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Look Back and Wonder Delhi: I.K. Gujral may now have
the prefix "former prime minister" stuck to his name, but one thing that still
seems to bother him is: who leaked the Jain Commission report? The hero of Jalandhar, who
is reluctantly packing his bags to leave 7 Race Course Road, cannot help mulling over the
fact that if it weren't for the Jain report he would have continued to be prime minister.
Even while attending a farewell party hosted by CBI Director D.R. Karthikeyan at the
agency's headquarters last week, that was the question uppermost on his mind. Perhaps
sensing Gujral's mood, the CBI chief in his thank you speech promised to speed up the
inquiry into the leak and provide the answer. But the fact is that it doesn't really
matter: Gujral is already a former prime minister and Karthikeyan too will soon become a
former director. As for the author of the report, Justice M.C. Jain has already bid
farewell -- having left for Jodhpur after the inquiry commission was wound up.
Unchanged Convention
Delhi: The
Central Hall of Parliament would have been the venue of Atal Bihari Vajpayee's swearing-in
ceremony but for a firm "No" from President K.R. Narayanan. The BJP's argument
was that if Chandra Shekhar could be administered the oath of office in the forecourt of
Rashtrapati Bhavan, then why not Vajpayee in the safer and spacious Central Hall. But
Narayanan was unwilling. The swearing-in of all prime ministers in the past has always
been done in the precincts of the Rashtrapati Bhavan. And all, barring Chandra Shekhar,
have taken their oaths in the Ashoka Hall. Since the President appoints the prime
minister, he does not leave his Bhavan for this purpose. That was the last of the issues
to be settled before the presidential communiqué was issued appointing Vajpayee as prime
minister.
Shifting Sands
Delhi: During
the heyday of the Non-Aligned Movement, asking foreign forces to quit the Indian Ocean was
an article of faith. Its corollary was the call to the US to pull out from its island base
of Diego Garcia, some 1,500 km south of India. With the end of the Cold War and India
routinely carrying out joint exercises with the US off Indian waters, the concept has lost
whatever salience it once had. The Indian position has now been given a decent burial.
Departing from Port Louis after a four-day official visit, Vice-President Krishan Kant
declared that India was "fully with" Mauritius in whatever stand the island
nation took on the issue. Hand it to the erstwhile Young Turks to give new and creative
interpretations to failed policies. Or was it just a case of Kant getting washed overboard
by his maiden visit abroad?
Eating His Words
Bhopal: Manak
Aggarwal, spokesman of the party's Madhya Pradesh unit, is a typical Congressman who knows
on which side the bread is buttered. An acolyte of deposed Congress chief Sitaram Kesri,
he was so livid with the "conspiracy" against his great leader that he promptly
issued a statement condemning attempts by "certain leaders rejected by the
people" (read Arjun Singh) to oust Kesri by using unconstitutional methods. By the
time the statement landed in newspaper offices, news came that the CWC had replaced Kesri
with Sonia Gandhi. Worried that his remarks might be misconstrued as being directed
against "madam", he immediately went about withdrawing his statement. With most
newspapers obliging, Aggarwal now hopes that the new regime will allow him to continue in
his post.
Shirtless Revelry
Patna: Chief
Minister Rabri Devi's official residence on Patna's Anne Marg became a high-risk zone for
ministers and ruling party MLAs on the day of Holi. Wiser from the bitter experiences of
the past, not a single minister turned up to greet Laloo Yadav and his wife in the
morning. But RJD supporters and mediapersons who showed up soon lost their shirts and
kurtas to a band of Laloo faithfuls which went on a stripping spree. The revelry was
matched only by the ribald folk-songs, mostly at the expense of the BJP. The more orderly
celebrations were reserved for the evening when politicians, officials and members close
to the Yadav clan trooped in sporting spotless whites to offer gulal (dry colour) to the
couple. "Where were you in the morning?" Laloo asked one senior minister.
"Saheb, last time you ordered for my kurta to be taken off. This time I wasn't sure
you would stop at just that," came the reply.
Bureaucrat Bashing
Patna: Politicians
could easily have taken strong exception to it. As far as Union Government's Secretary for
Rural Development N.C. Saxena went, he was only pulling up the bureaucrats when he accused
them of behaving like politicians -- English-speaking ones at that. Stung by reports that
the Rs 1,177 crore allocated for rural development in Bihar for 1997-98 was not reaching
the poor, Saxena sent off a missive to Bihar Chief Secretary B.P. Verma last week.
"The development machinery has nearly collapsed today," Saxena said. "Many
civil servants have become like politicians -- corrupt, with short-term targets, narrow
horizons, feudal outlook ..." To add insult to injury, three days later the Patna
High Court observed that most officials in the state were corrupt.
Verma reacted strongly to the criticism. "Bihar seems to
have become a soft target for everybody these days," he said. Added state Finance
Minister Shanker Prasad Tekriwal: "He (Saxena) has over-stepped his brief." The
state Government will write to the Centre demanding action against Saxena. But if Saxena
has attracted brickbats, there are bouquets too. The president of the Bihar State
Administrative Services Association, Shashi Bhushan Verma, feels, "There's at least
one IAS officer who has the guts to call a spade a spade." Says the state IAS
Officers' Association President Abhimanyu Singh: "Instead of taking offence to the
letter, we should do some soul-searching." But what about the politicians?
Housing Disaster
Mumbai: It's
become almost routine in Mumbai: house collapses that snuff out precious lives, followed
by inquiries that are forgotten as soon as the incident fades from public memory. The
latest disaster killed 17 people after a six-storey building in suburban Malad keeled over
on to a neighbouring chawl (slum). The 14-year-old structure had already been declared
unsafe by the municipal authorities. In the past two years alone, 87 people have been
killed in four major building collapses in the city. It includes 28 killed in Navre
building collapse, 17 buried when the Tapadia building at Fort caved in, 15 dead in the
Poonam Chambers collapse and 10 killed when the Dadar Railway Post Office crumbled.
As S.S. Tinaikar, former commissioner of the Mumbai Municipal
Corporation, says, these are but a few of those expected to collapse. "You should be
expecting many more to come down," he says matter-of-factly. "In the '70s and
'80s there were a number of buildings which were built with spurious material by builders
who have simply vanished." For the Government, though, a house collapse ends up as
just another piece of statistics.
Pen Politics
Bhubaneswar: Barring
one, all newspaper editors who contested the elections this time round came out with
flying colours. Chief Minister J.B. Patnaik's editor-son-in-law, Soumya Ranjan Patnaik,
was the one to lose out in his re-election bid from Bhubaneswar. The winners include
Tathagata Satpathy, editor of Dharitri, who was elected from Dhenkanal; Bhartuhari Mahtab,
editor of Prajatantra, from Cuttack; and Ranjib Biswal, owner of Samay, from
Jagatsinghpur. Even Kharavela Swain, who edits his own weekly Bishesh Khabar, won on a BJP
ticket from Balasore.
Given their new clout as MPs, there is speculation that the
media war would intensify in Orissa. These editor-MPs are expected to broaden their
influence and the favourite tool would be their respective newspapers. The political
slugfest over, the media war is about to begin.
Long Way to Extradition
Guwahati: Anup
Chetia, secretary of the banned United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), should consider
himself lucky to be in Dhaka's Central Jail, away from the Indian authorities who want him
for murder. A court in Dhaka admitted a chargesheet against Chetia last week, ensuring
that he would stay in the jail for some time to come. This sets back indefinitely India's
plans to have him extradited.
"During Khaleda Zia's regime, the ULFA got support from
Bangladesh. The government might have changed with Sheikh Hasina, but the administration
remains the same," says a senior police official. Wanted in India in connection with
the Sanjoy Ghose murder case, among a host of other charges, Chetia was arrested in
Bangladesh last December and charged with illegal entry. Given its dismal extradition
record, Chetia would only add to the External Affairs Ministry's long list of diplomatic
failures.
Major Sham
Hyderabad: In
the battlefield or outside, you can always depend on a fellow soldier. Well, not always.
For once, this sense of kinship in the armed forces proved misplaced. In fact, all those
who put money in Major (retd) Chandra Bhushan Shrivastava's Elite Group of companies are
now baying for his blood. To their horror, over a thousand serving and retired officers of
the three services recently found that Shrivastava, a former officer of the Electrical and
Mechanical Engineers Corps, had fled the coop. And with him has gone the life's savings
and other earnings -- at least Rs 15 crore in all -- they had invested during the past
seven years. Offering unusually high interest rates of 22 per cent to 27 per cent,
Shrivastava had lured them into depositing large sums with his companies, of which he is
managing director. Shrivastava's wife, sons and nephews, who are on the board of the group
companies -- Elite Finance and Leasing, Elite Global Finance, Sarvatra Builders, Elite
Restaurant, Elite Dairy Farms and Elite Automobiles -- have also disappeared. Meanwhile,
he has petitioned a city court to declare him insolvent with liabilities totalling Rs 6.5
crore.
Panic-stricken investors have appealed to Governor C.
Rangarajan to help bring the Shrivastavas to book, as also the conniving staff of the
Indian Overseas Bank on Mahatma Gandhi Road in Secunderabad. "Recovery of money to
pay back the depositors is unlikely because he claims to be insolvent," says Deputy
Commissioner of Police S. Prabhakar Reddy, who is trying to track him down. Even if the
money is somehow recovered, the major will never be forgiven for breach of faith.
Shunted Out
Calcutta: Jyotirmoy
Mondal's transfer order last week would have been seen as a routine exercise, were it not
for the fact that he is the principal accountant general who last year initiated the probe
into unauthorised holding of personal ledger accounts (PLAs) in the state. It had upset
the West Bengal Government's tall claims to financial propriety. Mondal's abrupt transfer,
many believe, means that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) is also susceptible to
political interference. Sympathisers in the CAG not only entertained periodic visits from
senior officials of the Jyoti Basu Government, but may have caused the delay in tabling of
the final report. It now appears that the report, supposed to have been tabled in
February, may not be made public until after the panchayat elections in the state due for
May. Mondal, insiders say, may be paying the price for trying to take his investigation to
a logical conclusion. |
