UPAs 3 decisions
Coming down heavily on the governments latest announcements relating to fiscal management,Organiser charged the UPA regime for destroying the India growth story.
The guarantee scheme for the urban poor,on the other hand,can only lead to a US-type scenario,it maintains: It was such loan guarantees that killed the two big American mortgage institutions,Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,and,to a large extent,Lehman Brothers.
The third decision on the 1 per cent subsidy for home loans becomes illogical,it contends,in the context of the EMI hike by banks last week and only adds to the financial burden of the country: Banking experts say that the mindless largesse of the government has created a solvency crisis for most nationalised banks. For instance,the SBI is now demanding Rs 60,000 crore from the government to replenish its finances.
The article says that even Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has obliquely criticised the right to food scheme proposed by the UPA chairperson,Sonia Gandhi. The government is not spending or investing on the future of India. It is callously borrowing from the future and spending as if there is no tomorrow, the article claims.
Dissent in Kishenganj
A third article in Organiser draws the attention of its readers to what it says are the consequences of illegal migration from Bangladesh along the Chickens Neck area near Siliguri in West Bengal. This it has sought to do by linking it to a day-long agitation for the creation of a branch of Aligarh Muslim University in Kishenganj,on the Bihar-Bengal border,by the Students Islamic Forum on October 12. It says the whole of northeast India was cut off from the rest of the country when the Forum,with the support of Muslim leaders from various political parties,snapped train and road links for over 23 hours. Because of its proximity to Bangladesh,the narrow streak has seen a rise in Muslim domination,the article maintains.
A missionary n-plot?
Another article in Organiser suggests the role of a foreign hand in the protests against nuclear reactors at Koodankulam through the Christian missionary network. Though the protests were by locals demanding scrapping of the Koodankulam project,the article insists that the role of the Church needs to be thoroughly investigated. It charges that the protests began at St. Lourdes Church,and among those who led the campaign was local DMDK MLA Michael Rayappan.
The National Council of Churches in India (NCCI),the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) as well as the Church of South India (CSI) also jumped in,the article charges,with the NCCI initiating an e-mail campaign,and the CSI and the CBCI calling for decommissioning of the reactors. The Church was probably hoping to kill two birds with one stone. An abundance of money from the West by itself is not enough for conversion and separatist activity. Money needs to be accompanied by credibility,and in organising the protests against Koodankulam nuclear project,the Church hoped to acquire credibility, it argues.
Omar submits
Panchajanya,the Hindi Sangh Parivar newspaper,puts the focus on the raging debate in Jammu and Kashmir over the withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in the state. The article says that,in declaring that he was in favour of its withdrawal from disturbed areas,Omar Abdullah has not only gambled away the national interest to curry favour with his political base in the state,but has also succumbed to blackmail from separatist and extremist groups.
The article adds that,following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather,Omar is interested only in remaining in power and therefore,has time and again raised either the issue of autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir,or the demand to relieve the armed forces of their special powers to tackle separatism in the state. The misfortune,it claims,is that the Congress,which is supporting the National Conference in the state,is viewing the matter through the prism of electoral politics instead of considering it with the seriousness it merits. The lead editorial returns to the argument that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehrus faulty Kashmir policy is the reason why the issue remains unresolved today.
