Tag: dilemma

Congress’ dilemma: Gehlot or Pilot for CM Candidate in upcoming polls?

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With the Assembly election later this year, Rajasthan faces a political crisis again. The party lost Punjab last year because of mishandling by the Gandhis by backing the wrong horse. Will the Congress leadership be able to save Rajasthan from going the Punjab way?
Congress and BJP have been alternating in Government, and now it is the turn of the BJP to win the elections in Rajasthan. Congress desperately needs to retain the big state in the Assembly polls.
In a catch-22 situation, Congress is still dithering whether to face the electorate with Ashok Gehlot as Chief Minister or the rebel Sachin Pilot instead.

Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his former Deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot are at loggerheads again. The power tussle between the two started in 2018, first over party tickets and later over the chief minister’s position. Gehlot wants to keep his job, and Pilot wants to grab it immediately.
Pilot had rebelled twice in the meanwhile. In 2020, he led a revolt with the tacit support of the BJP with 20 of his legislators; the one-month-long political crisis ended after the Congress high command promised to look into the issues raised by Sachin Pilot.
The second time was in September 2022, when the Gehlot camp consisting of 90 MLAs, submitted their resignation letters to prevent Sachin Pilot from succeeding Gehlot. This was when Ashok was offered the party chief’s position. Gehlot wanted to be chief minister and rejected the party post.
Pilot thinks it is now or never as the time is running out. Though he is only 46, if Pilot misses the boat, his next shot would be in 2028. He is not in the mood to waste 5 years of political life.
Last week, Pilot announced a one-day dharna accusing the Gehlot Government of failing to act against the excise mafia, illegal mining, land encroachment, or the Lalit Modi affidavit case sat in dharna for a day. He complained Gehlot had been reluctant to act against the predecessor Vasundhara-led Government. Incidentally, Vasundhara Raje (BJP) quietly helped Gehlot win the confidence vote in 2020. Also, she is staking her claims to become chief minister again.

Sachin is young, charismatic, ambitious, articulate, and sophisticated. He is also close to Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi; However, he is a rebel, impatient, and ambitious. There are speculations BJP might offer him a ministerial berth. With few young leaders left, PIlot’s quitting could hurt Congress before the polls.
Ashok Gehlot is 71, asking the electorate for one last chance. If disturbed now, he will break the party.
The options before Congress are few. One is to counsel patience to Sachin. He has chosen corruption as an issue this time. When Rahul Gandhi is spearheading corruption, how could they blame Sachin? Moving Pilot to Delhi to give organizational responsibilities was one of the options, but Pilot would not be satisfied.
Alienating Gehlot also will have repercussions. One option is to convince the one-time magician Gehlot to step down. Gehlot had been the chief minister twice earlier and was an experienced leader from the OBC community. He has shown many times that he is a man in control. But, he is an aging leader, lacks charisma, and indulges in factionalism. He also faces anti-incumbency.
It will be an acid test for the six-month-old Congress Chief Mallikharjun Kharge busy amid Karnataka Assembly polls.
Last month, he was toying with making PIlot the state party chief, which would have soothed Sachin but upset Gehlot. Kharge may be waiting for the Karnataka elections to conclude. With pretty good chances of winning the state, he could deal with both leaders from a position of strength.
Ultimately, it depends on the party’s high command to find an acceptable formula for both. But this is easier said than done. Congress leadership has little time to dither.
The first and foremost is to quieten the warring camps. The Congress has roped veteran Kamal Nath to mediate between the two sides.
Secondly, the High command should act swiftly.
Keeping the crisis unaddressed will result in further chaos. It might also affect the party’s chances in Karnataka.
Thirdly, Kharge should ensure Rajasthan is not messed up as they did in Punjab by backing the wrong horse and losing the state.
Fourthly, there are few politically savvy peacemakers like Ahmed Patel. Also, Sonia Gandhi has taken a backseat.
Kamalnath has reportedly offered Pilot a ‘meaty’ role in the AICC secretariat, a member of the Congress Working Committee, and a vital role in the screening committee for the upcoming Rajasthan elections.
The High Command is not willing to disturb Gehlot. So, Congress must tread carefully, as any misstep would mean losing Rajasthan. It will need all the mediating skills to resolve the issue at a time when Congress needs to win and not lose.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 22, 2023
Doctor’s dilemma: To practice or write

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Hyderabad: The general perception about doctors is that their writing skills are confined to just scrawling illegible prescriptions. That’s true to a large part. However, the more enthusiastic among them indulge in health related articles or write for science magazines. But there are some who buck the trend and give even professional writers a run for their money.
There are many doctors who are accomplished writers too. Remember Robin Cook who churned out medical thrillers by the dozen. Or for that matter Somerset Maugham known for his plays, novels and short stories. He once remarked that there is no better training for a writer than to spend some years in the medical profession. One can’t forget the celebrated ophthalmologist, Arthur Conan Doyle, who created the character of legendary Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. There are many more doctors who have made it big as writers in different languages – not just English.
Closer home the Osmania University has produced a good number of doctor-writers, a fact not many know. The varsity which successfully experimented with Urdu as a medium of instruction imparted even medical education in Urdu. Former Chief Minister, Dr. M. Chenna Reddy, is among the celebrities who did his MBBS in Urdu. No wonder some Osmanians of yore were bitten by the Urdu bug and later turned out to be good Urdu writers. Some like Dr. Abid Moiz have even made writing a second career.
“Those days the MBBS degree certificates were given in Urdu language along with English. Some doctors even had their signboards and letterheads in Urdu,” he says.
Dr. Moiz has made a mark as a mizahiya nigar (humourist) and a science writer in Urdu. Now he has come up with a unique book which throws light on the Osmanian doctors who have contributed a lot for Urdu language and literature. The book – Jamia Osmania Ke Urdu Zaban wo Adab Parvar Doctors – lists 12 well known physicians and their contribution to Urdu literature. He has made painstaking efforts to ferret out information about some of the doctors whose works are all but lost. This is perhaps the first such book which brings out the writer among physicians. He intends to include some more doctor-writers in the second edition. The book also lists the experiences and impressions of seniors like Dr. P. Pentiah, Dr. Syed Kazim Husain and Dr. Syed Abdul Manan.
Well you have heard about doctors such as Raghunandan Raj Sexena, Raj Bahadur Gour, Taher Qureshi, Abul Hasan Siddiqui, Majid Qazi, Shyam Sunder Prasad, Sikandar Husain, Taqi Abedi, Sayeed Nawaz. But what many are not aware of is that these doctors are as good with their pens as with their stethoscopes. For them medicine is their lawful wife and literature a mistress. Today they are remembered more for their penmanship than medical credentials.
The book presents a good sketch of Dr. Taqi Abedi who is obsessed with Urdu literature. He loves to introduce himself as peshe se tabeeb, Urdu ka vakeel and adab ka mareez (doctor by profession, an advocate of Urdu with a weakness for literature). This Hyderabad-born Canadian physician is a poet, critic, author — all rolled into one.
What makes health professionals good writers? Well, it’s their sense of keen observation. Day in and day out they see life and death up close and spend time listening to stories of patients. So all the elements that make for a good story are readily available for them – disease, death, suffering and poignant images. All they need to do is to put them in words. “Writing helps doctors to unburden things that bother them in a more productive way,” says Dr. Moiz who laces his stories with dollops of humour and satire.
All in all Dr. Moiz’s book makes for an interesting read. It gives a rare peek into the sensitive nature of doctors. More importantly it tells why practicing physicians engage in creative writing – not for applause but for a cause.

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#Doctors #dilemma #practice #write
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 21, 2023
Reporting corruption in a time of war: The Ukrainian journalists’ dilemma

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When a major corruption scandal broke in Ukraine last weekend, reporters faced an excruciating dilemma between professional duty and patriotism. The first thought that came to my mind was: “Should I write about this for foreigners? Will it make them stop supporting us?”
There was no doubting the severity of the cases that were erupting into the public sphere. They cut to the heart of the war economy. In one instance, investigators were examining whether the deputy infrastructure minister had profited from a deal to supply electrical generators at an inflated price, while the defense ministry was being probed over an overpriced contract to supply food and catering services to the troops.
Huge stories, but in a sign of our life-or-death times in Ukraine, even my colleague Yuriy Nikolov, who got the scoop on the inflated military contract, admitted he had done everything he could not to publish his investigation. He took his findings to public officials hoping that they might be able to resolve the matter, before he finally felt compelled to run it on the ZN.UA website.

Getting a scoop that shocks your country, forces your government to start investigations and reform military procurement, and triggers the resignation of top officials is ordinarily something that makes other journalists jealous. But I fully understand how Nikolov feels about wanting to hold back when your nation is at war. Russia (and Ukraine’s other critics abroad) are, after all, looking to leap upon any opportunity to undermine trust in our authorities.
A journalist is meant to stay a little distant from the situation he or she covers. It helps to stay impartial and to stick to the facts, not emotions. But what if staying impartial is impossible as you have to cover the invasion of your own country? Naturally, you have to keep holding your government to account, but you are also painfully aware that the enemy is out there looking to exploit any opportunity to erode faith in the leadership and undermine national security.
That is exactly what Ukrainian journalists have to deal with every day. In the first six months of the invasion, Ukrainian journalists and watchdogs decided to put their public criticism of the Ukrainian government on pause and focus on documenting Russian war crimes.
But that has backfired.
“This pause led to a rapid loss of accountability for many Ukrainian officials,” Mykhailo Tkach, one of Ukraine’s top investigative journalists, wrote in a column for Ukrainska Pravda.
His investigations about Ukrainian officials leaving the country during the war for lavish vacations in Europe led to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy imposing a ban on officials traveling abroad during the war for non-work-related issues. It also sparked the dismissal of the powerful deputy prosecutor general.
The Ukrainian government was forced to react to corruption and make a major reshuffle almost immediately. Would that happen if Ukrainian journalists decided to sit on their findings until victory? I doubt it.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ended up imposing a ban on officials traveling abroad during the war for non-work-related issues | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
Is it still painful when you have to write about your own government’s officials’ flops when overwhelming enemy forces are trying to erase your nation from the planet, using every opportunity they can get to shake your international partners’ faith? Of course it is.
But in this case, there was definite room for optimism. Things are changing in Ukraine. The government had to react very quickly, under intense pressure from civil society and the independent press. Memes and social media posts immediately appeared, mocking the government’s pledge to buy eggs at massively inflated prices. Ultimately, the deputy infrastructure minister was fired and the deputy defense minister resigned.
This speedy response was praised by the European Commission and showed how far we really are from Russia, where authorities hunt down not the officials accused of corruption, but the journalists who report it.
As Tkach said, many believe that the war with the internal enemy will begin immediately after the victory over the external one.
However, we can’t really wait that long. It is important to understand that the sooner we win the battle with the internal enemy — high-profile corruption — the sooner we win the war against Russia.
“Destruction of corruption means getting additional funds for the defense capability of the country. And it means more military and civilian lives saved,” Tkach said.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

January 24, 2023