The Organiser has an editorial on the Indo-US nuclear deal, titled ‘What a farce on this deal.’ It says, “It’s not clear if the Left has succeeded in nuking the Indo-US nuclear deal. But the External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee indicates that the deal is dead. And his prime minister — Dr Manmohan Singh — the same day claims that the deal is still alive. UPA has only to blame its timidity for this sorry state of affairs. The problem is that the UPA is not willing to stake its power to save the deal. This the Left knows better and it is blackmailing the government on every step.“As a coalition government, the UPA has not crowned itself in glory — especially in its handling of national affairs. Under the UPA, India has not been able to leverage its diplomatic status because of the Left’s leg pulling.”It seconds L.K. Advani’s position: “As the NDA prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani has repeatedly pointed out, no country will give in writing surrendering its right to conduct nuclear tests in perpetuity unless it is a client state.” Why Basu is rightA news analysis titled ‘Basu is right, for once’ by one S.R. Ramanujan says, “Double talk, hypocrisy, contradictions are the hallmarks of any communist leader’s utterances. Nonagenarian Marxist Jyoti Basu, who ruled West Bengal for nearly three decades in the name of democracy, for once spoke his mind and that was more close to reality. He asked ‘What does Sonia Gandhi know about West Bengal or its culture or civilisation? Her knowledge is limited’. “What a revelation! Does Basu think that Sonia knows the rest of the country so well? She is, after all, a naturalised citizen — having been born in a foreign country — and has no understanding of India or its culture or ethos. Basu’s statement is an indirect admission and acknowledgement of the BJP’s stand that Sonia is a foreigner. A question that begs for an answer is ‘why then did the Left parties support a regime propped up by a leader who does not know India so well. Was it also a blunder?” It then concludes, “One does not know what Basu’s assessment of the heir apparent Rahul Gandhi is. May be they will hold a politburo meeting for a week and then come out with a statement that dynastic rule is a lesser evil than communalism”. Towards food insecurityIn the column ‘Economy Watch’, Ashwani Mahajan says that “India is fast moving towards food insecurity.” He writes, “India which had emerged as an exporter of foodgrains has become a net importer. This is also true that developing countries are making large-scale imports of food grains . Two weeks back Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh forewarned the international community that the world is moving fast towards shortage of foodgrains. This would not only lead to a high rate of inflation, but in fact even the development efforts of the third world would get adversely affected. Prior to the PM’s statement, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had complained about reduction of area under wheat cultivation by the US in an attempt to enhance its bio-fuel production. And now it’s the turn of US president George Bush. According to his statement a week ago, the consumption in fast growing India and China is a major cause of the rapid increase in food prices. Before him, US Secretary of the State Condoleezza Rice had also made a similar statement blaming the rising prosperity of India’s huge middle class for spiralling food prices. He concludes by saying, “When we are neglecting our agriculture ourselves, we don’t have the moral right to blame the US for the rising prices of foodgrains as it is producing bio-fuel from agriculture.”
