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Journalism of Courage
Claiming that the nature of warfare facing India had changed, the Opposition today demanded in Parliament a national debate on whether the country’s nuclear and missile arsenal needed re-orientation. Warning that the whole South and the South-West Asia appeared to be on the brink of “civil war” and instability, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh said the time had come to debate the “total nuclear issue” at a national level.
Singh was speaking on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Joint address to the two houses. Citing US Vice-President Dick Cheney’s recent reference to Pakistan terming it as the breeding ground of terrorism, Singh questioned the justification of the government’s decision to engage Islamabad in an intelligence-sharing dialogue.
Comparing the performance of the previous NDA regime with that of UPA, he said, “Earlier, it was India who was leading the pace of negotiations, but now it seemed we were merely reacting to events in Islamabad.”
He also wanted to know why India was silent as the Chinese were going full steam with their “String of Pearl” strategy to encircle India in the region.
While speaking on the motion, CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury urged the government to focus on the education and health of the youth so that they did not come under the influence of extremists. He also warned the UPA that oversights would not be tolerated on the Common Minimum Programme as that was the bedrock of their support.
Quantifying the gap between what he called the India shinning and suffering, he said the per capita income of the country now was at its lowest —- worse than what it was during the World War or the Bengal famine.
Also accusing the government of “fiscal fundamentalism”, he said, “There was a huge mis-match between intent and the actual allocation and between aspiration and the real figures. The thrust should have been on public investment in agriculture because if India has to take off on a growth trajectory it must have a strong base.” Yechury demanded that the archaic Land Acquisition Act be amended to safeguard the interests of the land owners.
