EDITORIAL SAMARTH: May 2011

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Editorial

month may 31, edition 000846, collected & managed by durgesh kumar mishra, published by – manish manjul

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THE PIONEER

YET ANOTHER EXTENSION
TOO TIRED FOR WINDIES
WRECKING THE CONSTITUTION - A SURYA PRAKASH
DALAI LAMA'S HISTORIC MOVE - VIJAY KRANTI
RUNNING OUT OF OPTIONS IN LIBYA - GWYNNE DYER
APOCALYPSE STANDS POSTPONED - ANDREI FEDYASHIN

THE TIMES OF INDIA

THE LOTUS EATERS
CRICKET BLUES
CITIES ARE INDIA'S FUTURE - AXEL C HEITMANNAXEL C HEITMANN
IT'S CAPITALISM WITH A SOCIAL FACE
WON'T HELP COMMUNITY AT LARGE - JAY KUMARJAY KUMAR

HINDUSTAN TIMES

SEEING RED ON BLACK MONEY
YOU ARE NOT SCUM
A FLING WITH FLAMBOYANCE - KK PAUL
IT'S TWO STEPS BACK - SITARAM YECHURY

THE INDIAN EXPRESS

SHADOW LINES
THE BARE NECESSITIES
THREE TO GO
THE PLAY OF THE LAND - SEEMA CHISHTI
ALL FOR A FEW MONTHS MORE - YUBARAJ GHIMIRE
'THERE IS NO COMPETITION WITH ANNA HAZARE. THESE ARE TWO COMPLEMENTARY MOVEMENTS' - SHEKHAR GUPTA

THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS

TAXING TANGLE
POWERING UP
TEN REASONS WHY CHINA IS DIFFERENT - STEPHEN S ROACH
WATCH OUT FOR COLLECTIVE ABUSE - PRADEEP S MEHTA

THE HINDU

ANOTHER CHANCE IN NEPAL
DRUGS NEED NEW THINKING
FOR DRAFTING AN IDEAL LOKPAL BILL - ARUN KUMAR
STATE DEPARTMENT CABLE CITED ISI LINKS WITH MILITANTS - MUKUND PADMANABHAN
SAJID MIR'S WAR AGAINST THE WORLD - PRAVEEN SWAMI
THE WAR RUGS FROM AFGHANISTAN
SUU KYI PLANS TOUR OF RURAL MYANMAR IN JUNE

THE ASIAN AGE

HOPES HIGH FOR A GOOD MONSOON
FOR THE LOVE OF TERROR - SHANKAR ROYCHOWDHURY
NO COUNTDOWN TO CASTE YET - SUNANDA K. DATTA-RAY

DAILY EXCELSIOR

TREATING JAMMU SLUMS
PERILS OF ROAD TRAFFIC
COMPOSITE CULTURE – A PANACEA - BY K K KHOSA
EXPLORING RENEWABLE ENERGY - BY AMIT BHALLA
FALLING FOOD PRICES IS NOT GOOD FOR AGRICULTURE - BY DR ASHWANI MAHAJAN
FALLING FOOD PRICES IS NOT GOOD FOR AGRICULTURE - BY DR ASHWANI MAHAJAN

THE TRIBUNE

POLLUTING WATERS
MAYA TESTS THE PITCH
NEPAL'S PEACE PROCESS SAVED
ARAB SPRING HELPING PALESTINIANS - BY S. NIHAL SINGH
AGELESS MIND - BY JAGVIR GOYAL
LOSS OF INHERITANCE - AMITA BAIG

BUSINESS STANDARD

MR MUKHERJEE'S HOMEWORK
LET MARKETS WORK
AFTER THE GREEK DEBT DEFAULT - MARTIN FELDSTEIN
INDIGENISING DEFENCE - THE 70:30 FALLACY - AJAI SHUKLA
ENGINEERED BAN - SURINDER SUD
INSIDE THE MIND OF GOD'S LITTLE SOLDIER - NILANJANA S ROY

BUSINESS LINE

CRICKET OVERDOSE
PULSES NEED MORE FILLIP - G. CHANDRASHEKHAR

THE ECONOMIC TIMES

THE WILL TO ACT
SHOCK AND AWE!
SWEEPING CLAIMS
A SPOILER CALLED INFLATION
THROUGH THE THIRD EYE

MUMBAI MIRROR

WHY WE MUST THANK TEAM INDIA

DECCAN CHRONICLE

HOPES HIGH FOR A GOOD MONSOON
FOR THE LOVE OF TERROR
LET'S NOT GIVE IN TO LEARNED HELPLESSNESS
NO COUNTDOWN TO CASTE YET
THE AURA OF ENERGY

THE STATESMAN

HELP AT HAND?
ARMY EFFICIENCY?
THE BREATHER ASIDE
BACK TO CASTE COUNT - BY SAM RAJAPPA
SUSHMA SWARAJ VS. ARUN JAITLEY! - RAJINDER PURI
PLUMBING DESPAIR - NIVEDITA CHOUDHURI
BAN TELLS NEPAL TO HURRY UP
FROM THE UN

THE TELEGRAPH

POOR LINE
FRIEND IN DEED
MISAPPROPRIATION GALORE - WALL - ASHOK V. DESAI
JUSTICE UNDER A CLOUD - MALA FIDE - MALVIKA SINGH
FREE FROM THE RED COILS THAT BIND
FISH, FOOTBALL AND COMMUNISM

HAARETZ

THE PROSPECT FOR CHANGE IN EDUCATION
IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME - BY MOSHE ARENS
A FEMALE GENERAL WITHOUT FEMALE SOLDIERS - BY YAGIL LEVY
TIME TO BE A NORMAL STATE - BY NEHEMIA SHTRASLER
OBAMA IS PREVENTING A SOLUTION - BY GIDI GRINSTEIN

THE NEWYORK TIMES

THE NUMBERS ARE GRIM
MAKING DATA ROAM
CROSSING THE CHURCH-STATE DIVIDE BY ARK
THE RIGHT WAY TO SHRINK PRISONS - BY SHIMA BARADARAN
DSK AND CONSPIRACY THEORY - BY ROGER COHEN
IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU - BY DAVID BROOKS
THE GOOD BANKER - BY JOE NOCERA
SUDAN'S PEACEFUL PARTITION, AT RISK - BY DOUGLAS H. JOHNSON

HURRIYET DAILY NEWS

A COUNTER PILGRIMAGE TO A FERAL DOMAIN - DAVID JUDSON
CHP SAYS WE DON'T WANT DEMOCRACY A LA TURCA - BARÇIN YİNANÇ
A DANGEROUS BREW - SEMİH İDİZ
POLLS IN THE COUNTRY OF RABBITS - YUSUF KANLI
WILL PM REGAIN THE KURDISH FLAG FROM CHP IN DIYARBAKIR? - MEHMET ALİ BİRAND
ON ZERO INTEREST RATES AND THE CURRENT ACCOUNT DEFICIT - ERDOĞAN ALKİN

THE NEWS

NWA OPERATION
HEART, MIND, DEATH
HUNGER
THE ROT WITHIN - AMEER BHUTTO
REVISITING MONETARY POLICY - DR ASHFAQUE H KHAN
IN THE DAYS TO COME - MUNIR AHMED BALOCH
THE ROAD TO KALAM - ZUBAIR TORWALI
WILL SUFFERING CONTINUE? - DR MUHAMMAD YAQUB
WAR CRIMINALS - RIZWAN ASGHAR

PAKISTAN OBSERVER

1. GILANI'S ASSURANCE ON N-ASSETS' SAFETY

2. PLEASE REMEMBER WE ARE AT WAR

3. THESE FRIENDS WITH FRIENDLY FIRE

4. NATIONAL UNITY IS IMPERATIVE - MOHAMMAD JAMIL

5. NEW US POLICY & PAKISTAN - RIZWAN GHANI

6. PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE - KHALID SALEEM

7. PAK-US RELATIONS ON FINAL TRACK? - SHUMAILA RAJA

8. PALESTINIAN MOMENT

THE AUSTRALIYAN

DEFENDING HOMEGROWN COSTS
G8 HELPS ARAB SPRING BLOOM
VOTERS CAN'T SAY YES UNLESS THEY KNOW THE QUESTION

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

MINISTER FAILS TO TELL IT AS IT IS
SERBIA HOPES FOR A NEW ERA
TAKING THE RIGHT TRACK TO ROWVILLE?
VICTORIA LIKELY TO REGRET RUSH TO LOCK 'EM UP

THE GUARDIAN

ASTEROIDS: IN SEARCH OF STARDUST
MPS AND THE JUDICIARY: JUDGING THE JUDGES
IN PRAISE OF … TEAPOTS

THE JAPAN TIMES

A G8 VOTE OF SUPPORT FOR JAPAN
BUSINESS BENT DEFLATES THE SAILS OF INDIA'S LEFT - BY GAUTAMAN BHASKARAN

THE JAKARTA POST

ALL THOSE LARGE NUMBERS
THE NEW ERA OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS REGULATIONS - EDI SUHARDI
CHINESE AND PROUD OF NATION'S CULTURAL DIVERSITY - SONDANG GRACE SIRAIT
INDONESIA: A SUCCESS STORY IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC? (PART 2 OF 2) - IMRON COTAN
BRINGING PEACE AND RECONCILIATION TO ASEAN - LINA A. ALEXANDRA
POLITICAL TRANSITION IN MYANMAR: THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - BALADAS GHOSHAL

DAILY MIRROR

GULF DAILY NEWS

THE DEVIL'S LOGIC... - BY ANWAR ABDULRAHMAN

TEHRAN TIMES

WHY NO MENTION OF A CEASEFIRE FOR LIBYA, OBAMA? - BY JONATHAN STEELE
DEMOCROPHOBIA IN ARABIA - BY HAMID GOLPIRA
ARAB NATIONS: NEW GOVERNMENTS, SAME STORY - BY SOUMAYA GHANNOUSHI
ZIONIST REGIME ON VERGE OF COLLAPSE - BY MAJID SAFATAJ

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THE PIONEER

EDITORIAL

YET ANOTHER EXTENSION

NEPAL'S CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY EXTENDS ITS LIFE

Nobody quite expected Nepal's fractious parties perpetually daggers drawn at each other and struggling to put out fires within would complete the process of drafting and adopting a Constitution by May 2011, which remains the primary task of the Constituent Assembly. Last year, the interim Constitution was amended to extend the deadline for drafting and adopting a Constitution by one year; but even while the extension was being debated and approved by the Constituent Assembly, everybody knew that the task would remain incomplete. For good reason too. Ever since the Constituent Assembly began its proceedings, much, if not all, energy has gone into propping up Governments or bringing them down, with the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) playing the role of a wrecker. The Maoists did not allow the Government to function even when their leader, Mr Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better know by his nom de guerre 'Prachanda', was the Prime Minister, nor did they let subsequent Governments get along with framing the Constitution and getting it adopted. Indeed, the Maoists have constantly sought to derail the Constitution-making process on some ground or the other. This has served to strengthen the perception that they do not really want a Republic of Nepal but are keen to see the emergence of a People's Republic of Nepal where Maoist doctrine will substitute for a Constitution. The impasse over electing a Prime Minister saw the better part of last year and the early months of this year wasted; Maoist intransigence had to be pandered to in the end.

Predictably, with the extended deadline of May 2011 going by without a Constitution being put in place, the main parties — the Maoists, the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) — have now forged yet another agreement based on yet another five-point compromise formula to give the Constituent Assembly another three months to finish its task. The incumbent Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal will step down, a 'national unity' Government will take over, the Army will be made 'more inclusive', and the peace process completed. If there is any positive aspect to the latest development it is the Madhesis successfully pushing through their demand for recruitment to the Army from Madhes. This would provide the much-required balance in the composition of Nepal's military as well as give the Madhesis a stake in one of the most important institutions of the country. But all this and more is no guarantee that the Constituent Assembly will provide Nepal with a Constitution within three months, thus facilitating the holding of an already overdue parliamentary election. There is a tendency among Nepal's politicians, especially the Maoists, to blame everybody else but themselves for the mess in which they have landed their country. Clearly, this won't help sort out matters. Nor will any purpose be served by indulging in mutual recrimination or mud-slinging. It is for Nepal's sake that the three main political formations should bury their differences, get their act together and complete the task of drafting and adopting a Constitution that reflects the aspirations of that country's people and allows the transition from being a sort of democracy into a full republic. Hopefully, the next three months will not be wasted.

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THE PIONEER

EDITORIAL

TOO TIRED FOR WINDIES

BUT IN FORM FOR CASH-RICH IPL TOURNAMENT!

The decision of some senior cricketers to drop out of the West Indies tour on grounds of fitness and fatigue has expectedly stirred a hornet's nest since no such reason came in the way of their participating in the month-long demanding IPL tournament. Critics like legendary former cricketer Sunil Gavaskar have been especially harsh in their reaction, demanding that such players should be dropped from the national squad for good. On the other hand, there are those like the formidable Kapil Dev who believe the players have the right to decide on the games they wish to play. These sound like two extremes, because players can neither be barred for ever on merely such grounds nor can they dictate to the cricket board when and where they will play. It must not be forgotten that cricketers who have worn the Indian cap are national assets and derive all of their professional success from being part of the national squad. At all times, the national team should remain priority for them. They cannot opt out simply because they are tired after playing a highly commercialised — and non-serious — form of club cricket. Itineraries are fixed well in advance, and if the senior players could well have opted out of some of the IPL games to remain in form for the West Indies tour. But that would have meant writing off tempting incomes. Besides, they would have risked not being part of future IPL auctions. Clearly, then, national interest took a back seat. While the positive fallout is that new players have now got an opportunity to demonstrate their talent, they will most likely have to make way for the seniors when the latter return after rest and recreation. That is unfortunate, because the senior players cannot have the cake and eat it too. If the seniors choose to return, they should find place in the team only if others have failed. They cannot be part of the squad by some divine right. And, what sort of an example are they setting for the newcomers, many of whom idolise them?

But while the players are responsible for becoming cricket mercenaries, the fact remains that the BCCI, which governs the lucrative game in the country, has often been less than fair to the players in deciding schedules. After all, the more the number of games here and abroad, the greater the collections for the BCCI which is arguably the country's richest sports body. Players, tired in body and spirit, have had to go through the grind for fear of being overlooked the next time around if they did not cooperate. The IPL tournament is a BCCI by-product and a money-spinner for the cricketing board, which is why it is reluctant to take too hard a stand against the players who happily performed in the limited-overs tournament but suddenly found themselves tired when the time came to play for the country.

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THE PIONEER

COLUMN

WRECKING THE CONSTITUTION

A SURYA PRAKASH

The UPA will be making a gross miscalculation if it considers the goodness of Kannadigas as a weakness and persists with HR Bhardwaj as Governor.

Going by the conduct of Karnataka Governor HR Bhardwaj over the last one year, there should be no doubt that the present occupant of the Raj Bhawan in Bangalore has turned it into a den of intrigue and mischief and has become the biggest destabiliSer of the Constitutional arrangement and the democratic process in the State. The Governor's intimidatory tactics, more akin to rude cross-examination techniques employed by rookie lawyers in Tees Hazari Courts where Mr Bhardwaj began his legal and political journey, and his frequent somersaults when such tactics fail, have only brought infamy to the office he holds.

If one considers the number of times he has been made to eat crow, he is certainly the 'Somersault Man' among Governors in the country. Just look at his track record: Last October, when 11 BJP MLAs revolted against Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa and announced withdrawal of support to the Government, no one could fault him for his first response which was to ask the Chief Minister to prove his majority in the State Assembly. However, he had no authority to issue orders to the Assembly Speaker on what he should do and how he should treat the MLAs vis-à-vis the complaint made against them by the BJP Legislative Party. Apart from this constitutional impropriety, he described the vote on the motion of confidence as a "farce" and recommended the imposition of President's rule in the State.

Even at that stage it was known that the Speaker's decision to expel the 16 MLAs would get embroiled in a major legal battle, first in the High Court and later in the Supreme Court. Though the Speaker's orders were upheld by the High Court, it was also well-known that the fate of these 16 MLAs would eventually be decided by the Supreme Court. The recent judgement of the Supreme Court indicting the Karnataka Assembly Speaker for expelling the 11 BJP MLAs and five Independent MLAs shows the Speaker erred in not following due process while disqualifying the rebel legislators. As regards the five Independent MLAs, the Supreme Court has held that their withdrawal of support to the Government did not amount to defection. Both these judgements will have long-term implications in so far as the implementation of the anti-defection law is concerned, but neither of them gives Governors any power to destabilise constitutionally-elected Governments.

Last October, when the Governor took the foolhardy step of recommending President's rule in the State on the ground that the Yeddyurappa Government had lost majority support, people with even a nodding acquaintance of constitutional law wondered how the Union Government could take charge of a State when the Supreme Court had clearly declared that Governors are not to resort to arbitrary head counts. If, as Mr Bhardwaj claimed, the head count was vitiated, he should have awaited the opinion of the courts in the matter rather than take the law in his own hands.

The first and basic principle laid down by the Supreme Court in the Bommai Case is that the issue of majority or minority is not to be determined by Governors. This is a matter to be settled entirely within the four walls of the legislature. Fortunately, those who man the Union Government have a better sense of the law in the post-Bommai phase than most Governors. That is why the Union Government rejected Mr Bhardwaj's advice and forced him to eat his words. Rapped on the knuckles, Mr Bhardwaj did a neat volte face, pretended as if all was well, and directed Mr Yeddyurappa to face a trust vote on October14. The Chief Minister acted on this advice and won the confidence motion.

But the respite lasted just three months. In early-2011, the Governor was back to his old ways. This time, some allegations of nepotism made against the Chief Minister became the excuse for Mr Bharadwaj to once again dabble in active politics and step up the campaign against the Chief Minister and the Government. The Governor's conduct at that time smacked of collusion with Opposition leaders in the State Assembly and yet again emphasised the partisan role played by him, and led to fresh protests against him.

Since Mr Bhardwaj had objected to the expulsion of MLAs last October, the two recent judgements of the Supreme Court vis-à-vis the 16 MLAs has certainly come as a morale booster for him in so far as it vindicated his stand that the vote on the motion of confidence passed last October stood vitiated in the light of the hurried expulsion of the legislators. But as is his wont, Mr Bhardwaj has grossly misread the judgement and ventured into un-constitutional terrain by once again recommending the sacking of the State Government and imposition of President's rule.

And, as in the past, the Union Government has found no merit in his advice because it knows that such a course is constitutionally untenable. The Government is aware that after the Bommai judgement, the Supreme Court reserves the right to see the material sent by the Governor to the President. In that scenario the Union Government is obviously unsure of the material at hand. Therefore, yet again the Government has felt compelled to nudge Mr Bhardwaj to back-track and honourably make peace with the Chief Minister. Mr Bhardwaj has complied with this advice post-haste. However laughable it may seem, the very Governor who had recommended imposition of President's rule in the State has now publicly declared that Mr Yeddrurappa enjoys a "massive majority" in the Assembly and that the Chief Minister is his "friend". Forget about constitutional instability, the conduct of the Karnataka Governor clearly points to instability of the mind in respect of the present incumbent.

The Union Government is playing with fire by continuing with Mr Bhardwaj as the Governor of Karnataka. The people of this State are probably the most democratic and peace loving in the country. The Union Government will be making a gross miscalculation if it considers the goodness of Kannadigas as a weakness and persists with Mr Bhardwaj who is wrecking the Constitution and the democratic process from within Raj Bhawan. If the Union Government fails to act, it will expose itself to the charge of weakening the constitutional edifice. As regards the Congress, it will pay the price politically for allowing a partisan party man like Mr Bhardwaj to harass a duly elected Chief Minister.

The visual accompanying this article shows a BJP supporter shouting slogans from inside police van after she was arrested during a protest against Governor HR Bhardwaj for trying to destabilise the Government. Courtesy: Faheem Hussain.

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THE PIONEER

OPED

DALAI LAMA'S HISTORIC MOVE

VIJAY KRANTI

By giving up his political and executive powers to elected representatives of the Tibetan 'Government-in-Exile', the Dalai Lama has struck a blow to China's hopes of using a puppet as his successor to assume temporal authority over the people of Tibet. That Beijing is both nervous and frustrated is demonstrated by the statements that have followed the Dalai Lama's twin decisions

The Dalai Lama has finally succeeded in introducing changes in the Tibetan Constitution for which he has been working for over 50 years. Last Sunday morning he appended his signature to these changes, bringing to an end a 469-year-long chapter of theocracy in world history. Now he is neither the Head of State nor the Chief Executive of the Gaden Phodrang — the Tibetan Government.

Ironically, after giving up his political and executive powers to elected representatives, the 76-year-old 'Humble Monk' has emerged as a far stronger match for his Communist detractors in China than he used to be until a week ago. The Tibetan 'Government-in-Exile' now has a much more powerful Prime Minister and Parliament to take Beijing head on.

The Communist rulers of China cannot but be frustrated and miserable to find that in one stroke this monk-statesman has knocked out their hopes of finding a 'permanent solution' to their Tibetan problem by installing a puppet as the successor to the Dalai Lama. That move would be meaningless now.

The Dalai Lama's colleagues in the 'Government-in-Exile', who are used to taking commands from him and have been pleading with him since March 14 not to give up his temporal powers, will take their own time to understand the real impact of his decision. From Monday, May 30, onwards, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, will have only an advisory role as far as the 'Government-in-Exile' is concerned and much more time for international travel and meetings.

The Gaden Phodrang has been in place since 1642 when the second Dalai Lama was made the spiritual and temporal head of Tibet. Under this system the Dalai Lamas enjoyed enormous powers, collectively equivalent to those of the British Monarch, the US President, the Prime Minister of India, the Pope and the North Korean Communist President in their respective systems.

The latest reform concludes the first of the two historic tasks the Dalai Lama had set for himself in 1959 when he fled his occupied country and became its exiled ruler. His next task will be replacing the current reincarnation-based selection process for his successor as Dalai Lama to one by nomination.

As per his plans, his successor will be nominated during his own lifetime and will be an acknowledged scholar and an enlightened monk. This means that unlike the previous 14 Dalai Lamas, the 15th Dalai Lama will not be a child discovered through a traditional religious process and certified by a team of designated senior lamas as the reincarnation of the 14th Dalai Lama.

In the amended Constitution the provision of the traditional all-mighty 'Council of Regents' — a group of senior monks, Ministers and bureaucrats that takes over all powers of the Dalai Lama in the event of his death — also stands abolished. This change will automatically protect the 'Government-in-Exile' from any possible machinations by the Chinese during the 20-year-long 'bardo' — the period between the death and rebirth of a person. There are instances when China interfered in Tibet's affairs using its influence on individual members of the 'Council of Regents'.

The real significance of these developments would be better understood from China's reaction since the Dalai Lama announced the changes on March 10 and 14. Angry and almost abusive statements emanating from Beijing reflect the level of the Chinese leadership's nervousness and helplessness. China has been hitting at the Dalai Lama, the 'Government-in-Exile' and the Prime Minister to vent its anger.

On the Dalai Lama's plan to change the system of selecting future Dalai Lamas, Beijing used its most prominent Tibetan collaborator, Pema Choeling, Governor of Tibet Autonomous Region, to talk to the international media during the National Congress. Pema Choeling chose to give the Dalai Lama a lesson in Tibetan culture and tradition.

Advising the Dalai Lama to honour "Tibetan traditions and rituals", he said, "We must respect the historical institutions and religious rituals of Tibetan Buddhism... Tibetan Buddhism has a history of more than 1,000 years, and the reincarnation institutions of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama have been carried on for several hundred years... I am afraid it is not up to anyone whether to abolish the reincarnation institution or not."

Reacting to the Dalai Lama's decision to hand over his political and administrative powers to elected representatives, a Chinese spokesperson declared the 'Tibetan Government-in-Exile' an "illegal entity which was formed only to split China..." Commenting on the election process among exiled Tibetans and the prospects of Lobsang Sangay becoming the new 'Prime Minister', the spokesperson branded him a "terrorist" as he was an active leader of the Tibetan Youth Congress during his days in Delhi University.

These reactions reflect China's anger and frustration over the Dalai Lama preempting and jeopardising their future plans on Tibet. Following the 1989 Tibetan uprising in Lhasa and their subsequent strategy meeting on Tibet in 1991, Beijing has been pursuing a dual policy on religion in Tibet. In addition to maintaining controls in Tibet, it has been promoting China's "pro-Buddhism" image abroad by presenting Tibet as an international tourist destination; aggressively sponsoring and participation in international Buddhist conferences; sponsoring Buddhist events in Buddhist countries; winning over as many as possible Tibetan 'living Buddhas' (incarnate lamas) inside Tibet; and, making inroads among the Tibetan religious institutions set up in foreign countries.

As part of this strategy, Beijing has already undertaken an exercise to select two prominent Tibetan incarnate lamas – the Karmapa (1993) and the Panchen Lama (1995) in Tsurphu and Shigatse respectively. Although the Karmapa has since sought shelter in India, five-year-old Gedhun Choeky Nyima is till under arrest. Tibetans have refused to accept the Chinese sponsored Panchen Lama. But that has not deterred Beijing from undertaking a similar exercise to find a successor to the present Dalai Lama.

Beijing today enjoys the privilege of having two Panchen Lamas under its physical control. It is in a position to parade dozens of 'living Buddhas' in front of Chinese and international TV from Tibet. It can also secure the services of senior Buddhist scholars and leaders from client countries who would happily endorse any Chinese sponsored 'reincarnation' of the Dalai Lama whenever the necessity arises.

But by giving up his temporal powers and proposing to change the succession system, the Dalai Lama has demolished the hopes of Beijing.

-- The writer is a commentator on Tibetan affairs and the author of several books on Tibet.

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THE PIONEER

OPED

RUNNING OUT OF OPTIONS IN LIBYA

GWYNNE DYER

The frontlines between Col Gaddafi's forces and the rebels are still approximately where they were two months ago, except around the city of Misrata where the insurgents have pushed the loyalist troops back by some kilometers

They swore blind that there would never be foreign "boots on the ground" in Libya, but as Nato's campaign against Col Muammar Gaddafi's regime enters its third month it is getting a lot closer to the ground. It started with Tomahawk missiles fired from over the horizon; then it was fighter-bombers firing guided weapons from a safe height; now it's helicopter gunships skimming the ground at zero altitude. They're getting desperate.

In London on 25 May, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that "the President and I agree we should be turning up the heat on Libya." Standing beside him, President Barack Obama declared that, "given the progress that has been made over the last several weeks," there will be no "let-up in the pressure that we are applying."

And you have to ask, what progress? The front lines between Col Gaddafi's forces and the rebels are still approximately where they were two months ago, except around the city of Misrata, where the insurgents have pushed the besieging troops back some kilometres (miles).

Tripoli, the capital, is still firmly under Col Gaddafi's control. There has been no overt defiance of the regime there for many weeks, and the city is not even suffering significant shortages except for fuel. Are Mr Obama and Mr Cameron deluding themselves, or are they just trying to fool everybody else?

Maybe both — and meanwhile they are cranking up the aerial campaign against Col Gaddafi in the hope that enough bombs may make their claims come true. They must have been told a dozen times by their military advisers that bombing alone almost never wins a war, but they have waded into the quagmire too far to turn back now, and they have no other military options that the United Nations resolution would allow them to use.

They are already acting beyond the limits set by UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which on 17 March authorised the use of limited force to protect Libyan civilians. It has become a campaign to overthrow Col Gaddafi, and they hardly even bother to deny it any more.

"I believe that we have built enough momentum that, as long as we sustain the course we are on, (Gaddafi) will step down," said Mr Obama in London. "Ultimately this is going to be a slow, steady process in which we are able to wear down the regime forces." Well maybe so, and maybe not, but in either case that's not what Resolution 1973 said. No wonder Russia condemned the latest air raids as a "gross violation" of the resolution.

Russia did not want to stand by and let Col Gaddafi massacre innocent civilians, which seemed imminent when the defences of the rebels in eastern Libya were collapsing in mid-March, so it let the resolution pass. So did China, India and Brazil, which would normally oppose any military intervention by western powers in a Third World country. But it was all decided in a weekend, and they did not think it through.

Neither did France, Britain, the United States, Canada and a few other Nato countries, which immediately committed their air forces to the task of saving the rebels. They destroyed Col Gaddafi's tanks and saved the city of Benghazi, but then what? There was no plan, no "exit strategy", and so they have ended up with a very unpleasant choice.

Either they stop the war and leave Col Gaddafi in control of the larger part of a partitioned Libya, or they escalate further in the hope that at some point Col Gaddafi's supporters abandon him. The US Air Force had a name for this strategy during the Vietnam War: They were trying to find the North Vietnamese regime's "threshold of pain". They never did find it in Vietnam, but Nato is still looking for it in Libya.

Let us give Nato Governments credit for letting their hearts overrule their heads. Let's also acknowledge that they have been meticulous and largely successful in avoiding civilian casualties in their bombing campaign. But it isn't working.

So what do they do now? They can escalate for a few more weeks, and hope that the strategy that has failed for the last two months will finally succeed. That might happen, but it's not likely to. In which case the only remaining option will be to accept a cease-fire, and the partition of Libya between the Gaddafi regime and the "Transitional National Council" in Benghazi.

-- Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist.

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THE PIONEER

OPED

APOCALYPSE STANDS POSTPONED

ANDREI FEDYASHIN

Waiting for the end of the world is common to many religions. Expectations of what it will be like differ between Catholics, Baptists, Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses. But all predictions of the world coming to an end have been proved incorrect till now. We still live on!

It was nice to survive Saturday, May 21 and not evaporate at 6 pm in the blazing inferno as predicted by Harold Camping, American preacher and guru of the Apocalypse. But it was less pleasant to learn three days later that the Apocalypse has not, after all, been cancelled, simply postponed until the same time of day on October 21, 2011. This is Pastor Camping's third attempt at predicting the Apocalypse. First he promised the Second Coming on September 6, 1994 — and, it now seems clear, he's not going to stop there.

Armageddon as commodity

Why give up when there is such profit to be gained from striking so amorphous but rich a seam as faith? Or rather, as credulity and simplicity. No consumer protection law covers the 'defective' Apocalypse, or Armageddon, or offers compensation for the fact that it malfunctioned 'before the expiration date'.

Nor is there any need to worry about lawsuits arising along these lines. By the time he reached the ripe old age of 89, Camping, a former engineer, had created a solid religious company, Family Radio, which broadcasts in 48 languages in many countries — including Russia — and owns 66 radio stations in the US. The annual turnover of just one of his radio networks, founded in the mid-1950s, is estimated at $120 million. Camping himself has amassed a similar amount in personal wealth.

On the evening of the 21st, when it became clear that the end wasn't coming, the Pastor even took refuge in a motel with his wife — some believers sold their homes (some sacrificed up to $140,000) and waited for the Rapture. They could even have beaten him up. That's also something that happens in America. But when morning came, he had a new revelation, and he notified his loyal flock that he had merely erred in calculating the second part of the phenomenon — the universal cataclysm. But its 'spiritual aspect' fell squarely within the predicted period — on May 21 all the righteous souls were selected, counted, numbered, and the way to heaven paved for them. Even the approximate number of people to be saved is given a mention — about 200 million people. And we are 'reassured' that the world will certainly end on October 21. Camping announced that he will not limit himself to this date, and his radio networks will exclusively broadcast psalms, hymns and prayers in order to strengthen and guide the faithful and comfort all those who are destined for slaughter.

Waiting for the end of the world is common to many religions and belief systems, not to mention mythologies. Christianity has no monopoly over it. True, expectations of what it will be like differ between Catholics, Baptists, Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses. Mainstream Protestantism generally believes that the Antichrist is already here and lives in the Vatican.

The Orthodox Church, incidentally, has its own sound and honest approach to all such calculations of exact dates for the end of the world, the Second Coming, the Rapture when all the righteous and pious souls will be taken into the worlds of Light and all the rest will descend into that place from which no soul can escape.

The Gospels do indeed tell of the end of the world and its coming. But in the first part of the prediction it says that people will know "neither the day nor the hour". And Jesus uttered this phrase: "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father" (Mark 13:32). Therefore, no one can calculate or predict anything.

American preachers are a different subspecies

Still, the United States of America is an amazing country. A country devoid of greatness simply could not have produced such a phenomenon as Camping. And he's not the only one; there's a whole army of them.

On the one hand, there is enormous technical, technological, scientific progress — in all fields of knowledge without exception — and applied research is implemented at an incredible pace. Innovation advances in leaps and bounds, so fast that all sorts of electronic 'gadgets' become out of date when people are only just starting to get used to them. Or even earlier.

But on the other hand, there is the indestructible, irrational institution of the preachers. Nothing like this is to be found anywhere else in the world — at least, not on a comparable scale to what is seen in America, in terms of quality and quantity, with that kind of money, and with such an incredibly blasphemous attitude toward Holy Scripture, its interpretation, the interpretation of the Gospels, epistles of the apostles and the rest.

American preachers are a very special subspecies endemic to the American church fringe. They are pseudo-religious, arrogant, pushy, impudent and display enterprising ignorance.

Virtually none of them have ever had any religious education. They did not graduate from theological institutions or universities, and the closest they have come to the basic teachings of Christ was in their village schools. But having once thumped a Bible and mastered its basics by learning the terminology by rote, these conmen are pumping gullible believers for every cent they're worth. It is highly profitable. In the days of Mark Twain, these shysters were tarred, feathered and dragged through the main streets of the unhappy locality that fell for their lies. Apparently the Americans used to be much more demanding in matters of faith.

Where it all began

However, religion is mostly a matter of taste. It does not particularly need proof, since faith, by definition, is something that should not be proven. That is provided, of course, that it is true faith, and not some ersatz entity cobbled together by preachers using a mixture of 'whatever was at hand' and what sells well.

In Christianity, waiting for the End of Days, Judgment Day and the Rapture is a specific dogma. It's a sort of special, auxiliary instrument for salvation and simultaneously an incentive for it, an incentive for people to change their lives, absolve themselves of sin and change the world while they still can.

In Christianity, the exact arithmetic of Judgment Day is a relatively late addition. The concept of an accurate calculation of when people would have to finally take stock of all things only emerged in the mid-17th century.

The conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism is reflected in all these exercises, and it all began in earnest during the Reformation. Protestants, as stated above, believed that the Antichrist is already present, presiding over the Vatican. This latter of course found this view unacceptable, and in the 17th century the Spanish Jesuit monk Francisco Ribera created the doctrine of the Rapture, in which first the faithful ascended into heaven, and only then would the floods, fires, earthquakes and total darkness come. This suited Vatican well because everything was referred to as being yet to come, and therefore there could not be any Antichrist in the Vatican.

The Protestants were hoodwinked by this dogma. The Jesuits re-worked it and published under the signature of a rabbi. It was farther away from Christianity, but closer to the Promised Land and Protestants fell for it. Calculations were disseminated first in Scotland, then in England, and doomsday was predicted for 1843, 1844, and 1914. The idea migrated from Britain to America and it took fruitful root there.

Incidentally, it is this very legend that is responsible for the emergence of the ever popular breakfast cereal corn flakes. They were developed by an Adventist who claimed he could tame human passions such as lust with his vegetarian 'medicines' and make them pure for Judgment Day. His name was Mr Kellogg.

The writer is a Moscow-based political affairs columnist.

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THE TIMES OF INDIA

COMMENT

THE LOTUS EATERS

As the mercury rises, the BJP is breaking out in prickly heat. Its Lok Sabha leader, Sushma Swaraj, has accused its Rajya Sabha chief, Arun Jaitley, of being responsible for handing the heavily tainted Reddy brothers their political reign of glory - with two ministerial berths in the B S Yeddyurappa government. While former BJP president Rajnath Singh's rushed to 'accept responsibility' for the Reddys' induction, thereby attempting to deflect the heat from Jaitley, Yeddyurappa himself supported Swaraj's statement. And party president Nitin Gadkari has issued a widely-perceived snub to Swaraj, saying such debates were 'totally unnecessary'.

Gadkari has a point. The arguments aren't remotely about ideology or ethics. In all the blame-shifting over the Reddys, not one leader has called for their removal from government. Instead, the party seems happy to have the brothers comfortably occupy office even as their presence rips the BJP's credibility to shreds. Fierce squabbles are instead emanating from power struggles, each chieftain trying to assume a dominating role, satraps jostling over who steps into L K Advani's sandals.

The BJP's situation is tragicomic. For a party that claims to be inspired by 'history', it appears blissfully unaware of standing at a historical crossroads. The platter of political opportunities before it today is heaven-sent. With record-breaking scams to answer for, UPA-2 has hit rock-bottom in popular standing. Public anger over sky-high prices and never-ending inflation is palpable and growing. The middle class is more politically charged than in decades, evident from the groundswell of support Anna Hazare's movement against corruption has received. These circumstances could be immensely rewarding for a national-level opposition party making the right moves. Hackneyed tactics such as stirring communal riots won't yield much dividend for the BJP in today's India, but here's a great opportunity for the party to reinvent itself. With major elections coming - Uttar Pradesh in 2012, national balloting in 2014 - the BJP should've been out there campaigning against corruption, agitating against inflation, strategising and sloganeering across India.

Instead, the party's in a shambles, slugging it out in its own headquarters, rich in accusations, poverty-struck on policy, increasingly defunct in the public's eyes. The irony's thick - while the party carps on about the Congress's dynastic rule, it hasn't been able to decide a clear leader after Advani, its confusion leading to tense tirades between rivals. By appointing a chief through internal democracy and lending a firm shoulder to major public concerns - corruption and inflation - the BJP could have emerged as a modern, dynamic, fully-engaged party. Instead it's clawing itself to bits. So much for this Hindu undivided family.

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THE TIMES OF INDIA

COMMENT

CRICKET BLUES

The absence of several key cricketers in the Indian squad for the forthcoming bilateral series against West Indies has ratcheted up the club versus country debate. Our cricketers have played a massive amount of cricket over the last three months. After a gruelling and emotionally draining World Cup campaign, they were immediately plunged into the high-octane IPL. It is not uncommon for such intensive scheduling to lead to injuries and fatigue. But to work retrospectively and accuse the players of choosing IPL over national duty is harsh. The IPL has redefined the commercial equations of cricket and greatly boosted interest in the sport. Had star players like Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Zaheer Khan and M S Dhoni opted out of the IPL, the marquee tournament would have taken a hit, leading to substantial financial losses.

On the other hand, given the current stature of the West Indian team, India's tour of the Caribbean was always going to be a relatively low-key affair. By resting certain senior players there are opportunities now for fresh talents to gain international experience. In the long run this is bound to hold Indian cricket in good stead and shore up its bench strength. However, with Team India in great demand for future tours, scheduling needs to be looked at closely to allow our cricketers time to recharge their batteries. Prioritising certain tours over others is one way out. Creating a window around IPL is another option. But enticing players to play in a lucrative league and then accusing them of not honouring their national caps is hypocrisy. They would like to play for both club and country - there's no reason why both can't go hand in hand.

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THE TIMES OF INDIA

TOP ARTICLE

CITIES ARE INDIA'S FUTURE

AXEL C HEITMANNAXEL C HEITMANN

The wave of urbanisation that is sweeping across India represents one of the country's greatest opportunities as well as one of its most serious challenges.

According to the report on 'India's Urban Awakening' by McKinsey Global Institute, in the next 20 years, India will have 68 cities with a population over one million - up from 42 today. That is nearly twice as many cities as all of Europe. India's urban population will increase from 340 million to 590 million. To put it in global terms, about 10% of humanity will reside in Indian cities.

There is room for this sort of demographic change. Only 30% of Indians live in cities, in comparison with 74% of Germans and 82% of Americans.

And the change holds great promise for India. The McKinsey study predicts that Indian cities could generate 70% of net new employment, produce more than 70% of Indian GDP, and quadruple the national per capita income. Best of all, these new, modern cities could create an enormous increase in the number of middle-class households. It is estimated that 91 million urban households will be middle class by 2030, up from 22 million today.

Without question, successful urban development represents India's best opportunity to maintain its current economic momentum and to achieve a prosperous, dynamic future.

But urbanisation in India poses an urgent and difficult challenge, too often characterised by widespread poverty, poor urban infrastructure and environmental degradation.

India's existing megacities are already suffering from a lack of sufficient infrastructure investment. Where China is spending Rs 5,132 per capita on infrastructure annually, India is spending just Rs 752. A developed country like Germany has the capacity to produce roughly 1.7 kilowatts of electricity per person; India's capacity is about 0.15 kilowatts.

India must address the current problems of urban decay, traffic gridlock and a deteriorating quality of life for many of its citizens. It must also address the enormous capital investment of roughly five trillion (or five lakh crore rupees) required over the next 20 years to meet the projected infrastructure demands of creating the more viable, more livable cities of tomorrow.

Those demands include creating billions of square metres of roads, over 7,000 kilometres of subways and metros, endless sewage and water systems and so much residential and commercial space that it is equivalent to building two cities the size of Mumbai every year.

It is an enormous challenge - yet it is a challenge that can be met with adequate resolve. Well-conceived cities will not only improve the quality of life for India's citizens, they will attract investment, grow the tax base, unlock new growth markets, create a much larger, stronger middle class, boost India's GDP and generate a huge increase in average national income.

Recently, chairman of the Association of Municipalities and Development Authorities Noor Mohammed said, "The chances of success in developing efficient and sustainable cities in India are much higher when synergistic partnerships are evolved to deal with these challenges."

This is true. Many industrialised nations have trod this path before and could play an active role in helping to meet India's urbanisation challenge - through investments, trade, economic partnerships, new industrial development. Germany hopes to be one of those synergistic partner nations.

That is because Germany and India are natural partners, with shared interests, strong commercial and strategic ties and a long history of cultural and economic relations.

Today that partnership is stronger than ever. Germany is India's largest trading partner in Europe and fifth largest customer and exporter to India. Trade volume between the two countries exceeded Rs 1.9 lakh crore in 2010. That number is expected to climb by 70% over the next two decades. And together the countries are engaged in fruitful partnerships in many areas of research and development in science and technology. The most recent example is the Indo-German Max Planck Centre at IIT Delhi, which was inaugurated last February by former German federal president Kohler.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is now in New Delhi to meet with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in advance of the 'Year of Germany' that will begin in India in September, marking 60 years of good relations between the two nations. Next year, a 'Year of India' will be held in Germany.

Trade will clearly occupy a good deal of the meetings between the two heads of state. That is good news for everyone involved. Only by maintaining high rates of economic growth, trade and technology transfer can India ensure that the urbanisation of its vast population will take place smoothly and successfully. And Germany's more developed, if somewhat smaller, cities will only maintain their vitality by continuing to participate in the global marketplace for goods, ideas and culture.

The strong business relationship and friendship between India and Germany will provide one of the synergistic partnerships that will help India seize the opportunity to create the good, clean, livable cities of tomorrow - cities that will allow its citizens to live happier, more prosperous lives and that will enable India to fully realise its enormous economic potential.

The writer is the CEO of LANXESS AG, a specialty chemicals company headquartered in Germany.

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THE TIMES OF INDIA

TIMES VIEW

IT'S CAPITALISM WITH A SOCIAL FACE

Capitalism with a social face took a step forward and in a uniquely Indian way that deserves both recognition and emulation. Dalits have opened the Mumbai chapter of the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Dicci). While Dicci was formed in 2005, establishing itself in India's financial capital shows both a welcome self-confidence amongst dalits and a commendable social consciousness expressed in a willingness to help their own.

That help is needed in a country where the dice are loaded against dalits trying to become successful entrepreneurs - through, for example, the difficulty they experience in accessing capital and credit. The main instrument to end caste discrimination now is positive discrimination in government jobs. But there are very few such jobs - relative to population - making this a very limited technique for raising a community. Moreover reserved jobs may carry a stigma, perpetuating instead of abolishing caste. Dicci seeks a very different way of improving the lives of the downtrodden. It focusses on instilling the spirit of entrepreneurship among dalit youth. While the first generation of dalit entrepreneurs is thriving Ashok Khade, managing director of a company with 4,500 employees, still writes 'K Ashok' on his card to hide his caste. Meanwhile, the National Commission for Enterprises in unorganised sectors notes that 88% of dalits and adivasis spent less than Rs 20 per day in 2007. It indicates that much more needs to be done. Dicci members, knowing how difficult it was for them, are now trying to ease matters for others from their community.

One surefire way of fostering an entrepreneurial ecosystem is to foster dalit vendors for government and big business contracts. The idea is already in place in the US where 'supplier-diversity' means large companies seek out and support - in terms of technology and management - and then eventually buy from underprivileged and minority suppliers. Recreating this in India is undoubtedly a challenge, but the Mumbai chapter's a start.

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THE TIMES OF INDIA

WON'T HELP COMMUNITY AT LARGE

JAY KUMARJAY KUMAR

In a country where celebration of birth and death anniversaries of dalit icons takes precedence over the real issues affecting the community, it isn't surprising that the launch of Dicci's Mumbai chapter is being hailed as another milestone in the community's rising consciousness. The coming together of a handful of dalit entrepreneurs is being heralded as the arrival of dalit capitalism. But the launch of a separate caste-based chamber of commerce portends no good for the community both as a business strategy as well as in its struggle for socio-economic justice. Rather it will create another power elite cut off from reality, diverting focus from the core issue of dalit empowerment.

The strategy of dalit entrepreneurs to form Dicci is short-sightedness. Instead of creating and rallying behind a caste-based entity, they should have joined mainstream chambers of commerce. That would have enlarged the scope of their business opportunities without carrying the appendage of caste. More importantly, it would have allowed them to engage with other players on an equal footing. They should garner business on the basis of the comparative advantage they offer and not on the basis of their caste. This would not only expand their choice but also the spirit of enterprise within the community.

Equally serious is the risk that the success of a few individuals will be portrayed as a marker of progress for the entire community, when a majority of dalits still lives in rural areas as landless labourers or at best as small and marginal farmers. Among those who live in urban areas, the majority are slum-dwellers. Therefore, it's too facile to interpret the success of a few rich entrepreneurs as the arrival of dalit capitalism. It's unclear why they should prove to be different from other elites of their community, who have reaped the benefits of the government's affirmative action policy without passing them on.

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HINDUSTAN TIMES

OUR TAKE

SEEING RED ON BLACK MONEY

Getting a handle on the size of India's black economy is deucedly difficult. And it doesn't get easier if the government takes on the job. A joint study commissioned to come up with an estimate of how much of Indians' income goes unreported and where it ends up must devise a hypothesis and test it on data that is just not there.

The human desire to evade taxes or legal scrutiny doesn't lend itself to mathematical modelling, which is why no serious academic effort has gone into what is anecdotally a pervasive phenomenon in India. This is also the reason for estimates of unaccounted wealth stashed at home or abroad varying bizarrely.

If the government wanted to be seen to be doing something about black money, it could have chosen the more practical approach of addressing its causes rather than announcing a census.

Two obvious questions arise from the announcement though. One, if estimation of black money is smoke-and-mirror economics, isn't there a bias in any government-sponsored study to underestimate the problem? Two, if the "independent" think tanks do manage to put out an estimation method 18 months from now that stands up to scrutiny, why haven't we thought of doing it before now?

For their part, the think tanks will most probably come up with something that pits two sets of claims against each other and work on the discrepancies.

For example, what India says it trades with the world and what the world says India trades with it, or what sellers say they have sold and what buyers say they have bought. Even if economists get hold of two sets of conflicting data, they're still clueless about the frankly illegal activities that do not show up in official databases anywhere.

However, if we do get a fix on the black money generated from legitimate economic activity a large chunk of the underground economy will be exposed. Then again, if Indian economists fail to come up with a reasonable estimate — one that stands up to scrutiny by peers — they can draw comfort from the fact that nobody else has succeeded.

A government facing questions on what it is doing about black money — including from the Supreme Court — is understandably touchy about the issue.

First, why should a black market exist? Second, what makes money go underground? And third, what are the chances that a person plying his trade in the parallel economy will be caught?

The answer to all three is governance, or the lack of it. Joining a global crusade against funny money is not enough for a country that has too much of it. India must lead the crusade.

As a beginning, it needs to introspect on the shortages that create black markets in the first place, the regulatory mechanism that nudges resources underground, and the lack of policing that allows the parallel economy unfettered growth.Seeing red on black money

Our Take

We need a robust regulatory mechanism to police the markets with greater rigour.

If the government wanted to be seen to be doing something about black money, it could have chosen the more practical approach of addressing its causes rather than announcing a census.

For their part, the think tanks will most probably come up with something that pits two sets of claims against each other and work on the discrepancies.

A government facing questions on what it is doing about black money — including from the Supreme Court — is understandably touchy about the issue.

First, why should a black market exist? Second, what makes money go underground? And third, what are the chances that a person plying his trade in the parallel economy will be caught?

The answer to all three is governance, or the lack of it. Joining a global crusade against funny money is not enough for a country that has too much of it. India must lead the crusade.

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HINDUSTAN TIMES

YOU ARE NOT SCUM

Dear smokers. First the good news. The number of women smokers in India has doubled over the last five years. But the bad news: more and more people are not smoking at all.

Keeping a balanced view of smoking as a lifestyle choice and as a harbinger of bodily doom, we bring you, beloved smoker, some words of comfort today when you may be woken up, rounded up, stacked against a wall and shot through the head.

Yes, it's World Anti-Tobacco Day and you are scum today.

The world was not always so fumiphobic. The tribes of North America, the home of tobacco, were traditional chewers of the Nicotiana leaf. They would smoke the stuff on sacred and special occasions. Exhaled tobacco smoke was thought to carry one's thoughts to heaven — a poetic way, perhaps, of describing how nicotine helps concentration by affecting the transmission of bio-electrical currents in synapses, those spaces lying between neurons, the core components of the nervous system.

More recently, of course, the Eurocentric image of a cigarette dangling from the lips of a man or perched between the fingers of a woman were archetypal images of the alpha male and female across cultures.

But even if the film hero (or the anti-hero) lights up a cig in cinematographed light, in the real world, the fate of the smoker is now akin to that of a leper in mediaeval Europe, of a pariah.

So while the Venezuelan Yellow Frog and the Great Indian Bustard get all the love, affection and concerned attention, the extinction of the Homo Fumicus has become public and social policy. W

hich is why on World Anti-Tobacco Day today, braving much opprobrium, we reach out to you, despised, abused smoker standing outside in the heat. We give you the love and comfort that you really crave for so much more than that hit of nasty nicotine.

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HINDUSTAN TIMES

A FLING WITH FLAMBOYANCE

KK PAUL

In recognising Salim Durrani for the CK Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award today, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is taking the 'better late than never' route. Seen as the architect of India's first Test victory over England in 1961-62, the 76-year-old former all-rounder's contribution to Indian cricket is immeasurable.

The irony of him receiving the BCCI award, however, is keen, considering that Durrani never had smooth relations with the Indian cricketing body during his playing career.

Eyebrows were raised even when the first Arjuna Awards were announced on Republic Day 1962, when, along with the likes of tennis player Ramanathan Krishnan, footballer PK Banerjee, shooter Karni Singh and badminton player Nandu Natekar, the handsome and a flamboyant young cricketer Salim Durrani was nominated for the award.

He had then made a debut only two seasons ago with seven Test caps and without a tour abroad. But as events would play out, the selectors had spotted the right talent.

For some, Durrani was an arrogant figure. Despite no television in those days, it was surprising indeed for him to have such a countrywide fan-following in such a short time, especially among women. A flashing left-hander, Durrani had developed a style of his own. He was known to have obliged the crowds each time they wanted a six.

Aptly, he wrote a book after his retirement titled Asking For A Six.

After he left the field of cricket, Durrani also dabbled in films (some maintaining that the latter may have hastened his retirement). Parveen Babi made her debut in the film Charitra with Durrani in the lead role.

Durrani played only 29 Test matches in a career spanning 15 years from 1959 to 1974, as he was regularly in and out of the team for reasons other than cricket. Some of India's most memorable Test victories, rare in those days, have his name etched on them.

After encountering a 0-5 whitewash in England in 1959, India were hosting Ted Dexter's team in 1961-62.

The rock-like defence of Ken Barrington had become impregnable for Indian bowlers. Ultimately, Durrani's slow left-arm turners paved the way for two historic wins at Eden Gardens, Calcutta, and at the then Corporation Stadium in Madras.

Durrani's figures of 8 for 113 at Calcutta and 10 for 177 at Madras, along with useful contributions from Chandu Borde led to the series win.

When the Indian team visited the West Indies under Nari Contractor in early 1962, although India lost the Test, Durrani scored a century off the great pacemen Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith. With a tally of 18 wickets in the series, his was a fine all-round performance.

Ten years later, he was again picked up for the West Indies tour under the captaincy of Ajit Wadekar in 1971. India smelt victory in the second Test at Port of Spain where Sunil Gavaskar made his debut.

It was at the team meeting on the night of the fourth day that Durrani chipped in with the claim that Gary Sobers and Clive Lloyd, who were going great guns, "should be left to him". Durrani went on to create history with two inspired deliveries, scalping both Sobers and Lloyd within a span of ten overs.

India went on to win their first series in West Indies.

After retirement, Durrani remained associated with CHAMPS (Caring, Healing, Assisting, Motivating and Promoting Sportspersons), a foundation established by Gavaskar. Such was the charisma of Durrani that in 1971, when Gavaskar and he were travelling by train, members of the railway staff went out of their way to provide him with an extra blanket.

Durrani quickly passed it on to the young Gavaskar who was shivering in the north Indian winter.

(KK Paul is a former police commissioner of Delhi. The views expressed by the author are personal)

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HINDUSTAN TIMES

IT'S TWO STEPS BACK

SITARAM YECHURY

The photo opportunity on the occasion of the second anniversary of the UPA 2 government showed the striking contrast with UPA 1. From the original UPA 1 constituents and outside support by Left parties, only the NCP and a beleaguered DMK are in the government.

The contrast, however, goes beyond the 'photo-op'.

The UPA 1 government was formed in response to the needs of the country and people at that time; to protect the secular fabric of India and secular democratic content of our public institutions that were being eroded and undermined by the BJP-led NDA alliance, then in power for six continuous years.

The UPA 1 adopted a pledge which stated: The United Progressive Alliance pledges to provide a corruption free, transparent and accountable government and a responsible and responsive administration." It adopted a Common Minimum Programme (CMP) that formed the basis for the outside support by the Left parties.

The UPA 2 now appears all set to systematically demolish the spirit and the declared content of UPA 1. It is abandoning even the pretext of the concern for the aam aadmi in order to facilitate the unbridled implementation of neo-liberal economic reforms, promoting crony capitalism and mega corruption.

The prime minister, expectedly, highlighted the economic achievements of the last two years — annual growth rate of 8.5% — terming it as a "historic performance".

"We have pursued a strategy of seeking 'inclusive growth' at home and 'inclusive globalisation' internationally that benefits the have-nots and reduces disparities of income and wealth."

There could not have been a more cruel joke. Over the last two years, the number of US dollar billionaires in India has increased from 26 to 52; now standing at 69. Their combined asset worth is equivalent of a third of India's GDP. On the other hand, 77%, or more than 80 crore, of our people survive on less than R20 a day.

The vulgar disparities of income and wealth are sharply widening.

The PM's blueprint for the future is more worrisome. He says: "Our most immediate challenge is to sustain the growth process, while keeping inflation under check." In order to do this, he speaks of various dimensions of sustainable economic growth. The most important dimension that he highlights, however, is the "fiscal challenge".

Stating that the massive fiscal stimulus programmes that his government undertook during the last two years have helped maintain reasonable economic growth, the PM now speaks of the urgency to reduce "fiscal and revenue deficits". Simply put, this means that the government must reduce its expenditures while increasing its revenues.

The former means that whatever little that is being spent in the social sectors towards improving people's welfare will sharply decline. The latter means that greater burdens would be put on the majority of our people through higher prices.

This is, clearly, a replication of how global capitalism is seeking to emerge from the global recession. The huge stimulus packages in developed countries have succeeded in bailing out those very financial corporates which caused the current crisis in the first place. The governments have borrowed heavily to finance these stimulus packages.

Now, in order to meet the costs of such borrowings, they are sharply reducing governmental expenditures by imposing unprecedented burdens on the workers. Capitalism's logic for emerging from the crisis is by converting corporate insolvencies into sovereign insolvencies.

The net result is a sharp rise in the burdens on people against which widespread popular protests are erupting all over Europe.

The PM seems to be preparing us in India to go through a similar process. The current discussions on long-promised food security highlights this eloquently.

In the ongoing proceedings on a public interest litigation before the Supreme Court, the Planning Commission has impleaded itself and claimed that an expenditure of R20 per day on essential requirements for those living in urban areas and R15 for those living in rural India was enough to keep them out of poverty.

This poverty line of R20 per day for people living in the cities is worked out from the Planning Commission's opinion that anybody with R578 per month is not poor!

As per its report, this amount includes a monthly expenditure of R31 on rent and conveyance, R18 on education, R25 on medicines and R36.5 on vegetables. The ridiculousness of these figures can be gauged from the fact that the Commission itself prescribes a minimum in-take of 2,400 calories daily to sustain oneself.

This requires, at current prices, an expenditure of at least R44 per day. This, of course, doesn't include any expenditure on shelter, clothing, education, transportation etc.

The Commission, on the basis of flawed reasoning, takes the poverty ratio at 33% of our population. These are the people who alone should be provided some food security. The National Advisory Council has suggested a ratio of 46%.

Both estimations fall woefully short of the late Arjun Sengupta's estimation that 77% of our population is currently surviving on less than R20 a day.

Any meaningful food security in our country can come about only through a universal public distribution system that ensures every household (both BPL and APL) receives 35 kg of foodgrains a month at R2 per kg.

The argument that India doesn't have sufficient resources to do this is equally fraudulent. The monies looted through the 2G spectrum scam alone (leave alone all other scams and recovering the humongous amount of black money stashed abroad) would be more than enough to provide meaningful food security to our people.

Is UPA 2 listening?

(Sitaram Yechury is CPI(M) Politburo member and Rajya Sabha MP. The views expressed by the author are personal)

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THE INDIAN EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

SHADOW LINES

India, displaying no sense of irony, has censored an issue of The Economist with a cover story on "The World's Most Dangerous Border". The magazine was forced to cover the Kashmir map with a blank white sticker in over 30,000 copies, because it was shown as divided between India, Pakistan and China. International news publications are often delayed because a special Customs cell has to stamp each such map with the disclaimer that these are "neither accurate nor authentic". Though The Economist has explained that using the Line of Control in the absence of an agreed international frontier is merely to state the status quo, not endorse it, the government will have none of it.

Despite the fact that the technology has rendered such strictures irrelevant, the Indian state remains inordinately panicky about how its boundaries are represented. Publishing inaccurate external boundaries and coastlines is a cognisable offence, and amounts to questioning the territorial integrity of India. Anyone who wants to publish a map has to approach the famously tardy Survey of India for permission. We know that maps are not perfect, objective miniatures of a territory; they are authored documents, and instruments of control. The more insecure a region, the more it pores over maps and legends. Nazi Germany was obsessed with cartography. In the pre-glasnost era, the Soviet Union regularly falsified its maps, using cartography as a tool for propaganda and military needs. They were made to thwart and disinform military rivals — for instance, the town of Logashkino was shown at six different spots near the East Siberian Sea. In eastern Europe, nationalism and ethnic assertiveness were played out in struggles over these representations.

But India is a world away from these situations, in psychological terms. We, the citizens, appreciate the distinctions between the border, the line of control, the line of actual control, etc, and to merely setting our eyes on a map that does not follow official lines will not vaporise the idea of India. What's more, we need to square with reality — talks on borders have figured in India's engagement with Pakistan and China. Withholding the ground situation from the people is surely a doubtful way to go about that diplomatic challenge. After all, our self-image is large and robust enough not to be threatened by a few lines on a page — when we can freely refute the depiction if they happen to be questionable.

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THE INDIAN EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

THE BARE NECESSITIES

What precisely counts as "used personal effects required for satisfying daily necessities of life"? Toothbrushes, certainly. But some of us depend on laptops; others use designer handbags daily. Is it the place of the Indian Customs service — the source of the "daily necessities" phrase — to fit us into a neat, austere, pre-liberalisation box? Yet, the confusing rules for Customs declaration at India's airports remain as they were a relic of a bygone era, with only the numbers changed — and those too have remained static for a decade. The rules, as they stand, say that "used personal effects" are free — perhaps the reason that actor Bipasha Basu walked through the green channel happily a few days ago, expecting that her sandals, purse and sunglasses qualified.

If that was her supposition, it wasn't an unreasonable one; but it isn't a supposition shared by the Customs officials at Mumbai airport, always ready to grab the headlines by fining or detaining a celebrity or two.

Basu was eventually fined Rs 12,000, and sent on her way. Why? Because her sunglasses and handbag and sandals were top-of-the-line brands; their face value took them over Rs 25,000, the duty-free allowance for things that are not "used personal effects". (A Gucci Sukey tote bag, for the record, costs $1,000, putting you well over the quota with one purchase alone.) The Customs service clearly expects you to be able to prove that everything you own or travel with was not bought on this trip, even if it is something you use or wear daily. The Rs 25,000 limit has not been changed since 2001, either, when it was not particularly generous to start off with.

There needs to be some basic reform of these regulations to take into account the changing profile of the Indian traveller. We no longer travel abroad to greedily buy things that are unavailable here; but nor is it the case that the lure of shopping overseas is likely to die out. The regulations should be able to discern between those that are bought for personal use and those that are being brought in for resale, not a hard thing to do.

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THE INDIAN EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

THREE TO GO

A hasty, eleventh-hour deal between the three major political parties has staved off a major political crisis in Nepal. When the deadline of May 28 passed, again with no draft of a new constitution, what was left uncertain was the fate of the Constituent Assembly. The squabbling Maoists and the Nepali Congress, along with Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal's Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist), came together at a midnight meeting to amend the interim constitution and extend the term of the Constituent Assembly by three more months. The five-point deal also includes the drafting of a constitution within that period, formation of a new national government and completion of the peace process with the disarmament and integration of Maoist insurgents.

What happened on Sunday night was a replay of events that had taken place a year ago when Nepal faced a deadline and stared at a similar crisis. While the parties succeeded in wrenching the country from a constitutional vacuum, what is doubtful is how far this salvaging can go. The Constituent Assembly was formed in 2008 with a two-year mandate to draft the constitution and oversee the peace process. Can the Constituent Assembly finally pull it off in these three months? Already there is dissonance on the terms of agreement. While the opposition party, the Nepali Congress, has called for an immediate resignation of Khanal, the prime minister has said that he would do so only when an alternative is in place for the proposed national government. This underlines the potential pitfalls of what seems to be a very uneasy compromise.

India must stay engaged and keep persuading the political parties to move forward. Nepal's quest for a new constitution and its people's aspiration for a stable peace deal after years of political violence and uncertainty should reach its rightful conclusion.

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THE INDIAN EXPRESS

COLUMN

THE PLAY OF THE LAND

SEEMA CHISHTI

One of the most fascinating files in the National Archives traces how Gandhi changed his attire and his world view. They contain thousands of stories of impoverished farmers in Champaran. They are based on the notes Gandhi made, as farmers told him their stories — of trying to balance life, livelihoods and a compulsion to grow the blue dye. Indigo left a lasting imprint on how Gandhi shaped his politics and his sense of the ones who really needed protection.

Farmers since then, at least as symbols and totems of commitments made to the last man in the queue, have been central to politics and policy. But between then and the current politics over Bhatta-Parsaul, much has changed.

The fight to abolish zamindari was waged soon after Independence. Several peasant movements to establish rights and wages and overturn existing oppressive social relations that characterised agriculture were waged across states. The Communists, Socialists, the Praja Socialist party all backed peasant movements that made agrarian reform (and the peasant vote) central to the politics of the times.

Using farmers (mostly wronged farmers) has been something Indian politics has played upon since. A lot of the concern has been genuine, through movements espoused to fight for rights and better wages and to ensure better conditions for tillers. Lal Bahadur Shastri immortalised the concern for farmers by elevating the notion to that of national security in "Jai Jawan Jai Kisan". The Green Revolution, for all the critiques now brought forth against it, brought with it a changed political economy with slogans of "self-sufficiency" in foodgrains and creating a whole new class of farmers.

However, what politics had been missing from the mid-1990s was any new articulation of what the pitch on agriculture was to be. Newly emerging parties such as the SP and the RJD had a rural and landed base but argued for better representation, making government jobs the prize — for the BSP too. The Congress and the BJP, late to recover under pressure from the new political forces emerging in north India in the '90s, also ran after the same groups, while focusing on the large and fast urbanising population. In fact, in 2004, the Congress recast its core voter from the 1971 "gharib" to the "aam aadmi", hoping to become the voice of the new urbanising forces.

Now, as questions of how to monetise and acquire agricultural land come up, the "farmer" is once again at the centre of our politics.

Shortly after the Singur crisis in West Bengal in 2006, which dramatically enabled a successful coalition to develop against the ruling Left Front, similar models have been sought to be created. Jaitapur in Maharashtra, Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh, Niyamgiri and Posco in Orissa or Bhatta-Parsaul in UP are all attempts at creating a forest fire around the idea of "taking land away" from the farmer. The farmer or the landowner in each of these trouble spots has probably been keen on a better price or a sense of his betterment even as the price of his land goes up. This has been cynically distorted to create a new and hypocritical sense of distaste around the need to change land use, if required for public good, a model that had so far held ever since the first railway track was laid down in the 19th century and the archaic land acquisition act was drafted.

Much of the restiveness has been fostered as the Centre put the new draft bill, set to displace the 19th century version, on hold instead of at least starting a robust debate — a lack of consensus and unwilling allies were cited for the post-2007 drift. Drafted in 2006-07, it was passed by the previous Lok Sabha but lapsed as general elections were held before it could be passed by the Rajya Sabha. It contained innovative elements to create a bond between the farmer whose land was being alienated and the project proposed on the land — for instance, giving 20 per cent of "shares and debentures" issued to the original holders. However, by allowing all this to not be pressed in Parliament, the Congress acquired extraordinary leverage to try and ambush its way to "causes" in states where it was not in power.

The fact of the matter is that agricultural lobbies in India have counted for a lot, and predictably so, with about 60 per cent of the population in some way reliant on farm sector. Several of these people are just landless peasants or those with small holdings, all tied to the land as there are no other options. All this signals underemployment, low levels of agricultural wages and, overall, a very poor quality of life, reflecting the scant emphasis on infrastructure in non-metros. There is considerable elasticity in the sector, especially to tackle rural poverty, but after early investment in irrigation, it has been largely ignored. The impact of higher public spends on agricultural R&D on reducing poverty, for instance, has been found to be second only to that of building roads.

There are, however, no insta-solutions and, as highlighted in the Bhatta-Parsaul case, our politics has yet to acquire the nuance needed to articulate the crisis. There is no articulation of a bigger debate on the route agriculture needs to take to get out of the "crisis" — not only in terms of technology, class relations, or its interface with industry, but even on the basics: how to get the farmer better access to information, more investment in agriculture or a greater voice in the debate on the "export" of goods that is allowed suddenly and capped just as dramatically.

Coming back to the (now East and West) Champaran farmers, it is unclear if successors of those who spoke to Gandhi are still farming there, but one can safely predict that those who have not left farming must be puzzled at how little they actually matter to political parties, whereas conversation about their "plight" appears to dominate populist discourse. Now, if only those who make it their business to win popular support could stand and hear them, patiently, the results would yield much more than simply sightings and quick radicalism have done in either Paradip, Jaitapur, or even Bhatta-Parsaul, so far. As Gandhiji showed a century ago, politics has a duty by the farmer.

seema.chishti@expressindia.com

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THE INDIAN EXPRESS

COLUMN

ALL FOR A FEW MONTHS MORE

YUBARAJ GHIMIRE

No one expected Nepal's Constituent Assembly (CA) to deliver a new constitution by the deadline of May 28. What was uncertain till the last moment was whether the CA, which missed two deadlines, would get another lease of life. In a midnight exercise, a deal between the three big political parties — the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (UCPN-M), the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) — saw the term of the assembly extended for three more months.

The deal is being seen as an abject surrender by the Nepali Congress before the Maoists after the former had raised demands that put the Maoists in a spot. The deal says Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal will resign to pave the way for the formation of a national government, that "fundamental issues" of the peace process will be finalised in three months and the first draft of the constitution will be prepared simultaneously. It also commits to making the Nepal army more inclusive with wider representation, including from the Madhesh area. On fulfilment of these promises, the parties will go to the House to seek an extension of another three months for finalising the constitution.

No one would have shed tears for the demise of the House. Nor does one believe that the coming three months would be smooth sailing for the drafting of the constitution.

Meanwhile, the political parties stand discredited. They have chosen not to be accountable for the past failures, nor have they tried to convince the people that they would act differently in the future. The U-turn taken by the Nepali Congress and the anti-Khanal faction in the CPN (UML) proved that political tactics took precedence over commitments to "principles". As the deadline approached, they found the usual excuse to retreat from a confrontation: that the "only elected" body in the country should not be allowed to lapse as that would lead to a constitutional and political vacuum.

The European Union, Norway and Switzerland instantly hailed the wisdom of the big three parties. So did UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. However, the people's confidence in the House and leaders has been shaken.

The signatories soon came out with conflicting interpretations of the new deal. The chairman of the Nepali Congress, Sushil Koirala, said Khanal must resign immediately and make way for the formation of the national government. Khanal, meanwhile, insisted that he would resign the moment a situation is created for a national government. Similarly, differences are bound to come up while interpreting what the "fundamental issues" of the peace process are.

The Nepali Congress was under pressure from an overwhelming number of parliamentarians to save the House at any cost. In his list of demands, Koirala had earlier insisted that the Maoists hand over the key of their arms containers to the government and return property they had seized during the years of conflict. He also wanted the annulment of the seven-point agreement signed by Khanal and Prachanda on February 3 to set up a separate state security outfit for the Maoist combatants. Koirala, however, pressed for none in the crucial stages.

The Nepali Congress has shown that it has neither the will nor the capability to confront the Maoists beyond a point — even when the latter defies the letter and spirit of the peace accord. All along, the Maoists have exploited this predicament of the Nepali Congress. It has demonstrated that it will be part of the peace and democratic process only on its own terms. As a "revolutionary party", it needs to create a radical space and environment in Nepal politics and develop its support base. If the Maoists had handed over the key of arms containers to the state, it would have demoralised its combatants and been seen as a compromise.

To keep up the revolutionary tempo, a section of the party leadership keeps appealing to its cadres to be ready for a "people's revolt" whenever serious political developments are in the offing. Prachanda plays that card at critical moments very well. It happened this time too. Barely 48 hours before the deadline, he said his party would not surrender weapons that "are bartered with the blood of martyrs".

Like in the past four years after the peace accord, the Maoists will again use their propaganda machinery to tell the people what ultimately constitutes the fundamentals of peace process, leaving parties like the Nepali Congress with limited options: either to assert themselves or surrender to the Maoists and eventually fade out of Nepal's political scene.

According to a recent judgment by the supreme court, the House term can be extended only by six months beyond the first two years in case a state of emergency is declared. This is enough reason to believe that the course and fate of the Constituent Assembly will be affected by several factors. Clearly, its moral and constitutional status will come under greater scrutiny in the coming three months and Maoists will continue to face tougher challenges.

yubaraj.ghimire@expressindia.com

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THE INDIAN EXPRESS

OPED

'THERE IS NO COMPETITION WITH ANNA HAZARE. THESE ARE TWO COMPLEMENTARY MOVEMENTS'

SHEKHAR GUPTA

My guest today is the rockstar of yoga, Baba Ramdev. Only you could have got me up this early. You wake up very early—3 o'clock in the morning?

I wake up at 3 a.m. and sleep by 10 in the night. On an average, I sleep for 4-5 hours. My aim is to use my time, strength, knowledge and the wealth that crores of people have given me, for the nation.

But people are suspicious—no one knows how much wealth you have gathered. Digivijay Singh says you don't give the details of it to anyone.

About 10 crore people took part in my programmes and they helped me. They are not dishonest people. Some are poor, some are middle-class people. What these ten crore people gave me, I used it to help another hundred crore people. I don't need a certificate from anyone.

But how much wealth do you have at present?

From the time my Trust was set up in 1995 to now, our turnover has been around Rs 1,100 crore. What we have been able to do with this money, the government has not been able to do with lakhs of crores of rupees. We have succeeded in curing crores of people.

It's a good investment.

It's not investment, it's seva. Investment is done to benefit a few people or a company. I am doing seva. It is not for the benefit of one person, but for the benefit of all. Today, I still sleep on the floor. At 11 in the morning and at 7 in the evening, I eat a small meal. I don't eat any foodgrain. I just have a glass of milk and some green vegetables and seasonal fruits.

Swamiji, tell us about your childhood.

I was born in a small village of Haryana in Mahendragarh district. My parents were illiterate farmers. I too have done farming, from sowing to harvesting the crops, from lifting cowdung—everything that an aam aadmi of Hindustan does.

We have heard that you overcame some disease.

When I was a child, I was ill. My left side was paralysed. I had boils on my legs and I couldn't walk. Since I read Rishi Dayanand and autobiographies of many great people, my life changed.

And you started yoga.

I learnt yoga when I was nine. But I never thought I will become so popular one day. I am just a fakir.

But you are a performer.

I don't know what a performer is. Till a few years ago, I did not know that crores of people would trust me. I never believed that so many people would love me. Now I know they do. Hundred of crores of people have reposed their faith in me and I'll try not to ever break that trust.

Since crores of people have faith in you, why don't you contest elections, come to power and bring out the reforms that you want?

Politics is not everything in life. There are two ways to bring change. One is satygraha, which I have chosen, the second is to come to power and bring in changes. In a democracy, the biggest power is people's power. If I have the support of the masses, then I can bring in changes even without coming to power.

But in politics, the trust of the people is evaluated through votes.

My dream is not to become the Prime Minister. My dream is that corruption should end in my country. This corrupt political system has to go. According to my calculation, around Rs 400 lakh crore black money is stashed outside the country. Our country should get the money back. This is no small amount.

Rs 400 lakh crore is a huge amount. Even the country's GDP is not that much.

It's not just my opinion, it's also the opinion of those who study the economy. Our country's economy is around Rs 69 lakh crore and our black (money) economy is much bigger that our white (money) economy.

But swamiji, people also laugh at your claims.

See, whenever people adopt the path of truth, others call them mad. At least people are not calling me mad. And what I'm saying will be proved right. You'll see in the coming days that people who have committed these sins and have betrayed the nation will be exposed. Till now, people felt corruption will not end, black money will not be brought back. But I'm telling you black money will be brought back. You'll see a time-bound, result-oriented action in this direction.

You also say that currency notes of Rs 100, Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 should be banned.

Yes, this is also an issue. On black money, I have raised some issues and the government has said they agree with me. First, the government should declare black money stashed offshore as a national asset. Second, the money deposited illegally outside should be considered a crime against the nation and not just a civil offence. This will put fear in people's minds. To bring back the black money, the government should ratify the UN convention.

Tell me about the currency note issue.

What we want is that black money should be brought back by 'physical and technical investigation'. I am of the opinion that we should withdraw big currency notes. Those who have clean money will get their money back in smaller denominations, and those who have black money, they will not deposit it at all. So we can print notes of smaller denominations of that amount.

I have seen this in Afghanistan at one time when people used to carry suitcases full of money. Anarth ho jayega desh mein. So you want only notes of Rs 10 and Rs 50 in the country?

The nation's work can be done with 50 rupee notes. There are 84 crore people in this country who earn Rs 20 daily and those who have more money, they use credit cards, ATM cards, cheques and drafts.

So, what did the government say on scrapping the higher currency notes?

I don't want to comment on this because the government is looking into it seriously. I spoke to the PM on this issue. See, the issue is not about big notes, it's about black money. We don't have problem with the notes. It's the generation of black money through the movement of cash. Big notes are easily transported and thus they are used for bribing people, evading tax.

I read the letter in which you wrote that if this (black money is brought back), then one rupee would be equal to 50 dollars.

When the black money is brought back, our economy will be so huge, our currency will be so strong that our one rupee will be equal to 50 dollars. It will take some time but it will happen.

How long will it take?

You wait till 2020. There will be such a huge change in this country. We can't deny the fact that the US today has an external debt of Rs 647 lakh crore, UK 404, Germany 211. Spain, Luxembourg, Norway, Italy all have external debt of lakhs of crore of rupees. This is all running on black money.

Are you in agreement with Anna Hazare's movement for the Lokpal Bill?

I'm in complete agreement that a competent Lokpal has to be instituted. The important thing is that there should be a mechanism to recover the money from the person who has carried out the loot. Economic offence is a big offence. According to The Global Hunger Report, every year in our country, 70 lakh people die of hunger and malnutrition. Who is responsible for this? This is not a small thing. I said that in the Lokpal Bill, either life imprisonment or death penalty should be given to those who commit economic offences.

In China, hundreds of people are given death sentences on corruption charges and as per Transparency International, China is more corrupt than India. Goli maarne se bhrashtachaar khatam nahin hota hai (Corruption doesn't end by killing a person).

China has a very different problem. It has a different setup. The law has to be very strong so that when people see someone getting the death penalty, they won't think of committing such an act.

If you are in such agreement with Anna Hazare, then why are you not sitting with him on a hunger strike? Why are you sitting separately?

Lokpal is one way to stop corruption but black money is a separate issue. In all my talks with the government, I have focused on how to bring black money back to the country and how to change the political system that generates black money. The education system too needs to be changed. Those who committed these financial crimes are all well educated people. Educated people have committed these crimes because in our education, spiritual, moral and cultural values have been eliminated.

So how can you change the education system?

The education system has to assimilate moral, spiritual and cultural values. Till it is not changed, we will not be able to shape people's characters. In the same way we have to bring changes in the Land Acquisition Bill, GM crops...

So are you competing with Anna Hazare?

We supported him and we are now taking the movement forward. Anna Hazare works in Maharashtra. So there is no competition between us. Our movement started with the Lokpal issue, but it does not end there. I said this at Jantar Mantar too.

Are you in complete agreement with the committee that has been formed or do you want your own nominee?

There is no question of nominee at all. I never said I want to be a part of the committee. This is not the issue. The issue is black money, corruption, an honest political system.

What will happen after June 4 in this country (Ramdev has announced he will go on a fast-unto-death from June 4 to demand black money stashed abroad be brought back)?

There has been an agreement with the government on some issues. The government has promised to work in a time-bound and credible manner.

Do you consider the Prime Minister honest?

Yes, I have always said that. The government seems to be taking these issues very seriously. Otherwise why would they talk to me? I told Pranab Mukherjee this and he agreed that officers and people holding constitutional posts have many rights but the common people too should have some rights. If someone goes to an office for some work, his work should be completed within a given time frame—seven days, 15 days or a month. If the work is not completed within the time-frame, then a penalty of Rs 250 should be charged on the officer for each lapsed day. That will be deducted from his salary. If the officer continues to repeat such delays, he should be suspended. I gave this suggestion and he said they will try to fully implement it. So, a big change will be coming.

So, your talks with the government are progressing?

There is a lot of progress. The June 4 satyagraha will bring two things to the country. First, black money will start coming in and a mechanism will be in place so that in future, no such black money is generated.

So your movement will be much bigger than Anna Hazare's?

It doesn't matter whether Anna Hazare or Baba Ramdev is bigger. The country is bigger.

But why did you choose a different platform and not Anna Hazare's?

Anna Hazare and my agenda is not different but the issues are different. Therefore, I had to raise the issue separately. The issue first was of the Lokpal, now it is black money and reforms in the system.

What is your relationship with the RSS and what do you think of it?

Till the country's law and justice system doesn't consider anyone a deshdrohi (traitor) or an apradhi (culprit), I will speak to that person or organisation. But the moment the country's legal system says the person is a criminal, I will not talk to him.

You have defended the RSS on many platforms, even on Anna Hazare's platform. You said, 'Sangh ke virduh koi kuch nahin bolega (nobody will say anything against the sangh)'.

When someone said the Sangh is a terrorist outfit, I said that from the first sarsanghchalak to the present sarsanghchalak, I have not seen anyone who is involved in any terror activity.

But they have been against the minorities, particularly against Muslims.

You can ask these questions to them. I'm not their spokesperson.

Some people say that when the popularity of Anna Hazare increased, you jumped on to the stage. Aapne kaha, main bhi hoon.

Whatever I have done in my life, I have done in front of everyone. I have not done anything in secret. From November 14 to February 27, we brought Anna Hazare to various platforms in North India. He is still with us.

But in North India, you have the support.

What I'm saying is that we brought him to north India because there is no competition between us. And he is still standing with us. On November 14, we assembled at Jantar Mantar. Ninety-nine per cent of the people there were our workers. Today in this country, a troop of 10 crore people are directly connected with me. They are connected not because of any religious leaning but because I have made them aware of the reality. I have been fighting against this corruption for the last five years. I have come here after walking one lakh kilometres. Ramdev has not dropped suddenly from the sky. He lives on the ground and has worked his way up from the grassroots level. From where do these people churn out such stories about a collision with Anna Hazare?

Not collision but competition.

There is no competition, there is no collision. These are two complementary movements.

This is not a single movement?

Ramdev and Anna Hazare are two persons but the country is one and we are both working for the country. The country is big and it needs to be saved. Corruption has to be weeded out.

The PM is there. He is also working for the country. He is also an honest person.

Yes, that's why I never criticised him. I want a political system to be formed in the country that is a responsible one to which those who have committed crimes are answerable. This is our political view.

Swamiji, at one point you formed a party.

I never got any party registered.

But you announced it. It seems that you got nervous.

I never formed a party and I am not forming one. We are building the country. First, I made my countrymen healthy, now I'll make them richer. A rich country is a good thing.

This is what we are waiting for swamiji, the day when one rupee will be equal to 50 dollars.

That day we'll say with pride that our people will not go to Canada or the UK for a job, they'll come here. We are waiting for the day when people from other countries will say that to earn money, we have to go to India.

Transcribed by Priyanka Sengupta
For full text, visit www.indianexpress.com

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THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

TAXING TANGLE

With three think tanks—NIPFP, NCAER and NIFM (National Institute of Financial Management)—in the race to estimate the size of India's black economy, various figures are once again doing the rounds. There's NIPFP's original 21% of GDP estimate of 1985, Arun Kumar's 35% in 1991 and Global Financial Integrity's (GFI) 50% in 2008—as compared to this estimated annual generation of black economy, GFI estimated the total stash of illicit assets held abroad is $462 billion. It's a bit like the estimates of the 2G scam, three or four by the CAG itself in one report and another by the CBI!

You need to be careful about the estimates, it is natural to confuse tax exemptions with tax evasion. India's tax-to-GDP ratio hasn't gone up as dramatically as it should have after the 1991 reforms; as compared to 15.4% in 1990-91, it was just 16% in 2009-10, after rising to 17.6% in 2007-08. That is poor, but doesn't necessarily mean tax evasion—add the tax-exemptions of 7.2% of GDP that the budget papers give, and that's a tax-GDP ratio of 23.2%. Many think the tax-exemption number is overestimated. If you assume a figure of half, that's still a tax-GDP ratio of 19.6%. Keeping in mind agriculture income (16% of GDP) is not taxed, nor is the small scale sector (10% of GDP), that's an effective tax-GDP rate of 26.5%. Once you take into account the exemptions given for various services, railways and so on, the effective tax is much higher—this would suggest the 50% black economy estimates include large parts of the tax-exempt economy as well. The average tax-GDP ratio for China is 17% and 35% for OECD—generally, the richer a country, the greater the formal sector, and the easier it is to tax it.

If you look at the individual components of taxation, corporate tax-GDP is up dramatically, from 1.7% of GDP in 2000-01 to an estimated 4% in 2011-12; excise duties are down from 3.3% to 1.8; service tax levies are just 0.9% of GDP, suggesting good potential, given that the sector accounts for 60% of GDP.

Amnesty schemes, the usual way to catch black money, are never quite the silver bullet they appear. The most successful amnesty, VDIS 1997, unearthed R33,697 crore (2.2% of that year's GDP) of black money and gathered R9,729 crore of tax but the tax-GDP ratio fell after that year. The rise in corporate tax-GDP ratio suggests the way to tackle black money is to encourage formalisation of the economy (organised retail and radio-cabs, for instance, to replace kiranas and black-and-yellow taxicabs that don't pay taxes) as this is how tax-GDP ratios rise—raising the tax-GDP ratio by just 0.1, from 16 right now, will fetch the R10,000 crore got from VDIS 1997, underscoring the point that raising tax-GDP ratios is a lot more critical in the fight against black money.

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THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

POWERING UP

With power sector losses sharply escalating, from R26,400 crore in 2008-09 to an estimated R70,000 crore in 2010-11 and a projected R1,16,089 crore in 2014-15 (13th Finance Commission), the government is in over-drive. The power secretary, FE has reported, has asked the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (Aptel is the highest body for all disputes in the sector) to get information on whether state electricity regulatory commissions (SERCs) have done their job in revising tariffs at least once a year—under Section 121 of the Electricity Act 2003, Aptel has the power to issue directions to SERCs. The VK Shunglu panel, appointed to find ways to improve the finances of power utilities, has even suggested that these non-performing regulators be asked to go. The Tamil Nadu electricity board, for instance, has just filed for a tariff revision in 2010-11, after eight years. Meanwhile losses in the SEB have skyrocketed to an estimated R30,000 crore.

The immediate casualty could be bank loans, and the Shunglu Committee is concerned that working capital funds could be at risk. While the situation is a far cry from that in 2000-01 when power sector overdues touched 2% of GDP, things have started going bad again. In 2008-09, the Power Finance Corporation reported that of the R29,665 crore the state governments had to give various power utilities for selling power below cost to farmers, they paid just R18,388 crore, In states like Maharashtra and West Bengal, no payments were made in 2008-09 and 2009-10.

The principle of appointing electricity regulators, as in other sectors, was to insulate power utilities from the political process. The way things were envisaged, the SERC would ensure that genuine hikes in tariffs were passed on to consumers; the SERC would also ensure that frivolous costs were not entertained. Sadly, SERCs have proved completely unequal to the task.

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THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS

COLUMN

TEN REASONS WHY CHINA IS DIFFERENT
STEPHEN S ROACH

The China doubters are back in force. They seem to come in waves—every few years, or so. Yet, year in and year out, China has defied the naysayers and stayed the course, perpetuating the most spectacular development miracle of modern times. That seems likely to continue.

Today's feverish hand-wringing reflects a confluence of worries—especially concerns about inflation, excess investment, soaring wages and bad bank loans. Prominent academics warn that China could fall victim to the dreaded "middle-income trap", which has derailed many a developing nation.

There is a kernel of truth to many of the concerns cited above, especially with respect to the current inflation problem. But they stem largely from misplaced generalisations. Here are ten reasons why it doesn't pay to diagnose the Chinese economy by drawing inferences from the experiences of others:

Strategy. Since 1953, China has framed its macro objectives in the context of five-year plans, with clearly defined targets and policy initiatives designed to hit those targets. The recently enacted 12th Five-Year Plan could well be a strategic turning point—ushering in a shift from the highly successful producer model of the past 30 years to a flourishing consumer society.

Commitment. Seared by memories of turmoil, reinforced by the Cultural Revolution of the 1970's, China's leadership places the highest priority on stability. Such a commitment served China extremely well in avoiding collateral damage from the crisis of 2008-09. It stands to play an equally important role in driving the fight against inflation, asset bubbles and deteriorating loan quality.

Wherewithal to deliver. China's commitment to stability has teeth. More than 30 years of reform have unlocked its economic dynamism. Enterprise and financial-market reforms have been key, and many more reforms are coming. Moreover, China has shown itself to be a good learner from past crises, and shifts course when necessary.

Saving. A domestic saving rate in excess of 50% has served China well. It funded the investment imperatives of economic development and boosted the cushion of foreign-exchange reserves that has shielded China from external shocks. China now stands ready to absorb some of that surplus saving to promote a shift towards internal demand.

Rural-urban migration. Over the past 30 years, the urban share of the Chinese population has risen from 20% to 46%. According to OECD estimates, another 316 million people should move from the countryside to China's cities over the next 20 years. Such an unprecedented wave of urbanisation provides solid support for infrastructure investment and commercial and residential construction activity. Fears of excess investment and "ghost cities" fixate on the supply side, without giving due weight to burgeoning demand.

Low-hanging fruit—Consumption. Private consumption accounts for only about 37% of China's GDP—the smallest share of any major economy. By focusing on job creation, wage increases and the social safety net, the 12th Five-Year Plan could spark a major increase in discretionary consumer purchasing power. That could lead to as much as a five-percentage-point increase in China's consumption share by 2015.

Low-hanging fruit—Services. Services account for just 43% of Chinese GDP—well below global norms. Services are an important piece of China's pro-consumption strategy—especially large-scale transactions-based industries such as distribution (wholesale and retail), domestic transportation, supply-chain logistics, and hospitality and leisure. Over the next five years, the services share of Chinese GDP could rise above the currently targeted four-percentage-point increase. This is a labour-intensive, resource-efficient, environmentally-friendly growth recipe—precisely what China needs in the next phase of its development.

Foreign direct investment. Modern China has long been a magnet for global multinational corporations seeking both efficiency and a toehold in the world's most populous market. Such investments provide China with access to modern technologies and management systems—a catalyst to economic development. China's upcoming pro-consumption rebalancing implies a potential shift in FDI—away from manufacturing towards services—that could propel growth further.

Education. China has taken enormous strides in building human capital. The adult literacy rate is now almost 95%, and secondary school enrolment rates are up to 80%. Shanghai's 15-year-old students were recently ranked first globally in maths and reading as per the standardised PISA metric. Chinese universities now graduate more than 1.5 million engineers and scientists annually. The country is well on its way to a knowledge-based economy.

Innovation. In 2009, about 280,000 domestic patent applications were filed in China, placing it third globally, behind Japan and the US. China is fourth and rising in terms of international patent applications. At the same time, China is targeting a research-and-development share of GDP of 2.2% by 2015—double the ratio in 2002. This fits with the 12th Five-Year Plan's new focus on innovation-based "strategic emerging industries"—energy conservation, new-generation information technology, biotechnology, high-end equipment manufacturing, renewable energy, alternative materials, and autos running on alternative fuels. Currently, these seven industries account for 3% of Chinese GDP; the government is targeting a 15% share by 2020, a significant move up the value chain.

Yale historian Jonathan Spence has long cautioned that the West tends to view China through the same lens as it sees itself. Today's cottage industry of China doubters is a case in point. Yes, by our standards, China's imbalances are unstable and unsustainable. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has, in fact, gone public with a similar critique.

But that's why China is so different. It actually takes these concerns seriously. Unlike the West, where the very concept of strategy has become an oxymoron, China has embraced a transitional framework aimed at resolving its sustainability constraints. Moreover, unlike the West, which is trapped in a dysfunctional political quagmire, China has both the commitment and the wherewithal to deliver on that strategy. This is not a time to bet against China.

The author, a member of the faculty at Yale University, is non-executive chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and author of "The Next Asia".

www.project-syndicate.org

For a podcast of this commentary in English, please use this link:

http://media.blubrry.com/ps/media.

libsyn.com/media/ps/roach5.mp3

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THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS

COLUMN

WATCH OUT FOR COLLECTIVE ABUSE

PRADEEP S MEHTA

The basic parameters for healthy competition in the market requires large number of players and large number of buyers to promote the necessary rivalry. Alas, rivals also know how to defeat the purpose by colluding through an implicit or an explicit cartel or by abusing their dominance singly or jointly. Tackling the abuse of dominance needs clear guidelines, so as to capture the conduct of the whole sector that may be prevailing in the market place.

The CCI judgement of December 2, on the issue of charges towards the prepayment of home loans, resulted in an important issue being raised: the possibility of collective abuse of dominance among some banks was not explored. Collective abuse of dominance is a method when unscrupulous business operators might decide to descend on the consumers, who are not in a position to bargain for fair terms, taking advantage of the gobbledygook in the agreement.

Just like India, concerns have been raised on the ease with which collective abuse of dominance can escape the purview of competition laws across many jurisdictions. This refers to abusive conducts that firms, particularly those in oligopolistic markets, may engage in without an explicit agreement. There is a need to ensure that the competition law captures such conducts. Just like the home loan case, the individual firms would all escape punishment under abuse of dominance as individually they would not be dominant. They would also escape action for cartelisation as they may not have sat down and agreed on the joint action. Thus, collective abuse of dominance can be considered a punishable offence, somewhere between a cartel and abuse of dominance.

Although the rationale behind the prosecution of collectively abusive firms has been accepted in competition enforcement circles, there are still a lot of grey areas in the enforcement, given that there is no consensus on the type of behaviour required for finding of joint dominance. It is also not clearly defined in laws across several jurisdictions, including those that have successfully prosecuted firms for such conduct. It is the same situation in India, where the Competition Act, 2002, has not included a precise definition on collective abuse of dominance. Generally, the conduct is punished using inferences from the laws governing abuse of dominance.

For example, although Canada now has a history of more than 20 years of implementing abuse of dominance, there are no separate provisions in handling collective abuse of dominance. But, Canada's Competition Bureau, through the 'Abuse of Dominance Guidelines' of 2001, has tried to provide some clarity on how it deals with the issue of joint dominance. According to the guidelines, the abuse of dominance provisions would also capture a group of firms that coordinate their actions, although something more than simply conscious parallelism has to be established before the Bureau could reach a conclusion that firms are participating in some form of joint dominance. In June 2009, the Bureau intervened by alleging collective abuse of dominance against two unaffiliated waste removal firms on Vancouver Island that collectively held a market share exceeding 80%. They jointly engaged in abuse of dominance by using similar long-term contracts and restrictive terms to lock in customers and exclude competitors.

Collective abuse of dominance at least has an explicit legal backing in the EU as Article 82 (now 102) of the EC Treaty has been used by European and national competition authorities to address collective abuse of dominance. The wording of the Article, which talks about 'abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position', allowed the interpretation that collective dominance may also be addressed. However, the application to collective abuse has proved complex, as the first case on Italian Flat Glass, which the European Commission had handled, was rejected by the Court of First Instance (CFI). The CFI ruled that collective dominance could not be established solely by the existence of economic links, but additional evidence was needed in order to positively prove that the undertakings concerned were 'presented on the market as a single entity'. However, many subsequent cases were successfully prosecuted.

The concept of collective dominance was also adopted by a regulatory authority, the Irish telecommunications regulator, ComReg. In December 2004, the regulator concluded that although neither of the two major Irish operators, Vodafone and O2, individually held a position of dominance in the Irish mobile market, Vodafone and O2 held a collective dominant position in the market and had significant market power. As a remedy, ComReg proposed that Vodafone and O2 should open up their networks to alternative providers on non-discriminatory terms to allow operators without a mobile network of their own to enter the market.

This also brings an important lesson to CCI. In its rushed decision on the home loan case, it appears as if the possibility of collective abuse of dominance was never considered. Like other jurisdictions, the Indian competition law provisions on abuse of dominance were framed with a single firm in mind, and although section 4 of the Competition Act also prohibits acts of misconduct by an enterprise or group, the definition of 'group' covers firms that are related in terms of voting rights. It is, thus, important that clear guidelines be established on how collective abuse of dominance would be addressed using the same provisions on single firm conduct. Unless this is done, more firms will continue to escape the purview of the Act, with sad consequences for consumers.

The author is secretary general, CUTS International. Cornelius Dube of CUTS contributed to this article

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THE HINDU

EDITORIAL

ANOTHER CHANCE IN NEPAL

The last minute deal struck by Nepal's political parties on Sunday will extend the life of the Constituent Assembly (CA) by another three months but whether this will be enough to finalise a new constitution depends on the extent to which the young republic's political parties are willing to show flexibility. Under the terms of the five-point deal, the parties have agreed to conclude the major tasks of the peace process and prepare a first draft of the new constitution within the CA's extended tenure. They have also decided to effectively implement past agreements, including with the Madhesi front, to make the Nepali Army inclusive. Finally, Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal of the Unified Marxists-Leninists (UML) has undertaken to clear the way for the formation of a national unity government by tendering his resignation. A dispute of sorts has already arisen over the last point, with the Nepali Congress (NC) contesting Mr. Khanal's reasonable stand that he can only resign when a viable alternative is ready. At the heart of the continuing stalemate, of course, is the unresolved question of when and how to integrate former combatants from the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in the Nepal Army. The parties have made some progress since the last time the CA was extended, in May 2010, but a final settlement seems to be proving elusive. There are also major differences among the UCPN(M), the UML, and the NC on key constitutional questions such as the form of government and federalism.

The fundamental problem in Nepal is two-fold. The NC and, to a lesser extent, the UML continue to act as if the Maoists still pose a military threat — which they do not — and have made forward movement on constitution-drafting conditional on the formal disbanding of the Peoples' Liberation Army. The Maoists, on the other hand, play on this fear by trying to use the PLA's interim existence as a lever to extract concessions from the NC and UML on the constitutional front. In doing so, the Maoists underestimate their actual strength, which springs from their impressive electoral support. The PLA is no longer a fighting force and the longer its former combatants languish in limbo, the greater is the likelihood that they will become undisciplined and even lumpenised. With Maoist leader Prachanda broadly endorsing the Nepal Army's proposal for integration, a serious push should be made by all sides to take the peace process to its logical conclusion. India can help by abandoning its negativism and sending a clear signal to all parties that it supports the speedy integration of the PLA as part of the wider process of making the NA more professional and inclusive.

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THE HINDU

EDITORIAL

DRUGS NEED NEW THINKING

The Global Commission on Drug Policy, a group that includes former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and several former Latin American presidents, is expected to announce soon that the "war on drugs" has been a failure. The Mexican government states that since President Felipe Calderón took office in 2006 and implemented a crackdown, trafficking has been a factor in 35,000 deaths, and drug-related corruption is out of control. In the United States, which has the world's highest levels of use, the NGO Drug Policy Alliance estimates that official bodies spend $51 billion a year fighting drugs. The political context is also significant. In India, regions like the Northeast reveal connections between conflict and opportunities for trafficking, as also between injected drugs and HIV/AIDS transmission. Furthermore, law and policy are no deterrents; research on cannabis use has found that the most important factor is the social context. With illegal drugs now a major source of income for organised crime, governments cannot curb the trade and often resort to torture and extra-judicial killings. State agencies also seem to deal in deadly drugs. The crashes in Latin America of two aircraft used by the CIA for the rendition of terrorism suspects for torture elsewhere revealed cargoes totalling four tonnes of cocaine.

The human cost of the failed war on drugs is incalculable, and the need for radical new approaches can no longer be denied. The main international instrument, the 1961 U.N. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, has no enforcement mechanism and is almost toothless. Legalisation is controversial, with few politicians ready to support it publicly. Fortunately, a broad consensus across ideological lines is emerging in the form of decriminalisation, which makes drug use an administrative violation but treats trafficking as a criminal offence. In Portugal, the only European Union state to legislate to this effect, it has been assessed as an undisputed success. Drug use and drug-related deaths and diseases have declined over the last decade, and the use of harm-reduction services has increased greatly. Several Latin American countries — which have been ravaged by the drug trade — as well as some EU states and a few regional governments elsewhere have got good results from de facto decriminalisation. The strategy may, however, encounter resistance from powerful vested interests, including police and other security forces, politicians fearful of public disapproval, and drug cartels. The Global Commission's statement will be awaited with interest, as it could signal an overdue change in the world's attitude to drugs.

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THE HINDU

LEADER PAGE ARTICLES

FOR DRAFTING AN IDEAL LOKPAL BILL

THE SUCCESS OF THE INSTITUTION OF LOKPAL WILL DEPEND ON LIMITING ITS SCOPE TO THE VERY TOP OF THE HIERARCHY. THAT WILL MAKE IT MANAGEABLE AND LEAD TO ACCOUNTABILITY DOWN THE LINE.

ARUN KUMAR

The drafting of the Lokpal bill is back in the news after the round of Assembly elections. The co-chairperson of the high-power committee involved in the drafting has said that progress is slow and that the June 30 deadline is likely to be missed. Some civil society groups made suggestions on what the Bill should contain. The chairperson of the drafting committee responded with alacrity, sensing an opportunity to let the government have its way by claiming divisions in civil society.

Apparently, important differences remain between the representatives of civil society and the government, especially with regard to bringing the Prime Minister and the members of the higher judiciary under the purview of the Lokpal. Two issues arise: how important is their inclusion; and will missing the June 30 deadline by a few months to get a good Bill in place make a big difference, given that the Bill has been pending for 42 years?

If it is indeed the magic wand that will eliminate corruption rightaway, then it is urgently needed. Those in favour of the Lokpal suggest that it will check the vested interests that are spreading corruption in society. But they are not able to convince the doubting Thomases who argue that it can neither be the panacea for all ills nor can it root out the endemic corruption in society in one go. The sceptics, who have often been in the forefront of the fight against corruption, need to be differentiated from the vested interests which have been stalling the Bill for their narrow ends. The sceptics are not for needless delay but want prioritisation of the steps to fight corruption.

The Lokpal is presented as a watchdog for the corrupt system. What has the experience been with the many watchdogs that are already in place? There is the Central Vigilance Commission to oversee the functioning of the investigative agencies, but we know that it has been largely ineffective. We have the Election Commission to see that elections are conducted in a fair manner, and it is seen to be successful. But the political system as a whole seems to be only getting more corrupt than before. There are the legislatures, which are meant to be accountable to the citizens and oversee the nation's functioning. But the country is witness to the growing criminalisation and the penetration by money power among their members. The judiciary is supposed to see that justice is done — which is but another form of accountability. But increasingly, judges at different levels have been accused of corruption. There are the lesser watchdogs, like the intelligence agencies and the regulatory bodies, but they too have been accused of a growing degree of corruption. Given all this, can there be a perfect Bill that will somehow insulate the Lokpal against the corruption in society?

Today, illegality is widespread in society. It affects almost all social, political and economic aspects of life. Tackling illegality is the most urgent task. Thus, while the Lokpal may not be the one thing on which all attention needs to be focussed, it is perhaps the most important step in the drive against corruption.

It is not that the nation does not know what should be done to deal with the black economy and the associated illegality. Since the 1950s, there have been dozens of committees and commissions that have gone into aspects of it. They include the Kaldor Report (1956), the Santhanam Committee (1964), the Wanchoo Committee (1971), the Dagli Committee (1979), the NIPFP Report (1985), and the Kelkar Committee (2002). Then there are the reports of Estimates Committees, the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committees.

The reports contain thousands of suggestions — and hundreds of them have been implemented. These include the reduction of income tax rates (from 97.5 per cent in the highest bracket in 1971 to the present 30 per cent), elimination of many controls (relating to monopolies and restrictive trade practices, foreign exchange regulation, licensing, trade controls, and so on), demonetisation of currency, voluntary disclosure of income, issue of bearer bonds, acquisition of undervalued property, introduction of value added tax, and so on. Yet, the size of the black economy has grown.

Various movements against corruption (such as the 'Nav Nirman' in 1972) or changes in laws (such as the introduction of the Right to Information) and the corresponding steps to fight corruption have been thwarted or diluted by the corrupt. People have often been disappointed by these failures and have become cynical. Yet, they have periodically reacted with positive outcomes. The subversion of steps to curb the black economy and the associated corruption is engineered by the ruling elite consisting of the triad of corrupt politicians, businessmen and the executive. Since they make huge incomes through the black economy, they have little incentive to curb their own illegality by checking that economy.

Can there be a perfect law that cannot be subverted? No such legislation has fully solved the problem it set out to resolve. The Indian Constitution is often praised, but it has had to be repeatedly amended and there have been problems. In practice, a law has seldom turned out to be as it was drafted on paper. Human ingenuity is such that it finds loopholes to subvert the law, for the spirit is not willing. Will the same fate meet the Lokpal Bill?

Take the law which is meant to prevent the crooked from deliberately letting their cheques bounce. Or the one that allows for the summary trial of cases where a signed lease exists and where the tenant does not vacate the property automatically when the lease ends. Today, lakhs of cases relating to these provisions are pending in courts because the courts allow delays. The crooked then cock a snook at the law while the honest go on the back foot. This happens because there is lack of accountability among judges — if a case drags on, who are they answerable to? The party that suffers due to delays cannot take a tough stance for fear of antagonising the judge.

How can accountability be built into the system? The judges can be accountable to either their conscience or to a higher authority. Today, greed and decline of morals have made the former a rare commodity. In the case of the latter, the chain ends with the Chief Justice. If he demands accountability, it would percolate down. Similarly, if the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister demand accountability, the entire administration will follow suit.

Conversely, even if the Prime Minister or the Chief Justice is honest but practises non-accountability and arbitrariness, that spreads downward and corruption grows. Information about wrongdoings in high places is collected by the intelligence agencies, but is not acted upon. Such inaction will no more be feasible if the Lokpal Bill brings the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India under its ambit.

But can it bring about accountability in the political process, something elections have failed to do? Some doubt it, since the appointment of other constitutional authorities has run into controversies and that could happen in the case of the Lokpal too. How can the honest get to the top when corruption is endemic, except by accident?

Be that as it may, the surest way to subvert the Lokpal is to make the institution widely applicable to all manner of corruption. It will get embroiled in all kinds of wrangling and become like the courts, choked with cases. India has enough laws that can curb corruption at various levels, provided there is implementation; only accountability can ensure that. Thus, it is critical that those higher up in the hierarchy demand accountability from those under them. The buck would only stop end at the top — with the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India at the Centre and the Chief Minister and the Chief Justices of High Courts in the States. That is what the focus of the Lokpal (and the Lokayukta) should be. Even then, without pressure exerted through public movements, the Lokpal can get subverted.

In brief, in the last six decades, many steps have been taken to curb the growing illegality but these have not delivered results due to lack of accountability in the system and the decline of self-regulation since greed has been placed on a new high pedestal. It is argued that the setting up of a Lokpal is not a magic wand to eliminate corruption but an important step towards that end. However, its success will depend on limiting its scope to the very top: that will make it manageable and lead to accountability down the line. Then only will laws be followed both in letter and spirit and become meaningful.

(The author is with the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University. E-mail: arunkumar1000@hotmail.com)

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THE HINDU

OPED

STATE DEPARTMENT CABLE CITED ISI LINKS WITH MILITANTS

MUKUND PADMANABHAN

CHENNAI: A diplomatic cable sent under the name of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton states that despite public disavowals, "some officials of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) continue to maintain ties with a wide array of extremist organizations," in particular the Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The cable, dated December 30, 2009 (242073: secret), was sent to five U.S. Embassies, including that of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. It says these organisations exploit Pakistan's network of charities, non-governmental organisations and madrassas, which provide them with "recruits, funding and infrastructure to plan new attacks."

Ms. Clinton accuses Pakistan of seeking to block the listing of Pakistan-based terrorists as well as "affiliated" terrorists nominated for blocking by India under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1267. Under this resolution, countries are obliged to impose an economic sanctions regime against listed individuals and entities. She notes that Pakistan tries to block listings by requesting China, a member of the UNSC, to place a hold on such nominations. However, the cable notes that Beijing did not prevent the most recent Pakistan-related terrorist nomination made by the U.S.

Ms. Clinton's action request cable urges the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad to engage the Pakistan government on a number of specific "talking points." These include urging Islamabad to:

Strictly enforce existing sanctions against all individuals and entities on the UNSCR 1267 consolidated list;

View listing requests under UNSCR 1267 on merit and not on the basis on politics;

Enforce sanctions on UN-proscribed NGOs that funnel money and other forms of support to the Taliban and the LeT;

Act against the Haqqani network, "which is funneling weapons and fighters across the border to fight U.S. and Coalition Forces in Afghanistan."

The cable, the larger focus of which was to check illegal finance flows into Pakistan and Afghanistan from some Gulf countries, was also marked to American Embassies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. It states that "donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide." The country is described as a "critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT, and other terrorist groups, including Hamas, which probably raises millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources, often during Hajj and Ramadan."

At the same time, it acknowledges that Saudi Arabia has enacted important reforms to criminalise terrorist financing and restrict the overseas flow of funds from Saudi-based charities.

The Pakistan Cables are being shared by The Hindu with NDTV in India and Dawn in Pakistan

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THE HINDU

OPED

SAJID MIR'S WAR AGAINST THE WORLD

THE INSIDE STORY OF THE LASHKAR-E-TAIBA COMMANDER WHO BUILT THE LASHKAR'S INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS.

PRAVEEN SWAMI

In the summer of 2005, Sajid Mir had been at the Feroze Shah Kotla stadium in New Delhi, packed amidst the hundreds of ecstatic Pakistani cricket fans who cheered their team as it powered its way to a record 159-run victory over India.

Mir, though, was in India for a game of his own.

The top Lashkar-e-Taiba commander's undercover visit was the first of a series of surveillance missions which culminated in the November, 2008, attacks on Mumbai. The Lashkar intelligence operative whose reconnaissance enabled the attack, Pakistani-American jihadist David Headley, reported to Mir. From a safehouse in Karachi, Mir guided the assault team using a voice-over-internet line, personally ordering the execution of several hostages.

Now, western intelligence sources have told The Hindu, Mir is being held in a safehouse run by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, along with the man who travelled with him to New Delhi — a former Pakistani military officer and military trainer called Abdur Rehman Hashim.

Focussed on securing counter-terrorism cooperation against terrorist groups operating against the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, the United States has refrained from pushing Pakistan to put figures like Mir on trial, even though its intelligence services have sharply escalated operations targeting the Lashkar.

But unless Pakistan can be compelled to begin dismantling the Lashkar, the ISI's oldest and most trusted jihadist ally, India will not be the only country at risk. Mir's story helps understand why.

Sajid Mir's war

Little is known about Mir — and much of what is available comes from Headley's custodial testimony to India's National Investigations Agency. Born in 1976, according to documents filed to obtain his Indian visa, Mir grew up in a middle-class ethnic Punjabi home.

Mir's father, according to Indian intelligence officials, earned enough working in Saudi Arabia to build a comfortable family home near Lahore airport, set up a small textile business, and put his sons through college. In time, Mir married the daughter of a retired Pakistan army chaplain; the couple are thought to have two sons.

Like the Lashkar's supreme leader, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Mir's father, Abdul Majid, was a Partition refugee; more likely than not, he nursed hatreds shared by many on both sides of the border.

But Mir was among a new generation of Lashkar leaders who believed the organisation needed to move beyond Saeed's obsessive focus on India, and, following the vision of his co-founder, Osama bin Laden's mentor Abdullah Azzam, participate in the global jihadist project.

Lashkar cadre fought alongside Islamist groups in Tajikistan from 1992-1997, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In a 1993 interview to the Lashkar-affiliated magazine al-Dawa, a commander called Abu Abdul Aziz argued that the Bosnia campaign would help "Islam enter Europe through jihad."

In December 1998, the Pakistani newspaper Jang reported that jihadists from more than 50 countries had attended a convention organised by the Lashkar's parent organisation, then called the Markaz Dawat wal'Irshad.

The invitation left little to the imagination: "You can go to any jihadi frontline in the world and you will find Markaz Dawat wal' Irshad mujahideen crushing the infidels and destroying the fortresses of the devil."

"Mir understood," says an Indian intelligence official familiar with the Mumbai investigation, "that the Lashkar was competing for resources and support with organisations like al-Qaeda and the Taliban — and that simply pursuing its old, anti-India agenda would lead to its marginalisation."

No-one knows for certain just how Mir rose up the Lashkar's ranks: unlike his contemporaries, notably the military commander responsible for training the Mumbai assault team, Muzammil Butt, he never served in Kashmir.

In the aftermath of 9/11, though, he was made responsible for training the growing number of western jihadists knocking on the Lashkar's doors.

French national Willie Brigitte, a Guadeloupe-born convert who was awn to the Islamist movement in Paris, was among Mir's first finds. In the wake of 9/11, Brigitte travelled to the Lashkar's headquarters in Muridke. Later, he was assigned to a combat training camp in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Brigitte later told French intelligence his instructor was a man with long black hair and a thick beard who wore a Russian-made automatic pistol on his hip, and swaggered through the camp with two bodyguards

Fluent in English, Urdu and Arabic, he was known to the foreign jihadists as "Uncle Bill"—a reference to Mir's affable manner.

The evidence, the French judge who invested the Brigitte case, Jean Louis Bruguiére, later recorded, showed "that Sajid Mir was a high-ranking officer in the Pakistani Army and apparently also was in the ISI."

In 2003, Brigitte arrived in Australia, carrying instructions from Mir to tie up with Fahim Lodhi, a Pakistan-born architect. He married a former Australian intelligence officer who had converted to Islam, who is alleged to have passed him maps and photos of potential targets. Before the two men could realise their plans, though, they were arrested in a joint French-Australian intelligence effort.

Mir's recruits also included four jihadists from the suburbs of Washington DC, who were inspired to fight against ISAF troops in Afghanistan by a local cleric, Ali al-Tamimi. The men travelled to Pakistan, arriving at a Lashkar office in Lahore which was adorned with the slogan: "yesterday we saw Russia disintegrate, India will be next, and then America and Israel will burn."

In the event, intense pressure by the United States led the Lashkar to shut down its camps to foreigners. It continued to flirt, though, with global jihadist causes. In 2004, British troops in Basra held Danish Ahmad, a Lashkar commander who had earlier served in Kashmir. He, and another Lashkar operative who sought to fight in Iraq, are now believed to be held in the Bagram prison in Kabul.

Lashkar networks overseas also expanded east, with Mir setting up a restaurant in Bangkok and a textile business in Bangladesh to serve as cover businesses. Ever mindful of secrecy, Mir even underwent plastic surgery in 2005 after his visit to India — though Headley observed it did little to alter his appearance.

Headley had arrived at Mir's camp just after the foreigners were evicted under ISI pressure — and was used to target India alone. Later, though, he broke with the Lashkar after Mir refused to go forward on an agreed operation targeting the Jyllands Posten newspaper in Denmark, which had angered many Muslims by publishing cartoons purported to be blasphemous.

In an intercepted September 17, 2009 phone conversation with Hashim, Headley railed against Mir who, he asserted, had "rotten guts." "I am just telling you," he lectured Hashim "that the companies in your competition have started handling themselves in a far better way."

The competing company belonged to Muhammad Illyas Kashmiri — the head of the al-Qaeda affiliated Harkat ul-Jihad Islami. Having visited Kashmiri's headquarters in 2009, and securing his support, he wrote approvingly that the area was "bustling with Chechens, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Russians, Bosnians, some from European Union countries and, of course, our Arab brothers."

Educated in jihadist institutions born of the Pakistan army's anti-India covert war, trained at facilities set up to execute it, Headley ended up being a threat to the west. In recent years, numbers of Lashkar-trained cadre have fought alongside Taliban units in Afghanistan Kunar province; others have defected to jihadists fighting the Pakistani state, which Saeed has been careful never to target.

From his safehouse in Pakistan, Mir has likely been following the course of the Headley case, and contemplating its lessons. The world needs to do so, too: the products made in Pakistan's jihad factor, after all, are not just a threat to India.

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THE HINDU

THE WAR RUGS FROM AFGHANISTAN

From afar, the ornate rug looks like a blur of colour and nondescript geometric patterns. But a closer look reveals the unmistakable shapes of helicopters, tanks and weapons.

The Oriental carpet from war-torn Afghanistan exemplifies a traditional craft with a modern twist. It's one of more than 60 on display at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia through July ("Battleground — War Rugs from Afghanistan" and at www.penn.museum).

U.S. and Canadian soldiers buy many of the rugs as souvenirs, and the textiles show the intersection of art, commerce, tourism and war, experts say.

"People who are in pretty severe circumstances will make what sells," exhibit curator Max Allen said.

For centuries, rug-makers have woven colourful threads to depict flowers, animals and other elements of nature. Carpets are a major Afghan export as well as a staple in local homes, where they are considered furniture, Allen said.

Customary designs are still prevalent, but a subset with battle themes began to emerge during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, he said. It continued when American soldiers invaded after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. Some rugs incorporate subtle imagery visible only upon close inspection- trapezoidal shapes come into focus as tanks and irregular geometric outlines become rows of assault rifles or aircraft. The dimensions of those pieces, combined with their delicate patterns and high quality, lead Allen to believe they were made for natives.

Other rugs are flashier, with crude maps of the country labelled in English, huge fighter jets, soldiers, even planes flying into the World Trade Center. Many are doormat size, woven of cheaper material and made to appeal to foreigners. Still, Allen described the carpets as "important cultural documents." He first noticed one at a rug store in Toronto about 10 years ago, and has since bought hundreds.

The collection in the Philadelphia exhibit, first displayed at the Textile Museum of Canada, was mostly acquired on eBay, he said. "Like any textile tradition, I knew they would come and go," Allen told The Associated Press. "I thought, 'I better start accumulating them.'" Thomas Gouttierre, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, owns a 160-year-old traditional carpet and two small war rugs given to him by Afghan colleagues. He described them as bearing the American and Afghan flags and some kind of battle equipment.

Post-9/11 rugs are more about pleasing buyers than protesting conflict, but now-hard-to-find Soviet-era carpets were genuine expressions of suffering, he said. Many were made and sold in Pakistan, where Afghan refugees lived in camps; the market niche for war rugs developed soon after, said Gouttierre. Eventually, the battle imagery may recede, he said.

Brian Spooner, a professor of anthropology at Penn, said the rugs "are a product of the vastly increased rate of social change Afghans have experienced" since the Soviets invaded in late 1979. — AP

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THE HINDU

SUU KYI PLANS TOUR OF RURAL MYANMAR IN JUNE

Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi plans to tour the countryside next month in her first trip into the provinces since a 2003 political tour ended in her house arrest.

Suu Kyi said she hoped to travel outside of Yangon in June but didn't provide further details. She spoke on May 30 via videolink to an audience at Hong Kong University. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate drew large crowds when she toured northern Myanmar, and her popularity rattled the military government. Exactly eight years ago this day, supporters of the ruling junta ambushed her entourage. Several of her followers were killed, but she escaped, only to be arrested. — AP

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THE ASIAN AGE

HOPES HIGH FOR A GOOD MONSOON

The good news so far this year is that the rains have arrived a couple of days ahead of schedule in Kerala, Lakshadweep, South Tamil Nadu and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, heralding the onset of the southwest monsoon. This is the so-called Arabian Sea branch of the southwest monsoon; the other one — the Bay of Bengal branch — provides rainfall to areas east of the western ghats. The southwest monsoon determines the fate of the nation's kharif crop — foodgrain, cotton, oilseeds, etc. — in the main cropping season.
If, as forecast by the India Metereological Department, this year's rains are normal and the sowing can be done on time, the prospects for a good crop are bright. But it is also not that simple. A lot of groundwork needs to be done — loans have to be disbursed in time so that farmers can buy agricultural inputs, such as seeds and fertiliser, before it is too late. Complaints are already coming in from Maharashtra's Vidarbha region, from where the maximum number of farmer suicide deaths are reported, that the banks are going very slow on loan disbursements, and since the government delayed fixing the price of seeds, there is a delay in distribution of seeds as well, and these are openly being sold in the black market. It is learnt that just 10 per cent of farmers have received Kisan Credit Cards, which makes them eligible for loans automatically when they pay off their earlier loans. But even in such cases, the banks work less efficiently than they should. If these hurdles can be overcome, the agriculture scenario should be positive, and the economy in general will benefit.
Agriculture accounts for just 28 per cent of India's GDP and has grown by 2-4 per cent in recent years. But 70 per cent of India still depends on agriculture, and therefore if the monsoon is not good the results can be devastating. Millions of poor people are driven into further impoverishment. From industry's perspective, a good monsoon is an instant bonanza for certain sectors, such as fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and two-wheeler and tractor manufacturers as rural India has more purchasing power in its hands. It could also help tame food inflation, though last year, even though there was a good monsoon, food prices actually soared. One reason behind that was Russia stopping grain exports after it had a bad season. India is heavily dependent on the import of pulses, so if countries like Burma have a bad crop the prices soar in the international markets. Also, the domestic onion crop was destroyed due to unseasonal rains and floods. If food inflation falls, the overall inflation rate could come down too and lead to a softening of interest rates. The Reserve Bank will at least not be under pressure to raise interest rates. Ironically, a good monsoon will have little positive impact on the stock markets (as just a few fertiliser stocks and an irrigation company are listed); unlike the huge negative impact that a bad monsoon has on market sentiment. The country will, of course, pray as usual to the rain god Indra that he shower his blessings on India and its people.

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THE ASIAN AGE

FOR THE LOVE OF TERROR

SHANKAR ROYCHOWDHURY

"There is an increasing belief that Pakistanis walk both sides of the road".
US senate intelligencecommittee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, as reported in the Wall Street Journal
Rumblings of discontent in the United States are growing louder post-Osama bin Laden and Abbottabad. The US is a dissatisfied paymaster, because its huge financial investments in Pakistan by way of military

and civil aid are simply not paying off, with little value to show for American tax payers' money expended. The US remains the most reviled hate figure in Pakistani public opinion, rivalling and sometimes even exceeding India. Pakistanis, both in the Army as well as civil society, are happy to bite the hand that feeds them, because misuse and misappropriation of American funds is now considered almost an article of faith and part of the anti-America jihad in that country.

There is really nothing much the Americans can do except fume about their admittedly unenviable situation, because there is only so much influence the US can exert on its dubious "ally", particularly on the taboo subject of accounting for funds received. Pakistan can almost imperiously brush aside inconvenient American importunities, because it holds two trump cards — first, potential hostages in the 150,000 US troops who have "surged" into Afghanistan and are now locked into that country, dependent solely on a single route of maintenance (and, who knows, withdrawal) running entirely through Pakistan, from Karachi to Kabul via the Khyber Pass, and to Kandahar via Chaman. Pakistan's intransigencies can easily shut down this surface lifeline whenever Pakistan needs to make a point about who is really in charge, and indeed sometimes does so just to give a turn of the screw to its American "partners". The other high card is Pakistan's feverishly expanding stockpile of nuclear weapons and enriched plutonium likely to soon exceed that of France. Here, too, Pakistan blackmails its reluctant American benefactors by holding a gun to its own head with dire prognostications of a nuclear implosion if America withdraws aid. Pakistan's indispensability is further rubbed in by ostentatious visits to China just to remind the benighted Americans that the US is not the only donor around!
Meanwhile, the financial aspects of the US-Pakistan joint venture in AfPak, as depicted in some foreign media, make for interesting — and ominous — reading. Amongst them is the Kerry-Lugar Bill, legislatively codified by US in 2009 as "The Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act" with the stated aim of "the development of an enhanced strategic partnership with Pakistan and its people". The act provides for economic and military aid to Pakistan by the US to the extent of $7.5 billion over five financial years (2009-2013) to be utilised for economic and social development, as well as military assistance and arms transfers for counterinsurgency and counterterrorism as part of the war on terror.

In addition, former US President George W. Bush also created the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) after 9/11, under which Washington has provided $8.87 billion to Islamabad as running expenses for undertaking the war on terror against the Taliban in AfPak on behalf of the US. These funds are deposited directly into the Pakistan treasury, with very little American control over its expenditure thereafter, even though there are provisions for American oversight, including annual certification by the US secretary of state that such funds are being spent in accordance with the prescribed pre-conditions. Nothing much is heard thereafter, presumably because of an escape hatch clause that dispenses with such certification "if in the national interest". However, authorities within the American government freely comment that only 30 per cent of CSF resources for Pakistan are being expended for their intended purpose, while the remainder 70 per cent of funds are apparently unaccounted for, and might well have been expended for "anything from F16 fighter aircraft to a new house for an Army general". In Islamabad, the Pakistan government submits monthly bills for an average $80 million to the US embassy on account of ongoing but unspecified military operations for which no receipts are given.
The US and Pakistan are said to be actively sparring behind closed doors in Washington and Islamabad over this unending Niagara of American funds on account of services contracted for but not rendered. The Pakistan Army submits requests for funds which are either unsubstantiated, exaggerated, or not pertaining to the war on terror, while reports in influential sections of American media indicate that more than 40 per cent of such claims against alleged logistical expenditure on military equipment, food, water and military accommodation are almost routinely rejected in Washington as being inflated. On one check, these amounted to about $3.2 million between January 2009 to June 2010. Some examples are hilarious — the US paid millions of dollars to refurbish four Pakistani helicopters for operational deployment of troops against the Taliban and other militants. The Pakistan Army diverted three of the refurbished helicopters to the Pakistani UN peacekeeping force in Sudan, for which Pakistan receives compensation from the United Nations! In another instance, in 2006, the Pakistan Army claimed almost $70 million for maintenance of air defence radar sets, presumably against the Taliban air threat!

These are, of course, the lighter sides of the financial chicanery institutionalised by the Pakistan Army, but there are darker, more serious implications for India of financial assistance by the US to our rogue neighbour. The refurbished helicopters diverted to Sudan might well have been sent to Kashmir, while radar coverage against air strikes by the Taliban is undoubtedly deployed along Pakistan's eastern borders facing India.
The Pakistan military, as always, is undoubtedly doing well out of America's war on terror. But as election year approaches in the US, and the country remains convalescent after its near-death economic meltdown, America will have to find answers to the dilemma of funding its demanding and unscrupulous ally.

Gen. Shankar Roychowdhury is a former Chief of Army Staff and a former Member of Parliament

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THE ASIAN AGE

NO COUNTDOWN TO CASTE YET

SUNANDA K. DATTA-RAY

Deep turned round to stare at me when Rahul Gandhi popped the question, "What's your caste?" It's not that my son didn't know. But he was thrown because he didn't think of himself in terms of caste… which is precisely what Mr Gandhi intended to highlight as emblematic of the emerging secular, non-sectarian India of his and Deep's generation.

Their interaction makes me wonder if a caste census won't set back the trend towards modernisation.
The past is another country. I remember paying a courtesy call many years before Deep was born at the Hindu newspaper's office in what was then Madras, as instructed by my own editor, an Englishman who started his Indian career on the long-defunct Madras Mail. A barefoot Hindu editor with sandalwood marks on his forehead and wrapped in what Bengalis call a lungyi but is a dhoti in the south asked me how many Brahmins were members of West Bengal's Legislative Assembly. Just back from England, I replied stoutly that caste didn't matter in Bengal. "Not in the circles you move in!" he replied shortly, and pleaded an important meeting to end the conversation. Today's Hindu is a different world.

But the man was right. I have had several brushes since then with caste lobbies. One tried to sue me but the magistrate threw out the petition. Another dragged me to the Press Council in the shabbiness to which the Faridkot House dining room has been reduced. The council ruled in my favour but subjected me to a homily on not hurting people's sentiments. As B.P. Mandal said, "If Karl Marx were born in Calcutta, he would have realised that caste plays an equally important factor in denying people their rights".

Bal Thackeray put it brilliantly: Indians don't cast their vote, they vote their caste. Even Mahatma Gandhi baulked at a frontal attack on caste. He attacked untouchability instead, hoping that its removal would destroy the underpinnings of the caste system. What Gandhi doesn't seem to have considered is the relevance of caste to identity and self-image. Perhaps we will get a glimpse of that in the proposed census to chart out the entire population's economic, caste and religious affiliations. E.M.S. Namboodiripad tried something similar in 1968 but his purpose in assessing inequality was to mobilise lower caste voters.

Undoubtedly, the all-India exercise will also be exploited for political gain by not only the three Yadavs — Lalu Prasad, Sharad and Mulayam Singh — but also the BJP, Akali Dal, Shiv Sena and AIADMK. They have all been clamouring for a caste census.

Some good may yet come of it if the findings help the Centre to reject affirmative action as a blanket reward for everyone born in particular groups and evolve a rational policy to enable the genuinely disadvantaged to overcome social and educational drawbacks. But enumerators will have to tread warily through the minefield of "creamy layers" and "Brahminised" dalits.

The Harchand Singh Committee noted that when Punjab's evacuee estates were being distributed among the underprivileged, "influential scheduled caste bureaucrats and public men" grabbed properties for a song to sell "at exorbitant prices to non-scheduled caste persons". Certain Karnataka Brahmins pestered Mandal to be designated backward. He must have realised elsewhere — even if he didn't record it — that conversion to Islam or Christianity needn't mean escaping caste. Indeed, some Goan Catholics boast of their Brahmin origin.
There are many other complexities for, in some respects, India is a state of many nations rather than a nation of many states. It's as confused as Indonesia whose Dutch rulers overlooked the high percentage of Chinese because they described themselves by dialect, as Hakka, Teochew or whatever. Caste names and practices aren't uniform. Sub-castes and sects vary from region to region.

In fact, nomenclature was another reason for Deep's discomfiture at Mr Gandhi's question. I had to turn to H.H. Risley's Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Volume I, to find confirmation of the mixed origin of our little-known Baidya (Vaidya in Sanskrit) caste. It's "found only in Bengal Proper" and apparently ranks socially "next to Brahmins and above Kayasthas". Since respondents were suspected of self-promotion when caste information was last gathered in 1931, I hasten to add that is Risley's view, not mine. Today, if you mention Vaidya to someone from the cow belt, he will probably hear "Vaishya"!

Downgrading carries handsome educational, employment and other benefits, as borne out by the ever-lengthening list of eligible castes. Given this "vested interest in backwardness", equating caste with socio-economic class is by no means as simple as the late Kanshi Ram's pencil analogy. He held up a pencil when I went to see him in his Karol Bagh office, saying it represented the vertical caste hierarchy. His aim, he explained in his mild soft-spoken way, was to make it horizontal.

That's what we were discussing in the context of Uttar Pradesh under the woman who claims to wear Kanshi Ram's mantle (albeit, a fashionable designer version) when Mr Gandhi stumped Deep. We thought he was making the healthy point that since caste is no longer the major determinant in emerging India, it is regressive to keep harping on the so-called bahujan as if it's a minority in dire need of care and protection.
No wonder the Centre hesitated to sanction a caste census. What many will see as affirmation and legitimisation of sectarian identities hammers yet another nail in the coffin of Macaulay's famous or infamous dream of creating "a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect". It sounds arrogantly Anglo-Saxon but meant no more than the rational, scientifically-oriented, English-speaking, superstition-free society Jawaharlal Nehru envisioned. As does his great-grandson. A caste census might mean goodbye to that.

POSTSCRIPT: An apocryphal story has it that P.C. Sen, West Bengal's former Congress chief minister, told inquirers who were surprised at his turning up when Promode Dasgupta, the Marxist general secretary died, that he always attended events connected with fellow Baidyas. Caste before ideology!

Sunanda K. Datta-Ray is a senior journalist who contributes to several top international publications

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DAILY EXCELSIOR

EDITORIAL

TREATING JAMMU SLUMS

It is encouraging that Revenue, Relief and Rehabilitation Minister has taken note of the need of treating slum areas of Jammu and improving the quality of life of those condemned by destiny to live in slums. He visited just one ward (No. 20) of Balmiki Colony, and found it necessary for him to react to the living conditions in the slum area. Generally the denizens of these slum areas are the poorest of the poor who are deprived of most of the amenities of a normal life. They are the economically weakest segment of society, and remain deprived of education and employment. Theirs is a human problem and the popular government is bound by the constitution of the country to lift them up to proper standard of living. As we take a round of Jammu city and its peripheries, we find that slum areas are mushrooming rapidly and thus the ugliness of the city, once known for its cleanliness and sanitary upkeep is gradually turning into a loathsome slum.

Jammu is now essentially a city of migrants. There is large influx of labour force from UP, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, seeking employment in rapidly growing industrial units sprawling in the outskirts of the city. The employers exploit the poverty of these migratory labourers and engage them on cheap wages. Most of them come with their families and children who also find some daily waging work along with their men folk. With the passage of time some of them have settled down almost in a quasi-permanent state of habitation. Apart from them, there is large scale rural to urban population migration in Jammu. This is because of widespread unemployment among the rural youth and minimum chances of their employment. As they are incapable of renting a livable room within the accessible limits of the city, they prefer to build jhuggis which gives rise to obnoxious slums. Entire industrial and constructional area of Jammu is now turning into a slum with no facilities of drinking water, electricity, sanitation and healthcare. It has to be remembered that migratory labourers are fully protected by the international law and human rights charter that stipulate providing them the basic facilities and requirements of life. Therefore if the Minister has sanctioned some money for the development of Balmiki Colony, he has not done any special favour to them or to the entire body of slum dwellers. As citizens of India they have the right to facilities like water, electricity, healthcare, education etc.

Furthermore, the issue of slum dwellers needs to be dealt with in a holistic manner and not by piecemeal treatment. The Government will have to chalk out a uniform policy of improving environmental and living conditions of these slums, and provide relief to the affected people. They are what has usually been conceptualized and people below poverty line. All facilities and concessions sanctioned by the Government at state and central levels should accrue to them especially facilities like subsidized food and medical assistance. As the slum dwellers are mostly labourers, there should be a mechanism with the Government that ensures that they are paid no less than minimum of prescribed wages by their employers. Other facilities like subsidized electric power connection, supply of drinking water, low interest loans for purchase of essential household goods like fans, water coolers, mosquito nets etc. should also accrue to them in order to raise the quality of life. Most important of all is that their children should receive education and illiteracy should be banished. Perhaps NGOs engaged in bringing social awareness to the weaker sections of society have a big responsibility in making education popular among the young kids of slum dwellers. That is the reason why we say that treating the question of expanding slums is not a single phase phenomenon. It has numerous aspects and real conversion of slums into habitable quarters is possible only when all relevant matters connected with the issue are addressed properly. The time has come when the Government should take the entire issue into consideration and invite expert opinion on how to deal with it from the point of view of long terms environmental improvement of Jammu city.

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DAILY EXCELSIOR

EDITORIAL

PERILS OF ROAD TRAFFIC

Is Jammu road traffic really incurable or is it the lackadaisical attitude of road traffic authorities that has become the nightmare? Jammu citizens are at a loss to understand what the future of road traffic in the city will be. With streets without scope for widening, with motor vehicles rapidly increasing and with traffic police becoming slack in enforcing traffic rules, it appears a sort of traffic chaos waits the city day in and day out. There is hardly any road and street in the city that is not overcrowded with traffic ending up in long jams. True, a viable solution to the traffic congestion is not the isolated concern of the traffic department only and that several other departments must join heads to find a solution. But deferring a planned solution to the problem is not desirable. Precious lives are lost or maimed as a result of rash driving and road accidents which perhaps could be avoided if the traffic police performed its duty efficiently. There is annual traffic week celebrated by the department but once the celebrations are over, the entire system returns to its original shape. What then is the good of celebrating traffic. At the same time, as the number of vehicles plying on the roads increases manifold within a short time, it become necessary for the traffic police to ensure that only proper and genuine driving licenses are issued to the applicants. Driving after drinking is usually strictly punished in metropolitan cities but one wonders if our traffic police take this into account when enquiring into an accident. The Government should also begin to think of alternative traffic means like tramways that leave no pollution, are less prone to accidents, require minimum maintenance and carry larger number of commuters with more safety and sanitary conditions. A day will come when the state has sufficient electric power to think of shifting to better and more modern means of transportation.

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DAILY EXCELSIOR

EDITORIAL

COMPOSITE CULTURE – A PANACEA

BY K K KHOSA

The litmus test for existence of normalcy in the strife ridden valley is the lasting restoration of a pluralistic society where people belonging to different sections of society and following different religions start living as a composite populace once again. Kashmir, the abode of Rishis and Peers has always been a living example of communal harmony and brotherhood where its people not only had respect for every faith and religion but also celebrated various festivals together with traditional bonhomie.

The last couple of decades have proved beyond doubt that the sufferings of the people belonging to the valley got compounded due to the breakdown of its composite culture which had been in existence for centuries in stark contrast to some other parts of India where communal clashes have been a routine.
The bonhomie that existed in the valley has been a natural consequence of the strong age old rich culture which developed over more than five thousand years. It is quite natural that any civilization having such a long standing will be mature, stable and everlasting having the depth to assimilate within itself strains of other younger cultures without compromising on its inherent identity.

The unfortunate developments over the last two and a half decades can be attributed to many factors which may include the growth of fundamentalist tendencies in certain sections of society, the introduction of terrorism at the global level as a means to achieve ends, the hegemonistic designs of great powers to control large parts of the globe for material gains, the gradual but steady breakdown of bridges between different communities living in the valley, the general degradation of moral values witnessed among all societies, the pressure of achieving political goals in a democratic setup, the lack of opportunities to earn a decent living, the sense of injustice among some sections of society, the insensitivity towards the fundamentals of our rich culture within certain sections of our leadership and a few more ones of lesser significance. Going by the common perception that a low intensity war has been foisted on the nation by our estranged neighbor for the last more than two decades one thing that stands out in bold relief is that although there have been no winners and yet the losers include Pakistan, India and worst of all the people of J & K who despite being Indian Nationals have suffered more than their other counterparts.

Coming to the state of J&K the sufferings have been galore. The quantum of deaths, destruction of property and incidences of homelessness has perhaps few parallels in world history. Not even a single home in the valley has remained unscathed. As a consequence a large section of its inhabitants both, presently living in the valley or living outside of it, have contracted serious ailments, physical as well as mental. On the growth and development front the state has retarded by at least twenty years if not more and cannot hope to match the other states of the nation in the near future. As a corollary the unemployment amongst the youth has reached alarming proportions. In such a milieu they have become easy prey for poachers who lead them astray and initiate them on the path of extremism whose only consequence is untimely death and destruction.

The economy of the state which is heavily dependent on the funds provided by the central govt. has suffered badly. The strangulation of the tourism sector has resulted in an income loss to many who have been dependent on it for decades. The Hoteliers and Shikarawalas, the Cabbies and the travel agents have had to bear the brunt. The local artisans have also got affected due to the turmoil. The turmoil in the valley has affected the trade and commerce of the other regions of the state as well thereby wrecking the economy of the state. With this kind of milieu obtaining, it is high time the people of the state wake up and try to reverse the trend and put the state back on the path of peace and progress so that we leave a healthy legacy otherwise the blame for the complete destruction of this beautiful state will lie squarely on our shoulders. Let us resolve to keep aside the intractable issues that have been agitating us for the last six decades for the time being and first put our house in order to check this holocaust.

The importance of a composite culture in the valley can be gauged from the fact that even centuries ago, saints of the genre of Lal Ded and Sheikh- ul- Alam propagated the concept of equality of religions and religious tolerance since the basic tenets of all religions preach more or less the same thing. They propagated that one should not think in terms of Hindus and Muslims but only in terms of human beings. More recent is the example of the Dogra rulers in the state where large jagirs were allotted to many Rajput Hindus for settling down in the valley which already had a substantial number of Pandits and Sikhs residing in peaceful coexistence with the Muslims. Even the tallest of the political leaders Kashmir has produced after the Maharajas rule gave way to a democratic polity also visualized the importance of a pluralistic society in Kashmir in order to serve its long term interests. Sheikh Mohamed Abdullah not only converted his Muslim Conference into National Conference but at the time of the tribal raids in 1948 organised the timely defense of the valley. He also ensured the security of the small minority of Pandits living there. Notwithstanding the fact that years later in his book Aatish-e-Chinar he described the Pandits as fifth columnists yet during his time the composite culture of the valley remained intact.

The unfortunate happenings of the last two decades have come as a rude shock. The once bright image of the valley in the eyes of the Indian nation needs to be restored. The interests of Kashmiris of all hues who have suffered immense hardships during this period need to be safeguarded. Maej Kasheer has enough resources and capacity to look after her children so none should have any anxiety in this regard. No one should have any fears that if composite culture is restored there will be dearth of opportunities for the youth. Yet all this is achievable only if the leadership of the state inculcates such a vision in its functioning and if the spirit of forgiveness permeates every individual who has undergone suffering during this period. There have to be no questions asked and no answers required to be given.

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DAILY EXCELSIOR

EDITORIAL

EXPLORING RENEWABLE ENERGY

BY AMIT BHALLA

It has been said that the only people who can change the world are those who want to. The world needs to move from its current non-renewable energy paradigm to a future powered by entirely renewable energy supply. It is only by making such a transition that we will be in a position to avoid the very worst impacts of climate change. A large number of leaders across the world from within the policy arena, business, media and civil society are questioning the views of conventional experts on the world's energy future and their business as usual scenarios, embarking on a serious search for realistic alternatives. The world has reached peak conventional oil and gas consumption, meaning thereby oil and gas companies are digging deeper and deeper into unconventional sources, with disastrous environmental and social consequences. Coal is still relatively readily available but catastrophic in terms of climate changing emissions. The world can no longer afford to hang on its old energy paradigm and its dangerous dependence on fossil fuels.

The Energy Report, produced through a joint effort of WWF and Ecofys, breaks new ground in the energy debate; a possible system in which all of the world's energy supply is provided by renewable sources by 2050. The Energy Report shows that this future is within our reach and provides a vital insight into how it can be achieved. The report puts together strategies and technology options that have already been put in practice to create a feasible global scenario. WWF wants to help change the old paradigm for the energy and articulate a new pathway for the future.

Renewables will play a greater role than either nuclear or carbon capture and storage by 2050. About 13 per cent of the world's energy come from renewable sources in 2008, a proportion likely to have risen as countries have built their capacity since then, with china leading the investment surge, particularly in wind energy. But by far the greatest source of renewable energy used globally at present is burning biomass- about 10 per cent of the global energy supply which is problematic because it can cause deforestation, leads to deposit of soot that accelerate global warming and cooking fires cause indoor air pollution that harm health. Wind power by contrast met about 2 per cent of global electricity demand in 2009, and could increase to more than 20 per cent by 2050.

Renewable energy is already growing fast- of the 300-giga watts (remember one gigawatt is equivalent to 1000 megawatts) of new electricity generation capacity added globally between 2008 and 2009; about 140 GW came from renewable sources such as wind and solar power. The investment that will be needed to meet the greenhouse gas emissions targets is likely to amount to about $ 5 trillion in the next decade, rising to $ 7 trillion from 2021 to 2030. Developing countries have an important stake in the future- this is where most of the 1.4 billion people without access to electricity live yet also where some of the best conditions exist for renewable energy deployment. Renewable energy can also meet the growing demand of developing countries where over 2 billion people lack access to basic energy services and can also do so at a more cost-competitive and faster rate than conventional energy sources.

Today, we do not use energy in a judicious manner. More than half the heats we pump into our homes disappear through walls, windows and roofs- yet we know how to construct buildings that require virtually no energy for heating or cooling. We favor big, powerful private cars over far more efficient forms of transport. Energy-hungry appliances clog the market, even though there is a wide range of efficient alternatives available. Manufacturers could use far less energy by reassessing their materials and processes. Energy conservation is something every one can embrace. We simply require to start making wise choices today. Nuclear meltdown in Japan after powerful earthquake in March 2011 clearly reveals why society should no longer bear the risks of nuclear disaster. And that is why it is clear now than ever before that the energy of future for the safer, more prudent society will come from renewable energy. The more we use renewable energy, the more we benefit the environment, strengthen our energy security, create jobs locally and help improve our economy. Here we can explore ways to use renewable energy.

Using Biomass Energy

Ever since humans started burning wood to keep warm and to cook food, we have been using biomass energy. Today we can also use biomass to fuel vehicles, generate electricity and developed bio-based products. Here we can explore the different ways to use biomass energy. For instance, by using fuel for vehicle with ethanol or biodiesel, using clean electricity generated from biomass, using products like plastics made from biomass.

Using Hydrogen

Hydrogen- a colorless and odorless gas is the most abundant element in the universe. However, because it combines easily with other elements, it is rarely found by itself in nature. Hydrogen usually combines with other elements, forming organic compounds called hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons include plant material and fossil fuels such as petroleum, natural gas and coal. Water is produced during the burning of any hydrocarbon. Hydrogen can be separated from hydrocarbon through the burning of heat- a process known as reforming. Currently, most hydrogen is made this way from natural gas. An electric current can also be used to separate water into its components of oxygen and hydrogen. This process is known as electrolysis. Currently, hydrogen has great potential as a power source for fuel cells. Hydrogen fuel cells can provide heat for homes and buildings, generate electricity and power vehicles.

Using Hydropower

Flowing water creates energy that can be tapped and turned into electricity. This is called hydropower or hydroelectric power. If we have access to flowing water on our property, we can use a micro hydropower system to generate our own electricity. Micro hydropower system usually generate up to 100 Kilowatt (KW) of electricity.

Using Solar Energy

If we step outside on a hot, sunny day, and we will experience the power of sun's heat and the light. We can use solar energy to heat our homes through passive solar design or an active solar heating system. We can also use it to generate our own electricity. We can use it to heat water in our home or swimming pool. We can use it to light our home both indoors and outdoors.

Using Wind Energy

We have harnessed the wind's energy for hundreds of years- from windmills that pump water or grind grain to today's wind turbines that generate electricity. If you live on at least one acre of land with an ample wind resource, you can generate your own electricity using a small wind electric system. You can also use a small wind turbine for pumping water. You may have the opportunity now or in the future to buy clean electricity from a wind power plant.

One thing that looks imminent is the fact that the future belongs to renewable energy. Scientists and industry expert may disagree over how long the world's supply of oil and natural gas will last, but one thing is for sure that it will rather sooner or later exhaust.

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DAILY EXCELSIOR

EDITORIAL

FALLING FOOD PRICES IS NOT GOOD FOR AGRICULTURE

BY DR ASHWANI MAHAJAN

Using Biomass Energy

Using Hydrogen

Using Hydropower

Using Solar Energy

Using Wind Energy

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DAILY EXCELSIOR

EDITORIAL

FALLING FOOD PRICES IS NOT GOOD FOR AGRICULTURE

BY DR ASHWANI MAHAJAN

In the era of rising inflation even a small reduction in prices sounds a big relief to the general public. In the last about 3 years a steady increase in prices of essential commodities has made the life of the common man most miserable. The steady rise in food prices have made the diet vanish from poor man's plate. In week ending April 30, rate of food inflation has come down to 7.7 percent compared to 8.63 percent a week earlier and 21 percent a year back.

How food inflation came down?

Last year in 2009-10 Rabi crop was extremely poor, due to which wheat production to only 89 million tonnes and pulses production to only 14.6 million tonnes. Wheat production was less by10 percent in the year 2009-10, as compared to 2008-09, while pulses production was also less than before. Growing demand on the one hand and declining production on the other naturally lead to high rate of food inflation. Bad monsoon may be cited as the main cause of decline in production during 2009-10, but data clearly reveals that the production of food in Country now has almost subsided a bit. Per capita availability of food grains which was 510 grams per person per day, in 1990-91, has now come down to only 436 grams. Continued neglect of agriculture by the Government and declining availability of agricultural land due to diversion of cultivable land in the name urbanisation or industrialistion have been the major causes for ailing agriculture. Food grains production has increased due to good monsoon this year, but future is not very bright for agriculture, in view of declining food prices due to unsupportive attitude of the Government in terms procurements and resulting slump in agricultural prices.

Need for Remunerative Prices of Agricultural Products

Last year better procurement of food grains and higher prices of fruit, vegetables and pulses last year encouraged farmers to grow more crops. Today, agriculture is no longer a beneficial business. In a country where average productivity per hectare in case of wheat is 29 quintals and 22 quintals in case of rice and hardly 6 quintals in case of pulses, given continuously increasing cost of cultivation, one hardly finds this profession lucrative any more. Today the farmer is getting hardly Rs. 1000 to 1100 per quintal of wheat from the market. Even we get Rs. 1200 per quintal from the market, per hectare total revenue for the wheat farmer would be only Rs. 34800. If we take account of the costs in the form of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation and wages, he would be hardly left with any positive return. It is true that in a dynamic economic changes keep on taking place and some professions lose their attraction and some other trades take their place. But such can not be the case with agriculture. This profession can not be left to the operations of the market forces and be allowed to die. Today food security of the nation primarily depends upon agriculture. We are not a small country like Somalia or Botswana. With a total population of more than 121 crores, food cannot be provided by imports. No country of the world is in position to our continuously increasing population. If history is any guide we learn that when ever we have thought of importing wheat from abroad, price of wheat had increased heavily internationally. Therefore we need to save this profession of agriculture at any cost, including all types of incentives including remunerative prices.

Last year prices of food grains, fruits, vegetables and pulses increased manifold, taking price of onion to Rs. 60 to 70 per kg, some pulses to Rs. 100 per kg. Similar was the situation with regard to other vegetables, fruits and food grains. In fact this kind of increase in the prices can not be justified, as they come as a heavy burden for general public. But the benefit of increased prices of these items could not benefit the farmers as they lacked holding capacity and ware housing and cold storage facilities. Benefit of this inflation was in fact reaped by the traders and hoarders. But this is also true that increase in prices of agricultural produce, definitely encouraged farmers to produce more. But good crop this year in fact is becoming instrumental to the miseries of the farmers, as they are forced to sell their wheat at less than even support price of the Government and potatoes at Rs. 2 to Rs. 3 per kg in absence of any support price for potatoes. If this year good crop does not benefit the farmers, how can we expect better produce next year (in absence of any incentive).

Decline in agricultural prices - a threat

Whether due to market forces or neglect of the government, decline in price of food products recently is not a good sign for agriculture in future. Today in our Country more than about 50 percent population directly depends on agriculture. But the share of agriculture in national income is only 14.6 percent. This share of agriculture in national income was 45 percent in 1970-71. This means that non-remunerative prices of agricultural produce have been eroding the income of those engaged in agriculture. Today the prices at which farmers are forced to sell their produce do not even cover their cost.There is no doubt that agricultural business is still the most risky business than any other business. Excess of rain or less rain or hail showers for all types of natural disasters affect agriculture. As farmers tend to get non remunerative prices, they remain poor. Today farmers are committing suicides in large number due to rising farm costs and crop failures due to natural disasters. So far more than the two lakh farmers have committed suicide.

Today it is imperative to keep agriculture in good health at any cost. For this it is essential to make agriculture a profitable business. It is the responsibility of Government to make sure that farmers get remunerative prices as and when they bring agri- produce to the market. The current system of agricultural prices does not serve the purpose. Decline in food prices may give a very temporary relief from inflation but it may endanger food security of the nation. We need a permanent arrangement of pricing of agriculture produce whereby the Government ensures that farmer gets remunerative price for his crop.

(The author is Associate Professor, PGDAV College, University of Delhi)

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THE TRIBUNE

EDITORIAL

POLLUTING WATERS

INDUSTRIALISTS' PROTEST MISPLACED

It is rare to see the Punjab Pollution Control Board get tough on water contamination. It has not yielded to pressure from Jalandhar industrialists, who have threatened to shut down their units if raids on them are not stopped. Some public-spirited citizens led by Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal are trying to stop canal and river water pollution with help from the board. A word of support from Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has encouraged them. However, Mr Manoranjan Kalia, who has lost his job as the state Industries Minister, has come to the support of the agitated industrialists with the promise of relief from the Chief Minister. Industrialists had earlier protested against Mr Kalia to demand VAT refunds.

If Mr Badal yields to pressure, the campaign of the environment activists backed by the pollution board would suffer a setback. For decades political interference and corruption had tied the board's hands reducing it to a mute spectator to the ongoing poisoning of Punjab's canal, river and ground waters. Industries discharge untreated waste into water resources with impunity to avoid the burden of installing a treatment plant. Industrialists not only in Jalandhar and Ludhiana but elsewhere in the state have escaped punitive action by buying political support. The toxic Budha Nullah in Ludhiana has spread disease and stink all around for years and remains filthy despite the Punjab and Haryana High Court monitoring the clean-up efforts. The reason: the unholy nexus of business and politics.

However, it is unfair to single out industries. Municipalities also let toxic waste into water bodies. Farmers too cannot escape responsibility as chemical-laden water flows from the fields have added to the problem. Public awareness coupled with reasonable punitive action should target the polluters regardless of their status and occupation. Clean air and water are the basics for the healthy growth of human, animal and plant life. It is in the interests of all to protect them.

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THE TRIBUNE

EDITORIAL

MAYA TESTS THE PITCH

CLEAR BID TO FISH IN REGIONAL POLITICS

Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati's visit to Chandigarh and her public meeting in which supporters from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir and the Union Terrritory of Chandigarh were mobilized was clearly an attempt to test the waters in this region with an eye on the impending assembly elections in Punjab early next year. The irrepressible Dalit leader and U.P. Chief Minister is acutely aware that at 29 per cent, Punjab has the highest Scheduled Caste population in the country and that at its peak in the 1992 assembly elections which were boycotted by the mainstream Akali Dal, the BSP had won nine of the 105 seats it contested, polling 17.59 per cent of the total vote. In the last elections, the party failed to win a single seat of the 115 it contested in a total House strength of 117 and its vote share fell to 4.17 per cent. Mayawati apparently sees the potential to bounce back and though she asserted in her speech that the BSP would go it alone, there is more to her visit than meets the eye.

Significantly, in her speech to a mass gathering, Mayawati trained her guns at the Centre, whether it was for fuelling protests in Bhatta and Parsaul villages of Greater Noida or for various scams plaguing the country. She clearly perceives a new threat from Rahul Gandhi on her home turf and is pro-active in countering it. The BSP leader also had veiled digs at the BJP when it was in power at the Centre. But she did not take on the Akalis in Punjab. Evidently, the wily leader is keeping her options open for an informal understanding with the Akalis with the common goal of checkmating the Congress in Punjab.

If Mayawati is to fulfil her dream of becoming a force to reckon with nationally, she cannot but be acutely aware that she will have to spread her influence in the northern belt. The Chandigarh visit is a timely reminder that she means business.

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THE TRIBUNE

COLUMN

NEPAL'S PEACE PROCESS SAVED

POLITICAL PARTIES COME TO TERMS WITH REALITY

Nepal's political parties realised the gravity of the situation and finally agreed on Sunday to extend the term of the Constituent Assembly by three months so that the on-going constitution-making process could be completed. A failure to reach the agreement could have plunged the Himalayan nation into a fresh crisis, as the Assembly had failed to accomplish the task of constitution making by May 28, the deadline fixed some time ago. There was tension in every political camp till Saturday evening as no major party was showing signs of leaving the rigid path they had adopted for getting their viewpoint accepted. The Nepali Congress party's 10-point charter of demands included the Jhal Nath Khanal government's immediate resignation and handing over of the weapons of the Maoists to the authorities in the army cantonments. The Maoists were unrelenting from their stand that they would not accept anything less than a commitment in principle that their armed combatants would be inducted into the regular army.

The Maoists had made it clear that they would prefer to save their party instead of giving a new lease of life to the Constituent Assembly. The Madhesi parties' declaration that they were in favour of fresh negotiations between the Nepali Congress and the Maoists led to all the camps leaving their rigid positions in the larger interest of Nepal. This was how the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) reached a five-point agreement that led to the consensus emerging on extending the term of the Constituent Assembly.

The accord signed by the major political parties also has it that Prime Minister Khanal will resign to pave the way for the formation of a national unity government and the new constitution would be ready within three months to complete the fundamentals of the peace process like the holding of fresh elections. Now no more time should be wasted to normalise the situation in Nepal. The constitution writing process should be completed on a priority basis, as this is the key to all that has to be done to establish peace in the Himalayan nation. The issue of the entry of the Maoists' armed cadres into the Nepal Army should be handled with much care.

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THE TRIBUNE

ARTICLE

ARAB SPRING HELPING PALESTINIANS

BUT ISRAEL UNWILLING TO CHANGE ITS POLICY

BY S. NIHAL SINGH

Who is afraid of Palestinians going to the United Nations General Assembly in September to seek international recognition for a Palestinian state? President Barack Obama, for one; Israel, for another. The Palestinian Authority has won the approval of the Arab League for its "Plan B" in the face of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's intransigence in continuing to build illegal settlements on occupied land, contemptuously rebuffing President Obama's call for a return to the 1967 borders with adjustments. And he got rolling standing ovations from a joint session of the US Congress in Washington for thumbing his nose at the US President.

There lies the rub, and the continuing tragedy of decades of Palestinian deprivation as Israel has been assiduously changing the "facts on the ground" by building more homes for Jews on the occupied West Bank and changing the demography of occupied East Jerusalem. President Obama, as his predecessors, remains a prisoner of powerful American Jewish interests who have traditionally shown their clout by supporting or opposing Congressional candidates in elections and challenging presidential candidates seeking election or re-election.

With candidates and parties already manoeuvring for the next presidential election, Mr Obama remains more in hock to the American Jewish lobby. He can only flap his wings ineffectively as he pretends to try to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians, with Mr Netanyahu mocking him in public on American turf. While the Palestinians will win almost universal approval for a Palestinian state in the UN General Assembly, the United States will be in the company of very few countries other than Israel voting 'no', powerless as Washington is in the face of an American power structure that revolves round the interests of the Jewish state, however outlandish the latter's conduct might be. Even the persistent quintessential American mediator of disputes, Mr George Mitchell, has given up on continuing his peace bid.

The tallest leader of the Palestinians, Yasser Arafat, had unilaterally declared an independent Palestinian state in 1988 winning recognition from 100 countries. But despite the Oslo accords and the partial transfer of authority on the West Bank and bursts of hope, Ariel Sharon took back governance of transferred territory and smashed Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah. Arafat was airlifted to a Paris hospital to die there. Sharon, before his stroke and permanent hospitalisation, was supreme, shedding the Gaza Strip in the process because it was not worth the trouble and imprisoning 1.5 million Palestinians there on land, in the air and on sea in collusion with Mr Hosni Mubarak's Egypt.

President Obama began his presidency with brave words starting a peace process which held out no hope for peace and demanding Israel stop illegal building activity on occupied Palestinian land, only to eat his words. Mr Netanyahu, knowing his clout with the US Congress, said a blunt 'no', and the US President was left with no leg to stand on. Yet the future holds some hope for the Palestinians because the intransigence of Israel will further isolate it in the world and win the Palestinians more friends. Among the favourable factors for the Palestinians are the Arab Spring that has elevated the spirit of all Arabs, the successful Egyptian bringing together of the opposing Fatah and Hamas factions and the decision of the new interim Egyptian regime to ease the opening of the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt at Rafah.

Not bound by the compulsions of a powerful Jewish lobby (although Germany still suffers from its past Nazi complex, Europe is more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and the European Union has given a new gift of 31 million euros for building institutions of state. The World Bank has already declared that if present progress continued on the West Bank, it was well positioned to make the transition to "the establishment of a state at any point in the near future".

The passage of a resolution in the UN General Assembly recognizing the state of Palestine will not immediately change the position on the ground. Mr Netanyahu has drawn his own red lines: no return to the 1967 borders, no return of East Jerusalem to Palestine and no entry to the estimated five million Palestinian refugees spread among Arab countries and the world. President Obama offered his own compromise: the 1967 border "with swaps", pushing to the future the prickly issues of Jerusalem and refugees, a sure recipe for failure, if there was any.

The Palestinians will certainly strengthen their hand by the passage of a new resolution for a Palestinian state with full UN membership within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. That even a meek and patient Palestinian leader of the ilk of Mr Mahmoud Abbas has been forced to give up on the sterile and make-believe peace process speaks volumes for his disillusionment with an American-led process leading nowhere. The Palestinians are asking for nothing new, as former President Jimmy Carter succinctly brought out in a recent article in the New York Times. These parameters are well enshrined in UN resolutions.

We live in a less than perfect world and UN resolutions are often not fully implemented or not at all, but the brazenness with which Israeli leaders – Labour and Conservatives alike – have flouted the will of the international majority, thanks to the unstinted support it has received from the United States, has set a new benchmark in going against all canons of international justice and civilizational norms in the modern post-colonial world.

Many Israelis, particularly on the right, believe that they have got away with a lot. More than 500,000 Jews have been settled on colonised land. Arabs in occupied East Jerusalem are being evicted on one pretext or another to change the demographics of the future projected Palestinian land. The dream of a Greater Israel is closer to fulfilment that ever. But events over which Israel and the United States have no control are catching up with Tel Aviv.

The Arab Spring is giving Israelis sleepless nights. Egypt is refusing to be a co-jailor of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and, as recent incursions on occupied territory appropriated by Israel revealed on the day of catastrophe (Naqba), when Palestinians were chased from or had to flee their homes in 1948, it will be far from smooth sailing for Israel in its quest for Greater Israel. The tragedy is that the United States seems incapable of playing the role in should in bringing about an independent Palestinian state.

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THE TRIBUNE

OPED

AGELESS MIND

BY JAGVIR GOYAL

Thirtytwo years back, when I was in the engineering institute, I eulogised Dharmendra. To me, he not only had a perfect personality but an ideal character also. Not only mine, he ruled the hearts of millions. He was always portrayed as an absolute gentleman who stuck to values, never hurt anybody, true at heart and a sober but passionate lover. Movies like Satyakaam, Aadmi aur Insaan, Aankhen, Lalkaar, Mera Gaon Mera Desh left a deep impact on my mind.

It never occurred to me that Dharmendra was not tall. Those were the times when height was not an attribute. Amitabh Bachchan was rejected by film industry as too tall to be a hero and had to struggle a lot. You don't find flaws in a personality you admire and adore. Dharmendra always looked perfect to me and I would often try to follow his roles.

Another handsome actor who had caught my fancy was Dev Anand. He had an inimitable style of laughing, walking, talking and running. I would don a muffler in Dev Anand style and talk like him to my friends. My mould today imbibes a lot of what Dev Anand and Dharmendra presented on the silver screen during those days. Their images are frozen in my heart. During my visit to Leh last year, I stood over a snowclad mountain, wrapped a red muffler around my neck, leaned to my left in Dev Anand style and got myself photographed!

With the passage of time, the physical personalities of Dharmendra and Dev Anand have wilted. Their drooping faces, flaccid bodies, shrinking heights and stammering speeches, whenever they appear on the TV, make me sad. The frozen images, that my heart carries of them, are shattered every time I watch them trying to play young and act young.

With age, the body withers and you can't hide your age. Why don't the two, once so great actors, understand this simple truth and phenomenon? Why don't they simply bask in the glory of their peak days and the charisma they once carried and live the balance years of life gracefully and peacefully? These questions have always intrigued me whenever I have watched Dharmendra or Dev Anand on the screen these days.

I got the answer to these questions when I read 'Absolute Khushwant', recently written and released by the author. Khushwant is unequivocal and blunt in the book and has revealed many a truth in an explicit manner. Even at 95, he has many a desire left and lives in fantasies! He has earned so much name and fame yet there are unfulfilled yearnings left in him!

Man never grows with age, I find. Watching himself in the mirror every day, he fails to notice the gradual alteration in his face, the new wrinkles and crinkles that the age adds to it, converting its vigorous and healthy look to a sagging and drooping mug. He lives under an illusion that he still carries a magnetic physique. As people acknowledge him, owing to his past achievements, his self-conviction is reinforced further.

The bodies retire, the brains don't.

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THE TRIBUNE

OPED

LOSS OF INHERITANCE

THE 13TH FINANCE COMMISSION MADE A HISTORIC BUDGET ALLOCATION TO STATE GOVERNMENTS FOR THE RESTORATION OF THEIR HERITAGE. WITH AN ALLOCATION OF ` 100 CRORE, CAN PUNJAB RESTORE THE GLORY OF QUILA MUBARAK, WITH ITS NOTORIOUS HISTORY OF BUREAUCRATIC SOLUTIONS FOR MATTERS RELATED TO CULTURE AND CONSERVATION?

AMITA BAIG

It's only in the last few years the Government of India has finally woken up to the realisation that post independence the heritage of India has been gravely neglected. While the Archaeological Survey of India had its budget substantially increased in 2002, thus ensuring that the national heritage would never lack funds; state government budgets for culture remain pitiful, its limited resources largely allocated to paying salaries of administration and staff. Last year the 13th Finance Commission made a historic budget allocation to state governments for the restoration of their heritage. Ranging from Rs 175 crore to Madhya Pradesh, 10 crore to Tripura, and Rs 100 crore assigned to Punjab; these allocations were made against rapidly cobbled together ill conceived estimates. One only has to consider that the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir has an allocation of Rs 50 crore for just one site, Mubarak Mandi in Jammu.

Missing: Money, manpower

While this significant injection of funds for heritage must be welcomed and it's not a minute too soon; the tragedy facing cultural institutions in India is that apart from meagre budget allocations, there has been absolutely no human resource development in the last decades. Systems established in the colonial era still prevail and recruitment policies are fossilised in the 19th century. Institutions, monuments and sites are in danger, not just for want of money but simply because there has been no investment in developing manpower to protect them. With no emphasis on skills upgrading or professionalisation, our culture and heritage remain at risk.

The heritage sites at the state level are most critically endangered as they face a total vacuum in professional manpower. The lack of emphasis in the development of expertise, the predominance of bureaucrats in making technical decisions and the absence of commitment to build a cadre of professional and technical skills in culture and heritage management is a crisis we face across the country. Funds are languishing, or worse, misused in the absence of suitable skills. The conservation and preservation of our heritage is a highly professional task and we need to recognise this gap. Visiting protected sites in various states one cannot help but be profoundly disturbed by the awareness of local people about not only the misuse of funds, but more critically, the damage caused by unimaginative use of funds for the monuments. Ironically, departments of culture remain unable or unwilling to grasp the gravity of the damage being inflicted as vast swathes of original fabric are replaced.

Quick fix conservation

So, back to the 13th Finance Commission; what will become of these resources? Will local caretakers turn into conservationists so that heritage sites not merely languish, but get further damaged as ad- hoc repairs, shortcuts and kickbacks vitiate the windfall of funding? In the rush to spend the money before it "lapses", will cement replace lime mortar as a quick and easy option, and will the finely crafted pillars be substituted with crass machine cut stones? Are we always going to get it wrong?

While privatisation is the mantra of the time and public- private partnership the call to arms, there is one thing we need to be clear on: the cultural heritage of the nation or the state is the custodial responsibility of the government. Their mandate is to safeguard the heritage for future generations. And, in today's climate of public information, governments can and must be called to account on its ability to safeguard our heritage for future generations.

Even the Archaeological Survey of India with its hugely increased budget has been unable or unwilling to restructure and upgrade its systems, update professional skills and invest in management. In this scenario can the states transform their approach? In the crossed wires which define Indian administration, and as fiats against recruitment prevail, the culture sector epitomises diminishing standards and failure to deliver; an area where the responsibility of the government is non negotiable. It is essential that structural reform in the culture sector must be undertaken at every level.

The precarious Quila

The problems are manifold. Quila Mubarak or the Sheesh Mahal in Patiala are alarming examples of the failure of government to recognise the magnitude of damage done through neglect and paucity of competent decision making. Over the last 20 years I have watched many initiatives to preserve Quila Mubarak flounder. This iconic heritage of Punjab was acquired by the state as "our" heritage and efforts to preserve it have continuously been vitiated by political compulsions or a bureaucracy mired in mediocrity. In the years that I have followed its fate, many reports have been generated, the only difference being that each condition assessment has further highlighted the gravity facing the building; funds have been allocated and lapsed, more than once. About ten years ago under immense pressure from conservationists, government offices were removed from the complex. Lying vacant and uncared for ever since, the building today is in a desperate state of decay.

Now under the 13th Finance Commission perhaps it will receive some funding, probably wholly inadequate to its needs. But what is far worse and must give us cause for concern, is, that Punjab's finest heritage will be restored at the lowest tender bidding.

Today with this huge amount of money being injected we need to stop and consider very carefully how best to minimise waste, or indeed optimise the opportunity. Given the manpower void, professional consultants must step up and fill the gap until state departments get their act together and divert a significant amount of money towards developing technical training institutions and augment their capacities. The need of the hour clearly is setting up institutes for cultural resource training and management which will serve existing institutions, transforming not just how we preserve, but also nurture and manage our cultural resources. Perhaps, states should join forces and collaborate on technical training and thus manage their heritage in a more collaborative way. Until then government must have the humility to acknowledge that professional skills in India require to be engaged and that they are the most competent in the present scenario to undertake this task.

A live-in with heritage

States such as Punjab which are being guided by agencies like Infrastructure Leasing Finance& Services, the Asian Development Bank and a battery of consultants are attempting to moderate a paradigm shift to manage the often competing objectives of development and preservation. Here preservation is finally on the table with infrastructure and development and this is a huge transformation in perception. In planning documents and as a one- off for execution, this would appear to be a perfect model for others to emulate. A simultaneous thrust in education, training and building skills is critical, without which it cannot work. In realistic terms serious reform will mean restructuring state archaeology departments; changing recruitment rules and battling the many vested interests and turf wars to establish more result oriented organisations.

Equally, in the long term, the preservation of sites like Quila Mubarak will best be realised if we can give it a role and relevance in society. Will Quila Mubarak house a Cultural Resource Training Institute - an opportunity to study and work in a historic site? With this tranche of funding can we imbue these sites with energy and capture the imagination of generation next? Clearly the opportunity given to the states is rich with challenge to evaluate and restructure how we mediate the future of our heritage. We must have the courage to step out of the box and debate new solutions. While the Punjab Government has seen the merit of investing in a cultural policy document which should in due course address these lacunae and provide a balanced and professional foundation for the future of Punjab's heritage, what will happen in the interim? It must have the vision and the integrity to shift the decision making process to professional advisors who will assess the work, guide decisions, monitor implementation and ensure that funds are optimally utilised not just for the finance commission, but for the future of our heritage.

Author of Forts and Palaces of India, Amita Baig is Heritage Management Consultant to the World Monuments Fund in India.

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******************************************************************************************BUSINESS STANDARD

EDITORIAL

MR MUKHERJEE'S HOMEWORK

THE FINANCE MINISTER MUST FOCUS ON THE FISCAL CHALLENGE

Now that the United Progressive Alliance has trounced the Left Front in Kolkata and the Union government is back to work, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee must devote his energies to improving fiscal management if his budgetary arithmetic has to be prevented from going awry. The danger signals are all up. His ministry has now acknowledged the Reserve Bank of India's earlier warning that economic growth in fiscal 2011-12 is likely to be lower than budgeted originally. A sharp deceleration in the denominator will mean a sharp increase in the fiscal deficit-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio. The timely arrival of the monsoon augurs well for the economy, which may surprise the markets and policy makers. But this cannot be taken for granted. Moreover, reports of investment deceleration suggest that some kind of a crowding-out of private investment may already be happening as a result of persistently high government borrowing. The most worrisome aspect of recent fiscal trends is the sharp increase in the government's subsidy bill. Total subsidies – food, fertilisers and petroleum – have been persistently high and as a percentage of GDP went up from less than 1.5 per cent till 2007 to close to 2.5 per cent in 2008-09 and above 2.0 per cent in 2009-10. While Mr Mukherjee has budgeted for a lower ratio this fiscal, there is little evidence so far that he will be able to meet his budgetary targets — not with the continued foot-dragging on petroleum and fertiliser subsidies and pressures to increase food subsidy.

The only thing that has saved the Union government's fiscal strategy so far, especially in the face of sluggish revenue receipts, is the less-than-budgeted defence expenditure. Mr Mukherjee must thank Defence Minister A K Antony for helping him on the expenditure front, though it is not clear with what consequences for defence preparedness and national security. It was widely expected that immediately after the state Assembly elections were wrapped up the government would attend to the extant fiscal challenge. Apart from the heroic increase in petrol prices, no other action has been taken. On the other hand, it appears that the finance ministry may not be able to meet the disinvestment target it had set. While no one expects last year's bonanza to be repeated this year, even budgeted amounts may not be forthcoming if the overall approach to macroeconomic management remains lacklustre.

The delay in tax reform – with the introduction of a Goods and Services Tax still on hold and the apparent inability of major political parties to focus attention on issues pertaining to revenue mobilisation and revival of growth – is raising fresh concerns about the sustainability of even 8.0 per cent economic growth. With the international economic environment remaining precarious and far from stable and with regional security re-emerging as a major policy concern, the gathering clouds do not bode well for growth, revenue generation and fiscal correction. It is not our intention to sound needlessly alarmist, but the time has come to ring a warning bell. India's macroeconomic authorities must focus on fiscal stabilisation and Mr Mukherjee has to provide the leadership as finance minister.

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BUSINESS STANDARD

EDITORIAL

LET MARKETS WORK

FOOD INFLATION IS BEST FOUGHT WITH MORE EFFICIENT MARKETS

The news that the south-west monsoon has hit the Kerala coast on time augurs well for the management of inflationary expectations. However, the monsoon alone cannot douse inflationary fires. Apart from much-needed fiscal stabilisation, mentioned above, the government needs urgent policy reform. The task at hand has to be handled by both the central and state governments, as correctly emphasised by the Reserve Bank of India in its meeting with state finance secretaries. Till 2008 state governments were on track for fiscal correction, and were, in fact, doing better than the Centre. However, the recent trend towards populism in many states – made worse by the pre-election promises of chief ministers Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee – and the likelihood of such populism in states that go to the polls in early 2012, including Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, do not bode well for fiscal correction and inflation management.

Against this background, the Union food ministry has proposed an action plan to reduce inflationary pressures and improve food management. The plan is, however, a mishmash of various ideas that have been floating around for some time. There is strong advocacy of organised retail entering the food chain with backward linkages with farmers, and the integration of the spot and futures markets for better price discovery and price stability. On the other hand, it has been suggested that the Essential Commodities Act (ECA) be amended to reintroduce compulsory licensing and registration of commodity traders. This will bring back the licence and inspector raj and contribute to corruption. On the positive side, the proposed linkage between commodity growers and organised retail trade can potentially reduce margins with fewer intermediaries between farmers and consumers. Organised retailing can also bring greater efficiency into the marketing of agricultural products, benefiting all stakeholders — farmers, retailers and consumers. On the downside, however, the food ministry's plea for an amendment to the ECA to bring all essential goods under regulation and licensing regime seems weird. So does the ministry's suggestion for creating centralised authorities at the state level for registration of dealers and traders with turnover in excess of prescribed quantities and issuing them licences for carrying out their business. The ECA, enacted originally in 1955 and amended on several occasions, is a retrograde measure that has outlived its utility and is wholly irrelevant today. It is worth recalling that the National Democratic Alliance government realised the irrelevance of the ECA and, therefore, substantially diluted the statute in 2002. However, this amendment was practically undone in 2006 by the United Progressive Alliance government. This was done to control prices, but it has, in fact, failed to do that. The curbs on stockholding, movement and internal and external trade of several key agri-commodities have proved counterproductive and limit the potential of competitive forces in keeping the price line under check. The ministry's suggestion that the spot market be integrated with the futures market automatically becomes unworkable under such regimented conditions.

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BUSINESS STANDARD

AFTER THE GREEK DEBT DEFAULT

FISCAL SUSTAINABILITY IS NO CURE FOR GREECE'S CHRONICALLY LARGE TRADE DEFICIT A TEMPORARY LEAVE OF ABSENCE FROM THE EUROZONE IS

MARTIN FELDSTEIN

The Greek government, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are all denying what markets perceive clearly: Greece will eventually default on its debts to its private and public creditors. The politicians prefer to postpone the inevitable by putting public money where private money will no longer go, because doing so allows creditors to maintain the fiction that the accounting value of the Greek bonds that they hold need not be reduced. That, in turn, avoids triggering requirements of more bank capital.

But, even though the additional loans that Greece will soon receive from the European Union and the IMF carry low interest rates, the level of Greek debt will rise rapidly to unsustainable levels. That's why market interest rates on privately held Greek bonds and prices for credit default swaps indicate that a massive default is coming.

And a massive default, together with a very large sustained cut in the annual budget deficit, is, in fact, needed to restore Greek's fiscal sustainability. More specifically, even if a default brings the country's debt down to 60 per cent of GDP, Greece would still have to reduce its annual budget deficit from the current 10 per cent of GDP to about 3 per cent if it is to prevent the debt ratio from rising again. In that case, Greece should be able to finance its future annual government deficits from domestic sources alone.

But fiscal sustainability is no cure for Greece's chronically large trade deficit. Greece's imports now exceed its exports by more than 4 per cent of its GDP, the largest trade deficit among eurozone member countries. If that trade gap persists, Greece will have to borrow the full amount from foreign lenders every year in the future, even if the post-default budget deficits could be financed by borrowing at home.

Eliminating or reducing this trade gap without depressing economic activity and employment in Greece requires that the country export more and import less. That, in turn, requires making Greek goods and services more competitive compared with those of the country's trading partners. A country with a flexible currency can achieve that by allowing the exchange rate to depreciate. But Greece's membership in the eurozone makes that impossible.

So Greece faces the difficult task of lowering the prices of its goods and services relative to those in other countries by other means, namely a large cut in the wages and salaries of Greek private-sector employees.

But, even if that could be achieved, it would close the trade gap only for as long as Greek prices remained competitive. To maintain price competitiveness, the gap between Greek wage growth and the rise in Greek productivity – that is, output per employee hour – must not be greater than the gap in other eurozone countries.

That will not be easy. Greece's trade deficit developed over the past decade because Greek prices have been rising faster than those of its trading partners. And that has happened precisely because wages have been rising faster in Greece, relative to productivity growth, than in other eurozone countries.

To see why it will be difficult for Greece to remain competitive, assume that the rest of the eurozone experiences annual productivity gains of 2 per cent, while monetary policy limits annual price inflation to 2 per cent. In that case, wages in the rest of the eurozone can rise by 4 per cent a year. But if productivity in Greece rises at just 1 per cent, Greek wages can increase at only 3 per cent. Any higher rate would cause Greek prices to rise more rapidly than those of its eurozone trading partners.

So Greece faces a triple challenge: the fiscal challenge of cutting its government debt and future deficits; the price-level challenge of reducing its prices enough to wipe out the current trade gap; and the wage-productivity challenge of keeping future wage growth below the eurozone average or raising its productivity growth rate.

Ever since the Greek crisis began, the country has shown that it cannot solve its problems as the IMF and the European Commission had hoped. The countries that faced similar problems in other parts of the world always combined fiscal contractions with currency devaluations, which membership in a monetary union rules out.

A temporary leave of absence from the eurozone would allow Greece to achieve a price-level decline relative to other eurozone countries, and would make it easier to adjust the relative price level if Greek wages cannot be limited. The Maastricht treaty explicitly prohibits a eurozone country from leaving the euro, but says nothing about a temporary leave of absence (and, therefore, doesn't prohibit one). It is time for Greece, other eurozone members, and the European Commission to start thinking seriously about that option.

The author is professor of Economics at Harvard, was chairman of President Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers and is former president of the National Bureau for Economic Research

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BUSINESS STANDARD

INDIGENISING DEFENCE - THE 70:30 FALLACY

AJAI SHUKLA

Defence indigenisation has long been more a Ministry of Defence (MoD) slogan than reality. Defence Minister A K Antony pays regular lip service to reversing the 70:30 ratio: reducing the foreign component of Indian defence from 70 per cent to 30 per cent. In practice, indigenisation has been, with apologies to Greta Garbo, an illusion, wrapped in a fallacy, cloaked in deception.

The empirical reality of "indigenisation" is evident in the Indian Navy, the only service that pursues indigenisation systematically (the Indian Air Force and the Army talk the talk but oppose indigenisation in practice, demanding aircraft, tanks and guns now, not ten years down the line). The navy takes justifiable pride in building most of its warships in Indian shipyards, but a closer examination reveals that indigenisation is only skin-deep. Defence shipyards have developed the crucial skills needed for designing and constructing sophisticated warships, and for harmonising myriad sensors and weapons into an integrated battle management system. But there is little headway in indigenising the multiplicity of components and systems that are the vital innards of a battleship.

Consequently, India's four defence shipyards – the flagship Mazagon Dock Ltd, Mumbai (MDL); Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers, Kolkata (GRSE); Goa Shipyard Ltd (GSL); and the newly acquired Hindustan Shipyard Ltd, Visakhapatnam (HSL) – must necessarily look overseas for the engines, gas turbines, propulsion systems, gearboxes, generators, hydraulic systems, air-conditioning and countless other systems, which add up to the bulk of the cost of modern warships.

These are all lost opportunities for India's private sector companies, which could be building these systems as their route into the lucrative business of defence production. Examine the figures. From the navy's budget of Rs 21,000 crore this year (all figures rounded off), almost 60 per cent, or Rs 12,000 crore, is earmarked for capital expenditure. Of this, Rs 4,000 crore will be disbursed directly to foreign shipyards that are constructing Indian warships, while Rs 8,000 crore will be paid to Indian shipyards. On the face of it, that would appear like a healthy 66 per cent indigenisation rate, close to Mr Antony's target.

Unfortunately, only a small share of this goes to the Indian shipbuilder. MDL retains just 25 per cent of the cost of each warship it produces, with 75 per cent being paid to foreign suppliers for the systems mentioned above. GRSE pays out 65 per cent and GSL remits 55 per cent abroad, not because they are better at indigenising but because their vessels use lower-end technology that is available in India.

The shocking statistic is that India has a 100 per cent indigenisation rate in jungle boots, blankets and similar low-tech equipment. But in critical technologies, we import 85 per cent of our needs. And in warship-grade and aerospace-grade components, we have indigenised just 5 per cent of our requirement; 95 per cent still comes from abroad. An example is Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd's Dhruv helicopter, designed and integrated in India, but 90 per cent foreign in physical content.

This regrettable situation exists largely because the MoD, particularly its Department of Defence Production (DDP), has failed to coordinate and sponsor the development of indigenous capability. Warship builders still import even warship- grade steel, the toughened alloy that comprises the basic structure of a modern battleship. This is not because the technology is beyond us. Years ago, India's public sector metallurgical establishments – the Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory; Mishra Dhatu Nigam; and Steel Authority of India Ltd – developed and manufactured warship-grade steel (termed D 40S), which has been used in the navy's reputed Shivalik class frigates. But cross-ministerial coordination is needed to produce the relatively small volumes required for warship programmes while remaining profitable for both steel makers and shipyards. Essar Steel had offered to produce warship steel, subject to some conditions. But the MoD has preferred to continue reliance on import.

In 2003 the navy addressed the lack of depth in indigenisation with a "15 Year Indigenisation Plan", which was subsequently revised up to 2022. This forecasts the warship programme's requirement of equipment and systems, hoping for import substitution by bringing in the private sector. A similar initiative last year, broadened to all three services, was the DRDO's "Technology Perspective & Capability Roadmap", which details the technologies that the military requires and urges the private sector "to offer firm commitments in partnering the MoD in developing contemporary and future technologies as well as productionalising [sic] equipment required by the Armed Forces".

But these useful baseline documents are only a starting point for an indigenisation thrust. Private sector corporations that are interested in defence production would still require handholding and funding for their initially non-productive R&D. The funding is available – each year the MoD has been earmarking some Rs 2,000 crore for "Make" procedure projects, without a single rupee having ever been paid out – but nobody in the MoD has taken clear ownership of such an initiative.

It is time for the defence ministry to step up to the plate. They have already identified 61 critical technologies – especially materials and components that can be used across a broad range of sub-systems and systems – that India badly needs for developing higher technological capabilities. A nationally synergised effort is needed, which must also explore obtaining specific technologies through the offset route.

We have learnt how to swim at the deep end of the pool, developing the complex abilities needed to design and integrate warships, aircraft and tanks, without developing the broader research and industrial ecosystem that sustains a defence industrial base. It is time to deepen and broaden indigenisation, by developing the materials, components and sub-systems that will not only substitute defence imports, but also provide technological "trickle down" to energise the national industrial base.

ajaishukla.blogspot.com

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BUSINESS STANDARD

ENGINEERED BAN

IT IS UNFORTUNATE THAT POLICY MAKERS ARE DISREGARDING PEER-REVIEWED SCIENTIFIC OPINION ON GM CROPS

SURINDER SUD

Indian plant biotechnologists feel demoralised and displeased at the recent developments concerning genetically modified (GM) crops. Their dismay is chiefly because the indefinite moratorium on the release of genetically engineered Bt-brinjal has clouded the prospects for several other GM crops that are in the pipeline.

Intensive scientific effort and heavy investments have gone into the development of these crops. Their displeasure is largely because the present opposition to the GM technology is based chiefly on misconceived apprehensions and not on proven facts. A good deal of disinformation has been doled out to the unwary public on GM crops by detractors of biotech products. By thwarting the gainful application of biotechnology, these activists are curtailing the technology options available to farm scientists to ensure that agricultural growth keeps pace with increasing demand. Failure on this front will result in widespread shortages of farm goods, high prices and public distress.

It is unfortunate that a section of politicians holding policy-making positions are disregarding peer-reviewed scientific opinion on GM crops and are, instead, falling for disputable dissenting viewpoints. Moreover, the logic-based explanations offered by the scientific community on GM technology and its potential to empower agriculture to meet the future needs of food, fuel and fibre are invariably drowned by the anti-GM din raised by environment and health activists.

Realising this, some local and transnational agricultural research promotion bodies have come forward to disseminate accurate and unbiased information on GM technology. As a first step, a "stakeholders interface on GM food crops" was organised in Delhi last week by the Asia-Pacific Consortium on Agricultural Biotechnology (APCoAB) and the Trust for Advancement of Agricultural Sciences (TAAS). This meet was attended by several well-regarded agricultural scientists, biotechnologists, policy makers, biosafety experts, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), representatives of the seed sector and, most importantly, farmers who have already used transgenic Bt-cotton hybrids with spectacular results.

The consensus among the stakeholders was that clearing misconceptions on this count was necessary to safeguard farmers' interests and to prepare for the formidable challenge of ensuring sustainable food security.

The green revolution of the 1960s became possible because of unflinching public and political support and policy backing for the new technology. Had that technology faced this kind of resistance from the activists, the green revolution would never have materialised. Unless similar public, political and policy support is forthcoming again for the promotion of the contemporary state-of-the-art technology, the much-needed second green revolution may remain elusive.

It may be recalled that when approval to Bt-brinjal was withheld, an impression was created that the noted farm expert, M S Swaminathan, was opposed to GM technology. This is far from true, as is clear from the message he sent for circulation at the stakeholders' conference. He wrote: "Bt-brinjal need not be banned, but there should be caution that one or two hybrids do not replace hundreds of native varieties which all have distinct quality characters." Besides, he suggested that studies should be carried out on the chronic effects of consuming Bt brinjal throughout one's life. He also argued for putting in place a system of testing environmental and health aspects of the GM products of the kind that exists in the US. That country has three different public agencies to examine transgenic crops against any adverse impact on human health, biodiversity and the environment.

Surprisingly, instead of revamping the GM crop-testing infrastructure and procedure, the government has chosen to thwart the very evolution of GM seeds. The Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill, which seeks to set up a competent and autonomous regulator for safety assessment and approval of biotech products, has for long been awaiting Parliamentary approval, for lack of any initiative by the government to expedite it. Worse, even the existing Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has been made redundant with the environment minister usurping the power for approval of such crops, overruling GEAC decisions. This is truly bizarre.

surinder.sud@gmail.com

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BUSINESS STANDARD

INSIDE THE MIND OF GOD'S LITTLE SOLDIER

NILANJANA S ROY

Writing in the shadow of the attacks on the Twin Towers in 2001, Salman Rushdie commented: "The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex."

There's a reason why most literary attempts to enter into the mind of the fundamentalist fail. Writers live by their ability to imagine their way into the lives, minds and souls of strangers; to be a writer is to admit at least a curiosity about ways of thinking different from your own. It is hard to imagine what the closed mind of a fundamentalist might be like, and for most writers, this is truly alien territory. Most literary portraits of the true believer are either risible – John Updike's cartoon terrorist – or not entirely convincing, as with Mohsin Hamid's Reluctant Fundamentalist, where so much of the book is spent trying to persuade us that the narrator's shift into fundamentalist thinking is plausible.

This may be Tahmima Anam's great achievement; to create a fundamentalist who is entirely plausible because she makes him so empathetic. Her second novel, The Good Muslim, is set in Bangladesh — a "broken wishbone of a country", which in 13 years has seen war, cannibalised its ancient forests and murdered two presidents. "A fast-acting country: quick to anger, quick to self-destruct."The Good Muslim is a sequel to The Golden Age, Ms Anam's first novel, which followed the life of the widowed Rehana Haque, in the wake of the 1971 war. The protagonists are Rehana's children, Maya and Sohail, who both carry deep scars from 1971.

Maya, a doctor, has worked with the "birangonas", the women who were dubbed heroines and left to survive the abuse, violence and rape of the war; Sohail has his own memories of his revolutionary days and his time in the army. His transformation into the good Muslim of the title, a preacher whose growing faith in religion elbows out all else – his family, his old friends, his son – is gradual and inexorable. He had been, his sister thinks at one point, the opposite of a religious man. "He had laughed and joked about it, and he had been angry at a religion that could be so easily turned to cruelty."

Ms Anam's deft retelling of history, as she moves between the 1970s and the 1980s, is based on a threefold understanding: she draws on her own memories as a child born after the '71 War whose family was unmistakably marked by it, by her skills as a researcher and the years she spent listening to the testimony of survivors, and she draws on her writer's ability to slip inside the skin of her characters. She explains just as much of Bangladesh's history as required, producing almost a journalistic account of a country's slow slipping into religious fundamentalism through Maya and Sohail's story.

For Maya, watching her brother pick up the mantle of a respected preacher who will use his powers as a man and a religious leader in disastrous ways, the shift in Sohail leaves her helpless. "The future was suddenly clear: he was going somewhere, somewhere remote and out of reach, somewhere that had nothing to do with her, and that even if he didn't disappear altogether, she would, from now on, be left behind." The Good Muslim is one of the most engaging and disquieting novels to come out of Bangladesh in years, in either English or Bengali.

TAILPIECE
Delhi's close-knit publishing world has gone through a version of a Cabinet reshuffle. Former Penguin Canada CEO David Davidar announced his plans to start a new publishing house, Aleph, in collaboration with Rupa & Co, amid speculation that two – and possibly three – of Penguin India's key players had quit to join him. Random House's flamboyant editor, Chiki Sarkar, takes over the chief editor's mantle from the very capable Ravi Singh at Penguin India; Mr Singh quit a month after Mr Davidar's return to India.

Mr Davidar, once seen as a front runner for the top job at Penguin USA, quit as CEO, Penguin Canada after his colleague Lisa Rundle filed a sexual harassment suit against him. Mr Davidar maintained the relationship was consensual. In India, everyone's watching to see if Aleph will allow him to replicate the kind of success he had when he set up Penguin India in 1987.

It's a crowded field today. With at least seven major players in the English language trade publishing scene in Delhi, the question is whether the market is big enough to support all of them. The numbers, in terms of readership, distribution and market share, suggest that at least two publishing houses will go under in the next five years.

The bigger question for readers is whether any of them, from Aleph to HarperCollins, Hachette, Penguin, Rupa or Westland, has developed a distinct identity. With houses sharing authors, and with editors switching frequently from one house to another, it's only the independent publishing houses, not the mainstream players, who have much in the way of individuality any more. The challenge for Mr Davidar, Ms Sarkar and the rest won't be profitability — it will really lie in whether they can create distinctive brands for their respective publishing houses.

nilanjanasroy@gmail.com

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BUSINESS LINE

OPINION

CRICKET OVERDOSE

Though the BCCI made money and the sponsors were happy if a few millions watched, the game itself has suffered because of the overdose.

One of the oldest and best known laws of economics is called the law of diminishing marginal utility. It says that the more you have of something, the less likely you are to want some more of it. Obvious though it may sound, it is extraordinary how often businessmen fail to grasp its validity. The latest example of such incomprehension can be seen in the fourth edition of the Indian Premier League. It came after the World Cup, and it had too many matches, 74 in all. As a result, even cricket-crazy Indians, when they tuned on the TV, tuned off the game. Except for the final, the rest of the games were indistinguishable from one another. Also, because of the reshuffle of the players, loyalty to the team became diluted. The wickets were too slow, so the T-20 format did not yield the singular thrill it was intended for: high-scoring matches. There were only a handful of high points and the weather was too hot. All in all, even though the BCCI made money by collecting upfront and the sponsors were happy if a couple of millions watched even for 15 minutes, the game itself has suffered a blow because of the overdose. The BCCI should, if it has the long-term interest of the game at heart, review its policy, not least because many top players have also taken a severe knock in the form of injuries and over-work.

Indeed, the latter has led to half a dozen of the top players choosing to rest rather than represent India in the tour to the West Indies. This has led to a debate dubbed as 'club or country', and some extreme views have been proffered. One is that of Sunil Gavaskar, who says these players should be dropped from all future tours. The other is that of Kapil Dev, who says players are entitled to choose. Mr Gavaskar's anger is shared by many Indians who feel that cricket is unique, for several reasons. One of these is the fact that it is the only game in which international tournaments are held on a regular basis, thus keeping the nationalist element fresh and sharp. No other game sees such regular engagements between countries. For South Asians, cricket is war by other means and it is not at all like European football or American baseball. Fan loyalties are national — and only national here. This does not mean cricket of the Twenty20 kind should not be encouraged; but it does mean that for players who represent the national team, a clear set of priorities must be established so that they do not enter into contracts that put the national part at a disadvantage.

But here we run into the Barber's Paradox. It says that if there is a village in which the barber shaves only those who don't shave themselves, who shaves the barber when he performs the service on himself? It ought to be the barber. But then it can't be because by definition he is a barber only when he doesn't shave himself. The BCCI is in a similar situation. It is at once the custodian of cricket in India and also a plain corporate entity, mindful of the need to maximise revenues. The BCCI alone can take corrective action but, in doing so, will lose a lot of money. So, what can force the BCCI to take corrective action? Until this is answered, cricket fans will continue to be slighted by the BCCI and the players alike.

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BUSINESS LINE

OPINION

PULSES NEED MORE FILLIP

G. CHANDRASHEKHAR

The minimum support price alone is not enough to ensure productivity gains in pulses. Policymakers have to think of government procurement to boost growers' confidence.

India's successes in space technology, prowess in information technology and research capability in biotechnology are all known and documented. India is known to have the world's largest pool of scientists.

Yet, agriculture is one area in which the country has remained relatively backward in comparison with several industrially advanced countries or even other emerging economies.

India has all it takes to achieve remarkable advances in agriculture. How many countries are endowed with 270 days of sunshine, 900 millimetres of annual rainfall, varied agro-climatic conditions with hundreds of rivers crisscrossing the country, about 150 million hectares of cultivable land, excellent biodiversity and about 130 million farm families at work.

No doubt, there have been successes in recent years. The country is the world's second largest producer and exporter of cotton. Maize/corn production this year has crossed 20 million tonnes.

Low growth rate

Despite these achievements, the overall agricultural situation is far from satisfactory. The annual average growth rate of the sector over the last 10 years is a paltry 2.5 per cent. Demand for agricultural commodities, especially food products, has been rising in the wake of robust GDP growth and population pressure. However, output growth has lagged, resulting in shortages and increasing dependence on the world market for imports.

Oilseeds and pulses are two commercial crops whose internal demand far exceeds domestic output. With large imports, the domestic market becomes subject to global influences.

2010-11 has become a watershed year for pulses which provide the cheapest vegetable protein. Acreage has expanded to a record high of about 26 million hectares and the output is an unprecedented 17.3 million tonnes, from the previous year's 14.7 m.t.

The biggest suspense now is whether in 2011-12, the terminal year of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, pulses will retain the same acreage and crop size. Theoretically it is possible; but in practice one needs to wait and watch.

The suspense over pulses production should be broken and there has to be reasonable assurance of quantum of output.

Currently, the yield is woefully low, at 600-620 kg a hectare. This is less than half the world average and a third of the yield Canada obtains.

Admittedly, in India, pulses are grown under challenging conditions. It is largely rain-fed cultivation on marginal lands and with susceptibility to pest and disease attacks. There has been no genetic breakthrough in seed technology.

In the face of these challenges, it would be foolhardy to believe that yields can double or cross 1,000 kg/ha in the near future, without an integrated approach to finding end-to-end solutions.

Target for pulses

The first target for pulses should be to raise the yield from the present around 600 kg/ha to 700 kg/ha, an increase of a mere 100 kg/ha. An average harvest of 700 kg/ha on an area of, say, 25 ml ha would produce 17.5 m.t. In other words, an average increase of even 100 kg/ha would produce an additional 2.5 m.t. This will reduce import dependence substantially and push global prices down to levels that are friendlier to consumers than now.

Procurement for PDS

Pulses growers do not enjoy the ready marketability that rice and wheat growers do, because of the procurement policy. If the Centre can procure and supply rice, wheat and sugar through the public distribution system, why not pulses? For human health and welfare, pulses surely are more essential than sugar.

So, what should be done to raise pulses yields to 700 kg ha from the present level? The minimum support price alone is incapable of delivering productivity gains. Policymakers have to think of non-price and non-trade initiatives to boost growers' confidence; and procurement is one sure way to send out a message loud and clear.

Those in Krishi Bhawan have to address themselves to the issue of raising pulses yields. Yield increases of a mere 100 kg/ha does not need rocket science. It is eminently doable; but requires growth-oriented policies and committed implementation. It is time for policymakers to create a favourable policy environment, for farm scientists to build capacity among growers to benefit from supportive policies, and for the peasants to perform.

India has all these years exercised the easy option of resorting to imports to meet domestic shortfall.

Import dependence on pulses can surely be reduced substantially if we act with due urgency and responsibility. Otherwise, pulses will soon go the edible oil way — imports will keep ballooning and the market will remain painfully volatile.

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

THE WILL TO ACT

THE POINT IS TO TAKE DECISIONS AND ACT, NOT DITHER OVER PLEASING EVERYONE

The monsoon has started early and is expected to perform well, removing most of the uncertainty over what may be called a known unknown among the determinants of how the nation will fare. The political leadership needs to do the same to the most significant of such known unknowns: its own ability to decide rather than dither. It is imperative that the leadership break the sense of drift that wafts down from Raisina Hill and into all the nearby Bhawans that house the ministries of the central government, enervating anyone that comes in its way. It must begin with the Cabinet reshuffle the Prime Minister had promised in January. It must extend to radically changing the way the ruling Congress mobilises its funds. A thoroughgoing attack on systemic corruption in India has to start with cleaning up political funding, almost all of which is garnered through corruption of one kind or another. Legal reforms to clean up political funding, and make political party accounts transparent are overdue and must be initiated. But the most credible reform of all would be a move by the biggest party of them all to initiate the process of acquiring transparency in collection of funds and in expenditure. The government must find the courage to move on things it knows to be imperative, but has been putting off for fear of offending some interest group or the other. It must decide on export of farm produce, to ensure that farmers get a decent price and will continue to produce bumper harvests in the years ahead. It must create a separate state of Telangana and start work on a modern new capital for Andhra Pradesh, triggering massive new construction and planned urbanisation. It must decontrol diesel prices, rationalise taxes on petro fuels and allow independent retail of fuel, paving the way for a competitive market. It must initiate appointment of tens of thousands of new district-level judges, to speed up the judicial process. It must pass pending legislation.

The government must, in other words, take the initiative and act to take the nation forward. Action will silence critics, not protestations from inert postures of rectitude. And there is no time to waste.

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

SHOCK AND AWE!

GORY PICTURES ARE BUT ONE PART OF THE MULTI-PRONGED ATTACK TOBACCO CALLS FOR

The government's decision to replace the present ineffective pictorial warnings with more gory images on cigarette packs is welcome. Graphic warnings have been used to good effect in several countries, including Australia, Belgium, Chile and Hong Kong. In Australia, warnings were introduced in 1973 but were text-only till March 2006, when a new system of pictorial health warnings came into effect. Studies have shown a decline in tobacco consumption after the switchover. Despite this, thanks to the lobbying power and clout of cigarette majors, and of course the fact that tobacco products are a ready source of tax revenue, successive governments have dragged their feet, ignoring the huge toll that tobacco consumption takes, both on human lives and the exchequer. It is estimated that about 250 million people across the country use tobacco products like gutkha, cigarettes and bidis and more than 38.4 million bidi and 13.2 million cigarette smokers will die prematurely. Paradoxically, there has been an increase in tobacco consumption in developing countries, as faced with the prospect of declining consumption in more advanced countries, tobacco majors have redoubled their efforts to entice lessaware consumers in poorer countries. The latter are least able to cope with the adverse effects of tobacco use and where the public is far less informed and, therefore, much more susceptible to aggressive marketing.

India first introduced pictorial health warnings on tobacco products on May 31, 2009. However,the warnings — ineffective in both form and content — seem to have had little impact on consumers. Hence, the need to replace the present pictures with others that shock and awe. However, gory pictorial warnings can, at best, be only one part of a multi-pronged attack that includes sin taxes on all tobacco-related products, a ban on foreign direct investment in tobacco (done in 2010) and on all forms of advertising including surrogate and stealth advertising and weaning farmers away from tobacco farming to alternative crops. Only then will we be able to make a meaningful dent in tobacco consumption.

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

SWEEPING CLAIMS

DUST SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO SETTLE ON THE BROOM SHORTAGE

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi will obviously rubbish any accusations that it has run out of brooms, but the contention of residents welfare associations can't be brushed aside that easily. Beset as it is by constant complaints about its deplorable track record when it comes to provision and upkeep of civic amenities, it isn't surprising the MCD sees this broom barb as a witch-hunt, particularly when seen against the backdrop of the CWG contract scams. But refusing any suggestion of wrongdoing will not remedy matters. More so when the UPA is making an effort to show that it is serious about cleaning up the system, sweeping aside the Opposition's claims that misdeeds of some high functionaries are being brushed under the carpet . As it is well-known that new brooms sweep clean, the MCD's disinclination to provide its cleaning staff with the requisite equipment could be construed as part of a wider stonewalling measure by at least a section of the government. Two months ago, when Nigeria was also swept by rumours of a broom shortage, it was ascribed to the pre-poll machinations of a certain political party whose symbol it was. Some Nigerians, however, saw it as a dark plot to create an artificial shortage in order to import cheaper brooms from China, thereby killing a thriving local industry. Therefore, with some sweepers here alleging that the new consignment has got held up over size and pricing issues — portending a CWG-type tendering scam — the best recourse for the MCD would be to come clean on the real reason for the shortage. The civic body should speedily mop up resources from elsewhere to make the necessary payments for the new brooms, because waiting for the dust to settle on this controversy could prove counterproductive.

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

GUEST COLUMN

A SPOILER CALLED INFLATION

ACROSS ASIA, INFLATION AND RELATED EXPECTATIONS WILL PUSH DOWN GROWTH AND STOCK MARKET PERFORMANCE

Headline inflation in Asia ex Japan has been rising rapidly since the second half of 2010, reaching a 29-month high of 5.8% in March 2011. While food inflation has been driving headline inflation higher, core inflation pressures have also been elevated, tracking at a high of 3.9% in March 2011. Morgan Stanley's macro team has been arguing for some time that risks are skewed to the upside for inflation. We also have pointed out that the process of taming inflation will ultimately be damaging to growth. This is particularly the case in India and China, and to a lesser extent, Indonesia. Our India GDP forecast for this year has been cut twice in the last six months and now stands at 7.7%.

As the global recession unfolded, policymakers in the region implemented aggressive fiscal and monetary policies to offset the collapse in external demand. Indexed total Asia ex-Japan exports declined from the pre-crisis peak of 100 in July 2008 to a trough of 70 in February 2009. In response, weighted average policy rates in the region ex-India were cut from a peak of 6.6% in August 2008 to 4.4% in August 2009, while India's rates were cut from 9.0% in August 2008 to 4.8% in April 2009. Correspondingly, fiscal deficits for the region (on a weighted-average basis) expanded from the trough of -0.3% of GDP in 2007 to -2.1% in 2008 and -4.4% in 2009. These policies played a key role in stimulating domestic demand across the region, with China, India and Indonesia recovering the fastest because of their strong structural growth dynamics.

Just as domestic demand was rising sharply, external demand recovery also emerged faster than expected. The recovery to the pre-crisis peak for exports took almost the same number of months as it did during the Asian crisis and the 2001 technology crisis. As policymakers remained concerned on the outlook for growth in the developed world, however, they were slow to take away the support of loose fiscal and monetary policy.
The European Union sovereign debt concerns that broke out in the middle of 2010 resulted in a brief downtick in exports for the region and reaffirmed the slow policy exit approach adopted by policymakers in the region. With hindsight, this weakness in external demand was shortlived. Exports recovered sharply and grew by a strong 24.5% (seasonally adjusted, not annualised) from October 2010 to March 2011. In our view, this strong rebound in exports has only added to the inflation pressure in the region, given that domestic demand has been strong.

Apart from stronger domestic and external demand that resulted in inflation pressures, back-to-back crop failures across many of the large food-exporting and food-consuming countries also pushed food inflation up sharply. The Commodity Research Bureau (CRB) food index has risen by 33% since June 2010 and is now 9% above its previous peak in July 2008. In recent months, Brent oil prices have also spiked up to $115/bbl due to prolonged supply disruptions. Together with other metals and input price inflation, this has led to a surge in producer price inflation, which on average is running at 3% higher than consumer price inflation in the region currently. This is generating a significant negative margin impact on manufacturing firms in Asia.
Policymakers in the region have partially reversed their aggressive fiscal and monetary policy with an acceleration in tightening most notable recently in India. Weighted-average policy rates in the region ex India have risen from the trough of 4.4% in August 2009 to 5.4% in April 2011, while India's rates have risen to 7.25% currently from 4.75% in April 2009. However, policy rates are still below the levels seen in mid-2008, when the region was also facing strong inflation pressures. Similarly, fiscal deficits for the region (on a weighted-average basis) have also been reduced from -4.4% in 2009 to -3.4% in 2010 and are expected to narrow slightly to -3.1% this year. In comparison, in 2007 (the year before the peak in inflation) the region's fiscal balance was close to zero.

In March, our AlphaWise team surveyed 5,270 households in China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea and Taiwan to see how their behaviour was adjusting to inflation. We found that 71% describe themselves as worried about inflation, and 21% as very worried. The majority are expecting inflation rates of 6-10% over the next 12 months, with Indian respondents having the highest inflation expectations. Moreover, 59% of our respondents expected inflation rates to be higher than their wage increases, implying a loss to future purchasing power. We also found that respondents on average indicated an intention to cut back on spending, in particular on discretionary and bigticket items such as automobiles and property purchases. Hence, as policymakers deal with inflation and consumers adjust, we have been expecting to see both top line and margin compression issues appearing for Asian firms, particularly those in the consumer discretionary and domestically-oriented manufacturing segments through the remainder of this year. Our regional earnings growth forecast of 13% as well as our equity index target prices for 2011 are below consensus as a result. By mid-April and continuing into May, overly bullish consensus earnings estimates have begun to be reduced in line with our expectations. Hopefully, the situation will improve towards the end of the year, but we suspect that for 2011 as a whole Asian stock market returns will be poor compared to 2009 and 2010.

(The article was co-authored with Jonathan Garner, Chief Asian & Emerging Market Equity Strategist, Morgan Stanley)

CHETAN AHYA
ASIA-PACIFIC ECONOMIST & MD, MORGAN STANLEY, SINGAPORE

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

THROUGH THE THIRD EYE

No Shootout

The promised post-West Bengal rout introspection and the process of fixing responsibility, if any, within the CPI-M leadership could prove to be a longdrawn process. It is unlikely the party central committee meeting in June will reach a conclusion on the reasons for the electoral debacle and the remedial methods needed. It can take a few months for the party to compile reports from the lower rungs on their take on these issues. The party will begin the process of organisational elections from local to state committees that will culminate in the 'election' of the party central committee, polit bureau and general secretary at the party congress. The CPI is holding its own party congress in Patna some time early next year. Given that the CPI-M and CPI hold their respective party congresses within a couple of weeks for the convenience of the visiting fraternal delegates, one can safely assume the CPI-M party congress too might happen around the same time. So, there will be at least a sixmonth period to see whether there will be a serious internal churning over the party line. Remember, in a communist party, it is the party line that makes and unmakes leaders and their positions.

Southern Blues

Karnataka is fast becoming a case of Hobson's choice for both the BJP and Congress. If the saffron party is truly stuck with its scam-hit B S Yeddyurappa given his potential to blackmail his party by flaunting his Lingayat caste base, the Congress is equally stuck with the ways of Governor H R Bharadwaj. The joke in Congress circles is that the UPA has no option of risking a mid-term poll in Karnataka given the total disarray in the state Congress. In fact, many consider Bharadwaj the sole opposition in the state. Given the poor health of the PCCs, many have started dubbing Karnataka and Tamil Nadu as Congress' 'southern Bihar and UP'. With the problems-hit AP Congress too joining the list of troubled states, the Congress' onceimpregnable south Indian fort is now an area of deep concern.

Uneasy Trio

As the AICC is trying hard to make the fast-advancing Uttar Pradesh assembly elections 'a battle between the BSP and Congress', the utility of the party's Muslim and upper caste leaders has gone up dramatically. While party managers are hoping a meaningful section of Muslim voters will desert the declining SP to come back to the Congress fold, what is key to the party's revival bid is to revive its rainbow base by wooing back Brahmin and other upper caste voters. Here lies the tactical importance of PCC chief Rita Bahuguna, more importantly, the daughter of late H N Bahuguna. Incidentally, there is increasing talk in party circles that two more Congress Brahmin leaders — CLP leader Pramod Tiwari and Union minister Jitin Prasada — are also exploring the possibility of emerging as the pre-poll 'Brahmin face' of the state Congress. Time for Madam Bahuguna to watch out?

Getting it Right

One of the addictive dreams of the Kerala CPI-M has always been to acquire the kind of political clout that will help it rule the state all alone. With this desire to 'replicate the Bengal model', the Kerala CPI-M has been poaching the traditional seats of all its allies in the LDF except the CPI. But after the Mamata tsunami, the last thing a Kerala Marxist wants to dream of these days is the 'Bengal model'. And the narrow defeat in the Kerala assembly polls, where LDF fought after driving out many traditional allies, has also taught the Kerala CPI-M about the need to have more allies to take on the UDF. Some enlightenment!

Casting Blunder

As the Congress is coming to terms with its rebel N Rangasamy smashing its Puducherry fort, many party leaders are wondering what prompted Sonia Gandhi's managers to replace him with the lacklustre V Vaidyalingam as party CM in 2008. Imagine, in a Union territory with over 70% of the population belonging to the Vaniyar caste, the Congress chose to replace Rangasamy, the tallest leader of the community, with V Vaidyalingam, who belongs to the Reddy caste that accounts for less than 2% of the population! And Union minister V Narayanasamy, the man who worked on Delhi connections to unsettle Rangasamy and crown Vaidyalingam, belongs to the Gramini-Nadar community that accounts for less 5% of the population. No wonder Rangasamy's rebel outfit won a comfortable majority even without his AIADMK ally! Wonder what that 'all-powerful Congress manager' who even refused to meet Rangasamy for a week when he came to Delhi seeking a patch-up, now feels about this fatal folly? Maybe his chelaNarayansamy can tell…

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MUMBAI MIRROR

EDITORIAL

WHY WE MUST THANK TEAM INDIA

CRICKET IS A THRILLING SPORT COMPLETE WITH A 'HERO', 'VILLAIN' AND 'ITEM NUMBER'. NO WONDER, THEN, IT LURES

There was a time when I would look askance at colleagues and friends who would heatedly debate on whether or not Dhoni asking Tendulkar to bowl a couple of overs was a good decision. While they would plaster their arguments with the technicalities of the game, I often wondered how they planned to pass on their valuable feedback to the Indian team for further necessary action at their end. That was the time when cricket for me simply meant cheering the guys in blue as long as they were winning, and switching off the TV when they were losing. Of late, more often than not, my TV remains in the "on" mode. That itself is scientific evidence of the fact that the Indian cricket team is making it a habit to play a good game and the IPL matches are not too boring either. Also, being glued to the TV has deepened my understanding of the game to the extent that I am now seriously considering an alternate career as Mandira Bedi.

My insights into the game are clearly divided into two phases loosely called "before enlightenment" and "after profound enlightenment". Before enlightenment phase was certainly mundane. "Hey, aren't you watching India play against Timbuktu today? We are on the verge of winning the match!" A phone call like this would be the only cue for me to switch on TV, watch our guys play and lead India to a onewicket/one-run victory in a match which could have gone either way.

Then, I met Dhoni. A tremendously humble sportsperson, so earthy, and extremely affable. When I mentioned to him that I had next-to-nothing knowledge of cricket, he just smiled and said, "Ma'am after meeting me most people who are like you get converted into cricket commentators". There was this innocent conviction in his voice that day which urged me subsequently to prove him right. Thus began my "profound" phase and entry into the world of misleading vocabulary!

I learnt that you don't fall in cricket, when you stand on a "slip". Whereas in real life there is "ishq di gully vich no entry", in cricket good batsmen find an entry in the gully through a gap. Your legs are not equal in cricket- they are either "short", "long", "square" or "glance". You don't dive for cover, but you drive at the "covers". "Deep" in cricket is not "profound" but "somewhere far on the ground". Want to tread the mid-path in life? Well, you could choose between a short mid-off and a long mid-on in cricket. "Bouncers" don't protect you, but may end up knocking you off. You don't gape open-mouth-tongue-tied at someone who has managed to "Hook", you cheer for him. Getting "clean bowled" has nothing to do with your love life. In fact, it is a dishonorable form of exit for a batsman. When you bowl a "maiden", your wife does not claw your eyes out. On the other hand, she is genuinely proud of you.

Terminology notwithstanding, I have discovered that cricket is a thrilling sport. There is a sense of hero (Indian team), villain (any other team) and item number (cheer leaders and Bollywood style-imitators in the audience) about it which is so gripping to a Hindi movie addict like me. I had this vivid dream recently in which I am overhearing a conversation between the losing team of another country and the sadistic Head of that country after they were unable to get the opening batsmen of the Indian side out in a match:

Head: Kitney aadmi thhe? Team: Sarkar, do. Head: Aur tum, poorey gyaarah. Phir bhi haar gaye. Team: Lekin Sarkar unkey paas do dandey thhe, hamarey paas iklauti gaind thi. Head: Khaamosh! Ab tumhara kya hoga Gyarah! Team: Sarkar aapkey saath kitney endorsements kiye hain aur kitney dinner khaaye hain. Head: Toh jao, phir se Dhoni (ki) Khao! Team: Naheeee!

Even my dreams have become so colourful — thank you team India!

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DECCAN CHRONICAL

EDITORIAL

HOPES HIGH FOR A GOOD MONSOON

It is that time of the year when heavy dark clouds are particularly welcome as they spell the onset of the monsoon across India. This country's $1.2-trillion economy remains substantially dependent on a good monsoon, with barely 14 per cent of arable land under irrigation on an average. While the rains in June are important, those in July are even more vital as several major crops depend on these, and will otherwise fail. The good news so far this year is that the rains have arrived a couple of days ahead of schedule in Kerala, Lakshadweep, South Tamil Nadu and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, heralding the onset of the southwest monsoon. This is the so-called Arabian Sea branch of the southwest monsoon; the other one — the Bay of Bengal branch — provides rainfall to areas east of the western ghats. The southwest monsoon determines the fate of the nation's kharif crop — foodgrain, cotton, oilseeds, etc. — in the main cropping season. If, as forecast by the India Metereological Department, this year's rains are normal and the sowing can be done on time, the prospects for a good crop are bright. But it is also not that simple. A lot of groundwork needs to be done — loans have to be disbursed in time so that farmers can buy agricultural inputs, such as seeds and fertiliser, before it is too late. Complaints are already coming in from Maharashtra's Vidarbha region, from where the maximum number of farmer suicide deaths are reported, that the banks are going very slow on loan disbursements, and since the government delayed fixing the price of seeds, there is a delay in distribution of seeds as well, and these are openly being sold in the black market. It is learnt that just 10 per cent of farmers have received Kisan Credit Cards, which makes them eligible for loans automatically when they pay off their earlier loans. But even in such cases, the banks work less efficiently than they should. If these hurdles can be overcome, the agriculture scenario should be positive, and the economy in general will benefit. Agriculture accounts for just 28 per cent of India's GDP and has grown by 2-4 per cent in recent years. But 70 per cent of India still depends on agriculture, and therefore if the monsoon is not good the results can be devastating. Millions of poor people are driven into further impoverishment. From industry's perspective, a good monsoon is an instant bonanza for certain sectors, such as fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and two-wheeler and tractor manufacturers as rural India has more purchasing power in its hands. It could also help tame food inflation, though last year, even though there was a good monsoon, food prices actually soared. One reason behind that was Russia stopping grain exports after it had a bad season. India is heavily dependent on the import of pulses, so if countries like Burma have a bad crop the prices soar in the international markets. Also, the domestic onion crop was destroyed due to unseasonal rains and floods. If food inflation falls, the overall inflation rate could come down too and lead to a softening of interest rates. The Reserve Bank will at least not be under pressure to raise interest rates. Ironically, a good monsoon will have little positive impact on the stock markets (as just a few fertiliser stocks and an irrigation company are listed); unlike the huge negative impact that a bad monsoon has on market sentiment. The country will, of course, pray as usual to the rain god Indra that he shower his blessings on India and its people.

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DECCAN CHRONICAL

EDITORIAL

FOR THE LOVE OF TERROR

"There is an increasing belief that Pakistanis walk both sides of the road". US senate intelligence committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, as reported in the Wall Street Journal Rumblings of discontent in the United States are growing louder post-Osama bin Laden and Abbottabad. The US is a dissatisfied paymaster, because its huge financial investments in Pakistan by way of military and civil aid are simply not paying off, with little value to show for American tax payers' money expended. The US remains the most reviled hate figure in Pakistani public opinion, rivalling and sometimes even exceeding India. Pakistanis, both in the Army as well as civil society, are happy to bite the hand that feeds them, because misuse and misappropriation of American funds is now considered almost an article of faith and part of the anti-America jihad in that country. There is really nothing much the Americans can do except fume about their admittedly unenviable situation, because there is only so much influence the US can exert on its dubious "ally", particularly on the taboo subject of accounting for funds received. Pakistan can almost imperiously brush aside inconvenient American importunities, because it holds two trump cards — first, potential hostages in the 150,000 US troops who have "surged" into Afghanistan and are now locked into that country, dependent solely on a single route of maintenance (and, who knows, withdrawal) running entirely through Pakistan, from Karachi to Kabul via the Khyber Pass, and to Kandahar via Chaman. Pakistan's intransigencies can easily shut down this surface lifeline whenever Pakistan needs to make a point about who is really in charge, and indeed sometimes does so just to give a turn of the screw to its American "partners". The other high card is Pakistan's feverishly expanding stockpile of nuclear weapons and enriched plutonium likely to soon exceed that of France. Here, too, Pakistan blackmails its reluctant American benefactors by holding a gun to its own head with dire prognostications of a nuclear implosion if America withdraws aid. Pakistan's indispensability is further rubbed in by ostentatious visits to China just to remind the benighted Americans that the US is not the only donor around! Meanwhile, the financial aspects of the US-Pakistan joint venture in AfPak, as depicted in some foreign media, make for interesting — and ominous — reading. Amongst them is the Kerry-Lugar Bill, legislatively codified by US in 2009 as "The Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act" with the stated aim of "the development of an enhanced strategic partnership with Pakistan and its people". The act provides for economic and military aid to Pakistan by the US to the extent of $7.5 billion over five financial years (2009-2013) to be utilised for economic and social development, as well as military assistance and arms transfers for counterinsurgency and counterterrorism as part of the war on terror. In addition, former US President George W. Bush also created the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) after 9/11, under which Washington has provided $8.87 billion to Islamabad as running expenses for undertaking the war on terror against the Taliban in AfPak on behalf of the US. These funds are deposited directly into the Pakistan treasury, with very little American control over its expenditure thereafter, even though there are provisions for American oversight, including annual certification by the US secretary of state that such funds are being spent in accordance with the prescribed pre-conditions. Nothing much is heard thereafter, presumably because of an escape hatch clause that dispenses with such certification "if in the national interest". However, authorities within the American government freely comment that only 30 per cent of CSF resources for Pakistan are being expended for their intended purpose, while the remainder 70 per cent of funds are apparently unaccounted for, and might well have been expended for "anything from F16 fighter aircraft to a new house for an Army general". In Islamabad, the Pakistan government submits monthly bills for an average $80 million to the US embassy on account of ongoing but unspecified military operations for which no receipts are given. The US and Pakistan are said to be actively sparring behind closed doors in Washington and Islamabad over this unending Niagara of American funds on account of services contracted for but not rendered. The Pakistan Army submits requests for funds which are either unsubstantiated, exaggerated, or not pertaining to the war on terror, while reports in influential sections of American media indicate that more than 40 per cent of such claims against alleged logistical expenditure on military equipment, food, water and military accommodation are almost routinely rejected in Washington as being inflated. On one check, these amounted to about $3.2 million between January 2009 to June 2010. Some examples are hilarious — the US paid millions of dollars to refurbish four Pakistani helicopters for operational deployment of troops against the Taliban and other militants. The Pakistan Army diverted three of the refurbished helicopters to the Pakistani UN peacekeeping force in Sudan, for which Pakistan receives compensation from the United Nations! In another instance, in 2006, the Pakistan Army claimed almost $70 million for maintenance of air defence radar sets, presumably against the Taliban air threat! These are, of course, the lighter sides of the financial chicanery institutionalised by the Pakistan Army, but there are darker, more serious implications for India of financial assistance by the US to our rogue neighbour. The refurbished helicopters diverted to Sudan might well have been sent to Kashmir, while radar coverage against air strikes by the Taliban is undoubtedly deployed along Pakistan's eastern borders facing India. The Pakistan military, as always, is undoubtedly doing well out of America's war on terror. But as election year approaches in the US, and the country remains convalescent after its near-death economic meltdown, America will have to find answers to the dilemma of funding its demanding and unscrupulous ally. * Gen. Shankar Roychowdhury is a former Chief of Army Staff and a former Member of Parliament

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DECCAN CHRONICAL

EDITORIAL

LET'S NOT GIVE IN TO LEARNED HELPLESSNESS

Unemployment is a terrible scourge across much of the Western world. Almost 14 million Americans are jobless, and millions more are stuck with part-time work or jobs that fail to use their skills. Some European countries have it even worse: 21 per cent of Spanish workers are unemployed. Nor is the situation showing rapid improvement. This is a continuing tragedy, and in a rational world bringing an end to this tragedy would be our top economic priority. Yet a strange thing has happened to policy discussion: on both sides of the Atlantic, a consensus has emerged among movers and shakers that nothing can or should be done about jobs. Instead of a determination to do something about the ongoing suffering and economic waste, one sees a proliferation of excuses for inaction, garbed in the language of wisdom and responsibility. So someone needs to say the obvious: inventing reasons not to put the unemployed back to work is neither wise nor responsible. It is, instead, a grotesque abdication of responsibility. What kinds of excuses am I talking about? Well, consider last week's release of the latest report on the economic outlook by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD. The OECD is basically an intergovernmental think tank; while it has no direct ability to set policy, what it says reflects the conventional wisdom of Europe's policy elite. So what did the OECD have to say about high unemployment in its member countries? "The room for macroeconomic policies to address these complex challenges is largely exhausted", declared the organisation's secretary general, who called on countries instead to "go structural" — that is, to focus on long-run reforms that would have little impact on the current employment situation. And how do we know that there's no room for policies to put the unemployed back to work? The secretary general did not say — and the report itself never even suggests possible solutions to the employment crisis. All it does is highlight the risks, as it sees them, of any departure from orthodox policy. But then, who is talking seriously about job creation these days? Not the Republican Party, unless you count its ritual calls for tax cuts and deregulation. Not the Obama administration, which more or less dropped the subject a year-and-a-half ago. The fact that nobody in power is talking about jobs does not mean, however, that nothing could be done. Bear in mind that the unemployed aren't jobless because they don't want to work, or because they lack the necessary skills. There's nothing wrong with our workers — remember, just four years ago the unemployment rate was below five per cent. The core of our economic problem is, instead, the debt — mainly mortgage debt — that households ran up during the bubble years of the last decade. Now that the bubble has burst, that debt is acting as a persistent drag on the economy, preventing any real recovery in employment. And once you realise that the overhang of private debt is the problem, you realise that there are a number of things that could be done about it. For example, we could have Work Projects Administration-type programmes putting the unemployed to work doing useful things like repairing roads — which would also, by raising incomes, make it easier for households to pay down debt. We could have a serious programme of mortgage modification, reducing the debts of troubled homeowners. We could try to get inflation back up to the four per cent rate that prevailed during Ronald Reagan's second term, which would help to reduce the real burden of debt. So there are policies we could be pursuing to bring unemployment down. These policies would be unorthodox — but so are the economic problems we face. And those who warn about the risks of action must explain why these risks should worry us more than the certainty of continued mass suffering if we do nothing. In pointing out that we could be doing much more about unemployment, I recognise, of course, the political obstacles to actually pursuing any of the policies that might work. In the United States, in particular, any effort to tackle unemployment will run into a stone wall of Republican opposition. Yet that's not a reason to stop talking about the issue. In fact, looking back at my own writings over the past year or so, it's clear that I too have sinned: political realism is all very well, but I have said far too little about what we really should be doing to deal with our most important problem. As I see it, policymakers are sinking into a condition of learned helplessness on the jobs issue: the more they fail to do anything about the problem, the more they convince themselves that there's nothing they could do. And those of us who know better should be doing all we can to break that vicious circle.

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DECCAN CHRONICAL

EDITORIAL

NO COUNTDOWN TO CASTE YET

Deep turned round to stare at me when Mr Rahul Gandhi popped the question, "What's your caste?" It's not that my son didn't know. But he was thrown because he didn't think of himself in terms of caste… which is precisely what Mr Gandhi intended to highlight as emblematic of the emerging secular, non-sectarian India of his and Deep's generation. Their interaction makes me wonder if a caste census won't set back the trend towards modernisation. The past is another country. I remember paying a courtesy call many years before Deep was born at the Hindu newspaper's office in what was then Madras, as instructed by my own editor, an Englishman who started his Indian career on the long-defunct Madras Mail. A barefoot Hindu editor with sandalwood marks on his forehead and wrapped in what Bengalis call a lungyi but is a dhoti in the south asked me how many Brahmins were members of West Bengal's Legislative Assembly. Just back from England, I replied stoutly that caste didn't matter in Bengal. "Not in the circles you move in!" he replied shortly, and pleaded an important meeting to end the conversation. Today's Hindu is a different world. But the man was right. I have had several brushes since then with caste lobbies. One tried to sue me but the magistrate threw out the petition. Another dragged me to the Press Council in the shabbiness to which the Faridkot House dining room has been reduced. The council ruled in my favour but subjected me to a homily on not hurting people's sentiments. As B.P. Mandal said, "If Karl Marx were born in Calcutta, he would have realised that caste plays an equally important factor in denying people their rights". Mr Bal Thackeray put it brilliantly: Indians don't cast their vote, they vote their caste. Even Mahatma Gandhi baulked at a frontal attack on caste. He attacked untouchability instead, hoping that its removal would destroy the underpinnings of the caste system. What Gandhi doesn't seem to have considered is the relevance of caste to identity and self-image. Perhaps we will get a glimpse of that in the proposed census to chart out the entire population's economic, caste and religious affiliations. E.M.S. Namboodiripad tried something similar in 1968 but his purpose in assessing inequality was to mobilise lower caste voters. Undoubtedly, the all-India exercise will also be exploited for political gain by not only the three Yadavs — Mr Lalu Prasad, Mr Sharad and Mr Mulayam Singh — but also the BJP, Akali Dal, Shiv Sena and AIADMK. They have all been clamouring for a caste census. Some good may yet come of it if the findings help the Centre to reject affirmative action as a blanket reward for everyone born in particular groups and evolve a rational policy to enable the genuinely disadvantaged to overcome social and educational drawbacks. But enumerators will have to tread warily through the minefield of "creamy layers" and "Brahminised" dalits. The Harchand Singh Committee noted that when Punjab's evacuee estates were being distributed among the underprivileged, "influential scheduled caste bureaucrats and public men" grabbed properties for a song to sell "at exorbitant prices to non-scheduled caste persons". Certain Karnataka Brahmins pestered Mandal to be designated backward. He must have realised elsewhere — even if he didn't record it — that conversion to Islam or Christianity needn't mean escaping caste. Indeed, some Goan Catholics boast of their Brahmin origin. There are many other complexities for, in some respects, India is a state of many nations rather than a nation of many states. It's as confused as Indonesia whose Dutch rulers overlooked the high percentage of Chinese because they described themselves by dialect, as Hakka, Teochew or whatever. Caste names and practices aren't uniform. Sub-castes and sects vary from region to region. In fact, nomenclature was another reason for Deep's discomfiture at Mr Gandhi's question. I had to turn to H.H. Risley's Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Volume I, to find confirmation of the mixed origin of our little-known Baidya (Vaidya in Sanskrit) caste. It's "found only in Bengal Proper" and apparently ranks socially "next to Brahmins and above Kayasthas". Since respondents were suspected of self-promotion when caste information was last gathered in 1931, I hasten to add that is Risley's view, not mine. Today, if you mention Vaidya to someone from the cow belt, he will probably hear "Vaishya"! Downgrading carries handsome educational, employment and other benefits, as borne out by the ever-lengthening list of eligible castes. Given this "vested interest in backwardness", equating caste with socio-economic class is by no means as simple as the late Kanshi Ram's pencil analogy. He held up a pencil when I went to see him in his Karol Bagh office, saying it represented the vertical caste hierarchy. His aim, he explained in his mild soft-spoken way, was to make it horizontal. That's what we were discussing in the context of Uttar Pradesh under the woman who claims to wear Kanshi Ram's mantle (albeit, a fashionable designer version) when Mr Gandhi stumped Deep. We thought he was making the healthy point that since caste is no longer the major determinant in emerging India, it is regressive to keep harping on the so-called bahujan as if it's a minority in dire need of care and protection. No wonder the Centre hesitated to sanction a caste census. What many will see as affirmation and legitimisation of sectarian identities hammers yet another nail in the coffin of Macaulay's famous or infamous dream of creating "a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect". It sounds arrogantly Anglo-Saxon but meant no more than the rational, scientifically-oriented, English-speaking, superstition-free society Jawaharlal Nehru envisioned. As does his great-grandson. A caste census might mean goodbye to that. POSTSCRIPT: An apocryphal story has it that P.C. Sen, West Bengal's former Congress chief minister, told inquirers who were surprised at his turning up when Promode Dasgupta, the Marxist general secretary died, that he always attended events connected with fellow Baidyas. Caste before ideology! * Sunanda K. Datta-Ray is a senior journalist who contributes to several top international publications

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DECCAN CHRONICAL

EDITORIAL

THE AURA OF ENERGY

Every thing is energy. Living is receiving and directing energy. Energy is a very fine channelling of a delicate thought process through disciplined human application on a regular basis. It could be drawing, painting, karate, dance, yoga, almost anything. Energy can become anything — from aura to product, from power to wealth. Once realised and manifested it can be transferred into any form. Energy manages human beings and resources. Human existence is the alignment of opposite energies, the Yin and the Yang. It is an effort with an effect, effect with a purpose. Energy takes you into a virtual world, you become someone you are not, you bring people to life. Energies are of various kinds but all are interconnected. The physical and the physiological; the metaphysical and the spiritual. On the spiritual plane, energy that is born out of submission charges you beyond human conception and comprehension. It is the only form of energy that is accessible to all, the energy that comes free of cost. It comes from a deep inner peace. You see peace in everything. On the physiological plane, each day dawns with the hangover of day before, which in most cases is heavy. Driving home late, pressure of work, finances and commitments, deadlines and relationships, pollution and air conditioning, particularly, the negative ion depletion. Each day starts as an idea, and this idea is energy, with large wings and propellers. Without wings nothing lives, nothing flies. Being positive is the key to unlimited joy. To receive energy at this moment you need to meditate. The purpose of meditation is to peel away layers of illusions, passion and conceptual thought so that the spirit can fill our consciousness with the lustrous light of cosmic insight. Deep meditation in the wee hours helps discover this joy each day and sustains you till the next. The biggest gift of nature to the human being is the connect between the mind, body and soul. By waking early you connect with everything and everything connects with you. — Muzaffar Ali is a filmmaker and painter. He is the executive director and secretary of the Rumi Foundation and can be contacted at www.rumifoundation.in

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THE STATESMAN

EDITORIAL

HELP AT HAND?

TINKERING IN PLACE OF ASSERTION

IN Mamata Banerjee's reckoning, West Bengal's fiscal crisis demands intervention greater than Cyclone Aila in 2009. The difference is much too obvious ~ while the second was a murderous natural phenomenon, the first is essentially man-made, the creation of the previous Left dispensation. The Treasury has been all but closed for the past six months, which itself ought to have wiped off the collective smile that marked the photo-opportunity at the close of Sunday's meeting. While a sense of urgency is evident from discussions having taken place on a holiday, there is little to suggest that the Union finance minister got down to brasstacks, or to the specifics of what can be done to effect resource generation. Mr Pranab Mukherjee has made little more than a statement of intent; it doesn't quite address the core of the crisis that very nearly held up April salaries till he helped out his friend, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. And post the electoral alliance with Trinamul, the finance minister had withheld the bailout to the Left government for as long as he could. As such, Sunday's meeting merely tinkered with the crisis. And even as a quick-fix formula, it scarcely inspires hope. Mr Mukherjee has spoken of assistance ~ short, medium and long term.

The short point must be that the state can't be run on borrowing and lending. Numerical jugglery by the previous regime has resulted in a situation that is beyond hope, beyond despair. It calls for the intervention of economists and planners, cutting across political inclinations. And post swearing-in, Miss Banerjee isn't particularly averse to cooperation with the other side. This isn't the moment for a political statement in the manner of Mr Mukherjee ~ a promise of "all assistance to meet the people's mandate".

Indeed, the degree to which the government will be able to deliver ~ chiefly in the segments of health and education ~ will hinge on the financial resurgence. As a first major initiative towards revenue generation, the Centre must provide Bengal with its share of coal royalty. The next round of talks in Delhi will hopefully be substantive and not superficial. Miss Banerjee once again will have to rush in where Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Asim Dasgupta had feared to tread or had failed to make headway. Bengal will have to be rescued from its parlous state. The new Chief Minister owes it to the electorate.

ARMY EFFICIENCY?

OR GETTING TIED IN LEGAL KNOTS

A HEALTHY scorn for red tape and legal nit-picking, decisiveness and a determination to get the job done were key elements of the "military efficiency" that used to be held up as a yardstick. Hence it must be a sign of changing times that the opinion of the Attorney-General was sought on the (still unresolved) controversy pertaining to the age of the army chief, and now a proposed change in promotion policy has been referred to the Solicitor-General for evaluation of potential legal fallout. True in times gone by senior officers were less prone to rushing to court ~ more recently the Armed Force Tribunal ~ to seek redress of grievances; true also that the army of yesteryear had greater faith in the propriety and sense of fair play of the most senior officers. Thus most of such issues were resolved in-house, even if not to everyone's complete satisfaction: "putting in my papers" was the ultimate protest. This is not for a moment to join issue with the reported opinion of the Solicitor-General that there could be no ad hoc changes to the promotion policy for two and three star generals. The key words are "ad hoc": in fact it does the reputation of army headquarters no credit that it did not come up with a comprehensive alternative to the two-stream policy ~ command and staff ~ that was introduced during the tenure of the previous chief. If that system is as discriminatory as is now being projected (not without reason given the "class consciousness" of the uniformed community), why were no serious objections raised at the time of its introduction? Is the Army a dictatorship or a banana republic, or has chamchagiri taken root in that section of South Block?

The Army is increasingly being enfeebled, not by the tardy pace of modernisation and re-equipment as it would have the ordinary Indian believe, but by personnel-related issues. Widespread is the feeling that promotion boards are not above board, that annual confidential reports are influenced by the level of "polish" applied to the senior officer (or his wife): mercifully political affiliation has not become a factor thus far, at least not overtly. Corruption was not the sole shortcoming on the "internal health" front the present chief had highlighted when he assumed that high office. Regretfully there have been few signs of the malaise being contained. Weaponry can be bought: honour, dignity and uprightness stem from within.

THE BREATHER ASIDE

NEPAL SITUATION STILL BLURRED

ON the face of things, Nepal's politicians have averted a serious constitutional crisis by compromising on an extension of the constituent assembly's term by three months. The ruling Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), the Maoists and the opposition Nepali Congress signed a five-point deal in the wee hours of Sunday, well past the 28 May midnight deadline, but this technicality has apparently been ignored. Last year, when it became clear that the constituent assembly was lagging behind in its task of drafting a Constitution, it was given a year's breather. Now the three parties have agreed to complete the peace process ~ as envisaged in the landmark November 2006 Comprehensive Peace Treaty that ended 11 years of Maoist rebellion ~ within three months and cooperate in the completion of a draft Constitution, also within the same period. The Nepal army is to be made an inclusive institution, all Madhesi grievances will be addressed, and Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal is to resign. Peace prospects depend entirely on how the Maoists complete the integration and rehabilitation of more than 19,000 of their former combatants whose weapons are locked up in seven cantonments. This apart, they have to return seized property to the rightful owners and dismantle the Youth Communist League.

EDITORIAL SAMARTH

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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

EDITORIAL 31.05.11

Low growth rate

Target for pulses

Procurement for PDS