Articles by Amaresh Mishra

'Backwards' and 'Dalits' Take a Back Seat Amaresh Mishra FOR an election which appears all set, once again, to decide the contours of national politics, the build up to the latest electoral round in UP is pathetically devoid of lustre. All political parties have hyped their importance for their respective camps -the United Front (UF) has gone as far as to hinge the fate of its government at the centre on its outcome, the BJP knows that after developments in Gujarat and the court summons to Advani in the hawala case it is left to UP to conduct salvaging operations, and the Congress is waiting for its resurrection. The BSP is finally making a bid for power and the chief of the Samaj wadi Party is fighting for his political survival. But the crucial bind in which the parties find themselves is not being translated into raising of the political pitch. The party which is seen to be the front runner, the BJP, is not even frontally attacking its main rival the UF led by the SP and all other parties are somehow failing to record any level of enthusiasm amongst their workers. Even the type of issues that were dominant till a few years ago, like Mandal and mandir are conspicuous by their absence and the familiar invocation of populist issues is also missing.

Amaresh Mishra With social polarisation favouring SP-BSP suffering a setback, Mulayam Singh's revival in UP depends on his aligning with Janata Dal and the left forces.

Cracks in the Alliance Amaresh Mishra The SP-BSP combine's plan to consolidate electoral gains by promoting the dalit-Muslim-OBC alliance is falling apart. There are clear indications that in the bid to stay in power, Mulayam Singh will resort to any means, including unparliamentary and undemocratic manoeuvres.

countries." France subsidises the production of 150 French films, by raising $ 350 'million annually through levies on TV sets and rentals for vidco-cassettes. Clearly, it was not going to give in to America's film industry. It justified the quota, the taxes, and the rentals on the ground that these were all essential for the defence of France against the arrogance of the American' industries trying to' 'impose [their] domination by any means." And "after all, the livelihood of 70,000 people in the French Film Industry depends on this." It was December 13; hardly 48 hours were left to come to an agreement, but the French foreign minister was still saying: "The conditions for a definitive agreement have not yet been secured. America has been showing intransigence on the audio-visual question, particularly on the cinema issue. Then there are questions yet to be solved on shipping, financial services, any aircraft subsidies." The US was furious; its second largest export industry, after aircraft, is the movie industry; sales in Europeralone in 1992 were worth nearly $ 3.7 billion. Clinton's political base is California, the home of the film industry, and in October 1993 he had declared in Hollywood: "audio-visual products [are] linked to the vital job issue, it [is] a fairness issue as well for America. " However, the issue being politically explosive, and the time running out, America came forward, ready to compromise. It asked Europe to lift the quota system on American films shown at prime-time and allow broadcasting stations to put their programmes on air without a time-bar. It wanted a portion of the tax collected by France on American films to be given to the American companies and artists, as it was "well known" that Europeans often copied their work and escaped paying royalties. It was even prepared to reinvest the money in Europe. But the European Community rejected the offer outright. Even the rather half-hearted mediation efforts of Chancellor Kohl