Articles by Amiya Rao

BIFR that the project was not viable They were, of course, proved wrong. The tea cooperatives had problems initially because the other plantations tried to isolate them. However, they were able to stand on their own mainly because in most co-operatives productivity is higher and costs lower than in the private sector units. Unfortunately it is not the private sector alone which tries to scuttle worker co-operatives. Public sector banks and financial institutions are equally responsible. The chairman of the BIFR has stated on several occasions that banks are reluctant to extend financial aid to worker co-operatives. It is surprising that while these public sector institutions are liberal in investing people's savings in private enterprise they clamp up when it comes to helping workers. The government so far has not deemed it necessary to reorient this approach.

multinationals'. The dear old cliches are once more out; fulsome praise of the public sector has been resumed. Overtures are being sent even in the direction of the wretched communists, the same communists who were the butt of choicest abuses on the part of the prime minister during the assembly election campaign: will they not, please, join him to fight the fresh onslaught from 'right reactionaries'. Even in the midst of this state of panic though, the basics are not forgotten. In fact, the panic is occasioned because the basics are very much the centre of concern: the interests of the prime minister are indistinguishable from the general welfare of the nation, one is coterminous with the other; once the prime minister's position is in peril, the nation itself is in peril; please do not be silly, nobody ever asks for the proof of an axiom.

When Delhi Burnt Amiya Rao WITH all my resolution to take myself in hand and sit down calmly to write a coherent piece on the recent happenings in Delhi my mind has begun to wander and all that I am seeing is a long chain of fire growing into a massive blazing block of wall as it began to swallow up all the 85 trucks of my Sikh neighbours and their houses, hardly 800 yards away from my house. The taxis belonging to Lall Singh in the taxi stand at the corner of the road also began to burn almost simultaneously and but for the timely protection given to the taxi drivers by the BBC staff, they too would have been burnt along with their vehicles; in one corner of the sky over nearby Bhogal a huge column of smoke spread over a sky ominously red

keeper who does not take some remuneration from the tribals is an exception rather than the rule. In Rajpipla town itself one may find the residences of at least 10 village land record-keepers. A document which the citizens are entitled to get free of charge is not available to the tribals in their own villages according to the rules. They are made to spend approximately Rs 25 on travelling to town and back for the purpose of getting the document, Goitre is a disease common among tribals and it is caused by lack of iodine in their diet. The incidence of goitre may be prevented by using iodised salt in one's food. The high rate of incidence of goitre in Gadher, a tribal village 50 kms away from Rajpipla was brought to the notice of the health authorities in the district, more than three years ago. To this date iodised salt is not available in the village. In Mandod taluka alone, there may be about a thousand patients with very enlarged goitre. The health authorities are not very much bothered as the affected persons are mostly illiterate and poor tribals.


duals. This book will serve as a good guide.
Also the interpretation of the rights guaranteed by the Europeaa Convention on Human Rights by the European Court of Justice and the European Comnvssion of Human Rights is not only interesting but relevant. One can cite it before the Supreme Court as a persuasive precedent. "European Human Rights Convention in Domestic Law'' by Andrew Z Drzemezewski (Oxford,