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Mr Yadav took the oath of office on Friday in the UP capital, Lucknow, as thousands of his supporters celebrated in the streets.

Friday's swearing-in ceremony was attended by a wide array of political figures, from hardline Marxists to leaders of the state's peasant farmers and lower castes.

The left-leaning Mr Yadav is popular in rural areas and among the state's backward castes - those between the upper and lower castes.

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Newly sworn-in chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav has announced withdrawal of the Pota cases against political leaders and announced a series of pro-people measures.

Yadav said: “This is just a beginning, as cases filed against others under the draconian law like the National Security Act and the Goonda Act will be reviewed shortly.”

Other steps announced by him include payment of cane growers’ dues to the tune of Rs 1,340 crore by government and private sugar mills shortly and withdrawal of fee hike in educational institutions and reduction of hospital registration fee from existing Rs 5 to Rs 1.

I hope Jean Chretien and his fellow travellers look at our analogous Parliamentary democracy across the ocean and follow the steps this new government is taking; withdraw any plans to develop an analog to US "Homeland Security", repeal C-36, C-35 and C-55, and get serious about access to education by fully funding the system at the equivalent of 1970s levels.

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Till 1977 the Uttar Pradesh Upper Castes, barely comprising 20% of the population, were the pampered lot in the Congress regime. Though the backward classes gained significantly in terms of rural power after the land reforms of 1960s, the upper caste monopoly on political and administrative echelons continued unabated. The signs of the growing restlessness of the OBCs (backwards) manifested with an open rebellion by Chowdhry Charan Singh. He left Congress to lead the backwards and jats. Mulayam Singh Yadav was a Janata Party minister from 1977 to 1980.

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So when the BJP say Samajwadi preaches casteism, isn't that like Stockwell Day accusing the NDP of promoting class warfare?

As to Mulayam Singh having had two chances before, keep in mind his 1989-91 government was based on his 120 MLAs and many unruly partners in the 425-seat Assembly, as they were getting ready to found the Samajwadi Party in 1992. Then his 1993-95 uneasy partnership with Mayawati was based on his 109 seats out of 425. But in last year's election Samajwadi got 143 seats out of 402, closer to a majority, possibly giving him more scope.

But perhaps someone on this list with personal knowledge of Uttar Pradesh can tell us more. With a population of 173 million, it's worth knowing about.

[ 02 September 2003: Message edited by: Wilfred Day ]

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. . . he rides high on the crest of popularity. All through his political career, beginning from 1967 when he was first elected MLA from his hometown, Jaswant Nagar in Etawah district, he has never looked as powerful as circumstances have made him now. Quintessentially a socialist and an ardent follower of Ram Manohar Lohia, Yadav and his politics thus are undergoing a cultural synthesis.

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More than half of our population comprises women. Their condition is pathetic. Cooking food, breeding children and being a slave to her husband - this is woman's fate. A woman is not considered equal to a man, such is the blind belief sustained through the ages. The law has guaranteed equality to women, but that is only on paper. Equality has not been practiced. Hence jobs must be reserved for women in all walks of life. They must be freed from the tyranny of homework. The latent talent of women should be brought to the limelight. Society does not progress as long as women remain oppressed. Society must be rid of deep-rooted beliefs and old practices. Beginning with women in villages every woman should be given justice. Lohia strove for this cause. According to him the emancipation of women was the foundation of social revolution; without this there can be no prosperity.

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[ 05 September 2003: Message edited by: Wilfred Day ]

is there any good introductory book to begin to bone up on india?

[ 05 September 2003: Message edited by: Willowdale Wizard ]

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Originally posted by rasmus_raven:
While Mulayam Singh Yadav might be better than the Hindu far right . . . his victory is cause for distempered relief at best.

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Okay, if someone wants to tells us about the West Bengal Left Front government, go ahead. The GTA has 15,685 people with Bengali mother tongue (almost as many as Hindi mother tongue) and lots more of Bengali origin. Some of them must be on this list.

West Bengal has 83 million people and is governed by a Left Front led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). In 2001 it stormed back to power with a massive mandate from the people for the sixth consecutive time, with a two-thirds majority. The victory was a record for any elected Left government in the world.

The CPI(M) won 143 seats, the Forward Bloc won 25, the Revolutionary Socialist Party 17, the Communist Party of India 7, the West Bengal Socialist Party 4, the Democratic Socialist Party 2 and the Forward Bloc (Marxist) 1.

"The WB government is excellent, with close ties to the UK Labour Party (they share a small organizer caste that helps cross-fertilization of techniques) and an impressive flexibility.

I spent some time in Kolkata when I was based in Dhaka. It is a remarkable city, very orderly and with strong civic administration in comparison to every South Asian city I visited, with the exception of Islamabad (which is rather like a Virginia suburb, except for the wild marijuana plants growing by the side of the road).

The subway is cheap (3 cents, if I recall) and fast, and not terminally overcrowded. There are regulated taxis, traffic police who direct motor and pedestrian traffic, rubbish collection, on and on. Even the slums are relatively well kept, with provision of municipal services based on population centers, not registered land ownership or other more exclusionary criteria.

I'm turning into one of those Fabian municipal socialists, judging places by the whether burned out traffic lights get replaced...

Bangladeshis increasingly look with envy at their ethnic siblings to the West, and ask why that sort of prosperity can't be exported.

Culturally Kolkata is fantastic, with massive book markets that stretch for blocks, with different areas for different areas of specialization.

My wife bought some bio-chemistry texts for $10 that would have cost hundreds at home, and they're all legit editions, not photocopies or reprints.

After the cultural wasteland of Dhaka it was like dropping into heaven, buying an armload of cheap books and then going to one of the numberless tea houses where people sit and argue about politics for hours on end.

Some are known as being 'left' or 'right', I liked a weird 2 story one, at least 100 years old, crumbling yellow stone, filled with students and old men and cheap cigarette smoke mercifully given 100 feet of altitude to rise before hitting the sculptured ceiling, which was completely blackened from the smoke of 10 000 arguments below.

The city has such a bad image but, as a municipal politician said, 'if we can convince foreigners who will never visit here to subsidize our health care system, it would be foolish of us to resist'. I had never thought of Mother Theresa as a cog in a communist health care plot before...

You should go when you have the chance, spend a week in Kolkata and then a couple of days in Dhaka. That 60 years ago these were the same people is a monument to the power of bad governance."

[ 13 September 2003: Message edited by: Wilfred Day ]

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Several strategies are being considered by a task force guided by the Canadian Power Consultants Group (CPCG) which has been provided a dollar five million grant by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)

The task force, comprising 25 government and non-government representatives, is considering having different fixed rates for rural poor and non poor households, besides metering all customers, rural as well as urban. Moreover, it is also contemplating allowing poor households to pay connection charges in small monthly instalments, while improving the billing and payment system, decentralising management and maintenance to village and ward levels and also training local technicians.

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