Power play

In an article, M.D. Nalapat explains how the Congress 8220;bowed to the CPM bully,8221; and why 8220;Prakash Karat knows Sonia...

In an article, M.D. Nalapat explains how the Congress 8220;bowed to the CPM bully,8221; and why 8220;Prakash Karat knows Sonia Gandhi better than Manmohan Singh8221;. He writes: 8220;The virtual PM of India believed that the UPA chairperson would let go at least another year of the goodies that power is delivering to her and instead spend huge amounts on a Lok Sabha election, just so he could keep his promise to George W. Bush. He ought to have known better.8221; And continues in the same vein, 8220;Of course, had Manmohan Singh himself had any backbone, he would himself have quit rather than turn into an international laughing stock, but Sonia of the Maino clan has chosen her man well8230;8221;

But, he says, 8220;Karat knew better. He put his party8217;s future on the line by betting that Sonia Maino would blink at the thought of losing the benefits of power, and blink is what she did. After deceptively roaring in Haryana about 8216;anti-national8217; elements, she slunk back to her government-provided mansion and unfurled the surrender flag.8221;

Dynasty again

Another columnist is angry at Rahul Gandhi taking over as Congress general secretary. M.V. Kamath writes, 8220;Presently to a party which has no young leaders of standing, Rahul seems the obvious candidate. It is calculated dynasticism of a kind, but what is remarkable is that there is hardly any voice raised. Sycophancy rules the roost. One, of course, does not know what would have happened if Indira had lived long enough though Sanjay Gandhi would still have been around. Rahul Gandhi8217;s empowerment presently is an insult to Congress, but who can blame Sonia Gandhi8230; Nehru dynasty, it seems, is being thrust on India, almost by accident. It was not a pre-planned thing. Circumstances make history. But does that mean we must necessarily accept fate as the guiding factor in our political growth? Is Congress so poor in its constituency that a nation of 1.2 billion people cannot provide it leadership apart from the Nehru dynasty?8221;

Province India

And Sandhya Jain smells a rat in India8217;s growing ties with the US. 8220;The UPA is slowly wiring India into the US administration, making it a virtual province, without any public debate over the direction in which the country is being led. As if the 27 per cent OBC quota controversy in higher education was not enough, now American embassy officials have been surreptitiously inveigled into a two-day conference of the University Grants Commission on Challenges Before Higher Education.8221;

She points out that the UGC is an autonomous institution under the Union ministry of human resource development; its chairman Sukhdeo Thorat was appointed by the present dispensation. Hence, 8220;it seems inconceivable that the diplomats would have been accommodated at the conference without the knowledge of Minister Arjun Singh or the secretary, higher education. Either way, however, this is a scandalous development.8221;