 |
| ||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||
|
Issue 8 Vol I, January 31, 2006newsbag Dosti
all the Way
This journey amidst apprehensions with the first Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation bus carrying 26 passengers from Lahore crossed the zero line at the Wagah-Attari joint check post along the international border in Amritsar on January 20. It took 58 long years to bridge the 64km stretch because of the hatred and violence that have divided the two Punjabs, which at one time were twin cities Amritsar and Lahore. The launch of the new bus service connecting the two cities estranged since the Partition in 1947 is a major effort towards India and Pakistan’s commitment to push peace process between the two nations. This is the third road link between India and Pakistan. Two road links operational earlier were the Delhi-Lahore and Srinagar-Muzarfarabad. Another two, road and rail links are expected to become operational by February when the Munnabao-Khokrapar train and Amritsar-Nankana Sahib bus services are scheduled to start. The Pakistani bus named ‘Dosti’ (Friendship) will arrive in Amritsar every Friday and return the following day and the Indian bus ‘Punj Aab’ (named after five rivers of the old Punjab) goes from Amritsar every Tuesday returning on Wednesday.
Now interested passengers in India will have to get a visa from the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi to avail of the facility. Similarly passengers in Lahore would have to travel to Islamabad. Instead of robbing the enthusiasm and goodwill of the prospective passengers, it would be much more convenient if the Pakistan authorities open a visa office in Amritsar. Similarly for the Indian high commission to setup a visa office at Lahore. However, both the countries are yet to resolve their differences on the Kashmir issue. The violence hit state of Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed immense bloodshed for decades together without any respite and despite repeated promises to restore peace. Bus service, which was a common activity along the Grand Trunk Road in the hoary days of pre-Partition, will surely become a treat along the re-christened Sher Shah Suri Marg. | |||||||||||||||
|
Punjabi
balle balle as MPs get elected again ALL Punjabi Members of Parliament were elected in the 39th federal election of Canada. The January 23 election saw four Punjabi MPs of the Liberal Party being re-elected while two Punjabi Tory MPs also got elected for another term. In all, seven Punjabi MPs were elected in this election, including one new face. Among the Liberal incumbent MPs who got re-elected are Gurbax Malih, Ujjal Dosanjh, Navdeep Bains and Ruby Dhalla, while Sukh Dhaliwal, another Liberal got elected for the first time. Other two incumbent Punjabi MPs belong to the Tory party. They are Deepak Oberoi and Neena Grewal. Ujjal Dosanjh is the outgoing Health Minister. He won the election by defeating his Tory rival Tarlok Sablok, another Punjabi by a margin of 8,000 votes. He got re-elected despite stiff opposition in his Vancouver South riding in British Columbia. Dosanjh was being credited for bringing the Liberal government down on healthcare issue. Since an understanding between him and the NDP Leader Jack Layton had broken on this issue, the latter withdrew support from the minority Liberal government. He had failed to assure Layton that the Liberals wouldn’t let the Canadian public healthcare fall into private hands. Besides, a faction of the moderate Sikh leaders who had personal grudges against him tried to defeat him by supporting Sablok. Interestingly, Dosanjh is himself a moderate Sikh who invited the wrath of Sikh extremists in the past. This is the second time that Dosanjh will sit as Liberal MP in the house. He first got elected as Liberal MP in the last federal election after quitting the NDP. Gurbax Malih, a veteran Liberal MP got elected for the fifth time from Ontario. Both Navdeep Bains and Ruby Dhalla also got elected for the second time in Ontario. Both are young liberals and they were under criticism for supporting same sex marriage bill. The agitated conservative Sikhs tried to defeat them for defying the Sikh clergy that had warned the Sikh MPs not to support this bill. Sukh Dhaliwal will be the new Punjabi face in the house. He got elected from Newton North Delta in BC – the riding that was earlier represented by former Tory MP, Gurmant Grewal. Last time Grewal had defeated him by only 500 votes. This time Grewal did not run making Dhaliwal’s task easier. However, he also won by defeating the NDP candidate Nancy Clegg by a margin of only 700 votes. Grewal’s wife Neena got re-elected by defeating a Liberal candidate in the neighboring Fleetwood Port Kells riding. She was first elected as Tory MP in the last federal election. Gurmant Grewal came under sharp criticism for bringing his wife into politics from back door. He was accused of promoting nepotism in politics. However, Neena won the second time too by defeating Brenda Locke by a very narrow margin of 469 votes. Deepak Oberoi got reelected as Tory MP from the Alberta province, where the Conservatives had a sweeping victory. Despite neck-to-neck fights and challenges in some ridings it was Punjabi’s balle balle in the end. |
|||||||||||||||
|
Canada
Elections: One Couple in, One Couple out
Thanks to Grewal tape controversy that rocked the Canadian parliament, one MP couple is out and replaced by another from Ontario in the House of Commons. Both the NDP leader Jack Layton and his wife Olivia Chow have been elected to the house during January 23 federal elections. This is the second couple to reach the parliament after Gurmant Grewal and his wife Neena Grewal. The Grewal couple made a history after being elected as Tory MPs from British Columbia in the last federal polls. This time the NDP couple will replace Grewals in the house after Gurmant Grewal bowed out of the election. However, Neena Grewal has been re-elected and will now sit in the house without her husband. Gurmant Grewal had announced shortly before the election that he wouldn’t run this time. He had claimed that he voluntarily decided to bow out for the sake of his party. Grewal was facing an enquiry by the Ethics Commissioner for secretly taping the conversation he had with the outgoing federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh in the Liberal party government. Grewal had claimed that Dosanjh and other Liberals wanted him and his wife to cross the floor and join the minority liberal government. If Grewal is to be believed, he was offered posts for defecting to the Liberal Party. He maintains that he had taped his conversation with Dosanjh and Company without their knowledge to gather evidence against the ``corrupt Liberal government’’. Grewal’s adventurism had affected the popularity of the Conservatives. Grewal said that he did not want the Liberals to attack his party on this issue during the election campaign. Others believe that he was shown the door by his Conservative party. Who knows if he had won, he might have got position as minister in the new conservative government under Stephan Harper? As the Tories are preparing themselves to form the next government, the Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro has indicted Grewal in his enquiry report. While exonerating Dosanjh of any wrongdoing, he described Grewal’s action as inappropriate in his report that came out a few days after the election. However, Shapiro has clarified in his report that Grewal did not do anything illegal. According to Shapiro, there is no evidence to suggest that Dosanjh had made any offer to Grewal. Both Layton and Chow are elected from Ontario. They are interracial couple. While Layton is Caucasian, Chow is of Chinese origin. |
|||||||||||||||
|
Latin
America shifts to Left
Already after Cuba where there has been a socialist regime in the teeth of stiff opposition and economic blockade from America, a numbers of countries have one of the kinds of socialist regimes. The election of the socialist leader Evo Morales as President of Bolivia and the Left governments of Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay have confirmed the lead the Left had taken. The newly elected presidents of Chile and Bolivia represent Latin America's yearning to move out of the trajectory defined by the economic and security interests of the United States. The conformist elites and militaries of the region have for long acted handmaidens of American interests and suffered untold miseries. It is now a square rejection of IMF- World Bank route for economic development. Chile which has been supporting free-market trade policies is a major U.S. ally expected to change. Ms Bachelet as head of the coalition which has led Chile for the past 16 years has already pledged change to narrow the gap between rich and poor and to give a greater voice to women and indigenous people. Her remarks highlight the changes that have overtaken Chile, a nation of 16 million people, considered socially and economically a conservative country in Latin America. Chile, a 200 year-old nation has suffered the worst military dictatorship from 1973 to 1990 after the ouster of duly elected president Allende. Chile is considered by many as a nation with conservative trade and business mindset and had joined Mexico, a U.S. partner in the North American Free Trade Agreement, in supporting the hemispheric trade proposal. Morales has clearly hinted at scrapping such free-trade policies as harmful to his under-developed country, Chile is expected to follow the route soon, many observers felt it. The journey is towards left of the center. A doctor and a single mother, Ms Bachelet is seen as an unusual choice for the presidency in a country considered one of the most socially conservative in South America. Evo Morales is the first full-blooded Indian president in South America. He has pledged to be a ``nightmare’’ for the United States, and his affection for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban President Fidel Castro naturally worry rulers in Washington. The newly elected Bolivian President, Leftist leaders of varying styles who lead Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina have led to the defeat in November 2005 of a Bush administration plan for a regional free-trade zone. American president George W Bush had cut sorry figure at the meeting of the Latin American heads of states late last year. Opposition to U.S. policies and hegemony in Latin America has rarely been stronger, even if there are limits to this opposition. The economic reforms implemented in the region under the tutelage of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have brought few benefits. Economic growth per capita has stagnated and poverty levels have risen as has smuggling and drug mafia. The Left in Latin America is evolving new economic policies and political strategies within a broad democratic framework. Progressives in different countries plagued by exploitation and poverty are now trying to bring themselves into closer alignment. The inspiration comes from the iconic leadership of Cuba's President Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. As nine more countries in Latin America go to polls before the year-end, the political map of the continent may enduringly change. The 54-year-old physician and single mother, who served as health and defense minister in the administration of outgoing President Ricardo Lagos was first elected female chief executive whose rise to power was not linked to a powerful husband. “Who would have said — five, 10, 15 years ago — that Chile would elect a woman president?’’ Bachelet asked a boisterous crowd of thousands of supporters in front of her hotel in downtown Santiago. “We have shown a country can be prosperous without losing its soul.” Outgoing President Ricardo Lagos hailed the election of Chile's first woman leader as a "historic triumph". He said he wanted to "pay homage to all those millions and millions of women who with much strength and tenacity have finally achieved the place and the situation they deserve in our society". Thousands of people waved flags, blowing whistles and chanting slogans in the streets, with many more honking their horns as they drive round the city. Bachelet, a mother of three long separated from her husband, will become Chile’s fourth consecutive president from the center-left coalition, known as the Concertacion, which was formed in opposition to the military dictatorship. Her father, an Air Force general sympathetic to the leftist regime of Allende, was arrested and tortured in the September 1973 coup. He died in custody. She and her mother were subsequently arrested. Bachelet has played down the suffering she endured, saying her mother experienced true torture. Mother and daughter first left for Australia and, later, the former East Germany, where both were active in the Chilean exile resistance movement. According to Bachelet, "every family is a kingdom, where the father reigns but the mother rules." She said she offers "a different kind of leadership, with the sensitivity that comes from looking at things from another angle. In the final analysis, a woman president is a ruler who doesn't wear a neck-tie." Upon their return, Bachelet took up her pediatric medical practice, while continuing her work in socialist circles. |
|||||||||||||||
|
SOUTH ASIA POST INC. |
|||||||||||||||
D
Security
checks and difficulties in getting visa to travel to each
country make the journey a difficult one. It deters people.
The very first return journey had just one passenger while
whole of Amritsar was ready to travel and see Lahore.
But those who share common bonds and are working tirelessly
for peace are hopeful of the success of this long awaited bus
service.
ON
January 16 Chile elected its first woman President. This left- Centre, Michelle
Bachelet took 53.5% of the votes against her rival, conservative businessman
Sebastian Pinera who conceded a quick defeat. This victory consolidates a swing
to the political left in Latin America. Ms Bachelet, a socialist who was
jailed and went into exile during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, was
elected the first female president of this South American nation in a historic
vote. The election is the fourth since Chile returned to democracy in 1990 after
17 years of ruthless military rule in which thousands of people were massacred
and many more jailed for years.