Scrutator's

Wednesday 30th May 2018 10:00 EDT
 

The Karnataka election was tailor-made for India’s all too wooden English-language TV channels. Style and content were eminently predictable, and hence forgettable. High profile anchors intoxicated by evident self-regard, squeezed clichéd question after question in unchanging mode at political aides, the principals incommunicado, with a gallery of ‘experts’ putting in their rupee’s worth of prescriptive wisdom. One channel on completing its early morning breakfast show followed it up with another sporting a different label but identical in content – a novel way of short-changing audiences. A conjuring trick, some might say, with hypnotized producers, anchors and camera crew sleep-walking and talking ad infinitum – packaged bores, every one.

New Ministry sworn in

The new Karnataka government, led by Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy was sworn into office last week (M ay 23)). As expected, it is a coalition of the Janata Dal United (Secular). The Chief Minister belongs to the JDU (S), his deputy is a Congressman with ministerial posts divided between the two parties as per the agreement between Kumaraswamy and Rahul Gandhi, the Congress President during talks in New Delhi.

Opposition unity

There was a massive show of Opposition unity with every Opposition leader outside the governing coalition present at the ceremony, from Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal Chief Minister and talking head of the Trinamool Congress, Mayawati of the BSP (Uttar Pradesh), Sharad Pawar, President, National Congress Party, Chandrababu Naidu, President Telugu Desam, Andhra Pradesh, Sitaram Yechury, General Secretary, Communist Party of India (Marxist), D. Raja, Communist Party of India, Akhilesh Yadav, Samajwadi Party, RJD leader Ajit Singh, and BJP malcontent Yashwant Sinha. It is a motley crew, united only in its anti- BJP animus and little else. If the past is anything to go by, coalition regimes in Delhi end with warring factions at each other’s throats. Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress goons thrashed opponents of Left and of Right in the recent rural Panchayat elections across West Bengal’s rural heartland. The BJP
has demonized the Congress and Congress stalwarts of the past, which the gracious Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Prime Minister Modi’s predecessor, never did. The venomous BJP attacks have polarized India as never before. However, the 2019 general election is still a year away, and a week is a long time in politics. Congressman Sivakumar, who played a major backroom role in cobbling the coalition, is in a sulk at his alleged marginalization. And this, on the first day on the new government!

Sloganeering

Populist slogans will be pitted against a liberalized economic regime which, ironically, was introduced by Dr Manmohan Singh in 1991, as then finance minister in the Congress government headed by the late Narasimha Rao. Economic reforms have been staunchly opposed by the two Communist parties, but vigorously endorsed by the likes of Chandrababu Naidu. What price Opposition unity? (Times of India May 24)

Inspirational report

The Times of India (May 22) trumped its rivals with truly inspirational first-page lead report of a heart transplant operation which included five participating States, three hospitals and three teams of doctors. The patient from Jharkhand, one Dilchand by name, awoke to a new day and, hopefully, to a new life.

High drama

The drama began with 21 year-old Bangaluru resident critically injured in a road accident; rushed to hospital, he was declared brain-dead. The hospital was swiftly the Karnataka organ sharing registry, which promptly contacted the Regional Organ & Tissue Transplant Organization, which then alerted Fortis Malar in Chennai which found a patient at the Kolkata unit of Fortis.

Second Act

The Second Act commenced with Transplant surgeon K.R.Balakrishnan and cardiac anesthetist Suresh Rao, of Fortis Chennai, took off for Bangaluru and Sparsh Hospital, where recipient Dilchand was wheeled into the Operating Theatre. Fifteen minutes ahead of schedule an IndiGo flight, with the heart in box strapped to a seat, departed for Kolkata.

Around two hours later (11 am), it touched down at Kolkata airport. Ten minutes later, an ambulance with heart set off for the hospital. At 11.10 am, a team of surgeons begin extracting Dilshan’s failing heart. At 11.30 am the Transplant surgery begins, ending at 3 pm, when Dilchand was wheeled out of the Operating Theatre. Betwixt times legal formalities and other essential paperwork were completed as per requirements. The entire process was a marvel of speed, efficiency, commitment and skill. It was a truly magnificent achievement. One learns to accept the reality that bad news travels faster than good, but nothing save inertia prevents the accustomed order to be reversed when the occasion demands. Dilchand is back on his feet, recovering fast.

India, Australia

Partnership Austria’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has given much thought to adjusting her country’s relations with established regional partners, principally India and Japan, with the United States the global linchpin. Minister Bishop shared her thoughts with an Indian reporter on seeking her country’s re-entry into the maritime alignment of India, Japan and the United States and participated in the Malabar naval exercise. Australia withdrew from this arrangement under Kevin Rudd’s Labour government, for fear of offending China, its major trading partner.

She said Australia’s renewed membership of the former Quadrilateral bloc was also an attempt to give proper recognition to India place in the emergent Asia-Pacific order. India is a ‘a significant strategic partner for Australia…we share converging interests, particularly in the Indian Ocean….its economy is integrating with technology and global know-how…increasingly integrated with the economies of East and North Asia.’

Trade, education

Ms Bishop also dwelt on closer economic relations between the two countries, alluding to her government’s forthcoming vision statement. India students were being increasingly drawn to Australia for higher education and subsequent employment opportunities in the country. The Minister said: ‘We welcome Indian students in Australia. But we also welcome skilled immigrants.’ (Hindu May23)

India, Pakistan in SCO anti-terror meet

India and Pakistan have agreed to participate in an anti-terror conference under aegis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to convene in Islamabad. Time will reveal all. Meanwhile Pakistani firing along the Line of Control in Jammu has reached unprecedented levels leading to civilian deaths and 80,000 displaced people sheltering in refugee camps (Hindu May 23)

Rohingya Jihadis massacre Hindus: Amnesty report

An Amnesty International report has claimed that Rohingya jihadis massacred 105 Hindu men, women and children, and abducting many, in Myanmar during a two-day spree. The Self-styled Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army embarked on a murderous rampage in the north of Myanmar’s Racine province. The attack, coordinated with assaults on police outposts, took place on August 25, 2017. (Times of India May 24)

Wary Bangladesh

Reports from Bangladesh suggest that growing numbers of its citizens are wary of the Rohingyas living in their midst. Poverty-stricken with outsized broods of children, the newcomers are perceived as threats to the country’s newly acquired prosperity – albeit, a relative term (Business Line May 24)

Telecom projects for insurgency States & Northeast

The government has earmarked Rs 14,000 crore for telecom projects in States hit by Maoist insurgents and for the country’s Northeast in Meghalaya. In a separate announcement, the Cabinet approved investment of Rs7,000 crore for the setting up of 4072 towers in 96 districts of 10 States affected by Maoist insurgency. These areas will be able to get 4G services Minister for Electronics Ravi Shankar Prasad said the move to improve connectivity in the region would be of social and strategic benefit. More than 1,000 towers are to be set up in 21 districts ofJharkhand and 16 in Chattisgarh. Other states included the scheme are Bihar, Maharashtra, Madhya PPradesh and West Bengal (Economic Times May 24)

Indian American woman scientist in space odyssey

Anita Sengupta, whose father hails from West Bengal, is the lead brain behind NASA’s experiment to recreate the coldest spot in the universe. The spot so created by Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) is expected to be 10 billion times colder than the space vacuum. CAL, flown to the International Space Station last week, could potentially lead to the development of futurist technologies in sensors, quantum computers and atomic clocks in spacecraft navigation, said NASA. Sengupta said CAL would investigate the properties of the ’Bose Einstein Condensate,’ a state of matter that only occurs just above absolute zero.’ (Times of India May 23)

Women as growth drivers of Harley Davidson motorbike

The percentage of American women driving the iconic Harley Davidson motorbike complete with arresting, eye-catching apparel is large; in India, where the numbers are miniscule by comparison. Hence Karen Davidson, the great granddaughter of the company’s co-founder William A. Davidson, arrived in Kolkata for a personal demonstration of the product to popularize the machine in the city and its environs, among an age group between 18 and 35, and take it to other parts of the country’s mainly II towns. The company has set up hubs in as Siliguri, in north Bengal, Dimapur
and Imphal in India’s North East, and hopes to set up others in Varanasi and Goa. It has chosen to bypass Hyderabad, Bangaluru, Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi because of forbiddingly high land prices for office space. Like all visionary entrepreneurs, Karen Davidson and her team are betting big on India’s market potential (Mint May 22)


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