Wheeling out Wheelers?

Arindam Roy

[Wednesday, July 07, 2004 11:20:43 pm TIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

ALLAHABAD: With one fell swoop, Lalu Prasad has probably killed off a 126-year-old railways landmark — A H Wheeler & Co — a company that paid Rs 1.38 crore annual royalty to Indian Railways, amounting to 80% of the money earned from allowing bookstalls at stations.

For Lalu it was a colonial vestige that had survived on swadeshi platforms. "Angrez chala gaya, lekin Wheeler rah gaya," he said in his rail budget speech.

That the Allahabad-based company, which runs 258 bookstalls nationwide with 300 employees, is 100% Indian is not something it had publicized. Wheeler CMD Aloke Bannerjee was surprised. He said, "Our track record is very good. I have not seen the new bookstall policy, which has been framed. We have had long associations with the railways."

He hoped the new policy which jettisons the system of sole selling rights won't shut doors for business with the railways. "We hope that we would continue to work with them."

He said there was confusion regarding the name AH Wheeler. "It sounds like some foreign company, or MNC. But the fact is that Wheeler is a 100 per cent Indian company."

Amit Bannerjee, a director, said, Wheeler's contributed 80% of the bookstall income of the IR. In the year 2002, Wheeler paid royalty to the tune of Rs 1.38 crore, out of a total revenue of Rs 1.66 crore. Sources said Wheeler's contract could not be renewed after 2002 as the railways were busy formulating a new bookstall policy.

(This report was also carried in Economic Times)

Politicians late, even in offering solace

Arindam Roy

[Wednesday, June 02, 2004 12:29:53 am TIMES NEWS NETWORK]


ALLAHABAD: Hundreds of shanties were reduced to ashes. Seven persons, including four children, were burnt to death on Sunday afternoon. The city was shocked.

However, politicians reached the site a day later, on Monday. "They gave the affected people slogans instead of bread," said Siddhartha, a financial consultant. Three prominent politicians, former Union HRD minister MM Joshi (BJP), CLP leader Promod Tiwari (Congress) and newly elected MP from Allahabad Reoti Raman Singh (SP) were all there to console the Kareli fire tragedy affected people.

It took them a full day to realize the gravity of the loss. The dead provided fodder for politics.

Loss of the minority community was a godsend opportunity for political parties. However, the sympathy that the leaders of various hues expressed was more of a lip service.

Where they were when they were needed the most? The chink in their armour was, therefore, visible, felt political observers. Singh paid Rs 50,000 to next of kin of each deceased. The cheques were handed over on Monday. He assured them compensation of Rs 1 lakh, other than Rs 50,000 to the seriously injured and Rs 25,000 to those with minor injuries. An ex gratia payment of Rs 6,000 was made to all who suffered loss. Land for their rehabilitation is also on the cards.

'MNCs are representatives of imperialist forces'

Arindam Roy

[Friday, May 28, 2004 12:28:01 am TIMES NEWS NETWORK]


ALLAHABAD: Rejection of the BJP-led NDA government by the people of the country, which was anti-people, has deeper implications. Senseless privatisation and sale of profit-making companies, leading to large scale VRS in the industry, along with suicide by farmers, called for a change. And change has happened, said KK Shukla, a lecturer of sociology.

In an interview, he added, the rise of globalisation is an extension of industrial growth, which occurred on a large-scale since the Second World War. The imperialist nations, or the centre of the development, traditionally depend on the periphery, the third world countries, providing a prototype of the supply and profit markets that had existed.

It is expected to grow with the global capitalism, represented by the multinational companies (MNCs).

He hoped that with the participation of the Left, in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the statement that development would have a humane face sounds credible.

"For a vast majority of the people of the periphery (third world nations), development does not yield a better life or a brighter future, but intensifies misery and exploitation," he opined.

The hope for them, Shukla said, is to break the global capitalism and move ahead like Cuba, Vietnam, China, North Korea, etc. Quoting Lenin, he said, there are strong notions to expect that the 'centres of accumulation' would shift from more advanced to less advanced areas, in search of cheap labour, accessible natural resources and higher profits. And that any division of the world would be disrupted by changes in the relative strength of different imperialist powers.

When 'Bua Mahadevi' wrote to PM Rajiv

Arindam Roy

[Saturday, May 22, 2004 01:09:28 am TIMES NEWS NETWORK]


ALLAHABAD: Well-known Hindi poetess Mahadevi Verma had penned a warm personal letter to Rajiv Gandhi on February 1989. On the occasion of Rajiv's 13th martyrdom year, which was observed on Friday (May 21), HN Mehrotra, an advocate, who had handed over the said letter to Rajiv, shared its contents with TNN.

We present the translated version of Verma's letter, losing some of the lyrical expressions of her facile pen.

She wrote, "Perhaps you do not know me very well. But, I knew your father, Feroze, very well. He was a class fellow of my younger brother. He called me ' didi '. I had seen your mother Indira Priyadarshini when she was a girl of five. To keep India united she gave unparalleled sacrifice.

"I am pained, when I recall the cruel incident. She has handed over a great nation to you. Your achievements make me confident that you will not allow the Himalayan-like great Bharat Mata to bow down.... May you live a hundred years and enhance the glory of the nation!"

Mehrotra recalled meeting Rajiv, in Delhi, with the said letter. He said, his wife, Sonia Gandhi, carried forward the Nehru-Gandhi family tradition of sacrifice. Rajiv and his mother were assassinated for the cause of the nation; Sonia relinquished her claim to prime ministership, despite the overwhelming verdict.