He was a great scholar’

Vijay Tendulkar was one of the greatest playwrights in India. He was the investigative journalist of society. I first met him several years back, not as a playwright but as a neighbour. Then I met him again while I was assisting Ashutosh Gowarikar and then while acting in a TV serial by his daughter Priya that he produced. He fondly called me Jesus Christ.

I read a line written by the great filmmaker Tarkwasky that said, “Imagination is less richer than reality.” Tendulkar’s writing made me understand the truth behind this statement. His classic plays Ghasiram Kotwal, Sakharam Binder and Shantata Court Chalu Aahe (translated as Silence! The Court is in Session) are deeply imprinted in my mind. He was a scholar, a thinker and a guide.

A strong man who went through a lot, having faced three deaths in his house — that of his son, his daughter and his wife. My biggest guilt is that I didn’t meet him in the last six-seven months. I remember his quiet walks in the Vile Parle East area. I always wondered what would be going thorough his mind as he walked at an even speed. He was vocal about the loss of freedom in the aftermath of the blasts in Mumbai in a newspaper. He was a fearless man. His play Sakharam Binder was banned by the state censor board; a play named Gidhade too was performed without tickets as that too went through a censor hassle.

He was threatened several times by political and cultural goons. As a writer, I dwell very often on the fantastic, but it’s he who made me understand the richness of reality. I am grateful to him for giving me the freedom to write a script based on his classic play Sakharam Binder titled Sakharam ke Khoj Mein and now I have written a film script on it called Sakharam.

I will be recollecting his words and his silence and hope they take me through my future. If at all life exists after death, I’d really want to meet him again.

Rice exporters face lawsuits

The export duty on basmati rice will not curtail inflation but will lead to loss of export market, Ficci said on Sunday.With a view to discourage exports, the government imposed an export duty of Rs 8,000 a tonne on basmati rice. The government has also lowered minimum export price (MEP) from $1,200 to $1,000 a tonne.

Ficci said the total consumption of rice in India is close to 89 million tonnes, of which, the consumption of basmati is a paltry 0.2 per cent. Even this meagre domestic consumption is restricted to the upper income consumers who have high disposable incomes.Ficci in a letter to the Prime Minister said the twin measures hold out the possibility of loss of export market.

Meanwhile, Saudi importers are already threatening lawsuits against Indian rice exporters for default on commitments and have started negotiating with Pakistan and Thailand for its rice requirements.

Indian exporters have told the importers in Saudi Arabia that they can not absorb the additional duty as their margins are thin. They have said that the Saudi importers will have to bear this additional duty. Meanwhile, the Riyadh chamber of commerce and industry has asked the Indian government to withdraw this duty.

The market lost by the Indian basmati rice farmers will in turn, help their Pakistani counterparts.

Indo-Israel ties blooming, next on radar is an FTA

The bilateral relations of India and Israel encompass all aspects of hu man endeavour. India and Israel established diplomatic relations in 1992 but in a short span of 16 years, their bilateral relations have grown manifold.

Two-way trade has touched $3.3 billion. India and Israel have begun looking at a Free Trade Area agreement. Israeli investment in India is growing steadily and there is a spurt in Israeli investment in real estate and agriculture sectors of the Indian economy and growing Indian investments in Israel.

For example, about nine lakh saplings of olive have been delivered to India.

We are intensifying cooperation in drip irrigation too.

Recently Israel executed its biggest agriculture development initiative anywhere in the world, in India, which entails potentially tens of millions of dollars worth of cooperative projects in waste-water management, horticulture, etc. With food prices rising, India and Israel can do a lot together.

The relationship is booming in high technology too.

The defence relationship is burgeoning. In short, the rapid growth of bilateral ties in a short span of 16 years is mind-boggling.

There is enormous goodwill for Israel in India. Similarly, there is a lot of awe for Indian culture and society within Israel. The people-to-people ties are underpinning all aspects of the bilateral relationship. It is difficult to find another relationship which has grown from so little to so much in 16 years. The Israeli embassy in India is the largest in Asia and one of the largest in the world, so you can imagine the importance we attach to our ties with India.

There is a feeling of great activity in the air and it remains to be seen where we go from here, with the adrenaline running on both sides. We are happy with our bilateral relationship with India. It augurs well for the future.

India, which recently celebrated its 60th anniversary, and Israel, are two great civilisations with shared values.

The sky is the limit for the India-Israel bilateral relationship and we hope to bring this relationship to fruition in all fields, with a smile on our faces. There is enthusiasm in our relationship.

This is an exciting time for Israel. Israel at 60 is the envy of many peoples and nations. Israel is economically growing at over five per cent for the past few years.

Israel’s population is 7.3 million and the per capita income in Israel is over $22,000, much above the average West European standards.

Israel is a democracy and its society is based on human values. Israel enjoys the freedoms of the press and judiciary, among others, and there is an open and dynamic public debate.

Despite the trials and tribulations of the conflict in West Asia, Israel has become a country that is the envy of many. Israelis are proud of their economic growth, technological pro wess and culture.

The West Asian conflict is one of the major problems confronting the world. Israelis forever remain hopeful of a resolution of the conflict. Their hope is based on reality, not wishful thinking. We hope in the near future we can reach a final settlement with the people of Palestine.

The Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, and Palestine’s President, Mahmoud Abbas, recently met again for negotiations and we are hopeful that indeed things will move forward for the peoples of Israel and Palestine.

There are extremists within the Palestinian camp, like Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which are sworn enemies of Israel. They undermine any hope of the people of Israel.

We in Israel believe there can be no military solution of the conflict. The Iranian leadership is ruining the chances of resolving the conflict by aiding and abetting Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

The Iranian leadership is openly talking of wiping Israel off the map, it is denying the Holocaust, and it is not raising any hope of peace. It is a very sad commentary on the great civilisation of Iran, which has given so much to mankind, but we will overcome the hardliners.

The people of Israel and Palestine hope to live side by side, in a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, in harmony and peace. As we enter the 60th year, we believe peace is viable and doable.

There is a goodwill in Israel for the people of Palestine. I hope they follow the pragmatic and forward looking leadership of Mr Mahmoud Abbas and shy away from the hatred and violence of the extremists.

India, China blamed for rising fuel prices

After President George W. Bush’s remarks linking Indians’ food habits to rising prices of commodities globally, the US is now criticising India and China for the surge in oil prices to record levels.

The White House also sought to calm the frayed nerves in India to Mr Bush’s remarks that the rising prosperity of it’s large middle class is contributing to rising foods prices around the world saying the US saw “higher living standards” of people there as a “good thing”.

“Many developing nations like India or China are having greatly increased demand, which obviously is having an impact on price,” the White House deputy spokesman, Mr Scott Stanzel, said at a briefing responding to a question on the crude oil price crossing $120-mark.

“There are a lot of different ways that we can reduce our dependence, but we have more to do and it’s just — and also I would point out that, obviously, the demand for oil is growing around the world,” he said.

Asked to clarify Mr Bush’s remarks on Indian’s food habits, Mr Stanzel said, “We think that it is a good thing that countries are developing; that more and more people have higher and higher standards of living.” However, he apparently did not go back on Mr Bush’s point that Indian food habits were contributing to spiralling food prices, which in turn, were worsen ing the global food crisis.

“The point that I think was to be made is that as you increase your standard of living, the food that you eat can venture more into meats that require more commodities to feed the livestock which, you know, uses more of those commodities, whether it’s corn, or wheat, or other commodities and it drives up the price. So that is just a function of how those food prices that we’ve seen spike around the world," Mr Stanzel said.

Three days ago, Mr Bush had specifically taken the case of Indian middle class to argue that its demand for better nutrition was a factor in pushing the global food prices up.

The White House official also defended US policy on biofuels saying it was having just a “small impact” on the rising prices of food commodities.

“There’s been a lot of discussion about biofuels and the impact that biofuels have on increase food prices around the world. As you’ll see here, over the last year, food prices have increased about 43 per cent around the world,” Mr Stanzel said.

“Of that portion, an increase in the biofuel production, about 1.5 per cent of that is due to an increase in biofuel production,” Mr Stanzel said.

“So the fact that we are making more biofuels so we reduce our dependence on foreign energy has an impact, but we believe it is a small impact,” he added.

Need specialists in MEA’

Q India and Pakistan will resume talks this month.

How would you characterise the India-Pakistan bilateral relations today? A. The initiation of peace process with Pakistan is one of the best things that has happened to our foreign policy. Now you can go into various factors which led to this; one could be that Pakistanis always considered India at par and the effort was to equalise the disadvantage of size and strength through their alliances. But I think post1998, Pakistan has begun to realise that India has a different trajectory, and Pakistan had to look after its own vital interests.

Q. Siachen and Sir Creek are two of the eight subjects of the composite dialogue. Do you think they can be quickly resolved? A. Unfortunately, both sides have dug in their heels on some of these issues and they look a little intractable at this moment but I would say since Pakistan is accepting that we can normalise relations, more or less, following the Chinese model of keeping difficult issues in a separate box and normalising in other areas.

Now quite clearly Kashmir is an issue that can’t be resolved overnight, so why not go forward on other issues, like trade, people-topeople exchanges, a liberal visa policy.

Q. How is India’s foreign policy shaping up? Are we focusing too much on the proposed civil nuclear cooperation with the US at the expense of other regions or issues? A. As I see our foreign policy of the last 60 years, one of our problems has been that we have not been able to focus on more than one issue at a time. If we are going one way, we are neglecting another. Now the realisation has come that the foreign policy cannot be sequential. You cannot say that in the next five years we will deal with Africa, and then we will go to Latin America. It has to be simultaneous.

Do you feel a need of rationalising Indian missions in some of these regions? A. Absolutely. We have muddled along with a tiny foreign service; we have managed, but I think it is clear that it will become unmanageable in the future.

We need to have the manpower for various missions that we have established.

We must strengthen both the ministry of external affairs and our missions abroad.

Darker side of India The White Tiger

This is Aravind Adiga, journalistturned-writer’s first novel. Reportedly it received one of those advances from his publisher all writers dream about. It has also received ecstatic reviews from most Western papers and magazines.

Munna Halwai alias Balram alias the White Tiger reveals his life history in a series of seven letters written to the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao who is visiting Bangalore.

Why is he writing to the Chinese Premier? From the All India Radio he gathers that although the Chinese are ahead of Indians in most areas, India produces more entrepreneurs.

Jiabao is visiting India hoping to learn how to make a few Chinese entrepreneurs. Our hero, the White Tiger, decides to tell the Chinese Premier the story of his climb from filth to wealth.

The tone is sardonic and witty.

The style breezy. The author does not celebrate the famous Indian poverty.

Like most educated well-of Indians, he is appalled by the two Indias. His heart works overtime for the have nots. Which is why he has decided to tell the story from a servant’s viewpoint.

Balram is a poor boy from the Darkness ( a rural backwater named Laxmigarh), a clever student who gets pulled out of school, who is a spider (thin legged boys going around the tables) working in a tea shop.

His young life is full of non performing thieving teachers, wealthy and cruel landlords, corrupt and corpulent socialist politicians.

The cruel landlord of his village is in coal business. One of his children is kidnapped by the Naxalites. A servant who is blamed for negligence is killed with his family.

The children of the family are sent away from the village. Balram moves to Dhanbad after his father’s death (of tuberculosis, thanks to heartless hospitals and errant doctors) manages to learn driving, locates the village landlord’s son Ashok.

He becomes his driver cum factotum, and moves to Delhi with him. A dream come true. Ashok is educated in the US and has married Pinky against his family’s wishes.

Pinky wants to go back to America. Many adventures in Delhi (where the seamy side of India is revealed in all its splendour) unfurl and later Balram kills his master, walks away with a considerable amount of money and becomes an entrepreneur in Bangalore.

The letters build up the momentum to what makes him do this.

And to what Adiga thinks is the new India and its amoral businessmen.

The book is an easy read. However it is irritating and simplistic.

Many regional novelists have looked at the amoral poor and the changing India and its layered complexities in more interesting ways. But then, these regional novelists do not write for the Western readers.

By Aravind Adiga 521 pages Rs 395 HarperCollins.

Nuclear deal on delayed fuse

The eighth meeting of the UPALeft committee on the IndoUS nuclear deal ended on Tuesday without a breakthrough. The committee will meet again on May 28 for another round of talks.

The Left parties indicated they did not intend to climb down from their principled opposition to the nuclear deal. They stressed that their objections to the US Hyde Act and the 123 Agreement had not changed, and posted further queries for the government.

The UPA urged the Left to allow finalisation of a safeguards agreement with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Mr Shyam Saran, the Prime Minister’s special envoy, said the government will continue to “persuade” its Left allies.

External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee read out a brief statement after the talks ended. “In-depth discussions were held on the India-specific safeguards agreement between India and the IAEA. The Left parties have sought further clarifications which will be provided in the next few days,” he said in the presence of CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury.

Emerging from the 90minute talks, All-India Forward Bloc general secretary Debabrata Biswas told reporters that the Left had sought further clarifications after the UPA asked the Left to give a go-ahead to it to get the approval of the IAEA’s board of governors for the India-specific safeguards agreement.

The IAEA board of governors will meet in Vienna from June 2 to 6. “They cannot move ahead without our clearance and we have sought some more clarifications,” Mr Biswas said. The clarifications are understood to have centred around uninterrupted fuel supply, full civil nuclear cooperation, the issue of reciprocity and implications of the Hyde Act on India’s foreign and security policies. Mr Biswas said the Left parties did not have as much problem with the India-specific safeguards pact as the Hyde Act and the 123 Agreement.

India tests interceptor missile successfully

India on Thursday successfully tested a newly developed high-speed interceptor missile over the Bay of Bengal, defence sources said.

As part of an Advanced Air Defence (AAD) exercise, a Prithvi missile modified to "mimic" a hostile ballistic missile was fired from Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur-on-sea in Orissa, some 230 km from State capital Bhubaneswar, about 11 a.m.

The new missile was fired from Wheeler Island a little over two minutes later and successfully intercepted the incoming target, destroying it over the Bay of Bengal, the sources said.

Sources said the missile AAD tested on Thursday was a new one and not a derivative or an update of any existing missile.

It was specially designed and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for this role.

In performance, the AAD is said to be slightly superior to the US PAC-3 (Patriot Advanced Capability) in interception, altitude and range against incoming ballistic missiles, sources said.

On Sunday, defence scientists had conducted a mock trial of the AAD system by using an electronic target fired from the ITR.

Nehru's policies caused Kashmir problem

Accusing successive Congress governments of "inept handling" of internal security, senior BJP leader L.K. Advani on Sunday said the "faulty" policies of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru are responsible for the Kashmir problem.

"The issue of integration of states after Independence was handled cleverly by Sardar VallabhBhai Patel but Nehru, who took charge of handling the Jammu and Kashmir issue, failed in his endeavour and referred the matter to the UN," he said addressing a function organised to release a special internal security edition of RSS monthly Rastradharma here.

Mr Advani alleged that the Congress mishandling of internal security led to the border dispute with China and "India had to face the defeat" in the 1962 Chinese aggression. He also attacked the Congres for "failing miserably" in dealing with terrorism and the Naxalite problem and was going in for a nuclear deal with the US due to which the country would lose its nuclear autonomy.

Claiming that the Bharatiya Jan Sangh was the first party that demanded conducting tests in its convention at Varanasi in 1966, Mr Advani said after the first nuclear test in Pokhran 1974, the Congress "could not muster the courage to conduct further tests". He said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had in the Rajya Sabha opposed the Pokhran nuclear tests conducted by the NDA regime in 1998.

4 Indians abducted from Nigeria oil rig

In yet another case of those infamous Nigerian abductions for ransom, three young technicians from a village in south Tamil Nadu and one from Thane in Maharashtra were picked up along with two Polish crew by armed militants from an offshore rig off Port Harcourt in the oil-rich African country on Friday, according to information reaching here.

"The Nigerian militants boarded the oil rig, Floating Production Storage & Offloading (FPSO) of Mystras at 6 am local time (1100 IST) and took away the six men, including two Polish nationals. They are demanding US$ 50 million. We are very worried," said Jaipal Sudarshan, brother of abducted Ajith Kamaraj