| In journalistic parlance, there is a saying that good news
is no news. This week it has been a pleasure to disprove the idea. A few issues ago, we
carried a cover story called "The Ugly Indian"; Amartya Sen's long-deserved
Nobel Prize merits him the epithet of "The Handsome Indian". Primarily, Sen's
work has focused on understanding the roots of poverty. In a sense, a very sad sense, this
is the most apt subject for an Indian to research: poverty and hunger are almost
synonymous with Indian reality. That Sen has spent the best years of his life abroad,
teaching in universities in America and Britain, reflects another Indian poverty: the
poverty of opportunity. It is ironical that Sen, a man who is so passionately attached to
his culture as to come home every six months, has found true intellectual sustenance and
recognition only abroad. Even if Sen is singularly gifted, such an enforced exile is not
unique to him. It is the story of almost every non-resident Indian. Predictably, Sen, the first Asian economist to win the Nobel Prize, is the
subject of our cover story. Senior Editor Sumit Mitra, who has met the legendary economist
on numerous occasions, and coincidentally like Sen attended Presidency College in
Calcutta, was the right man to write the story. He interviewed students, colleagues and
teachers, all of whom seemed to have a great regard for Sen. But it was the reality that
Sen had bucked a trend that was most gratifying. As Mitra explains, "His win is
against the odds, for what he preaches runs against the grain of current economic
thinking."
That was the good news. From Uttar Pradesh comes the bad news
of a staggering nexus between politicians from an entire spectrum of parties and the slain
underworld don Shri Prakash Shukla. Last week Principal Correspondent Subhash Mishra
managed to get a copy of a report submitted by the Special Task Force (STF) to Chief
Minister Kalyan Singh. The STF report establishes that eight ministers in the Kalyan
Cabinet, over a dozen MLAs and numerous IAS and IPS officers sheltered and protected the
don. Here, once again, was a perfect chance for a politician like Kalyan to initiate
action and set a precedent by putting public good over his Government's survival. Instead,
no order has been issued for further investigation. Are you surprised? I'm not.
(Aroon Purie) |
