People's Democracy

on file

EVEN on the Bhopal gas tragedy’s sensitive 20th anniversary, and with a public vigil vilifying Dow and Union Carbide under way on the far-away streets of Bhopal, the company continued to remind the world that it “never owned or operated the Bhopal plant.”

And it refused to bend even slightly to demands by many, including Amnesty International in the recent past, that it show a little compassion for the victims of the world’s worst industrial accident. Dow said it had “philanthropic initiatives in India”, but these were just the same as “elsewhere around the world in communities where we live and work. These initiatives are not specific to Bhopal as we do not own or operate a facility there”………

It said the only good to come out of the disaster was that “the chemical industry learned and grew.”

--- The Times of India, December 6

LESS than a week before BJP president L K Advani’s proposed visit to Kolkata, the long-brewing discontent in the West Bengal BJP exploded into the open with the formation of a parallel forum by the rebel party leaders.

The BJP’s dissident leaders on Sunday floated Shyama Prasad Jan Jagran Manch at a meeting at Mahajati Sadan. The forum, led by senior party leader and former MP Tapan Sikdar, was attended by dissident leaders like Muzaffar Khan, Pratap Banerjee, Debabrata Choudhury and some former district BJP leaders.

--- The Asian Age, December 6

TWO third of the public sector banks in the country have not been able to meet the agriculture-lending target fixed by the Reserve Bank of India.

Loans to farmers are considered a priority sector item. Banks are expected to extend 18 per cent of their loans of agriculture sector. Eighteen of the 27 banks have fallen short, according to statistics provided by the RBI Report on Trends and Progress of Banking in India.

There is no penalty for not meeting the target. All that the bank has to do is to invest the shortfall in the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund floated by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development.

These investments carry a relatively lower rate of interest. They get paid between 6.5 per cent and 9 per cent, but banks don’t mind. The money is safe.

About the only negative effect is that the RBI will make an adverse comment in its annual financial inspection report of the bank……..

The private sector banks are in much worse position as far as agri-lending is concerned. Of the 30 banks, most don’t make the grade.

Quite a few don’t have the rural network required for increasing their agri-portfolio.

--- The Hindu Business Line, December 4

A CLASSIFIED cable sent by the CIA’s station chief in Baghdad has warned that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and may rebound any time soon, according to government officials.

The cable, sent late last month as the officer ended a year-long tour, presented a bleak assessment on matters of politics, economics and security, the officials said. They said its basic conclusions had been echoed in briefings presented by a senior CIA official who recently visited Iraq…….

They said it warned that the security situation was likely to get worse, bringing more violence and sectarian clashes, unless there were marked improvements soon in the ability of the Iraqi government to assert authority and build the economy. The cable was sent to CIA headquarters after US forces competed the retaking of Falluja.

 --- The Indian Express, December 8