Mr. Riko Mahato(rkmht)

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Ahmadinejad’s bid for the presidency reflects the political uncertainties gripping Iran

Thanks God For providing me enough time to publish such post to upgrade our society ,upgrade the knowledge of youth,upgrade the ultimate power to rebuild strengthen our nation. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sprang a surprise when he registered himself as a candidate in Iran’s presidential election scheduled for May 19. After leaving the office of President in 2013 at the end of two controversial terms, the firebrand populist has been largely inactive in politics. He began as a favourite of the ayatollahs, but during his second term he had a turbulent relationship with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, who asked him not to run for President again. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s defiant return to the race shows the growing significance of hard-line politics in a charged region. As successor to the mild-mannered reformist Mohammad Khatami, he toed a strident line on Israel and the U.S., refusing to meaningfully negotiate with the West over Iran’s nuclear programme despite crippling economic sanctions. This election is crucial for Iran as it is seen as a referendum on the nuclear deal it reached in 2015 with global powers. President Hassan Rouhani, who championed the deal on the promise that better ties with the West would help improve Iran’s economy, is expected to seek re-election. He faces challenges from hardliners, who say Iran needs a stronger leader who can stand up to Donald Trump’s America. The rising anti-Iran rhetoric of the Trump administration, which imposed new sanctions on Tehran over a missile test, has given the hardliners a fresh handle.

Iran’s election is a complex process that is partially managed and partially reflects the popular will. At least 120 people have registered as candidates. The clerical Guardian Council will vet the candidates and publish the final list on April 27, removing most dissidents. Thereafter the election is expected to be free. It is not clear if Mr. Ahmadinejad intends to stay as a candidate or plans to shape the election agenda in favour of the hardliners. As of now, the most powerful conservative candidate is Ebrahim Raisi, a close ally of Ayatollah Khamenei and a clear favourite of the clerical establishment. For the conservatives, this is an opportunity to reclaim the presidency — one of the three main pillars of the Iranian state, but the only one with a popular mandate — and reclaim legitimacy for their hard-line agenda. For the moderates, the challenge is to push back the strongman narrative of the conservatives and shape the agenda around economic development and incremental freedoms, as opposed to strengthening theocracy and a stand-off with the West. In 2013, Mr. Rouhani had shown the political aptitude to stitch together an alliance with moderates as well as conservatives who had fallen out with the clerical establishment, while cashing in on popular impatience with the Ahmadinejad government. It is time the political climate changed. It may take greater political guile for Mr. Rouhani to withstand the hardliners’ campaign at a time when economic troubles and regional challenges remain and the U.S. is again taking a confrontationist stance towards Tehran.

Adjusting fuel prices daily at petrol stations is a long overdue reform

Hiking fuel prices at petrol pumps is such a politically fraught exercise that there is even a hesitation to decrease prices so as to safeguard against a possible spike in global petroleum rates in the future. It is worth watching, therefore, how the proposed pilot project by the three public sector oil marketing companies — Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum — proceeds as an effort to reform the pricing mechanism. Starting next month, in select citiesfuel prices at the pump point will be reset daily in tandem with global oil price movements. Till the project’s outcomes are assessed, the rest of the country will continue with the existing system, under which petrol and diesel prices are calibrated generally on a fortnightly basis. If one considers the latest price change effected by oil companies (a ₹3.77 reduction per litre in the price of petrolaccompanied by a ₹2.91 cut for diesel on March 31), the case for a daily price reset makes eminent sense. Apart from the fact that it is illogical for an economy integrated with the global financial and commodity markets to keep fuel pricesunchanged for as much as a fortnight, aligning prices daily and spreading out the degree of change will lessen the impact on consumers, on both the upside and the downside. Marginal changes in the daily price of fuel will not make or break consumer confidence or fuel inflationary expectations, at least because of oil costs, as it currently does.

A more gradual ascent or descent in fuel prices, rather than abrupt shifts over randomly selected intervals, makes good sense, given how closely our fiscal outlook is tied to oil price movements. The United Progressive Alliance government had freed the regulation of petrol prices in late 2010, and the National Democratic Alliance government followed through by liberating dieselprices within six months of assuming office in 2014. Such dismantling was necessary as previous attempts at abandoning the administered price mechanism for India’s largely import-dependent consumption of petroleum products never really took off, even as subsidies distorted the system further. The fortnightly system of price resets for both fuels has been followed over the last three years. The latest price cuts came after more than two months of no change, overlapping with the Assembly elections in five States. A transparently formulated and dynamic pricing regime would hopefully prevent such distortionary coincidences in the future. It would also allow private companies to compete with the PSU oil marketers, which today control 95% of fuel outlets. The government, on its part, must start winding down the extremely high petroleum product taxes imposed since June 2014, when oil prices began to fall, along with its energy subsidy liabilities.

De-escalation, not deal-making, is needed to reduce tensions in the Korean peninsula

With tensions in the Korean peninsula continuing to escalate, Beijing took the rather extreme step on Friday of warning that something needs to be done to wind down the U.S.-North Korea confrontation, saying the “the storm is about to break”. The heightened rhetoric of recent days follows Washington’s display of naval power with the despatch of a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group to the waters off the Korean coast. Though U.S. officials described the move as merely cautionary, President Donald Trump, who has made North Korea a key foreign policy concern of his administration, used the word “armada” somewhat ominously. For their part, the North Koreans have threatened nuclear retaliation in the event of any attack. In late March, the U.S. had commenced installation of the so-called Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea in response to missile tests by the North. The agreement, in the works since last year, has already increased regional tensions, entangling China as well. Washington and Seoul have emphasised that intercepting the North’s advanced development of inter-continental ballistic missiles was the real objective behind the new system. But apprehensive that its own nuclear infrastructure would be inevitably exposed to snooping by the THAAD radar, Beijing has sought to counter Seoul with trade and tourism boycotts.

Mr. Trump’s threat of unilateral action against Pyongyang in the event that China fails to rein in North Korea may partly echo the mood in Washington after the recent missile strikes in Syria. If the Chinese government views Pyongyang’s growing nuclear capability with concern, as it professes to, then it must do much to use its leverage effectively. Merely stressing the need for a peaceful resolution to the conflict is not enough. Japan, Washington’s important regional ally, would view with no less consternation any potential threat to stability in its neighbourhood. American air strikes in Syria last week have raised very valid concerns about their legitimacy under international law. But they also indicate that the Trump administration may be shifting politically from a populist-driven isolationism to more conventional interventionism. His latest observations on China point to a shift from open confrontation to a possible constructive engagement. Notable here, for instance, is a willingness to eschew the previous rhetoric on China as a currency manipulator. Against this emerging backdrop, a return to a reasoned and nuanced approach on North Korea would be a most positive development in these volatile times. That would, however, require a spectacular roll-back by Pyongyang of its current nuclear capability, which includes long-range missiles that can reach targets in the Pacific. As well as sustained cooperation between China and the U.S., it is time for cooler minds to weigh in — there is nothing to be gained by aggressively staring down adversaries.

The BJP did well in the by-elections, but the Congress managed to arrest its slide in Karnataka

By-elections are no more than pointers to the popular mood. They are not firm trend-setters for a general election. When the winners of polls in 10 Assembly constituencies in eight territories are representatives of four different parties, there is no one big lesson to be drawn from the results. Even so, these will inevitably be interpreted as indicators of the public mood, especially when four of the States, which held by-elections, are due for Assembly elections by the end of 2018. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which is sitting pretty after sweeping the elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand earlier this year, did well to best the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi, and win a seat each in Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Assam. The victory in Delhi should be especially satisfying for the BJP as AAP leader, and Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal attempted to cast himself in a larger-than-life image, pitting himself directly against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his campaigns and public statements. That the AAP candidate lost his deposit is a shocker: the party had won 67 of Delhi’s 70 seats in the 2015 Assembly election. As the AAP seeks to extend its reach and increase its clout, it seems to be losing out on its home turf. More than the victory in Assam, or even in Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh, what will be more gratifying for the BJP is the second place finish in West Bengal. Its candidate was ahead of both the Left Front and Congress candidates in Kanthi Dakshin in West Bengal, an indication that the party could grow in opposition to the ruling Trinamool Congress in the years ahead. That must be truly worrying for the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which had held power in the State for a record 34 consecutive years until 2011. As the 2014 Lok Sabha election showed, the BJP is no longer a party of the Hindi belt alone, and is now national in character.

If the BJP has cause to celebrate its position at the top of the heap, the Congress can draw some comfort in having arrested its slide in Karnataka. The party won both seats in the State, beating back the challenge from the BJP, which was on the comeback trail after the return of former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa to its fold. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who was under pressure from sections within his own party, should get some additional breathing space till the Assembly election next year. By retaining one seat in Madhya Pradesh, the Congress has shown it cannot be written off despite having lost three successive elections to the BJP. Indeed, if there is one lesson for all parties in this round of by-elections, it is that there is still everything to fight for in the Assembly elections, whether they are to be held next year or later.