OrissaMatters

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak.

In February 2007 elections to form new Assemblies were held in three states: Manipur, Punjab and Uttarakhand. Congress was rejected in two of the tree States: Punjab and Uttrakhand, where it had its government. Sonia as chief of UPA admitted that rise in prices of essential commodities was the cause of the defeat, but the father of price rise, Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh, had asserted that the defeat couldnt be attributed to any deficiency in his administration.

In April and May, 2007, elections to the Assembly of Uttara Pradesh were held in seven phases. During electioneering, Prime Minister Singh crossed every boundary of sycophancy by eulogizing Sonias son Rahul as the future of India. He was sure, with him on the steering Congress would sure win majority seats. Congress was thrashed; Mayavati won.

Goa went to polls in June 2007. Out of 40 seats Congress won only 16.

We have already discussed how voters of Gujurat have preferred communalist Narendra Modi to Sonia Singh combine as evidenced in the results declared on 23 Dec.2007..

People have shown the same trend in Himachal Pradesh through results of the elections declared on 28 Dec.2007.

So people have rejected the Congress in all the five major States of Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttara Pradesh, Gujurat and Himachal Pradesh that went to polls in 2007.

Its position in only two of the minor States like Manipur and Goa was mere semblance of a win prior to people watching Singh and Sonia pushing India into USA grip through the Nuke deal.

Reacting on Modis victory in Gujurat CPI General secretary Prakash Karat has attributed it to failure of Congress to oppose Hindu Communalism. He will perhaps repeat the same reason in respect of Himachal Pradesh.

He is wrong.

The slogan on communalism has no practical relevance. If by putting sandalwood paste or vermilion on the forehead, Modi is a communalist, how is Dr. Singh non-communal despite his turban that he asserts his Sikhism with? How do we rate Buddhadev Bhattacharya who had castigated Brinda Karat as she had raised an allegation against Swami Ramdev for use of human bones in medicines produced by him basing on test reports of a forensic lab? How do the leftist leaders look when thronging Devi pavilions with folded hands at Kolkata?

So Karat was not expected to educate people that failure of Congress to fight against Hindu communalism was the cause of its failure in Assembly polls. Post nuke-deal debates in Parliament scenario has made it clear that Sonia-Singh combine has more interest in serving USA interest than serving our nation. Indians will never support the agents of USA interest. Therefore they have preferred BJP to Congress.

If Karat says he does not agree with this, he is trying to escape. He knows and the entire left knows that the 123 Agreement has a inbuilt stipulation that the text of the Agreement shall have to be approved by Indian Parliament. It means, the Government is bound to place the text of the Agreement before the Parliament for only one purpose i.e. for its approval by majority votes. By acquiescing into a voteless debate Communists might have helped the Congress hoodwink the parliament, but people have silently marked the trick. Therefore they have silently marked their votes against the Congress.

Not now, not in future.

With Dr. Singh as Prime Minister, Congress can never win an election.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

After squandering away precious time, energy and assets of the State in helping non-Oriya industrialists plunder Orissa and doing this so schizophrenically that the 12th session of the Legislative Assembly had to die a premature death as otherwise how far his hobnobbing with industries has harmed our people could have been brought into legitimate records, Chief Minister Navin Patnaik has admitted that ignoring irrigation was a blonder of his administration.

All on a sudden he has started projecting himself as the facilitator of irrigation to every cultivable land. His media managers have started spreading that in 2008 every village shall have irrigation in at least 35 % of the farmlands for which Rs.2000 crores would be spent from the State Exchequer.

The shenanigans marked in the impromptu meeting that he took on December 24 with only one minister and a few officers before announcing the scheme suggest that the he was in search of something that he may politically use in the congregation of his sycophants scheduled to be held on December 26 commemorating birth of BJD. And the bureaucracy that in Orissa has excelled in hoodwinking people through propaganda brought out this scheme like Sathya Sai brings out rings from his hair. It has instantly been christened Jalanidhi.

The State is drowned so much under anarchy due to his overactive patronization to plutocracy that his sycophants, mostly coming from and connected with the community of cultivators, are discernibly disillusioned. He is too smart not to know this.

He also knows that by the time of general elections he would have been deserted by majority of his sycophants too demoralized to face the general public. Time may come, like his father he may also be drafted for trial before any judicial commission of inquiry for determination of his personal responsibility in plundering our natural resources by outside operators of trade and industry as well as in protection of corrupt officials who have misappropriated the funds meant for uplift of our proletariat.

He knows that BJP will not remain an ally when the State goes to the polls. BJP is well set to win the election all by itself this time.

He knows that he is heading a politically bankrupt organization. Fidgeting under a sense of insecurity he was so much afraid of political heavyweights in BJD that he has misused his Presidential position to oust all of them, even the very same persons who had founded the party and brought him to politics.

He knows that he has kept his party-men frightened. None in his party feels safe under his leadership. Everybody in BJD knows that nobody in the party knows what may happen to him or her when; because he has ousted his colleagues always with sudden thrusts from behind. This has resulted in furthering disillusionment.

But politically ambitious people do not like to remain crawlers always. Therefore, he knows, there shall be massive exodus from BJD to BJP when the later decides to fight the election on its own strength and under its own banner. Being the Chief Minister, privy to intelligence reports, he knows that this will happen if new ways to retain the BJD members are not contrived.

Hence this impromptu formation of the Jalanidhi scheme just before BJD anniversary.

Relevant it is to note that the program is not placed yet before the cabinet. Navin has declared to spend 2000 crores of Rupees in implementation of this scheme during 2008. He has not disclosed as to where from this money shall come. There is no allocation for this in the budget. The so-called top-level meeting where the decision is touted to have been taken was kept away from participatory wisdom of the Finance Department, as neither the Finance Minister nor the Finance Secretary was present in it.

It cannot but be noted that none of the BJP members of the Cabinet was also present in the meeting. To tell the least it was deliberate. The BJP is known for having kept alive through Juel Oram allegations against the Chief Minister in context of POSCO and other industries. The BJP has a plan to tie off the alliance with BJD before elections are due and to attribute the ruin of agriculture in Orissa to official apathy generated by the CMs priority on protecting the interests of POSCO and other major private industries.

It is such a political disadvantage for Navin that he is desperately in need of a way to browbeat BJP in posing a pro-agriculture i.e. pro-people posture before the general election. Courtesy a select group of corrupt, incompetent, scheming officers, who can go to any extent to keep the CM pleased in hope of getting or continuing to hold what in their parlance is known as milch posts, he has got it in the shape of the Jalanidhi scheme.

That he deliberately kept the BJP members of the Cabinet away from the meeting that helped him announce the scheme is strongly indicative of the internal crisis the Navin Ministry is now pregnant with and also is indicative of the Chief Minister motive to keep BJP away from claiming any credit for formation of the scheme.

Therefore the indication is that the Navin Ministry has reached the fag end of its existence. And, like the proverbial monkey discovering the truth at the fag end of his life, the BJD boss has discovered the importance of irrigation at time when end of his government is so imminent that the treasury bench had to terminate a session of the Assembly to escape exposure.

Epilogue

Thus saying I will say, if Navin Patnaik is not going to use the Jalanidhi scheme as a mere political ploy, and if he seriously pursues the irrigation program, he will have unreserved support from peoples like me, who, in this scheme shall see their dreams come true.

Everybody has a right to correct his wrong and if Navin Patnaik takes the correctional step, notwithstanding what harm he has already caused to Orissa, devoted children of the motherland will sure extend their cooperation, specifically as he is a minor offender in comparison to Dr. Man Mohan Singh and his predecessor who would rule Orissa by proxy if either of their troops comes to power.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

NROFC, a private organization headed by a retired IAS officer makes a nexus with the State Government to use the official NRO Cell for awarding Prabasi Prativa Samman to the most genius amongst the Non-Resident-Oriyas.

Conscious and competent NROs attract attention to the absence of transparency in the venture and make repeated requests to NROFC to postpone the award till a norm is formed and codified so that selection for the award does not succumb to nepotism or favoritism. They also appeal to the Chief Minister, as the official NRO cell was partnering, to intervene and keep the award in abeyance till norm of selection is finalized.

But the Chief Minister sloughs over their appeal and allows the official NRO Cell to be used by the private design to decorate a person chosen arbitrarily with the award touted as Prabasi Pratibha Samman.

And, it ends up giving an award on December 23 to a NRO, Prof. Laxminarayan Bhuyan in the name of a private trader, Ruchi! What a farce!

Perhaps no wiser trick could have been more sparklingly played by a private trader on our NROs in the guise of awarding Prabasi Pratibha.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

It is sad for India that a man like Narendra Modi who justifies communal killing has bagged a fresh mandate in Gujurat. But I would have been unhappy had he been defeated; because thereby the anti-Indian and pro-American steps Congress has taken with Dr. Man Mohan Singh as Prime Minister could have looked like approved by the people of at least a province.

Reacting to Congress defeat in Assembly polls in February this year, in an editorial on March 05, 2007 I had written:

The people in two-third of the provinces that went to Assembly polls last month have refused to give a fresh mandate to the Congress.

It is not that the rejected provincial governments were not working for the benefit of their people. But they had to go because of their inability to save the people from the misrule of Dr. Man Mohan Singh that the Congress has imposed on the entire country.

The Congress should feel fortunate because the country as a whole had not gone to the polls. Otherwise it would have suffered a complete route.

I had further noted:

The Communists, who had not hesitated to question the timing of Quit India call in 1942 as to them that call at that time was detrimental to the concentrated efforts against fascism, were not hesitant to extend their support to Dr. Singh if thereby the neo-fascists under the saffron color could be kept away from further polluting the motherland. But this finer thread of leftwing politics has failed to help the people as was expected. Singh has taken full advantage of communists obsessions against BJP and the pro-imperialism economic system that he has clamped on the country has been allowed to run relentless. Result is what the Congress President has partially comprehended after the poll debacle.

Congress cannot change the track unless it gets rid of Man Mohan Singh. And unless it changes the track, people will change its government.

I am happy that my prediction is proving correct.

Sonia and Singh have been playing havoc with India hand-in-glove with USA in the nuke deal.

Gujurat has shown that the wordy acrobatics they and their obedient acolytes like Pranab Mukherjee have played so far, despite their porters abundantly active in the media and amongst the intelligentsia, have failed to hoodwink the common Indian.

Voters of Gujurat would be mistaken if they are taken as supporters of Modi.

Silent majority of Gujurat is totally averse to him. Modi knows this. Therefore his body language during the first phase of the campaign was indicative of his lack of confidence. BJP also knows this; therefore its top brash was hesitant to campaign for him and was conspicuous by its absence during electioneering. As confusion had gripped the BJP camp, Advani, who had vainly tried time and again to replace Vajpayee in the chair of his dreams, succeeded in organizing a declaration in his own favor that he would be the Prime Minister if BJP wins the Loksabha. As an observer of BJPs modus operandi, I can say, Advani must have gnawed upon the party predicament in order to catch the choice for the top post saying that if people of Gujurat are made to know that Modis patron saint may be the Prime Minister, they may vote for him. As such, and as Advanis premature coronation in BJPs imagined Prime Ministerial chair in the eve of Gujurat polls unambiguously suggests, majority of Gujurat voters was and therefore is against Modi.

Against this backdrop, it is positively significant that Congress has not succeeded in taking advantage of the BJP ordeals. This is because, it has been rejected by the people of India residing in Gujurat.

It is obvious that Congress has emerged as a greater danger to the country than the genre of Narendra Modi.

People of Gujurat have preferred to tolerate religious vandalism than tolerating subjugation of India to USA interests.

So, the spree of rejecting the Congress by people of India in silent protest against Dr. Singhs pro-USA policies is continuing unabated.

Indians will never allow their independence to be jeopardized by pirates. They had rejected BJP because of Vajpayees capitalistic misrule. They will reject Congress entirely if Sonia-Singh combine continue their pro-USA campaign in India.

General members of Congress may take a note again.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

�Orissa�s per capita income has actually declined during the second half of the 1990s—precisely the period when the state went on an industrial overdrive�, says New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in its 356-page 6th State of India�s Environment Report, titled Rich Lands, Poor People—Is Sustainable Mining Possible?- released by Orissa Governor M.C.Bhandare at Bhubaneswar on December 22.

Orissa that accounts for 7 per cent of India�s forests and 11 per cent of its surface water resources, 24 per cent of India�s coal, 98 per cent of its chromites and 51 per cent of its bauxite, has earned the dubious distinction of clearing the maximum amount of forestland for mining in the country, says the report.

But for all its mineral wealth, the state performs very poorly in terms of human development indicators. The state has a Human Development Index (HDI) of 0.404—worse than that of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh or West Bengal. This is evidenced from the fact that all the mineral-rich districts of the state feature in the list of 150 most backward districts of the country.

In Keonjhar, the most mined district in the state, 62 per cent of the population lives below poverty line.

In Koraput, the bauxite capital of India, 79 per cent live below poverty line.

�Statistics indicate that the income from mineral extraction rarely benefits the regions from where these minerals come—in fact, poverty is increasing in many of these districts,� point out the writers of the report.

Indicating how the State�s hilly terrains, with their natural springs, are being destroyed by mining, the CSE report cites that Orissa�s second largest river, the Brahmani, is one of the 10 rivers in India most polluted �due to the large-scale mining operations on its banks�.

The state�s 6 million strong tribal population has borne the brunt of these environmental impacts in as much as 500,000 people (mostly tribals) in the state have been displaced due to mining, the report states.

It brings out a horrific picture of the devastation that has been wrought by mining in the country. The statistics are shocking:

Between 1950 and 1991, mining displaced about 2.6 million people—not even 25 per cent of these displaced have been rehabilitated.

For every 1 per cent that mining contributes to India�s GDP, it displaces 3-4 times more people than all the development projects put together.

Forest land diversion for mining has been going up. So has water use and air pollution in the mining hotspots.

Mining of major minerals generated about 1.84 billion tonne of waste in 2006—most of which has not been disposed off properly.

All governments justify mining arguing that the sector will provide employment, but this is a chimera. The report using government data shows how employment has fallen in the mining sector as a whole.

The fact is that the modern mining industry does not require people.

Between 1999 and 2005, the value of mineral production in the state increased three-fold � at the same time, employment reduced by 20 per cent.

�Modern industrial growth requires resources of the region � minerals, water or energy. It does not require people. In other words, it does not necessarily provide local benefits. If it provides employment benefits, it is outside the poor region in which it is based. In other words, inclusive growth will require ways to value local resources � be it water, minerals or energy � so that it gives back more than it takes. The mineral industry degrades the land, uses local water, but does little to return back wealth. Worse, the royalty on minerals goes to state exchequers, not to local communities.�