[Assam] From ToI/ and from the fearless NGO Rajendra Singh

[mc mahant]

Hats off to the Ever Optimist Ram:
*
<India has a huge market,  a good workforce, and a huge expanding middle class,  something like 50% of the pop. is young.* > This is Kamal Nath kind of Spin/bait. Old Hat . Investors come only to exit with heavy killings.Result-That much loss for India.{*50% OLD?)
 
 

Look at what just came in from Rajendra Singh--- the  whistle-blowing Water-man :
If I read him right  NarendraModi is at least doing some Work. He is a HOPE!
 
For Rs.200 Crores Electricity; Rs. 20,000 Crores WERE LOST  when  Surat  was Flooded out   
 Here is evidence of how incompetent politicians could only bring miseries for people of India. 
 
None can deny political abilities of Gujarat Chief Minister to execute projects, fast demolish all opposition .But “Like A Misdirected Missile Could Cause Massive Self Destruction” .Check dams and river linking   -- these are 2 such Missiles.  Gujarat government  claims to have carried out “Flood Flow Experiments” .Were these before check dams were built on rivers? 
 
[20.  By regulating the flow of flood water of Kadana & Panam projects in coordination with the Field Engineers, Collector, DDO, revenue department, more than 15 lakh cusecs of flood water is released without any damage and loss of life.]
 
Since losses in canal networks were huge Gujarat decided to fill up its dams for both additional power and water. 
 
[18.  State Govt. has also revised the rule level of gated dams particularly in scarcity area for storing maximum rainwater and stop the same flowing into sea. By storing and using such flood water planning fully particularly for Ukai & kadana project hydro electricity of worth of Rs. 200 to 300 crores is generated approximately.]
 
In the above: Instructions were clear---“Stop Water Going waste To Sea” .And all water went in to Surat city instead.  Following that Imperious Diktat most of the check dams on all  rivers were completed in 2005 before Surat  was resultantly flooded out in 2006. 
 
[7.  With public participation, nearly 50000 no. of check dams are constructed at a cost of Rs. 1000 cores,--- Within a short period of one year in state nearly 1,50,000 ‘Khet Talavadis’(Storage Reservoirs inside the farm limits) were constructed with public participation.]
 
[12.  In addition to these, Tenders for constructing more than 300 check dams on 21 rivers were also invited. From which at present works for 64 check dams are all ready started and construction of all check dams will be completed by June.05.]
 
Everything was designed for completion by 2005. 
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ravinder Singh July28, 2007
Progressindia2007 at yahoo.com


Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 09:00:37 -0600From: assamrs at gmail.comTo: cmahanta at charter.netCC: assam at assamnet.orgSubject: Re: [Assam] From ToI
C'da
 

>You can assert it was a pack of lies or spinning by Campbell and attribute it to  "still >drunk with the Raj.".
 
All you have to do is to read the UK media (even here - the Huffington Post and others). They all seem to paint a very different picture of Cambell. 
Basically, they don't place too much credibility on him. He is supposedly fiercely loyal to TB and his party, has a short fuse, and is known as the "spin doctor" for a all the spinning and taking liberties with the facts. 
 
>> And countries like India are really not that enamoured with the UK anymore
>*** I realize that is what you would like to believe. But does that explain 
 
No, C'da, I am not saying this because its a feel-good thing. It has a lot to do with the economic clout that India and China  have acquired in recent years. 
India has a huge market,  a good workforce, and a huge expanding middle class,  something like 50% of the pop. is young. 
 
So, there is a lot of competition among many countries to get into the Indian market. 
You might know, that when private airlines in India were placing orders for planes this past year, all the major producers from the US and Europe were all over the place trying to get to India's good side. Britain is just one player. And this is just one segment - now consider autos, appliances, heavy machiney, highway building contracts etc.  
 
And that is why India is really not that enamoured with the UK because there are many other more successful and developed countries who curry India's favor.
 
Recently, Kamal Nath (Indian minister) was in Houston. People were extremely impressed with this sauve, well-educated, and well-balanced montry from India (and I am not talking about the desi crowd).  Many of the montries are not the 'run of the mill' type like Laloo, 
 
There's a change afoot in India, C'da..
 
--Ram
 
 
n 7/30/07, Chan Mahanta <cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:



Ram:
 
> And countries like India are really not that enamoured with the UK anymore.
 
 
*** I realize that is what you would like to believe. But does that explain :
 
 "Vajpayee was on the  phone, totally adamant that if TB (Blair) went to Pakistan without
also visiting India, it would be a real disaster for him. He  (Vajpayee) was normally so quiet and soft-spoken but there was both  panic and a bit of anger in his voice".
 
 
 
You can assert it was a pack of lies or spinning by Campbell and attribute it to  "still drunk with the Raj.".
 
But would that be a credible explanation?
 
 
c-da

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
At 9:36 PM -0600 7/29/07, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
C'da,
 
>Be that as it may, what I found ironic and held my nose at was >ABV's supplication ( I had to look that up -means   prayer to a higher >power, a humble request for help from someone in authority )
 
That is basically Cambell's take on what ABV's thought process was.  I am really surprised - people like Cambell are still drunk with the Raj. The British are not in control anymore. And countries like India are really not that enamoured with the UK anymore. 
 
Whether we like it or not, companies from all over the world are making a beeline for India's market. You name a large company, and it has a presence in India. 
As far as today's India is concerned, Britain does not matter. Its only thought of as a backdrop to its history.
 
--Ram
 
 
On 7/29/07, Chan Mahanta <cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:
Ram:
 
I wasn't even paying attention to that part of the story. It is a spook vs spook  intrigue that I don't pay much heed to.  But now that you bring that up, why do you think that the hotel room could NOT have been bugged, even though it was chosen by the Brits themselves? Its not like that they had the place cordoned off by the British security apparatus before Blair came a calling? And it wasn't like some third party who supposedly found  the bugs -- it said the Brits found them during their sweep. 
 
At any event, what would be Campbell's motive to throw that in, while the entire book merited about ten references to an India with super-power  pretensions? A calculated resurrection of the benign-neglect doctrine :-)? Racism? Die-hard colonial condescension? Fear of an emerging India? What? 
 
Be that as it may, what I found ironic and held my nose at was ABV's supplication ( I had to look that up -means   prayer to a higher power, a humble request for help from someone in authority ) for Blair not to pass India by on his Pakistan visit, the grovelling for equal notice, that much despised 'parity' problem that continues to haunt India :-), never mind all the bravado declaring it as past. 
 
Not that I was surprised. I had a pretty good idea how much Britain or even the USA respects India. All one needs to do is look at the Indian press head-lines or NRI proclamations here in the USA or in Europe to know how much Indians need that notice of whom they suck-up to. What I was surprised by was  ToI's ability to print the piece, warts and all, obviously written by an 'anti-Indian' , probably an ex-pat , if not a 'pseudo-secularist' who hates ABV or the BJP :-). 
 
c-da
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
At 6:40 PM -0600 7/29/07, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
Hi C'da

 
This news was reported also sometime ago (both in the British and Indian press).
The Indian Govt. asserts that there was no way they could have planted bugs, as the hotel was chosen by the British Govt. And the M16 or was it M15 had gone thru the suites with a tooth comb.
 
Now, how did all that get past British Intel.
 
The story seems too convenient as a story for Cambell.
 
--Ram
 
 
On 7/29/07, Chan Mahanta <cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:
** Tsk, tsk!cm_______________________________________________________________________________Blair's spin doctor spills beans on Indian waiters, PMs
30 Jul 2007, 0038 hrs IST,Rashmee Roshan Lal,TNNDid you know there are more Indian waiters in Britain than there arecoal miners?" Tony Blair was asked in September 1994 by one of hishigh-flying researchers Peter Hyman. It was two months since Blair had become the youngest Labour Party
leader since World War II. Hyman's question presumably reflected the
profound changes in late 20th-century Britain. Blair was desperate tochange his moribund party and drag it out of 18 years in thepolitical wilderness. Hyman, who became one of Blair's favouriteadvisors, presumably asked his question to point to Blair thegeography of the change he must embrace.Thirteen years from the day Hyman asked the question, the past is adifferent country. As is Britain. Blair has departed Downing Street after a decade as Labour's longest-serving PM. A new PM is in office.Blair's former aides have scattered like leaves in the wind. One ofthe most prominent of these, former spin doctor Alastair Campbell, has published extracts from his diaries. The volume, titled The BlairYears, finally hit stands in India.And so we finally learn what PM Blair and his golden guys and girlsreally, really thought about India in the 10 years they colonised the PM's office and the British political landscape. Going by Campbell'sdiaries, the answer is very little, if at all. Despite all the recentrhetoric about a new special relationship between India and itsformer imperial master, Campbell's diaries make clear that Blair's
office, if not all of Blair's Britain, hardly thought about India,except by default.According to Campbell's account, Blair and Britain were forced,post-9/11 to acknowledge India's needs vis-a-vis Pakistan for face-saving Western tokens and gestures signalling New Delhi'simportance and influence.In October 2001, says Campbell, Blair was on his way to Islamabad tofirm up plans with the West's new best friend, Pervez Musharraf, for invading Afghanistan. New Delhi was not on the prime ministerialitinerary. "We had a real problem with the Indians over the plannedvisit to Pakistan," writes Blair's spin doctor, "Vajpayee was on the phone, totally adamant that if TB (Blair) went to Pakistan withoutalso visiting India, it would be a real disaster for him. He(Vajpayee) was normally so quiet and soft-spoken but there was bothpanic and a bit of anger in his voice". Later, Campbell describes the "two bugs" found in the British PM'sDelhi hotel room and notes, "we decided against making a fuss".Campbell fulminates at some length about the "valet, Sunil" he is assigned for the Delhi stopover, complaining that "he just would notleave me alone...I was beginning to wonder whether he had been putthere either by the (Indian) spooks or a paper".Soon in January 2002, and Campbell is once again recounting the low-key theatricality of the UK-Indian relationship. Campbell'smemories of this passage to India appear to be dominated by Blair'sdecision to wear a Nehru jacket."Hopefully it would be seen as showing respect (to the Indians)", he writes. And then he damns PM Vajpayee with faint praise, describinghow Blair "pushed hard but got very little change out of Vajpayee. Hewas holding out for a lot more from the Pakistanis. He was prettyshrewd and his total lack of embarrassment at long silences was areal strength".As a miniature portrait of Indo-British relations six years ago,Campbell's sketchy recollections of the stop-start bilateral rhythm offer an unedifying picture. There is British suspicion and Indiansupplication; "mystical" Indian silences and wordy British lectures;there are unmemorable banquets in the Hyderabad palace, pryingnatives and clumsy Indian intelligence moves. All of this larded withstreaky bits of Indian tub-thumping and British mantras on SouthAsia's need for stability.In the end, of course, it is significant that Campbell mentions India barely half-a-dozen times in this account of the 10-year period inwhich India's relations with its former master visibly andconclusively changed. The significance may lie more in what he does
not say than what he does._______________________________________________assam mailing listassam at assamnet.orghttp://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org 
 
 
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