRANSCRIPT)

Who cares, and what difference does it make?

2010-10-30T11:14:00.002+01:00

He writes from his gut, and there are not too many who do, but what difference does it make in India?
Between scam India and slum India
M.J. Akbar
It is entirely appropriate that a nation whose motto is Satyameva Jayate should discover a metaphor for ravenous loot in a Mumbai building society called Adarsh. Greed is the new religion and all are welcome to feed at her trough. Nothing else is sacrosanct; not the highest offices in public service: Chief Minister, Army chief, Navy admiral, or top bureaucrat through whom the file must pass. If there is a flat to be stolen in a housing society sanctioned for the welfare of war widows, then every single one of these crooks is ready to cheat the blood of Kargil martyrs. Thomas Friedman did not know how many puns danced on the head of a simile when he called the world as flat and began his journey in India.
There is no shame left. It is tempting to ask whether there is an India left when most of its ruling class has abandoned every principle in its composite, vulgar commitment to theft, but hopefully India is larger than its ruling class.
Which came first, hypocrisy or greed? Tough question. I would give primacy of place to hypocrisy, since that is the cloak behind which greed flourishes. Hypocrisy is always a great temptation in a democracy, since compromise always begins in the name of either realism or service. The gap between true expenditure in an election and officially sanctioned levels is the principal propeller of corruption since it becomes the justification for taking illegitimate “donations”, which of course is the polite word for bribes.
The stink of hypocrisy now permeates through all levels of authority, and institutions — like our defence forces — which cannot co-exist with corruption. They will be corrupt or a force; they cannot be both. The list of officials who stole from the Kargil dead is almost embarrassing: politicians, senior IAS officers, top defence officers. It was a rigged lottery handout.
It was robbery from the graveyard of Kargil martyrs. Those back-scratching cronies who distributed Adarsh flats between themselves should not be tried for corruption. They should be punished for treason.
But of course that is asking for too much from rulers who have become venal beyond belief. The system believes it can satiate any level of public anger with the meat of a scapegoat. Suresh Kalmadi was the officially nominated sacrifice for the putrid rape of public money during the Commonwealth Games. Ashok Chavan, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, will possibly have to resign because of Adarsh, unless he can, quietly, blackmail his superiors in Delhi by threatening to reveal how much cash he has been passing on to them.
We are being fooled by a clever set of manipulators in Delhi. Ashok Chavan did not become corrupt on the day media discovered that he had not only changed the terms of reference to cheat the “heroes of Kargil operation who bravely fought to protect our motherland” and then calmly stolen at least four of their flats for his family. He was corrupt the day he was made a minister in the Maharashtra government. He was promoted to Chief Minister not because he was competent but because he knew that the formula for upward mobility in the Congress, the happy combination of loyalty and corruption. When Delhi now puts on a mask of high outrage, it is only because it thinks this is the only way in which it can postpone retribution from the voter.
The voter does not live in Adarsh. 62% of Mumbai lives in slums. The distance between scam India and slum India is measured each day in the newspapers, but discomfort prevents us from noticing. Even media seems reluctant to shorten this distance. While the front page of Saturday’s newspapers in Delhi were full, justifiably, of the Ashok Chavan-led pillage, a small story on page 3 told of an unknown mother who left her two children, a boy, Pukar, and his sister Dakshina, outside a “mazaar” [a saint’s shrine] just outside the office of the Election Commission in Delhi, the home of the guardians of democracy. She gave her children all that was left with her, a bag with milk and some clothes, and told them she would return in an hour. She never returned. Her last trust was faith in the shrine. The children, said the temporary caretaker of the “mazaar”, Wazir Shah, cried the whole night. The children are now in a shelter.
They will learn to deal with the hungry, homeless, loveless reality that is the destiny of half of India while a thin skim ravages national wealth, and those in-between are trapped between dreams and insecurity. But will Pukar and Dakshina accept their “fate” and ignore Ashok Chavan and his fellow gangsters in the way that their helpless, nameless mother did? I hope not.

Not Rani's viewpoint; more a topic for discussion

2010-10-24T21:26:00.003+01:00

What do you think of MJ Akbar's opinion, readers? I'd really like to know

The point missed between hyperbole and ridicule
M.J. Akbar
24 October 2010
The question begs to be asked. Has the Congress changed its view of Jaya Prakash Narayan after 35 years, or has the Congress changed its view of Rahul Gandhi after 35 months? An official spokesman of the party has, after all, compared Rahul Gandhi to a national hero, a veteran of the Congress Socialist Party, the leftist group that became a power within the party in the 1930s, and a freedom fighter whose last fight for freedom was to liberate India from the censorship, suspension of democracy and Emergency which Mrs Indira Gandhi imposed in 1975 upon the country in order to save her Prime Minister’s chair.
The Congress line on JP, as he was popularly known, was unambiguous: the khadi-clad Gandhian was alternatively a “fascist”, “anarchist”, “anti-national”, and whatever else came into the mind of the Congress leaders after they had read yet another polemical tract written by forgotten Bolsheviks. The Seventies were a decade when it was still fashionable to be of the leftist persuasion. Mani Shankar Aiyar, one of the brightest minds in Congress, would not have been consigned to the doldrums: he would have been an intellectually vigorous colleague of Mohan Kumaramangalam and D.P. Dhar, rather than a mere nominated Rajya Sabha MP. That was a time when “CIA” was a dread acronym, an organisation accused of assassinating unfriendly world leaders, not a building block of an allied security system whose chief could get an appointment with the Indian Prime Minister whenever he sought it. It was an age when Palestine was an ally of India, rather than Israel. Anyone who opposed this “politically correct” left was therefore ipso facto a “fascist” et al. The “anti-national” bit was added not only because JP had the temerity to challenge the rule of a woman who had been equated with India [the Congress president in 1975 famously said “Indira is India”] but because JP in a public speech had come close to asking Indian soldiers to reconsider their oath of loyalty to a government that had become venal. As you can see, that was a tempestuous era.
One presumes that Rahul Gandhi has none of these JP-type political characteristics, at least in Congress eyes. No Congress spokesman would even dare to think of Rahul as a fascist, and even if his political views are a trifle fuzzy they are hardly authoritarian. There will of course come a time when a Congressman will claim that “Rahul is India and India is Rahul” without getting sacked, since sycophancy is eternal, but that is still into the future. So the spokesman must have been, at some internal level, comparing Rahul’s popularity to JP’s. But that too is a radical departure, since JP’s appeal was always dismissed as false.
The spokesman’s enthusiasm for historic parallels has, apparently, been snubbed into silence since it was clear to the high command, a single-person unit consisting solely of Rahul’s mother Sonia Gandhi, that the hyperbole had opened Rahul up to ridicule. But while this is sensible [it always makes sense to cut your losses while the balance sheet is still manageable], the corrective is missing the point. JP’s place in the history of Indian democracy is not going to be determined by political social-climbers. The problem is not what the spokesman said but the impulse that made him say what he did. He was indulging in public sycophancy because he believed that this was the shortest route to promotion.
This disease is not limited to the Congress; most parties have created supra-human icons out of their leaders. This is because the life of the party is about as long as the life of the leader; one-man, or one-woman parties do not cross the lifetime of their creator. But the Congress is 135 years old. It was the torchbearer not only of the freedom movement but also of the values that have become enshrined in the Indian Constitution. Those values eroded, inevitably, and it is no longer the “central fact” of Indian politics, to use a phrase coined by Jawaharlal Nehru. But it remains a dominant force, and its implosion will leave vacant space that will not be easy to fill.
The paradox is that its opponents might do less damage to the Congress than its sycophants. The culture of obedience aborts proper discussion, for everyone around the table is eager to do just one thing: discover what the leader thinks, or wants, and then find a rationale that takes the participant to the same conclusion. This is not a meeting of minds. This is decision-making in a hall of echoes.
Rahul Gandhi has some way to go before he finds a working strategy: philosophy is passé these days, so it is unfair to ask him to get one. A good way to initiate the process is to use the door. A door is not only an entrance but also an exit. He should keep it open for independent thought, and show the door to sycophants.

India wins non-permanent member seat at UN Security Council

2010-10-12T17:07:00.002+01:00

It was expected. The vote count was 187 out of 191. India is at the table.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-elected-to-UNSC-as-non-permanent-member/articleshow/6737610.cms

MJ on That Verdict

2010-10-02T19:46:00.000+01:00

Byline for 3 October 2010
2010 is a century away from 1992
M.J. Akbar
The judiciary is more important than any judgement. Every institution has to be larger than the sum of its members, and nowhere more so than the two pillars of any democracy, Parliament and the judiciary. We do not question the legitimacy of an enactment just because we disagree with an MP, or indeed because the behaviour of some MPs might have been unsavoury. A substantial section of India did not agree with the passage of the nuclear bill in 2009; and evidence of bribery in the process was produced, in a fairly dramatic way, during the proceedings. This did not mean rejection of the new legislation.
Lawyers and leaders of the Sunni Waqf Board and the Muslim Personal Law Board have repeatedly insisted that they would abide by the judgement of the courts. This was both reasonable and acceptable [reason and response have not necessarily been in harmony during the long years of contention over a mosque at Ayodhya]. When the Allahabad High Courts judgement was deferred by the Supreme Court for about a week, there was perceptible irritation among Muslims, who wanted the verdict to be announced. It is possible that such enthusiasm for the verdict was fuelled by a conviction that it would go in favour of the mosque. The lawyers and spokesmen of the pro-mosque movement displayed considerable confidence. Maybe they forgot that however strong a case may be, it still has to be argued before a bench, and complacency within the legal team can be a fatal flaw. It was the BJP that was preparing for an adverse judgement. Its leader L.K. Advani told his party repeatedly, before the verdict, that any remorse should be a private matter; and that violence was unacceptable. No disputant can deny the validity of the judicial process, or the credibility of the verdict, just because it has gone against you. That is counter-productive, and dangerous.
In any case, the Allahabad judgement is a semi-colon, not a full stop. The full stop will come when the Supreme Court takes a decision. Muslims will appeal, as they have every right to. It must also be stressed that in 1993 Parliament clearly prevented the courts from hearing any other dispute over a place of worship. Ayodhya is the last case of its kind.
The Congress, which has been in power during all four of the nodal points of the Babri-Ayodhya controversy opening of British Raj locks and installation of idols in 1949, laying of the foundation stone for a temple in 1989, destruction of Babri in 1992 and the verdict in 2010 is in search of an amicable settlement. The game is old and evident. Congress policy on the dispute has rotated around one axis: how to get the temple built without losing the Muslim vote. The BJP has no Muslim vote to lose, but it will support such an under-the-surface endeavour since it obviously wants a temple to be constructed as soon as possible. If Ayodhya is the last case of its kind perhaps we should let it complete the legal process as well. We have waited for six decades; why not wait for two or three years more? Any amicable settlement is unlikely to be amicable enough for everyone, to begin with and could degenerate into a political compromise that could strain community relations rather than heal them. If we trust our institutions then we must trust them fully.
Pseudo-politicians in religious garb seem to be able to resist everything except temptation, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde. Unsurprisingly, therefore, one or two professional fire-breathers among Muslims have reinforced their reputation for irresponsibility by indulging in provocative rhetoric from the pulpit. They have not learnt from the experience of a quarter century what the price of provocation is, for they never suffer. The price is paid by the poor and the defenceless, who live in crowded lanes, defenceless on one side and hostile on the other.
There is however some good news. Those who think they can still milk hysteria are blind to an extraordinary change that has come about in India. The people, Hindu or Muslim, have risen above the negative politics of communal conflict; they want the positive politics of development. Faith and worship still matter to Indians; and it is a very limited, elitist, Delhi notion that the young have moved beyond religion. They have not. But they have moved beyond violence as a means to their horizon.
The impoverished have understood a simple, important, over-riding reality: poverty is not communal. There is no shortage of places for prayer in our country. There is, however, a shortage of self-respect, since every hungry stomach in our country is a sharp slap on the face of the idea of India. 2010 is a hundred years away from 1992.
The columnist is editor of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, India on Sunday, published from London and Editorial Director, India Today and Headlines Today.

MJ on Pakistan

2010-09-27T10:24:00.001+01:00

Déjà vu: Back to Army in Pakistan
M.J. Akbar
A reservoir of hatred has to be very deep for Pakistan to reject Indias aid at a time when desperate, flood-affected, marauding men snatch precious food from wailing, helpless women; when advertisements for donations are appearing in British and American newspapers; when the United Nations has stepped in to lead a rescue effort; and when the World Bank has offered two billion dollars over the next two years to ameliorate the consequences of an unprecedented national calamity. It took an American rap across the knuckles before Pakistan accepted Indias five million dollars.
Dr Manmohan Singhs response to this gratuitous insult was a testament to his faith: he offered more. The best answer to visceral animosity is surely a civilised handshake, even if one may have to count ones fingers after the hand has been shaken.
A caveat is essential. We must not confuse the Pakistani people with the Pakistan government. The government was playing politics with a crisis. The starving have no time for cynicism. The true victims of any such calamity are the poor, for the rich live above water. No poll has indicated that Pakistans flood-displaced would rather go hungry and roofless than eat wheat or take shelter under a tent purchased with Indias dollars.
Was Asif Zardaris fear of Indian money directly related to his fear of the Pakistan Army?
A natural disaster of these proportions can become a defining moment in history. There were many reasons why East Pakistan broke away to create Bangladesh in 1971, but the Yahya Khan regimes hopeless, and perhaps even prejudiced, neglect of the region after the devastation caused by Cyclone Bhola in 1970 became the conclusive evidence that persuaded Bengalis that they would never get justice in Pakistan. There is already sufficient information from the ground to indicate that Pakistanis are at least as angry with Zardari as Bengalis were with Yahya Khan.
The Khyber-to-Balochistan deluge stretching across 20% of the country, a space larger than Italy has begun to reinforce a resurgent public view that the Pakistan Army might have become a more natural institution of governance than the Pakistan Peoples Party and the democratic organisations now in power. Its chief Ashfaq Kayani mobilised his troops for relief instantly. Zardari, in a display of astonishing, callous indifference, preferred to go on what can only be described as a working holiday in France and Britain, wherein the holiday invited more publicity than the work. The Army also donated, very quickly, a days pay, a thought that did not immediately occur to legislators. Zardari, in sharp contrast, breezed through his expensive jaunt, spending $12,000 per night for his suite in London, and zooming off, with his children and his nominated heir to the Bhutto throne, on helicopters to his chateau in France. A Zardari spokesman explained that this chateau had been in the family possession for 18 years. That then would be around the time when the Bhuttos were in power in Islamabad. Two plus two in Islamabad equals a chateau in France and a lordly estate in England.
Pakistans internet is also in flood. The invective against Zardari has to be read to be believed. Alas, the most exhilarating examples cannot be reprinted in a newspaper. It is safe to assume that the credibility of the PPP has been washed away in this flood, and it remains in office from now for purely legal, rather than politically legitimate, reasons. The reputation of the principal Opposition party, led by Nawaz Sharif, which rules Punjab, has been battered by allegations of corruption and maladministration. The main parties have a vested interest in protecting one another. But the fact is that their incompetence has left a huge vacuum, and the only institution capable of filling it is the Army.
The civilian challenge to political parties comes from a far more dangerous force than the Army. To put this in a single sentence: fundamentalist organisations with a terrorist wing, like the renamed Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, reached the affected people long before the government. The only comforting news from internet chatter is the manner in which civil society in Pakistan has mobilised to fill the gap that Islamabad has left. But there is only so much that impromptu citizen action groups can do. They cannot be a substitute for a nations government.
Zardaris fear is valid. Would a coup be as unpopular today as it would have been a year ago? In fact, a year ago it would have been impossible. It might not have become probable even now, but Kayani is a patient man in a country where elected officials are conducting impatient hara-kiri. Zardari has been cozying up to American VIPs like John Kerry, but Washingtons generic dislike of coups is not so strong as to sabotage its self-interest. America is involved in a borderless war in Afghanistan. Americas strategic imperative demands a strong government in Islamabad, and if that means giving recognition to a future President Kayani, so be it.
Asif Zardaris decision to buy a chateau in France could prove to be a wise investment. It is certainly a far more comfortable address for an ex-President than a VIP jail within a fortress on the Indus.
The columnist is editor of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, and India on Sunday, published from London

M.J.on Ayodhya

2010-09-26T22:34:00.000+01:00

A walk close to the precipice
M.J. Akbar
It is never easy to walk close to the precipice. The Supreme Court must be feeling very sure-footed to test its vertigo level on Ayodhya. It has put six decades of anguish, turmoil and a legal endurance test on the edge of a calendar. If there is the slightest mishap, and even the Supreme Court cannot claim the divine power of predicting what unknown factors might spin the coming week out of control, the Allahabad High Court judgement on the Babri title dispute could fall into a bottomless abyss. If the judgement is not read out before the end of the month it becomes infructuous since one of the judges is retiring. India does not have the energy to start another six decades of social, political and legal acrimony.
It would of course have been heavenly if time was the solution to a problem that has proved intractable for both the British Raj and free India. Many problems in India do merge and disappear in that glacier called time. Faith, alas, arouses passions that have the resilience to defeat time. There is a view among those who have not experienced the depth of faith that the dispute has faded into unimportance. It was perhaps this assessment that persuaded Rahul Gandhi to claim that other things were more important. A little reading of history would be useful. The Babri-Ayodhya dispute has lain dormant for long spells before erupting suddenly, volcanically, and spreading its lava far and wide into the social streams of our nation. Sometimes it rumbles before bursting, and sometimes it surprises us with its arbitrary vehemence. This is why Sardar Patel, whose understanding of India was unmatched, advised Jawaharlal Nehru to find some way towards immediate closure of the two issues that had become symbols in the Hindu subconscious, the temple at Somnath destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni and the Babri mosque. Nehru was uncomfortable, but did not interfere with the reconstruction of the temple at Somnath, except that he would not allow the project to become a state enterprise. Somnath was comparatively easy, since no one had built a mosque at the site. Patel warned that if the Ram-birthplace dispute was not resolved it would return to haunt India five decades later. It did, in less time than that.
Ayodhya was different because there was a mosque, built during the reign of Babar. L.K. Advani linked the two when he started his rathyatra towards Ayodhya from Somnath, exactly 20 years ago on 25 September. Another two decades of time have not brought any resolution.
Perhaps we are being lulled by the fact that there has been no violence over Ayodhya after 1992. Mistake. Indians, of any religion or denomination, are instinctively repulsed by violence, even if they can, on occasions, get as appallingly murderous as any crowd in history. But there is rarely exultation and always guilt. Even when top-of-mind recall has dimmed, it does not mean that an issue such as Babri-Ayodhya has disappeared from hearts.
The consequences of non-judgement will be horrendous. It is obvious from the statements of their spokesmen that the Congress is, typically, committed to irresolution. Its politics impels it to hunt with the mosque and run with the temple. This fudge was possible as long as the courts were taking their time. Time a chameleon component of this drama has run out, at least in the legal sense. There is at long last a judgement, by a respected high court. Even a stay on its implementation and the reality of an appeal cannot diminish the power of a verdict. The Government would be very foolish to believe that it can bury the judgement in some legal maze, making it untraceable. If the judgement is not read by the court, it will still find its way to the people, through the media perhaps. The happy fact of any democracy is that suppressed information, like water, always leaks through the shackles of Government.
The parties involved are already raising dangerous apprehensions. It is only natural for either, or perhaps both, to feel that the Government is using delay as a tactic to deny them justice. The only salutary outcome of such a situation would be that the two parties forget their bitterness towards each other, and divert it towards the Government in a common cause. Do not laugh. Stranger things have happened in Indian politics.
The Supreme Court has the liberty to hope that something could happen in six days that has not happened in six decades, an amicable settlement. But it has no right to abort the course of justice for reasons extraneous to the law. Tuesday is going to be a tense day, but I have no doubt that the Supreme Court will apply its own means test. It needs an answer to only one question: have the parties to the dispute reached a settlement outside the court? If the answer is no, as is likely, then before the Supreme Court rises it must give leave to its brothers on the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court to deliver their judgement. That is the only safe route back from the precipice.
The columnist is editor of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, India on Sunday, published from London and Editorial Director, India Today and Headlines Today.

MJ scathing on Blair

2010-09-05T11:49:00.001+01:00

Fiction? Non-fiction? Just a horror story
M.J. Akbar
The most reassuring aspect of Tony Blairs just-released memoirs was evident in the Reuters photograph of a bookstore shelf stacked with copies on opening day. A red sticker on the hardback cover bore the legend: Half Price. This is poetic justice. A man who sold lies to his nation has been peremptorily discounted by its public. All the oily self-pity that has stained the books pages tears for the dead, alcohol for the living author was placed in perspective by the cold reception that this unapologetic misleader has got from a people disgusted by his malodorous past and continuing hypocrisy.
Blairs problem is not that he was mistaken when, in March 2003, he became a poodle-partner in George Bushs gratuitous war against Iraq. Anyone in office during a time of turmoil will make mistakes that could easily blemish an otherwise favorable record. Blairs problem was and is that he is an unrepentant liar who ordered the fabrication of excuses to launch a war and destroy a nation that had never threatened Britain militarily or shielded Al Qaeda. His foreign minister knew that Blairs thesis for war was a lie, and resigned, but the rest of the Labour Party mortgaged its conscience for power.
It was a coincidence that Blairs story [in the circumstances, an appropriate word] appeared on the day that America officially declared the end of combat operations in Iraq. The formal cessation of hostilities seems to have released many American commentators and officials from pretence. While some analysts struggled hard to justify the war with contorted definitions of victory, Americas defense secretary Robert Gates admitted, at Camp Ramadi, 100 km west of Baghdad, that he no answer to a fundamental question: The problem with this war for any American is that the premise on which we justified going to war proved not to be valid. Even if the outcome is a good one from the standpoint of the United States, it will always be clouded by how it began.
Blair knows how it began in 2003: Bush ordered his secretary of state Colin Powell to lie before the United Nations. Powell compromised his personal credibility by arguing that America had discovered incontrovertible evidence that proved Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Blair, never to be outshone in the deception stakes, told his Parliament that they were only 45 minutes away from mass destruction itself.
The natural growth trajectory of a serial liar is to become fantastically self-delusional. And so when Blair is forced, in his book, to admit that he lied, he compares himself with Nelson Mandela! After all, Mandela could spin a fast one along with the best of them, he writes with a smirk. It requires a temerity beyond the reach of mere mortals for a smug middle class lawyer with sharp wits and enormous luck to compare himself with a man who challenged apartheid and a barbaric, murderous regime; spent decades in solitary confinement and then, when he finally came to power, ushered in an age of harmony between the once-enslaved and their tormentors. But hallucinating Blair is not content with comparing himself to a mere Mandela. I bet Gandhi was the same, he squeaks.
He cannot get off this lunatic pinnacle even when he has to concede that he has been a manipulator. Princess Diana was another one, wasnt she, he giggles. So thats all right, then; if you are as good as Diana you can safely destroy the world.
Blair is unable to come to terms with the Great Mystery: why didnt the Iraqis roll over before advancing Anglo-American armies, and welcome the Bush-Blair Viceroy who would lead them towards civilization and McDonalds, whichever came first? Why, after Saddam had been vanquished, did the people resist the onward march of such impregnable armies and air forces? Since his porous intellect cannot find an answer from the behaviour patterns of the world, the reason must lie in heaven: Islam. He writes he misunderstood the hold that extremism had on Islam. Only extremists could fight the toy soldiers sent by Pentagon and Whitehall, carrying chocolates and democracy; moderates would have welcome the liberators while they looted the museum, took over the oil ministry and extended their march to the capitals of other nations on their axis of evil, like Syria and Iran. There are laws of libel; why are there no laws against hypocrisy? Or would that mean the end of bombastic memoirs? One records, with relief, that no Iraqi Arab memoir has, to my knowledge, called warmongers like Blair and Bush examples of extremist Roman Catholicism or American Puritanism.
Bush-Blair had a bizarre sense of humor: they contrived to name Blair a special peace envoy to the Middle East after he lost his job as Prime Minister. When Barack Obama hosted Israel and Palestine for talks on Thursday, along with Egypt and Jordan, he should have explored the potential benefits of amnesia. Alas, he forgot to forget.
An European cartoon shows a puzzled London bookstore employee asking her manager whether she should place Blairs memoirs in the fiction or non-fiction category. It should really be among the horror stories.
The columnist is editor of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, and India on Sunday, published from London

Another Akbar

2010-09-01T15:01:00.001+01:00

From rage to outrage
M.J. Akbar
Is there a tipping point to corruption, that last straw, or rupee note, on the corrupt camels back that ignites the dormant fuse of public response, and transforms apathy into rage? Will there come a subsequent moment when rage escalates to outrage?
Corruption has found a figleaf cover: everyone is corrupt, so why bother? This is the convenient argument that persuades some watchdogs, including within the media, to join the gang, even if their reward is marginal. Cynicism is a lucrative camouflage. If everyone is a thief, then theft becomes the law. There are no outlaws in a country teeming with in-laws.
The robber barons are too sophisticated to steal from one another. They dont need to. That would also introduce unnecessary conflict into a cozy system. They all steal from the public, and there is so much public money available in the exchequer that even if all of them grabbed enough to satiate their hunger, there would still be something left over.
Robbery has graduated to daylight robbery. The thief of the night is apprehensive about guards, and hence seeks the protection of darkness. The daylight robber has no qualms, because the purchased sheriff is snoring at noon, and the bystanders are impotent.
Here are some facts printed on the front page of the Times of India on Saturday. This, remember, is just one days news; this is not the whole story. The Central Vigilance Commission has scrutinised only 16 Commonwealth Games projects so far, ranging from upgrades of stadiums, road construction, pavements, street lighting, etc., worth Rs 2,477.22 cr. Every quality certificate it examined was either forged or suspect. Each one. There is little point wasting space over details; they will be repetitive. Suffice to say that there has not been undiluted stink of this order for some time.
The odour is multinational, but naturally: this is the Commonwealth Games, after all. There is something called the Queens baton relay, which means that the baton honoured with Queen Elizabeths blessing has to reach Delhi by relay. If there is an event there must be a function, and if there is a function there must be corruption. The British authorities have provided a small glimpse into what is going on. The CWG Organising Committee sent about Rs 1.68 cr, in British pounds, to a company called AM Films UK Ltd [and is still sending 25,000 pounds every month] for video equipment in a deal where there was no tendering, no procedure and no paperwork. The office address of this company shows only the presence of an AM Vehicles Hire Ltd, and on its books it says that it hired cars, makeshift toilets and barriers, not video equipment. Its director resigned, very conveniently, on 14 July. The Organising Committee issued a brazen denial that takes about a minute to tear to shreds.
Sports Minister M.S. Gill has admitted in Parliament that the cost of the Games increased 17.5 times since the tamasha began in 2003. Repeat that sentence 17 times for better effect.
Doesnt Prime Minister Manmohan Singh know what goes on in Parliament? Does he not read newspapers? Is he going to preside over the opening ceremony of the Games in the midst of those who should be on trial for loot? How long can he distance himself from the muck at his feet by silence? There will come a time, if it has not come already, when this silence will be heard at a volume that speech could never match.
Are we heading towards a 1973 situation? In early 1971 Mrs Indira Gandhi was re-elected by margins that surprised her Congress. She reached the pinnacle of her tenure with the military triumph in Bangladesh in December 1971. Within a year, inflation had soured the public mood. By the end of 1973 corruption had deepened the mire in which government was stuck. In 1974 Jayaprakash Narayan, whose own integrity was beyond question, challenged the moral right of Mrs Indira Gandhi to continue in office.
The one great difference is too obvious: there is no Jayaprakash Narayanan in 2010. The corrupt are comforted by the fact that the credibility of all politicians is so low that the public does not have an effective vehicle through which it can mobilise its anger. This vacuum should be of little comfort to the Government. The wrath, real or simulated, of Opposition parties is not the spectre ahead, but the rising discontent of the people. The whiplash of food inflation is harshest on the poor, those who earn around a hundred rupees a day. The poor do not protest too often, for the daily task of earning enough to eat is a demanding physical and psychological responsibility that consumes their time. But their patience is not infinite. They voted in large numbers for the Congress in 2009 because they believed in the sincerity of the party. They are beginning to feel betrayed.
The columnist is editor of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, and India on Sunday, published from London

Recently from M.J.Akbar

2010-08-22T22:23:00.001+01:00

No short cuts in governance
M.J. Akbar
Governments never seem to understand a basic fact of the democratic dialectic: no Opposition wants its demands met. It prefers a Government to be stubborn, so that it can string out the accusation long enough for it to sink so deep into the public consciousness that it cannot be extricated by delayed redressal. There is not much political value to an accusation unless it becomes an intrinsic part of campaign rhetoric. In theory, the Opposition turns a day in Parliament into a verbal festival over the Commonwealth Games because it wants accountability for corruption. In practice, Opposition parties need to maximise the advantage by being able to go to town and village with the message that the Government has not only stolen the peoples money, but is so thick-skinned that it will do nothing about the thieves. The obduracy of authority is the ultimate gift to Opposition.
In real terms, it hardly matters whether Suresh Kalmadi goes now or after the Games. His role as the sports czar of India is effectively over. It is only a question of whether he gets a nice gift at the farewell party which, of course would be the closing ceremony of the Games or he is sent towards the sunset in lonely isolation. As far as the people are concerned the difference between grace and disgrace has evaporated. It could hardly be otherwise given the scale and sheer audacity of the corruption. It is possible that the bunch in charge of this lucrative extravaganza thought they had squared all sides. There were junkets aplenty, across the political divide. The BJPs Vijay Goel went to Beijing for technical studies as did the Congress Jagdish Tytler: neither had anything to with CWG but must be worthy of technical doctorates by now. Perhaps they were being given early training for the Asian Games. Delhis Congress legislators Haroon Yusuf and A.S. Lovely went to Melbourne to find how they run city transport, which of course is why Delhis traffic has already become better than Australias. Naturally they travelled first class. This is nothing but big-budget back-scratching between pals, an insurance policy against exposure: if everyone is guilty then no one is guilty. The officials have piled up enough flying miles to look after family holidays for a couple of years. They might all have got away if they had not all been so confident about the spread of the swill. But there are always a few who refuse to be co-opted. They keep our democracy democratic.
Time turns corruption into a milch cow. If A. Raja had been dropped from the Cabinet after the telecom storm burst, the collateral electoral damage would be limited. Now that he is being retained, he will become the perfect, mobile target for Jayalalithaa during next years Assembly election: mobile is the perfect metaphor, of course, since Raja will be wandering around the state. A good cartoonist could do wonders with Raja posters, if Jayalalithaa has one and has the will to leaven her anger with a bit of wit.
Governments do understand a second fact of our political debate: the issues that agitate Parliament and media are seasonal. Their expectation is that they will seem less important to the voter once the initial froth has subsided. If the big tent does finally manage to produce a circus, the memory of the gravy train that brought it will dissipate in the merriment. Who will bother to hold anyone accountable after the Games are over? It is not in the Governments vested interest to do so. It is not within the Oppositions capability to do so.
The tendency to elide through crises with token gestures can become a self-defeating habit. This was the initial approach to the building anger in Kashmir, and now the people do not take even a well-meaning gesture seriously. Omar Abdullah was literally driven away, and had to be bundled out to his waiting helicopter by a frantic security posse when he visited a hospital. He cannot travel a few kilometres through his capital in a car; he needs a helicopter. He reached the flood-distressed region of Leh with far more alacrity than he had shown in the city from which he rules, because, for the moment at least, he has become Chief Minister of Jammu and Leh rather than the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Perhaps he, and Delhi, believes that Ramzan, the month of fasting that begins this week, will bring calm. It could. Surface calm however is not peace. There are no short cuts in governance.
Does Government need to worry about Opposition fulminations if there is no election visible? That is the only accountable moment that the ruling system takes seriously. Since we do not have the law of recall, Governments tend to dismiss street anger as an emotion that can be assuaged nearer an election. Lack of popular support, however, saps the energy of authority.
A weak government weakens the nation.

The columnist is editor of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, and India on Sunday, published from London

Joint Statement by President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister David Cameron 6 August 2010

2010-08-06T15:48:00.001+01:00

They didn't give a joint press conference, instead this statement was issued to us by the Foreign and Commonwealth office

The President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan HE Mr. Asif Ali Zardari and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rt. Hon. David Cameron MP met at Chequers on 6th August 2010.

The President of Pakistan complimented Prime Minister Cameron on his election as the Prime Minister of the UK.

Pakistan and the UK have longstanding relations which are based on shared interests and mutual respect. Both leaders affirmed their commitment to further strengthen strategic and co-operative ties between the two countries by intensifying the UK-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue and confirming a yearly Summit. This Dialogue will deepen consultation on global and regional issues of peace and stability, will include people to people links, enhanced business investment and trade, collaboration in the education sector, and cultural and parliamentary links.

The two leaders welcomed the forthcoming launch of the British-Pakistan Foundation as an initiative to promote connections between our peoples.

Both leaders agreed that a strong, stable, secure and economically prosperous Pakistan is vital to global and regional peace and stability. In recognition of this, both leaders agreed to pursue closer development, economic and trade co-operation as part of the intensified Strategic Dialogue.

President Zardari underscored that Pakistan needs trade even more than aid. The Prime Minister said that the UK will continue to be Pakistan’s strongest ally in pursuing greater trade access to the EU for Pakistan.

Prime Minister Cameron expressed the UK’s support for Pakistan’s democratic government and expressed the UK’s solidarity and support for Pakistan coping with the damage caused by recent floods. He also expressed his condolences at the loss of precious lives and sympathy for the bereaved families. President Zardari expressed thanks for the UK’s pledge of £10 million of immediate relief for flood victims and for accelerating an already agreed £10 million bridge reconstruction programme.

Among the common challenges facing the UK and Pakistan is the fight against terrorism and violent extremism. Both leaders agreed that terrorism and extremism are global issues and needed to be combated by intensifying cooperation at the global and regional levels.

Both leaders discussed the role being played by the democratic government in fighting against terrorism. The Prime Minister recognised the sacrifices made by Pakistan’s military, civil law enforcement agencies and people in fighting violent extremism and militancy and appreciated the efforts of the democratic government. Both leaders appreciated the close co-operation that already exists between respective police forces and other security agencies.

The two leaders agreed that such co-operation needs to and will intensify. In this regard the British Home Secretary would visit Pakistan in the Autumn. They asked the Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism to make proposals for enhancing practical co-operation ahead of the visit.

Pakistan and the UK will intensify their strategic engagement and pursue comprehensive Ministerially-led co-operation under the framework of a summit level strategic dialogue process. This will be taken forward through annual contact between the British Prime Minister and the President/Prime Minister of Pakistan.

These Summit meetings will be reinforced through regular national security discussions. The two leaders looked forward to the meeting between Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi and British Foreign Minister William Hague under the revitalised Dialogue in October.

The President invited the Prime Minister to make an early visit to Pakistan. The Prime Minister was pleased to accept.

Chequers
6th August 2010

Dhondy on the Naxalites

2010-07-05T00:16:00.000+01:00

Naxal Tantric Rituals
Jul 03rd, 2010 -- Farrukh Dhondy
“Pride, a stubborn donkey Conceit, a blinded mule
The flattered never realise The flatterer is a fool”
From Mughlai Ditties By Bachchoo
My father was once town engineer of Jamshedpur and my late brother-in-law Ramesh Bhasin, also in the employ of the Tata empire, was sometime vice-president of the Tata Iron and Steel Company in the same town. I don’t exactly know what Ramesh’s specific responsibilities were and haven’t bothered, while writing this to call my sister and ask, because it doesn’t seem relevant. He was a servant of the capitalist enterprise that seemed to require him to travel for days in the coal and ferrous mines of Bihar and what is now Jharkhand.
As an occasional visitor to Jamshedpur, deliberately disinterested in its narrow social round, I would be offered the option of taking some reading and writing and being driven to the remote “interior” where one or other of Tata enterprises had a guesthouse where I could spend a quiet solitary time.
These guesthouses had been built near the sites of mines, in places called Jodha, Jamadobha and Naomandi. I wasn’t aware at the time of an unrest in the indigenous population to whom this land traditionally belonged. Though I fancied myself a Marxist, I gave no time to analysing the precise economic or political contradictions or dimensions of these places. Ramesh was very aware that I would, in the presence of his friends and superiors (I remember inflicting such on Russi Mody), argue against the capitalist exploitation of the local populations. I engaged him in conversations about the make-up and demands of the Tata trade unions. He explained their inherent corruption and I became aware, as anyone living in Jamshedpur would, that Tata employees, cushioned by being allocated free accommodation, schools, hospitals and pensions, would be reluctant to jeopardise this position of proletarian privilege by supporting union militancy.
About the rural or forest population where I spent a few days or weeks at a time, I knew very little. While there, I would read and write and discuss the night’s meal with the caretaking chef and wander out on walks, wary of the wild animals who, I was warned, were quite capable of attacking and eating me. On several trips I found that the sadhus in or near the streams of the districts or looking after the isolated country temples, grew small allotments of cannabis for themselves and were extremely generous with handing out pocketfuls of ganja and equipping me with a chillum to smoke it in. “Shambho! Hai Shambho! Jai Shambho!” was the knowing and mischievous eyeball-rolling slogan and benediction I took away from those encounters.
Now Jharkhand is in turmoil. It is one of the territories where the exploitation of the natural resources by agencies completely alien from the native population has given the Naxalites a base of operation. These places are now a launch-pad of violence directed against the injustice of a settlement in which the natives get nothing but forced displacement. That the targets and victims of such violence and the counter-violence of the inept state are palpably imprecise has ever been the way with “class war”.
It is not even clear in a strictly Marxist analysis whether the violence and organisation one reads of in the papers can indeed be called class war. The aim of the party that directs the violence is to overthrow the state. The aim of the cadres they recruit is to get corrupt police and politicians off their backs and participate in the spoils their territories provide and in the general material advance of the country. Into this divergence of aims, there is the opportunity for the bourgeois state to drive a wedge — if it can generate the incorruptible will to do it.
I have no right or intention to editorialise on Naxalism. Before the Naxal activity took root in the places in which I blithely holidayed, the officials of the company that worked the mines felt no guilt about digging those mines or making that steel. The talk then was of the advance of the country as a whole, the generation of expertise to expand India’s capacity to exploit its natural resources and turn them to industrial and constructive use.
They had no idea that in a few decades the pace and direction of development of the country would be such that the sections of the population that could and would explore and seek to own the freshly discovered mineral wealth of the land would be, justly, characterised as agents of a lop-sided social equity — if not as downright crooked exploitative parasites.
The very democratic development of the country, one that forced the states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand to come into existence, has resulted in an awareness and intolerance of such social and developmental inequity and iniquity. Hence the fertile soil for Naxalism.
The movement itself, with all the explanations forwarded by its apologists and by the hand-wringing “behalfists” who speak on their behalf, has always been a radical deviation from all forms of Marxism. Some of the propaganda perpetrated by the CPI(Maoist) party — and I admit that there could be willful distortions in the reports I have read — appeal more as tantric rituals of social cleansing than a Marxist programme for revolution. The derailment of trains and the killings at Dantewada, may serve some fantastic far-fetched strategic or recruiting purpose but in today’s world of aimless jihadic terrorism they appeal more as the slaughter of the hapless and the innocent. Lenin would not have approved.
At this time, all developmental and military factors considered, the Maoist Party is extremely unlikely to lead a peasant revolt or a Long March which will win the countryside and surround Mumbai and Delhi and wrest power at the centre for a Maoism that China has long buried. They may succeed, with very many voices now urging negotiation and compromise, in establishing themselves as part of the radical democratic make-up of the districts and states in question. If they take or share power in these states, will they annex the means of production, communise the land and its resources and share the proceeds and power as no other state professing socialism — not Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China, the Kim family’s North Korea or Pol Pot’s Cambodia — has ever done?

Farrukh Dhondy in Dalhousie

2010-06-30T20:55:00.002+01:00

This is what Frarukh has been up to the last couple of weeks (courtesy Asian Age)
Plainspeak On Hills
Jun 26th, 2010 -- Farrukh Dhondy
"Underneath the lamplight
She stood those tortured hours
Waiting for the ones who knew
She wasn’t selling flowers.”
From Bictorian Bull
by Bachchoo
I am in Dalhousie, a settlement on five hill in the foothills of the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh, surrounded by the Punjab where all roads seem to lead. I have lost my way twice walking down and up the mountain roads of this beautiful natural spot, a colonial town, entirely now Punjabised, if that’s a word, a suburb of Delhi with hill folk thrown in.
I am the guest of a friend and his family and, very grateful for his sumptuous hospitality meet the elite of the hill resort at his lunch and dinner parties and am courteously included when his guests reciprocate with invitations for a drink, a barbecue or dinner. Most of the people I meet during this short sojourn, which I am using to finish some pieces of sustained writing, discuss the weather — here, on the plains and in London, talk about literature, international and national, discuss their pastimes of golf, tennis and their keep-fit regimen, talk international politics assessing Barack Obama and the almost new coalition government of the UK’s David Cameron with acute analysis and even committed concern, a contrast to the annoyance and disgust which they profess for the latest news of the tactics of the Bharatiya Janata Party to get their nominees into the Rajya Sabha or the antics of the Shiv Sena in calling a strike of rickshaw and taxi firms and drivers.
These are international people who can discuss the shopping, art and wines of Europe and, perhaps with greater familiarity, the prices and promises of America.
There are local topics of course — the access to the Internet, the flexibility of civic supplies and, interminably, how much their houses have acquired the trappings of modernity — the constructed cutting that makes it possible for the 4x4 to drive to the front door of the house, the storage tank for water that defies all shortage of supply, the annexe which can be rented out as a summer getaway.
I encounter these gentle folk, people I have inevitably already met, as I take an evening walk, a necessary ritual of being here.
The town was named after the Viceroy of India who introduced the infamous “Doctrine of Lapse” whereby Indian Kings without heirs would cede their territories to the British East India Company.(cf. Many books and films including Satyajit Ray’s The Chess Players). In London I met a direct descendant of this reviled Viceroy who told me that his illustrious or infamous ancestor had never been to the place and didn’t in fact found the resort. It was named after his departure from India or even from this mortal dispensation. It somewhat surprises me that no politician of Himachal Pradesh, a relatively new and presumably possessively inclined state has sought to rename the town. After all, “Bombay” and “Madras” despite not being Hastingspur or Curzonabad had to go. Compared to Dalhousie, their names were in the scheme of things inoffensively neutral. (Indians pronounce the name as “Del-How-Zee” even though the British retain the Scottish pronunciation for the name: “Del-hoo-zee”, though in my brief sojourn I haven’t seen any itinerant Scotsmen here).
The people I do pass on the beautiful mountain walks are either those I have met at the lunch parties taking their pre-prandial exercise, middle-class Punjabi families waving holiday sticks and moving noisily along or gangs up from the plains for a break in the hotels clustered around the armpit of the hills know as the town centre. I also pass, every hundred yards, the servants of the “barabecue-Tandooratti” crowd walking the family dogs and then at larger intervals, coming out from paths in the lower hill or descending from the “pug-dandis” of the upper slopes, the hill peasantry who live in the shanties of the town or in the ramshackle constructions of the villages which one can see dotted about the distant deep and wooded valleys.
As one passes these socially distinct individuals or groups, or they overtake you in their determination to keep the tandoori calories in check, we greet each other. It’s always a “hi”, “hello”, “good evening” or even an English exchange about the weather, the wonderful view or the sighting of a langoor, the black and white fluffy monkeys of these parts. Walking though is a serious business it makes impatient and brief encounters, the political niceties are left to the encounter at the dinner party under the stars.
The local taxis, white personnel carrier vans for the most part, driven by brazen horn-blowers and packed with the non-home-owning or non-bungalow-renting type of tourist, twist at high speed around the mountain curves, treat the hair-pinned roads as though they were Ludhiana streets and drive close enough to walkers to drive them off the cliffs.
If the local holiday-makers, the ones you haven’t met at the cocktail pass you on foot, you might smile and say a “namaste”, in recognition of being the only humans at least five minutes from civilisation. The isolation of the hills breeds a bonhomie. You may get a “namaste” in return or, more usually, a stone-faced denial of your existence.
With the people of the hills, the natives of Himachal, sons of the soil of the state, one doesn’t even attempt a “namaste”. They wouldn’t understand. Dalhousie and, I suspect, the other ex-colonial hill towns of India, are divided worlds. At least two.
They originated as such. The houses which today are Indianised still have old colonial names. There is Snowdon, the house now dedicated to Rabindranath Tagore which was once the object of Welsh nostalgia. Then there is the oddly named “Param-Dham Norwood” with its oxymoronic dedication to the Vedas and a south London district.
The vestigial nomenclature of the Raj mixing in with modern India is the least of it. Dalhousie, providing a resort for the upper classes of the plains, some of them citizens of the international sphere and providing subsistence, if that, for those who don’t deign to greet you on your walks, doesn’t strike one as a reproduction of colonial India. It is more accurately the terracing of modern India.
Away from Dalhousie, a long way in economic and political complexion, the disparity has led to militant despair. What is so plain in this Himalayan resort is true on a much greater scale of any town in India. The difference is only that in, say, Mumbai the vast disparities are part of the productive terrain. Dalhousie is a resort to which people come leaving the causes and capitalistic justifications for the disparity behind.

MJ on Bhopal

2010-06-27T17:25:00.001+01:00

Is peace on sale in Bhopal?
M.J. Akbar
Here are answers to the questions you no longer have to ask. First: how long would deputy chairman of the planning commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, protégé of the Prime Minister, ranking leader of the World Bank Alumni Association and senior advocate of multinational corporate interests, have taken to send Rs 983 cr to Union Carbide or Dow Chemical if Bhopals workers had killed the plant, rather than the other way around? My guess is 983 seconds. Ahluwalia would have probably sent the funds by wire.
The Madhya Pradesh Government made a request for Rs 983 cr as additional compensation for the rehabilitation of gas victims. Ahluwalia could not find the money in 2008. When, in 2010, public anger at 26 years of injustice not from Carbide, or Dow Chemical, but from Indian courts and brazenly insensitive Delhi Governments reached a crescendo, Ahluwalia discovered the money in 983 seconds, and released it quietly, a few hours before the first meeting of that desperate vote-saving device called the Group of Ministers.
Why was there no money two years ago and why is there money today?
Money was never the problem; Ahluwalia and his masters simply did not care for the gas victims. They were far more worried about the health of Dow Chemical, which was threatening to teach India a lesson for not eliminating any hope for liability payment from the company that had bought Carbide. Gas victims do not participate in discussions between India and American industry. They cant speak English, and dont live in Lutyens bungalows, so how would they understand the exchange rate between Delhi and Wall Street?
Does the Union Government have Rs 1,000 cr lying around in petty cash, which an upwardly mobile bureaucrat can pick up whenever he chooses to? Or does the Planning Commission have a secret account for emergencies like a sudden outburst of public opinion?
Officially, no: All expenditures must go through due process and find a claim on the national budget. But there is lots of moolah available from diversion; if you cant dip your hand into the holy Ganga, there is always a quiet tributary teeming with fish. Each year, many departments cannot actually spend their allocated money and therefore return unspent portions. The Minorities Ministry has been notorious for finding ways in which it can avoid expenditure. In any case, a Union Government can always find money if it wants to.
Why did the Madhya Pradesh Government wait 24 years before it asked for Rs 983 cr? Why not in the first 983 days? Or in the next thousand days? Why wait for over 8,000 days?
The snail-pace of the system is the easy, but bogus, answer. Over the last quarter century, Congress and BJP have shared power in Madhya Pradesh for about an equal number of years. They have offered a range of Chief Ministers, from the charismatic to the useful to the voluble to the forgettable. Irrespective of their comparative merits, each CM has been motivated by one primary desire, re-election. That is the basic propulsion machine of our democracy, as indeed of any other democracy. The great tragedy of Bhopal is that it never became a game-changer in electoral politics, either in India or in the state, and so politicians simply did not care enough about the consequences of their indifference or malice.
A decisive general election was held within four weeks of Bhopal, but the mood of the voter in 1984 was shaped by the martyrdom of Mrs Indira Gandhi and the youthful promise held out by Rajiv Gandhi. Congress won every seat in MP, and very nearly every seat in most of the country. Five years later, it was Bofors, to be followed by Mandal and Ram Mandir. Life moved on. Bhopals dead, as happens so often, became a vague memory, a cause limited to activists rather than national purpose. It has taken 26 years for Bhopal to enter the political narrative, which is why Opposition parties are reactivating their comatose limbs, and Government is discovering money that it could not find for a quarter century.
Will Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hold Ahluwalia, or anyone else, accountable?
No.
Why?
The UPA Government and its fulcrum, the Congress, believes that this is only another passing storm, albeit one of unsuspected turbulence. They can see the storm becoming a gale, with a couple of tornados hidden within the chaos. They have probably allotted private codenames: Tornado Digvijay, Gale Rasgotra, Storm Narasimha, and perhaps even Irritating Disturbance Singhvi. Hurricane Arjun (Force 4) is still to break, although, if it follows traditional patterns, it will veer and dissipate before hitting landfall. By the summer of 2011, Congress hopes, Bhopal will return to that old backburner, and a general election will still be a thousand days away.
It must be praying that Rs 983 cr will buy at least 983 days of peace.

Open letter from PM David Cameron to Aung San Suu Kyi

2010-06-19T12:06:00.002+01:00

On the occasion of her 65th birthday.
Dear Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
Today you will mark yet another birthday under house arrest – cut off from your children and your family. My thoughts, and thoughts of so many people in Britain and across the world, will be with you and with the people of Burma. The injustice of your continuing detention mirrors the injustice that the regime has inflicted on your country and your people for so many years. Throughout that time, you have stood firm, at enormous personal cost, for the principles of liberty and justice. You have become a powerful symbol of the strength of the human spirit. Like my predecessor, I personally have long found your example deeply inspiring. I want to assure you that as Prime Minister, I will maintain a close interest in Burma. The British Government I lead will do all it can, both internationally, working through the United Nations, and bilaterally, to bring a brighter future for Burma and your people, in which they enjoy full human rights and true democracy. I have never forgotten your own request: that we should use our liberty to help the Burmese people to obtain theirs. I promise we will do everything we can to achieve that.

MJ's recent piece

2010-06-11T22:10:00.001+01:00

The many colours of red
M.J. Akbar
Red is not a single colour. By the second half of the Sixties most of the world Latin America, Africa, Asia, most of Europe was awash in its many hues, and Vietnam took its counter-intuitive edge to the campuses and television screens of America. By the late Sixties, and through the early Seventies, the Naxalite offensive had turned parts of India scarlet. The epicentre was Bengal, but the seepage was powerful enough to affect Delhi. Mrs Indira Gandhi, the most perceptive politician of the last half century, recognised its implications amidst the comfort zones into which a slothful Congress leadership had retreated. She broke the party and reinvented herself as a pink ruby in a clutter of paste diamonds.
Mrs Gandhi was astute enough to launch a major offensive against poverty, but did not have the economy to sustain her political will. Nor did she have the conviction in shared governance to build alliances within Parliament, and with industry, labour, peasantry, academia and media that could become the vanguard of change. India is too heavy a weight. It moves only when we all pull together.
That familiar adage of the freedom movement when Bengal sneezes, India gets a cold worked for the last time during the red upheaval of the Sixties. The sun rose from the east, but that sharp red streak of dawn faded quickly in the harsh sunlight of the rest of India. Bengal rejected scarlet, and dyed itself in the pale red of democratic communism, introducing a doctrine that challenged other applications of the phrase. Where the Soviet-East European model, for instance, gave primacy to communism over democracy by subverting the latter into a one-party dictatorship, Bengal became a one-party state in a cooperative electoral process that legitimised the party through election victories that might arouse scepticism, but whose credibility could not be challenged. The fulcrum of Communist rule in Bengal was social stability, which Congress had destroyed in the Sixties by cynical manipulation. The peace of the last three decades has veiled the fact that Bengal is a partition province, with a history of Hindu-Muslim antagonism that has deeper roots than Punjab. The Muslim League was born in Bengal; and Punjabi literature has nothing compared to the anti-Muslim froth that layered so much of the best Bengali writing in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Why is the colour of Bengal swirling back towards the tricolour of India? There are many reasons, of course, including the rather obvious failure of the Left to embed itself into the consciousness of contemporary youth in the manner that it once dominated the minds of Bengali youth in the Seventies and Eighties. The young comrades who once drove a wedge into the sky kept the dream alive in their children, but have now lost their grandchildren, the teenagers who are leading the celebrations after every Mamata Banerjee victory. But there is a second, equally important, albeit unrecognised, reason for the electoral debacle.
We are used to dividing Bengal along Hindu-majority West and a Muslim-majority East, with the border as the only definition. But there is a new West and East in our Bengal. Official statistics say that the Muslim population of West Bengal is 28%; it might rise to 30% after the current census. But this demographic is not evenly distributed. Muslims are concentrated in the eastern districts of West Bengal, parallel to Bangladesh, forming about 40% of the voting population in the thickly populated regions south, east and north of Calcutta. Any map of the results will show that the core reason for Mamata Banerjees success lies in the shift of the Muslim vote from the Left towards her persona.
One uses this term carefully, since she is at the moment a personality who has inspired a revolt, but not been able to institutionalise her advance into a political structure. It is interesting that Muslim enthusiasm for Mamata has not transferred to the Congress. The Left has made gains where it contested the Congress, and its overall vote has increased by 4% compared to last years general elections. The Congress was routed in Pranab Mukherjees constituency, which has a Muslim majority.
If Mamata repeats this performance in the Assembly elections, one-party rule will be replaced by one-woman rule. The Left, technically, is a coalition, but in truth, Bengal has been ruled by the CPI(M). Having ensured social peace for three decades, the CPI(M) took the Muslim vote for granted, indifferent to the reality that the grandchild was not ready to accept what father had.
Could anything change what is widely seen as inevitable? The Left has begun to implement a job reservations policy for minorities; we do not know if this is too little, too late. Change is an exciting thought for a generation that has not experienced violence, so the young may dismiss this as a cynical last throw of the dice by a defeated gambler. Moreover, Mamata has empowered Muslims by making more of them candidates, but she will be vulnerable where she gives seats to the Congress.
The red of Bengal has already been diluted by time. The tint of the future will be determined in 2011, and the easel is with the Muslim voter. Both sides know that.
The columnist is editor of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, and India on Sunday, published from London

MJ Akbar; After scripting acts, Amar now acts on a script

2010-06-03T17:37:00.002+01:00

This from MJ Akbar recently.
Out of Turn
The Times of India
Which required better acting from the irrepressible Amar Singh: a 14-year association with Mulayam Singh Yadav or his role as husband of Dimple Kapadia in a Malayalam movie?

Politics is carbon-dated by events, not time. Partnerships need tensile strength to survive misunderstandings when suspicion warps a relationship into a tangential curve. Mercury rather than blood flows through the vein of public life; politics is very human and turbulent, and ego floats beyond the reach of rational discourse.

The best politicians are very talented, but often that blessing is flecked with problems characteristic of a maverick. The big chiefs like talent in their subordinates, but squirm at its attendant frailties. Bright sparks tend to possess an implacable desire to place a mirror before stupidity. The reverse mirror, however, displays a more provocative facet. Jealousy and intrigue are companions of ambition; if the talented were not ambitious, they would not be in politics.

Any institution, whether party or government, demands the stability of an uncontroversial script, or the comfort of silence from geniuses who can never find an equitable balance between their self-estimation and the role they have been given in what is essentially a Brechtian beggar's opera. Jairam Ramesh is a sharp and well-read politician, except when his tongue goes to his head. He has been a good environment minister, willing to stand his ground and even take a risk or two. But collective responsibility demands caution: you have to keep space between your blow-drier and your brain. Jairam Ramesh may even have been right on China, but he was wrong to say what was right.

Despite his penchant for the unusual, Amar Singh has been a far more careful politician, sticking to his responsibilities at some cost to his individuality. Happy memories are the first casualty of an unpleasant divorce, but it would be unfair to forget Amar Singh's mastery of the craft of first-past-the-post democracy. Mulayam Singh Yadav got the votes, but the real point in our system is to get winning votes. Backroom strategy can turn the first into the second in a difficult election. The conversion of Jayaprada into a Begum of Rampur who became more real than the real Begum deserves a chapter in any analysis of Indian democracy. Amar Singh has now taken on a more formidable challenge, the reinvention of Amar Singh.

Actors slip easily into politics because they have MBAs in the management of adulation. They have studied the arts of froth and the science of glamour, most notably the cruel fact that it has an early sell-by date. Madhubala remains an ageless icon because she died in her Thirties; death interrupted decline. A Dimple Kapadia is a rare phenomenon: she will be forever 16 thanks to 'Bobby' and a personality that is incompatible with domesticity. Women actors generally choose marriage as their retirement home. For a very few, 40 is too old for cinema and too young for oblivion, and they shift careers. Men get a few more years if they live in a gym. Politicians, however, do not possess the courage to become actors. Amar Singh has the élan to act a script after so many years of scripting an act.

The problem in both professions, of course, is finding an audience, without which you are not in business. An alliance with Mulayam Singh was ideal because he could guarantee a minimum box office in the worst of seasons. Nor were they involved in a multi-starrer like Congress, where great battles seethe beneath surface discipline. It was a two-star act, with Amar Singh the perfect alter ego to his leader. Perhaps a midlife crisis was inevitable, leading to a parting of ways. Mulayam Singh still has an audience, but can he turn it into a winning proposition? Amar Singh knows how to win, but does he have an audience?

When such questions set out in search of answers, they can lose their way in the by lanes of paradox. The definitive replies will be available only in the next assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh. If Amar Singh picks up, to give an example, the votes of his fellow Thakurs, it will hurt Congress rather more than Mulayam Singh's socialists because Congress is counting on a mobilization of upper castes and Muslims. And the greater the fragmentation the better it will suit Mayawati, whose core support remains consistent even if her supplementary vote is drifting.

If dancing has been described as the vertical expression of a horizontal desire, then there is a similar divergence between position and intention in politics. Subtle histrionics mix basic instinct with populist promise; rhetoric carries the message. The voter plays along, suspending disbelief en route to a polling booth.
Amar Singh is good before any camera, either in a studio or on the street.

The columnist is editor of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, and India on Sunday, published from London

Suspected Maoist Attack on Train

2010-05-28T08:36:00.003+01:00

The Maoists have vowed to observe a "black week" and a rail attack seems to be part of this.

The Hindustan Times wrote,

The Indian Railways said sabotage by suspected Maoist guerrillas may have caused the train derailment in West Bengal that left 20 people dead and over 100 injured early Friday.

"We suspect it is a case of sabotage. The driver (of the passenger train) has reported to have heard a large sound. There was definite tinkering with the tracks," member railway board Vivek Sahai told reporters in New Delhi.

The sleeping passengers were killed when a goods train rammed into four bogies of the Gyaneshwari Express that jumped rails at 1:30 am on Friday morning allegedly after fish plates were removed and portions of tracks cut out deep inside Maoist-dominated West Midnapore district of West Bengal.

This comment from the Wall Street Journal India section is not that common in print.

President Patil met President Hu Jintao; the First Visit in Ten Years by an Indian Head of State to China

2010-05-27T22:02:00.004+01:00

A very significant visit by the Indian President to China this week, and it seems that no nicety has been spared.

India needs China's support in her bid for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
I met the Indian President on my visit to Delhi recently, she was loquacious and answered all my questions at length.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's First UPA 2 Press Conference

2010-05-24T09:44:00.003+01:00

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave his first press conference and addressed two major issues; his relationship with Sonia Gandhi as well the matter of Rahul Gandhi. Dr Singh was also asked about Naxalism, relations with Pakistan, and dissent within his cabinet.

This is the first anniversary of UPA 2.

19 Years Ago Tonight, Rajiv Gandhi was Assassinated

2010-05-21T11:05:00.003+01:00

It was while campaigning on 21st May 1991 in Tamil Nadu at a rally that Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a LTTE human bomber.It was a rare early instance of a belt bomb being used. The blast blew out the whole of the front of Rajiv's face, as can be seen from photos of the time. In Delhi, his memorial site is called Vir Bhumi and I visited it ten days ago, around 36 hours before returning to london.

The site was being prepared for today's memorial ceremony, noted in Indian newspapers today.

This day is commemorated every year at Vir Bhumi, and is also called "Anti-Terrorism Day" in India.

The Fight Centres on the Indian State of UP

2010-05-21T09:35:00.002+01:00

I visited the royal constituencies of UP recently in India where Mayawati holds sway. But Rahul Gandhi is working hard here, as this update demonstrates.

The maximum number of MPs to the Lower House come from UP and also the maximum number of Indian Prime Ministers hail from this state.

Sonia Gandhi's Comment on Naxalism

2010-05-15T10:30:00.002+01:00

The Hindu newspaper and most other outlets carried UPA Chairperson's comment on the Naxal issue, which appeared to be an approach appreciating both the Home Minister's tough stance while acknowledging the needs of the indigenous poor.

The comment appeared in the Congress Party's own journal Sandesh.

Rahul Continuing to Visit Election Constituencies

2010-05-13T08:15:00.002+01:00

Rahul Gandhi is paying attention to West Bengal, where elections are due in 2011.

I understand that these visits are often in collaboration with senior, older party members and use local Congress chiefs for co-ordination. The results are carefully monitored and assessed.

West Bengal traditionally has a Left wing following. The left has seen a dent in its popularity recently, but will always have a place in Indian politics.

The Communist Party HQ in Delhi had the least security of any major party HQ, when I visited, and the least amount of staff serving its officials. Just a couple of guys at reception.

Rahul Gandhi takes Bill Gates to his Constituency

2010-05-12T22:17:00.002+01:00

I followed Rahul Gandhi around his constituency while I was in India recently and it seems that Bill Gates is keen on helping Rahul out there.

Back in London from Delhi, to a Coalition Government - Something Indians Know All About

2010-05-12T17:15:00.004+01:00

A bit jetlagged, I didn't get up in time to respond to the invitation to attend the first Con-Dem Downing Street Press Conference in the Rose Garden but in any event, have been given this first communique on negotiations so far...take a look at the point at number 9 on the euro...

12/05/2010
Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition negotiations

Agreements reached

11 May 2010

This document sets out agreements reached between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats on a
range of issues. These are the issues that needed to be resolved between us in order for us to work
together as a strong and stable government. It will be followed in due course by a final Coalition
Agreement, covering the full range of policy and including foreign, defence and domestic policy
issues not covered in this document.
1. Deficit Reduction
The parties agree that deficit reduction and continuing to ensure economic recovery is the most
urgent issue facing Britain. We have therefore agreed that there will need to be:
a significantly accelerated reduction in the structural deficit over the course of a Parliament,
with the main burden of deficit reduction borne by reduced spending rather than increased
taxes;
arrangements that will protect those on low incomes from the effect of public sector pay
constraint and other spending constraints; and
- protection of jobs by stopping Labour's proposed jobs tax.
The parties agree that a plan for deficit reduction should be set out in an emergency budget within
50 days of the signing of any agreement; the parties note that the credibility of a plan on deficit
reduction depends on its long-term deliverability, not just the depth of immediate cuts. New
forecasts of growth and borrowing should be made by an independent Office for Budget
Responsibility for this emergency budget.
The parties agree that modest cuts of £6 billion to non-front line services can be made within the
financial year 2010-11, subject to advice from the Treasury and the Bank of England on their
feasibility and advisability. Some proportion of these savings can be used to support jobs, for
example through the cancelling of some backdated demands for business rates. Other policies upon
which we are agreed will further support job creation and green investment, such as work
programmes for the unemployed and a green deal for energy efficiency investment.
The parties agree that reductions can be made to the Child Trust Fund and tax credits for higher
earners.
2. Spending Review - NHS. Schools and a Fairer Society
The parties agree that a full Spending Review should be held, reporting this Autumn, following a
fully consultative process involving all tiers of government and the private sector.
The parties agree that funding for the NHS should increase in real terms in each year of the
Parliament, while recognising the impact this decision would have on other departments. The target
of spending 0.7% of GNI on overseas aid will also remain in place.
We will fund a significant premium for disadvantaged pupils from outside the schools budget by
reductions in spending elsewhere.
1
The parties commit to holding a full Strategic Security and Defence Review alongside the Spending
Review with strong involvement of the Treasury.
The Government will be committed to the maintenance of Britain's nuclear deterrent, and have
agreed that the renewal of Trident should be scrutinised to ensure value for money. Liberal
Democrats will continue to make the case for alternatives. We will immediately play a strong role
in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, and press for continued progress on
multilateral disarmament.
The parties commit to establishing an independent commission to review the long term affordability
of public sector pensions, while protecting accrued rights.
We will restore the earnings link for the basic state pension from April 2011 with a "triple
guarantee" that pensions are raised by the higher of earnings, prices or 2.5%, as proposed by the
Liberal Democrats.
3. Tax Measures
The parties agree that the personal allowance for income tax should be increased in order to help
lower and middle income earners. We agree to announce in the first Budget a substantial increase in
the personal allowance from April 2011, with the benefits focused on those with lower and middle
incomes. This will be funded with the money that would have been used to pay for the increase in
Employee National Insurance thresholds proposed by the Conservatives, as well as revenues from
increases in Capital Gains Tax rates for non-business assets as described below. The increase in
Employer National Insurance thresholds proposed by the Conservatives will go ahead in order to
stop Labour's jobs tax. We also agree to a longer term policy objective of further increasing the
personal allowance to £10,000, making further real terms steps each year towards this objective.
We agree that this should take priority over other tax cuts, including cuts to Inheritance Tax. We
also agree that provision will be made for Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain on budget resolutions to
introduce transferable tax allowances for married couples without prejudice to this coalition
agreement.
The parties agree that a switch should be made to a per-plane, rather than per-passenger duty; a
proportion of any increased revenues over time will be used to help fund increases in the personal
allowance.
We further agree to seek a detailed agreement on taxing non-business capital gains at rates similar
or close to those applied to income, with generous exemptions for entrepreneurial business
activities.
The parties agree that tackling tax avoidance is essential for the new government, and that all efforts
will be made to do so, including detailed development of Liberal Democrat proposals.
4. Banking Reform
The parties agree that reform to the banking system is essential to avoid a repeat of Labour's
financial crisis, to promote a competitive economy, to sustain the recovery and to protect and
sustain jobs.
We agree that a banking levy will be introduced. We will seek a detailed agreement on
implementation.
We agree to bring forward detailed proposals for robust action to tackle unacceptable bonuses in the
financial services sector; in developing these proposals, we will ensure they are effective in
reducing risk.
We agree to bring forward detailed proposals to foster diversity, promote mutuals and create a more
competitive banking industry.
We agree that ensuring the flow of credit to viable SMEs is essential for supporting growth and
should be a core priority for a new government, and we will work together to develop effective
proposals to do so. This will include consideration of both a major loan guarantee scheme and the
use of net lending targets for the nationalised banks.
The parties wish to reduce systemic risk in the banking system and will establish an independent
commission to investigate the complex issue of separating retail and investment banking in a
sustainable way; while recognising that this would take time to get right, the commission will be
given an initial time frame of one year to report.
The parties agree that the regulatory system needs reform to avoid a repeat of Labour's financial
crisis. We agree to bring forward proposals to give the Bank of England control of macro-prudential
regulation and oversight of micro-prudential regulation.
The parties also agree to rule out joining the European Single Currency during the duration of this
agreement.
5. Immigration
We have agreed that there should be an annual limit on the number of non-EU economic migrants
admitted into the UK to live and work. We will consider jointly the mechanism for implementing
the limit. We will end the detention of children for immigration purposes.
6. Political Reform
The parties agree to the establishment of five year fixed-term parliaments. A Conservative-Liberal
Democrat coalition government will put a binding motion before the House of Commons in the first
days following this agreement stating that the next general election will be held on the first
Thursday of May 2015. Following this motion, legislation will be brought forward to make
provision for fixed term parliaments of five years. This legislation will also provide for dissolution
if 55% or more of the House votes in favour.
The parties will bring forward a Referendum Bill on electoral reform, which includes provision for
the introduction of the Alternative Vote in the event of a positive result in the referendum, as well
as for the creation of fewer and more equal sized constituencies. Both parties will whip their
Parliamentary Parties in both Houses to support a simple majority referendum on the Alternative
Vote, without prejudice to the positions parties will take during such a referendum.
The parties will bring forward early legislation to introduce a power of recall, allowing voters to
force a by-election where an MP was found to have engaged in serious wrongdoing and having had
a petition calling for a by-election signed by 10% of his or her constituents.
We agree to establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper
chamber on the basis of proportional representation. The committee will come forward with a draft
motions by December 2010. It is likely that this bill will advocate single long terms of office. It is
also likely there will be a grandfathering system for current Peers. In the interim, Lords
appointments will be made with the objective of creating a second chamber reflective of the share
of the vote secured by the political parties in the last general election.
The parties will bring forward the proposals of the Wright Committee for reform to the House of
Commons in full - starting with the proposed committee for management of programmed business
and including government business within its scope by the third year of the Parliament.
The parties agree to reduce electoral fraud by speeding up the implementation of individual voter
registration.
We have agreed to establish a commission to consider the 'West Lothian question'.
The parties agree to the implementation of the Caiman Commission proposals and the offer of a
referendum on further Welsh devolution.
The parties will tackle lobbying through introducing a statutory register of lobbyists. We also agree
to pursue a detailed agreement on limiting donations and reforming party funding in order to
remove big money from politics.
The parties will promote the radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local
government and community groups. This will include a full review of local government finance.
7. Pensions and Welfare
The parties agree to phase out the default retirement age and hold a review to set the date at which
the state pension age starts to rise to 66, although it will not be sooner than 2016 for men and 2020
for women. We agree to end the rules requiring compulsory annuitisation at 75.
We agree to implement the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman's recommendation to make fair
and transparent payments to Equitable Life policy holders, through an independent payment
scheme, for their relative loss as a consequence of regulatory failure.
The parties agree to end all existing welfare to work programmes and to create a single welfare to
work programme to help all unemployed people get back into work.
We agree that Jobseeker's Allowance claimants facing the most significant barriers to work should
be referred to the aforementioned newly created welfare to work programme immediately, not after
12 months as is currently the case. We agree that Jobseeker's Allowance claimants aged under 25
should be referred to the programme after a maximum of six months.
The parties agree to realign contracts with welfare to work service providers to reflect more closely
the results they achieve in getting people back into work.
We agree that the funding mechanism used by government to finance welfare to work programmes
should be reformed to reflect the fact that initial investment delivers later savings in lower benefit
expenditure.
We agree that receipt of benefits for those able to work should be conditional on the willingness to
work.
8. Education
Schools
We agree to promote the reform of schools in order to ensure:
that new providers can enter the state school system in response to parental demand;
that all schools have greater freedom over curriculum; and,
that all schools are held properly accountable.
Higher education
We await Lord Browne's final report into higher education funding, and will judge its proposals
against the need to:
increase social mobility;
take into account the impact on student debt;
ensure a properly funded university sector;
improve the quality of teaching;
advance scholarship; and,
- attract a higher proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
If the response of the Government to Lord Browne's report is one that Liberal Democrats cannot
accept, then arrangements will be made to enable Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain in any vote.
9. Relations with the EU
We agree that the British Government will be a positive participant in the European Union, playing
a strong and positive role with our partners, with the goal of ensuring that all the nations of Europe
are equipped to face the challenges of the 21st century: global competitiveness, global warming and
global poverty.
We agree that there should be no further transfer of sovereignty or powers over the course of the
next Parliament. We will examine the balance of the EU's existing competences and will, in
particular, work to limit the application of the Working Time Directive in the United Kingdom.
We agree that we will amend the 1972 European Communities Act so that any proposed future
Treaty that transferred areas of power, or competences, would be subject to a referendum on that
Treaty - a 'referendum lock'. We will amend the 1972 European Communities Act so that the use
of any passerelle would require primary legislation.
We will examine the case for a United Kingdom Sovereignty Bill to make it clear that ultimate
authority remains with Parliament.
We agree that Britain will not join or prepare to join the Euro in this Parliament.
We agree that we will strongly defend the UK's national interests in the forthcoming EU budget
negotiations and that the EU budget should only focus on those areas where the EU can add value.
We agree that we will press for the European Parliament only to have one seat, in Brussels.
We agree that we will approach forthcoming legislation in the area of criminal justice on a case by
case basis, with a view to maximising our country's security, protecting Britain's civil liberties and
preserving the integrity of our criminal justice system. Britain will not participate in the
establishment of any European Public Prosecutor.
10. Civil liberties
The parties agree to implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of
civil liberties under the Labour Government and roll back state intrusion.
This will include:
A Freedom or Great Repeal Bill.
- The scrapping of ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of
biometric passports and the Contact Point Database.
Outlawing the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.
- The extension of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater
transparency.
- Adopting the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.
- The protection of historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury.
The restoration of rights to non-violent protest.
- The review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech.
Safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation.
Further regulation of CCTV.
- Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason.
- A new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.
11. Environment
The parties agree to implement a full programme of measures to fulfil our joint ambitions for a low
carbon and eco-friendly economy, including:
The establishment of a smart grid and the roll-out of smart meters.
- The full establishment of feed-in tariff systems in electricity - as well as the maintenance of
banded ROCs.
Measures to promote a huge increase in energy from waste through anaerobic digestion.
- The creation of a green investment bank.
- The provision of home energy improvement paid for by the savings from lower energy bills.
Retention of energy performance certificates while scrapping HIPs.
Measures to encourage marine energy.
The establishment of an emissions performance standard that will prevent coal-fired power
stations being built unless they are equipped with sufficient CCS to meet the emissions
performance standard.
The establishment of a high-speed rail network.
- The cancellation of the third runway at Heathrow.
The refusal of additional runways at Gatwick and Stansted.
- The replacement of the Air Passenger Duty with a per flight duty.
The provision of a floor price for carbon, as well as efforts to persuade the EU to move
towards full auctioning of ETS permits.
Measures to make the import or possession of illegal timber a criminal offence.
Measures to promote green spaces and wildlife corridors in order to halt the loss of habitats
and restore biodiversity.
Mandating a national recharging network for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.
Continuation of the present Government's proposals for public sector investment in CCS
technology for four coal-fired power stations; and a specific commitment to reduce central
government carbon emissions by 10 per cent within 12 months.
We are agreed that we would seek to increase the target for energy from renewable sources,
subject to the advice of the Climate Change Committee.
Liberal Democrats have long opposed any new nuclear construction. Conservatives, by contrast, are
committed to allowing the replacement of existing nuclear power stations provided they are subject
to the normal planning process for major projects (under a new national planning statement) and
provided also that they receive no public subsidy.
We have agreed a process that will allow Liberal Democrats to maintain their opposition to nuclear
power while permitting the government to bring forward the national planning statement for
ratification by Parliament so that new nuclear construction becomes possible.
This process will involve:
the government completing the drafting of a national planning statement and putting it
before Parliament;
specific agreement that a Liberal Democrat spokesman will speak against the planning
statement, but that Liberal Democrat MPs will abstain; and
- clarity that this will not be regarded as an issue of confidence

The Passing of the Women's Reservation Bill in the Upper House in Delhi

2010-03-21T03:48:00.003Z

It was exciting to watch events unfold on March 9th when the Women's Reservation Bill, guaranteeing a women's quota in Parliament, came to the Upper House or the Rajya Sabha.

With a lot of commotion, and, it appears, no great floor plan, the bill passed and there was great jubilation. Several opponents came together to vote at a watershed moment for Indian politics.

But there are many more hurdles to get through, namely the Lower House and the argument raised in some quarters that Muslim women need their own quota. We are not sure when the bill will move to the Lower House, parliament is in recess for a few weeks until April 12th and there seems to be quite a lot of debate going on behind the scenes as politicians take up their positions.

It is getting hotter in Delhi and I'm loving being in the city.

Delhi Press Conferences

2010-03-08T17:22:00.004Z

Delhi press conferences are generally recorded by the cameras including all questions until they go to Chatham House stage.

PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING WITH PRESIDENT OF SOMALIA

2010-03-08T17:16:00.000Z

From Downing St:

"The Prime Minister met the President of Somalia, Sharif Ahmed, in Downing Street today. The Prime Minister raised the case of Paul and Rachel Chandler and welcomed an assurance from the President that his Government was doing everything within its power to ensure their safe and swift release. He made clear that the Chandlers should be urgently reunited with their family. They agreed to continue to work closely together to secure this outcome.

The Prime Minister was also updated on the Transitional Federal Government's efforts to promote security, governance and economic development. He stressed that Somalia's efforts were vital to Britain and the international community's efforts to create a stable and piracy-free Horn of Africa".

Miliband Zardari Meet

2010-03-01T12:37:00.001Z

This in from the Foreign Office

Following his meeting with President Zardari Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, said that he had a positive meeting with the President. Their discussions included the importance of the success of the civilian government in Pakistan. He expressed his appreciation for the sacrifices by the people of Pakistani for improved security in both Pakistan and the region as a whole. He stressed the need for all Pakistanis to pull together in the face of common enemy. And welcomed Pakistani co-operation with Afghanistan.

In Delhi for the most fun to be had at a press conference

2010-02-12T18:20:00.002Z

Heading into the Congress Party Headquarters, there is a room set up for a media conference with Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi.

The first surprise is that we get given Indian sweets and savouries and a plastic cup of piping hot tea. When did that ever happen at the G20 or anywhere else for that matter?

Abhishek moved seamlessly between perfect high Hindi and perfect high English with plenty of humour thrown in. Once he'd given his statement, the questions came thick and fast, shouted not spoken, and when I tried to stand up and present my question in the quaint old-fashioned way we are taught to behave in the West, he told me not to bother to stand!

I look forward to some more of these. Usually I am out in India or Pakistan on single story assignments and don't have time to be part of the press pack, so I am interested in life as an Indian hack...for a short while.

Farrukh Dhondy's Latest Short Story, for the Times of India's Crest Magazine 30/1/2010

2010-01-31T23:09:00.003Z

Click anywhere on text to enlarge

London Afghanistan Conference Communique

2010-01-28T18:16:00.003Z

This site below carries the full text of the Communiqué from today's Afghanistan Conference.

http://afghanistan.hmg.gov.uk/en/conference/communique/.

TV Commentary on US Defence Secretary Robert Gates in India

2010-01-24T12:07:00.002Z

With US Defence Secretary Robert Gates's visit to India this week, ahead of his meetings in Pakistan, I was asked by Al Jazeera English to comment on India's relations with the US, China and the Russian Federation. I was able to mention the remark made to me by the Private Secretary to the Indian PM, "President Obama speaks to the Prime Minister very frequently."

Of course, while relations are warming with the US, India doesn't forget her old ally the RF, with whom she has a ten-year military pact and from whom she has just bought a number of MIG 29 fighter jets.

India says she plans to spend $50b over the next five years on updating her military hardware. Boeing and Lockheed Martin have both been licking their lips over a $10b contract for 126 multipurpose fighter jets, on the cards since 2008. The smart money is on Boeing getting the deal.

The Indo-US 2008 Singh-Bush civil nuclear deal helps India reconcile her ambitions with her limited uranium reserves.She wants to quintuple her nuclear-energy generated electricty output by 2020.

UK Still Spending on Counter-Terrorism in Pakistan

2010-01-20T19:38:00.001Z

Just received this note from the Foreign Office;

"Year on year, counter-terrorism spending has increased this CSR. On current plans we expect a further increase next year. Spending on counter-terrorism this CSR is more than double what it was in the last CSR.
Pakistan has remained our top priority for counter-terrorism and has rightly been the largest single recipient of our counter-terrorism support throughout this period.

We are constantly reviewing the precise allocation of our counter-terrorism spending to ensure that programmes are most likely to reduce the threat of terrorism and radicalisation.

Looking more broadly than counter-terrorism, the UK is the second largest aid donor to Pakistan and we are increasing our aid for the period 2009-13 to £665 million "

Cold War Allies Still; India Buys Russian Fighter Jets

2010-01-18T23:59:00.002Z

From the Economic Times;

NEW DELHI: Russia will supply more than two dozen MiG-29 fighter jets to India's navy in a $1.2 billion deal to be finalised this week, a defence
ministry official said on Monday.

The proposed deal comes after the two countries agreed on a 10-year military pact in December to cover weapons development, aircraft and maintenance contracts worth more than $5 billion.

The agreement was signed during a trip to Russia by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, reflecting the former Cold War allies' desire to maintain a close defence relationship.

Article by PM Gordon Brown

2010-01-18T16:32:00.002Z

British PM Gordon Brown has just written this article, which was published in the UK, on Millennium Development Goals;

"The unpredictable crises like the catastrophe in Haiti show once again both the fragility of life on our planet, but also the very human instinct to come to the assistance of those in need. The impact of the earthquake has been truly horrific for Haiti's people and it is a catastrophe that is still unraveling. It is a tragedy beyond imagination.

Where men and women and children are suffering under the heaviest of burdens that place must for that moment become the centre of our world's attention, the world's compassion and the world's humanitarian help.

But we should not lose sight of our wider responsibilities to address the daily suffering of millions. The first decade of this millennium was striking for the way concern over global poverty finally captured headlines and attracted sustained political and popular attention.

In the years immediately after the breakthrough agreement on Millennium Development Goals, great strides were made and there were genuine grounds for optimism. Now a convergence of global crises - which are economic and environmental - threatens to reverse recent gains and end an era of progress when it has only just begun.

For poor countries, the climate crisis is not some abstract problem measured in terms of future generations but a stark, dangerous and pressing reality. Ecological catastrophe is already killing 1,000 people every day and a new hunger emergency looms.

While the climate crisis has been slow to build, the effects of the financial storm have been sudden and severe. Without diminishing the suffering the global recession has caused many families in the well-off world, there should be no doubt that in poorer countries it has been the grim difference between life and death.

Let me put the toll plainly. It is feared that 400,000 more children will die each and every year and millions more who would otherwise be on the path to learning will grow up unable to read and write.

So faced with two grievous and simultaneous challenges, I believe that the 12 months of 2010 will be as decisive as the 10 years of the last decade. Our mission must be both to deliver past pledges and pursue new ways to answer climate change and overcome the economic constraints that could imprison hundreds of millions in permanent poverty and despair.

First, we must stay the course to make poverty history. Britain will not only keep our aid promises in 2010, we will exceed them. That is why today, the UK is publishing draft legislation that would make it the first country in the world to give a permanent guarantee we will reach and maintain the United Nations aid target of 0.7 per cent. Of course, aid alone is not the whole solution. But with revenues falling and demand for services increasing in developing countries, aid can play an irreplaceable role in keeping schools and hospitals open and providing a vital safety net for the destitute.

The terrible events in Haiti also remind us of the need not just for development assistance but humanitarian relief to save lives in emergencies. The UK has already sent specialist teams and pledged £6m to help kick-start the aid effort - we know that much more will be needed as we move from relief to recovery.

Second, given the scale of the challenges, we must find new and innovative sources of finance to fight poverty and climate change. We have already generated billions of pounds by selling bonds and from public donations, but I am convinced that more is practical as well as possible.

The IMF, for example, is looking at how the financial sector can contribute more towards paying for the burdens of government intervention, including a global financial transactions tax which could raise substantial revenues if the details can be addressed.

Third, we must ensure that developing countries not only deal with the crises but invest in the future. As in the UK, investing in education is critical to future growth. That's why I'll be working with Sepp Blatter from Fifa and President Zuma of South Africa who have vowed to make education for all the legacy of the first World Cup in Africa through the 1-Goal campaign.

Fourth, we must encourage the capacity of developing countries to grow their own way out of poverty. There is, through the G20, a new opportunity to pursue global growth that includes and benefits low-income economies.

This year, we have all the international means that we could wish for to embed progress and account for the pledges we undertook at Gleneagles at the climax of the Make Poverty History campaign. Most crucial is the UN Poverty Summit in September, where I believe we must agree a substantive global action plan - underpinned by specific national commitments - that sets out clearly how we will achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

To build momentum, we must build high level political resolve early. 2010 is a test of the world's concern for the poorest - and their faith in us. In conscience and in our own self-interest, for their sake and ours, we dare not fail. We must act now to give the entire world back its future and its hope."

Amids all the politicking and pre-election grandstanding, in an environment where parties are keen to take potshots at each other, certain qualities and redeeming features may be overlooked. It isn't often noted that Gordon Brown is passionate about education, and gave a very acceptable TED talk recently.

Downing Street Comment on Haiti

2010-01-17T17:50:00.002Z

We received this message from Downing Street;

"It is with great sadness that the FCO have confirmed the death of Frederick Wooldridge, a British member of the United Nations team in Haiti. The Prime Minister's thoughts are with his family and friends at this most difficult of times. The Prime Minister is hugely grateful for the work that Frederick and others were doing in the UN Stabilisation Mission: helping to build a stronger Haiti, and giving people hope where they had none. The Prime Minister's thoughts are also with the families and friends of those British Nationals whose whereabouts have yet to be confirmed.

The Prime Minister has also today sent a message of condolence to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, following the UN's confirmation of the deaths of the UN Special Representative in Haiti Hedi Annabi, his Deputy Luiz Carlos da Costa, and that of Acting Police Commissioner Doug Coates. The Prime Minister said that his thoughts were with the Secretary General and with the families and friends of those who had been tragically killed, as well as with the people of Haiti themselves.

The Prime Minister continues to follow the wider situation in Haiti closely. He spoke this morning to the British Ambassador, Stephen Fisher, on the ground. The Ambassador updated the PM on the latest developments. He confirmed that while co-ordination of aid was improving, the scale of the challenge was huge: priorities now were getting food and water to the survivors, providing rapid medical care and emergency shelter, and restoring the electricity supply. While security was a problem, there was so far no generalised breakdown of law and order. The British team remained at the forefront of the international effort, and were also working to establish contact with all British Nationals, some of whom were still unaccounted for. The Prime Minister thanked the Ambassador and his staff for their work".

Jaswant Singh Launches International Edition of "Jinnah" and Speaks in London

2010-01-13T23:00:00.004Z

Jaswant Singh, Member of the Lok Sabha or Lower House,and former External Affairs and Finance Minister, held a press conference in the House of Commmons with journalists,an MP and members of the House of Lords, including Lord Dholakia.

In attendance were Indian as well as Pakistani journalists. In India,the appearance of the book caused much controversy and Singh's explulsion from the BJP.It has been in the best seller lists,
and has had to be reprinted 23 times.

He said that "Pakistan became the step-child of Uttar Pradesh."He observed that "India's immediate vicinity is in turmoil," and said, "I find it disturbing that foreign troops are fghting on the soil of South Asia...we find NATO troops in Afghanistan."

On drones, he seemed to indicate that it was wrong, in his opinion, that "because drones are unmanned, so drones can attack anywhere in the world."

He described how, on a meeting with former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Singh's turban was admired by the PM - so the former sent 11 of them to the latter.He added that Rajputs value three things highly; a horse, a sword, and a wife, so it is not advised to admire those items since protocol demands that the item is immediately presented to the admirer.

Singh was in town for a debate on Pakistan. He spoke for a very short time, preferring to take questions from the floor. That's amazingly rare. He spoke humbly and declined to answer where he felt it wasn't appropriate.He avoided answering my question, but then very quietly dropped a hint as to what his answer would have been, afterwards, when I talked to him one on one.

Interesting Designer

2010-01-13T22:01:00.000Z

Pret-A-Puppet

At a recent exhibition of her latest collection at the Indian High Commission's Nehru Centre, the designer Shazia Saleem enjoyed unexpected attention for her contemporary Rajasthani puppets.

Shazia Saleem specialises in sustainable high-end fashion using hand woven textiles. She showcased her collection of Indian handloom silks and Khadi cottons using creative displays, one of which was a large wooden frame from which luxurious silk evening wear and Rajasthani puppets were suspended. The puppets were made using the remnants of silks and looked delightful in amongst the dresses.

Coveted throughout the ancient world, India's rich history of hand weaving stretches back many thousands of years. Now, however, it is a dying industry as skilled weavers struggle to compete with industrialisation. Shazia's objective is to revive the hand weaving industry by making it as covetable as it once was and preserve hand weaving skills for future generations of weavers.

Shazia's passion for working with hand woven textiles extends to her recent collaboration with Harris Tweed, the prestigious manufacturers of hand woven Scottish wool, and who have sponsored two of her collections. Raised in Scotland, Shazia studied fashion in Florence and London and now lives and works in London and Delhi, seamlessly blending her cosmopolitan life into her designs .

She was recently selected to represent Britain for the Defra - sponsored Shared Talent India project to help promote Indian sustainable textiles, which showcased in London Fashion Week in September 2009.

Shazia's designs do not follow obvious fashion trends and inside every item is a tag explaining the story of the textile used. "I hope that owning at least one hand woven dress or scarf will become a wardrobe staple as much as the Little Black Dress" she said.

Lessons for US from the British Terrorism Experience

2010-01-07T00:02:00.003Z

A short post on Huffington analysing the British experience,and a suggestion about solutions

Encounter in Srinagar, Kashmir

2010-01-06T18:31:00.003Z

Lal Chowk, in central Srinagar, Indian Kashmir, is currently the scene of a militant/police encounter at Hotel Punjab. Two militants are holed up in the hotel,according to police. A grenade was launched and the shoot-out has been going on for around seven hours, NDTV said. Lal Chowk is a central roundabout in the heart of town, in a congested area full of small shops. I know the area well. This is the first big encounter since 2006.

Northwest Flight 253: A Catalyst for a New Approach to Aviation Security?

2010-01-05T00:18:00.003Z

An analysis of the implications of the Detroit Bomber episode, produced by CSD,was published by Huffington Monday.

Downing Street and White House to Work Together on "Terrorist Threats" from Yemen-Somalia

2010-01-03T00:17:00.001Z

This note has come from PM Gordon Brown's office.

"Downing Street and the White House have agreed to intensify joint US-UK work to tackle the emerging terrorist threat from both Yemen and Somalia, in the wake of the failed Detroit terror plot.

Amongst the initiatives the PM has agreed with President Obama is US-UK funding for a special counter-terrorism police unit in Yemen.

The UK is one of the largest development donors to the Yemen and is already helping to train Yemeni counter-terrorism officials.

The increased UK-US joint working, which has been discussed in a series of phone calls since the failed plot, will also include support for the Yemeni coastguard operation.

In Somalia, the PM and President believe that a larger peacekeeping force is required and will support this at the UN Security Council.

The PM has also asked that the evolving threat from Yemen and Somalia be placed on the agenda for the January EU General Affairs Council, and he will discuss with counterparts at the next EU Council meeting.

He also intends to push for stronger action on Yemen from the Financial Action Task Force.

The PM has also called a special meeting of the National Security, International Relations and Development (NSID) Cabinet committee to discuss further the UK’s response to the attempted attack last week. The Committee oversees UK security issues and includes security and military chiefs. This week the PM will hold urgent discussions with Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Defence Secretary and senior advisers on intelligence and security, ahead of the NSID meeting.

This follows the urgent review of airport security ordered by the PM in the immediate aftermath of last week’s events in the US. He expects preliminary findings in days and has pledged to move quickly to improve security wherever necessary.

In an article for the Downing Street website on Friday, the PM made clear his determination to ensure that the UK remains vigilant in the face of the evolving threat from al-Qaeda and reiterated that the UK must never be complacent about the threat of terrorism.

NSID:
Prime Minister (Chair)
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alternate Chair)
Secretary of State for the Home Department (Alternate Chair)
First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and Lord President of the Council
Chancellor of the Exchequer
Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Secretary of State for International Development
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families
Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
Secretary of State for Health
Secretary of State for Defence
Secretary of State for Transport
Attorney General"

Article in Mail on Sunday about Airline Security By CSD CEO Tarique Ghaffur

2010-01-03T00:05:00.003Z

This excellent piece by my colleague Tarique Ghaffur appears today and has already been highlighted in the Press Preview on Sky news

"Reports from America suggest that Abdulmutallab was on the US Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) list – which contains the identities of everyone American intelligence has ever, even remotely, connected with terrorism.

However, the list is said to contain more than 600,000 names. This is clearly unworkable and inclusion appears to count for little. Indeed, the bomber’s US visa was not rescinded.

Next in the American hierarchy of databases is the Terrorist Screening Database – the TSD. There are a mere 400,000 on this list and most of them would be allowed to fly unhindered to Detroit.

It is only when suspects graduate to two sub-groups within the TSD that alarms begin to sound.

A suitable model might be the international air traffic control system. Countries that want to be part of the international air network have to install professional air traffic control systems to agreed international standards.

Airport security also needs to be run by professionals with clearly agreed international duties, simple lines of command and fast, efficient ways of raising concerns – an efficient local system with robust international links. Unfortunately, rather than this systemic approach, our response to previous terrorist attacks has been little more than a series of knee-jerk reactions."

PM's Letter to Burmese Opposition Leader Aung San Suu Kyi

2009-12-30T00:17:00.002Z

PRIME MINISTER'S LETTER TO AUNG SAN SUU KYI

We were informed by Downing Street that the Prime Minister wrote to Aung San Suu Kyi today, "as part of his continuing efforts to support her and engage with the Burmese people. The letter was passed to the Burmese authorities (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) by the British Embassy in Rangoon; this is the formal channel by which messages to her are passed.

In his letter the PM:

- reiterated his strong personal support for Aung San Suu Kyi, her courage and her selflessness;
- called for free and inclusive elections in Burma next year, warning of the consequences for the Burmese regime if the election is not free;
- called on the Burmese regime to engage with Aung San Suu Kyi as part of a genuine dialogue which allows a transition to democracy in Burma, and
- assured Aung San Suu Kyi that the UK will continue to do everything possible to advance change in Burma"

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's New year Message; Extracts

2009-12-30T00:14:00.002Z

Comments from the text the PM is expected to deliver tomorrow;

“As we enter a new decade, I will continue to do what is necessary to protect and improve this great country in the interests of all the people of Britain”.

On Britain, and the British people

“In my life, I have learnt that there are only really two kinds of people. Those who think things can never change, and those who believe they have to.... And I think the vast majority of British people are in the second camp. We are a nation that combines responsibility with fairness, compassion with aspiration - always reaching higher, dreaming bigger, aiming for ever greater things”.

On our economic future

“There are some who say we must plan for a decade of austerity and unfairness where the majority lose out while the privileged few protect themselves. I believe we can create a decade of shared prosperity – with opportunities fairly shared among all those who work hard and play by the rules”.

“We can be incredibly proud that Britain’s dynamic entrepreneurs have defied the recession to start up nearly half a million new businesses. There are now 3 million British businesses – more than at any point since records began in the 1980s, and fewer businesses closed in 2009, than in 2008”.

“And I am confident that, if we continue with the tough decisions we have made, unemployment will start to drop this year, and more small businesses will open and flourish”.

“That wasn’t inevitable; it was the change we chose. And so my message today is simple: don’t wreck the recovery. The recovery is still fragile, and it needs to be nurtured in the interests of those who were hit hardest by the recession – the people on middle and modest incomes who don’t want any special favours – they simply want a bit of help to own their own home, set up their own business, and give their children the best start in life”.

On priorities for 2010

“And so let me talk to you about my key priorities for the coming year – about how we will secure the recovery and make the new decisions of this new decade.

My first priority is securing the recovery while cutting the deficit in a sensible and fair way.

The second is radical reform of our public services while protecting frontline spending on schools, hospitals and the police.

The third is a new, cleaned up politics.

And the fourth is maintaining Britain’s global strength and fulfilling our responsibilities against the terrorist threat from Afghanistan and the wider world.

Britain is too great a country with so much potential - and people with such high aspirations - that in the coming decade we must not settle for anything less than big ambitions.

We are determined to reduce the deficit at a responsible pace, without choking off the recovery or damaging the frontline services the mainstream majority rely on. And so our strategy is to go for growth, because we want to build our country up not talk Britain down. Later this week we will be publishing the first part of our prosperity plan for a successful, fairer and more responsible Britain: a plan detailing how we will invest in the industries and jobs of the future. From high speed rail to aerospace to the digital economy to clean energy to advanced manufacturing, 2010 is when we will really get Britain moving forward again”.

Analyst discusses Congress's Strengthening Position in 2009

2009-12-29T13:04:00.002Z

Amulya Gangula has written a discourse on how Indian opposition parties have not managed to maintain their strength through 2009, while the Congres party is quietly maintaining a growing lead.

Given that the Left has generally been vocal and active, and India's democratic process gives freedom for a strong and healthy opposition, the shift is interesting for sociologial as well as for political reasons.

Geo News Reporter's Child Relatives Killed in Monday's Suicide Attack

2009-12-29T12:57:00.002Z

Geo News Senior Reporter Faim Siddiqui is in hospital after beng injured in Monday's suicide attack in Karachi,which took place during the Ashura procession on the main Jinnah Road. His yound niece and nephew who were also in the procession were killed in the attack.