Opinion Swayed by America

It says that India should have distanced itself from the cynical power game being planned on Syria,after seeing how the Security Council resolution was used by NATO powers and proxies like Qatar against Libya.”The United States wants India to fall in line with its consistent effort to isolate Iran and finally effect a regime change there. The pressure on India to stop buying oil from Iran and abandon its trade and economic ties is relentless,” it says.

It sums up India’s current foreign policy,saying “it is no more an independent policy based on enlightened national interests. It has become vulnerable to the imperialist pressures and geo-political interests of the United States of America.

Choiceless in Gujarat

Titled ‘Ten years after Godhra’,an editorial in CPI weekly New Age focuses on Gujarat. It attacks Narendra Modi but also blames the opposition Congress in the state for its inertia.

Under the garb of “sadbhavana”,Modi is attempting to polarise Hindu votes in view of the assembly elections by the year end,it claims. “He neither expresses remorse on what happened ten years back in the state,nor is he in any mood to abide by ‘Raj Dharma’. He,rather,continues to shield the culprits and communalise the administration and the police,” it says. It alleges that apart from creating hurdles in the judicial process,Modi has used the administration to enact encounters to further terrorise the minority community.

“The most unfortunate part of the Gujarat situation is that the Congress,the main opposition in the state is quite oblivious of this threat that Modi administration poses. The state Congress,which is totally faction-ridden,is paralysed.”

Fighting fit

An article in People’s Democracy looks into the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) acquisition deal,which went to the Rafale fighter from Dassault Aviation of France.

It says while the nitty-gritties of the evaluation process,field trials,lifetime costs and the comparative assessment of the MMRCA contenders were not available in the public domain,it is known that the defence ministry has shared the salient aspects with the two finalists to underline the fairness and transparency of the process.

The larger question,it says,is how India proposes to absorb such new technologies and build indigenous capability. “These acquisitions and the technology transfer leveraged through the offsets clause,should be purposively and strategically conceptualised,planned and executed in a manner such as to ensure Indian firms acquire self-reliant autonomous capability not only in manufacture but also in design-development for the next generation. There is however no sign that this is happening,” it says.”Which firms will obtain how much offsets work for the MMRCA contract? Who will decide this and how?… There is much scope for cronyism in the offsets mechanism,” it says.

Compiled by Manoj C.G.