Was it just a year ago that TIME pronounced India’s prime minister to be ‘Asleep at the wheel’? At that time, British journalist Alex Perry’s scathing take on the Indian PM set off many ripples in this country. Perry wrote of a prime minister who fell asleep during cabinet meetings, was prone to ‘‘interminable silences’’ and ‘‘indecipherable ramblings’’, had a weakness for fatty food, enjoyed a nightly whiskey or two and a three hour afternoon snooze, forgot names of colleagues. Wondered Perry, then: ‘‘As India and neighbour Pakistan put up their nukes, is an ailing and frail Vajpayee the right man to have his finger on the button?’’ That was in June, 2002. Well, a year on, Perry has done a spectacular rethink. Now, it is the opposition Congress party that is ‘‘asleep on its benches’’. And Atal Behari Vajpayee is ‘‘Top of His Game’’. He is even ‘‘Asia’s new comeback kid’’. Having made up his mind to change his mind, Perry is unstoppable: Vajpayee has never been so well-received abroad, he writes breathlessly, and his star has never been higher at home. He has clinched a ‘‘landmark deal’’ with China, is ‘‘expending political capital’’ trying to make peace with Pakistan, has ‘‘quashed’’ a ‘‘leadership challenge’’ within his own party, is boldly trying to solve Ayodhya. In 2003, Perry writes of a man trimmer of figure and a leader who has recommandeered India’s political agenda. This year, Perry has discovered in Vajpayee a ‘‘mystique’’ and ‘‘appeal’’ that enables a ‘‘regal rise above India’s noisy democracy’’. The Best case scenario What should I do?’’ Zaheera Sheikh recalls asking herself, ‘‘Should I stick to my testimony or should I save my family’s lives by saying something different?’’ This week, the WASHINGTON POST framed Sheikh’s cruel dilemma. In the end, it noted, she chose the latter option. And that neither the prosecutor nor the judge even asked why she changed her testimony. The paper caught up with the star witness of the high-profile Best Bakery Case in Mumbai. She was influenced to change her story, said Sheikh, by the ‘‘indifference’’ of prosecutors who ‘‘made no effort to contact her before the trial’’. Emperor Bush’s African safari The President of the United States went to Africa this week and the western media dutifully spotlighted that continent. THE NEW YORK TIMES earnestly broke up the African monolith into the countries Bush was scheduled to set foot on. It even separated out their specific problems: Senegal, troubled by a low-grade separatist insurgency. South Africa, where government has failed to confront one of the biggest HIV-AIDS pandemics. Botswana, cursed with Africa’s highest HIV infection rate. Uganda, where opposition parties and free elections are not permitted. Nigeria, saddled by corruption, army human rights abuses, and festering religious and ethnic divisions. The GUARDIAN hailed the first steps made by a sitting Republican president on African soil. In its reckoning, ‘‘For this act alone, Mr Bush deserves credit’’. Also in the GUARDIAN, Saskia Sassen, professor at the London School of Economics, shrugged off the prose about US challenges and Africa’s despair. Bush’s visit is about horsetrading, she said. ‘‘Bush wants access to oil and the installation of US military bases and troops to make the region secure against terrorism. In return, Bush is offering aid for AIDS victims and enhanced access to US markets.’’ But lurking in the fine print on the offer of US market access is the fact that benefits for African producers are neutralised by the distortions from US government subsidies to its farmers. What Africa really needs, the ECONOMIST agreed, is sharp cuts in rich countries’ farm subsidies. It pointed out that these are even higher in Europe. ‘‘The average European cow attracts more subsidy than the average African farmer earns.’’ Back to the future In Egypt’s AL AHRAM WEEKLY, Galal Amin, professor of economics in Cairo, wrote about the rewriting of textbooks by the US in Iraq. In the name of reform and for cleansing Iraqi schoolbooks of the personality cult of Saddam Hussein. For Amin, both the reform and the reformer were suspect. Because, ‘‘. Americans have created in their own country an educational system that does very little to encourage critical and independent thinking. One of the underlying assumptions of US educational theory is that dictatorship, hegemony and repression emanate only from the state, and that the solution to all such ills is to reduce the role of the state. This assumption is deeply flawed.’’ Also, because classes will be largely conducted in foreign languages, at the expense of Arabic. Once an American style education system is put in place, argued Amin, the range of choices available to the Iraqis will be seriously diminished.
