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Editorial
month september 16, edition 000299 , collected & managed by durgesh kumar mishra, published by – manish manjul
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THE PIONEER
1. MAOISTS GOOD, COPS BAD!
2. POST-ELECTION BLUES
3. HIDDEN DRAGON,CROUCHING TIGER-ASHOK K MEHTA
4. DUBIOUS STANCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE-SANJOG MAHESHWARI
5. COMMUNIST BELLIGERENCE-GAUTAM MUKHERJEE
6. CPM’S LAST FORT FALLS-SHIKHA MUKERJEE
7. HAD THERE BEEN NO PAKISTAN-PRAFULL GORADIA
8. EVOLUTION OF PAKISTAN’S NORTHERN AREAS POLICY-B RAMAN
TIMES OF INDIA
1. JOSTLING FOR POWER
2. GREEN GAADI
WHY DYNASTIES FLOURISH-
4. 'THE CRUX IS POLITICISATION OF THE POLICE'
5. ALL IN THE GAMES -JUG SURAIYA
6. LORD OF THE RING
HINDUSTAN TIMES
1. EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY
2. WHEN I’M NINETY-TWO
3. LOCAL WARMING-KUMKUM DASGUPTA
4. WOMEN ARE FROM MARS-PAMELA PHILIPOSE
5. OUR COMMON WEALTH-RAHUL VERGHESE
INDIAN EXPRESS
1. HOLY COWS
2. GOAL POSTS OF STEEL
3. ANTI ANTI-HYPOCRISY-PRATAP BHANU MEHTA
4. NUMBERS DIVISIBLE BY TWO-SP SHARMA
5. A FEW LESSONS-ARUN SHOURIE
6. DOUBLE WHAMMY-C. RAJA MOHAN
7. VIEW FROM THE LEFT-MANOJ C G
8. BECAUSE THE BLUFF MIGHT JUST BE CALLED-K. SUBRAHMANYAM
FINANCIAL EXPRESS
1. A SUPER REGULATOR?
2. HUNTING URANIUM
3. BIG FINANCE MUST READ ADAM SMITH-MICHAEL WALTON
4. OLD DEBATE, REVISITED IN WEST BENGAL-RAJESH CHAKRABARTI
5. LIQUID FACTS-SAIKAT NEOGI
THE HINDU
1. SOME CHEER FOR BJP IN BAD TIMES
2. WEATHERING THE CRISIS
3. A TIPPING POINT IN THE AFGHAN WAR -M.K. BHADRAKUMAR
4. THE FIZZLE DOESN’T REALLY MATTER -R. RAJARAMAN
5. GREEN TOOLS IN REMAKING HAWAII’S POWER GRIDS -FELICITY BARRINGER
6. SARKOZY IN BID TO LOOK BEYOND GDP -LIZZY DAVIES
7. EMERGING ECONOMIES STRIVE FOR DEVELOPMENT AMID CHALLENGES -FU YUNWEI
THE ASIAN AGE
1. CHINA: AS UNEASE GROWS, ACT FIRMLY
2. MODI: LAST MAN STANDING-ASHOK MALIK
3. MUSHARRAF ADMISSION: WHAT’S SO SURPRISING?-ARUN KUMAR SINGH
THE TRIBUNE
1. DROP JUSTICE DINAKARAN
2. DGPS, STAND UP!
3. MODI CAN BRAG
4. IN SEARCH OF JUSTICE-BY B. G. VERGHESE
5. OF GRANDPARENTS -BY SHRINIWAS JOSHI
6. MAN WHO FOUGHT HUNGER-BY DR MANJIT S. KANG, VICE CHANCELLOR, PAU
7. FERNANDES WAS REAL ECONOMY TRAVELLER -BY RAMAMOHAN RAO
THE ASSAM TRIBUNE
1. POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT
2. JUVENILE VIOLENCE
3. INDO-BANGLA TIES: CAUTIOUS APPROACH NEEDED-SHIBDAS BHATTACHARJEE
4. CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS AND BARTER SYSTEM-MOON MOON SARMAH
THE ECONOMIC TIMES
1. GANDHIAN PARADOX: AUSTERITY CAN BE COSTLY
2. AN OFFSET POLICY FOR POWER EQUIPMENT IMPORTS
3. SEBI FOR MORE TRANSPARENCY IN REPORTING
4. RIGHT TIME TO UNVEIL FERTILISER REFORMS-BY VINATI DEV
5. NORMAN BORLAUG: A MIDWESTERN KARMAYOGI-VITHAL C NADKARNI
6. AVOID COORDINATED EXIT BY G-20-SWAMINATHAN S ANKLESARIA AIYAR
7. THE GREAT AUSTERITY RACE!-RAGHU KRISHNAN
DECCAN CHRONICAL
1. CHINA: AS UNEASE GROWS, ACT FIRMLY
2. MUSHARRAF ADMISSION: WHAT’S SO SURPRISING? -BY BY ARUN KUMAR SINGH
3. HOW HUMBLE US BECAME A HIGH-FIVE NATION-BY BY DAVID BROOKS
4. MODI: LAST MAN STANDING -BY BY ASHOK MALIK
5. CHINA AND XINJIANG -BY BY SHANKARI SUNDARARAMAN
THE STATESMAN
1. BOOSTER SHOT... ~ ... FOR MR MODI AND THE BJP
2. CELLS ‘PROVE’ DARWIN’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION -PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
3. DEVELOPMENT DEBATE ~ ONLY A REVISED REHABILITATION POLICY CAN CURB DISPLACEMENT -BHARAT DOGRA
4. SUPER-SPECIAL SLAM ~ TENNIS AT ITS BEST, AND WORST
5. TIME TO MOVE ON? ~ MINISTER AND A FILM-MAKER IN BHOPAL
THE TELEGRAPH
1. CONGRESS BLUES
2. KILLER BOYS
3. PLAYING IT CRISP -DIPLOMACY - K.P. NAYAR
4. A MAN OF LETTERS -STEPHEN HUGH-JONES
DECCAN HERALD
1. HOUSE WITHOUT A HOUSEWIFE-BY N R PRASAD
2. PRESERVING THE NATURAL CAPITAL-BY SUDHANSU R DAS
THE NEW YORK TIMES
1. A LONG WAY DOWN
2. SOME BAD CLIMATE NEWS AND SOME GOOD
3. TRUTH ABOUT LENDING
4. THE GOOD OL’ BOYS -BY ELEANOR RANDOLPH
5. RAPPING JOE’S KNUCKLES -BY MAUREEN DOWD
6. HAVE A NICE DAY -BY THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
7. AFGHANISTAN’S OTHER FRONT -BY JOSEPH KEARNS GOODWIN
I.THE NEWS
1. THINGS TO COME
2. TWISTED HONOUR
3. DISPLACEMENTS
4. GOVERNANCE — THROUGH THE SUGAR-CRISIS LENS-SANIA NISHTAR
5. RAMAZAN AND SOCIAL EVILS-DR A Q KHAN
6. SUGAR AND SOCIETY-PART IV
7. DR ADEEL MALIK
8. WELFARE FUNDS: CIVIL-MILITARY COMPARISON-MASOOD SHARIF KHAN KHATTAK
9. POINTING FIGURES-ANJUM NIAZ
10. A FORGOTTEN PLEDGE!-MIR JAMILUR RAHMAN
PAKISTAN OBSEVER
1. HAS PAKISTAN FAILED TO DELIVER?
2. PAEC HAS POTENTIAL TO BRING GREEN REVOLUTION
3. DISPLAY OF POWER BY MPAS
4. NO SUBSTITUTE FOR PROFESSIONALISM -DR SAMIULLAH KORESHI
5. RUBBING SALT TO THE WOUNDS -SAEED QURESHI
6. EXTREMISM IN INDIA-ALI SUKHANVER
7. AFGHANISTAN, POST-ELECTION SCENARIO-CH NAEEM SIDHU
8. A TALE OF TWO CHILDREN..!-ROBERT CLEMENTS
THE INDEPENDENT
1. LOCAL GOVERNMENT
2. SUGAR IS SOUR
3. WIPING BAD MEMORIES...!
THE AUSTRALIAN
1. A GOOD CALL ON TELSTRA'S FUTURE
2. MORE HEAT THAN LIGHT
3. POWERING THE FUTURE
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
1. SUPER SHOULD BE GENDER-FREE
2. SRI LANKA VERSUS UNITED NATIONS
3. TURNBULL POWERLESS TO END DISHARMONY ON POLICY
4. NAMING A PARTY NATIONAL DOESN'T FOOL ANYONE
THE GURDIAN
1. BANKS: UNREFORMED CHARACTERS
2. IN PRAISE OF… TELEVISION CHEFS
3. WELFARE REFORM: COSTS AND BENEFITS
THE JAPAN TIMES
1. THE FUTURE OF ROCKET BUSINESS
2. HITTER FOR ALL SEASONS
3. MOUNTING AFGHAN FOLLIES GIVE U.S. A WAY OUT-BY GWYNNE DYER
4. BACK TO EARTH WITH THE DPJ-BY BRAD GLOSSERMAN
THE JAKARTA POST
1. A STONE TO THROW
THE KOREA HERALD
1. MEASURE OF INTEGRITY
2. PRESIDENT'S POPULARITY
3. BUBBLES AND REINVENTING ECONOMICS -ROBERT J. SHILLER
4. WHAT WE LEARN FROM THE GATES CASE -KIM SEONG-KON
CHINA DAILY
1. CHANCE FOR CHANGE
2. BRING IT ONLINE
3. AN ECONOMIST RISES TO THE GREEN CHALLENGE
4. BROTHERS-IN-ARMS, BYTE BY BYTE OR BITE BY BITE
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THE PIONEER
EDIT DESK
MAOISTS GOOD, COPS BAD!
THE PIONEER EDIT DESK
The Governor of Jharkhand, it would appear, nurtures some strange notions about Left-wing extremism which have no resemblance whatsoever with the truth about Maoist strategy and savagery. Addressing an NREGA workshop last Saturday, Mr K Sankaranarayanan, the current occupant of the Raj Bhavan in Ranchi, made an astounding claim — according to him, Maoists do not attack or kill ‘honest’ officials. In other words, Mr Sankaranarayanan believes it is only ‘dishonest’ officials who have to face Maoist ire and suffer their murderous violence. Such an assertion is not only ill-founded but also downright derogatory because it heaps insult on the memory of hundreds of brave security personnel and officials who have died fighting Maoists, in land mine explosions triggered by the extremists, or in late night surprise attacks. They were men of impeccable integrity who placed the national interest above their own safety. Similarly, the security forces involved in combating the Maoist menace at this very moment in far-flung places — including in Jharkhand where 18 of the State’s 24 districts are engulfed by Maoist violence — comprise brave and upright men and officers; had it not been so, they would not have risked their lives for the nation. Instead of expressing gratitude to them and paying homage to their sacrifice, Mr Sankaranarayanan has been criminally insensitive and stunningly callous. It would be tempting to suggest that a 77-year-old out-of-job politician from Kerala for whom a gubernatorial assignment is no more than pension for services rendered to the Congress cannot be expected to know better or be more cautious with his words, and hence his utterances need not be taken seriously. But that would be a far too charitable explanation for Mr Sankaranarayanan’s comments, which may not have been entirely without a political purpose.
Indeed, it would be in order to raise some questions about his statement maligning the victims of Maoist terror. Was he trying to send out a signal to the Maoists on behalf of the Congress? Are we witnessing a re-run of the Congress’s despicable policy of using extremists to secure political power? After all, in Assam the Congress has shamelessly used the United Liberation Front of Asom to win election after election. In 2004 the Congress struck a deal with the Maoists to win the Assembly election in Andhra Pradesh. The Mob and the Mafia routinely help the party win elections in other places; in Jharkhand, the Maoists are both the Mob and the Mafia. Mr Sankaranarayanan has possibly provided us with a glimpse of the strategy of his political masters to try and manipulate the coming Assembly election in Jharkhand in their favour through means that fly in the face of the Union Government’s stated policy on Maoism. On Tuesday, addressing the annual All-India Conference of DGPs and IGPs, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, “I have consistently held that Left-wing extremism poses perhaps the gravest internal security threat that we face. We have not achieved as much success as we would have liked in containing it.” One of the main reasons for that failure is not far to seek: When we have Governors like Mr Sankaranarayanan justifying Maoist excesses in one of the worst-affected States, Left-wing extremism can only flourish.
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THE PIONEER
EDIT DESK
POST-ELECTION BLUES
KARZAI, ABDULLAH MUST ACT RESPONSIBLY
The credibility of last month’s presidential election in Afghanistan has come under increasing scrutiny given allegations of rigging and electoral fraud. What is worrisome is that most of the complaints received by the country’s Electoral Complaints Commission have been filed by Mr Abdullah Abdullah, the main challenger to incumbent Hamid Karzai. Mr Abdullah’s claim of widespread rigging, particularly in southern Afghanistan, has given rise to fears of a possible split of the country if it is not extricated from the present political impasse soon. Although these fears are exaggerated, they are not completely without reason. Being an ethnic Pashtun, Mr Karzai would logically have more support in Pashtun-dominated southern Afghanistan. Whereas Mr Abdullah, being half Tajik and half Pashtun, gets most of his support from northern Afghanistan. Irrespective of whether the allegations of electoral fraud against Mr Karzai stand — investigations are still underway — if Mr Abdullah keeps harping on them, it will surely hurt the credibility of the election and the legitimacy of the next Afghan Government. This is the last thing that Afghanistan needs. The extremely fragile political scenario coupled with the daunting security challenges presents an unenviable picture of Afghanistan to anyone trying to bring stability to this strife-torn nation. The Afghans can do without further aggravation.
Holding free and fair polls in a country like Afghanistan is no mean task. Yet, that there was an election in which a significant number of Afghan citizens came out and voted is a huge success by itself. Every vote that was cast was done so in defiance of the Taliban and in hope of a better future for Afghanistan. It is this fact that the political forces in Afghanistan must keep in mind. Infighting and bickering will only play into the hands of those who do not want to see Afghanistan prosper for their own strategic interests. It is no secret that a stable Government in Kabul is not in the best interest of Islamabad. As long as Afghanistan remains hobbled, Pakistan will continue to be a part of the American equation in the region. And this is the Pakistani establishment’s route to more American guns and dollars. Considering all this, Mr Abdullah and other candidates who have alleged electoral fraud should pursue their complaints through legal channels and stay way from unnecessary political rhetoric. On the other hand, if a clear winner does not emerge, a unity Government that represents the aspirations of the majority of the Afghan people and accommodates most of the key political players will be the best solution. For, given the security issues involved, a run-off poll between the two top candidates is undesirable. Afghanistan cannot afford to barter away stability for political one-upmanship.
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THE PIONEER
COLUMN
HIDDEN DRAGON,CROUCHING TIGER
ASHOK K MEHTA
The most recent Chinese intrusion last week in Chamoli by the People’s Liberation Army has been denied by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police manning the border. On the India-China border, there is neither an international boundary nor even a mutually recognised demarcation of the border. Instead there are two Lines of Actual Control — one Chinese, the other Indian. Confusion is understandable though clearly the PLA has adopted a more aggressive posture on the border.
India-China relations are characterised in three ways. Fine, moving in the right direction; hot economics, cold politics — stuck on border disputes though China is India’s largest trading partner; rapidly deteriorating, verging on a pre-1962 scenario. Overall the view of India’s stance is one of appeasement, diffident diplomacy and criminal neglect of the border infrastructure and modernisation of the military. The PLA, not the civilian establishment, is calling the shots, delaying resolution of the border dispute till India will accept a solution on China’s terms.
The latest border intrusions across China’s version of the LAC in the western sector is in a brand new area. Despite the Army usually playing down such forays, the Chinese have described Indian allegations as ‘groundless and based on incidents which never happened’. Fruitless border negotiations have been on since 1981.
From 1981 to 1987, there were eight rounds of negotiations followed by 14 meetings of a Joint Working Group, supported by boundary experts, from 1988 to 2002. Thirteen rounds of a higher political dialogue of Special Representatives from 2003 to date have been equally barren.
The two sides attempted demarcation of LAC and exchanged maps on the central sector. But the Chinese abandoned the exercise in favour of a political solution. Here too, they reneged on ‘political parameters and guidelines’ that required not disturbing settled population centres and ensuring the dialogue on the border issues stayed in limbo. Masking its failure, the Special Representatives expanded the scope of their biannual meeting to incorporate strategic issues. In short, the border talks have hit another cul de sac.
Since Premier Chou En-lai offered a status quo — the famous swap deal of Arunachal Pradesh for Aksai Chin in 1960, the Chinese position has been hardening. The stance stiffened in 2005 due to India’s growing economy and stature, ‘Look East’ policy and Indo-American strategic partnership, among other reasons. The Tibetan uprising in 2008 and riots in Xinjiang in 2009 have fanned Chinese insecurity. The PLA, which enjoys considerable autonomy, is not prepared for any compromise on the border issue.
Chinese strategy has been one of buying time and peace on the borders through Treaties of Peace and Tranquillity (1993) and Confidence Building Measures (1996) which enabled modernisation of the economy and the PLA. As the satisfied power, China has sought and achieved status quo in the west by adding depth to Aksai Chin; India, which wants status quo in the east, is having to reassert its claim to Arunachal Pradesh which the Chinese have systematically undermined beginning 2006 and coinciding with the India visit of President Hu Jintao.
While the Chinese have developed infrastructure and military capacity to break the status quo in the east, India has allowed the asymmetries in deterrence to grow and lost the cutting edge to retake Aksai Chin. With the military and strategic balance in favour of PLA, China will further delay any border settlement till it can secure concessions in Arunachal Pradesh, at the very least Tawang, which will give it the equivalent of another Chumbi Valley.
Some Indian commentators are painting scare scenarios of PLA seizing Tawang next month or latest by 2012, all of Arunachal Pradesh. This is bizarre. The PLA will follow Chairman Mao’s dictum of winning the war without fighting it. True, the PLA has the capacity to mobilise 20 to 25 divisions in one campaigning season but despite India having serious catching up to do, it will be no cakewalk as in 1962. Last month, the PLA began its largest military manoeuvre: Exercise Stride, involving four divisions of 50,000 soldiers. This two-month long operation entails testing PLA capability of inter-theatre switching of forces.
Coping with the impressive modernisation of PLA will require significant transfer of resources from west to east and consolidation of existing capacities in Eastern Command. The capabilities being created now to meet the PLA challenge were envisaged in 1985 in the 15-year Long Term Perspective Plan. A Strike Corp for the east (including one airborne division) was mooted then but not sanctioned. Economic factors trumped security imperatives even as the Wangdung incident clearly demonstrated that the PLA appreciated strength rather than timidity.
A number of senior military officers including the former Air Force and Navy Chiefs have lamented the lack of strategic orientation to cope with PLA military superiority. Curiously both these officers went public about our operational deficiencies on the eve of their retirement. The Chiefs of Staff are also culpable in the neglect on the China front and preoccupation with Pakistan.
Meanwhile, a media war and barbed exchanges between Chinese and Indian intellectuals have vitiated border tensions. Chinese thinkers are saying that India is no match against their country’s comprehensive national power and this time there will be no military withdrawal like in 1962 and certainly no concessions on the border dispute. In a lengthy essay one of them suggested breaking up India into 30 pieces. According to them there cannot be two suns in the same sky.
Distrust and misinformation are at a new high. Air Chief Marshal Fali Major said: “We know so little about China.” We are forever downplaying Chinese threats; diffidence and appeasement characterise our responses. A China admirer, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh once said, “I wish India could be like China”. India has no long-term policy to deal with the so-called peaceful rise of China.
While keeping its powder dry, India needs to be firm and more assertive on the border dispute, seeking a time limit for its resolution. The Dalai Lama has said that Tawang belongs to India. When he goes there in November this year after being refused permission on an earlier occasion, he could say: Tawang is an integral part of India.
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THE PIONEER
COLUMN
DUBIOUS STANCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE
SANJOG MAHESHWARI
It is but natural that all climate change meets focus on exploring and devising ways and means to reduce green house gas emissions. However, the issue is more complex for developing South Asian economies, particularly India. While our policy-makers understandably want to accelerate industrialisation, India is under tremendous pressure to submit to specific carbon reduction targets.
The recent South Asian Regional Climate Change Conference in Kathmandu observed that the Himalayan ecosystem was far more vulnerable to climate change than earlier thought. This is because the rate at which the Himalayan mountain ranges have been warming up is three times more than the world average. The glaciers here are shrinking rapidly and a few of them may even disappear altogether. Also, perennial rivers like the Ganga, the Yamuna, the Indus, etc, could become seasonal due to climate change. The drying-up of these rivers, even partially, will convert the fertile Indo-Gangetic plains into semi-arid wasteland, thereby, adversely affecting millions of people.
Long, scorching summer spells, untimely monsoon, droughts, floods, etc, are all symptomatic of our soft stance on issues related to climate change. While global warming will affect everyone, our poor will be the most affected. They will be at the mercy of the violently changing environment without the economic strength to protect themselves.
Similarly, under-developed and developing countries will be the worst hit by climate change. The Governments in these countries will have to divert their limited resources to mitigate the consequences of global warming. As a result, they will recede on the development front.
India’s argument that it has hitherto emitted far less an amount of green house gases than the developed countries of the West, and that our per capita green house gas emission is still quite low, is certainly not going to help matters. On the contrary, if we use such ridiculous arguments to avoid tackling climate change, it will come back to haunt us. Thanks to our burgeoning population, notwithstanding our slow pace of economic development, India ranks fifth in terms of the world’s most polluting countries.
We cannot afford to take climate change lightly. We must initiate measures that will prepare us for a situation in the near future when we will be in a position to submit to specific carbon reduction norms. Failing to do so would be disastrous and catastrophic.
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THE PIONEER
OPED
COMMUNIST BELLIGERENCE
CHINA HAS ADOPTED MERCANTILIST, MILITARIST AND ARCH-CAPITALIST POLICIES WHICH ARE NOW THREATENING THE WORLD. INDIA MUST CHECK THE SOARING AMBITIONS OF ITS RESURGENT COMMUNIST NEIGHBOUR. AND TO DO SO EFFECTIVELY, INDIA HAS TO STOP BEING A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF
GAUTAM MUKHERJEE
McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled-up.” ---Joseph McCarthy
Definitions and usage change with time. This is evident in language, with so called shuddh Hindi sounding odd, archaic and difficult to understand. Ditto for the languages spoken and written around the globe, otherwise one wouldn’t need an interpreter to understand Shakespeare, billed as the greatest dramatist and poet of all time.
Similarly, ideological content too changes with time, sometimes entirely, with a veneer of the original subject matter used as a wrapper, like old buildings in Rome totally transformed on the inside. That is also why the name-plate on the door often remains the same and why dead icons are not removed from plain sight.
Communism, as the most ambitious 20th century alternative, has changed beyond recognition in practice. At least in the hands of its more successful practitioners. China today has acquired mercantilist, imperial, militarist and arch-capitalist overtones. These are now menacing the world, let alone India. And this belligerence, however inscrutably disguised, is a far cry from the People’s Revolution of the Long March with ragged millions in tunics and cloth caps.
And this turnabout is all the more ironic for the fact that China has suffered true humiliation, far greater than India, at the hands of imperial powers. They not only destroyed the ‘Middle Kingdom’ with opium and conquered it with ease, but carved up the supine country into ‘spheres of influence’ to do with as they pleased. But then, it is a truism that the brutalised do tend to take after their oppressors in a kind of Stockholm Syndrome.
Some of the ideological revisions, the hardening of hearts and diplomatic stances, the power-play, the crushing of insurgencies, the expansionist forward policies, come about because of increased confidence. It is based on prosperity and the desire to upgrade status in the comity of nations. The other part is a simple manifestation of the corruption of all power.
And unfortunately, apart from cultural influence that seeps into areas and psyches unseen, most alpha assertion demands a show of strength. And it raises some very interesting questions about the value of ideology in the ultimate struggle for raw power.
Ideology on this escalator is like a guest that has outstayed its welcome. But this is true only if there is great success. There is very little ideological deviation, except as a tool for dissidence, when things are static or not going well. Cuba hasn’t changed its ways that much. Neither has Burma except for changing its name to ‘Myanmar’. And the hatred and animosity we face from a crumbling Pakistan is as fresh as the first blood drawn in the wounds of partition.
America, at the height of the Cold War, encouraged an infamous witchfinder-General called Joseph McCarthy, a Right-wing Republican, of the type now extinct. He rose to prominence in 1950, heading an inquisition called the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. This was a sub-set of the House Committee on Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives. Its mandate was to root out Communist infiltrators and sympathisers from positions of power.
Not only was McCarthyism emblematic of the insecurity of the times, post World War II, when people doubted the efficacy and survivability of ‘the American way’, but it led to much intemperate smearing of decent people and attempts at thought control.
McCarthy, who died in 1957, at the age of 48, of alcoholism, used to say things like: “You are seeing today an all-out attempt to marshal the forces of the opposition, using not merely the communists, or their fellow travellers — the deluded liberals, the eggheads, and some of my good friends in both the Democratic and Republican Parties who can become heroes overnight in the eyes of the Left-wing press if they will just join with the jackal pack”.
But the abiding fact is, where people vote in democracies, such as the biggest like America or the most populous like India, most voters, says New York Times contributor Sam Tanenhaus, discussing his new book, The Death of Conservatism, are “not ideological”. And besides, says Tanenhaus, “The tonal difference between a Joe McCarthy in 1950 and a Reagan in 1980 is enormous.”
India, in search of a new birth for the Right, and its own survivability in the face of internal and external threat, may have to look at what former US Ambassador to India, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, called “the politics of stability”.
The USSR spent decades being decried, blocked and mocked for its politics of confrontation rather than engagement, and present-day Russia is in some danger of reverting to the old stance under Prime Minister Bladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev. But this, clearly, is not the road to influence.For India, the Right-wing may have to change the abrasive edges of Hindutva, particularly its antipathy to Muslims, left over from the lead up to, and fact of, partition, in recognition of today’s successful multi-religious ethos.
This is how it can hope to gain the support of the majority community, particularly the young and the middle classes currently lost to it, let alone the trust and respect of the minorities.
But this shift in definition and usage need not be looked at as a betrayal of its core beliefs. Instead, it must be viewed in the context of politics being ‘a theatre of ideas’ that cannot afford to stagnate into dogma. As Tanenhaus puts it, it must be “a place where intellectuals now and again exert some visible influence.”
The Americans, after all, are no longer afraid of Communist subversion, not after Reagan’s great success in dissolving the Iron Curtain and bringing down the USSR. And not even after the grave economic crisis it has faced over the last two years. But this doesn’t stop Right-wing ideologues like Rush Limbaugh calling President Barack Obama a socialist. They called President Herbert Hoover similar names as he undertook massive Government spending to pull America out of the Great Depression.
But today’s Limbaugh is no McCarthy. So what should the Indian Right do to reinvent itself? And though ahimsa is laudable, Jawaharlal Nehru did underplay it and sidelined many of Gandhi’s ideas. India will have to check the ambitions of a resurgent China in the South Asian theatre sooner than it realises. And to do so effectively, it has to stop being a house divided against itself.
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THE PIONEER
OPED
CPM’S LAST FORT FALLS
MAMATA’S MANTRA OF CHANGE DEFEATS LEFT IN SILIGURI
SHIKHA MUKERJEE
The CPI(M)’s last bastion, the Siliguri Municipality, has fallen. As the election results rolled in it was evident that the Opposition, a combine of the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, had successfully sold the idea of ‘change’ to voters, in this once impregnable fortress.
Since the voters did not have valid reasons to choose change over continuity as far as the CPI(M)’s performance on municipal matters was concerned, it is likely that the CPI(M)’s inept non-performance in curbing the separatist Gorkhaland movement became a grievance. The failure of the West Bengal Government to administer in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong where the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha has usurped power and runs a parallel system has seriously damaged the CPI(M)’s credibility. In south Bengal, by failing to rescue the Nano manufacturing project from destructive agitators led by Ms Mamata Banerjee, the CPI(M) has revealed its incompetence.
Caught between an aggressive GJM that is determined to carve out a separate State in Darjeeling that includes the Dooars and Siliguri and a CPI(M) leadership that cannot defend and protect its members and supporters in Lalgarh, Singur and Nandigram, it would seem the local population opted for change. The mesmerising appeal of change, even though people may think that change may not be necessarily for the better, seems to have grown into a compulsion.
The election outcome was not surprising and even the CPI(M) has grown inured to the shock of defeat succeeding defeat. The results however have lessons to offer to all political parties, the first and most important of which is that there is no reward for good work. The second lesson is that loyalty is a favour that can be withdrawn. The third lesson is the hardest one to grasp; voters do not choose to be rational; they prefer to be irrational, sometimes. The fourth lesson is that even well-informed voters make irrational choices, because their reasons for doing so are based on variables that can be understood only after the event.
In Siliguri, the CPI(M)-dominated municipality has done its best to cope with the furious growth spurt that has overtaken the once upon a time sleepy gateway to the Dooars, North-East, Sikkim and Darjeeling. The councillors of that burgeoning urban centre are hard working service providers, converting open drains into covered drains and creating a sewerage system out of nothing, providing lighting, maintaining roads and promoting investment through the constant improvement of quality of infrastructure and civic services.
In Siliguri, the growth and development of the township was led by the CPI(M), which not only resettled families that took refuge after partition in that area but also work hard to rehabilitate the next generation. There are deep pockets of the township that have become home to people from the hills, though there are questions about whether all of them are Gorkhas from the Darjeeling hills or some of them are Nepalis from Nepal. As voters go, the settlers should have remained loyal. They decided that loyalty had a limit and dumped the CPI(M). In the case of the Gorkhas, their loyalty to the GJM’s separatist politics proved stronger. Bengalis were clearly swayed by the charisma of the Trinamool Congress leader and preferred to join the bandwagon rather than get stranded as the change over mood swept West Bengal.
According to theorists, political and economic, most people, most of the time, behave rationally. According to the pundits, most people make rational choices based on the information that is available to them. Some people, these gurus argue, have more information than others, which gives them an advantage that in so far as economists can predict, can be leveraged to generate wealth.
In Siliguri, it is impossible to assume, as economists are required to do for the sake of producing elegant arguments, that voters did not behave rationally, because these voters are urban and well-informed.
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THE PIONEER
OPED
HAD THERE BEEN NO PAKISTAN
SEVERAL STATEMENTS BY JINNAH, SIR SYED AND IQBAL SHOW THAT THEY SAW ISLAM AS A TOOL TO PROPAGATE SEPARATISM. HAD INDIA NOT BEEN PARTITIONED, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN DIVIDED
PRAFULL GORADIA
Most of us yearn for undivided India but none of us tarries a while to ponder what would have happened had there been no partition. The affairs of state and society have to be driven by reality rather than sentiments. With 15 per cent Muslim population, look at the way all the parties are lured by the minority vote. How the Indian Prime Minister, whose family was driven out of West Punjab, now declares ‘Muslims first’. He appointed the Sachar Committee with the intention of giving Muslims a preferential share in the country’s resources. Another party promises to evict squatters on wakf lands, completely forgetting that the properties were confiscated by the Muslim invaders from Hindus.
Early in 1983, a Lahore journalist had interviewed Ayatollah Khameini for a special feature in anticipation of the Pakistan Day. Towards the end, the interviewer asked the leader’s opinion on Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Khameini was generous in his praise although he did remark that the Quaid lacked vision. Had he the foresight, he would have waited and in due course the whole of India should have been in Muslim hands. Instead, Jinnah settled for only two-fifths of the sub-continent.
If India were undivided, the Muslim population today would be about 40 per cent. Recall that in 1947 the Muslim numbers were 25 per cent and evidently we could not co-exist. While sponsoring the Pakistan resolution, Jinnah had said, “Hindus and Muslims belong to two different civilisations, which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, will lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the Government of such a state.
Choudhry Khaliquzzaman, who followed Jinnah as president of the Muslim League, wrote in his book, Pathway to Pakistan, “Democracies are the creatures of numbers and the Muslims in India had both numbers and geographical advantages. So far as I could see, they would never be prepared to accept that status (minority) but would fight to the last man to avert it. The consequences would be perpetual bitterness, disturbances and fights within India. Then why should we not separate?”
These views were a carry forward from what other leaders had said earlier. Go back to Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, who in 1887, while delivering a speech in Lucknow, had said, “I object to every Congress in any shape or form which regards India as one nation, on account of its being based on wrong principles.”
Iqbal, the author of ‘Sare jahan se achchha Hindustan hamara’, had subsequently switched to ‘Pakistan hamara’. In the 1930 session of the Muslim League at Allahabad, he said, “I would like to see Punjab, NWFP, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state, self-governing within the British empire or without the British empire. The formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim state appears to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of north-west India.”
These ideological statements of Jinnah, Khaliquzzaman, Sir Syed and Iqbal show that separatism flows in the blood of Islam. Even when in Mughal times the Muslim population was perhaps only 10 per cent, the community was happy because they believed that the empire was a Dar-ul-Islam. Thereafter, its numbers increased but with the takeover of India by the British, the country became ‘Dar-ul-Harb’ or the land of conflict. The crucial difference was made by the fact that sharia’h ceased to hold sway. Uncannily, the biggest difference of opinion between the Taliban and the rest of Pakistan is whether sharia’h would prevail or would it be diluted with any other system of law. Which is why in order to achieve a truce with the Taliban, the Zardari Government conceded the operation of sharia’h in the Swat Valley.
Despite fewer Muslims in the UK, their orthodox ulema has gone to the extent of demanding a separate Islamic Parliament. Nevertheless, in an electoral democracy numbers are decisive and given strategic voting by the community as a whole, 40 per cent would open the floodgate for a popularly elected ‘sultan’ in New Delhi. We have had our fill of nawabs, badshahs and sultans starting from the 12th century and ending with the 19th.
An Islamic state revolves around a few parameters as listed by Maulana Maududi and recounted by Jamia Millia Vice-chancellor M Mujeeb in his book, Indian Muslims. Society is divided between momins and kafirs, who must pay jizya or poll tax and khiraj or land revenue. Whereas Muslims should pay zakaat and ushr. Sharia’h should prevail whereby dar-ul-qaza would dispense justice. The first charge on the state revenue would lie for the welfare of Muslims.
Are not all these features already in operation even if deviously applied. Articles 25 to 30 discriminate in favour of Muslims. The Hajj subsidy is only the tip of the iceberg which finances Muslim institutions like madarsas, universities like AMU, wakfs et al; these constitute an indirect jizya. Dar-ul-qazas are already functioning. Temples which were converted into mosques are still in Muslim hands. Is this not already a rehearsal for an Islamic state?
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THE PIONEER
OPED
EVOLUTION OF PAKISTAN’S NORTHERN AREAS POLICY
SUCCESSIVE GOVERNMENTS IN ISLAMABAD HAVE REDUCED SHIAS TO A MINORITY IN THEIR TRADITIONAL HOMELAND
B RAMAN
In 1935, Maharaja Hari Singh, the then ruler of Jammu & Kashmir, transferred the territory on a 60-year lease to the British authorities from whom it reverted to the ruler under the Indian Independence Act of 1947. Upon its reversion, the ruler appointed Brig Ghansara Singh as the Governor of the Northern Areas of Jammu & Kashmir with headquarters at Gilgit. During 1947-48, the Pakistan Army illegally occupied the entire Northern Areas and parts of the districts of Poonch, Mirpur and Muzaffarabad.
The Government of Pakistan constituted the occupied areas of Poonch, Mirpur and Muzaffarabad into the so-called autonomous state of ‘Azad Kashmir’. Northern Areas were separated from PoK by a proclamation of April 28, 1949, and placed directly under the administration of the Federal Government under the changed name of the ‘Northern Areas of Pakistan’. Before doing so, it transferred some territory of Northern Areas in the present Chitral region to the jurisdiction of North-West Frontier Province. The suffix ‘of Jammu & Kashmir’ was deleted because Pakistan no longer considered Northern Areas as part of Jammu & Kashmir though it continued to say that its future, like that of PoK and India’s Jammu & Kashmir, would be decided by a plebiscite under the auspices of the UN. In 1963, the Government of military dictator Ayub Khan ceded to China under a 99-year-lease 6,000 sq miles of Kashmiri territory from the NA — that is, nearly one-fourth of the NA territory. This has been incorporated by China into the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.
In 1982, Gen Zia-ul-Haq proclaimed that the people of NA were Pakistanis and not Kashmiris and that its future had nothing to do with that of Jammu & Kashmir. However, his successors as rulers retained the fiction that the future of NA would be decided under a plebiscite along with that of Jammu & Kashmir and PoK.
NA is divided into six districts called Hunza-Nager, Gilgit, Koh-e-Ghizer, Ghanche, Diamir and Skardu. These districts are grouped into three agencies or divisions called Diamir, with headquarters at Chilas; Gilgit, with headquarters in Gilgit Town; and Baltistan, with headquarters in Skardu Town. Of the total population of NA, 50 per cent used to be Shias, 25 per cent Ismailis, who are close to the Shias, and the remaining 25 per cent Sunnis. While the Sunnis were in a preponderant majority in PoK, they were in a minority in NA. The Sunnis were in a majority in Diamir district and in a minority in the remaining five districts.
Under Zia-ul-Haq, a programme was initiated to change the demographic composition of NA and reduce the Shia-Ismaili preponderant majority by re-settling a large number of Sunni ex-servicemen —Punjabis as well as Pashtuns — in NA. This policy has been continued by subsequent Governments. No authentic census has been held in NA and PoK and the results released to the public. As a result, one does not know the demographic composition of the present population of NA and PoK. But the systematic Punjabi-Pashtun colonisation of NA and PoK — which is similar to the Han colonisation of Xinjiang — has reduced the percentage of ethnic Kashmiris in both PoK and NA and the number of Shias and Ismailis in NA.
It is this attempt to change the demographic composition of NA population and reduce the Shias-Ismailis to a minority in their traditional homeland that led to the start of a movement for a separate and autonomous — not independent — Shia province to be called Karakoram province when Zia was in power. The ruthless suppression of this Shia-Ismaili movement by Zia and the resentment over his actions played a role in the crash of the plane in which he was travelling from Bahawalpur to Islamabad in August, 1988, resulting in his mysterious death. Even though no proper enquiry was held into the plane crash, very reliable reports received by the Indian intelligence at that time had indicated that the plane crash was caused by a resentful Shia airman from Gilgit who released a can of some harmful gas in the cockpit, thereby disorienting the crew.
NA is one of the least developed areas of Pakistan. Successive Pakistani Governments took no interest in its development because of its Shia-Ismaili majority. Whatever development took place in the area was because of the interest of the Aga Khans, who started a number of rural development projects for the welfare of the Ismailis. The Sunnis, with the Sunni extremist Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and the Jamaat-e-Islami in the forefront, started a campaign against the Aga Khans by projecting them as Western agents and anti-Islam.
The local Shias drew their subsistence from tourism and the armed forces, which they used to join in large numbers. There was a time when many of the airmen in the Pakistani Air Force were Shias from Gilgit. After the crash of the plane carrying Zia, the Pakistani armed forces drastically reduced the recruitment of Shias from NA, thereby adding to unemployment.
Next to tourism and military services, Government jobs attracted a number of Shias. Punjabis and Pashtuns serving in the Government service in NA received a 25 per cent extra allowance to which the locals were not entitled. This added to the resentment. Whereas the Mirpuris from the PoK have been able to migrate in large numbers to the West from where they support their families. This avenue is not open to the natives of NA because they require an exit permit for going abroad, which is rarely issued.
The writer is director of the Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai.( To be continued.)
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TIMES OF INDIA
COMMENT
JOSTLING FOR POWER
With less than a month to go for assembly elections in Maharashtra, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have in principle agreed to a pre-poll alliance. The nitty-gritty of seat sharing is yet to be completed but the two parties are reconciled to the fact that they need to stay together to be in the running for office.
Despite a divided opposition, the Congress-NCP alliance has a tough battle ahead. After two consecutive terms in office, the two parties have to fight strong anti-incumbency sentiment. Agrarian distress is as much an issue as in the past despite loan waivers and other sops to farmers. However, the alliance stands a chance to win a third term in office if it can repeat its 2009 general elections showing: the Congress won 17 and the NCP eight of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state. An analysis of the results indicates that the Congress and the NCP had leads in 131 assembly segments. In the 2004 state elections, the two parties together had won 140 of the 288 assembly seats. The political situation in the state has since changed. The split in the Shiv Sena and the emergence of the Maharashtra Nav Nirman Sena (MNS) has complicated the picture. In the 2009 general elections, the MNS dented the prospects of NDA candidates, especially in Mumbai. It is likely to split the opposition votes in the assembly elections as well.
The emerging picture in Maharashtra indicates that the main contest will be between the two alliances - Democratic Front (DF) that includes the Congress and the NCP and NDA - with a host of smaller parties and independents making the list of imponderables. The ragtag third front that includes a few Republic Party factions and the Left could cut into DF votes. Similarly, the Bahujan Samaj Party, which polled over 4 per cent votes in 2004, could upset the tactics of the two major alliances. Smaller parties and independents may not win many seats but could have a major impact on results because winning margins in assembly elections in Maharashtra have narrowed in recent years.
Pre-poll calculations are based on the assumption that party alliances hold true on the ground. The political constituencies of the Congress and the NCP overlap, but that need not necessarily consolidate in favour of the DF candidate because of the competitive nature of the relationship between the two parties. Both parties seek to undercut the other's influence and their own expand base. The tensions between the two parties at the grassroots and among leaders are likely to influence election results as well. The big question is whether the BJP-Sena alliance can overcome its leadership vacuum and exploit the divisions in the DF ranks.
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TIMES OF INDIA
EDITORIAL
GREEN GAADI
The electric car is being upheld as an ethical, green, nifty and cheap alternative to the carbon dioxide emitting automobiles clogging city roads around the world today. Two new Indian electric car models are to be showcased at the upcoming Auto Fair at Frankfurt this month. One is a four-seater and the other a two-seater sports vehicle targeted at the export market. Though more expensive than the currently popular Reva car in India, the industry's future plans are riding high on the hope that with effective marketing and a growing public awareness of the need for clean air and responsible consumerism, increase in demand would eventually drive down prices with the resulting economies of scale.
Ethical consumerism is the new mantra and what better way to ride the revolution than to feed the market with products that make it easier for the buyer and the industry to be more responsible? Battery powered vehicles might not completely replace liquid fuel-fed ones. However, with more electric and hybrid vehicles on the road, there is greater scope for a makeover in the way electricity is generated.
If the power to charge the battery-operated vehicle is to be sourced from grids supplied from conventional coal-fired plants, the electric car wouldn't really be all that green. Still, the car's emissions would be far less polluting than those that run on fossil fuels. But the ideal situation would be one where the power is generated from renewable energy resources like wind and solar. Or nuclear energy.
Showcasing sports cars that run on electricity might be of little use other than to make a statement, since the goal is to come up with smaller, cleaner, more economical and efficient cars that are suitable for commuting city roads and are easier on parking as well as road spaces. There is a need for simultaneous development of an infrastructure network that would ensure sufficient plug-in points for charging batteries and service the cars. Hence, a hybrid e-car that could alternate with CNG or petrol would be useful in the interim. The goal should be top make more electric cars with greater incentives for consumers and producers, as well as feeding grids with more power from renewable resources as per the objectives stated in the National Action Plan on Climate Change.
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TIMES OF INDIA
TOP ARTICLE
WHY DYNASTIES FLOURISH
The clamour for deceased Andhra chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's son Jaganmohan Reddy to be anointed chief minister has not died down. Though the Congress high command has for the time being managed to hush the voices seeking to install Reddy Jr as CM, there is still widespread support for him.
While the demands for Jagan as CM could be traced to the political landscape of Andhra Pradesh or Tamil Nadu peopled by sons, daughters, sons-in-law and nephews, it once again highlights a peculiar aspect of Indian democracy: the prevalence of dynasty. It's something that continues to stump most observers and well-wishers of Indian democracy. A glib answer to the pervasiveness of dynasty is to point to prominent political families elsewhere. We all know of the Kennedys, the Bushes and now the Clintons. And closer home we've seen political dynasties flourish in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. But if we discount our neighbours, where democracy has had a fitful existence, in no full-fledged democracy is dynasty so central as in India. Thus, we are faced with the contradiction where a deepening of democracy has been accompanied by a consistent decline in inner-party democracy.
The current Lok Sabha is a good example of this disturbing trend. In a country where geriatrics have traditionally dominated politics, the youth component of the house has rightly been noted. But what's striking is that many of the young MPs belong to political dynasties.
There are good reasons for the large number of MPs with the right family connections. One, the decay of party organisations and dwindling party members. This is starkly illustrated in the case of the Congress where a top-heavy and highly centralised leadership - aka the 'high command' - is in charge. Indira Gandhi first began the process of systematic erosion of the authority of state units. This process - often called deinstitutionalisation by political scientists - has sometimes led to an annihilation of the party organisation as in states like West Bengal. In other places it has led to the rise of powerful regional bosses such as YSR.
Deinstitutionalisation is, of course, not restricted to the Congress. Most parties, big and small, in India suffer from the same malaise and are not immune to the charms of dynasty. The exceptions are cadre-based parties, such as the Left parties and the BJP, though the dynastic culture has struck roots in the BJP too.
Two, there are obvious incentives for parties to prefer candidates from established political families. Once a brand name is established - be it YSR in Andhra or Sharad Pawar in Maharasthra - it is easy for sons or daughters to milk it. In a situation where there is no inner-party democracy or a system of primaries to select candidates, it is convenient for parties to turn to established brands rather than take a risk with a newcomer. Three, with the kind of money needed to contest elections it's difficult for fresh candidates to raise funds or resources to match incumbents or their family members.
But that still doesn't answer why voters put their faith in dynasts. We can't take seriously the suggestion made by a columnist in these pages that voters are not rational. The 2009 National Election Survey, for instance, reveals that when asked if it was okay for sons/daughters to contest from seats held by their parents, nearly 60 per cent said it was undemocratic.
One reason for voter confidence in dynasts could be the inability to look beyond clan and kinship networks, which prompts voters to back a family over generations. Some political families are former royals who still command respect and fealty. A more compelling motive could be the belief that dynasts are more efficient distributors of patronage than a greenhorn trying to find his feet. Finally, in a perverse way political families might represent a safer bet to garner and allocate scarce resources since they've been doing it for generations and have a reputation at stake, compared to a newcomer who could either be inefficient or only interested in lining his own pocket.
The 'politics of inheritance', as one commentator puts it, is not going to go away soon. But there are interesting things afoot within India's Grand Old Party initiated by none other than Rahul Gandhi. Post-election there has been a good deal written about Rahul's efforts to inject some democracy within the Congress. He has worked hard at reviving the students' and the not-so-youthful wing of his party. And there have been some success stories of young Congress members handpicked by Rahul pulling off remarkable victories in the last general election.
This does not in any way amount to a rollback of dynastic politics. But at least there is a glimmer of inner-party democracy and infusion of fresh talent. A school for politicians, as some have suggested, won't solve the problem of dynasty. Nowhere in the world has that happened. Things could change only if political parties are forced to become more democratic due to pressure from voters, and there are drastic reforms in the way election campaigns are funded.
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TIMES OF INDIA
TIMES VIEW
'THE CRUX IS POLITICISATION OF THE POLICE'
Former Punjab DGP Julio Ribeiro has often spoken out against fake encounters, but acknowledges that they took place when he was Mumbai police commissioner in the early 1980s. He talks to Jyoti Punwani about this practice:
Are you shocked at the revelations about the Ishrat Jahan encounter?
No. This has become more or less commonplace. But we need to put an end to the practice because you are making policemen into criminals in uniform, which is much worse than criminals not in uniform. In Mumbai, when encounters had almost stopped (when Meera Borwankar was head of the crime branch), complaints about police extortion also came down. I have a strong suspicion that 'encounter specialists' - a misnomer, because encounters are supposed to take place by chance - were also specialising in extortion, using their links with the underworld.
It used to be petty criminals and suspected Naxalites, now it's innocents. What makes the police so brazen?
Innocents may be rare. But it depends on the place. In Punjab, I learnt that right from the British days, the police had been settling their personal land disputes by eliminating innocents. In Mumbai, some policemen reportedly take a contract from one gang to exterminate its rivals. Such policemen should be charged with murder. Once they get away with one, and then get a shabash, policemen lose their fear. The crux is politicisation of the police. Why do these encounters happen in Gujarat the most? They have the backing of the political establishment there. Even in Mumbai, when (Gopinath) Munde was home minister, he declared in the assembly, "I've ordered the police to shoot these fellows." How can a home minister say that in the assembly and get away with it? Partly because the middle class, which feels vulnerable because of the breakdown of the judicial process, supports encounters. Encounter specialists are heroes for the press; films are made on them.
Only human rights groups question these encounters. Is there any internal mechanism for stopping them?
Human rights groups are important. I used to tell my men in Punjab - if it were not for them, you'd go totally berserk. Sometimes human rights groups make false allegations, but without them, there's a very real danger of the state going overboard. Within the police, there are conscientious officers who would check fake encounters. But in a place like Gujarat, they'd be immediately shunted out. If the power of transfers was not in political hands, officers would be able to put their foot down. That's why i feel the police must be freed from political control.
After the first encounter during my tenure, I got calls complimenting me. But I told the policemen involved, "1 don't expect you to kill." They were stunned. It certainly wasn't a policy in my time, nor did it happen with my connivance. But whether I gave tacit approval by not actively opposing it - I don't know. I won't say I wasn't happy.
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TIMES OF INDIA
SUBVERSE
ALL IN THE GAMES
JUG SURAIYA
Meddlesome busybodies are causing undue panic by claiming that preparations for the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games are way behind schedule, and that the event which was meant to showcase 21st century India is going to end up as a fiasco. Utter rubbish. The people in charge of the Games have got everything under control and going according to plan.
Critics have pointed out that various facilities for the event such as stadiums, residential accommodation for the athletes and other visitors, communication networks, flyovers, etc are far from ready and work on them is nowhere near on schedule. What a silly thing to say.
Of course everything is way behind schedule. That's the whole point of any project and not just the Games undertaken by the sarkar. A study carried out some years ago calculated that if completion delays on all sarkari projects central as well as state were added up the total would come to more than 500 years. Which is another way of saying that despite all its much-vaunted modernity, its space and nuclear programmes and its IT industry India is collectively some 500 years behind present times and is living approximately in the era of the emperor Akbar. That study was conducted several years ago. Since then, our industrious sarkar has undertaken many more projects including the Commonwealth Games all, or almost all, of which have totted up impressive time overruns and delays. So a back-of-the-envelope guesstimate would suggest that as a national (or should that be notional?) entity we are no longer living in the time of Akbar the Great, but have regressed a little further and have probably reached the Lodhi dynasty. Or perhaps the Mauryan.
This is the real meaning behind that old tag: India is an ancient civilisation and a modern nation. That we are. And with knobs on. In India we have long done away with the artificial distinctions that other less philosophically advanced societies make between past, present and future. In India the temporal trinity of past, present and future coexists in perfect amity. A vernacular and everyday example of this interchangeability of time is the Hindi word 'kal' which means yesterday as well as tomorrow. Same difference, as we might say.
It is wrongly said that we Indians are an ahistorical people, that we have literally no time for history, and prefer an imaginary mythology in its stead. This is pure libel. Yes, it is true that we grossly neglect and even deliberately deface or endanger our vast and squandered wealth of historic monuments, from the Taj Mahal down.
But this is only because we, unlike other societies, know that we are capable of creating instant history. Instant history is like instant coffee: it's ready in a jiffy. Other societies have to wait for years and years, centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, to create their histories, which they then preserve with great veneration.
We don't have to wait years and years to create our history, our historic monuments and ruins. All our public roads, buildings, bridges, flyovers are not only truly historic projects, in that they are years and decades behind time, but are designed so as to self-destruct almost immediately on completion and transform themselves, overnight, into historic ruins.
It took our forebears aeons to create Mohen-jo-daro. Today we can create modern Mohen-jo-daros with a snap of sarkari fingers. Except we don't call them Mohen-jo-daros. We call them PWD works. Or national highways, which are more pothole than either high or way. Or international airports, whose roofs blow off in thunderstorms. Or bridges, which collapse before anyone can cross them.
The Commonwealth Games? Don't worry. They're going to be truly historic: they'll make history, sarkari-style.
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TIMES OF INDIA
BOXING DAY
LORD OF THE RING
Vijender Singh's medal at the recent World Boxing Championships and his Olympic triumph last year represent a knockout victory for India. I must confess that my closest brush with boxing was in school, when my ears were once severely boxed by my chemistry teacher. He was a big man with fat fingers, and some wicked students goaded him on more noisily than any audience at a boxing match. At the end of this painful boxing round, my ears shone brighter and redder than any medal. I studied in a Christian missionary school, where i learned that the day after Christmas is called Boxing Day. I had an uneasy feeling for one whole year that my chemistry teacher would display his well-established talent again on this day. I heaved a sigh of relief when the Christmas week was declared a holiday. In those days, the boxer one admired most was Muhammed Ali, who was reputed to fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee. But the pugilist one feared most was a large dog called Rambo who lived next door. I am, however, unclear as to why this breed of dogs is called boxers, when their preferred pastime is really to land vicious bites on our juicy little ankles. I flew faster than any butterfly when this boxer had me in his sights.
The classification of boxers was equally interesting to me. Heavyweight, middleweight, welterweight, bantamweight, flyweight, lightweight, featherweight. I have never figured out what welter means. I would also recommend that boxing authorities consider new and updated categories such as quarkweight and nanoweight, given the rapid march of technology. I learnt growing up that shadow boxing, the sport practised so deftly by politicians and many others, was an equally interesting contest to watch. I learnt that for a really good fight, you have to take off your gloves, though this is completely against the rules. I also learnt that in life one could either be a boxer or a punching bag, and it is immensely preferable to be the former, even if one is very lightweight. The boxing ring in India has never been as lucrative as cricket or tennis, but the endorsement deal that Vijender has just signed will surely encourage more youngsters to put on their gloves. We need many more sporting heroes like him.
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HINDUSTAN TIMES
EDITORIAL
EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY
Well, of course the results of parliamentary and state elections tell us different stories from those of Assembly bypolls. But they tell us a story nevertheless. The narrative from the byelections held in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand is that of a silver lining in the dark cloud that has been hanging above the BJP’s head since the general elections nearly six months ago. To consider the impressive show in these bypolls as anything less than a shot in the arm for the suffering, dishevelled party would be to be in denial. To consider the results to be a full-blown resurgence would also be delusional. But the victories are important not only in rebuilding a perception about the capabilities of the BJP’s state units — precious ingredients for the main dish at the Centre — for the party’s traditional supporters, but also to demoralised partymen who now find that hope springs from below.
Unlike the Lok Sabha polls, the bypolls have localised issues at stake. So while the BJP may be running about like a headless chicken in New Delhi, the fact that local units are up and running and have received a mandate even in traditional Congress camps should send out a message. It is the Gujarat results, of course, that will upset the Congress the most. The fact that Chief Minister Narendra Modi can be effortlessly turned into one of the main causes of the BJP’s defeat — as was the case in the parliamentary elections — has been overturned. The issue, however, is not whether Mr Modi has cast his ‘Hindutva magic spell’ once again or whether the Ishrat Jahan encounter debate played into the hands of the BJP in the polling states. All that talk about whether Mr Modi will make it to prime ministership is even less relevant. What is relevant, however, is that Mr Modi along with the state BJP leaders in Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand have allowed a strong party architecture to be intact. Voting in bypolls is overwhelmingly about how a party’s work has affected him rather than about more abstract issues. And here it seems that the BJP still has much to offer.
The Congress should learn from this setback. But more importantly the BJP at the Centre should be furiously taking notes. Lok Sabha and assembly polls are different ballgames. But the basic norm of ‘customer satisfaction’ of the bypolls can only be emulated, rather than replicated, for the bigger electoral stakes by both national parties in the more nebulous Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh next month.
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HINDUSTAN TIMES
EDITORIAL
WHEN I’M NINETY-TWO
Before there was the Swinging Sixties, there was the Blitz. And before there was the Beatles, there was Vera Lynn. While the Fab Four’s oeuvre from 1962 to 1970 is still hugely popular and is making yet another decade-defying comeback, thanks to the release of digitally remastered CDs of all their albums last week, it is the 92-year-old Lynn who has stopped the Liverpudlians who the world has claimed as their own in their tracks.
On Monday, Lynn made her comeback by reaching No. 1 on the British charts with her collection, We’ll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn, blocking the punter’s favourite, The Beatles. The year Paul McCartney was born and when John Lennon was two years old, the 25-year-old Lynn recorded her most famous song, a rendition of the 1939 Ross Parker-Hughie Charles number, ‘We’ll meet again’.
Lynn got her nickname ‘The Force’s Sweetheart’ by broadcasting her uplifting songs to Allied troops on her own radio programme, ‘Sincerely yours’ during World War II. During the war years, she also toured to perform before troops all across the world including in India. But it would seem that a British national icon like Lynn can evoke a strong enough mixture of nostalgia and curiosity as, say, another ‘forgotten’ British hero Winston Churchill among the Brits. Between the homage paid to her by Pink Floyd in their 1979 number ‘Vera’ and listeners meeting her again this week, the British mainland was never attacked in a war. Can that explain why the Beatles ‘lost out’?
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HINDUSTAN TIMES
COLUMN
LOCAL WARMING
KUMKUM DASGUPTA
‘I am a representative of the Bhil and Bhilala tribes of West Nimar from Narmada valley. We have been told that these changes in the climate are due to global warming... [but] we have not contributed towards the problem. Then why should we suffer? Today we are facing hardship because the world is running after development. Their development is not ours!’
That was 22-year-old Dalki Rawat at a press conference on climate change in New Delhi recently. Apart from focusing on the stiff challenges her community is facing due to climate disruptions, Rawat in her speech also touched upon another important facet: there’s a divide between rural and urban India on the climate issues.
While urban India (even here not all are on board) is consumed by climate policies and emission norms, rural India — which in more ways than one has already started feeling the pinch of climate change — it is about livelihood challenges, something that Rawat and others like her are facing every day. It will only benefit everyone if these two opposing sides engage and the disparate dots are joined to get a complete picture.
“In India, development is seen from two prisms,” says Siddharth Pathak, Campaigner, Climate and Energy, Greenpeace. “But there’s an urgent need to bring these two sides on the same plane. The climate debate is an opportunity to close this gap and launch a joint effort. But unfortunately that does not seem to be happening.... The other issue that often gets left out is that of its impact on the urban poor, many of whom are climate refugees.”
More than 150 million people live off India’s rain-fed agriculture, and every time the monsoon fails or behaves erratically, part of this population ends up being in any one of the big cities. This in turn puts enormous pressure on the already stretched civic resources of Indian metros. “Despite so many changes in weather patterns, urban India seems to be oblivious of the threat and is keen to continue with an unsustainable development pathway,” environmentalist Sudhinder Sharma says. “This is precisely the reason why the Ministry of Environment and Forests is not bothered to have a comprehensive consultation process on the climate change debate.”
And sometimes we miss the bigger issues that lurk behind the immediate small picture. Take the recent delayed monsoons and waterlogged streets in Delhi. Most of the drawing room discussions revolved around the shoddy infrastructure and administrative failure. Of course, the chaos that happened was due to a lax administration that failed to do its homework. But behind this small picture was the bigger issue of changes in our weather patterns.
Interestingly, if we put the template of the global situation in climate change on India, it looks very similar. It is the urban areas that emit the most and the rural areas that suffer the most — along the equation that exists between the developed and under-developed worlds. “Why should rural India be punished when it is urban India with its ‘Americanised’ set-up that is the one creating the mess?” asks development writer Richard Mahapatra. “Isn’t it time India adopts a common but differentiated responsibility within its own territory?”
As things stand 80 days before the Copenhagen summit, the climate change debate in India seems to be revolving around the ‘macro’ issues. But the need is to put more focus on ‘micro’ issues — how the common people of India are adapting to the changing climate patterns. In Punjab, for instance, farmers have turned to basmati to beat the climate change threat, while in some regions of the Gangetic delta, women have learnt to build elevated bamboo platforms so that they can take refuge during frequent and unexpected floods. There is also a need to have a clear idea about the status of India’s preparedness for climate change.
It is in urban India’s interest that it wakes up, gets involved and pushes the government to act more — and fast.
In an interesting experiment in Britain showing how counter-culture can take forward the issue in the public arena, away from the high-table of climate change negotiators, a drama-documentary-animation film, Age of Stupid, has been ‘crowd-funded’. The movie has the actor Pete Postlethwaite playing an old man living in the devastated world of 2055, watching archival footage from 2008 and asking, ‘Why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?’ To raise its £450,000 budget, the makers sold ‘shares’ to 223 people and groups, including a hockey team and a women’s health centre. (The movie will be launched in India on September 22.)
I met Rawat at the launch of the innovatively named ‘tck, tck, tck campaign’ that hopes to mobilise citizens around the world to put pressure on the heads of States meeting in Copenhagen in December to achieve an “ambitious, fair and binding” climate treaty.
Can urban India, with its candlelight vigilwallas and television debate participants, please stand up and be counted? If not for anyone else but yourselves.
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HINDUSTAN TIMES
COLUMN
WOMEN ARE FROM MARS
PAMELA PHILIPOSE
The story of Fatima Bi — an illiterate woman from Andhra Pradesh who found herself married at 14 and went on to transform the face of her small village as its ‘sarpanch’ — is often told. The United Nations Development Programme recognised her achievements by bestowing upon her its Race Against Poverty award for the Asia-Pacific region.
Increasing reservation in the panchayats alone will not help muchIf it were not for the 73rd amendment of 1993, which mandated that there be 33 per cent reservations for women in local government, the commitment of a woman like Fatima Bi would have been lost on her community. According to a study by the Panchayati Raj Ministry, in August 2008, of the 27.8 lakh panchayat representatives, around 10.41 lakh were women. About 80 per cent of them did not have a political background.
Today, the movement has reached another milestone. The government has increased the percentage of reservations for women at the panchayati raj level to 50 per cent. It’s a formal recognition of women’s equal representation in the public space and a validation of their good work. We will now have two million women leaders at the local level, with the number of women at chairman-level rising from the present 80,000 to 120,000.
But numerical representation alone is an insufficient condition for women’s political participation at the grassroots. It needs to be accompanied by at least three major changes. The first involves the creation of a public sphere that enhances women’s participation. Political philosopher Martha Nussbaum, in an essay on gender and governance, made the prescient observation that effective political participation would require “material and institutional empowerment”. Laws and customs must be such that “a woman really can go out and participate, her efforts to participate will not be thwarted by unequal, legal, or financial, or physical obstacles”.
The second change deals with the nature of the intervention itself. It’s known that the devolution that panchayati raj was supposed to have ushered in has proved largely elusive. It’s because panchayats are still seen as only the implementers of schemes and programmes designed either by the central or state governments.
The reality is that financial and administrative powers are still controlled by the higher tiers of government and mostly by men. In fact, of the 29 subjects the panchayats are responsible for under the Eleventh Schedule, only a few have actually devolved to the panchayats.
At the village level, the Eleventh Schedule expects the panchayats to list out the felt needs of the village, prioritise local needs on the basis of available resources and prepare plans. At the Block level, they should aggregate all village plans, among other responsibilities. At the district level, they have to consolidate all Block plans, estimate costs and prepare final plans to be presented before the district planning committee.
Subjects that come under the purview of panchayats include measures as far-reaching as land reforms and important sectors like minor irrigation, education, roads and bridges, rural electrification etc. But in reality, the sphere of influence of panchayats — especially those headed by women — has been consciously narrowed.
Experts like Bidyut Mohanty from the Institute of Social Sciences, Delhi, believe that women panchayat leaders should be given complete control over all 29 subjects under the Eleventh Schedule. This would, in turn, demand a third important change: Capacity and awareness building. Today, many women sarpanchs and pradhans don’t realise their real powers. Even if they do, they remain ignorant about how to exercise them. If women leaders at the grassroots are to fulfil their constitutional role, this area of darkness must be addressed.
Unless numbers translate into actual participation equality in numerical representation would remain a hollow thing.
Pamela Philipose is Director, Women’s Feature Service
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HINDUSTAN TIMES
COLUMN
OUR COMMON WEALTH
RAHUL VERGHESE
Like many other citizens, I was concerned when I read the headlines earlier this week about how unprepared Delhi is to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games. While much needs to be done in setting up the physical infrastructure, all that is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.
When you visit a foreign country, especially to experience something as big as the Commonwealth Games, your experience starts with travel bookings, hotel confirmations, flight convenience, the airport experience, the taxis, etc. The quality of rooms, the information and services available in hotels and guesthouses, the courtesy and professionalism of the hosts are all part of the larger issue of ‘infrastructure’. These ‘softer aspects’ are what make a deep and lasting impact.
Having travelled to Beijing many times on work, I perceived a change in 2006. Cab drivers were greeting me in reasonably proficient English; I was getting bills for my fare, and the people were wearing the pride of being hosts of the Olympic Games, then still two years in the future, on their faces. On April 11, 2007, the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games had launched a four-day workshop to train the 110-member staff whose job was to deal with the over 100,000 volunteers during the Games. Some 450,000 people had applied.
To carry out an event like the Commonwealth Games successfully, we must set the highest standards and not get hemmed in by current constraints. People who are the best in the business from wherever in the world should be brought in to ensure flawless execution at short notice. Three-four-member committees headed by a chairperson should be formed with clear responsibilities and authorities — the committee size being small enough to function smoothly and with a clear line of accountability. Fifty thousand volunteers should be recruited and start training on different functions they will be performing during the games. They should be linked to training institutes for the service (airlines and hotels) industries.
Between exponents of our traditional music and art forms and those of ballet, modern dance and Bollywood choreography, we should ensure that a fabulous show is put up for the opening ceremony that the world talks about for times to come. Weekly progress updates on various fronts should be published in the newspapers and 5 kilometre runs and other mass participative events should be undertaken along with public trips to the stadia as well as to the parks, monuments and museums that make up the rich history and culture that is contemporary Delhi.
These are the things that will begin to make a difference. This is not the time to point fingers or to build fiefdoms or to look for reasons why something cannot be done. This is the time to focus on the goal at hand: hosting a fantastic 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
Rahul Verghese is a Delhi-based brand-consultant
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INDIAN EXPRESS
EDITORIAL
HOLY COWS
Surely even the Congress party is now slowly waking up to the fact that it has made a mistake of five-star proportions. The absurd moralising around “austerity” has created a monster: each and every Congressman is now in a bind, having to prove his or her moral worth — as well as loyalty — by progressively greater feats of simplicity and solidarity with the aam aadmi, preferably when there are TV cameras about. It is not just that this comes close to setting up the UPA’s senior leaders as objects of ridicule, as the aftermath of S.M. Krishna’s and Shashi Tharoor’s exit from their hotels demonstrated; and it goes beyond the hypocrisy and tokenism implicit in taking miniscule cuts in salary and travel arrangements when the much larger cheques for living in Lutyens Delhi and the incomparably larger cheques for irresponsible, subsidy-driven politics continue to be picked up by a cash-strapped government.
No, the concern is that now a nominally reformist party and government are trapped into a spiral of moral “correctness” that is rapidly taking on anti-aspiration, anti-”rich” overtones. If the party’s leaders wish to live simply, that is their prerogative. But to imply that austere “simplicity” is something that the ruling coalition prizes in governance and in the India they wish to build has far too many overtones of the bad old two-faced socialist India for comfort. As Tharoor wryly said on the internet website twitter.com, in response to a question as to whether, next time he travelled to Kerala, he would do it “cattle class” (that is, economy class): “Absolutely. In cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows!” But these particular holy cows we had hoped were gone forever. The Congress’s leadership has made a massive blunder in raising them from the dead.
And the spectacle of senior party leaders travelling in “simplicity” raises other issues. Congress President Sonia Gandhi flew to Mumbai in economy class, and AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi travelled to Ludhiana on the Shatabdi Express, in chair car. Both these were accompanied by a media frenzy, by inconvenience to other passengers and — most importantly — an increased security risk. It isn’t just the truth of Sarojini Naidu’s old complaint — that it cost a lot to keep Gandhiji in poverty — that is being brought home by such tokenism. It is also that it is both dangerous and irresponsible of the Congress’s leadership to expose itself to an increased threat level. It is unfair to the securitymen that protect them. And it is also a backward-looking political blunder. So why are they persisting?
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INDIAN EXPRESS
EDITORIAL
GOAL POSTS OF STEEL
When there is a duty to speak, silence is culpable,” said the lawyer in P. Chidambaram. The Union home minister could not have chosen a better way to illustrate his point to the audience — director-generals of police and inspector-generals from all over India. Chidambaram was wondering why the police top brass “remain silent when arbitrary postings and transfers are made by the state government.”
Free India envisaged an equally independent “steel frame”: officials who could withstand political expediency even when subject to political control. The guarantee of secure jobs, non-negotiable salaries, even constitutional protection from frivolous prosecution (the now-controversial Article 311) were designed to insulate public servants from the whims of their political masters. The only real power that politicians had over officials was the threat of transfer to remote or irrelevant postings. That thinnest of levers has become booming business. Posts are routinely alleged to have a price tag attached to them, and in many states, political change (or disappointment) is followed by the swift the change of top babus and cops. To take but the most recent example, soon after the BSP’s disappointing performance in the recent Lok Sabha elections, UP Chief Minister Mayawati transferred 43 IPS officers. UP’s legendary transfer regime (or, as some would say, racket) is only the most egregious example of a disease that pervades governance in India.
Politicians are obvious culprits, players who kick around senior officials like “footballs... from one post to another” (another one of Chidambaram’s colourful quotes-of-the-day). But the home minister pointed to other culprits: senior officers who don’t speak up for their subordinates. There is of course the threat that they too will be transferred. But if the entire top brass is united and prepared to defend juniors against such trivially motivated transfers, the system could be reconfigured. Many years ago the UP IAS officers — frequent targets of the transfer raj — famously ranked the three most corrupt amongst their own. Such forms of self-appraisal are not just welcome; they need to be deepened with a conviction that civil servants bear the responsibility for being responsive to the issues that impact the integrity of their service.
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INDIAN EXPRESS
COLUMN
ANTI ANTI-HYPOCRISY
PRATAP BHANU MEHTA
Is the relentless exposure of hypocrisy a good thing for a democracy? Questions over the relationship between the private conduct of particular ministers and the government’s austerity drive have raised this delicate question. In a curious way, the terms of debate on this issue are unmasking our collective hypocrisy more than they are exposing particular ministers.
If taxpayer money is being spent on maintaining the privileges and lifestyles of particular ministers, then we should scrutinise whether the money is being spent prudently. But the case where the ministers are spending their own private wealth is a lot more complicated. Politicians perform a different expressive role in any society. They are meant to be exemplars. They are also meant to be expressions of that nebulous entity called “the people”. So it is prudent that the social distance between them and those they represent is never too great. Sometimes their gestures of solidarity and sacrifice can also reinstate a powerful idea that they are in office to serve, not to enjoy privilege. Depriving yourself of a privilege you could have otherwise enjoyed can be a message of reassurance. In that sense, there is a deal of political prudence in gestures of solidarity that austerity measures sometimes embody. But we should be clear that this ia about political judgment, not about ethics or morality.
An excessive moralistic tone runs several risks. Any anti-hypocrisy argument, where we make a parade of our abilities to set an example, is often quite hypocritical. There has been much hand-wringing over particular individuals staying in five-star hotels. But if we were being genuinely non-hypocritical about austerity where would we stop? Much is being made about the fact that ministers are not moving into government accommodation. But if we really examined the matter we might swiftly come to the conclusion that, in Delhi, it is most forms of government accommodation and the attendant services that go with it that are the markers of privilege and conspicuous consumption. Government houses with great market rental value, with extraordinary gardens, prime locations, with an army of excess labour to maintain them, are far more a sign of privilege and social distance than spending your own wealth as you please. In short, individual gestures at austerity disguise the fact that there is a fantastic structural privilege inherent in government. The hypocrisy of living with that privilege might be far more deleterious to public policy than individual acts of conspicuous consumption. Just fantasise how different government’s attitude might be if everyone in government was actually asked to arrange for their own house, facilities, domestic help, etc, as others do. We might even get sensible government policy!
The point is not to suggest that because we cannot draw the line clearly between austerity and conspicuous consumption we should not draw it anywhere. The point is that easy moralism disguises the fact that those who call for these lines to be drawn sharply are already engaged in deep structural hypocrisy. And when we applaud exposure of hypocrisy we also forget that all of us are implicated in it too.
In some cases the politics of symbolism can itself produce greater hypocrisy. The irony in the case of someone like Shashi Tharoor is that we have moved him from honesty to dissimulation. One may not agree with his choice of residence. But on the face of it, it was at least honest and (if he was paying) did not impose much on the taxpayer. Now he has to pretend that he belongs to a class to which he palpably does not. Where is there more hypocrisy? In the honest admission of privilege? Or in the pretence that you are poorer than you are? Which sort of politician would you trust more?
The great theorist of hypocrisy, Judith Shklar, once wrote, “anti-hypocrisy is a splendid weapon of psychic warfare, but not a principle of government.” This can be seen at three levels. Austerity is fine as a principle. But in case of government it is a two-edged sword. As every intelligent theorist of political authority from Burke to Adam Smith recognised, it is also important for government not to appear contemptible. Much of what passed as austerity for many years did just that — made government look incapable and incompetent, if not an outright health hazard. The “five star” culture was not so much about conspicuous consumption as it was about overcoming decades where government frugality made it more contemptible than recognisably austere.
Second, contrary to what hypocritical moralists think, our attitude to privilege is complex. Of course conspicuous consumption generates a backlash. On the other hand, there is also the reverse thought: if even the well-to-do in society are unable to create some kind of world of their own choosing, what hope will there be for the rest? In short, exercising privilege, to a certain degree, is as much an expression of people’s aspirations as tearing down privilege. The balance is a hard one. But merely focusing on individuals disguises the fact that an inherent hypocrisy is generated by the tension between egalitarianism and aspiration. Most ordinary people are sensible enough to live with this hypocrisy.
Third, there is always the curious misapplication of symbolically-based frugality arguments. I think a case can be made that our members of Parliament are actually underpaid, and even more importantly under-resourced. But all kinds of austerity arguments are being used in places where they are probably not necessary. Here the politics of making the gesture takes over prudent determination of costs and benefits of giving MPs more.
None of this is to suggest that gestures of solidarity with the poor, or symbolic foregoing of privileges, or a critique of consumption are unimportant. They are. But we should recognise them for what they are: political judgments. The deeper moral issues have to do with the ends of government policy and the effects those have. Often, as Shklar noted, we are tempted to expose hypocrisy because it is easier then to dispose of the character of particular individuals than it is to show how their convictions are wrong, or their policies ineffective. Let us have an honest debate about the broad culture of consumption; we need that discussion as a society. Let us have a debate over taxpayer money or policies for the poor. But let us not pretend that forcing austerity on individuals by unmasking hypocrisy is a serious ethical issue.
The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research, Delhi (express@expressindia.com)
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INDIAN EXPRESS
COLUMN
NUMBERS DIVISIBLE BY TWO
SP SHARMA
The Unique Identification Number (UIN) project is high on the government’s agenda, and has gained momentum with the appointment of Nandan Nilekani. Nilekani has said the aim is to provide a UIN to 600 million persons by 2012. Each UIN will be randomly assigned, and linked to a database with biometric information. Data will be stored in a central server, and authentication of residents will be online. The authority is supposed to network with major registers — the NREGA, PDS and Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY) — to provide accurate information of beneficiaries and nip fraudulent claims.
It has also been argued that once the UINs are rolled out, internal security will improve. Indeed, the government has been worried about illegal migration and infiltration for a while; it considered compulsory registration of citizens and non-citizens living in India to prepare a National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC), the handing out to citizens of a Multi-purpose National Identity Card (MNIC) (with non-citizens receiving a card of different colour and design). With this in view, the MNIC pilot project was undertaken by the office of the Registrar-General (RGI) and Census Commissioner under the home ministry during 2003-2008 in selected areas of 13 states or Union territories, covering 28 lakh people in 2,175 villages and 19 towns costing, reportedly, Rs 30 crore.
Its main objectives: first, a credible individual identification system, with a unique national identity number to deter future illegal migration; second, preparing the NRIC register and issuing citizens an MNIC to aid interaction with government; third, more efficient e-governance; and fourth, continuous updating of NRIC based on births, deaths and fresh registration of citizens. This pilot project was undertaken after meeting legal requirements — by issuing the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003 under Section 18 of the Citizenship Act, 1955.
This is not the only home ministry project. Along with the 2011 Census, data will be collected for a National Population Register (NPR); this will be used for the photographs and biometrics to complete the UIN database. The RGI had arranged to canvass the NPR, the updated NRIC, at the pre-test of the 2011 Census, conducted recently, during July and August 2009.
Purportedly for security reasons, the ministry has accelerated the NPR in coastal villages of 9 maritime states and 4 Union territories and will issue identity cards to all the usual residents in these areas. The home minister is keen that this be completed soon; the RGI, working with the state governments and local administration, has already started preparing the NPR, including registering photographs and finger biometrics in the coastal areas.
Clearly, the two agencies — the home ministry and Nilekani’s authority (UIDAI) — are working with their own, independent, thinking and strategy. First, to begin with, the UIDAI will prepare its own database by networking with major registers like the NREGS, the PDS and the RSBY; the ministry, meanwhile, has planned to prepare and adopt the NPR. It is not clear how and why the UIDAI has, suddenly, preferred the less reliable data in the scheme registers to the better-authenticated NPR. Did they conduct any study to assess the accuracy, feasibility and availability of these registers for adoption in preference to the NPR? Secondly, the UIN is “random” while the ministry’s ID number will be assigned systematically.
The UIDAI have to spell out how the electronic database complete with photograph and finger biometrics of each individual will be maintained and updated at Central, state and lower levels. India has 35 states/ Union territories, 593 districts, 5,463 sub-districts, 5,161 towns and 6,38,588 villages (according to the 2001 Census); establishing a UIN authority for each administrative unit is a Herculean task. This has to be planned and performed very carefully, so that what happened in 1951 is not repeated: the project of maintaining and updating of a national register of Indian citizens, prepared at the first Census of independent India, failed miserably.
Nilekani’s authority and the home ministry are looking after this project in different ways and proceeding according to their own strategies. Yet there are common goals: both these government agencies are to provide an individual, numerical, identification system, a basis for more efficient e-governance and deter future illegal migration for improved internal security. There is no alternative but to evolve a common strategy and work-plan, rather than moving independently. It is therefore necessary for the PM’s council on the UIN to look into this before it is too late, and do what is necessary to avoid duplication of effort. The aims and objectives for these projects are of great national importance, and have a huge budget — Rs 1,50,000 crore; energies cannot be allowed to dissipate.
The writer, a former deputy registrar-general of the Census, was a senior advisor to the home ministry’s MNIC project (express@expressindia.com)
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INDIAN EXPRESS
OPED
A FEW LESSONS
ARUN SHOURIE
“Arun Shourie has attacked the Chief Minister, A.R. Antulay because the latter has opposed America’s decision to give arms to Pakistan... Arun Shourie’s well-known connections with the American CIA... He was got a job at the World Bank... Since his return to India, he has been using the pretext of his son’s illness to regularly visit his bosses abroad. . .”
Across the top of the page was a photograph of our helpless little son laughing away in my arms.
Though twenty-seven years have gone by, I still remember the smear that a glossy magazine put out when I wrote the series that led Mrs Gandhi to eventually have Antulay resign. That was a load of nonsense, of course. It constituted no answer to the facts that had been printed. Even that bit about the CIA was of no consequence. After all, it was a conventional slur in those days — Mrs Gandhi herself had insinuated that a “foreign hand” had been behind even as saintly a person as JP and his movement. It was that bit about “using the pretext of his son’s illness to regularly visit his bosses abroad” that infuriated me no end. The least of it was that I had scarcely been abroad since I had returned during the Emergency — only once after our child had been reduced to a handkerchief by the sedatives he was fed by doctors here and we were told to urgently take him to London. It was the pretext business.
Pretext? PRETEXT? My head screamed. Our son could not walk: thirty-four now, he still cannot. He could not stand: he still cannot. He could not use his right hand and arm: he still cannot. He could see only as if through a tunnel: that is still the limit of his vision today. He could barely speak: he still speaks syllable by syllable. And here were some swine who said his illness was a pretext that I was using.
I sued the magazine for defamation. Through its lawyer — quite a famous man in Bombay at the time, and, I am sure, a very highly priced one — the magazine ensured one adjournment after another. Eventually, it filed an affidavit: through this sworn document and its famous lawyer, the magazine said we hold Arun Shourie in the highest esteem; indeed, he has blazed new trails in Indian journalism; far from having proof for what we published, we do not believe a word of what was printed, it swore; we only wanted to alert our readers to the kind of things that are being said even about such a person in our society. . .
“They can drag the case on forever. . .” I was advised. “In the end, you will have to settle for an apology. . . They are prepared to print straightaway the apology you draft. . . Why not settle the matter? Why not draft the apology you want printed? They will print it promptly. . .”
I drafted an abject text for the apology. They printed it — conspicuously. For all I know, gleefully. That I succumbed to the advice burns my heart to this day.
This time round also, there has been the usual crop. “These have been the pampered boys of the BJP. . . They came to the party only for cream. As the party, having lost the elections, cannot give them any cream now, they are hurling these accusations. . . He is doing this only for publicity. He wants to be a political martyr. We will give him the opportunity. . . He is saying all this only because he got to know that he will not be given a third-term in the Rajya Sabha. . .”
Nor was I the only one who had such pejoratives flung at him. Jaswant Singh had written a letter asking the party leadership to hold those who had been responsible for the electoral campaign and defeat “only because he was upset that he would be losing a room in Parliament”! Yashwant Sinha too had demanded that the party make an honest and open assessment of the shortcomings that had led to its defeat. He had himself won the Lok Sabha poll, and handsomely. But he was dubbed “a frustrated politician” in the stories that were planted.
Mr Advani had been maintaining that he had not known about various aspects of the Kandahar exchange of terrorists for hostages. Jaswant Singh disclosed facts that put Mr Advani’s account in question. Brajesh Mishra set out further facts. Yashwant Sinha endorsed what Mishra had stated. With these statements, four members of the cabinet committee on security, excluding Mr Vajpayee all four other than Mr Advani, had called Mr Advani’s version in question — for George Fernandes had already said that Mr Advani had perhaps forgotten that he had been in, and participated in, the meetings at which each of the decisions had been taken. There must have been a way to set the doubts at rest. But what did the spokesman do?
“Mr Mishra’s statements are unfounded, unfortunate and politically motivated,” declared one of the current spokesmen of the BJP. “He is not a member of the BJP.”
What had the veracity or otherwise of Mishra’s statements to do with his being or not being a member of the BJP? He was the national security advisor at the time as well as the principal secretary to the prime minister. He had participated in every single meeting and decision relating to Kandahar. Neither the spokesman-of-the-moment nor others holding party offices at the time could claim to have known first hand anything at all about what had transpired then. Nor were they producing or even pointing towards any documentary record to show that Mishra was wrong. Did those formulaic words — “unfounded, unfortunate” — prove the facts to be otherwise?
Just as important is another question, indeed from the point of view of the media, an even more important one: Is there another country in which such words are taken to be ‘“refutations”? Is there one in which they are even reported as they are here?
As for “politically motivated”, not one, but two things stand out each time the words are flung. Everyone has a motive, it seems, except them! Second, in the reckoning of our politicians, the most devastating abuse is that the other fellow is “politically motivated”!
(To be continued)
The writer is a Rajya Sabha MP from the BJP
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INDIAN EXPRESS
OPED
DOUBLE WHAMMY
C. RAJA MOHAN
In just one weekend, Washington has turned the much fancied notion of building a ‘Group of Two’ with Beijing on its head. Washington’s punitive tariffs on Chinese tyre imports and Beijing’s threat to retaliate by targeting American exports of chicken and auto parts has triggered the talk of a ‘trade war’ between US and China.
Coming on top of Obama’s anticipated economic measure — he was under pressure from the trade unions — was his decision to send a close personal friend from Chicago and currently top adviser in the White House, Valerie Jarrett to meet with the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala. Jarrett was accompanied by a senior state department official. This high level visit from Washington to Dharamshala appears to be part of Obama’s effort to revive the stalled dialogue between Beijing and the Dalai Lama. Obama’s two predecessors, Presidents Bush and Clinton sought to nudge Beijing into cutting a deal with the Dalai Lama on Tibetan autonomy. Neither of them had much of an effect on China.
“We are firmly opposed to any foreign official meeting with the Dalai Lama,” Beijing said in a terse response on Tuesday. Beijing is also likely to launch a protest with Delhi for allowing top American officials to visit the Dalai Lama. The escalation of Sino-US tensions comes days before President Hu Jintao arrives in the United States for the summit of the G-20 nations in Pittsburgh and amidst plans for Obama’s visit to China in early November.
The Dalai Lama is expected to arrive in Washington in early October. It is not clear if Obama will see him before his visit to Beijing or after. All recent US presidents have met with the Dalai Lama in the White House.
OKADA’S TILT
If Beijing is irritated with Washington, it has reasons to be pleased with the formation of a new government in Tokyo on Wednesday. The indications are that Katsuya Okada, the next foreign minister of Japan, is positively inclined towards China. Although Okada has sought to reassure America about continuity in Japan’s foreign policy, he is widely seen as an Asianist.
In comments earlier this month, Okada said, “There are discussions on whether Japan should attach more importance to the United States or China. However, we value both China and the United States”. What worries America is the fact that Okada is putting Beijing on the same pedestal as Washington, Japan’s alliance partner for six decades.
Since he was a junior legislator, Okada has been part of intensive political exchanges with China. He is believed to be close to the Chinese First Vice Premier Li Keqiang, who is billed to take over from the current premier Wen Jiabao.
Although the Democratic Party of Japan has a reputation of being pro-human rights, Okada has signaled the new government’s caution. In an attempt to reassure Beijing, Okada has said that the recent political unrest in Xinjiang and Tibet are China’s “domestic issues”.
Needless to say, a Japan that tilts towards Beijing might have a lot less time for Delhi. In the last few years, as part of a decision to build an alliance of democracies in Asia, Tokyo has sought out Delhi for a strategic partnership. The new Japanese leaders are saying they will have nothing to do with that “values-based foreign policy”.
SPACE CENTRE
This week China has begun construction of a new space launch centre on the Hainan Island. This will be the southern-most of the country’s four launch pads. The closer you are to the equator, the better lift you get for the rocket.
Currently China has three launch sites. One is at Jiuquan in the Gobi desert that is used for China’s Shenzou human space flight missions. Another, at Xichang, near Chengdu in the Sichuan province has been launching satellites into the geostationary orbit; and the third is at Taiyuan south of Beijing for launching satellites into the polar orbit.
The Hainan space centre is expected to support China’s ambitious plans to build a space station and assemble the ‘Beidou’ satellite navigation network as an alternative to the American GPS and European Galileo systems. The Hainan island will host the powerful ‘Long March 5’ rocket which is expected to be unveiled in 2014.
The writer is Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Affairs at the Library of Congress, Washington
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INDIAN EXPRESS
OPED
VIEW FROM THE LEFT
MANOJ C G
The lead editorial in the latest issue of CPI(M) mouthpiece People’s Democracy claims that the RSS appears to have assumed the “reins of direct control” of the BJP, which was plagued with internal dissensions and organisational problems after the Lok Sabha elections. The article says it feared that RSS control over the BJP would bring the aggressive hardcore Hindutva agenda to the fore, which cannot but sharpen communal passions. “This is because the RSS/BJP appear to have come to the conclusion that it is only through an aggressive display of hardcore communalism can it succeed in polarising the society in its effort to mobilise the ‘Hindu vote bank’.”
“Unfortunately, these apprehensions are turning out to be true. For a week now, communal tensions continue to simmer, threatening to burst into flames in the districts of Sangli and Kolhapur in western Maharashtra. Violence broke out on the last day of the Ganesh festival in the Miraj town of Sangli district. It soon spread to adjoining districts in the country’s sugar bowl...As always, there is a deliberate design stoking such violence. The trouble started in the district after the police seized a decorative poster in one of the Ganesh mandals which depicted Shivaji Maharaja’s killing of Afzal Khan. Such a depiction was designed to provoke a confrontation...”
GAS FEUD
An article by Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) leader Dipankar Mukherjee criticises the prime minister for appealing to the warring Ambani brothers to settle the KG basin natural gas price dispute in the national interest. Since when has national interest become synonymous with corporate interest? he seeks to know. “On one hand the government — though belatedly but rightly — asserted a couple of months back that natural gas is a national resource and an asset which is owned by the people of the country, and on the other hand the corporate siblings are being cajoled openly by ministers to amicably settle the issue between themselves...”
At the first place, he says, the gas price fixed by the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) constituted by the prime minister himself had far reaching implications on the national energy sector in financial and economic terms.
“This was an executive decision and the executive is accountable to Parliament to clear the cloud of suspicion hovering around the hasty decision taken by the government, ignoring the advice of government agencies and wings like NTPC, ministry of fertilisers, committee of secretaries and without consultation with C&AG, PNGRB and state governments... Did the government surrender to, or collude with, corporate interest? The prime minister must clarify on behalf of the EGoM the brazen acts of omission and commission of the government. This is beyond the realm of settlement between the feuding corporate siblings, and lies within the domain of Parliament. The government cannot abdicate its responsibility to the corporates,” he says.
EDUCATION REFORM
In an article, Kerala Education Minister M.A. Baby lashes out at the HRD Ministry for not consulting the states and sidelining the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) while taking major policy initiatives. “The unilateral announcement by Kapil Sibal of the 100 day action plan involving far reaching policy changes like dispensing with the examinations in the 10th standard, is a clear indication of a federal deficit in policy making,” he says.
As regards Sibal’s reported statement that he would do for the education sector in 2009 what Manmohan Singh had done to the economy in 1991, Baby says: “The agenda notes circulated for the CABE meeting clearly reflected this misguided self-assurance on the advisability of neo-liberal reforms.”
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INDIAN EXPRESS
OPED
BECAUSE THE BLUFF MIGHT JUST BE CALLED
K. SUBRAHMANYAM
Taking all the factors (elaborated on these pages yesterday) into account, the national security advisory board recommended to the government in August 1999 that India should adopt a strategy of ‘no first use’ and a credible minimum deterrence. This was accepted with some modifications by the government in January 2003. There have always been critics of the ‘no first use’ strategy. It is argued that if there is absolutely foolproof intelligence that the adversary is preparing to strike, why should not there be a pre-emptive strike? These critics do not follow up their own scenario further and explain how the pre-emptive strike will avoid a retaliatory strike which the adversary is bound to carry out. While the pre-emptive strike, because of its very nature, will be a counter-force one, the adversary’s retaliation is bound to be a counter-value one compelling the initiator of the attack to follow up the pre-emptive strike with a second strike to inflict commensurate counter-value damage. In a situation where a pre-emptive strike is considered, there may still be a miniscule possibility that the adversary may have a very last minute change of mind; but a pre-emptive strike will compel him to strike back. Therefore, it is not clear what advantage will be gained by resorting to a pre-emptive strike.
It is argued that the adversary’s first strike may be designed to decapitate the command and control of the country and the nuclear force, and in such circumstances the pre-emptive strike would be advantageous. The country should take all necessary precautions to ensure the continuity of command and control under all circumstances. The most effective way of ensuring that the adversary will not succeed in his objective in carrying out such a decapitating strike is to ensure a continuity in respect of succession in both political and military commands. If that is in place, the decapitation strike will lose all its strategic significance. It will evoke a punitive response. The ‘no first use’ strategy is a signal to potential adversaries that the country is in a position to weather a nuclear attack and retaliate punitively.
There was a time when, in the nuclear discourse in the US, people talked casually about millions of casualities. Now a couple of hundred casualties in Iraq or Afghanistan per year is considered unacceptable. A limited Pakistani army campaign against a few hundred insurgents produces more than a couple of million internally displaced persons. Imagine what could happen if a few cities of Pakistan are hit with nuclear weapons. Apart from fatalities in hundreds of thousands and wounded many times that number, millions of persons will be running away not only from cities already hit, but also from cities which will be considered potential targets. And governance will collapse. Medical services will not be able to cope up with it. Herman Kahn raised the pertinent question: whether in those circumstances the living will envy the dead?
Robert McNamara, the US defence secretary of the sixties who made those fanciful calculations of what percentage of the Soviet population and industry should be threatened with assured destruction for deterrence to be effective, wrote in Foreign Policy in May/June 2005 that launching a nuclear weapon against a nuclear armed adverasary would be suicidal. He said he had never seen any US or NATO war plans that concluded that initiating the use of nuclear weapons would yield the US or the alliance any benefit. He also said that his statement to this effect had never been refuted by NATO defence ministers or senior military leaders, Yet, it was impossible for any of them, including US presidents, to make such statements publicly because they were totally contrary to established NATO policy.
In respect of conventional war, the side with military superiority used to be able to dominate the battle field, the air space and the seas and inflict disproportionate losses to the side with lesser resources till a militarily meaningful result was achieved. Even this does not happen in respect of asymmetric war as happened in Vietnam where the US won all the battles, inflicted millions of casualties on the Vietnamese and yet lost the war at the end. A similar fate overtook the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. In the case of a nuclear war with long reach missiles, whole countries on both sides become battlefields and irrespective of the relative strengths of nuclear arsenal, two neighbouring countries engaging in a nuclear exchange will inflict unacceptable damage on each other without being able to achieve any meaningful military results. Once the first missiles are launched, it is impossible to control and regulate further launches for fear of losing the missiles before they are used. In these circumstances, nuclear weapons are rationally usable only as a deterrent against nuclear threats since a nuclear asymmetric situation will give the nuclear threatener an enormous advantage in coercive diplomacy and subject the armed forces of the nuclear unarmed country to enormous psychological disadvantage. Dr A.Q.Khan has disclosed that the Pakistani bomb was ready in 1984 and they did not test it because General Zia did not want to annoy the US at that stage. The Kargil Committee report records that in 1987, at the time of Brasstacks crisis, the Indian high commissioner was summoned and told that Pakistan was capable of inflicting unacceptable damage (code word for use of a nuclear weapon) on India if India violated Pakistani territorial integrity. Pakistan at that stage had a proven Chinese nuclear weapon design to copy . The book The Nuclear Express by the Livermore nuclear scientist Thomas Reed and Los Alamos nuclear physicist Danny Stillman, discloses that China conducted a nuclear test for Pakistan at the LopNor test site on May 26 1990. China and North Korea armed Pakistan with a panoply of missiles of different ranges through the ’90s.
In 1996, the Chinese managed to include India as one of the 45 countries that should sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in spite of India’s opposition to it, to bring it into force by 1999. Then came the Ghauri missile test by Pakistan in April 1998. Faced with this nuclear asymmetric situation, it became rational for India to carry out the Shakti series of tests and declare itself a nuclear-weapons state and exercise deterrence vis a vis its nuclear neighbours. ‘No first use’ strategy is the optimal compromise between India’s commitment to nuclear disarmament and its nuclear security imperatives.
(Concluded) (The writer is a senior defence analyst)
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FINANCIAL EXPRESS
EDITORIAL
A SUPER REGULATOR?
This is open season on regulatory reform. Not just in the West, where the first Lehman anniversary has sharpened debates, but also in India, where many are re-congratulating themselves on possessing the regulatory wisdom that prevented Lehmans happening here. The India story is a little more complicated than that. But let’s note, first, that the Indian government has entered the debate with a proposal, as reported in The Indian Express, that apparently has political traction and political authority at the heart of it: the finance minister heads a super regulator—a regulator of all financial regulators that will be called Financial Services & Development Authority (FSDA) and will replace the loose arrangement called the high-level coordination committee that exists now. Is this a good idea? The way to answer this question is not to immediately get into academic arcana on regulatory models. Both the American and British models were exposed as effectively not having a clue to the crisis. And while India didn’t have a crisis, it has a slow, small, inefficient banking system that can’t prune lending costs and fails to effectively serve a trillion-dollar economy hosting a billion people. Regulatory failure can be terribly model-invariant. So, let’s ask the following simple questions.
First, will FSDA be able to make regulators under it change their ways, drop their resistance, if change reduces a particular regulator’s remit, but increases regulatory effectiveness? An excellent example is the Debt Management Office (DMO). The DMO is a done deal in terms of preparatory work. RBI says this is not the right time. And everyone in the system seems to accept this. Will FSDA be the kind of body that will push through a DMO? On paper, it should be able to. But governance is about the difference between what’s on paper and what gets done. Second, will FSDA be the kind of body that sees financial regulation for what it is—basically, a system that tries to promote returns over the long term with as little friction as possible? This would mean, for example, asking questions like, how deep and liquid should the debt market be and should there be a different commodities market regulator? These and other questions will involve both theory and turf, and FSDA must be a body that has sufficient intellectual and political heft to sort them out. Third, accepting the argument that if and when financial firms need a bailout, a political figure like the FM should be formally making the last call, the question persists whether politics of the dodgier kind will be kept out of FSDA’s deliberations. Bailouts are high-stakes games—who to save, who not to, how much money to commit, who should lose his shirt and who gets to keep it, all of which are complicated by the large public sector presence in Indian finance. Let’s have some answers to these questions.
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FINANCIAL EXPRESS
EDITORIAL
HUNTING URANIUM
This week, India hosted the Mongolian president, who signed an agreement that will help us source uranium from his country. A couple of weeks ago, a similar agreement was inked while the Namibian president was visiting India. Before that, President Pratibha Patil was in Tajikistan, which has now agreed to allow Indian companies to explore for uranium deposits there. Clearly and admirably, the government is not letting the grass grow under the big US pact finalised last year. That landmark accord saw the lifting of the 34-year-old global embargo on India purchasing civilian nuclear technology. Plus, although India is not a signatory to the NPT, it won a waiver from the NSC that allows it to buy nuclear fuel to boost electricity production. India entered the uranium spot market without delay. Early international agreements include the one signed with French giant Areva in December 2008. After years of shortages and sluggish activity, it’s remarkable that not only has full delivery of that contracted amount been taken, but those uranium concentrates have been put to use already—to restart the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station Unit-II, which had been shut for about a year due to a fuel shortage. Some suppliers like Australia are proving obdurate. This is a hindrance, given that it has the world’s largest uranium resources—at approximately 40%. Then there is the China factor, as that country, too, is pursuing the nuclear route to feed its power pangs and scouring markets for fuel. Combine the fact that global supply is expected to begin falling short of demand in a decade, and you see why New Delhi is wooing countries that have hitherto remained unnoticed on its radar. Realpolitik literally in the service of power.
On the Mongolia front, India is just the second country to sign a uranium deal after Russia. Its president has chosen India as its first foreign destination. His country has 62,000 tonnes of uranium and no nuclear power plant. Namibia has 5% of the world’s reserves, but, like Mongolia, needs help to develop them. Tajikistan, too, has cited ‘mutual’ benefit. All these countries offer excellent risk/reward odds. Good work notwithstanding, the diplomatic apparatus can ill-afford to take time off hectic parlaying. It has, after all, repeatedly lost ground to China in the battle for resources—in Africa, Central Asia and Myanmar. Domestic agencies has, for various reasons, been unable to supply even stagnant capacity and is, therefore, unlikely to deliver to a growing demand. On top of this, it is estimated that six of the world’s top ten uranium mines will be depleted by 2020. So, India must think beyond its current needs to consider how it will source uranium for the entire service life of its reactors.
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FINANCIAL EXPRESS
COLUMN
BIG FINANCE MUST READ ADAM SMITH
MICHAEL WALTON
It comes to something when the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City warns of the dangers of financial oligarchy and the Chairman of the UK’s Financial Services authority questions the social value of some of finance’s activity. Both happened in the past month. There are big failures in financial markets! Oligarchic influence is part of the problem! A year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers is a good time to consider these issues.
The nature and depth of the financial crisis was a huge surprise to (almost) everyone. But the underlying phenomena are familiar to anyone working on developing economies. It is mainstream to recognise that financial markets are thick with failure, that crises happen, and that concentrated interests are a big influence on policy.
Let’s look at the crisis through this prism. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that there were big market failures, notably in the development of products that amplified and obscured risks, alongside techniques to offload these onto the naïve and unsuspecting—that included sophisticated investors. This induced moral hazard on a grand scale, with powerful incentives for excessive risk-taking, since those taking risks could spread or avoid the costs. Those who sold, offloaded or sanctioned these products did extremely well. This caused big real distortions, pulling talent and innovative effort into finance, such that the sector accounted for around 30% of profits in the US before the crisis.
The powerful financial lobby was an important influence on the deregulation that underpinned these changes—along with prevailing currents of thought. Lehman Brothers was just one beneficiary, enjoying large profits, giving obscene bonuses, and accumulating big risks. Like others, it efficiently transmitted these risks throughout the system.
When the music stopped, with the souring of the US subprime market, there was a collective act of revelation that the assets were of much, much lower quality than they seemed. Lehman was insolvent.
Now the action got interesting. For the US government and Fed let Lehman go bust! Here was surely a policy victory against moral hazard, and, moreover, involving a pillar of the financial system.
This didn’t last long. The costs were massively higher than expected, to the extent that anything was expected in
those days. The systemic effects were so extensive—owing to the extraordinary scope and complexity of counterparty risk—that the whole financial system practically froze up. Saving the system was much more important than moral hazard, and an extraordinary and impressive array of monetary, financial and fiscal action saved the world from either a short-run financial catastrophe or the Second Great Depression.
I think it is highly likely that the crisis resolution was regressive: some of the wealthy lost their shirt (and a very few may go to jail), but the financial sector as a whole benefited from major gains in the upswing and imposed an immense fiscal cost in the downturn: of the order of 40% of GDP in the US, a cost that will be paid by lower spending and higher taxes. Unemployment has risen sharply, while the share of financial profits in GDP has actually risen in 2009, and bonuses are back.
The drama is continuing to unfold. Two things happened. First, it became universally acknowledged that something had to be done on the regulatory front. But second, the underlying structure of the system has remained intact, with actually increased dominance of large financial firms, and the return to high profits, helped by cheap money and low competition. Moreover, finance remains intricately linked to the political system, with financial institutions amongst the most important donors to congressional campaigns. The banking lobby is vigorously campaigning against regulation it judges to be burdensome, even against the seemingly highly socially useful consumer products legislation, that would screen and provide warning labels on complex and risky financial products. This illustrates a common story: high levels of market concentration can shape the design and implementation of the very regulation designed to correct market failure.
Better regulation and curtailing influence will be complex in design, but what matters are the principles. The most likely short-run action will be on higher capital requirements. A good idea, but unlikely to fix problems of moral hazard, diversion of talent into finance, and future crisis risks. Lehman’s measured coverage of first tier capital was healthy before the crisis. Breaking up large banks could be fiendishly difficult. But the power of big finance is surely an issue that needs to be grappled with. This isn’t a left-wing preoccupation. Adam Smith was as concerned with the distorting influence of concentrated interests as he was insightful of the power of decentralised markets.
The author is at the Harvard Kennedy School, the Institute of Social & Economic Change and Centre for Policy Research
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FINANCIAL EXPRESS
COLUMN
OLD DEBATE, REVISITED IN WEST BENGAL
RAJESH CHAKRABARTI
The ruling Left Front in West Bengal could not have asked for a worse year than the current one. The drubbing it received in the Lok Sabha polls has been repeated in civic and by-elections and there is clear evidence of an anti-Left momentum building up. The Assembly election of 2011 is widely expected to be a watershed like Japan’s recent polls, finally unseating the Left after 34 long years! But two years is an eternity in politics, so it is puzzling that the Left itself seems to have already lost its will to fight and has almost conceded defeat. Buddhababu’s health is making news surprisingly often and there are speculations afoot on his replacement—only everyone else seems to have more muck.
The latest mess the Left Front finds itself in concerns, yet again, land acquisition methods. A chance encounter of villagers with anti-socials about a football match has interestingly snowballed into a crisis revealing links between politicians, goons, promoters and land-sharks at Vedic Village, a newly developed high-end residential complex near Kolkata. There is clear evidence of large-scale land grab and coercion of villagers. As state ministers try to wrangle out of an ever-expanding mess and blame one another, the fallout has claimed a proposed IT park nearby with Infosys and Wipro already signed up, deflating whatever was left of the Left Front’s industrialisation agenda after the Tata exit from Singur.
All this points to the risks associated with business group based industrialisation programmes of which West Bengal is not, by far, the only guilty state. The title of a relatively recent international bestseller—Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists—comes to mind. The comrades have probably forgotten the distinction in their decades of exhortation against both, but the wooing of the latter to bring prosperity is hardly restricted to West Bengal. Politicians have always favoured lumpy, visible, large projects—often termed “ribbon-cutting investments”—over widespread flourishing of small and medium enterprises. In this age of public-private partnership and competition among states to industrialise, this has meant wooing established corporate names at any cost, on the promise that though the initial outlay may be restricted in scope of employment and output, some vaguely indicated “ancillary and downstream” investments will alter the industrial situation fundamentally. It is a throwback to the old government-led industrialisation model with favoured private players instead of PSUs.
This is flawed thinking for several reasons. For one, this means the big business groups get favoured deals, particularly land, from governments and politicians creating yet another obstacle to competition. SMEs, known for their employment opportunities and local effects, on the other hand get elbowed out because of, among other things, land scarcity worsened by such deals. Therefore, such large-business-centric industrialisation agenda not just ignores SMEs, it works to their disadvantage. States should focus more on the aam entrepreneur than sell their souls to get the large business groups to come in. Ultimately the role of the state in promoting business is to provide a good—read prompt, effective and fair—regulatory and bureaucratic environment for business to flourish.
In Bengal, of course, this approach has backfired completely because the marquee projects have themselves stalled. It is also difficult to ignore the irony of the Left Front’s relationship with land in the state. Land reforms are generally hailed to be its greatest contribution that cemented its rule. Yet today, land deals and agitating farmers appear to spell its doom. In a sense, they are repeating history—comrade Lenin had a similar experience with the “land for farmers” issue and had to use the Red Army as a solution. But there are other ironies too. Ratan Tata has no intention of giving back the land at Singur to the state for other industry since he has reportedly invested Rs 500 crore in it. Can the state now use the same arguments against Tata that it applied to the original owners of the land to acquire it? Or does the land acquisition act have teeth only against farmers, not industrialists?
Naturally all this is a godsend to Mamata. The Leftists are now already hoping that her seemingly inevitable victory in 2011 will end up looking like the first non-Congress government at the Centre, for surely the agitator par excellence cannot measure up as an administrator. Here, they are likely to be underestimating her yet again. All long-standing regimes spawn a “no-alternative” myth and, as in Japan, there is little in terms of policy that distinguishes Trinamool from the Left. But still, like there, a shaking off of the entrenched rulers can only be for the good of Bengal. Let us just hope the transition spills as little blood as possible.
The author teaches finance at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad
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FINANCIAL EXPRESS
COLUMN
LIQUID FACTS
SAIKAT NEOGI
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) in India now seem to be betting big on equity while being lukewarm on debt, which is a reversal of their preferred position at the same time last year. Until September 14 this year, FIIs were net sellers of debt worth Rs 819.5 crore, compared with net investment in debt worth Rs 7,430 crore in the same period last year. On the other hand, till September 14, FIIs had made a net investment of Rs 42,689 crore in equity, compared with net sale of equity worth Rs 31,449 crore in the same period last year.
The equity market in India is generating the highest returns among all emerging economies. On the other hand, fears of hardening interest rates because of excessive government borrowing combined with the fear of monetary policy adjustment to control inflation in the near term are likely to keep the bonds markets volatile.
Hedge funds are also increasing their exposure to equity and the investment is now highest since June last year.
In fact, last year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and global economic crisis, FIIs were net buyers of debt worth Rs 11,771 crore and net sellers of stocks worth Rs 52,987 crore. They became risk averse on equity but were optimistic about the country’s debt market.
Usually, FIIs invest in government securities like bonds under the market stabilisation programme or treasury bills of a shorter tenure at a time when there is an uncertainty about interest rates in the medium to long run. In fact, bonds were in ample supply in the last quarter of the previous financial year, with an upsurge in issuances under the market stabilisation scheme, which were mostly of a shorter tenure. Yields in the government bond market have been on the rise in recent times and with the rising rupee it made it lucrative for overseas investors to look at the gilt market.
Still banks continue to play safe and are investing in mutual funds. In the first quarter of this financial year, banks have invested a record Rs 1,02,838 crore in mutual funds, taking their outstanding exposure to Rs 1,39,619 crore as on July 31.
saikat.neogi@expressindia.com
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THE HINDU
EDITORIAL
SOME CHEER FOR BJP IN BAD TIMES
In hard times, anything positive can serve as a morale booster. After coming under attack from both within and outside during the last few months, the Bharatiya Janata Party found cause for cheer in the results of the by-elections to some State Assemblies. The party won seven of 12 seats, most significantly five of the seven seats in Gujarat, a stronghold where it had turned in a below-par performance in the Lok Sabha election. It won one Assembly constituency in Uttarakhand, a State where it had lost all the five Lok Sabha seats. The seventh seat came from Madhya Pradesh, another BJP-ruled State, but here the score was tied 1-1 with the Congress. By themselves, the by-elections do not amount to a great deal. In both Gujarat and Uttarakhand, the party of the Hindu Right enjoys a majority in the Assembly, and the results of the by-elections do not alter political equations. But the principal opposition party — which is trumpeting its win in Gujarat’s Jasdan, a constituency it has not represented since Independence — would like to place these results in a larger context, both in terms of time and space. Clearly, the psychological value of the outcome of the by-elections outweighs everything else.
Which is to say that at the national level, the gains have lifted the spirits of the BJP leadership that is still struggling to cope with a second successive defeat in the 15th Lok Sabha election. Besieged by dissidents of all hues, it can now use these hopeful pointers to buy time and ward off challenges from the second rung. After the Jaswant Singh fiasco, and continued sniping from Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha, the leadership of L.K. Advani and Rajnath Singh came under threat. Chief Minister Narendra Modi too was blamed for the national debacle and the lacklustre performance in Gujarat. All three were under some pressure to demonstrate that voters had not given up on them. Although it is difficult to see the results as a turn-around, the senior office-bearers in the BJP can now use the psychological boost to strengthen their position within the organisation, at least for now. Mr. Rajnath Singh has been able to claim, with some credibility, that the by-elections have shown that the party was not losing ground in States ruled by it. As for the Congress, the political cockiness, the ‘we-don’t-really-need-allies’ attitude, and smugness over the troubles in which opponents have found themselves will be hard to sustain as the realities of a fragmented polity and a changeable popular mood begin to assert themselves and the delicious scent of an unexpected triumph fades. The Maharashtra Assembly election will be the next, and more significant, test.
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THE HINDU
EDITORIAL
WEATHERING THE CRISIS
The filing for bankruptcy by Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008 was a seminal point in global financial history, marking the start of a particularly virulent phase of the global financial crisis, which soon morphed into an unprecedented economic crisis. The sub-prime housing mortgage crisis that led to the collapse of the iconic investment bank was building up for more than a year. The securitised mortgage backed debt obligations and their related financial derivatives engineered by some of the world’s leading financial institutions turned into toxic assets. The irony is that the very institutions that created these with such complexity that tended to hide the real nature of the underlying risks ended up owning some of them. Almost all the top investment banks came under fire. While a few — notably Merrill Lynch and Bear Sterns — were rescued by the U.S. authorities, Lehman Brothers was allowed to go under, with catastrophic consequences. The entire global inter-bank lending mechanism froze and the flow of credit stopped due to extreme counter party risk aversion. Policy makers everywhere realised quickly that unless the financial sector was stabilised, the economic downturn could not be checked. The U.S. authorities adopted unconventional measures that basically involved the deployment of huge sums of public money to clean up the balance sheets and give support to the financial system and the economy.
The Indian economy has been relatively resilient. It was no doubt affected through the transmission of the contagion operating through the trade, capital flows, and confidence channels. Exports have been declining for 11 months in a row, reflecting the sharp demand contraction in the developed economies. Imports too have been falling due partly to lower domestic growth. Software exports and remittances by workers from abroad have remained steady. There has been no undue pressure on the balance of payments despite the sharp reversal of capital flows and contraction in total exports. Economic growth fell by three percentage points to 5.8 per cent during the quarter following the Lehman debacle. However, for the whole year (2008-09), the economy grew by 6.7 per cent, which is quite impressive when compared with the performance of most other countries. GDP growth climbed above 6 per cent during the first quarter of 2009-10. According to most forecasts, economic growth will be at least 6 per cent this year, despite the severe drought. Optimism may not have returned fully as yet to the markets, but the industrial sector is beginning to show some buoyancy and the capital flows are rising.
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THE HINDU
LEADER PAGE ARTICLES
A TIPPING POINT IN THE AFGHAN WAR
THE KUNDUZ INCIDENT HAS LED TO THE COMPULSION, FELT FOR A WHILE ALREADY, FOR BERLIN TO REDEFINE THE GERMAN ROLE IN AFGHANISTAN.
M.K. BHADRAKUMAR
Two fuel trucks hijacked from a German convoy get stuck in mud on the Kunduz river banks in northern Afghanistan. The irate German commander orders an air strike, while desperately poor people crowd around the trucks at the fascinating prospect of accessing free fuel. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation handed down to the Taliban a big political victory as a result of the air strikes in Kunduz, which left around 100 people dead. The Taliban portrays the incident, which occurred a fortnight ago, as “an intentional massacre.”
No matter what the intentions, the air strike ricochets. A sense of shock grips Germany, where over two-thirds of people already favour withdrawal of the 4,500-strong German contingent from Afghanistan. Given the burden of history that Germany is fated to carry, war crime at once becomes a sensitive issue. The political class will keenly watch the groundswell of public opinion panning out in the September 27 federal election.
Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded that the international community “apply pressure [on Kabul] in order to find a way to get the Afghans to appreciate that they have to take responsibility step by step … so that the international engagement can be reduced.” Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeir of the centre-left Social Democratic Party, who is Ms Merkel’s main challenger, has been saying for a while that if his party emerges victorious, “as Chancellor I would push for us to develop plans with the new Afghan government to establish a clear perspective for the duration and end of the military engagement.” Berlin’s policies influence other European capitals too. Britain’s Telegraph newspaper reported, quoting defence sources in London, that both the U.S. and British governments no longer expect any of the NATO’s main partner nations to send more troops to serve in the combat zones in southern Afghanistan.
Indeed, a pall of gloom descended on the two-day European Union (EU) Foreign Ministers meeting in Stockholm. The EU Ministers showed “no optimism or idealism” in their speeches, which were laced with depressing and “occasionally grisly anecdotal evidence” of the war that is going horribly wrong. The disputed presidential elections in Afghanistan and growing Afghan intolerance of foreign involvement — and now the Kunduz incident — dominated the discussions.
PUBLIC EXCHANGES
The Kunduz incident has triggered a U.S.-German rift on who was at fault — the German commanders or the U.S. pilot. The two sides are trying to deflect the blame. No military likes to be branded a coward, yet that is what the U.S. critics insinuate about the Bundeswahr’s deployment in northern Afghanistan. Military analyst Anthony Cordesman, who advises the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal, lost no time in lampooning the Bundeswehr’s record. He said German soldiers lacked “situational and combat experience” to confront the Taliban on the ground. “They’re as oriented toward staying in their armoured vehicles as any group I’ve met. They’re not active enough to present much of a threat to the Taliban most of the time,” Mr. Cordesman mocked. These are unusual public exchanges for two NATO allies.
Meanwhile, the situation in the northeastern Afghanistan has dramatically worsened in the recent months and the German contingent takes the blame. The Germans used to think that the war was far away as the northern region remained tranquil so far. Der Spiegel wrote: “The Bundeswehr must now come to terms with a fact that Germans have previously found difficult to accept: Winning the war in Afghanistan requires engaging in active combat.” On the other hand, the Taliban is spreading its wings in the northern provinces according to a plan. A stage has come when it is important for the Taliban to demonstrate that it can expand the war to places of its choice. Its tactic aims at overstretching the NATO. Again, the Taliban is establishing its presence on the routes through which the NATO’s supply lines pass from Central Asian states. It is copying a tactic effectively used by the Afghan Mujahideen in the “jihad” against Soviet forces.
Besides, the Taliban is moving up “foreign fighters” to the north as part of a calculated strategy rather than this happening under pressure from the Pakistani military in the tribal areas in the south and southeast. The Afghan Defence Ministry spokesmen have confirmed the arrest of foreign nationals from Kunduz and speculated that cadres of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan are involved. If so, it will underscore that there is a grand Taliban/al-Qaeda agenda in the Central Asian region.
At any rate, no one needs to explain to the Taliban the strategic importance of Kunduz, which used to be the centre of its military command in northern Afghanistan before its ouster in October 2001. The demographic structure of the region provides an ideal platform for the Taliban’s political work. The scattered Pashtun, Uzbek and Tajik (and Hazara and Arab) communities and their incessant intra-ethnic and intra-tribal tensions are open to exploitation by the Taliban to broaden its political base in the Amu Darya region. Despite his great skills as a politico-military strategist, Ahmed Shah Massoud began ceding the Kunduz province to the Taliban by 1999. This helped the Taliban consolidate its control over the whole of the Shomali plain, which stretches from Kabul to the mouth of the Panjsher valley, and to effectively intercept the Northern Alliance supply lines from Tajikistan.
CALL DOSTUM BACK!
The U.S. did a smart thing, engaging the Northern Alliance “warlords” to evict the Taliban from Kunduz in 2001 rather than commit American troops. Equally, the U.S. (and the NATO) may have no choice but to seek out erstwhile Mujahideen commanders whom it decries now as “warlords” — Mohammed Fahim, Rashid Dostum, Mohammed Mohaqiq, Ismail Khan, etc. — if the Taliban’s inexorable northward march is to be arrested. This is where Hamid Karzai’s political strategy to work with the established local power groups may prove correct. There can be no anti-Taliban strategy in the Amu Darya region, which sidesteps active local participation. The various ethnic groups live as interspersed communities. Kunduz, in particular, is a tinderbox. “Afghanisation” in the quicksands of ethnic politics means depending on local elements that can offer resistance to the Taliban.
Ms Merkel seemed to anticipate the looming crisis when she forcefully stated “the time has come” to Afghanise the war. She unveiled a joint proposal in consultation with Britain and France calling for an international conference on Afghanistan as soon as the next government is formed in Kabul, to press the point with the newly elected Afghan leadership and “to create some momentum.” Ms Merkel has jointly written with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, for convening an international conference on Afghanistan at an early date.
To be sure, Germany has lost its innocence in the Afghan war. For Germany, which carries a huge backlog of history, foreign wars are never going to be easy. On the other hand, there is no farewell to arms merely because the Bundeswehr took 100 innocent Afghan lives. Berlin will weigh that the Afghan war has far-reaching consequences, being vastly more than a fight against international terrorism. It is about the NATO’s future role as a global political organisation and the “unfinished business” of the Cold War, as well as about defining a new world order. All the same, the Kunduz incident has forced the compulsion, which has been felt for a while already, for Berlin to redefine the German role in Afghanistan.
Thus, the German-British-French initiative on Afghanistan is born. The initiative wears a European look but it reflects a trans-Atlantic position that can provide the underpinning of the new Afghan strategy the Barack Obama administration is contemplating. Britain will feel gratified that it played the cementing role in Europe — which in today’s circumstances for Mr. Brown has the added virtue of assuaging the strident domestic public criticism that his government is hopelessly blundering in the Hindu Kush and precious young lives are perishing in a war that makes no sense.
The big question is whether Ms Merkel will insist on a European — and, within that, German — lead role in stabilising Afghanistan. But then, there is the related Russian question. Russia, with which Germany is fostering close ties, will be watching. Moscow too is ready to play a role “politically” in Afghanistan. Moscow and Berlin consult regularly on Afghanistan. However, the ball, as they say, is in Mr. Obama’s court.
The Kunduz incident displayed a ghastly truth. There is Afghan blood equally on the hands of all NATO countries. Conceivably, those who kill may also insist on the right to have a say downstream of the killing. The death in the afternoon on the Kunduz banks symbolises the rites of passage of an infinitely tragic war.
(The writer is a former diplomat.)
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THE HINDU
OP-ED
THE FIZZLE DOESN’T REALLY MATTER
THOSE WHO WORRY ABOUT THE EFFECTIVENESS OF OUR DETERRENT SHOULD CONCENTRATE ON ENSURING THE SURVIVABILITY OF THE FISSION WEAPONS IN THE EVENT OF A FIRST STRIKE RATHER THAN ON BUILDING AN UNNECESSARY ARSENAL OF H BOMBS.
R. RAJARAMAN
Some time ago, the former defence scientist, K. Santhanam, came out with the comment that the actual yield of the thermonuclear device (H-bomb) tested in 1998 was significantly lower than what it was designed to do and what, for that matter, was claimed by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) after the explosion. This is a not a new controversy. Soon after the tests, the official claims of yield were contested by independent analysts both in India and abroad, followed by detailed rebuttals by DAE officials. The dispute was never really resolved, with the officials on one side and the critics of the tests on the other maintaining their stands. But, given that Dr. Santhanam was one of the key scientists overseeing those tests, his recent comments created quite a furore in the media and in political circles.
But within a few days the controversy over the thermonuclear “fizzle” has already died down, even though the substantive differences on the success of the 1998 test continue to remain. The media, as they are wont to do, have moved on to other topical matters. And, as we will argue below, that is just as well. The failure of that thermonuclear device, even if true, is not as serious a matter for our national security as has been made out to be by some commentators.
OUR NUCLEAR POLICY
People getting agitated over the alleged failure of the thermonuclear test should remind themselves of what our stated policy on nuclear weapons is. In a remarkable act of transparency in what is generally viewed as an area of extreme secrecy, our nuclear policy was spelt out in the draft Indian Nuclear Doctrine of 1999, subsequently formalised with some modifications in 2003. As made explicit in that document, India, unlike the cold warriors of the ‘fifties, embarked on making nuclear weapons not as a war fighting arsenal or for use in a massive first strike, but only as an instrument of minimal nuclear deterrence. This deterrence was to be achieved with “…..sufficient nuclear weapons to inflict destruction and punishment that the aggressor will find unacceptable…”
This policy has been repeatedly underlined and reiterated several times by the government of the day, despite efforts by hawks bent on adopting a more aggressive nuclear posture. It remains our national policy till today. Therefore the sufficiency or otherwise of our nuclear arsenal should be measured against the standard of what minimal deterrence really requires.
IMPRECISE CONCEPT
The concept of minimal deterrence is admittedly imprecise in quantitative terms. Its foundations are as much psychological as logical since it hinges on how much damage would be “unacceptable” to your adversary. Nevertheless, certain basic aspects of minimal deterrence are clear. Firstly, it does not call for a boundless open-ended arsenal. It does not even require that your offensive weapons match in number or strength those of your adversaries. It only demands that you have enough capability, in a second strike, to inflict “unacceptable damage” to the other side, should they be so foolish as to initiate a nuclear attack on us.
How much capability does one need for the purpose? Well, the holocaust of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has explicitly demonstrated the damage that the simplest fission weapons can do. Hiroshima was bombed with a uranium-based weapon of about 15 kT (kilotons) and well over a lakh of people were killed. Nagasaki was hit by a plutonium based weapon of about 20 kT which killed over 80,000 people — a somewhat smaller number than in the case of Hiroshima because of its hilly terrain. Some estimates place the fatality counts in both these towns even higher.
Today’s major cities of China and Pakistan have a much higher population density than did Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the ‘forties. There is little doubt that a single 15-20 kT fission weapon dropped on, say, Karachi or Shanghai will kill over a 150,000 people. Thus two bombs dropped on separate localities in Karachi and two over Lahore, (or similarly over Beijing and Shanghai) will conservatively cause half a million fatalities.
Surely, that should be “unacceptable damage” to even a remotely responsible leadership in any modern country. Do proponents of bigger thermonuclear weapons really believe that any foreseeable leadership in China would take the risk of initiating a nuclear first strike at the cost of a guaranteed response that can kill a half a million of its own people and render two major cities unlivable? I don’t believe the Chinese would ever take such a risk. The same applies to Pakistan, whose present and past governments, whatever be their other deficiencies, would consider an unprovoked nuclear first strike if the cost is to be the lives of half a million citizens of Karachi and Lahore.
The spectre of jihadi militants taking over Pakistan is often raised as an argument against this logic. It may be argued that such a fanatical leadership may be willing to accept even half a million fatalities as a price for its jihad. Such a possibility cannot be ruled out. But any leadership that finds half a million civilian fatalities “acceptable” is in any case beyond the pale of rationality. It cannot be relied upon to feel deterred by the prospect of even a much larger attack.
IRRATIONAL ADVERSARY
True, a 200 kT H-bomb will inflict damage over four to five times as large an area as a 20 kT fission bomb will. So, it may end up killing a few lakhs of people instead of one lakh. But if a fanatical “leadership” on the other side is bent on a suicidal adventure and willing to sacrifice a lakh of its civilians, will it be deterred just by increasing the casualties a few fold? Deterrence has no meaning in that situation and building a larger, thermonuclear weapon is not the answer to such an irrational suicidal adversary.
In short, a thermonuclear hydrogen bomb is not crucial for minimal deterrence. Standard 20 kT fission weapons will more than suffice. Pokhran I and II have exploded those successfully. The recent controversy does not cast doubt on that. While the international community of nuclear experts may differ on whether India has 40 or 100 fission bombs in its arsenal no one, as far as I know, questions India’s ability to produce fission weapons.
As a corollary, whether the H-bomb test fizzled or not is not something that vitally affects national security or compromises our minimal deterrence capabilities. Those who worry about the effectiveness of our deterrent should concentrate on ensuring the survivability of the fission weapons in the event of a first strike rather than on building an unnecessary arsenal of H bombs.
There is a small segment of our strategic community which keeps pushing for a more aggressive nuclear posture. They surfaced again during the recent fizzle controversy. No doubt they sincerely believe that their strategy is good for the country. But they don’t come out and openly say that what they suggest goes beyond the declared national policy of minimal deterrence.
It is not easy to resist such hawkish demands since it also has the support, whether willingly sought or not, of chest thumping chauvinists. Nevertheless, sober national security policy makers should ensure that they don’t succumb to the pressure to up the nuclear ante. They should remain firm with the existing policy that the aim of our nuclear arsenal is only to deter others from attacking us and not to wage nuclear wars or to maximise casualties on the other side as an end in itself.
(R. Rajaraman is Emeritus Professor of Physics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Co-Chair, International Panel on Fissile Materials.)
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THE HINDU
OP-ED
GREEN TOOLS IN REMAKING HAWAII’S POWER GRIDS
MANY ALTERNATIVE ENERGY EXPERIMENTS ARE UNFOLDING ACROSS THE STATE’S SIX MAIN ISLANDS.
FELICITY BARRINGER
Two miles or so from this tiny town of Naalehu in the southernmost corner of the United States, across ranches where cattle herds graze beneath the distant Mauna Loa volcano, the giant turbines of a new wind farm cut through the air.
Sixty miles to the northeast, near a spot where golden-red lava streams meet the sea in clouds of steam, a small power plant extracts heat from the volcanic rock beneath it to generate electricity.
These projects are just a slice of the energy experiment unfolding across Hawaii’s six main islands. With the most diverse array of alternative energy potential of any state in the nation, Hawaii has set out to become a living laboratory for the rest of the country, hoping it can slash its dependence on fossil fuels while keeping the lights on.
Every island has at least one energy accent: waves in Maui, wind in Lanai and Molokai, solar panels in Oahu and eventually, if all goes well, biomass energy from crops grown on Kauai. Here on the Big Island of Hawaii, seawater is also being converted to electricity.
Still, the state faces enormous challenges in delivering the power to the people who need it. While the urban sprawl around Honolulu consumes the bulk of the energy, most potential renewable sources are far from the city, 150 miles southeast or 100 miles to the northwest.
Each of the state’s six electric grids belongs to its own island and is unconnected to the others. And according to state figures, Hawaii still relies on imported oil to generate 77 percent of its electricity, a level of dependency unique in the United States. Coal-fired power provides 14 percent, and 9 percent comes from renewable sources like the wind or the sun.
Hawaii’s Governor, Linda Lingle, a Republican, has resolved to throw off the yoke of oil dependence and harness the state’s potential.
Under an agreement reached last year with the federal government and the dominant local utility, the Hawaiian Electric Co., Hawaii plans to generate 40 per cent of its power from renewable sources by 2030. The state’s six grids will be connected by cables, and planners hope that conservation steps like reducing the air-conditioning load at high-rise hotels will cut Hawaii’s energy consumption by nearly a third.
“The goals are very, very aggressive,” said Debra Lew, a senior project leader for the federal National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Three decades ago, Hawaii mapped out a similar vision, if in less detail, that came to nothing. But this time, planners say, failure is not an option.
“We don’t have anywhere else to go,” said Ted Peck, of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, overseen by the State Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
Even if the state were indifferent to the environmental costs of burning oil and gas, including carbon-dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming, it would have to embrace renewable energy sources, said Robert Alm, a vice-president of the Hawaiian Electric Co. “Our hedge won’t be buying oil futures, it will be buying wind,” Alm said.
Heavy reliance on imported oil has proved economically perilous. When oil prices hit $147 a barrel a year ago, electricity rates approached or briefly exceeded 50 cents per kilowatt hour on Maui and Kauai, about five times the national average.
The spike in prices lent urgency to the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, which Lingle unveiled in January 2008.
The technical and political obstacles have since become clearer.
Hopscotching around this brightly coloured archipelago by plane, a visitor gets a vivid sense of Hawaii’s essentially rural nature and the scope of the challenge.
The biggest priority is laying undersea cables between the outer islands and Oahu. Once those connections are made — first with cables stretching from Molokai and Lanai, the islands nearest Oahu — the capital will get power through them.
Then there is the daunting challenge of feeding fluctuating wind and solar power into the small electric grids on the individual islands while devising backup systems to keep the energy output smooth and reliable.
On Maui, for instance, General Electric is working on ways to modulate demand and store energy for later use either in electric batteries or by pump storage — filling an elevated reservoir in low-demand periods to produce hydropower when needed.
“The whole trick is making the system work in the right way, like conducting an orchestra,” said Bob Gilligan, GE’s vice-president for transmission and distribution.
© 2009 The New York Times News Service
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THE HINDU
OP-ED
SARKOZY IN BID TO LOOK BEYOND GDP
LIZZY DAVIES
Nicolas Sarkozy has called for a “great revolution” in the way national wealth is measured, throwing his weight behind a report which criticises “GDP fetishism” and prioritises quality of life over financial growth.
Speaking days before the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, France’s President urged the rest of the world to follow his example as he ordered a shake-up in research methods aimed at providing a more balanced reading of countries’ performance.
Endorsing the recommendations of a report given to him by Nobel prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, he said governments should do away with the “religion of statistics” in which financial prowess was the sole indicator of a country’s state of health.
“For years statistics have registered an increasingly strong economic growth as a victory over shortage until it emerged that this growth was destroying more than it was creating,” said Mr. Sarkozy in a speech at the Sorbonne. “The crisis doesn’t only make us free to imagine other models, another future, another world. It obliges us to do so.”
Arguing that gross domestic product (GDP) — the standard means of measuring a country’s economic growth — ignores other factors vital to the well-being of its population, the report proposes a new indicator which would be calculated with GDP but take into account a broader view.
A new indicator would look at issues such as environmental protection and work/life balance as well as economic output to rate a country’s ability to maintain the “sustainable” happiness of its inhabitants.
“Our economy is supposed to increase our well-being; it is not an end in itself,” said Stiglitz at the launch of the report, commissioned by Sarkozy last year. “GDP statistics were introduced to measure market economic activity. But they are increasingly thought of as a measure of societal well-being, which they are not.”
Asking France’s national statistics body, Insee, to update its methods in accordance with the report’s recommendations, Mr. Sarkozy said he would use future summits such as next week’s G20 to persuade other countries follow suit. “France will put this report on the agenda of all international meetings,” he said.
France, whose economic output has fallen in the decades since the end of the prosperous “trente glorieuses” (1945-1975) prides itself on other aspects of life. Its healthcare system has been ranked the world’s best by the World Health Organisation, its comparatively short working week is legendary, and its fertility levels are the highest in Europe, along with Ireland’s.
“Economic resources are not all that matter in people’s lives,” said Angel Gurria, secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. “We need better measures of people’s expectations and levels of satisfaction, of how they spend their time, of their relations with other people in their community.”
Using the traditional measure, the European commission yesterday forecast that the eurozone will grow by 0.2 per cent in the third quarter as the continent’s biggest economies recover from the worst recession in decades. In its latest economic outlook, the commission predicted the economy would grow by 0.2 per cent between July and September and by 0.1 per cent in the final quarter of the year.
However, it did not change its forecast that the eurozone’s GDP would fall by 4 per cent in 2009 as a whole because the economy fared worse at the end of 2008 and the beginning of this year.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2009
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THE HINDU
OP-ED
EMERGING ECONOMIES STRIVE FOR DEVELOPMENT AMID CHALLENGES
MANY EMERGING ECONOMIES HAVE EMPLOYED A VARIETY OF STIMULUS POLICIES TO BOOST LIQUIDITY, INVESTMENT, CONSUMPTION, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH.
FU YUNWEI
Since the global financial crisis erupted one year ago, the BRIC countries have launched a number of vigorous stimulus packages that have contributed much to the world’s economic stability.
Some of the developing nations have helped to keep the crisis from going worse through extraordinary economic performances but many of them are still confronted by challenges such as shrinking trade and slumping domestic consumption. However, the developing countries need to make economic reforms and tackle their structural problems so that they can make progress in the long run.
SOLUTIONS AND EFFECTS
To deal with the crisis, many emerging economies have employed a variety of stimulus policies to boost liquidity, investment, consumption, and economic growth. Those countries are believed to be the potential vanguard that will lead the world out of the ongoing crisis in the future.
Facing export declines and deflation pressure, China adopted proactive fiscal policies and a relatively easy monetary policy in a timely fashion. China, the world’s largest developing nation, launched a 4-trillion-yuan (585.8 billion U.S. dollars) investment program, lowered interest rates and taxes, and tried to help small and medium-sized enterprises obtain loans. With such measures, China maintained a decent economic scene. China’s domestic investment and consumption continues to gather momentum and accelerate economic growth.
Brazil also has provided tax cuts and other incentives to deal with the crisis. The measures have helped boost the sale and production of durable goods, such as cars and household appliances, and stabilized business confidence. Because of that stabilization, some analysts are now forecasting growth of more than 4 percent for Brazil’s economy in 2010.
Due to tight controls over financial sectors and foreign investment, India largely avoided turbulence caused by the crisis.
The Indian government announced in July that its emphasis for the current fiscal year would be on bolstering the agriculture sector and the poor’s welfare. The Reserve Bank of India says there are signs of recovery for India’s economy.
RISKS AND CHALLENGES
The financial crisis has posed a number of difficulties for many emerging economies and they are bound to face numerous risks and challenges.
Since the crisis began, commodities prices experienced abrupt ups and downs, jolting the emerging economies.
Energy exporters like Russia and Venezuela have suffered a lot due to the destabilized market. The Russian economy declined 9.8 percent in the first quarter year on year and 10.9 percent in the second quarter, putting an end to 10 years of expansion. Venezuela and other oil-rich developing nations also witnessed economic decline in the first half of this year.
On the other hand, oil prices increased from $30 a barrel at the end of last year to about $70 today. Some analysts worry that the developing world may be caught up in future economic woes, if oil exporters like the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) continue to push for quota cuts in the near future.
The crisis also badly hit those countries with a heavy reliance on exports. Shrinking orders from the West has made it harder for some export-oriented emerging economies in Asia to make ends meet. Meanwhile, those economies are trapped in tight liquidity and rising fiscal deficits. With less revenues, they have found it difficult to conduct any public programs.
Until now, the Asian Development Bank has received calls for loans under Countercyclical Support Facility (CSF) from nations like the Philippines, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan.
It no doubt is on top of the agenda of the world’s decision makers to work together to end the crisis. However, developing economies must look to the post-crisis era if they hope for long-term development, says Zhou Yongsheng, a professor with China Foreign Affairs University. Zhou says the developing world needs to solve some structural problems related to long-term, stable and sound economic development.
Some developing nations have targeted their structural problems and have begun to act. Russia and Brazil have made it clear that they will try to end their chronic dependence on fuel and resources exports in the upcoming years. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last week criticized his country’s “humiliating dependence on raw materials” and called for more investment in high-tech industries and energy efficiency.
Over the past 12 months, the Chinese government has been fully engaged in large-scale infrastructure development and other programmes. China has earmarked 58 million yuan (8.5 million dollars) from an investment programme to boost energy efficiency, emission reduction, ecological projects, industrial restructuring and technological innovation.
OVER-RELIANCE ON EXPORTS
To increase domestic consumption, China has continued to adjust the national income distribution makeup, and is trying to expand the domestic market, the rural market in particular. It is noteworthy that over-reliance on exports represents a common problem for developing nations. The Asian Development Bank said in an August report that the emerging nations need to value the expansion of domestic demand in order to realize their economy’s balanced development.
However, due to a lack of funds, some developing countries find it compulsory to make changes in their economic growth models and structure. Zhou Zhiwei, a specialist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, says that for many developing nations, there are problems concerning social equality and people’s livelihoods, and reforms in the international financial order. He says that to solve the problems, the world needs to fight protectionism and build a fairer international economic financial system.
That way, Zhou says, developing countries will be able to improve their rights of speeches and representativeness and achieve more international assistance.
Xinhua
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THE ASIAN AGE
EDITORIAL
CHINA: AS UNEASE GROWS, ACT FIRMLY
The government on Tuesday officially denied as "factually incorrect" a media report that a fortnight ago two jawans of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police were injured in firing by Chinese soldiers from across the Line of Actual Control in northern Sikkim. After the 1962 boundary skirmish, the undefined border has been on the whole quiet, and New Delhi and Beijing have in place reasonably steady arrangements to keep it "tranquil" even as the two sides seek to formally demarcate the boundary. The official denial by the external affairs ministry is therefore just as well. But it is not entirely clear if the government is describing as baseless any injury caused to our soldiers, or the fact of firing itself from the Chinese side. It will be gratifying if the latter is the case as that would suggest absence of attempt to disturb the tranquility agreement.
There is no question, however, that a degree of unease has been building up in the country on account of regular media reports in the past two years alluding to aggressive border patrolling by the Chinese side and literally a couple of thousand instances of Chinese incursions into the Indian side. Perhaps some of this is unavoidable as the actual position of the Line of Actual Control is not always wholly clear on the ground, and the Chinese side may well also speak of Indian troops straying into their area. This is likely in the eastern sector — the site of the 1962 fighting — since Beijing rejects the McMahon Line as a colonial legacy. Even so, in January 2008, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was on a visit to China, then external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee had noted that Chinese incursions do indeed occur but these were appropriately dealt with as the two countries had a working system of consultation between them. Earlier this month, however, reports surfaced of Chinese soldiers entering into the Ladakh sector where the border demarcations are quite clear, and of even inscribing their country’s name on a rock. The Chinese foreign office flatly denied the report and the Indian side played it down, with external affairs minister S.M. Krishna drawing attention to the mechanism between the two sides to deal with such matters. He also observed that the demarcation line with China was "one of the peaceful boundaries we have". The observation may have been an avoidable diplomatic excess. An expert of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, on the other hand, noted that additional Indian deployments in the border regions could give rise to "regional tension". This is possibly a reference to India’s decision to build roads and other infrastructure in the areas near the Chinese border to boost transportation, communications and mobility, to place an Air Force squadron in the eastern sector, and also raise two Army divisions to reinforce defence preparedness. Whatever the diplomatic responses, New Delhi is taking steps to shore up its military presence in the difficult terrain.
The realism this speaks of is welcome. But the government does need to take the necessary steps to persuade China to eschew action that does not go down well with public opinion here. For a democratic country this is important. Statements by ministers and others playing down incidents alone won’t do and may even boomerang in the long run. China is clearly unhappy with India for letting the Dalai Lama visit Arunachal Pradesh which Beijing claims. Beijing has recently also been wary about goings-on in Tibet and Xinjiang, which have contiguity with Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh respectively. For all of these reasons, it may believe that a low-level show of military muscle — through border violations — may serve its purpose as it is clearly not wholly persuaded that India has no intention to cause it any anxiety. New Delhi should seek to reassure Beijing on that count but also spell out, at the political level if necessary, that the Dalai Lama, so long as he avoids anti-China political activities, can travel anywhere within this country.
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THE ASIAN AGE
OPED
MODI: LAST MAN STANDING
ASHOK MALIK
In a democracy, every election conveys a parable. As such, it is crucial to decipher the message Gujarati voters — at least the voters in the set of seven Assembly by-elections that concluded earlier this week — are sending.
In December 2007, when Gujarat elected a new Legislative Assembly, six of these seats had gone to the Congress and only one to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). After the subdued achievements of the BJP in the 2009 Lok Sabha election — it won 15 seats of 26, but had expected at least 18 — the Congress was forecast to sweep this round of by-elections. It was said this would put chief minister Narendra Modi even further on the backfoot.
As it turned out, the BJP won five of the seven seats. How does one interpret this result? Is it, as the local Congress now says, the consequence of faulty candidate selection? Is it, as the BJP suggests, a reflection of the United Progressive Alliance government’s unpopularity and disquiet over rising prices?
Interpretation can so easily lead to over-interpretation. There is no evidence that this bunch of by-elections is indicative of any national uprising against the Manmohan Singh government. Neither can the BJP pretend all is well with the party. It is too early for any of that. Even so, it would be prudent to recognise that at an elemental level these by-elections represented a referendum on Mr Modi.
For instance, as has been pointed out by others, one of the factors behind the BJP’s success was the Ishrat Jahan episode. In 2004, a Mumbai-born woman and three male accomplices were shot and killed in an encounter with the Gujarat police. They were identified as Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) activists, a fact later acknowledged on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (the LeT’s mother organisation) website.
The encounter followed inputs from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in Delhi. It is understood that IB officers and a posse of the Gujarat police were both present when Jahan and her comrades were killed.
Recently, a contentious report by a magistrate questioned the genuineness of the encounter. It asked if there was really an exchange of fire. Mr Modi’s critics went further and wondered if the four people were terrorists at all, and if there was any conspiracy to kill political leaders in the first place, as the state police and the IB had alleged.
The Congress seized its chance. A party spokesman accused Mr Modi of running a "man-eating government". The home minister disowned the IB report, even as senior civil servants in his ministry said something else in private. The law minister grimly opined the Gujarat chief minister should be "somewhere else", a euphemism perhaps for prison.
Did all this backfire, cause people to believe the Congress was being irresponsible with national security and push up sympathy for Mr Modi? After all it had happened before. In 2007, the Congress description of the Modi regime as "maut ke saudagar" (merchants of death) — following the controversial gunning down of a terror group arms handler — was deftly exploited by the BJP. It helped convert a small advantage into a significant triumph.
Instant conclusions would be misleading. Just as predictions of Mr Modi’s imminent political demise were grossly overstated, to judge the seven Assembly by-elections as driven purely by voter assessments of terrorism and how it is being combated would be unfair. That is part of the story but not the entire narrative.
There are actually three subtle messages the Gujarati voter is sending. One is for Mr Modi, and other two for the Congress and the BJP.
First, the discrepancy between the way Gujarat votes in national and state elections is now too obvious to ignore. The voter’s identification with Mr Modi is absolute but does not necessarily translate into loyalty to the BJP on a larger canvas. The party swept Assembly elections in 2002 and 2007, but had a lukewarm run in Lok Sabha contests less than 18 months later. This time too there is a mismatch between the May 2009 parliamentary elections and the September 2009 Assembly by-elections.
What the voter is telling Mr Modi is simple enough: if you ask for votes for yourself, we will see your point; if you ask for votes for an L.K. Advani or somebody else, we will not automatically see your point. Charisma cannot be rented out.
This phenomenon probably explains why Mr Modi’s public meetings — in Gujarat and other states — during the Lok Sabha campaign drew crowds but did not always mean votes and victories for the BJP. Where he was the speaker, people responded, whether out of adulation or simply curiosity. Since he was not the prime ministerial candidate, they did not — could not — vote for or against him.
Second, it is early days yet and there is no crisis of any sort in sight, but the fact is the Congress has to recognise terrorism and national security remain its Achilles’ heel. Correctly or incorrectly, the party has allowed the impression to form that it does not have the stomach for a defining war against jihadists, with all the military and political costs it might entail.
At normal junctures, when there are no terror attacks, or when faced with over-the-hill rivals who don’t carry credibility in a national security debate, this would not be a problem.
In a less fortunate period and challenged by the appropriate adversary, the Congress could yet be in trouble. Maybe, just maybe, the seven by-elections in Gujarat were a microcosm of this phenomenon.
Finally, what lesson does the BJP draw from all this? Frankly, the party is in denial. Its convoluted internal disputation — the search for a new party president who is outside the charmed circle of Delhi; the battle between the incumbent party chief and the phantoms of his mind; the so-called talent hunt that Mr Advani is threatening — only serves to side-step the compelling question: where does the BJP place Mr Modi in its succession plan?
No quantum of deliberate neglect, no amount of philosophical discussion on whether the individual is more important or the organisation, no attempts to limit Mr Modi to the level of just another chief minister, one of three who has won by-elections this week, can take away from the hard reality that the Gujarat chief minister is the ordinary party sympathiser’s leader of choice.
In a BJP where everybody is tripping the next person, Narendra Modi is the Last Man Standing.
Ashok Malik can be contacted at malikashok@gmail.com
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THE ASIAN AGE
COLUMN
MUSHARRAF ADMISSION: WHAT’S SO SURPRISING?
ARUN KUMAR SINGH
Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s latest admission that military aid provided by the United States to Pakistan for the war against terror during his tenure had been used to strengthen defences against India, and that he ensured Pakistan’s strategic weapons programme was "speeded up", as well as China’s latest border incursions should finally clear the cobwebs from the minds of India’s political leadership.
Many Indians wonder why we continue to suffer nasty surprises at the hands of Pakistan and China. Forty-seven years after the Sino-Indian war in 1962, India has again been taken by surprise by China in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh and Uttarakhand.
India’s lack of strategic culture has been repeatedly exposed and its military often forced to fight under very disadvantageous conditions.
Our political-bureacratic leadership has allowed defence preparations to fall below critical levels while following a policy of "passive, low, reactive defence". Hopefully, the restrictions imposed on the Indian Army — not being allowed to patrol some "sensitive areas" on the Sino-Indian border — will be lifted before the Chinese seize more of our territory.
There should be no doubt as to why Pakistan and its terrorists will always aim to cause mayhem in two places in India — Mumbai and Vadinar. Mumbai is the financial capital of India. Its stock market turnover is four times that of Pakistan’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). And Vadinar is a small coastal town in Gujarat’s Jamnagar district. Vadinar port in the Gulf of Kutch has three oil refineries, with the capacity of 99 million tonnes and over two million tonnes of fuel storage. Both are India’s economic jugular, and attacking these will keep India economically hyphenated to Pakistan.
Fortunately, the Coast Guard’s new North-West Command for Gujarat, with its headquarters at Gandhinagar, has become functional. It is expected to be formally inaugurated by the defence minister in October. Hopefully, this new command will urgently receive additional vessels and aircraft to ensure the safety of Gujarat, including Vadinar.
What is the second-best method to hit Mumbai and Vadinar apart from terrorist attacks? The answer: cruise missiles with land attack capability, launched from ships, submarines and Maritime Patrol aircraft like the P-3C Orion. Theoretically, the 120-km range Harpoon anti-ship missile, with a 250 kg warhead, fits the bill perfectly for Pakistan as an interim system while ratcheting up the production of its larger Chinese-gifted 500-km range Babur cruise missiles to build a stockpile of 450.
The long-term aim of Pakistan’s Babur cruise missiles (these can be delivered by fighter or maritime patrol aircrafts to extend their range) is to counter India’s over-publicised Ballastic Missile Defence System (BMDS) and give Pakistan a "cheap" but massive first-strike capabilty intended to overwhelm India’s nuclear retaliation capability.
Right now, Pakistan’s nuclear capability is designed to counter India’s superior conventional military power, but the Babur cruise missile, along with new miniaturised plutonium warheads, will put Pakistan in a different league altogether. The newer versions of the Harpoon — which Pakistan is hoping to acquire from the US — already comes with a built-in secondary land attack capability. What Pakistan apparently tested a few months ago was the older anti-ship Harpoon missile.
Given today’s miniaturised Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS), any missile specialist should be able to convert the vintage anti-ship Harpoon to a land attack capable missile with reasonably accurate chances of hitting the oil refineries at Vadinar and the various installations in Mumbai port. The only problem would be how to replace the 250-kg conventional warhead in the 53-centimetre diameter, cylindrical Harpoon missile with a plutonium miniature nuclear warhead. Most Indian scientists will tell you that it’s impossible for Pakistan to achieve this. Here also I expect China to transfer the technology of a proven miniaturised nuclear weapon which would fit the Babur and possibly the Harpoon cruise missiles.
The question is what are the launch platforms for the modified land-attack Harpoon missile? The answer is simple. The two older French-built Agosta 70 submarines and the half-a-dozen American P-3C Orion aircraft are the ideal launch platforms. The missile has sufficient stand off range to hit Vadinar and Mumbai.
The media has given enough details of Pakistan’s new Khushab 2 and 3 reactors that are expected to produce about 15 to 30 kg of plutonium for three to 10 miniaturised nuclear weapons per year. The latest media reports indicate that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons stockpile has now grown from 70 to 90. I have no idea about India’s nuclear weapons stocks, and am uncertain about how many Agni-type missiles India can produce per year.
China will take Indian deterrence seriously only after we induct the 5,000-km Agni-5. The recent controversy about the 1998 thermonuclear tests "fizzle" has not cleared the air. As a nuclear specialist, it is my opinion that a lot of luck would be needed to get a complex thermonuclear prototype device to function properly for the first time and, even if it did, it would need at least two more confirmatory tests in a rugged "militarised" form. Deterrence works best when it’s based on hard reality, and not ambiguous discussions.
China, as expected, has kept the pressure on India, with the latest news of its forces violating Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh and Uttarakhand. China has mastered the art of long-term strategic planning and obviously, its gameplan is to keep India tied down by the triple threats that emerge from China, Pakistan and Pakistani-sponsored terrorists.
India’s external affairs ministry should stop justifying China’s daily incursions by talking about "the differing perceptions on the Line of Actual Control". China will stop its incursions only when it is deterred by India’s conventional and strategic defence capability. India needs to change its "no-first-use" nuclear policy.
Vice-Admiral Arun Kumar Singh retired as Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command, Visakhapatnam
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THE TRIBUNE
EDITORIAL
DROP JUSTICE DINAKARAN
HE MUST NOT REACH SUPREME COURT
THE President, the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India have a problem on hand. They have to face the unpleasant question how to deal with Justice P.D. Dinakaran, who has been tipped for joining the Supreme Court. Press reports have raised disturbing questions on how Justice Dinakaran, the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, has come to be recommended for elevation to the Supreme Court, particularly when questions have arisen about his integrity.
Some of the most eminent jurists of the country as also members of the Committee on Judicial Accountability — Mr Fali S. Nariman, Mr Anil Divan, Mr Ram Jethmalani and Mr Shanti Bhushan — have urged the President, the Prime Minister and the CJI to institute a comprehensive inquiry into the allegations against Justice Dinakaran made by several members of the Tamil Nadu Bar to the Supreme Court collegium.
Since Justice Dinakaran’s image is indeed under a cloud, it would be eminently sensible for the President to heed the legal luminaries’ plea for “delaying” his appointment to the Supreme Court, pending a comprehensive inquiry. Significantly, Chief Justice of India Justice K.G. Balakrishnan has assured Mr Nariman and his colleagues that he would look into the complaint.
Judges, especially in the higher judiciary, must be perceived to be incorruptible to the hilt: their dignity, moral force and the people’s trust in the judicial process depend on their conduct in and outside the court. Unfortunately, allegations of corruption and misconduct against some high court judges at times have raised disturbing questions about the judges’ selection process.
Parliament is already seized of the motion of impeachment of Justice Soumitra Sen of the Calcutta High Court who had indulged in financial misconduct. It may not like another such issue on its plate. In the light of the jurists’ complaint, doubts arise in public mind as to how Justice Dinakaran was elevated to the post of Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court. His proposed elevation to the Supreme Court stresses the need for making the screening procedures foolproof to ensure that those appointed to the judiciary are beyond reproach.
The President, the Prime Minister and the CJI should ensure that Justice Dinakaran is not able to enter the portals of the Supreme Court. Perhaps, it is the CJI who himself should initiate moves to shut the door against Justice Dinakaran to spare the President and the Prime Minister the pain of taking unpleasant steps that the unusual situation may demand.
None in the higher echelons of the government wants to do anything that may look like interference in the judiciary, but there can come a time when even the unwilling highest of the land have to step in. However, it must be borne in mind that the judiciary’s independence will ultimately depend on the respect it enjoys among the people and the quality of justice it dispenses. Both demand that only men of integrity and character sit on the Bench. This must be ensured.
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EDITORIAL
DGPS, STAND UP!
COPS SHOULD SERVE ONLY THE PEOPLE
IN their own ways, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P Chidambram have underlined the need for modernising the police force in such a way that the new-age policemen can be equal to the challenges posed by internal as well as external forces. While addressing a conference in Delhi of Directors-General and Inspectors-General of Police organised by the Intelligence Bureau, Dr Manmohan Singh favoured a new-age policeman who is well-trained, more professional and suitably empowered, Mr Chidambaram did some plain-speaking while underlining the fact that policemen have been reduced to a football, being kicked from one post to another.
The Home Minister pointed out that the policemen too have allowed themselves to be used by the ruling establishment in many states. The IPS officers have the protection of the Constitution and yet they allow themselves to be kicked around by the politicians for their convenience. This happens because the officers are themselves hankering after cushy posts, favourable transfers and quick promotions. In many states the relationship between the politicians and the police top brass is too cozy for comfort of citizens whose interests the police is to protect.
There are some pliable police officers who become subservient because they want to have a share of the extracurricular gains that come with the misuse of authority. It is no secret that certain thanas are so “lucrative” that they are virtually auctioned off to the highest bidder. In such a situation, politicians, moneybags and corrupt police officers join hands to rob the government and the public alike. Apparently, the Centre wants to break the unholy nexus.
The operation to replace the spine of the police force has to start from the top. The IPS officers are the best placed to call the bluff of the politicians who want to treat policemen for their ends. If they show the necessary grit, morality and integrity, the message will seep down to SHOs and other ranks. That will ensure that the police actually does what it is meant to do — serve the public — instead of the high and mighty.
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EDITORIAL
MODI CAN BRAG
GUJARAT ELECTIONS HAVE LESSONS FOR CONGRESS
THE BJP victory in five of the seven by-elections to the Gujarat assembly, results of which were declared on Monday, is a reminder to the Congress of its organizational weaknesses in the state. The Congress had evidently turned complacent after the Lok Sabha elections pointed towards its revival.
Its selection of candidates was flawed with close relatives of MPs cornering tickets regardless of their chances of winning. In some cases, like Dehgam and Sami Harij, the candidate was not even a resident of the area. That the five seats the BJP won were all wrested from the Congress and that one of these was with the Congress for the last 50 years shows how the party surrendered goodwill through poor projection and wrong selection of candidates.
For the BJP, which was down and out after the setback in the Lok Sabha polls coupled with the loss of power in the Junagarh municipal corporation and the Congress resurgence in elections to local cooperative societies, this has come as a morale booster. Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who had not campaigned during these by-polls ostensibly fearing that a debacle could cost him his image, is now back to his boastful ways.
While parties in power normally do well in by-elections because of the tremendous resources at their command, the BJP performance should galvanize the Congress party into positive action. As for the BJP, it would be judged not by its rhetoric on “upholding the dignity and self-respect of the 5.5 crore people of Gujarat” as Mr Modi is so fond of saying but by its record in office.
This record has been sullied by the non-inclusive and non-secular agenda of the Modi government. The state BJP needs to change its mindset on this account. Maybe, it would be asking too much from the state party built around the Modi mould.
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THE TRIBUNE
COLUMN
IN SEARCH OF JUSTICE
MANY LONG-HELD ASSUMPTIONS QUESTIONED
BY B. G. VERGHESE
Amartya Sen is as much a social philosopher as an economist who is passionate about exploring ideas. Justice, a key idea that has engaged men through the ages, is proclaimed as a core value in modern constitutions. Together with Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, the Indian Constitution promises to secure to all its citizens “Justice, social, political and economic”. This is more broadly enshrined in the list of Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy.
Children, Sen notes in his book, The Idea of Justice«, are quick to perceive injustice in the attitudes and actions of others towards them. Great men have led great movements for justice — Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King among them. But what is justice? This is not easily defined. Yet, while most may not be able to define injustice, they do recognise it when they see or experience it.
Is then justice merely a subjective sentiment? If this were so, it would vary from person to person, circumstance to circumstance and from time to time. Among modern thinkers, it was John Rawls who in his “A Theory of Justice” described justice as fairness. Sen acknowledges this as a great insight to which all who followed are indebted, but argues that this statement is incomplete in itself.
The idea of democracy is founded on justice and applies to all spheres of activity, whether political, economic, social, law, the environment and war. It is based on a system of institutions that entails participation and public reasoning through discussion. Such a notion of justice is not to be associated exclusively with Europe and America and the Age of Enlightenment as is often stated but was manifest in older civilisations as in India and China. The Buddha sought enlightenment after seeing and sensing injustice in violence and inequality, as did the Emperor Asoka who was devastated by the bloody cost of his military “victory” over Kalinga.
This theme is expanded in the contrasting concepts of niti (just institutions) and nyaya (just outcomes) that is at the heart of the great discourse between Krishna and Arjun in the Gita. Krishna speaks of duty as dharma and finally persuades Arjun to steel himself for battle against his kinsmen. But, surveying the tragic carnage in the gory aftermath, he is aghast and filled with remorse and questioning at the outcome. Was this truly a victory?
Reading the Gita in translation, T.S. Eliot is cited as echoing Krishna thus in verse: “And do not think of the fruit of action. Fare forward. Not fare well, but fare forward, voyagers”. Today we are given to hearing about just wars and war crimes trials that often represent victors’ justice. J. Robert Oppenheimer, too, is quoted after the first atomic test explosion at Los Alamos as asking: How can good come from killing so many people? And why must I do my duty only as a physicist, ignoring all other results, including the miseries and deaths that would follow from my own actions? The inference Sen draws is that the larger moral dimension cannot be ignored and that it is as necessary to “fare well” as to “fare forward” as outcomes or “social realisations” matter.
Therefore, the argument runs, one must proceed beyond Rawlsian just institutions to just processes, a principle embodied in social contract theory which has evolved into the more modern principle of social choice. Liberty is important but so are rights to food, health and so on. Further, people and communities are differently abled and so any consideration of a just society must encompass different capabilities. But then how does one judge due process and social choices?
Here Sen falls back on Adam Smith’s invisible hand or “impartial spectator” who, if he is not to be parochial, must represent “the eyes of mankind”, adding a more universal and impartial or collegial and multicultural dimension to justice and concepts of fairness that invoke responsibility.
Justice must also measure not just individual but group capabilities and destructive attributes. Thus, sustainable development is necessary. Yet safeguarding the environment is not the same as preserving nature in its pristine form. The destruction of the small pox virus, for example, did us all a world of good. Therefore, development can enrich the environment and inter-generational equity is clearly inseparable from justice.
Poverty and famine are scourges. But here, too, responses to them will differ in accordance with varying disabilities and capabilities and factors like gender and health. Democracy is a bulwark against famine as the flow of information and social pressures compel remedial action, unlike in dictatorships.
Freedom of expression and a free Press foster public reasoning while the right to information strengthens democracy by promoting accountability. Development can remove deprivation, but does economics make for happiness as the utilitarians suggested by emphasising satisfaction of wants and welfare? Although the West is richer than the developing world, is it necessarily happier?
The American Declaration of Independence speaks of certain inalienable God-given rights and, in a listing, includes the “pursuit of happiness” as one among many objectives. Bhutan has gone further in arguing that Gross Domestic Product is not as important as Gross National Happiness which it conceives as a bundle of values such as faith, culture, way of life, the environment, contentment and so on.
The question that Sen needs to ask is whether it is not necessary to go along with Gandhi’s theorem that there is enough for everybody’s need but not for everybody’s greed. If this be so, then ostentatious lifestyles are as much to be deplored as abject poverty and that at this time of climate change, global equity and justice demand that excessive lifestyles be questioned and, indeed, moderated and not be accepted as a historical given.
While democracy provides opportunity to foster justice, Sen believes that India for one has to go beyond the form and translate electoral niti into democratic nyaya. Democracy must certainly ensure minority rights. Human rights embrace values that should be upheld.
But Sen argues that human rights are ethical and not legal propositions until and unless they are legislated. While this may be so, one cannot ignore the fact that natural justice is often pleaded even without legislative backing. Rights and duties are linked in an ethical structure and, therefore, freedoms too must be grounded in rights and not merely in interests.
Rights, too, are evolving and have gone beyond what was stated in the American Declaration of Independence and at the time of the French Revolution. The UN Convention of Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are newer additions and the list keeps growing as notions of global justice and injustice emerge.
Amartya Sen navigates us though very difficult conceptual waters with the help of his own deep philosophic insights. The result is a book that expands the idea of justice and questions many long-held assumptions and illusions.
The Idea of Justice by Amartya Sen, Penguin, 468 pages, Rs 699
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THE TRIBUNE
COLUMN
OF GRANDPARENTS
BY SHRINIWAS JOSHI
A TEACHER had asked an eight-year-old child to write a few lines on his grandparents. Here is what he wrote: “My grandparents are two; one is man and the other is woman. They live in railway station. When we need them, my Pa goes and brings them in his car and when the work is done, my Pa leaves them there. They do not have their small children so they love us and play with me and my sister.
“The man grandparent tells me about the town where he grew up. I pity him because when he was growing up, his town had one mobike in which an English doctor used to ride and he would waste time by waiting to watch him. I think it was an uncivilised town where there were no fans and refrigerators and pizza, pasta, chow-mein etc. were not sold. The poor fellow ate the first pastry when he was 20 years old.
“My woman grandparent is a good doctor. When I feel sick, she goes to the kitchen and brings a few spices and asks me to eat those with warm water. I get cured. When my Ma comes back from her office, I tell her the miracle that my woman grandparent had done, she taunts, ‘That old lady and her mumbo-jumbo!’ I do not give marks to Ma for it.
“My woman grandparent is a storehouse of stories on Ram, Krishna, Hanuman, Ganesh and all gods and goddesses and she can tell the stories hundred times without getting annoyed. My Ma is so busy in her office and then getting our home-work done that she has no time to tell us nice stories that my woman grandparent tells.
“God has given removable parts to my grandparents – the woman has removable teeth and the man has removable hair on the head. They look different at nights and different during the days. They prefer to wear such clothes that remain attached to their bodies by tying threads instead of using buttons, zips and elastic.
“When we go out with them, they are never in a hurry and if there is a butterfly sitting on a flower, they will go on watching it with us till we ask them to move ahead. Like very good children, they obey us. When walking in the bazaar, they hold our fingers all the time so that they not get lost and buy chocolates and ice-creams for us. They relish eating these with us.
“Sometimes Ma and Pa get angry on them, ‘You may eat whatever you want to but children eating ice-creams when their examinations are so close, especially when they are prone to colds and coughs. It is not done.’ My grandparents, without uttering a word, simply smile. My man grandparent had told me, once, that a smile was a lighting system of the face, a cooling system of the head and a regulating system of the heart. Perhaps that’s why they reply in smile to Ma and Pa when the weather in the family goes dark and hot.
“My man grandparent is naughty too. When he bends to kiss me, he, sometimes, produces a trumpet like short sound from his stomach and blames it on the doggy. How I wish that God makes them as young from outside as they are from inside!”
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THE TRIBUNE
OPED
MAN WHO FOUGHT HUNGER
DR BORLAUG WAS A LEADER WITH A MISSION
BY DR MANJIT S. KANG, VICE CHANCELLOR, PAU
ACUTELY aware of hunger and poverty around the globe, Dr. Norman Ernest Borlaug dedicated himself to a life of service to humanity. He was trained like most other scientists, receiving a Ph.D. in plant pathology in 1942 from the University of Minnesota under the tutelage of Dr. E. C. Stakman; yet, he was different.
He was a scientist and a leader with a mission. His mission is reflected in a lecture that he delivered at the American Society of Agronomy meetings in New Orleans, Louisiana, in November 2007. There, he exhorted the scientists to “think more boldly and humanely about the Third World and to see what each of you can do to help.”
This was perhaps his last professional speech. He himself was bold and humane. He envisioned a world without hunger and poverty. He spent almost his entire career helping developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
In the 1960s, Dr. Borlaug worked in the Rockefeller Foundation’s wheat breeding program in Mexico. He distributed seeds of some dwarf varieties of wheat developed there to Indian scientists.
While the Mexican varieties yielded much higher than those grown then in India, the red color of these varieties was not to the liking of the Indian consumer. Scientists at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) hybridized these high-yielding Mexican varieties with local varieties and developed new high yielding varieties that also had the acceptable amber colored grain.
Dr. D.S. Athwal was the leader of the wheat-breeding program at PAU. ‘Kalyan’ a wheat variety developed by Athwal and named after his village ‘Kalyanpur’ is an example. Dr. Borlaug would visit PAU to check on how his wheat was doing and would get very excited to see the excellent progress that the PAU scientists had made.
Dr. Borlaug complimented PAU’s wheat research program in a letter dated March 13, 1996, to Dr. G.S. Nanda, the then head of the wheat research section at PAU. He wrote, “The breeding program is diverse and dynamic and, undoubtedly, will continue to produce varieties which will be highly productive, disease-resistant and of good quality. I was also very much impressed by the agronomic research and plant pathology work, which is an integral part of the wheat research program at your Institute.”
Dr. Borlaug further wrote, “When I left Ludhiana for New Delhi, we travelled by train and I was immensely pleased to see the extensive fields of beautiful wheat, as far as the eye could reach, over virtually all parts of southern Punjab and also equally good into northern Haryana. When I began to collaborate with Indian scientists in 1963, I never imagined that I would live to see such fantastic change in yield and production of wheat which I have been privileged to see on this occasion. Congratulations!”
Leon F. Hesser writes about what happened in India in the Preface of his 2006 book, entitled ‘The Man Who Fed the World: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug and His Battle to End World Hunger’. There, Hesser wrote, “A comparable program using Borlaug’s seeds and associated technology in India where starvation had turned to famine in parts of the country in the mid-1960s, resulted in a ‘wheat revolution’ that, together with similar efforts for rice, brought the country to self-sufficiency in wheat in 1972 and in all cereals by 1974.”
As the diffusion of new wheat and rice technology spread rapidly across Asia in the late 1960s, William Gaud, the USAID Administrator, dubbed this phenomenon “Green Revolution” in a talk given in March 1968. He said, “These and other developments in the field of agriculture contain the makings of a new revolution. It is not a violent Red Revolution like that of the Soviets, nor is it a White Revolution like that of the Shah of Iran. I call it the Green Revolution.” Thus began the ‘Green Revolution’.
Recognising his contribution, PAU bestowed upon Dr. Borlaug an honorary degree of Doctor of Science in March 1969. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1970. Jimmy Carter, Former U.S. President, sums up Dr. Borlaug’s contributions, “My good friend Norman Borlaug has accomplished more than any one individual in history in the battle to end world hunger.”
Mr. Carter further wrote, “Norman Borlaug’s scientific achievements have saved hundreds of millions of lives and earned him the distinction as one of the 100 most influential individuals of the 20th century.”
India awarded him “Padma Vibhushan” – the second highest civilian honour given by the Government of India. He was also given a ‘Congressional Gold Medal’ in 2007 by the U.S. Congress – the highest honor for a civilian.
Dr. Borlaug recognised water as being important in future. He wrote, “In order to expand food production for a growing world population within the parameters of likely water availability, the inevitable conclusion is that humankind in the 21st century will need to bring about a “Blue Revolution” to complement the “Green Revolution” of the 20th century. In the new Blue Revolution, water-use productivity must be wedded to land-use productivity.” He suggested conservation agriculture to preserve and protect natural resources, such as soil and water.
Dr. Borlaug was benevolent and caring. Knowing that there was no Nobel Prize for Agriculture per se, he established, in 1986, the ‘World Food Prize’ to recognise individuals who have improved the quality, quantity, or availability of food around the world.
The first Indian scientist to receive this coveted Prize was Dr. M.S. Swaminathan (1987) followed by Dr. Verghese Kurien (1989), Dr. Gurdev Khush (1995), B.R. Barwale (1998), Dr. Surinder K. Vasal (2000) and Dr. Modadugu Gupta (2005).
Dr. Borlaug was a staunch proponent of biotechnology. The following statement reflects his strong support for this modern science, “The majority of agricultural scientists including myself anticipate great benefits from biotechnology in the coming decades to help meet our future needs for food and fiber. Indeed, the commercial adoption by farmers of transgenic crops has been one of the most rapid cases of technology diffusion in the history of agriculture.…. The more pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will be permitted to use this new technology? While the affluent nations can certainly afford to adopt ultra low-risk positions, and pay more for food produced by the so-called “organic” methods, the one billion chronically undernourished people of the low income, food-deficit nations cannot.”
In “Ending World Hunger: The Promise of Biotechnology and the Threat of Antiscience Zealotry,” Dr. Borlaug wrote about his wish – his dream – if you will, “I would like to share one dream that I hope scientists will achieve in the not-too-distant future. Rice is the only cereal that has immunity to the Puccinia spp. of rust. Imagine the benefits if the genes for rust immunity in rice could be transferred into wheat, barley, oats, maize, millet, and sorghum. The world could finally be free of the scourge of the rusts, which have led to so many famines over human history.” He was a perpetual mentor to agricultural scientists!
In a 2002 journal article, Dr. Borlaug spoke of unchecked population growth. He wrote, “…With the global population currently increasing by one billion each decade, meeting future food demand is becoming evermore challenging and worrisome.” He warned, “The rise and fall of ancient civilizations in the Middle East and Meso-America were directly tied to agricultural successes and failures, and it behooves us to remember that this axiom still remains valid today.”
If we wish to have continued successes, we must invest in agricultural research and development. We should put our money where our mouth is! This is what Dr. Borlaug would want to stave off hunger and poverty. Complacency or the status quo cannot be the answer to keep Dr. Borlaug’s legacy alive. The best way we can honour him now is by continuing his fight against hunger and poverty with vigour.
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OPED
FERNANDES WAS REAL ECONOMY TRAVELLER
BY RAMAMOHAN RAO
MUCH has been written about the directions by the Government of India to the ministers and Congress members of Parliament to travel economy class during their tour within the country or abroad. Much also has been made about the ‘directions’ communicated to Minister of External Affairs S.M. Krishna and Minister of State Shashi Tharoor to shift from their rooms in five-star hotels even though they were paying for the rental personally.
A Cabinet minister who refused to travel first class out of conviction was George Fernandes, the former Defence Minister. I witnessed it as an Information Consultant in the Defence Ministry. In fact, it caused me some embarrassment as I was booked in the Indian Airlines flight in the first class which was my entitlement and to my surprise I saw Defence Minister George Fernandes travelling in the economy class from Delhi to Mumbai.
I quietly went to a person travelling in the economy class to take my seat in the first class and travelled in the economy class. Later, whenever I travelled with George Fernandes, I took care to ensure that my booking was done in the economy class.
Last week, I heard Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari saying that he was ready to travel even in the cargo compartment. I recalled that I had to travel in the cargo compartment of a IL-76 of the Indian Air Force from Guwahati to Delhi in 2004 along with George Fernandes. The plane was not pressurised and not one word could be heard by me during the two-hour long flight though I was in the bucket seat along with the Defence Minister.
George Fernandes had visited Tawang a day earlier, saw a monastery and a war memorial there, did a survey of the posts keeping watch on the Chinese border. On return when we were told that the Indian Airlines flight was cancelled, he chose to travel by the IL76 cargo aircraft, which was on a routine flight, as he had to proceed on an engagement from Delhi.
Incidentally, during his period as Defence Minister, George Fernandes chose to visit the Siachen Glacier to see how the jawans were living there. When he saw that they were not adequately clothed as there were some ‘budgetary problems’, he told the Defence Ministry that the officers concerned should pay a visit to the outposts in Siachen.
In no time, the jawans got their clothes and snowmobiles in Siachen. From then onwards George Fernandes visited Siachen every three months, as the turnover period there used to be three months and he wanted to meet every contingent doing a tenure of duty there. He had visited Siachen 18 times as the Defence Minister.
He insisted on personally going through the conditions in which the soldiers, sailors and airmen lived and worked. He travelled in a Light Combat Aircraft developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) after subjecting himself to the physical tests that every pilot has to pass through.
It is also not the first time that Cabinet ministers have been staying in five-star hotels. I recall a former Prime Minister booking scores of rooms in the Maurya to accommodate his family who had come along with him when he was sworn in. They stayed there for weeks and special food was prepared for them to ensure that they felt at home.
One recalls the days when Jawaharlal Nehru as the Prime Minister had an office in South Block with two personal secretaries who took all the dictations and maintained his office. Today, the number of personal secretaries working for a Cabinet minister is around a score, leave alone the Prime Minister’s Office. — ANI
The writer is a former Principal Information Officer, Government of India
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THE ASSAM TRIBUNE
EDITORIAL
POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT
After days of speculations, militants belonging to DHD(J), commonly known as the Black Widow group, finally started the process of surrendering weapons to pave the way for talks with the Government, which raised hopes for restoration of peace in the trouble torn North Cachar Hills district. The Government of India gave a deadline of September 15 to the militant group to lay down weapons to start the process of talks and the outfit started the process of laying down arms on September 13 when more than 190 militants came over ground along with more than 60 weapons including sophisticated weapons like AK series rifles, while as many as 179 militants came over ground along with 75 weapons on September 14. This is of course a positive development and the Government should start the process of talks as soon as the process of laying down arms by the militant group is completed as keeping the problems alive for a long period will only complicate matters. Moreover, efforts should be made by the Government to bridge the gap between DHD and DHD(J) so that both the groups can be brought to the negotiation table together as holding talks with both the groups may complicate the situation. It is a fact that there are reports of serious difference of opinion among both the outfits and for years, the talks with the DHD have not yielded the desired results. But holding talks separately with both the groups will not help in restoration of permanent peace in NC Hills and the Government must try to bring both the groups together for talks. The Government has already ruled out the possibility of further division of the State and now it should decide what it can offer to the outfits immediately to expedite the process of talks to ensure early solution of the problems.
The surrender of arms by the DHD(J) started a new era in dealing with militancy as for the first time, the Government adopted a tough stand and laid down tough pre-conditions for talks. Perhaps the experience of signing cease-fire agreements with the militant groups without tough pre-conditions forced the Government to adopt a tough stand. Earlier, the militants were allowed to keep weapons in the designated camps after signing cease-fire agreements and there have been instances of members of such groups violating the ground rules and indulging in unlawful activities. But with the Government insisting on surrender of weapons as a pre-condition for talks, the DHD(J) members will not be able to use their weapons in violation of the cease-fire agreement because of the fact that all the weapons will be kept in the custody of the Government. In fact, the Government should seize the weapons of all the militant outfits which signed cease-fire agreements earlier to prevent misuse of the weapons kept in the designated camps.
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THE ASSAM TRIBUNE
EDITORIAL
JUVENILE VIOLENCE
A growing penchant for violence among students has emerged as an extremely disquieting concern. In the past one month alone, there have been a number of incidents – from group clashes and attacks on teachers to the macabre case of a student being burnt alive by his colleagues. The menace of ragging continues unabated, with a victim even committing suicide. If one were to analyse the factors behind the violence, almost all the cases started over trivial matters. All this goes to show how easily our teenagers and youth are given to violence. While aggressive tendencies are not uncommon at this age, in many of these cases the behaviour of the students cannot be equated with rebellion and defiance that is normally associated with the youth. Psychologists are better-placed to dissect the abnormal tendencies of the youth but certain things are amply clear. Growing intolerance, disrespect to values and an attitude that tends to treat criminal acts as nothing unusual, are more widespread than before. The increasing violent tendencies among the youth are also symptomatic of a deeper malaise that has set in our society. It would be imprudent to look at this growing penchant for violence among juveniles and youth – and even children – in isolation.
Every man is a product of his environment, and this is more so in the case of children and juveniles whose impressionable minds place them in a vulnerable position vis-à-vis happenings in the society. More often than not, the youth is what it was as a child. We are living in a society that is undergoing a radical transformation as far as values and morals are concerned, with crass materialism percolating down to every level. Cardinal virtues such as compassion and tolerance have taken the backseat in the rat race for success at any cost. When money becomes the sole determining factor of power, position and status, and when corruption is eulogised as the order of the day, it is hardly surprising that our children – whose young minds are constantly fed on the lure of the lucre, violence and sex – should be trying to emulate their peers. It is here that the role of parents assumes utmost significance. Home is the first and most important school for every child and the influence that the home environment has on the child stays with it for its entire life. Proper parental guidance and care as also the environment in schools can have a profound influence in shaping the character and personality of the child.
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THE ASSAM TRIBUNE
EDITORIAL
INDO-BANGLA TIES: CAUTIOUS APPROACH NEEDED
SHIBDAS BHATTACHARJEE
Just after the elections in Bangladesh, Indian Foreign Ministry made an important statement that the north-eastern State would be actively involved in formulating a fresh foreign policy with Bangladesh and ASEAN countries aiming to pursue the economic prospects of the region. Calling upon the NE states to adopt proactive policies to develop border trade with Bangladesh it was said with lot of expectations as moulding the relationship with the neighbouring countries would also improve the national security of India. It is significant to note that Bangladesh improved its position in the Global Competitive Index (GCI) by advancing to 106th in 2009-2010 from the 111th standing in 2008-09. The country’s advanced position, marked by a 5-stage leap from last year’s position, was set in a worldwide survey conducted by the World Economic Forum (WEF) which covered a total of 134 countries across the globe. So also. Sheikh Hasina made two highly significant statements in her very first post-victory press conference. One, she said that good relations with neighbours would be a major agenda of her government. That apparently means India in particular. Two, she asserted in no uncertain terms that she would not allow Bangladesh’s territory to be used for terrorism against its neighbours. That was obviously a good beginning and keeping in view Sheikh Hasina’s track record, there was reason for optimism that she would translate her words into action.
So the recent visit of new Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni was a part of the goodwill gesture initiated by the new democratic regime of Bangladesh. But it was more important for the northeastern States. The Bangladesh Foreign Minister during her visit to India assured the Indian leadership that Bangladesh would not allow terrorist organisations of any origin to use its land against India. Both sides also agreed to conclude an agreement on combating international terrorism, organised crime and illegal drug trafficking. But so long, India does not succeed to reach the extradition agreement with Bangladesh; all other issues related to security of the entire north-eastern India including West Bengal would be futile, despite exaggerated words of assurance. Truly no radical change in this regard can be expected. Security experts in India also share this view that once the extradition treaty is finalised, India will be able to nab both North East based insurgent outfits as well as the HUJI militants who have taken refuge in Bangladesh. Nevertheless it was significant that both India and Bangladesh agreed to conclude agreements on mutual legal assistance on criminal matters and transfer of sentenced person. This is an important development at a time when the increase in illegal drug trade in Assam is highlighted with the State becoming main transit point to smuggle out the illegal drugs into the entire region.
So also, the last inter-ministerial meeting finalised the issues of bilateral talks, which were largely dominated by regional and bilateral security, trade and connectivity, water and frontier issues, including maritime boundary. The construction of the Tipaimukh dam in Manipur raised concerns in Bangladesh, which fears it would restrict water supply in its rivers. The talks between Dr. Dipu Moni and Indian External Affairs Minister SM Krishna were transparent that covered the entire gamut of bilateral relations, including sharing the waters of common rivers, commercial and economic issues, security and border issues, people-to-people contact. Increased connectivity in the region, particularly involving India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh, figured prominently in discussion. The issues of cooperation in power sector, including the import of power from India to Bangladesh, and Indian assistance for upgrading railway sector and procurement of locomotives, passenger coaches and buses with Indian assistance, also came up for discussion. The possibility of Indian assistance for capital dredging of ports and rivers in Bangladesh was also raised, in which the Indian side expressed positive interest. Foreign Minister Dr. Dipu Moni requested her Indian counterpart to allow greater market access of Bangladeshi products to the Indian market by offering greater duty-free access and also removal of non-tariff and para-tariff barriers.
In fact, during the last few months since the change of guard in Bangladesh and the victory of the liberal forces in the Bangladesh elections, India and Bangladesh made significant strides in improving bilateral security concerns and boosting economic cooperation between the two neighbours. New Delhi and Dhaka initiated steps to build a bridge of harmony and ease off the uncomfortable relations they had developed over the past three decades. The ‘Treaty of Friendship and Peace’ signed in 1972 had gone to waste with Bangladesh continuously encouraging infiltration in the Indian states of Assam, Tripura and West Bengal. Further the intelligence reports of ISI using Bangladesh as the training ground for terrorists and Bangladeshi government not taking enough measures to prevent them, strained the relations between the two countries. Bangladesh also had its share of grievances regarding the Farakkha dam created on river Hoogly that kept them away from getting a fair share of water from the Ganges. But currently it seems both the countries kept the discontent behind and are willing to share a good relation for the benefit of all.
The most serious problem in India-Bangladesh relations is the illegal movement of people across the border from Bangladesh to India. The flow of migrants seeking work in India is an evil design to destabilise Assam, Tripura and West Bengal. The illegal influx has already changed the demographic structure in Assam and Tripura, which is a matter of serious concern for the indigenous people who are gradually becoming minority in their homelands. To stop this infiltration, India proposed fencing of the border but almost all Bangladesh governments displayed insincerity or vehemently opposed it. In fact, the illegal infiltration is related to other problems like drug trafficking, smuggling and routing of contrabands, trafficking in women and children and so on. All these constitute a security threat to India because, firstly, the infiltration would deepen social unrest and heavy burden on India. Secondly, one weakness of the Bangladesh government in this context may render potentially vulnerable foreign interference that India can never accept and thirdly. Indian insurgents are using the soil of Bangladesh as a guerilla base.
So India should review the situation from an open and unprejudiced perspective keeping in view the reality that Bangladesh never reciprocated expectedly to the amicable and constructive attitude of India. It is really an irony that on the one hand that the present UPA government led by Congress is highlighting the Indo-US nuclear deal as a great success at a time when people of one of the parts of country, the North East are suffering from identity crisis mainly because of wrong policy towards Bangladesh and policy of appeasement to a particular community for poll-politics. So also, it will be better to accept the harsh reality how far the Hasina government can deliver. In fact, in the given situation when narrow radicalism is all-pervasive in the Bangladeshi society and its security mechanism the liberal forces cannot do much despite their sincere will. It will be wise for New Delhi to be rationale and not to have sky-high expectations from Dhaka. So India should be cautious in dealing with Bangladesh.
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THE ASSAM TRIBUNE
EDITORIAL
CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS AND BARTER SYSTEM
MOON MOON SARMAH
Money is the life blood of modern economy. But at the dawn of civilisation, people used to practise barter system of exchange in lieu of money. “Barter” means direct exchange of goods and services without the use of money. The economy based upon this barter system of exchange is known as “barter economy”. Later on barter system had to face with various difficulties such as lack of coincidence of wants, lack of common measure of value, lack of divisibility etc for which people searched for a suitable medium of exchange and through a long process of evolution, the present form of money came. Barter system of exchange has some positive effects also for which the ancient custom of bartering is booming in the present financial crisis which makes cash and credit increasingly scarce. Financial crisis has had a sobering impact on spendthrift consumers as well as aggressive bankers. This is evident from the sudden restraint in the use and release of plastic money, better known as credit cards. The survey shows that since the banks have become very selective in issuing credit cards – pattern of spending has come down dramatically.
In this case barter is a nice way to save money. It helps to avoid transactional cost incurred when an item is sold. Generally people have to pay tax when he/she buys a durable commodity. But if the person exchanges the commodity with another person the tax is saved. Barter becomes a very good solution, when the item does not have a liquid secondary market. It can also play an important role in countries where currencies cannot be converted easily.
After the two World Wars it has become the main means of exchange in Germany where hyper inflation had totally destroyed currencies. Again it helps to increase business efficiencies by monetising their unused capacities and excess inventories. The worldwide organised barter exchange and trade industry has grown to an $8 billion a year industry. The advent of the Internet and sophisticated software programme has further advanced the barter industry’s growth. It has become an effective method of increasing sales, conserving cash, moving inventory and making use of excess production capacity around the world. For such reasons, barter is fast moving back to the system as traders and businessmen find it to be a solution to get rid of debt or expanding their company. In the foreign countries, cost conscious consumers are getting creative to make every dollar count. They take various ways such as dusting of books, DVDs , video games and other little used items to trade for necessities or gifts. Others are exchanging services such as house painting for web design or guitar lesson for clerical work. Countries struggling to secure credit have resorted to barter. Russia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Morocco have signed inter-government and barter deals to import commodities from rice to vegetable oil.
The slowing economy has certainly helped to grow the barter exchange. It is estimated that over 3,50,000 businesses in United States are involved in barter exchange activities. There are approximately 400 commercial and corporate barter companies serving all parts of the world. Corporate barter focuses on larger transactions, which is different from a traditional retail oriented barter exchange. Corporate barter exchanges typically use media and advertising for their larger transactions. America’s Universal Barter Groups claims 65 per cent of the companies on the New York Stock Exchange are involved in barter.
In India also barter trade is gaining momentum following the credit crunch of global recession. However, barter is still a fraction of Indian trade. Nearly 30 per cent of world business is barter, while Indian barter is a mere 10-12 per cent of the trade. Recently a barter exchange named India Barter Exchange has been formed. The member of this club can exchange goods and commodities in lieu of their services.
It is noteworthy to mention that the traditional system of barter is still in prevalence in the weekly ‘hats’ of the border areas of the North East. The North Eastern Region shares only about two per cent of its border with the mainland of the country and the remaining 98 per cent is connected with the neighboring countries viz China, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Weekly ‘hats’ are places where boundaries cease to work. Along the Indo-Myanmar border in Arunachal, there is the beautiful Pangshu Pass, where locals come to set up their stalls for selling clothes, groceries, eggs, etc and Burmese nationals do their business very enthusiastically. Neither currency nor language pose any problem there. Some exchange goods and commodities directly, while some others exchange Indian rupee and Myanmarese Kyat freely. Such ‘hats’ are still prevalent in Tripura, where NER shares border with Bangladesh.
In lower Assam, the weekly Darrangree market, near Indo-Bhutan border has been in existence for centuries. One more instance of barter trade is the unique Junbeel Mela in Morigaon district, about 65 km from Guwahati. Like the bygone era, even today the people from the hills (Meghalaya and Karbi Anglong) come down to the plains and interact with their brothers in the plains. Transaction of goods takes place among the hill tribes of Assam and Meghalaya and the people residing in the plains.
The tribal’s barter edible products such as ginger, indigo, mat, etc to procure various traditional cakes, fried rice powder and dried fish. The Assam Government should have plans to showcase this unique barter system in the international market.
(The writer teaches Economics in MDKG College, Dibrugarh).
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
THROUGH THE THIRD EYE
GANDHIAN PARADOX: AUSTERITY CAN BE COSTLY
Competitive austerity by Indian netas is one of the more curious fallouts of the current economic circumstances. Even Sonia Gandhi’s gesture of flying economy on Air India — instead of taking a private aircraft — upon closer examination looks quite different.
Though she had a first row seat in the economy class, two seats beside her were left empty and her security men occupied the next 15 seats — the rows next to her and behind. Given that her plan to fly on a commercial jet was last-minute, 18 seats would have cost quite a bit.
The Congress footed the bill, no doubt, but if ministers and officials belatedly follow suit, the exchequer may be much the poorer for their last-minute abstemiousness. Sarojini Naidu’s quip that it “cost the nation a lot to keep Gandhiji in poverty” has been oft-quoted, but the stratagem that inspired it bears retelling, in the current context. Gandhiji always travelled third class on trains to bond with India’s poor millions.
The British, unwilling to let him gain brownie points when riding in badly-maintained coaches, usually rustled up a special train, albeit with three clean third-class compartments for Gandhiji and his entourage. Gandhiji would then send his third class fare to the authorities so that he would not be “beholden” to them. Indians can be excused for any feelings of deja vu, surely.
Today, our politicians assume that if they make a big deal of abjuring their business-class seats and five-star stays in favour of plebian virtues while travelling, the spotlight will not focus on the rest of their privileged existence. In any case, barring short-lived dust-storms over the comptroller and auditor general’s quibbles, there is hardly ever any public outcry on government expenses or excesses.
By contrast, both Labour and Conservatives in the UK have been so shaken by the expenses scandal this year, that they have jettisoned many stalwarts for the next elections. Public ire was not assuaged by the fact that those MPs modestly used public transport and did not jet off abroad with large retinues. The Indian public should take note.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
AN OFFSET POLICY FOR POWER EQUIPMENT IMPORTS
With domestic power producers stepping up use of Chinese equipment, we need a proactive policy to guard the public interest. Now, on the face of it, rising imports of China-made boilers, turbines and the like for power plants in India seem unexceptionable. Chinese equipment cost less, are readily available and so appear to fit the bill for revving up power generation capacity here.
However, there are genuine public policy issues that need to be addressed. For one, there’s the issue of unfair trade practices. It may well be that the seemingly cheap Chinese exports are being routinely subsidised. Worse, the exports may not be legally valid. For instance, the export of ‘super-critical’ boilers by Chinese licensees is reportedly not allowed. There may be technical reasons for going slow on sourcing Chinese equipment too. For example, the thermal boilers may not be designed for Indian coal and attendant specifications. Also, prompt after-sales and maintenance locally may not be possible, sans a manufacturing presence.
The way ahead is to mandate an offset policy for Chinese power equipment imports. Power is a critical industry and large economies do require local manufacture and value-addition for equipment. Besides, the Indian power equipment industry is large and growing, which is reason enough for Chinese equipment makers to enthusiastically invest in manufacturing facilities here. Already, reports say that Harbin Power Equipment Co is to have a domestic production base to meet demand.
Meanwhile, with L&T, our biggest engineering and construction company, foraying in a big way into power equipment production — it has joined hands with Mitsubishi for energy efficient super-critical boilers — the domestic industry seems to have considerably matured. Bhel, our main power equipment maker, already has a tie-up with Alstom for super-critical boiler technology. Further, ABB India is also boosting its manufacturing presence. There is no reason why Chinese producers ought to shy away from following suit.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
SEBI FOR MORE TRANSPARENCY IN REPORTING
SEBI's proposal to amend the Listing Agreement to enforce rotation of audit partners and to streamline quarterly and annual reporting is a welcome measure to improve credibility of financial results published by companies. These measures mark baby steps in cleaning up the accounting and auditing practices in India.
However, no one should expect these measures would actually curb the recurrence of Satyam Computer Services like accounting scandals. Rotation of audit partners, an international best practice, is long overdue. The proposal may, however, face stiff resistance from the chartered accountants community, even though many firms and the ICAI would agree rotation of audit partners as opposed to rotation of audit firms is definitely a more feasible option.
The discussion paper published by Sebi on Monday has suggested that the audit partner signing the accounts of a listed company be rotated every five years. The regulator should also consider mandating joint audits by two firms in the instance of very large businesses to ensure greater integrity of financial statements. The argument against joint audits is that it can prove to be expensive for the companies. Rotation of audit firms is similarly opposed — it is expensive to hire a new firm every few years, but more importantly, new firm takes time to understand the nature of the business of a client.
The proposal that the audit committee should approve the appointment of chief financial officers, without laying down her qualifications, places, rightly, the onus on the directors of the company to appoint the right man for the job.
The proposal to streamline quarterly and annual reporting by companies and making limited review by the auditors mandatory too should help improve the quality of numbers published by companies. The 45-day window allowed to companies to publish financial statements with limited audit review as against the current requirement of reporting unaudited statements within 30 days from the end of the quarter should give companies enough time to verify numbers before making them public.
The proposal to reduce the timeline for reporting full year results from three months to two months is an investor friendly measure, but would put pressure on auditors to finish their task faster.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
RIGHT TIME TO UNVEIL FERTILISER REFORMS
BY VINATI DEV
In the second half of 2008 international fertiliser prices soared to historic levels. India, which imports significant amount of finished fertiliser and raw material, had no option but to continue to import at higher prices to meet domestic demand. The result was a massive and unsustainable subsidy level, almost Rs 90,000 crore.
With just Rs 30,000 crore was allocated in the budget — and when off-budget mechanisms like bonds were used to pay the arrears owed by the government to the industry — the blame game between industry (which argued that high import price and fixed prices by the government had made business impossible) and the government (which argued that industry had become lazy as the cost plus subsidy system had led to companies paying little regard to efficiency gains and competitive importing) began in earnest.
Surprisingly, even amidst this panic and pressure (from the obvious competing goals of finance and agriculture ministries, on the one hand, and a looming general election on the other), the fertiliser department had been working on a reform agenda and slowly building a consensus — both among department mandarins themselves, as well between the government departments and industry bigwigs.
The cornerstone of this new agenda was the shift from the cost plus subsidy system to a nutrient-based subsidy system — a move that would address several issues bedevilling the fertiliser sector. Mainly, the core issue of balanced use of fertilisers — key to growing yields — would be taken head on. Balanced fertiliser use had been stifled, as only select products were subsidised. Other fertilisers received no subsidy or their prices were fixed without any regard to their nutrient content. Freeing MRPs from government control would be the only way to ensure production peaks, and imports are carried at the most competitive levels.
The other core theme of the new strategy involved direct subsidy to the farmer instead of the manufacturer. Arguably, in the absence of a ready delivery mechanism (for instance, Kisan Cards and bank accounts for farmers), this was a pipe dream. However, in the 2008-09 budget speech, the then finance minister Chidambaram announced that a new system of kisan cards would be tried out on a pilot basis in select areas. Since then, some measures were taken to issue the cards. However, in the absence of a clear mandate to the banks, the process has been somewhat slow.
From then on, there have been several developments. Due to the tough and unrelenting stance of the fertiliser department and the Indian industry, and given India’s status as a big importer, prices of key products like DAP and phosphoric acid have fallen. As the result, the import bill and subsidy outgo have reduced considerably from 2008 levels. This is good news. Yet a note of caution is warranted, as crisis can act as a catalyst for radical reform.
The 2009-10 budget speech signalled the continuation of both the nutrient-based subsidy scheme as well as the direct transfer of subsidy to farmers. There has also been no change at the bureaucratic level — key bureaucrats who worked relentlessly on the reform agenda are in place. Their analysis on a well thought-out and phased reform plan in which all parties will have time to react and rebuild is in place. Most notably, the secretary, who intends to move the fertiliser department away from being a subsidy management machine to one that focuses on strategic acquisitions and joint ventures, is still the man in charge.
The only difference is that there is a new minister in place. Observers have so far given him the benefit of the doubt, he needs time to understand the stakeholder impact of reform that has been in the making. Farmer and industry interests are precariously balanced — and so are political compulsions. But the minister must know that there is a finite amount of time before the prices rise again, before industry gets cold feet, and another election comes around.
He will have to start taking decisions soon. Indeed, all that is now required is the will to get on with reform — even if it is done in a phased manner and through several well-planned pilot schemes where implementation issues are identified and rectified. The mandarins are ready, the masters must sign on and industry must adapt. It is time to reform now as the stars may not align again so neatly in the near future.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
NORMAN BORLAUG: A MIDWESTERN KARMAYOGI
VITHAL C NADKARNI
Norman Borlaug was 56 when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for having sparked the Green Revolution.
Characteristically, the agronomist who died at 95, was working in a wheat-field outside Mexico City when his wife rushed to tell him about the prize. His first reaction was to calm her down, says one his biographers, with the remark "Someone’s pulling your leg." But when he was assured that he was really the newest Nobel peace laureate, he did not bat an eye as he continued to work, saying that while celebration could wait, the Sun and his beloved wheat blossoms would not!
"I had become as brown as a nut from having spent so much time under the fierce Mexican Sun crossing different wheat varieties," Dr Borlaug reminisced to your columnist during a visit to India years later. He also vividly recalled the "whispering music of the ripening wheat sheaves in the Punjab". (“When wheat is ripening properly, when the wind is blowing across the field, you can hear the beards of the wheat rubbing together,” he said in another biography. “It is a sweet, haunting music that once you hear, you never forget.”) Equally striking had been the enunciation of his eponymous hypothesis during the interview: it said boosting productivity of agriculture on the best farmland was our best bet in controlling deforestation by reducing the demand for new farmland.
But the irony of the farmer (Krishika) as the protector of the forest (Aranyaka) was lost on his detractors. This also evoked the image of the scientist as a Midwestern Karmayogi, patiently toiling without regard for the fruits of his harvest, even as he and his colleagues quietly continued to save countless millions of lives.
Moreover, as he serenely answered questions about what some critics alleged was his poisoned legacy, Borlaug also reminded us of the Sthitaprajyna (equipoised seer). “The world’s grain output of 692 million tonnes came from 1.7 billion acres of cropland in 1950,” he’d replied without rancour. “The 1992 output of 1.9 billion tonnes from 1.73 billion acres — a 170% increase from just 1% more land,” he emphasised.
“Without high-yield agriculture, millions would have starved or increases in food output would have been realised through drastic expansion of acres under cultivation — losses of pristine land a hundred times greater than all losses to urban and suburban expansion.”
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
AVOID COORDINATED EXIT BY G-20
SWAMINATHAN S ANKLESARIA AIYAR
The G-20 (the group of countries representing 85% of the world economy) takes credit for helping tackle the global financial crisis. At its April 2009 meeting, it called for coordinated fiscal and monetary stimuli by all countries to stop the Great Recession from becoming a Great Depression. Today, the global economy shows encouraging signs of recovering.
So, the G-20 is getting ready to call at its next meeting at Pittsburgh on September 24-25 for, among other things, a globally coordinated exit from the earlier stimuli. Enormous fiscal deficits and loose monetary policy cannot continue forever — already these are threatening inflation and new asset bubbles. And so the G-20 is reportedly preparing to call for countries to coordinate their exit, just as they coordinated their earlier entry into stimulus.
The main problem with this approach is mendacity. It is simply not true that all countries of the world solemnly agreed on a coordinated stimulus. The Great Recession began in December 2007, triggered by the US subprime mortgage crisis, and there was no question of coordination — Europeans patronisingly saw it as a peculiarity of the unregulated US markets. Third World countries had little exposure to toxic US assets, and they too sniggered at US discomfiture. President Bush proposed a major stimulus package in late 2007, and one was passed into law in February 2008. No European or Third World country followed suit.
The US housing situation continued deteriorating, further eroding prices of mortgage backed securities and credit default swaps guaranteeing such securities. This culminated in Black September in 2008, when Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG and the four top US investment banks were laid low. Panic seized global finance at the realisation that not even the most exalted triple-A corporates could be trusted to honour their commitments. Lending of all sorts froze, risk premiums on all securities went through the roof, and securities galore turned illiquid as trading ground to a panicky halt. The rest of the world could no longer smile patronisingly at US troubles: the problem had become global, horrifyingly so.
Every country then reacted on its own, without coordination. Economists everywhere knew Keynesian economics, and launched stimulus packages tailored to their own conditions. India, for instance, came out with its first stimulus package in December 2008, a second package in January 2009, and a third in the form of the budget. These packages were devised by India on its own, not in coordination with anybody else.
Then in April 2009 the G-20 met again in London, and issued a call for a globally coordinated stimulus. This was really a bit rich. Every country had already come out with a national stimulus package, but here was an international summit implying this was a challenge for the future.
In fact, by the April meeting of the G-20 the Great Recession was already bottoming out. Global markets had touched rock bottom in March 2009, when Citibank looked for a moment like collapsing. After the US made it clear that neither Citibank nor any other giant company would be allowed to go into liquidation, the global market mood changed. Markets decided that the worst was over, and it was time to shift tens of billions from safe havens to all kinds of securities that had become basement bargains in the earlier scare.
India had suffered a withdrawal of $12 billion by foreign institutional investors from its stockmarkets in 2008, but the tide turned in April 2009 as no less than $1.3 billion flowed in. This was followed by another $4.4 billion in May. Huge sums raced globally into all securities earlier shunned as risky, including junk bonds.
So, the G-20 call for coordinated global action in April actually came after individual countries had already launched uncoordinated action that had largely solved the problem already. Possibly the G-20 summit itself helped: the announcement of $850 billion for the IMF may have helped assure markets that rescue loans would be available for distressed countries in Eastern Europe. The IMF funding could be hailed as coordinated action, but not the earlier national stimulus packages.
With economies recovering, the G-20 will now consider exit from fiscal and monetary stimuli. But is there any reason why this should be coordinated? After all, conditions in different countries vary markedly.
The latest data suggest fears of deflation in the US, Japan and China where consumer prices are falling at the rate of 2.1%, 2.2% and 1.8% respectively. But India is suffering from high consumer inflation of 11.6%, Russia of 11.6%, Egypt of 9% and Brazil of 4.5%. Surely this second group of countries needs to worry about curbing inflation while the first group has the opposite worry.
Again, unemployment in some countries is quite low (3% in Norway, 3.3% in Singapore, 3.8% in Korea and 4.4% in Austria) but is very high in others (23% in South Africa, 18.5% in Spain. 9.7% in the US and 12.3% in Belgium). GDP growth in the second quarter of 2009 was relatively high in some countries (China 8.1%, India 6.1%, Korea 9.7%, Singapore 20.7% and Thailand 9.6%) whereas it was still negative elsewhere ( -1.0 in the US, -2.6% in the UK,, -4.2% in Spain).
When growth, unemployment and inflation are so markedly different in different countries, why should they plan a coordinated exit? Surely exit is far more urgent for some countries with relatively high inflation and relatively high growth.
Central banks in the US, UK and Japan will be very cautious about exit, and rightly so. Their recovery is still weak and uncertain, and consumer prices are falling. But India surely needs to be among those worrying about inflation, not deflation.
India needs to start tightening monetary policy long before the US or Japan does. It should give advance notice of a phased rollback of the huge excise duty cuts announced at the depth of the crisis, starting maybe in January 2010. It shouldn’t even think of coordinating such action with other G-20 members.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
THE GREAT AUSTERITY RACE!
RAGHU KRISHNAN
Suddenly, it has become fashionable for the Congress-led UPA government to preach, if not practise, austerity. With the monsoon not being up to the mark and with several districts being declared as drought-affected, the bureaucracy was asked to cut costs, to keep foreign trips to a minimum and to fly economy.
Congress MPs were asked to donate one-fifth of their salary to the drought-relief fund. When a newspaper noted early this month that Union minister for external affairs S M Krishna and his minister of state Shashi Tharoor had lived in five-star hotel suites in the first 100 days of the UPA government being sworn in, austerity suddenly became the buzz word at all levels of government.
The two ministers were publicly pulled up by Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee who advised them on national television to move into the state government guest-houses till such time as the bungalows allotted to them were ready for occupation. The hapless ministers said they had already moved out and had paid the hotel bills out of their own pockets.
And then Mukherjee flew to Kolkata from Delhi on a budget airline where only water was served free. This flight of austerity was promptly publicised by a TV news channel even while Mukherjee wondered why so much was being made about it and thoughtfully added that he had always flown economy on non-budget airlines.
And thus began what could be termed as The Great Austerity Race! Union minister of state for environment Jairam Ramesh stated on television in Madhya Pradesh that he had no problems in flying economy and that he had travelled by train to Bhopal.
In his previous avatar as Union minister of state for commerce, Ramesh had two years ago been snapped in the company of female Adivasi coffee cultivators in rural Andhra Pradesh while sitting out in the open on a makeshift chair and handing out awards to the best growers. You can’t get more austere than that! Or so one would have thought until the Trinamool Congress let it be known, through the nearest friendly neighbourhood TV news channel, that its founder-leader Mamata Banerjee had not only refused to travel in the special saloon which the Union railway minister is entitled to on train journeys but spurned ministerial perks like a bungalow and a car. But, then, Didi is probably the poorest Union minister.
Which could be why one of the richest UPA ministers Praful Patel made it a point to state on television that he had been taking a token monthly salary of one rupee as the Union minister of state for civil aviation. If Patel did not dwell on the subject of flying economy, it could have been because of media reports that his party founder-president and senior Cabinet colleague Sharad Pawar had stated that he found it difficult to occupy and work out of an economy airline seat.
Ministers holding weighty portfolios like food and agriculture can have a problem fitting into economy seats. American airlines have been known to charge double for those who cannot fit into one seat. However, as per the latest austerity norms announced by the Union finance minister, all MPs (which includes ministers) can fly business-class on long international flights.
The MPs, even those who sarcastically stated that they were prepared to fly in the cargo-hold, are now falling in line. Congress MPs would have realised by now that their high command did not disapprove of the Union finance minister publicly pulling up the two ministers of external affairs for staying in five-star hotel suites. Which explains why The Great Austerity Race has picked up momentum over the last few days.
A TV channel noted that Union labour minister Mallikarjun Kharge occupied a room in Karnataka Bhavan and ate in the canteen and that Union minister of state for programme implementation G K Vasan was occupying the same MP’s room his father G K Moopanar lived in a decade ago. A third hands-on minister was shown cleaning the toilet. And the external affairs minister of five-star fame will be going to Belarus on a commercial airline and not a special flight.
It need not be a coincidence that, barring Mamata, the more austere ministers are all from the Congress. The pre-Independence generation of Congress leaders practised austerity in and out of jail during the freedom struggle. That was largely at the instance of the original Gandhi — the Mahatma — for whom austerity was not a drought-induced reflex but a way of life. Empathy for him meant living the life of the poor for whose upliftment he worked. And Garibi hatao was for him not just an election slogan.
It need not even be a case of virtue being its own reward in the present context. Elections are to be held on October 13 in Haryana, Arunachal and Maharashtra. Maharashtra has been ruled for a decade by a coalition of the Sonia-led Congress and Pawar’s National Congress Party (NCP). Latest media reports indicate that the Congress wants to leave just 110 out of Maharashtra’s 288 assembly seats to the NCP. The Congress is evidently not practising austerity in terms of Maharashtra assembly seats even if Sonia/Pawar flew economy to Mumbai on September 14!
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DECCAN CHRONICAL
EDITORIAL
CHINA: AS UNEASE GROWS, ACT FIRMLY
The government on Tuesday officially denied as “factually incorrect” a media report that a fortnight ago two jawans of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police were injured in firing by Chinese soldiers from across the Line of Actual Control in northern Sikkim. After the 1962 boundary skirmish, the undefined border has been on the whole quiet, and New Delhi and Beijing have in place reasonably steady arrangements to keep it “tranquil” even as the two sides seek to formally demarcate the boundary. The official denial by the external affairs ministry is therefore just as well. But it is not entirely clear if the government is describing as baseless any injury caused to our soldiers, or the fact of firing itself from the Chinese side. It will be gratifying if the latter is the case as that would suggest absence of attempt to disturb the tranquility agreement. There is no question, however, that a degree of unease has been building up in the country on account of regular media reports in the past two years alluding to aggressive border patrolling by the Chinese side and literally a couple of thousand instances of Chinese incursions into the Indian side. Perhaps some of this is unavoidable as the actual position of the Line of Actual Control is not always wholly clear on the ground, and the Chinese side may well also speak of Indian troops straying into their area. This is likely in the eastern sector — the site of the 1962 fighting — since Beijing rejects the McMahon Line as a colonial legacy. Even so, in January 2008, when the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, was on a visit to China, then external affairs minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee had noted that Chinese incursions do indeed occur but these were appropriately dealt with as the two countries had a working system of consultation between them. Earlier this month, however, reports surfaced of Chinese soldiers entering into the Ladakh sector where the border demarcations are quite clear, and of even inscribing their country’s name on a rock. The Chinese foreign office flatly denied the report and the Indian side played it down, with the external affairs minister, Mr S.M. Krishna, drawing attention to the mechanism between the two sides to deal with such matters. He also observed that the demarcation line with China was “one of the peaceful boundaries we have”. The observation may have been an avoidable diplomatic excess. An expert of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, on the other hand, noted that additional Indian deployments in the border regions could give rise to ”regional tension”. This is possibly a reference to India’s decision to build roads and other infrastructure in the areas near the Chinese border to boost transportation, communications and mobility, to place an Air Force squadron in the eastern sector, and also raise two Army divisions to reinforce defence preparedness. Whatever the diplomatic responses, New Delhi is taking steps to shore up its military presence in the difficult terrain. The realism this speaks of is welcome. But the government does need to take the necessary steps to persuade China to eschew action that does not go down well with public opinion here. Statements by ministers and others playing down incidents alone won’t do and may even boomerang in the long run. China is unhappy with India for letting the Dalai Lama visit Arunachal Pradesh. Beijing has recently also been wary about goings-on in Tibet and Xinjiang, which have contiguity with Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh respectively. For all of these reasons, it may believe that a low-level show of military muscle — through border violations — may serve its purpose as it is clearly not wholly persuaded that India has no intention to cause it any anxiety. New Delhi should seek to reassure Beijing on that count but also spell out, at the political level if necessary, that the Dalai Lama, so long as he avoids anti-China political activities, can travel anywhere within this country.
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DECCAN CHRONICAL
EDITORIAL
MUSHARRAF ADMISSION: WHAT’S SO SURPRISING?
BY BY ARUN KUMAR SINGH
The Former Pakistan President, Mr Pervez Musharraf’s latest admission that military aid provided by the United States to Pakistan for the war against terror during his tenure had been used to strengthen defences against India, and that he ensured Pakistan’s strategic weapons programme was “speeded up”, as well as China’s latest border incursions should finally clear the cobwebs from the minds of India’s political leadership.
Many Indians wonder why we continue to suffer nasty surprises at the hands of Pakistan and China. Forty-seven years after the Sino-Indian war in 1962, India has again been taken by surprise by China in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh and Uttarakhand.
India’s lack of strategic culture has been repeatedly exposed and its military often forced to fight under very disadvantageous conditions.
Our political-bureaucratic leadership has allowed defence preparations to fall below critical levels while following a policy of “passive, low, reactive defence”. Hopefully, the restrictions imposed on the Indian Army — not being allowed to patrol some “sensitive areas” on the Sino-Indian border — will be lifted before the Chinese seize more of our territory.
There should be no doubt as to why Pakistan and its terrorists will always aim to cause mayhem in two places in India — Mumbai and Vadinar. Mumbai is the financial capital of India. Its stock market turnover is four times that of Pakistan’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). And Vadinar is a small coastal town in Gujarat’s Jamnagar district. Vadinar port in the Gulf of Kutch has three oil refineries, with the capacity of 99 million tonnes and over two million tonnes of fuel storage. Both are India’s economic jugular, and attacking these will keep India economically hyphenated to Pakistan.
Fortunately, the Coast Guard’s new North-West Command for Gujarat, with its headquarters at Gandhinagar, has become functional. It is expected to be formally inaugurated by the defence minister in October. Hopefully, this new command will urgently receive additional vessels and aircraft to ensure the safety of Gujarat, including Vadinar.
What is the second-best method to hit Mumbai and Vadinar apart from terrorist attacks? The answer: cruise missiles with land attack capability, launched from ships, submarines and Maritime Patrol aircraft like the P-3C Orion. Theoretically, the 120-km range Harpoon anti-ship missile, with a 250 kg warhead, fits the bill perfectly for Pakistan as an interim system while ratcheting up the production of its larger Chinese-gifted 500-km range Babur cruise missiles to build a stockpile of 450.
The long-term aim of Pakistan’s Babur cruise missiles (these can be delivered by fighter or maritime patrol aircraft to extend their range) is to counter India’s over-publicised Ballastic Missile Defence System (BMDS) and give Pakistan a “cheap” but massive first-strike capability intended to overwhelm India’s nuclear retaliation capability.
Right now, Pakistan’s nuclear capability is designed to counter India’s superior conventional military power, but the Babur cruise missile, along with new miniaturised plutonium warheads, will put Pakistan in a different league altogether. The newer versions of the Harpoon — which Pakistan is hoping to acquire from the US — already comes with a built-in secondary land attack capability. What Pakistan apparently tested a few months ago was the older anti-ship Harpoon missile.
Given today’s miniaturised Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS), any missile specialist should be able to convert the vintage anti-ship Harpoon to a land attack capable missile with reasonably accurate chances of hitting the oil refineries at Vadinar and the various installations in Mumbai port. The only problem would be how to replace the 250-kg conventional warhead in the 53-centimetre diameter, cylindrical Harpoon missile with a plutonium miniature nuclear warhead. Most Indian scientists will tell you that it’s impossible for Pakistan to achieve this. Here also I expect China to transfer the technology of a proven miniaturised nuclear weapon which would fit the Babur and possibly the Harpoon cruise missiles.
The question is what are the launch platforms for the modified land-attack Harpoon missile? The answer is simple. The two older French-built Agosta 70 submarines and the half-a-dozen American P-3C Orion aircraft are the ideal launch platforms. The missile has sufficient stand off range to hit Vadinar and Mumbai.
The media has given enough details of Pakistan’s new Khushab 2 and 3 reactors that are expected to produce about 15 to 30 kg of plutonium for three to 10 miniaturised nuclear weapons per year. The latest media reports indicate that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons stockpile has now grown from 70 to 90. I have no idea about India’s nuclear weapons stocks, and am uncertain about how many Agni-type missiles India can produce per year.
China will take Indian deterrence seriously only after we induct the 5,000-km Agni-5. The recent controversy about the 1998 thermonuclear tests “fizzle” has not cleared the air. As a nuclear specialist, it is my opinion that a lot of luck would be needed to get a complex thermonuclear prototype device to function properly for the first time and, even if it did, it would need at least two more confirmatory tests in a rugged “militarised” form. Deterrence works best when it’s based on hard reality, and not ambiguous discussions.
China, as expected, has kept the pressure on India, with the latest news of its forces violating Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh and Uttarakhand. China has mastered the art of long-term strategic planning and obviously, its gameplan is to keep India tied down by the triple threats that emerge from China, Pakistan and Pakistani-sponsored terrorists.
India’s external affairs ministry should stop justifying China’s daily incursions by talking about “the differing perceptions on the Line of Actual Control”. China will stop its incursions only when it is deterred by India’s conventional and strategic defence capability. India needs to change its “no-first-use” nuclear policy.
Vice-Admiral Arun Kumar Singh retired as Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command, Visakhapatnam
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DECCAN CHRONICAL
EDITORIAL
HOW HUMBLE US BECAME A HIGH-FIVE NATION
BY BY DAVID BROOKS
On Sunday evenings, my local National Public Radio (NPR) station airs old radio programmes. A few weeks ago it broadcast the episode of the show Command Performance that aired the day World War II ended. Command Performance was a variety show that went out to the troops around the world.
On Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day), Frank Sinatra appeared, along with Marlene Dietrich, Jimmy Durante, Dinah Shore, Bette Davis, Lionel Barrymore, Cary Grant and many others. But the most striking feature of the show was its tone of self-effacement and humility. The allies had, on that very day, completed one of the noblest military victories in the history of humanity. And yet there was no chest-beating. Nobody was erecting triumphal arches.
“All anybody can do is thank God it’s over”, Bing Crosby, the show’s host, said. “Today our deep down feeling is one of humility”, he added.
Burgess Meredith came out to read a passage from Ernie Pyle, the famous war correspondent. Pyle had been killed just a few months before, but he had written an article anticipating what a victory would mean: “We won this war because our men are brave and because of many things — because of Russia, England and China and the passage of time and the gift of nature’s material. We did not win it because destiny created us better than all other peoples. I hope that in victory we are more grateful than we are proud”.
This subdued sentiment seems to have been widespread during that season of triumph. On the day the Nazi regime fell, Hal Boyle of the Associated Press reported from the front lines, “The victory over Germany finds the average American soldier curiously unexcited. There is little exuberance, little enthusiasm and almost none of the whoop-it-up spirit with which hundreds of thousands of men looked forward to this event a year ago”.
The Dallas Morning News editorialised, “President Truman calls upon us to treat the event as a solemn occasion. Its momentousness and its gravity are past human comprehension”.
When you glimpse back on those days you see a people — even the rich and famous celebrities — who were overawed by the scope of the events around them. The war produced such monumental effects, and such rivers of blood, that the individual ego seemed petty in comparison. The problems of one or two little people, as the movie line had it, didn’t amount to a hill of beans.
You also hear a cultural reaction. As the Times of London pointed out on the day of victory, fascism had stood for grandiosity, pomposity, boasting and zeal. The allied propaganda mills had also produced their fair share of polemical excess. By 1945, everybody was sick of that. There was a mass hunger for a public style that was understated, self-abnegating, modest and spare. Bing Crosby expressed it perfectly on Command Performance, as Gregory Peck, Dwight Eisenhower and George Marshall would come to express it in public life.
And there was something else. When you look from today back to 1945, you are looking into a different cultural epoch, across a sort of narcissism line. Humility, the sense that nobody is that different from anybody else, was a large part of the culture then.
But that humility came under attack in the ensuing decades. Self-effacement became identified with conformity and self-repression. A different ethos came to the fore, which the sociologists call “expressive individualism.” Instead of being humble before God and history, moral salvation could be found through intimate contact with oneself and by exposing the beauty, the power and the divinity within.
Everything that starts out as a cultural revolution ends up as capitalist routine. Before long, self-exposure and self-love became ways to win shares in the competition for attention. Muhammad Ali would tell all cameras that he was the greatest of all time. Norman Mailer wrote a book called Advertisements for Myself.
Today, immodesty is as ubiquitous as advertising, and for the same reasons. To scoop up just a few examples of self-indulgent expression from the past few days, there is Joe Wilson using the House floor as his own private Crossfire; there is Kanye West grabbing the microphone from Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards to give us his opinion that the wrong person won; there is Michael Jordan’s egomaniacal and self-indulgent Hall of Fame speech. Baseball and football games are now so routinely interrupted by self-celebration, you don’t even notice it anymore.
This isn’t the death of civilisation. It’s just the culture in which we live. And from this vantage point, a display of mass modesty, like the kind represented on the V-J Day Command Performance, comes as something of a refreshing shock, a glimpse into another world. It’s funny how the nation’s mood was at its most humble when its actual achievements were at their most extraordinary.
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DECCAN CHRONICAL
OPED
MODI: LAST MAN STANDING
BY BY ASHOK MALIK
In a democracy, every election conveys a parable. As such, it is crucial to decipher the message Gujarati voters — at least the voters in the set of seven Assembly by-elections that concluded earlier this week — are sending.
In December 2007, when Gujarat elected a new Legislative Assembly, six of these seats had gone to the Congress and only one to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). After the subdued achievements of the BJP in the 2009 Lok Sabha election — it won 15 seats of 26, but had expected at least 18 — the Congress was forecast to sweep this round of by-elections. It was said this would put chief minister Narendra Modi even further on the backfoot.
As it turned out, the BJP won five of the seven seats. How does one interpret this result? Is it, as the local Congress now says, the consequence of faulty candidate selection? Is it, as the BJP suggests, a reflection of the United Progressive Alliance government’s unpopularity and disquiet over rising prices?
Interpretation can so easily lead to over-interpretation. There is no evidence that this bunch of by-elections is indicative of any national uprising against the Manmohan Singh government. Neither can the BJP pretend all is well with the party. It is too early for any of that. Even so, it would be prudent to recognise that at an elemental level these by-elections represented a referendum on Mr Modi.
For instance, as has been pointed out by others, one of the factors behind the BJP’s success was the Ishrat Jahan episode. In 2004, a Mumbai-born woman and three male accomplices were shot and killed in an encounter with the Gujarat police.
They were identified as Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) activists, a fact later acknowledged on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (the LeT’s mother organisation) website.
The encounter followed inputs from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in Delhi. It is understood that IB officers and a posse of the Gujarat police were both present when Jahan and her comrades were killed.
Recently, a contentious report by a magistrate questioned the genuineness of the encounter. It asked if there was really an exchange of fire. Mr Modi’s critics went further and wondered if the four people were terrorists at all, and if there was any conspiracy to kill political leaders in the first place, as the state police and the IB had alleged.
The Congress seized its chance. A party spokesman accused Mr Modi of running a “man-eating government”. The home minister disowned the IB report, even as senior civil servants in his ministry said something else in private. The law minister grimly opined the Gujarat chief minister should be “somewhere else”, a euphemism perhaps for prison.
Did all this backfire, cause people to believe the Congress was being irresponsible with national security and push up sympathy for Mr Modi? After all it had happened before. In 2007, the Congress description of the Modi regime as “maut ke saudagar” (merchants of death) — following the controversial gunning down of a terror group arms handler — was deftly exploited by the BJP. It helped convert a small advantage into a significant triumph.
Instant conclusions would be misleading. Just as predictions of Mr Modi’s imminent political demise were grossly overstated, to judge the seven Assembly by-elections as driven purely by voter assessments of terrorism and how it is being combated would be unfair. That is part of the story but not the entire narrative.
There are actually three subtle messages the Gujarati voter is sending. One is for Mr Modi, and other two for the Congress and the BJP.
First, the discrepancy between the way Gujarat votes in national and state elections is now too obvious to ignore. The voter’s identification with Mr Modi is absolute but does not necessarily translate into loyalty to the BJP on a larger canvas. The party swept Assembly elections in 2002 and 2007, but had a lukewarm run in Lok Sabha contests less than 18 months later.
This time too there is a mismatch between the May 2009 parliamentary elections and the September 2009 Assembly by-elections.
What the voter is telling Mr Modi is simple enough: if you ask for votes for yourself, we will see your point; if you ask for votes for an L.K. Advani or somebody else, we will not automatically see your point. Charisma cannot be rented out.
This phenomenon probably explains why Mr Modi’s public meetings — in Gujarat and other states — during the Lok Sabha campaign drew crowds but did not always mean votes and victories for the BJP. Where he was the speaker, people responded, whether out of adulation or simply curiosity. Since he was not the prime ministerial candidate, they did not — could not — vote for or against him.
Second, it is early days yet and there is no crisis of any sort in sight, but the fact is the Congress has to recognise terrorism and national security remain its Achilles’ heel. Correctly or incorrectly, the party has allowed the impression to form that it does not have the stomach for a defining war against jihadists, with all the military and political costs it might entail.
At normal junctures, when there are no terror attacks, or when faced with over-the-hill rivals who don’t carry credibility in a national security debate, this would not be a problem.
In a less fortunate period and challenged by the appropriate adversary, the Congress could yet be in trouble. Maybe, just maybe, the seven by-elections in Gujarat were a microcosm of this phenomenon.
Finally, what lesson does the BJP draw from all this? Frankly, the party is in denial. Its convoluted internal disputation — the search for a new party president who is outside the charmed circle of Delhi; the battle between the incumbent party chief and the phantoms of his mind; the so-called talent hunt that Mr Advani is threatening — only serves to side-step the compelling question: where does the BJP place Mr Modi in its succession plan?
No quantum of deliberate neglect, no amount of philosophical discussion on whether the individual is more important or the organisation, no attempts to limit Mr Modi to the level of just another chief minister, one of three who has won by-elections this week, can take away from the hard reality that the Gujarat chief minister is the ordinary party sympathiser’s leader of choice.
In a BJP where everybody is tripping the next person, Narendra Modi is the Last Man Standing.
Ashok Malik can becontacted at malikashok@gmail.com [1]
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DECCAN CHRONICAL
OPED
CHINA AND XINJIANG
BY BY SHANKARI SUNDARARAMAN
As China approaches the 60th anniversary of Communist rule, the issues that have challenged its internal consolidation are once again taking centrestage. While the country has been showing remarkable economic progress and has also taken on a regional leadership role, in terms of balancing its internal problems China will remain a critical region to watch. Barely two months after the outbreak of ethnic violence in the northwestern province of Xinjiang, another spate of violence that erupted last week brings the focus on Xinjiang once again.
In July, the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous region witnessed intense clashes between ethnic Uighurs and the Chinese Han population, in which 184 people were killed. The trigger was the murder of an Uighur national working in a factory by a Han Chinese. The clashes that broke out between the two communities brought the capital, Urumqi, to a virtual halt. What is significant is that it actually resulted in the Chinese President, Mr Hu Jintao, leaving the Group of Eight (G-8) summit and returning from Italy to address the deteriorating situation in the region.
In the wake of these clashes, the Chinese government placed Xinjiang under heavy police controls to ensure that violence didn’t erupt in the region again. Despite these controls, last week’s violence in the region once again points to the vulnerability of the internal situation in Xinjiang province. China was quick to place the blame for the July clashes on inflammatory speeches made by the leader of the World Uighur Congress Rebiya Kadeer. Exiled and in the United States, Ms Kadeer heads the separatist demand and leads the call for recognition of Uighur nationalism.
In a bizarre incident, last week the province witnessed a series of attacks where groups used syringes to attack their victims. Some reports even claimed that the syringes were allegedly filled with HIV-positive blood. According to reports from the state-run news agencies, nearly 476 people were treated for injuries from hypodermic needles. The victims are all from different ethnic communities. The attacks occurred at a time when the Chinese government is sponsoring an international trade fair at Urumqi, which is being touted as a possible region for foreign investment. The protesters stridently demanded the resignation of the local Communist Party leadership under Wang Lequan, who is seen as a hardliner and a close associate of President Hu Jintao.
At the heart of the Uighur unrest are both ethnic factors and economic issues. China’s government has been calling for ethnic unity and economic development of Xinjiang province. However, there is a huge ethnic divide in the region that has become even more intransigent by the Chinese government’s policy of encouraging the influx of Han Chinese into the region. Added to this is the deep-rooted sentiment that the region’s local Uighurs have been marginalised and deprived of their share of the local resources. And that the benefits have gone to the Han Chinese who have been given priority in terms of jobs and business opportunities.
Ethnically the Uighurs belong to Turkic origin and are predominantly followers of Islam. The region lies in the northwestern parts of China and borders Mongolia and the Central Asian states. The region for much of its history has been an independent region of East Turkestan, which had Soviet support. It was incorporated into the Chinese state in 1949, at the time of the Communist revolution. At that time it had a majority Uighur population. Over the last 60 years, however, the region’s demographic patterns have altered as a result of the Han influx.
The Chinese encouraged a “go west” policy, which allowed the dominant ethnic community to move to regions where there were ethnic minorities. Several phases of Han migration to the Xinjiang region took place. Critically, this challenged both the local identities and impinged upon issues of resource sharing and the availability of job opportunities.
There are critical issues on which the Uighurs have been clamouring for change. First is with regard to the issue of political representation — even though it is an autonomous region, there is very little political participation from among the Uighurs. Most of the administrative and economic bodies do not have adequate representation by the Uighurs. Second, in terms of employment, the steady influx of Han Chinese has reduced the opportunities for the local population, which is one of their main demands. Third, in terms of education, too, the use of Mandarin as the medium of instruction in government schools has led to an undermining of local traditions and the native language. This has led to some tough choices in terms of choosing between native and government schools. Job opportunities are more forthcoming for those who have been given training in Mandarin. The flip side is that decreased job opportunities in the region are forcing several ethnic Uighurs to move out of their homes in search of employment. Fourth, the region is extremely rich in natural resources. Both in oil deposits and in minerals, the region is one of the richest.
Much of the region’s wealth has been directed towards the growth that China is pushing for. As a result, the region itself remains impoverished. This uneven distribution of wealth between the Centre and the province will have a critical impact in the years to come.
In the aftermath of last week’s incidents, the Chinese government has been quick to state that it can competently handle issues relating to social stability and national unity. One of the issues as far as the Uighur movement is concerned is that China has been able to effectively use its diplomatic skills to propagate that the Islamic Uighur community is linked to groups like the Al Qaeda in the post-September 11 scenario. This has been one the factors that has allowed for the Uighur movement to get much less attention than it actually deserves. With the growing emphasis on terror linkages with Islamic communities in the region, China has been able to divert attention from problems of internal consolidation. Unlike the case of Tibet, the Uighur problem has received less international attention because of its alleged linkages with terror groups. This too has made the Chinese policy in the region go largely unnoticed. And given the manner in which China is changing the social landscape in both Tibet and Xinjiang, there is serious concern that Xinjiang may slip into a state where the currently perceived links to terror groups may, in fact, become a reality.
Dr Shankari Sundararaman is an associate professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the School of International Studies, JNU
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THE STATESMAN
EDITORIAL
BOOSTER SHOT... ~ ... FOR MR MODI AND THE BJP
THE results of a string of by-elections would not normally have been of much moment were it not for the shot in the arm that is bound to beef up the standing of Narendra Modi. The Bharatiya Janata Party has wrested five seats from the Congress in the Gujarat assembly, out of the seven that went to the polls on 10 September. No mean achievement for a party that was smarting since the Lok Sabha debacle, the loss of Junagadh in the civic polls, the High Court rejecting the ban on Jaswant Singh’s book and the persistent in-house kerfuffle. To claim in the manner of the Congress that the Chief Minister “misused” the government machinery is a desperate attempt to put up a brave face by taking recourse to a tiresome diagnosis. It will not be easy for the party to digest the legislative reality: the BJP’s strength in the 182-member House has gone up to 121; the Congress position has plummeted to 55.
The BJP victories in its bastions of Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand ~ where it has now attained a majority on its own ~ were fairly expected. The Congress drubbing in Uttarakhand must be particularly acute after having won all the five Lok Sabha seats. The overall result must seem remarkable not least because the electorate has voted for a down and out party, plagued by internal dissension. The result could be a reflection too of the mounting disenchantment of Middle India over the extensive drought and ballooning prices. It must remain an open question whether the controversy over the allegedly fake killings has vindicated Mr Modi’s position. There is little doubt nonetheless that the Congress has suffered a loss of face in the aftermath of its flip-flop on the union home ministry’s affidavit in the Gujarat High Court on the killing of Ishrat Jahan and others. It can be dangerous to be indecisive on a communally sensitive matter. The BJP’s victory, most importantly, in Jasdan ~ a seat the Congress has never lost since Independence ~ illustrates that the anti-Modi wave within the party has to an extent been contained. No less critical has been the affirmative Patel vote as the by-elections were held in constituencies dominated by this group that has often influenced the swing factor in Gujarat. It bears recall that at the BJP’s chintan baithak in Shimla, Mr Modi had pitched for the expulsion of Jaswant Singh for the latter’s denigration of Vallabhbhai Patel. Despite the party’s wobbly national leadership, the BJP’s outlook brightens in neighbouring Maharashtra which goes to the polls next month.
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THE STATESMAN
EDITORIAL
CELLS ‘PROVE’ DARWIN’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
NEW YORK, 15 SEPT: Scientists claim to have found evidence at the molecular level in support of one of the key tenets of naturalist Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
People have long argued that the molecular machinery of cell is too complex to have evolved, but an international team, led by Monash University, has now come up with evidence to support Darwin’s theory.
Team leader Prof Trevor Lithgow said the breakthrough provided a blueprint for a general understanding of evolution of the “machinery” of our cells, the PNAS journal reported.
“Our cells, and the cells of all organisms, are composed of molecular machines. These machines are built of component parts, each of which contributes a partial function or structural element to the machine. How such sophisticated, multi-component machines could evolve has been somewhat mysterious and highly controversial.
“Our research shows that these machines although complete and complex, were a result of evolution. Simple ‘core’ machines were established in the first eukaryotes by drawing on pre-existing proteins that had previously provided distinct, simplistic functions. “They therefore stand as proof that Darwin's theory of evolution breaks down at the molecular level,” he said.
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THE STATESMAN
EDITORIAL
DEVELOPMENT DEBATE ~ ONLY A REVISED REHABILITATION POLICY CAN CURB DISPLACEMENT
BHARAT DOGRA
IT is a positive sign that such issues as land acquisition, the law and other related matters are now being intensively debated. Regrettably, however, the most critical aspect has not received the priority that it deserves. It relates to the need to minimise displacement of people to the extent possible. Large-scale displacement has resulted in enormous distress in India, quite apart from devouring scarce fertile land and the threat to long-term food security. A socially acceptable rehabilitation policy is imperative. The displaced peasants will have to be provided with alternative farmland. This will help rehabilitate them as a community. But such seemingly benevolent schemes can be implemented only if the scale of rehabilitation is minimised. And they can’t be implemented if that scale is enormous. Given the increasing scarcity of fertile farmland, the task will become still more difficult in due course of time.
The formulation of suitable policies as also a development paradigm that will minimise displacement should receive top priority. If an earnest effort is made, it will be possible to curb displacement by as much as 80 per cent. As the task of rehabilitation is substantially reduced, it will be that much easier to provide a satisfactory arrangement for the remaining persons.
WILDLIFE PROTECTION
THE extensive displacement that is caused in the name of wildlife protection can be stopped almost entirely without sacrificing the objective. The solution is to evolve a wildlife protection policy which is based on the involvement of tribals and other people living near forests. Instead of displacing them, a well-defined wildlife protection strategy can provide additional livelihood to the tribals. Given the incentive and governmental support, no one can protect wild life better than the tribals and forest-dwellers who are traditionally familiar with the terrain.
Of course, complications are bound to arise as many tribals are given to hunting. However, the change in policy can be introduced in a gradual manner, beginning with such class groups as the van-gujars who do not hunt. Once the welfare measures for tribals and forest-dwellers are in place, these communities will be willing to take up the livelihood that is related to wildlife protection.
In terms of budgetary considerations, it will be far more cost-effective to engage local protectors instead of appointing outsiders ~ who are not familiar with the terrain ~ with higher salaries.
It is possible to avoid the displacement that is caused by the plantation schemes. Forest departments of various states have control over vast lands without tree cover. When plantation schemes are introduced in such regions, the locals are invariably evicted. Instead of being evicted, these people can be allotted land only for tree-farming. And they can be paid under the poverty-alleviation and afforestation schemes for protecting these plants. There is scope for mixed farming of indigenous plants with suitable soil and water conservation methods. This can develop minor forest produce. When trees begin to grow sufficiently, the people will get full rights over the minor forest produce, the grass and the fodder, and continue to be responsible for protecting the trees. Hereditary rights can be given to these families as long as they protect the tree cover. In this way, instead of being displaced or evicted, they can be entitled to a sustainable, permanent livelihood. At the same time, the forest department’s objective of providing the tree cover will also be achieved at a low cost.
Greater stress needs to be laid on small and cottage industries. Items of consumption, equipment and inputs can be produced without causing any displacement. It can even be cost-effective. This is very much in accord with the Gandhian objective of self-reliant villages, a concept that was emphasised during the freedom movement. Khadi and handloom garments, leather craft and a host of other small and cottage units, that produce items of daily consumption as well as of artistic value, need to be encouraged in a big way.
FOOD SECURITY
THE agricultural and food security policies should also emphasise self-reliance in staple food and basic inputs. Energy self-reliance in villages and small towns, using non-conventional energy sources, should be given priority.
The schemes mentioned will curb displacement on account of industry and infrastructure. Transportation of goods over vast stretches can also be avoided. This will reduce the pressure on infrastructure and also save a fair amount of precious fuel every year. Fewer small and marginal farmers will migrate to distant areas with the diversification of livelihood nearer their hearth and home. A typical small-farmer household can continue to cultivate the small farm and supplement the family income in the new cottage industries. The diversification need not be confined to traditional industry; it can also take the farm of cyber cafes and information centres.
Land is essential for new industries, infrastructure, defence and other projects. But the planning must be carried out judiciously so as to minimise the loss of fertile farmland. The tendency to grab extra land should be curbed and displacement for non-priority purposes restricted. Laws that govern the setting up of Special Economic Zones, which create incentives for land-grabbers and profiteers, should immediately be scrapped.
In the Himalayan region, where a large number of dams and hydel projects will almost inevitably lead to displacement, the existing policies should be revised substantially so that villagers are given a substantial role in developing micro-hydel units. The traditional water mills will have to be revived and linked with the micro-hydel projects. Villagers can gradually move towards other micro and mini-hydel projects to avoid both displacement and denudation of the environment.
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THE STATESMAN
EDITORIAL
SUPER-SPECIAL SLAM ~ TENNIS AT ITS BEST, AND WORST
MEMORIES etched on the heart, not statistics and records that appeal to the head are what elevate sporting contests to festivals. Fairy-tales and a horror story were scripted at the US Open tennis, the last of this year’s Grand Slams. Sentiment has seldom so engulfed Flushing Meadows as when yesteryear’s sweetheart, on the comeback trail after launching the roof over Wimbledon’s Centre Court, played better than ever to take the women’s single title. Kim Clijsters is not the first “mom” to bag a “major” ~ Aussies Margaret (Smith) Court and Evonne (Goolagong) Cawley did so earlier ~ yet what marks the Belgian’s re-emergence is the “feminine touch” she restored to the game. It was fitting that after putting the powerful Williams sisters on the sidelines, she overcame some hiccups en route to victory over an upcoming lass from Denmark: disappointed though Caroline Wozniacki was, she confessed to Kim being “so sweet”. And like pure honey, the “taste” of Kim and daughter Jada at the Arthur Ashe stadium will long be relished. It was another new-kid-on-the-block, Juan del Potro of Argentina who announced his arrival on the big stage in emphatic manner: denying Roger Federer (arguably the all-time great) a sixth consecutive US title after an encounter that went the distance. It was no fluke, he had stunned Rafael Nadal in the semis. For Indian tennis lovers it was tension-laced joy witnessing Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati square-off in the doubles. Sure there was “fire”, even if a flame different from what had burned bright when they played in tandem. One had to lose, and for veteran Leander a most successful year closed with his 10th “slam” win. Who could ask for more?
Yet more there was. None can forget watching (even at second-hand, on television) Serena Williams self-destruct. She was clearly “hurting” at the quality Klijsters threw up, smashed her racquet when she dropped the first set. Then she exploded when a foot-fault call meant a double-fault had put the title only one point away for Kim. Still, one point had to be won, her angry outburst cost her that. Some may sympathise with her, many true sportslovers will applaud the officials for adhering to the rules. The record and reputation of the offender was no redemption. A lesson for all who deem themselves mega-stars!
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THE STATESMAN
EDITORIAL
TIME TO MOVE ON? ~ MINISTER AND A FILM-MAKER IN BHOPAL
Twenty-five years after the world’s worst environmental disaster, the union minister for environment and forests was not merely remarkably insensitive; he was as flippant as he could be on a visit to the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal last Saturday. To a question as to when the complex would be cleansed of the stockpiled toxic material, Jairam Ramesh ducked and dived his ignorance with a statement that was breathtaking in its vacuity. “I went inside, touched the toxic material and I am alive.” Sure, he is. Yet he is scarcely aware that the people are still drinking the water whose primary sources were contaminated in December 1984. Also, that an Amnesty International report of 2004 spoke of 100,000 people still suffering from “chronic and debilitating diseases”. As the minister in charge of forests, Mr Ramesh was suitably impressed over the fact that “there is a lot of greenery”. As the country’s environment is also under his belt, he ought to know that creepers and haphazard growth of shrubs are no indication that the place is environmentally secure. If not the emotional outpouring associated with any anniversary, the survivors deserved a more humane and caring response from the minister three months prior to the 25th year since the disaster.
As if on cue, the scant regard for the survivors was manifest no less during the simultaneous film-shoot of Prakash Jha’s Rajneet at the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre, where several victims are still languishing. As the relatively trivial was accorded precedence, patients and their attendants had to be shifted out of the ward to pan the camera on an injured politician (played out by Nana Patekar). It is incredible that the hospital authorities were driven by the breathless logic that the film would promote Bhopal on the tourism circuit. It required the intervention of the former Chief Justice of India, Mr Ahmadi, to stop this contrived frivolity. Both the minister and the film crew might imagine that it is time to move on. But the deaths of hundreds of thousands ~ not to forget the one lakh incapacitated ~ ought to rankle amidst the eloquent protestations of environmental concern.
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THE TELEGRAPH
EDITORIAL
CONGRESS BLUES
The coming to power of a Congress-led government for a second term coincided with a gloomy turn of events. One was the betrayal of the monsoon. It was late, and the rainfall was nowhere near what was wanted and expected. The late burst has in no way removed the spectre of drought. In India, there is nothing that spreads panic faster than the rumour that a drought is round the corner and that this might lead to a shortfall in the harvest. One immediate result was the rise in the prices of essential foodgrains. This did not augur well for the Congress party as it prepared for various provincial and local-level elections. It will be no exaggeration to suggest that in these the Congress has not performed anywhere near expectations. Apart from the objective factors like inflation and drought, the influence of attitudes within the Congress should not be overlooked. After the victory in the general elections came complacency. There was the tendency to rest on the laurels of a triumph whose scale took everyone by surprise. This adversely affected organization and campaigning.
This failure is reflected in the fact that the Congress could not win strong allies. The equation of alliances and their breakdown often led to loss of votes. There is an emerging trend in Indian electoral politics that points to the division between the national and the provincial. When the electorate is faced with a Lok Sabha election, it thinks of national issues and weighs the relevant pros and cons. But in an assembly poll, local or provincial issues acquire a greater potency, and these issues sway the voters one way or the other. This suggests that a Congress victory in the Lok Sabha polls cannot be read as a sign of success at the state level. The Congress being a national party is particularly vulnerable to this emerging trend. If this trend holds, the Congress may have to somewhat rethink its strategy in order to fight its election blues. It has been clear for some time that Sonia Gandhi believes in a strong central leadership: all major decisions emanate from her. One fallout of this has been the weakening of the state-level party units. Leaders sitting in Delhi, for obvious reasons, are often unaware of local squabbles that become critical in a state-level election. The powerful central leadership must be balanced by local chiefs, swearing allegiance to the centre, but powerful enough to fight the local battles.
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THE TELEGRAPH
EDITORIAL
KILLER BOYS
They could not have been ‘Maoists’ or any other kind of political activists for that matter. And it is difficult to imagine such young boys as killers — even in the name of a violent political ideology. But the Maoists’ use of young boys to kill political opponents in the rebel stronghold of Lalgarh should worry not just the West Bengal government or political activists but all who value freedom and sanity. That Maoists or other political extremists enlist children in their ranks was not unknown. The Tamil Tigers, the Khmer Rouge and several African militias did so in the past. The Maoists in neighbouring Nepal are known to have used young boys and girls in their guerrilla warfare before they settled for peace and democratic politics. The killing of a local leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) by a squad of ‘Maoist’ boys, some of whom looked no older than 14, shows how much bigger the threat has become. But it also underscores the utter failure of the state government to tackle it. It has now been more than three months that paramilitary forces of the Centre and the state police are jointly fighting the Maoists in the Lalgarh area. But the rebels still seem to have a free run of the place, where nine CPI(M) supporters were killed this month alone. Worse still, in more and more areas, it is the rebels’, rather than the government’s, writ that seems to run.
That the State is failing in the fight against the Maoists is not a secret. Run-of-the-mill politicians try either to hide this failure or pass the blame to political opponents. It should be reassuring that the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has not done any such thing. He admitted the failure, and even said that the Maoist violence was on the rise in several states. At a conference with the police chiefs of state governments on Tuesday, he admitted the failure and called for a “holistic” approach to tackling the Maoist menace. Two years ago too, he had described left-wing extremism as the greatest threat to the country’s internal security. The fight against the Maoists in India faces complex problems, especially because the rebels enjoy moral, and sometimes even logistical, support from sections of the civil society. Successive governments have, however, said that this is no ordinary law-and-order problem. Political parties need to reach a consensus on dealing with it before the spectre of Maoism haunts more areas.
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THE TELEGRAPH
EDITORIAL
PLAYING IT CRISP
IS THE INDIAN POLITICAL CLASS MATURING IN ITS DEALINGS WITH THE US?
DIPLOMACY - K.P. NAYAR
For four days last week, the Union home minister, P. Chidambaram, was the envy of many of the 174 ambassadors resident in Washington. Actually, he was the envy even of some of those who claim to turn the levers of State power in America’s capital. The access that was given to Chidambaram in New York and in Washington during his maiden visit to the United States of America as home minister made some prominent members of the US House of Representatives and the Senate rub their eyes in disbelief. The Obama administration officials frankly admitted that some US lawmakers who interacted with the home minister could not have as easily met so many key people in Washington, especially at the nerve centres of US intelligence and in the war rooms that protect America against terrorism.
The home minister’s visit has held out hope that may be, just may be, India would at last show some belated signs of maturity in its dealings with the US. This columnist has covered every single Indian ministerial and senior officials’ visit to Washington in the last nine years. Most of these ministers wanted a photo opportunity with the US president: never mind that the visitor was dealing with, say, food processing industries back home. Not that all of the visiting ministers were uninterested in — or incapable of — conducting any serious official business in Washington. A meeting with the US president was, however, billed as the high point of ministerial visits.
On one occasion, an external affairs minister reversed his foreign secretary’s strict insistence on reciprocity and went to the PMO to make sure that a visiting US secretary of state will meet the prime minister after the Indian ambassador in Washington — who favoured such a meeting — cleverly let it be known to the minister that there is no hope of his meeting George W. Bush during his next visit to America if the secretary of state was confined to the external affairs minister during that trip and was not allowed access to the prime ministerial residence on 7 Race Course Road.
Chidambaram, on the other hand, was not obsessed, even for a minute, with being photographed with Barack Obama. But then Chidambaram is not Anand Sharma, Ghulam Nabi Azad or Jaipal Reddy, and it may be too much to assume that the way the home minister conducted himself last week was synonymous with the Indian political class having acquired maturity in its dealings with Washington.
Look at how a big song and dance is being made in New Delhi as the US visit — and the “first state visit” under the Obama presidency — of the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, draws near. And the Americans know how easy it is to massage India’s ego: even as Chidambaram was in Washington, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, Robert Blake, made it a point to underscore in a policy speech that Singh’s visit was, indeed, the first state visit. This columnist has never seen a US official underline such frills of absolutely no consequence, with no bearing whatsoever on substantive policy, in America’s dealings with China, Russia, Japan or France.
Chidambaram came to the US with a precise agenda and rare clarity on how to go about fulfilling what was on his agenda. He did not plead with his US interlocutors to help save India from cross-border terrorism. He did not whine like the little boy who runs to his big brother to complain that his cousin or neighbour had given him a beating.
At a meeting with representatives of select think-tanks in Washington, Chidambaram got the opportunity to say
a lot of what he wanted to tell Americans when a participant asked why India was unwilling to have a joint investigation with Pakistan into the terrorist attack on Mumbai in November last year. Without once raising his voice or giving in to emotions, like a lawyer clinically cross-examining a witness, Chidambaram explained to Americans at this and other meetings what precise evidence India had given to Pakistan about the involvement of the Lashkar-e-Toiba and of its chief, Hafeez Sayeed, in the attack on Mumbai. The implication of everything that Chidambaram said was that the Pakistan judiciary was right in letting Hafeez Sayeed go free. Because the Pakistani government had failed to investigate Indian leads, it had let evidence grow cold and deliberately not presented proof in court, which would have put Hafeez Sayeed behind bars. A judge, the home minister repeatedly noted, can only act if he is shown evidence against the people who are being prosecuted. The authorities in Pakistan had simply abdicated their responsibility to do that despite several dossiers from India which contained leads that ought to have been followed up. Chidambaram made the Americans squirm when he reminded them that Pakistan’s reluctance to investigate, prosecute and destroy the terrorist virus that is threatening to overwhelm that country has nothing to do with India pointing a finger at the Pakistan establishment.
Six Americans died in the terrorist attack on Mumbai, and yet, Islamabad has refused to allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation to conduct any inquiry in Pakistan. It is an argument that cuts deep into the American psyche: every US government has valued American lives to be worth acting against those who endanger those lives. And yet, when it comes to Pakistan, there is a sense of helplessness in Washington about doing anything, which the home minister more than hinted at in his interactions in the US. Some of those present at official meetings where Chidambaram rolled out these arguments were the very people who have been arguing that Pakistan should be the centrepiece of US security strategy for South and Central Asia in the next decade.
Notwithstanding the sparring, it was clear as Chidambaram left for New Delhi that the Americans were very pleased to have had the opportunity to meet face-to-face the top man in India who was dealing with terrorism on a day-to-day basis. The last time men and women in the US, whose job it is to protect America, had that opportunity was six years ago when the deputy prime minister and home minister, L.K. Advani, went to Washington. Interacting with two home ministers in India, Advani and Chidambaram, the Americans must be wondering what it is in India’s political system that makes home ministers so much superior, so very personable and businesslike, compared to other members of the Union cabinet. For all the legal arguments that Chidambaram presented, his incontrovertible logic and his eloquence, nothing is going to change in Washington: the Americans are stuck with Pakistan on Afghanistan and Central Asia.
But then, Pakistan, contrary to television hyperbole, was only part of Chidambaram’s agenda in the US. As part of his thorough preparations for the visit, Chidambaram read Securing the City: Inside America’s Best Counterterror Force — the NYPD (acronym for the New York Police Department). It is a new book written by Christopher Dickey, the Paris bureau chief of Newsweek, who wanted to investigate how the NYPD had kept New Yorkers safe since September 11, 2001. After reading the book, Chidambaram decided to craft his own programme in New York, unlike most Indian ministers. He asked for meetings with the FBI-led Joint Terror Task Force, the NYPD and the agencies involved in protecting New York’s mass transport system. In Washington, he similarly insisted on a personal tour of the National Counter-Terrorism Centre: his idea is to create a centre in New Delhi that mirrors the talent and capacity of the one in Washington in being able to deal with threats to India.
Chidambaram wants the US to help India in creating its anti-terrorist infrastructure to a standard that has prevented another attack on America since September 11, 2001. Lest the Americans should drag their feet on such help, the home minister’s brahmastra was that it was in US interest to help in India’s acquisition of counter-terrorist technology and equipment because it will, in turn, provide greater security for American investment in India as bilateral economic relations become deeper. It was an argument that no one in Washington could counter.
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THE TELEGRAPH
EDITORIAL
A MAN OF LETTERS
STEPHEN HUGH-JONES
On Friday, September 18, the English-speaking world celebrates the 300th anniversary of the birth of “Dr Johnson” — Samuel Johnson, author of its most famous dictionary. And it is right to celebrate.
Johnson truly was a man of letters. After a brief and unsuccessful venture as a schoolmaster, his entire living — and he survived until 1784 — was made by writing, albeit from 1762 supplemented by a crown pension awarded in recognition of his work. His dictionary, published in 1755, after nine years of single-handed labour, has long been superseded. But, though not the first English dictionary, it was the pioneer of all our modern dictionary-making.
It included his own definitions of words, with supporting evidence, and clear distinctions between one meaning and another; plus an etymology, an account of the word’s origins. His citations of usage were aimed, as he put it, to “contribute to the stability or enlargement of the language”. But, though he accepted that language changes over time, stability more than enlargement was his aim: he concentrated on well-established words, not outlandish ones or passing novelties.
His etymologies, we know now, were sometimes mistaken. His definitions could be prejudiced. One famously reflects his dislike of literary patrons: Patron: commonly, a wretch who supports with insolence and is paid with flattery. Of his own trade he wrote: Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge; and remarked that every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.
Yet his dictionary was accepted as authoritative long into the 19th century. And praise for its author continues undiminished today. His reputation, of course, depends on more than his dictionary. He had in 1763 the good fortune to acquire the warm admiration and affection of an extraordinary acolyte, James Boswell, a Scottish lawyer 30-odd years younger than himself. Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, published in 1791, is a lasting work of literature in itself.
Boswell meticulously recorded (or maybe meticulously edited and recorded?) Johnson’s plain and forthright speech — a good deal plainer than some of his writing: for example, When a man is tired of London he is tired of life; or his view of a woman’s preaching like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs — it is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all. A phrase of Boswell’s own nicely sums up the older man’s combative style. Johnson: “Well, we had a good talk.” Boswell: “Yes, Sir; you tossed and gored several persons.”
Not that the two were always in accord. It must surely have been Boswell who dragged the 64-year-old Johnson off on a tour of the Hebrides, wet and windy islands off the north-west of Scotland, a country for whose people the Londoner Johnson had no huge esteem and did not greatly add to it during his visit to those islands and the mainland. And Boswell records a good-natured poke from his guru: Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. And I am heartily sick of both.
Besides his dictionary, Johnson’s output was huge: a novel, a play, an edition of Shakespeare, many essays, poems long and short, political pamphlets, countless magazine articles and more. Very little of this is read today except by scholars and literary historians, though his Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, a work of his old age, is — I am told — far from negligible.
What survives are three things; the memory of his honest, humane, generous and combative character; the many “epigrams” — they weren’t intended as such — that it gave rise to, culled from his own works and those of Boswell; and his dictionary. Few people, I’d guess, have ever set eyes on it either. But many have heard of it, and every user of the language, however unaware of it, owes thanks to it and him.
THEWORDCAGE@YAHOO.CO.UK
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DECCAN HERALD
EDITORIAL
HOUSE WITHOUT A HOUSEWIFE
UNLESS ONE GETS FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE ONE DOES NOT APPRECIATE A WIFE’S ROLE.
BY N R PRASAD
If you are a husband of a housewife then read on, else it may not make much sense to you. Husbands are a kind who feel that housewives have nice time at home, not having the pressure of work or boss and also the hassles of traffic during travel to office. I felt that the work at home is worse than going to office when I realised this during my wife’s trip to in-laws house recently.
It all starts in the morning when you need to switch on the geyser and make coffee. If you are a filter coffee addict, then you may have to spend some time making the decoction in the night. Remember you need to pick up the milk.
Then you wait for the servant maid, who has to complete household chores and ensure that she did a good job at it — else it will reflect on your supervisory capabilities which your wife feels you perform effectively at office. If you don’t have a servant maid, the work may get more difficult.
I know the next thing which comes to your mind is the plan for breakfast, lunch, etc. Unless you want to take the easy route of having it in a mess or hotel, you have to really slog it out to make some food.
The daily list of tasks does not end here. You have to buy vegetables, fruits and provisions. You need to keep the waste bags at the right time at the doorsteps; get washed clothes from outside, fold it and give them to laundry for ironing. If you have a garden, you have to water the plants. Don’t forget to close the doors and turn off the gas cylinder, lights water taps and so many other things.
Did I mention the work breakdown structure properly. Hope the project tasks sequencing was proper and executed as per timelines. Of course, the project here is house work and also the status updates have to be given to my wife when she returns home.
I bet you did not realise that these jobs were done by your wife. The above list is applicable only if a housewife is not in the house for a day or two. If she is out for more time, I may have to add more to the tasks list.
My wife is back home and I am happy to go to office tomorrow and I will never tell anyone that I have a housewife. Project (house) manager may be appropriate!
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DECCAN HERALD
EDITORIAL
PRESERVING THE NATURAL CAPITAL
THE NATURAL CAPITAL WILL NOT ONLY SUSTAIN ECONOMIC GROWTH BUT WILL GENERATE SEVERAL ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES.
BY SUDHANSU R DAS
The increase in the intensity of natural calamities due to climate change will further deepen the global recession as it will erode away much of the surplus in repairing the damage due to natural calamities.
A study undertaken by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in April 2009 says the Arctic seas will completely disappear within the next 30 years. The United Nation’s climate panel consisting of 2,500 climate scientists from 130 nations during Bali climate conference in 2007 predicted more heat waves, rising seas and drought in the next few years.
The UNDP’s Human Development Report 2007 says a temperature rise from 3 to 4 degree Celsius would displace 340 million people through flooding and drought. Besides, the retreating glaciers would cut off drinking water from as many as 1.8 billion people. The global economy will face a more severe downturn than the current crisis if it fails to halt climate change, said Nicholas Stern, one of the leading environmental economists.
Nature has gifted huge natural capital to India. Preserving those natural capital will not only sustain economic growth but will generate large number of small economic activities.
DIVERSITY
India is divided into 20 agro ecological regions and 60 sub regions to grow almost all kinds of crops. India produces 11 per cent of the world’s vegetables and 15 per cent of the fruits. India has 10.78 per cent of the flora in the world. It has the largest variety of live stocks in the world with 26 cattle breed, 40 sheep varieties, 20 breed of goats and 18 poultry bird varieties.
The nation preserves all the eight varieties of buffalo breed of the world. A coast line of 850 km and 14 major rivers and hundreds of its tributaries and distributaries can boost agriculture and fishery sector.
India has two of the world’s 18 bio-diversity hot spots in the Western Ghats and in the Eastern Himalayas. The river Ganga alone sustains livelihood of more than 500 million people. Similar is the case with the river Brahmaputra.
Unfortunately both the rivers are under serious threat due to environment degradation. If China materialises its plan to divert the Brahmaputra river it would affect the livelihood of millions of people in North East India.
Scientists have predicted the river Ganga will be a seasonal stream. Political economists in the country feel India will face exclusion in the field of industrial growth if it gives priority to environment issues. In fact the growth is never sustainable unless a nation has healthy natural capital.
The western and European nations have suffered a deep recession because they destroyed their natural capital in pursuit aggressive manufacturing sector. Way back in 1913, Farming, Forestry and Fishery accounted for 28 per cent of the employment in US, 41 per cent in France, 60 per cent in Japan and 12 per cent in UK.
Now their dependence on these sectors is around seven per cent only. This is the reason why the food production does not commensurate with the rising population. The world has not learnt to strike a balance between natural and manufacturing sector. The G-8 ‘L’Aquilla Food Security Initiatives’ concluded on July 10, 2009 has committed $20 billion for sustainable agriculture development in the developing world over the next three years — the action prompted by the fear that the global slowdown has pushed 90 million people into extreme poverty.
“As more jobs are lost due to the current economic down turn, sustainable forest management could become a means for creating millions of green jobs, thus helping to reduce poverty and improve the environment, said Jan Heino, Assistant Director General of FAO’s Forestry Department.
India has a treasure trove of natural capital. For example the export of natural honey products from India has increased from Rs 60.92 crore in 2006-07 to Rs 93.30 crore in 2007-08. Like honey there are hundreds of forest products which can get value addition. A tusk found in forest may cost Rs 1 lakh. Once it is engraved with fine carvings with artisan skill its cost is inestimable in the international craft bazaars.
For this we need not kill elephant but to engage forest dwellers to collect tusks. India has 89 National Parks and 504 wild life sanctuaries which can keep forest dwellers engaged in wild life tourism sector. Preserving natural capital should become a people’s movement in India.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES
EDITORIAL
A LONG WAY DOWN
It is sadly predictable that in a recession, the poor get poorer and the middle class loses ground. But even a downturn as deep and prolonged as this one cannot fully account for the desperate straits of so many Americans.
The Census Bureau reported last week that the nation’s poverty rate rose to 13.2 percent in 2008, the highest level since 1997 and a significant increase from 12.5 percent in 2007. That means that some 40 million people in this country are living below the poverty line, defined as an income of $22,205 for a family of four.
The middle class also took a major hit. Median household income fell in 2008 to $50,300 from $52,200 in 2007. That is the steepest year-to-year drop since the government began keeping track four decades ago; adjusted for inflation, median income was lower in 2008 than in 1998 and every year since then.
Clearly, the recession has been brutal. But even before the recession, far too many Americans were already living far too close to the edge.
As is now painfully evident, the economic growth of the Bush era was largely an illusion. Poverty worsened during most of the boom years and middle-class pay stagnated, as most gains flowed to the top. In a recent update of their groundbreaking series on income trends, the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez found that from 2002 to 2007, the top 1 percent of households — those making more than $400,000 a year — received two-thirds of the nation’s total income gains, their largest share of the spoils since the 1920s.
Because many if not most Americans gained little to nothing from the Bush “growth” years, they have found themselves especially vulnerable to the recession.
Federal stimulus spending has helped cushion the blow. The question going forward is whether an economic recovery, when it comes, will help the poor and middle class or whether the top-heavy favoritism of the previous expansion will reassert itself.
The answer depends on how policy makers foster and manage a recovery. Economic growth alone does not guarantee job growth. Congress and the Obama administration must extend certain components of the stimulus package until employment does revive, including unemployment benefits, food stamps, tax breaks for working families with children and fiscal aid to states.
Policy makers must also resist the reassuring but false notion that renewed economic growth can, by itself, raise living standards broadly. Government policies are needed to ensure that growth is shared. Reforming health care so that illness is not bankrupting — for families or for the federal budget — would be a major step in the right direction.
The administration has also said that it would let the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich expire as scheduled at the end of 2010. More progressive taxation needs to be accompanied by more progressive spending, on public education and on job training and job creation. Support for unions and enforcement of labor standards would also help to ensure that in the next economic expansion, a fair share of profits would find its way into wages.
As the Bush era showed, the economy can grow without any of that happening. But it also showed that such growth is neither defensible nor sustainable. With half the population falling behind or struggling to keep up, the economy cannot generate secure and adequate spending, investing or upward mobility for the country to truly prosper.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES
EDITORIAL
SOME BAD CLIMATE NEWS AND SOME GOOD
Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry have delayed the introduction of their long-awaited climate change bill until the end of this month — one more sign that Congress will be hard pressed to get a bill to President Obama’s desk before the international summit on global warming in Stockholm in December.
The chances of action this year, never all that good, are even slimmer now that the White House and the Senate leadership have pretty much agreed to keep controversial issues — and a bill limiting greenhouse gas emissions certainly falls into that category — on the back burner until the health care debate is resolved.
Though smart politics, it is a disappointment to everyone who hoped that the United States would be able to go to Stockholm with a clear strategy in hand.
All is not lost. The Environmental Protection Agency is rolling out rules that, when fully effective, could place limits on at least half the greenhouse gas emissions emitted in this country.
On Tuesday, the E.P.A. and the Department of Transportation jointly proposed standards to improve fuel economy and reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions in all new cars and light trucks beginning with the model year 2012. The E.P.A. has already sent the White House preliminary proposals involving the regulation of carbon dioxide from large stationary sources, including refineries and power plants.
The agency also continues to fine-tune its finding formally declaring that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases constitute a danger to human health and welfare. Under the Clean Air Act, an “endangerment finding” must be made before final rules limiting emissions can take effect.
Nobody, including the E.P.A. administrator, Lisa Jackson, believes that one agency can address the complex problem of climate change. Ultimately, Congress will have to produce robust legislation authorizing major public investments in alternative energy sources and putting a price on carbon to unlock private investment.
That is just what the climate change bill approved by the House aims to do and what Senators Boxer and Kerry eventually hope to do with their bill. In the meantime, however, smart regulation can get the ball rolling and, we hope, goad Congress into action.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES
EDITORIAL
TRUTH ABOUT LENDING
Congress has a chance, starting this week, to end the boondoggle that allows private lenders to earn a handsome subsidy for making risk-free student loans that are guaranteed by the federal government. It’s a wonderful deal for the lenders — and an emphatically bad one for the taxpayers.
The House is expected to vote on Thursday on a bill that would simplify the loan system — and save the country nearly $90 billion over the next decade — by ending the subsidy program and allowing students to borrow directly from the government through their colleges and universities. To get this done, however, lawmakers will need to see through the spin and misrepresentations that have become all too common lately.
In addition to being too costly, administering the privately run lending program is more trouble than it is worth. Consider, for example, the recent corruption scandal in which publicly subsidized lenders were found to be paying kickbacks to colleges.
The subsidy program has not held up its end of the bargain from even a lending standpoint. It was supposed to keep running through economic hard times. But it collapsed during the credit crunch and was bailed out by the federal government, which is still pumping money into the system. The direct lending system has gone on working like a trundle, with no bailout needed.
The private lenders and those who do their bidding in Congress have recently taken issue with a Congressional Budget Office analysis that showed that the bill would save about $87 billion over the next 10 years.
They argue, absurdly, for example, that the savings would be smaller if the system were analyzed under accounting rules other than the ones that the federal government is required to use. The aim is to mislead taxpayers and members of Congress into believing that the C.B.O. estimate is dishonest.
The claim by critics that ending the subsidized program would expand government — and push private companies out of the business — is also nonsense. The loans would be handled through colleges but serviced and collected by private companies and nonprofits that stand to make a tidy profit.
Lawmakers need to put aside all the noise and pass this bill.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES
EDITORIAL
THE GOOD OL’ BOYS
BY ELEANOR RANDOLPH
For a Southerner, one of the endearing things about Hamilton Jordan and Jody Powell was how much they enjoyed their bad-boy mystique. In the four years after the two Georgians stormed the White House with President Jimmy Carter, they relished tormenting people who felt too comfortable in pinstripes. By today’s standards, they played hard. For Mr. Jordan, who died of cancer last year at 63, there was the cocaine incident that was never proved. And there was a bar-spitting incident that he always denied, but it sure sounded as if it was somebody from Georgia’s clay pits brushing up against the stuffiness of Georgetown.
For Jody Powell, who died apparently of a heart attack at age 65 this week, the big weakness was cigarettes. It was a habit he enjoyed with such abandon that, later in life, he became an enthusiastic flak for the tobacco industry. I last saw him wearing a huge button that labeled him a proud American smoker. He smiled as people saw it and winced noticeably.
As anyone being taunted by them knew, the prodigal side of these two sons of the South hid raw, withering wit and a biting intelligence that helped catapult their peanut farmer of a governor into the big leagues. If they were often mistaken for rednecks in Washington’s salons, they were really anti-elitists. They figured out in advance that their man was probably smarter — I.Q.-wise — than most of the Ivy Leaguers harrumphing around the Senate. If he could win the little-known Iowa caucuses, they decided, he could outwit the rest of the pack in 1976. Winning the White House turned out to be the easy part.
Mr. Jordan was the tactician; Mr. Powell was the liaison between the president and the news media. They had some success in the Middle East and pursued human rights across the globe. Mr. Powell was the rare press secretary who had the respect of both the president and most in the press. In their glory days, they posed for Rolling Stone as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
All that wit and cockiness got lost in soaring inflation, infuriating gas lines and a hostage crisis in Iran. By 1980, voters were ready for a sunnier, smoother Ronald Reagan. ELEANOR RANDOLPH
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THE NEW YORK TIMES
OPED
RAPPING JOE’S KNUCKLES
BY MAUREEN DOWD
Joe Wilson, congressman, argued that Joe Wilson, chucklehead, should not be formally rebuked.
It would be a waste of time, he asserted on the House floor where, six days earlier, he had committed his conduct most unbecoming.
Other Republicans stepped up to the microphone to agree that this was a distraction from the important things they could be doing. (Like stepping up their effort to kill President Obama’s attempt to provide health care for the have-nots in society?)
“When we are done here today,” said the man who accused the president of lying, “we will not have taken any steps to improve the country.”
Actually, Wilson is dead wrong again. When House Democrats, and a handful of Republicans, reprimanded the congressman on Tuesday evening for refusing to apologize to his colleagues for breaking the rules, it was quite a wonderful way to improve America.
It was a rare triumph for civility in a country that seems to have lost all sense of it — from music arenas to tennis courts to political gatherings to hallowed halls — and a ratification of an institution that has relied on strict codes of conduct for two centuries to prevent a breakdown of order.
“When you look at the various incidents of misbehavior all across the spectrum,” Representative James Clyburn, the highest ranking black lawmaker in Congress who had pushed for the reprimand, told me afterward, “the one place we ought to be able to say that such conduct is not acceptable and just cannot be tolerated is in America’s classroom, as I call Congress. Students are looking at us, and they ought not to be able to ever feel that such bad behavior would be condoned.”
It was a powerful showdown between two congressmen from South Carolina, one black, one white; one Democrat, one Republican.
“Joe Wilson has worked very hard to cultivate a sort of choir-boy image, but I think that most people realize that there’s something else going on with him,” Clyburn said.
The two started off on friendly terms long ago when Clyburn was on the board of a national bank and Wilson was on the bank’s local board in West Columbia.
“Frankly,” Clyburn told me, “I supported him financially the first time he ran for office.”
Over the years, Clyburn tried to “look past” things that bothered him — Wilson’s “membership in some groups that call into question his feelings about his whole notion of white supremacy” and his defense of the Confederate flag flying above the Columbia, S.C., Statehouse.
Clyburn said he was “bothered a great deal” by the “real nasty things” Wilson said about the black woman who turned out to be Strom Thurmond’s daughter.
In August, Clyburn picked up a newspaper to see that Wilson was holding his first town hall meeting in Clyburn’s district, three minutes from his house, at the high school Clyburn’s children went to — an “in your face” breach of Congressional protocol.
“He was being confrontational and combative,” Clyburn said. “And Wednesday night was just bringing his town hall meeting antics to the floor of the House of Representatives.”
The black members of Congress were fed up, after a long, hot summer of sulfurous attitudes toward the first black president. Clyburn privately pressed Wilson three times last Thursday to apologize for breaking the rules — Wilson’s own wife asked him who the “nut” was who was hollering at the president — but the Republican was getting chesty with his unlikely new role as king of the rowdies.
He was regarded as a hero at the anti-Obama rally in Washington last weekend that featured such classy placards as, with a picture of a lion, “The Zoo has an African and the White House has a Lyin’ African;” “Bury Obamacare with Kennedy;” “We came unarmed (this time)” and “ ‘Cap’ Congress and ‘Trade’ Obama back to Kenya!”
A camera also caught Wilson in Washington signing for a fan a picture of himself confronting the president, and he has raised $2 million in the last week.
Former President Jimmy Carter weighed in with Brian Williams of NBC News on Tuesday: “I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man.” He said he felt that was true in the South and elsewhere.
Clyburn won the manners round, but Wilson was back Tuesday night tweeting his rude new fans, people who, as the minority leader, John Boehner, put it, are “scared to death that the country that they grew up in is not going to be the country that their kids and grandkids grew up in.”
It’s not. That country is gone. And in terms of biases that have faded, that’s a good thing. But partly due to the Internet, the standards of behavior in this new country are terrible.
If Beaver and Wally were around today, they’d likely be writing snarky, revealing blogs about June and Ward.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES
OPED
HAVE A NICE DAY
BY THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Applied Materials is one of the most important U.S. companies you’ve probably never heard of. It makes the machines that make the microchips that go inside your computer. The chip business, though, is volatile, so in 2004 Mike Splinter, Applied Materials’s C.E.O., decided to add a new business line to take advantage of the company’s nanotechnology capabilities — making the machines that make solar panels. The other day, Splinter gave me a tour of the company’s Silicon Valley facility, culminating with a visit to its “war room,” where Applied maintains a real-time global interaction with all 14 solar panel factories it’s built around the world in the last two years. I could only laugh because crying would have been too embarrassing.
Not a single one is in America.
Let’s see: five are in Germany, four are in China, one is in Spain, one is in India, one is in Italy, one is in Taiwan and one is even in Abu Dhabi. I suggested a new company motto for Applied Materials’s solar business: “Invented here, sold there.”
The reason that all these other countries are building solar-panel industries today is because most of their governments have put in place the three perquisites for growing a renewable energy industry: 1) any business or homeowner can generate solar energy; 2) if they decide to do so, the power utility has to connect them to the grid; and 3) the utility has to buy the power for a predictable period at a price that is a no-brainer good deal for the family or business putting the solar panels on their rooftop.
Regulatory, price and connectivity certainty, that is what Germany put in place, and that explains why Germany now generates almost half the solar power in the world today and, as a byproduct, is making itself the world-center for solar research, engineering, manufacturing and installation. With more than 50,000 new jobs, the renewable energy industry in Germany is now second only to its auto industry. One thing that has never existed in America — with our fragmented, stop-start solar subsidies — is certainty of price, connectivity and regulation on a national basis.
That is why, although consumer demand for solar power has incrementally increased here, it has not been enough for anyone to have Applied Materials — the world’s biggest solar equipment manufacturer — build them a new factory in America yet. So, right now, our federal and state subsidies for installing solar systems are largely paying for the cost of importing solar panels made in China, by Chinese workers, using hi-tech manufacturing equipment invented in America.
Have a nice day.
“About 95 percent of our solar business is outside the U.S.,” said Splinter. “Our biggest U.S. customer is a German-owned company in Oregon. We sell them pieces of equipment.”
If you read some of the anti-green commentary today, you’ll often see sneering references to “green jobs.” The phrase is usually in quotation marks as if it is some kind of liberal fantasy or closet welfare program (and as if coal, oil and nuclear don’t get all kinds of subsidies). Nonsense. In 2008, more silicon was consumed globally making solar panels than microchips, said Splinter.
“We are seeing the industrialization of the solar business,” he added. “In the last 12 months, it has brought us $1.3 billion in revenues. It is hard to build a billion-dollar business.”
Applied sells its solar-panel factories for $200 million each. Solar panels can be made from many different semiconductors, including thin film coated onto glass with nanotechnology and from crystalline silicon. At Applied, making these complex machines requires America’s best, high-paid talent — people who can work at the intersection of chemistry, physics and nanotechnology.
If we want to launch a solar industry here, big-time, we need to offer the kind of long-term certainty that Germany does or impose the national requirement on our utilities to generate solar power as China does or have the government build giant solar farms, the way it built the Hoover Dam, and sell the electricity.
O.K., so you don’t believe global warming is real. I do, but let’s assume it’s not. Here is what is indisputable: The world is on track to add another 2.5 billion people by 2050, and many will be aspiring to live American-like, high-energy lifestyles. In such a world, renewable energy — where the variable cost of your fuel, sun or wind, is zero — will be in huge demand.
China now understands that. It no longer believes it can pollute its way to prosperity because it would choke to death. That is the most important shift in the world in the last 18 months. China has decided that clean-tech is going to be the next great global industry and is now creating a massive domestic market for solar and wind, which will give it a great export platform.
In October, Applied will be opening the world’s largest solar research center — in Xian, China. Gotta go where the customers are. So, if you like importing oil from Saudi Arabia, you’re going to love importing solar panels from China.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES
OPED
AFGHANISTAN’S OTHER FRONT
BY JOSEPH KEARNS GOODWIN
ALLEGATIONS of ballot-stuffing in the presidential election in Afghanistan last month are now so widespread that a recount is necessary, and perhaps even a runoff. Yet this electoral chicanery pales in comparison to the systemic, day-to-day corruption within the administration of President Hamid Karzai, who has claimed victory in the election. Without a concerted campaign to fight this pervasive venality, all our efforts there, including the sending of additional troops, will be in vain.
I have just returned from Afghanistan, where I spent seven months as a special adviser to NATO’s director of communications. On listening tours across the country, we left behind the official procession of armored S.U.V.’s, bristling guns and imposing flak jackets that too often encumber coalition forces when they arrive in local villages. Dressed in civilian clothes and driven in ordinary cars, we were able to move around in a manner less likely to intimidate and more likely to elicit candor.
The recurring complaint I heard from Afghans centered on the untenable encroachment of government corruption into their daily lives — the homeowner who has to pay a bribe to get connected to the sewage system, the defendant who tenders payment to a judge for a favorable verdict. People were so incensed with the current government’s misdeeds that I often heard the disturbing refrain: “If Karzai is re-elected, then I am going to join the Taliban.”
If there is any entity more reviled in Afghanistan than the Karzai government and coalition forces, it is the Taliban, so I never took these desperate exclamations to be literally true. But these outbursts reveal a disgust with the current government so pronounced it cannot be dismissed. And the international community’s reluctance to fight corruption head-on has inextricably linked it with the despised administration. As we continue to give unequivocal support to a crooked government, our credibility is greatly diminished and the difficulty of our mission greatly increased.
Forcing a change in the endemic culture of corruption cannot be an afterthought. It must be the priority of the international forces, oversight agencies and countries that have invested so much blood and treasure in Afghanistan. How, then, do we go about it?
First, a document clearly outlining both a code of government conduct and a plan to combat corruption must be signed by all significant actors in the region. The Afghan government’s reluctance to make such a commitment in a meaningful manner must be overcome by relentless pressure from the international community. The government must be made to understand that this is an essential condition for continued support — as fundamental as its help in hunting down the enemy.
There also need to be viable mechanisms for the population to report corruption. They could take a number of forms: ombudsmen committees that would travel throughout the countryside, or phone lines and drop boxes that could collect complaints while protecting the whistleblowers.
Even the Taliban understand the need for an outlet to expose government misconduct: according to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, in an article he wrote for Joint Force Quarterly, the Taliban, despite their astonishing brutality, have begun to “allow people to file formal complaints against local Talib leaders.”
We must ensure that credible complaints are reported up the chain of command, both Afghan and international, and investigated thoroughly instead of vanishing thanks to some political or personal favor. Ultimately this process should be monitored by an anti-corruption unit of the Afghan national police and prosecuted by the Afghan attorney general’s office; but just as international forces provide direction, training and oversight to local military operations, so too the international community must be closely involved with, even leading as necessary, anti-corruption efforts until Afghan bodies are able to do so alone.
Of course, there must also be consequences for inaction: we must withhold reconstruction dollars and financial support from those districts or government agencies that do not meet the agreed-upon goals for transparency and accountability.
Finally, when judging the success of efforts to combat corruption we must do so from the point of view of ordinary Afghans. For instance, how many times is a truck driver transporting cargo from Herat to Kabul forced to stop and hand over a bribe at police “checkpoints”? Or how many palms must a local businessman grease to win a government reconstruction contract? By simply observing daily tasks that have thus far been obstacle courses of graft we can begin to see how the battle against corruption is progressing.
Afghans’ lack of faith in their government is as damaging as the armed insurgency. Indeed, our failure to combat corruption not only undermines our efforts to build governmental institutions deserving of the confidence and support of the Afghan people, but also threatens all our labors in their country.
Joseph Kearns Goodwin was a captain in the Army and served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
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I.THE NEWS
DITORIAL
THINGS TO COME
Piecing together the jigsaw that eventually reveals a picture of between sixteen and twenty women and children crushed in the rush for flour; we begin to see a portent of things to come. It is always easy to be wise after the event, and there is, a day after the tragedy in Karachi's Kohri Garden no shortage of post-incident advice and wisdom. Perhaps the first thing to note, as we pick through the pieces of shattered lives, is that we cannot lay the blame squarely at the door of the man who was distributing the flour. Chaudhry Iftikhar has distributed free flour before Eid for the past ten years without any trouble, and he cannot have anticipated the rush that would come this year. If he has sinned at all, his sins are of omission rather than commission. The police say that he should have notified them prior to the event and they would have 'ensured security'. Maybe, and a very big maybe at that. Perhaps the token system could have been better organized and perhaps it was not wise to have access to distribution via a narrow staircase. But there again – the token system had worked in the past and there had not been any serious difficulty of access either – why should things be different this year?
What turned Chaudhry Iftikhar's act of generosity and philanthropy into a human tragedy was probably something beyond his knowledge or ability to plan – the physical hunger and desperation of poor people linked to the ineptly managed national distribution of flour – and that at prices that those in poverty are unlikely to afford. Anecdotal reports suggest that there are more women attending the bachat bazaars this year than last, and that their demographic is different – there are women from lower-middle and middle-class households for the first time, an indicator that poverty and food insecurity is spreading upwards through the social order. Some of the women caught up in the melee were not jobless – they had jobs but did not earn enough to feed the family. The crush was in all likelihood triggered by women fighting among themselves either to get to the front of the queue or to take flour one from the other. Hungry people get desperate, and desperation breeds violence and a breakdown of order. Attempts by the organizers to manage the disorder by shutting doors were woefully inadequate and today we count the cost in lives lost and families further impoverished. Poor people are being priced out of the food market by inflation and profiteering. Millions are malnourished. Eventually they are going to fight to get food. The Kohri Garden tragedy was an indicator of what is yet to come.
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I.THE NEWS
DITORIAL
TWISTED HONOUR
The president has confirmed what we all know. Former president Musharraf's exit last year came about as the result of a deal negotiated by international players with an interest in South Asia. Though President Zardari did not directly say so, the PPP is widely believed to have been a party to this deal. Indeed, the Saudis are recently reported to have instructed both major parties in Pakistan that it should be 'honoured'. The question is what gives the right to people, based within the country or beyond its borders, to strike agreements that go against the interests of the people of Pakistan. The undisputed fact is that the ex-president broke the law. Indeed he violated multiple provisions of the highest law of the land: the Constitution. There is no reason why he should not be held accountable. That he has not shown any remorse and instead, with all the bluster that marked his stint in power, continues to talk of putting the superior judiciary on trial, makes it all the more crucial this should happen.
Deals have done little to make Pakistan a more stable or more prosperous place. Indeed, by damaging democracy and giving a green signal to dictators of the future to do just what Musharraf did, they have harmed this cause. The trial of a former military chief could have served to persuade the army of the desirability of steering clear of political power. It now seems this message is not to be sent out. The fact that President Zardari has spoken out about the Musharraf deal raises further issues. He says his party had never accepted the ex-COAS as president. The PPP needs then to explain what part it played in the agreement which apparently guaranteed him safe exit and security from prosecution afterwards. The covert negotiations that allow such matters to be finalized are a slap in the face of democracy. It is shocking that political parties who claim to stand for the cause should participate in them. For that matter, the PML-N too needs to tell us why it has softened its calls for Musharraf's trial and why it feels compelled to follow orders delivered from beyond the borders of our country. Our political leaders must take a long, hard look at themselves and determine where their loyalties lie.
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I.THE NEWS
DITORIAL
DISPLACEMENTS
Up to 100,000 people from the Khyber Agency are said to have fled the area in response to military strikes directed against militants. So far it has proved a struggle to adequately accommodate them, establish camps into which they can move or offer them the other assistance they urgently need. The effort to do so is now being stepped up as the international agencies become more involved. In the days and weeks ahead we could see further waves of displacement. There is continued anticipation that soon an operation will need to be launched in the Waziristan area which remains the main stronghold of the militants. This would of course mean yet another humanitarian crisis as people flee the area.
The unrest that simmers on in other agencies means too that it is not necessarily from Waziristan alone that people will be displaced. It is important to prepare for such an event. Stories being told by the people of Swat increasingly reveal the extent of their suffering. Many, including women left on their own after male family members were killed during the conflict, claim they have received very little help. The experience we have had since May this year means now that agencies such as the UN, our own NGOs and government bodies are more aware of the kind of readiness that is required. A strategy to deal with future displacements must now be drawn up so that the worst sufferings can be averted.
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I.THE NEWS
COLUMN
GOVERNANCE — THROUGH THE SUGAR-CRISIS LENS
SANIA NISHTAR
The heartbreaking scene of 18 women trying to get a bag of free sugar dying in a stampede in Karachi shows the gravity of the ongoing commodity crisis. Such crises provide an insight into the regulatory capacity of governments and the level of governance effectiveness. Examination of the causes of the present sugar crisis can help in analysing how that is the case.
Even under normal circumstances, sugar is a difficult domain to govern, with frequent tugs of war between the government, the sugar-millers and sugarcane growers. The constituency of growers demands higher price for raw material--their crop. The millers, on the other hand, complain about cost of production, other production related challenges, such as constraints imposed by the recent energy crisis and expect the government to protect them from sugar imports. Depending on who is stronger in the corridors of power--Pakistan's feudal and elite dominated politics ensures representation of both groups--the decision-making equation ends up favouring one, more than the other, but generally benefiting both. In addition to this complex interaction, inelastic demand of sugar is highly exploitable by collusion between interest groups and regulators in food departments. All these factors lead to a price increase, which is generally passed on to the consumer. When governments try to intervene and arbitrate by importing sugar, there is usually outrage by the manufactures and their dealers. As an outcome, governments often end up imposing higher tariffs.
The snapshot of this cycle shows that even under normal circumstances, when there are no crop catastrophes or any other supply disturbance, there is significant complexity in this area. This year, however, there were additional complicating factors. To begin with there was a shortfall in domestic production of the sugarcane crop. The government had no option but to plan for imports, albeit with much delay. It is widely believed that this was the result of undue influence of vested-interest groups who could benefit from shortages in the market. The delay in importing sugar resulted not just in shortage in the domestic market and poor availability but also led to loss of foreign exchange, as by the time sugar was procured in the international market, its price had soared. Increase in the price of sugar in international markets was due to poor crop yields in major sugar producing countries, such as India and Brazil, due to adverse weather conditions. As a result, the supply of sugar fell, which resulted in a price upsurge all over the world. International price trends impacted price in Pakistan in a major way and exacerbated existing supply issues.
A closer examination reveals that the crisis is a manifestation of governance shortfalls at various stages in the governance cycle--at the level of setting policy directions, ensuring implementation of policies, exercising oversight, compelling accountability, effectively regulating and antecedent capacity deficits at all levels.
First, lack of transparency is manifest at various levels. Although there appears to be an interest in promoting integrity in the public sector at the bureaucratic level--the recent anti-corruption drive was a case in point--due attention is not paid to conflict of interests in terms of major business involvement of cabinet ministers vis-à-vis the respective ministries. The story of sugar is particularly illustrative in this respect. Many examples can be cited of ministers themselves landlord and/or miller swinging decisions, or subverting the implementation of decisions for personal gains and/or patronising interest groups. This factor is a critical impediment in the decision-making cycle, and adversely affects regulation. Institutionalised collusion between regulators and interest groups, and the resulting systemic manipulation further adds to the regulatory challenges.
In many ways, the sugar crisis is a classical example of state capture, where vested interest groups threaten the impartiality of public policy decisions; their undue influence in shaping state policies, furthered by patronage through political links diverts resources to the resourceful. The resulting outcomes can be devastating in the long term; state resources get channelled to the well connected, the rich poor divide is augmented, governance and regulatory capacity is exploited and attempts aimed at reform are systematically sabotaged. With respect to the present sugar crisis, the Competition Commission, has recently rightly emphasised that the government "must not provide any patronage to anti-competitive practices and measures encouraging 'collusive behaviour."
The system has limited accountability to hold functionaries accountable for undue actions. Accountability of politicians in Pakistan's political system--where people are meant to hold politicians accountable for actions--can hardly bear fruit, owing to rampant illiteracy, poor awareness of civic issues, or lack of it, and the weak societal political culture. Poor, illiterate people coming from areas which are feudal strongholds--where most of the decision-makers hail from--can hardly assess the impact of conflict of interest and regulatory collusion on public-policy outcomes. Peer accountability in the Parliament on the other hand has also not been the norm unless motivated by personalised political objectives and seldom, if ever, comes to fruition with corrective measures of relevance to institutional strengthening. If enacted in its present form, the new accountability framework embodied in the Holders of Public Offices Act, 2009, will bring no additional value to institutionalizing accountability and is likely to weaken existing mechanisms to compel accountability.
The accountability deficit exists not just for politicians, but also at the level of the techno-bureaucrats. For example, there can be many other causes of failure to take timely action to procure sugar in time. Today, with real-time information available online, inability to take timely action raises many questions. Was the gap at the capacity level within the ministry and departments to ascertain the brevity of the looming crisis? Or did the magnitude of the hurdles created by vested-interest groups outweigh capacity and commitment within state agencies, interfering with their ability to perform? If the latter was the case, surely there is the need to analyse the impact of the current political dispensation on institutional performance and the decision making cycle. Although one is tempted to conclude that this factor is critical, the importance of other bureaucratic challenges should not be underestimated--in particular, lack of decision-making prerogatives at the mid-tier level, longwinded procedures, the general lack of motivation to perform as a result of a number of disenabling institutional factors and rampant regulatory corruption. All of these are manifestations of poor governance.
Secondly, the other governance shortfall apparent in this crisis is the limitation of the government to take the economic measures concerned and its resorting to stopgap arrangements, instead. It is accepted that these may be desperate well-intentioned moves; nevertheless, their impact has been negative--the crackdown on the industry has disrupted the supply chain even further and the attempt to heavily subsidise sugar, is inadvertently furthering collusion. Thirdly, the intervention of the judiciary to benchmark price of sugar and the subsequent inability of the executive to implement the decision represents another unprecedented complexity in governance. Some may say that the judiciary should not involve itself in a purely economic mater; others will state this is a matter of access to essential commodities, and therefore rights, and hence within the Supreme Court's purview.
In sum, therefore, this crisis has unveiled many governance challenges, which need to be addressed coherently. Capacity to analyse the impact of policy decisions is critical to effectively managing such a complex process. Adequate capacity is also a prerequisite for assessing the feasibility of alternative policy approaches, which experts have been raising in these columns lately. More importantly, however, unless transparency-promoting reforms are streamlined, sustained improvements cannot be expected. The writer has attempted to address the dimensions of such reform in these columns on August 15.
The writer is founding-president of Heartfile. Email: sania@heartfile.org
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I.THE NEWS
COLUMN
RAMAZAN AND SOCIAL EVILS
DR A Q KHAN
Over the last few days, TV stations have constantly been showing disturbing pictures of fasting men, women and children standing in queue in front of trucks to buy flour or sugar. Even worse are images of distributors beating the same people up to exercise control over the crowd. Even though all this is taking place during Ramazan, no government official has uttered a word against this animal-like behaviour or made an effort to control inflated Ramzan prices.
Fifty-seven years ago, when I first came to Pakistan, it was a beautiful country. I arrived on August 14, 1952 via Khokrapar. Even though the journey had been long and unpleasant, arriving in Pakistan was like a thirsty man getting to an oasis in the desert. At Khokhrapar, there was a simple hut that functioned as restaurant where there were charpoys to sit on and empty tin cans to drink water from. The warm naan and masoor daal which I ate there was perhaps the best meal of my life. From Khokhrapar, I took a goods train to Karachi. Back then, a young man did not need any recommendations to get admission into the best college of the city. It was all based on merit.
Back then, there weren't that many taxis in the city – there were mainly cycle rickshaws. Later, motorcycle rickshaws were introduced. There were trams running from Chakiwara to Saddar via Bolton Market. A ticket for the whole trip would cost one Anna. Public buses also plied on the streets, and there was none of the pushing and shoving that we see nowadays. Meanwhile, my college – the D J Science College -- was a beautiful building in those days as well. Built in 1898 with red stone, it is located at Pakistan Chowk. In a narrow street nearby was a small restaurant where many students had their lunch – two chappatis for two annas and a plate of delicious meat stew with sweet onions, also for two annas.
After graduating, I got a job as government inspector of weights and measures with a monthly salary of Rs250. All selections were based on merit only. At that time, a first-class gazetted officer probably earned about Rs350 per month. People were content and we never felt that our salary was not enough – people could live honest lives within their means. We never saw anyone handling a pistol and had not even heard of Kalashnikovs. Murders were rare and kidnapping for ransom was unheard of. Women could move around freely in markets without being harassed. Young girls going shopping in the evening was a common sight. Violence against women was unheard of. When I left for Berlin in August 1961, these were the memories of Karachi and Pakistan I carried with me. In October 1967, I revisited Pakistan for the first time together with my wife. We went to Quetta, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Swat, Abbottbad, Nathiagali and Murree, and thoroughly enjoyed our trip. Even though my wife, as a foreigner, was often stared at, we never had to deal with an unpleasant situation. People were extremely polite and hospitable and went out of their way to help us.
As I mentioned earlier, in this land of the pure, it is deemed fit to treat the poor to batons, sticks, shoes and slaps. One video repeatedly showed a woman holding a bag of flour with both hands, mercilessly being beaten with a shoe. However, President Zardari hasn't condemned the act. It would be far more appropriate to change the PPP slogan of 'roti, kapra, makan' to 'joota, lathi, thappar'.
I am taking the liberty of making some suggestions here for the eradication of corruption and the reduction of violence. Corruption has become an endemic cancer and is spreading fast. The government should mete out exemplary punishment, and sincere and honest people should form welfare, non-governmental societies all over the country to pin-point and help eradicate those vices that have destroyed our character and the national fabric of the country. People must be requested to desist from corruption, adulteration, selling of spurious drugs, etc and reminded of the consequences of their actions.
Our country is suffering. The fabric of society is falling apart. It is imperative that both the rulers and the ruled join hands to eradicate the many evils that we face. We need to help each other identify those committing crimes against humanity and give them exemplary punishment.
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I.THE NEWS
COLUMN
SUGAR AND SOCIETY
PART IV
DR ADEEL MALIK
It takes little imagination to recognise that the organising principle of Pakistan's sugar markets is political patronage. Sugar mills are both founded and sustained through public resources. The nation pays dearly in this process: firstly, by subsidizing sugar mills through loan defaults and debt write-offs; secondly, by enabling the cultivation of sugar as one of the most water intensive crops and by foregoing other agricultural possibilities; thirdly, by paying higher prices for sugar in the retail market; fourthly, by paying for the imports through scarce foreign exchange; and fifthly, by financing subsidised provision of sugar through public revenues.
In a nutshell, while the cost of the sugar industry is largely borne by society, the profits are appropriated by a handful of sugar-mill owners. This is a story of resource transfer at a mega-scale – a massive redistribution of wealth from ordinary people to sugar magnates. Sugar is a bitter reality for the majority of Pakistan's hapless masses. No day passes without news of a person dying while queuing up to receive subsidised sugar and flour. As the tragic experience in Karachi has shown, no one is spared in the process: the elderly, womenfolk or even children. These scenes are witnessed daily in Punjab – a province that was once dubbed the granary of the British Empire and which had, on the eve of partition, levels of agricultural productivity that far exceeded Indian Punjab.
It is perhaps the cruel indifference of our elites to this plight of the poor that is most disconcerting. In the midst of such chronic food insecurity, the piety of our elites is at its full display during Ramadan. For this one need look no further than the long queues to avail the culinary delights of Islamabad club and M M Alam Road in Lahore. Then we have the president and prime minister holding lavish iftar parties in their lawns. The government's answer for deliverance from this crisis is Manzoor Wattoo – that loose cannon of the 1990s whose wheeling-dealing gave a new meaning to political corruption. Its information minister, Qamruzzaman Kaira, has an even more ingenious solution: reduce the consumption of sugar.
The questions lurking behind these mundane realities are far more profound, however. The sugar mills and their political benefactors have received considerable public flak for their profiteering – and for good reason. But are they solely responsible for this crisis? Or is it a wider failure of society? Pakistan's worsening food crisis exposes several public actors, some for their active collusion and others for their passive indifference – or, shall I say, criminal silence. I will highlight in particular the role (or lack thereof) of four key public actors: the religious leadership, political parties, donors and the intelligentsia.
First of all, the sugar crisis highlights the abject failure of religious elites to present this as a vital moral and spiritual concern for the society. That price of essential items should rise so abruptly every Ramadan without raising any objection from the religious establishment is perplexing. Why is it that unlike Christmas and Easter in the West, the holy month of Ramazan in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is always welcomed with rising prices? Seasonal fluctuations in food prices are often a result of market failures and misgovernance, and a manifestation of an unjust economic structure that is built on exploitation of farmers and consumers. Yet, despite their associated inequities, these multiple food crises have failed to jolt the defenders of faith. Clearly, the economic question of ordinary Muslims does not figure prominently in our current religious discourse. What we have is the Islam of private morality; what is missing is the Islam of public action. The real question before our religious leaders therefore is: Can faith be defended without protecting the livelihoods of vulnerable and oppressed masses?
Secondly, the sugar crisis also serves to highlight the lack of political imagination on the part of political actors, especially those seeking to replace mainstream political parties, the PPP and PML-N. A leading example is Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) that has singularly failed to capitalise on the sugar crisis, although the sugar crisis is at its very core, an issue of economic justice. The crisis has created a new political opening, where both consumers and growers of sugar cane can be potentially galvanised into political action, since they are at once the most aggrieved and least well-organised groups. More generally, the future of politics in this country will crucially hinge on solving the economic question of the poor.
Thirdly, the unfolding sugar crisis exposes the limits of donor-funded reform. Successive IMF reports have expressed concern over runaway inflation. But food-price inflation is treated first and foremost as a monetary problem, caused by excessive state borrowing and an insatiable fiscal appetite. These are undoubtedly the primary drivers of inflation. However, the imperfections of agricultural markets and their political underpinnings, which also have a determining influence on food prices, are conveniently downplayed. The World Bank, for its part, has also shied away from addressing the structural causes of food poverty. Poverty is addressed only indirectly through micro-credit schemes and income-support programmes. The non-egalitarian economic structure that generates and sustains poverty is left untouched, however.
Finally, and no less significant, is the striking failure of intellectual leadership. Many of our technocrats in waiting – the likes of Shahid Javed Burki, Hafiz Pasha, Ishrat Hussain and Sartaj Aziz – have an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of official Pakistan, of how policies are made and implemented, and how public policies are designed to serve political constituencies. The silence of these insiders is both inexplicable and unjustifiable. A related disappointment concerns the publicly funded research institutions, such as the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) and Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC). Through much of this crisis, these institutions have scarcely offered any effective intellectual input. Are they, like many NGOs, falling in the trap of donor-funded research or do they have an independent research programme that is relevant to local needs. Both PIDE and PARC, under the capable leadership of Dr Rashid Amjad and Dr Zafar Iltaf, should realign their research agenda with national priorities.
A final remark is in order. The political capture of the sugar markets has tempted many observers to advocate nationalisation of the industry. The real issue, however, is one of state capacity – not a false choice between privatisation and nationalisation. A state that has proven its incompetence in managing nationalised units is also routinely incapable of regulating the privatised industry. The result: public monopolies have increasingly become private cartels. The solution should therefore be sought in strengthening regulatory institutions, such as the Competition Commission of Pakistan.
Ensuring food security in Pakistan remains a formidable challenge. Endemic poverty, persistent food shortages, and the country's growing population present a combustible mix, waiting to explode any time. The unashamed behaviour of our business and political elites, and the silent indifference of other key public actors, can ultimately drive the country towards a revolution – in much the same way as "deep divisions between privileged coffee elites and impoverished rural masses" twice resulted in revolution in Central America. Indeed, this is not just a difficult moment for Pakistani society, it is also a defining moment.
(Concluded)
The writer is the Islamic Centre lecturer in development economics at Oxford University and a research fellow at St. Peter's College, Oxford. Email: adeel.malik@qeh. ox.ac.uk
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I.THE NEWS
COLUMN
WELFARE FUNDS: CIVIL-MILITARY COMPARISON
MASOOD SHARIF KHAN KHATTAK
The surest way to fritter away a massive financial capital with no short or long term gains is to distribute it in small sums to millions of people. Such a distribution can never result in poverty alleviation but can open the floodgates leading to massive corruption. Who can ever check whether someone, imaginary or real, living on some distant mountain top in Hazara or Azad Kashmir actually got the paltry amount shown against his/her name in some real or fictitious list? Eventually, billions of rupees are lost with nothing achieved.
The Pakistan Zakat Fund and Bait-ul-maal have now been in existence for many years. Over the 62 years of independence, successive governments have added welfare funds or schemes, most of them as unimaginative as the last one. These schemes have always fizzled out with the demise of the governments that gave birth to them after huge amounts were used without any significant goals having been achieved. Besides these two, there are many other welfare projects on the civil side, for instance, the Employees Old Age Benefit Institution (EOBI) which today controls a colossal Rs160 billion (two billion dollars) management fund. All these civil sector welfare schemes have nothing substantial to boast about, despite the fact that all these schemes over the years have used billions of rupees.
On the contrary, the military -- more specifically the army -- welfare schemes have done exceedingly well. It may be mentioned here that the air force and naval welfare schemes have essentially followed in the footsteps of the army and have also done well. Even the Police Service of Pakistan has followed the armed services model and formed a police foundation that manages some business concerns. All military welfare foundations are now ever-expanding corporate entities. Sadly, nothing spectacular can be said about the funds managed by the political/civil authorities.
Criticism about why the army is in the corporate sector is unfounded because it has something like eight per cent of the country's population to look after in post-retirement periods as well as during times of war. If the army welfare organisations invest, earn and meet their welfare obligations, re-invest surplus funds and increase their corporate base, they are doing something right. Additionally, all of it contributes to the overall good of the country in terms of providing job and business opportunities. Commercial activity contributes positively towards many sectors of national growth. As opposed to this, the political-civil model based on unimaginative distribution of funds without first investing them in profitable corporate ventures is a proven unsuccessful model.
The army has two basic organisations, that is, the Fauji Foundation and Army Welfare Trust. Today, the Fauji Foundation owns huge business concerns in the fields of fertilisers, power generation, oil terminals and distribution, gas exploration and production, liquid petroleum gas, cereals, food stuff, stock exchange, overseas employment, security services etc. The Army Welfare Trust, through its Askari Group of Business Enterprises, manages businesses like banks, leasing, general insurance, cement production, aviation services, private security guards, sugar mills, farms and seeds, compressed natural gas outlets, woolen mills and real estate. Besides, the Defence Housing Authorities in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad have contributed towards solving the country's housing problem and have generated jobs for military and civil personnel alike. These housing authorities have eventually become a source generating immense business activity providing jobs and business to hundreds of thousands of people. Critics will criticise come what may. But the fact remains that the army welfare schemes have done far more than to look after their serving and retired personnel.
If things improve, then the Zakat Fund, Bait-ul-maal, EOBI and all other civilian funds including the on-going Benazir Income Support Programme must be put to work on the army's welfare funds/schemes model in order to make them business generating schemes. For this, they have to be given in the hands of professionals rather than politicians. Their unimaginative political heads must be replaced with young, imaginative, talented and proven professionals as their heads with just one task -- that of developing a corporate base for these funds so that they too, like their military counterparts, bring about investment in businesses of sorts that would, subsequently, generate millions of jobs as well as commercial activity.
The revenues earned and donations received will then become a steady reason for further growth. Distributing small amounts to individuals adding up to billions of dollars will never achieve anything. The huge funds must now be used to develop a corporate base planned to sustain itself and grow steadily. Welfare projects/schemes will follow as a natural corollary.
The writer is a former director-general of the Intelligence Bureau and former vice-president of the PPP Parliamentarians. Email: masoodsharifkhattak@gmail.com and www.sharifpost.com
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I.THE NEWSE
COLUMN
POINTING FIGURES
THE WRITER IS A FREELANCE JOURNALIST WITH OVER TWENTY YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL REPORTING
ANJUM NIAZ
The vibes from Washington may not be Zardari-friendly. The US Senate seems in no hurry to approve the five-year $1.5 billion annual aid to Pakistan. Why? Before we address this question, let's talk of the reported bonanza awaiting his predecessor Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf's forthcoming lectures in America – apparently sixteen in all -- are being organised by the Harry Walker Agency in New York which specializes in arranging such things. While Musharraf's mouthpiece boasts of the former president getting paid $300,000 per lecture (even more than Clinton!) the founder of the agency is mum on the matter. "I've heard he's going to get $150,000 per lecture," a Pakistani-American who thinks he's in the know says.
A former Foreign Office contact in Islamabad must surely know his former boss's lecture fees. Not long ago, he was in the loop when Musharraf was the president. "The general's American benefactors (intelligence agencies; Dick Cheney's leftovers and invisible operators) want to pay him back for the services he has rendered post 9/11," he says. "So perhaps they have put the money in the cookie jar to be doled out to Musharraf every time he speaks." Does this sound believable? Even if it's not wholly true, still Pakistanis must wonder why Musharraf regularly addresses American think-tanks. It's not as if he lets his audiences into a secret on Osama bin Laden's hideout!
As the arena of action moves to New York, our two 'titans' Zardari and Musharraf will do the trapeze holding the 'begging-bowl' keenly aware of the safety net spread below them by their American godfathers. Both will get saved from a free fall.
Think-tanks and research institutes in America not only drive policy but offer prescriptions for reform. One such hub of debate is the Belfer Centre at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government where country-specific issues are analyzed and pared down until the researcher gets a fix on the issue he has dissected diligently. Well, a scholar of Pakistani origin has torn to pieces the past and the present governments in Pakistan. Azeem Ibrahim's op-ed article titled 'How America is funding corruption in Pakistan' must have found its way to the White House to be packaged in the dossier being prepped for Obama-Zardari summit. It was printed in the August 11 issue of Foreign Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/08/11/assisting_corruption)
The Glasgow-born Azeem Ibrahim is a "brilliant scholar, financial wizard and gifted entrepreneur," according to his peers. He's a self-made multi-millionaire and is one of the wealthiest young people in the UK. Currently he's at Harvard as a research fellow. Mr Ibrahim contends that Musharraf fooled Bush into believing his promise to contain the Taliban and Al Qaeda and this in return enabled Pakistan to receive $12 billion in overt aid and another $10 billion in covert aid. "The money has enriched individuals at the expense of the proper functioning of the country's institutions. It has provided habitual kleptocrats with further incentives to skim off the top. Despite the US goal of encouraging democratization, assistance to Pakistan has actually weakened the country's civilian government. And perhaps worst of all, it has hindered Pakistan's ability to fight terrorists," he writes.
He also points to some differences between the government and other institutions in that he suggests that of the $920 million meant for military support in 2008, only $300 million reached the military, citing the Washington-based Atlantic Council which claims that "the great majority ended up in the coffers of the Ministry of Finance". He does not however elaborate on the $620 million any further but does talk about how he claims that the $300 million were squandered. His only comment is that there seems to be no accountability of any kind. The American embassy, according to him, has no mandate to monitor the expenses incurred by the Pakistani military. "The problem was compounded when the Pakistani army insisted that the Federally Administered Tribal Areas -- where much of the money was to be spent -- were too dangerous to visit, making sustained oversight there impossible. Finally, the US Department of Defence refused to release detailed figures on Pakistan military aid until 2009, making public scrutiny impossible," Mr Ibrahim writes.
Blaming America equally for allowing money to slip through the cracks, the article's message to Obama is: "It is essential to ensure that the same mistakes do not happen again. US taxpayers have funded Pakistani corruption and undermined the fight against terrorism and militancy. And for the sake of both countries, it simply has to stop."
Two days later another article by another Pakistani appeared in the same magazine. Sameer Lalwani is a research fellow at the Washington-based New America Foundation Launched in 1999, it has Steve Coll, the intrepid journalist as its president. Steve Coll, as many will recall is a keen Pakistan watcher. His incisive reporting on our nukes and whether they are safe continues to appear in the New Yorker regularly. Mr Lalwani's warning to Obama is contained in an article titled 'Obama's Pakistan problem'. He alleges that the military "selectively" targets only those Taliban groups which pose a threat to the government, leaving "untouched insurgents who confine their activity to cross-border attacks on US and NATO forces." He is of the view that the Afghan Taliban who use "Pakistan as a safe haven will continue to be given a pass. Pakistan considers them "strategic assets" to hedge against Indian encirclement, the Balochi insurgency, or a rapid western departure from the region that leaves Pakistan holding the bag."
A destabilized Pakistan would be far more dangerous than a destabilized Afghanistan, is his hyped-up call.
"So long as the United States misunderstands its partnership with 'Af-Pak,' its strategy will remain in jeopardy" he warns. Azeem Ibrahim and Sameer Lalwani appear to be on the same page making persuasive arguments against Pakistan, especially its military. Perhaps some of what they have said may be true but to paint a one-sided picture as they have done is disingenuous. Naturally not being privy to Rawalpindi, their view from Washington only covers half the story.
American think-tanks are often like the secret Freemasons' society where transparency is as thick as tar! Their funding and agenda is hugger-mugger. Often articles coming out are 'inspired' or 'planted' to derail a country like Pakistan already embroiled in chaos. The world's "most influential paper", The New York Times, is known for this kind of mischief. It's publishing of anti-Pakistani reports just before something major is to take place is cyclical.
Postscript: Robin Raphel has landed with all her regalia back in Islamabad. Unfortunately for her she's been unable to jettison "Rabin," the name that our hacks latched to her back in the day when she was a regular visitor to Islamabad and a favourite of our rulers. Her last name has been mutilated too. "Raphael" and "Rophel" are in currency presently. Get her name right now when she's again all over our national media!
Email: aniaz@fas.harvard.edu & www. anjumniaz.com
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I.THE NEWSE
COLUMN
A FORGOTTEN PLEDGE!
MIR JAMILUR RAHMAN
Roti, kapra aur makan was the most popular and attractive slogan of the seventies. The slogan was a pledge from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that when the PPP came to power it would strive to provide food, cloth and shelter to the teeming poor of the country. In fact every political party makes such a pledge at the time of elections and if elected it makes feeble efforts to alleviate poverty. The efforts are feeble because after meeting security requirements, debt-servicing and administrative expenses there is very little money left for improving the quality of life of the poverty-stricken people. The other major factor for our poverty is our burgeoning population.
Poverty is when a person cannot afford food, medicines, shelter and education for his children, and about 40 per cent Pakistanis fall in this category. These indicators tell us loudly that we are a poor nation. Particularly, our rural poor are still living in near stone-age environment. A family earning around Rs7,000 does not have safe drinking water nor does it have adequate sanitary facilities or a hygienic sewer system.
The inequalities in our society are sharp and shameful. A person drives to his work in a Mercedes while another jostles for a seat in a stinking wagon. One lives in a palatial home and the other lives in conditions which are unsuitable for even animals. One easily spends thousands eating in a restaurant and the other had to risk his/her life to get a bag of atta. Even a monthly salary of Rs15,000 is insufficient to pay for house rent, food, medicines and children's education. The disparities are enormous and inhuman and tragically they are not diminishing but widening.
Prime Minister Gilani has recently promoted scores of bureaucrats to higher grades. It is alleged that he did not adhere to rules while granting promotions. The action has been justified on the ground that he has the discretion to promote an officer. Does it follow that in his discretion he could promote a sanitary inspector to Grade-22? Have mercy on bureaucracy and good governance. It was the inefficient, lazy and docile bureaucracy that could not foresee the atta and sugar crises looming large on the horizon. The people suffered and so did the government losing a chunk of its dwindling moral authority. To be sure, there will be no good governance without an active and merit-based bureaucracy.
People choose their political representatives hoping that they would try to ameliorate their quality of life. But exactly the opposite happens: the quality of life of parliamentarians improves and that of the people declines proportionately. It was unthinkable that under the rule of the PPP, author of the roti, kapra aur makan slogan, there would be nationwide atta riots followed by steep rise in the sugar price. Ayub Khan lost his chair because he had raised the sugar price by half a rupee.
Parliamentarians are the highest paid people. The prime minister is considering rewarding parliamentarians with plots in Islamabad. If the proposal goes through we can expect a new parliamentarians' housing colony every five years. Bhutto wanted shelter for the poor but his followers who already own multiple homes want to be served first.
Email: mirjrahman@hotmail .com
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PAKISTAN OBSEVER
EDITORIAL
HAS PAKISTAN FAILED TO DELIVER?
WE may sound emotional or mentally disturbed if we say that has Pakistan failed to deliver because of the tragic incident that took place at Karachi’s Khori Garden where 18 poor and elderly ladies lost their lives. Therefore, instead of accusing the State of Pakistan, we would say it is a failure of the administration of the country, which, even after over six decades of independence cannot ensure provision of basic and essential commodities to its people.
In our view, Monday’s gory incident is not only humiliating and shameful for us but we are sure each and every Pakistani has been badly hurt over what happened to atta seekers, who were crushed to death in the stampede. Reaction shown by the electronic media and penned down by the print media clearly shows a great resentment among people as to why we have failed to evolve a system that allows honourable living for the poor. This is also a mockery of the oft-repeated claims by the successive Governments to have done this or that for poverty alleviation. It is a clear proof that all such schemes have had no practical bearing on the lives of the poor and are mere eyewash. This is because the Governments have miserably failed to improve socio-economic environment on a sustainable basis and have been wasting national resources on schemes that could not help the poor stand on their own feet. Alms giving is a practice of huge magnitude in this country where, according to a conservative estimate, every year over Rs 80 billion are given to the poor by philanthropists. However, it is also regrettable that there is no organized method of alms giving as a result of which the impact of this hefty spending is not visible. There is, therefore, need to streamline the system but for this to happen the Government and charity institutions will have to restore shattered confidence of the people about their reputation and integrity. As for Monday’s tragedy, it would be wrong to accuse the philanthropist who was doing all this with good intention. But the tragedy emphasizes the need to streamline the system and devise a clear-cut mechanism to ensure that nothing of the sort recurs in future. It is really depressing that unlike other civilized countries we have not been able to follow discipline and do things in a clumsy manner leading to such tragedies.
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PAKISTAN OBSEVER
EDITORIAL
PAEC HAS POTENTIAL TO BRING GREEN REVOLUTION
IT is indeed heartening to know that Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) is actively involved to develop new varieties of sugarcane to help overcome shortage of the commodity in the country. According to a senior scientist of the NARC, they have already developed several new varieties and work is in hand to introduce some more to achieve this objective.
This sounds encouraging as the information has come at a time when the price of sugar is going beyond the reach of the common man. However, the real problem is their adoption at a large-scale by farmers but at the moment, as per statement of the scientist concerned, this is not possible as these varieties require a lot of investment for their maintenance and that is why these are being cultivated by rich farmers alone. Therefore, we would expect the PARC to develop cost effective varieties that are within the reach of every farmer. We are sure this is achievable as PARC, headed by renowned agricultural scientist Dr Zafar Altaf, has the potential to do that provided the Government makes available the required funding for research and development. We believe that this is an area worth investment as the country has fertile land, water for irrigation and hard-working people to bring about a green revolution that can offer solution to the economic woes of the people and the country. PARC is already contributing a lot towards this end as it has introduced a number of high yield and disease resistant varieties of various crops. It has a network of highly qualified, experienced and trained scientists and manpower and interaction with countries like China could help achieve more breakthrough. We hope that PARC would put in more efforts for dissemination of knowledge and information to the end user and make available varieties of crops and techniques that suit best in our own environment.
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PAKISTAN OBSEVER
EDITORIAL
DISPLAY OF POWER BY MPAS
THERE have been a couple of shameful incidents of high-handedness by mighty and powerful elected representatives, this time in Sialkot and Layyah that deserve serious consideration as to what direction our society is heading for. In the Sialkot case, Saddar Police SHO said that MPA Tahir Mehmood belonging to PPP manhandled an ASI, tore down his uniform and forcibly took away three of his arrested men, while in Layyah a judge ordered registration of a criminal case against PML-N MPA Maher Ejaz Ahmad for threatening the incharge of Darul Aman.
These two incidents are in continuation of illegal acts of several other elected representatives in the past few months where MPs were found involved violating laws which they themselves frame for running the affairs of the State in an orderly manner. PML-N MPA from Faisalabad Shafiq Gujjar had roughed up a police official who tried to stop his workers from aerial firing, a PML-N MNA from Rawalpindi was found guilty of examination fraud and a female MPA from Lahore was accused of stealing credit cards and the party taking strict action made the last two to resign from their seats. Having all the respect for the elected representatives who follow the laws of the land and the Constitution, we may point out that people in general have many complaints against them. Similar is the viewpoint of much maligned police personnel and other public dealing departments, who are forced to obey the orders of the elected representatives whether right or wrong and those honest officers who resist are slapped, transferred or suspended. The question arises what is happening in our society where the weak are made to suffer without any crime while the powerful and well connected go scot-free. Elected representatives must be role model and law abiding, assisting the poor and weak in their difficulties and promoting amity among the masses, rather than imposing fiefdoms in their respective areas. We are of the firm view that time has come that the civil society and the media should expose such people and special committees of the elected Houses investigate their affairs so that the rotten eggs are thrown out of the democratic system.
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PAKISTAN OBSEVER
COLUMN
NO SUBSTITUTE FOR PROFESSIONALISM
DR SAMIULLAH KORESHI
The Nazims are mustering support in various cities hoping to launch a movement against re-introduction of the former district administration system. It is claimed that the revival of the old system will make the people “slaves of bureaucracy” again and that the present local governments are the foundation of democracy. As against this claim, the general opinion about their 8-year old Nazim experiment is not favourable — with a few honorable exceptions, Nazims have earned reputation of personalized administration and corrupt. It led to unprecedented lawlessness perhaps due to the abolition of over 140-years old district administration system, which was backed by magisterial powers, and the police The Nazims lack these powers. Thus the Nazim’s is a toothless administration. Nor the Nazim can be given magisterial powers for which a person must have the knowledge and training in law and experience of exercising magisterial powers. In the 140-year old system before being made incharge of the district the person had about ten years experience in the field, from the lowest rung to the level of a district administrator.
The District Administration system was created by the British in 1860. It worked well in pre-independence days. No demand was made in pre-independence days for its abolition. In Pakistan it remained operative till 2001. A system which has stood the test of time, of 140 years, has its own claim not to be discarded. In the old system, the magistrates had long training and gradually given powers from a third class magistrate trying small crimes to first class magistrate and so on. In the old system the Administrator could act on the spot to control the situation. With lack of these powers lawlessness could not be controlled right away. Cases in civil court take ages to be decided. This has encouraged law breakers to take the law in their own hands,. With magistracy abolished law breakers are tried by snail justice. This is why Nazim system has led to increased lawlessness. It is obvious that what had worked well over a century and half should not be cancelled because someone did not like it for one reason or the other. Normally parties with totalitarian inclinations want their protégés to control civil powers. A neutral administration is the last thing a politicians or a military ruler would like to have. An established system of such duration has an aura of respectability and the names of the designations convey the functions associated with them. Ther had been two unsuccessful experiments of abolishing ranks. In Russia after the 1917 Revolution all the ranks were abolished in all organization. Every official was merely tavarish. No general, no minister, no police head just tavarish. Soviet soon found abolishing old ranks created too much confusion and re-established them. In China in the military all ranks were abolished. No generals, no colonels, no captains etc. This did not work and old ranks were reinstated. Similarly this Nazim, DCO. DPO etc do not carry the prestige of the old ranks like DC, SSP, DIG, IG, etc. Is this Nazim-Local Government system the base of democracy? That is to say out of it develops democracy in the country also? But we see that in India, which is described as the largest and yet a successful democracy, the old Magistracy and District Administrator system has remained in tact. Admittedly, Democracy is known to be working well and India is described as the world’s largest democracy. As against this, Pakistan had a lame democracy most of the time and the less said about the present “democracy” the better. I would not subscribe to the myth that 31 years of military rule has destroyed the fabric on which democracy could flourish. This more an alibi for faulty democracy in Pakistan It can therefore be asked why if it works in a proven democratic order like India, in Pakistan where even at the Federal and Provincial level democracy had a lackadaisical performance and political leaders were found lacking in the democratic values, how can revival of the old Administrator system be described as re-introduction of slavery of people to Bureaucracy. It is nothing but an emotionally loaded hyperbole. Leadership of the country has failed, politicians have failed, dishonesty is on the rise in society, corruption is rampant, and Pakistan presents the spectacle of a sick society, failed government, Of course ‘Bureaucracy’ has lost the standards it used to have.. Yet it can be said that there has never been and there cannot be a government without bureaucracy any where in the world. Bureaucracy is the machinery of any government since civilization commenced. The task of the leadership is to be the rudder setting the course and policies but there has been no leadership of any kind, which can do away with the trained machinery required to execute its policies and orders. Since the day civilization came into existence there has been ‘bureaucracy’. There was a well-established bureaucracy in Babylon, pre-historic Iraq – (who implemented Hamurabi Code), in Egypt, in Greece, in Rome, in ancient Iran, etc. Over two thousand years ago, in this very area, Taxila, Chanakya or Kautilya in his Artha Shatera had given a detailed lay out of a “Bureaucracy “ to assist in running the affairs of the State; Nizam ul Mulk Tusi in his Syaste Nama has similarly details of a bureaucratic system which runs the affairs of the state, Imam el Ghazzali in his “ Nasihat ul Muluk” describes the respect the Pen of the scribe is given by the Quranic ayat “ Nun wa ma yestrun”. (translation of the Ayat.: By the Pen and with which they write –or record- ). The scribe symbolizes bureaucracy. Just as brain needs hands and legs and eyes to serve its aims, so bureaucracy is to a Government. It is not a government but machinery at its disposal.
Indeed there are bad bureaucrats, dishonest bureaucrats indifferent bureaucrats, lazy ones who take ages to decide, but they are in proportion to the state of health of the country. Even then the majority is hard working. Despite all the defects, there is no substitute for professionalism, Bernard Lewis in his translation from old Arabic classics had quoted a case which illustrates the importance of an expert. He says that after the toppling of the Ummayas, a certain revenue expert bureaucrat was thrown in the prison about whom the Abbasi Caliph had sworn on the Holy Quran that that he would have him beheaded. Soon after the regime found its revenues falling badly and treasury depleted the Caliph sought advice of someone how to rectify the situation. Somebody adviced to call that Wazir and ask him what to do. He acted on the advice and the revenues began to flourish. He then called the revenue expert from the prison and asked him what should he do that he break his vow to behead him and re employ him as the head of revenue. Democracy does not mean elimination of Government machinery to run the affairs of the state.
There is just no substitute for professionalism and expertise in no democracy “bureaucracy” can be eliminated. The two, leadership and experts and professionals are essential for an efficiently functioning state. The British who created professionalism in Administration called the system the iron frame of the Government. It is generally agreed that in the British days the Courts administered justice far quicker, more justly and efficiently than at present where the dissension of justice has become snail pace. One of my maternal grand relations was a police prosecutor at the beginning of the 20 the century. He had left a diary of his days. He wrote of the murder and dacoity case of a well known dacoit, settled in months, from the trial court to the High Court, and a note recorded “today so and so Singh the famous dacoit was hanged in Agra Jail” The administration was much better responsive to the demands on it, the Police was more alert and up to the demands on it to maintain law and order. If this was so it was because there was an efficient government machinery. The problem of colonialism was on an entirely different level, and in that no one doubted the impartiality of the administration.
States have existed much longer than any modern political system became known, the ideas of justice, good administration had existed in all systems, continents and peoples. The steel frame work of the state , the professional services, have been inevitable for dispensing a good administration. In Pakistan let democratic government work at the center and provinces before we wish to try it at grass roots.
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PAKISTAN OBSEVER
COLUMN
RUBBING SALT TO THE WOUNDS
SAEED QURESHI
While Pakistan’s disadvantaged populace is wasting away their precious lives in wrestling for a sack of Atta or a bag of sugar in the blessing-drenched month of fasting, the leaders are freelancing with their “add insult to injury” kind of statements. The illustrious President of Pakistan, Asif Zardari says that it was not his job to deal with such ordinary problems as Atta, sugar and other essential commodities. He is busy in snuffing out the Taliban and other pedigree of humans that have played havoc with the human civilization in the name of religion: a brand of religion that is more of distortions that being pristine.
The ministers of Prime Minister Gilani are outbidding each other in issuing outlandish and outrageous volleys of statements that can, at best, be described as vicarious and sadistic. No saner individual with an iota of sympathy with the teeming impoverished could have the audacity to offer the ill-conceived suggestion that the people should stop using sugar and Atta if they wanted the spiraling prices to come down or to ensure its easy availability. This is Qamar Zaman Kaira, the Information Minister of Pakistan, who has arrogated to himself the exclusive privilege of denying, debating and debunking anything that was in the public interest. I wish he was one of those belabored citizens who stand up in disorderly lines for a bag of Atta thrown on them like crumbs to pets or the relief food to the famine stricken or marooned communities. These stone-hearted power wielders do not seem to possess a faint feeling of the growing famine specter in Pakistan: a land that used to be the granary in undivided India. The Prime Minister is wont to categorize things in doable and undoable. He is silent on high prices and availability of sugar and Atta which means that these are undoable for his government.
Another mesmeric veteran leader Mian Manzoor Watoo, a scion of Punjab was so ludicrously bold as to decree that the hoarders booked for keeping the stocks away from the market, would be released and protected. It clearly connotes that these thugs and “economic enemy combatants” would have a free hand to hoard and charge any price of their choice. The cartels have their accomplices in both the cabinets and bureaucracy that support and abet these public tormentors to be at liberty for fleecing the people and get away with hefty profits.
Is there someone other than God to contain this unbridled loot and shameless indifference of the VIP classes to the peoples’ woes, who confess by thumping their thick chests, “yes it is happening and we are not going to stop it?” The despicable alliance between the ministers, bureaucrats, and the cut-throat mercantile classes has made the already miserable lives of a hapless nation more traumatic and unlivable? Have the hearts of these leaders and bureaucrats become barren and devoid of even an ounce of the milk of human kindness? The people are unsafe, afflicted and dying of mal-nutrition, pervasive diseases, adulterated food and polluted water. The whole nation is at the mercy of high-way robbers, the daredevil thieves and brazen gun totting ruffians barging into the private houses and decamping with hard earned and precious belongings of the inmates. The police is as corrupt and mismanaged as it is toothless and ineffectual. The crime mafia is more overpowering and lethal than the ill-equipped, ill-dressed, ill-fed, ill-trained and inadequate police force. They too join the crime gangs or patronize them for a share in the booty.
The Roman civilization at its fag end and during its declining period could offer a parallel to the anarchic situation prevailing in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, where muslim are numerous but islam is scant. In the sacred month of Ramadan, the Muslims resort to every dirty trick to fleece the harried shoppers as if they were treading the satanic path who according to tradition is chained and quarantined for the whole month. So his mischievous and insidious role is taken upon by the Muslim faithful who at the same time fast, sermonize about the virtues of Islam as a great religion for all times and generations. Their conduct is an antithesis of what they preach.
Can you picture the life in Pakistan sharply divided into haves and have nots? There is no middle class and if it there any, it is minuscule. One can see the aristocracy and plutocracy with unbridled lust for more power, privileged and wealth. At the other end of the spectrum one may find the helpless, emasculated, poverty and hunger stricken expanse of humans who call themselves Pakistanis. Patriotism is alive in the downtrodden and lower classes who bear the brunt of all miseries heaped on them by the upper and licentious classes. Members of elitist and privileged segments physically sojourn in Pakistan buy have their minds, hearts and wealth abroad.
They switch over to Pakistan under the garb of saving Pakistan, but in fact to rule, enjoy, lord over, amass more wealth and run away for a leisurely stay abroad once again. The political parties outflank each other by fooling the people and for alternating the stints in power in the name of glorious future, defense, saving religion or the bogey of nationalism, which they themselves consider as venom. Today it is Muslim League, next time it would be the Peoples’ Party and so on. There is no end to this fishy stereo of musical chairs’ game. The only difference with the new political edifice is that its present dwellers do not pretend to suffer from qualms of conscience while doing or saying things that are out-rightly nauseating. They treat the odious collusion of manufacturers and bulk suppliers as normal. Yet they gloat over peoples’ ordeals with stubborn refusal to come to their rescue. Don’t they watch women’s paradari (veil or covering their body) being ransomed for a few kilos of staple food without which they and their children would starve to death. Why the PPP has withheld action against the sugar sellers or Atta hoarders or has backtracked on finding an amicable solution of a horrendous chaos? Why it’s totally unmindful of the urgency of instituting an enquiry into such devastating shortfalls of consumer necessities.
If Taliban are being vanquished which is a good thing. But in equal measure the peaceful, law abiding yet poor denizens of Pakistan are dying, decaying, mentally retarding and committing suicide as the final recourse. It’s akin to a Roman coliseum where beasts tore humans apart so that the people forget their sufferings, even momentarily. But then finally the savage Roman emperor Nero fled, was chased, caught by the violent crowd and killed in a secluded sanctuary. It’s a lesson for all those rulers who take Pakistan as Rome and themselves as Neros of today.
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PAKISTAN OBSEVER
COLUMN
EXTREMISM IN INDIA
ALI SUKHANVER
The national flag of a country is no doubt the most sacred asset for a nation. A true patriot always considers the flag of his country more important than his own life. History is replete with the names of soldiers who sacrificed their lives just to keep their flag flattering. But there happened something just opposite to it in India on the 26th January, the Republic Day of India when a huge crowd of low-caste Indian Dalits raised the Pakistan flag in Meerut to protest against the series of atrocities they have been suffering from since long. They raised slogans against the Hindu extremists who have deprived them of the basic human rights.
Although the leaders of the protesters were immediately arrested by the security agencies yet their novel way of protest became a hot topic for the world media. This type of protest by the low-caste Hindus on the days of national importance is nothing strange and new. Raising slogans against the Hindu maltreatment and atrocities, burning effigies of national leaders and copies of the Constitution of India, have become a cultural tradition on such occasions. Regarding the Dalit protest on the Republic Day of India, the world known Dalit activist and Professor of the Jawahar Lal Nehru University, Surinder Singh Jodkha told the South Asia Tribune: “Such incidents are the manifestation of alienation and frustration. I cannot say that Dalits are safe in Pakistan or not. This is not the main question. The main question is if the Dalits are safe in India or not”. According to the sources there are about 140,000 cases of atrocities against Dalits pending in various Indian courts. Justice is delayed for the victims and they feel alienated and frustrated. Neither the law-enforcing agencies nor the courts are willing to take care of these low-caste Hindus. This indifferent attitude of them is turning the lives of these voiceless and helpless citizens of the ‘Democratic India’, into a blazing inferno. In the last August, the international media reported the worst example of human rights violation in India regarding the low-caste Dalits when a nine year old Dalit girl at Faridabad Model School was compelled to parade naked on the school premises after her family failed to deposit the tuition fees. This shocking incident took place only 40 kms away from the national capital in the northern Indian city of Faridabad. The girl was a student of class three.
Jasbeer Singh, the editor of a bi-lingual Punjabi & English monthly magazine, Parivartan, is considered an authority on the internal social and political affairs of India. In one of his recently published articles he has criticized the government of India for ignoring the basic human right of all minorities including the Sikhs. He says, ‘While India never tires of claiming to be ‘the largest democracy’ in the world, one wonders, what did India’s leaders or its government, do to make it so? One of the tests for any ‘democratic’ regimes is how the minorities feel and fare?’ There are three types of minorities in India; Regional, religious and racial and all of them are maltreated in the worst possible manner. That is the reason one finds a state of havoc everywhere in India. From the north-east states of Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram to the blood-dripping valley of occupied Kashmir; everywhere there is a resounding and resonating tale of human rights violation. The Indian security forces are always busy in a whole-sale massacre. Innocent citizens are abducted, young girls are raped and the properties of the ‘miscreants’ are burnt to ashes. Churches, Mosques and the Gurdwaras; in short, no place of worship is safe from the brutality of Hindu extremists.
Keeping in view the human rights violation in India the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom USCIRF has placed India on its Watch List. USCIRF is an independent U.S. federal government commission. USCIRF Commissioners are appointed by the President and the leadership of both political parties in the Senate and the House of Representatives. USCIRF’s principal responsibilities are to review the facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom internationally and to make policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State and Congress.
USCIRF issues its annual report on religious freedom each May. This year’s India chapter was delayed because USCIRF had requested to visit India this summer. The Indian government, however, declined to issue USCIRF visas for the trip. That is why the annual report was released in the second week of August; 2009. Any country that is designated on the USCIRF Watch List requires close monitoring due to the nature and extent of violations of religious freedom engaged in or tolerated by the government. The other countries currently on USCIRF Watch List are Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Laos, the Russian Federation, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Venezuela.
India earned the Watch List designation due to two basic reasons; first the disturbing increase in communal violence against religious minorities, specifically Christians in Orissa in 2008 and Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 and secondly the government’s largely inadequate response in protecting its religious minorities. Condemning the communal riots in Gujarat, the Commission says, “The Indian government not only failed to prevent the attacks against religious and racial minorities, but that state and local officials aided and participated in the violence.”
The USCIRF has suggested that Obama Administration must urge the government of India to take new measures to promote communal harmony, protect religious minorities, and prevent communal violence. The recommendations and suggestions of the USCIRF are no doubt very useful and beneficial for the suffering minorities of India but it would be almost impossible for the government of India to act upon these recommendations. Caste discrimination is a cultural trait of the Hindu society and the government of India can never crush the culture of the people it belongs to.
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PAKISTAN OBSEVER
COLUMN
AFGHANISTAN, POST-ELECTION SCENARIO
CH NAEEM SIDHU
With the country engaged in war, the electoral process in Afghanistan never looked open and valid in the eyes of Pakistani leaders. Still, a country without the requisite ingredients of democracy such as political parties or a universally accepted constitution cannot have credible electoral process. Pakistan does wish for political stability but the events unfolding there after August 20 have belied those hopes. The anti-Taliban, non-Pashtun nationalities, mostly situated in North and West of the country, participated in the elections and the turnout was reasonably better than expected. But the new government in Kabul has not stabilized itself enough to be confident in considering negotiations with its opponents in the near future.
Every Pashtun is not necessarily a Taliban but most of Taliban are Pashtuns. So it is not possible to exclude them from the political process. Moreover, Karzai’s Pasthun base did not give him overwhelming support. Severe allegations of pre-poll and post-poll rigging by the opponents of the incumbent president have further undermined the credibility of the elections. It has now become irrelevant if Karzai will be announced winner of the September 17th poll or fails to win 51 % of the polled votes. Rather, what is becoming obvious that Afghanistan will plunge deeper into the constitutional crisis. At the basis of this analysis is the frame of mind prevailing amongst the rival candidates, especially Abdullah Abdullah who, in a recent interview to Daily Telegraph, commented that he was shocked by the scale of vote-rigging. He vowed to exhaust all legal avenues to counter “the state- engineered fraud.” Even if unsuccessful he won’t recognize the elections. “I think if the process doesn’t survive, then Afghanistan doesn’t survive.”
Hamid Karzai’s ambition to win at all costs was amply manifested when he won over notorious drug lords, an un-holy alliance, vehemently criticized by the western capitals. Since that did not deter him, the chances that he would adopt some measures to assuage the reservations by the rivals are very dim. Karzai’s exchange of hot words with Richard Holbrooke after his suggestion to go for a run off to make the process more credible clearly shows he is determined to win at ‘all costs’. Yet, posing himself as a brave nationalist who has the nerve to stand against the USA won’t win him the sympathy from the Pashtun majority. There are two schools of thought in Pakistan about Afghanistan’s political future.
Despite criticism by the West, elements in Pakistan’s defense establishment did not sever entirely its relations with powerful Taliban factions. If USA and NATO withdraw from Afghanistan in twelve to sixteen months, it would further strengthen the Taliban. So it is in the national interest of Pakistan not to join the anti Taliban effort totally and unconditionally. Pakistan’s only bet in Afghanistan is on Pashtuns who have shared religious, cultural and economic bonds with their brethren in Pakistan. Demographic reality is that Pakistan hosts around 28 million Pashtuns while Afghanistan has 15 million of them. Irrespective of theconflict over the 2640 KM long Durand Line, separating two states, drawn in 1893 by the British rulers, that also resulted in Afghanistan’s vote against Pakistan’s entry to United Nations in 1947, the line had never practically separated Pashtuns dwelling on both sides of a porous border. Quoting many instances from the past this school of thought holds the opinion that Pakistan’s links with Taliban factions are a potential benefit even to the USA and the Western powers.
For Pakistan is the only country that can facilitate an honorable exit by bringing all warring factions on the negotiating table. They believe that if Pakistan were to go all out against Taliban, its long-term interests on its western borders would be severely jeopardized. They wonder why the USA did not differentiate between Al-Qaida which has a global terror agenda and Taliban which is essentially nationalist in character. The other school of thought that is gaining strength even amongst powerful players in Pakistan’s defense establishment holds the views that the policy of having strategic depth in Afghanistan by siding with Pashtuns or Talibans has caused the worst loss to Pakistan in its history. The reign of terror unleashed by Taliban of Pakistan in killing thousands of civil and military personnel poses an existential threat to Pakistan. Despite the fact that Mullah Umar or Haqqani groups have never been directly involvedin terrorists activities in Pakistan, they never reprimanded Thereek-e-Taliban, Pakistan (TTP), led by Bait Ullah Mehsood till his death or various other actors hailing from Swat, Mohmind, Khyber, Waziristan and Bajour areas. If Taliban win, it will rejuvenate TTP with horrific after-effects for Pakistan. It is alleged that the Taliban want to form the Islamic Emirates of Pakhtunistan, covering not only Pakhtun belts in Afghanistan but also huge parts of Pakistan. This school of thought therefore does not have any soft corner for Taliban and says that the Allied troops have not only to stay in Afghanistan until the mission is accomplished but it should make a concentrated effort to stabilize the political process in the country. Rejecting the concept of ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan, they say that Pakistan has to secure its own borders by leaving the issues across the Durand Line to Afghans and the Allied forces.
After facing two of the bloodiest months since October 2001, the growing discontent in USA and NATO member countries, withdrawal is possible. Before withdrawal, USA-led coalition has to make the arrangements termed as ‘the exit strategy’ by president Obama. Without Pakistan’s help, it is impossible to hold any meaningful dialogue which may involve all political and militant groups in Afghanistan. The myth of ‘Pakistani support to Taliban’ is unfounded. They are absolutely free from any compulsion from any country, including Pakistan, as was clearly highlighted by Mullah Omar’s deputy, Mullah Abdul Ghani Bardar in his recent interview with Newsweek. Increased number of troops will not win the war. USA and NATO should devise a new strategy to deal with the situation which should ensure active political involvement by Pakistan as a key player.
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PAKISTAN OBSEVER
COLUMN
A TALE OF TWO CHILDREN..!
ROBERT CLEMENTS
“..Equal access a must in child custody battles..” TOI, Sept 9th Oh! I’ll never forget her face. Uncle,” she’d asked, “Did you know my father?” I looked at her, she was all of twenty- three, pretty, petite, polite, yet a longing look on her otherwise lovely eyes.
Yes,” I said, “I knew him and he was a good man! Why?” “Because I want to meet hi, please!” She hadn’t met him in twenty years after the divorce and tears came to my eyes as she told me about birthdays when her mother had asked, “Child what do you want for your birthday?” And she’d wanted to scream, “Daddy!”“Every birthday, I hoped he’d call!” she whispered. I found her father, he was old and grey and worked in a travel agency surprisingly near my place. “Would you like to meet your daughter?” I asked and in his tears I saw the yes. I arranged the meeting at my home and saw the father and daughter united after over two decades and in her eyes I saw a closing, the closing of a yearning that had gnawed her heart year after year after year.
Why didn’t you try and meet her before?” I asked afterwards. “I tried,” he said, “Oh how I tried, but the mother thwarted all my efforts and finally I gave up and moved on!”The second tale: The doorbell rang in a flat close to my home, the old lady inside opened the door and saw her blind son who lived in Kuwait standing outside alone: “Alwyn!” she cried, “How did you come? Who brought you?”
Day after day he came to my house, he couldn’t believe what she’d done to him, “She asked me to accompany her back to India for an operation, I didn’t know it was to ditch me!” And ditch, she did in the cruelest of ways. “I miss my daughter Bob!” And armed with nothing but his red and white stick, he fought his case and one day they came home, he and his daughter. They sat close to each other in my sitting room, the two of them. I gave him my car and driver that day and he took his daughter all over, showered her with love but she went back to Kuwait that evening.“Sir what happened to sahib, why was he sobbing in the car?” asked my driver; he didn’t see me sitting at the back also sobbing silently for what my friend had gone through the day before.
Fight if you must, separate if you really have to, but for God’s sake don’t make your children and that ‘pushed away’ spouse suffer for the anger you bear for each other. If you want to bring your children up well, full and wholesome, let them see their father or mother even if you don’t want to, it will be the greatest birthday gift you could give them..!
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THE INDEPENDENT
EDITORIAL
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
The passage, in parliament, of the Local Government (Municipality) Bill -2009 sans the provision of MPs' (members of parliament) advisory role is welcome. When the bill was originally tabled in parliament, it retained the provision of making MPs advisers to the local government body and also proposed for creation of the post of a deputy mayor for municipality. When an MP of the ruling party had proposed the amendment to the bill seeking no such advisory role for the MPs and also non-creation of the post of a deputy mayor, at first his proposal was not received well but finally it was passed by voice vote.
It surely has been a welcome turn-around because the amendment was not supposed to please the MPs who were virtually asked to vote against them. On this count, the wisdom shown by the legislators really deserves appreciation. By taking this bold step, they seem to have recognised the parameters of function the MPs and the elected representatives of the local bodies should respect. This will help avoid overlapping of duties and responsibilities. Legislation is what the MPs ought to concentrate on and the local government bodies, of necessity, have to be strengthened in order to deal effectively with local issues. The enactment of this law makes us optimistic about the future of the local government in Bangladesh.
In this context, let us make it a point that the local government bodies starting from the union council up to the district council also function independently. Sure enough, there is need for ensuring transparency and accountability. But those are best guaranteed when the legal system functions properly. As for the distribution of responsibilities, undue mix-up, overlapping and undesirable interference should be avoided. The passage of the bill puts our local government system in right perspective. We hope governance will get better with this legal provision.
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THE INDEPENDENT
EDITORIAL
SUGAR IS SOUR
As sugar prices continue to climb upwards in the holy month of Ramzan, when its consumption is at its maximum, the government has not only failed to intervene in a positive manner to stabilise prices but also offered no satisfactory explanation. The government is blaming the refiners who, it says, have formed a cartel, syndicate in its parlance, and raised the price of sugar artificially.
The government initiative to stabilise the market by importing and distributing sugar through the state-owned Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) has failed to have any impact on the market. From the mistimed opening of Letters of Credit (LCs), the list of blunders and failures is endless. By the time the sugar consignments reach the Bangladesh ports, Ramzan will be over. The poor selection of dealers has also contributed to the fiasco. Evidently, genuine businessmen have not been appointed and political favourites have taken over. The consumers, for no fault of theirs, are paying through the nose for all this.
The chairman of the parliamentary standing committee has said that the current crisis has been largely created by the sugar export policies of the immediate past governments, both the caretaker one and the Four-Party Alliance. The current government will not follow suit. Besides, he has advised that 6,000 metric tons of sugar meant for export by Chittaranjan Sugar Mills should be released in the local market, as the stock was earlier bought by the company from the government-owned Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industries' Corporation (BSFIC). He feels that this will rein in the galloping prices in the sugar market.
However, reports from the international and Indian commodity markets indicate a sharp rise in the price of sugar, internationally, following crop failure in drought hit India, the world's largest consumer of sugar. India had already started importing sugar a few months back to make up for the shortfall. Prices are expected to go up for sometime and are likely to level off but not before the next sugar-cane harvest.
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THE INDEPENDENT
WIPING BAD MEMORIES...!
"…Soon a drug to wipe out bad memories…" TOI, Sept 14th
"A drug to wipe out bad memories!" says the boy who's just been ditched, "This is exactly what I need!" He recollects the nasty incident when his girl friend had asked, "Do you think that I am some possession of yours?"
"You belong to me!" he'd said, "You can't talk to anyone else but me!"
"Nobody belongs to anybody," she had whispered looking sincerely into his eyes, "I am leaving you because you don't understand!" A few moments later he buys the wonder drug and feels it's affects; suddenly there are no bad memories, "I feel free!" he shouts and sees his ex strolling with another, "What are you doing with him?" he asks, forgetting that the 'him' he refers to is the local karate champ. "I like his company," says the girl. "But you are mine!" says the boy, grabbing her arm, and next moment finds himself thrown ten feet with a karate chop, "I'm sorry," says his former girl friend, "But you forgot what I told you too fast!"
"Stupid drug!" whispers the boy as he wipes the blood away. Like this boy who wanted to forget, we all have memories of something, which wasn't too good, don't we? But a bad memory should be used to advantage like opening a history book to prevent a catastrophe like war.
Quite often as a young salesman in my dad's company I came across tough customers and with all the sales skills I possessed, couldn't win over. At the end of the day, at home I had two alternatives, to drown my sorrows with my friends at the local bar or to go over my day's work and see where I could have done better.
If I had gone with my friends, it would have been the same as taking a wonder drug, and I would soon have forgotten what the day was like, and the areas I could improve. I would have been lifted by the liquor to a world of fantasy and make believe where nothing had gone wrong.
But in going home and facing the truth, I also faced myself; it was like looking in a mirror, at my mind, watching it react to that lost sale and then determinedly working out ways and strategies that it didn't happen again.
That failure was needed to build the next day's success.
Bad memories are needed to create future good ones.
It is called experience! Experience comes only through good and bad memories. Wipe them out, drown it and you'll be like that fool who made the same mistake and faced a karate chop. Face it, and it's your step towards success.
The choice is yours, take the drug, hit the bottle or swallow the bitter pill of a relived bad memory and climb up and away…!
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THE AUSTRALIAN
EDITORIAL
A GOOD CALL ON TELSTRA'S FUTURE
AUDACIOUS MOVE FROM CANBERRA DELIVERS THE RIGHT RESULT
ALMOST two decades after a Labor government fluffed the deregulation of the telecommunications sector, the Rudd government has put it right with a stunning piece of national policy.
The decision to force the break up of Telstra into separate wholesale and retail companies is as audacious as it is obvious. This is a big move by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy to force a commercial entity to operate in the national interest. It is the first reform measure that involves significant political risk to the Rudd government, given the potential backlash from Telstra shareholders.
Technically, Telstra can choose its future under the legislation introduced into federal parliament but, in effect, government fiat will ensure a new model for telecommunications in this country, one that promises true competition for the first time in our history. This is the Telstra we should have had all along, one for which this newspaper has long argued.
The decision in the 1990s to merge Telstra's predecessor, Telecom, with OTC to form a "megacom" that retained wholesale and retail operations, delivered a flawed model that stultified our telco market. It was heavily contested at the time, even within cabinet, and the mistake became more obvious over the years as the economic importance of the internet grew.
In contrast, the Kennett government in Victoria showed how it should be done when it privatised electricity by separating generating companies from retail utilities. Labor's mistake was compounded by John Howard, who privatised Telstra but failed to take the opportunity to sort out its structure. In opposition, Labor vacillated about how a breakup could occur. But that was then.
Kevin Rudd's promise at the 2007 election to create a national broadband network became the wedge to take on Sol Trujillo and detonate the old Telstra board from under chairman Don McGauchie. Excluded from the broadband tender, Telstra turned from an aggressive adversary constantly battling Canberra on access, pricing and expansion to a co-operative company waiting, under new boss David Thodey and new chairwoman Catherine Livingstone, for the next move.
No one blames Mr Trujillo for playing hardball in order to maximise returns for shareholders. That was his role. Similarly, competition regulator Graeme Samuel was doing his job by being tough on access issues. But the Telstra model, which assumed a level of national interest on the part of a commercial operator, did not work.
It was as if Qantas was asked to carry Virgin Blue passengers - at Virgin prices.
So while the Telstra culture changed this year under Mr Thodey, the flawed model remained, along with the conundrum of how to expand our broadband access without building a network parallel to Telstra's existing system. The telco had leverage but only if the national broadband network went ahead and was prepared to buy some of Telstra's assets. That would have helped towards a separation of wholesale and retail operations, but at what price?
Instead, the government has gone for broke with legislation. Its new lever is the threat to prevent Telstra from acquiring more spectrum for wireless broadband, thus blocking growth of lucrative mobile services.
Extra leverage is provided by the requirement that while it must also sell its interest in Foxtel, there is some scope for the government to remove this requirement if the telco comes up with an acceptable model of separation. All in all, it looks like game, set and match to Canberra.
Unscrambling Telstra will be complicated, and it is too soon to know what impact it will have on shareholders, but it is worth noting that the original deregulation and subsequent privatisation of the sector was not about creating wealth for shareholders as about improving services for Australians by introducing competition. The decision to keep the wholesale and retail arms together hobbled that competition, with the only real market function emerging in mobile services. Thus an essential piece of infrastructure built by Australian taxpayers was rendered semi-paralysed for years: it did not deliver true competition, and it underachieved for shareholders.
It is also worth remembering the massive amount of taxpayer money and shareholder value that has been lost from this model, which could have been avoided if our leaders had got the structure right 20 years ago.
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THE AUSTRALIAN
EDITORIAL
MORE HEAT THAN LIGHT
BOTH SIDES OF POLITICS SHOULD LIFT THEIR GAME IN QUESTION TIME
PARLIAMENT, Scottish satirist Thomas Carlyle observed in the Victorian era, will "train you to talk" and above all "to hear, with patience, unlimited quantities of foolish talk". Or in other words, windbags were as prevalent then as in 21st century question times.
Like previous oppositions that became frustrated by government domination and sometimes abuse of question time, the Coalition is demanding reform. So did Labor in opposition, when Julia Gillard wanted Howard government ministers to confine their answers to four minutes. They did not, and neither does she nor Kevin Rudd, who on Monday took 13 minutes, minus the odd interruption, to answer a Dorothy Dixer about the global financial crisis.
Standing orders specify that answers "shall be relevant to the question", giving ministers wide scope to duck direct responses and filibust. Governments have always used their control of the Treasury benches at the expense of opponents. But a perusal of Hansard from the Hawke government from 20 years ago, for example, shows ministers answered questions more directly and engaged in more worthwhile debate than is the case today. We need more of it.
That question time has lost gravitas and bite is also the responsibility of the opposition. Christopher Pyne has often seemed ineffectual as leader of opposition business, including yesterday when he moved that the Minister for the Status of Women, Tanya Plibersek, and later the Deputy Prime Minister be no longer heard. However verbose ministers' answers, in forcing divisions that his side would inevitably lose, Mr Pyne wasted time that should have put to better use. For an opposition claiming to want to improve question time, his tactics were foolish.
Perhaps he and his colleagues should study the way the Prime Minister, as shadow foreign minister then opposition leader, used question time to put Howard government ministers under pressure on the Australian Wheat Board scandal, kitchen table economics, health and education. Too often, Malcolm Turnbull, his deputy Julie Bishop and their team have failed to gain traction with questions. Since the OzCar fiasco, they have appeared demoralised. They need to work harder researching issues on which the government is vulnerable, and devise more effective strategies to penetrate the government's spin.
Speaker Harry Jenkins is good humoured and fair, but has lost control of the house on occasions. He has shown he can be tough with members on both sides, as he needs to be, until MPs grow up and generate more light and less heat.
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THE AUSTRALIAN
EDITORIAL
POWERING THE FUTURE
TECHNOLOGY HELPS MEET ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES
THE anticipated benefits of the giant Gorgon liquefied natural gas project are so enormous that they take time to assimilate. The gas reserves off the West Australian coast are sufficient to power Adelaide for 800 years; thousands of new jobs will be created; as global demand for clean energy soars, LNG is likely to overtake coal as our biggest export commodity within a few years. LNG is the cleanest fossil fuel producing half or less the emissions of coal.
The LNG story is as much about Australian resourcefulness as is it is about Australia's resources. Trillions of cubic feet of underground gas would be useless without the technology to capture, process and export them. LNG is created by freezing natural gas to about minus 162 degrees, where it condenses to a liquid, making it more economical to transport. When returned to gas form, it is used for powering vehicles, power stations, heating and other energy needs. The technology was pioneered early in the 20th century, with the first international commercial shipments in 1959. Australia began exporting LNG from the North West Shelf 20 years ago.
Gorgon will employ the latest technology to cut greenhouse emissions per tonne of LNG produced to 40 per cent of what was envisaged in 1998. Carbon dioxide will be extracted from the LNG and re-injected into depleted oil reservoirs on Barrow Island, creating the world's biggest CO2 geological storage project.
While opposed by the green political fringe, the project demonstrates the increasingly important role technology will play in solving our energy and environmental challenges.
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THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
EDITORIAL
SUPER SHOULD BE GENDER-FREE
THE Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, has shone a light on the unintended consequence of years of compulsory superannuation. The combined effect of several trends in women's employment - choice of career in lower-paid occupations, unpaid time off work for child-rearing or family care or both - sees many women retire with inadequate superannuation, because the system has been tailored to the standard male career pattern.
Ms Broderick rightly sees this as the symptom - large and painful - of a wider disease, namely the continuing inequality faced by working women over their lifetimes. Retirement income is the point at which all the lesser inequalities that women on average experience over a working life merge into one. It can be measured in dollars. According to estimates made by the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, average payouts for men at retirement are $154,000; for women, $73,000. The Howard government's policies which encouraged women to stay home with children, while encouraging choice, had the unintended effect of reducing their eventual income for retirement, and ensuring they were more financially dependent on their spouse. The proportion of women retiring who are divorced is about to rise; divorce has made matters worse for women in the past, but current practice gives divorcing women the right to a share of their husbands' superannuation. Yet the retirement income inequality persists, even though, as women live longer than men, they need more retirement savings.
Equity requires that the gross imbalance be redressed. How? The answer will not lie in a single cover-all measure, but in a series of smaller changes. Until the balance has been redressed, governments must ensure that the safety net for those without enough superannuation - the age pension - is adequate. Other measures should be considered which balance the burden of caring - for children, or aged or infirm relatives - which now falls far more heavily on women. Ms Broderick mentions Scandinavian parental leave schemes targeted at men, which lapse if unused. The Rudd Government's paid parental leave scheme expressly excludes payments to superannuation - clearly a mistake, with hindsight.
Superannuation has moved some way from the days when it was readily available for men and structured to enforce loyalty, but available only to those women with several years' service because it was felt most others would just get married and leave. Vesting has made superannuation portable; making it compulsory has produced the next challenge: to make it equitable.
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THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
EDITORIAL
SRI LANKA VERSUS UNITED NATIONS
TO KICK out one Australian working for the United Nations, as the Sri Lankan Government has just done with the UNICEF official James Elder, would be a coincidence. When we learn that another Australian with the UN, Peter Mackay, from the technical body UNops, has been expelled and that a third Australian with the UN in Colombo, Gordon Weiss, is threatened with the same fate, it becomes a disturbing and insulting trend.
Strangely, the Sri Lankan diplomatic chief handling these expulsions, the Foreign Secretary, Palitha Kohona, is also an Australian citizen and previously worked for our Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Whether Mr Kohona has advised the President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, that Australia is a soft target for his anti-Western foreign policy line, is something that only Mr Kohona can enlighten us about.
To add a public accusation that Mr Elder was ''doing propaganda'' for the now defeated Tamil Tigers, while the UN official and his family are still in the country packing up, has been a nasty twist. It could signal the attention of the notorious men in white vans who have been beating up, abducting and murdering government critics with impunity during Mr Rajapaksa's time in office.
Colombo's charges of pro-Tiger partisanship by UN officials carry little weight outside its own government circles and its cowed media. The Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, told Parliament this week that he had studied Mr Elder's offending remarks and that ''they do not cause me any difficulty''. Indeed, Australia's position is like that of other democracies: relief that the war with the sinister Tamil Tigers is finally over, concern at harm to civilians during the conflict, and mounting worry that 250,000 Tamil civilians remain in harsh internment camps four months after the conflict ended. To which might be added a deep concern at continued repression of critical minds, like the Tamil journalist J.S. Tissainayagam, just sentenced to 20 years' jail for ''causing communal disharmony''.
Mr Mackay's expulsion, in particular, suggests Mr Rajapaksa is trying to brush away the lingering accusations that war crimes were part of his offensive against the Tigers. Colombo has been unconvincing in instantly rejecting as a fabrication a smuggled mobile-phone video of apparent executions of bound men by its forces. Through his own experience behind the lines and then through satellite pictures, Mr Mackay contradicted the Government's claims it was not knowingly shelling trapped civilians.
When he moves to the United Nations shortly as Sri Lanka's ambassador, Mr Kohona will find he represents a government carrying little trust, as much as the world welcomed the apparent end of the Tiger insurgency.
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THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
EDITORIAL
TURNBULL POWERLESS TO END DISHARMONY ON POLICY
THE COALITION STILL HASN'T DEALT WITH THE ISSUES THAT TURFED IT OUT OF OFFICE.
ONE would think all the speculation about an early, double-dissolution election would have concentrated Opposition minds on the need to resolve policy on the big issues of the day. When two of those issues, industrial relations and climate change, were so clearly disastrous for the Coalition in its 2007 election loss, it is all the more remarkable that Malcolm Turnbull's Liberals - let alone their Coalition partners in the Nationals - remain openly divided on what succeeds the Howard government's WorkChoices policy. Yesterday, the Coalition party room revolted over Mr Turnbull's willingness to negotiate with the Government on the passage of carbon emissions legislation.
Mr Turnbull has led the Opposition for a year, during which a deep global recession could have left the Labor Government struggling to survive the downturn. Instead, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is having to take care not to be seen salivating at the prospect of an election as his Government tests Opposition nerves by lining up potential double-dissolution triggers. While the Opposition has been consistent in challenging the scale of Government stimulus spending and debt accumulation, this week's Age/Nielsen poll found strong public support for the Government's economic management. Indeed, it has always seemed an audacious strategy for the Coalition to play down the need for the Government to respond aggressively to the global economic crisis.
On the weekend, Mr Turnbull went from audacious to foolhardy with comments that revived the spectre of WorkChoices. Arguing that ''inflexible'' workplace laws reduced labour productivity, he opened the door to statutory individual employment contracts. ''I'm not ruling it in or out,'' he said. Now it is true that Australian Workplace Agreements preceded WorkChoices by many years and, as shadow treasurer Joe Hockey notes, Labor's laws retain elements of WorkChoices. WorkChoices, though, transformed AWAs into instruments for stripping away employees' pay and conditions, and it is beyond reasonable debate that the last election served as a referendum on AWAs and WorkChoices. So clear was their unpopularity that John Howard, in his campaign launch, avoided the word WorkChoices. Mr Rudd, at his launch, then denounced it as a policy ''that dare not speak its name''.
Mr Turnbull's weekend musings exposed him to claims he was harking back to WorkChoices, whose ''very beating heart was individual statutory employment contracts that allowed the safety net to be stripped away'', as Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard put it. Other ministers also leapt in gleefully, with Employment Minister Mark Arbib predicting: ''It's now an issue that will dog them right up to the election.'' Mr Turnbull has since promised that WorkChoices is dead. Mr Hockey also said: ''AWAs are dead.''
The problem for the Opposition is that not all Coalition MPs agreed when Mr Turnbull said last November: ''The Coalition accepts WorkChoices is dead. The Australian people have spoken.'' Some senior colleagues are still not persuaded, with figures such as Tony Abbott and Nick Minchin defending WorkChoices. A rise in union membership, the first in decades, may also agitate conservatives who believe the balance of power has swung back too far towards employees (although the increase is part of a global trend and is more likely driven by job insecurity).
Labor predictably says Mr Turnbull's weak leadership has been exposed as Liberal hardliners have taken control of policy. That is not quite true: if they had, Liberal policy, on IR and climate change, would be more clearly resolved. On climate change, yesterday's joint party room meeting confirmed opposition to voting on legislation before the Copenhagen climate conference in December. Some MPs were ''trenchant'' in their opposition to an emissions scheme. Two years after voters sent the Coalition a clear message, its members have still to sit down and nut out policies that they can all agree on, at least in public.
The Coalition is running out of time to answer the question: what comes after Howardism? It could face an election early next year. If it hasn't come up with a coherent answer by then voters may be inclined to believe Labor's claim that the Coalition's plans for government are the same as in 2004, when radical IR reform was never mentioned. The Opposition is entitled to oppose what it believes is bad Government policy, but it had better come up with good alternatives - especially if it blocks major legislation, as it has been doing. The rehabilitation of conservative politics depends on its leaders first rebuilding a sound foundation of policy.
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THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
EDITORIAL
NAMING A PARTY NATIONAL DOESN'T FOOL ANYONE
THE Nationals, born as the Australian Country Party, have confounded many prophets of doom since they appeared on the federal scene in the 1920s. That makes them one of the world's few successful agrarian parties. It doesn't, however, mean the prophets will always be wrong.
The party survived a near-death experience caused by the rise of One Nation in the 1990s, which demonstrated that its voters are vulnerable to the lure of populist movements on the far right. But the Nationals have been far less able to resist the long-term demographic change that has seen them steadily cede ground to the Liberals. Simply, the number of genuinely rural seats, as opposed to seats centred on regional cities, keeps shrinking. In the last federal election the Nationals won only 10 seats in the House of Representatives, down from 12 in 2004, 13 in 2001 and 16 in 1998. And if this incremental drift to oblivion wasn't bad enough, an Age/Nielsen survey this week revealed that only 5 per cent of those polled could name the party's leader since 2007, Warren Truss. Mr Truss' near-invisibility testifies not only that the Nationals are no longer the third force in Australian politics - a mantle the Greens have claimed - but that despite their name they are not genuinely national, either.
All minor parties depend on recognition of the leader (how many people could name a Greens senator other than Bob Brown?), but the Nationals might not gain greatly from ditching Mr Truss in favour of the headline-grabbing Queenslander Barnaby Joyce. If Senator Joyce moves to the House and the leadership, he will confront the same demographic reality as Mr Truss. Whoever leads the Nationals, their future choices are likely to remain eventual extinction within the Coalition, or noisy irrelevance as a fringe party of protest outside it.
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THE GURDIAN
EDITORIAL
BANKS: UNREFORMED CHARACTERS
Alistair and Adair think they are the answer. George and David and Mervyn agree. But are they asking the right question?
They are called living wills, and you might as well get used to the name now because – whether Labour or the Conservatives are in government come next summer – they will almost certainly become an integral part of how our banks are run. Yesterday Alistair Darling took to the Financial Times to reaffirm his commitment to the scheme (already outlined in the recent banking white paper), while Adair Turner and Mervyn King have both called for it. And because the Tories seem to have arrived at a position on financial reform where everything said by the governor of the Bank of England is tantamount to regulatory gospel, George Osborne and David Cameron also back it.
What is the big idea? Just like for an individual, a business's will (or resolution regime, for those not so colloquially minded) is a way of putting its affairs in order should the worst happen. The relevance and attraction of such a regime for big and systemically important banks was handily underlined this week when Tony Lomas, the administrator in charge of the UK and European affairs of Lehman Brothers, warned that it could take a decade to wind them up. Lehman was a pure investment bank – not some complex behemoth like the insurance firm AIG – yet a year after its collapse it still requires around 200 of Lomas's administrators and 400 former Lehman employees to disentangle its trading positions.
A living will would probably prevent such a long, drawn-out process. It would serve as a users' manual so that if the pilot were suddenly incapacitated mid-flight, a passenger could come up from cattle class and safely land the plane. In that narrow sense a living will (or, as the Treasury white paper puts it, ensuring that "all banks are adequately prepared and organised internally for their own resolution") is a good idea. When Dunfermline building society collapsed this March, for instance, the officials were able to use its will to break it up within a few hours: the bulk transferred to Nationwide, while other bits were passed to the Bank of England or placed in administration. So the regime as it applies to smaller and simpler financial institutions already works. So far, so good – but the problem is that the living will scheme is mean to achieve larger goals that would be better met by other policies.
First, living wills are clearly a rejoinder to the proposal to reduce banks in size and scope so that the collapse of one does not set all the dominoes tumbling. It is, then, a financial-stability device. But a much surer route to financial stability would be to slim down and simplify institutions. True, that would be difficult, and yes, it would not be welcomed by the City – and many recession-hit voters would doubtless be extremely sorry to hear that. But if the financial crisis that turned into a bitter global recession has underlined anything, it is that what happens in big banks affects the rest of society. It is time to legislate from the point of view of innocent bystanders and err on the side of caution. If that causes Barclays a headache, too bad.
Second, there is some suggestion that writing living wills will deter bankers from complicating their affairs for the sake of avoiding tax or regulatory encumbrance. Again, a laudable objective. But to achieve it, the will would need to go to both the Financial Services Authority and the taxman. It would also need to be updated annually (at least). And even then it would not be a substitute for country-by-country reporting and automatic multilateral exchange of tax information.
A year on from the collapse of Lehman, it is far too late to come up with banking reforms that are merely steps in the right direction. Technical niceties have their place, but they are no substitute for political objectives – which the debate over financial reform still lacks.
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THE GURDIAN
EDITORIAL
IN PRAISE OF… TELEVISION CHEFS
Americans spend more time watching cooking on television than they do actually cooking themselves. The British are probably in the kitchen a little longer, but the trend is similar. It would be ironic if the effect of TV on the great food revolution pioneered by Elizabeth David in Britain and Julia Child in America turned out to be that cookery becomes a spectator sport. We are not quite there yet. Fond memories of Keith Floyd, who died on Monday, tending his tin barbecue on some pebbly shore are a reminder of a period when the balance between entertainment and instruction was a healthier one than it sometimes seems in our era of gladiatorial cook-offs. Edgy, foxy and full of the life force, Floyd made cooking such fun – complete with cock-ups and quick glugs of red – that men, in particular, flocked to the stove in unprecedented numbers. In the United States, Julia Child, celebrated in Nora Ephron's new film, set high standards, gave precise guidance, and also did very good cock-ups, as on the famous occasion where she dropped half a huge potato pancake. After watching such programmes, viewers could be in no doubt that they were supposed to go away and cook something, if not the next day then at least that weekend. Delia's massive impact on the sales of items mentioned in her shows demonstrates a similar effect, while Jamie Oliver spreads enthusiasm as widely as he does the olive oil. Taste test for studio chefs: if they merely amuse, bottom of the class; if they propel you into the kitchen, top marks.
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THE GURDIAN
EDITORIAL
WELFARE REFORM: COSTS AND BENEFITS
If it is a marketing ploy, it is one that has involved an awful lot of work. Iain Duncan Smith – the deposed former Conservative leader once regarded as a figure of the cold-hearted right – today produces a 370-page report about rekindling the hopes of the poor through welfare reform. It increasingly seems as if IDS really does care. The pertinent questions are whether his remedies are the right ones, and whether they stand any chance of being acted on.
"The most radical reforms since Beveridge" are promised, a claim made for every passing bright idea in the world of welfare. In one respect, however, the report strikes a truly bold note – lumping the plethora of existing benefits into just two payments. This would have controversial effects – for instance, cash now paid as of right to the most severely disabled would be subjected to a means test. The two new mega-benefits would be concerned with everything from rent to the mobility of a claimant, so they would not necessarily be simple to claim. The plan for making them so involves asking employers to claw back benefits when earnings rise, in the same way that they now deduct tax. The principle is sound, but would involve firms keeping in continual touch with the benefits office, something they have previously proved deeply reluctant to do.
The rhetoric on rewarding work sounds almost revolutionary, although the underlying substance here shows more continuity than change from the thrust of policy under New Labour. The withdrawal of benefits as earnings rise can create a poverty trap which renders it pointless to work the extra hour. Gordon Brown attempted to solve this problem by slowing the rate at which tax credits are withdrawn. That worked for the poorest, but the corollary was that those on slightly higher pay were caught by the system for the first time – blunting the rewards of working for them. Mr Duncan Smith's proposals extend the same basic approach (albeit with a useful new stress on part-time jobs) and so run into the same dilemma. He promises to create Breakthrough Britain, but this hardly resolves the inescapable tension between the twin objectives of welfare policy – rewarding work and compensating those made poor through lack of earnings.
The biggest quibbles, however, are about how to fund it all. With competitive axe-wielding becoming the preferred sport of the political class, the £3.6bn upfront cost is daunting – particularly since the savings it is claimed will eventually make it self-financing, for instance lower crime, are speculative. Mr Duncan Smith may have proved he has a conscience, but he will struggle to persuade the Tory Treasury team that it is a conscience they must act on.
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THE JAPAN TIMES
EDITORIAL
THE FUTURE OF ROCKET BUSINESS
Japan launched its biggest and newly developed H2B rocket early Friday morning. The rocket placed in orbit Japan's first unmanned space transportation vehicle — the H-2 Transfer Vehicle (HTV) — for transporting supplies to the International Space Station. Around this weekend, the HTV is scheduled to dock with the ISS. Measuring 10 meters long and 4.4 meters in diameter and featuring a wide entrance, the HTV can accommodate larger equipment than space transport vehicles fielded by Russia and Europe. Under an ISS-related agreement, Japan is to launch a total of seven HTV single-use vehicles through 2015, one per year.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd jointly developed the 57-meter-long H2B rocket at a cost of ¥27 billion — far cheaper than the ¥125 billion for the H2A rocket that preceded it. The H2B uses the H2A's engine for its first stage, but has two engines rather than one. The H2B can launch up to 16.5 tons of cargo into a low orbit and up to eight tons of cargo into a high orbit. The H2A's high-orbit payload is 5.8 tons.
Industry experts say that the H2B rocket will increase Japan's competitiveness in the space industry because it can launch two medium-size or small satellites at one time. But they may be too optimistic. Due to its close proximity to fishing grounds, the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture can launch rockets only in summer and winter. The U.S. space agency NASA predicts that in the coming 10 years, an average of 26.7 commercial satellites will be launched yearly. Japan must compete with Russia, Europe, China and India.
Japan's basic space program announced in June 2008 envisages launching 34 satellites in the next five years, more than twice the number of the preceding five years. But a strong possibility exists that H2B rockets will have to rely on launch orders from the public sector. The government should conduct a drastic review of the space program to ensure that funds are used efficiently and that it does not become a wasteful sanctuary like public works projects.
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THE JAPAN TIMES
EDITORIAL
HITTER FOR ALL SEASONS
Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki made history in Texas on Sunday when he became the first Major League player to hit safely 200 times for nine consecutive seasons. Last season, Mr. Suzuki had tied the 108-year-old record held by Hall of Famer Willie Keeler, who had eight straight 200-hit seasons from 1894 through 1901. We congratulate Mr. Suzuki on his great feat and hope that he will continue to excel in his Major League career.
Mr. Suzuki's 200th hit this season came in the second inning of the second game of a doubleheader in Arlington, Texas, against the Texas Rangers. Mr. Suzuki got an RBI infield single after hitting a slow grounder off Mr. Derek Holland to shortstop Mr. Elvis Andrus and ended up going 2-for-9 in both games. As the shortstop could not make a throw, Mr. John Wilson scored from third with two outs.
In each season since 2001, when Mr. Suzuki joined the Major League, only three to eight players have reached 200 hits. The fact that Mr. Suzuki has achieved this for nine straight years testifies to his excellent hitting skills and true professionalism. This is his second record for the Majors. In 2004, he made 262 hits in a season, breaking the 257-hit record set by Mr. George Sisler in 1920. On Sept. 6, Mr. Suzuki reached another milestone in his Major League career with his 2,000th hit.
In the Major League, where home run power is admired, Mr. Suzuki has performed with speed and fine-tuned skills. He takes great care to keep himself in good physical condition. When there is a game, he enters a baseball stadium earlier than anybody else and spends a lot of time carefully stretching. His daily efforts are the basis for his performance. His batting prowess is also characterized by a departure from baseball theory.
This season, Mr. Suzuki missed 16 games due to a bleeding ulcer and a tight left calf. But after returning to the Seattle lineup, the 35-year-old leadoff hitter progressed toward the 200-hit mark as if nothing had happened. His feat will be a great inspiration for Japanese baseball players who feel disadvantaged because of a smaller physique.
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THE JAPAN TIMES
OPED
MOUNTING AFGHAN FOLLIES GIVE U.S. A WAY OUT
BY GWYNNE DYER
Maybe it's the relatively thin air up on those high plateaus that makes them foolish. First, ballot fraud apparently helped Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who would probably have won the second round in the presidential election in Iran anyway, to win in the first round and avoid a runoff. The incredible voting figures declared by the government triggered huge demonstrations in Iran and gravely undermined the regime's legitimacy.
Two months later, in next-door Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai did exactly the same thing. All but one of his opponents would have been eliminated in the first round of voting, so his re-election as president in the second round was assured. He had bribed the northern warlords to deliver large blocks of votes to him, and in the south his Pashtun ethnic roots made him the favored candidate among those who dared to vote.
Yet in order to "win" in the first round of voting and avoid that runoff, Karzai's people indulged in brazen, systematic cheating. His men set up hundreds of fictitious polling stations and registered hundreds of thousands of ballots in his favor. (Some of them weren't even folded, so they could never have been inserted into a real ballot box.)
Karzai's organizers also took over 800 real voting stations and kept local citizens out while they stuffed the ballot boxes with votes for their man. In some provinces, the number of votes for Karzai was 10 times greater than the total number of people who had actually shown up and voted. But the "Independent Election Commission," a body dominated by Karzai loyalists, reported that Karzai got 54 percent of the votes and won in the first round.
Why did he do it? Maybe it was because he knew that the Obama administration wanted him replaced, and feared that the United States would try to manipulate the election in the other direction. At any rate, the damage is done, and Washington is now shackled for the next four years to a corrupt and incompetent "winner" whose contempt for the electoral process and the Afghan people is manifest.
At the moment, there is dismay in the Western capitals that have sent troops to fight in Afghanistan. How can they ask their soldiers to die defending an illegitimate regime whose leading lights are a crooked president, his drug-trading brother, and two vice presidents who are both former warlords with much Afghan blood on their hands? But this shameful election is not just a disaster for Western policy. It's also an opportunity.
U.S. President Barack Obama made a huge mistake in accepting the Washington orthodoxy that the war in Afghanistan is both vital to American interests and winnable. If he doesn't turn around and start looking for a way out, it may destroy his administration in the end (though probably not in his first term). But the hardest thing in politics is to change course: you are punished far more severely for admitting a mistake than for making it in the first place.
What Obama could now say if he wanted, however, is: "This changes everything."
It doesn't, really, because the war in Afghanistan has been unwinnable for years, and it was never a vital American interest. Nor was Karzai's regime honest or competent before this election. But Obama could say that the revelation of the true nature of the regime that the U.S. is supporting has forced him to reconsider the scale of the U.S. military commitment in Afghanistan, and he could then start working his way toward the door.
Suppose he does that, and that in a couple of years he is safely out of the door. The last American and other foreign troops have gone home, leaving Karzai to his fate. What happens then?
This is the tricky bit, because of course we cannot know for sure. But here are some significant facts to consider.
The 9/11 attacks were not planned in Afghanistan. They were planned by al-Qaida operatives in Germany and Florida, and it is very unlikely that the Taliban government of Afghanistan had advance warning of them.
The Taliban and al-Qaida were not "allies," though they held similar views about the right way for Muslims to live. The mainly Arab senior members of al-Qaida were in Afghanistan in 1996-2001 because they had fought alongside the Afghans as foreign volunteers during the war against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. The Taliban leaders felt a debt of honor toward them, and gave them refuge.
The Taliban never ruled all of Afghanistan. They controlled their own Pashtun homeland in the south and east, plus Kabul and some other bits, but the militias of the other ethnic groups always held out in the north.
So why does Western political rhetoric take it for granted that the Taliban would gain control of all of Afghanistan if Western troops left, or that they would then allow al-Qaida to have bases in the country again, or that they have the slightest desire to attack the West?
If Western troops did pull out of Afghanistan, Karzai would try to make a deal with the Taliban, and he might succeed. Even if he failed, few Western interests are at stake in the outcome. This outrageous parody of an election has given Obama the political room he needs to save himself, and he should seize the opportunity.
Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
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THE JAPAN TIMES
OPED
BACK TO EARTH WITH THE DPJ
BY BRAD GLOSSERMAN
The wave of hysteria that greeted the victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in parliamentary elections last month has receded. The win doesn't signal the end of the U.S.-Japan alliance, nor does it necessarily imply a rough patch for bilateral ties. In fact, domestic rather than foreign policies are likely to have the most profound impact on relations with the U.S. But keeping the alliance on an even keel is a second-best solution. Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty: The two countries could use the opportunity to truly modernize their alliance. Sadly, that isn't likely.
As expected, DPJ head Yukio Hatoyama has made reassuring gestures toward the United States since the election, confirming in a phone conversation with President Barack Obama that the U.S.-Japan alliance continues to be the foundation of Japanese diplomacy.
There are plenty of reasons to believe that fears of a DPJ reassessment of Japanese foreign and security policy — and relations with the U.S. — were exaggerated. First, Northeast Asia is a scary place. Japanese anxieties have been rising for over a decade and with good reason: the country is surrounded by hostile or potentially hostile neighbors. In this environment, no government is going to undermine the cornerstone of its security system and its foreign policy for the past half century, especially when the alliance has served it so well.
Second, there will be an Upper House election next year. If the DPJ is to stand any chance of consolidating its grip on power, it needs to make sure voters will have no easy reasons to vote against it. That means taking the security issue off the table, hence the signs of "new realism" in DPJ thinking even before the election, with revisions of the party platform that soften objections to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and the base realignment plan. Third, what is the alternative? Improved relations with Asia is the mantra; striking a better balance between East and West the goal. That is laudable, but how can Tokyo improve relations with Beijing?
That key relationship has been on the upswing since Koizumi left office and his successors have stayed away from Yasukuni Shrine to avoid offending Chinese (and Korean) sensitivities.
But the real obstacles to improved Japan-China relations defy any change in government and many require changes not in Tokyo, but in China. The issues include territorial disputes, PLA modernization, a lack of respect for Japan, history, product safety, and crime. They speak to a profound unease in Japan about China's rise, a sense that Japan doesn't get the credit it deserves, and difficulties in Japan and China in dealing with other Asian nations as equals. Also, the DPJ's desire to forge a more equal partnership with the U.S. is nothing new; it's been shared by almost every previous Japanese government. Realizing that ambition has been blocked by the imbalance in the two countries' defense capabilities and the asymmetry in the very structure of their relationship, a lack of creativity on Tokyo's part when it comes to ideas that could "rebalance" the partnership, and a lack of will to spend political capital on alliance issues.
That last point is particularly important. The DPJ is being pilloried for questioning the Futenma relocation project. But why should the party spend its political capital to deliver on promises the LDP never pushed when it was in power?
The real issue in this election, the one with the most implications for Japan's future and its relations with the U.S., is economic policy. In important ways, this election signals Japan's return to its historical social consensus. The DPJ manifesto and Hatoyama's now infamous New York Times opinion piece that appeared before the ballot reflect traditional Japanese approaches to foreign and domestic policy.
Japan is re-embracing its traditional social compact. Hatoyama's Times comment has repeated references to "non-economic values" and an emphasis on fairness, social welfare, and the failure of "U.S.-led globalization." This is a rejection of the reform agenda that was pushed by the Koizumi administration. That choice is certainly Japan's to make — and one that a majority of Japanese would endorse; at least the election suggests as much — but it has profound implications for Japan and its alliance partner.
The preference for equality over efficiency signals a turn away from market forces in Japan's economy and will result in even slower growth. Add a mountain of debt — at 170 percent of GDP, already the biggest among developed nations, and sure to expand with the DPJ's election promises — a bleak demographic profile, and an inward-looking trade agenda, and Japan looks set to marginalize itself within Asia, those regional ambitions notwithstanding.
Trade issues deserve more attention, especially if the new government wants to raise its Asian profile. If current DPJ policies or promises are realized, the prospect of subsidies to farmers in a (misguided) attempt to increase food self-sufficiency will aggravate trading partners. Promises to exclude agriculture threaten to derail negotiations with Australia; the decision to exclude rice from an FTA with the U.S. dooms prospects for that deal. Japan's readiness to increase protection for its farmers may win votes, but it makes bilateral and regional deals tougher, and makes a mockery of the Doha round's call to focus on the needs of developing countries. Japan is not creating "gold standard" trade agreements, nor will it be broadening relations with Asian partners. It certainly won't be able to match China's aggressive trade diplomacy.
Japan faces unprecedented challenges as the world experiences a profound transformation. This is unsettling, but it is also an opportunity. Japan should seize the moment, but it must work within the constraints of the Japanese social compact rather than try to expand or break it. It should maintain the alliance as the cornerstone of its security and diplomatic policy, while refocusing that partnership.
But the long-standing alliance bargain needs to be reassessed. Quid pro quos are out. For its part, Washington needs to forget about pushing Tokyo to put "boots on the ground" or "to show the flag." That inserts the U.S. into a bitter domestic debate that ultimately politicizes the alliance.
Rather, both countries should think in terms of public goods that serve regional and larger interests. But the real burden rests on Tokyo's shoulders. As Japan's geographic and demographic horizons shrink, it should broaden its security outlook. Let Japan take the lead on a range of initiatives that better suit its needs, its assets and its mind set. That could mean the provision of human capital through the region to institutionalize good governance or sustainable development, or invigorated diplomacy on economic issues.
The alliance must diversify and focus less on military issues and more on security broadly defined, whether this is fighting disease, protecting critical infrastructure, stemming the spread of weapons of mass destruction, creating energy security, or trade security. An aggressive and creative agenda, one that Japan helps define and shape, can better balance the two countries' contributions to a real partnership. And if Japan can put something of equal or greater value on the table, then the capability that Futenma represents should be up for consideration as well.
Asia policy is a vital component of this effort. Rebalancing relations between East and West makes sense, especially if the bilateral security alliance provides the fulcrum. Japan needs to be more deeply embedded in Asia as its demographic woes weaken its economy and the region becomes more integrated. That process should begin now, to maximize Tokyo's dwindling strength, leverage, and influence. Washington has to trust Tokyo to look out for U.S. interests as Asia "emerges"; that is another contribution Japan can make to the partnership.
Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the alliance. As both countries prepare to commemorate a half-century of partnership, they should be aggressive and creative about developing an alliance that best suits their needs, their capabilities, and their responsibilities. That would be a real reason to get excited about a new government in Japan; we aren't there yet.
Brad Glosserman is executive director of the Pacific Forum CSIS and contributing editor for The Japan Times. The article originally appeared in PacNet Newsletter.
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THE JAKARTA POST
EDITORIAL
A STONE TO THROW
Who wants to visit Aceh – for pleasure, not mere curiosity? While visitors describe Aceh’s towns and villages as friendly, what kind of place would pass a law on stoning people to death, if proven guilty of adultery?
Alas, a place like several others in Indonesia, where vote-hungry politicians have been allowed to carry out crazy notions on the pretext of establishing local “identities”. Tuesday can be listed as the saddest day in the nation’s post-Soeharto era, when finally we proved at the extreme level that we can be as senseless as others in trying to shape better states and communities – either through manipulation or ignorance.
Some would be quick to distance themselves – Aceh is different, it gained special privileges as the result of a peace deal to end the war against separatists. But it is similar in regard to being part of a nation whose leaders have shamelessly failed to draw the line on what laws and regulations can be issued at the local level.
The result has been “sharia”-inspired legal instruments across several provinces, issued without enough consultation on how such rules stand alongside our national ideology and Constitution, not to mention the international conventions that we are bound to. One is the UN Convention on Human Rights, which politicians have thrown out the window as a useless “Western” legacy, it seems, while our President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, PhD, has never lifted a finger against attempts to legalize “religious and cultural values” as local rulers see fit.
As our first president to enjoy direct votes from millions, SBY has yet to grasp the significance of that direct statement of trust from the majority of citizens. If he did, he would dig into our history and into the views of many of our intellectuals and plain ordinary people, to find that our communities can shape local identities in more civil ways than arresting women loitering in the dark, let alone execute barbaric modes of justice.
SBY’s party, mind you, does not condone death by stoning: Aceh’s Democrats just nodded to stoning between four to 100 times, not between 40 to 200 times as required in the new ordinance, with little regard for defendants being killed long before the 20th strike.
SBY should take a cue from the Aceh administration: Vice governor Muhammad Nazar asserted that the government would not carry out the law. “In Islam, the law must protect its citizens’ human rights,” he said.
The protests greeting several qanun, or laws, including the most extreme passed on Tuesday, suggest that such laws are not everyone’s idea of building life anew, after decades of war and a devastating natural tragedy.
While some argue that such punishment has a history in Arab-Islamic theology, there is little to actually support stoning for this matter in the Koran. Muslims should not become apologists for questionable Arab traditions which defy logic.
Likewise, the local rules regulating morality in other places do not mean Indonesians in general embrace them as part of our renewed lives after the New Order. A clear sign was the failure of Islamic parties to gain more votes in the election this year. Our leaders just need to read those signs, in Aceh and elsewhere.
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THE KOREA HERALD
EDITORIAL
MEASURE OF INTEGRITY
In National Assembly confirmation hearings on nominees for high government offices, records of resident registration by the candidates or their family members have been closely scrutinized as an important measure of their qualification. Some with one or two instances of false registration barely passed the inquisition session after profuse apologies but others with too many such "misdeeds" had to give up the appointment in humiliation.
The hearings at committees are aimed to assess whether the nominees are qualified to perform their duties with high moral integrity and professional capabilities required of the public offices offered to them. Lawmakers at the hearings and the people watching these sessions generally tend to pay more attention to the appointees' possible blemishes in private life than their competence in public service. So the media and the oppositionists check their residence registrations - and all past research treatises when the nominees are from academia.
As in the case of President Lee Myung-bak, false registration is often made to enable children to enter certain preferred schools in different districts. Also common is the practice of moving one's residence registration to certain locales to officially qualify to buy an apartment or a plot of land. It is against the Law on Residence Registration but too many people have done it with little or no sense of guilt. When his violation of the law was exposed during the 2007 campaign, Lee made public apologies.
Acquisition of real estate has been one sure way of increasing assets and sending children to supposedly better schools is opening a better future for them. Members of this advancement-oriented society have been in a sort of broad collusion to connive at each other's falsities which are so common and so easy to commit. One just has to produce the "confirmation" by the area representative of his/her old address to be registered in a new address. "Dong" officials would never check if the newly registered actually live in that address. To buy land in the countryside, the process is a little more complicated but is not too difficult.
It may be an indication of the nation's enhanced moral standards that public censure has become harsher in recent years on false residence registration which is identified with an attempt at real estate speculation. Nominees for Cabinet posts and even for prime minister had to bow out upon exposure of their past false registrations to own multiple apartments. In the series of confirmation hearings this week, the nominees for prime minister and some other cabinet portfolios will be grilled about their residence registrations with the same intensity as about their tax records.
Plagiarism is a major criterion to appraise candidates from universities. Cases of taking a few lines from others' research papers without proper reference have caused serious embarrassment and even the withdrawal of appointment. Prime Minister- nominee Chung Un-chan is said to have quoted from his own previous paper without attribution, regarded as a violation of the established academic protocol.
Some sarcastically called for a "general amnesty" of false residence registrations in the past to emphasize the pervasiveness of the illegal practice, for which the law provides up to three years' imprisonment and a maximum fine of 10 million won. As is with everything in our imperfect society, there is a certain degree of impropriety that could expect public tolerance. Acts that failed to pass that measure of integrity should be strictly dealt with in the confirmation hearings while people watching them are reminding themselves how they should henceforth abide by the law.
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THE KOREA HERALD
EDITORIAL
PRESIDENT'S POPULARITY
President Lee Myung-bak and Cheong Wa Dae aides are visibly buoyant with the result of a latest opinion survey by a major pollster which showed that the president's approval rate exceeded the 50 percent mark. The 53.8 percent figure obtained by Han Gil Research with a survey on 800 adults from across the country meant that the president's popularity has returned to the level about the time of his inauguration in February 2008.
There are complex factors that pushed the supporting rate up that had once plummeted to as low as 20 percent. Signs of clear recovery from the year-long global economic crisis must be the biggest contributor as people watched the self-professed "economic president" spur his administration to help businesses overcome the current adversity. By occupation, the rate was highest (59 percent) among self-employed businesspeople.
The president's recent pronouncements of his caring of the grassroots' lives and his emphasis on social integration should have earned some points from people who felt tired of the trend of ideological polarization. No doubt, the president's frequent visits to marketplaces and small factories where he mingled with working people, recounting his difficult life as a struggling poor young man, fairly effectively shed the early image as the leader of a government for the rich.
The general decline of the progressive elements, including the militant Minju Nochong union and the Jeongyojo teachers' association, whose power had peaked during last year's candlelight vigil in protest against the U.S. beef import, has apparently boosted the stature of the head of the conservative government.
President Lee is right when he tells his aides that the single-term president should not care about the fluctuating approval rate. But if the rising figures give him greater confidence in his service, it is good for the government and the nation. We would only like to advise him that he needs to divide his precious time equally between checking the people's life today and designing the future of Korea, expecting a fair judgment at the time of his exit
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THE KOREA HERALD
EDITORIAL
BUBBLES AND REINVENTING ECONOMICS
ROBERT J. SHILLER
NEW HAVEN - The widespread failure of economists to forecast the financial crisis that erupted in 2008 has much to do with faulty models. This lack of sound models meant that economic policymakers and central bankers received no warning of what was to come.
As George Akerlof and I argue in our recent book "Animal Spirits," the current financial crisis was driven by speculative bubbles in the housing market, the stock market, and energy and other commodities markets. Bubbles are caused by feedback loops: rising speculative prices encourage optimism, which encourages more buying, and hence further speculative price increases - until the crash comes.
But you won't find the word "bubble" in most economics treatises or textbooks. Likewise, a search of working papers produced by central banks and economics departments in recent years yields few instances of "bubbles" even being mentioned. Indeed, the idea that bubbles exist has become so disreputable in much of the economics and finance profession that bringing them up in an economics seminar is like bringing up astrology to a group of astronomers.
The fundamental problem is that a generation of mainstream macroeconomic theorists has come to accept a theory that has an error at its very core: the axiom that people are fully rational. And as the statistician Leonard "Jimmie" Savage showed in 1954, if people follow certain axioms of rationality, they must behave as if they knew all the probabilities and did all the appropriate calculations.
So economists assume that people do indeed use all publicly available information and know, or behave as if they knew, the probabilities of all conceivable future events. They are not influenced by anything but the facts, and probabilities are taken as facts. They update these probabilities as soon as new information becomes available, and so any change in their behavior must be attributable to their rational response to genuinely new information. And if economic actors are always rational, then no bubbles - irrational market responses - are allowed.
But abundant psychological evidence has now shown that people do not satisfy Savage's axioms of rationality. This is the core element of the behavioral economics revolution that has begun to sweep economics over the last decade or so.
In fact, people almost never know the probabilities of future economic events. They live in a world where economic decisions are fundamentally ambiguous, because the future doesn't seem to be a mere repetition of a quantifiable past. For many people, it always seems that "this time is different."
The work of Duke neuroscientists Scott Huettel and Michael Platt has shown, through functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments, that "decision making under ambiguity does not represent a special, more complex case of risky decision making; instead, these two forms of uncertainty are supported by distinct mechanisms." In other words, different parts of the brain and emotional pathways are involved when ambiguity is present.
Mathematical economist Donald J. Brown and psychologist Laurie R. Santos, both of Yale, are running experiments with human subjects to try to understand how human tolerance for ambiguity in economic decision-making varies over time. They theorize that "bull markets are characterized by ambiguity-seeking behavior and bear markets by ambiguity-avoiding behavior." These behaviors are aspects of changing confidence, which we are only just beginning to understand.
To be sure, the purely rational theory remains useful for many things. It can be applied with care in areas where the consequences of violating Savage's axiom are not too severe. Economists have also been right to apply his theory to a range of microeconomic issues, such as why monopolists set higher prices.
But the theory has been overextended. For example, the "Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area," developed by Frank Smets of the European Central Bank and Raf Wouters of the National Bank of Belgium, is very good at giving a precise list of external shocks that are presumed to drive the economy. But nowhere are bubbles modeled: the economy is assumed to do nothing more than respond in a completely rational way to these external shocks.
Milton Friedman (Savage's mentor and co-author) and Anna J. Schwartz, in their 1963 book "A Monetary History of the United States," showed that monetary-policy anomalies - a prime example of an external shock - were a significant
Continued on factor in the Great Depression of the 1930s. Economists such as Barry Eichengreen, Jeffrey Sachs, and Ben Bernanke have helped us to understand that these anomalies were the result of individual central banks' effort to stay on the gold standard, causing them to keep interest rates relatively high despite economic weakness.
To some, this revelation represented a culminating event for economic theory. The worst economic crisis of the 20th century was explained - and a way to correct it suggested - with a theory that does not rely on bubbles.
Yet events like the Great Depression, as well as the recent crisis, will never be fully understood without understanding bubbles. The fact that monetary-policy mistakes were an important cause of the Great Depression does not mean that we completely understand that crisis, or that other crises (including the current one) fit that mold.
In fact, the failure of economists' models to forecast the current crisis will mark the beginning of their overhaul. This will happen as economists' redirect their research efforts by listening to scientists with different expertise. Only then will monetary authorities gain a better understanding of when and how bubbles can derail an economy, and what can be done to prevent that outcome.
Robert Shiller, a professor of economics at Yale University and chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC, is co-author, with George Akerlof, of "Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism." - Ed.
(Project Syndicate)
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THE KOREA HERALD
EDITORIAL
WHAT WE LEARN FROM THE GATES CASE
KIM SEONG-KON
The news that Henry Louis Gates, Harvard's most renowned scholar of African-American and postcolonial studies, was arrested at his home in July shocked scholars all over the world. Gates returned home from a trip to China to find his front door jammed. As he and his African-American cab driver tried to force the door open, a white female neighbor called the Cambridge police to report a possible break-in.
Gates had already been inside when Sergeant James Crowley responded to the call and arrived at his door. The sergeant asked Gates to step outside, but the latter was upset and initially refused to do so. Gates demanded the sergeant's name and badge number instead, and tried to call the police chief to file a grievance. Then the professor reportedly yelled: "This is what happens to black men in America! You don't know who you are messing with!" As spectators gathered, Gates was arrested by Crowley for "disorderly conduct."
As we lack direct knowledge of what happened that day, and since Gates and Crowley have differing accounts, it is difficult to make a moral judgment on the incident. Nevertheless, we can imagine what may have happened during the incident. Perhaps the proud Harvard professor took the incident as an unabashed affront not only to his dignity, but also to his race. On the other hand, Crowley did not have the slightest idea who he was "messing with" and arrested the celebrity at his home. The African-American community immediately condemned the police, saying that the arrest was "every black man's nightmare." But there are others who believe that the police did the right thing by swiftly responding to a citizen's call and attempting to confirm the identity of the man in suspicion.
Although people may have forgotten the incident already, the Gates case still remains a lesson that teaches us not to overreact when you are entangled with sensitive racial issues. It would have been better indeed if both the police officer and the professor had been calm and cool, and tried to solve the problem rationally.
The Gates incident also provides some intriguing comparisons between Korean and American society. First of all, it is quite astonishing that a Harvard professor was arrested and handcuffed in his own home by Cambridge Police after he had shown his faculty ID. I believe Gwanak-gu police officers would probably show some respect to a Seoul National University professor in the same situation after confirming his identification. Unlike their counterparts in Korea, American professors unfortunately do not seem to be esteemed much once they are off campus. Another difference is the handcuffing; if you are arrested in the United States, you will be handcuffed right away and taken to the police station. In Korea, however, you will not be handcuffed unless you are a criminal caught on spot.
A further interesting point worth noting is that Gates' lawyer emphasized that the professor never touched Crowley, but only expressed his frustration. This qualification shows that in the United States, unlike in Korea, if you intentionally hit or touch a police officer, you can be arrested. If you make a fuss in public, you can be arrested as well for disorderly conduct. In Korea, however, people are seldom arrested for such "minor" offenses. That is why Americans are amazed when they see Korean demonstrators exhibit loud and tumultuous conduct or assault police officers with bamboo or steel bars and get away with it.
President Barack Obama's swift apology about his remarks on the Gates incident also highly contrasts with the behavior of our presidents. When asked by the press about Gates' arrest, Obama gave an impromptu reply that he did not know all the facts, but that it would be fair to say the Cambridge police "acted stupidly." A multiracial group of Cambridge police officers requested a press conference and denied that racial bias played any role in the arrest of Gates. They defended Crowley and demanded an apology from Obama. To everyone's surprise, Obama walked into the White House briefing room and wisely retracted some of his statements. Although Obama did not call his statement an apology, many people applauded him for his honesty and generosity. It is regrettable that many of our presidents often tried to hide in their office and kept silence when asked to apologize.
The Gates case is deplorable as it reminded us that racial issues still remain a chronic problem that plagues American society despite the fact that Americans have recently elected an African American as their president. After his initial slip-up, Obama was very courteous and smooth in dealing with the Gates case, even inviting Gates and Crowley to have beer with him at the White House. Perhaps everybody should calm down and listen to the charming American president's advice: "My suspicion is probably that it would have been better if cooler heads had prevailed."
Kim Seong-kon is a professor of English at Seoul National University and director of the Seoul National University Press. - Ed.
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CHINA DAILY
EDITORIAL
CHANCE FOR CHANGE
The first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers does not mark the end of the worst global financial crisis since 1930s. Any complacency over recent signs that the world economy is stabilizing will only mislead policymakers about the dire need to reshape the global financial and economic architecture.
Two summits of the G20, the group of big, rich and emerging economies, had been held in Washington and London in the past 12 months to boost the joint efforts for combating the global recession.
Increasing "green shoots" of economic recovery bear full testimony to the necessity and effectiveness of such global policy coordination. Not only are big developing economies like China and India registering strong growth but major developed economies have also stopped contracting and are set to stage a rebound in the third quarter.
However, given the lack of fundamental changes to address the global imbalance and overhaul the international financial system, it is far from a sure bet to claim that the world economy will step out of the current crisis any time soon.
Global leaders who will gather in Pittsburgh next week for the third G20 summit should not miss the window for change that unfortunately seems to be closing right now.
If the world is to prevent what happened a year ago from happening again, global leaders must act quickly to put in place a better financial regulation framework that can closely monitor systemic risks in the first place, and rapidly arrest the spread of a financial crisis when it occurs.
Criticism that Wall Street banks have so far restructured only around the edges demand attention from global leaders who are responsible for delivering needed changes.
The US government's recent decision to impose protectionist tariffs on China-made tires is another cause of particular apprehension. It certainly will raise serious doubts about the world's largest economy's commitment to free trade. Worse, heightened economic tensions between the two large economies will worsen the difficulties for fixing the global imbalance by encouraging domestic changes in all countries.
It is widely recognized that export-led Asian economies like China have to reduce their reliance on export for growth while rich countries like the United States need to cut current account and budget deficits. But trade protectionism will only poison the global trading environment to trigger trade wars and put off domestic restructuring.
One of the key lessons that policymakers should learn from the demise of Lehman Brothers a year ago is that the global financial and economic order is in need of fundamental change. After the initial panic and fire-fighting, it is time to deal with the root causes.
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CHINA DAILY
EDITORIAL
BRING IT ONLINE
The Internet is loved and hated for the same reason - it is so impossible to regulate that anybody and everybody can upload something to be heard.
For those accustomed to speak to attentive and respectful audiences, in particular, the cyberspace represents something not only unfathomable, but also to some extent insecure.
For one, many have learnt from recent experiences how undesirable messages about people in positions of power can snowball with the help of the Internet. Online messages have proved a damaging catalyst in almost each of the recent "mass incidents." The outcome is the pervasive tendency of public officials to stay away from the virtual communities.
Yet a latest China Youth Daily survey reveals something quite contradictory. A little more than 80 per cent of those polled online replied that they would like to see local authorities in their places follow the example of the city of Guiyang, capital of the southwestern Guizhou province and appoint online spokespersons.
Starting Sept 1, Guiyang has designated a number of government employees to take questions from netizens, and participate in online discussions about issues of popular concern. The city was the first in the country to appoint spokespersons to work in the virtual space.
In spite of dissenting voices about the practical effects of this initiative - some ridiculed it as a public relations ploy - the China Youth Daily survey shows it meets a real demand.
That the respondents embraced the Guiyang initiative and wanted to see the same in their own places indicates there are people who take it seriously. Which is good news for the authorities. People - those they are least prepared to deal with in particular - are in the mood for communicating. This is a valuable clue we hope all those with prejudices against the Internet and netizens would take note of.
Many in public offices cherish unfavorable opinion about the Internet and netizens because of biased stereotypes. It is clear that there is nothing to fear should it be seen for what it is. It is but another channel of interpersonal communication. Except that its open and non-discriminatory nature grants everybody equal say in cyberspace.
Since online communities have become popular platforms for the average citizen to air concerns and share information, and many officials are preoccupied with enhancing their public images more than ever before, there is no reason to stay away. While adding to the difficulties of those who prefer some control, the Internet has opened up new and convenient channels to communicate with the ordinary people.
Whether or not the survey findings make a difference in the real world, we would like to take them as an invitation for communicating, which is important at a time when a small slip can cause disproportionate damage.
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CHINA DAILY
EDITORIAL
AN ECONOMIST RISES TO THE GREEN CHALLENGE
When a great idea emerges, it may come with a bang - especially when a man who some regard as a conservative economist takes a radical environmental line.
Hu Angang, one of China's leading policy advisers, has long been seen by critics as being too ready to speak for the central government. Perhaps his association with an elite research group on "state of the nation" (or guoqing) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has a lot to do with that. Hu joined the research team in 1985 before Tsinghua University co-sponsored the program in 2000. That group has prepared about 500 policy research papers.
But these days, he is leading a one-man campaign for such an ambitious plan that even his most ardent critics will admire him for his boldness. In fact, it is the most radical proposal from a member of a Beijing think tank. And Hu knows exactly what he is saying.
"Mine is going to be the most radical program," says the 56-year-old scientist turned researcher in public and environment policies in an interview with China Daily. "This is what I wanted I want to represent the most radical climate line in China."
Most people calculate, but not Hu. This is not the time to play with figures, he says. Nor is it a time for only diplomacy with no country taking the lead in sacrificing some of its immediate interest for a good cause. "It is just like China's reform and opening up." When an old development model stops working, the main task is to change it.
"You don't just do your own calculation. You don't just look at other people. Deng Xiaoping never did that," Hu says, referring to the man who began the reform and opening-up process in the late 1970s. "He (Deng) set the goal. He made people work to achieve it, irrespective of what other countries were doing."
That is what, he says, "wisdom and courage" are all about - qualities the present generation of leaders must demonstrate to make the country a leading player in the fight against global warming. If China wants to take the path to a green economy, it should set the peak of its greenhouse gas (GHG) emission at 2020, he says, in contrast to most other experts, who target 2030, 2035, or even 2050.
What 2030 should see, instead, is the falling of China's GHG emission to its 1990 level, Hu says, adding that the fall in GHG emission, or the pace of progress toward a green economy should be so drastic that by 2050 China's emission should be down by another 50 percent.
These targets, he admits, may earn him the wrath of some of his colleagues and may never be wholly accepted by the government.
Hu did his post-doctoral research in economics at Yale University after earning his PhD from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1985. That research resulted in his first book and brought him global recognition. Co-authored by Wang Shaoguang, the book, State Capacity of China, was translated into English and published by Oxford University Press in 1994. It deals primarily with the relationship between the central and regional governments during economic reform.
Hu has been engaged in research and development ever since, using his interdisciplinary approach. Of late, his publications and speeches show his key areas of interest are the discrepancy between China's developed and underdeveloped regions, and the environment and natural resources.
For the last couple of years, Hu has been saying that China neither has to nor should follow the path of the developed countries. It has to take the road to an eco-friendly economy by providing incentives to green consumers and green services.
Setting a goal is most important, he says, because only after that can we draw a road map and choose technical solutions. Less than three months are left for the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, but China has not yet announced its position on how fast it will reduce its carbon footprint. Varying proposals are in circulation on how to balance the country's national interest and the fight against climate change.
The Kyoto Protocol, the global treaty on mitigating climate change, came into being in 1997 and expires in 2012. It does not require developing countries, including China, to reduce their GHG emission to a certain level. It imposes a mandatory cut on developed countries, though, many of them have either refused to ratify it (such as the US) or have failed to meet the reduction levels.
Despite that, China has been trying to cut its emission levels. For the past few years, it has set its own goals for energy efficiency and pollution control, though it falls short of a comprehensive plan.
World leaders will meet in New York (at the UN General Assembly) and Pittsburgh (for the second G20 summit this year) later this month to hopefully narrow their differences on climate change. But as an expert both in economics and the environment, Hu doubts whether the countries will achieve a breakthrough in climate change talks any time soon.
"What we have," he says, "is a community of more than 6 billion people from over 200 economies, and they are divided into two large competing camps, the developed and the developing countries."
The developing countries insist that the Kyoto Protocol has already put the onus of climate change on Annex I, or developed, countries, and describes developing nations primarily as victims of the problem. But the developed world wants to introduce concepts that go beyond the scope of the protocol and earlier international treaties by trying to impose mandatory GHG emission cuts on major developing economies such as China, India, Brazil, Russia and South Africa. This could lead to a stalemate at the Pittsburgh talks, and consequently the Copenhagen conference.
"This kind of bargaining, I'm afraid, will not help realize a fruitful deal in Copenhagen," Hu says. The truth is that global warming is a problem of the developed and the developing countries both.
After 30 years of rapid economic development, China is no longer a typical developing country. But that rapid pace of development has also made China (along with the US) the largest GHG emitter in the world. "And this is exactly where my interests as an internationalist meet my aspiration as a patriot," he says.
While appealing to the public, Hu is also trying to get some of his ideas into the country's next Five-Year Plan. There are five areas, he says, that the country should concentrate on before 2020. It should:
Continue to lower its energy intensity (measured in terms of the use of coal for every 10,000 yuan of GDP) by 20 percent every 5 years;
Continue to reduce pollution and cut the discharge of major pollutants by 10 percent every 5 years;
Conduct intensive research in green technologies and make them the economy's core competitive elements;
Increase the use of clean energy to 20 percent of the total and make the country a leading global market for alternative energy technologies and know-how; and
Make the country the world's largest afforested place by planting more trees.
None of these, he says, is just a tactic for dealing with the mounting external pressure. Green industries and green technologies are tools for China to create new opportunities.
"Our commitment must be serious," Hu says. "That should be the way for China to grow into a future world leader it should replace the bad examples of the developed countries with new workable examples for sustainable economic growth."
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CHINA DAILY
EDITORIAL
BROTHERS-IN-ARMS, BYTE BY BYTE OR BITE BY BITE
Pre-1962 were the heady years of Hindi-Chini bhai bhai (India and China are brothers). Post-1962 marked the frosty years of what the Indians tongue-in-cheek call Hindi-Chini bye-bye! But as Indians greedily grab a chance for a peek "behind the bamboo curtain" and Chinese become increasingly curious for the view "under the veil", the slogan for the times and for the two nations (both in their 60s) could well become Hindi-Chini byte by byte (Dalian to Bangalore) or Hindi-Chini bite by bite (Tandoori chicken to mapo tofu).
An estimated 25,000 Indians live and work in China and yet whenever I tell people back home I work in China, I am met with a shrug of the shoulders and roll of the eyes. The unsaid part being, "why would anyone want to work there".
I don't blame them.
When I informed my folks, five years ago, my mom blurted out: "If you had to go to China, you might as well have stayed back home." After all, my argument for leaving the shores of India 20 years ago was that I wanted opportunities for me and my family that I did not see back then. I wanted to move West. My folks understood that; they just couldn't understand why instead of moving further West, I would make a U-turn.
My mother was also worried about food. "You know how it is there," she said in a hushed tone. "How will you survive as a vegetarian." I had no answer to that then but found plenty as soon as I landed here. I realized I had succumbed to the same generalizations and prejudices that I resented in people when they talked about India. I was shamed into silence.
And so were my parents, when they visited two years ago. They, of course, marveled at this gleaming metropolis, but also felt humbled by the grace and politeness extended to them by ordinary people they met on the streets.
They were astonished that my Shandong-province ayi, who speaks not a word of English, had mastered all the intricacies of South Indian vegetarian cooking. They were open-jawed at how she cycled an hour in the biting winter of Beijing to arrive at my house every day at 7:30 am on the dot, wearing a big smile, a courteous nihao and cheerfully took over their care and comfort even when I was not at home. Nothing, my mom observed, seemed to faze her - not even ironing 6 meters of a rectangular shaped cloth, called sari, which my mom drapes around her everyday.
They went sight-seeing in Beijing helped by an understanding driver who helped dad get around with his walking stick, taking care to keep an umbrella on hand in case of rain, making sure there was always bottled water in the car, buying them fruits and encouraging them to drink jasmine tea to keep their throats from getting dry. A native Beijinger, he was proud to show his city to the elderly folk? He was not Chinese, they were not Indian and there was no 1962. And he did it with an empathy that only humans are capable of.
After a month's stay my parents returned home. A few days later I got a package from one of my friends who had visited their city. In it lay a red fur coat - my mom's prized possession given to her decades ago by her late Geneva-based UN-expert father. With a simple note, "Give this to your ayi."
Ever since I moved to China, I have had a steady stream of visitors from home and each and every one has been touched in some way or other by their stay here.
Any nation at 60 will have plenty to be proud about. But if China were to pick just one year to write home about it would have to be 2008. As it was hit by one crisis after another - from the unprecedented snowstorms in South and East China and the disturbances surrounding the Olympic torch relay to the devastating earthquake in Sichuan province. I marveled at how a resolute people grit their teeth and overcame every odd to unleash the magic that was 08-08-2008 on the world. Hats off!
India and China are neighbors, close neighbors. And as anyone living even in the safest of neighborhoods knows that when dusk approaches, you must lock the doors. But that does not stop anyone from opening those doors in the light of day, leaning across the fence, and extending a warm nihao or namaste! Take your pick!
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