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Uma throws a tantrum and all’s well with India The CPI(M) is clearly relishing the Uma Bharati drama if one were to go by this week&#14...

Uma throws a tantrum and all’s well with India

The CPI(M) is clearly relishing the Uma Bharati drama if one were to go by this week’s front page editorial in People’s Democracy. It says even the “feel good euphoria of the Bihar election results” could not help the main opposition party ride over the crisis. According to the editorial, since the loss in last year’s elections, the RSS and the BJP have been at a loss to identify issues on which to mobilise mass support and the party’s rank and file are in disarray. “In a sense these developments augur well for the maturity of Indian polity,” the editorial concludes most contentedly.

That American hand, yet again

On the government’s Rs 1,00,000 crore National Urban Renewal Mission, the weekly says those who applauded it missed the fact that the mission goals, parameters and methodology revealed it was a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and all funds came attached with conditions. The article “Urban Renewal Mission: Whose agenda?” quotes a PMO release to say funds released would be linked to assessment of the implementation of the reform agenda and lists “mandatory reforms” as introduction of independent regulators for urban services, rationalisation of stamp duty, repeal of the Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act, VRS schemes and non-filling of vacant posts. The article suggests that the World Bank and USAID had a role in fixing the agenda, and says the mission sets a new process that will supersede legislatively enacted processes.

Fund squeeze, but where?

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On the scheme for the revival of the Global Trust Bank by the Oriental Bank of Commerce and Dabhol Power Company by NTPC and GAIL along with public sector financial institutions and banks, CPI(M) MP Dipankar Mukherjee says the Dabhol plan shows that while a gas transportation company like GAIL could spend Rs 500 crore on the revival of a private power company, use of PSU money to revive other PSUs was opposed. He says there are 50 central PSUs with reserves and surpluses of Rs 2,21,157 crore but which actively invest only Rs 81,805 crore. So, large sums are locked up in bank deposits or government securities when they could be used for revival of other PSUs. He advocates the setting up of a revival fund rather than an investment fund. He suggests that relevant laws be amended to allow profitable PSUs to help in reviving sick PSUs.

Not exactly a child’s game

AIDWA’s Subhashini Ali and Sudha Sundaraman on the RSS chief’s remarks on Hindu population: “For quite some time now the false arithmetic about Muslims producing more children because they have legal sanction to marry more than once has been flaunted by the likes of (RSS chief) Sudarshan, in spite of the statistically established fact that the percentage of polygamous Hindus, if anything, is slightly higher. This mischievous propaganda will not only help fan communal hatred, but the Hindu woman not able to produce the desired number of children will be seen as not fulfilling her duty towards her community.”

Compiled by Ananda Majumdar

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