Arrogant Chidambaram ignores common man’s plight

It seems the electoral defeat in two states, blamed largely on rising prices, was not enough to make Congressmen rise out of slumber. The Rs. 680,521 crore ($ 148 billion) general budget for 2007-08 was expected to address these issues and the issue of common man in general but it seems that the bespectacled Chidambaram is yet to come out of his nattily dressed attire and well-appointed apartment in New Delhi and apathies with the 70% of India’s poor population.
There’s no doubt that the Finance Minister has failed to deliver yet again. His business card identifies him as a senior advocate at the Supreme Court of India and it is high time that he is left to that. If the Finance Minister of a largely poor country looks at the crème 20% to formulate his budget, what else do you have to say? Fact remains that the budget, though having inbuilt populist programs, had nothing concrete in terms of benefiting the common man. Even the benefit to the minorities, much talked about in the context of Sachar Committee Report, has not been elaborated.
Though huge amounts have been given to agriculture, the scenario has reached the nadir already, due to opening of the sector to industrialists and the encroachment of foreign companies in the farmer’s territory. And you believed this country was still agrarian with about 70% of India associated with it. Yes they still are but majority of them continue to live in abject penury with no benefit reaching them.
It is this reason that Chidambaram came under attack from his own party members who blamed his economic policies and failure to rein in inflation for the Congress party’s defeat in elections in two states – Punjab and Uttarakhand. Most of them would have continued with their silence if Chidambaram’s actions had not started adversely affecting their political fiefdoms.
Budget gave a shot in the arm to the ailing BJP whose president Rajnath Singh lost no time in showing that he was skeptical: “The budget proposals do not address the basic issues like curbing prices. This budget will stoke inflation and not reduce it,” he said.
Senior BJP leader LK Advani too dubbed the General Budget as “betrayal of aam admi” saying it showed the Congress had learnt no lessons from its electoral defeat in Punjab and Uttarakhand. He added that the rising cost of food stables brought the fall of the Congress from power in Punjab and Uttarakhand and ridiculed Chidambaram’s proposals to slash prices of pet food.
“At a time today when aam admi finds dal costly, the Finance Minister exults over the fact that he is reducing prices of food for pets like dogs and cats,” Advani said. What Mr. Advani is not aware perhaps is that our Finance Ministry, due to the vagaries of his lifestyle, is more exposed to dogs and cats then the poor man of the country.

Eyeing somebody else’s wife

Attempt to deter Khan from canvassing for Congress
Amar Singh is in a storm once again. That too for a remark jokingly accusing him of eyeing a lady with wrongful intents! And the remark has been made by none else but the King Khan of Bollywood, who is reported to have nearly come to blows with Amar Singh on at least one previous occasion. Blow up of this small incident is being seen as SP’s attempt to deter Shahrukh from canvassing for Congress in the forthcoming UP election.
When Shahrukh Khan commented on Amar Singh at a recent film awards function, nobody had guessed that this comment would turn into a political battle with Samajwadi Party workers as well as members from other organizations protesting outside the actor’s residence ‘Mannat’ in suburban Bandra and Congress workers coming up to defend the actor in another protest. The Samajwadi Party, however, denied it had anything to do with the protest though the party MP Abu Azmi confirmed that some of SP’s workers were participating. Shahrukh on the other hand clarified that the comments were meant in ‘pure jest’ and he did not mean to hurt anyone’s feelings.
It so happened that Khan light-heartedly described Amar Singh as Darinda or fiend at the Awards function, thus leading to condemnation and slogan shouting by those affiliated to SP. Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh even told media persons that he would retaliate by publicly humiliating King Khan for his crude joke against him. Singh said “I found more ‘darindagi’ in his language than in my eyes. I will also humiliate him publicly someday and then apologize to him and say that it was said in black humour.”
However, critics of Amar Singh said that SP workers including Amar Singh should not have taken the comment seriously as all that the King Khan said during that evening was usual satirical talk about himself and many others in the audience. Some even cited that Singh was acting so out of guilt and the Khan’s comment had actually revealed the truth. One person even confessed to seeing the leaked CDs about Singh in which he was found to have made lewd comments about several well-known female actors of Bollywood.
There are others who are citing hardcore politics behind this entire episode. Rumours are already circulating about Shahrukh Khan canvassing for Congress Party in the forthcoming elections of UP whereas Amitabh Bachchan and family will surely be contesting for the Samajwadi Party. It is being said that SP was already looking for an excuse to attack Shahrukh and give him a taste of what to expect if he was to think of entering the dirty arena of UP’s politics. Shahrukh has surely learnt the lesson perhaps and Amar Singh has shrewdly reserved his decision of ‘publicly humiliating’ Shahrukh till the day SRK lands on UP’s soil.
It is to be remembered that is not the first time that duo have had a spat in public. In 2004, during the Zee award function in Dubai, Singh and Khan got into a heated exchange. Singh, who calls Amitabh Bachchan his brother, felt that it was not appropriate for the organisers to give Big B a sitting arrangement on the 12th row. The function was organised by a close friend of Shah Rukh.
Last year before holi both the personalities had differences and those were sorted out at a Holi function organized by Bachchans at their home. But this time there won’t be any invitation for SRK at Bachchan’s house. So where will you patch up King Khan!

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History of arguments Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh has had arguments and fights with Shahrukh on earlier occasions as well. At the Zee Cinema awards last year, Singh admitted to differences with Khan but said they kissed and made up after the superstar called him up."I did have an argument with Shahrukh at the Zee awards in Dubai. But it wasn't a scuffle...The experience that I and Amitabh Bachchan had the Zee awards was no less than horrific," Singh had said. "It was I who convinced Bachchan to go to the awards. We chartered a plane to get there so that he could return to Mumbai the next morning to catch his connecting flight to Chennai. "When we reached the function we were given seats in the 14th or 15th row along with the general public...and there was no one from the fraternity to welcome Bachchan. Forget about me, I'm no one in the film industry. But how could Bachchan be treated this way? "Of the 100 years of Indian motion pictures 30 years belong almost exclusively to Bachchan. Not just me, there was a public outcry against Bachchan's treatment even during the function. I couldn't take it." "When we got up to leave, the organizers caught us and began to request us to not leave. Then a scuffle took place between me and (organizer) Morani right there in full public view. "Then Zee's (chief) Subhash Chandra came and slapped Morani. We were then moved to the front row. We weren't comfortable. However, I was taken backstage to give away an award. Then Shahrukh came over to defend Morani. "I said the organisers behaved wrongly. To this Shahrukh said, 'Amar Singh, 'aap kafi goondagardi kar rahen hain (You are being quite a bully).'"I replied, 'Amitji ke saath agar koi aisa vyavhaar karega to main goondagardi karoonga (If someone behaves like this with Bachchan, I will be a bully).' "To be fair to Shahrukh, he told Morani, 'Amitji aur Amar Singh bahut upset hain tum jaake maafi maango. (Bachchan and Singh are very upset, you go and say sorry'. Morani apologized. He should've done so much earlier. "Had Bachchan been there alone, he'd have suffered the humiliation in silence. That's the kind of person he is. It was fortunate that I was around. I reacted the way I should have. The morning after the fiasco, "Shahrukh called me in Mumbai to say he was only joking about the goondagardi (bullying). He is King Khan. We've to take what he says on its face value. "I've more important things to say than brood over such things. I don't let grievances grow in my heart. I told him what I had to. The matter is closed...I told him it didn't matter even if he was serious. Because it was a matter of pride of me to be if I am called a goonda (bully) for protecting my elder brother's honour. I thanked Shahrukh for joking...There was never any scuffle between Shahrukh and me.""I don't have anything against Shahrukh because I don't want to come into films and he has nothing to do with politics. I don't even have anything against Subhash Chandra either. God bless him."
However, things have changed now! Shahrukh is planning entry into politics and it is reported that he has made up his mind about supporting Congress in the UP elections.

Ban online trading of essential items

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Instead of immediately banning futures trading in farm products, P. Chidambaram has announced setting up of a committee which will give its report in two months. This is in spite of the clear writing on the wall in the light of continuous rise in retail prices of onions, sugar and other essential items. Who is calling the shots at the Finance Ministry? Who is concerned about the plight of the poor?

COMMODITY prices have always known to influence voting patterns in elections and political parties have a history of colluding with sympathetic businessmen to inflate or deflate prices of essential commodities to swing votes. Not too long ago, soaring onion prices - that were alleged to have been engineered - helped the Congress beat the ruling BJP in Delhi at the 1998 election. It is being said that the same method was used to increase the sugar prices in Maharashtra recently, thus leading to rise in the share price of companies like Bannari Amman Sugar, Dhampur Sugar and Bajaj Hindustan.
In spite of Congress personally benefiting from allegedly engineered prices till some time back, it is surprising why P. Chidambaram and company under the patronage of the so-called guru Dr. Manmohan Singh continued to look the other way while the prices of essential commodities continued to rise unabated due to speculative futures trading. As late as July last year, the Government continued to deny any move to ban futures trading in spite of concerns raised in this regard by those aware. On the sidelines of a FICCI meeting, Union Consumers Affairs Secretary, L. Mansingh, had said in July 2006: “There is no question of banning future trading in essential commodities. Future trading has stabilised volatility in prices." In September last, The Tamilnadu Chamber of Commerce and Industry called for a ban on online trading of all essential commodities and its President, S. Rethinavelu, said since the withdrawal of stock holding limits and licensing requirements under the Essential Commodities Act in 2002, the items have been transported and sold without any constraints all over the country.
Only when a hue and cry was raised by some sections of the media mirroring concern over rising prices of food articles and demand to ban futures trade in farm products, the Government has woken up and said it would study the impact of this on prices of essentials. It has also announced setting up of a Committee headed by Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen, which will give its report in two months. However, P. Chidambaram still did not confess that speculative trading was responsible for price rise and sidetracked the issue in his budget speech by blaming global commodity price and supply constraints as reasons for increase of prices of essential commodities like wheat, pulses and edible oils.
It seems that the Government is playing in the hands of some vested interests and their like-minded media groups who are carrying the pleas from investment gurus such as Jim Rogers (a big commodity bull) to let in foreign investors and speculators into the Commodity Markets. The Government is not realizing that if that happens, then rampaging commodity speculation will push up the prices of essential commodities so high that it can only lead to a bloodbath.
Physical commodity contract design in India too remains lopsided and favours the speculators. In the US, commodity contracts are physically delivered while in India this system of mandatory physical delivery was done away with due to reasons best known to our worthy gurus of market economy. Consequently, large scale speculators and investors, least related to the industry, came in leading to bullish prices.
There are still two months for the Abhijit Sen committee to give its recommendations. Till then P. Chidambaram has ruled out new contracts in wheat and rice in the futures market. However, it is too little done too late. If Abhijit Sen is really sincere about the plight of the poor, then we already know what his recommendations are going to be. There is no other path to ban all such trade with immediate effect.

“BSNL needs better media management”: Dr. Shakeel Ahmad

Born 2nd January, 1956, Dr. Shakeel Ahmad is serving the 14th Lok Sabha as MP from Madhubani in Bihar and is presently in the Central Government in the capacity of Minister of State in the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. HTE's Aziz Haider chanced to interview Dr. Ahmad on his recent visit to UP. During the interview, Dr. Ahmad talked of varying issues ranging from the condition of UP under Mulayam rule to the affairs of minorities and the telecom industry. He said the Indian telecom industry has come a long way and now it’s time for the country to be the nerve centre for the world. Excerpts from an interview:

Q: Where do you see the telecom industry at present?
A: A host of telecom services are being provided in the country - from plain vanilla telecom apps to cutting edge Wi-Fi; however, connecting the remote villages continues to be an uphill task. These fruits of the telecom revolution should reach the village population as well. We need to increase the tele-density of the country and that's how we can accelerate the process of bridging the digital divide.
Q: What are you doing to take the telecom revolution to the villages?
A: There are one lakh panchayats in the country. In all those one lakh panchayats we are going to start one information centre each through an expense of Rs. 6000 crore. Government has already given this scheme a go-ahead.
One information centre will have one telephone, one computer with internet broadband facility. This will facilitate our e-governance programme. We will train the Panchayat representatives on use of computer and internet. This will be on the lines of Andhra Pradesh where all the village sarpanchs work on internet.
Q: Don’t you agree that the BSNL system is failing?
A: I do not agree with this. There was a meeting of head of circle in Delhi recently. I told them that they should keep this in mind why media always writes adverse stories on BSNL. I ask the media, when we have given license for 20 years to these telecom operators and about 12 years have already expired out of those 20, how come they are giving lifelong offers. Why do the media not write against these companies?
Q: What is the Government doing in this regard?
A: The Government has taken note over this. We have written to TRAI and they are contemplating action.
Q: Where does the telecom industry need improvement?
A: The quality of service (QoS) in telecom need to improve.
Q: You hail from the minority community. What are your views regarding the Sachar Committee report?
A: Minority alone cannot do anything for itself. Majority should take the minority along the path of development. They should come forward and help the Muslims in their efforts at self-development. This is the need of the hour.
Other than the majority community working out plans to benefit the minority, the Muslims should also plan their future. Those who are not strong are blown away by the wind.
Sonia Gandhi and Dr. Manmohan Singh need to be praised for taking the bold step of tabling this report. This is a milestone in the right direction. Muslims should take cue and start striving for the path of progress and development.
Congress chose the path of the brave by being non-partisan and secular at the time of Independence. Otherwise it was easy for the Congress to make India a Hindu-rashtra. But it decided to be a party of the masses rather than the party of a particular religion, sect or caste. Congress may have suffered few setbacks due to its policy but it was the path that needs to be commended and appreciated.
Q: Have any specific instructions been given to ministries to plan special schemes for minorities?
A: Proper plan will be chalked out after discussion takes place in Parliament. But this is definite that the Government is very much concerned about implementing the Sachar Committee report. We will try to do our best so that attempt is made to bring the section that is lagging behind, at equal level with the rest. Government may form some nodal agency or give guidelines to all ministries to do something has not been decided yet but this is certainly our concern.
Q: What do you have to say about education among Muslims?
A: They are definitely lagging behind. You people write that madrasas are brewing grounds for militancy. But only 4% Muslims are sending their children to madrasas. I am of opinion that more madrasas should be opened so that more students become educated.
Q: This means Mulayam is right when he distributes computers to madrasas?
A: Mulayam has a dual face and giving computer is a part of that. What has he done to enhance the level of education among Muslims? What has he done to give more employment to Muslims? He talks of Muslims but gives jobs to people of a particular caste.