Articles by Nireekshak

The Foreign Connection Nireekshak IT certainly would not add to the joy of any politician or journalist to tell himself that foreign money, both overtly and covertly, has been subverting our parliamentary institutions, political associations, academic and other organisations and the press. Following charges of foreign money intervention in the 1967 elections, the Centre asked its Intelligence Bureau to make a report. The details of the findings were not disclosed but it is fairly well known that foreign money has been and is very much a part of the red light district of electoral politics. The general conclusion of the report, which the government shared with parliament, confirmed this belief. Action was promised to check the flow of foreign money into vital areas of national life.


that it must take certain steps to conduct its business in international affairs. For instance, it finds the Soviet Union rapidly establishing relations with Asian governments around China. China therefore, perhaps, feels that it cannot allow itself to be isolated by maintaining no direct contact with governments in its neighbourhood.

Paid Pipers Nireekshak OPPOSITION spokesmen in the Lok Sabha were justified in charging the government with arranging a "calculated leak" to prejudice, even scuttle, the talks with trade union leaders to avert the railway strike. The charge relates to the letter the Prime Minister wrote to Chief Ministers on April 27, when negotiations between the railwaymen and the government had just been resumed. Spelling out the government's tough line on the strike, the Prime Minister called upon the Chief Ministers to act firmly, adding that it was impossible for the government to accept all the demands of the railwaymen. In particular, the demand for bonus was characterised as untenable by the Prime Minister. Simultaneously, and rather contradictorily, she also suggested that the railwaymen should await the report of the Bonus Review Committee

of Home Minister Uma Shankar Dikshit, Searchlight and its Hindi counterpart, Pradeep, resumed publication less than two weeks after the attack on their offices and press on March 18. Dikshit, the wizard behind National Herald's finances and its Managing Director for years, knows his newspaper economics well However, returning from an on- the-spot study he almost suggested that the two dailies might not see the light of day again. While replying to the Lok Sabha debate on the Patna incident, he even implied that Searchlight could have saved itself had it sought his help, as the rival Indian Nation is supposed to have done.

A Diffused Debate Nireekshak AFTER two years and more of prevarication and feet-dragging, the government now finds it expedient to whittle down the issue of diffusion of newspaper ownership to one of delinking the industry from big business. It is non longer fashionable to talk of diffusion, the demand for which was subtly engineered by the government in its rage over the allegedly unsympathetic role of the press when Indira Gandhi wanted to get herself a massive mandate in