The right to space

Planes are extremely cramped and many Indians don't get the concept of personal space

It would inappropriate to talk of the alleged molestation that took place onboard an airline a few days ago where a teenage Bollywood actress claimed that the passenger behind her touched her till all the facts in the case are brought to light by the ongoing police investigation. But one thing is certain, that the passenger did put his foot up on another passenger's armrest and those of us who are frequent flyers find this horrific. The incident occurred in business class, where seats have more space between them than cramped the economy class; the invasion of a fellow passenger's space on an aircraft is just not acceptable.

Airlines are nowadays cramming more and more passengers into a finite space. Take the extremely popular A320 aircraft flown by IndiGo and Air India among others and 5000 of which are in service worldwide. In the early days, airlines flew just 150-160 passengers in a typical configuration including business class. That number is today a standard 180 on a low-cost carrier like IndiGo. However, the latest A320neo planes of that airline have 186 seats achieved by ‘space-saving’ toilets. The space between two rows of seats, known as seat-pitch, has come down from a comfortable 32-33 inches in the 1980s to a standard of 30-inches and an extremely tight 28-inches in some cases.

Even larger planes such as the Boeing 777, which was designed for nine-seats across every row, are now regularly being operated with 10-seats across with the urge to get more bums on seats overriding any notion of comfort. But the fact is also that in real terms, average fares on a popular route like Delhi-Mumbai are less than a third of fares in the 1980s, so not only do people want to fly more, millions more Indians can afford to fly thanks to these lower fares. But is the price worth it when it comes to an extreme lack of comfort? The Federal Aviation Administration, the airline industry regulator in the United States, is being urged to investigate airlines for these cramped seats which some passengers argue is a safety hazard, especially as human beings are growing taller and wider. But in India, there is the added problem that most of us cannot respect personal space. Stuck inside a flying tube for upto three hours seems like a human rights violation, and then to have a foot or hand or drooping head invade that little space that you can call your own, well, that's unacceptable. Flying is a chore for many of us as it is, so do please keep your bodily appendages to yourselves.

Source : http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/edit/the-right-to-space.html

Electrifying Delhi roads

Gadkari’s plan to turn Delhi’s bus fleet all-electric deserves support

Roadways and Transportation Minister Nitin Gadkari intends for all of the buses in Delhi to go electric, in fact, the city which has suffered due to a crippling shortage of buses will get a fleet of 11,000 electric and bio-fuel buses in the next few years. Inspired after his meeting with London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Gadkari wants to work with London Transport to improve the state of transportation in India’s capital. Delhi and the urban agglomeration that surrounds the city, most of it within the National Capital Region (NCR) has displaced Mumbai as India’s economic hub with close to 50 million residents in the area, and transportation has struggled to keep up. There are an estimated 10 million private vehicles registered in Delhi alone, two-thirds of them being two-wheelers and the remainder cars.

Gadkari says that at the current rate of growth, a new lane will need to be added to Delhi arterial roads every three years. He also rightly says that urban infrastructure development cannot revolve around private vehicles. Indian cities are choking not just thanks to vehicular pollution but also congestion, with no traffic management and bovines freely roaming on city roads across the country. Indian cities are victims of their own success and unfortunately with most Indian politicians still geared to rural voters and the mythical, homogenous ‘kisan’ even in the face of rapid urbanization; as a consequence, cities have suffered. Public Transportation has been an afterthought and despite a rush to build rapid transit systems across India after the inevitable success of the Delhi Metro, such expensive systems can hardly be the only answer. At the same time, many alternatives including buses are highly polluting and badly driven. But are electric buses a good answer?

A large number of electric buses across different sizes will aid in getting cars and bikes off the road leading to lower pollution and less congestion. In addition, if the Roadways and Finance Ministries can formulate a sensible policy for electric cars and two-wheelers they would take a giant leap towards reducing pollution. Unfortunately, policies and incentives are not in line right now and on that front maybe India can draw some inspiration from Norway. But the main question about this major push towards electrification on Indian roads is not the big issue in the West, which is ‘Range Anxiety’ but the lack of reliable grid power. Out of India’s top fifty cities possibly only ten can claim access to constant, reliable grid electricity. In a country where every household still does not have electricity, an electric vehicle fleet is a very ambitious move but things are changing and India is taking a lead in low-carbon generation. But there is no doubt it needs to be done. Much like the Bullet Train, this may invite criticism right now but we believe like Gadkari does that change has to mapped out right now. We hope his political rivals do too.

Source : http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/edit/electrifying-delhi-roads.html

Congress linking Ram temple issue with elections: Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday accused the Congress of linking the Ram temple issue to the Lok Sabha elections and attacked senior leader Kapil Sibal's arguments in the Supreme Court for deferring hearing the matter till after the 2019 polls.

"Yesterday in the Supreme Court, a Congress MP Kapil Sibal was arguing (which is his right) for the Babri Masjid. He is entitled to do that, but is it right for him to say postpone hearing till 2019?" Modi said while addressing a rally in Gujarat's Dhandhuka.

"Why does he have to link a Ram Mandir (temple) with elections. Is such thinking proper?" Modi asked from the crowd.

He also accused the Congress of linking the Ram temple issue with the elections.

"Now Congress links Ram Mandir with elections. They are least bothered about the nation," Modi said.

Modi's remarks came a day after Sibal while representing the Sunni Waqf Board on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to defer hearing in the Ayodhya title suit till July 2019 when the next Lok Sabha elections will be over.

However, the demand was brushed aside by the court as it fixed February 8, 2018 for commencing final hearing in the case.

The Congress distanced itself from Sibal's stand saying it does not represent the party's stand.

Gujarat assembly polls will be held on December 9 and December 14.

Source : http://www.dailypioneer.com/top-stories/congress-linking-ram-temple-issue-with-elections-modi.html

Trump to recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital

US President Donald Trump will unilaterally recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the White House has said, a move that elicited huge outrage from the Palestinians and the entire Arab world, media reports said on Wednesday.

The news comes ahead of an expected speech by Trump on Wednesday.

The status of Jerusalem - a holy site for Israelis and Palestinians - is extremely contentious. Israel has always regarded Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

The issue goes to the heart of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians, who are backed by the rest of the Arab and wider Islamic world.

The city is home to key religious sites sacred to Judaism, Islam and Christianity, especially in East Jerusalem.

Israel occupied the sector, previously occupied by Jordan, in the 1967 Middle East war and regards the entire city as its indivisible capital.

However, Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem has never been recognised internationally, and all countries, including Israel's closest ally the US, maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv.

In recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the US becomes the first country to do so since the foundation of the state in 1948, the BBC reported.

The move, if materialised, would mean a recognition of the city as Israel's capital and is likely to fuel conflicts between Israel and Palestine further giving rise to global concerns.

Palestinian factions have already announced that they would carry out three days of protest across the West Bank over the expected move.

Trump on Tuesday told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah II about his intentions.

Arab leaders have warned against the move, with one saying this would be "a flagrant provocation to Muslims".

The Palestinian factions said protests will start on Wednesday and last until Friday at the very least. According to Palestinian leaders, marches against the decision were being backed by the Palestinian Authority, Israeli newspaper Haaretz said.

White officials have, however, said Trump might not immediately move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem given logistical complexities and it might take several years, the BBC said.

The Trump administration said recognising Jerusalem should be seen as "a recognition of reality" by the President. Specific boundaries of the city would remain subject to a final status agreement, it said.

The status of holy sites will not be affected.

Trump had promised the move to pro-Israel voters during his campaign for the presidency.

Fatah Central Committee member Jamal Mahisan told Haaretz that Trump's decision was "inflammatory" and will inspire Palestinians to take to the streets in rage.

"The Palestinian people know how to protect their rights and we are in consultations regarding (our moves) in the coming days."

The Israeli Defence establishment is preparing for the demonstrations with intelligence assessments based on decisions taken by the Palestinian National Authority and by different factions within Palestinian society.

Most of the activity is expected to take place in city centres, near American embassies and consulates.

The main procession is planned for Thursday noon in al-Manara Square in Ramallah. People from across the West Bank are expected to join the march.

On Wednesday, a large demonstration is scheduled to take place in Jenin. The Israeli military has decided to augment forces, mainly at prominent friction spots where soldiers come into contact with Palestinians, the Haaretz said.

The police are also preparing, with reinforcements planned for Jerusalem and around the American embassy in Tel Aviv.

Thousands of policemen are expected to be on duty in Jerusalem on Friday. Their main concern is lone wolf attacks that might be carried out by perpetrators across the city.

UP poll results prove Modi is on right track

The brief visit by Barak Obama to Delhi was, quite predictably, another occasion for those infected by Modi allergy to attempt resurrecting the very contrived issue of rising intolerance and threats to the freedom of expression in India. Whether these attempts succeeded or were deftly fobbed off by a consummate politician who has very different priorities is a matter of opinion. What is clear, however, is that the casualties of Modi allergy seems inordinately interested in mobilising opinion abroad, perhaps to make up for the Indian public’s deep scepticism of their fear-mongering.

The past week witnessed another setback to the theory that Indians are growing weary of Mann ki Baat and are now yearning for a sacred thread-wearing Rahul Gandhi to give the country back its dynastic rule. The civic elections in Uttar Pradesh should, ideally, have not got any significant media traction. Local democracy is important to political buffs, not merely because they reinforce and strengthen democratic impulses at the grassroots. They also serve as barometers of political equations in the localities. However, the details are over packaged in aggregate numbers that often make it very difficult to detect local colour and variations. There are umpteen local stories that can be told to explain why Aligarh voted the way it did, but not Varanasi and Jhansi. Unfortunately they rarely get told to a larger audience.

This inevitable retreat into a bird’s-eye view, however, also serves a purpose. With rare exceptions, even local elections are not entirely about the proverbial parish-pump. They are a blend of the local and the national, although the proportions keep changing. The Hyderabad-based AIMIM led by the Owaisi brothers, for example, made its debut in the UP local polls. What its scattered local presence implies is worth exploring. But that story won’t emerge by a reading of election statistics alone.

Similarly, the stories of why the BJP won, say, Jhansi in Bundelkhand but lost Aligarh to the BSP won’t automatically emerge from cold statistics. What the aggregate numbers do tell us, however, is quite profound. First, it would seem that contrary to the emotional outrage that greeted the selection of Mahant Adityanath to the post of Chief Minister in the summer, the electorate of UP don’t seem all that agitated by the choice. The overall election outcome would suggest that the expectations that governed the big Assembly election victory of the BJP are still very much intact and have not degenerated into disappointment. There are expectations from the Adityanath administration and these have nothing to do with his religious credentials.

Secondly, in view of the Prime Minister’s larger-than-life presence in all areas of public life, it is impossible to separate the UP verdict from a facet of national politics. In stark terms, it implies that the perception of Modi as over-burdened by growing economic dissatisfaction is a narrative that should be viewed with a generous helping of salt. Had there been anger and frustration over demonetisation and GST, the UP municipal and local body elections would have registered a sharp fall in BJP’s support. Since this didn’t happen, there are good reasons to believe that Modi is broadly on the right track — politically at least. I refuse to believe that these trends are confined to UP and won’t have a bearing on the forthcoming Gujarat Assembly election.

Finally, the assertion that a rejuvenated Rahul Gandhi has injected new life into the Congress party seems at present to be a case of wishful thinking. There may be various local factors responsible for the Congress’ indifferent showing in both the parliamentary constituencies of the Gandhi parivar and it is by no means certain that these will translate into a vote against incumbent MPs in a general election. However, read with the evidence of the Congress’ larger failure to capture new ground in UP or even recover old ground, there are reasons to be sceptical of the gushing enthusiasm for the Congress vice-president on the strength of his office’s better social media performance.

The election in Gujarat will have its own dynamics. The outcome will not depend on the number of temples Rahul has visited or whether or not he is a real or fake Hindu. These are merely incidental noises of a bitter campaign. The outcome will be a judgement on the BJP in its totality. This includes Vijay Rupani, it includes Amit Shah and, naturally it is also dominated by Narendra Modi. There is silken thread that binds the concerns of UP and Gujarat.

Source : http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/todays-newspaper/up-poll-results-prove-modi-is-on-right-track.html

Message from Bangladesh

Bangladesh celebrated Armed Forces Day on November 21. It is appropriate to pay homage to the soldiers who laid down their lives for their country and remember India, which has always stood by us

Bangladesh Independence War is the finest moment in the thousand years of the nation’s history. Unarmed and peace-loving Bangladeshi people, in response to the clarion call by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the nation, on March 7 and 26, 1971, had valiantly fought the Pakistani occupation forces that had launched the treacherous genocidal war on our people on March 26, 1971.

The entire nation had risen like a man to defend the motherland, and to make Bangladesh free from alien rule. It was a people’s war — people from all walks of life had come forward and fought the war on every front. While our valiant soldiers and freedom fighters fought the war on the battlefield, our journalists, educationists, civil servants, administrators, diplomats, singers and cultural activists confronted the challenges in their respective areas.

It is a matter of pride and honour for the nation that Bangabandhu’s historic speech of March 7, 1971, has now been included in the memory of the World International Register, a list of world’s important documentary heritage, maintained by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) and an announcement to that effect was made by the Director General of Unesco on October 30, 2017. What a befitting tribute to a historic speech by the Father of our Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman!

Armed Forces Day is observed in Bangladesh on November 21. It signifies the day in 1971 when the members of the Army, Navy and Air Forces of Bangladesh were fully operational and had launched a coordinated offensive against the Pakistani occupation forces, although our Armed Forces had been fighting since the beginning of the liberation struggle, November 21, marks the formal ‘Raising Day’ of our combined Armed forces. It is their ceremonial birthday, a day of rejoicing and celebration, a day of remembrance and paying gratitude and tribute to our valiant martyrs and freedom fighters, and our Indian friends who had fought side by side with us in our War of Independence.

On this day, we pay homage to the Father of our Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had led and inspired our people to fight for our freedom and independence despite heavy odds.

Our people paid a very heavy price for our freedom and independence. Three million people were killed, 10 million had to take shelter in India, millions were internally uprooted from their homes, thousands of women were raped and assaulted, countless number of people were injured and maimed and our economic infrastructure was totally destroyed. Here, I recall a British journalist once commenting in an article, “If blood is the price for freedom and independence, then Bangladesh has overpaid.”

As a freedom fighter diplomat staying in Washington, DC, at that time, I recall with deep appreciation and gratitude the whole-hearted support which we had received from the Government and people of India, in their country and abroad. They not only gave shelter to millions of our people but also extended all possible assistance to us at those critical hours of our nationhood.

On this day, we pay homage to those brave Indian soldiers, who had laid down their lives for our independence. We also pay tributes to the valiant war veterans who had fought side by side with us in our War of Independence. They are our comrades-in-arms. We will always remember their contributions and they remain the most endurable link in friendship and cooperation between our two countries.

After assumption of office for the second time in 2009, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina — the able daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, decided to confer ‘Friends of Bangladesh’ award on our Indian and other foreign friends, who had stood by us during our War of Independence through award-giving ceremonies in Dhaka.

During her state visit to India last April, she personally honored members of families of war martyrs through an unprecedentedSommanona ceremony in New Delhi. At that ceremony, she said, “History of Bangladesh has been written by the blood of Indian martyrs along with valiant freedom fighters of Bangladesh. They fought together for the independence of Bangladesh. The story of their sacrifice would be remembered from generation to generation in our countries”.

This year, we will be observing the day at a watershed moment, when our two Prime Ministers, Sheikh Hasina and Narendra Modi have taken our bilateral ties to a new level which is well beyond ‘strategic partnership’. The 11 agreements and 24 Memorandum of Understandings, signed during the visit, virtually encompass every important sector in our bilateral cooperation, namely security, trade, connectivity, energy, civil nuclear agreement and defence.

The visit was also high on optics. The fact that Prime Minister Modi broke protocol and received our Prime Minister at the airport and was present at Sommanona and other events clearly underscored the very special relationship which exists between the two countries. Moreover, a prominent road in New Delhi has been named after Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Father of our Nation.

In addition to the two earlier Line of Credits (LoC), India, during this visit has extended a fresh LoC to the tune of five billion dollars, which also includes $500 million for defence purchase. Bangladesh will utilise this credit for the projects that it needs on priority basis.

The country’s private sector also made valuable inputs when they signed MoUs for the investment to the tune of $13 billion. primarily in the energy sector.

Bangladesh also figures prominently in India’s ‘Look East, Act East policy’ and both the countries are currently cooperating actively with each other as well as with other countries in the region under the aegis of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal (BBIN), Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMESTEC) and other regional fora.

In sum, our relations is “best ever since 1974” as was noted by former President Pranab Mukherjee. President Ram Nath Kovind has also termed Bangladesh as “India’s closest neighbour”.

Source : http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/oped/message-from-bangladesh.html

Ram Temple movement erected a big tent

The project to ensure India's emergence as an Indic civilizational-rooted modern state will come undone if lumpen anti-intellectualism continues.

Happenstance, perhaps, but as we approach the 25th anniversary of the Ayodhya Demolition on December 6, I received a phone call from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), informing me that my deposition as a witness is overdue before the CBI Special Court in Lucknow where the case on the “criminal conspiracy” aspect of the demolition is being heard. It brought home to me, apart from the reality that I’m no longer a tyro 20-year-old political reporter for a national newspaper (not The Pioneer) who was the first in and among the last out of Ayodhya in November-December 1992, that many a political fortune has turned over this passage of time. But the discourse against the Ram Temple continues — tired, regurgitative and banal in the main.

So, I start by paying tribute to LK Advani, whose 90th birthday was last week. Not because I necessarily agree with everything he has said, done, or stood for but as an exemplar of probity in public life and as the arch-disrupter of public discourse who raised the political issue of the Ram Temple as a symbol of national and not denominational pride. Ever since the late 1980s, Advani has earned the undying viciousness of the Commentariat for his politics which made it possible for new thinking on the nature of our nationhood and the agency of nationalism — an Idea of India, in Mickey Mouse terms — to emerge.

Till Advani’s intervention in the political sphere with the Ram Temple issue as a symbol of civilizational/cultural India in the manner he did, the dominant post-colonial narrative was statist, derivate and located in a Semitic-originated Abrahamic religious tradition-infused cultural consciousness, pushed especially vociferously by the post-Nehru Indian power elite via their academic co-travellers presumably in good faith (no sarcasm intended). To be fair, though, the latter did produce some high quality traditional academic output in the social sciences. The Ayodhya movement, however, came at a time when two key concepts in academic-public discourse found resonance among those who retained a degree of intellectual curiosity and were willing to incorporate lived experiences and oral histories along with critical readings of extant literature on culture, community, caste et.al into original scholarship as opposed to being confined to the knowledge claims made by Western social “science” which in themselves were not unproblematic, an aspect brought out in his ground-breaking work by the philosopher SN Balagangadhara, a major voice in the study of the cultural differences between India and the West who has developed his own research programme devoted to it.

First, was Advani’s assertion that the Ram Temple movement was intrinsic to the notion of an Indian exceptionalism, in a value-neutral sense, which is to say, not better or worse than others but, like the ketchup advertisement, “different”. Seizing the opportunity thus provided, some Hindutvawadis pushed the cultural nationalism thesis and others the Hindu Rashtra (as a cultural concept and/or a theocratic state depending on their provenance) while Sangh Parivar elements tagged to the Ram Temple the demand for a Krishna Janmabhoomi Temple in Mathura and the restoration of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple to achieve closure once and for all on the festering wound of “40,000 temples destroyed over 800 years”. A minority, as is historically evident with vanguards, if you will, ploughed more or less co-terminus with Advani’s intervention its own lonely furrow in the academic project of addressing the conceptually problematic issues with post-colonial studies, India studies and Indology as practiced till then, an effort in which Balagangadhara played the pivotal role as at the heart of his work is the proposition that research objects cannot escape from the scope of a secularized Christian discourse.

Secondly, allied to the notion of an Indian exceptionalism, came the very welcome propagation post-1992 by sober voices from the Sangh of what is in effect the notion of “folk multiculturalism” as a means of accommodative nation-building. This translated on the ground into celebrating differences in language, food, dress, music and mode of worship but drawing a line at separate and/or exclusive legal rights for any group whether religious, cultural, linguistic or other, and campaigning for a single, uniform civil and criminal legal framework that has at its core the individual rights of every Indian citizen. There was a reason, it must be remembered, why by the early 1990s Advani’s stand against what he termed “minority appeasement”, freighted as it was to the Ram Temple movement, gained such traction. For, the contours of a de facto differential citizenship model had begun to emerge in India which may have irrevocably damaged not just the Indic civilizational trajectory but also threatened to muscle the way of life of an overwhelming majority of the people of India into becoming just another “religion”.

As a modern state in the making, however, there is no running away from the demographic fact that millions of Indians do follow non-Indic religions and have a Constitutional right to do so freely. Which is why propagating a robust folk multiculturalism simultaneously with a Uniform Civil Code became part of the national conversation sparked by the Ram Temple movement, which was, let’s not forget, symbolic in more ways than one. These solutions are never ideal, of course, but as the political philosopher Joseph Raz put it rather pithily: “Conflict is endemic to value pluralism in all its forms”. We can at best hope to manage such conflicts in the most reasonable manner possible.

It was, thus, the proverbial ideological big tent that Advani’s political intervention with the Ram Temple issue ended up erecting. But the criminal-lumpen and anti-intellectual element within is threatening to derail the project — whether it is louts threatening bodily harm to actor Deepika Padukone today or those in the Ram Temple movement who threatened, and in some cases inflicted, brutality and violence against fellow citizens who happened to be Muslims 25 years ago, or indeed those who have internalised a Western social sciences’ predicated view of India’s past and are busy creating their own “Hindu” version of a Biblical/Koranic history.

To quote Balagangadhara who, ironically, has in an online academic publication been identified by historian Shalini Sharma as being at the centre of the “resurgence of all (nationalist) historical revisionism” post the 1992 Ayodhya events and is alleged to have the Modi Government’s ear: “The ideologues of the Sangh Parivar might do what centuries of colonialism tried but could not accomplish: Destroy Indian culture and her traditions irreplaceably and irrevocably. They might do that while truly believing that they are ‘saving’ Indian culture and her traditions.”

Back to Ayodhya, and not to Methuselah, ought to be the rallying cry.

Source : http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists