Wednesday, April 23, 2008

China, N. Ram and Human Rights

In an interesting article in the Hindu today (no other newspaper would publish rubbish like this) N Ram says that all round development is itself a sign of progress in human rights. For a novel take on the human rights issue, this is hard to beat. By this logic, the erstwhile Soviet Union was a shining example of human rights for the people since overall development (in the sense of infrastructure and so on) in the Soviet Union was close, if not the same as in Western Europe and America, and way ahead of any of the developing countries like India which had full fledged democracy and a free press. Never mind the few sent off to the Gulags... they were irrelevant and expendable presumably. In itself, this is not surprising considering that N. Ram is, as usual, parroting what the Chinese leaders want to hear. What is absolutely hilarious however, is that he was speaking at a Beijing Forum on Human Rights' !! You might as well have a 'Jewish Welfare Forum ' run by Hermann Goering!

5 comments:

AmOK said...

Well- human rights is what he is talking about. When in Rome. As you correctly point out, economic well-being is a necessary condition for enhancing human rights, but it is by no means sufficient. Did you expect Mr. Ram to write if-and-only-if statements? I am not at all sure he can.

Sunil Mukhi said...

At least this shows he has a guilty conscience...

Hari Om said...

http://ppsanil.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!F48B396AF3890C7A!187.entry

There is an even funnier post in The Hindu today.
I cannot retype. So have to visit the link

Rahul Basu said...

Sanil: I have a post on N Ram's latest fulminations. I wouldn't call them funny though - such viewpoints affect millions of Tibetans, even those who do not want complete independence for Tibet.

Hari Om said...

Rahul,
It requires the morality of a pimp to publish articles like that in one's own newspaper.
The worry is if its only N Ram, or the whole newspaper that is getting rewarded for propogating such half truths.

I wonder if its some kind of 'hafta' they are paying?
Mind is full of conspiracy theories!

No its not funny, just pathetic.