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Mar 26, 2007

Research Calls: SAIL

KR Choksey Research recommends a 'buy' on Steel Authority of India (SAIL) at a price of Rs 103, as it expects that rise in prices of steel internationally will lead to improved realisations for the company.

Globally, steel prices have risen about 7-8 per cent over the last couple of months and are expected to remain strong following healthy demand in Asia, Europe and the US.

SAIL is the largest integrated steel company in India, with a hot metal production of about 15 million ton and a market share of 25 per cent. It operates four integrated steel plants and three special steel plants in the country.

Further, it also has its own captive iron ore, dolomite and limestone miles. It now plans to increase its hot metal production capacity from the existing 14.6 million ton to 23 million ton a year by 2012.

In addition, to meet the increased power requirement due to augmented capacity, it plans to set up two power plants of 500 mw each in two separate joint ventures with NTPC at Bhilai and with Damodar Valley in Jharkhand. At the price of Rs 103, the stock is valued at about 8 times its trailing twelve month earnings.

Shasun Chemicals

Angel Broking recommends a 'buy' on Shasun Chemicals at a price of Rs 101, with an 18-month target of Rs 145. Shasun Chemicals is a generic drug-maker with a small foray in active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and plans to enter the formulations exports, especially in regulated markets of Europe and the US.

The company has forged an alliance to market 22 products of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals and Alpharma, and expects a United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) approval of its facilities in order to launch its products by the first half of FY08.

In FY07, the company acquired assets of Rhodia's custom synthesis business along with some proprietary technologies. The assets included USFDA and Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency, UK (MHRA) approved contract manufacturing and custom synthesis manufacturing units, and technologies like hydrolytic kinetic resolution (HKR), aromatic bond formation (ABF) and trifluoro methylation.

This business clocks sales of £40 million (approximately Rs 343 crore) and has a pipeline of around 14 products in advanced stages of clinical trials and about 20 products in the preclinical phase.

The company is expected to grow at a compound rate of 45.1 per cent and 24.3 per cent in sales and net profit over FY06-FY09. At Rs 101, the stock is valued at 8.8 times and 7 times its expected FY08 and FY09 earnings respectively.

KPIT Cummins Infosystems Emkay Private Client Research recommends a hold on KPIT Cummins Infosystems at a price of Rs 114 with a target price of Rs 144.

Despite the negative impact of the appreciating rupee and lower billing days, EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax and depreciation) margin for the quarter has marginally declined by 30 basis points to 15.2 per cent.

On the other hand, lower effective tax rate of 3.2 per cent, on accounts of deferred tax assets, resulted a 10 per cent growth in the net profit to Rs 137.23 million.

Overall the December quarter proved to be quite a mixed bag. In revenue terms there was decent growth, however rupee appreciation and lower number of billing hours dampened the growth in the rupee term.

However a strong positive has been the company's ability to maintain its margins. Going forward strong medium term growth drivers are discerned from the strong ramp up in the non-Cummins Star customers accounts and improved performance from the acquired companies.

Emkay expects KPIT Cummins revenue and profit to grow at a CAGR of 37 per cent and 46 per cent to Rs 4,682 million and Rs 6006 million and Rs 535 million and Rs 698 million respectively.

KPIT Cummins trades at a P/E of 14.6 times estimated FY08 earnings. Adjusted for the recently concluded bonus issue and stock split, at the target price of Rs 144, the stock is valued at 15.5 times for estimated FY08 earnings.

http://www.business-standard.com/smartinvestor/storypage.php?leftnm=0&subLeft=
8&chklogin=N&autono=278827&tab=r

'WE HAVE TO PAY A PRICE TO FIGHT NAXALISM'

Unfazed by the criticism of Salva Judum, its founder and Congress leader Mahendra Karma tells Shivam Vij that he's in the thick of a war

You are an Adivasi MLA from Dantewada. Has Naxalism affected you personally?
I have lost two brothers to it and have escaped attacks several times. Whenever I go to Dantewada, especially on padyatras to spread the message of the Salva Judum, there is the risk. My family and sons still live in my native village. Recently, on March 2, I was going on a motorcycle yatra with 150 others to Jagargunda, a village on the border with Andhra Pradesh. One of the motorcycles ahead of me triggered a pressure bomb. It could have been me.

Aren't you afraid?

This is not the sort of bogus fight that politicians are used to. In this fight, we will have to be prepared for anything. I am not new to this. I have been fighting the Naxals since 1989 when we started a jan jagran abhiyan among villagers and the Naxalites left, but soon they returned. I worked again on it when I was an independent member of the Eleventh Lok Sabha.

So what has this experience of working on the issue of Naxalism taught you?

The single greatest lesson I have learnt is never to compromise with the Naxals.

Does that mean you are against peace talks with them?

The Naxals aren't even offering to talk.

But if they do?

They just can't give up the gun. If they do, then perhaps we can talk.

Shouldn't the government initiate peace talks with them?

These are the people who are against the Constitution and the democratic system as a whole. We, on the other hand, are part of this democratic system and it is our responsibility to save it from the Naxalites. You must understand that they are terrorists.

What do you think of the way Maoists have joined democracy in Nepal?

That's what they will have to ultimately do in India.

But Naxalites say that Indian democracy has been a farce because developmental benefits haven't reached the people.

Okay, so let us throw the ball in their court: what have the Naxals done for the people? Have they empowered common people in any way? Has the standard of living in villages controlled by them improved? Why don't you understand that the Naxals want 'revolution', they want to change the system, and the tribals are the best fodder. But we who are fighting against the Naxals are also tribals. We have the same blood in us.

There are several kinds of terrorism. There is communal terrorism and local terrorism, but Naxalism is political terrorism of an international nature. Whatever be the form of terrorism, it isolates people geographically or communally. What the Naxals want amounts to secessionism. Democracy, on the other hand, is nobody's property, certainly, not mine. I haven't picked it up from Plato.

So what is the status of Naxalism in Chhattisgarh now according to you?

There is a big dent in it after a people's movement against it in the most-affected district of Dantewada. But Dantewada is still the centre of Naxal activity, not just in Chhattisgarh but in the entire country. This is where the root is. This is where I suspect the central leadership of he Communist Party of India (Maoist) resides. If we can wipe out Naxalism from Dantewada, we will have wiped it out from the rest of the country. And there is only one thing that can defeat Naxalism. It is called Salva Judum. For the first time has such a people's movement taking place. The Naxalites earlier called themselves 'People's War Group'. But what they are doing now is war against the people! Their very astitva (being) is being challenged.

Is it true that you are the initiator of Salva Judum?

I only gave it this name after I saw it come up on its own. Seeing a village rebel against Naxalites gave me the inspiration to lead them. They needed a political voice, which is what I gave them. I gave them leadership.

But some say that the Salva Judum was your creation with police help.

That is mere propaganda. After a month-and-a-half of the movement, the state government made the wise decision to support it. Given how alarming the problem of Naxalism is, why should the state not support it?

But if it is really a spontaneous movement against Naxalite oppression, why has it appeared only in Dantewada and not the rest of south Chhattisgarh and indeed the red corridor?

Just because others haven't risen up doesn't mean Dantewada's tribals are fools. It is not Dantewada's fault if others don't have the courage to stand up against Naxalism.

So why don't you take the Salva Judum movement to other areas?

Wherever we go, people stand up and join us. We have made a beginning with Dantewada. Until we don't become a Naxalism-free state, we will not stop. If there are places where there is local leadership willing to stand up against the Naxals, we are ready to support it.

But isn't it unfair for the state to arm tribals and pit them against Naxalites? It is widely alleged that many are forced to join the Salva Judum and relocate to camps.

The people of Dantewada want to fight. Hundreds have died at the hands of the Naxalites, but they still want to fight. They want to kill Naxalites. The state cannot fool lakhs of people. You go to Salva Judum camps and ask them. The people of Dantewada are not like the Kashmiri Pandits who left their homes when forced by the gun. We are fighters.

The Naxalites are known for violence against individuals and institutions that represent the state. Don't you think that the creation of Salva Judum camps has turned thousands of villagers into ready targets for the Naxals?

On the contrary, wherever there are Salva Judum camps, Naxal violence and oppression of villagers has come to an end.

Many allege that the budget for these camps has provided officials an unprecedented opportunity to bungle the funds. There are even allegations against you for corruption.

As you know the Naxals can succeed in killing me any day. Do you think a man who has given his life would care for money? As for officials, we are talking of a machinery where corruption is widespread, so I would not be surprised if there has been corruption. There should indeed be an enquiry.

What do you think have been the three biggest successes of the Salva Judum?

Firstly, the Naxalite network has been undermined. They used to work with tribal villagers, and the same villagers are now on our side. Secondly, 5,000 Naxalites have surrendered and become special police officers (SPO) with the Salva Judum.

Who decides who will be given SPO status and arms?

The government decides the terms, it's not my responsibility. But it is true that many who are associated with our peace movement have been made SPOs. Anyway, you didn't let me tell you the third and the most interesting achievement of Salva Judum, which is that politicians have started speaking against Naxalism. Earlier they were so afraid of Naxals that they didn't want to openly speak out against them. Only when the locals have dared that the political class has risen to the occasion.

In May 2006, you told Tehelka that Salva Judum would be able to finish the Naxals by June 2006. This is March 2007 and we have just witnessed the massacre of 68 Salva Judum and Chhattisgarh police officials in Dantewada.

We give such slogans to inspire our masses. But you will appreciate that the Salva Judum has spread to all of Dantewada by now.

Rights groups and fact-finding committees have found large-scale human rights violations and violence in the name of Salva Judum. You cannot write them off as Naxal sympathisers.

I don't care for so-called intellectuals who can't understand what a jan andolan is.

Has there been a single mistake committed by the Salva Judum? If you were to do it all again, is there anything you would you do it differently?

When such a jan andolan takes place there is always some upvad , some wrongs, but exceptions should not be presented as the rule.

KPS Gill said at the Tehelka summit last year that the Salva Judum was a Gandhian movement…

No doubt about that! It is a public movement for freedom just like the one Gandhi led.

But Gandhi's was a non-violent movement, and Salva Judum is about an eye for an eye…

Do you know how many people Gandhi's non-violence killed?

How many?

Twenty two thousand. They were killed by the British for following Gandhi's path.

The massacre in Ranibodli on March 15, isn't it proof that the Salva Judum campaign failed?

Not at all. This massacre was going to happen. It was decided in the ninth Congress of the CPI (Maoist). That's when I think they also decided to killed Sunil Mahatoji of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. The state and Central governments should take the Naxalite decisions and plans more seriously than they do. The Naxals do what they say.

Home Minister Shivraj Patil said in Parliament the other day that Naxal-related incidents in the country had dipped by 6.5 percent in 2006, but in Chattisgarh they increased by 57 percent. And 676 have died in 22 months and most of these were in Dantewada. You still think Salva Judum has not backfired?

Do the other states have a public movement against Naxalism? Obviously, Naxals are killing more in Dantewada because they are frustrated at tribals being wooed away from them.

So the escalating deaths are merely collateral damage?

Well when there is a problem in front of you will you bravely face it or turn away? If we have to fight Naxalism, we will have to pay a price. Kisi samasya ka samadhan haath par haath dharey rehne se thodi na hota hain. Usko root se nikalna padega, sangharsh karna padega. We Indians typically accept things as destiny, leaving it bhagwan bharosay. That's not how you fight a war. The Naxals want this war to prolong for another 20-25 years and that's why they are killing more people.

Controversial as it is, is Salva Judum the only way of fighting Naxalism?

Well, I had Salva Judum to offer. If any learned person in the country has other solutions to offer, he is most welcome to try them.

Isn't providing more security a simple solution?

Yes, as the Salva Judum spreads, there will be more need for security.

So at the moment the number of security forces is just fine?

It is less than adequate.

Can you please pose below the Gandhi portrait for the photographer?

(Stands up and poses.) You are making me stand in the line of Gandhi. (Chuckles.)

It is you who has Gandhi in his office.

You know there is a saying, maha-purushon ke pad-chinh dikhaeen nahi dete, kyon ki un par aaj tak koi chala hi nahin. (You can't see the footsteps of great men because nobody has walked on them.)

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main28.asp?filename=Ne310307We_have_CS.asp

Absconding official handed over to Bihar police

RANCHI: Former district planning officer of Bihar JJB Tirkey, who was evading arrest in connection with a case lodged with the vigilance bureau in connection with the alleged funding of fake NGOs during the tenure of the then Patna DM, Gautam Goswami, was handed over to the Bihar police on Sunday. He was arrested by the Ranchi police on Saturday.

Bihar ADG (vigilance) Neelmani said the case pertains to funding fake NGOs to the tune of over Rs 1 crore. The former planning officer was arrested on Saturday by the Ranchi police from Chitragupta Nagar locality of the city, where he was living in a rented house.

Tirkey is reported to be absconding from Patna since 2005 after vigilance officials of Bihar lodged an FIR against him. Meanwhile, in an interesting development, Deepali Tirkey, wife of former planning officer, turned up in the city on Sunday demanding possession of her son Ashish Tirkey, who was earlier living with his father.

Police, after hearing her plea, allowed her to take possession of her son. Deepali said her husband forcibly took away Ashish. She came to know about the whereabouts of her son only after hearing about the arrest of her husband in Ranchi. "I rushed to Ranchi from Chandil, where I live with my parents, to take possession of my son," she said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Patna/Absconding_official_handed_over_to_Bihar
_police/articleshow/1807307.cms

Repaying 40 kg of rice with 27 years of bonded labour

PALIGANJ (PATNA): In Bihar government's official records, bonded labour doesn't exist. But at least a couple of farm workers at Paipura Barki village, about 60 km from Patna, have not been able to throw off the yoke of bondage even though they have worked for nearly three decades for their "masters".

Meet Jawahar Manjhi, 45, who has a wife and four children. About 27 years ago when he was a teenager, his starving family took rice on loan from the local 'mahajan' (lender) for a wedding. It was decided that Manjhi would work in the lender's field and repay with his labour. For a day's work, he would be given one kg of rice, which is one-third of the normal payment of three kg.

Since then Manjhi has been working six days a week, eight hours a day. But the loan remains to be repaid. "Originally the loan was one 'mun' (about 40 kg). Twenty-seven years on, I don't know how much have I repaid and how much more I owe to the 'mahajan'," said Manjhi. Completely unlettered, he has no idea how the interest was calculated but he has been told he would be "freed" if he pays a lump sum Rs 5,000, an amount distinctly out of his reach.

Manjhi does not remember having put his thumb impression on any paper which binds him to work. But he says he cannot get away. His wife Kanti Devi fears her sons would also become bonded labourers. Sitting outside their one-room mud house, she said, "The one kg of rice is not enough to feed our family of six. There is never any money in the house. Where do you think the cooking oil, spices and salt will come from?"

The family has had to take more loans in the past few years just to manage two meals of salted rice a day. "I don't know how we will repay it all in one lifetime," Kanti said bitterly. The dusty lanes in the village, which falls under the Paliganj of Patna district, convey a palpable helplessness that often accompanies extreme impoverishment in Bihar. Most people are landless farmers, who work at non-negotiable terms and are only a trifle more fortunate than Manjhi and, as he says, "many more like me".

State deputy CM and labour minister Sushil Kumar Modi told TOI, "We have no information of any bonded labourer in Bihar."

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/India/Repaying_40_kg_of_rice_with_27_years
_of_bonded_labour/articleshow/1812823.cms

70% Dalits yet to get legal titles to homestead land

PATNA: About 70 per cent of Dalits are yet to get rightful claim over the homestead land they have been inhabiting on for long.

This despite the fact that almost 60 years have lapsed since the Bihar Homestead Land Privilege Act came into being.
This came to light following a survey conducted by the Deshkal Society, a Delhi-based NGO.

The Society surveyed about 19,000 Dalit households in the extremist-dominated Gaya district last year.

The NGO selected Gaya since it is the sixth district in the country with a higher percentage of people living below the poverty line. About 70 per cent people of this section are Musahars.

The literacy rate among Musahars is around five per cent. The survey reveals that the Dalits are struggling for obtaining title to the homestead land they have been living on for centuries.

It also points out that since Dalits are devoid of title to the homestead land, they remain deprived of welfare schemes, including housing.

Secretary of the Society Sanjay Kumar pointed out that the delay in getting legal rights on homestead land was due to lack of communication between the community, the panchayati raj institutions and the local administration.

He admitted that there was also a lack of village maps and legal documents as well."We had taken up the cause of 1000 Dalits and managed to obtain homestead land rights for 800 of them," he added.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Patna/70_Dalits_yet_to_get_legal_titles_to
_homestead_land/articleshow/1807306.cms

Agri: Don't fix is govt's fix

It can be said that Union budget, 2007, is high on symbolism and intent. Most people in and close to power acknowledge that something is spoiling booming India's party: price rise, agricultural decay, poverty, mainly. This budget, says finance minister P Chidambaram, is the government's way to fix these problems so that growth is inclusive. But will the words and allocated funds add up to coherence and content?
I suspect not. The problem is primarily conceptual. For instance, while everybody agrees that agriculture in India is in a mess and needs reform desperately, the prescriptions are widely divergent. Till we understand this, change will be meaningless. Currently, the dialogue on agriculture is as deaf as it is dumb.

On one side are people who write economic policies. Their missionary zeal tells them that the economic crisis stems from the preponderance of the state; its corruption and its inefficient delivery of services. Because they also accept that unshackled private growth will lead to widening inequities, their answer is to provide measures for social security. In this worldview, schemes for rural employment, however useless, are vital because they put a floor to poverty. They will say the 'Washington Consensus'-the broadly accepted reform package for the developing world-includes these measures, with an emphasis on education and health.

In the agriculture reform deal, the accent, again, is on opening up the market-that is encouraging private players and reducing the role of the state, especially through current and futures commodities market institutions. They are also concerned about the inefficiency of present-day agriculture, attributing poor productivity to small landholders and marginal farmers. There are too many people engaged in it; and the returns are too meagre, they say. They are also concerned about the land on which farming is practised, since, in their view, it can be put to much more valuable and efficient uses. Remember that the West Bengal chief minister justified the displacement of farmers for the Tatas' small car project in Singur arguing that industry would be far more economically productive. As far as food to eat is concerned, their worldview is global. The vast foreign exchange reserves we have can be used to buy food, already subsidised and made cheaper by rich countries.

But this cold logic of efficiency and growth is poor on substance.

Take just one instance: wheat. Last year, the logic of the market meant we allowed private procurement by large companies. But my colleagues who visited Punjab and Haryana reported that farmers big and small did not benefit. The large traders paid marginally more than the government's minimum support price. In fact, in most cases, all they did was to evade the mandi (market) tax and pay it to the farmers instead. This meant that government had a smaller stock of wheat. Prices went up. We started importing food. But prices in the international market had also hardened: partly because of droughts and partly because rich governments were subsidising crops that would be used to produce biofuel for cars. We even permitted private traders to import wheat without paying duties and slackened quarantine regulations because we needed to import at any cost. No wonder the government did not make public the laboratory tests done on such wheat.

The bottom line is we ended up paying more for foreign wheat than we paid our own farmers, by waiving import duties we lost more money. Moreover, our farmers had to comply with food safety regulations, foreign traders did not. But we still have inflation, widely attributed to the rising price of wheat and pulses.

Again, we import large quantities of oilseeds palm, soya, sunflower and pulses. As agricultural scientist and chairperson of the National Commission on Farmers, MS Swaminathan will tell you our neglect of the drylands has seriously undermined the crops and people of rainfed areas, which constitutes the bulk of our agriculture.

His prescription is to invest in these lands; to practise land and water management with a difference; to include these neglected crops of neglected lands in our food procurement system. Most importantly, he says, we need to give farmers the price they need, not the price government thinks they should get. His commission has asked for food procurement to be based on the market price, not at an arbitrary minimum support price.

But in this budget even as Chidambaram has called for investment in oilseeds, he has announced further duty cuts on crude and refined edible oils, "to make them more affordable". In other words, farmers are being asked to compete with distorted and much subsidised markets of the rich world. They obviously can not and lose again.

This is exactly the case with cotton, the killer crop of farmers of Vidarbha. The problem is that input costs for farmers are increasing from the cost of new-fangled seeds, to pesticides, to fertilisers and water but the price of cotton is 'fixed' or falling. The US, for instance, pays roughly us $4.7 billion in subsidies to its farmers, which keeps the price of cotton roughly half of what the production costs should be. The double whammy for our farmers is that not only are they competing with these ridiculous, backbreaking subsidies but that we are not investing in land or water for agriculture to prosper. Remember, the biggest investment in water comes not from the public sector, but from private farmers, digging 19 million wells to irrigate their fields.

This is the economics that the finance minister discounts in his prescription. This is why we are hungrier today and will be famished tomorrow. It's a pity we cannot eat words.

-Writer is Director, Centre for Science & Environment

http://www.centralchronicle.com/20070327/2703301.htm

Nandigram to Beijing via Moscow

There was a time when the spectre of communism haunted private property, but times have changed. The spectre of private property haunts communism now. Even as the 'communist' government of West Bengal resorted to state terrorism in Nandigram to acquire land from unwilling villagers to jump-start industrialisation for 'development', Communist China passed a law that would make right to private property legally enforceable for the first time since the 1949 revolution. The legislation, which is meant to give people a stake in their assets and protect them from a capricious party bureaucracy that has used the proxy of state ownership to dispossess many of them, seems to be a markedly different response to development than that of their CPI(M) comrades in Bengal.

There are, of course, obvious limits to how far the common citizens of China can go with the law. Given the infamous unaccountability of the Chinese state, it's most likely to be used by its avaricious political elite to legalise its ownership over assets acquired, in the name of the state and public good, by expropriating individual citizens.

Therefore, in terms of the final solution, the responses of the communists of China and West Bengal to the question of ownership have turned out to be not so different after all. The two cases are, however, not strictly comparable. For one, while post-revolutionary China has always been a one-party state, the Left Front has come to power in West Bengal and held on to it by participating in the Indian system of multi-party electoral democracy.

For another, LF-ruled West Bengal has always recognised the legally established form of mixed ownership of property in India. Yet, the vengeance with which the Indian state has often used the principle of eminent domain to dispossess traditional socio-economic communities in order to acquire land for 'development' and 'public good' emphasises its institutional affinity for the ideology and rhetoric of state socialism. It would, therefore, make perfect sense to historically examine the 'socialist' discourse on ownership of property.

State ownership cannot truly socialise property because of the way the state structurally is: an alien authority dispensing governance to a passive population. Public ownership of property is thus the ownership of bureaucracies, and ensembles of vested interests. Such institutionalised diminution of public participation by the modern state holds true even in a representative electoral system like India's.

On the other hand, legally enforceable right to private property, even if it were to exist as a fundamental right, would not by itself lead to a participatory democracy. The dangers that the new Chinese law poses, bears that out. Even as the disintegration of stratified pre-capitalist communities has always led to legalised private property and capitalism, such breakdown has not always yielded functional democracy.

The link between private property and democracy is much more tenuous than commonly accepted. While the 19th century Prussian model of Junker capitalism — where landlords and companies expropriated the peasantry from above and legalised property so acquired as their own — will certainly not yield democracy; the 19th century US way, where private property was established through the emergence of small-to-medium independent farmers from below, is a case of capitalistic ownership coinciding with the democratic project.

It was not without reason that Russian social democrats Plekhanov and Lenin championed the latter, rejected the former (enforced by liberals like Stolypin in Russia), and yet managed to distinguish themselves from the Populists and Narodniks, who opposed Stolypin's reforms because it destroyed the traditional peasant community. Clearly then, asset redistribution programme was not merely an end in itself for the social democrats. It was of even greater consequence to them precisely because it engendered the possibility of an alternative conception of political power than that embodied by the modern state.

Lenin and his fellow-travellers' quest, at least till the October Revolution of 1917, was as much socialisation of economic assets as an alternative political structure that was more democratic than any. The reason they envisaged the two together was because they understood the individual's freedom from the community both as his freedom from the oppressive bonds of the community and from its protection. Their vision was to reconcile the question of individual liberty (rights) with that of communitarian protection (social entitlements). The social democrats knew that only universal empowerment would arm people with the capacity to both facilitate and participate in modern development.

The unfortunate part of the story is that as the movement progressed, the search for an alternative political structure became subordinate to the nature of ownership of property. This was largely because the Bolshevik Revolution, just like other similar Left-led movements that occurred later elsewhere, was forced by the exigencies of modern politics to concentrate on dealing with the might of the pre-revolutionary state and emphasised the seizure of state power as its cardinal goal. As a result, it was rendered incapable of imagining configurations of power outside the framework of the modern state.

The horrors of collectivisation of agriculture in the erstwhile USSR of 1920s must be ascribed to this derailment of political imagination. The alternative cannot, however, be a utopian community of subsistence farmers. Land and capital will have to be consolidated to make both agriculture and the larger socio-economic order more productive and viable. Chinese historian Qin Hui's is opposed to both the 'Leftists', who favour state ownership; and 'liberalisers', who are all for privatisation.

In an interview to the New Left Review, the communist dissident has accurately likened the former to Russian Populists and the latter to Stolypin-style liberals. The opposition between the two, as is evident in China and, to a lesser extent, India, is false. They actually complement and fulfil each other. The real issue then is that of finding an alternative political culture and institutional structure, which will drive development through democratic management of the commons.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/Nandigram_to_Beijing_via_Moscow
/articleshow/msid-112654,curpg-2.cms

A trip ended in police custody

JAJPUR, March. 26: A 38-member delegation headed by Visthapan Virodhi Janmanch general secretary Mr Rabindra Jarika has been detained by the West Bengal police at the Kharagpur Railway Station last night.

According to sources, the delegation ~ consisting of some woman members of the Janmanch, leading the anti-industrialisation movement in Kalinga Nagar, including its leader Mr Jarika, were detained at the railway station as they were heading towards Nandigram to express their solidarity with the family members of the victims, who died in police firing on 14 March. Mr Jarika and few other members of the delegation are high hard tribal leaders and to avoid any further problems in Nandigram, they have been detained, sources said, adding, the area is still tense and such leaders' presence in Nandigram may create further problems.
The Janmanch took a decision on Friday at Ambagadia, the unofficial head quarters of the outfit in Kalinga Nagar area under Jajpur district that a delegation under the leadership of Jarika will go to Nandigram on Sunday. The delegation, which was heading towards Nandigram on Puri-Howrah Express, boarded the train at Jajpur-Keonjhar road railway station and was detained at Kharagpur and are being held at the station.

When the detention of the news of the tribal leaders by the police at the railway station reached in Ambagadia, palpable tension prevailed in the tribal-dominated villages in the industrial complex area. An emergency meeting of the Janmanch under the chairmanship of its president was held at the outfit's head quarters as soon as the new of detention spread among the tribals in Kalinga Nagar.

Vistapan Virodhi Janmanch president Mr Chakradhar Haiburu (senior) said: "We condemn the detention of our activists at the railway station by the police while they were on their way to Nandigram. Nandigram tribals had come here to console us after the ghastly police firing and our men were going there to empathise with them on humanitarian point of view as a friend in need. West Bengal government is trying to procure land from the farmers of Nandigram against their will. We will pledge our support to them as our crusade is on against the industrialisation."

Fourteen innocent farmers, including women, were gunned down and scores of others injured by the police bullets when they were resisting forcible acquisition of their farm land for a special economic zone project at Nandigram in East Medinapur district in West Bengal on 14 March.

Talking to The Statesman over phone from Kharagpur town police station, Mr Rajendra Sarangi said: "We are yet to be informed as to why we are being detained. Since 3 AM, we are trying to find out but the police does not tell us anything."

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=9&theme=&usrsess=1&id=151133

Justice Rare for Victims of Christian Persecution in India

03/26/07 New Delhi (International Christian Concern) – Victims of Christian persecution from across India shared their horrific stories and highlighted the denial of justice to them before an independent people's jury.

The depositions were part of "The Independent People's Tribunal against the Rise of Fascist Forces in India and the Attack on the Secular State," a three-day program which concluded here yesterday.

The independent jury was organized by non-profit organizations Anhad and Human Rights Law Network, and supported and attended by a plethora of rights groups, including Christian organizations, like the All India Christian Council (AICC) and the Christian Legal Association.

Of the 100 victims who submitted their statements, about 40 were Christian. The rest were mainly from Gujarat state, which witnessed a wide-scale killing of members of the Muslim minority community in 2002.

Impunity of perpetrators of gang-rape

"I was gang-raped by my fellow tribal villagers, including the brother and father of the local legislator in January 2004, and I named everyone in my police complaint, but no one has been arrested," lamented Taramani, a school teacher from Madhya Pradesh state's Jhabua district.

Taramani's village, Alirajpur, was one of the worst affected villages during the spate of anti-Christian violence that followed the infamous January 11 incident, in which a young girl was found dead in the compound of a Catholic school in Jhabua district. Hindu fundamentalist Hindu Jagran Manch (Forum for Revival of Hindus) blamed the murder on the church, and instigated a series of attacks on Christian individuals and their institutions. This was despite the fact that a non-Christian admitted to the crime.

"A crowd of about 250 people first launched an attack on my house and set it on fire and then some of them took me to a jungle and outraged my modesty," said, Taramani, a widow.

With tears in her eyes, she added that when she returned she found the house completely gutted. "Even the police initially refused to register my complaint which they did only later and reluctantly."

"All that I have received from the government is Rs.30,000 ($700), but no arrests. The perpetrators still tell me that nothing will happen to them, as they are very powerful," she said.

Attackers remain at large

Another victim, Shobha Onkar, also from Alirajpur, could not help crying as she narrated how she was attacked by a mob in the aftermath of the January 11 incident. "About 300 people surrounded our house in the presence of the local police inspector and started breaking in. I thought I should open the door before they vandalized my house, but when they entered into the house, one of them hit me with a stick on my head. I started bleeding profusely," she said.

"My son ran to the police and bent on his knees to plead them to rescue me, saying, 'They will kill my mother,' but they did not budge," she added.

Onkar also said that relatives of the local legislator belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were among the crowd.

Onkar's house was badly damaged and completely looted. "The government gave me only Rs.6,000 ($140) as compensation. And justice, which matters the most, was denied, as the perpetrators were not brought to justice," she added.

There were also victims from the states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir .

Lessons for the church

Dr. John Dayal, secretary general of the AICC who was one of the jury members, told ICC, "From the Christian perspective, the hearings were memorable and important. Christians of all denominations, and both men and women, came forward to depose for the first time in a major way. In my experience this is also the first time that an all-India picture has emerged of anti-Christian violence from a people's tribunal."

The all-India pattern of violence has lessons for everyone, and particularly for the church whether it is Catholic, Protestant or Evangelical, he said, adding that urgent steps needed to be taken. "Clergy and church workers have to be trained in human rights and basic law."

Another memorable witness, said Dayal, was the compilation by the Rev. Madhu Chandra of AICC to prove the massive activity of Hindu extremists in the north-eastern Hindu majority states of Manipur and Assam.

"For me, the most heartening testimonies were of women – Muslim and Christian."

Madhya Pradesh a daylight church

He also said it was obvious that "Hindutva pressure" was working. "The church in Madhya Pradesh is fast becoming a 'daylight church' with mission activity in the evening and after sun down – which is how outreach programs can work in forest villages when people return home after sunset – has stopped. Only in full daylight can some work be done. And yet, the church hierarchy seems not too worried."

In other areas, church activity is now confined to tribals alone, who constitute just a third of the population even in the so-called tribal belt of central India, he said. "This has serious ramifications."

Dayal thanked the civil society, including "well-meaning Hindu activists", for their "unstinted support" to the Christian community.

No help from the State

Based on the statements of the victims and presentations by human rights activists, the tribunal noted that "demonization of minorities, both Muslims and Christians, and their consequent marginalization and physical attacks have been noticed all over the country, particularly in the states where the BJP is in power, like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Gujarat."

"In these cases, the victims have failed to get any help from the State. The role of the police is particularly dubious, as in most cases, the victims were not even able to file an FIR (first information report). It is often noticed that the victims are turned into perpetrators of crime. As a result, there is a sense of helplessness that the minorities feel."

Rights activists also deplored the role of the media, mainly local newspapers in vernacular languages, in inciting anti-minority violence.

The tribunal was an initiative of Shabnam Hashmi of Anhad and attorney Colin Gonsalves of the Human Rights Law Network.

http://www.persecution.org/suffering/ICCnews/newsdetail.php?newscode=4885&title=justice
-rare-for-victims-of-christian-persecution-in-india

news@jharkhand.org.uk Jharkhand News Network www.jharkhand.org.uk

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