David Cameron displayed his ruthless streak yesterday when Andrew MacKay, his former adviser who has been heavily criticised over his expenses, announced that he was to stand down as an MP at the general election.
The end of MacKay's 26-year parliamentary career followed a private conversation with Cameron. His decision to go was seen as evidence of the Tory leader's "zero tolerance" approach to misdemeanours within the party.
The announcement from MacKay - who bowed to intense public anger in his Bracknell constituency - stoked a sense of crisis and nervousness at Westminster ahead of the 4 June local and European elections. The three main parties fear they could be severely punished as voters desert to smaller parties untainted by the expenses scandal.
While sources insisted it was purely MacKay's decision, he quit only after a phone call from the leader during which they discussed a stormy meeting between the 59-year-old MP and his constituents on Friday night at which the politician was accused of committing fraud and letting down his constituents.
The spotlight will now inevitably turn on MacKay's wife, 48-year-old Julie Kirkbride, the Tory MP for Bromsgrove. Shoppers queued in Bromsgrove town centre yesterday to sign a petition calling for her to resign. In a statement yesterday, her husband insisted his decision was not taken as a result of Friday night's meeting, but added: "I believe I could be a distraction at a time when [David Cameron] is working to get elected as prime minister with the good working majority necessary to take the tough decisions to turn this country around.
"I would never forgive myself if my candidature distracted voters from the key issues, particularly David's rousing call for change. I understand why people are angry. I hope my decision to step down goes some way to showing my constituents how sorry I am."
The departure, marking Cameron's
first loss from his inner circle, came after two weeks in which Labour had appeared more damaged than the Conservatives by the stream of revelations in the Daily Telegraph. The MP for Bracknell had pledged to put himself up for reselection in an attempt to appease constituents and had insisted that he "owed it" to people to continue.
Local party members said they were not satisfied with his explanations, with one describing him as a "dead duck".
MacKay's expenses claims came to light as a result of checks by Tory officials ahead of publication in the Daily Telegraph. Paperwork showed that while he claimed the couple's London home, for which both were named on the mortgage, as his second home, he did not appear to have a main home of his own since he did not have a house in Bracknell. MPs with only one home are not entitled to a second home allowance.
Tory officials have defended Kirkbride on the grounds that she did have homes in both London and Bromsgrove and was therefore entitled to allowances. But she has also faced an angry response from constituents, with a brick being thrown through the windows of her constituency office.
Last night, as cabinet ministers, including the health secretary, Alan Johnson, made clear that sweeping constitutional reform, encompassing a switch to a new proportional representation voting system for Westminster, might be the only way to restore faith in politicians, Kirkbride came under further pressure as the News of the World reported that her brother, Ian Kirkbride, had lived at the couple's Worcestershire home since 2004.
Kirkbride rushed out a statement saying that her brother spent time at both of their homes but insisted she had nothing to apologise for. "My brother Ian stays in my Bromsgrove apartment and in my London home from time to time to help look after my son," she said. "I claim no expenses for my brother and neither do I pay him or claim for his help. He also acts as a volunteer in helping me with office work and administration."
Claims that he had been living there "rent-free" at taxpayers' expense were a "total distortion," she said.
With dozens of MPs across all parties now said to be considering stepping down, former cabinet minister Ian McCartney announced he would quit at the next election. Colleagues said although he was not regarded as having been a particularly excessive claimant, he had suffered a furious backlash from constituents in Makerfield over his published expenses. He had already offered to pay back around £15,000 after purchasing items including champagne flutes and an 18-piece dinner set.
McCartney, who has undergone heart surgery, said he was quitting because of ill health, adding that he had been urged to retire by his family. McCartney, who is close to former deputy leader John Prescott, was for many years regarded as an invaluable and trusted bridge between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Another former cabinet minister said there was likely to be a wave of retirements among MPs too depressed by the expenses scandal to stay: "Emotions are running very high and there are a lot of surprising people saying, 'I've had enough, I'm getting out'."
Last night the Sunday Telegraph placed senior Liberal Democrat MP Malcolm Bruce in the spotlight, saying he claimed for thousands of pounds towards the running of both his London flat and his constituency home, where his wife worked for him. Normally MPs can only claim expenses for their second homes.
He was one of 200 MPs, the newspaper said, who had been able to claim money for a main home, in addition to their second home, because their spouses worked there on parliamentary business.
The paper said that Derek Conway, the MP expelled last year from the Tory party over payments to his two sons, was able to claim for office expenses at a family home in Morpeth, Northumberland, as well as mortgage interest on his designated second home in London, although the Morpeth house is more than 300 miles from his Old Bexley and Sidcup constituency.
Labour minister Quentin Davies is said to have claimed more than £10,000 to repair window frames at an 18th-century mansion in Lincolnshire designated as his second home.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Pakistan army 'in Taliban city'
Fierce fighting is taking place between Pakistani troops and Taliban militants in Mingora, the main city in the militant-controlled Swat valley.
At least 17 militants have been killed in the clashes, the army says. The Taliban deny the deaths.
The push into Mingora is seen as a key phase of an offensive aimed at crushing the militants, whose influence extends across a wide area of the north-west.
The fighting began after a peace deal broke down earlier this month.
"Street fights have begun," Maj Gen Athar Abbas told reporters
He said soldiers had cleared parts of the city, but added that the pace of the offensive was "painfully slow".
"This is an extremely difficult, extremely dangerous operation, because clearance has to be done street by street, house by house."
The military says the city is surrounded, most of the militants' ammunition dumps are destroyed and their supply routes cut off.
The BBC's Shoaib Hassan, in Islamabad, says it is the most important battle yet in the army's offensive against the Taliban in Swat.
A swift victory would bolster public support for a greater fight against the militants, our correspondent adds.
Exodus
A Taliban spokesman confirmed that the military had entered Mingora, but denied that any militants had been killed.
The spokesman also said the Taliban would fight the security forces to their last breath.
Residents say the militants are still in control of the city.
Nearly 1.5 million people have been displaced by this month's fighting in the north-western region, and about two million since last August, the United Nations refugee agency says.
One resident who fled the Mingora area told the BBC that he was among many who had lost everything.
"Our homes were destroyed - we left behind our cattle and our properties," he said. "We walked all the way and had to walk for two days on the mountains."
On Friday, the UN appealed for $543m in humanitarian aid to help those displaced by the conflict.
Pakistan's army began an offensive against the Taliban on 2 May after the peace deal broke down and the militants began expanding their area of influence.
A recent investigation by the BBC suggested that less than half of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), which contains Swat Valley, and the neighbouring Federally Administered Tribal Areas is under full government control.
In Swat, the army says that about 15,000 members of the security forces are fighting between 4,000 and 5,000 militants.
It says more than 1,000 militants and more than 50 soldiers have been killed since the offensive began.
At least 17 militants have been killed in the clashes, the army says. The Taliban deny the deaths.
The push into Mingora is seen as a key phase of an offensive aimed at crushing the militants, whose influence extends across a wide area of the north-west.
The fighting began after a peace deal broke down earlier this month.
"Street fights have begun," Maj Gen Athar Abbas told reporters
He said soldiers had cleared parts of the city, but added that the pace of the offensive was "painfully slow".
"This is an extremely difficult, extremely dangerous operation, because clearance has to be done street by street, house by house."
The military says the city is surrounded, most of the militants' ammunition dumps are destroyed and their supply routes cut off.
The BBC's Shoaib Hassan, in Islamabad, says it is the most important battle yet in the army's offensive against the Taliban in Swat.
A swift victory would bolster public support for a greater fight against the militants, our correspondent adds.
Exodus
A Taliban spokesman confirmed that the military had entered Mingora, but denied that any militants had been killed.
The spokesman also said the Taliban would fight the security forces to their last breath.
Residents say the militants are still in control of the city.
Nearly 1.5 million people have been displaced by this month's fighting in the north-western region, and about two million since last August, the United Nations refugee agency says.
One resident who fled the Mingora area told the BBC that he was among many who had lost everything.
"Our homes were destroyed - we left behind our cattle and our properties," he said. "We walked all the way and had to walk for two days on the mountains."
On Friday, the UN appealed for $543m in humanitarian aid to help those displaced by the conflict.
Pakistan's army began an offensive against the Taliban on 2 May after the peace deal broke down and the militants began expanding their area of influence.
A recent investigation by the BBC suggested that less than half of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), which contains Swat Valley, and the neighbouring Federally Administered Tribal Areas is under full government control.
In Swat, the army says that about 15,000 members of the security forces are fighting between 4,000 and 5,000 militants.
It says more than 1,000 militants and more than 50 soldiers have been killed since the offensive began.
TWO SIDES TO DEMOCRACY
In the early hours of May 17, while the rest of India was asleep after an election conducted honestly and won fairly, a massive contingent of police and paramilitary descended on a Gandhian ashram in the interior of Chhattisgarh. They woke up the sleeping social workers, and gave them exactly one hour to pack their belongings. The Gandhians were then escorted outside the ashram that had been their home, thus making way for the bulldozers that had been sent to demolish it. The machines were supervised by some 500 men in uniform, variously owing allegiance to the Central Reserve Police Force and the Chhattisgarh state police. Over the course of that Sunday, as the rest of India was considering the consequences of the election just held, the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram in Dantewada was razed to the ground. The office, the training hall, the staff quarters, even the tubewells — nothing was spared.
In the summer of 2006, I had myself eaten several meals in that ashram in Dantewada. Its founder, Himanshu, is a sharp-eyed, well-built, and forever smiling man in his late forties. Originally from Meerut, he was inspired by Vinoba Bhave and Nirmala Deshpande to devote his life to the adivasis of central India. In 1992, he moved with his wife to Dantewada to fulfil his calling. He recruited a group of local boys and girls, and with their assistance worked on bringing education and healthcare to the adivasis.
By the time I visited the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, it had established a solid presence in the district. Its campus lay in the little village of Kanwalnar, about 10 miles from Dantewada town. Ringed by mango trees, the ashram contained a set of low, modest buildings where the members lived. From this home in the forest they ventured out into the surrounding countryside, to work among the Gonds and Koyas and Murias of the district.
The activities of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram would be reckoned by most people in most times to be uncontroversial. But these are dangerous times in Dantewada, with a civil war raging between Maoist revolutionaries and a vigilante group promoted by the state administration and known as Salwa Judum. In this war, the tribals are caught in-between — so are Gandhian social workers. No one living in the district of Dantewada is now allowed to be neutral, to condemn even-handedly the barbaric acts of the Naxalites as well as the barbaric acts of the Salwa Judum.
As a consequence of the civil war, more than 50,000 tribals in Dantewada have been uprooted from their homes. Some left voluntarily; while many others were forcibly displaced by the Salwa Judum or by the Maoists. These refugees live in camps strung along the main road, in leaking and unstable tents, and without proper access to food, water, and means of employment. Many victims of the civil war fled across the border to Andhra Pradesh, where they live in equally pathetic conditions.
After months of living in this way, some tribals asked that they be allowed to return to their villages, so that they could live in their own homes, and close to their lands and their livestock. While the state wanted them to stay on in the camps, the villagers were encouraged to go back by the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram. Thus Himanshu and his co-workers set about rehabilitating those adivasis who wished to have no more of life in the camps.
The pretext behind the demolition of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram is that the campus has ‘encroached’ on government forest land. The Gandhians, on the other hand, insist that they built on revenue land acquired legally and with permission from the local panchayat. The case is currently being heard in the local courts. Rather than await the court’s verdict, the district authorities uniliaterally chose to demolish the ashram, in what is very clearly an act of vindictive retaliation against the refusal by these Gandhians to wholly condone the support to the Salwa Judum of the Chhattisgarh state government.
As it happened, four students from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore were visiting Dantewada on the weekend of 16/17 May. They were thus eye-witnesses to the ashram’s demolition. One scholar I spoke to said that the sub-divisional magistrate directing the operations, Ankit Anand, was particularly belligerent. When a student weakly protested, Anand commanded the police to have him silenced. The boy was taken away, beaten up, and asked to confess that the good Gandhian Himanshu was (a) an agent of the Naxalites; and (b) running a prostitution racket.
It was surely not an accident that the state of Chhattisgarh chose the very weekend that the election results were being declared to carry out this savage act of retribution. Who, at a time like this, would care about a violation of democracy in a remote and inaccessible corner of the country while the world was celebrating the victory of democracy in India as a whole? For this writer, the juxtaposition of these two events was powerfully symbolic. For I have long argued that India is a ‘50-50’ democracy. In the formal, institutional sense of holding fair elections contested by many parties, allowing freedom of movement for its citizens, and nurturing a free press, India is indeed democratic. But in other respects, it falls short of the democratic ideal. Kin and caste play far too important a part in politics and governance. Levels of corruption among politicians and officials are unacceptably high. The autonomy of the judiciary is somewhat compromised. The use of force by the State is often capricious and arbitrary.
Even in safe and (mostly) peaceable places like my hometown, Bangalore, one can occasionally encounter the dark side of Indian democracy — as in tax officials who take bribes, or politicians who fill in common waterbodies and sell them to private builders. But it is in the conflict zones of Kashmir, the Northeast, and central India, that the State shows itself at its most unappealing. To be sure, there are extenuating circumstances, such as separatist movements and revolutionary struggles. But to explain is not to apologize. One must condemn the violence used by the Naxalites and by the Kashmiri insurgents. One must yet insist that the Indian State, our State, be held to a higher order of morality and accountability.
Over the past few years, the government of Chhattisgarh has had a particularly undistinguished record in this respect. The burning of adivasi villages under the government-sponsored Salwa Judum has been documented in a series of independent reports. Then there is the unconscionable incarceration without bail of the respected social worker and doctor, Binayak Sen, on the very flimsy charge of carrying a letter from one Naxalite to another. Now comes this savage act of retribution against a group of law-abiding, peace-loving, and utterly non-violent Gandhians.
Supporters of the Chhattisgarh government deflect such criticism by pointing to the fact that the chief minister of the state has won a series of elections. But democracy does not begin and end with the counting of votes. Those elected to political office are sworn to uphold the rule of law, and to honour the ideals of the Indian Constitution. This holds true at the national as well as provincial levels. It applies equally to Congress-led governments as to Bharatiya Janata Party-led ones. So long as incidents such as the demolition of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram occur and recur, India will not count as much more than a 50 per cent democracy.
ramguh
In the summer of 2006, I had myself eaten several meals in that ashram in Dantewada. Its founder, Himanshu, is a sharp-eyed, well-built, and forever smiling man in his late forties. Originally from Meerut, he was inspired by Vinoba Bhave and Nirmala Deshpande to devote his life to the adivasis of central India. In 1992, he moved with his wife to Dantewada to fulfil his calling. He recruited a group of local boys and girls, and with their assistance worked on bringing education and healthcare to the adivasis.
By the time I visited the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, it had established a solid presence in the district. Its campus lay in the little village of Kanwalnar, about 10 miles from Dantewada town. Ringed by mango trees, the ashram contained a set of low, modest buildings where the members lived. From this home in the forest they ventured out into the surrounding countryside, to work among the Gonds and Koyas and Murias of the district.
The activities of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram would be reckoned by most people in most times to be uncontroversial. But these are dangerous times in Dantewada, with a civil war raging between Maoist revolutionaries and a vigilante group promoted by the state administration and known as Salwa Judum. In this war, the tribals are caught in-between — so are Gandhian social workers. No one living in the district of Dantewada is now allowed to be neutral, to condemn even-handedly the barbaric acts of the Naxalites as well as the barbaric acts of the Salwa Judum.
As a consequence of the civil war, more than 50,000 tribals in Dantewada have been uprooted from their homes. Some left voluntarily; while many others were forcibly displaced by the Salwa Judum or by the Maoists. These refugees live in camps strung along the main road, in leaking and unstable tents, and without proper access to food, water, and means of employment. Many victims of the civil war fled across the border to Andhra Pradesh, where they live in equally pathetic conditions.
After months of living in this way, some tribals asked that they be allowed to return to their villages, so that they could live in their own homes, and close to their lands and their livestock. While the state wanted them to stay on in the camps, the villagers were encouraged to go back by the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram. Thus Himanshu and his co-workers set about rehabilitating those adivasis who wished to have no more of life in the camps.
The pretext behind the demolition of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram is that the campus has ‘encroached’ on government forest land. The Gandhians, on the other hand, insist that they built on revenue land acquired legally and with permission from the local panchayat. The case is currently being heard in the local courts. Rather than await the court’s verdict, the district authorities uniliaterally chose to demolish the ashram, in what is very clearly an act of vindictive retaliation against the refusal by these Gandhians to wholly condone the support to the Salwa Judum of the Chhattisgarh state government.
As it happened, four students from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore were visiting Dantewada on the weekend of 16/17 May. They were thus eye-witnesses to the ashram’s demolition. One scholar I spoke to said that the sub-divisional magistrate directing the operations, Ankit Anand, was particularly belligerent. When a student weakly protested, Anand commanded the police to have him silenced. The boy was taken away, beaten up, and asked to confess that the good Gandhian Himanshu was (a) an agent of the Naxalites; and (b) running a prostitution racket.
It was surely not an accident that the state of Chhattisgarh chose the very weekend that the election results were being declared to carry out this savage act of retribution. Who, at a time like this, would care about a violation of democracy in a remote and inaccessible corner of the country while the world was celebrating the victory of democracy in India as a whole? For this writer, the juxtaposition of these two events was powerfully symbolic. For I have long argued that India is a ‘50-50’ democracy. In the formal, institutional sense of holding fair elections contested by many parties, allowing freedom of movement for its citizens, and nurturing a free press, India is indeed democratic. But in other respects, it falls short of the democratic ideal. Kin and caste play far too important a part in politics and governance. Levels of corruption among politicians and officials are unacceptably high. The autonomy of the judiciary is somewhat compromised. The use of force by the State is often capricious and arbitrary.
Even in safe and (mostly) peaceable places like my hometown, Bangalore, one can occasionally encounter the dark side of Indian democracy — as in tax officials who take bribes, or politicians who fill in common waterbodies and sell them to private builders. But it is in the conflict zones of Kashmir, the Northeast, and central India, that the State shows itself at its most unappealing. To be sure, there are extenuating circumstances, such as separatist movements and revolutionary struggles. But to explain is not to apologize. One must condemn the violence used by the Naxalites and by the Kashmiri insurgents. One must yet insist that the Indian State, our State, be held to a higher order of morality and accountability.
Over the past few years, the government of Chhattisgarh has had a particularly undistinguished record in this respect. The burning of adivasi villages under the government-sponsored Salwa Judum has been documented in a series of independent reports. Then there is the unconscionable incarceration without bail of the respected social worker and doctor, Binayak Sen, on the very flimsy charge of carrying a letter from one Naxalite to another. Now comes this savage act of retribution against a group of law-abiding, peace-loving, and utterly non-violent Gandhians.
Supporters of the Chhattisgarh government deflect such criticism by pointing to the fact that the chief minister of the state has won a series of elections. But democracy does not begin and end with the counting of votes. Those elected to political office are sworn to uphold the rule of law, and to honour the ideals of the Indian Constitution. This holds true at the national as well as provincial levels. It applies equally to Congress-led governments as to Bharatiya Janata Party-led ones. So long as incidents such as the demolition of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram occur and recur, India will not count as much more than a 50 per cent democracy.
ramguh
Friday, May 22, 2009
RBI governor sees recovery by year-end, with a caveat
The signs are all there, but Reserve Bank governor Duvvuri Subbarao is still being cautious about the green shoots of a possible upturn in the economy.
“As the monetary and fiscal stimuli that were introduced by the Reserve Bank and the government work their way through, and if calm and confidence are restored in the global markets, we can see economic turnaround later this year,” he said at a financial management summit on Friday.
“While overall industrial production fell again in March, cement and steel production have shown some preliminary signs of upturn. Segments in the automobile sector, particularly two and three wheelers and passenger cars, are showing modest revival of demand. The industrial and business outlook is improving,” he said.
A lot would depend on the global recovery, and “if global recovery does not take hold by the last quarter of 2009, we would realise that the domestic policy response should have been stronger,” he said.
“As the monetary and fiscal stimuli that were introduced by the Reserve Bank and the government work their way through, and if calm and confidence are restored in the global markets, we can see economic turnaround later this year,” he said at a financial management summit on Friday.
“While overall industrial production fell again in March, cement and steel production have shown some preliminary signs of upturn. Segments in the automobile sector, particularly two and three wheelers and passenger cars, are showing modest revival of demand. The industrial and business outlook is improving,” he said.
A lot would depend on the global recovery, and “if global recovery does not take hold by the last quarter of 2009, we would realise that the domestic policy response should have been stronger,” he said.
Standing tall
Priyanka Gandhi said it first. Her brother’s great skill — she told me on the campaign trail — was his willingness to “sacrifice the now for the future.” Not just was he never given enough credit for this, she argued; he was often needlessly “berated” by a fickle media. Looking back, her words now seem eerily prescient. When Rahul Gandhi first pushed for travelling solo in the badlands of Uttar Pradesh and when he refused to accept the piddly little offer of three seats from Lalu Prasad, there were enough snide sniggers, some from within the Congress itself. I remember, Lalu quipping on a TV show, “Is Rahulji planning an election for 2014 or 2009?”
But that’s the irony — Rahul Gandhi probably was planning a long-term overhaul for 2014 or even further ahead, and made no apologies for it. In other words, let’s think of what would have happened if the Congress’ seats had not soared in UP. The media that is gushing today would have swung to the other extreme and editorialised on supposed political “naivete.” Every sentence uttered during electioneering would have been deconstructed for potential failure. And the Opposition would have been stomping all over the story.
It’s now conventional wisdom to pitch Rahul Gandhi as the big winner of this election. But I think, the real reason that he is a victor is not so much the fact that Rahul Gandhi’s courageous risk won the Congress the Hindi heartland; it’s the fact that had his party lost, he would have still believed in the need to pursue a lonelier, but braver political path. There are very few politicians who can stand up to the public scrutiny of a decision that doesn’t yield immediate results. It’s my guess that the 39-year-old Gandhi is probably one of those few. And that’s what makes him a winner.
Going through my old notes on the same interview with Priyanka Gandhi, I found that she had emphasised back then how little her brother cared about how he was perceived. “He does (what he has to do) regardless of what anybody thinks of him,” she said. “I mean, remember the UP Assembly election, where he was berated and in the press everything was piled onto him. But he just went ahead with what he thought was right. The other thing that I think is great about him as a politician is he doesn’t have this thing that he absolutely has to succeed every time. He’s very good with things in which perhaps maybe in the short-term he won’t succeed but he can see that there is a long- term success. He will work through that short-term failure.”
It’s the willingness to divorce politics from the popularity stakes that makes Rahul Gandhi so unusual.
Of course there’s a difference between following your heart and mind and being entirely indifferent to public opinion. It is sometimes a thin line that separates courage from hubris. And many politicians have lost their balance in this tough trapeze walk.
That’s why I think, despite all the clamouring for Rahul Gandhi to be part of the new council of ministers, his instinct to stay out is probably much wiser. Not just because the party organisation needs strengthening and rejuvenation, but also because it’s the more grounded way to climb to the top. It’s a path designed to sidestep the hurdles that ingratiating sycophancy within the party can prop up.
And that will be what Rahul Gandhi will be most closely watched for in the months and years to come. Will he manage to live up to his word of delivering democracy within his own party? He’s often said that just because he’s a product of a system doesn’t mean he can’t try and change it. Fair enough. So will he be able to replicate the Youth Congress model within the parent party? He’s spoken so often about how political parties shouldn’t be designed in a way that empower only those “whom the leader likes.” These are brave, but I think felt words from someone whose party-men are always tripping over each other to flatter him in public and in private.
Finally, while so many deconstruct Rahul Gandhi in terms of his father and his grandmother (his own sister said he combined the best of both politically), I think, he may have another unexpected example to emulate — his mother. Sonia Gandhi, the shy, reluctant politician, permanently silenced her critics since the day she declared she had no interest in being Prime Minister. Five years later, she holds not just the party; but also the alliance together. Every time there is a crisis — a recalcitrant partner, a dissenting old leader, a sulky party colleague — it is she who is called in to apply the balm. Those who dismissed her as a novice from abroad have had to swallow their words and accept that old fashioned stuff like hard work and sheer goodwill still have a huge space in Indian politics. It’s the same goodwill and simple integrity that most people associate with the Prime Minister.
And it’s that mix of decency and humility that we will look for in the man destined to lead the Congress into its new future.
courtsey the hindusthan times
But that’s the irony — Rahul Gandhi probably was planning a long-term overhaul for 2014 or even further ahead, and made no apologies for it. In other words, let’s think of what would have happened if the Congress’ seats had not soared in UP. The media that is gushing today would have swung to the other extreme and editorialised on supposed political “naivete.” Every sentence uttered during electioneering would have been deconstructed for potential failure. And the Opposition would have been stomping all over the story.
It’s now conventional wisdom to pitch Rahul Gandhi as the big winner of this election. But I think, the real reason that he is a victor is not so much the fact that Rahul Gandhi’s courageous risk won the Congress the Hindi heartland; it’s the fact that had his party lost, he would have still believed in the need to pursue a lonelier, but braver political path. There are very few politicians who can stand up to the public scrutiny of a decision that doesn’t yield immediate results. It’s my guess that the 39-year-old Gandhi is probably one of those few. And that’s what makes him a winner.
Going through my old notes on the same interview with Priyanka Gandhi, I found that she had emphasised back then how little her brother cared about how he was perceived. “He does (what he has to do) regardless of what anybody thinks of him,” she said. “I mean, remember the UP Assembly election, where he was berated and in the press everything was piled onto him. But he just went ahead with what he thought was right. The other thing that I think is great about him as a politician is he doesn’t have this thing that he absolutely has to succeed every time. He’s very good with things in which perhaps maybe in the short-term he won’t succeed but he can see that there is a long- term success. He will work through that short-term failure.”
It’s the willingness to divorce politics from the popularity stakes that makes Rahul Gandhi so unusual.
Of course there’s a difference between following your heart and mind and being entirely indifferent to public opinion. It is sometimes a thin line that separates courage from hubris. And many politicians have lost their balance in this tough trapeze walk.
That’s why I think, despite all the clamouring for Rahul Gandhi to be part of the new council of ministers, his instinct to stay out is probably much wiser. Not just because the party organisation needs strengthening and rejuvenation, but also because it’s the more grounded way to climb to the top. It’s a path designed to sidestep the hurdles that ingratiating sycophancy within the party can prop up.
And that will be what Rahul Gandhi will be most closely watched for in the months and years to come. Will he manage to live up to his word of delivering democracy within his own party? He’s often said that just because he’s a product of a system doesn’t mean he can’t try and change it. Fair enough. So will he be able to replicate the Youth Congress model within the parent party? He’s spoken so often about how political parties shouldn’t be designed in a way that empower only those “whom the leader likes.” These are brave, but I think felt words from someone whose party-men are always tripping over each other to flatter him in public and in private.
Finally, while so many deconstruct Rahul Gandhi in terms of his father and his grandmother (his own sister said he combined the best of both politically), I think, he may have another unexpected example to emulate — his mother. Sonia Gandhi, the shy, reluctant politician, permanently silenced her critics since the day she declared she had no interest in being Prime Minister. Five years later, she holds not just the party; but also the alliance together. Every time there is a crisis — a recalcitrant partner, a dissenting old leader, a sulky party colleague — it is she who is called in to apply the balm. Those who dismissed her as a novice from abroad have had to swallow their words and accept that old fashioned stuff like hard work and sheer goodwill still have a huge space in Indian politics. It’s the same goodwill and simple integrity that most people associate with the Prime Minister.
And it’s that mix of decency and humility that we will look for in the man destined to lead the Congress into its new future.
courtsey the hindusthan times
California unemployment rate drops slightly in April
California's unemployment rate basically flattened in April, but the first good news in a year brought little cheer to experts.
Although the often volatile rate dropped to 11% from March's 11.2%, the Golden State still lost 63,700 jobs during the month, the state Employment Development Department reported today.
Interactive: California's rising jobless...X
And more losses could be in store this summer as school districts, cities, counties and the state government react to plunging tax revenues by laying off large numbers of teachers and civil servants, economists warn.
"It's a mixed report," said Howard Roth, chief economist for the state Department of Finance. "Unemployment went down, but the job loss is still substantial."
Another economist, Stephen Levy of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto, was more stark in his appraisal. The unemployment "decline is a false signal that economic recovery is underway," he said.
California Jobless
The number of unemployed in California has increased by 842,800 since April 2008, when the jobless rate stood at just 6.6%.
The small drop in unemployment statewide last month was mirrored in Southern California. Unemployment fell from 11.3% to 11% in Los Angeles County. In the Inland Empire, it dropped from 13% to 12.6%. The rate in Orange County went from 8.6% to 8.3%. And in Ventura County, it fell from 9.7% to 9.2%.
California currently has nation's the fifth-worst employment climate, ranking behind Michigan at 12.9%, Oregon at 12%, South Carolina at 11.5% and Rhode Island at 11.1%.
Over the last few months, California actually has moved down a couple of spots in the rankings as the deepening recession sunk its claws more deeply into western and southeastern states.
"It's too early to say the economy is stabilizing, but it is sliding at a slower pace," said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at California State University-Channel Islands. "Before we hit bottom, we need to slow the rate of descent."
Sohn said he detects hints of renewed economic vitality in the housing, retail sales and health care areas. But, the monthly state jobs reported significant job gains in only one category, government.
And that uptick shouldn't last when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature start hacking education, social services, health care and prison budgets, economist Levy predicted.
"There is nothing but bad news for state and local government budgets in the April jobs report," he says.
Although the often volatile rate dropped to 11% from March's 11.2%, the Golden State still lost 63,700 jobs during the month, the state Employment Development Department reported today.
Interactive: California's rising jobless...X
And more losses could be in store this summer as school districts, cities, counties and the state government react to plunging tax revenues by laying off large numbers of teachers and civil servants, economists warn.
"It's a mixed report," said Howard Roth, chief economist for the state Department of Finance. "Unemployment went down, but the job loss is still substantial."
Another economist, Stephen Levy of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto, was more stark in his appraisal. The unemployment "decline is a false signal that economic recovery is underway," he said.
California Jobless
The number of unemployed in California has increased by 842,800 since April 2008, when the jobless rate stood at just 6.6%.
The small drop in unemployment statewide last month was mirrored in Southern California. Unemployment fell from 11.3% to 11% in Los Angeles County. In the Inland Empire, it dropped from 13% to 12.6%. The rate in Orange County went from 8.6% to 8.3%. And in Ventura County, it fell from 9.7% to 9.2%.
California currently has nation's the fifth-worst employment climate, ranking behind Michigan at 12.9%, Oregon at 12%, South Carolina at 11.5% and Rhode Island at 11.1%.
Over the last few months, California actually has moved down a couple of spots in the rankings as the deepening recession sunk its claws more deeply into western and southeastern states.
"It's too early to say the economy is stabilizing, but it is sliding at a slower pace," said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at California State University-Channel Islands. "Before we hit bottom, we need to slow the rate of descent."
Sohn said he detects hints of renewed economic vitality in the housing, retail sales and health care areas. But, the monthly state jobs reported significant job gains in only one category, government.
And that uptick shouldn't last when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature start hacking education, social services, health care and prison budgets, economist Levy predicted.
"There is nothing but bad news for state and local government budgets in the April jobs report," he says.
California Supreme Court to rule on Proposition 8 Tuesday
The California Supreme Court announced today that it will rule Tuesday on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the November ballot measure that resurrected a ban on same-sex marriage.
The ruling, which will be posted at 10 a.m., will also determine whether an estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages will continue to be recognized by the state.
Gay rights lawyers have argued that the ballot measure was an illegal constitutional revision rather than a more limited amendment. Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown urged the court to reject the measure on different grounds. He contended the proposition was unconstitutional because it took away an inalienable right without compelling justification.
Chief Justice Ronald M. George and Justice Joyce L. Kennard will cast key votes in the case. They were part of the four-judge majority that gave gays the right to marry last May, but both indicated at oral argument that they were not persuaded the measure was unconstitutional.
The court’s majority decision should be revealed in the first or second page of the ruling and reiterated in its last paragraph. Separate concurring and dissenting opinions follow.
Counting votes may be tricky because the court is dealing with three different legal issues: the revision challenge, the attorney general’s challenge and the fate of existing same-sex marriages.
The court’s vote on whether Proposition 8 is an impermissible revision, for example, will probably differ from its vote on whether existing marriages should continue to be recognized by the state.
Justices who disagree with the majority file dissents. If they agree with only part of the majority decision, they file an opinion called a partial concurrence and dissent.
During oral argument in March, every justice expressed support for upholding existing marriages. Justice Carlos M. Moreno indicated he believed Proposition 8 was an illegal revision, indicating he would dissent on that question
Moreno might be joined by Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, a former civil rights lawyer who stressed the court was dealing with a novel legal question. Werdegar, however, did not join Moreno in voting to put the measure on hold pending the court’s ruling.
The ruling, which will be posted at 10 a.m., will also determine whether an estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages will continue to be recognized by the state.
Gay rights lawyers have argued that the ballot measure was an illegal constitutional revision rather than a more limited amendment. Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown urged the court to reject the measure on different grounds. He contended the proposition was unconstitutional because it took away an inalienable right without compelling justification.
Chief Justice Ronald M. George and Justice Joyce L. Kennard will cast key votes in the case. They were part of the four-judge majority that gave gays the right to marry last May, but both indicated at oral argument that they were not persuaded the measure was unconstitutional.
The court’s majority decision should be revealed in the first or second page of the ruling and reiterated in its last paragraph. Separate concurring and dissenting opinions follow.
Counting votes may be tricky because the court is dealing with three different legal issues: the revision challenge, the attorney general’s challenge and the fate of existing same-sex marriages.
The court’s vote on whether Proposition 8 is an impermissible revision, for example, will probably differ from its vote on whether existing marriages should continue to be recognized by the state.
Justices who disagree with the majority file dissents. If they agree with only part of the majority decision, they file an opinion called a partial concurrence and dissent.
During oral argument in March, every justice expressed support for upholding existing marriages. Justice Carlos M. Moreno indicated he believed Proposition 8 was an illegal revision, indicating he would dissent on that question
Moreno might be joined by Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, a former civil rights lawyer who stressed the court was dealing with a novel legal question. Werdegar, however, did not join Moreno in voting to put the measure on hold pending the court’s ruling.
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