|
India Thinkers Net Archives Index
|
Subscribe
|
|
| << May07, 2008 - [India Thinkers Net] Hajj ,breast fed kids ,record food output etc |
May10, 2008 - [India Thinkers Net] BCS want access to church ,Indo-Pak nuke war >> |
|
[1] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com Date: Thu May 8, 2008 8:46 am Subject: Nepal Election: Cynicism Confronts Hopes http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/May82008/panorama2008050866820.asp DEMOCRACY Maoists are the new kings in Nepal By Aditi Bhaduri According to international observers, election day in Nepal saw the turnout of great numbers of under-age voters and voters without proper ID papers. It was a hot sunny day, the air was still that I met the young man, a Moaist party representative. He was sitting patiently, supervising, keeping an eye on the polling procedure underway in Bhadrak Jail in Kathmandu's constituency No 1. Nepal had allowed prisoners to vote for the proportional representation seats. In Kathmandu's central jail, about 700 men and women inmates cast their ballot. He was the only representative of a political party waiting at the polling station, where an electronic voting machine was used. As we smiled and chatted, he seemed assured of a victory. A few days later, as the first reports of Maoist electoral gains began trickling in, we got a taste of Maoist revelry. With a group of friends, we were having dinner in an open air restaurant in Kathmandu's Thamel area. A group of raucous men sat behind us drinking and shouting in a constant refrain, "We are the kings, Maobadis are the kings". They broke glasses, spilled alcohol, thumped chairs. The management hovered around and watched and ultimately quietly talked to the most sober in the group to lead the others away. Two days later, again in Thamel, we had yet another taste of Maoist revelry. At about 4 pm a few young men, waving the CPN-Maoist flag, drove up on motorcycles into one of Thamel's narrow one-way traffic lanes. They blocked traffic, stopped all movement and were soon joined by others on motorbikes, waving the party flag. When a young passerby, also on a motorbike, tried to go past the makeshift barricade, he was physically stopped, dragged off his bike and roundly slapped by two men with the Moaist flag. Shopkeepers watched silently from windows and pedestrians quietly moved away from the scene. Not all, however, were caught up in the rivalry. The owner of a travel service in Kathmandu's upmarket Darbar Marg is livid at the fact that international observers have given a verdict of 'free and fair elections'. "Were these really free and fair?" he asks scornfully. He still feels fear, revulsion and most of all horror as he remembers the time that men owing affiliation to the Maoists had barged in on him, asking for 'protection money'. "They are from the jungles, people who know only how to fight and how to extort money. They have hardly 10 educated people in their fold." The Democracy and Election Alliance Nepal (DEAN), in one of its pre-election reports had noted that "In particular Young Communist League (YCL) and the Communist Party of Nepal — Maoists (CPN-M) cadres have been the perpetrators,…" In its report, the European Union observation mission, observed: "The lack of law and order and poor security environment contributed to a general atmosphere of fear and intimidation and at times undermined the right to campaign freely". According to other international observers, election day itself, though largely peaceful, saw the turnout of great numbers of under-age voters and voters without proper ID papers. "The Maoists created the insurgency. Now if they rule, at least they won't be fighting. If they lost, perhaps, they would have gone back to the jungles and the insurgency would have been underway all over," Gunaraj Luitel, a senior editor with the Kantipur Group, Nepal's largest publication group, said. Babita Basnet, president of Sancharika Samuha, a media monitoring network of women journalists, put forth another perspective. "I liked the Maoists for they made women visible. They had large numbers of women in their fold. They also had the maximum number of women in the interim Parliament." When days before the elections I met Hisila Yami, minister for infrastructure in the interim government and wife of Maoist second in command Baburam Bhattarai, she explained the gender friendly agenda of Moaist very simply: "We are from the grassroots level. So we understand the problems at that level. Without solving things at the grassroots level, we cannot hope for progress." The Maoists are also credited with putting in place the constitutional stipulation of having 33 per cent women candidates contesting the constituent assembly elections. Altogether 23 women, have been elected in direct elections. This is the first time so many women have won elections in Nepal's history and 19 are of CPN Maoist. Most enduring, however, is the memory of the day I departed from Kathmandu. I stuck up a conversation with an airport staffer. "You have had the elections and there will be a new Nepal," I volunteered. He stared at me for some time and then asked a little incredulously, "You really believe that? The Maoists will change things?" "Why not?" I responded. He thought over it for some time, then shrugged and resignedly said "Maybe". And then it was time for him to go. "Ok, Namaste," he said and started walking away. A few steps and he turned round looking at me with a half-smile he shook his head and shouted: "No, nothing will change. They will be the new kings," and walked briskly away towards the exit. --------------- [2] From: ram mohan anantha pai <pairamblr@yahoo.com Date: Thu May 8, 2008 8:31 pm Subject: RE: [indiathinkersnet] PRESS RELEASE - GUJARAT TRAYING TO IMPLEMENTADRACONIAN LAW Hello Dr Abraham Thomas, Abraham Thomas <abrahamthomas@hotmail.com wrote: Ab: Hello, I know that no one can convince a person with facts, if he does not accept reality. me: if something is a "reality" then it depends on the ability of the person to present the " reality " the way reality need to be. If the person who present the reality in an unconvincing way, then how can any one blame the other for 'his' failure to convince. Ab: You who read this are all educated people. me: there is a difference between literate and educated - i feel. Ab: How many times we have changed our opinions about, physical and metaphysical matters in life as we study more and mature in life. me: Did you ever think " why people change their opinions? " Ab: Maturity itself means change. me: fine, but what does prompt any one to change? Ab: But the closed minded can never mature. He will still think that the “world is flat”. He cannot understand anything beyond the horizon of his view. me: which means we need to find out what does close minded means? Ab: Our subject is conversion. me: I am afraid subject is not " conversion". Sub is about enacting a law by one state govt in the union of India and what if that enactment is not in line with the constitution,? item of law whether it is conversion or something else is immaterial. what I was talking was principle. hope now the subject is clear. cheers enjoy ------------- [3] From: "Sukla Sen" <sukla.sen@gmail.com Date: Thu May 8, 2008 9:36 pm Subject: Nepal Updates I/IV. http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2008/may/may08/news15.php Friday's seven-party meeting to discuss govt formation Maoist chairman Prachanda has said the process to form a new government will start from Friday when a meeting of the seven-party alliance will take place at the Prime Minister's residence in Baluwatar. Speaking at a programme organised in the capital on Thursday to felicitate the ten Constituent Assembly members from Rolpa district, Prachanda informed that Friday's seven-party meeting will discuss the likely composition of the next "Maoist-led government". He said the new government would come into being in the next two or three weeks. Insisting that the formation of the government has been delayed with some parties trying to go against the mandate of the people, the Maoist chairman said the new cabinet is likely to be announced on the very day the Constituent Assembly convenes, within the next 21 days. Prachanda, who has already declared that he would take the reins of the incoming government, also said that hundreds of thousands of people will take to streets on the day the first CA meeting takes places -- to warn against possible attempt to thwart the implementation of republic. nepalnews. com mk May 08 08 II/IV. http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2008/may/may08/news14.php Present cabinet cannot appoint 26 CA members: CJ Chief Justice Kedar Prasad Giri said today that the current cabinet cannot nominate the 26 members of the Constituent Assembly (CA). Talking to the journalists at a gathering at Birendra International Convention Center organised to mark the Law Day Thursday, Giri said only the next government to be formed as per the CA results should decide on this issue. He didn't explain his argument. On the other hand, chairman of the CA Court and Supreme Court judge Anup Raj Sharma said that the interim constitution does not restrict the appointment of 26 CA members by the current government as well as by the next government. "But, the international practice is that the existing government does not make any major decision after the election results is made public," he said, talking to the reporters at the same venue. Sharma said that the CA would not be complete without the 26 members, who are appointed by the government. "However, the constitution has not barred the convening of the first meeting of the CA without those members," Sharma said. He indicated the need to amend the current interim constitution to remove any constitutional complications. "There is no constitutional remedy to remove the current Prime Minister from his post without two-third majority," he said. He, however, stressed that there should be a political consensus before going for amendment in the interim constitution to prevent other complications that can arise during the amendment process. nepalnews. com ps 08 08 III/IV. http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2008/may/may08/news11.php Maoists may opt out of govt if constitution amended: Minister Gurung Maoist leader and local development minister Dev Gurung has said that said that if their leading the next government calls for amendment of the interim constitution then the party may even opt out of it. "We will not compromise on the matter of amending the interim constitution and there's no point in it even because the CPN-Maoist has emerged as the largest party in the Constituent Assembly by winning biggest number of seats and no doubt the mandate is for it to lead the government," Gurung told media persons after inaugurating a bridge in Lekhnath Municipality in Kaski district Thursday. Insisting that constitution amendment is not necessary, minister Gurung said that if Nepali Congress, UML and other major parties press for constitutional amendment (as a premise for the Maoists leading the government) then the party will let them lead the new government without being part of it. nepalnews. com ag May 08 08 IV. http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2008/may/may08/news13.php Sood continues parleys with top leaders Newly appointed Indian ambassador to Nepal Rakesh Sood has intensified his parleys with leaders of major political parties. He met Maoist chairman Prachanda Thursday morning, chiefly discussing the formation of the next government which is likely to be headed by Prachanda himself. During the meeting held at Prachanda's Nayabazaar residence, the Indian ambassador is said to have reiterated that India would continue its assistance to Nepal irrespective of which party forms the government. This is the Indian envoy's second meeting with the Maoist chairman in less than a fortnight. He had met Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala Wednesday and discussed the ongoing peace process, formation of new government and India's support in the post-election scenario. Sood had started parleys with key leaders immediately after he assumed his office in Kathmandu. nepalnews. com mk May 08 08 ------------ [4] From: "Dr.Y. C.Zala" <yczala@yahoo.co.in Date: Fri May 9, 2008 9:50 am Subject: PHOTO OF THE YEAR-It happens only in india Dear Friends, I got the below email which inspired me to think about our great Indian culture and beauty of diversified communities. The Bishnoi tribe in Rajasthan are famous conservationists. They are known to react violently towards hunters and poachers. Because of this tribe various species of deer are thriving in the desert. The picture below eminently depicts their love for conservation of wild life. PHOTO OF THE YEAR. I'd call it the photo of the decade. We all talk of high ideals, people like her live those ideals.. This is the true spirit of VASUDHAIVA KUDUMBAKAM. ------------ [5] From: "Sukla Sen" <sukla.sen@gmail.com Date: Fri May 9, 2008 11:43 am Subject: Indo-US Nuclear Deal: Visibly Faltering [The weakest spot of the Left's opposition to the deal is, very much like the Right, based on opposition to the supposed circumscribing of India's "nuclear sovereignty" - in the instant case, allegedly increased difficulties in graduating from the A-Bomb to the H-Bomb. That robs the opposition of the principal moral foundation. Of course the Left opposes the strategic alliance, as manifested in the deal, with the US - and quite rightly so. The Right is far more ambiguous on this count. The BJP, in principle, publicly upholds "strategic alliance" but not "unequal alliance", as the deal is in their eyes.] http://ipsnews.net/news.asp? idnews=42283 *INDIA/US: Nuke Deal Set to Time Out Analysis by Praful Bidwai* *NEW DELHI, May 8 (IPS) - Faced with continuing domestic opposition to the United States-India nuclear cooperation deal, the Indian government has launched 'one last push' to complete negotiations before the window of opportunity slams shut. * But the chances of success of its latest bid appear to be no higher than they were some weeks ago. Going by the deliberations yesterday of a special joint committee on the deal, formed by the ruling United Progressive Alliance and its Left allies, obstacles to its passage remain in place. The eighth meeting of the committee, established last year, failed to produce agreement. At the meeting, UPA representatives asked the Left to give the government "clearance" to finalise an India-specific agreement on inspections (safeguards) for civilian nuclear facilities, which it recently inked with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The agreement is a precondition for approval of the deal by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG), and its subsequent ratification by the U. S. Congress. However, the Left demanded further clarifications on the safeguards agreement before it offers its response. Although the government has promised to give these clarifications in the next few days, it seems unlikely that the committee's next meeting, scheduled for May 28, will clinch the issue. The Left seems to be in no mood to dilute its opposition to the deal. In its view, the deal is an unequal bargain and will draw India into the U. S. strategic orbit and compromise her sovereignty. "Unless the UPA-Left differences are overcome by the end of May, we are likely to miss the chance to put up the agreement for approval by the IAEA Board of Governors, which is due to meet from June 2 to 6," says a member of the UPA negotiating team, who insisted on anonymity. The next Board meeting after June is only scheduled for Sep. 22. By then, the U. S. domestic political timetable to discuss the deal in Congress will have run its course. The "realistic" deadline for sending it to Congress is generally understood to be no later than July, after which the election agenda will overwhelm domestic U. S. politics The government's current gambit is to try to delink the safeguards agreement from another crucial component of the deal, namely, a bilateral agreement signed last year, called the "123 agreement" after Section 123 of the U. S. Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The Left parties object to the "123 agreement" on the ground that it restricts the scope of U. S.-India civilian nuclear cooperation, and affects India's strategic interests, as well as her sovereignty in foreign policy-making. They also hold that the "123 agreement" is anchored in a special law enacted by the U. S. Congress at the end of 2006, called the Henry J Hyde Act, which imposes several obligations and restrictions on India that are unrelated to its nuclear programme. Supporters of the deal recently launched a campaign against the Left. They argue that the Left should not logically oppose the IAEA safeguards agreement because it is independent of the "123 agreement" and not U. S.-specific. The safeguards agreement is necessary if India is to have nuclear commerce with other countries such as Russia and France, which the Left favours. Some other advocates of the deal, including India's former arms-control negotiator Arundhati Ghose, who famously opposed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva in 1996, have also accused the Left of working to obstruct the deal for "unashamedly ideological" reasons and thus forgo opportunities to develop India's nuclear power potential. The supporters recently got a boost from a somewhat unlikely source, former National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, considered a close confidant of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee of the main opposition, Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. On Apr. 27, Mishra, who had earlier opposed the nuclear deal, executed a U-turn and said that India should sign it; and not doing so would have "harmful effects". This directly contradicts the BJP's stand. However, Mishra's support for the deal came too late. He was promptly repudiated by the BJP's top leaders, including former home minister Lal Krishna Advani and former foreign minister Jaswant Singh. Vajpayee, who is ailing, has not spoken on the issue. The deal's advocates earlier this week also seized an opportunity offered by a statement issued by Non-Aligned Movement states which are party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which were meeting in Geneva in the preparatory committee for the 2010 NPT review conference. The statement called for "complete prohibition" of any kind of nuclear cooperation with NPT non-signatories. It said that "recent developments, in particular, the nuclear cooperation agreement signed by a nuclear weapons state (the U. S.) with a non-party to the NPT (India) is a matter of great concern." The statement was strongly backed by Egypt, Indonesia and Iran. The deal's proponents cite this as an attempt by other countries, including those of the NAM, of which India has been a leading member, to scuttle the deal and impair India's ambitious nuclear power development programme. They argue that allowing this will not be compatible with the Left's own support for the programme. "It is true that India's major Left parties find themselves somewhat in the spot here because they don't categorically oppose nuclear power, as they should" argues Achin Vanaik, a professor of international relations and global politics at Delhi University. "But that does not answer the Left's questions about the content of the IAEA safeguards agreement." The Left has not been shown the text of the agreement on the ground that that would be a breach of the negotiation process. But it has raised a number of issues about the agreement, in particular whether it addresses India's concerns about uninterrupted fuel supply, transfer of technology, reciprocity of obligations, and implications for India's foreign and security policies. M. V. Ramana, a nuclear affairs analyst based at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in the Environment and Development in Bangalore argues that "there is a problem here because the IAEA is not a supplier of nuclear fuel. Nor can it uphold or guarantee the 'right' that India demands to build a strategic fuel reserve and to take 'corrective measures' in case fuel supplies are suspended." The questions raised by the Left are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. "At the end of the day," says Vanaik, "the critical issue is that of the political balance of power. The UPA, which is facing protests because of rising prices and a massive agrarian crisis, seems to be in no position to confront the Left and risk losing its support, which is crucial to its survival in Parliament.'' (END/2008) |
|
| << May07, 2008 - [India Thinkers Net] Hajj ,breast fed kids ,record food output etc |
May10, 2008 - [India Thinkers Net] BCS want access to church ,Indo-Pak nuke war >> |
|
India Thinkers Net Archives Index
|
Subscribe
|
|
|
Archives powered by Zinester's Mailing List Service
Details on India Thinkers Net |
Browse for more newsletters at Zinester's Ezine Directory
Managed by Zinester's Mailing List Management |