Jayanthi Natarajan dumped the Congress back in 1996 (under the leadership of Mir Jafar Moopanar GK) and Congress got its chance to dump her back in 2013 after Congress was crushed in the state polls and industrialists complained about her to Man Mohan Singh. It was let known that this action was on behalf of a decisive new leader who wanted to show-case his friendliness towards the industry. May not be the best example of poetic justice….but then what is?

….
Jolted by the recent electoral drubbing that was attributed to the
UPA government’s non-performance and indecisiveness, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh Saturday cracked the whip, ensuring the resignation of Environment & Forests Minister (Independent charge) Jayanthi Natarajan.

The move, signalling the government’s intent to remove
bottlenecks in the decision-making process, came ahead of Rahul Gandhi’s
address to India Inc. Sources said the Congress vice-president was
instrumental in Natarajan’s ouster and that several batches of
industrialists had met Rahul in recent times and singled out the
environment ministry for having vitiated the investment climate though
“arbitrary objections” and “rent-seeking”.

……

However the person in charge now is making J.N. look like an angel. The GM invasion is coming and that heroic quantum theoretician Dr. Vandana Shiva and her colleagues will not be able to stop it.

….
Taking a major step forward to scientifically assess ‘risk’ and ‘safety’
aspects of transgenic crops, the government’s top regulator – Genetic
Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) – on Friday revalidated 10 varieties of
GM crops including wheat, rice, maize and cotton and allowed multi-national
seed companies to go for “confined field trials” of these varieties.

The companies like Monsanto, Mahyco and BASF whose applications got
revalidation will, however, be able to go for field trials only after getting
state’s mandatory nod. Revalidation of these varieties was required as their “validity
period” got lapsed due to state government’s stand of not allowing them to
go for field trial. The GEAC had given its clearance in those 10 cases way back
in 2011 and 2012.

The revalidation of 10 cases on Friday would allow the seed companies, which
developed these varieties, to go for “confined field trials” (called
Phase-II trial) in bigger area as compared to their tests in a very small tract
of land during Phase-I.

The move comes barely a month after the ministry had given its nod to
“confined field trials” of over 200 transgenic varieties of GM crops
which got GEAC’s clearance in its 117th meeting in March last year.

Though the regulatory body had given its go ahead to those 200 varieties,
the then environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan had kept this in abeyance. The
ministry had then felt that the companies should not be allowed to go for field
trials unless the Supreme Court takes a final view on a pending PIL on the
contentious issue of GM crops.

The MoEF had, however, under the present minister M Veerappa Moily, last
month allowed the GEAC to hold its 118th meeting on Friday, taking in view
demands of scientist community from across the country. Agriculture scientists from research institutions including IARI, ICAR and
various Universities have been demanding “field trials” for GM crops
for long, arguing that “confined field trials are essential for the
evaluation of productivity performance as well as food and environmental safety
assessment”.

A group of prominent scientists had met under ‘father of green revolution’ M
S Swaminathan here at National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (Nasa) in
February and issued a 15-point resolution in favour of GM crops. Pitching for the field trials, the resolution said, “The
non-conductance of regular field trials is a handicap as well as disincentive
in harnessing the benefits of a wide array of transgenic material available
with different research organizations”.

Anti-GM activists have, however, taken strong objection to the GEAC’s
decision on Friday to revalidate those 10 cases of transgenic varieties which
will pave the way for their field trials.

Protesting field trials, convenor of Coalition for GM Free India, Rajesh
Krishnan said, “The bio-safety tests can be done in a greenhouse or glass
house. The field trials are mostly for agronomic purposes. The industry wants
to reduce the period of regulation and hence wants to run these things
simultaneously”. He said, “It is, in fact, ridiculous to simultaneously do assessment of
risks and open up the experiment for contamination, which often happens in the
case of a field trial, before the risk assessment is done”.

The industry body – Association of Biotech Led Enterprises- Agriculture
Group (ABLE-AG) – has, however, welcomed the GEAC’s move, calling it “a
progressive push to the march of GM technology in India”. “We welcome this and hope that the rest of the applications too shall
be expeditiously cleared,” said Ram Kaundinya, chairman of the ABLE-AG. 

regards

It happens to the best amongst us- there is a time when we are no longer indispensable and we are disposed off without much fanfare.

That said, it should be noted that this was a very quick fall for such a tall man- by rights he should have been made PM for UPA-II. It is unlikely that he would have provided the measly excuses on corruption that ultimately gave rise to the Aam Aadmi Party and which now threatens to annihilate Congress for a long long time.

At this point it will be difficult for PC to even get elected to the Rajya Sabha (unless he is given an out-of-state quota). His career is effectively over.
 

Union
Minister P Chidambaram has opted out of the Lok Sabha election with the
party tonight nominating his son Karti from his constituency Sivaganga
in Tamil Nadu. 

[ref. wiki] Palaniappan Chidambaram (born 16 September 1945) is an Indian politician affiliated with the Indian National Congress and the current Union Minister of Finance of the Republic of India.
P. Chidambaram is a well-known corporate lawyer and an important member
of the last two Congress-led Governments. He also served as the Finance
Minister from May 2004 to November 2008. However, after the resignation
of Shivraj Patil in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008, Chidambaram was made the Home Affairs Minister. After a three and a half-year stint as Home Minister, Chidambaram returned as Finance Minister, succeeding Pranab Mukherjee, who demitted office to become the President of India

regards

From Rs 200 to Rs 7700 crores. The richest Lok Sabha candidate (as declared so far).

An inspiring (true) story. The IITs have given much to the nation but much more is expected (and from other elite academic institutions as well). It is also to be hoped that Mr Nilekani’s charitable donations will be focused on improving education of all stripes (engineering, medical, liberal arts, K-12 etc).

…..
In
what would perhaps make him the richest Lok Sabha candidate, ahead of
officially declaring his assets, when he files the nomination papers
here on Friday, former UIDAI chairman and Bangalore South Congress
candidate Nandan Nilekani on Thursday announced that his wife Rohini and
he were worth Rs 7,700 crore.

“I started out with Rs 200 in my
pocket, when I graduated from IIT. We founded the Infosys with Rs
10,000,” Nilekani and Rohini said in a statement issued to declare their
assets.

Nilekani said of the Rs 7,700 crore, almost 80% of the
wealth remains in Infosys shares, where he still owns 1.45% and Rohini
1.3%. “This wealth was created, while Infosys brought lakhs of jobs to
Bangalore. The company also shared a lot of wealth with our employees
through ESOPs,” he added.
Apart from the huge assets, Nilekani
said: “The biggest thing the money Infosys brought me is the freedom to
do what I want. And what I want, is to give millions more the
opportunities I had.”

According to him the Infosys story,
inspired a generation of young Indians to start something on their own,
to take risks that created wealth for the country, as well as millions
of new jobs.

In the statement, the couple said they have
donated almost Rs 400 crore of their wealth to various causes and
charities.

“‘I am proud of the fact
that my wealth is completely transparent. I haven’t made any of my money
illegally, or hid it in investments outside the country. Nothing is
hidden in someone else’s bank account. It is all completely transparent
and tax-paid,” Nilekani said. 
regards

Telangana (also Karnataka and Kerala) with 17 Lok Sabha seats was the great southern hope for  the Congress in order to avoid annihilation at the polls.
Now with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) rejecting alliance with the Congress (both at the state and national level) there will be considerable heart-break.

Not only this is a disaster in the short term, but in the long term Congress will lose what was a few years ago its most loyal base (stayed with Mrs Gandhi even after the emergency horrors in 1977).

TRS is perhaps making a calculation that an alliance with the BJP may provide them with much needed Central bounty as the partition moves forward.

Not to worry, in the next election these fair weather friends will find a way to meet up again (in response to the demands of the people).  Another day in the wonder that is political India.

BTW this is a background map illustrating how the southern states (Karnataka shown with deep blue borders) were formed through reorganization of the British ruled and Native ruled states. The new Telangana state is in the North-East corner. The new Andhra state is shown in sky-blue.

….
In a severe setback to Congress in Telangana, TRS dashed its hopes of an
alliance for the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in the region.


 
“There will not be any electoral alliance with Congress. Let’s see from
tomorrow if TRS MLAs will join the Congress or the reverse will happen,”
Telangana Rashtra Samiti chief K Chandrasekhar Rao said addressing his
party workers at the Telangana Bhavan here. KCR’s remarks appear significant amidst indication that two former women
ministers were all set to quit the Congress and join the TRS in a day
or two.


 
Congress, which seeks credit for the role of the Congress-led UPA
government at the Centre in the carving out of the new state out of
Andhra Pradesh, has been seeking at least an alliance after TRS ruled
out a merger with it. There are 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana whose assembly strength is 117.


 
Referring to remarks made by AICC General Secretary Digvijaya Singh on
TRS’ refusal to merge with the Congress after the creation of
Telangana., Rao attacked the Congress, asking, “They say KCR betrayed
them but what was the betrayal.”


 
Rao said they had proposed merger of TRS with Congress to secure
statehood for the region and prevent suicides by hundreds of youth. “But now, people are against our merger and hence we are going by their wish,” he added.


 
He recalled that many of those who committed suicide for a separate state had named the Congress for their act. “Now the Congress started a drama saying it will give tickets to kin of those victims in the coming elections,” he said.

regards

Makes a well reasoned (non hysterical) appeal in the name of India’s tradition of secularism and helps underline the role of the Left in keeping the forces of darkness at bay. 

He is correct in noting that the choice is not between leaders, but fails to emphasize that the choice is more conceptual:  if you want growth vote for Modi, if you want harmony vote for someone else. 

That IMO is an improper choice as well because of the dubious nature of claims on both sides- Modi has no magic wand for the economy and the so-called secular parties have (in recent times) an even poorer record of preserving communal harmony than the BJP.

Prof Prashad should have done the right thing and confessed that he and other fellow travelers of the left seriously f**ked up matters by not joining hands with the Indians Against Corruption folks (now morphed into Aam Aadmi Party) and channelizing the popular anger into a broad-based movement when they had their chance 2 years ago. That would have given them exactly what they wanted: a secular, third Front with the urban middle-class on board (and prevent the false choice above from gaining ground, it can be argued that corruption harms the economy as well).

The IAC movement was boycotted by the left for supposedly having right-wing connections. More to the point the left just cant stand nationalists like Anna Hazare (who in turn has abandoned AAP and is now promoting Mamata Banerjee because he has ego issues with Arvind Kejriwal).

The failure of the left (always has been) is short-sightedness and arrogance, and now the entire house of cards (third front) has fallen apart in Tamil Nadu and everywhere else. Could not happen to a nicer bunch of people.

….
What will save India from the Modi juggernaut is that it doesn’t have
a presidential system. The people will elect 543 new members of
parliament. The winning bloc will have to secure half the seats, not
easy for the Congress (206 seats in the last parliament) or the BJP (117
seats). Since 1967, the Indian government has been formed out of
alliances that include regional parties with deep roots in the Indian
states. The old days of a single party ruling the roost are gone;
regional parties are now able to dictate terms for the coalition. It is
what moderates the extremism of the BJP – but only out of necessity.
Modi’s toxicity has turned off core allies, leaving the BJP with the
confidence of a lion but the alliances of a skunk. To complicate
matters, a new anti-corruption party – the Aam Aadmi Party
– promises to directly challenge the Congress and the BJP in their
north Indian heartlands. If they are able to do so, it will strengthen
the hand of the Third Front.

The
Third Front, under various names, has made an appearance in each
election since 1967. It brings together regional parties and the Left
Front, which is often its backbone. They are united by their antipathy
to both the Congress and the BJP, and their commitment to secularism and
social justice. No easy common programme can be produced, largely
because the parties in the Front differ hugely in their assessment of
how the country should develop. Nevertheless, one of its contributions
has been to move India in a federal direction to empower the states
(Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, has a population of 200
million, larger than most countries in the world).

In a country of
India’s scale, federalism is a pathway to democracy. In a fractured
parliament the Third Front could broker a government committed to social
justice and secularism – as it did in 2004 when the Congress was pushed
to create social welfare schemes such as the National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act. When the Left broke with the Congress in 2009, the
alliance that remained – the UPA – departed from any commitment to
relief. Only when the Left is a vital part of the Third Front has this
alliance been able to push for reforms to rebuild the hopes and lives of
hundreds of millions of Indians who live below any given standard of a
poverty line. Only when the Left and its allies are stronger yet will
they be able to chart an alternative direction for India.

regards

The General Elections 2014 (GE2014) starts with the first result as of today. The BJP and the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha have re-affirmed their ties. Thus the Darjeeling seat will remain with the NDA for the 2014 cycle. In 2009 Jaswant Singh was the winner (51.5%).   In return BJP (if it comes to power) will promise to look into creating State #30- Gorkhaland (currently part of West Bengal). The sticking point (as with the Andhra Pradesh/Telengana division) has been the allotment of Siliguri (the principal town in North Bengal). BJP may decide to act this time (and Congress may help as a quid pro quo), since Telengana division (and allotment of Hyderabad to Telengana) could not have happened without BJPs support.  As a result, Mamata will be facing a loss of up to 3 Lok Sabha seats but she will have a free run in the rest of Bengal. The central govt will also be freed up to strike (North Bengal focused) boundary/river water sharing agreements with Bangladesh (these talks are at a dead-end because of Didi). It is win-win for everybody!!!   BJP
president Rajnath Singh wrote in Twitter, “Gorkha Janamukthi Morcha
(GJM) president Shri Bimal Gurung has decided to support the BJP in
coming Lok Sabha polls. I welcome his decision.”   regards