‘Minus-avarice’ Antony

AK antony, congress mp, kerala

Even for his ideological rivals, one scene will always remain in their minds as vintage AK Antony stuff… then Kerala Chief Minister, now Union Defence minister, vacating his chief ministerial bungalow with just a picture of his mother. The man, who a few people uncharitably call parsimonious, has few belongings even now.

Never scared to take a principled stand, even opposing late Indira Gandhi on imposing Emergency, Antony has been known always as a ‘people’s politician’. In fact, commoners in Kerala admire him as the Lal Bahadur Shastri of the South. “Political differences apart, Antony is among the very few admirable politicians in Kerala. Though he belongs to a bourgeoisie party like Congress, all of us respect and adore him as a leader of the masses,” says CPI leader and MLA from Cherthala, the native place of Antony, P Thilothaman. That says something, coming from a partisan Red politician!

Antony has always been famous for his values and simplicity. While he was the Kerala CM, Opposition members joked about his elaborated simplicity: lunch at the Secretariat canteen, travelling by an Ambassador car. Veteran journalist Harihar Swarup once wrote about Antony’s austere living in Delhi: his sole possession at the ministerial residence was a transistor. And for Congress Vichar Vibhag vice-chairman and KPCC member Jayaprakash Panicker, Antony is a seed that Congress can sow anywhere without worrying about the crop.

His wife Elizabeth, who works as a bank officer, owns some land and a few gold ornaments. Antony has no other wealth of his own. He was born in a poor Roman Catholic family and had to struggle at every step, hardships that steeled him. Despite his religious background, he fought the church and its ills all his life, so much so that he was branded as a heretic....Continue

Only a united world can fight global terrorism and usher in peace

Take for instance, GPS and satellite phone that can be used from any part of the world, making it unfeasible for the victim country to track the devices. In such cases, almost all countries need to come together and share information about any susceptible movements.

A report released on December 3, 2008, titled 'World at Risk' talks about possible WMDs attack on US soil in the next few years to come. The same report states that "were one to map terrorism and weapons of mass destruction today, all roads would intersect in Pakistan" and bluntly singles out Pakistan as a prime suspect.

Rice's recent visit was primarily aimed at decreasing the chances of next attack on the US soil. However, it also acts an opportunity for Pakistan to undo its age-old image of being a pro-terrorist country. But will Pakistan, with the help of Ms Rice and thus US, eliminate its domestic terror camps and further help the world fight against terrorism? Time can never tell, but the sooner it is, the better!....Continue

IIPM Arindam Chaudhuri 4Ps Business & Marketing Business & Economy Kkoooljobs Planman Media Planman Consulting Planman Marcom Planman Technologies Planman Financial Planman Motion Pictures GIDF The Daily Indian IIPM Think Tank
The Sunday Indian

What is the point in creating when there’s so much of pain and uncertainty around?

And, if you leave out some of these mad men, we do have a reasonably stable democracy that is now being repeatedly invaded by barbaric medieval folk whose every act is redolent of Stone Age cruelties. Snuffing out innocent lives is their idea of life. This “idea” is not about living, it is about dying! You have to confront this at close range to feel the hurt and angst that we in Mumbai do.

The only kind of reflection that makes any sense after all this is the one that promises to throw up credible solutions. What civil society needs is to find actionable inputs – and to ask those who are responsible for our safety, why on earth have they failed to create terror-proof mechanisms? Why are cops still armed with World War I rifles and defective gear, while the terrorists have no trouble barging into high-security areas armed with sophisticated automatic rifles, grenades and RDX? How come there was no attack in America after 9/11 and why is it that China never sees such acts of terror?

The civilised among us live in inclusive societies built around all kinds of freedoms. Without these rights – including the one that helps us create – life for us is meaningless. Yet as we are today, we feel thankful if we manage to survive till the next day. And make a note of this: we are weighed under this collective sense of hopelessness despite being in the majority. Yes, this is not resilience; this is, if anything, the powerlessness of the majority.

A major problem concerns the scores of competing identities in India. We continue to be divided along caste and religious lines. There are so many languages and castes and sub-castes, and in recent months we have seen all sorts of regional identities receiving disproportionate space in the media. Yet for the superficial and gullible folk, all this passes for democracy! And this fragility of ours is known to the entire world – especially those who have more homogenous populations and scientifically thought-up systems to counter the omnipresent threat from global terrorism. Why can we not close our ranks and strengthen our porous borders and so-called soft terrorist targets? What’s so soft about these that, even though we claim to be the world’s largest democracy, we are unable to put foolproof security systems in place? And ah, well, the Taj Mahal and Oberoi-Trident hotels were certainly not soft targets! Is it not a shame that our security forces could manage to catch just one terrorist alive – who too, by the way, could have died had he been more grievously injured than he was? What have our security agencies done – apart from passing the buck? Surely we deserve to be told why they failed to get wind of the meticulously planned attacks?....Continue

IIPM Arindam Chaudhuri 4Ps Business & Marketing Business & Economy Kkoooljobs Planman Media Planman Consulting Planman Marcom Planman Technologies Planman Financial Planman Motion Pictures GIDF The Daily Indian IIPM Think Tank
The Sunday Indian

Army ignores all politicians in Pakistan’

Captain Alok Bansal, a serving Naval officer and Research Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis, tells Mayank Singh that politicians in Pakistan want peace, but not the Army and ISI

What lies ahead in Indo-Pak relations?

I feel that developments will affect Indo-Pak relations but not very significantly, if the US manages to pressurize Pakistan adequately. Recent developments have indicated that Pakistani Army and its rogue intelligence agency, ISI, are not under political control. The US might either take action against Lashkar (Jamaat ud Dawa) unilaterally or force Pakistan to hand over some of the people demanded by India to diffuse the situation.

Do you foresee any military options being exercised?

That possibility now is bleak but if the 20 men are not handed over and the issue does not fade from public memory, India may be forced to carry out a surgical strike on LeT HQ at Muridke or even target killing of its leadership by covert action.

Is Pakistan involved in the carnage?

I personally feel the recent attacks have been carried out by terrorists from LeT who have been influenced by Al Qaeda and trained by sections of Pak Army and ISI. The political government was neither consulted nor aware of the operations. The political leadership in Pakistan genuinely wants to improve relations with India but there is a strong bureaucratic-military resistance.

What according to you is the internal state of Pakistan?

Pakistan is a withering state and is being kept together by its Army. If the Army is weakened the state will wither away. The economy is in bad shape. The entire Pakhtoon belt has been affected by the virus of Islamic radicalism and the other ethnic troubles.

What can be done to control such activities?

Maritime security needs to be beefed up, at present the politicians and bureaucrats do not understand matters maritime. We need to set up an elaborate coastal security infrastructure, with coastal radar stations, transponders on fishing boats and marine police. Fishing needs to be regulated and vessels operating beyond a certain distance must have some communication equipment. There are multiple agencies dealing with maritime issues, to begin with an expert on maritime security, serving or retired, must be appointed as maritime security adviser with a maritime security advisory board. Delhi being so far off from the seas, not many security experts understand the peculiarities of maritime operations. ( Logistically, Karachi to Mumbai is three hours by a speed boat)....Continue

IIPM Arindam Chaudhuri 4Ps Business & Marketing Business & Economy Kkoooljobs Planman Media Planman Consulting Planman Marcom Planman Technologies Planman Financial Planman Motion Pictures GIDF The Daily Indian IIPM Think Tank
The Sunday Indian

Developmental Imperative - Known response, sans solution

Rana Nayar, Prof. of English, Punjabi University

Though terrorist strikes are always unpredictable, our response to these has become egregiously, hideously predictable. Every time such an incident rocks Bangalore, Ahmedabad or Delhi, leaving a few scores or a few hundred dead and many more injured, the respective state governments immediately go on the backfoot. The opposition suddenly turns offensive and starts making well rehearsed noises. Of course, the victims and their families are not even left alone to stitch together their tattered lives or absorb the daily growing influence of violence. After the Delhi blasts, the politicians (we have no statesmen left!) were, as usual, back to their games. Ironically, it was Narendra Modi who, having failed to contain terrorism in his own state, made a claim that he had forewarned the Central government. Rather than act, our former Home Minister Shivraj Patil was busy showing off his sartorial elegance and scoring brownie points by claiming that he had prior information on it, much before Modi chose to communicate it to him. No one seems to have thought it to be worthwhile to ask the Home Minister as to what he really did with the information he claims to have had.

Later in the day, when the Cabinet met to discuss the situation, the usual shibboleths were trotted off about how terrorism is a threat to the unity and integrity of our nation; how it is a law and order problem that demands more stringent vigilance on part of the security forces, but definitely no stringent laws to back them up in their fight against it. Of course, there was nothing startlingly new or refreshing about the response of the government. Over the years, our politicians have repeatedly been saying that terrorism is a ‘law and order problem’ or a ‘global phenomenon.’

Whenever our political leaders or decision-makers are either not able to deal with something or just want to shrug it off peremptorily, they often label it as ‘global.’ It sure is a refusal on their part to recognise the specifically local and national character of ‘terrorism’.....Continue

IIPM Arindam Chaudhuri 4Ps Business & Marketing Business & Economy Kkoooljobs Planman Media Planman Consulting Planman Marcom Planman Technologies Planman Financial Planman Motion Pictures GIDF The Daily Indian IIPM Think Tank
The Sunday Indian