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Journalism of Courage
I happened to be at a recent dinner hosted in honour of Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz by the High Commissioner of Pakistan, Shahid Malik. The prime minister started the conversation by telling me how relieved he felt when India could not make it to the Super 8 in the World Cup. 8220;Had India gone to Super 8, we would have been in serious trouble in Pakistan because of the public outrage. Now that India has also performed poorly and crashed out of the World Cup, Pakistan8217;s cricket lovers are quiet and the government is relieved,8221; he said.
The cricket board in Pakistan functions directly under President Pervez Musharraf and every time the team loses a major match or tournament, the ire of the common man is vented directly against the government. In India, the BCCI is supposed to face all the criticism. The amount of media hype surrounding cricket in India is evident from the fact that even cabinet meetings get lesser coverage than meetings of the BCCI.
False credit
Politicians often try to claim credit for work initiated by others. But the UP chief minister8217;s brother, Shivpal Yadav, seems to have crossed all lines. Under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana PMGSY scheme, the central government released huge amounts of money to the state governments for construction of link roads in rural areas which will ultimately connect every village in the country. Roads have been built in UP too, but the peculiar thing about UP is that the entire credit for central funds has been taken by Shivpal Yadav, though his actual contribution is an absolute zero.
Shivpal Yadav has been brazen enough to put such a plaque on every single link road connecting villages far and wide in Uttar Pradesh. The scheme began in Atal Bihari Vajpayee8217;s regime and has been fostered by Manmohan Singh. The blatant hijacking of the scheme by Shivpal Yadav has meant that his name shines on every plaque in every village, but the actual promoters of the scheme, the former and present prime minister, get no mention at all.
Invisible fuel
Scarcity of kerosene is becoming a major flashpoint and a cause of serious concern in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Three people were recently killed in Bihar during a scuffle over kerosene supply in a village. The situation is so delicate that there is a law and order problem whenever a kerosene tanker reaches a depot.
The concern was raised in a recent standing committee meeting by MPs cutting across party lines. In reply, the Indian Oil Corporation chairman told the committee that there has been no cut in the kerosene supplies sent to any of the states. The real problem is in the rampant pilferage of the fuel that carries on right under the state governments8217; nose. Being sensitive to the necessity of kerosene for the poor, the central government subsidises kerosene heavily, so much so that despite an overall production cost of about Rs 27 per litre, it is sold in the market at just Rs 9 per litre. This subsidy foments the black marketing of kerosene and a vast volume of the fuel is simply pilfered off the supply chain with the connivance and support of district officials and brokers. The pilfered kerosene is mixed with petrol and sold through petrol pumps. Since these two state governments are grossly incapable of reining in this massive pilferage, the common man is deprived of kerosene.
The writer is a Congress MP in Rajya Sabha
