Power & Politics/ Mail Today, April 12, 2010

UNION home minister P. Chidambaram has acted with honour and integrity and set an example by offering to resign after the massacre of 76 security men by Maoists in Dantewada in Chhattisgarh last week. By his action, PC has set a precedent for his colleagues. More important, he has consolidated his position within the government hierarchy. The Congress “ appreciated and commended” his “ buck stops at my desk” statement but would not go beyond saying that the resignation would not be accepted.

What came as a surprise though was the reaction of the opposition BJP which would normally have used an occasion such as this to go for the government’s jugular. “ We have not sought Chidambaram’s resignation or want him to resign on his own. He has to continue the country’s fight to the finish and our party would extend ( the) support he needs to defeat the forces backed by foreign states”, BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy said. These are words that Rudy couldn’t have afforded not to utter. Chidambaram succeeded the effete Shivraj Patil as Union home minister in the wake of 26/ 11 and since then there is a near cross- party consensus that the lawyer- economist- politician from Sivaganga is the best CEO for India’s law and order machinery. That India did not witness a single case of terrorism for the next 14 months is testimony to that. The spotless record was somewhat blemished by the attack on the German Bakery in Pune in February this year; yet there is acknowledgement of the broad success of his strategy to snuff out threats from across the border. Indeed, so convinced was PC about the success of the path he chose that just a couple of weeks ago, he stated in an interview that he would wipe out the Maoist menace within the next three years.

Why then has he offered to resign? Has he thrown in the towel? I hope not, just as I am sure do a majority of our countrymen. At a time when the vandals rule a third of the country’s 600- odd districts, India needs a man like him who carries no ideological baggage, has chalked out a clear agenda and goes about it with clockwork precision. PC uses both the carrot and the stick in equal measure.

In the last few weeks, on more than one occasion he signalled the government’s willingness to open dialogue as long as they “ abjured” violence. Like any tough administrator who sets out to change the rules of the game, PC has run into hurdles.

There is no shortage of bleeding hearts within and outside the government who’d rather that the state go soft on Maoists and adopt a twopronged strategy that includes both carrying out anti- extremist operations and addressing their socio- economic issues.

It is PC’s contention that, far from yielding results, this strategy has proved costly, both in
terms of men and material. Since 2005, 1,800 paramilitary personnel have met their death at the hands of extremists; 140 in the last months alone. PC has probably taken a cue from Y. S. Rajashekhara Reddy and N. Chandrababu Naidu, two men who otherwise followed policies that were as different as chalk and cheese. But on Naxalites, they — one a Congress chief minister and the other from the Telugu Desam Party and the bitterest of political rivals — were one.
They were ruthless in their pursuit of Naxalites and both had the full support of the Centre. It is no secret that during the NDA regime, Naidu had a carte blanche from the then home minister L. K. Advani to act as he deemed fit and it is largely due to their tenacity that the Naxalite menace in Andhra is no more what it used to be.

PC tried to establish the same kind of rapport with opposition chief ministers like Raman Singh and Naveen Patnaik. But he is being held back by the breast beaters in the government and professional human rights protesters.

There was no sight more shameful than one such organisation claiming last week that the jawans were ill- trained to tackle extremism. It is not about lack of training. What they need are weapons and most of all, a morale booster. And that can only happen if the state empowers them with both weapons and policies that make them feel that the state cares. For a start, politicians could start thinking beyond the vote bank and give them powers for preventive arrest and interrogation and even POTA. Give them autonomy; their demoralisation will vanish as will their death count.

As finance minister, PC had greater exposure and influence over the nation’s destiny. He missed the global stage and initially found it difficult to adjust to his new role in North Block.
He had just begun to assert himself when Dantewada happened.

He enjoys the confidence of both the PM and Sonia and by offering to resign, he stooped to conquer. He is indispensable now and his foes will think twice before engaging him in a bout.

Snippets/ Mail Today, April 12, 2010

MPs ready to get more salary, perks

NOT many outside the privileged group share the feeling, but our honourable MPs believe they are a very hardworking lot and therefore should be paid a lot more than they now earn. Sometime later this month, the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha will witness rare unanimity when MPs cutting across party lines join hands to pass a resolution— moved by a committee comprising their own— that recommends a substantial hike in their salary and perks.

Currently, an MP’s salary and perks add up to about Rs 65,000 a month. Besides, he/ she gets free travel on both Indian Railways and business class by air, constituency allowance, daily allowance for signing the Parliament roster, free electricity and phone, office and secretarial allowances, etc.

All these add up to an amount that could make many whiz kids working in top MNCs green with envy. It is customary for MPs to vote themselves higher pay and attractive perks. This time, they have done one better. They are demanding a better standard of living not only for themselves but for their children and even their servants.

While MPs are now entitled to 40 trips a year to New Delhi from their constituencies with their wives or personal assistants, there is a move to extend 12 free trips by air ( six two- way tickets to New Delhi and back) for dependent children.

What’s more, they are even seeking allowances for the domestic help that most of them bring along to Delhi. There are minor differences within the committee on the last one. I am told that Punjab and Haryana assemblies have already shown the way and I have no doubt that before the current session ends, the MPs would have voted for themselves another round of freebies.

Advani sees in BJP’s history an echo of Christian events

THE brilliant ideas that L. K. Advani hatches in his mind never cease to amaze. Now that there is a new and younger team at the party’s helm, the writer in him— remember he began his career as a film critic— seems to have resurfaced.

While the party that he once headed pursues issues that belong to an era long bygone, the tech savvy leader used the worldwide web to reach his thoughts to the world. It is not the medium he uses, but the message that he seeks to convey that is pushing eyebrows northwards.

Last Easter weekend ( April 2- 4), Advani was at the Kumbh in Haridwar where he joined the Dalai Lama and thousands of sadhus, sants and assorted scholars on the banks of the Ganges and took a pledge to make the holy river pollution- free. On his return to the capital, he sat down on his comp and pounded out a few stray thoughts on his blog titled “ sthapana divas” ( Foundation Day). “ The party is exactly thirty years old today. In 1980, the party was launched in Mumbai on April 6, Easter Sunday. This year Easter Sunday fell on April 4. I happened to be at the Kumbh in Haridwar where one of the speakers was Father Dominic Emanuel. He casually mentioned that this function was being held on the eve of Easter. That gave me an opening to recall how both the Christian festivals of the week, Good Friday and Easter, had significance even for the BJP’s history. Good Friday is the day on which Jesus Christ was crucified. Easter Sunday is the day of Christ’s resurrection.

And the launching of the BJP on Easter Sunday was certainly our ‘ resurrection’.” I spoke with many senior BJP leaders, none of whom could figure out the import of Advani ji ’s jottings. Is he turning over a new leaf? Or is it that he wants to end his career just the way he had begun it— as a writer?

THE Prime Minister is off to Washington and among the many knotty issues that will accompany him is this one: Who will take over from K. M. Chandrashekhar as the new cabinet secretary two months from now? The options: Sudha Pillai or M. Ramachandran, both from the 1972 batch.

Sudha from the Kerala cadre is the senior most and her elevation means another glass ceiling broken as she will become the first woman head of the civil services.

But there is a hitch. Sudha is due to retire at the end of the month and in case she has to be accommodated as the first woman cabinet secretary, the government will have to appoint her as officer on special duty in the cabinet secretariat with an extension of her tenure in the cadre beyond May 1, 2010. But since this contravenes rules, the only option is to grant her an extension of two years. The other option is to make her a member secretary of the Planning Commission which gives her the status of minister of state, but I gather she is not keen to accept this. A more attractive option for her seems to be the Union Public Service Commission. Sudha is one of those who doesn’t have to chase post- retirement jobs. The jobs chase her.

Seedhi Baat/ Aajtak, April 11, 2010

2009 was a weak year: Akshay

Akshay Kumar admits 2009 was a lean year but he hopes to bounce back with Housefull this year.

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Snippets/ Mail Today, April 05, 2010

Governance agenda back on track

SO, AFTER a long gap of four years, the National Advisory Council is back with Sonia Gandhi once again heading it as the Chairperson. When set up shortly after the UPA had come to power in May 2004, it was often criticised as being a parallel power centre as Sonia enjoyed the rank of a cabinet minister and the NAC was given unrestricted access to all government documents, including cabinet files.

The NAC attracted further attention when, in 2006, Sonia got embroiled in the office of profit controversy and quit as its chief as well as a Lok Sabha member. She easily won reelection to Parliament but she did not return to the NAC which remained a defunct body. Even its website hosted by the National Informatics Centre simply said, “ This site is temporarily unavailable”. I am not surprised at the sudden decision to revive the NAC. The feathers in the crown of the UPA — the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the Rural Health Mission and the Right to Information Act, among others— were thanks in large measure to the vital role that the Council played in pushing these through in the UPA’s early years.

Since then, there is widespread feeling that the government has lost its way, particularly on the UPA’s social agenda where implementing policies and programmes that ensure delivery to the aam aadmi is first priority. Sonia is busy picking the members for the newly resurrected council which once constituted will meet once every month as in the past.

I believe that just as the government has decided to go in for a broad political consensus on programmes and legislation concerning national interest, the NAC under Sonia will interface with the civil leadership and provide feedback to the government to ensure that good governance is back on track. For first signs of that, I will keep checking the NAC website to see if it springs back to life.

Ministers learn that PM runs a tight ship indeed

MANMOHAN Singh is known as a prime minister who gives his ministers a free hand in running their departments. What is less known however is Manmohan’s habit of keeping a close watch on the departments, in particular, the financial health of units under the public sector. This was evident once again last week on the occasion of the inauguration of 47th National Maritime Week when Manmohan had a quiet tete- a- tete with the Minister of Shipping Shri G. K. Vasan where I understand he was busy quizzing the minister on matters like turnover and profits at our ports.
Normally, these are the kind of functions where the prime minister, or any other dignitary, pretends to be a keen listener but is actually very bored and can’t wait for it to be over. But Manmohan was different. What caught his attention was the theme for this year’s Maritime Week celebrations : “ Sea Faring: A Career of Opportunities”. Apparently, one of the speakers noted that there are about 50,000 ships sailing around the world at any point of time and the demand for new crew was estimated to be around 2 lakh sailors in the next five years alone. According to sources who attended the meeting, that’s when Manmohan smelt opportunity.

Remember, he is the man who unleashed the liberalisation process that now enables Indians and Indian companies to compete with the best anywhere in the world. He was all ears as the Shipping Secretary K Mohandas explained in detail about the immense potential in the sector and later as the Chairman of the Shipping Corporation of India gave a detailed account of the PSU. Don’t be surprised if the prime minister now keeps a close watch on the maritime sector. As long as there are jobs waiting to be filled and profits to be made, he believes Indians will be up there challenging the finest in the world for every job and every dollar.

FOR months now, the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of External Affairs, the National Security Council Secretariat, Home Ministry and many other ministries and departments have been on guard against cyber attacks originating in China aimed at destabilising the establishment. Now here is something to prove the existence of the menace within. Last week, the government issued a curious circular. It was curious because the government went to great lengths to clarify that it had not revised rates of overtime allowance for central government employees. The circular issued by the Ministry of Personnel said: “ It has been confirmed from the ministry of finance that OM NO 1( 4) 2010 E- II dated 27/ 3/ 2010 signed by M Rajan Chandranaydu, Under Secretary to the Government of India, purportedly issued by the Ministry of Finance is a fake.

It is clarified that no such instruction has been issued by this Department or Ministry of Finance.
Ministries/ Departments are advised not to take cognisance of the fake instructions being circulated in Central Government Offices”. It remains a mystery how such a fake order was issued on the letterhead of an Officer of the rank of deputy secretary and even more, how it came to be pasted on the walls of central government offices across the capital. An inquiry has now been ordered and it is hoped that the culprit, possibly someone at the lower level, will soon be caught.

But pity the poor babus who went on a splurge in anticipation of a largesse.

Power & Politics / Mail Today, April 5, 2010

TODAY, senior Union ministers are to meet with the leaders of the opposition parties to sort out differences over the contentious Women’s Reservation Bill.

Over the last weekend, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced that his government was ready to sit with the opposition parties to resolve differences over the nuclear liability Bill. Taken together, these convey one message: the UPA government has finally realised that it needs to get off the high horse before it falls off it. Eleven months ago, UPA II came back to power.

Technically, it wasn’t voted back to office.
The coalition leader, the Congress, has just over 200 seats in the 544 member Lok Sabha and even with all its alliance partners, UPA II falls short of a simple majority and has to depend on the support from outside of parties like the Samajwadi Party, Lalu Yadav’s RJD and Mayawati’s BSP for survival.

Yet, senior ministers and officials known to be close to the establishment strutted around the corridors of power and Parliament with an arrogance that belied this fragility. When opposition leaders sought to highlight genuine concerns about important legislation, the government, far from showing regard, displayed a determination to steamroll all opponents.

On the women’s reservation Bill for example, it roped in the support of the opposition BJP and the Communists to bulldoze “ friendly foes” like the SP and the RJD. The chickens may finally be coming home to roost. With a host of important legislation awaiting passage in the two houses of Parliament, the government now realises that it cannot afford to brazen it out any longer. Recently, members of the “ core group” in the government met to review the proceedings of Parliament during the brief but disastrous Budget session.

There is silent acknowledgement that a woeful lack of floor coordination has brought the government to this pass. Nothing illustrates this better than the confusion in the run- up to the introduction of the Nuclear Liability Bill which was to be piloted in the Lok Sabha a fortnight ago.

The Bill formed part of the list of business in the Lok Sabha, but shortly before it was to be introduced, Speaker Meira Kumar informed the house that she had received a request from the government that it does not intend to introduce the Bill in the house as slated. This was something unprecedented in Indian Parliamentary history.

The core group that consists of Pranab Mukherjee, AK Antony, P Chidambaram and Veerappa Moily was joined by Parliamentary Affairs Minister PK Bansal, as is the custom, when matters relating to Parliament and its proceedings are discussed.

Bansal’s earnestness is beyond question but the same cannot be said about his capability or efficiency. I suspect the government wished it had the likes of Priya Ranjan Das Munshi and Vayalar Ravi or even Pramod Mahajan or Sushma Swaraj who used their cross party connections to win bipartisan support to push through crucial legislation. Neither Bansal nor V Narayanaswamy, the affable junior minister for parliamentary affairs, seem up to their admittedly difficult assignments.

Many more important and contentious legislation are due to come up in the next few months.
Apart from the nuclear liability and women’s reservation bills, there are the Pensions Funds Regulatory Bill, the Foreign Universities Bill and the Communal Violence Bill, to name just a few.
In all these, the dividing line between supporter and opponent is blurred and the government will have to walk the tightrope to ensure that allies are not annoyed and opponents are won over.
There are no permanent friends or enemies in politics. It is all the more important to keep this truism in mind in the coming months when the Congress and its allies set out to face elections in important states like Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. Whether the Congress faces the polls in alliance with the DMK and the Trinamool Congress would depend to a large extent on how the party manages these allies in Parliament.

I understand that the core group, or the “ awesome foursome” as they are known, have in a reversal of recent policy decided to abandon the confrontationist model that has characterised the Congress in the first year of UPA II and adopt a consensual approach. Many of the prime minister’s big ticket reforms will come up for parliamentary scrutiny in the next few months. The Congress will need all the help it can hope to garner.

Already, HRD minister Kapil Sibal has spoken to Murli Manohar Joshi and I see many more hatchets being buried. I predict that UPA II will bend over backwards to win the support of even ideological opponents as long as they have a national perspective, which many of the Congress's own allies don’t.

Seedhi Baat /Aajtak, April 04, 2010

'BCCI a charitable institution'

IPL chairman Lalit Modi on the show Seedhi Baat says that the money earned from IPL is used to build cricket infrastructure.

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