who stands for Taslima?

A woman, ever chased by the muslim fundamentalists in her own country, with a fatwa on her head; came to India thinking of its secular credentials, thinking that it's the place where she can relate to her characters of fictions, assuming that this is the only nation where the freedom of expression is still jeously guarded, but to her utter dismay all her assumptions about India shattered with the recent goings in her host country. When a handful of hooligans indulged in rampage in the intellectual city of Kolkata holding the city into ransom, the so called saviour of secularism i.e. left front government of westbengal was quick to force taslima to fly Rajstan so that the violence can be diffused. The tale doesn't stop here. Rajstan government who was informed of Taslima's arrival at the last moment, showed their reluctance to play host to the writer for a long time. so, in a save facing operation, Taslima was taken to Delhi where after a short stay in Rajstan house, she was put in high security zone of NSG guest house. politics has the beauty of starting everything after the issue just like Indian cops. so, in a dramatic turn around, Narendra bhai, Gujurat C.M. came to the rescue of Taslima offering to play host for Taslima. Seeing, the situation slipping form the hand of left government, Buddhadeb babu said that he was never averse to the idea of the writer staying in the state, welcoming Taslima to the state. But, what is most astonishing is Pranab Mukherji's statement in the Parliament. He gave the statement that though the guests were allowed to live in India with tranquility, they should avoid expressing those sentiments which might hurt any specific community. So, literally he asked Taslima to shut up but up course in a nicer way. Now, under the pressure of fundamentalists and seeing that no credible source is coming forward to resuce her of this conundrum, she gave her assent to delete those lines of his book "Dwikhandita", which are supposed to be pinching the Muslim community. One can imagine what the kind of pain she must be undergoing when she has decided to delete few lines from her book. It's just like asking the mother to rip the body parts of her baby.
Whatever may be the happenings but it shows one thing i.e. the profoundness of Indian hypocrisy espcially of its polity and how come everything becomes a ploy for Indian politicians to take maximum political mileage. It goes beyond the very ideals on which Indian democracy stands . Gone are those days, when Dalai lama was not only greeted to stay in India but also given the freedom of venting his anguish. When India can afford to have bitter reltionship with China in the light of the consistent diatribes from the Buddhist monk, why it is so intolerant about Taslima case? How the two cases differ? Is that something more than India's committment to freedom of expression? this questions naturally poke into one's brain.
An indepth analysis points towards the fact that in this case politics overpowered democratic ideals. Firstly, when the issue of renewing Taslima's visa is not that grave in west bengal politics, why All India Minority Forum took out the protest rally at that particular juncture. Is there any relationship between the stand off between Left front and Congress in the centre over the civil nuclear deal? is this an act of provokation by Mamata or Congress to mess up the matter further after Nandigram controversy? no body knows. Further speaking, how come Left govt. who vehemently opposed any attack on freedom of expression beforehand like- ransacking M.F.Hussain's potrait by hindu zealots, Indore university issue; why not it took a different line up here? Also, watch out for Modi's reaction on the issue. It seems Modi is trying to further polarise the Gujurat society on the name of Muslim bashing. so, in this process, he is ready to accept anything which is anti-muslim or which muslims atleast oppose. othwise, whose human rights credentials are next to Shirin Abidi, how can he be the protector of anyone's freedom of expression. also, it's the land of gujurat, where Modi happily connived with the VHP workers to attack the student of Indore University for his paintings on Lord Shiva. Congress is no better than these two parties. When the central government is trying to discharge its constitutional duties, it doesn't also try to send any wrong signal to its Muslim voters. so Pranab Mukharjee's statement are on the expected line. When he vowed to protect the writer, at the same time perhaps he is against taslima's writing. So the inference is taslima will stay here but writing romances of Bollywood than to pen down anything about women issues.
India may boast itself as the largest democracy of the world but, it seems the holder of this democracy i.e. the political parties can dedicate everything for power may it be their own country one day.

Media and medical ethics- some diatribes

Yesterday, we were ,those previleged few, who got a chance to attend the Bio-ethics conference, organised by NIMHANS. With an air of sophistication all around, we entered into the conference hall like meek viewers, who are always apprehensive of their knowledge in science not to talk about biology and what to talk about medical science. Perhaps, the medical fraternity was miffed with the Dr.Venugopal-Dr.Ramodoss row. They were all out for media bashing like-Media is planting stories only getting the input from one source, media is promoting corporate health care system, media is the culprit behind sensatationalism, for spreading panic within common man blah....., blah......, blah............. . And all we media students and media practioners were perhaps gleefully enjoying this drama. May be for the fact what we are taught in our first class in jounalism, i.e. to be thick skinned. with questions from every corner and also valuable suggestions from doc.s, it seemed that medicos were determined to settle some score, which were nurtured for days.
They blamed us till they satisfied themselves by sspitting of venom. but, with all venality, they forgot to mention somethings which we also faiked to remind. thanks to our first lessons in journalism i.e. to be thickskinned.

Economic diplomacy and Sudan crisis.

With the advent of globalization, the nuances of diplomacy are determined more by trade relations than human values. This is illustratable by the relationship of countries like India and China with Sudan. Though the International community repeatedly accuses Sudan of gross human right violations, still it doesn’t deter China and India to reach for Sudan’s natural resources to feed their burgeoning energy need. Rather, both these countries are busy wooing Sudan for acquiring maximum share of its oil field.
China has distinct economic interest in Sudan as it imports seven percent of its crude oil from this country. More significantly, this oil constitutes 47% of total Sudanese productions. United Nations Commodity Trade Database (UNCOMTRADE) says that China represents 64% of Khartoum’s trade volume. Also, Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has invested $4 billon in Sudan’s different oil fields with 42% stake in Sudan’s major oil company i.e. Great Nile Petroleum Company. China’s economic interest is not limited to petroleum only, rather it eyes for other natural resources like natural gas, gold, silver, chrome, asbestos etc. With rising investment, China emerges as the largest foreign investor in Sudan.
China is pursuing “Trade for Aid” policy in Africa and Sudan is part of this diplomatic design. In a visit to Sudan, Chinese premier Hu Jintao waived debt amount of $80 million and sanctioned $13 million interest free loan for Sudan. These aid amounts are largely utilized in up gradation of oil blocks from which Chinese draws oil.
Barring oil, China sees Africa as a lucrative market for its arm trade and Sudan in particular provides greatest opportunity for its arms market. Sudan’s arm forces have the strongest Chinese colour in this region. Even Ken Bacon of ‘Refugees International’ spotted evidence of Chinese weapons in Darfur conflict. It is believed that, China sold $100 million arms to Sudan in between 1996 to 2003. Chinese made military trucks, t-62 light tanks, F-7 fighters, Y-8 transport aircrafts, FC-2 fighters are now part of Sudanese arsenal. With no sign of diffusion to Sudanese ethnic conflict, the prospects for Chinese arms trade will increase in near future.
When China is vigorously pursuing its trade relations with Sudan, India isn’t sitting idle; rather in accordance with its “Look Africa” policy, India is proactively wooing African nations not only for furthering its economic interests but also to get their crucial support for getting permanent seat in Security Council. From this perspective, Sudan is at the top of its agenda, which is fathomable by Indian president’s visit to Sudan in 2003. The agreements signed during this visits are bilateral agreement on the promotion and protection of investment, agreement on the avoidance of double taxation treaty and memorandum of understanding on communication and information technology. Barring this, India is concentrating on Sudanese oil blocks. ONGC Videsh ltd. has 25% stake in Sudan’s biggest oil consortium. Government of India has also decided to invest $750 million for expansion of refinery sector in Sudan.
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in its report states that the volume of trade with Sudan is around $120million in 2002, with a positive trade balance of $99million for India; making it the sixth largest exporter of commodities to Sudan. The statistics shows that there is 100% growth in bilateral trade between India and Sudan, which gives fillip to bilateral trade relationship. There is also a beeline of Indian companies like ITI, TCIL, and Konkan Railways, which are interested to exploit the Sudanese market. FICCI predicts that there is great potential for Indian industries to participate in areas such as railways, shipping, automobile, power generation, telecommunications, agricultural equipments, and pharmaceuticals and IT etc.
With India and China taking Economics as radar for determination of their foreign policy, Sudan will experience least international pressure to end the conflict from this part of the world.