Jairam Ramesh, Union Environmental Minister is known for his outspoken nature. In the corridors of power, be them Ministers or Babus all are ‘eternally optimistic’. Great. But the outspoken Minister of State for Environment is of a rare genre, thank god.
Recently our Minister paid a visit to China to attend an International conference on climate change, and his outspoken nature landed him in trouble which resulted in a serious uproar across the country.
After the ‘historic’ – what else I could say – Copenhagen Summit (Copenhagen, Denmark. December 7-18, 2009) held at Dansih Capital one year ago attended by 193 nations comprising developed, developing and under-developed countries which lasted more than one week after debates, discussions, even pandemoniums, nothing fruitful came out in the end.
After all the avenues of a solution got exhausted, to save the face in the end a ‘respectable’ President of USA Barack Obama suggested some measures, legally non-binding to US and other developed nations insisted others to accept legally binding decisions which were abruptly rejected by the participating nations even ManMohan Singh went to the extent of staging a walk-out in anger and driving to the airport to take the fight back to India a shrewd US President with soothing words persuaded the fuming Singh and brought him back to the venue. Obama proposed a formula which was not legally binding was acceptable to only the BASIC(Brazil, South Africa, India and China) countries and ordered the under-developed countries either to follow suit or get lost. His orders didn’t prevail with them and angrily terming a treachery even one of the leaders of a small nation, an under-developed country went to the extent of comparing it to the treachery committed by Judas accepting 30 silver coins for the crucification of Jesus Christ.
What he stated was absolutely true but the developed and emerging economies even didn’t take notice of his protest. The under-developed nations are the worst hit due to the carbon gas emissions by the developed and developing nations and being a neglected category such poor nations had to leave the scene empty-handed because of the sin of being under-developed. Besides the haves and have-nots within countries the haves and have-nots exist among the nations across the world.
On asking to comment about the incoming summit on climate change at Mexico in 2010, Mr.Jairam Ramesh without hesitating for a moment responded by saying that he was not all optimistic of anything worthwhile to emerge out of it. Keeping this fact in mind our Environment Minister and his team would dash to Mexico to attend the summit and stage a comeback happily after the summit in good humour.
Felip Calderon, the Mexican Head, is already embroiled in an environmental threat or menace in the form of a large-scale oil-slick which could affect many nations, in the Gulf of Mexico affecting and perishing the rich bio-diversity in the region. He was in US last week ‘the one worth depending upon’ in times of crisis and was in serious consultations with Barack Obama. Round the clock reports emanate in the news channels and in the print media with visuals of the habitat of the Gulf struggling for life. Pathetic and mind-boggling.
Jairam Ramesh with the sole intention of keeping Chinese leaders in good humour, happy and delightful took the opportunity during his visit by declaring if India had not come to the help of China, the neighbouring nation would have been isolated in the Copenhagen Summit. In addition to it he ‘frankly’ quite frankly took the opportunity to cast aspersions on the defence Ministry under P.Chidambaram for maintaining a ‘paranoid’ approach toward a friendly country like China forgetting about or ‘conveniently forgetting about’ what all are in store for him after his return trip to India. Elite in the party as well as the opposition plunged into the arena and for his utterances against the defence ministry in the foreign soil . Scathing attacks from various quarters resulted forcing him to keep mum. Prime Minister himself strongly took exception to his remark summoned him to PM’s chamber and ordered him to meet P.Chidambaram and apologize to him. It was reported that Chidambaram made him wait for the appointment and at last got the permission to meet him. What transpired in between the both is anybody’s guess.
Our outspoken Minister for the time being has escaped unscathed and still retains his portfolio.
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