BBC says..
Headline - Ugly Indian debate sets scene for election
In particular, it was a decisive victory for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had staked his personal reputation on the Indo-US nuclear agreement, a deal that many in his own party were not convinced about.
But the surprise came from a powerful regional politician who emerged as a rallying point for many of the smaller parties - Mayawati, a low-caste politician and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India's most politically influential state.
Six jailed MPs, some serving life sentences for crimes as serious as murder, were given bail so that they could vote in parliament. Under Indian law, they may continue to hold their position until the last of their appeals is dismissed.
It was a sordid, seamy side of the world's largest democracy laid bare.
source - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7520381.stm
Times Says...
India Government survives vote to rescue US nuclear deal
Amid raucous scenes in India's parliament, the government eased through a no confidence vote tonight, salvaging a nuclear deal with the United States and staving off the threat of a snap election.
But its unexpectedly easy victory was over-shadowed by three opposition MPs who waved wads of cash in the air in parliament, saying they had been offered a combined £1.1 million to abstain.
The vote capped a passionate and chaotic two-day debate in parliament and a fortnight of furious backroom bartering that highlighted the complexity and venality of Indian politics.
To make up the numbers, the government had temporarily released six MPs from jail and even renamed an airport after another's father.
The opposition, meanwhile, flew in one MP who just had heart surgery in Bombay and another recovering from knee surgery in Los Angeles.
"This is the defeat of Indian democracy that we have seen," said Harish Salve, a former Solicitor General of India. "The spectacle they created was disastrous. For God's sake, the whole world's looking at us."
Source - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4380397.ece
Wall Street Journal says...
India's Singh Gets a Boost As Coalition Wins Key Vote
NEW DELHI -- India's government survived a no-confidence vote, keeping the ruling coalition in power for a few more months and providing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with a much-needed political boost as he seeks to secure a nuclear deal with the U.S.
But the victory might be undermined by allegations by opponents of Mr. Singh that officials from the ruling coalition offered bribes totaling $2.25 million to three opposition members to abstain from voting to increase the government's chances of surviving. The allegations were aired after opposition politicians pulled large bundles of rupees out of bags on the floor of ...
Source - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121672514943973317.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news
2 comments:
There are times when India has to rise above the ordinary, set its sights high, and tell the world that it has arrived not only as the largest democracy but also as a major power of the 21st century. Unfortunately, the present is not an ennobling moment of this nation of over a billion people who are helplessly watching all that they would not have liked to see 61 years after Independence.
Allegations are always there. Ironically thats what opposition had been doing consistently in India whenever it wakes up like Raavan's brother after every 6 months of sleep. Speaker threatening to quit; Criminals tauting money stacks; making mockery of parliament - All happened because the stupified opposition thought it had a shot at toppling the present government, and went for it. We are seriously missing a point here I think.
If the nation did not go through the shame of re-election, that saved grace. During the debate the so called NDA never said they will snap the deal. They say they will TOO go ahead, just they will twist it, by how much - they showed it during their reign in power - did zero change in policies from last government where it was most needed. When uncle sam flexes its muscle, we all know how much NDA will oppose.
NDA could not stop pepsi or coke from setting plants in the regions of North india when Pepsi and Coke promised they will revive the dying farmer community and give them jobs in food processing plants!!! All they did were install botteling plants with machines, on subsidized lands bought from local poor farmers. A government and a set of cronies that could not stand against to goons of the time in faces of Pepsi and Coke, what chance they stand on forcing the terms of nuclear deal? NDA did nothing to save suicides of farmers 50% arising from this debacle
NDA said it favors Nuclear energy, lo and behold, why then you are opposing a deal that is going to get India a thorium technology that will let India NOT IMPORT URANIUM FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES AND MAKE US SELF RELIANT USING OUR THORIUM RESOURCES PRESENT IN RAJASTHAN BY MILLIONS OF TONS!!!
Its surprising and shameful that certain political leaders are still stuck in their own political gains mindset, that they are not seeing what a youth wants in India. He wants to see India in club high. She wants to see India among G8 guys. They want to see India as a rising power, not a country where no investments can be made and stock markets crash because no government is stable enough. It takes decades to make plans and roll nations ahead. Not the to and fro motions in idologies that sway nations from left to right never letting make progress in one direction. May it be russia, making progress in Socialistic ways to a super power status, or may it be England+USA, making progress in Capitalistic ways or may it be China, making progress in Socio-Capital ways - they all are sticking to their guns, one sided governments with "visions". Not the people who just are looking for a chance, an excuse to throw governments.
Our youth, who have power and access to internet need to recon with and reflect the view point of average college going, bike riding, cinema watching, hard studying, hard working dudes from India.
Lets not forget what we saved: At stake was people's faith in parliament and democracy, that was slowly and with a lot of hardwork, very timidly trying to come back from long lost past. God bless India, and god give some brain cells to its leaders...
Dr Manmohan Singh certainly has abiding faith in the uses of the nuclear deal. It can take India into another league and help it sit on the high table of the nuclear-weapon states, set up more nuclear reactors for producing clean energy, ensure nuclear fuel supplies for reactors — existing and likely to be set up — and provide access to sensitive high-technology India would need for its defence, space programme, nuclear reactors and even economic growth.
The Prime Minister presumably is looking ahead and into the future, hoping that the majority of the MPs will also see India as he does and support the nuclear deal — not for his sake but for the sake of the country and its children who have to inherit its future.
Dr Manmohan Singh is not known for striking a pose for the photo-ops or the visitors. But those who have met him believe that his optimism about the confidence motion going through could be based not on vague hopes, but on hard calculations his hardcore tacticians might have made in the party backrooms.
Away from 7 Race Course Road and in the dark world of politics where vision has been blurred by acute myopia and public good overtaken by personal ambitions and greed, murky things are happening that do not bring honour to the country.
Tuesday is a crucial day for the MPs who ought to know that if the people, particularly the young who cannot be taken as disinterested watchers, get disillusioned with the parliamentary system, the elected representatives themselves will have nowhere to hide.
There are quite a number of MPs in different political parties who can still be counted as public-spirited, have the interest of the country in mind and can look far into the direction the country should take. They are the people who should even at this late hour try to ensure that the wishes of the malevolent elements, the rag-tag and the musclemen do not come to prevail.
Much more is at stake than the fate of the Manmohan Singh government and the nuclear deal. Both need to be saved. What also needs to be saved is the people’s faith in the institution of Parliament and democracy.
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