Christian submission

The editorial in the latest issue of the RSS journal titled “What a Shame!” writes: The Indian prime minister on foreign soil telling the world that he was ashamed of the violence in India against Christians was a shameful sight. He was responding to the European Union allegation that his government failed to prevent what it called a massacre of Christians in Orissa and Karnataka. The atrocious allegation was reportedly made during the India-EU summit at Marseille. The issue was taken up strongly with Dr Singh by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is also head of the European Council and Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission. There was also a report that the US president George Bush had asked the prime minister of India to give an assurance to the EU on the subject... No other prime minister of India would have tolerated such interference in the internal affairs of the country... These people talk as if globalisation is Christianisation.”

Messy finance

In his column titled “Relax, Asian countries find India attractive,” the RSS journal editor R Balashankar writes: “Press forward on capital account liberalisation and the development of the bond market... This is how our financial experts are prompting the UPA in the midst of the meltdown in Wall Street. This is strange for many reasons... Should India allow itself to be sucked into such a financial regime? The people who advocate such a system are of course its biggest beneficiaries.”

The column adds: “There is a case for strengthening the financial system in India. But it is primarily the corporate debt market and banking sector. Only recently corporate investment turned to increase reliance on external finance... What India badly needs is not more financial sector reforms but better infrastructure — better roads, transport, electricity, water and better governance.

Compiled by Suman K. Jha