08-27-2008, 12:33 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Invisible government
But, asks N.V.Subramanian, where is the PM?
26 August 2008: Do we have a government?
Apparently so. <b>Once in a while, a prime minister shows up, Manmohan Singh. Inaugurating some new course at an IIT in Assam, or launching a book, he mumbles something about preserving unity. His press advisors quickly work up the media to insert phoney muscularity into what he said, if he said anything at all. The press slavishly "reports" that the PM showed toughness hinting at whatever was the crisis of the day,</b> which since May has resided in Jammu and Kashmir.
<b>But is there any evidence that the PM has taken any initiative on the Amarnath land controversy, besides pleading with all the parties to do his job for him? And now, we are told by independent media reports that the government allowed the J and K situation to deteriorate to, in a sense, play off the Kashmiri separatists against the Jammu agitators, and put the blame for the erupting violence on the BJP and Sangha Parivar.</b> Now that that has boomeranged, a crackdown has been ordered, licence followed by police firing, resulting in unacceptable civilian deaths.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has been stepping up LoC ceasefire violations since May, and yesterday, the Pakistan army successfully covered for terrorist infiltrators in J and K. All the Centre has for response is "warnings" to Pakistan not to violate the ceasefire. Why isn't Pakistan taking the "warnings" seriously? One guess.<b> It perceives the Manmohan Singh government to be weak, weaker, in fact, after it won the trust vote by defections arranged by Amar Singh & Co.</b> True, the Pakistan army has never felt answerable to anyone in Pakistan save its own leadership. But it would embark on a course of LoC ceasefire violations and terrorist infiltrations based on its own cost-benefit analysis. It would certainly not squander an opportunity to up the ante against what it perceives to be a weak Indian government. And by allowing drift to uncontrolled violence in J and K, it has, after a fashion, invited small by growing Pakistani intervention. Unless the government orders a proportionate military response to Pakistani aggression, the Pakistan army will get bolder.
<b>But J and K and the LoC are not the only places where the government is missing. Manmohan Singh is missing on an area apparently dear to his heart, which is economic management. Inflation rate for the week ended 9 August has accelerated to 12.6 per cent, a sixteen-year-high, and the RBI's monetary measures have had no appreciable impact.</b> Earlier this month, the buzz was that C.Rangarajan, who had resigned from the PM's economic advisory council, and been nominated to the Rajya Sabha, was replacing P.Chidambaram as finance minister. But if there was any move to dump him, it was dropped. According to a senior business journalist, dropping Chidambaram would have proved that he had mismanaged the economy. And it would have appeared succumbing to pressure from Amar Singh, who had publicly wanted him gone for the inflation mess. In all this, the government seems scarily unperturbed about the crushing effect of inflation on people, and their certain show of wrath in the coming general elections.
Inflation, J and K, the bomb blasts in Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Bangalore⦠as neglectful as it has been on all this, <b>the government has focussed obsessively on the Indo-US nuclear deal, in which Americans and the rest of NSG are seeking far-reaching Indian concessions, concessions that would lead to closure of India's military nuclear programme. It is incredible that the government is selling out on national security as if it's never to face the nation and answer to it. </b>And even if it be true that the nuclear deal has no traction with a large majority of voters, surely high inflation hurts everybody, but especially the poor and the middle class, and nobody will give mandate to a government that is soft on terrorism. <b>General elections are months away, and unbelievably, no one in the government seems particularly worried at there being little to show. This is a government that not just not works. There is no government.</b>
N.V.Subramanian is Editor, NewsInsight.net. Har-Anand has published his new second novel, Courtesan of Storms.
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But, asks N.V.Subramanian, where is the PM?
26 August 2008: Do we have a government?
Apparently so. <b>Once in a while, a prime minister shows up, Manmohan Singh. Inaugurating some new course at an IIT in Assam, or launching a book, he mumbles something about preserving unity. His press advisors quickly work up the media to insert phoney muscularity into what he said, if he said anything at all. The press slavishly "reports" that the PM showed toughness hinting at whatever was the crisis of the day,</b> which since May has resided in Jammu and Kashmir.
<b>But is there any evidence that the PM has taken any initiative on the Amarnath land controversy, besides pleading with all the parties to do his job for him? And now, we are told by independent media reports that the government allowed the J and K situation to deteriorate to, in a sense, play off the Kashmiri separatists against the Jammu agitators, and put the blame for the erupting violence on the BJP and Sangha Parivar.</b> Now that that has boomeranged, a crackdown has been ordered, licence followed by police firing, resulting in unacceptable civilian deaths.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has been stepping up LoC ceasefire violations since May, and yesterday, the Pakistan army successfully covered for terrorist infiltrators in J and K. All the Centre has for response is "warnings" to Pakistan not to violate the ceasefire. Why isn't Pakistan taking the "warnings" seriously? One guess.<b> It perceives the Manmohan Singh government to be weak, weaker, in fact, after it won the trust vote by defections arranged by Amar Singh & Co.</b> True, the Pakistan army has never felt answerable to anyone in Pakistan save its own leadership. But it would embark on a course of LoC ceasefire violations and terrorist infiltrations based on its own cost-benefit analysis. It would certainly not squander an opportunity to up the ante against what it perceives to be a weak Indian government. And by allowing drift to uncontrolled violence in J and K, it has, after a fashion, invited small by growing Pakistani intervention. Unless the government orders a proportionate military response to Pakistani aggression, the Pakistan army will get bolder.
<b>But J and K and the LoC are not the only places where the government is missing. Manmohan Singh is missing on an area apparently dear to his heart, which is economic management. Inflation rate for the week ended 9 August has accelerated to 12.6 per cent, a sixteen-year-high, and the RBI's monetary measures have had no appreciable impact.</b> Earlier this month, the buzz was that C.Rangarajan, who had resigned from the PM's economic advisory council, and been nominated to the Rajya Sabha, was replacing P.Chidambaram as finance minister. But if there was any move to dump him, it was dropped. According to a senior business journalist, dropping Chidambaram would have proved that he had mismanaged the economy. And it would have appeared succumbing to pressure from Amar Singh, who had publicly wanted him gone for the inflation mess. In all this, the government seems scarily unperturbed about the crushing effect of inflation on people, and their certain show of wrath in the coming general elections.
Inflation, J and K, the bomb blasts in Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Bangalore⦠as neglectful as it has been on all this, <b>the government has focussed obsessively on the Indo-US nuclear deal, in which Americans and the rest of NSG are seeking far-reaching Indian concessions, concessions that would lead to closure of India's military nuclear programme. It is incredible that the government is selling out on national security as if it's never to face the nation and answer to it. </b>And even if it be true that the nuclear deal has no traction with a large majority of voters, surely high inflation hurts everybody, but especially the poor and the middle class, and nobody will give mandate to a government that is soft on terrorism. <b>General elections are months away, and unbelievably, no one in the government seems particularly worried at there being little to show. This is a government that not just not works. There is no government.</b>
N.V.Subramanian is Editor, NewsInsight.net. Har-Anand has published his new second novel, Courtesan of Storms.
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