Monday, August 24, 1998
A flawed subsidy
The fertiliser policy is getting tied up in knots. The centre has freed phosphatic (P) and potassic (K) fertilisers from price ceilings. It has done this in the certain knowledge that P & K prices will become dear. So it has sought to keep rates affordable for farmers by increasing the budgetary subsidy for these fertilisers from an estimated Rs 2,600 crore in 1978-98 to Rs 4,000 crore this year, a whopping close to 54% rise.
Opportunity knocks
For a country which has long been at the receiving end of terrorism, the Indian response to the US attacks on terrorist bases has been surprisingly lukewarm. The centre has long been saying that terrorist camps in Afghanistan have been used to train Kashmiri militants, as well as mercenaries operating in Kashmir. If the US has, for reasons of its own, decided to attack these camps, surely we should unreservedly welcome the decision.
America's security concerns a pretence
Buried in the inside pages of newspapers last Saturday was a single-column item which informed us that Israeli warplanes had bombed Shi'ite "strongholds" in south Lebanon, a retaliation against a Hezbollah attack on Israeli troops. No mention was made of any casualties. Israel continues to hold on to its "security zone" in south Lebanon in direct violation of a UN security council resolution (Resolution no 425 of March 1978).
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