From China with love

Pic courtesy pmindia.gov.in

Raju Korti
If there is one thing that you got to give it to the ruthlessly pushy Chinese, it is their clear perceptions in not mixing bilateral trade with security issues. So even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi carries forward his investment caravan by hosting the incumbent President Xi Jinping with Khaman Dhokla and Won Ton soup for the starters, there is a reasonable sense of optimism that the country's creaking infrastructure will get a much needed boost from this new-found engagement.
Naysayers will, of course, be quick to harp on China's past record in treachery as also its meager investments post-2000 but much water has flown under the bridge since the visits of President Jiang Zemin and President Hu Jintao where diplomacy had taken precedence over bilateral trade. One should not be surprised if Jinping has come with a baggage that aims at arresting the growing trade deficit against India. Modi actually deserves a pat for making it implicitly clear to Beijing that the only mutually beneficial option was trade investment rather than tariff concessions. While investment per se may not be a conduit for bringing down the trade deficit, it could help the country's manufacturing sector through imports from China.
I have few doubts that given his astute Gujarati business mind it is not beyond Modi's ken to put investment from Japan and China on a fast track mechanism while subtly impressing upon the Chinese leader the Gandhian ethos that flows off the tranquil Sabarmati.
To me, Modi's three summits with three of the world's most powerful leaders in Tokyo, New Delhi and Washington will provide some impetus to the dormant diplomacy in the Manmohan Singh's decade. Obviously, Modi is nursing a two-pronged approach. One, shoring up the economy to achieve an annual growth rate of 8% and two -- and also the more obvious -- that will see him firmly in the saddle. The investments from China, United States, Japan, Germany will be a concrete step in that direction but one needs to look beyond the apparent to realize that Modi's meetings with Xi and Barrack Obama within a fortnight's span have been smartly timed. If the feelers from Beijing are to be interpreted correctly, China is not investing in just India but also in the new Prime Minister by confabulating with him in the land of his roots.
Although both the countries have done well to keep contentious issues relating to the border and Tibet by the wayside, Modi will have some political balancing to do and his handling of the Xi and Obama visits are certain to come in for close scrutiny and comparison. Dealing with the Americans, I suspect, won't be as easier given the hiccups that accrue between the two countries besides Modi's battered ego in the wake of denial of a visa. Modi isn't a person who is likely to forget that kind of slight. But then it will also be a chastening experience of sorts for the American President to entertain a no-visa politician to a dinner-table-Prime Minister. Speaks volumes about what massive public mandate can do to the relationship between two countries. From all available indications, the past seems to have been buried and Modi might pass the US test with Washington acknowledging his innocence in the 2002 riots although there remains a sizeable number of critics who are not prepared to give him a clean chit.
Reports emanating from the American capital suggest that the Obama administration is all geared up to welcome Modi since the argument now is the denial of visa was more of an ethical issue than a political one. The winds have blown favorably with the Japanese and the Chinese. Xi, who also happens to be the General Secretary of the powerful Communist Party, is being accompanied by over 40 media persons. It is but some indication of the significance the Chinese attach to this visit when you take into account the state-controlled Media there.
There are friction points as well. Business back home is not going to take in kindly if the Prime Minister opens umbrella industries like retail and banking. That could open a Pandora's box that might injure some of the economic advantage that he seeks to garner. As for Amdavadis, they would not mind a few traffic restrictions as long as the China Development Bank offers loans at lower rates.
A point in passing. The business sense that I am trying to put forth over here is patently Gujarati. Modi happens to be incidental to that cause.

Morning sickness!

Raju Korti
I detect a voyeuristic streak in film journalists when they free-wheel their fertile imagination on whether an actress is in the family way. The latest to get caught in this speculative web is Rani Mukherji who is believed to be sporting a baby bump before or after her marriage with film-maker Aditya Chopra.
Pregnancy or the rumors about it are an integral part of most film stories. In the seventies you often saw the father informing the daughter of her pregnancy with the clichéd "Beti, tum ek bachche ki maa banne waali ho" and the daughter would look shocked beyond her wits because the motherhood was often the consequence of some misfired love affair. At the time, we thought it must be some miracle of Science that the father would know about his daughter's pregnancy while she herself did not. This inadvertent humor would be followed by a gut-wrenching song about her life of shame and ignominy ahead.
From Kajol to Shilpa Shetty and Aishwarya Rai to Rani, every actress has gone through this gestation period of chewing and conjecturing by the Media until the next round of intense guesstimates begin on what would be the probable name of the new arrival.
Shutterbugs, of course, have a field day trying to click the celebrity from different angles, trying to produce some photographic evidence of the pregnancy while the latter is supposed to hide it worse than a state-kept secret. Everyone partakes of this hypothesizing because its not their baby anyway.
Earlier, the celebrities would occasionally add grist to the rumour mills by making vague and ambiguous statements but now the Media does its own diagnosis. In Rani's case, the grapevine was fertilized by her request for help while climbing the stairs and her co-star Madhuri Dixit lending her a helping hand on the sets of Jhalak Dikhla Jaa.There is a strong reason to speculate (!) that Madhuri's gracious gesture was born out of similar predicament she went through in her years of pregnancy. I say years because the Media is known to spend a couple of years "expecting" the child and a year "confirming" the pregnancy before the new born actually descends on the scene. That's carrying the contemplation to its test-tube gestation!
Some embedded journalist also concluded that Rani arrived on the sets of the show late because she had an appointment with the doctor and she had a mild bout with Flu. So the next time a celebrity visits a doctor with Flu -- before or after marriage -- the signals are clear: The stork is about to visit.
Rani herself added to this pregnant pause by saying she "expects soon." When asked if she was looking to start a family, she said "that is why I and Aditya Chopra are married." That clarification -- unless it was a subtle barb -- makes sense in an age when even children understand the repercussions of a pregnancy before marriage but gossip mongers interpret it as her "grand confession." It absolves them from the charge of prying into her personal life.
A celebrity's pregnancy, real or purported, is an opportunity for the Media to "educate" us on the "afterglow and radiance" evidenced on her beautiful face. Wonder where all the feminists go into hiding when they read this; as "afterglow and radiance" are not known to have spared lesser mortals as well. I remember actress Jessica Simpson as saying that "People always say that pregnant women have a glow. And I say it’s because you’re sweating to death."
If you ask me, a woman doesn't get pregnant to give employment to doctors or media persons. Giving birth is an ecstatic jubilant experience not available to males. It is a woman's ultimate creative experience of a lifetime.


 

Musharraf's new warfront

Raju Korti
Military dictatorships in Pakistan make for interesting and intriguing case studies. Starting from Gen Yahya Khan to Gen Pervez Musharraf, the evolution is punctuated with chicanery, machinations and collusions. Gen Yahya, the stocky Pashtun, who in many ways led the roadmap to the carving of the country into Bangladesh, was -- by the country's standards -- the fairest and therefore also the most naïve. He set the precedent of sacking democratically elected governments, ejecting his benefactor President Ayub Khan who had paved the way for his promotion to the country's highest army post. Gen Zia, the scheming Punjabi on the other hand, was wilier but he never made secret of his dislike for then President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Rationalizing his elevation as the President on the Doctrine of Necessity after what is believed to be a "judicial murder" of the rabble rouser Bhutto, Zia cleverly Islamised the country to remove any misgiving the world community had on the Two-nation Theory. (That in India it continues to spark an animated and fierce debate is another story). The Delhi-born Gen Musharraf seemed to have learnt his lessons from the experience of his predecessors. The feisty man turned out to be the most insidious and greasy. Even as he trampled democratic institutions, turned the judicial system into a kangaroo court, he brought a PR polish to his administration. While systematically getting his detractors out of the way, including the "reasonable" Nawaz Sharif, he made out a specious case of how his elevation and presence at the helm was fundamental(ist) to Pakistan's turbulent existence. Unlike, Yahya and Zia, Musharraf had an air of sophistication to him, what with his frequent claims of Kemal Ataturk of Turkey as his idol.
There is a, however, a common chord in this long story of  deviousness and subterfuge. The reign of most dictators eventually comes to an end with not-so-happy ending. Yahya and Zia didn't exactly die in very graceful circumstances and Musharraf, who is still fighting like the true blue army general, has now the mortification of seeing Sharif at the helm again while the courts that he once used as his dummies now hounding him out. Nemesis catches up and how.
When the tide turned against him, Musharraf "exiled" and fled to London only to return and profess his love for his motherland where detractors Zardari, Imran Khan and Benazir are sharpening their knives against him. By all accounts, Musharraf is a survivor if the balancing acts that he did at the domestic and international levels are any indication. The Sharif government seems to be a little soft on him and doesn't want to rush into his exit. Not surprisingly therefore, reports are emanating from the neighbouring country that he might get a safe passage but astute that he is, Musharraf wants to fight it out with the support of the outfit that he has floated and begin on a clean slate. For Sharif, it seems to be a case of once-bitten-twice-shy. One suspects a stage-managed farce being enacted to push Musharraf into leaving the country but the all powerful military establishment seems to have other ideas. Musharraf, the first military ruler in Pakistan's history to be tried in court, has expectedly rejected all the charges levelled against him, including treason and the pitch is queered by the fact that the country's civilian and army establishments stare at the prospects of being at loggerheads again.
In my blog dated April 11, 2013, I had written:
For his sheer propensity for the holier than thou, one needs to hand it to former president and general Pervez Musharraf. If you ignored the man's chameleonic character, Musharraf, who fled Pakistan to return after four years of "self imposed exile", has proclaimed with his usual bluster that "I am among those people who think of the country and the citizens." His precise timing to return to his troubled homeland shows just that, albeit in a contradictory manner.
Behind the army demeanor, there lurks a hard-core politician. Aware of the rebuffs that dot his path, he has already met with a few. His nomination papers were rejected for his acts of "reason and corruption", a clause Indian electoral system could well draw from. But howsoever Musharraf wants to propagandize his love for Pakistan, no one is hoodwinked into believing that and the man has landed back on his home soil because he hardly had any option. He is obviously trying to make a virtue of his compulsion.There are a string of cases lined up against him. Having trampled all institutions during his cleverly manipulative regime, he is everybody's burden. Elevating such a man at the helm again is fraught with the consequences Pakistani people may not try to experiment with.
Take it. This is a do-or-die battle for Musharraf. He will be consigned to the dustbin of history if his outfit fails to come to power.

LOL for this one!

Turkey's Dy PM Arinc. Doesn't he ever smile?

Raju Korti
Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now. The immediate provocation of this rather profound quote coming from my unemployed mind is Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc who recently decreed that women should not laugh loudly in public.
That Arinc is a co-founder of the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party is less germane to this blog at this juncture. What strikes me in all earnestness is the man himself needs some mirth and laughter given the grimace he sports on his stony face all the time. His statement, a euphemism for an edict, attracted the kind of backlash that was fitting and well earned. Thousands of Turkish women chose to laugh their guts out on a social networking site in protest. I doubt history has heaped ridicule in such measures in a country which swears by its religious identity.
Arinc has since played the predictable tune all political leaders do when caught on the wrong foot, claiming his remarks were twisted out of context and that he was making a general comment on the decline of moral standards in Turkey.While he has been gifting us new theories in Sociology, it doesn't seem to have sunk into the minister that laughter has nothing to do with one's gender and that it is a reflex action of an individual.
Taking a moral high ground comes to all ultra-conservatives by default. So here was our quixotic minister again shooting off with his mouth: "There are women who leave on holiday without their husbands and others who don't have self control and can't stop themselves from climbing up a pole. Anyone can live like this. I can't be angry against you but I can just have pity for you." His new lesson in morality prompted the wife of a prominent Turkish footballer to post a picture of herself pole dancing on Instagram with the slogan "when I see a pole, I just can't resist". The repartee was brilliant for its heavily pregnant innuendo but our granite-faced minister probably only squirmed in his seat.
The heat generated by the minister's indiscrete utterances has a direct relevance to the elections the country is soon slated to go to. The incumbent Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing a lot of flak from his detractors who say the country's secular fabric is threatened (Now, isn't that a familiar refrain?). The government's warped ideas about morality and societal structure haven't gone down well in a country where its first president, reformist statesman Kemal Ataturk -- among other things -- gave women equal civil and political rights. General Musharraf who never hid his admiration for the once Turkish military officer, was never really in a position to replicate the latter's efforts in his perennially tumultuous nation.
Abolition of the Caliphate was an important dimension in Ataturk's drive to reform the political system and to promote the national sovereignty but the ruling dispensation has reverse-geared the heels. The Caliphate of the early centuries now seems to be the core concept of Sunni Islam.
Despite his radical secular reforms, Atatürk remained broadly popular in the Muslim world, a balancing act no other Muslim leader looks capable of in the present times.
That's no laughing matter.
 

Its the US definition of renegades!

Raju Korti

PM Modi: Sketch courtesy my DNA friend Bhagvan Das.

So the man whose office is routinely advertised as the "most prestigious and powerful in the world" was clueless about the storm over the visa ban on Narendra Modi until April this year.
It now transpires, if reports are to be believed, that President Barack Obama had "apparently" no inkling whatsoever that Modi, who expectedly strode to power, was at the center of a raging controversy.
The President "apparently" caught on to the riot act only after several United States lawmakers, on the urging of their Indian-American constituents, over the past few years were writing to then secretary of state Hillary Clinton and her successor John F Kerry, calling on the US State Department to lift the visa ban on the then Gujarat chief minister, while other groups like the Coalition against Genocide convinced yet another group of lawmakers to pressure the State Department not to acquiesce to this request.
If you understand the penchant of the American administration to sauté diplomacy with PR, you will also get the import (!) of its official communiques declaring "US and India as world's greatest democracies." The only hitch in such an unequivocal assertion is a reality check.
To begin with, its is absurd to believe that Obama didn't know or wasn't apprised about a leader who on either sides of the Indian spectrum was either hero-worshipped or rabidly vilified. Surely, the American administration with all its purported intelligence -- in its own country and elsewhere in the world -- knew that a certain Mr Modi was on the verge of tipping scales.
According to reports, some long-time Indian-American fundraisers and major contributors to Obama's presidential campaigns and the Democratic Party met with Obama at a small fundraiser of a select few well-heeled donors. When they brought up Modi's visa ban with Obama and told him that Modi was more than likely to be India's next prime minister and that the controversy would be anathema to a defining partnership with India as he had always professed, Obama had said he had no idea about this visa ban. Even at that juncture, there is  fair ground to believe that the American administration was probably playing the 'wait and watch' game, wanting to see how events unfolded after the Indian elections. The tide changed only after Modi was elected with a thumping margin and it became clear to Washington that despite the former's "tainted Godhra record" it just could not afford to blank him out.
Obama's ignorance of the issue is a classic case of right hand not knowing what the left was up to. That the State Department and the Presidential office were not plugged into each other is incredible and untenable given that the US is as much tuned in to events outside its country all the time. In fact, there is every reason to believe that Obama didn't want to ruffle feathers before Modi arrived on his big moment for the only plausible explanation that it would have been tantamount to interference in India's democratic process.
The stink raised by the visa ban turned out to be worse than what the Americans anticipated. All the right noises that the presidential office sought to make, including extending an invitation to Modi for a meeting in the White House reduced the angst that built up, but only just. To make matters worse, a Congressional hearing on the issue seemed bent on putting the blame in the State Department's basket. The problem had compounded more so because the same ruse had been handed out while denying visa to Modi sometime in 2006 when the man was confronted by "liberal and leftists" from his own country.
The angst was brushed under the carpet on the perceived understanding that if Modi had been denied permission to visit US, it was on the basis of what the situation obtained then and America's policy on the issue before the country's highest court gave him (Modi) a clean chit.
The most surprising dimension to the story is the Coalition against Genocide, a ragtag bunch of leftists and liberals from 40 outfits based in US and Canada. It is interesting to note that the only cause that this organization espouses is that of Godhra when human rights are being blatantly trampled elsewhere in the world. Even if one concedes its right to be wedded to a cause of their choice, it is befuddling that the State Department chose to be led on by the protest of an outfit whose own credentials were under cloud.
If diplomacy and make-shift compulsions demanded that peace had to be made with a dispensation dominated by extreme right-wingers, the American administration could have always exercised a more practical approach in being non committal right through rather than being made to run for cover the way it had to.
When good intentions are not backed up by suitable action, theatrics is all that happens. The face-saving tactics on the grant of visa to Modi is a PR disaster. In the past, Americans have not given a very exemplary account of themselves, shaking hands with despots like Pol Pot in Cambodia and Gen Pinochet in Chile whose record in human right violations makes Modi a pygmy in comparison, and when I say this, I do not hold any brief for Modi in case there is an attempt to perceive me as his sympathizer. To the Americans, South East Asia is a gainful employment and if you zeroed in on that, you understand their proclivities as well. Modi isn't the first and he won't be the last either.

The new American pasture

Obama and Putin: The new face-off

Raju Korti
At the height of strident criticism against the American administration for jumping its gun on Iraq, then president George W Bush (Junior) had famously remarked "I just want you to know that when we talk about war, we are actually talking about peace." If you discount the rhetoric in that twisted justification for what the Americans did in Iraq -- leaving behind a mess of outrageous proportions -- you still can't shut your eyes to their recent propensity to make the world their theatre.
Well aware that its military adventures were unmitigated fiascoes whenever it acted on its own, the world's self-appointed policeman has realized that it helps their cause to rope in its European allies while dealing with potentially war-like situations.
President Barack Obama has gone a step further. He seized on the shooting down of the Malaysian passenger jet to redouble international pressure on old foe Russia over its support for Ukrainian separatists, calling it a “wake-up call” for Europe.
Obama is not sure who was responsible but is convinced that a missile fired from within territory controlled by Russian separatists brought down the jet. “What we have confidence in saying right now was that a surface-to-air missile was fired and that's what brought the jet down,” he said. “We know that that shot was taken within territory controlled by the Russian separatists but it's very important we don't get out ahead of the facts and at this point.”
Somewhere in this area between truth and subterfuge, Obama decreed that the perpetrators should be brought to justice -- American phrase for legitimacy. Still, the US administration is wary of involving itself directly in the conflict. Although Obama claimed there would be no "military role beyond what we've already been doing," it cannot be taken on its face value. You don't have to delve deep into the doublespeak that the Americans have patented. The US president also claimed the incident coming less than 24 hours after the US announced a third wave of economic sanctions against Russia -- demonstrated the risks of supplying heavy weapons and support to the rebels and how the impact was “not going to be localized”. That begs the question what impact is the president talking about? You know the answer when you know the Pentagon has assured Ukraine military assistance although it would to stop short of providing weaponry. Figure out what that means.
Now there is a world of difference between the Americanspeak and Russianspeak. While Washington was couching its real intentions, Moscow minced no words. "The Americans shouldn't lecture us. There is a deep political aberration of Washington's perception of what is going on in Ukraine," it said, dismissing any culpability on their part.
The Russian deputy foreign minister was direct and scathing. "In the geopolitical frenzy and attempts to apply methods of social and political engineering everywhere, the United States acts like a bad surgeon: to cut deeper at first, and then stitch up sloppily so that it would hurt for a long time."
Just how quick the Americans are in cornering world attention was evident in the way the German chancellor, Angela Merkel reacted. According to her, the tragedy underscored, once again, that Russia should be held responsible for the instability in Ukraine, but at least she responded cautiously to suggestions that Europe should follow Washington’s lead by expanding sanctions. That should be construed as a small but perceptible sign that the world is not a sucker to the American methods of gathering circumstantial evidence any more, having been taken for a massive ride in the Allied operation in Iraq.
While speculations and theories on who and what brought the Malaysian jet down may die their natural death, the proxy war between the old enemies will continue in another dangerously disturbed part of the world.
That should bring us back to George Bush: "When we talk of war, we are actually talking of peace." Maybe he meant it the other way round.  

Gripping and unputdownable!

Dr Sumit Ghoshal. Picture from his Facebook wall.

Raju Korti
Writing a good novel is hard. If it were so easy, we’d all be writing best-selling, prize-winning fiction. There is no dearth of people out there who can tell you how to write a novel. There are many who will wax eloquent on what goes into the making of good fiction. The benchmarks are any but the best is the one that works for you.
Going by that yardstick, Dr Sumit Ghoshal has pieced together a brilliantly stitched story that, to me, has a heady blende of the pace of James Hadley Chase and Robin Cook's eye for intricate details. That's no mean task because easier reads than written. At a personal level I am not really taken by surprise since I have had the good fortune of working with Sumitbhai in The Indian Express and the DNA and have always marveled at his ability to pack so much sense while being frugal with words.
In my definition, a good writer who handles the kind of genre that Sumitbhai has done, blurs the line between fact and fiction. Or else, has this subtlety to fictionalize facts.
It is difficult to believe that "Unhealthy Practices" is his first attempt at fiction since the flow and the narrative are seasoned enough to give any veteran a run for his/her money. To use a trite phrase, the book is unputdownable from first word to last.
For all those who must wonder why I put my finger on Chase is for two reasons. The dexterity with which the characters have been painted carries the same stamp. There is another finespun with the situations -- anything but synthetic as is the won't with majority Indian writers -- that leave you with a poignant feeling. You almost end up sympathizing with the darker characters.
Although the title says a lot, I believe the book is actually a scathing indictment of the blatant commercialization of Medical Science which, among other things has severely compromised with professional ethics. The medical profession has long subscribed to a body of ethical statements developed primarily for the benefit of the patient. As a member of this profession, a physician must recognize responsibility to patients first and foremost, as well as to society, to other health professionals, and to self.
The story revolves round the affairs of a trustee hospital whose chairman Madhavji Shah is ready to subsidize scruples to jack up institution's dwindling revenue. As part of this mercenary exercise, Shah, who has connections in the ruling party and can pull strings, throws out senior doctors for not bringing in enough patients and therefore more money. A serious patient is taken off the Intensive Care Unit and shunted to another room/ward so high-end rooms can be allotted to those who can cough up more money.
Even as one senior doctor after another is asked to leave, Prashant Kadakia, the youngest member of the Board of Trustees -- whose father is a past chairman -- devolves upon himself to gain control of the institution. The incumbent chairman keeps plumbing newer depths in throwing ethics to winds and goes as far as kidnapping and murder of some NRI's who are ready to pump in money to extricate the hospital from its morass.
Kadakia takes the help of a reporter Yogesh Tripathi, whose has lost his father is the same hospital on what borders on negligence. Yogesh in turn finds a soul mate in Vineeta, a resident doctor who helps him on the sly with information on the happenings in the hospital. Dr Jagdish Choksi, the medical director wields the axe and does all the dirty work of getting rid of doctors who do not bring in revenue.
As the tussle for the control of the hospital intensifies, the story runs through a series of intrigues and manipulations that degenerate to criminal levels. The pitch here is queered by the presence of an adamant union which demands a hefty bonus from the hospital whose finances are on the brink. Unable to negotiate the turn of events, Choksi is forced to resign and is replaced by Dr Ashok Zaveri who handles pressure and sort of assists Kadakia to bring a semblance of sanity to the hospital's administration. Finally, Kadakia manages to overthrow the board of trustees responsible for its downfall and initiates a process to refurbish its image.
There is a Chase-ish twist towards the end when one of the character, Pratibha Jhala -- who loses her husband due to medical negligence and befriends another doctor from the hospital -- contracts HIV and succumbs to it. Turns out that Pratibha is the past wife of Prashant Kadakia.
The first thing that strikes a reader is the ability of the author to connect and relate events with a vivid description. The story unspools before his eyes like a motion film. That coupled with a lucid narrative gives the story a cutting edge. Perhaps, the only minor irritants are a few editing errors here and there which I am sure Sumitbhai would rectify in the next edition. Implicit in this observation is my fervent wish that all copies are briskly sold out.
As a reader, I have always been very exacting and trained to look for flaws but Sumitbhai doesn't give you any to pinpoint. The characterization and description have the deft touches of a seasoned artiste who can toy with a paint brush. Sumitbhai draws from his twin experience as a once-practicing doctor and as a been-there journalist.
Since this is a personal blog, I think apologies are also due in order for, this piece should have been written long back. On a lighter note, I would like to tell Sumitbhai "better late than never."
More power to his pen.

[Unhealthy Practices, printed by notionpress.com, authored by Dr Sumit Ghoshal, pages 287, price Rs 299.]