By Anand Soondas - Times Of India - Chandigarh,India
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Any earnest wish at the dargah of Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer, people say, is usually granted. Amarinder Singh [Punjab Chief Minister] would most certainly have been very earnest in his prayers for renewed power when he visited the shrine in a most controversial manner.
There were charges that the chief minister whisked away Pakistani guests to Rajasthan when they only had visas for Amritsar doing frenzied rounds last week. But it will take more than the Sufi saint's blessings for the Congress to ride back to power through the February 13 polls to the 117-member assembly.
For all the CM's good intentions, nobody, it seems, is happy. Punjab's influential and very moneyed NRI [Non Resident Indians] lobby is miffed that their native state has shown little concern or interest in welcoming many of those who want to come home, both for investment and resettlement.
And there are quite a few, like Lajpat Rai Munger known as the pistachio king of the world, he recently donated a whopping Rs 20 crore [crore: ten millions (10,000,000; a crore of rupees is nearly $5,000,000] for a college in Hoshiarpur and H S Sidhu, who bought out Air Slovakia last year, keen to do that.
Recently, an agonised NRI told TOI, "For everything back home, elections to langars in gurdwaras, we send in donations. And there's nothing in it, except the call of our roots, for us. The Punjab government has treated its NRI population quite dismissively."
(...)
This comes at a bad time for a community already struggling with unprecedented low yields, recurring suicides and an enormous problem of drug addiction among its youth. No wonder then that Punjab, a land known for its farming, is going urban at a blinding pace.
There are estimates that close to half of Punjab has become urban centers, with agriculturists increasingly looking at other options of sustenance. Kuldeep Chand, a Nangal-based leader of farmers who also heads the Advancement of Rural People and Natural Resources, an NGO, said, "SEZ [Special Economic Zones] acquisitions, if not done properly, can have disastrous effects
"One farmland taken away will affect 10 families adversely. This is an issue that'll boomerang."
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punjab_%28India%29]
[http://www.sezindia.nic.in/sez.asp]
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Prayers for political power
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Any earnest wish at the dargah of Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer, people say, is usually granted. Amarinder Singh [Punjab Chief Minister] would most certainly have been very earnest in his prayers for renewed power when he visited the shrine in a most controversial manner.
There were charges that the chief minister whisked away Pakistani guests to Rajasthan when they only had visas for Amritsar doing frenzied rounds last week. But it will take more than the Sufi saint's blessings for the Congress to ride back to power through the February 13 polls to the 117-member assembly.
For all the CM's good intentions, nobody, it seems, is happy. Punjab's influential and very moneyed NRI [Non Resident Indians] lobby is miffed that their native state has shown little concern or interest in welcoming many of those who want to come home, both for investment and resettlement.
And there are quite a few, like Lajpat Rai Munger known as the pistachio king of the world, he recently donated a whopping Rs 20 crore [crore: ten millions (10,000,000; a crore of rupees is nearly $5,000,000] for a college in Hoshiarpur and H S Sidhu, who bought out Air Slovakia last year, keen to do that.
Recently, an agonised NRI told TOI, "For everything back home, elections to langars in gurdwaras, we send in donations. And there's nothing in it, except the call of our roots, for us. The Punjab government has treated its NRI population quite dismissively."
(...)
This comes at a bad time for a community already struggling with unprecedented low yields, recurring suicides and an enormous problem of drug addiction among its youth. No wonder then that Punjab, a land known for its farming, is going urban at a blinding pace.
There are estimates that close to half of Punjab has become urban centers, with agriculturists increasingly looking at other options of sustenance. Kuldeep Chand, a Nangal-based leader of farmers who also heads the Advancement of Rural People and Natural Resources, an NGO, said, "SEZ [Special Economic Zones] acquisitions, if not done properly, can have disastrous effects
"One farmland taken away will affect 10 families adversely. This is an issue that'll boomerang."
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punjab_%28India%29]
[http://www.sezindia.nic.in/sez.asp]
Labels:
politics
By Anand Soondas - Times Of India - Chandigarh,IndiaSaturday, January 13, 2007
Any earnest wish at the dargah of Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer, people say, is usually granted. Amarinder Singh [Punjab Chief Minister] would most certainly have been very earnest in his prayers for renewed power when he visited the shrine in a most controversial manner.
There were charges that the chief minister whisked away Pakistani guests to Rajasthan when they only had visas for Amritsar doing frenzied rounds last week. But it will take more than the Sufi saint's blessings for the Congress to ride back to power through the February 13 polls to the 117-member assembly.
For all the CM's good intentions, nobody, it seems, is happy. Punjab's influential and very moneyed NRI [Non Resident Indians] lobby is miffed that their native state has shown little concern or interest in welcoming many of those who want to come home, both for investment and resettlement.
And there are quite a few, like Lajpat Rai Munger known as the pistachio king of the world, he recently donated a whopping Rs 20 crore [crore: ten millions (10,000,000; a crore of rupees is nearly $5,000,000] for a college in Hoshiarpur and H S Sidhu, who bought out Air Slovakia last year, keen to do that.
Recently, an agonised NRI told TOI, "For everything back home, elections to langars in gurdwaras, we send in donations. And there's nothing in it, except the call of our roots, for us. The Punjab government has treated its NRI population quite dismissively."
(...)
This comes at a bad time for a community already struggling with unprecedented low yields, recurring suicides and an enormous problem of drug addiction among its youth. No wonder then that Punjab, a land known for its farming, is going urban at a blinding pace.
There are estimates that close to half of Punjab has become urban centers, with agriculturists increasingly looking at other options of sustenance. Kuldeep Chand, a Nangal-based leader of farmers who also heads the Advancement of Rural People and Natural Resources, an NGO, said, "SEZ [Special Economic Zones] acquisitions, if not done properly, can have disastrous effects
"One farmland taken away will affect 10 families adversely. This is an issue that'll boomerang."
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punjab_%28India%29]
[http://www.sezindia.nic.in/sez.asp]
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment