JAPAN’S NEW PRIME MINISTER TAKES OFFICE

JAPAN'S PARLIAMENT ELECTED OPPOSITION LEADER
YUKIO HATOYAMA AS NEW PRIME MINISTER

TOKYO (Reuters) - Yukio Hatoyama, who led his Democratic Party to a landmark victory in elections last month, took office as prime minister on Wednesday, ending a half-century of virtually uninterrupted one-party rule in Japan. Mr. Hatoyama, 62, can be a confounding political figure: a management professor with a doctorate in engineering from Stanford University; a critic of globalization; an admirer of John F. Kennedy; a social and political blueblood who overturned Japan’s postwar political order with a resounding electoral defeat of the Liberal Democratic Party, he once wrote that humanity needs “cosmic consciousness,” which earned him his nickname, the Space Alien. Mr. Hatoyama has promised to reverse Japan’s long economic decline by boosting social benefits and aligning policies more closely with public needs, rather than those of big business.

Hatoyama vowed to cut government waste, rein in bureaucracy and revitalise the economy by freezing planned tax increases and focusing policies on consumers rather than big business. He also pledged to improve Tokyo's often bumpy relations with its Asian neighbours and forge a foreign policy more independent from Washington. However, some analysts are doubtful of just how much the Democrats, an inexperienced party founded just 11 years ago, will be able to change in a country that has long been run by its powerful technocrats. Controlling the bureaucracy was the party’s signature campaign promise, one that found widespread support among voters tired of decades of insider-driven politics and spending.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

2,000 years ago or little more, there was Canakya Pandita. Canakya Pandita, he was a brahmana, but great politician. His politics are studied even now in M.A. class. And because he was a great politician, diplomat, under his name in our India, in New Delhi, the capital, there is a neighborhood which is called Canakya Puri, and all the foreign embassies are there. Your American embassy is also there. So he was a great politician. But still, he was living in a cottage. He was not accepting any salary because he was brahmana. Brahmana cannot accept any salary. Just like you have accepted me as your acarya, but you do not pay me any salary. This is forbidden. The teacher will not accept salary. Then he comes down to the sudra platform. The sudra accepts salary. "I serve you, you pay me." And the brahmana will distribute knowledge freely, and the ksatriya will give protection to the brahmana. This is the system of Vedic system.

Srila A.C. BV Swami Prabhupada:
Lecture on The Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.3.24 -
Entitled: "Steel-framed Hearts" - Los Angeles, June 22, 1972