End of Jallikkattu Drama Marks Start of Sasikala's Troubles?

From TSV Hari, Chennai, Vakratund Varma, New Delhi

1746 words, 20 minutes reading

Southern Features News Services Exclusive

Chennai, New Delhi [SFNS]: Has Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a clever move to defuse the political situation in Tamil Nadu that had arisen due to the massive Jallikkattu protests? Has the PM thereby checkmated the sinister designs of Sasikala and her scheming husband M Natarajan who were believed to be behind the stir?

Should one read more into protestors' rejection of the ordinance passed by the Tamil Nadu government - demanding a more permanent solution to the Jallikkattu imbroglio?

Is there more than what meets the eye in protesters' refusal to leave Chennai's Marina Beach demanding a permanent amendment of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act in order to allow Jallikkattu for ever?

Are these attempts meant to prevent a probe Sasikala’s hand in the mysterious death of Jayalalithaa? ^[1]

Will the illegal stay of Sasikala and co at Veda Nilayam, Jaya’s residence sans any will and/or testament come to an end?

The Jallikkattu restoration demand - relegated to the cold storage for 3 years - had been suddenly resurrected to pose a challenge to the centre, intelligence reports are said to have indicated to the centre. It was an operation, meant to directly pose twin challenges to the leadership of PM Modi and also to the office of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister - currently held by O Panneerselvam. The underlying message from Sasikala and her husband Natarajan - “either allow Sasikala, currently General Secretary of the AIADMK, to peacefully ascend the throne and rule Tamil Nadu for the rest of the term - or face an unprecedented backlash of violence in the state.”

In a day of swift developments - the decks for restoration of Jallikkattu were cleared in a jiffy by the centre, its Presidential assent necessity circumvented, passed by the state cabinet and okayed by the state's acting Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao - all within a span of 24 hours.

The week-long dormant issue of Jayalalithaa's sudden, mysterious death has returned like the proverbial bad penny triggering a startling question - will there be a questioning of Sasikala on her role in the unexplained worsening of late Jayalalithaa's health by the Central Bureau of Investigation as the Madras High Court expressed an intention to even exhume her interred body if necessary?

Meanwhile, following the promulgation of the ordinance to hold the bull-taming festival, the curiously meaningless pro-Jallikkattu protests have come to an end. A popular Tamil periodical welcomed the passage, but expressed fears of courts stymieing the issue again.

Prime Minister Modi had paved the way for the facile passage of an ordinance to hold the bull-taming festival. For 5 days running, Chennai remained closed for business. The globe’s 2^nd longest sea-front had remained grid-locked throwing transportation out of gear.

But, the so-called “closure” of the issue has raised more questions than provision of answers.

“The whole thing is meaningless. The ‘official’ day for Jallikkattu will occur only a year later, so what was this hullabaloo all about?”

The question came from a devout septuagenarian Hindu supporter of the sport – Srinivasan Ramaseshan.

Very curiously, the fever-pitched clamour for Sasikala’s elevation as the Chief Minister, loudly audible and brazenly visible till a few days ago, had disappeared from the news radars following the publication a report that punched holes in the tales put out by Apollo Hospital and Sasikala about the events leading to Jaya's abrupt death and her aide's questionable role in preventing visits by constitutionally empowered VVIPs to meet the ailing CM. The report had suggested that Apollo has reportedly worked out its "exit route" from the imbroglio as has the centre - leaving Sasikala and her coterie exposed and at the centre of the cross-hairs of the wrath of the judiciary.

Must read:

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“It seemed as though Sasikala’s suspect role in late CM Jayalalithaa’s death had slipped from everyone’s memory. All of a sudden the frenzy to make her CM has evaporated thanks to Jallikkattu stir. The whole drama was too pat and too much loaded in favour of only Sasikala and her husband Natarajan. Everyone else – including Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and PM Narendra Modi were being verbally brick-batted. Further, few in the crowd have heard of Alanganallur, the headquarters of Jallikkattu, located some 400 km south of capital Chennai. Members of uniformed police force, under the alibi of openly canvassing for the sport, made public statements at the protest bang opposite the state police headdquarters that could start a violent anti-national wave. All these were unhealthy trends, and left one extremely worried. I am on the wrong side of 70 and remember how under the guise of anti-Hindi agitations ^[2], our holy threads were cut by DMK youths shouting separatist slogans. There was large scale violence, looting and worse. Significantly, the entire Dravidian movement was born of fissiparous tendencies that demanded – among other things – continuance of British rule or a separate, independent Dravidastan – the exact replica of the demand one sees in Kashmir – albeit under a different alibi,” Ramaseshan averred.

The hurried manner in which the whole thing happened citing law and order issues raised eyebrows.

“Decks were cleared to hold the sport in a jiffy. All the political stakeholders have said ‘aye’ to the project. The state cabinet and the Governor have affixed signatures on the ordinance within a few hours – ending a 3-year wait. If it was this easy, and did not need the President’s assent and other procedural niceties, why did all this drama take place? Who benefited from it? And very importantly, can the game be held on a non-official day [the official one being January 15] just like that? Wouldn’t that be the violation of the cultural ethos as well? Frankly, I do not understand any of this,” Ramaseshan observed.

“Schools, colleges, varsities and government establishments being ‘unofficially’ asked to remain shut0 seems a mystery. Shops were ‘advised’ to down shutters across the state. One wonders as to who issued the orders and why. The state’s police HQ and the Fort St George Secretariat are like 2 door posts to the Beach Road and hence a vast crowd of a few lakhs cannot gather unobtrusively. That such an event happened, in itself, is suspicious. The worst part is that separatist slogans and shouts hailing slain terrorists - ex-Tamil Tiger boss V Prabhakaran and Osama bin Laden with huge posters in tow were prominently seen ^[3] triggering fears of Tamil Nadu becoming a Kashmir,” Ramaseshan, a resident of Triplicane, abutting the Marina pointed out.

Media reports revealed this phenomenon.

Even as sections of the media continued to hail the “orderly conduct” of the protest, a different view of the reality emerged. And it is rowdy behaviour of the protestors – pure and simple. ^[4]

The separatist angle has ominous portents.

Pakistan’s dreaded ISI operates brazenly from neighbouring Sri Lanka.

During the United Progressive Alliance regime, the Manmohan Singh government had wantonly overlooked a startling fact that the ISI is known to have close links with members of the LTTE - who survived the 2009 decimation by the Lankan army.

For over 11 years, India’s intelligence agencies have been dreading the large scale influx of separatist influence in southern India through the ISI-LTTE nexus.

Has the PM has checkmated Sasikala and defeated what is believed to be the diabolic brinkmanship of her husband Natarajan through a series of measures to clear the Jallikkattu do? 

Will Natarajan stretch a hitherto little-known culturally relevant sporting event of interior Tamil Nadu to gigantic proportions to challenge the might and majesty of the Indian state?

Only time can provide the answer to that one.

Obviously, the centre has its task cut out. At this point in time – on can only say that the hubby-wife duo has bitten off more than it can chew.

[1]

“One has to take a close look at various aspects of the Jallikkattu struggle where pro LTTE, separatist, Tamil Eelam, Tamil nationalist, anti-India, anti PM and anti state CM slogans are being shouted with impunity. There are reports that managements of a few private schools in Chennai that remained open during the unofficial shut-down were not-so-politely questioned about their belief in Tamil causes. Senior police officials who used to subscribe to nationalist blogs till the other day, have opted out – either out of fear or because they have joined ‘the other side.’ Tamil Nadu’s former Chief Secretary Ram Mohan Rao and his business pals – considered very close to CM OPS were raided by central authorities at the alleged behest of Sasikala and her husband Natarajan. The central government’s Finance Portfolio is being handled by Arun Jaitley who is not exactly loyal to PM Modi. Only someone very politically smart like M Natarajan who claims to have authored the success of Jayalalithaa herself can dream all this up. And finally, let us remember that Natarajan had been arrested when Jayalalithaa was alive and Sasikala even changed her name to VK Sasikala [her maiden name] to keep herself in Jayalalithaa’s home. After her brief sojourn in wilderness between December 2011 [when Sasikala was chased out of Jaya’s residence] and April 2012, when the aide returned, reports had indicated Sasikala had no interests in politics or any trappings of power. ‘I am only Madam’s personal aide,’ Sasikala had been quoted as saying in a letter to the then CM. The term has now acquired a different spelling, meaning and significance. Sasikala seems to be Tamil Nadu’s political AIDS,” a police officer requesting anonymity said.

[2]

Operative excerpts from the relevant Wikipedia dossier:

As the day (26 January 1965) of switching over to Hindi as sole official language approached, the anti-Hindi movement gained momentum in Madras State with increased support from college students. On 25 January, a full-scale riot broke out in the southern city of Madurai, sparked off by a minor altercation between agitating students and Congress party members. The riots spread all over Madras State, continued unabated for the next two months, and were marked by acts of violence, arson, looting, police firing and lathi charges. The Congress Government of the Madras State, called in paramilitary forces to quell the agitation; their involvement resulted in the deaths of about seventy persons (by official estimates) including two policemen. To calm the situation, Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri gave assurances that English would continue to be used as the official language as long as the non-Hindi speaking states wanted. The riots subsided after Shastri’s assurance, as did the student agitation.

The agitations of 1965 led to major political changes in the state. The DMK won the 1967 assembly election and the Congress Party never managed to recapture power in the state since then. The Official Languages Act was eventually amended in 1967 by the Congress Government headed by Indira Gandhi to guarantee the indefinite use of Hindi and English as official languages. This effectively ensured the current "virtual indefinite policy of bilingualism" of the Indian Republic. There were also two similar (but smaller) agitations in 1968 and 1986 which had varying degrees of success.

[3]

Operative excerpts from an article carried in a prominent website:

The protest is no longer, and perhaps never was, only about Jallikkattu. It has, however, become the rallying point for disgruntlement of the Tamil people, from Tamil Eelam to Cauvery River water-sharing, helped by the general discontent over demonetisation.

The slogans raised, the posters displayed and the beach-side conversations are testimony to the different issues being raised in Tamil Nadu. And couched in the calls for justice is victimhood, the eternal lament of being a Tamil and ‘Indian government’ never caring for it.

Several posters of slain LTTE chief Prabhakaran were also seen at the protests. All these issues tie up, and that is why there is such mass outpouring, says 36-year-old Selvakumar, a professor. “It may not be relevant today, but this shows why so many people are out here. Tamilians and our issues are never taken seriously,” he says.

A group of ten boys from the near fishing hamlets have also come. Dressed in black, and some sporting a fish-shaped gold locket on their necks, they are busy patching together an effigy to burn it. “You know how many Tamil fishermen are killed or arrested by Sri Lanka every month?” one of them asks angrily.

[4]

Operative excerpts by Deccan Chronicle columnist Charu Nivedita

“Trisha should be stripped naked and be chased on the road”.

This is just another abuse faced by Kollywood actor Trisha Krishnan, who left the shooting venue after an angry mob of Jallikkattu supporters protested against her for endorsing PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. A complete list of all these expletives can be found on Facebook that has been used against the actor.

LTTE’s Prabhakaran was the proud symbol of Tamil ethnic identity [also proudly displayed in posters at the protest]. Many Tamil film directors are still claiming Prabhakaran as their leader, and this is the critical background with which the Jallikkattu protest has to be viewed.

Jallikkattu protests and connected rage are based on racial feelings.

Though the struggle is pointed towards Tamil identity, a major part of the youths cannot write in Tamil. Tamil is just a spoken language here and that is an irony.

Trump’s White House entry worries free world

From Océane Guillaume and Cédric Romain, in Maastricht, Belgium

Main Article: 1335 words

20 minutes’ reading

Southern News & Feature Service Exclusive

A reorganised power-bloc polarisation of the world is emerging. The bitter European winter is heralding the restart of the cold war. That development could render other parts of the globe red hot. India is at the centre of this developing geopolitical tornado that begins blowing from Washington, District of Columbia [DC] when Donald Trump enters the White House as the next President of United States of America.

The fly in the ointment for the USA seeking closer ties with Russia is India. Washington needs to keep using India to keep China on tenterhooks. This has landed land New Delhi in a piquant situation. New Delhi is yet to figure out on which side it would be.

India has to watch out and be extremely careful in its geopolitical reactions. It is a founder member of the BRICS grouping which may admit newer European members. India wishes a permanent membership of the United Nation’s Security Council [UNSC]. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has initiated a new dialogue named after India’s National Capital Region’s left ventricle Raisina Hill.

The three day dialogue will also features former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, former Canadian and Australian PMs Stephen Harper & Kevin Rudd, Nepalese PM besides host of senior Ministers and officials from India and abroad.

The talk fest, sponsored by one of India’s richest business houses headed by Mukesh Ambani, is in direct competition with the West dominated cosy fireside chats in Davos, Switzerland, under the auspices of World Economic Forum, also underway. It is being attended by China’s boss Li Jinping – with Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif and the Islamic nation’s newest military advisor and former Pak General – Raheel Sharif ^[1].

New Delhi has serious unresolved border disputes with China. Beijing keeps stymieing India on vital issues of terrorism with special emphasis on Pakistan openly illegal claim on the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The China-Pakistan-Economic-Corridor passing through the Kashmir area held by Pakistan is a clear signal against India’s vital interest in that region. Further, upon completion, Pakistan the global origin of terrorism would also be the conduit route for crude oil from the Islamic Middle-East and open the floodgates to pillage another emergent nation that depends on India for important issues of security – Afghanistan, whose fabled riches buried underground are estimated at US$ 30 trillion.^[2]

The dragon nation dumps products superior to those made in India at bargain basement prices and on easy credit – a well identified ruse used to bankrupt western nations in the past. This financial warfare succeeds in keeping India poor.

India, a vibrant democracy, western analysts here said, has plenty of matters of common interests with the West and nothing at all as a common political denominator with Russia, which is nothing but a newer incarnation of the erstwhile USSR.

The danger, however, is from a “tacit understanding” between Russian boss Putin and US President-elect – Donald Trump.

Should Washington under Trump begin a cosy tie-up with Moscow, Sino-business interests’ calls for vigorous globalisation may bankrupt the US of A. The pointers are ominous.

Trump indicated he would clamp anti-dumping taxes on Chinese imports – which could hurt China financially. 

Hence, whichever nation has a tie-up with the US on those terms – Beijing would have to be on the opposite side.

The grey area is Beijing’s relationship with Moscow on the gas pipeline deal worth close to US$1 trillion at current prices.

If Putin is to come closer to the USA under Trump, that deal would fail – leaving Russia cash-strapped.

The alternative for Russia is to somehow ensure larger markets in NATO region’s western European end and hope to jettison China when it suits Putin.

With China buying the bulk of Middle-East oil - with Pakistan playing the dishonest broker – a new axis headed by Beijing and comprising dictatorial Arab and African nations could firm up.

The EU with Germany as the head followed by most NATO member-nations sans the United States of America could be one of the two newest alliances.

Europe’s strongwoman Angela Merkel is wise to such plans and hopes to hammer a new NATO group sans the USA.

The indications:

An ‘independent’ Europe at war with Russia

Russia reviving Warsaw Pact group have unsettled many calculations.

Germany’s somewhat beleaguered political boss Angela Merkel expressed ire against US President elect Donald Trump even as the global financial tète-tète under the auspices of World Economic Forum at Davos was underway.

Russia’s love for Trump and the West’s worst suspicions were confirmed by the harangue of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

“Indeed NATO is a vestige [of the past]. [The organization] is focused on confrontation. Hence, it is hardly a modern structure meeting the ideas of stability, sustainable development and security,” Peskov told reporters.

The reactions came following US Presidential elect Donald Trump terming the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation “obsolete” in a media interaction.

“NATO isn’t fair to the US as [the countries within the 28-nation-group isn’t] paying its fair share [of the costs] of the protection [cost]. It isn’t taking care of terror,” Trump was quoted as saying in The Times.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed “amazement” after Trump linked Nazism with modern-day Germany.

German Vice-Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel underplayed his anger and said, “Trump says we are spending too little to finance NATO. We are making gigantic financial contributions to refugee shelters in the region, and these are also the results of US interventionist policy.”

Election handicap in 3 EU nations with a Russian twist

Presidential elections in France plus general elections in Germany and the Netherlands in 2017 have necessitated an alert vigil on the intentions of Russia, opined Richard Youngs, an expert on democracy and EU foreign policy at Carnegie Europe. He laid special emphasis on computer hacking.

“Illiberal ideas against liberal ideas are structural political problems. An analytical strategy to defend core liberal values in Europe from outside are the needs of the hour,” Youngs said on the eve of Trump being sworn in.

Atlantic Council expert Alina Polyakova was particularly severe on EU’s reaction to disinformation.

Western democracies have long ignored, overlooked, or denied the existence of Kremlin “influence operations” – the very centre off Russian military designs to destabilise EU through the manipulation of media, society, and politics, Polyakova observed slamming the efforts as acts comparable to Trojan Horses, Polyakova said.

“European policymakers can and should take common action to expose, limit, and counter Russia's attempt to use economic leverage and seemingly benign civil society activities to manipulate policy and discourse in open societies, through the Trojan horse syndrome,” Polyakova's report, released in November 2016 averred.

European intelligence agencies in UK, Germany and France should be given clear mandates to investigate foreign funding of political parties, is the operative sentence of her report.

This led to the European Parliament calling for the beefing up an EU task force to tackle Russia’s disinformation tactics.

David Lidington, the Conservative Party leader of Britain's House of Commons, says Russia has been employing "multiple, well-honed tactics of disinformation" for years.

“Kremlin has created 'new aggressive [television] channels to confuse and disorient the international public,” Lidington argued.

“Western democracies must counter this disinformation campaign, not with propaganda but with the truth,” Lidington added.

On December 16 outgoing President Obama warned of the danger being faced by “vulnerable open societies”.

“We can't tell people what to do,” Obama said. “What he can do is inform them and get best practices. What we also can do is warn other countries against these kinds of attacks.”

The Trump factor

The U.S. intelligence community accuses Russia of meddling in the recent election.

U.S. top envoy at the United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power, without naming Donald Trump, chastised the president-elect for casting “doubt on a unanimous, well-documented assessment of our intelligence community that a foreign government is seeking to harm our country.”

She addressed the Atlantic Council within a few hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin denied a Kremlin hand in Trump’s elevation to the White House.

“Leaders [like Putin] commonly deny their hands have been dirtied. Not acknowledging the obvious are in such nations’ interests. Those are the rules of the game. We do not expect anything different [from Putin],” Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said.

Additional reporting by TSV Hari in India

[1]

From India’s immediate neighbourhood, apart from China, other attendees are Pakistan President Nawaz Sharif, Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina and Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Former Pakistani Army Chief Raheel Sharif is another attendee. His costs are being met by Saudi Arabia. Raheel heads an international force to tackle ‘Islamic terrorism’ funded by the House of Saud and 36 other Islamic nations most of which clandestinely support ISIS.

[2]

China’s daily crude imports this year are touching 7.4 million barrels according to an analyst with S&P Global Platts, Song Yen Ling. It is up 10% from last year’s 6.7 million. China’s growing oil thirst, the Wall Street Journal reports, is a serious cause for Beijing’s concern.

China’s largest African suppliers of oil are: Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo, and Sudan. Smaller exporters include Algeria, Chad, Gabon, Kenya, Liberia, and Libya.

China has also recently cut major energy deals with Russia, as Moscow and Beijing unfreeze decades of mutual suspicion and mistrust in a growing geopolitical alliance also aimed at reducing U.S. regional and global hegemony. Middle Eastern oil still represents over 50% of China’s oil needs.

Most of this oil passes through – the Straits of Hormuz.Roughly, 20% of the world’s petroleum (about 35% of the petroleum traded by sea) passes through the strait, making it a highly important strategic location for international trade, says the relevant Wikipedia dossier.

China spends roughly US$1.6 billion per month to transport its oil from various parts of the globe to its ports. Its oil import growth rate is pegged at 16% per annum and hence – its costs could escalate beyond manageable proportions. Its oil buys are another story – accruing to US$11.5 billion a month including transportation costs.

Chinese eyes are rooted to another spot in the area that has stuff worth roughly US$ 30 trillion – in its immediate neighbourhood – Afghanistan!

According to Wikipedia, there are over 1400 mineral fields in Afghanistan. They contain barite, chromite, coal, copper, gold, iron ore, lead, natural gas, petroleum, sulphur, talc and zinc. The precious stones in the nation’s underbelly include emeralds, lapis lazuli, red garnets, and rubies.

China has a land border with Afghanistan that snakes through a chicken-neck pass called Vakhjir Pass. It passes through the Hindu Kush or Pamirs at the eastern end of the Wakhan Corridor, the only pass between Afghanistan and China. It links Wakhan in Afghanistan with the Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in Xinjiang, China, at an altitude of 4,923 metres (16,152 ft) above mean-sea-level [MSL]. The pass, not an official border crossing point, has the sharpest official change of clocks of any international frontier (UTC+4:30 in Afghanistan to UTC+8, China Standard Time, in China).

Despite the common border cited above, China needs a circuitous route to enter Afghanistan – which can only be through PoK and Baluchistan. In a word, that sums up the theme behind the CPEC.

On the Chinese side, the region is home to the Uighur people and part of   the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region [XUAR]. It is the largest Chinese administrative division, the 8th largest country subdivision in the world, spanning over 1.6 million km² (0.64 million square miles) It contains the disputed territory of Aksai Chin administered by China. Xinjiang borders the countries of Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Xinjiang also borders Tibet Autonomous Region and the provinces of Gansu and Qinghai. Xinjiang is divided into the Dzungarian Basin in the north and the Tarim Basin in the south by a mountain range. Only about 4.3% of Xinjiang’s land area is fit for human habitation. The Xinjiang autonomous region in China’s far west has had a long history of discord between the authorities and the indigenous ethnic Uighur population, said a BBC report.

The Xinjiang conflict is an ongoing separatist conflict in China‘s far-west province of Xinjiang, whose northern region is known as Dzungaria and whose southern region (the Tarim Basin) is known as East Turkestan. Uyghur separatists and independence movements claim that the region is not a part of China. The Second East Turkestan Republic was, it is alleged, illegally incorporated by the PRC in 1949 and has since been under Chinese occupation. The East Turkestan Independence Movement [ETIM] is led by Turkic Islamist militant organisations, most notably the Turkistan Islamic Party (formerly the East Turkestan Islamic Movement), against the government in Beijing.

In 2012, Chinese authorities asked Pakistan to hand over members of the extremist East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) believed to be operating out of the latter nation. Beijing named six terror suspects and described the group as the “most direct and real safety threat that China faces”.

In 2015, a Reuters report said that almost all members of the Uighur militant group the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) have been eliminated from Pakistan. The source was Pak President Mamnoon Hussain, who had visited Beijing. China blames violent unrest in its far western region of Xinjiang on separatist groups like ETIM, who it says want to set up an independent state called East Turkestan and have bases in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. Many foreign experts, however, have questioned whether ETIM exists as the coherent group China claims it is.

Xinjiang has another controversial border – with the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) or Xizang Autonomous Region. It is also called Tibet or Xizang. It was created in 1965 on the basis of Tibet’s incorporation by the PRC in 1951.

Within China, Tibet is identified as an Autonomous Region. The current borders of Tibet were generally established in the 18th century and include about half of ethno-cultural Tibet. The Tibet Autonomous Region is the second-largest province-level division of China by area, spanning over 1,200,000 square kilometres (460,000 sq mi), after Xinjiang, and mostly due to its harsh and rugged terrain, is the least densely populated provincial-level division of the PRC.

If the CPEC is disrupted, China would lose its US$46 billion investment to link its Kashghar region to the Arabian Sea. The CPEC is aimed at cutting costs of importing oil, paving the way to export PRC goods through the Arabian Sea and simultaneously pose a threat to the first world’s already garbled Middle-East policy.

Thirsty for the Middle-East’s oil, China aims to cut down costs of ferrying the crude by some 1600 km as tankers have to traverse the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and the Straits of Malacca before reaching the Chinese ports. Peoples’ Republic of China is the largest importer of crude in the world at the present.

RQ/LLS/KM/TR

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PM Modi's Homage To Cho S Ramaswamy Turns Political Event

[580 words]

From TSV Hari

Southern Features & News Service Exclusive

Chennai, January 15 [SFNS]: Lavish praise from Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi etched the uniqueness of the late journalist, satirist, dramatist and political guru Cho S Ramaswamy at the 47^th annual meet of the weekly news magazine Thuglak here Saturday.

It was a major political event. Chennai's premier concert hall - the Music Academy was full. The crowd spilled on to the parking lot of the southern metropolis's Mecca of classical music. 

“If someone has to write the political history of India, it cannot be done without including Cho Ramaswamy and his political commentary,” Modi observed.

Terming Cho’s December 7 demise a ‘personal loss,’ Modi pointed out that India had lost an intellectual “who offered invaluable wisdom to whoever came his way.”

The PM stressed on the Hindu scriptural and almanac-linked importance of January 14. By dovetailing the various nationwide important events on the Hindu calendar, Modi subtly conveyed the message that Cho was a national figure.

Modi pointed out that Cho had incredibly turned adversity to advantage. The instance of miscreants pelting eggs at the editor who in turn asked his tormentors not waste them but supply omelettes instead recalled by the PM had the audience in splits.

Paying encomiums to the magazine and its editor, Modi said, “Thuglak had become a weapon against divisive forces”. “Cho would carry views hostile and abusive of him in his magazine,” the PM added emphasising on the democratic character of Cho.

India’s highest paid ‘superstar’ Rajnikant supplied funny moments in a somewhat restrained speech which also quietly touched on the financial brain of the late editor and also of Cho’s successor – auditor Swaminathan Gurumurthy.

“Several years ago, when cricket’s Indian Premier League began, Cho advised me to buy the Chennai cricket team franchise – then costing only a few lakhs. I turned it down. I now know it is worth several thousand crores,” the thespian said, causing commentator Sumant C Raman – seated in the front row to squirm.

Raman has been supportive of one of cricket’s modern-day alleged villains – N Srinivasan.

Chennai Super Kings, the team owned by disgraced cricket administrator N Srinivasan continues facing a 2-year ban imposed by the courts. In this connection, India’s former skipper MS Dhoni and maverick politician Dr Subramanian Swamy had recently met Srinivasan – whose firm India Cements is said to be close to decision-makers of the main Tamil Nadu opposition party – the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

It was the turn of RSS ideologue Gurumurthy to frown when Rajnikant made a clear reference to the “consultation charges” of the auditor. “People faint when they hear the figure,” the actor said.

In his acceptance speech, Gurumurthy pointed out that Rajnikant is India’s highest paid actor. “When compared to what Rajnikant charges for a movie, my fees would be a very minor figure. For me, editing Thuglak could entail lesser income. But, it is a historically necessitated responsibility bequeathed to me by Cho,” Gurumurthy averred.

The new owner of Thuglak – Varadarajan – who runs the successful Kumudam Group had his tense moments as well.

Without naming the state’s political upstart Sasikala, Gurumurthy revealed that ‘friends were advising to take it easy’ on the ongoing political imbroglio in Tamil Nadu.

Significantly, Kumudam group’s weekly “Reporter” has a soft editorial stance towards TN’s indirect ruler VK Sasikala and her husband Natarajan – which is diametrically opposite to the line being pursued by Gurumurthy.

Speaking from a prepared speech in English, The Hindu scion N Ravi recalled two instances of Cho’s humorous methods of journalism that disarmed his adversaries.

When the crowd began melting, a few journalists were heard remarking in a cynical tone that that ‘though a PM in harness addressing a homage meet of magazine editor was unprecedented, the political milking of the apolitical Cho’s legacy had begun’.

RM/M/KMT/TSV

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