Opinion April 30, Forty Years Ago

April 30, Forty Years Ago

Saigon renamed
The US started evacuating all its citizens from Saigon after South Vietnam set an April 30 deadline, one of the conditions of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) backed by North Vietnam for a ceasefire. Meanwhile, the PRG had said Saigon would be renamed Ho Chi Minh City, after the Vietnamese communist leader.

Indira’s moment
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi denounced “international power politics” and the “acquisitive society towards which the world seems to be headed, threatening the future of [the] developing world” at the Commonwealth prime ministers’ meet in Jamaica. “I was brought up in an atmosphere where politics denoted neither power nor riches but the urge to reduce fear, want and disparity… But as I look around I find that politics are taken to be the art of acquiring, holding and wielding power,” Gandhi said. The Emergency was less than two months away.

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Chinese paranoia
A Tokyo datelined report quotes a broadcast by the Peking-based Xinhua news agency that the Soviet Union has demanded India accept 66,000 Soviet military instructors and allow a full-fledged naval base to be built in the country. Another news story reports the Chinese government’s statement that “it absolutely does not recognise India’s illegal annexation of Sikkim”. Here is a gem from the statement: “Soviet revisionist social imperialism is behind the scene boss of Indian imperialism.”

Cement returns
A ban on the use of cement for construction will be lifted on May 2, Minister For Industry and Civil Supplies T.A. Pai told the Lok Sabha. The minister said the ban, which was to continue till August, was lifted because of improved production. Pai also appealed for judicious use of cement, He wanted it to be used less in the construction of tall buildings.