Monday, November 21, 2011

This year’s Jaipur Literature Festival was dominated by themes of war, occupation and destitution

Arindam Chaudhuri is Delhi franchise holder for i1 Super Series

Whose Land Is It Anyways...

Author journalist John Lee Anderson tells me one of the most jolting stories of our times; the story of Ali from Iraq. While looking for a story in the battle zone, Anderson came across the young man in Baghdad. Ali had turned into a serial killer to take vengeance for his brother who had been slaughtered by ultras of his own sect a few weeks before. Ali had taken the solemn vow on the Holy Koran that he would slaughter 10 men of that militia for each of his deceased brother’s fingers.

When Anderson bumped into him, Ali had already settled a quarter of his account. But of the 25 he killed, not all were militiamen. Quite a few of them were their innocent kin too. After every slaughter, Ali used to sever off one or the other of his victims organs – noses, ears, toes, eyeballs – and bury it near his brother’s grave. Their mother used to offer Fateha on the grave and shout out the name of the person killed to his buried son. Ali told Anderson that he was no longer afraid and felt closer to his creator. In Ali’s labyrinth of a heart, he was sure that he was following God's will.

So are you enough jolted? Well, take this. Ali, the serial killer, was clandestinely collaborating with the American soldiers too. He used to lure fighters to the firing range of the US soldiers where they were either captured or killed.

The US soldiers who were paying him didn’t have the faintest of idea as to what they were actually doing: hiring a serial killer. Needless to say, they were unaware of the after-effects too.

The story of occupation has no romanticism. Even if it has, it vanishes when the conflict becomes up, close and personal.

“Ali’s story is severe, perhaps, but is not a one-off case. Retribution is a notion that is universal, yes, the intensity might change. In fact, vengeance is one of the keys in understanding conflict itself. Once the slaughter commences, it becomes extremely tricky to stop, for each drop of blood that is shed demands one more to even the score,” laments Anderson.

Iraq, Anderson believes, will continue to gyrate in this concentric circle in the time to come. But he is not the lone man pessimistic about an occupied land. There are others too. Atiq Rahimi looks every tad the French in terms of his idea of fashion and erudition. Rahimi, as it becomes obvious, appreciates the pleasures. He is a thinker and a food-lover. And to continue with his two loves undisturbed, he also happens to carry both French and Afghan citizenship. But scratch him a bit and you will find a man lost in identity. "When I'm in Afghanistan, I become French. In France, I'm Afghan." When Rahimi laments this, one cannot help but wonder on the ways of the world.

Ask him what he thinks future holds for his homeland, Rahimi sheds off his French garb and turns a realist. “I don’t see the end in the near future. There’s a problem with the strategy itself. Protective military operations in Afghanistan will not cut much teeth."

David Finkel, the author of the much celebrated book on Iraq, The Good Soldiers, tries to focus on the men who go for war than the war itself.

Finkel, who marched to Baghdad, embedded with the 2-16 – a battalion with an average age of 19 – during the reinforcement in 2007, brings forth the private conflict of the soldiers he interviews or sees. By divulging their trepidation, self-doubt and the conflict of the soul that most of these youngsters go through when they are asked to follow orders and do some of the horrific things in a war, Finkel actually exhumes the human inside them. He lets the world see a group of soldiers that time and again dither erratically from full conviction in what they are doing to a total loss of conviction in their assignment. The romanticised picture of the American GI flying to Baghdad for his duty and “protecting the world” falls flat as it becomes obvious that these are common adolescent Americans being asked to undergo odd circumstances on an every day basis.

“Unlike other novels and reportages that have come out from the combat so far, this is the first novel to actually attempt and tell the tale of the soldiers themselves. The 2-16 is deployed not in the safe environments of the Green Zone but on the fringes of the town in one of the most treacherous areas possible. The story I tell is of the corporeal and emotional toll the conflict takes on the 2-16 and their kin back in the US. The Good Soldiers records the ordeal suffered by soldiers terrified to leave their base because of the unvarying peril of meeting unreceptive rebels or being the next casualty of an improvised explosive device, the next basis for their commanding officer to call a wife or mother with dreadful news,” he explains.

After listening to Finkel, it becomes extremely difficult to brand Iraq saga into a straight forward, black and white, good versus evil story. In fact, it is the story of the difficult choices people are often asked to make. It is the story about people trying to choose the slighter of many evils at any time feasible.

Noted Palestinian writer and poet Ahdaf Soueif tells the story of the greatest injustice of them all, the denial of the homeland to the Palestinians. She also observes that a just resolution of the conflict will lessen tensions in numerous other parts of the globe. But she too appears to be pessimistic about the peace process.

Soueif does not believe Israel is sincerely looking forward to peace with the Palestinians. "It suits Israel and the elites to have this eternal 'peace process', this pretence of seeking peace," she explains.

But she indeed is optimistic about a change in the American perspective which is connected to Israel with the umbilical cord. There is a increasing pro-Palestinian opinion among young Americans, predominantly among young East Coast and West Coast Jewish Americans. This, Soueif insists, is exclusive of the staunchly pro-Palestinian Americans. “So things are shifting. If that voice became more widespread then there is no basis why America couldn't be a sincere negotiator. AIPAC and other Zionist groups will see an eventual fall. The groups like ‘J Street’ have made a dent. However, the floodgate will take time to open,” quips Soueif.

Until then, Soueif says, people will continue to see US and Israel as Siamese twins.

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Friday, November 18, 2011

Politics: Rich are benefiting more

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A weakened PMO and indisciplined coalition partners are creating problems for UPA-II

Manmohan Singh is one of the most successful politicians of our times. As the Prime Minister of India, he has been able to bring stability to the country’s politics and economy. And I am talking through experience, having seen Manmohan Singh from close quarters in the Upper House of Parliament. He is a person of impeccable personal integrity. Many people may regard Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru or Indira Gandhi as more successful Prime Ministers. Nehru was functioning in a very turbulent time and amid difficult situations. He laid down the foundation of the secular Indian democracy but failed to establish a welfare state of socialist principles.

Indira Gandhi was extremely powerful as a politician but she failed to take the Opposition along with her at any point of time. P. V. Narasimha Rao, with the help from Manmohan Singh, succeeded in ushering in some fundamental changes in the Indian economic system. His undoing was his failure to bring about social stability in times of communal turmoil.

In 2004, when the UPA came to power for the first time, Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi evolved a system of governance which may not exactly be called a Cabinet form of government. Here was a leader who didn’t hold the reins of the political process but was accountable to Parliament and to the nation for every act of his government. And there was a leader who held real political power without accountability to Parliament or to the nation. This system worked perfectly in the first five years of the UPA. In fact, it allowed Manmohan Singh — not very well-versed in political machinations — to focus on governance and revamping of the Indian economy. It also allowed a coalition system to evolve in a way that it did not hinder the functioning of the government. Congress president Sonia Gandhi managed the pulls and pressures of a coalition and allowed Manmohan Singh a free hand in governance.

Any new experiment has its pitfalls and limitations. The system evolved during UPA-I could work only up to a point. The problems which were brushed under the carpet during the UPA’s first term started surfacing in its second term. That is the undoing of UPA in its second term. First, the successes of the first term of UPA were attributed mainly to Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. The Congress party never gave any credit to Manmohan Singh nor did he ever seek any.

During the first term, the coalition partners and ministers were not very sure of themselves but the second victory gave them much confidence. So, most of Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet colleagues, whether from the Congress or from other parties, started behaving as if they were not functioning as a part of a Cabinet system but were independently controlling their own ministries. Most of them think that in all probability, Manmohan Singh would not be around the next time and so they are looking more towards Sonia Gandhi. They go directly to the UPA chairperson if they have to discuss anything important. They do not look up to Manmohan Singh for guidance any more.

Manmohan Singh was not given a free hand in choosing his Cabinet. He was held to ransom by the whims and fancies of coalition partners. It has weakened the PMO and the department today is even less powerful than it used to be under the weak leaderships of V. P. Singh or P. V. Narasimha Rao. Now there are three centres of power in the government — Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi — and sometimes waves and instructions emanating from these centres are not in sync but rather at cross. The Prime Minister has not been able to assert himself.

Rising inflation results not only from pursuing wrong economic policies, it’s because of wrong decisions taken at wrong times or in other words because of not taking some tough decisions at the right time. UPA in its first term was more successful because circumstances, both globally and nationally, were conducive. The coalition partners were not very aggressive. There were not many upheavals and hiccups.

The UPA uses the aam aadmi plank in every election. But, they are taking the aam aadmi for a ride. Apart from the launch of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and a few other similar programmes, little has been done to benefit the common man or the rural poor. And the benefits of even those few small gestures have failed to percolate down to the needy. The credit goes to corruption. The real beneficiaries of the government policies of late have been the rich. I think it’s not necessary to elaborate the term “rich” here as we all know who they are.

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Tuesday, November 15, 2011

CM unveils a new water treatment plant in Lucknow

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Uttar pradesh infrastructure: Clean water, cleaner Gomti

Uttar Pradesh’s capital Lucknow has a new, unusually positive, thing to boast of — Asia’s largest sewage treatment plant which can take care of 345 million litres of sewage per day. Constructed at a cost of Rs 360.99 crores on 300 acres of land, the plant has four pumping stations. In addition to treating the waste, the plant will also generate 15 kilowatt of electricity and produce 100 tonnes of fertiliser as by-products.

The city’s existing water treatment plant is capable of treating only 42 million litres, leaving the rest to flow into the Gomti, the city’s biggest source of drinking water. The new plant, dedicated to the people on Mayawati’s birthday, January 15, has been constructed keeping in mind the city’s needs by 2040. For now, it will ease the pressure off the old water treatment plant that is of much smaller capacity.

According to chief minister Mayawati, it was just one of the 53 mega infrastructure projects designed for the city. The government intends to make the state capital attractive to tourists, both desi and foreign.

This is, of course, apart from wooing urban voters to her fold. Mayawati's traditional vote bank has been in rural areas so far. “For the first time we have a majority government and are paying as much attention to urban areas as to rural ones,” says the BSP supremo. All the aforementioned projects are under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and have to be completed by 2012, the year UP would go for assembly elections.

Alok Ranjan, UP’s principal secretary for urban development points out that it is for the first time that infrastructure projects on such a large scale are being taken up in the state. “No city in Uttar Pradesh has sewer lines in more than 30 per cent of its area. Under the new projects, the sewer lines will cover upto 80 per cent of the area. In Lucknow itself, sewer lines running over 700 kilometres have been constructed.”

With the new water treatment plant already functioning, we can hope to have a cleaner Gomti now.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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Saturday, November 12, 2011

Tribals go ahead with their ritual despite court embargo

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Orissa Rituals: Tradition over law

Court directions and administrative orders seem to lose relevance when it comes to customs and traditions. The Sulia Yatra of Bolangir is the latest example of this. Every year, the Sulia Yatra festival is observed in Bolangir district of Orissa on the first Tuesday of Pausha month. As part of an ancient practice, tribals sacrifice animals such as goats, buffaloes, hens etc to their deities to appease them. This year it fell on January 12.

The Orissa High Court in its interim directive had asked the district administration of Bolangir to follow the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. Despite the court orders, the ritual of the sacrifice of thousands of animals took place before the Sulia shrine. During the festival, the rituals are performed at three places namely Bada Khala, Sana Khala and Nua Khala which come under Khairagura and Kumuria villages.

“Although Section 144 of the CrPC was enforced at Sana Khala, Bada Khala and Nua Khala, the sacrifice of animals took place in the presence of armed police personnel and senior officials,” said Santanu Kumar Nayak, convenor, Sulia Samskar Manch. He informs that the High Court has been issuing orders to the district administration every year for the last four years to prevent animal sacrifice in the name of ritual, but every year the tribals go ahead with their practice.

Earlier, the district administration in association with Sulia Samskar Manch had launched an awareness campaign against the bloody ritual. The district administration had taken up special drive with meetings, rallies and leaflet distribution in the villages of Sualia Jatra in Deogaon and Gudvella blocks of the district. Anganwadi workers, self helf groups (SHG) and school children were also involved in the drive.

However, since the awareness campaign has been yielding no results, the district administration is planning to initiate action against the offenders. “We found carcasses of beheaded animals here. Action would be taken against the lawbreakers,” additional SP (Bolangir) Srikant Mishra said. R K Patnaik, sub-collector, Bolangir too talked of taking action against the tribals. Meanwhile, more than 40 persons including the priest of the tribals have been served notices under Sec 106 of Cr PC under which they have to sign a bond for maintaining peace for a period of three years.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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'Thorns to Competition' - You can order your copy online from here
IIPM Mumbai Campus