SITUATION VACANT IN CONGRESS
A
N “exasperating farrago” of a race is being
played out in the Lok Sabha; the trophy isthe Congress president’s post—a vacancy that
has elicited interest even of a Pune techie, not
to mention high-profile MPs Adhir Ranjan
Chowdhury and Shashi Tharoor. The sprint,
though, is confined to Chowdhury, the Con-
gress’s Lok Sabha leader, and Tharoor, who
had publicly pitched his candidature for the
leadership role when the opportunity arose
(Rahul Gandhi quit). The contest is so fierce
that Chowdhury has been heard telling
journalists his views should be taken as the
party line, while Tharoor’s interventions
in the House are “his personal opinion”.
A
video released by
former prime minister
Nawaz Sharif ’s daughter
has cost Pakistani judge
Arshad Malik his job.
Malik, who had indicted
Sharif in a corruption
case, claims in the
video that “cer-
tain elements”
and “hidden
hands” had put
tremendous
pressure on
him to deliver the verdict.
Following the clip’s release,
the Islamabad High Court
asked the law minister to
relieve the anti-cor-
ruption court
judge from his
post. Malik has
decried the
video as fake
and is seeking
an “impartial
probe into the
matter”.T
EJ Pratap Yadav
strikes again—this
time as god Shiva. Laloo
Prasad Yadav’s elder
son “dressed” up as the
mendicant god (long hair,
white dhoti, a faux tiger
skin wrapped around his
waist, wood ash on his
torso, hands, forehead and
chest, a rudraksha rosaryaround his neck) went to
a temple in Patna with his
bodyguards and offered
prayers. This look is a
repeat of sorts, as a poster
in May 2018 outside
Laloo’s home showed
Tej Pratap and ex-wife
Aishwarya as Shiva and
Parvati. A year before, he
turned up as Krishna.LALOO’S GODLY SONHIDDEN HANDS WREAK HAVOC5 August 2019 OUTLOOK 9
I
RAN is not only facing off with the US; it is also eng aged
in a battle within—between reformist President Hassan
Rouhani and the hardline Revolutionary Guards.
Tensions in the Persian Gulf over the past months
following America’s crippling sanctions on Iran, with the
possibility of an impending war, have grabbed the world’s
focus. But people have started taking note of the fissures
that have started to surface in the Iranian establishment
following a fight between Rouhani’s supporters and the
Revolutionary Guards. Much of the tension between rivals
has begun to play out through a recently launched 30-part
TV serial, Gando.
”The dramatic start to Gando, this year’s flagship drama
series, is reminiscent of James Bond and other Hollywood
blockbusters that are hugely popular in the Islamic Republic,”
says The Financial Times Weekend. But the show, inspired
in part by the arrest and detention
of Iranian-American journalist
Jason Razian for espionage, has
attracted attention for reasons
other than its dramatic set pieces
filmed in Iran, Turkey and China.
Financed by a little-known cul-
tural institute linked to the Guards
and broadcast on hardline-backed
television, the TV drama high-
lights the rivalry between the elite
unit and the centrist government
of Rouhani, with the latter por-
trayed as bureaucratic and corrupt.
“The Gando series badly treats
a foreign ministry, which is currently at the forefront
of the war against the enemy, as it does the intelligence
ministry,” Mahmoud Vaezi, the president’s chief of staff,
has said. Foreign minister Javad Zarif, Iran’s chief negotiator
during the nuclear deal, said his ministry did not have enough
funds for self-promotion. This was seen as a clear reference
to the Guards corps’ extensive buisiness interest that ena-
bled it to fund a production with some of Iran’s best actors.
“The series is clearly aimed at undermining the govern-
ment of Rouhani,” says a reform-minded analyst.
But Javad Ashraf, Gando’s director, responded to the
controversy by telling local media that “the good thing
was that...the anti-Gando people also watched Gando.”
The producer of the series, Mojtaba Amini, also dismissed
concerns voiced by one of the president’s advisers about
how the series was funded.
The plot lines in Gando, named after an Iranian crocodile
that can distinguish between friend and foe, certainly
offers a damning, even though fictional, portrayal of parts
of the Iranian elite.Beware The Croc
Iran’s TV serial
Gando,
financed by the
Revolutionary
Guards,
eviscerates
the moderate
government,
the foreign
ministry and
the elite.