Seedhi Baat / Aajtak, September 28, 2008

KAPOOR NAME IS MY ASSET:

Ranbir

Actor Ranbir Kapoor told me on Seedhi Baat that he values his family's legacy and wishes to take it forward.

Watch video: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, Part 5, part 6

Power & Politics/ Mail Today, September 29, 2008

CONVENTIONAL wisdom proclaims that the instincts of the likes of Arjun Singh, Shivraj Patil, Oscar Fernandes would send the Congress for a fairly long spell out of power. But wait. Don’t give up hope as yet. For most of us used to the predictable servility of Congressmen, there is something about young Rahul Gandhi that is refreshing and at the same time intriguing.

One day last week, I flipped from TV channel to channel and they were all showing the same “ breaking news” of Rahul terming POTA a “ failed law” and stressing on the need for stronger antiterrorism laws to deal with the increasing incidence of subversion across the country.

I pinched myself to make sure I had heard right, since his statement stood his party’s argument — that existing laws were enough to deal with terrorism — on its head. Not surprisingly, none of the embedded journalists on Rahul’s Discovery of India travels thought it fit to quiz him further, which perhaps explains why Rahul repeated the statement not once but several times. In times to come, we will get to know about the impact of his statement on the country’s internal security situation.

That’s the larger question that Rahul, I am sure, will one day get to address. For the moment, I will confine myself to his unconventional style that has baffled Congressmen, mystified media pundits and kindled some hope in his party men, particularly the younger lot who see him as the last white hope. To the well- entrenched seniors — the Patils, the Singhs et al — he is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. The party’s younger lot are clearly loving the suspense but the seniors have been on a razor’s edge in the last couple of years that Rahul has taken on a proactive role in party affairs. His is truly a dilemma: he can’t do much to the parent organisation which his mother controls, who, in turn, is guided by the seniors. So he is doing what his father did — creating a party within the party.

Nearly a quarter century ago, at the Congress Centenary in Mumbai, Rajiv Gandhi served a not- so- subtle warning to the Old Order with his famous “ Power Brokers” speech. He then assembled a team of young, dynamic and efficient partymen and women who were not only good at their jobs but knew how to keep the old fogies guessing.
Rahul is treading his father’s path, travelling a lot, talking a lot. And almost anything he says seems to cause heartburn among his senior colleagues.

“ I am open to the idea of becoming Prime Minister,” he once said, leaving several Congress’s prime ministerial hopefuls searching for new employment opportunities. On whistle- stop tours through the most backward hamlets in Karnataka, Orissa, UP, Bihar and Punjab, he threw his itinerary to the wind, shared dalchawal with the locals and once even accepted an invitation and stayed overnight with a poor family. Now this is vintage Nehru- Gandhi, bringing to mind Indira’s ride atop an elephant through Belchi in Bihar to commiserate with Dalit victims of atrocities; or Rajiv giving the slip to his security and driving through dusty Amethi to meet up with his constituents. In contrast, Sonia’s style has been conventional, which is why Congressmen feel safe with her. It’s Rahul’s unorthodox ways that has the old guard on pins.

Seedhi Baat/ Aajtak, September 21, 2008

'There should be no tolerance for terror'

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi says on Seedhi Baat that people who support terrorism and terrorists are opposed to strong laws.

watch video: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5

Power & Politics/Mail Today, September 22, 2008

THE CASSANDRAS have got it wrong once again and Shivraj Patil, the Serial Dresser who is also our Home Minister survives, which means a lot of ordinary lives will continue to be at risk. After 9/ 13, the airwaves were crackling with pundits and sundry analysts predicting Patil’s impending political death but last week after hunting down two terrorists in Delhi, he was on TV, scowl replaced by smile, as he congratulated the Delhi Police for a job well done.

Not only has he managed to retain his ornate room in North Block, his backers succeeded in torpedoing moves to appoint a junior minister for Internal Security. Remember, Patil had rejected demands for his resignation saying “ Why should I resign when I have the confidence of my leader?” And so, armed with that trust and nothing else, he continues to preside over the insecurity of 1.10 billion Indians.

I was always certain it would take more than pathetic performance to ease Patil out of office. Because he is special. He lost the 2004 Lok Sabha election from Latur and it is said that had he won, Patil and not Manmohan Singh would have been Sonia Gandhi’s choice as prime minister. The people of Latur truly deserve the nation’s gratitude for their political foresight. But the man dumped by his constituents was resurrected by his political masters because he has in him the virtues necessary for climbing up the Congress ladder.

For one, he is rootless, shuns factionalism, and is a devotee of Sai Baba and 10 Janpath.
The last of these has been a prerequisite for a job at North Block ever since Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980. Be it Giani Zail Singh or Buta Singh, they were all loyalists. Rajiv Gandhi did appoint Arun Nehru and P. Chidambaram as ministers of state for internal security but then one was a relative and other was good at his job.

Sonia Gandhi’s political instincts are quite different from Indira’s and Rajiv’s.
Both mother and son were not known to allow any leader to settle down on the job and kept changing chief ministers and Cabinet ministers. Sonia, on the other hand, is all for stability. Since she took over as Congress chief in 1998, most chief ministers have been allowed to complete their full terms while at the Centre, the UPA Cabinet has seen the minimum of tinkering irrespective of the performance of ministers.

Not many will remember that AR Antulay, Mahavir Prasad and Sisa Ram Ola are Cabinet ministers precisely because they, like Shivraj Patil, do nothing. So why single out Patil alone for punishment, particularly when his utility value has nothing to do with his efficiency as a minister? For one, as home minister, Patil gets to fly out in the ministry’s jet to all the trouble spots in the country and he must thank the Lord, Sonia too is seen commiserating with victims in Hyderabad, Jaipur, Bangalore and other far- flung places.

Lest you wonder how she manages to reach these places in a jiffy, let me tell you Patil’s ministry has an entire aircraft fleet at his beck and call. He then accompanies her. There is not only misuse of the official aircraft, Sonia also gets all the official trappings from state governments which otherwise she is not entitled to as a mere MP from Rae Bareily or even as the Congress chief.

Snippets / Mail Today, September 22, 2008

Our Prez is a school marm

THE GOVERNOR’S conference in New Delhi last week will be remembered more than anything else for the new side to her personality that President Pratibha Patil showed. It was the first gubernatorial meeting that she chaired and she was to the manor born. In the past, such conferences have seen the President giving the inaugural address, sipping tea and exchanging small talk and leaving, but Patil chose to preside over an entire session that lasted over four hours on the opening morning. This left some folks at least squirming in their seats. For one, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had to skip other engagements because protocol did not allow him to leave the venue as long as the President was around.

Her conduct of the session was, well, schoolmarmish. Governors were called according to alphabetic order of states and each one was allotted 15 minutes, though J& K’s N. N. Vohra, as a special case, was allowed much longer time. Not so lucky was West Bengal’s Gopal Gandhi, who was cut short and denied the chance to talk of his ( mis) adventure on the Nano.
She showed her concern for the elderly by allowing Andhra Pradesh’s Narain Dutt Tewari and a couple of others to place copies of their speeches on her table, so they were taken as read. And in typical classroom fashion, her finger reached for the buzzer each time a speaker had finished 14 of his allotted 15 minutes, to inform him that he had exactly one minute to wind up. I have a suggestion: Patil should give the presiding officers of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha a few lessons on how to conduct Parliament.

THE LAST week meant different things to different comrades.In Kerala, mallus celebrated Onam and in West Bengal, Singur continued to burn. You’d expect Prakash Karat to be either celebrating Onam with his fellow mallus or join the comrades to contain Mamata’s fury. He did neither. Those who keep track of his movements say he was spotted in, of all places, Scotland.Nothing mysterious about that since it was was at the University of Edinburgh, where he enrolled for his Master’s in Politics to hone his agitational skills and was rusticated for leading antiapartheid protests. He was later taken back on good conduct.With a general election that is certain to be bitterly fought coming up soon, it is being said that Comrade Karat went back to his alma mater to sharpen the very skills that has taken him to dizzying political heights. This time, he need fear neither rustication nor retribution.

No conviction, only convenience
ARE THE Congress Party and the UPA Government about to admit that terrorism is the biggest threat facing the country? What else could explain the Prime Minister talking about the need for stringent antiterror laws at the Governor’s conference last week and sundry Congress leaders taking the cue. Poor M Veerappa Moily, chairman of the Administrative Reforms Commission, found himself in a minority of one when his report submitted to the PM in June sought stringent anti- terror laws. About a month ago, home minister Shivraj Patil told me on the Seedhi Baat programme in Aaj Tak that his party has the mandate to repeal POTA and existing laws were enough.

An internal assessment by Congress leadership at state and central level shows that minority votes accruing to the party because of pandering will hardly make up for the loss of the majority community votes. This is alarming considering that Assembly elections are due in five states soon. Worse, the Congress’ hopes of winning over middle India with the N- deal have been badly dented by terrorism, and inflation has middle classes reeling.

With the BJP announcing that terrorism would be its main plank, it was left to National Security Advisor M. K. Narayanan to write to Patil, requesting him to process Narendra Modi’s demand for special anti- terrorism legislation in Gujarat. After the Delhi blasts, Shiela Dixit wants similar laws though instead of sitting on the file, her government should be giving consent to Afzal Guru’s hanging, whose death sentence is upheld by the Supreme Court. Even powerful POTA baiters like Lalu and Mulayam have opted for silence, a sign perhaps that even they realise it’s time to keep old habits under check. Which only proves that in politics, convictions don’t matter, only convenience does.

WITH THE N- deal all sewn up, it’s time to move on to pressing matters of the day.
When Manmohan Singh arrives in New York this week for the annual UN General Assembly, the city will still be reeling under the worst crash in financial markets in decades. And when he makes a brief visit to Washington to meet up with good friend George Walker Bush, the two will have more to talk about than just enriched uranium.

India is among the largest recipients of FII funds and the PM is expected to meet top bankers and investors and tell them that fundamentals here are strong enough. Last week, Manmohan called a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs as a preparatory exercise before the high- profile meetings in New York. Since it was an emergency meeting, no agenda papers were given in advance and one senior minister arrived assuming that the gathering was to discuss the issue of the swollen Kosi. It was only when the meeting began that the minister, with little grasp either of the Queen’s language or economic jargon, realised that something was amiss. Lehman Brothers, Merryl Lynch, AIG, Dow Jones, Nikkei, Footsie. The names were all Greek to him.

Finally, he interrupted to say he could understand nothing, at which time, the Finance Secretary and another senior official were asked to join by the minister’s side and explain all about economic meltdowns. The meeting continued with the officers trying to make sense of the deliberations for the minister’s benefit.
By the end of it all, the minister had stopped shaking his head vigorously, an acknowledgement perhaps he was now convinced Lehman Brothers was more dangerous than Kosi.

PRIME Minister Manmohan Singh threw in an uncharacteristic lecture last week at a book release function that was also attended by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan. He called for “ introspection to ensure judicial appointments at all levels are up to exacting standards. I also urge those responsible… to take steps to restore to the judiciary the majesty we would like our people to associate with it”.

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