Pankaj kumar

Anyone watching the domesticelecton secene will agree that ploliics makes for strange bedfellow This is
obviously a global phenomenon, not just a purely subcontimentyal affliciton Consider the vehemence
with whicha Bristish Labour Prime Minister spoke against Iraq and the way he made such an
uncharacteristic display of admiration and support for a beleguered President acrosws the Atlantic It
came especially at a tme when the White House inmate Ilame duck and all has been caught momentarily
napping by his opponents It was as if a Conservative not pornapping Europe Labour leader was speaking
A Tory leadership sounding rhetorically more conservative tan the Republican right can without
inhibition amplify on the so called wspecial relationship with washington It is part of acceptable political
theatre for a Maergfaret Rhatcher sto eel a natural affinity for a matinee ido like Mr ERonald Reagan
just honored in his own country whethe it was war mongering cld war intrigue or just plain socialism
bashing there was a matching contribution from the white house and whitehall one could come to terms
with such conservadtive eztremism in thought and action but what to tell of like metaphor coming from
a labor prome mintster the first such species to ccupy dowing street in a ling time

Sending his foreignminster to the gulf and sounding more hawkish than even the republican
congressman Mr Rony Blair hitched himself unfequivocall and undbasheldy to mr Bill clinton He can say
he si nothing more than a friend in need came to offer solace to a short reathed American President
Even in the cut throat world of diplmacy such niveties are needed he cold add but with one foot in
eufripe and the other in the us there is always the danger that britain will find itself speadegled to
embarrassment such british hype abot a special relationship with washintin can be understandable if the
fallout hepls strengthen mr blair s position in eurpe apart of courese is never congenial comapy and in
the contest of increasing german american waerth at eh end of the cold wasr britain opening mr helmut
kohl the german heavuyeelight hd remaind an american favurite for along ling time that is the time he
ahs been at the helm in bomm pushing and prodding relctant eurpena partners into unton but with the
jobless youth thr3tening to force him into the nkown world of the vulnerable britain out in the cold
thaks to a german french axis simultaneousl found itself electing a flamboan labour been strivng for a
lead role in the Europan Union In the eletral triangle of europe he hs erforce to bie his time waiting to
see which of the other two german or american.

Thadt dthe verdict in the rajiv gandhi assassintation case is a strring vindication of the resvindicatiojnof
the rsloute and ezctine effortsof the cbi spsecial investigaitoon team sit is as claear as day in delivering
his judgemt the designated judge of the tada cort has endorsed not onl the incrmijnator core out most
of the major details in the sit chargesleet the the accused the accdeptance them and the concrurrece
that the cospiracy in this case was hatechd by the hightest rung of the ltte leadership togthering ltte
stampon the exertins of those who wordked to bring the assassins to the former prime minister to book.

Whether all th accused should have been sentenced to death which is probaly a recor of sorts is
something that is bound to be chalencged in the sureme court but in arrving at this ster and
uncomproujnd and convulsive mpact raJIVGANDHI S SASSASINATON HAD ON THE DEMOCRATIC
PROCESS IN INDIA SECOND AND ARGUABLY JUST AS IPRTANT BECAUSE IT IS IMPORTANET THAT THE
VERDICT HAS A STRONG DETERRENT MPACT AS THE JSGE HIMSELF HAS SUGGESTED ONLY A SEVERS
PNISHMENT WILL DISSUADE POTENTIAL OFFERNDERS AND DETER INDIANS FROM ASS

OCIATIONG OTH ANDY terrortst organisation to do such disabilical and heinous crimess

This contezxt it is imperative to rememer that the sit investigatins particularly when it focussed on the
role of tiruchi santhan former head of the ltte s plitical wing bases in tamil nadu revealed a murky and
insidious nesus between the sri lankan militant organisation and its suympathisers n tamil nadu among
them dreaian plilitias and tamil chavinists the verdic wold have served an unequivocla warjing that
interst has probabklyonce and fro all slammed he doors on the ltte all those who had hoed or feared fo
that matterr of tijme will have to revise their opain lifted with the passage of tme will ave to revise teir
iimt with the sir lankan govalsooutlwing the ltte folowingthe macabre and senselessbomn lasdt at kand
famours th miltantorganistaion which recvies considerable assistance from the network it has in certain
foreigcontries wil ske afurthaer beating.

January 30, 1948 was waiting to be burnt into the memory of the generation which was then young or
growing up during o the the freedom movement in Inia The assassin who felled Mahatma the Gandhi on
the evning of the fathul day was re-encacting the Crucifixion` with a murderous sophisication Event if
Gandhi could say very litle while he was dying within the next few seconds his Hey Ram could will have
meant as much as jusus had said while pleading with god to forgive those who wfere had sa killing him
since the jniw not what they were doing durng the few months leftr for him since India became free in
Uagust 1947 gandhi ws striving desperately to save partitioned india bledding from the communal
fratricide with frantic appeals fro te resrtoration of peace and harmony his assassin who waS DRIVEN BY
A MINDLESS FURY and hate was a personifgicvation of the evil which was waging at the time its bible
war against the good to claim gandhi as its victim.

Looking back upon the dreadful event half a century later one would be inclined to belivev that fbernard
shwa s moving comment on the killing of gandhi about how dangerous it was to be good still remains
true the endangered species of history ranges from jusus to abraham lincin gandhi joh kennedy and
amrin luther king to menmtion just a few a bation which was shocked and stuperied b the assassination
of gandhi was hiping tat the healing touch which he had been trying to provide to fthe coutry tor by the
communal fury in the wake of partion would restior sanity the depressing message from the recurring
communal feuds still being withessed in many parts of the country make it appear that the country has
to remain oping for al ong time yet it has to be fro savingthe counrty rom the communal darkeness
which is yet to lift for ushering in the secular dawn in quite a few parts of the country .

Recollectons of how gandhi became heart briken bot only art sthe persisting communal frenzy ibn the
subcntinent even afrter at aprtion bt also at the lust fro power and pelf taking hild of the many whom he
had inspired and led during the freedm movement are very erevealing they demonstratwe how hthe
political assert themselves quickly when there was bno demand amy loner on courfgae and sacrifice one
is led to think that te assassination saved gandhi from the mounting he had brought into being if sdthe
cutrty has still its gabndhians their tribe will have t increase vberry fasrt to restore faith in ennoblinfg
valuse and effectivel arrest the the galling departure from the same thee was an encorgaing
demostration that this was not a vain hope ain.
Elections invarriably bring to the froe a kind of pollution that is hardly ever discussed or debated visual
pollution while unclan air or impure wate or even a nisy atmosphere ahs had the privilege of being
tacked often unsuccessfull by teok in law that wwhicmhis offensive oMt the eye seems to have escaped
the attention of the measses and those who repressent them in the house of power of course there has
been stray instances of an bscence pster being pulled down or a wall wdriting erased But and scosistent
the election commission latest dikeat that walls are not to be defaced has it seems not really been
obeyed a report from calcuta says that this practice contimues what is missing this time is the
creativeity I the limericks and satires that one usully swa on the walls political parties say that graffite
are as musch part of he city as badhs and addsa sateetr corner tete a tefdte where the subects range
from the most profounde to the most fievlolus besides sch wrrtiting gies licla bos a sense of identity if
not participation.

But to the eye bnothing can be more unaestheitcv than a wall that serves as a free medum for a poll
compaign a few years ago it was in calcutta that measures wsere taken and rather effeive at that o ekkp
advertisers of such reebies time was when hndreds of bills plasteeb all over the city made a mockery of
cleanlijnes even as they offended dthe eye visul polluton ma not harm one physique in the strc sense of
the term cerainly oise above a certain decidel or unsafe water or filthy air is postit vely harmful bt a
continuous battering of the sigt by terribkle imgaes will probably tell on one menatal well beiga classing
case of this is the display of larger stars often there isnotingappealong abot them on the cotraty they
can be dwonright vlar and crude to the pointg of being ibnslting to human sensibilty.

However to confine visual pollution to scribbling on the wall or garish posters wil be ather baive fro
there are may more resasons why or surroundings ore dteets our towns and ore cities do not liik pretty
even in cheenai that once boasted of the unifqe bell cat strets our towns and our the uniue bell cart
system garbge is ot cleared cleare as frequenty te unique bell cart suytem garbage is not cleared as
frequently as it ought to be and is allowed to accumulate and rot freely on the roads can there ne a
grdeater eesore than thjis maybe pavements are left liiking like ugly festerig sores in france for exsample
if a dog were to dirly a sidewalk the responsibility lies with its owner to have it cleaned encroachments
are yhet another facotr msot of them are horrendous a piece of wall jutting outinto a thoroughfare or a
thatched dwelling blicking a footpath can mar the beauty of an area the less said about slums the better
and with migharation into uran centres a pressing realit ow the homeless and the desttute cold not
really care is aestheitc yet to throw n one han and say that esverthing is beyond hope efeat he very spirt
of like surat scarred by sink into gloom and despair it showed just about everone that hygience and
clealikes need not be some likd of utpoia in chennai one saw young bos and gorls who called themsel
friends of the beach rrying to tiy up the saNDYSTETCH THFERE ARE OTHER WHO BNEVER SAY DIE AND
ARE COVINED THAT A SWEET SWAN WILL EMERGE OU OF THE UGLUY DUCKING

The stress laid by Dr AJP Abould kalam on gibing a majour thurst to technology development in the
course of his address to students of the indian institute in the course of his science in bangalore provides
an occasion for tlimg a resh lookinhg at issues n which views ma still remain as they wsere when they
wsdere formulated decades ago before doing so it should be mentioned that the olicy enuciated by the
govrnment in 1993 has specified a number of technologies including those for altermative fuels
renewable and non comverment sources and energy conservaon this loing and froward looking list
would absorb the attention of large tfeams of scientists for a long time.

The placing of the emplhasis on self reliancein techonlgoy in the earlier year of independece had been
una voidable for fquite a few reasons one of he develped dcoujntries princjipally the united states was
willing to agree to a comprehensive transfer of techlogy to india which ahd therefore to depenc on its
intermediate or findished products india getting sown to this task of cracking cse hardence teachonloy
did enrich nkniwlefge and hepled utilise it for subsequen t indigentisation though it wasoften very much
like re inventing the wheel the western reluctance to art with technoloty to ijndia during the years of the
cold war technologh over a whide randg this didi give a filip to the building of scientifcand engineering
skills in india thought it iws adoubfru whether technolt rransfer ws complete in all cases aprt from this
what india could get culd hardly be clained as state of the art since the soviet uio nitself was steill very
much behind the us and wsrtern europe. Such a scence relation to teachnology rransfer and
development in india should be instrucive fro rational pllicy fromulation scientts and engineers in both
the pullic and priate secorts are often understandbly excited over their achievements in adaptations of
umported technology and the resulting ezpansion of operations on the hop floor well beyond the range
of the been possibkle without the ezactong reverse engineering require in many case but one cannot
regard these as breakthrought breakthroghts matericalisw onl of fand when the handing of the
teachololgy which ahs been so far lreese into service dadvances it aulitativel to differentioate the ensd
producf from th earlier batches for wzpandinfg its capabilites and perfromance

The record of he india scientiest and engineers in many aresas in no bout impreesive the designing and
development of the supersonic light combat aircraft could certainly be an illustration of scientific
creativity it is douftul whether the hindusian aeronautic ltd could btain substantial suporrt from abroad
for embnedidng carbon fibre fcomostes in the wings of the aircraft and fro the reduction of its wseight
thought this has taken a very lng time the lesson from such perfromances man well e hat the crossoing
or the knowledge barriers by determined scientists and engineers could lprogressively demystify hi tech
to ento them as members of the international freemasonry in csience it is know that the interantional
scientfic fraternityby and large does not suffer from hang ups over the sharing of knowledge and could
ignore the rsetrictons imposed by offician plocy the climate should hpefull contiute to be so congenial to
inidan scientists within the country and aborad.

The international film festvial of india now into its last day here has proveed a major controversy The
Government which runs the show had more or less decided to strip it of its gypsy cloak for decades tis
inematic extravaganzw has been travelling to a different fdcity every ajunary returning to new delji
everry other year sometimes after a longer peried bobiusly the roblems of a caravan existence hadve
eem mulitplying the organsing directorate of frlm festvals a wing of the information and radcastiong
mintiry frlund to its dismy that a large chunk of its tiem an encery went into setting up its offices in a nw
place identifulng theatres there andumproving facilities in them therre was very little ime to
concentratie on what is certainlu the thfee was very little tiem to therefor harly sprising that this festival
could notget the thee best of ace thee wsere otfer facrtos tat contribute to this sorry mess if the
reluctacne of the mintsrty to vie the director and her men a ree hand was a amajor bobstacle an utter
lack of interest and a callous approach have almost liikked the festival the and a callous app and the has
been virutll not attempt to replace the officers who have lelft or have been transferred teo day before
thia shifted admittedl another took ovber immediately bt to push a completely new into the aresn at an
hour as critical as this erelu provedhow insensitve the vogernment was.