Obama Backs India's UNSC Bid

Look forward to a UNSC that has India as permanent member: Obama

US President Barack Obama on Monday told Parliament he backed New Delhi's case for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, a copy of his prepared speech showed.

"I look forward to a reformed UN Security Council that includes India as a permanent member," Obama said his address to both houses of the Parliament on Monday evening.

He added: "The just and sustainable international order that America seeks includes a United Nations that is efficient, effective, credible and legitimate."

In another significant remark, Obama said "terrorist safe havens in Pakistan are not acceptable".

"Terror safe havens in Pakistan is unacceptable and we will continue to insist on Pak leadership to bring Mumbai attackers to justice," he said.

India had expected broad support in its bid for a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council during the US President's maiden visit.

At Parliament, Obama increased power comes with increased responsibility. "Increased responsibility of nations especially those wanting to lead 21st century implies preserving peace and security globally, advancing human rights," he said.

Just days before his visit, the President had described India as a "cornerstone" of US engagement in Asia, but had held out no assurances on key issues, among which was the US' support for India's bid for permanent membership.

At Parliament, he said: "the last three days my wife Michelle and I have experienced the beauty and dynamism of the people of India", adding, "India and the US are bound by common interests and values."

He then paid rich tribute to Mahatma Gandhi by saying: "I not be standing in front of you as President of the US had it not been for Mahatma Gandhi and his message that inspired Americans."

He also said India did not resist global economy, but became one of its growth engines.

India and US can together create hi-tech and high-wage jobs, he said, adding, "Together India-US can resist protectionism that stifles growth."

President Obama also sought the extension of cooperation in agriculture, research, weather forecast, food processing and allied sectors for making green revolution sustainable.

Earlier in the day, Obama held a 75-minute meeting with Manmohan Singh. The two discussed the India-Pakistan ties and other range of issues covering bilateral and global matters and announced a number of new initiatives, including cooperation in homeland security, removal of Indian entities from the US sanctions list and setting up of a research centre in India in the civil nuclear field.

Though Obama had said - at an address to the media after the meeting - that he would be happy to play any role in reducing the Kashmir tension between the two neighbours, the Prime Minister made it very clear that India would not talk to Pakistan unless the country dismantles the twrror networks that operate out of its soil against India.

Singh had also welcomed the US move to end export control on dual-use technology to India and support for its membership of multilateral groupings in the nuclear field, like the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Source: Indian Express

Sheffield FC to Play Against Lajong FC and Assam XI

New Delhi, Nov 8 : English football club Sheffield FC will play against Lajong FC of Shillong and an Assam XI team after participating in the Platinum Jubilee Cup in Kolkata, a tournament organised to commemorate Mohammedan Sporting's 75 years of existence.

"They are scheduled to reach Guwahati on November 17th and will play against Assam XI team at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium in Sarusajai on November 18," said All India Football Federation (AIFF) vice-president and Assam Football Association general secretary Ankur Dutta.

Following the three-day Platinum Jubilee Cup in Kolkata, where Sheffield FC will play against East Bengal, Mohun Bagan and Mohammedan Sporting on knock-out basis, the world's oldest football club will fly to Shillong via Guwahati and play an exhibition match at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium there on November 16. They will then play a match in Guwahati on November 18.

"I am not sure about the make of the Sheffield squad that will be visiting here but some good players will be there for sure for the exhibition matches and that will be a good exposure," Dutta said from Guwahati.

The English club had, in August, tied up with the Jamshedpur-based Tata Football Academy (TFA), the country's premier soccer school, which has been producing quality players for years with the aim to impart professional training to TFA coaches and cadets.

The tie-up is initially for three years after which it may be continued on the interest of both the academies. As a part of this tie-up, SUFC is supposed to formulate a 12-month programme on coaching, fitness and professional development of coaches.

The tie-up has also opened up an opportunity for the selected trainees to appear in trials in England.

The training sessions include lessons on strategy for player recruitment, identification and profiling.

Meghalaya to Set up Satellite Township

Meghalaya will invest Rs 1028. 30 crore for building infrastructure in the satellite township which will accommodate about two lakh people

Shillong, Nov 8 : Meghalaya will soon have its first satellite township in order to tackle the growing population pressure on its scenic capital Shillong.

The state government will invest Rs 1028. 30 crore for building infrastructure in the satellite township which will accommodate about two lakh people.

The township will cover an area of 2030 hectares in which the government intervention will be limited to provide the core services and the institutional requirements covering 500 hectares.

“The state government has already acquired 370 hectares of land and the process for acquiring 130 hectares was on. Out of the total estimated cost for infrastructure, the first phase will require an amount of Rs 540.30 crore in next five years,” Meghalaya Urban Affairs Minister Founder Strong Cajee said here recently.

Shillong at present has an estimated three lakh population and official sources say number could be more as there is thousands of floating population staying in the state capital.

In order to provide better connectivity to the residents in the new township and the capital town of Shillong, the government is also planning an expressway. The expressway will require about Rs 206 crore.

“The expressway will go a long way in reducing the time and cost of commutation between the existing city and the township,” the Minister said.

Cajee moved New Delhi seeking financial and technical support for implementation of the two projects of satellite townships and the expressway.

Ningol Chakouba Celebrated in Manipur

Imphal, Nov 8 : Ningol Chakouba, a festival during which sisters and daughters are invited for special feasts by fathers and brothers, was celebrated in Manipur today.

Reports said markets were thronged with people since early morning buying fish, vegetables and other items for the festival.

Reports said the fishery department yesterday organised a special fish festival at Hapta Kangjeibung ground for people to buy fish at cheap rates.

New Myanmar a Hell-Hole: Amartya Sen

`New Myanmar a hell-hole version of old Burma'

It is difficult for me to talk about Burma without a deep sense of nostalgia. My earliest memories are all of Burma, where I grew up between the ages of three and six. My father was a visiting professor at the Agricultural College in Mandalay, on leave from Dhaka University. My first memory of striking natural beauty is that of sunrise over the Maymyo hills seen from our wooden house at the eastern edge of Mandalay. It was a thrilling sight even for a young boy.

My first recollections of warm human relations stretching beyond my own family are also of kindly Burmese society. Mandalay was a lively city in the 1930s, and Burma a magically beautiful country. The richness of the land and the enormous capacity of the Burmese people to be happy and friendly shone brightly through the restraining lid of British colonialism.

After a short period of independence from British rule and a brief experience of democracy, Burma has been in the grip of a supremely despotic military rule for almost half a century now. There were initially some ups and downs. But over the last couple of decades, there have been nothing other than downs and downs. The country has steadily fallen in the economic ranking of poor countries in the world, and it is now one of the absolutely poorest on the globe. Its educational and health services are in tatters. Medicine is difficult to get and educational institutions can hardly function.

There is viciously strict censorship, combined with heavy punishment for rebellious voices. The minority communities -- Shans, Karens, Chins, Rohingyas and others -- get particularly cruel and oppressive treatment. There are shockingly plentiful cases of arbitrary imprisonment, terrifying torture, state-directed displacement of people, and organised rapes and killings. And when the population faces a catastrophe, like in the hurricane Nargis in May 2008, the government not only does not want to help at all, its first inclination is to ban others in the world from helping the distressed and destituted people in the country.

The military rulers have renamed Burma as Myanmar, and the renaming seems perhaps understandable, for the country is no longer the Burma that magnificently flourished over the centuries. New Myanmar is the hell-hole version of old Burma.

What is striking is that tyranny has grown steadily in Burma precisely over the decades in which democracy has made major progress across the globe. When the great leader Aung San, who led Burma to independence, was gunned down on the 19th of July in 1947, there was no democratic country in Asia or Africa. India became independent next month and established a flourishing multi-party democracy soon thereafter, and one by one a great many countries moved from authoritarian rule to democratic forms of government.

China, even though it does not have a multi-party democracy, gives plentiful evidence of being deeply concerned in a systematic and dedicated way with the well-being of its population. Burma, on the other hand, has moved exactly in the opposite direction. Ne Win, the military leader, began with a care-taker government in 1958, and then seized power in 1962, and Burma has had a continuous sequence of military rules since then, with the grip of uncaring oppression steadily growing in its reach and enforcement, with comprehensive neglect of the well-being of the Burmese people.

Individuals and groups act on the basis of reasoning in undertaking reflected actions. The reasoning can be primitive or sophisticated, and the wisdom of actions and the resulting consequences cannot but depend on the quality and reach of such reasoning. These reasoning's often go by the name of "incentives" to which reflective agents tend to respond.

When we are concerned with changing behaviours and policies, we have to examine carefully what incentives the different agents involved -- the Burmese government, the citizens, the neighbouring countries and the world at large -- have in contributing to changing things in Burma.

(Excerpts from a lecture by Amartya Sen at a conference organised by Human Rights Watch and Johns Hopkins University, at the SAIS Kenny Auditorium, Washington DC, on October 20)

Source: Business Standard

Congress at 125

Mahatma Gandhi thought he would live up to be 125. Alas, that was not to be. But the Indian National Congress to which he devoted the last thirty years of his life has reached that landmark number. Whatever is good and bad about India can be laid at the door of the Congress.

Winston Churchill once boasted that history would be kind to him. He added, 'That is because I intend to write it.' The Congress has fashioned much of modern India's history. But it has also written India's history in such a way that no one gets any credit for any of the big successes India has witnessed. It would have us believe that single-handedly it delivered India's independence and no other group made any contribution. It then delivered the Constitution and made India into a vibrant democracy. Then of course it established a secular polity and gave India stability against its enemies, both internal and external. Then almost as an afterthought it gave us liberal economic reform which has now made India a great economic power.

This is, of course, a gross distortion of the truth. The Congress did do a lot of good no doubt but many others helped as well. Before Independence, there were many idealistic patriotic men and women who rejected Congress's moderate non-violent strategy and took up arms. They may have failed but they did make an impact. So did the Constitutional wing which collaborated with the British. After all, the Constitution derives largely from the Government of India Act 1935. The Congress played no part in its construction since it did not go to the first Round Table Conference and then rejected the Act after its publication. It was under this Act that the Constituent Assembly was elected and gave the Congress the chance to fashion the rest of India's Constitution after 1946.

The one major contribution of the Congress has to be India's democratic polity. Without Jawaharlal Nehru's democratic behaviour, India would not have retained its democracy after Independence. Neither the RSS nor the Communists championed democracy. But after his death, and especially after 1969 when the Congress split, the democratic culture was abandoned within the Congress. Soon all Indian parties abandoned any democratic practice internally. To this day, leaders of parties are not elected but enthroned. How long can democracy last in a polity where the leaders do not subject themselves to any democratic challenge?

But perhaps the most galling aspect of the Congress record is its failure to tackle poverty. Having been in power for fifty out of the sixty-three years, the Congress makes no apology for the appalling record of poverty it has presided over. For the first forty- two years after independence except for two years of the Janata, Congress had total command over the economy. It failed to generate economic growth, or employment or eradicate poverty or pursue land reforms, or educate the masses of India or look after their health. All this was called Socialist Pattern of Society. In the meantime, neighbours of India like Malaysia and Sri Lanka, to say nothing of Asian tigers like Taiwan, South Korea surged ahead of India. India, which was the best endowed and most industrialised country in Asia in 1947 (Japan did better before the War but by 1947 it had its economy bombed out) fell behind steadily. It neglected its industrial base in textiles and consumer industries and went on to build monuments of folly since the Soviet Union was our model. Generations of Indians paid the cost for the grandiose structures of machine building.

India's real progress dates from the period when Congress monopoly of political power ended. That is when the backward castes at last got their voice heard in politics. Mandalisation is wasteful but it is the only way the downtrodden could get anywhere within the Hindu social order, which the Congress had failed to reform.

The real economic breakthrough came in 1991.Three things helped. The Congress did not have a commanding majority. The Prime Minister did not belong to the Nehru-Gandhi family and the Finance Minister was a non-Congress technocrat.

The winning formula then is Congress in power but without a majority and the Prime Minister from outside the family and preferably not a Congress veteran.

Source: Indian Express

Horticulture Technology Mission a Success in Mizoram

Aizawl, Nov 8 : The Horticulture Technology Mission has scripted a huge success story in floriculture in Mizoram, making it possible for even ordinary women to earn handsome sums of money.

One of the notable beneficiaries of the Horticulture Technology Mission's efforts is Lalthuamliani of Durtlang village, about eight kilometers north of Aizawl.

Lalthuamliani, who began her anthurium cultivation with 1,000 plants, now has 10,500 plants and earns up to Rs 35,000 a month.

She has even been praised by former President A P J Abdul Kalam and Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh at her residence when they came calling to appreciate her efforts.

Another success story is that of Lalzamlovi, a housewife living in Aizawl. She earned Rs 1 lakh from her anthurium garden at Ramrikawn, about an hour's drive from the city, in 2007. She has tripled her annual income since.

The director of the state horticulture department, Samuel Rosanglura, said the launch of the technology mission for northeastern states in 2001-02 was a turning point for the horticulture department in Mizoram.

He said the potential of horticulture as a sustainable means of livelihood has gained more recognition since the mission was launched.

The impact of the technology mission in the state can mainly be felt in the production of cash crops and fruits, but womenfolk in the state mainly benefit from the body's floriculture initiatives.

Anthurium cultivation was introduced under the technology mission by the state horticulture department in November, 2002, by selecting 24 potential growers.

Dr Saipari, the Joint Director of the Horticulture department, said there are now more than 400 anthurium growers, with an average annual income of Rs 6,000 to Rs 20,000, who have united under the banner ''Zo Anthurium Growers Society''.

Mizoram’s Love Potion No. 7

Mizoram, the dry North Eastern state of India has started producing wine with introduction last month of a small quantity of ‘Zawlaidi’ label which means love-potion in the Mizo language, thus achieving the unique distinction of becoming perhaps the only wine producing region in the world, which otherwise continues to enforce prohibition and several groups opposing wine production.

Mizoram is one of the Seven Sister States in North Eastern India, sharing borders with the states of Tripura, Assam, Manipur and with the neighboring countries of Bangladesh and Myanmar. It became the 23rd state of India on 20 February 1987 with Aizawl as its capital-after years of insurgency. The state has been under dry law for 13 years, as the Mizoram Liquor Total Prohibition Act was enforced in the state two years after formulation, on February 20, 1997. Wine processing from grapes was allowed in the state after the act was amended in April 2007.

The main reason of this progressive amendment was to increase the earning opportunities for the local villagers who produce bumper crops of grapes but are unable to sell them. In Hnahlan village about 540 families, around 80 % of the total population, has been engaged in grape production whereas 325 families in Champhai area near the Myanmar border, have been engaged in the new activity. According to reports, Hnahlan is expected to produce around 700 cases of wine and Champhai 1000 cases.

Each bottle is priced at Rs 170- slightly higher than the similar fortified ‘Ports’ being produced in Goa and Maharashtra. Wine is allowed to be sold only in Mizoram for the moment. The Excise department of Mizoram has directed that the quantity of the wine should be limited to four liters per person.

As already reported in delWine, a co-operative society had been set up by the cultivators as Grape Growers Society, with Vanlalruata Chenkual, the District Horticulture Officer of Khawzawl as its managing director. Champhai Grape Growers Society harvested 478.5 quintals of grapes this year and expects to harvest 2,056 quintals during 2010-11. Hnahlan Grape Growers Society harvested 6916 quintals and expects the crop of 7910 quintals this year.

The state excise laws dictate that wine has to be sold through licensed retail shops only and before 5 pm. It is interesting that the legal age for wine buyers and sales persons is 18; it is 25 for buyers in most of the other Indian states, though the sales persons may be above the age of 21 as each state is free to have its own laws and policies for marketing wine and alcoholic products.

It is acknowledged by Christians that Jesus changed water into wine. It even seems that Jesus drank wine on occasion.

But the Bible also condemns drunkenness and its effects. The sale of the locally produced wine has been banned within weeks of being launched in one of the localities in the capital city of Aizawl after it was opposed by a committee comprising of different NGOs and the Church of the Christian dominated state.

The churches in Mizoram, who were behind the prohibition law, have expressed their resentment on the liberalization of grape wine.