EDITORIAL 31.12.09

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Editorial

month december 31, edition 000391, collected & managed by durgesh kumar mishra, published by – manish manjul

 

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THE PIONEER

1. CATCH '09 TALES
2. A LOT TO BE DESIRED
3. PREPARING FOR THE NEXT WAVE - AJAI SAHNI
4. SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION KILLED RUCHIKA - KUNAL SAHA
5. TENTACLES OF TERROR - B RAMAN
6. PROSPECTS FOR US POLICY NOT SO BRIGHT
7. SRI LANKA'S PROBLEM LIES NOT IN PAST BUT IN FUTURE - GWYNNE DYER

 

MAIL TODAY

1. NEED TO SELECT BETTER GOVERNORS FOR STATES
2. AIR INDIA MESS
3. THE SORDID AND UGLY FACE OF INDIA REVEALED - BY MANOJ JOSHI
4. QUANTUM LEAP - DINESH C. SHARMA

TIMES OF INDIA

1. LOOKING EAST
2. HEAL INDIA
3. WE'VE COME A LONG WAY - SUDIPTO MUNDLE
4. ACCEPTABLE IF IN PUBLIC INTEREST
5. END DOESN'T JUSTIFY MEANS - RUPA SENGUPTA
6. TO A PERFECT '10 - BACHI KARKARIA
7. KEEP IT SHORT - LALIT MOHAN

HINDUSTAN TIMES

1. YEAR'S LOOKING AT YOU
2. HELP OF THE RISING SUN
3. THE YEAR OF THE YAWN - PRAMIT PAL CHAUDHURI
4. COPENHAGEN COP OUT - PRAFUL BIDWAI
5. FAITH IN SELF IS PATH TO GLORY  - SATISH KUMAR SHARMA
6. SIMBLY SPEARS

INDIAN EXPRESS

1. EYES ON ADEN
2. VISA WHEEZE
3. CALL OFF THE MOB
4. OUR GRAND STRATEGY - K.S. BAJPAI
5. THE DECADE OF 'SMALL' - SEEMA CHISHTI
6. THE NEXT DECADE OF RISK-AVERSE CINEMA - SHUBHRA GUPTA
7. A QUESTION OF INTEGRITY - YUBARAJ GHIMIRE
8. LEAD ROLE
9. TOO COOL TO COUNTER TERROR?

FINANCIAL EXPRESS

1. YEAR OF RESILIENCE
2. POLICY LETHARGY
3. HOW THE NEXT DECADE CAN BE INDIA'S - WILLIAM H AVERY
4. REGAINING GROUND LOST TO KOREA, CHINA - GEETHANJALI NATARAJ
5. NOT ALL COMMODITIES GLITTERED LIKE GOLD - SANJEEB MUKHERJEE

THE HINDU

1. DEVELOPING THE WESTERN CORRIDOR
2. A WORTHWHILE PROGRAMME
3. INDIA AND THE CENTRAL ASIAN DAWN
4. LOSS OF NUCLEAR REACTOR CONTRACT, A MAJOR BLOW TO FRANCE - VAIJU NARAVANE
5. A DECADE OF GLOBAL CRIMES, CRUCIAL ADVANCES - SEUMAS MILNE
6. TWITTER: A CULT AND NOT A CURE - JAMES HARKIN
7. I DON'T NEED A WAR TO FIGHT MY CANCER - MIKE MARQUSEE

DNA

1. AL QAEDA FACTOR
2. FIRE HAZARD
3. THE CYCLE OF LIFE
4. INFLATION HITS POLITICS - JAI MRUG

THE TRIBUNE

1. LAW CLOSES ON RATHORE
2. BANNING N-TESTS
3. ECONOMY LOOKS UP
4. AFGHANISTAN: THE WAY OUT - BY MAHARAJAKRISHNA RASGOTRA
5. DATE WITH AUDREY HEPBURN - BY LIEUT-GEN BALJIT SINGH (RETD.)
6. INTEGRATE, DO NOT DIVIDE STATES - BY J L GUPTA
7. THE MOST INSPIRING PEOPLE OF 2009 - BY JOHANN HARI
8. US CONSUMERS, EMPLOYERS SEE A BRIGHTER FUTURE - BY TIFFANY HSU

 THE ASSAM TRIBUNE

1. EVENTFUL YEAR
2. SCHOOL EDUCATION
3. ROLE OF CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NORTH EAST
4. ALLEN BROOKS
5. 2009: A WARNING-YEAR OF COMPLEX CLIMATE - DR MANASMANI DEV GOSWAMI

 THE ECONOMIC TIMES

1. SECURITY NIGHTMARES
2. BE PRAGMATIC, SEBI
3. INDIA INC NEEDS A LIBRARY MEMBERSHIP - VIKRAM DOCTOR
4. HUMAN WANTS VERSUS NEEDS - PARAMAHAMSA NITHYANANDA
5. PACKAGE SHOULD GENERATE RURAL DEMAND, REMOVE FARM CONSTRAINTS - NARENDAR PANI
6. JULY 2010 WOULD BE AN APPROPRIATE TIME FOR A PHASED EXIT - P K CHOUDHURY
7. IS 13TH FINANCE PANEL LUCKY FOR STATES? - MYTHILI BHUSNURMATH
8. FINANCIAL CRISIS HAS MADE US NIMBLER' - PANKAJ MISHRA

 DECCAN CHRONICAL

1. JAPAN: TIES ARE GETTING STRONGER
2. 2010 will test Rahul - By Arun Nehru
3. ROGUES AND HEROES OF THE NOUGHTIES - BY MAHIR ALI
4. THEY HAVE LIVED  - BY S. NIHAL SINGH
5. OBAMA CAN'T SEEM TO FIND HIS PULSE  - BY MAUREEN DOWD
6. LET'S MAKE LIFE WONDERFUL!  - VIDYUN SINGH

 THE STATESMAN

1. DEATH IN CHINA
2. ACADEMIC WISDOM
3. AVERT THE STRIKE
4. POLITICS IN YOUR GENES?
5. YEAR-END THOUGHTS - BY SALMAN HAIDAR

 THE TELEGRAPH

1. YEAR OF GLOOM
2. ASIAN DRAMA
3. CHAIN OF REMEMBERING - IAN JACK
4. WHEN A DREAM COMES TO AN END  - SUMANTA SEN
5. BLESSED ARE THEY WHO DO NOT EXPECT

 DECCAN HERALD

1. ANOTHER MINISTRY?
2. A SUPERSTAR FADES
3. QUANTITY SANS QUALITY - BY PROF NAGENDRA
4. SILENCE FROM SPACE - BY H N ANANDA
5. STILL A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

 THE JERUSALEM POST

1. NO MORE LAHIANIS
2. WASHINGTON WATCH: WINNERS AND LOSERS FOR 2009 - DOUGLAS BLOOMFIELD
3. FUNDAMENTALLY FREUND: IRAN: THE LAST RESORT - MICHAEL FREUND
4. RATTLING THE CAGE: A TABOO QUESTION FOR ISRAELIS - LARRY DERFNER
5. ABOUT AVATARS: CAVEAT EMPTOR! - HAROLD BRACKMAN
6. IN DEFIANCE OF DEMOGRAPHIC FATALISM - YORAM ETTINGER
7. WHO'S BEEN NAUGHTY: THE ATTEMPTED CHRISTMAS DAY ATTACK - JONATHAN SCHACHTER

 HAARETZ

1. THERE IS NO DELUXE OCCUPATION
2. JOURNEY TO NOWHERE - BY GIDEON LEVY
3. KADIMA'S FUTURE - BY ISRAEL HAREL
4. WHY LOBBIES DON'T MATTER - BY YOSSI SHAIN AND NEIL ROGACHEVSKY
5. IMAGINED DETERRENCE - BY GABI SHEFFER

THE NEW YORK TIMES

1. FAILED STATE
2. NOW YEMEN
3. SENATOR DEMINT'S PRIORITIES
4. THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS - BY GAIL COLLINS
5. TIMES TO REMEMBER, PLACES TO FORGET - BY DANIEL GILBERT

 I.THE NEWS

1. ALL ABOARD!
2. A CITY MOURNS
3. SLOW BURN
4. A YEAR OF LIVING ON THE EDGE - DR MALEEHA LODHI
5. BEYOND THE NFC AWARD - SANIA NISHTAR
6. RESOLUTIONS FOR 2010 - IKRAM SEHGAL
7. ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE - ZAFAR HILALY
8. END OF ANOTHER YEAR - KAMILA HYAT
9. NEW YEAR IN SWAT - ZUBAIR TORWALI

 PAKISTAN OBSERVER

1. CABINET MEETS IN SEA
2. SOMEBODY IS BREAKING KARACHI'S BACKBONE
3. WRIGGLE OUT OF AFGHAN WEB NET
4. NEW YEAR FOREIGN POLICY WISH LIST - KHALID SALEEM
5. US-LED WORLD COMMUNITY FAILS PALESTINIANS - NICOLA NASSER
6. US SCHEME OF DEFENDING HOMELAND SECURITY IS CHILDISH - ASIF HAROON RAJA
7. WHEN SKEWED HIGH-RISES DISCOLOUR CITY SKYLINE - QUDRAT ULLAH
8. GRANDPA'S WORDS OF WISDOM..! - ROBERT CLEMENTS

 THE INDEPENDENT

1. LOOKING EAST
2. CLEANING RIVERBED - BY THE SOUND OF ITS ENGINE..!
3. ANTI-WAR AGENDA FOR THE NEW YEAR - KAWSER AHMED
4. TRIBUTE TO K M SOBHAN - REV. FR. R.W. TIMM
5. INDO FIRMS GO FOR GULF DESPITE DUBAI DEBTS - DR. TERRY LACEY

 THE HIMALAYAN

1. STUNTED TEETH
2. SILLY SMILES
3. TOPICS: FOUNTAINS OF PLEASURE - BRABIM KARKI
4. BLOG SURFS: STUNNING - TRAVELBLOG.ORG
5. THE BACKWARD CLASSES: RIGHTS MUST COME TO THE FOREFRONT - RAM DAYAL RAKESH

THE AUSTRALIAN

1. PUNTER REWRITES TEST HISTORY
2. IN EVERY ELECTION, IT IS ALWAYS THE ECONOMY
3. AVOID A NEW WELFARE SYSTEM

 THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

1. OUTSOURCING AIRPORT SECURITY
2. THE GILDED HALLS OF NSW LEARNING
3. GOVERNMENT TURNS ECONOMIC MINUSES INTO A POLITICAL PLUS

THE GURDIAN

1. IN PRAISE OF… BRITISH CHEESES
2. NORTHERN IRELAND: EERIE ECHOES OF THE PAST
3. BROWN'S NEW YEAR: NOT HAPPY, BUT NOT HOPELESS

THE KOREA HERALD

1. NOT UNBEARABLE
2. HOW WILL THE WORLD CHANGE IN 2010S? - PARK SANG-SEEK
3. EUROPE UNION'S RISING ROLE IN TIMES OF GLOBALIZATION - JOSE MANUEL BARROSO

THE JAPAN TIMES

1. SOMETHING IN THE AIR

 THE JAKARTA POST

2. 2009 COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE
3. GO WITH GOD, GUS
4. HOW TO RESPOND TO PUBLIC OPINION ON FACEBOOK? - DIAZ HENDROPRIYONO
5. VIRTUE, LIBERTY AND CONTROL - JENNIE S. BEV

 CHINA DAILY

1. A TRIUMPHANT DECADE
2. JUSTICE SERVED RIGHT
3. HARSH LESSONS WE MAY NEED TO LEARN AGAIN - BY JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ (CHINA DAILY)
4. THEY DESERVE A CITY HOUSE AS THE NEW DECADE'S GIFT - BY HE BOLIN (CHINA DAILY)
5. TIME TO THINK OF A BIGGER FTA - BY PAN GUOPING (CHINA DAILY)
6. IT'S NOT FOR US TO REASON WHY, WE SHOULD BE TOLD - BY CHEN JIE (CHINA DAILY)

 

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THE PIONEER

EDIT DESK

CATCH '09 TALES

T20 TO G20, INDIA COUNTS ITS GAINS

How does the world look back at 2009? At the end of 2008, predictions for the next 12 months were so grim and pessimistic that everybody started off on January 1 with zero expectations. Within that narrow framework, 2009 turned out better than expected, especially for India. While the economic problems have far from ended, capacities are not yet being expanded and the spectre of high food prices for the foreseeable future remains, it is equally clear that India will come out of the downturn far stronger, and far more quickly, than others. The proverbial green shoots were more than visible in 2009, helped to quite a degree by robust investor and market confidence following a decisive verdict in the May general election. By the second half of 2010, the green shoots could well grow into healthy plants. Indeed, India has much more to look ahead to in 2010 than it thought it did in 2009. People expect the UPA Government will be bold enough to deliver on its promises and, in the larger reckoning, on India's promise. Should it do so, the prospects are near limitless. Already, in 2009, there were indications of the shaping of a new world order, of the retreat of some of the older powers — and of the international system readjusting itself to make room for India. From T20 to G20 — from moving the Indian Premier League to South Africa at a few week's notice and giving Africa's biggest economy a massive and completely unexpected stimulus to getting invited to the expanded global high table that seats 20 — India showed its heft in a variety of ways. The recent Copenhagen Climate Change Conference was also suggestive of this. While the agreement between the United States and the BASIC countries — a group of four emerging economies that includes India — may have been controversial and clumsily drafted, it did indicate the future of the climate change debate, of industrialisation and economic growth, involved serious conversation between Washington, DC, and new centres of power such as Beijing and New Delhi. The European Union and even Japan were viewed as relatively expendable.

The result of the Lok Sabha election and the fact that its financial and banking system was firewalled from the excesses of Wall Street left India relatively stable and anchored. Yet, the world itself spent 2009 in flux. The global order is drifting in the cusp between old verities and new realities. It is also being governed by a remarkable constellation of leaders who are inexperienced or incompetent or in decline. The US and Japan and even Australia have chief executives who spent 2009 on the learning curve and, in some cases, recovering from Chinese snubs. Britain's sinking status was not helped by a Labour Government at the end of a 15-year run and seemingly destined to lose the 2010 election. In China too, the power struggle between President Hu Jintao and the faction led by his predecessor, Mr Jiang Zemin, is beginning to send out conflicting signals. This phenomenon could become more pronounced in 2010. As such, for a mix of reasons, a number of big powers are either paralysed or simply not pulling their weight. India has no such complaints. Its Government has a clear mandate, its middle class is hungry and ambitious and its business indicators arouse hope. That is the legacy of 2009.

 

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THE PIONEER

A LOT TO BE DESIRED

INDIA-JAPAN RELATIONS NEED A DOSE OF PRAGMATISM

It would be fair to say that Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's first official visit to India turned out to be a damp squib. It was hoped that the two countries would use the opportunity to usher in a new phase in India-Japan relations. Though Mr Hatoyama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh insist that the bilateral meet did have its positives, the reality is it boiled down to one dominant issue: India ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Mr Hatoyama made it known in no uncertain terms that he would like to see India become a full-fledged adherent of the treaty that bans testing of explosive nuclear devices — a spunky move, some would suggest, by a Japanese Prime Minister on his maiden official visit to this country. Mr Singh, on his part, rightly responded by saying that it is the US and China that should lead the way in this regard. Underlining India's impeccable non-proliferation record, Mr Singh further cited the NSG waiver that India has received from the 45-member group of countries that conducts global nuclear commerce to drive home the point that India is a responsible nuclear power. He also clarified India's position on nuclear disarmament by stating that New Delhi was willing to support in principle any move aimed at achieving "universal, verifiable, non-discriminatory disarmament". But the damage was already done. Having failed to get a firm assurance on the CTBT, Mr Hatoyama was at best non-committal when it came to bilateral nuclear commerce and high-technology trade — something New Delhi was eagerly looking forward to.

In hindsight, the Government should not be surprised with Mr Hatoyama's posturing. Much of the new Japanese Prime Minister's foreign policy outlook is bound to be conditioned by the context in which he received a huge popular mandate last August. Mr Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan came to power on the same sentiments that President Barack Obama did in the US. After 50 years of virtually unhindered rule by the Liberal Democratic Party, the Japanese people wanted change. They were sick to the bone of the 'iron triangle' that the LDP had put in place comprising the politicians, the big businessmen and senior civil servants. Plus, the global financial crisis hit Japanese economy hard, leading to huge unemployment. All these factors snowballed into a massive anti-US, anti-LDP wave before the August election. Hence, Mr Hatoyama is simply playing the part that the Japanese people back home want him to play. In a departure from the past, they want to see their new Prime Minister strike a different note, be assertive and stop being a flunky of the US. Nonetheless, the Government has done well to reiterate India's position on the nuclear issue. Hopefully, with time Mr Hatoyama will start tempering his present stance with pragmatism.

 

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            THE PIONEER

PREPARING FOR THE NEXT WAVE

AJAI SAHNI

There is of course a certain semantic opportunism in the claim that there has been "no terror attack" in India for more than a year after 26/11. The South Asia Terrorism Portal database tells us that there have been at least 2,197 terrorism-related fatalities across the country through year 2009 (till December 28) — with the bulk of these coming from the Maoist conflict, accounting for 977; Manipur, 415; Assam, 389; and Jammu & Kashmir, 373. Obviously, "terror attack" in this interpretation refers narrowly to Pakistan-backed Islamist terrorist attacks in major urban centres outside Jammu & Kashmir — an interpretation that provides a window into the minds of those who rule India, and their attitudes to what they regard as the country's 'periphery'. Nevertheless, there is cause to appreciate Home Minister P Chidambaram's candour in admitting that the absence of even such a 'terror attack' must be credited largely to "dame luck" rather than any extraordinary initiatives by India's security establishment.

Such sagacity of perspective, however, does not encumber leaderships elsewhere in the country. In Mumbai, crucially — the location of the 26/11 attacks — the administration boasted of new protocols to respond to "a nuclear, chemical or biological attack". The fact that this was considered a subject suitable for public mention indicates a degree of unfamiliarity with reality that is, indeed, astonishing. Protocols or no protocols, the truth is that no country in the world is actually or sufficiently 'prepared', in any meaningful sense, to thwart or to respond to a WMD (weapon of mass destruction) attack, and for Mumbai to see fit to brag about new and untested SOPs (standard operating procedures) in this context is certainly disingenuous. Worse, virtually every intelligence and security agency in the countries targeted by Islamist terrorists now concedes not only the possibility, but, indeed, the imminence of a future catastrophic attack, potentially involving WMD technologies. In some such countries certain systems for the containment of the impact of such an attack have been put in place. There is, however, at this juncture, a comprehensive vacuum in terms of any strategy of response to such an attack. The tremendous dispersal and decentralisation of Islamist terrorist forces across the world make the design of an effective, targeted, response nigh impossible, exponentially multiplying the uncertainties that would necessarily result from a catastrophic or WMD attack anywhere in the free world.

There is, in India, little comprehension of the magnitude and the evolving nature of the threat of terrorism, and this takes much of the discourse on the subject into the realm of make-believe. Administrations continue to quibble over institutional forms — a bifurcated Home Ministry, a National Counter-terrorism Centre, National Intelligence Grids, and so forth — or to focus on incremental augmentations in capacity, with little reference to the fact that contemporary terrorism has engineered a generational shift in the fundamental nature of warfare, and this has disempowered even the most powerful states in the world.

This, indeed, is the core lesson of the current campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Notwithstanding the overwhelming technical, technological and resource superiority of US and coalition forces in these theatres, victory remains elusive and most analysts would suggest that the US has, in fact, suffered significant reverses. It is useful to recall, crucially, that this pattern of irregular warfare, sometimes referred to as Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW), even without recourse to WMD technologies, "stands unique thus far as the only type of warfare that has defeated a superpower, and it has done so on two occasions" — in Vietnam and in Afghanistan. Contemporary terrorists use asymmetric warfare strategy and tactics within a protracted war model, and systematically elaborated over time, which seek to evade decisive engagements with a more powerful enemy, to gradually erode the political will of the enemy, rather than to control or administer territory. The essence of this method is 'disruptive dominance', the capacity to ensure that the stronger side — the state and its agencies — is unable to exercise the minimal functions of governance and the protection of life and property over the jurisdictions it controls. The objective is not to defeat the enemy militarily, but "to convince the enemy's political decision makers that their strategic goals are either unachievable or too costly for the perceived benefit." The increasingly importunate advocacy within the Indian policy establishment, of the necessity of a 'compromise' on Kashmir and a 'negotiated solution' with Pakistan, is an index of the degree to which this objective has already been consolidated.

With rare exception, India's strategic and policy establishment continues to prepare to counter nothing more than the last terrorist attack, substantially oblivious of the continuous process of reinvention that terrorists are engaged in. Islamist terrorist ideologues and leaders, for instance, have been evolving theories of war that rely on the use of "the most deadly weapons possible", and have created a new model aimed at drawing individuals and small groups into a 'leaderless' global jihad. One of the architects of this new way of warfare, Mustafa Sethmariam Nasar aka Abu Musab al-Suri, is known to have been involved in efforts in Afghanistan, during the Taliban regime, to train fighters in the use of "poisons and chemicals". A 1,600 page document on 'Global Islamic Resistance', authored by Nasar, was long in circulation on the Internet, and ideas such as these have been widely disseminated among Islamists and their handlers for years now.

While India continues to rely on 'luck' to come to terms with the fallout of a conventional attack by ten terrorists, equipped with small arms and grenades, it is useful to look at emerging projections of the potential of catastrophic terrorism, which we continue to refuse even to contemplate. Specifically, the greatest potential lies in the sphere of biological weapons which, commentators note, "have the capability to kill many more people than a nuclear attack." One study, Dark Winter conducted in 2001, for instance, simulated a smallpox attack on three US cities. In a period of 13 days, smallpox spread to 25 States and 15 countries in several epidemiological waves, after which one-third of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who contracted the disease died. It was estimated that a fourth generation of the disease would leave 3 million infected and 1 million dead. The exercise was terminated at that time.

Terrorism is undergoing radical, generational shifts, and when this transition manifests itself in a new wave of catastrophic attacks, the resultant shocks could destroy almost all capacities of response within the target systems. Our conceptualisation of counter-terrorism, however, remains trapped in the past, as we equivocate over the definition of terrorism and over 'developmental' and 'political solutions' to the global jihad. India's security apparatus must prepare, not for the possible recurrence of another 26/11 — which currently exhausts our efforts and vision — but with the challenge of neutralising the exponentially evolving threats of this new way of warfare.

 

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THE PIONEER

COLUMN

SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION KILLED RUCHIKA

KUNAL SAHA

Since former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore was found guilty of molesting 14-year old Ruchika Girhotra — who later committed suicide — the media has erupted against the meagre punishment — a six-month jail term plus a paltry Rs 1,000 fine — that has been meted out and the obvious flaws in the delivery of justice. The Government has finally woken up. Two new FIRs have been filed against Rathore for the heinous crimes that this influential sexual predator has committed. The new charges against Rathore include harassment of the victim's brother and deliberate manipulation of the investigation process.

All this while Rathore was too powerful for Ruchika's family. The former top cop was able to exploit not only the police and the Central Bureau of Investigation to his advantage but also the entire justice system. And he had almost got away with it too. But because of the huge public outcry, it seems that Rathore's hour of reckoning has finally come.

While the media may claim victory, this entire episode has underscored the glaring flaws at every level of our society. Rathore was indeed a high-rank police officer. But in order to evade punishment for his crimes, he was able to influence not only the investigators, but also senior politicians in Haryana without whose active cooperation he would not have been able to subvert the process of justice for so long. It is truly amazing that a single high-ranking Government servant could have such influence over so many different institutions.

A simple analysis of this squalid episode would undoubtedly establish that gross abuse of power and pervasive corruption were responsible for the failure of the justice system. Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has now directed that the police must file an FIR every time a complaint is lodged at a police station. Was the Home Minister unaware till now that this is hardly the practice in India? It is common knowledge that bribes and political influence are the main 'motivating' factors for our police force.

It is true that our country has made major strides in economy and technology in recent years. But pervasive corruption in almost every area of public service has impeded our progress significantly. In fact, India has been judged to be one of the most corrupt nations in the world by several studies. Unless we are able to successfully tackle corruption, cases like Ruchika's will continue to haunt us.

 

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THE PIONEER

OPED

TENTACLES OF TERROR

B RAMAN

The recent attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airline, which was part of a wider conspiracy orchestrated from Yemen, clearly shows that the Obama Administration now faces a two-front war against Al Qaeda: One in the AfPak region and the other in the Yemen-Saudi axisAccording to the NEFA Foundation of the US, a non-Governmental organisation created following 9/11 to track Islamic terrorism, Al Qaeda's network in Yemen has issued an official communiqué claiming responsibility for the failed terrorist bomb plot targeting a Delta/Northwest airliner travelling from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas day. The communiqué included original photographs of would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab grinning in front of an Al Qaeda banner. The group acknowledged that the device had failed to properly detonate, but promised that it would "continue on this path until we achieve success." The statement also congratulated Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan and urged fellow Muslims to follow his footsteps and kill American soldiers.

According to the same foundation, Al Qaeda's network in Yemen has issued an official response to the airstrike earlier this week on a suspected Al Qaeda gathering in the region of Shabwah that reportedly killed up to 30 people, including a number of senior Al Qaeda operatives. The group threatened that it would not allow "the slaughter of Muslim women and children to pass without taking vengeance for them, Allah willing. We call upon all Yemeni tribes... and the people of the Arabian Peninsula to confront the crusaders and their clients in the Arabian Peninsula by attacking military bases, embassies, intelligence agents, and naval fleets occupying the waters of the Arabian Peninsula."

There is so far no reason to doubt the authenticity of these claims which show that the attempt to blow up a plane of the North-West Airlines on December 25 as it was approaching to land at Detroit was part of a wider conspiracy of Al Qaeda orchestrated from Yemen and not the isolated act of an individual as sought to be made out by some officials of the Obama Administration. They also show that the massacre of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas by Maj Nidal Malik Hasan of the US Army on November 6 was an act of Al Qaeda-inspired terrorism and not an act of irrational anger of a Muslim serving in the Army.

The Obama Administration now faces a two-front war against Al Qaeda: One in the AfPak region and the other in the Yemen-Saudi axis. Its success or failure in this 'war' will determine the security of Americans in their homeland in the months to come. These developments clearly show that US President Barack Obama's overtures to the Arabs through his Cairo address earlier this year and his marking his distance from the Israeli Government and the Jewish people since coming to office on January 20 have had no impact on Al Qaeda, which is as determined as ever to make the Americans bleed. It is to be hoped that these developments will mark the beginning of the end of Mr Obama's illusions relating to how to counter jihadi terrorism. There is no soft option in dealing with Al Qaeda and its associates whether in the AfPak region or in other areas.

Al Qaeda's jihad against the US started in 1992 in Yemen, from where Osama bin Laden's father had migrated to Saudi Arabia. That year, suspected members of Al Qaeda bombed a hotel in Aden used by US troops going to Somalia, killing two civilians. This was followed by the October 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole off Aden that killed 17 US sailors.

In 2007, remnants of the Saudi branch of Al Qaeda, who had survived an anti-Al Qaeda offensive by the Saudi security forces in the wake of the post-2004 incidents involving Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, fled into Yemen and took sanctuary there just as Osama bin Laden and other remnants of Al Qaeda had fled in 2002 from Afghanistan into North Waziristan of Pakistan and took sanctuary there. This was followed by a car bomb attack on Spanish tourists killing eight of them and the assassination of two Belgians. During 2008, there was a failed mortar attack on the US Embassy in Sana'a. Later, 17 Yemenis, including seven terrorists, died in a twin car-explosion near the US Embassy.

Like the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, Yemen, with its mountainous terrain dotted with caves and other natural hide-outs, provides an ideal shelter and launching pad for Al Qaeda. The widespread poverty and the lack of facilities for modern education drive a large number of youth into the arms of Al Qaeda. It has nearly 4,000 madarsas, which are the breeding ground of fundamentalist ideological beliefs. Yemen had contributed a large number of volunteers for jihad against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Many of them returned to Yemen after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops. Some of them were rehabilitated by being recruited to the police and the security forces. Others took to a new jihad — this time against the US and Israel. Those rehabilitated in the security forces and those, who had joined Al Qaeda, remained in contact with each other having fought shoulder to shoulder against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

In January Al Qaeda announced the merger of the Yemeni and Saudi branches of the organisation under the leadership of Yemeni Nasir al-Wahishi, with a Saudi Said Ali al-Shihri, as his No 2 al-Shihri used to be detained by the US in its detention centre at the Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The group called itself Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

In March a suicide bomber killed four South Korean tourists near the eastern town of Shibam. Another then targeted a convoy of South Korean security officials and the families of the victims while they were on their way to the airport of Sana'a. On March 28 our policemen died in clashes with persons believed to be from Al Qaeda in the south of the country.

Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister Rashad al-Alimi, who is in charge of security and defence, told his Parliament on March 23 that he suspected that Al Qaeda had managed to infiltrate the Yemeni security services. The suspicion that it had penetrated the security services was strengthened by the precision attack of Al Qaeda on the South Korean convoy to the airport. It was apparently aware of the proposed route of the convoy and the time at which it would be moving to the airport.

The merger of the Saudi and Yemeni branches of Al Qaeda and the activities of the AQAP rang the alarm bell in the US and Saudi Arabia.

The concerns for the US authorities would be the possibility that Major Hasan and Abdulmutallab could be the tips of an Al Qaeda iceberg and that unless they identify the rest of the iceberg and neutralise it, they cannot be certain of the security of their homeland.

The writer is a former top official of R&AW. His book, Mumbai 26/11, has just been published.

 

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THE PIONEER

OPED

PROSPECTS FOR US POLICY NOT SO BRIGHT

 

Obama Admn's problem is that it has no way forward on what is over-optimistically called the Israel-Palestinian 'peace process' since it isn't going to put real pressure on the PA to negotiate

Barry Rubin

In contrast to my rather gloomy assessment of the Obama Administration's prospects in West Asia, Israel's prospects look rather good. This is granted, of course, that the chances for any formal peace (note the word 'formal') with the Arab states or the Palestinians are close to zero. In addition there are two longer-term threats in the form of Iranian nuclear weapons and Islamists one day taking over one or more Arab states.

But let's enjoy ourselves while we can. It's also important to remember in West Asia, optimism does not mean forecasting blue skies but merely ones only lightly overcast.

It's funny, though, how much better Israel's situation is then it's generally perceived. Consider the pluses:

 

·  The potential of a clash with the US has been averted, most likely for the remainder of President Barack Obama's term. All the lessons received by the US in the region — to whatever extent it learned them — are favourable to Israel, showing how ready Israel is to help US efforts at the same time as demonstrating how hard it is to get peace and how limited is the other's side's cooperation or flexibility. The possibility of US rapprochement with Iran or Syria has been destroyed by the latter

 

·  On the surface the situation with Israel looks dreadful but where it counts the support is sufficient. France, Germany, and Italy have friendly Governments while in Britain an acceptably positive regime is about to be replaced by a warmer one. (It helps to have low expectations.)

 

·  Despite their rhetoric, Palestinian Authority leaders are basically satisfied with the status quo. Their strategies for forcing more concessions from Israel without giving anything leave them smug but without prospects for success. The danger of a Hamas takeover has been averted. The economic situation on the West Bank is about as good as it's ever been. And the PA rulers prefer to avoid renewed violence. That's not nirvana but it ain't bad either.

 

·  Hizbullah doesn't want renewed war this year, seeking to carry out revenge attacks away from the Lebanon-Israel border. Hamas is probably cowed enough by the early 2009 fighting (outside observers still don't realise the extent to which its gunmen broke, ran away, and hid behind civilians, but the Hamas leadership knows), though this can't be taken for certain.

 

·  While the international economic slump has hit Israel, the country has been more insulated than one might have dared hope from its negative effects. Its remarkable technical innovation on hi-tech, science, medical, and agricultural technology continues to make rapid progress.

 

·  Israel has a Government with a high level of popular support which really seems-after so much ineptness and ingenious plans that didn't do much good-to be on track. There is, by Israeli standards, a high degree of national consensus.

 

·  Iran still doesn't have nuclear weapons.

That's not at all a bad list. There are many who think that Israel cannot flourish, perhaps cannot even survive, without having formal peace with the Palestinians or perhaps also Syria and the Arabic-speaking world in general. This is simply untrue. The lack of a signed peace treaty with everyone (not to mention that such documents exist with Egypt and Jordan) is not the same as war. From the usual standards of no war, no peace this is a pretty good one.

Of course, there are negatives yet they really don't amount to anywhere near as much as it seems on a superficial glance. The virtual defection of Turkey's regime from the Western alliance (yes, it really is that bad) and the end of the special relationship between Jerusalem and Ankara is a bad thing. But the Turkish semi-Islamist rulers are restrained by their desire to play a role in regional peacemaking and not to make the Americans or Europeans too angry.

Most distressing of all is the noise. The virulent hatred of Europe in large sections of the American and especially European intelligentsia goes along with the endless outpouring of academic, media, and EU sniping can be dispiriting. Yet even here there is some silver lining. The more extreme and outright crackpot the attacks, the less credible they are. Public opinion polls, especially in the US where they are through the roof, are not so bad. In addition, the lies and screaming have little material effect on the region itself. Something to worry about but don't lose sleep.

What's most important of all is this: A willingness to assess your problems accurately, guided by reasonable expectations. Not being crippled with ideology, blinded by misconceptions, swayed by bad international advice and the desire to be popular. And with determination and courage to implement policies that do the best with the hand you've been dealt.

Unfortunately, prospects for US policy in the region are considerably less rosy.

The Obama Administration's first problem is that it has literally no way forward on what is over-optimistically called the Israel-Palestinian 'peace process' since it isn't going to put real pressure on the Palestinian Authority to negotiate. Nothing may happen before Israel ends its 10-month construction freeze next September.

So the US Government will pretend to work hard, send envoys zipping around, peering for some opening to leap into action. But this charade should be pretty transparent.

The writer is director of the GLORIA Centre, Tel Aviv, and editor of the MERIA Journal.

 

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THE PIONEER

OPED

SRI LANKA'S PROBLEM LIES NOT IN PAST BUT IN FUTURE

PROSPECT OF PEACE DEPENDS ON RECONCILING THE TAMILS TO COEXISTENCE WITH THE SINHALESE, WRITES GWYNNE DYER

First, the good news. Sri Lanka's Government, whose 26-year war against the separatist Tamil Tigers ended in total victory last May, is keeping its promise to let all of the 300,000 Tamil civilians who were captured in the final battle go home again. Not only that, but it is going to hold a free election next month — so free that the ruling party might even lose it.

The bad news is that it does not much matter who wins that election. Both the incumbent and the challenger are committed Sinhalese nationalists whose policies towards the Tamil minority militate against any reconciliation between the two groups. Tamils are less than a fifth of the population, so if tough treatment is enough to keep them quiet, then Sri Lanka faces a peaceful future — but repression has not worked in the past.

It's easy to understand why the Government headed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother, Defence Minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa, insisted on a decisive victory over the Tamil Tigers, whose insurgency had caused 70,000 deaths over the years. There had been cease-fires and peace talks over the years, but the Tigers never really abandoned their goal of total independence for the Tamil majority areas in northern and eastern Sri Lanka.

That was utterly unacceptable to the Sinhala-speaking majority, so the war was bound to end in a last stand by the Tigers sooner or later. They could have carried on with suicide bombings and assassinations forever, but their territorial ambitions drove them to seize and hold ground with a more or less conventional military force. (They even had a navy and an air force of sorts.) That made them vulnerable to military defeat.

All it took to make that happen was a Government willing to devote all the resources of the state to building an army able to defeat the Tigers in stand-up battle, and tough enough to refuse all negotiations until the enemy was completely destroyed. The Rajapaksas provided that Government.

Nor was Colombo wrong to round up all 300,000 Tamil civilians who were caught up in the Tigers' last stand. Any surviving fighters were bound to try to hide themselves among the civilians, so a protracted sorting-out process was needed. But the Sri Lankan Government promised that everybody except suspected fighters would be released within six months — and it has kept its word, more or less.

The problem lies not in the past, but in the future. The Tamils are always going to be there, and the prospect of a peaceful future for Sri Lanka depends on reconciling them to coexistence with the Sinhalese in a state that treats both communities fairly. They will probably never again create a semi-conventional army like the Tigers, but it would be all too easy for them to resort to terrorism again if they feel desperate enough. And it would be almost impossible to stop it.

The trouble is that it took an ultra-nationalist Sinhalese regime to create the Army that defeated the Tigers, and it is still in power. It does not want to welcome the Tamils back into equal citizenship, nor does it feel that it needs to. The Rajapaksa Government has called an early election for January 26 to exploit its victory and consolidate its hold on power — and if it should happen lose the election, then things may just get worse.

The Rajapaksas' challenger is none other than General Sarath Fonseka, who commanded the Army that finally defeated the Tigers. The main Opposition group in the Sinhala community, the United National Party, has banded together with nine smaller parties and put Gen Fonseka up as their presidential candidate.

Gen Fonseka could actually win, for his role in the defeat of the Tigers was just as large as that of the Rajapaksas. But he is also just as uncompromising a Sinhalese nationalist: As the war was nearing a conclusion, he was heard to say that Sri Lanka "belongs to the Sinhalese... (Minorities) can live in this country with us, but they must not try to demand undue things." Like equality, perhaps?

That is the attitude that drove the Tamils into insurrection in the first place. The next time it wouldn't take the same form, but it could guarantee another generation of misery, insecurity (and perhaps also tyranny) for the long-suffering people of Sri Lanka.

The writer is a London-based independent journalist.

 

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MAIL TODAY

EDITORIAL

NEED TO SELECT BETTER GOVERNORS FOR STATES

 

IN some ways the office of the governor of a state of the union is more powerful than that of the president of the republic. The latter must always act on the advice of the Union council of ministers, but the former has slightly more room for discretion because he or she tends to operate under the national radar and gets away with some brazen actions, especially in relation to their power to pardon criminals or to invite a person to form the government in the state.

 

It is a pity, then, that governors are chosen with the casualness that they are.

 

Overwhelmingly, they tend to be geriatric party politicians, or loyal bureaucrats in need of a sinecure. Or they belong to one or the other of the security services which sends its own set of signals to the state concerned.

 

Even here there is little logic. While the government may argue that they need a former policeman like Gurbachan Jagat to be the governor of troubled Manipur, there is little logic in having retired generals to head peaceful Arunachal Pradesh ( J. J. Singh), Punjab ( S. F. Rodrigues) and Mizoram ( M. M. Lakhera), or another policeman ( R. S. Mooshahary) to look after Meghalaya.

 

And now, in the wake of the troubles in Andhra Pradesh and the sudden sacking of the Governor N. D. Tiwari, the government has decided to send former Intelligence Bureau chief E. S. L. Narasimhan as the acting chief executive of the state.

 

This defies reason and sends all the wrong signals. The tangle in Andhra is purely political. Just what would a former policeman and intelligence officer contribute in untangling it? Perhaps he can assist in cracking heads of agitators, but that is precisely why such people should not be appointed governors in the first place. The office and function of the governor is both political and administrative. It is best, therefore to draw personnel with a background in this area— politicians, parliamentarians and the occasional bureaucrat.

 

The government is now set to appoint some new governors. The post is vacant in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan and the terms of the governors of Punjab and Tamil Nadu are over. This is a good time for the Union government to come up with a set of criteria that will make the selection for the post of governor a transparent exercise.

 

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MAIL TODAY

AIR INDIA MESS

 

THAT our national carrier Air India is in a mess is something that needs no repetition.

 

What is surprising is the level of indiscipline that its staff and management have touched with 28 flights being cancelled in eight days from just one airport in Kerala — Kozhikode.

 

With this, Air India has managed to wreck the careers of thousands of Gulf- bound Kerala professionals who depend on their jobs in the Emirates and elsewhere to fend for their families. With no intimation and very few hotel rooms to go by, the plight of those coming from far off places in Kerala to take the flight from Kozhikode can only be imagined.

 

Air India stands guilty on several counts — first, its management did not respond to the leave requests of its expatriate pilots who had wanted to be with their families for Christmas. Second, it allowed them to go on leave without intimation and now, does not even have the moral or legal sense to call them back or threaten them with action.

 

Instead, the national carrier along with its subsidiary Air India Express, has chosen to disrupt the lives of close to 5,000 people who have missed their deadlines at their respective places of work. As is well known, in many places abroad, a day's delay in returning from vacation can lead to the termination of employment.

 

But its bigger guilt is its negligence relating to the basic needs of its customers — their right to be intimated of their respective flight's fate well in advance so they can plan their return.

 

Any world class airline would have had a backup plan in place so that if one crew does not turn up ( or is unable to make it for reasons such as illness or accidents), the backup staff can immediately take on the responsibility for the flight taking off on time. But then, Air India really lost its status as a world class airline a long time ago.

 

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MAIL TODAY

COLUMN

THE SORDID AND UGLY FACE OF INDIA REVEALED

BY MANOJ JOSHI

 

2009 is ending for the country with with a sad, gut-wrenching feeling. No, it's not the economy, the stability of the government, or the failure of the monsoon. It is an inner tumult brought on by the haunting image of Ruchika Girhotra, being played and replayed on TV and newspapers.

 

The 14- year old molested by a senior police officer and then pushed to suicide by the systematic and brutal persecution of her family. To add to the bitter taste of the rising bile is the other image being repeated — the smirking face of the man who perpetrated the act, S.P.S. Rathore, formerly of the Indian Police Service.

 

There are other faces, too, some as yet not in focus, which reveal, to use Hannah Arendt's term, the banal collection of people — policemen, school teachers and politicians — who were accessory to the terrible act and its coverup.

 

The policemen participated in the false arrest and torture of her brother, the school expelled her for little cause, other policemen watered down the charges against Rathore, bureaucrats who passed the buck on the case, and, above all, the politicians, who protected him in the knowledge that he would be in their power and do their bidding.

 

The entire system was thus involved in the evil act of destroying the Girhotra family. This was the system created by Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar and Gandhi, our upright and just founding fathers. Their heirs have become anything but that. Some like Lalu Yadav, Mayawati, O.P. Chautala have at least been charged with wrong-doing, but there are others, like Narendra Modi and Bal Thackeray who have gotten away with incitement to murder, and many, many more in the top rung of our political system who are corrupt and violent, but manage to escape the rigour of the law in much the same manner that Rathore did for 19 years—by suborning the system and through the assistance of friendly colleagues and babus.

 

System

 

The one thing that emerges from the case as it has unfolded, is the unstinted support that Rathore got from the political class. This was important since the political class is our master- class. Successive Chief Ministers in Haryana refused to take heed of reports of Rathore's wrongdoing and actually promoted him.

 

Their cynical logic was simple. A compromised cop like Rathore was ideal for their own purposes, which in many instances, too, went beyond the bounds of the legal. For a politician, a crooked and morally compromised policeman is worth his weight in gold. He is able to use him as currency to get a lot of things done— intimidate enemies, fix elections and overawe rivals.

 

Is it any surprise that senior police officer R. K. Sharma, convicted for journalist Shivani Bhatnagar's murder, was dismissed from service seven years after his name came up in the case? That another police officer in Rajasthan is absconding, allegedly for the past 13 years after raping his orderly's wife, a simple village woman. And the son of another policeman, convicted of rape in the same state, has jumped parole and vanished. A senior Punjab police officer, Sumedh Singh Saini has been charged for the wrongful confinement and disappearance of two individuals and their driver. The list is extensive, and no doubt, just the tip of the iceberg.

 

If unchecked, it is this moral degeneration, where the custodians become the criminals, that will define the India of tomorrow, not our growing economy, scientific and technical prowess, and the like. There will be little point in attaining material success if we lose our soul — not in a religious sense — but as Plato and Aristotle saw it, the essence of our being, or that which makes us human. In almost every culture, this is defined by compassion, love and an unambiguous understanding of what is right and what is wrong. It has been marked through history by the ending of slavery, advances in gender justice, the outlawing of torture and an end to what used to be " cruel and unusual punishment." It is the inbuilt moral compass that has guided human civilisation to the present, that which persuades people to fight oppression and defy persecution.

 

Morality is not, or should not, be a peripheral issue. For Gandhi, of course, it was always central. But even for hard- headed realists like Ambedkar it was the key. It was not for nothing that Babasaheb pointed out that minus constitutional morality, the structure of governance created by the constitution would not work. This is the morality that was undermined systematically by Indira Gandhi, to begin with, and has since suffered all- round damage.

 

Responsibility

 

How does the system go about rectifying the current state of affairs? Certainly, the Union government that controls the all India services needs to be far more pro- active than it is.

 

As of now, the tendency of the government is to protect, rather than prosecute wayward officers. Taking the excuse that honest officers would be harassed, the Union government has a rule that requires central sanction for their prosecution. This rule needs to be drastically modified to exclude people accused of murder, rape and other such heinous crimes.

 

But the real onus for changing things rests on those who will have to undertake this task — the political class. And here, the lead must be taken by the party that began the rot— the Indian National Congress.

 

The Congress is the mother party of our political system. It took the country to great heights, but it also brought it to its nadir. In just about a decade after the death of the tallest Congressman, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi brought on the Emergency.

 

The Emergency's atrocities— forced sterilisations, illegal arrests and harassment— were relatively minor. What was more damaging was the lasting legacy that Indira left— her party's democracy subverted, the judicial system undermined and the bureaucracy corrupted with power.

 

Imperative

 

The Congress party thus has a historical responsibility to regenerate the system. Some recent signs do suggest that the party seems to have become aware of this. The raids on Madhu Koda and the exposure of his misdeeds have been attributed to this rethinking. Another sign is the refusal of the party to touch Shibu Soren after the recent Jharkhand elections, and more recently the quick decision to axe Narain Dutt Tiwari as Governor of Andhra Pradesh. But all this is too subtle and indirect. There is need for the party to frontally confront the issue of political immorality and its spillover into the administration and police machinery. There is really just one approach that will work— zero tolerance of crime, especially on the part of those charged with upholding law and order.

 

But the people of the country cannot and must not depend on the goodwill of a political party alone.

 

Civil society and its key arm— the media— needs to play a systematic role in exposing injustice and unjust persecution.

 

India has great pretensions of being a moral nation, no doubt a hangover from the fact that Mahatma Gandhi led the freedom movement and that the Buddha, Mahavir and Nanak had walked the land. But in the last thirty years we have shredded whatever was left of that legacy. The system has become, to put it bluntly, immoral, unjust and corrupt. Those who comprise it, and especially those who lead it, need to do something about it, and fast.

 

manoj. joshi@ mailtoday. in

 

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MAIL TODAY

QUANTUM LEAP

DINESH C. SHARMA

 

CLONING, CLIMATE MARKED THEDECADE

IF one were to name the most significant scientific advancements of the 2000s, it would be human cloning and stem cell research. The science and policy debate around climate change was another science related development that dominated the decade. And these two — cloning and climate change — could possibly be the big stories of the next decade as well.

 

Both are closely related to the future of the human race. Stem cell research could help us find solutions to some of the most complex disorders that afflict humans, while steps that we take to tackle climate change could determine if we indeed avoid the catastrophic events that could result due to a rise in global temperatures.

 

The developments in stem cell research were the most tumultuous of the decade. In 2004, Korean scientist Hwang Woosuk claimed that he had created the world's first cloned human embryos and extracted stem cells from them. But subsequent investigations revealed that the claim was based on fudged data, forcing the journal Science — which had published the paper — to withdraw it. The Hwang story came to an end in 2009 with his conviction on charges of embezzlement of research funds.

 

While this episode brought embryonic stem cell research under a cloud, scientists found a way to circumvent the use of human embryos as a source of stem cells altogether. They have developed techniques to ' convert' or ' reprogramme' adult stem cells into pluripotent stem cells — which can grow into any human organ cells just like embryonic stem cells. Such cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells ( iPS). For instance, fibroblasts — cells that make up connective tissues — have been reprogrammed to behave like stem cells that fix heart damage caused by infarction. Similarly, skin cells have been used to create iPS. Scientists hope to deliver new therapies based on iPS over the next few years.

 

On the climate change front, the most devastating news of the decade was the continued warming of the globe and the inability of political leaders to take decisive action. The 2000– 2009 period was warmer than the previous decade ( 1990– 1999). The year 2009 is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850, according to the World Meteorological Organisation.

 

Ignoring such mounting evidence and resulting extreme weather events such as heat waves and cyclonic storms, political leaders have failed to agree on steps they need to take to prevent more devastation.

 

Nearly a decade of negotiations was wasted in one stroke at Copenhagen and the world's biggest emitters have opted for another round of negotiations. If stem cell research offers hope to humanity, the road from Copenhagen certainly does not augur well for the future of the planet.

 

Heard of embedded carbon?

 

THE climate change negotiations are beginning to resemble trade negotiations. They are centred not just around greenhouse gas emissions and carbon credits. Some new concepts like " embedded carbon" too are engaging technical experts and negotiators.

 

Embedded carbon refers to carbon dioxide emitted at all stages of a good's manufacturing process — mining of raw materials, manufacturing, distribution and availability of the final product to the consumer.

 

In the climate change regime, this can be used to calculate officially recognised GHG reduction " credits" or for meeting mandatory emission targets or even to calculate emission targets of individual companies. Countries can formulate carbon labelling policies that show consumers the carbon content of a product, allowing them to select lowcarbon products and pressure suppliers to opt for low- carbon options. In international trade, embedded carbon can become contentious as Western countries are increasingly outsourcing manufactured products from places like China. It can render products made in a country with emission reduction policies uncompetitive compared to those made in nations where such policies are not in place.

 

INDIA STILL LAGGING

WHILE Indian health authorities are struggling to impose tougher antitobacco laws — including gory labeling on tobacco products — some countries are pushing for more stringent regulations. The tobacco section in dutyfree shops at Istanbul airport was not only wellstocked but also gave a glimpse of Turkey's antitobacco regime.

 

All the packs had health warnings boldly printed on both sides. There were a variety of them: ' smoking kills', ' smoking clogs the arteries and causes heart attack and stroke', ' smokers die younger' and so on.

The Indian tobacco industry has been successful in limiting pictorial warnings to one side of the pack, which ensures that you don't see warnings like those in the picture.

 

COPENHAGEN AIRPORT WALKS THE TALK

" JUST one minute of wind is enough to run this escalator for 2.5 hours", proclaims a billboard next to the escalator in the arrival lounge of the Copenhagen airport. This is not just symbolism. The Copenhagen airport is really trying to be green — going beyond the usual water harvesting and ' use of natural light' claims made by many new airports including the one in Bangalore.

 

The airport has been designed in such a way that most flights leave the Copenhagen area by climbing continuously and fly directly into their optimal operating level and route. This saves fuel and carbon emissions, compared to conventional departure procedures that involve a gradual climb. The ' green departure' saves 200 kilos of fuel per departure.

 

Annually, this translates into cutting down carbon emissions by 32,000 tonnes. Given that emissions from the sector are set to grow with the projected rise in traffic, we need more solutions like this in the future.

dineshc. sharma@ mailtoday. in

 

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TIMES OF INDIA

COMMENT

LOOKING EAST

 

The relationship between Japan and India is one that has always held much promise. But the potential for mutual gain the two countries could enjoy by collaborating more closely over a range of areas has never been fully realised. Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama's visit to New Delhi this week provided an opportunity for the two countries to deepen bilateral ties, which hold import for the overall stability and balance of power in Asia.

The main headline emerging out of the Japanese premier's visit to India was on New Delhi's position on signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Thanks to its history, Japan is understandably a big champion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the CTBT. It was no surprise, therefore, that the CTBT should have figured prominently on Hatoyama's agenda for his India trip. Manmohan Singh, meanwhile, signalled a nuanced shift in New Delhi's position on the CTBT from flatly rejecting it to suggesting that India could reconsider its position if and when the US and China ratify the CTBT.

Even though any possibility of civilian nuclear cooperation between the two countries might be a while away, the Japanese PM did reassure New Delhi that he would look into the strict export regime in his country that makes transfer and sale of high-end dual technology to India difficult at present. The two countries have agreed to step up security cooperation by setting up a consultative body and the focus will be on maritime security, which could bolster anti-piracy operations in the Asia-Pacific.

Japan's closest bilateral equation is with the US and its biggest trading partner in Asia is China. Where does India fit in? For starters, the two countries could scale up bilateral economic ties bilateral trade stood at roughly $13 billion for 2008-09. The proposed Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Pact is a welcome step in this direction. While Japan is a big aid and expertise provider to India, it still is not as big an investor as it could be. Many Japanese companies, especially in the manufacturing sector, have set up shop in India but they still find the Indian environment business-unfriendly. If India is to garner a greater share of Japanese private investment, it must set its own house in order and make it attractive for Japanese multinationals to operate from.

Japan and India share ancient cultural ties, thanks to Buddhism, and there is scope for updating relations to reflect modern realities. Investing substantially in Indo-Japan ties will be beneficial for both countries, not least in countering the rapidly growing economic and geopolitical influence of China a common rival to both in the region.

 

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TIMES OF INDIA

COMMENT

HEAL INDIA

 

The health ministry and the Medical Council of India have proposed a shorter, three and a half years' medical degree course for rural students. The 'graduates' are expected to minister exclusively to a rural populace. Most medical graduates, on completion of their course and training, are loath to opt for rural service. This has been one of the major reasons why successive governments have failed to institutionalise viable and comprehensive rural health coverage.

Various state governments have experimented in different ways to ensure that medical graduates at least from state-run medical colleges serve in rural areas. Among these are the one-year compulsory rural service (CRS), cash incentives and quotas in postgraduate courses. In some states, those who fail to do the CRS were faced with cancellation of their registration as medical practitioners. Another proposal was to give extra weightage to those candidates who had served in rural areas or even reserve seats for them in a postgraduate diploma or degree course.

The current proposal seeks to churn out general practitioners for rural India. Hence the move to reduce the duration of the degree course from five and a half to three and a half years. This, in a way, seems to be a revival of the Licentiate Medical Practitioners (LMP) scheme that prevailed before independence whereby students were trained as medical doctors for around three years, awarded a diploma and then fulfilled the needs of rural healthcare as a way to bridge the gap between demand and supply of licensed medical practitioners outside metropolitan India. LMPs, in fact, outnumbered MBBS graduates and they were largely serving in the rural areas.

The Bhore committee report of 1946, however, unified medical courses into the standard five-and-a-half years MBBS degree course, abolishing the LMP option. All attempts in the following decades to find an intermediate alternative whether of barefoot doctors, midwife service, auxiliary nursing services, CRS schemes or incentives have failed to address the crying need for an efficient primary healthcare system, particularly for the majority who do not live in urban India where hospitals and trained personnel are comparatively more easily accessible. The Bachelor of Rural Medicine and Surgery (BRMS) degree holders could enable primary healthcare centres across the country to get a fresh lease of life, as they would form the first contact point between the rural patient and authorised, trained doctors. If it works, the new scheme could well turn around India's rural public healthcare system that is in poor shape for want of qualified and willing medical personnel.

 

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TIMES OF INDIA

TOP ARTICLE

WE'VE COME A LONG WAY

SUDIPTO MUNDLE

 

When the history of our times is written, the dip in growth last year or the spike in food prices this year will barely find a mention. The story that will dominate the history of the 21st century is undoubtedly the rise of China and India, and the gradual swing of the pendulum of economic power from the West back to the East. From this perspective, what are the highs and lows that dominate the landscape as we look back at India's economic performance during the first decade of the 21st century?

On the positive side, it has been a decade of great transformation. India has emerged as one of the fastest growing countries in the world. During the first half of this decade, from 1999-2000 to 2003-04, India grew at an average rate of less than 6 per cent. During the second half, growth accelerated to an average of close to 9 per cent about 50 per cent faster than during the first half. Much has been made of the dip in growth to 6.7 per cent last year, but this was still higher than the rate averaged during the first half of the decade.

These numbers reflect, admittedly very crudely, how rapidly the level of living is changing in India. The average Indian's per capita income has risen from around Rs 1,300 per month in 1999-2000 to over Rs 3,000 per month today. Adjusting for the rise in the level of prices, this means the average Indian's real purchasing power is more than 60 per cent higher today compared to 10 years ago. Much lies hidden behind this parable of the "average Indian", on which more below. Let us first note that this remarkable pace of transformation has rarely been preceded in history, certainly not in the western world.

What has been driving this remarkable growth acceleration? The immediate driver is investment. It has risen from about 26 per cent of GDP in 1999-2000 to almost 40 per cent today, supported by a corresponding rise in both domestic savings and capital inflows from abroad. Most of that increase occurred during the decade's latter half, thus accounting for the sharp growth acceleration during this period. Almost the entire increase in the investment rate is attributable to private investment. Compared to 1990-91, the year economic reforms were initiated, the private investment rate has doubled to over 28 per cent at present, most of that increase having occurred in the last five years. In contrast, the public investment rate is actually lower today at 9 per cent compared to 10 per cent in 1990-91.

Clearly, the opportunities arising from the freeing up of market forces and integration with the global economy that started in 1991 have given a big push to private investment. It took a good 15 years before these reforms finally generated a sustained acceleration in growth, but this is not unusual. In China too, growth accelerated only a decade after that country initiated its reforms.

 

Reforms alone are not the whole story. Though the public investment rate has not risen, its composition has changed from investment in a wide range of manufacturing and services to more focused investment in infrastructure and energy in recent years. The partial easing of these critical bottlenecks has also given a strong boost to private investment and growth. Another important factor is India's demographic dividend: a young population with a large and rising proportion in the working age group. The declining ratio of dependents, both the elderly and children, has helped raise the savings rate and enhanced supply of productive labour. Finally, there is what economists call the Solow Residual: increases in output attributable neither to capital nor labour but simply higher productivity, arising from better technology and more efficient organisation of production.

That's the upside. There is also a sad downside to this story of rising growth. The distribution of the fruits of growth has clearly become more unequal. There is an overwhelming persistence of poverty. A group headed by Suresh Tendulkar, until recently chairman of the prime minister's economic advisory council, has estimated that about 37 per cent of the population, more than one in every three Indians, was poor in 2004-05, the last year for which data is available. They used a new method of estimation. But even the conventional estimate puts the poverty headcount at over 27 per cent or around 300 million people. These numbers may have reduced somewhat during recent years of high growth, but that is small comfort. We still have hundreds of millions of hungry people; malnourished, underweight and stunted; unable to afford any real medical care or education. That too is a part of the story this past decade.

As we reach the end of India's first decade in the 21st century, this is the great challenge facing us. How can India use its high growth to deliver to these Indians at the margins of existence something akin to a decent human life as you and i know it? It is easy to pose the question, but the answer still escapes us.

 

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TIMES OF INDIA

TIMES VIEW

ACCEPTABLE IF IN PUBLIC INTEREST

 

The shaming of former Andhra Pradesh governor N D Tiwari has once again raised questions regarding the use of sting operations as a tool of investigative journalism. Its opponents argue that sting violates the right to privacy of the individual and is prone to misuse. There is some truth in this. But the potential for misuse is no justification to criticise and even demand a ban on sting operations.

A sting operation is acceptable if it has been carried out in the public interest. No doubt, the right to privacy is sacrosanct in a free society. We aspire to be one and must be on guard against the dilution of the right to privacy. However, this right must in no way become a pretext to abuse public office or resources. Tiwari's case, if the allegations are true, is an example of abuse of public office. Of course, the seasoned politician has claimed the tape that allegedly shows him in the company of prostitutes is fabricated. Now, that's for the courts to decide.

Many countries have given qualified sanction to the use of stings in journalism. If the sting is in public interest to prevent criminal acts or corruption media as well as law enforcement agencies are allowed to use it as a tool of investigation. The Indian Supreme Court too has ruled in favour of stings when they sought to serve a public cause. Most of the high-profile sting operations carried out by Indian media have targeted corruption and subversion of political institutions. No mala fide intent has been proven against these operations.

Sure, the accused in these investigations have sought to blame journalists of entrapment. But we do expect people holding high public office to resist bribes and other forms of entrapment. Also, charges of entrapment must be tested against the context in which the offer is made as part of a sting. Those trapped are most often people who are rumoured to be on the take or have escaped scrutiny due to lack of evidence for their indiscretions. In short, the targets are not random picks. The way forward is not to blame the media but for public figures to behave responsibly.

 

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TIMES OF INDIA

COUNTERVIEW

END DOESN'T JUSTIFY MEANS

RUPA SENGUPTA

 

A change of guard at the Andhra Raj Bhavan is attributed to a sting-related controversy. Note that the sting conducted by a TV channel was essentially prompted by the reported desire of one private individual to hit back at the exiting governor. Why? The latter is accused of not delivering on a mining lease promised in return for certain favours. It isn't clear if this allegation was fully verified before the sleaze-seeking hidden cameras came on. This itself shows how hazardous stings can be. If public servants get favours in exchange for dispensing favours in clear, authenticated cases of abuse of power, they need to be named and shamed. But what's to ensure exposes are spurred by public interest, not personal bile? Stings can originate in many a dubious motive: revenge, attempted slander or blackmail, or the wish to gain from sensation. Ergo, they can end up doing the right thing, for the wrong reason.

There's also a thin line between a genuine sting and entrapment. Some past stings raised hackles by their crude modus operandi: for instance, getting their targets inebriated and/or promising inducements to get them to 'sing'. While a ban isn't recommended, stings should constitute last-resort investigative journalism, conducted for iron-clad reasons. Blowing the lid off misdemeanours doesn't excuse cavalier methods of digging for dirt. A sting requires huge exercise of judgement. Claiming to be driven by 'public interest' isn't enough if a sting operator isn't also technically above board. No, the ends do not justify the means.

The public figure-private individual distinction is quite treacherous for being amorphous. A public figure doesn't barter away privacy in all senses. Use of official premises for personal matters is a strict no-no, as is giving the go-by to security norms. The problem is that stings, be it in India or America, often expose private conduct and even milk society's scarcely-admitted voyeuristic tendencies. The question is, should norms of acceptable public behaviour extend all the way to someone's personal space? Let's judge public personalities by how they fulfil their official brief, not by what they do off-duty. Let their private morals be their private affair.

 

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TIMES OF INDIA

TO A PERFECT '10

BACHI KARKARIA

 

Today is the last day of the first decade of the second millennium. It started with a bug, remember? So I am quite happy to squash it, and move on to the new year which begins tomorrow. 'Twenty-ten' has a cool, well-rounded ring to it. It certainly trips off the tongue more neatly than the messy mouthful of 'two-oh-oh-eight' or, worse, 'two-thousand-and-nine'.

 

Content  is more important than form, so  we need to think about what 2010 will hold for us rather than drool over its sleek, semantic shape. Will the coming year raise our spirits anew, or will it be just a hangover of the past decade? Can we hope for a Perfect '10, or should we worry about it turning into the later Nadia Comaneci?

 

Will 2010 be tensile or barely tenable?  Will it display a tendency towards tension, or  hit the high notes like a tenor? Better still, let us spell out how we would like 2010 to unfold, or how we think it will.

 

Tenderly. Hopefully, this is how 2010 will treat us, or vice versa. The past 10 have seen too much of the rough stuff. Terrorism beat videogames, guns down. We savaged everything in our gory-greedy path, from innocent people to hapless peepuls. We dismembered states and corporate giants with equal alacrity; Andhra Pradesh may well have the distinction of doing both in a 12-month period. On TV screens, first, saas-bahu soaps turned kitchens into Kurukshetras plastered with pancake. Then, reality shows annihilated reality as we had known it.

 

It would be tempting to quote George Bush, 41,who called for a return to 'a kinder gentler America' in his inaugural address. But then we would have to bring in George Bush, 43, who took his nation into exactly the opposite direction, and sent two other countries (and his own economy) to the brink of oblivion. So let us pray for a more tender 2010, but be fully prepared for a brutal one.   Tentatively. When a millennium turns, all kinds of topless expectations dance in the dazzling neon. In the harsh, unshuttered light of day, they reveal their true, embarrassing colours. So with our 10-year-long hindsight we should abandon the rashness of the early years of 2000, and consider a more tentative trajectory towards our aim -- whether it is becoming an economic superpower, attaining world peace or achieving universal education.

 

There's a caveat. In the matter of global warming,  this recommended pace does not apply. If we don't go into overdrive on under-driving etc, we will have left our carbon footprints in the sands of desertification before this decade is done and dusted.

 

Tenaciously. This  is how we will have to hang on to our planet, our jobs and our encroachments if we have any sense of self-preservation. Or sense, period. In the first years of this millennium we kept hearing about baby-faced dotcom boomers making their millions and dropping out of the rat-race to go and bask in some sybaritic paradise - or conscientiously dig wells in Ulan Bator. But as start-ups turned into wind-downs, and the fabled incomes dried up, the age-old gift-of-the-grab acquired a renewed cachet. So the mantra for 2010 is hold on with all your tentacles, and ignore the tendonitis. Tendentiously. The meek may still inherit the earth but only if they have incorrigibly argumentative lawyers. Or NGOs. Being permanently aggrieved has turned into a profession, a pathway to justice or a pain in the neck depending on which side of the demonstration you find yourself. Yes, the next decade will have to have to deal this way with serious or fictitious contentious issues.

 

Any which way, here's wishing 2010 a happy tenure.

 

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TIMES OF INDIA

KEEP IT SHORT

THE BEAUTY OF BREVITY

LALIT MOHAN

 

A teacher in Kerala asked a student where he was born. The boy replied, "Thiruvananthapuram". He was asked to spell it. The student fumbled and then said, "I was actually born in Goa." The story may be apocryphal, but it highlights the need to keep names of cities and roads short. Long names are inevitably abbreviated. The full name of the city we know as Los Angeles is El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula and is frequently shortened even further to merely LA. Soon after the last chief minister died, the Andhra Pradesh cabinet passed a resolution to rename his home district Y S Rajasekhara Reddy Cuddapah District. Mercifully, they did not suggest that the initials 'Y S' be also expanded. A village in Wales goes by the name Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. The name is Welsh for St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave. But what it is actually called is just Llanfair PG. The only use the full name has is that its eight-inch long rail station ticket sells well as a souvenir.

The same goes for naming roads. The British were sensible. They opted for brevity. They used only surnames and generally no titles. The avenue named after the viceroy Lord George Nathaniel Curzon in New Delhi was simply Curzon Road. Even the railway station in Mumbai that commemorates their 19th century queen, who probably had a string of titles, was called only Victoria Terminus. But we add honorifics liberally. In Delhi a street to remind us of Madhavrao Scindia has his full moniker and a 'Shrimant' preceding it on the road sign, when just Scindia Marg would have done. Delhi has another problem. For political reasons, road signs have to be in four languages. But once you start giving full names with titles, where do you stop? The ruler of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947, for example, went by the name and title of Shriman Inder Mahender Rajrajeswar Mahadhiraj Shri Harisinghji Jammu and Kashmir Naresh tatha Tibbetadi Deshadipati. Try putting that in four languages on a road sign in Delhi!

 

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HINDUSTAN TIMES

EDITORIAL

YEAR'S LOOKING AT YOU

 

If you were to ring out 2009 listening to Ella Fitzgerald breathing 'Blue Moon' in her whiskey-soaked voice, you would be on the right track. This year, things come to a close with a rare celestial phenomenon, a blue moon that is upon us after 19 years. If the mood is mellow, it is because this has been a year that best fits the adage: the more things change, the more they remain the same.

 

As always, politics dominated our thoughts with the grand old party sliding into office yet again, leaving the BJP a saffron shade of pale. But in the US, there were no shades of grey, black replaced white as Barack Obama realised Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream.' If a soft-spoken economist led the victory march for the Congress here once again, the stormy petrels of the Left were left whistling in the dark when nothing went right for them. So the man who would be king Prakash Karat found that 2009 was his annus horribilis. The benefits of being a lumbering elephant as thoroughbreds raced past came home when India weathered the global meltdown which saw the suits jumping off ledges and hallowed companies passing the hat around. Gordon Geeko's motto 'greed is good' became passé, though not for want of trying especially on Wall Street.

 

Change slowly creaked into the behemoth education system but many lessons still need to be learnt. And justice for all became a possibility as the powerful bit the dust at the hands of the small people, the latest being the Ruchika Girhotra case. By our volatile standards, a tame year really as the decade draws to a close. But we can live with that, can't we? So, 'we'll take a cup of kindness yet/ for auld lang syne.' Have a wonderful and safe New Year.

 

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HINDUSTAN TIMES

EDITORIAL

HELP OF THE RISING SUN

 

The Japanese have an understated way of going about things, which is why few in India have understood the magnitude of what New Delhi and Tokyo are attempting to accomplish in their bilateral relationship. While there has been an unsurprising interest in the visiting Japanese Prime Minister's equally unsurprising call for India to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, there should be greater public appreciation of such projects as the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and the parallel hi-tech rail freight corridor. The industrial corridor, a $90 billion-infrastructure project, that would add a quarter to India's industrial infrastructure, would be as transformative as the Indo-US civil nuclear deal or the Green Revolution. Yukio Hatoyama's public endorsement of these industrial projects will come as a relief to New Delhi which had been uncertain whether the new left-of-centre coalition in Tokyo was as committed to them as its more conservative predecessors.

 

This uncertainty arises from an understanding of the initial motivations behind Japan's interest in these projects. The original policy was driven by strategic concerns that Japan had become economically dependent on China, a country that had indicated its desire to supplant Japan economically and politically in Asia. Japanese manufacturers, however, found India a hostile environment because of the country's poor infrastructure. The solution, therefore, was for Japan to build the infrastructure itself. Hence the two corridor projects. Mr Hatoyama's government has come in with a different geopolitical vision, one where Japan and China bury their differences in a larger Asian architecture. Yet his government has renewed Tokyo's commitment to the corridors. The evidence is that this is being driven by an acceptance that while strategic concerns may have been downgraded, the economic arguments for Japan to help develop India are now stronger than ever. India supplanted China last fiscal year as the number one destination for Japanese foreign direct investment.

 

Mr Hatoyama's visit was thin on substance, reflecting the fact his government has been in power for less than four months. What is important is that the visit, squeezed in before the New Year began, showed a continuity of policy regarding India that may well make Japan one of the key guarantors of the rise of this country in the coming century.

 

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HINDUSTAN TIMES

EDITORIAL

THE YEAR OF THE YAWN

PRAMIT PAL CHAUDHURI

 

Prediction: Some 400 days from now, anyone looking back will declare 2010 actually began with the preceding month of December. Because this past year has been a long, unremarkable yawn. It was supposed to be annus catastrophicus, and while a lot of things teetered on the edge, nothing fell into the abyss.

 

So much was supposed to happen in 2009 that didn't. It was a Year of Lull.

 

First, the global financial crisis proved neither global nor strictly financial — or even all that much of a crisis. Economic indicators went into negative everywhere except for East and South Asia, Latin America, Australia, Canada, parts of Central Asia, swathes of the Persian Gulf. And did we mention Israel, Poland and Botswana? Japan is an Asian exception but it has been in recession for so long that, strictly speaking, no one could tell the difference between pre- and post-crisis. The End of the Market types have been reduced to saying, "Beware: Ireland will implode!" There is still no alternative to capitalism, unless rural employment guarantee schemes are an ideology. "History is still over," wrote Francis Fukuyama at the year's end.

 

Second, the new American era that Barack Obama was supposed to introduce has smelled and acted a lot like the previous one of George W. Bush. What the new administration ushered in was a sea-change in oratory, syntax and basketball skills. Obama proved there is no direct correlation between melanin and political radicalism. More disturbing for his supporters was that Obama spent much of the year accomplishing remarkably little. His troop policy for Afpak took so long to emerge that you didn't care when he said the US would send 30,000 more troops into the Hindu Kush.

 

Which takes us to number three: Afpak. No one doubts it is "the world's most dangerous region" and retained that spot — despite the odd attempt by Wall Street to take the lead — all of 2009. But ultimately, Afghans and Pakistanis proved most dangerous to themselves. Both slaughtered their own brethren with ever-increasing efficiency and brutality.

 

Fourth, this was supposed to be the year of G-2, the year when China was to prove itself the equal of the United States. Nothing of the sort happened. Beijing declined to be top dog. Hu Jintao responded to Obama's call for China to hold up half the sky by effectively saying: "We're still poor. You like to be superpower, you do the donkey work."

 

China was spoiler at Copenhagen, passive at the G-20 meetings, aggressive about Sudan sanctions and blocked everything else on the multilateral calendar. It refuses to devalue the yuan or, to quote analyst Minxin Pei, "confront what has become an enormous overcapacity for producing cheap goods." There was evidence of superpowerdom-in-the-making — namely, that Beijing could be so brazen about self-interest and impress everyone by doing so. But ruling the lands beyond the Middle Kingdom? Beyond an oilfield or coal mine, Beijing ain't interested. China didn't even scoop up the West's corporate riches. Unless you think buying the only two Swedish car brands is of geopolitical significance.

 

No one else showed global leadership qualities. There is now a president of All Europe Minus Switzerland. The man who sits on the throne that Charlemagne, Attila, Napoleon and Hitler sought is a Belgian whose name was, uh, mm…well, it was definitely not Hergé.

 

The second Manmohan Singh government began with a near blank legislative record. He did revive 'Balochistan' as a geographical expression with the present generation of Indian schoolkids. And it isn't clear the White House has yet forgiven him for gatecrashing the Salahi summit. Such was the vacuum that Brazil emerged among the emerging economies, a global contender for something other than football.

 

This year will go down in history as one where history was not made. Michael Jackson's HIStory underwent a revival. With his death, MJ reminded today's kids how insipid the past decade has been when it comes to pop music. Vista-afflicted Microsoft should have died, except that Google failed to deliver a Chrome killer punch. A climate change fest forged an international consensus that Danes must never be allowed to host major world events again. Twitter, admittedly, went from less than 500,000 users to over 7 million. But that was 2009: its greatest events could be described in the same number of characters as a footnote.

 

Having said that, let's face it: December was different.

 

Pakistani politics went from Level 1 Pac Man to Ultimate Mortal Kombat as pretty much everyone in Islamabad goes for Asif Ali Zardari's throat. Obama passed a revolutionary healthcare bill, indicating there's life in the young administration yet. The Manmohan Singh government showed a continuing ability to take uncalculated political risks by setting Telangana on fire.

 

Even al-Qaeda, the dreaded terrorist group that had metastasised into a home video network, attempted to attack the United States again. Airplane debris scattered on bombed-out Detroit wouldn't be 9/11. But it's a step above Zawahiri's Rant of the Week.

 

The past few weeks augur an exciting period, even in entertainment. The world's most boring sport generated the Tiger Woods sex scandal. The second most boring sport tossed up the Michael Schumacher comeback story.

 

Over 50 zombie films were released in 2009. This record tells us that people around the world shared a deep desire to see the soulless undead staggering around without purpose. Yes, it looks like this December was the first month of an exciting 2010.

 

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HINDUSTAN TIMES

EDITORIAL

COPENHAGEN COP OUT

PRAFUL BIDWAI

 

It is apparent to everyone that the Copenhagen Accord is a travesty of what the world needs to avert climate change. Instead of an ambitious, effective, equitable and binding treaty with stringent emissions-cut targets for developed nations, we have a hollow Accord without legal status. The North has  offered a 16 per cent emissions-cut when 40-45 per cent is needed. Years of talks have been set at nought by a dirty collusive deal between the United States and Basic (Brazil, South Africa, India and China), extended to cover only 26 of the 193 countries represented in Copenhagen.

 

The Accord mocks the efforts of a majority of nations to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Climate science is unanimous that emissions must peak by 2020 and then fall by one-half by 2050 if catastrophic climate change is to be averted with a 50-percent probability. Many scientists now believe atmospheric greenhouse concentrations must be limited to 350 parts per million.

 

Under the Accord, concentrations will double to 600 ppm-plus, with warming rising to 4°C. This spells the near-extinction of 40-odd island states and consigns two billion people to growing hunger, dispossession and displacement through cyclones, floods and droughts, aggravated by glacier melting, deforestation and desertification. The worst victims will be vulnerable people, including half-a-billion-plus Indians.

 

The Accord couldn't have materialised without the collusion of BASIC, led by China, with the US-led North. China cynically refused quantitative targets even for the North. Disgracefully, India went along. China and India want to expand their carbon space to maintain rapid emissions-intensive GDP growth in the name of defending their poor. But India's poor will suffer grievously, next only to Africans, as the Accord accelerates climate change.

 

This reveals a gaping divide between India's underprivileged and elite. The poor have a huge stake in an equitable, effective global climate regime. The elite wants a weak, ineffective, non-binding regime to feed its appetite for luxury goods, which is driving up India's emissions at twice the global rate. As I argue in my just-released book An India That Can Say Yes: A Climate-Responsible Development Agenda for Copenhagen and Beyond, a powerful strand among Indian policy-makers wants an ineffective deal which allows India's elite to raise its emissions. Its influence is reflected in India's climate policy, its denial of glacier-melting, and the National Climate Action Plan, which defines its priority not as combating climate change, but as maintaining high GDP growth.

 

This follows the discredited trickle-down hypothesis. But a quarter-century of rapid growth hasn't reduced poverty or created food and water security. Forty years after the Rural Electrification Corporation's existence, half our rural homes remain in darkness.

 

India's climate policy is made in isolation from the people by a bureaucratic cabal, excluding independent experts and representatives of civil society, leave alone those most affected by climate change. So unbalanced is the 26-member Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change that it has only one civil society member; 25 members are from Delhi or its suburbs.

 

Yet, most opinion-shapers treat climate change not as a survival or development/equity issue, but as a diplomatic one, with sovereignty separated from the people. India's complicity in the Accord is a far greater global failure than the crossing of one avowed Red Line-not subjecting voluntary domestic actions to international verification/review-via "consultation and analysis". Our people need a strong, equitable climate deal. Their government has failed them. It must be brought to heel and made to demand that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process be resumed with a clear rich-poor differentiation of responsibility. This won't happen unless people's movements seize the climate agenda.

 

Praful Bidwai is a New Delhi-based political commentator and environmental activist

 

The views expressed by the author are personal.

 

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HINDUSTAN TIMES

EDITORIAL

FAITH IN SELF IS PATH TO GLORY

SATISH KUMAR SHARMA

 

The recently-released Hindi film, 3 Idiots, has a character — an engineering student, who, overcome with personal difficulties and out of fear of failure, turns to worshipping all kinds of gods and goddesses and has rings on all fingers to bring him good luck in exams. But after he has fared poorly in exams repeatedly, his friend makes him realise how his over-reliance on faith had weakened him. This makes him pull up his socks. He does what he should have been doing all along — studying hard with faith in his own capability. Gradually, he wins back his confidence and emerges a winner. 

 

Faith is not a crutch of the weak. It is the attribute of the strong. True faith must emerge from self-belief. How can one believe in gods and goddesses when one does not believe in himself? Rather than having such superficial faith, it is better to have no faith at all. As for the problems of life, who doesn't have it? What to talk of man, even gods faced them whenever they took incarnation in the human form.

 

Take Rama. He was born as a prince of Ayodhya and was the darling of one and all. And yet, he had to suffer not only the banishment to forest for 14 years but also the humiliation of his dear wife having been abducted by Ravana. And how did he overcome his problems? He sought out allies like Hanuman, Sugreev and Ravana's brother Vibhishan, forged a formidable army against Ravan and defeated him in war. In other words, he did what any human being should do under the circumstances.

 

'Bina marey swarg nahin milta' (You have to court death to go to heaven). Thus goes a Hindi saying. In other words, in the battle of life, there is no alternative to struggle. Abiding faith should propel one to do one's best with greater vigour than looking for short cuts and easy options. Also, hard work never goes unrewarded. Maybe, it takes a little time. That calls for patience.

 

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HINDUSTAN TIMES

EDITORIAL

SIMBLY SPEARS

 

Did you hear? Britney Spears will be ringing in the New Year on a houseboat in the backwaters of Kerala!

 

Shhh...don't say that out loud. You might scare her away. After all, even troubled pop stars crave the odd private moment.

 

But isn't she always on the cover of some magazine or the other? .

 

Of course. After all, Forbes magazine listed her as the 13th most powerful celebrity and the second highest earning young musician of 2009.

 

Oh, I thought she was just a single mom trying to stay out of drug rehab long enough to spend some quality time with her poor kids.

 

Well, that's why she's bringing them along to the boonies with her. Nothing like a gently rocking boat to steady the family ship, you know.

 

So, do you think we might spot her?

 

No chance! After all Sir Paul Mc Cartney went unnoticed in Thiruvananthapuram a few years ago. And he's famous too.

 

Sigh! I guess we'll just have to wait for her to get in a pickle again.

 

Or you could just watch her cavorting in Kerala in her new video, to be shot here.

 

Do say: Baby, one more time.

 

Don't say: Oops! I did it again.

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

EYES ON ADEN

 

Chilly words from President Obama were expected: "A systemic failure has occurred, and I consider that totally unacceptable." That a young Nigerian boarded an airliner to Detroit loaded with explosives exposes lapses in US security and intelligence. That the suspect's father himself voiced concern over his son's extremism, makes this slip-up particularly careless. The suspect said the bomb supplies were from Yemen. Couple this with a self aggrandising, gloaty message from Al Qaeda on the Arabian peninsula, and US Senator Lieberman's recent remark that "Yemen will be tomorrow's war" takes on great weight.

 

That Yemen fosters and incubates Al Qaeda ideology is hardly surprising. It was just in 2002 that US drones buzzed over Yemen and assassinated Al Qaeda's regional head Abu al-Harithi. Fast forward and the picture looks grimmer. 2009 saw the merger of Al Qaeda in Yemen and Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia — now operational as a transnational organisation. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh might be held accountable — only his concerns are more immediate: survival. Yemen, largely reliant on hydrocarbons, faces depleting oil reserves and the back-up of natural gas is a long-term project. Amid the more immediate concern of depleting water resources (Sana'a may well be the first modern capital to run out of water), the economy has taken a backseat. And there is also the central government's two-front fight for survival — a secessionist movement in the south and a civil war in the north.

 

In these under-governed areas Al Qaeda has formed its new hub. Earlier this month Obama assented to apparent drone attacks on Yemeni extremist cells. As those organisations evolve towards an international outlook, tangible threats will grow. However, with two wars already occupying the mindspace, concerns over the region have been brushed under the carpet. The Horn of Africa as a strategic "black spot" makes for poor security policy. This uncalculated strategy now needs a fresh appraisal.

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

VISA WHEEZE

 

To call for a review in six months of India's new, stricter visa regulations is to admit that the system in place since last month — proscribing the re- entry within two months of foreign nationals with long-term, multiple-entry tourist visas unless they produce evidence of their travel plans in the region — lacked logic. It has been argued in these columns earlier that increasing numbers of foreign visitors and national security are not mutually exclusive. Those of a destructive intent may yet find ways to dodge the system; nor was a sweeping prohibition fair on innocent travellers. What's more, the restrictions were designed to harm India's own interests. For instance, corporate- and policy-types — who not only frequent these parts but are also essential to our growth ambitions — would be, in particular, the most affected. Does an aspiring India want to inconvenience such individuals at its own expense? Such people who travel back and forth, as well as, say, academics engaged in research or delivering lectures, may not necessarily plan out their next trip in advance and thereby convince the immigration officer to not stamp their visas barring them from returning within a couple of months. In other words, what the government is staring at is a regulation that is potentially a multiplier of bad publicity for the country.

 

Stopping terrorists and tightening the security net is a different, and more complex, business. Meanwhile, the government's flip-flop on the new visa rules has precluded clarity on the matter. If the visa restrictions are myopic and misdirected, it is because they are the products of an automatic, unthinking statist reaction that was also downright lazy, seeking an easy, unidirectional way out. The result: the mixed messages and prevalent confusion. The moral of the episode: do not make knee-jerk responses to matters of public concern.

 

There were immediate diplomatic repercussions when the visa rules came into effect. Persisting with the restrictions will cause a different kind of damage, irrespective of the security threats the country faces. As it happens, India is not a very open country. Increasing the degree and frequency of statist harassment cannot paint a more welcoming picture of it.

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

COLUMN

CALL OFF THE MOB

 

The Ruchika Girhotra case has already shown us some of the worst of India. Leave aside, even, the sordid initial actions of disgraced cop S.P.S. Rathore; the complicity of society at every level — from Ruchika's school, to the local cops, to the home ministry and the political class — reveals how difficult it is, sometimes, to envision an India in which the powerful are held to account. Each of us, at some point, has kept silent, or accepted injustice, for fear that the awful machinery of an intrusive state should be turned against us by some insider. So it is that when a case like this is exposed, bottled-up frustrations explode in righteous anger.

 

But righteous anger is still anger. And the one thing that democratic institutions must fear more than the machinations of the influential is the anger of the mob. Which is what, sadly, this has become. Consider the most recent, unfortunate sight: of Law Minister Moily announcing that the case would likely be "re-opened" and be treated as a "model case". What he likely means is that Rathore will face charges for "abetment of suicide"; this charge was earlier, on the orders of the high court in 2002, dropped. Yet there was little to indicate the careful thought that should accompany a ministerial decision to counter that ruling. And to compound this, we are subject to the sight of precisely those people who had earlier abandoned Ruchika and her family now bending over backward — taking legal norms with them.

 

Not only is this inappropriate for a liberal state, but it has very real effects. Consider this: we are faced, following Rathore's sentencing, with one fact, that the law covering sexual molestation of minors is horrifyingly weak — reflecting the dubious Victorian morality that underpins our criminal code — and that a maximum sentence of two years is unacceptable today. We must change that. But here's the great tragedy in forcing institutions — politics, police, the legal system — that bent to the powerful to now bend to public anger: we focus on a particular instance, on one man, rather than on ensuring that future Ruchikas are protected. Let it be clearly understood: citizen activism has its place. This newspaper prides itself on its history of laying bare the misuse of power before the public. But the courtroom, and judicial investigation, must be as insulated from the fury of the justifiably incensed as it should be from the whims of the well-connected. So let us curb our anger, if it gets in the way of setting things to rights. Anything else would be injustice for Ruchika.

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

OUR GRAND STRATEGY

K.S. BAJPAI

 

India cannot do justice to its security interests, much less fulfil its global potential, unless we start handling issues with systematic seriousness. As the decade closed, three summits in three weeks — Indo-US on November 24, Indo-Russian on December 7, and Sino-US of November 17, (with the Indo-Japanese of December 29 not far behind) — carry major messages. We prefer the distractions of trivialities — but may be sure Islamabad and Beijing are studying the implications carefully.

 

Though not as dramatic as 2008's nuclear deal, the outcomes of these summits sum up the opportunities and challenges the deal opened up. A.J.P. Taylor called diplomacy "a fancy word for doing business". These summits say: we can do business with you if you are ready to do business, but we have to do business with others too.

 

The business settled in Washington is not to be despised: agriculture, health, education, technology are significant underpinnings to a healthy relationship. Most importantly, Washington fully acknowledged India's rights in Afghanistan, and in eliminating terrorism there and in Pakistan. There are other Indian security interests America should take into account if an Indo-US "strategic partnership" is to mean much. There is no word about our larger Pakistan anxieties, and none on China.

 

With Russia, defence purchases remain a strong link, nuclear and other energy possibilities not far behind. The basic message: business will be business, the days of special interest and special concessions are past, although common strategic interests are there to develop.

 

The Sino-US statement which so upset many, requires most attention: it is confirmation of the reality we all know, but have yet to come to grips with. India has a potential waiting to materialise, China is way ahead in realising its own: others will watch what power we become, but will meanwhile deal with the power that exists. If we want to be dealt with differently, we must make ourselves count more.

 

We must start from our strategic needs. Regarding the two relationships which might conceivably erupt in military conflict, India stands alone. Pakistan has always been controlled by elements willing to use any means to do India down. Pakistan cannot be expected to openly acknowledge collaboration with terrorism, but if its rulers now genuinely see terrorism as threatening Pakistan, much could have been done quietly to further a common cause. Instead, there is the endless refrain that India must concede this or that, while evidence keeps mounting that terrorism remains a cherished instrument against us.

 

That need not make war inevitable, but leaves Pakistan as the most likely source of conflict. Both Russia and the US have carefully avoided the issue. Both have their own reasons for working with Pakistan, and India must take note.

 

The only other state that might consider military force as serving its national purpose is China. It serves no Indian interest to enter into confrontation; we rightly seek constructive engagement, but apart from all the worrying things China is doing that can actively harm us, prudent contingency planning — as China itself practises — must allow for adverse developments directed from Beijing. While Russia has its own apprehensions regarding China, it wants no part in our separate concern. And the US's acceptance of the rise of China is of course one of our era's great changes in the world's power equations.

So, on our primary security concerns we must look entirely to ourselves. Is there any national consciousness of what this calls for? The unbelievable ways in which we run ourselves are frightening enough; worse still is our indifference to the consequences for our security. Unless we organise ourselves to function as an efficient, purposeful state, we will get neither the influence nor the respect which can pre-empt conflict.

 

In spite of Partition and the assertion of China's control over Tibet, India remains a crossroads between West Asia, South East Asia, Central Asia and the Indian Ocean. As our first professional diplomat emphasised, our strategic frontiers are three concentric circles — from the Hindu Kush to the Irrawady, Aden to Singapore and Suez to Shanghai. In this coming decade we must seek to contain, if not prevent, the growth of forces that could operate from those concentric areas to our detriment. Presently that means four vital interests: in the security of the Persian Gulf, the stability of Central Asia, the changing power equations in East Asia, and a range of Oceanic issues: tsunamis, piracy, helping small island states, keeping sea-lanes free. There are countless local or regional components of these issues India must deal with directly, but the one key power in each field is the US.

The implications of that reality are yet to be accepted. The intellectual climate in which it was seen as unpatriotic to contemplate cooperation with America has doubtless changed, but many still mistrust America as the source of capitalist assertiveness. Nor do commonalities of ends preclude differences, often deep or bitter, over how to reach them. Delhi and Washington could well be one on Gulf security, for instance, but are bound to differ on Iran. More immediately, countering terrorism in Pakistan is a common objective full of potential conflicts on methods.

 

But until we can organise ourselves to be key determinants, or at least far more influential than we are, in shaping the future of our primary strategic concerns, we do need to work with partners. No one will help if Pakistan or China precipitates war, but many powers would happily help us become so strong war would not be worth inflicting on us. Much can be simply bought: we can now afford to upgrade our defence capabilities to meet contingency assessments, even two fronts. But it is no less important to develop a web of interlocking interests with other powers which strengthens our international position in unquantifiable but effective terms. On the four primary strategic areas mentioned, others share our objectives. Washington cannot be the be-all or end-all of India's interests; but it is still the one power that can, if it will, influence the course of events where it chooses. While recognising our interest in Afghanistan, the Washington statement stopped short of our other security concerns.

 

Maybe that is all we are ready for ourselves. But we still need to work out ways of meeting these other concerns.

 

Cooperating with America is both complex and dangerous in a very particular sense: unless handled with sureness and skill, it could be hugely counter-productive. While the summer's hullabaloo regarding China is rightly attributable to media inflation, there is no doubt of Beijing's increased toughness on several Indian concerns. Whatever Beijing alleges, India has done nothing to provoke such attitudes — with one exception: the N-deal was a striking show of Indo-American cooperation. That China turned tough soon after is no coincidence: we are being told Beijing does not like it, we better be careful, and the US should not count on a paper tiger. There will be Indians who would therefore urge distancing from America, but surrendering to pressure is no service to security. Like any major power, India must balance all kinds of interests, and learn to pursue commonalities alongside managing differences. The great pitfall to avoid is confusion; do not start what you cannot handle. And put your house in order.

 

The writer is former ambassador to Pakistan, China and the US and secretary, external affairs ministry

express@expressindia.com

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

OPED

THE DECADE OF 'SMALL'

SEEMA CHISHTI

 

New Year Eves are usually about ringing in the new and firmly burying the old stuff. Care is taken to discuss the brand new things/ trends/ markers, but sometimes it might be fruitful to dig into the year/ decade just gone by and fish for what could be takeaways from the Noughties into the new decade — the Tens.

 

The second half of 2009, starting from June '09, it seemed was an obsession with the "quarter". Discussion, in a country which usually marks 20 years, 30 years, and 60 years with aplomb, was all about a quarter of a century after major events — 25 years since Operation Bluestar, Indira Gandhi's assassination, the gruesome anti-Sikh pogrom, the Bhopal gas disaster and even 25 years since India got its youngest prime minister. It was almost fitting that in a country obsessed with shashthipoortis, instead, on December 28, the ruling Congress party, sunning in seamless victories this past year, made much of not 100 years or of 150, but 125 years.

 

Those of us involved in painful price-related conversations with vegetable sellers have also noticed a preference for the price per pau, or quarter-kilogramme, being quoted carefully by sellers — who daren't speak the unspeakable, like say the price for a whole kilo of precious greens. The Age of the Pau, it seems, is upon us. And will stay with us for the near future as well, it appears.

 

Divisibility seems to have percolated through every aspect of our lives, as large, big units are shunned. Consider the immensely competitive SIM card market. "Per second" is perhaps a unique Indianism — akin to the costless "missed call" invention. One well-advertised brand has actually gone down to 1 paisa per second for STD and local calls — venturing into a unit that many children born at the turn of the century can only hope to actually see in a museum. The Nano hit the road this last year and promises to be the one invention that changes the face of small big cities, so to speak.

 

Politics too was not untouched by the trend towards murmurs (and sometimes shouts) favouring small and small units: the Telangana issue, which has seen powerful political phraseology, is now turning on "smaller", "viable" and such-like. Others might argue that K.C. Rao discovered the power of even two Lok Sabha seats by the panicky response he got from the Centre to his hunger-strike as a tribute to thinking that favours the "small".

 

So, ultimately, even politics has not been untouched by the divisibility factor. The logic of an appeal to the aam aadmi, moving voters in Lok Sabha elections in 2009 and beyond, also suggests making a political appeal to notions much more focused than the earlier sense of kin, class and caste. Now, "what is in it for me" seems to be very much the guiding principle in a huge set of aspirant, and anxious to get ahead, voters.

 

It is not just the time and era of the decline of the family pack, but also a decade that's been all about soap and shampoo sachets (even fairness creams available in those), of the tabloid, of that one citizen who can make a difference by filing a revealing RTI query that challenges the system, Big and powerful certainly still rule the roost, but small things — like most recently, an otherwise "small" thing, the publication of the smiling picture of a top police official accused of molesting a teenager, pushed to suicide, can cause tectonic shifts in public opinion. Big may not be Out, but sniper fire from the power of Small is showing a bit of potential to stir things up in the Tens.

 

seema.chishti@expressindia.com

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

OPED

THE NEXT DECADE OF RISK-AVERSE CINEMA

SHUBHRA GUPTA

 

The tagline of a popular mid-80s advert used to sell a new brand of tomato ketchup was: 'it's different'. Both the line and the product were smash hits. The canny folks who put it out (the very same ones who gave us those two-minute noodles) knew exactly what We, The Indian Consumer, savouring our new colour TVs and jingly commercials, wanted. The very same deep red tomato pulp, packaged differently, tasting just a little different. Just enough to tingle, not to startle.

 

At the end of 2009, Bollywood hasn't travelled very far from that mantra. That's because we, The Indian Consumer, salivating over our new 3G phones and high-def TVs, (plasma's so last decade), want what we've always wanted. No change in the basic condiments; just a teeny-tiny switch in flavour which serves exactly the same purpose it always has — to sauce up our dosai and our omelettes both, to sit in our thali with all our other relishes and pickles and chutneys.

 

Around the time the new ketchup became all the rage, Bombay cinema turned into Bollywood, using the same push-pull mantra. Only the naïve believed that zara hatke (a little different), that single-most overused phrase in the industry, denoted major changes. The smart new producers, scions of old film families, homing back to the mother country with their American marketing degrees, knew exactly where the emphasis lay: on the 'zara'. The thing to do was to play lip service to the growing audience indignation, by rearranging the pattern a little, and changing the upholstery, but keeping it same old same old.

 

That's because they heard the undertone under all the whinging and moaning. We were saying something, but it was more for the sake of saying it. We didn't really mean it. And that's exactly what we are still doing, at the end of this decade. We continue to complain bitterly and constantly about the films we get. And when someone does listen to what they think is the voice of the people, given the level of outrage and decibel, and actually gives us new, we jump on their film with both feet, and trample it into the ground. See, different is all well and good, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Not too different, okay?

 

So, surprise, Rocket Singh, Salesman Of The Year, one of the best films of the year, didn't sell. Industry watchers lost no time in calling it the worst film, box-office wise, from production house Yashraj Films. Its failure has led to furious head-scratching, because it had, ostensibly, everything a film needed to become a box office darling. Ranbir Kapoor, Bollywood's New White Hope, terrific as Rocket Singh. Jaideep Sahni's excellent script. Shimit Amin's intelligent direction. And a supporting cast which is every bit as good as the lead player.

 

Postmortems include dissing the low-key marketing initiatives from producer Aditya Chopra (from an excited chorus of 'the promos are mind-blowing ', in the run-up to the release, it became, 'tsk, terrible marketing, viewers didn't know what to expect') ; complaining about Ranbir playing a turbaned-bearded sardar ( he's got to be a 'chikna', yaar) ; and about the film not having a heroine ('yeh kya picture hai, koi gaana-waana nahin?').

 

No, there isn't. No 'naach', no 'gaana'. Glory, hallelujah. That's because Messrs Chopra and Sahni and Amin and Kapoor tried to be truly different. By pushing tired tropes not just to the side, but by dispensing with them altogether. No heroines (in the way we know them), no songs and dances, no separate comic tracks, no over-the-top lines. Just great life-like situations, bitter and sweet.

 

As opposed to the other two films of the Kapoor lad who couldn't do anything wrong this year until he grew facial hair. In Wake Up Sid, he plays a wealthy slacker, teaming up with his pals, careering through a carefree life. In Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, he plays a middle-class slacker, doing exactly the same thing. The first was from a first time director, the second from an experienced old hand, but they served up the story without forgetting the 'gaana-waana'. Both were hits, the second bigger than the first.

 

That's because the Ranbir of 'Ajab' is more basic, more outlined, more the all-purpose old-style Bollywood hero who sings and dances and romances. His girl is beautifully matched; she won't react till he's done something. He is the mover, she is the shaker. This, we love. This is what we want. New Bollywood in Old Nautanki ways. Nothing radical. No leaping through hoops. No, thank you.

 

Is Twenty Ten going to be any different? Fat chance. The first film of the new year is Pyar Impossible, a candy-coloured campus caper from a desperately-hoping-for-box-office-course-correction Yashraj Films. It's got everything that Rocket Singh didn't have: pretty locations, costumed boy and girl, faux glitz and glamour. And yes, lots of 'naach gaana'.

 

shubhra.gupta@expressindia.com

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

OPED

A QUESTION OF INTEGRITY

YUBARAJ GHIMIRE

 

Regressive' is the most hated word in Nepal's politics in the past four years, a word that had become synonymous with the erstwhile monarchy. This was a way for other forces, clearly led by the Maoists, to be recognized as the 'progressive' forces. But now the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (UCPN-M) is facing an identity crisis.

 

"Are you communists or communalists?", a popular media columnist asked. The Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) — the two former allies of the Maoists and a major component of the current government — do not quite know how to preserve the 'progressive image' after their political divorce from the Maoists.

 

The Maoists are facing this difficult question as the party declared around a dozen 'autonomous republican provinces' — their own model of Federal Nepal — with caste and ethnicity as the determinant factor. Last week, they declared Newa republican province as the capital valley, seeking to convey that the capital should go back to the political ownership of the community that dominated pre-unification (1768 AD) Nepal. The 'progressive forces' apparently want to undo what they call a 'military victory' of King Prithvi Narayan Shah — the architect of modern Nepal — who conceptualised the new nation as a 'common garden of all the four varnas and 36 castes'.

 

In fact, the Maoists did not face any resistance when they — symbolic delimitation as they called it — declared the ethnic provinces. Prithvi Narayan Shah had ceased to be a national icon when the G.P. Koirala government that took over from King Gyanendra in April 2006 declared that his birth anniversary would no longer be observed as the national 'unity day'. Through a Home Ministry order, he was turned into a 'persona non grata' in Nepal's history. What the Maoists are doing today — not recognizing the territorial unity that he achieved through a military victory — and taking Nepal back to the pre-1768 stage — is clearly a step backwards.

 

The Maoists have been telling the masses that the creation of the ethnicity-based provinces is actually aimed at empowering ethnic groups. Unilaterally declaring these provinces before the constituent assembly had decided on the modality of federalism and the number of provinces to be created, is putting the cart before the horse. For the first time, it has been challenged by almost all political parties, though they have not banded together on a single platform. The Nepali Congress has declared the action "the most retrograde step the Maoists have taken." The Terai Madhesh Loktantrik Party has announced that it will not recognise this Maoist model of federalism.

 

At the same time, there is a strong undercurrent of hostility from the public, who now see the Maoists as planning to split the country, and who blame the government for not doing enough to defend the nation's integrity. Major political party leaders, incuding those who were at the forefront of the April 2006 movement to restore democracy, are considering organising a big show on January 11 — Prithvi Narayan Shah's birth anniversary — as a challenge to the Maoist politics that wants to disintegrate the country.

 

The political equation formed four years ago on an anti-king platform, at India's behest, has almost collapsed now. Key Maoist ideologues and top leaders have said they are willing to take to arms to capture power anytime, and they have begun treating pro-democracy parties — their allies in the anti-monarchy politics — as enemies. This breaking up is already taking its toll on the peace process and is likely to jeopardise the constitution-making process. The May 28 deadline now looks difficult, if not altogether impossible. The only party that hopes to convert that failure into opportunity are the Maoists. "We will declare the Constitution from the street and capture power if the deadline is not met", said Maoist ideologue Baburam Bhattarai recently. Such an eventuality will render the entire exercise of the past four years futile.

 

The Maoists are confident of capturing power via the weakness of their rivals. They have asked other parties to accept their leadership of the National Unity Government or face indefinite nation-wide strike from January 24 — also an exercise to seize power. They not only plan to unilaterally announce their provincial government, but are also likely to form their own security agencies and bureaucracy which will bring the 'legal state' into direct confrontation with the rebels. Bhattarai hinted as much in his article (in a journal that his daughter edits), asserting that the Maoists need to create a situation in which at least one of the two neighbours — India or China — recognises "our government". Maoist chief Prachanda has said his party is engaging India politically as well as diplomatically, and that it would review "our policy towards India" if it fails to concur with the Maoist stand.

 

But the Maoists do not seem to realise that that they are losing their clout and support at home, by associating themselves with caste and ethnicity, burying the revolutionary image they projected when they launched a decade-long insurgency that resulted in the loss of 14,000 lives. The Maoists are currently even more unpopular than King Gyanendra was after his 15 months of direct rule beginning February 2005. Democracy has been the major issue of concern, but Nepal's integrity has never before been a subject of speculation.

 

yubaraj.ghimire@expressindia.com

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

OPED

LEAD ROLE

 

The lead news item in the latest issue of RSS mouthpiece Organiser titled "A change of guard in BJP — Nitin Gadkari, an organisation man, committed to ideology, is the new BJP chief," says: "Ever since Nitin Gadkari's name was doing the rounds for Bharatiya Janata Party's national president's post, the question that was continuously raised was: Will he be able to bring the derailed BJP back on the rails? Nitin Jairam Gadkari, 52, becoming the national president of BJP is not a routine thing. The change took place at a time when the 'party with a difference' has found itself in disarray. The media, ready to find loopholes in the party, got ample chances to project a negative image of the BJP in the pubic. The morale of the party workers was low. That is when the RSS advised caution. RSS sarsanghachalak Mohan Bhagwat on a number of occasions voiced his concern over the infighting in the BJP and underlined the need for a change in the leadership. Although he did not project any name, the choice ultimately fell on the young leader from Nagpur ".

The news item adds: "The BJP has been harping on commitments like Ramjanmabhoomi, Article 370, Common Civil Code, and Swadeshi these years. But with the party taking lead in forming the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), they were put on the hold. This was in a way responsible for waning popularity of the party to a great extent. Many of its staunch supporters, who came from the RSS, felt disappointed and disillusioned and remained silent during the elections. Gadkari and his new team will have to take into consideration this reality and devise a strategy that could regain the faith of its followers, sympathizers and electorate who could feel assured about the party's ability to implement its agenda. Gadkari needs to put to use all his skills and abilities to give a new dimension, instill new energy and provide a new vision to the party to ensure success on all fronts".

 

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

In an opinion piece titled "Are linguistic states getting out of fashion," M.V. Kamath writes in the latest issue of the RSS journal: "A Pandora's Box has been opened and there are demands for the trifurcation of Uttar Pradesh, with the creation of Purvanchal, Harit Pradesh and Bundelkhand. The Bodos in Assam want Bodoland and there is talk of setting up Vidharbha (now part of Maharashtra), Bhojpur (comprising some areas of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) and a Mithilanchal (comprising districts of Northern Bihar) and a Greater Cooch Behar out of parts of West Bengal and Assam . The Coorgis in South India want a state of their own. It is mind-boggling. Interestingly enough, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayavati swears that she fully supports trifurcation of her state on grounds that economic development of the new states would be easier and faster".

He adds: "One may argue that there are enough sound reasons for the creation of smaller states. Were that concept to be taken to its logical conclusion, there should be no protests in advocating a unitary form of government implying dissolution of the states as they now are and making districts the base units of administration. Would that be a sound proposition? The time has come to do some serious re-thinking in the matter of reorganising states all over again, but this issue has to be tackled not on a piecemeal basis but on a macro-level, dispassionately and in a civilised manner and not through organised rioting. It may take months if not longer to arrive at a meaningful and largely acceptable solution but that calls for disciplined patience and forbearance. We have time on our side. The blackmailing tactics of Chandrasekhar Rao and the weak-kneed reaction of Home Minister P Chidambaram have messed up the situation creating wholly unnecessary problems that need to be addressed. One suspects that the era of linguistic division of the land has become outdated. What the people yearn for is economic progress and at a faster rate, in tune with growing aspirations. And this has to be dealt with wisely, reflecting the needs of changing times".

 

Compiled by Suman K. Jha

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

OPED

TOO COOL TO COUNTER TERROR?

 

I was walking through a deserted downtown on Christmas Eve with a friend, past the lonely, grey Treasury Building, past the snowy White House with no president inside.

 

"I hope the terrorists don't think this is a good time to attack," I said, looking protectively at the White House, which always looks smaller and more vulnerable and beautiful than you expect, no matter how often you see it up close.

 

I thought our guard might be down because of the holiday; now I realise our guard is down every day.

 

One thrilling thing about moving from W. to Barack Obama was that Obama seemed like an avatar of modernity. W., Dick Cheney and Rummy kept ceaselessly dragging us back into the past. America seemed to have lost her ingenuity, her quickness, her man-on-the-moon bravura, her Bugs Bunny panache.

 

Were we clever and inventive enough to protect ourselves from the new breed of Flintstones — hardy yet Facebook-savvy terrorists? W.'s favorite word was "resolute," but despite gazillions spent and Cheney's bluster, our efforts to shield ourselves seemed flaccid.

 

President Obama's favorite word is "unprecedented," as Carol Lee of Politico pointed out. Yet he often seems mired in the past as well, letting his hallmark legislation get loaded up with old-school bribes and pork; surrounding himself with Clintonites; continuing the Bushies' penchant for secrecy and expansive executive privilege; doubling down in Afghanistan while acting as though he's getting out; and failing to capitalise on snazzy new technology while agencies thumb through printouts and continue their old turf battles.

 

Even before a Nigerian with Al Qaeda links tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet headed to Detroit, travelers could see we had made no progress toward a technologically wondrous Philip K. Dick universe.

 

We seemed to still be behind the curve and reactive, patting down grannies and 5-year-olds, confiscating snow globes and lip glosses.

 

Instead of modernity, we have airports where security is so retro that taking away pillows and blankies and bathroom breaks counts as a great leap forward.

 

If we can't catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the US Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn't check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?

 

We are headed toward the moment when screeners will watch watch-listers sashay through while we have to come to the airport in hospital gowns, flapping open in the back.

 

In a rare bipartisan success, House members tried to prevent the Transportation Security Administration from implementing full-body imaging as a screening tool at airports. Just because Republicans helped lead the ban on better technology and opposed airport security spending doesn't mean they'll stop Cheneying the Democrats for subverting national security. Congressman Pete Hoekstra of Michigan was weaselly enough to whack the president and "weak-kneed liberals" in his gubernatorial fund-raising letter.

 

On Tuesday, Obama stepped up to the microphone to admit what Janet Napolitano had first tried to deny: that there had been "a systemic failure" and a "catastrophic breach of security." But in a mystifying moment that was not technically or emotionally reassuring, there was no live video and it looked as though the Obama operation was flying by the seat of its pants.

 

Given that every utterance of the president is usually televised, it was a throwback to radio days — just at the moment we sought reassurance that our security has finally caught up to "Total Recall." All that TV viewers heard, broadcast from a Marine base in Kaneohe Bay, was the president's disembodied voice, talking about "deficiencies."

 

Citing the attempt of the Nigerian's father to warn US authorities six months ago, the president intoned: "It now appears that weeks ago this information was passed to a component of our intelligence community but was not effectively distributed so as to get the suspect's name on a no-fly list."

 

In his detached way, Spock was letting us know that our besieged starship was not speeding into a safer new future, and that we still have to be scared.

 

Heck of a job, Barry.

 

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FINANCIAL EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

YEAR OF RESILIENCE

 

By the time we stumbled upon January 1, 2009, the global financial crisis, which erupted in full force after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, had translated itself into a full-blown economic crisis. Despite the early denial of our political leadership, the crisis took a serious toll on the economy in the October-December quarter of 2008. At the start of the new year, hardly anyone, including the government, was betting on a growth rate of 7% and above for 2009-10; 2008-09 was still salvaged by the buoyant first half. Things looked uncertain, to say the least, exacerbated by the prospect of a general election in April, which was not expected to deliver the clear verdict that it eventually did. When compared with the first few months of 2009, the transition to 2010 is much more optimistic and certain. At the very least we have a stable government, which received an impressive and enhanced mandate for the second successive time, and a resilient economy, which is expected to clock 7% growth for the financial year 2009-10—the latest quarterly GDP growth figure was 7.9%. These are hardly crisis numbers—they fall just short of the 8-9% trend of 2003-08.

 

At the heart of the story of resilience is the strength displayed by domestic consumption demand. The severity of the crisis in the West resulted in a massive squeeze in exports, some 14% of India's GDP. While exports may have recovered a little at the fag end of 2009, there still isn't much to cheer about given the slow speed at which the West (our biggest export market) is recovering. Investment also took a hit in the liquidity crisis and in the crisis of confidence that followed the collapse of Lehman, and continued into early 2009. Still, the loss in investment was relatively small, and corporate investment plans have revived in the second half of 2009. The government did its best with a fiscal stimulus, but India's fiscal stimulus was small when compared even to China's. That leaves relative buoyancy in consumption demand to explain the better than expected GDP numbers in 2009. The role of rural demand—propelled by higher support prices to farmers, spending programmes like NREG and even loan waivers—in keeping the economy growing was particularly noteworthy. That is why the rural consumer is FE's person of the year. Also, contrary to the doomsayers, there was no drought. There was admittedly a differentially distributed monsoon, but it did not hit agriculture as badly as a proper drought might have. In any case, a slight slowdown in agriculture now has limited impact on the broader macroeconomy.

 

 

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FINANCIAL EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

POLICY LETHARGY

 

Interestingly enough, much of the resilience in consumption and the recovery in investment happened despite RBI's relative conservatism on interest rates. Sure, RBI cut rates from the peak levels of 2008, but compared to the rate cuts enacted elsewhere, RBI's efforts were simply not enough. Couple the conservatism in monetary policy with excessive conservatism on financial reform, and we ended up with a situation where bank lending was still too expensive. Big firms used alternative sources of financing but there wasn't anywhere to go for the small business and the aam aadmi. RBI may claim some credit for keeping the Indian financial system safe, but unless the financial system also delivers cheap finance to a large number of stakeholders, safety has little meaning. In the last couple of months of 2009, RBI has been too distracted by the spectre of food inflation—undoubtedly a supply-side problem, for which monetary policy has no solution. Still, RBI's distraction ensured that the debate on interest rates shifted to exit strategy mode much earlier than it ought to have—some more monetary accommodation may have led to better growth numbers. As we have argued repeatedly in these columns, there is no sign of conventional overheating in the economy, even now. One of the things to watch out for in the early months of 2010 will be how RBI tackles the twin issues of monetary policy and financial sector reform.

 

However, RBI was not the only institution responsible for a lukewarm policy response to an unprecedented crisis. The government, while doing its bit to promote fiscal stimulus, has clearly not done enough in terms of giving the economy a reforms stimulus. As we move into 2010, it is clear that both monetary and fiscal stimuli will be withdrawn sooner rather than later. After that, whether the economy can maintain its 7% momentum and ideally move back up to 9% trend depends on the kind of economic reform measures the UPA-2 enacts. The government was obviously not in a position to push key reforms before the general election. But after receiving a fresh mandate, and without the baggage of the Left parties, UPA-2 had the perfect opportunity to give new thrust to economic reform. The government has proceeded, even if slowly, on disinvestment. But it has made little progress in terms of enacting crucial reform legislation (pensions, insurance, companies Bill, land acquisition Bill, among others, are still pending) in the two sessions of Parliament after the general election. Perhaps the biggest policy challenge for the government in the coming year will be to sort out the tricky issue of land acquisition. If stalemate continues, the prospects for building infrastructure and manufacturing facilities will be dented. If 2010 is to be the year the economy recovers—that is, gets back to 8%-plus growth—then policy stimulus has to play a much bigger role than it did in 2009.

 

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FINANCIAL EXPRESS

COLUMN

HOW THE NEXT DECADE CAN BE INDIA'S

WILLIAM H AVERY

In the past decade India has proved its resilience. The nation survived two global recessions and multiple terrorist attacks with its secular democracy intact and its economy stronger than ever. Along the way it gained de facto admission to the club of nuclear weapon states and established itself as a future world power.

 

India's task in the coming decade is to make this future a reality. For the world to accept India as a major power, it has to start acting like one, not just talking like one. Here are 10 things that should be on India's to-do list for the next 10 years:

 

Quit NAM: The organisation's membership is a who's who of third rate powers. To be in NAM is a declaration of impotence. India has outgrown it, and should withdraw. The remaining members can then non-align themselves against India if they wish.

 

Forget the UN Security Council: Indians should be embarrassed at its government's repeated requests for a permanent seat on the UNSC. It is a legacy institution comprised of the victors of a war that ended 65 years ago. Three of its five members are declining powers. India should look towards the 21st century and prepare itself for the new conflicts that will confer great power status.

 

Build a world-class navy: India has the fourth largest navy in the world—in terms of manpower. But wars are won by tonnage, not by headcount. In tonnage, India's navy is currently seventh, behind France and at one half of China's strength. India needs to be among the top three in navy: at par with China and behind only the US.

 

Complete the NPT Two-Step: It's a nice dance move. Say the NPT is discriminatory and you will not sign it. Get an exemption to trade in nuclear technology anyway. Then, once you are a de facto nuclear weapon state, say you would like to be admitted to the NPT. It will be another triumph of nuclear cunning if India can pull it off.

 

Police the neighbourhood: India was traumatised by the IPKF experience but must get over it. Great powers do not let anyone mess with them in their neighbourhood. A young America declared in the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 that it would not tolerate any further European colonies in the Western Hemisphere. Britain sees as an act of aggression occupation of the low country ports of Holland or Belgium by another power. Russia fought a war in 2008 to keep Georgia from getting too chummy with NATO. So, why is India letting the Chinese build a port in Sri Lanka? India has to defend its perimeter or it will find itself vulnerable to more strategic-thinking adversaries.

 

Lock up natural resources: Here India needs to take a page from China's playbook. From South America to Africa, China has been sealing deals for the minerals to feed its growing industrial base. India has to start to catch up, and quickly.

 

Start India's own H-1B programme: It is time for India to become a net importer of talent. Smart employees worldwide will flock to India's growth. If Mumbai is to become a global financial centre, it will have to have as many foreigners as Hong Kong or London.

 

Open up the higher education sector: Apart from infrastructure, education is India's greatest barrier to faster, more inclusive economic growth. For higher education, many students have no choice but to go abroad for studies, and their parents' money goes with them. Others can neither afford to go abroad nor get a place in India. This is an intolerable situation for a nation that values education and self-improvement. The only way to change it fast is with outside help. The government should pass the Foreign Education Providers Bill.

 

Sell Indian culture overseas: Global powers enhance their influence by exporting their popular culture to the world. The English and the French did it with literature; America has done it with film and television. India has a thriving English-language creative industry that is an untapped instrument of influence. The Indian government should devote more energy and taxpayer money to selling Indian culture overseas, from Bollywood to high literature. The Chinese are nowhere in this regard, having hardly encouraged artistic expression, much less in English. India has a real opportunity to step forward and define new global artistic motifs for Asia's Century.

 

Find India's own Teddy Roosevelt: A century ago, America had a thoroughly modern, young President unafraid to stake a claim to global power status. TR mediated an end to the Russo-Japanese War, dug the Panama Canal and showed off the US navy on a world tour. India needs its own TR for the 21st century. He or she will change the way the world sees India and the way India sees itself.

 

India's restraint in the face of provocations over the past decade has earned it the world's respect and paid economic dividends. To become a world power, India will have to continue to build its economic and military strength, flex its muscles and—where necessary—shed its blood. Nations become great powers by winning wars. There is no other way.

 

The author is a former US diplomat

 

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FINANCIAL EXPRESS

COLUMN

 REGAINING GROUND LOST TO KOREA, CHINA

GEETHANJALI NATARAJ

Japanese PM Yukio Hatoyama's visit to India marks a new high in the India-Japan bilateral relationship. In recent years, India and Japan have strengthened bilateral ties through new initiatives and programmes ranging from economic and cultural linkages to defence and security. The two countries came on to each other's radar screens on a concerted, regular basis only after their bilateral Strategic and Global Partnership was established in December 2006, mandating an annual summit between the PMs of both the countries.

 

Going back in time, the end of World War II set the stage for fraternity between the two countries. The year 1957 witnessed a momentous alliance between India and Japan. Japan extended its first yen loan to India in 1958. It marked greater strengthening of economic ties between the two countries. India-Japan trade talks on overall bilateral trade and investment began in 1978. Since 1986, Japan has been India's largest aid donor through several channels, including official development assistance. But relations between the two countries turned delicate in May 1998 when India conducted underground nuclear tests. However, relations improved gradually and in the year 2000, the two countries envisaged a 'global partnership' and attempts were made to build on engagement through creation of a strategic plan of action.

 

In 2007-08, Japan ranked third amongst India's trading partners. Bilateral trade between Japan and India has been rising steadily since 2003. From $4.37 billion in 2003-04, it rose to $6.5 billion in 2005-06, to $7.45 billion in 2006-07 and to $10.17 billion in 2007-08. The growth rate during this five-year period was 35.56%. The Confederation of Indian Industry estimates that the trade volume could touch $15 billion by 2010 if issues like trade facilitation and non-tariff barriers were addressed. Similarly, there is a conscious effort on the part of the Indian government to improve investment relations with Japan as well.

 

India's robust economic growth in recent years has not gone unnoticed in Japan. Japan is now the sixth-largest foreign investor in India. Further, Indo-Japanese trade relations have helped India to bring cumulative FDI inflows to the tune of $2.4 billion during 2000-08 into its domestic market. Japan's contribution to India's FDI inflow was only 4.29% of total FDI inflows between 1991 and 2007, and investment volumes have also fluctuated, though inflows have been increasing since 2007. Japanese investment is largely below potential because investors are troubled by India's complicated bureaucracy and poor physical infrastructure.

 

Second, Japanese companies are generally cautious about their investments in India after having had bad experiences in the 1980s with real estate in their own country. The Japanese economy was taken over by a huge and intoxicating speculative boom, which started to burst in 1990. In the 1990s some of their hi-tech companies that entered Indian markets early like Toshiba could not survive. These two factors have ensured that both Korea and China are ahead of Japan in market penetration in India. However, the inception of economic reforms in India in 1991 has brought about a sea change in the manner in which institutions function. There is an enabling environment for both trade and investment and tremendous scope for Japanese high value-added products in the Indian market, especially in consumer electronics and light engineering goods. Given the high quality of Japanese products, Japanese investors too can cater to the demands of the price-sensitive Indian consumer. Therefore, Japan must overcome its fears about the Indian economic climate to fully benefit from a partnership with India.

 

The main agenda of this year's annual summit between the two countries was to build on basic infrastructure and pave the way for an enhancement of the bilateral relationship.

 

Defence ties (particularly joint patrolling of key marine passages), counter-terrorism, energy security, nuclear issues, and measures against global warming, a free trade agreement and raising the economic profile of both countries were high on the agenda this year. At the end of the 4th Annual Summit, the PMs of the two countries issued a joint statement that is expected to act as a catalyst in enhancing the India-Japan strategic relationship.

 

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FINANCIAL EXPRESS

COLUMN

NOT ALL COMMODITIES GLITTERED LIKE GOLD

SANJEEB MUKHERJEE

The prices of most commodities are poised to end significantly lower in 2009 than their average prices in 2008. Even though signs of recovery in global markets, and the dollar's continued weakness, have pushed up prices of major farm and non-farm commodities in the last three months, price levels for most commodities are nowhere near 2008 peaks.

 

The average price of crude oil has moved up from $68.35 per barrel in September to $77.55 a barrel in November, but the average for the first 11 months of 2009 is significantly lower than the 2008 full-year average crude price of $96.99 per barrel. The same story repeats in other dollar-denominated commodities like copper, aluminium, zinc, lead, tin and steel.

 

Gold, however, is expected to be the brightest non-farm commodity in 2009. The metal has averaged $958 per troy ounce in the first 11 months of 2009, up almost 10% from the 2008 full year average price of $872 per ounce. Since September, the average monthly price of the metal has risen from $997 per ounce to $1,127 per ounce.

 

Dollar price movements will be the predominant guiding factor for gold in 2010, with some experts predicting that the metal will top $1,250 per troy ounce in the first quarter of 2010. How accurate these predictions are will be one of the most fascinating things to watch out for in the commodities space next year.

 

In farm commodities, sugar has stood out as the most vibrant in 2009. Sugar prices broke all records on the back of low output in India, the world's largest consumer, and falling yields in Brazil, the largest producer. In the first 11 months of 2009, sugar prices averaged 38.92 cents per kg in the international markets, almost 38% more than 2008. Though there has been some recent moderation in sugar prices because of the harvest in India, sugar prices will continue to remain high till a clear picture of the actual Brazilian crop emerges. Since September, sugar prices have dropped from around 50.84 cents per kg to 49.07 cents per kg. The average prices of all other major farm commodities like rice, wheat, palm oil, cotton and rubber will close 2009 at levels lower than those seen in 2008.

 

sanjeeb.mukherjee@expressindia.com

 

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THE HINDU

EDITORIAL

DEVELOPING THE WESTERN CORRIDOR

 

The project to build a Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) got the much-needed push, with the signing of two Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) between the Japanese and Indian institutions. The DMIC Development Corporation and the Japanese JETRO are to promote 24 eco-cities or smart communities along the corridor, while the Japan Bank for International Cooperation has offered a $75 million loan facility to help establish a Project Development Fund to kick-start the project. The DMIC project comprises a host of sub-projects for infrastructure development — for instance industrial estates, power plants, and logistics parks — which are to come up on either side of the proposed 1,483 km Delhi-Mumbai railway freight corridor. The foundation stone for the rail corridor was laid by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh way back in October 2006. This Rs.22,000 crore project is expected to change the face of the western corridor, with the DMIC developing the entire hinterland. The Gujarat government has embarked on a vigorous drive to attract foreign investment for the project and it can be expected to gain momentum as a result of the recent visit of Japanese Prime Minister Yokio Hatoyama. In addition to harnessing Japanese investments and interests, the States along the western corridor will also be tapping foreign and domestic investments for the overall development of the region. The western rail freight corridor will link the Jawaharlal Nehru port and other ports in Gujarat to the industrial belts in the western, central, and northern regions extending up to New Delhi. A separate dedicated corridor to the east has also been planned by the Indian Railways, and the work on it was launched in February. The dedicated corridor is meant to focus exclusively on carrying freight, and the project, conceived in 2004-05, envisages 2,700 km of new freight lines and about 5,000 km of feeder lines.

 

The western corridor will connect Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Palanpur, Jaipur, Rewari, Tughlakabad, and Dadri. It is now for the Government of India, and all the agencies involved in the massive project — including the Railways, the State governments, and even the Planning Commission — to work in close coordination and ensure that it does not suffer undue delays and the consequent cost over-runs. Japan wants to showcase the DMIC as a model not just for India, but the whole world. To begin with, the Indian agencies need to expedite the basic work on the feasibility report, environmental clearances, land acquisition, and preparation of a blueprint for the whole project. The prospective investors will need a definite time frame and a detailed plan to finalise their investment plans.

 

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THE HINDU

EDITORIAL

A WORTHWHILE PROGRAMME

 

The National Biomass Cookstove Initiative launched recently will for the first time put the user at the centre of the efforts to develop improved chulhas. The programme that was started in 1986, and discontinued in 2002, aimed at providing improved chulhas to reduce indoor pollution and fuel consumption. It is a classic example of how developing a product for the rural masses without the involvement of actual users is destined to fail. The abject failure to understand the cooking habits and the lack of facilities to maintain the chulhas were the primary reasons for the improved chulhas not evoking widespread interest. While the programme helped in spreading awareness about the need to improve cooking practices to reduce smoke, it failed to achieve the primary objective of reducing indoor pollution. The government appears to have finally learnt from its mistakes; the latest initiative makes it abundantly clear that the cookstoves will be "easy to use and maintain" and will "conform to local cooking habits." It also does not see the cookstoves to be "free handouts" but as "economically sustainable business solutions."

 

If reducing indoor pollution was the main objective of the earlier programme, the latest initiative seeks to achieve the twin objectives of reducing indoor pollution and cutting the amount of soot emitted. Indoor pollution from stoves is a major public health issue. According to the World Health Organisation estimates for 2002, nearly 400,000 deaths were attributable to indoor pollution from chulhas. Soot arising from incomplete burning of fossil fuel and biomass used in chulhas is seen as a contributory factor to climate change, whose effects are manifesting themselves in the melting of the Himalayan glaciers and the erratic behaviour of the monsoons. The potential to slow down the pace of global warming by reducing the soot emitted from chulhas has caught the attention not only of India but of a few developed countries as well. Chulhas are used in many developing countries leading to the continual emission of soot. However, unlike carbon dioxide, the life span of soot in the atmosphere is only a few days or weeks. Hence any solution that would cut soot emission has the potential to quickly bring about discernible changes in atmospheric pollution. With climate change issues coming to the fore, it is small wonder that the quest for improved chulhas should get a fillip. Under the new programme, apart from testing the commercially available cookstoves and processed biomass fuels, work are to be taken up on developing the next-generation cookstoves and biomass-processing technologies.

 

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THE HINDU

LEADER PAGE ARTICLES

INDIA AND THE CENTRAL ASIAN DAWN

THE POLITICS OF THE VAST DESERTS AND STEPPES OF CENTRAL ASIA WILL SIGNIFICANTLY DETERMINE THE CONTOURS OF ANY DURABLE AFGHAN SETTLEMENT. THE IMPLICATIONS FOR SOUTH ASIA'S SECURITY WILL BE FAR-REACHING, TOO.

M.K. BHADRAKUMAR

 

Ibn Battuta, the 14th-century traveller, described the Hindu Kush ranges as the "slayer of the Indians," as people from the "land of India" mostly perished in the snowy heights of extreme cold. The ranges that run through Afghanistan did indeed split the Indian historical consciousness about that country.

 

When policymakers in New Delhi grappled with the Mujahideen takeover in Afghanistan, it suddenly dawned on them how little they knew about the tribes that inhabited the northern side of the Hindu Kush. It was those tribes who won the tight race for Kabul against the Pashtun Mujahideen groups during the dramatic "transfer of power" in 1992 by the communist regime headed by Najibullah, and New Delhi had on its hands the unenviable "post-Soviet" task of establishing a narrative suitable for a new dawn in the region's ancient history.

 

The point is, the geopolitics of Afghanistan always had two halves. Which, of course, posed a major challenge to U.S. President Barack Obama when he crafted the new Afghan strategy. Equally, for regional powers like India or Uzbekistan, the dichotomy came in the way of creating a common space that would open the vistas of a regional initiative. Viewed from Delhi and Tashkent, the "great game" in the Hindu Kush mountains assumed different shades. Some things do not easily change in life — even for an aspiring regional power. Even today, Indian discourses on Afghanistan run a predictable course. Has the U.S. administration finally woken up to the harsh reality of the Pakistani military's doublespeak in the fight against terrorism? If so, will it turn the screw on its single most crucial partner in the fight? Period.

 

From this point, the angst deepens somewhat. Will the U.S. finally abandon the willing suspension of disbelief about the Pakistani military's passion for its strategic asset, the Taliban, and realise instead that New Delhi is Washington's sole "natural ally" in the region in the fight against terrorism? And, therefore, will the U.S. allow itself the privilege of India's cooperation in "stabilising" Pakistan? This range of issues more or less hogs the quaint Indian approach toward the Afghan problem in the seminar circuits in Delhi where one hears the thesis being rolled out ad nauseam like a repeatedly-vulcanised rubber tyre not possessing its original tensile strength any more.

 

Meanwhile, the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush leading to the vast Central Asia are preparing for a new dawn in the region's history. To be sure, the politics of the vast deserts and steppes of Central Asia that span the space between the Caucasus in the west and Xinjiang in the east will significantly determine the contours of any durable Afghan settlement. The downstream implications for South Asian security will be far-reaching too.

 

Three aspects to the emergent Central Asian security are of interest to India. One, China is venturing out as a provider of regional security and stability — supplementing Russia's traditional role. The opening of the 1,833-km gas pipeline on December 14 connecting the energy fields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to Xinjiang with an annual capacity of 40 billion cubic metres resets not only China but also the world community's terms of engagement with the region. The pipeline becomes part of China's 7,000-km long East-West trunk route that feeds its booming centres of production on the eastern seaboard and will provide half of China's present gas consumption.

 

Such a vital economic lifeline requires security guarantee and China is going about that task in its usual way by creating "win-win" situations with its Central Asian partners. In sharp contrast to the predatory instincts of western companies that zero in on the region's huge untapped mineral resources and rare earths, China is stepping in with a comprehensive engagement plan based on equity and mutual trust and partnership that promises uplift of the Central Asian economies from their post-Soviet trough.

 

From Beijing's perspective, the security of Central Asia (and Afghanistan) becomes integral to Xinjiang's stability, apart from China's overall energy security, which heavily depends at present on the extended supply routes via the U.S-controlled Malacca Straits that can prove a choke point. Flush with surplus capital, China, therefore, is showing the will to invest in Central Asia's prosperity and stability and thereby create a matrix of mutual dependence. The West cannot cope with this audacity. The London-based Economist Intelligence Unit estimates an 8 per cent growth rate for China's economy, whereas overall contractions of 2 and 4 per cent are forecast for the U.S. and the eurozone economies.

 

Two, the West would have ideally liked a clash of interests between China and Russia in Central Asia. But the emerging paradigm is instead pointing in the direction of a convergence of mutual interests. With the global downturn and the deep economic recession plus the sharp fall in energy export revenues, Moscow is accepting China's investments as the only realistic way out for the development of the vast Russian Far East and Siberia as well as Central Asia. In May, President Dmitry Medvedev openly called for a tandem approach by Moscow and Beijing to the RFE and Siberia's development, on the one hand, and the resuscitation of China's dilapidated northeastern industrial base, on the other.

 

Russia is pleased that Central Asia has no pressing need for alternative U.S.-backed gas pipelines headed for Europe. Russia and China have a shared interest in keeping the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the U.S. out of Central Asia. Both harbour misgivings about a hidden U.S. agenda of keeping open-ended military presence in Pakistan and Afghanistan and of manipulating Islamist elements as instruments of geopolitics. Both search for ways to influence a swift "Afghanisation" of the war that paves the way for the vacation of foreign occupation.

 

Three, a U.S. attempt to draw the Central Asian states into the AfPak is indeed apparent. The day after the commissioning of China's Central Asia pipeline, the U.S. State department stated in a testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "The [Central Asian] region is at the fulcrum of key U.S. security, economic, and political interests. It demands attention and respect and our most diligent efforts … any examination of U.S. policy towards Central Asia must start with the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan … We [the Obama administration] have begun to establish high-level mechanisms with each country in Central Asia, featuring a structured annual dialogue to strengthen ties and build practical cooperation."

 

Never before has the U.S. Central Asia policy been framed in such priority terms. It doesn't need much ingenuity to estimate that the U.S. "surge" on Kandahar, which is projected in terms of the Taliban challenge, can be seen in a broader perspective. A recent study by the influential Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington says: "Kandahar is the key road connection between the new Pakistani port of Gwadar and Afghanistan and, beyond that, all Central Asia, Europe, and much of the Middle East. Pakistan began the development of Gwadar with aid from China and has now engaged Singapore for the second phase of work … On Gwadar, the interests of the U.S, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are aligned … With Kandahar now in its eye, the U.S. should plan to build on future success there by making the opening to Gwadar a high priority … Pentagon officials estimate the cost of upgrading this connection at about $1 billion." Obviously, any U.S. contingency plan would need to overcome the regional powers' "more specific interests and competitive inclinations that obstruct" the U.S. grand design. The CSIS report names China, India, Iran and Russia and flags the "sustained insecurity in Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Kashmir, and other parts of Eurasia" as the challenge to the overall U.S. strategy.

 

Clearly, these new templates in regional security underscore that India's normalisation with China increasingly assumes a regional dimension. This needs to be seriously factored in as the two countries sit down for the next phase of relations. As the distinguished former Indian diplomat and respected China scholar, Ambassador C.V. Ranganathan, put it recently, "Our shared neighbourhood should come on the agenda of serious discussions extending to concentric circles of expanding the dialogue to include all the primary parties affected by the situation in the AfPak region."

 

China has remarkably transformed in the past quarter century. All indications are that it has no inclination to fish in the troubled India-Pakistan waters. On the contrary, as a Xinhua commentary pointed out last week, "For solving the dispute over the Mumbai attacks [of 26 November 2008], India and Pakistan should count on bilateral efforts to reduce tension rather than allow the situation being further complicated by other issues such as the U.S.-led Afghan War." Plainly put, the China discourses of our strategic community are caught in a time warp. Stereotyped thinking should not impede new pathways from being opened in strengthening regional security.

 

(The writer is a former diplomat.)

 

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THE HINDU

LOSS OF NUCLEAR REACTOR CONTRACT, A MAJOR BLOW TO FRANCE

THIS COULD DENT FRENCH BID TO BECOME THE BIGGEST PLAYER IN CIVILIAN NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY.

VAIJU NARAVANE

 

In a major blow to the French nuclear industry, France has just lost a 20.4 billion-Euro-bid to supply four 1,400 megawatt nuclear reactors to the emirate of Abu Dhabi, the winner being a South Korean consortium led by the public sector electricity giant Kepco. The contract, made public on December 27, calls for the "conception, construction and assistance in the running" of four nuclear reactors of 1,400 megawatts each.

 

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak went home triumphant after an official visit to Abu Dhabi with a done deal and a contract in his pocket, much to the chagrin and consternation of the French who were certain they would be awarded the coveted prize. The Kepco-led Korean consortium also includes Hyundai, Samsung and more importantly, the Japanese Toshiba-Westinghouse combine, who are among Areva's most fierce competitors.

 

This development could seriously undermine France's attempts to become the biggest player in the lucrative field of civilian nuclear technology. The French bid, put together by a consortium that included EDF, the state-run electricity company, GDF Suez, Areva, petroleum colossus Total and Vinci, had proposed the construction of a 1,650-megawatts third generation French EPR or Evolutionary Power Reactor.

 

To say that the French are immensely disappointed would be an understatement. President Nicolas Sarkozy himself indulged in some very aggressive sales talk during his trips to Abu Dhabi and Claude Gueant, the General Secretary of the Elysee Presidential Palace, made repeated visits to the sheikhdom these past 18 months.

 

In a terse interview published on Monday, President Sarkozy's right hand man often described as his eminence grise indicated that "lessons will have to be learnt from this disappointment." Mr. Gueant suggested that the Korean consortium had won the contract because it had proposed very competitive electricity tariffs and dismissed suggestions that safety concerns, delays and cost overruns in the construction of EPR reactors in Finland and France could have affected French chances. He did admit however, that the French side had been slow to get its act together.

 

Safety concerns about the "command and control" chain of the EPR reactor had been made public by three national nuclear safety agencies in Britain, Finland and France (The Hindu, November 7, 2009). In an unusual joint statement, the three national nuclear safety agencies had pointed to severe design flaws in the reactor while underlining that Areva was cooperating with them to make the necessary changes. The EPR, which the French proudly describe the as "the best and safest reactor ever made," has yet to prove its technology. There are only four such reactors under construction in the world, one each in France and Finland and two in China. But all four sites have encountered construction delays and cost over-runs which have added to the already high cost of the reactors — about four billion Euros each.

 

France has decided to take the blow on the chin and put up a brave face so as not to jeopardise other profitable contracts in the Emirates, especially the sale of 60 Dassault-made Rafale combat aircraft which are competing against American F-16s and the European fighter-bomber, the Eurofighter. Since it was first made some 30 years ago, France has failed to sell a single one of these aircraft outside its borders. Contracts with Brazil and Abu Dhabi are still to be finalised and despite intense French lobbying, India too has been chary of investing in what has been described as the world's most expensive fighter aircraft. Two Rafale crashes on the same day last September prompted the Brazilians to delay their decision and ask the French Defence Ministry for more information.

 

These developments do not augur well for President Nicolas Sarkozy either politically or economically. Regional elections to be held in March will be a test of the government's popularity. Mr. Sarkozy has seen his popularity ratings dip severely in recent months and has launched public debate on "French national identity" in an attempt to capture the growing extreme right vote. Unfortunately for him, the debate has turned nasty, giving free reign to the expression of extremely base, hate-filled sentiments, especially in regard to immigration and Islam. His strategy therefore could boomerang — success with extreme right voters contrasting sharply with losses at the centre.

 

Economically too, France is facing difficulties with steadily rising unemployment figures despite a faltering return to growth. Areva is poised to cut another 5,000 jobs and the loss of the Abu Dhabi contract could be interpreted as a personal failure for the President.

 

The state plays a significant role in the energy sector in France. It has majority shareholding in EDF and Areva but also holds 36 per cent of GDF Suez. Mr. Sarkozy is aware of the state's responsibility in keeping and augmenting France's competitive edge in the nuclear sector. For the moment China, with its massive nuclear programme, appears to be the surest market from the French perspective.

 

India has the EPR in its sights as it scrutinises its nuclear options and Mr. Sarkozy, who is scheduled to visit the country on March 5, 2010, will no doubt to engage in some more nuclear hard sell while in New Delhi.

 

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THE HINDU

A DECADE OF GLOBAL CRIMES, CRUCIAL ADVANCES

U.S. STRATEGIC DEFEAT IN IRAQ, A DISCREDITED MARKET MODEL, CHINA'S RISE AND LATIN AMERICAN FREEDOM OFFER HOPE FOR THE WORLD.

SEUMAS MILNE

 

Eight years on, we're still caught in the shadow of the twin towers. As a rule, terrorism in its proper sense isn't

just morally indefensible — it also doesn't work. In contrast to mass national resistance campaigns or guerrilla movements, the record of socially disconnected terror groups, from the Russian anarchists onwards, has been one of unmitigated failure. But the wildly miscalculated response of the United States government succeeded in turning the 9/11 atrocities into what may rank as the most successful terror attack in history.

 

It also triggered the first of four decisive changes which have ensured that the 21st century's first decade has transformed the world — in some significant ways for the better. Osama Bin Laden's initial demand was the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia, which was carried out in short order. But it was George Bush's war on terror that paradoxically delivered the greatest blow to U.S. authority and the world's first truly global empire, in ways Al Qaeda could scarcely have dreamed of.

 

Not only did the lawless savagery of the U.S. campaign of killings, torture, kidnappings and incarceration without trial spawn terrorists across the Muslim world and beyond, while comprehensively disposing of western pretensions to be the global guardians of human rights. But the U.S.-British invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, in the latter case on a flagrantly false pretext, starkly exposed the limits of U.S. military power to impose its will on recalcitrant peoples prepared to fight back.

 

In Iraq, that had already amounted to a strategic defeat, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, by the time the U.S. surge bought some time by splitting the resistance movement. Both on a regional and global scale, the demonstration of U.S. military overreach strengthened the hand of those prepared to defy America's will, and revealed 2003 as having been the high-water mark of U.S. imperial pomp.

 

The election of Barack Obama on a platform of withdrawal from Iraq, and Russia's crushing response to the attack on South Ossetia by the US client state of Georgia, confirmed that shift by signalling the end of unchecked US unilateralism. The unipolar moment had passed.

 

America's unexpected decline was further underlined by the economic meltdown of 2008-9, the greatest crash since the 1930s and the second epochal development which has defined this decade. Incubated in the U.S. and deepened by the vast cost of multiple wars, the crisis has played the greatest havoc with those economies that bought most enthusiastically into the catechism of deregulated markets and unchained corporate power.

 

A voracious model of capitalism forced down the throats of most of the world for the last 20 years as the only acceptable form of economic management, at a cost of ever-widening inequality and devastating environmental degradation, has now been discredited - and has been rescued from collapse only by the greatest global state intervention ever. In less than 10 years, the baleful global twins of neoconservatism and neoliberalism have been tried and tested to destruction.

 

Both failures have accelerated the rise of China, the third vital change of the past 10 years, which has not only taken hundreds of millions out of poverty as the economic gap with the U.S. has halved (China has in fact overtaken the U.S. in domestic capital generation), but also begun to create a new centre of power in a multipolar world that should expand the freedom of manoeuvre for smaller states. Its blithe disregard for free market orthodoxy has only added to its success in riding out the west's slump. So perhaps it's no surprise that western politicians are increasingly anxious to blame China for their own failures, in everything from trade imbalances to the fiasco of the Copenhagen climate change negotiations.

 

LAST GLOBALLY SIGNIFICANT SHIFT

The decade's last globally significant shift, less often remarked on than the others, has been the tide of progressive social change that has swept Latin America.

 

Driven by the region's dismal early experience of neoliberal economics, and assisted both by U.S. absorption in the war on terror and the emergence of China, a string of radical socialist and social-democratic governments have been swept to power, attacking social and racial injustice, challenging U.S. domination and taking back resources from corporate control. Twenty years after we were told that there would be no 21st century alternatives to neoliberal capitalism, Latin Americans are creating them here and now.

 

Of course, the positive dimensions of the events of this decade come with a heavy dose of qualifications. The US will remain the richest and overwhelmingly dominant global power, with a military presence in most countries in the world, for the foreseeable future. Its defeat in the Middle East, in any case partial, has been bought at huge human cost. It continues to wage the war on terror, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. And the emerging global multipolarity brings its own risks of conflict.

 

Free market capitalism may now be reviled, but governments have mortgaged their citizens' futures to keep it afloat, while the crisis has generated mass unemployment and attacks on the living standards of the already poor across the world. In Latin America, the elites show every sign of wanting to reverse the social gains of the past decade, as they have already succeeded in doing by violent coup in Honduras, with US acquiescence.

 

But at least there is now more space for progressive movements and states to manoeuvre. The Washington consensus is gone and the post-Soviet new world order is mercifully no more. Who predicted that at the millennium? Meanwhile, citizens of the U.S. and its allies have shown increasing reluctance to send their sons and daughters to die in neocolonial wars. With the re-emergence of other independent powers, American leaders might even see the advantage in a rules-based system of international relations.

 

Liberal commentators in the U.S. have branded the past 10 years as a "lost decade" and a "big zero." They have certainly seen catastrophes and crimes on a wanton scale. But for most of the rest of the world, there have also been crucial advances.

 

 © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2009

 

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THE HINDU

TWITTER: A CULT AND NOT A CURE

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES CREATE ONLY A DEAFENING BANALITY.

JAMES HARKIN

 

In 2003, in an elaborate joke on New York's media-savvy, empty-headed hipsters, a journalist called Bill Wasik sent around an anonymous email suggesting that they congregate at a department store at the same time and stare at a rug. The event was an enormous success, and became the world's first documented example of a "flash mob." By the end of the decade, however, the joke had turned sour, and was on all of us. Faced with any kind of group activity, our first response is: do any of them know how to use Twitter?

 

How did we get here? In the last decade, ideas about how society works have been treated to a glamorous new outing. It all began in the year 2000, with the publication of Malcolm Gladwell's beautifully crafted bestseller The Tipping Point. Gladwell argued that, given the right kind of push, ideas or products can suddenly gain traction and pass around from person to person like a virus. In its wake came a slew of new thinking about how information and ideas cascade around the place and gather momentum. Then there was the influential idea that we can raise ourselves to a kind of collective intelligence — the so-called "wisdom of crowds" — by arriving at our decisions independently and punching our best guesses into a computer.

 

Most of these new ideas took their cue from the time we've been spending online. At a time of rapid change in the way we're communicating, that's hardly surprising. It helped that many of these new ideas-entrepreneurs made excellent writers and talkers, capable of expressing their theories with more flair and less pomposity than the traditional homme serieux. It would be churlish not to admit that there was something in their ideas, too. Online is a fantastically efficient way of sending a message out, and taking a pop at established industry authorities.

 

But the hard part is to find a message worth sending — it's not good enough, as the internet gurus do, just to blow hard about the joys of a new medium. One of the most embarrassing features of recent British political life is the unseemly haste with which our politicians and their wonks have chased after the latest modish ideas book. They have listened rapt as a succession of breathless internet evangelists told them weird and wonderful stories about young people who were using Facebook and Twitter to organise a whole new kind of politics.

 

It wasn't long before the same ideas were being used as a lens with which to understand problems in other countries. From Iran to Moldova, it was claimed, a new generation of activists had armed themselves with Twitter and were using it to fight political repression. "You cannot have Rwanda again," argued Gordon Brown in June, referring to the "Twitter revolution" in Iran. "This week's events in Iran are a reminder of the way that people are using new technology to come together in new ways to make their views known."

 

It all turned out to be wildly overcooked. Among activists and dissidents, Twitter and other social networking sites were useful in getting messages out of the country, but they turned out to be just as handy for the authorities who were trying to track them down. In any case, since only a tiny number of Iranians use Twitter — a mere 0.027 per cent, according to a forthcoming report from the British Council — it was never going to be much use in organising demos. In retrospect, our fascination with Twitter said much more about us than about them.

 

Now that the American neoconservative idea to export democracy and universal values to the Middle East at the barrel of a gun lies in ruins, all we have to offer the Iranians is Twitter. It might end up doing more harm than good, both abroad and at home. Societies come with their own delicate rhythms and inner workings, and can't be explained as a virus or a bit of information coursing through a network. As we approach a general election, middle-aged politicians who hang out with their chums on Twitter instead of knocking on doors are only going to reinforce the distance they have put between them and their public.

 

Thankfully, there are now the first stirrings of a backlash against the cult of social media. In his forthcoming book, You Are Not a Gadget, the American computer scientist and pioneer of virtual reality Jaron Lanier will defend authorship and individual creativity against the deafening banality of the online crowd. For some time now, the Belarussian blogger Evgeny Morozov has been hammering away at the myth that social media is necessarily a good thing for political activism.

 

The author of The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki, admitted in the London-based Guardian newspaper that the "decentralised collective intelligence" of bankers staring at computers was worse than useless when confronted with a real crisis in the markets. Even Gladwell, writing in the New Yorker, has poured eloquent scorn on the cybernetic clarion call that all information wants to be free.

 

A popular thirst for understanding how society works is one of the promising developments of the decade just gone. But in the absence of anything more solid to work with, we've been happy to stare at our own narcissistic reflection in a shiny new medium. Maybe in the coming decade we'll think up some ideas worth passing around.

 

(Note: James Harkin is the author ofCyburbia; www.cyburbia.tv.)

 

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THE HINDU

I DON'T NEED A WAR TO FIGHT MY CANCER

USING THE MARTIAL METAPHOR FOR SOMETHING AS COMPLEX AS THIS DISEASE MAKES IT RIPE FOR POLITICAL AND FINANCIAL EXPLOITATION.

MIKE MARQUSEE

 

• In the war on cancer, the search for the ultimate weapon, overshadows other tactics
• Like other wars, the "war on cancer" is a gift to opportunists of all stripes

 

Obituaries routinely inform us that so-and-so has died "after a brave battle against cancer." Of course, we will never read that so-and-so has died "after a pathetically feeble battle against cancer." But one thing that I have come to appreciate since being diagnosed with multiple myeloma (a cancer of the blood) two years ago is how unreal both notions are. It's just not like that.

 

The stress on cancer patients' "bravery" and "courage" implies that if you can't "conquer" your cancer, there's something wrong with you, some weakness or flaw. If your cancer progresses rapidly, is it your fault? Does it reflect some failure of willpower?

 

In blaming the victim, the ideology attached to cancer mirrors the bootstrap individualism of the neoliberal order, in which the poor are poor because of their own weaknesses — and "failure" and "success" become the ultimate duality, dished out according to individual merit.

 

It also reinforces the demand on patients for uncomplaining stoicism, which in many cases is why they are in bad shape in the first place. Late diagnosis leads to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths each year. For those who have been diagnosed it remains a barrier to effective treatment. The free flow of information between patient and doctor is a scientific necessity, and a reluctance to complain inhibits it.

 

Earlier this year Barack Obama vowed to "launch a new effort to conquer a disease that has touched the life of nearly every American." In so doing, he was intensifying and expanding a "war on cancer" first declared by Richard Nixon in 1971. But this "war" is as mislabelled and misconceived as the "war on terror" or the "war on drugs."

 

For a start, why must every concerted effort be likened to warfare? Is this the only way we are able to describe human cooperation in pursuit of a common goal? And who are the enemies in this war? Cancer cells may be "malignant" but they are not malevolent. Like the wars on "drugs" and "terror," the war on cancer misapplies the martial metaphor to dangerous effect. It simplifies a complex and daunting phenomenon — making it ripe for political and financial exploitation.

 

In the war on cancer, the search for the ultimate weapon, the magic bullet that will "cure" cancer, overshadows other tactics. Nixon promised "a cure for cancer" in 10 years; Mr. Obama promises one "in our times." But there is unlikely to be a single cure for cancer. There are more than 200 recognised types, and their causes are myriad. As a strategic objective, the search for the ultimate weapon distorts research and investment, drawing resources away from prevention and treatment, areas where progress has been and can be made.

 

Like other wars, real and imagined, the "war on cancer" is a gift to opportunists of all stripes. Among the circling vultures are travel insurers who charge people with cancer 10 times the rate charged to others; the publishers of self-help books; and the promoters of miracle cures, vitamin supplements and various "alternative therapies" of no efficacy whatsoever.

 

But most of all, there's the pharmaceutical industry, which manipulates research, prices and availability of drugs in pursuit of profit. And with considerable success. The industry enjoys a steady return on sales of some 17 per cent, three times the median return for other industries. Prices do not reflect the actual costs of developing or making the drug but are pushed up to whatever the market can bear.

 

Exorbitant drug prices are at the root of recent controversies in the U.K. over the approval by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) of "expensive" cancer drugs — notably Revlimid, a therapy used in the later stages of a number of cancers, including mine — and top-up or "copayments" (allowing those who can afford it to buy medicines deemed too expensive by the tax-funded National Health Service [NHS]). "We are told we are being mean all the time, but what nobody mentions is why the drugs are so expensive," said the Nice chairman, Professor Michael Rawlins. "Pharmaceutical companies have enjoyed double-digit growth year on year, and they are out to sustain that, not least because their senior management's earnings are related to the share price."

 

TREATMENT IS BRUTAL

Many cancer therapies are blunt instruments. They attack not only cancer cells but everything else in sight. This is one reason people fear cancer: the treatment can be brutal. Making it less brutal would be a huge stride forwards for people with cancer. And that requires not a top-down military strategy, with its win or lose approach, but greater access to information, wider participation in decision-making (across hierarchies and disciplines) and empowerment of the patient.

 

Because I live in the catchment area for Barts (St Bartholemew's, to give it its proper name) hospital in central London, I find myself a winner in the NHS post code lottery. The treatment is cutting-edge and the staff are efficient, caring and respectful. What's more, I live close enough so that I can undergo most of my treatment as an outpatient - a huge boon. Cancer treatment involves extensive interaction with institutions (hospitals, clinics, social services, the NHS itself). Even in the best hospitals, the loss of freedom and dependence on anonymous forces can be oppressive. Many cancer patients find themselves involved in a long and taxing struggle for autonomy - a rarely acknowledged reality of the war on cancer, in which the generals call the shots from afar.

 

As Susan Sontag noted, in the course of the 20th century cancer came to play the role that tuberculosis played in the 19th century — as a totem of suffering and mortality, the dark shadow that can blight the sunniest day. But the ubiquitousness of cancer in our culture is of dubious value to those living with the disease. The media love cancer scares and cancer cures; they dwell on heroic survivors (Lance Armstrong) and celebrity martyrs. But they routinely misrepresent research findings, conjuring breakthroughs from nothing and leaving the public panicked, confused or complacent.

 

What we need is not a war on cancer but a recognition that cancer is a social and environmental issue, requiring profound social and environmental changes.

 

(Note:Mike Marqusee's book, If I Am Not for Myself: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew , is published in the new year.)

 

© Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2009

 

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DNA

EDITORIAL

AL QAEDA FACTOR

 

It is not surprising that US president Barack Obama has accepted that there has been a failure in the intelligence network that foiled bomber Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab had managed to get as far into the country as he did. Obama had also gone on to declare renewed resolve Islamic terrorists and singled out Al Qaeda.

 

Security sources in the US and in Britain are pointing out that Abdulmuattalab is a product of a Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda, and that he was radicalised as member and then president of the Islamic Society of the prestigious University College of London.

 

The blame game is on in the US, between the security agencies and others, between the Democrats and Republicans about the loopholes in the intelligence and security system, but they all seem agreed, including Obama, about Qaeda being the source of trouble.

 

If what the Western sources say is true, the pervasive and effective influence and ability of Qaeda to attract young Muslims living in the Western world and this is the case ever since the September 11, 2001 attacks, then success rate of the radical Islamist outfit turns out to be impressive. This is bad news for everyone, and not just for the Americans.

 

Eight years into the war on terror, the resurgence of Taliban in parts of Afghanistan and the strong imprint of Qaeda in other parts, including the West, should raise questions not just about Western strategy but also about Western presuppositions about the whole phenomenon.

 

What the US and its Nato allies need to do is to go back to the drawing boardand think over afresh the contours of the problem. In Iraq, the Americans have co-opted sometimes Sunni religious militias and at other times Shia ones to gain control of the situation and they believe they have succeeded.

 

A similar attempt is being made in Afghanistan to rope in 'good' Taliban. Flirting with extremist groups is not the way to defeat them. Obama will have to thing beyond Af-Pak factor and look at the AQ conundrum.

 

At home, Western governments will have to find ways of mainstreaming the majority of law-abiding Muslim populations. Hardened prejudices on both sides cannot be tackled just through tough counter-terrorism measures. It is not even necessary for the US and Europe to resolve the festering Palestine-Israel conflict. Ordinary Muslims have other issues on their mind.

 

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DNA

EDITORIAL

FIRE HAZARD

 

The fire in the chemistry laboratory at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai in which two young researchers had died is both serious and dangerous.

 

The sense of relief in some quarters that the nuclear facility is not affected and that there is no need for alarm is not right. It strengthens the suspicion that the nuclear facilities in this country are wrapped in unnecessary secrecy and that there is constant attempt to divert attentions from lapses, big and small. Scientists are often on the defensive when questioned and show extreme reluctance to share information.

 

The nuclear reactors in BARC form part of the strategic programme after the demarcation following the India-US civil nuclear deal and it might seem that secrecy is indeed justified. The argument is plain wrong. The safety of the reactors and the research centre itself remains of paramount importance whether it falls in the strategic —read military — section or the civilian one.

 

This does not however mean that BARC becomes a closed universe and that there is no scope for reasonable scrutiny when things go wrong. Safety should be the only concern and one of the effective ways of ensuring it is to keep information about it as transparent as possible.

 

A thorough inquiry into the cause of fire in the radiochemistry laboratory and the death of two young PhD students should be ordered and there should be an external as well as an internal probe.

 

The administrators at BARC cannot be lords unto themselves. They have to be answerable to the department of atomic energy and to the parliamentary consultative committee dealing with the issue. There is a need to insist on the oversight rights of officials and people's representatives outside the BARC to ensure that there is no complacency inside the institute.

 

There is of course the need to avoid petty turf battles but that should not exclude a fair appraisal system into all aspects of the institute. There are of course the annual departmental reports about the workings of institutes like BARC but there is a tendency in these reports to gloss over the problems which have a tendency to become nightmares when they are not nipped in the bud.

 

It is in this sense that the fire incident should be taken as a serious failing and action taken to plug the loopholes that caused the mishap in the first place.

 

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DNA

THE CYCLE OF LIFE

 

The Wheel of the Year is a continuing cycle of life, death and rebirth. Thus the Wheel reflects both the natural passage of life, as well as revealing our connection with the greater world. All of creation is divine and by realising how we are connected to the natural world, we come to a deeper understanding to the ways in which we are connected to the God and Goddess.

 

Undoubtedly the significance of the Festivals has changed over the centuries, and it is very difficult for us today to imagine the joy and relief that must have accompanied the successful grain harvest.What with factory-farming, fast freezing and world wide distribution, our lives no longer depend upon such things and as a consequence, our respect for the land has diminished in proportion to our personal contact with it.

 

What is of the utmost importance with the Wheel of the Year is that we understand what we hope to achieve through our festival celebrations, and avoid the trap of going through empty motions, repeating words from a book which may sound dramatic, but have no relevance in our everyday lives.That simply leads to the creation of a dogma, and not a living breathing religion.It is not enough to stand in a circle on a specific day, and "invoke' forces of nature, those forces are currents which flow continuously through- out our lives, not just eight times a year, and if we choose not to acknowledge them in our everyday lives, there is no point in calling upon them for one day.

 

Although modern lifestyles do not encourage awareness of our personal relationship with the turning seasons does not mean that they no longer exist.The ebb and flow of the Earth's energies may be hidden beneath a physical shell of tarmac and concrete, and a psychic one of human indifference, but they are evertheless there for those who wish to acknowledge them once more.

 

From Book of Shadows

 

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DNA

INFLATION HITS POLITICS

JAI MRUG

 

Inflation, it is said, is the bane of the common man today. Inflation is basically the incremental amount you need to pay to procure the same set of goods and services that you would have procured cheaper say a year, two years or even a decade earlier. Political parties, especially in the opposition too are experiencing inflation — albeit of a different kind. With the same formula and effort of the last decade, they find that their returns are diminishing; their space is shrinking.

 

The driver of this new inflation is the Congress leadership team, which is silently changing the rules of the game.
Since India's economic liberalisation began in 1991 the social segment that has seen the greatest opportunity for growth is the lower middle class and the middle class. Their dynamic growth has meant that this segment has a continuously growing and changing list of aspirations. This class is the bhadralok that influences the opinion of many vocal sections of the society. VP Singh had cast his charm on them in the late 80s and the BJP in the 90s.

 

The combine of Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi has attempted to neutralise this phenomenon with a conscious effort to reconvert this nomadic tribe of voters to the Congress fold.
The 2009 election threw a decisive verdict in favour of the Congress led-UPA. The undercurrent was however to return to one of the old governing principles of Indian democracy —a strong Centre led by a strong centrist party.

 

While our Constitution enshrines the Centre with greater powers, coalition politics in the last one and a half decades ensured that ruling parties at the Centre left many crucial portfolios and policy making roles to regional allies, who often did not rise above parochial interests.

 

The mandate for the BJP in 1998, 1999 was also essentially for a stronger Centre, but the party could not seize the opportunity. On the contrary the party went for a blind pursuit of allies, creating a government with a weak Centre and often surrendering crucial portfolios to its allies. A Congress party with only 145 seats in '04 ensured that the defence minister was from their party, while the BJP with 182 seats in '98 and '99 could not do so. The pursuit of power thus sometimes dilutes a focus on policy and governance that a strong Centre can give.

 

The Sonia-Manmohan combine has attempted to solve this dichotomy by uncoupling the process of creating a stable party and government and the process of creating a policy environment. Sonia and Rahul Gandhi focused exclusively on strengthening the party apparatus while the administration has been left to a policy-driven management which used the growing clout of the party to shape decisions. The BJP did the opposite; it used its growing power to attract allies that impacted its base and did not find means to increase its hold over policy-making.

 

An ability to enforce policy consensus while strengthening the party organisation is a combination that can prove lethal for any opposition. While the Congress does have a focus on Bharat Nirman, the fact is that in an economy where the share of agriculture is shrinking, the party has turned its attention to urban and semi-urban population of India.

 

The two ministries that directly impact the growing urban and semi urban population are the Urban Development Ministry and the Human Resources Development Ministry. Both have made the right noises since the government came to power. Replacing old pipelines, providing new sleek buses, providing assistance for building flyovers, creating new universities and scrapping board examinations are some of those.

The year to come will see a whole host of measures such as the new tax code, converting the bill for Equal opportunities Commission into legislation and the possible passage of the judicial accountability bill. Several initiatives taken by the government such as the unique identity mission will have long-term impacts and help the ruling party strengthen its hold over the urban and rural poor alike. The Food Security bill is another example.

 

Politically the Bihar election is expected to help the Congress party consolidate its position as a kingmaker. The party came third in several seats in the recently concluded by polls in Bihar.

 

Importantly, many backward class leaders of smaller parties like the LJP joined the party strengthening it further. This would enable the Congress party to cross into a respectable 20 to 30-seat tally from the current single digit score. With greater numbers on its side the Congress party could look to wean the JD(U) from the NDA and whittle the size of the NDA further.

 

The Congress party is likely to work hard towards strengthening its position in the state of Tamil Nadu — the Youth Congress saw its enrolment drive lead to an all time high number of 13 lakh new enrolments. This is another state where the Congress will drive a tough bargain with an existing ally.

 

In the '90s, PV Narasimha Rao presided over a declining Congress and that offered ready space for a host of opposition parties. Now, they will have to battle hard for that very space. Inflation!

 

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THE TRIBUNE

EDITORIAL

LAW CLOSES ON RATHORE

THE MAN MUST GET THE WORST PUNISHMENT

 

Nineteen years after a molestation attempt on Ruchika, nemesis seems to be catching up with disgraced former DGP SPS Rathore. His arrest seems imminent because the Panchkula District and Sessions Judge on Wednesday refused to grant him interim bail. It is only because of massive public outcry and media glare that the whole case has come to be revisited. What happened in the Best Bakery and Jessica Lal cases earlier, seems to be happening in the Ruchika molestation case as well. Complaints against Rathore by the tormented families were converted into FIRs and the legal net is closing in on him once again. He had torn it to shreds earlier thanks to the tremendous powers which he happened to enjoy as a senior police officer. He misused his authority and influence to the hilt, leading the molested Ruchika to commit suicide. Not only that, the brave families which lent her a helping hand also had to lead a harrowing time all these 19 years. It will be some consolation for them if he gets the toughest punishment for his monstrous deeds.

 

Nearly two decades have already gone by. Effort must be made to proceed with the case on the fast track so that he is served his just desserts in the shortest possible time. Care must also be taken that he is not able to influence the investigation through his tried and tested methods. After all, how he managed to scuttle even a CBI inquiry is well known. He should not succeed now.

 

And it is not only him who should pay for his crimes. There are many others who acted hands in glove with him. Politicians, policemen and others who were instrumental in the tragic end of Ruchika must all pay for their insensitivity. For instance, the school management had no right to throw her out when she was already a tormented pupil. Policemen who registered false cases against Ruchika's brother and tortured him must not escape justice. Ferreting out all facts and acting on them with an iron hand is the only way to ensure that no other girl suffers at the hands of a power-drunk fiend. 

 

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THE TRIBUNE

EDITORIAL

BANNING N-TESTS

BALL REMAINS IN THE COURT OF US, CHINA

 

Whenever there is a discussion on civilian nuclear cooperation between two countries, a reference to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) cannot be ruled out. Thus, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama exchanging views on the CTBT in New Delhi on Tuesday was quite on the predictable lines. The Japanese, being the first and only victims of the nuclear bomb, do not miss an opportunity to advocate for a strict control on the proliferation of nuclear weapon technology. But India cannot be blamed for the CTBT not coming into force. As Dr Manmohan Singh made it clear, a new situation will arise when the US and China first ratify the CTBT. Only then can anybody raise the question why India, too, should not put its signature on it.

 

Despite not having ratified the CTBT, India continues to occupy the moral high ground because of its unilateral declaration of a moratorium on nuclear tests and adherence to the No First Use policy. In fact, India's record as a nuclear weapon power is much better than that of China, which has harmed the non-proliferation cause by disguisedly helping Pakistan to acquire weapon-production capability.

 

India's latest stance on the CTBT remains what the NDA government articulated after the 1998 nuclear tests — New Delhi would not come in the way of the treaty coming into force if the US and China went ahead and put their signature on it. There is a message in this for the Obama administration too, which has been more enthusiastic about taking up the nuclear non-proliferation and allied issues than the previous Bush administration. What Dr Manmohan Singh has stated, however, does not mean that India no longer considers the CTBT as a discriminatory regime. A treaty that allows those who acquired the nuclear bomb earlier than others to continue to posses it cannot help the cause of making the earth safe from the nuclear threat. The countries like Japan which are too much concerned about nuclear non-proliferation should, in fact, fight for total elimination of nuclear weapons and technology. There is need to go beyond the CTBT, as India has been insisting all these years. 

 

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THE TRIBUNE

EDITORIAL

ECONOMY LOOKS UP

RANGARAJAN'S REVISED GROWTH FIGURE IS REASSURING

 

It is heartening that the Chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, Dr C. Rangarajan, has felt encouraged to revise his October forecast of 6.5 per cent GDP growth for the Indian economy for 2009-10 to between 7 and 7.5 per cent now. Dr Rangarajan is known to be cautious and is not given to hyperbole, so coming from him, the projection can be taken as realistic. His optimism stems from the impressive 7.9 per cent growth recorded in the second quarter (July-September) of this financial year amid signs that the Indian economy is coming out of the economic slowdown that it has been confronted with in the wake of the global recession. Dr Rangarajan who earlier headed the Reserve Bank, has rightly indicated that the fiscal stimulus for growth that the government had announced to keep the economy on keel would continue until March-end 2010. It is important that this prop for the economy to stimulate demand be not taken away prematurely.

 

As Dr Rangarajan has pointed out, while the economy has been riding on the back of a good showing in the manufacturing and service sectors, there are some grey areas that need urgent attention. Agricultural productivity has decreased because of unfavourable seasonal conditions. The increase in food prices has been substantial. Rice, pulses and sugar witnessed sharp rise in prices. In fact, food inflation in the first week of December soared to a decade's high of 20 per cent. A weak monsoon and deficient prospects for kharif production have contributed to it. A redeeming feature, however, is that the country had 44 million tonnes of foodgrains in stock by September-end, including 15 million tonnes of rice.

 

All in all, there is hope for the future of the Indian economy. Dr Rangarajan's calculation that if a consistent growth of 4 per cent in agriculture and 9 per cent in the industrial and services sectors were maintained over the next two decades, it would propel India into the comity of developed nations is indeed reassuring and worth striving for.

 

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THE TRIBUNE

COLUMN

AFGHANISTAN: THE WAY OUT

GIVE GUARANTEES FOR ITS NEUTRALITY

BY MAHARAJAKRISHNA RASGOTRA

 

The people of Afghanistan have not forgotten what the Taliban did to them and their country when the extremists ruled Afghanistan with Pakistan's political and military support. The Taliban are not popular in Afghanistan. Even the Pashtuns of Afghanistan want peace and security of life and property in their land. This basic reality does not receive much attention in the US. The US and NATO forces are not fighting an unpopular war: the Afghan people are their best partner; they and the local authorities need to be motivated and mobilised for more active cooperation. Humiliating an elected President — Mr Hamid Karzai — is hardly the way to do it. There are better and quieter ways of ridding the regime of corruption.

 

There is a fair sprinkling of Pakistani Pashtuns and other ISI agents and operators in the ranks of the Taliban fighting the NATO forces in Afghanistan. They are trained, armed and financed by the Pakistan Army and the ISI; without that support and their safe havens in Pakistan, the Taliban will collapse in no time. The irony of this war is that for nearly a decade credulous US Administrations have been fighting the proxy and, at the same time, showering a bounty of money and arms on the barely hidden puppeteer.

 

Pakistan is a country of decent and peace-loving people struggling to create a democratic environment in which the Army and the ISI are brought under civilian control. The elected government cannot possibly have any sympathy for the terror combine of LeT-Taliban-Al-Qaeda, whose leaders and command centres are safely ensconced in Queta, Lahore and Karachi. The Pakistan Army created and nurtured the Taliban; it is sheer naiveté to expect it to fight them or even to restrain them in their safe havens in Pakistan.

 

American fears of an endless war in Afghanistan and Pakistan's hopes for an early American retreat resulting in the restoration of Taliban rule in Kabul are both greatly exaggerated. There is no parallel here to the predicament, and retreat from Afghanistan, of the Soviet army. That army was fighting to protect and stabilise an unpopular Communist regime. The so-called jehad was supported not only by the Muslim world but also by the United States and European countries with lavish supplies of money, arms and manpower. There was no international support for the Soviet intervention; in fact, Moscow's intentions and motives were suspect even in friendly countries. I remember Indira Gandhi telling Brezhnev in Moscow in October 1982 that he should withdraw Russian troops from Afghanistan; the sooner the better. Brezhnev said Taraki had been asking him for 10,000 Russian troops, that for a time he had repeatedly rejected the request but finally sent 10,000 troops, that now there were 100,000 of them there. He added for good measure: I donot know what they are doing there. I want to get out of Afghanistan, you know the area better; show me a wayout. Indira Gandhi had responded cryptically: Mr Secretary-General, the wayout is the same as the way in. During the following two days it fell on me to explain her the "meaning" — but that is a long story for another day.

 

In contrast to those times, Kabul now has an elected government, and truly the Taliban enjoy the support of only one country — Pakistan — or more specifically Pakistan's Army and the ISI, all utterly dependent on the US for arms, money and other kinds of support. This war can be brought to a successful conclusion in 18 to 24 month's provided, in recognition of the stark and painful reality of the Pakistan Army's role in this war, Washington suspends all arms and economic aid to Pakistan for two years. The resources thus saved should be used for educational and other social development activity in Afghanistan. Second, NATO forces should stop the flow of drugs out of Helmand province — a major source of finance for the Taliban — ban poppy cultivation, compensate the cultivators and initiate alternative agricultural development programmes.

 

Concerns about Pakistan's internal stability and peace or its nuclear weapons falling in the hands of non-state actors are greatly magnified. Nor is there the danger of the country falling apart: Pakistan's Army and police are strong enough to effectively deal with any such contingency or threat. The electoral process will finally defeat and eliminate the religious radicals who are holding this large and potentially rich country to ransom.

 

In its endeavourer to end the war and bring peace and stability to Afghanistan, Washington is mistaken in ignoring Afghanistan's neighbours — Iran, the Central Asian Republics, Russia, China and India. They are all interested in Afghanistan's integrity, independence, unity, peace and stability. Afghanistan-related international conferences in Bonn, New York and Washington D.C. have produced little worthwhile result.

 

The US should now take the initiative to convene a conference, in Kabul, of countries sharing frontiers with Afghanistan plus China, India, Russia, the EU and the UN Secretary-General. The conference should have a one-point agenda: An agreement guaranteeing Afghanistan's independence and neutrality, and the stationing in Afghanistan of a small UN force for 10 years symbolising the UN Security Council's endorsement of the agreement. This conference could also help determine the size of Afghanistan's armed forces and the ways and means of financing them for a decade or two.

 

Such a conference, I believe, will have a moderating effect on the Pakistan Army's strategic ambitions vis-à-vis the Gulf region and Central Asia and its periodic military adventures to subjugate Afghanistan for the fulfilment of those ambitions.

 

Pakistan is a solid land of sturdy, talented and hardworking people. It has been impoverished by an over-sized and pugnacious Army. In a globalising world with softening frontiers, it is dangerous for the Army of any country, especially a country of Pakistan's size and importance, to be the decision-maker of its foreign and security policies. In the way of the armies' greater than the true needs of the countries to which they belong, the Pakistan Army is a victim of the extravagant illusion that the world and Pakistan's neighbours owe it larger territorial expanse and greater depth in strategic space. This is the only Army in the world which has, in the space of half century, provoked and fought four open wars and three proxy wars on both flanks of Pakistan, putting the country itself at risk.

 

Tragically, the Pakistan Army's ambitions and its Afghanistan policy spell grave dangers for the country which it fails to see. If its Taliban henchmen succeed in recapturing Kabul, they will, once again, be faced with an unending civil war supported, openly or surreptitiously, by Iran, Afghanistan's Central Asian neighbours, Russia and India. Two possibilities could then emerge — both of great detriment to Pakistan.

 

A prolonged civil war could involve the whole region in a conflict which Pakistan and the Taliban could not possibly win, and its defeat, or even a stalemate, would be followed by long-lasting resentment and sporadic conflicts. Or, in the event of Taliban rule getting firmly established in eastern and southern Afghanistan, there will be irresistible revival of the demand for an independent Pashtun state straddling the Durand Line. This would, of course, be a tragedy for Afghanistan as the country would be permanently divided, but with such an unfortunate development will also begin the unravelling of Pakistan.

 

Neither eventuality would serve any Indian interest. Peace and stability in the AF-Pak region, on the other hand, will facilitate the establishment of roadways, railways and pipeline networks which will carry people, goods and services between South-East Asia and India to Central Asia, Russia and Europe with great profit in trade and in transit fees to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hopefully, then, a day will also dawn when Pakistan will discover that India is its best friend and well-wisher, and not its enemy.

 

The initiative for a conference of the kind proposed above should come, most appropriately, from the Obama administration. But are the minds in Washington open to courses other than a troop surge and withdrawal under the cover of a sham success, leaving Afghanistan to Al-Qaeda and God? Diplomacy involving Afghanistan's immediate neighbours has not been tried. It deserves a chance.n

 

The writer is a former Foreign Secretary of India.

 

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THE TRIBUNE

COLUMN

DATE WITH AUDREY HEPBURN

BY LIEUT-GEN BALJIT SINGH (RETD.)

 

A casual evening gown worn by Audrey Hepburn for the filming of "Roman Holiday" was sold for eighty thousand dollars a few days ago. Now "Roman Holiday" was not just a box-office super-hit but it also ushered in a paradigm shift in the movies produced by Hollywood. Here was Audrey Hepburn who with a mixture of untamed vivaciousness, innocence, impish smile, boyish hair style and exquisitely tailored trousers and shirts (as opposed to pleated skirts and frilly blouses), became a symbol of the new, alluring feminism.

 

There was something in the manner she kick-started her Vespa Scooter, accelerating to 80 KMPH from a cold start within seconds, and head scarf fluttering wildly which made Audrey Hepburn also the harbinger of a certain subtle aspect of women's emancipation the world over. There were no scooters in India then. So a handful of bold women took to bicycling.

 

A few years after its premier, Roman Holiday came up for screening on a Saturday evening at the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun. By then such was the Audrey Hepburn spell over the young and the old alike that the cinema management agreed to three consecutive screenings of the movie.

 

But what especially caught my fancy this time was the hoarding over the cinema wall. In the background was the picture of the Trevi fountain in Rome and superimposed over it was a life size image of Audrey Hepburn from waist upwards. It looked a copy of that stunning studio portrait of the actress made by Karsh of Ottawa and published in the book entitled "Portraits of Greatness".

 

This was also the time when I had graduated to a state-of-the-art single lens reflex, Rollieflex camera. Its novel ground glass viewing screen was of the same dimensions as the size of the film negative which made focusing of the object and composing of the picture easier and exciting. So what better opportunity to test out the camera than photographing Audrey Hepburn from the cinema poster?

 

I exposed one entire film-roll of 12 frames with varying combinations of aperture opening and shutter speed. The results were better than my wildest hopes. The largest blow-up that a Dehradun photo-studio could handle was 14 by 12 inches. And one of these under a cut-mount frame went up on the wall facing my bed. For several days there was constant comings and goings to my room till the lights-out bugle.

 

During a routine tour of the rooms one day, the inspecting officer noticed the framed portrait. And to him it was synonymous with the forbidden display of glam-girl pin ups! So the next day, I was arraigned before the company commander, charged with "an act unbecoming the conduct of a gentleman-cadet". While reading out the offence report the company commander held aloft the framed photograph as an "exhibit" linked to my crime. Fortunately this being my first act of misdemeanor, I was administered a mere warning and promptly marched out of the office.

 

But the Audrey Hepburn portrait was confiscated and it went up on the wall facing the bed of the company commander!

 

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THE TRIBUNE

OPED

INTEGRATE, DO NOT DIVIDE STATES

BY J L GUPTA

 

The Americans, though migrants from different parts of the world, are just Americans. No one says that he is a European, Chinese, Japanese or Korean. Nor does he call himself an Alaskan, a Californian or a New Yorker. Not one of them describes himself as a Christian, Jew or a Muslim. They are only proud Americans. The Europeans have formed the European Union and have introduced a common currency. The Germans have broken the Berlin wall. The world is breaking barriers. But we seem to be creating new ones.

 

In India, 'I' is the dominant factor. Every Indian is an individual. He is an Andhraite or Assamese, a Bengali, Bihari, Haryanvi, Kashmiri, Maharashtrian, Malyali, Punjabi or a Tamilian. He is a Christian, Hindu, Muslim or a Sikh. He is an Aiyer or Aiyanger, a Bania or a Brahman, a Jat or a Jatt, a Reddy or a Rao. The list can be never ending. And each one is interested in the preservation of his distinct identity. Culture and language. It is becoming difficult to find an Indian. Diversity has always been a stark reality. But today the unity is being threatened.

 

Our leaders of yester years had fought and won freedom. They were patriots. They had worked for integration of the smaller states in the Union. The leaders of today are dividing the states. They sow the seeds and then exploit the divisive propensities of the people. Just to perpetuate and preserve their own positions. Their small fiefdoms. For petty personal gains. And any excuse is good enough. Language. Sons of soil. Or any other. Then, they go on fast. Threaten to die. Arouse public sympathy and exploit the sentiment. Apprehending disruption of law and order, the government yields. Sometimes too readily. Is it appropriate?

 

Sacrificing life for national unity is understandable. It may be patriotic. But dying to force division should be totally unacceptable. Rewarding those who threaten to die for the disintegration of the state is a sacrilege. The fast is an attempt to commit suicide and must be treated as a pure and simple offence. Nothing more.

 

Today, reorganisation of states has become a regular ritual. The parliamentary pundits perform it periodically without any delay or demur. The result is that not only India but even the Indian Union has grown numerically. While the population has gone beyond a billion and we are doing little about it, the number of states has already risen to 26. And we all know the implications. Each new State means a new governor. Another chief minister and his ministers. And then the cascading effect on the bureaucracy. The taxpayer alone has to bear the additional burden of the cars, kothis and salaries for all of them.

 

We, as people, must realise that creation of each State only means more expense. It does not help the 'aam aadmi.' It does not lead to more opportunities for education and employment. It does not help the needy. It serves only the greedy. The funds are largely exhausted in providing for the perks. Almost nothing remains that may possibly percolate to the poor. The state then borrows from almost everywhere. And the people are doomed to leave behind the next generation under debt.

 

India is a rich country. It is rich in resources. We have fertile land. Flora and fauna. Mountains and mines. Perennial rivers. And then a billion pair of hands. These assets are enough to take a nation to the top of the world. Japan is an example for all to emulate. After facing an atomic holocaust and with virtually no resources of its own, the nation has reached the pinnacle of economic growth. In comparison, we are very poor. A majority of our people do not get two square meals a day. They do not have a roof over their heads. The children do not get admission in the schools. The sick cannot get a bed in hospital. The water is not potable. There is abject poverty in the midst of such plenty. It stares us in the face. We can no longer afford to look the other way.

 

Today, we really need to wage a war against illiteracy, poverty and unemployment. We have to work hard and fight against the ills of corruption, inefficiency and red tape. We must realise that every Indian deserves a dignified existence. We need hospitals and houses. Schools with adequate infrastructure. Institutions to impart vocational training to our young men so that they are able to earn their livelihood. The state must ensure certain minimum work and wage for the millions of unemployed youth. Only then the 'right to life' guaranteed as a fundamental right in the Constitution can become a reality.

 

To the masses it does not matter whether the minister wears a blue, green or white turban. The common man is worried about two square meals a day. He needs a shelter to protect himself against the vagaries of weather. A bed in hospital for the sick. A seat in the school for his child. Potable water to drink. Our energies must be focussed on providing the basic necessities to the teeming and toiling masses of India. We should not be spending our time and resources in dividing the states into non-viable units of administration.

 

As we enter the year 2010, let us resolve to unite. Not to divide states. We should decide and be determined to reward efforts for integration and punish those who work for division.

 

 

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THE TRIBUNE

OPED

THE MOST INSPIRING PEOPLE OF 2009

BY JOHANN HARI

 

It was a dark year, 2009, sealing a dark decade. It began with the world in economic free-fall and the Gaza Strip being bombed to pieces (again). We watched the vicious crushing of a democratic uprising in Iran, a successful far-right coup in Honduras, and the intensification of the disastrous war in Afghanistan. It all ended at Brokenhagen, where the world's leaders breezily decided to carry on cooking the planet.

 

But in the midst of all this there were extraordinary points of light, generated by people who have refused to drink the cheap sedative of despair. The left-wing newsman Wes Nisker said in his final broadcast: "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own." I want – in the final moments of 2009 – to celebrate the people who, this year, did just that: the men and women who didn't slump, but realised that the worse the world gets, the harder people of goodwill have to work to put it right.