EDITORIAL 06.10.09

October 06, 2009                                     http://editorialsamarth.blogspot.com

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Editorial

month october 06, edition 000316, collected & managed by durgesh kumar mishra, published by – manish manjul

 

Editorial is syndication of all daily- published newspaper's Editorial at one place.

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THE PIONEER

1. AFTER RIO LET IT BE DELHI
2. TAINTED INTELLECTUALS
3. PM HAS BAILED OUT MR Q - A SURYA PRAKASH
4. POLITICIANS SHOULD STICK TO THEIR JOB - RUDRONEEL GHOSH
5. STAND UP TO CHINA - B RAMAN
6. FEELING THE HEAT -  GWYNNE DYER
7. FOCUS ON LOCALISED POLICIES - SHIVAJI SARKAR
8. WINNING THE COUNTER-INSURGENCY ENDGAME - SUSHANT K SINGH & NITIN PAI

MAIL TODAY

1. SOCIALISTIC SOLUTIONS ARE NOT AN OPTION
2. NATIONAL SHAME
3. TOO MANY HOLIDAYS
4. DIFFERENT STROKES
5. INDIA NEEDS TO ENSURE THAT THE NEW AMERICAN ZEAL FOR THE NPT DOES NOT AFFECT OUR CIVIL NUCLEAR COOPERATION - BY KANWAL SIBAL
6. MASSACRE A DAUNTING CHALLENGE FOR NITISH
7. SMALL TIME ACTORS GET STAR STATUS HERE

TIMES OF INDIA

1. CASTE QUAGMIRE
2. FOOT IN THE DOOR
3. FROM RIO, WITH HOPE - BORIA MAJUMDAR
4. SPARE US THE MORALIZING
5. AUSTERITY NEED ALL ROUND - TARA GUPTA
6. MARRY AT LEISURE - G K GUPTA

HINDUSTAN TIMES

1. MANIPUR, STILL A PART OF INDIA
2. IT'S PRIVATE BUSINESS
3. LOST IN STATISTICS - RK PACHAURI

INDIAN EXPRESS

1. THREE PICTURES
2. ALTITUDE SICKNESS
3. PAY-DAY POLITICS
4. MORE THAN NUMBERS - JAITHIRTH RAO
5. PEELING THE ONION - COOMI KAPOOR
6. TECHNOLOGY IS THE EASY PART - VIKRAM S MEHTA
7. HOW THE PICTURES GOT SMALLER - SHAILAJA BAJPAI
8. CITIES OF DIFFERENCE - SAUMITRA JHA

FINANCIAL EXPRESS

1. INDIA'S HDI EMBARRASSMENT
2. OLYMPICS ARE GOING TO RIO
3. US CAPITAL MEETS IDEAS FROM INDIA - SHUBHASHIS GANGOPADHYAY
4. SHOW SOME ENERGY FOR GREEN ENERGY - VIKRAM S MEHTA
5. NO TRUST IN THIS PORT - INDRONIL ROYCHOWDHURY

THE HINDU

1. COPING WITH NATURAL DISASTERS
2. LAND GRAB IN GOD'S NAME
3. A GREAT SCIENTIST AND HUMANIST - M. S. SWAMINATHAN
4. AFGHANISTAN: OBAMA FACES 'KENNEDY MOMENT' - SIMON TISDALL

THE ASIAN AGE

1. FLOODS IN SOUTH A NATIONAL CALAMITY
2. MIGRATION'S GENDER ANGLE - BY JAYATI GHOSH
3. TALK TO GOD-KOTI
4. US WAR IN AFGHAN VITAL FOR INDIA TOO - BY SHANKAR ROYCHOWDHURY

THE TRIBUNE

1. COST OF A HONCHO
2. FLOODS IN AP, KARNATAKA
3. SIGNALS FROM SILIGURI
4. LEADERSHIP VACUUM HITS BJP
5. SEARCH ON FOR RAJNATH'S REPLACEMENT - BY S. NIHAL SINGH
6. A FOR ANGLE, B FOR BANGLE, C FOR CANDLE…. - BY ASHIMA BATH
7. COPENHAGEN MAY SIGNAL A FRESH START FOR CLIMATE TALKS - BY JULIET EILPERIN
8. RAJASTHAN'S DYING FOLK MUSIC FINDS A VOICE - BY MADHUSREE CHATTERJEE
9. ON GANDHI, CPI BACKS UPA

THE ASSAM TRIBUNE

1. COMBATING MAOISTS
2. ASSAMESE CINEMA
3. MEDIA HYPE OVER CHINESE INCURSIONS - PRAFUL BIDWAI
4. PROSPECTS OF PILGRIM TOURISM IN INDIA - SUDHANSU R DAS

THE ECONOMIC TIMES

1. THROUGH THE THIRD EYE
2. LOUVRE SUCCUMBS TO MCLURE
3. MIGRATING TO PROSPERITY
4. THE PORTRAYAL OF A MISGUIDED NOTION - MUKUL SHARMA
5. WE NEED TO BE MORE CAREFUL IN FUTURE
6. INDIA'S INTERESTS GO FAR BEYOND GOODS
7. THE SPECIAL THING ABOUT THE OLYMPICS - MYTHILI BHUSNURMATH
8. 4850-4870 LEVELS CRITICAL FOR UPTREND TO CONTINUE: ANALYST
9. ABSOLUTE VALUATIONS STRETCHED; IT, BPO POSITIVE: ASHISH DHAWAN, CHRYSCAPITAL
10. 'INDIA WILL BE FIFTH-LARGEST AUTO MARKET BY 2015' - SAI DEEPIKA AMIRAPU
11. FOR HUL, CONNECTING WITH THE CONSUMER MATTERS MOST - KALA VIJAYRAGHAVAN

DECCAN CHRONICAL

1. FLOODS IN SOUTH A NATIONAL CALAMITY
2. US WAR IN AFGHAN VITAL FOR INDIA TOO - BY SHANKAR ROYCHOWDHURY
3. POLITICS OF SPITE CONSUMES REPUBLICANS - BY PAUL KRUGMAN
4. MIGRATION'S GENDER ANGLE - BY JAYATI GHOSH
5. ... AMERICANS DON'T GET IT, HEALTHCARE IS A RIGHT  - BY ROGER COHEN
6. BEARDS: A TRIM HISTORY - BY NADEEM F. PARACHA

THE STATESMAN

1. LAND AND CASTE
2. GOING FOR BROKE
3. BEYOND DOHA~I
4. NEEDLESS DEATH OF A MILLION BABIES - DANIEL HOWDEN
5. CHEAP OR BEST

THE TELEGRAPH

1. THE FINE BALANCE
2. BLOODY ACT
3. A MAN OUT OF HIS TIME -ASHOK V. DESAI
4. LESSONS TO BE LEARNT - MALVIKA SINGH
5. MEN WITHOUT WOMEN
6. FLYING LOW

DECCAN HERALD

1. PEACE'S A MIRAGE IN ISRAEL OCCUPIED TERRITORIES - BY MICHAEL JANSEN
2. REEL MOMENTS - BY NAVARATNA LAXMAN

THE JERUSALEM POST

1. THIRD INTIFADA?
2. THE END OF THE ASSAD REGIME? - FARID GHADRY
3. BRAND ISRAEL TURNED CANADA INTO A PR BATTLEFIELD - HASKELL NUSSBAUM
4. OF ETERNITY AND GRANDCHILDREN - RACHEL LEVMORE
5. BORDERLINE VIEW: ISRAEL'S DEMOCRACY AND ITS ARAB POPULATION - DAVID NEWMAN
6. CANDIDLY SPEAKING: MARGINALIZE THE RENEGADES - ISI LEIBLER
7. REALITY CHECK: ISRAEL'S SELECTIVE FIGHT AGAINST ANTI-SEMITISM - JEFF BARAK

HAARETZ

1. STATE-BACKED PERSECUTION - BY HAARETZ EDITORIAL
2. THREE COMMENTS ON THE SITUATION - BY YOEL MARCUS
3. A LICENSE TO KILL - BY MOSHE ARENS
4. A PENSION AT 42 - BY NEHEMIA SHTRASLER
5. TURNING OFF THE LIGHTS  - BY YITZHAK LAOR

THE NEW YORK TIMES

1. SALVAGING IMMIGRATION DETENTION
2. ANIMAL CRUELTY AND FREE SPEECH
3. WHERE THE DUST BLOWS AND SETTLES
4. THE VIEW FROM 1889
5. DOES OBAMA GET IT? - BY BOB HERBERT
6. BENTHAM VS. HUME  - BY DAVID BROOKS
7. A TEXAS-SIZED HEALTH CARE FAILURE - BY CAPPY MCGARR

I.THE NEWS

1. POWER CORRUPTS
2. THE CUP AND THE LIP
3. HITTING THE INNOCENTS
4. THE AFGHAN QUAGMIRE - RAHIMULLAH YUSUFZAI
5. SUSTAINING THE WHEAT PRICE  - DR ASHFAQUE H KHAN
6. A PERPLEXING MOVE - ASIF EZDI
7. RESTRUCTURING THE POWER SECTOR – (PART I)SHAHID KARDAR
8. THE AFGHAN FALLOUT – (PART I)DR MALEEHA LODHI
9. KERRY-LUGAR - MIR JAMILUR RAHMAN

PAKISTAN OBSERVER

1. OIC'S WELCOME INTEREST IN KASHMIR
2. TO REGAIN LOST GLORY OF TEACHERS
3. ATTACKS WITH ROCKET LAUNCHERS AT LYARI POLICE
4. THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE ON EARTH - MOHAMMAD JAMIL
5. THE FUSS OVER KERRY-LUGAR BILL  - SAEED QURESHI
6. INDIA'S FAKE ENCOUNTERS & SPURIOUS DOSSIERS - MOMIN IFTIKHAR
7. HOSTING TROUBLES, ANTICIPATING PEACE - I A PANSOHTA
8. USING BOTH OARS..! - ROBERT CLEMENTS

THE INDEPENDENT

1. QUANTUM JUMP
2. FREE INTERNET SERVICE
3. INDIA'S MAGIC SHOW…!

THE AUSTRALIAN

1. TAX REVIEW IS ALL ABOUT ADDING VALUE
2. TALKING NOT SHOUTING
3. THE COST OF HOT AIR

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

1. TIME FOR A CHANCE TO SUCCEED
2. TALENT VERSUS DEMOCRACY
3. IRAN'S NUCLEAR OFFER A VINDICATION FOR OBAMA
4. A SPORTING OR CULTURAL CAPITAL? TAKE YOUR PICK

THE GURDIAN

1. WELFARE REFORM: REVOLUTIONARY WORDS, EVOLUTIONARY PLANS
2. GREECE: GOING SPARTAN
3. IN PRAISE OF … HOLMFIRTH

THE JAPAN TIMES

1. JAL MUST FACE UP TO ITS PROBLEMS
2. ELECTION REFORM ESSENTIAL
3. CHALLENGES FOR CHINA CONCERN POLITICAL FUTURE, NOT ECONOMICS – BY BRAHMA CHELLANEY
4. TIME TO ACKNOWLEDGE BENEFITS OF MIGRATION - BY JENI KLUGMAN

THE KOREA HERALD

1. WEN'S N.K. VISIT
2. LISBON TREATY
3. GRAND BARGAIN: LEE'S PARADIGM SHIFT  - PARK SANG-SEEK
4. CRISIS AND THE MERITOCRATS' REVOLT - JEAN-PAUL FITOUSSI

THE JAKARTA POST

1. ALL ABOUT MONEY
2. STRENGTHENING BANKS' FINANCING FOR ORGANIC FARMING - PETRUS F.T.P. TAMPUBOLON
3. INDONESIA'S PIVOTAL ROLE IN THE US'S GRAND STRATEGY - EVAN A. LAKSMANA
4. TV REALITY SHOWS SELL 'JUNK-FOOD' - TEUKU KEMAL FASYA  

 

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THE PIONEER

EDIT DESK

AFTER RIO LET IT BE DELHI

CITY SHOULD BID FOR 2020 OLYMPICS

Now that the dust has settled on the 2016 Summer Olympics bid with Rio de Janeiro emerging as the winner despite US President Barack Obama making a last ditch attempt to garner support for his adoptive home city of Chicago and an impressive bid by Madrid in the final round, it is time to look ahead. The next Olympics bid will be for the 2020 Games for which the field is wide open. In all likelihood Chicago would want to bid again and its pitch is likely to be stronger. Tokyo too will most probably be in the running, having made it to the second round of the bid this time around. Paris and Madrid could also be in line to push for 2020. Parisians are still smarting over the loss of the bid for the 2012 Games to London. And if reports are to be believed, Prague is eyeing the 2020 Olympics. It is in this scenario that Delhi too should put its name in the hat to host the Games 11 years from now. Cynics will surely snigger at the idea, pointing out that Delhi bit off more than it could chew by winning the bid for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Nonetheless, the arguments in favour of Delhi bidding for the 2020 Olympic Games far outweigh the nays.

It might be true that at the moment the city does not exactly have the facilities to host an international sporting event of the stature of the Olympic Games. But that should not deter it from bidding for the Games all the same. The reason is international sporting events are excellent opportunities to upgrade a city's infrastructure and make it world class. Even in order to be in a position to bid for the Olympics, the administrative authorities of a city have to ensure certain basic standards. And this in turn will require significant investments to upgrade the city's transportation network, security systems, sporting stadia, and other municipal services. In that sense every time a city prepares to host an international sporting event it gets a booster shot for its development. And this lasts long after the event is over. Plus, the prestige and other gains associated with successfully hosting the Olympic Games are unparalleled. Thus, it is definitely worth working towards that end.

That Delhi is hosting the 2010 Commonwealth Games should only motivate us to bid for the 2020 Olympics. For, by next year the city should have the minimum requirements needed for the bid. Of course these need to be improved upon and cannot be ignored or allowed to fall into decay. But at least the basic sporting facilities should be in place. Also, by next year Delhi would have gained valuable experience in hosting large-scale international sporting events. This will definitely hold the city in good stead to bid for the Olympics. Yes, things are running behind schedule for the Commonwealth Games. But so were they when Athens hosted the Olympics in 2004. In fact, there were doubts as to whether the capital city of Greece would be able to host the Games till the very last day. Yet Athens pulled through and was able to hold the Olympics successfully. Similarly, there is no reason not to believe that Delhi will successfully put together a memorable Commonwealth Games. But what will be more impressive is if the city is able to clinch the 2020 Olympics. The 2010 Commonwealth Games will be a good springboard for this.

 

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THE PIONEER

EDIT DESK

TAINTED INTELLECTUALS

PUNISH THEM FOR AIDING MAOIST TERROR

If the West Bengal Police is to be believed, Chhatradhar Mahato, the convener of the so-called People's Committee Against Police Atrocities which has been fronting for the Maoists in Lalgarh, has been singing like the proverbial canary ever since he was arrested in a dramatic manner. For the past couple of years, Mahato has been in the forefront of organising opposition to the ruling CPI(M)-led Left Front and support for the Trinamool Congress among the tribals of Lalgarh and adjoining areas. By itself, this is legitimate political activity: If it has hurt the Marxists, who have suffered electoral reverses in what was till recently their stronghold, they have only themselves to blame. The trend in Lalgarh is no different from that elsewhere in the State where the CPI(M) is facing fast erosion of its support base. Nor is it surprising that the Trinamool Congress should have benefited from the CPI(M)'s loss. What, however, makes Mahato's activities unacceptable and lends his brand of politics a sinister edge is the fact that he used the cover of campaigning for human rights to provide more than logistical assistance to Maoists, thus enabling them to establish control over vast tracts of forested land through the time-tested means of unleashing terror on the tribals. This, in turn, had led to the collapse of civil administration and necessitated a prolonged operation by commandos to re-establish the writ of the state in Lalgarh. Thanks to his links with the Maoists, Mahato was able to escape the security dragnet, but his craving for media publicity did him in — he was arrested by policemen masquerading as journalists. Yet, despite all his tough-talking while on the run, Mahato has proved to be a gutless wonder, or so the police claim.

Among the things he is believed to have told the police are details of his 'contacts' among Kolkata's intellectuals. He was in touch with many of them not to seek inspiration to fight for the 'oppressed masses' or for ideological guidance, but because they were acting as couriers, carrying money which they would hand over to Mahato. According to the police, huge sums were provided to him, which he would pass on to the Maoists. In the past, similar charges have been levelled against intellectuals, among them prominent academics and civil rights activists, in other Maoist-affected areas. Dr Vinayak Sen has been accused of acting as a courier for Maoists in Chhattisgarh and is facing trial; his arrest was criticised by those who are partial to Maoist excesses. While the war on Maoism has to be no doubt waged in the fields and jungles of the affected States, it will remain incomplete till the nexus between Left-wing extremists and intellectuals who pose as human rights activists and concerned citizens is smashed. The Maoists deserve no mercy. But neither do those intellectuals who are in league with the Maoists. Mahato's contacts must be outed and charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

 

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            THE PIONEER

COLUMN

PM HAS BAILED OUT MR Q

A SURYA PRAKASH

Those who think that the latest initiative of the Manmohan Singh Government to withdraw the criminal charges against Ottavio Quattrocchi, the Italian businessman who knocked off a commission of $ 7.343 million when we bought field guns for our Army in the mid-1980s, is the last nail in the coffin of the Bofors scandal, are missing the woods for the trees. In reality, this shameful deployment of governmental might to bail out a friend of Ms Sonia Gandhi who walked away with Indian tax-payers' money, could indeed be a nail in the coffin of the justice system in the country.

Though the country has witnessed innumerable scandals since independence, never before has it seen a Government which has worked so relentlessly for six years to ensure that its own investigators do not catch up with a man who stood accused of pocketing commissions in a defence contract. Nor have we had a Government that has worked with such determination and persistence to wreck public confidence in the system of justice.

Lest the falsehoods mouthed by spokespersons of the Congress and some individuals in Government, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, obliterate the truth, we need to remind ourselves of the facts of this case. We purchased field guns for our Army from AB Bofors, a Swedish company, in the mid-1980s when Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister. A year after the deal was signed, Swedish Radio reported that AB Bofors had bribed persons in the Indian Government to win the contract and that huge commissions had been paid to middlemen who were fronting for those persons. Rajiv Gandhi dismissed these accusations and got a parliamentary committee packed with his cronies to 'probe' the allegations. The committee sullied the name of Parliament by claiming that no commissions or bribes were paid by AB Bofors.

This conclusion was rubbished by media investigators who produced documents showing payments made by AB Bofors to several Swiss bank accounts. Two of these accounts belonged to Ottavio Quattrocchi and his wife Maria. Rajiv Gandhi was defeated in the Lok Sabha election held in 1989 and VP Singh, who headed a Janata Dal-led coalition Government, took over as Prime Minister. This Government sent out investigators and got clinching evidence of the payments made by AB Bofors. As the investigators made progress, the Quattrocchis took to their heels and India asked Interpol to put out a Red Corner alert.

Interpol laid its hands on evidence which established that the Quattrocchis had moved the money from AB Bofors out of Switzerland and into two accounts in a London bank.

Mr Manmohan Singh's predecessors acted on this evidence and got the British authorities to freeze these two bank accounts.

In order to help this friend of his benefactor, Mr Singh has done the following:

He sent a law officer to London in December, 2005 to inform the British authorities that India had no objection to the de-freezing of these accounts. When this deceitful act came to light, a PIL was moved in the Supreme Court in January 2006 and the court directed the CBI to ensure that the Quattrocchis did not empty the accounts until the reasons for this strange move by the Government became clear. However, by the time the court issued this direction, the Quattrocchis had nearly cleaned out the two accounts.

Next followed another act of deception. Since Interpol's Red Corner notice was still valid, Quattrocchi was detained by the Argentinian authorities on February 6, 2007. The CBI was informed about this on February 8 and, going by its reaction, it appeared as if, more than Quattrocchi, the Government of India was shocked by the alacrity of the Argentinians! The Government's duplicity is best explained by the fact that it withheld this information from the Supreme Court during a hearing on February 13. The CBI, however, announced Quattrocchi's detention on February 23 after it heard that the fugitive had been released on bail.

Why did the Government keep Quattrocchi's arrest in Argentina under wraps for 17 days? Here is a clue: The Prime Minister of Italy, Mr Romano Prodi, was visiting India between February 10 and 15. Also, by a very happy coincidence, Ottavio Quattrocchi's son Massimo was kind enough to come by. He flew out of Delhi on February 22, a day before his father's 'detention' was made public in India.

This announcement was followed by another round of dilly-dallying, until an Argentinian court rapped the CBI on the knuckles for failing to produce valid documents and permitted Quattrocchi to fly back to Italy. He returned to Milan on August 15 and celebrated his independence even as Mr Singh lectured us on democracy and rule of law from the ramparts of the Red Fort on our Independence Day. As if all this was not enough, the Argentinian court directed us to pay Quattrocchi his legal expenses.

The next big favour that Mr Singh's Government did to Quattrocchi was to ask Interpol in April 2009 to withdraw the Red Corner notice that stood against him. Defending this shameful act, Mr Singh declared that the 'Quattrocchi Case' was an "embarrassment" for the Government because the world saw Quattrocchi as some one who was being "harassed" by us.

Bailing out Quattrocchi has been a high priority for Ms Sonia Gandhi and let there be no doubt that Mr Singh has understood the priorities of his boss. In January 2006 he ensured Quattrocchi got his hands on the loot stashed away in a London bank. In February 2007, when Argentina detained Quattrocchi, he ensured the CBI dragged its feet and looked foolish before the courts there. Quattrocchi was allowed to fly back to Italy and freedom. In April 2009, he got Interpol to withdraw the Red Corner notice.

Now, Mr Singh's Government has informed the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate that it wants to withdraw the criminal charges against Quattrocchi because nothing remains of the case. No other Prime Minister has done so much with such diligence to decriminalise a blatantly criminal act. Let us await his next sermon on the rule of law and the justice system. Wah, Prime Minister!

 

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THE PIONEER

COLUMN

POLITICIANS SHOULD STICK TO THEIR JOB

RUDRONEEL GHOSH

When the Page 3 glitterati types go on a rant about how the system is corrupt and label politicians as the most loathsome species on earth, it is hard to take them seriously. It is difficult to believe someone's criticism of those in power for farmer suicides in Vidarbha when the person's most challenging decision of the day is whether to have Sauvignon Blanc or Cabernet Shiraz with caviar for dinner. So when these socialites cry "revolution" but follow that up by fretting over the manicure appointment they missed, one can surely be forgiven for being indifferent towards their triad on TV news programmes.

That said, it would be wrong to conclude that just because our pseudo-intellectual Page 3 celebrities feel the need to articulate their hardly-serious opinions against those in Government from time to time there is no genuine public disgust towards politicians. In fact, this is the main reason why joining politics is not seen as a viable career option by many belonging to middle-class families. The issue over here is not that politicians are corrupt. There are rotten apples in every field. For every crooked politician involved in one scandal or another there is an upright politician doing his or her best to fulfil the responsibilities that have been entrusted to him or her.

Yet there is a sense of utter contempt for politicians in general. The reason for this is that politicians in our country think that their job is not only to govern but also to rule. It is this mentality that earns them a bad rap, leaving the people with no other option but to view them as a necessary evil. A classic example of this is Mr Raj Thackeray's recent bullying of producer-director Karan Johar over the use of Bombay instead of Mumbai in his latest film Wake Up Sid. It is precisely because politicians like the MNS chief think that they can dictate to the people, tell them how to live their lives, or, as in Karan Johar's case, reprimand individuals for not calling a city by its 'proper' name, that politicos are such a disliked lot.

Unless and until politicians realise that their job is to lead from the front and provide good governance, people will continue to pour scorn on them. The position they hold is a privilege that the people have given them. It is because those in politics mistake it for a right that the term 'politician' now evokes distrust.

 

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THE PIONEER

OPED

STAND UP TO CHINA

BY ISSUING PAPER VISAS TO INDIAN CITIZENS BORN AND RESIDENT IN JAMMU & KASHMIR, CHINA HAS CLEARLY INDICATED ITS ENDORSEMENT OF PAKISTAN'S STAND THAT THIS INDIAN STATE IS 'DISPUTED TERRITORY'. INDIA MUST STRONGLY EXPRESS ITS DISPLEASURE OVER THIS INSIDIOUS CHINESE PRACTICE

B RAMAN

Media reported on October 1 that the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi has been issuing visas on a separate sheet of paper to Indian citizens born and resident in Jammu & Kashmir, which are stapled to their Indian passports. A Chinese Embassy spokesman has been quoted as claiming that this is not a new practice and has been done even in the past.

From a perusal of the media reports, it would seem that one or two Kashmiris, who are citizens of India, with plain paper visas issued by the Chinese Embassy, were not allowed to leave the country by immigration officials and they complained to the media about their problem.

While the Chinese Embassy has tried to make out that this practice is nothing new, it must have been of recent origin. Otherwise, the Indian immigration would have noticed it and drawn the attention of the Ministry of External Affairs. The veracity of the Chinese claim can be easily established by the Indian Embassy in Beijing requesting Kashmiris from India studying in China to produce their Indian passports in order to see whether they had travelled with plain paper visas. If so, there was definitely negligence on the part of the Indian immigration in not noticing this earlier.

The Chinese action in issuing such plain-paper visas to Indian citizens born and resident in Jammu & Kashmir is a political statement meant to indicate that China does not recognise Jammu & Kashmir as an integral part of India and that it agrees with the Pakistani contention that Jammu & Kashmir is a disputed territory.

Chinese policy on Jammu & Kashmir has passed through three stages. In the first stage till 1996, China automatically supported the Pakistani contention that Jammu & Kashmir is a disputed territory and that the violence in the State did not amount to terrorism. Following the visit of the then Chinese President Jiang Zemin to India and Pakistan in 1996, there was a nuanced change in the Chinese policy. They did not recognise Jammu & Kashmir as an integral part of India, but started avoiding words, actions or gestures which could be interpreted as their support to the Pakistani stand. During the Kargil conflict of 1999, the Chinese reportedly supported the US position that Pakistan should withdraw its troops from the Indian territory in the Kargil Heights and that the Line of Control should be respected. It was the Chinese reluctance to support Pakistan at the time of the Kargil conflict during the visit to Beijing by Mr Nawaz Sharif, the then Pakistani Prime Minister, which made him dash to Washington after returning to Islamabad and seek a US-backed face-saving before ordering the withdrawal of the Pakistani troops from Indian territory.

The Chinese position had stood there since then. Their position till recently can be summed up as follows: Avoiding any action or words or gestures which could be interpreted as their support to either the Pakistani stand that Jammu & Kashmir is a disputed territory or the Indian stand that Jammu & Kashmir is an integral part of India. At the same time, they have consistently maintained their past policy of refusing to categorise the violence in Jammu & Kashmir as terrorism.

Their practice of issuing plain paper visas to Indian citizens born and resident in Jammu & Kashmir, whenever it started, indicates their sliding back to their pre-1999 position of support to the Pakistani stand that Jammu & Kashmir is a disputed territory and rejection of the Indian stand that the State is an integral part of India.

India should not remain content with merely taking up this issue at the diplomatic level with China. There is a need for concrete action to express our displeasure over the insidious Chinese practice. The Indian diplomatic and consular missions in China should be asked not to issue any more work visas to Chinese selected by their companies to work in their projects in India. The visas of the Chinese already working in India should not be extended when they expire. It should be made clear to the Chinese that the issue of work visas to Chinese nationals will be resumed only when their practice of issue of plain paper visas is discontinued.

The writer is director of the Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai.

 

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THE PIONEER

OPED

FEELING THE HEAT

DUE TO CLIMATE CHANGE, FOOD PRODUCTION HAS DECREASED

GWYNNE DYER

My youngest daughter is 17, so she will have lived most of her life before the worst of the warming hits. But her later years will not be easy, and her kids will have it very hard from the start. As for their kids, I just don't know.

It is the Met office's job to make forecasts, and its forecast for the 2060s is an average global temperature that is as much as four degrees C warmer (7.2 degrees F). Speaking this week at a conference called 'Four degrees and beyond' at Oxford University, Mr Richard Betts, head of Climate Impacts at the Meteorological Office's Hadley Centre, one of the world's most important centres for climate research, laid it all out.

"We've always talked about these very severe impacts only affecting future generations," said Mr Betts, "but people alive today could live to see a 4C rise. People will say it's an extreme scenario, and it is an extreme scenario, but it's also a plausible scenario."

All we have to do is go on burning fossil fuels at the rate we do now, and we'll be there by the 2080s. Keep increasing our carbon dioxide emissions in pace with economic growth, as we have done over the past decade, and we'll be there by the 2060s. "There" is not a good place to be.

At an average of 4C warmer, 15 per cent of the world's farmland has become useless due to heat and drought, and crop yields have fallen sharply on half of the rest: An overall 30-40 per cent fall in global food production. Since the world's population has grown by two billion by then, there will be only half the food per person that we have now. Many people will starve.

In western and southern Africa, average temperatures will be up to 10C (18F) higher than now. There will be severe drying in central America, on both sides of the Mediterranean, and in a broad band across West Asia, northern India, and South-East Asia. With the glaciers gone, Asia's great rivers will be mostly dry in the summer. Even one metre of sea level rise will take out half the world's food-rich river deltas, from the Nile to the Mekong.

So there will be famines, and massive waves of refugees, and ruthless measures taken to hold borders shut against them. The bitter irony is that the old-rich countries whose emissions did the most to bring on this disaster will suffer least from it, as least in the early stages. By and large, the further away you are from the equator, the less you are hurt by the changes.

The trouble is that 4C is not a destination. It is a way-station on the way to 5C or 6C hotter, where all the ice on the planet melts and the only habitable land is what's still above sea level around the Arctic Ocean. Once we have passed two degrees hotter, we are at ever-greater risk of triggering the big 'feedbacks' that take control of the warming process out of our hands.

At the moment, we are in control of the situation if we want to be, for it is our excess emissions of greenhouse gases that are causing the warming. But if melting permafrost and warming oceans begin to give up the immense amounts of greenhouse gases that they contain, then we find ourselves on a climate escalator that inexorably takes us up through 3C, 4C, 5C and 6C with no way to get off.

That is why the leaders of all the world's big industrial and developing countries, meeting in Italy last summer, adopted 2C as their joint "never-exceed" goal. (Interestingly, they didn't explain the reasoning behind that goal to the rest of us. Mustn't frighten the children, I suppose.)

Meanwhile, the people tasked with negotiating a new climate treaty at Copenhagen in December struggle bravely onwards, but show no signs of coming up with a deal that will hold us under 2C. Global emissions must start dropping by three per cent a year right away, but over the past decade they have been rising at three per cent annually.

The writer is a London-based independent journalist.

 

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THE PIONEER

OPED

FOCUS ON LOCALISED POLICIES

WITH MAJOR ECONOMIES STILL ON THE DOWNTURN, OUR POLICY-MAKERS NEED TO THINK IN TERMS OF ENCOURAGING GROWTH IN DOMESTIC DEMAND AT THE LOCAL LEVEL

SHIVAJI SARKAR

Though there seem to be some signs of economic recovery, it cannot be said to be in a good shape. While Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has been cautious in accepting the recent 'positive' trends in the industrial index, the Reserve Bank of India warned in its latest review that subdued growth and the risk of high inflation are the greatest concerns for the economy. Even in these circumstances it is sad that our policy-makers lack any strategy for sustained growth and have been reacting only to individual situations.

The current depressive economic state requires high spending by the people. But that is not happening as high inflation is eroding their purchasing power and, therefore, demand is not growing. The biggest question before any industry today is how to sell its products.

There is an alternative: Sell the products abroad. But even this may not seem feasible in these times as the US and many European countries have become more protectionist and on the other hand India has been losing to aggressive Chinese business tactics.

The China-Pakistan-Sri Lanka trade axis is adversely affecting many small-scale sectors and traditional exports like tea, carpet, gems and jewellery, and Basmati rice. Alternative strategies have not emerged. The strategies veer around tax breaks, lower excise and customs and concessional financing. The present day Government lacks the vision to capture the world market for which the recent 28 per cent export fall is a grim indicator.

It is likely to further hit the incomes of marginalised sectors in the semi-urban and rural areas that are currently expected to spur the growth. Lack of demand in the rural areas has moderated growth prospects. The share of rural consumption in total household consumption has not increased for years. It remains at 55 to 60 per cent during the last 10 years and it is unlikely to increase at least this year as consumers are badly hit by inflation and deficient in rainfall.

According too the RBI the stimulus through farm debt waiver and Sixth Pay Commission measures increased Government share of consumption by 11.1 per cent but its impact on individual consumption is not being observed. It is a serious warning about the virtual failures of the stimulus packages announced by the Government. High food inflation is negating the benefits of the bail-out packages. Moreover, if effective steps are not taken to prevent hoarding, it is difficult to control the rising price of food and other commodities.

It is just not that the people are crumbling under the pressure of high prices but it is also affecting their savings that had spurred the GDP growth to 9.5 per cent. The savings had reached 37.7 per cent of GDP in 2007-08, up from 23.5 per cent in 2001-02. Subdued performance of public sector enterprises owing to the slowdown, large number of job losses, depressed corporate earnings and fall in demand are certain to cause erosion in the savings pattern. Latest reports say that bank deposit growth has severely come down, thus indicating people's inability to save, which will in turn affect the growth process.

The alternative is to have the liquidity in the financial sector. It is not stated to be lacking. But the Finance Ministry status report of 2009 external debt states that foreign capital supporting the country's investment plans may remain muted till the global financial system adequately addresses structural and supervisory issues and the process of recapitlising it in the wake of the Lehman Brothers scandal.

 

Bank credit growth has also slowed down to 13.2 per cent on September 11 from 14.1 per cent two weeks ago. A year back the growth was 26.1 per cent. This indicates that the corporate growth is likely to be affected in the days to come. If that happens the economy is unlikely to rise to the even revised levels of 5.5 or 6 per cent.

Moreover, external commercial debt flows are already 64 per cent lower at $ 8.2 billion — Rs 39,300 crore. Hence, Government stimulus cannot be sustained longer as that, apart from raising Government borrowings, is likely to cause market-induced pressures and may also further engender the inflationary situation.

Government needs to take a pragmatic approach. It cannot depend on international demand. The International Monetary Fund's latest July World Economic Outlook suggests that global growth would contract to 1.4 per cent and volume of trade would decline by 12.1 per cent.

Therefore, the Government needs to draft policies which are domestic-oriented. The global crisis is an opportunity to begin a fresh policy formulation to ensure domestic demand-oriented growth, with the foreign trade only as a supplementing factor.

The writer is a senior economic affairs journalist.

 

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THE PIONEER

OPED

WINNING THE COUNTER-INSURGENCY ENDGAME

THE WAR AGAINST MAOISTS CANNOT BE WON UNLESS GOVERNMENT STRATEGISES FOR THE ENDGAME, WRITE SUSHANT K SINGH & NITIN PAI

It has been recognised that successful counter-insurgency strategy — recently popularised as the Petraeus doctrine and implemented successfully by the United States in Iraq — has three distinct but overlapping stages: "Clear, Hold and Build". The first involves military operations to clear territory of insurgents, the second calls for holding territory and protecting the population from insurgent attacks, and the third consolidates military successes by building functional institutions of state that in turn can deliver effective governance.

Despite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's characterisation of the Maoist movement as the biggest threat to India's internal security, the Shivraj Patil-led Home Ministry during the UPA Government's first term showed little imagination and even less resolve in earnestly confronting the growing threat. While the Maoist movement consolidated across the country, moving cadre, arms and funds across State and international borders, the Indian Government's response was inefficient and lacked coordination. Not only did this result in Maoists gaining strength unchecked, it also resulted in dubious and poorly-conceived responses such as the use of tribal militias like Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh and ham-fisted police action against rural and tribal populations.

In its second-term, the UPA Government has demonstrated more seriousness in tackling what it calls Left-wing extremism. Intelligence and law-enforcement efforts have succeeded in the arrest of a number of top leaders of the CPI(M). Concerted action by Central and State paramilitary and police forces — called Operation Green Hunt — targeting Maoist forces across several Indian States has started. Unsophisticated as it may be, the Home Ministry has also attempted to counter the Maoist movement in the psychological space by using the media to project the Maoists as the "cold-blooded murderers" as they often are. Some poorly conceived proposals to buy out Maoist cadres apart, India, at last, appears to have begun fighting the war of counter-insurgency that it must.

It will be a long war, and although late, the Clear stage has begun. The UPA Government must not allow its resolve to be weakened in the face of the expected psychological operations that will be launched by the Maoists, their over-ground operatives and other sympathisers.

While the security forces are equipped, trained and prepared to handle the Clear and Build stages, they find themselves inadequate to take on the challenge of the third, Build stage (more correctly, the Rebuild stage, after the destruction caused by the insurgents and collateral damage caused during counter-insurgency operations). By then, on the one hand, the local civil agencies would have atrophied and left without substantive capacity to undertake development in a conflict-ravaged area. On the other, media, public and political attention will move on to other issues once the statistics of violence show a degree of improvement.

Yet, neglect of the Build phase inevitably leads to a relapse of the Maoist pathology. The vacuum in capacity to impose rule-of-law, provide basic public services and economic development — filled to a degree by NGOs and some central agencies — leaves the third stage of counter-insurgency unfinished or poorly executed. It is for this reason that successful counter-insurgency practitioners — from Lt-Gen Ajai Singh in Assam in the 1990s to General David Petraeus in Iraq in 2007 — are wary of the dangers of "mowing the lawn". The insurgency seems to just grow back after extensive, ostensibly successful, military operations. A lack of political, economic and social development triggers this regression and pushes the security forces to repeat the 'Clear and Hold' stages of counter-insurgency operations in the area.

As evident from the experience in the North-East and in Jammu & Kashmir, neglecting the third stage merely lowers the level of violence for years or even decades, necessitating the continued employment of Central security forces on internal security duties. This is an undesirable outcome. Not only does it drain Government resources, it also leaves the local population, the security forces and the political class dissatisfied. Worse, it results in the entrenchment of a conflict-economy, where vested interests have incentives to keep the conflict alive, at the cost of the well-being of the population.

It is therefore difficult to overstate the importance of a sound Build strategy. As it launches into the war against Maoists, the UPA government must realise that it cannot be successful unless it has a strategy for the endgame.

Security forces cannot play the endgame

Ideally, civilian agencies of the state and local Governments should step in to provide governance and development as the security forces bring military operations to an end. In reality, though, it is nearly impossible to get Government employees back into conflict zones as the security environment is remains risky. The resulting lack of institutional capacity at the ground level severely constrains the success of Central and State Government initiatives aimed at socio-economic development. Similarly, other conventional civil agencies — Central Government departments, private contractors and NGOs — can undertake development initiatives only when basic security has been restored. The binding constraint is the lack of suitable civilians willing to work in relatively insecure environments.

This problem is usually solved by asking the security forces themselves to take on the task of governance and development. This has its own attractions: It offers the Government the simplicity of a single chain of command and frees it of concerns for safety and security of civil employees. Thus, from the formal Operation Sadbhavana mechanisms to informal advisories to State Governments, the security forces have been placed at the fore of most developmental activities in conflict-ravaged States in the North-East and Jammu & Kashmir. Alarmingly, this politically expedient option is now finding favour in Maoist-affected States as well. Expedient as it may be, it is also a bad solution.

The much-publicised example of security forces recently ensuring the construction of a concrete road in the Red Corridor in Chhattisgarh — with heavy attendant costs, both financial and human — is one such case of misperceived success. It serves a limited purpose of signalling the might of the state to complete a project against the will of the Maoists. But road construction, in this particular case, is first an instrument of security and not of development. The road construction model cannot be replicated or scaled for other vital development projects. The security forces cannot build and operate schools, hospitals, markets and community centres on a large scale. Moreover, getting security forces to build roads is a grossly inefficient use of resources.

 

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MAIL TODAY

 COMMENT

SOCIALISTIC SOLUTIONS ARE NOT AN OPTION

 

THE Union minister of state for corporate affairs Salman Khurshid feels that salaries paid to Indian CEOs are so high they are vulgar. He has reached out and " advised" companies not to pay their chief executives high- figure remuneration at a time when the government has embarked upon an austerity drive.

 

As minister for corporate affairs, Mr Khurshid would be well aware that salaries of chief executives — as those of any private sector professional — are determined by market forces. And factors such as individual brilliance, sectoral growth, the company's needs and circumstances, its finances and indeed the person's equity with the shareholders are taken into account before arriving at a figure.

 

To discourage chief executives from earning what is their market worth is not only anachronistic, but also discourages the right talent from coming forth. It was only when India was pushed into a corner in 1991 — following more than 40 years of state- encouraged socialism — that the Centre decided to open up the economy and embark upon a market- led, inclusive growth agenda.

 

They may not have travelled the perfect path, but India's economic reforms have improved lives across the country and have increased our per capita income to an unprecedented $ 2,780 according to the PPP method. Few will deny that the primary engine of this growth has been the country's private sector.

 

An offshoot of this was that private sector salaries saw an upward trend. To suggest that CEO salaries should be controlled — a move that could have far- reaching unfortunate implications for the rest of the workforce — would only take the country back to square one.

 

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MAIL TODAY

COMMENT

NATIONAL SHAME

 

THOSE who tom- tom India's recent economic growth story need to take a look at the infant mortality figures released by Save the Children, an NGO working for the welfare of children. The shocking statistics make it clear that growth measured in GDP terms is not always the best indicator of how a country is faring in bettering the lives of its citizens.

 

Over four lakh infants die in this country every year within the first 24 hours of birth, giving us the dubious distinction of accounting for every fifth such death in the world. Two million children below the age of five die in this country every year, more than in any other country of the world.

 

We had pledged to reduce the Infant Mortality Rate — the number of deaths every 1000 children below the age of five — to 38 under the Millennium Development Goals, but at last count the figure was still as high as 72. We may put on airs as a leader of the subcontinent but even our small neighbours like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have done better than us on this front.

 

The silver lining in this grim story is that the poor performance of the north Indian BIMARU states has somewhat skewed our national statistics.

 

What is most tragic here is that a majority of infant deaths are avoidable, with even low cost interventions being adequate to help infants survive. Just checking neonatal deaths — caused due to infection, asphyxiation and premature birth — can work wonders. The National Rural Health Mission launched by the UPA government has made a start but it needs to be pursued with far greater urgency and, yes, more money — we rank a lowly 171 out of 175 countries when it comes to state expenditure on public health.

 

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MAIL TODAY

CPMMENT

TOO MANY HOLIDAYS

 

SHASHI Tharoor got this one right. His tweet calling on people to celebrate Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary by working instead of taking a holiday has redeemed him. Governments have been quick to accept the recommendations relating to higher salaries by pay commissions.

 

But they ignore the call to reduce holidays and slash the bureaucracy itself.

 

A government servant is entitled to 161 days of leave in a year, which as you well know runs for just 365 days. This is unconscionable and there is really no justification for it. No country that is building a modern economy can afford to have a bureaucracy which doesn't work for nearly half the year.

 

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MAIL TODAY

COLUMN

DIFFERENT STROKES

INDIA NEEDS TO ENSURE THAT THE NEW AMERICAN ZEAL FOR THE NPT DOES NOT AFFECT OUR CIVIL NUCLEAR COOPERATION

BY KANWAL SIBAL

 

THE September 24 Security Council meeting chaired by President Barack Obama that passed Resolution 1887 on further tightening the non- proliferation regime in various ways and universalising the Non- Proliferation Treaty, while making a perfunctory reference to nuclear disarmament, has elicited a sharp Indian response.

 

On September 23, India prudently conveyed its position officially to the Security Council President that there was no question of India joining the NPT as a non- nuclear weapon state as nuclear weapons were a part of India's national security and would remain so pending non- discriminatory and global nuclear disarmament.

 

On September 29 at an International Conference in New Delhi, the Prime Minister, pointedly reminded the Resolution's sponsor that global nonproliferation, to be successful, should be universal, comprehensive and nondiscriminatory and linked to the goal of complete nuclear disarmament.

 

BARGAIN

More than a Security Council Resolution, it is the actual conduct of the nuclear weapon states ( NWSs) that will determine the future of the nonproliferation regime. The impasse in the NPT review conferences marks the virtual collapse of consensus on the non- proliferation agenda among the NPT signatories, and the outlook of the 2010 conference remains uncertain.

 

The NWSs push the nonproliferation agenda and de- emphasise the disarmament agenda, as is also the case with Resolution 1887, whereas the Non Nuclear Weapon States ( NNWSs) press for a balance between the non- proliferation obligations they have taken, and are made to take additionally, and the disarmanent obligations of the NWSs under Article 6 of the NPT. Plans of several countries to set up nuclear power plants as alternative, environmentally cleaner source of energy are aggravating proliferation concerns because access to nuclear reactor technology opens the road to acquisition of weapons grade fissile material, and hence the bomb.

 

The US has therefore taken the lead in tightening the conditions of access to such technologies through the mechanism of the IAEA. The irony is that the NPT and the IAEA were intended to facilitate the flow of such technologies for peaceful purposes to NNWSs, and so if additional non- proliferation obligations are imposed on recipient countries, they in turn demand additional steps from the NWSs on the disarmament front.

 

The NPT's " grand bargain" always was that other countries would abjure nuclear weapons against a commitment by Nuclear Weapon States ( NWSs) to genuinely move towards nuclear disarmament.

 

While the Non- Nuclear Weapon States ( NNWSs) have held their end of the bargain — except North Korea for specifically local reasons, and Iran is building a nuclear weapon capability while largely adhering to the letter of its NPT obligations — the NWSs have not. Meanwhile, with the Cold War over, the need for possessing huge arsenals having disappeared and the economic costs of maintaining them becoming unbearable, the two principal nuclear powers have very significantly reduced the size of their deployed arsenals. But they still possess thousands of nuclear weapons and the means of delivery are being constantly improved by all the NWSs.

 

Meanwhile, they oppose steps to reduce the salience of nuclear weapons in their security strategies and de- legitimise their use. A Global No First Use Agreement is dismissed as a pointless declaratory step, and the proposal to negotiate a Convention on Prohibiting the Use of Nuclear Weapons is resisted. Even with regard to CTBT and FMCT, it is the US that has stalled progress by failing to ratify the CTBT and by opposing, until recently, a verifiable FMCT, contributing to delaying negotiations on this pact. The US has further muddied the debate by pursuing its missile defence project, which has prompted Russia to revise its nuclear doctrine by posturing a first use of nuclear weapons against a massive conventional attack from the west.

 

US

The international security architecture, such as it exists, is structured around the Security Council where the US has to contend with the Russian and Chinese vetoes. Its overwhelming military strength, compounded by that of its NATO allies, allows US room to frequently act outside the Security Council mechanism on non- proliferation issues such as the Proliferation Security Initiative and the Container Security Initiative — the latter intended to protect the US homeland from a nuclear terrorist attack by transporting radio- active material to the US clandestinely through the vast container traffic — that go beyond the NPT. The nuclear umbrella that the US provides to its allies is a critical element in the dominant position it enjoys globally.

 

At the same time, voices in the US that had begun speaking of elimination of nuclear weapons, albeit in a hazy, distant time frame, without cognisance at the official level, have now received it with Obama's Prague speech, of which too much has been made, given that he was candid enough to admit that a nuclear weapon free world was unlikely to emerge during his lifetime. The NGO/ think tank machinery has dutifully started a campaign to impart serious intent to what is vague thinking on a potential possibility, as it burnishes US's disarmament credentials.

 

India is exhorted to promote this campaign as it is also a tool to press it on non- proliferation issues.

 

The US Security Council initiative has caused confusion in India. How to harmonise the implicit call in the Resolution to India to join the NPT and the India- US nuclear deal/ NSG waiver? India can join the NPT only as a NNWS as the Treaty can no longer be amended following its indefinite extension in 1996 in its present form. The deal and the waiver implicitly accept the reality of India's weapons programme and longstanding NPT related sanctions on India have been largely lifted.

 

INDIA

As it is, India had concerns that the Obama Administration, with those opposed to the Indo- US deal in key positions in the State Department, may not be as committed to the nuclear deal as the previous Administration and some US back- tracking may take place in implementing it.

 

By compelling India to question Resolution 1887, India's traditional image of an NPT nay- sayer and a non- proliferation maverick gets revived, giving space for mischief- making to those opposed to the nuclear exception made for India. US non- proliferation initiatives can therefore cloud the atmosphere of India- US ties, although Obama has reassured the Prime Minister that the US is committed to the full implementation of the nuclear deal.

 

This diplomatic dissonance is coming at a time when India's exceptional status within the non- proliferation regime has not yet been fully consolidated and even the bilateral Indo- US nuclear deal has considerable distance to go for implementation. Australia, for instance, has reiterated through the mouth of its newly appointed noticeably loquacious envoy that while it supported the NSG waiver, it will not sell uranium to India as it has not signed the NPT. This is a specious argument as the NPT does not prohibit cooperation in the peaceful uses of atomic energy, and the NSG waiver was a policy reversal by a cartel. The challenge ahead is to ensure that the US continues to underwrite the exception made for India as it proceeds with non- proliferation initiatives that seemingly undermine it.

 

The writer is a former Foreign Secretary ( sibalkanwal@ gmail. com)

 

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MAIL TODAY

COLUMN

MASSACRE A DAUNTING CHALLENGE FOR NITISH

 

THE KHAGARIA massacre which claimed the lives of 16 people, including five minors, last week has thrown up the biggest challenge to chief minister Nitish Kumar's rule yet. In his relatively ' peaceful' tenure of four years in a caste- conscious state, his government has not had to deal with a conflict which caused the loss of so many lives.

 

Nitish has categorically ruled out the involvement of the Moists in the carnage on the basis of the preliminary inquiry of a probe team. He said it was the handiwork of " local antisocials" who were fighting for supremacy in the area.

 

But that precisely makes the task of his government all the more difficult. It raises the fears of reprisal killings which have been Bihar's bane in the past. A majority of the carnage victims — 14 to be precise — belonged to Nitish's caste while the alleged perpetrators of the crime were said to be from a Mahadalit community.

 

The Mahadalits have always figured high on the chief minister's all- inclusive development agenda. He has taken pains to launch a slew of welfare schemes for the " Dalits among the Dalits" to bring them into the mainstream of society.

 

During his tenure, Nitish has paid special attention to ameliorating the lot of the Mahadalits so as to consolidate his base among them. By initiating a number of schemes exclusive for them, he apparently wants to make a dent into the vote bank of his rivals like Ram Vilas Paswan. In fact, his strategy appears to have paid off if one goes by the results of the last few elections in the state.

 

Nitish will have to tread with caution while dealing with the political situation arising out of the Khagaria massacre. On the one hand, he cannot afford to antagonise his fellow caste men who have been by his side through thick and thin. On the other hand, he has to continue working for the Mahadalits to retain their support in the next assembly elections.

 

Nitish has responded to the demands of the tricky situation quickly, though. He has suspended the Khagaria SP and DSP for alleged dereliction of duty and expressed his resolve to bring the culprits to book through speedy trial. The state police have already arrested the alleged mastermind behind the carnage and are claiming to have cracked the case on the basis of his interrogation.

 

As Nitish has often demonstrated in the past, he would like the law to take its own course in this case as well. At the same time, he has to see to it that there are no reprisal killings in the wake of the Khagaria massacre.

 

During the Rashtriya Janata Dal regime in the 1990s, Bihar had witnessed one massacre after another on account of the revenge factor.

 

After working relentlessly for the turnaround of the state, Nitish cannot afford to let Bihar slip back into the morass of bloody caste strife, undoing all his good work. As expected of him, he has to display the " raj dharma ( duty of a ruler)" by punishing the perpetrators of the crime regardless of caste, community or political considerations.

 

EVEN nine years after the creation of Jharkhand, many in Bihar continue to rue the ' partition' of the state. They feel that Bihar lost more than just minerals which went to the new state. One of its prized assets was the famous Netarhat residential school which was the nursery of some of the brightest talents from the state. The performance of its students used to be a matter of envy for other schools in the region.

 

Though the Bihar government subsequently tried to set up a similar school, it failed. Now, the Nitish Kumar government is serious about setting up a Netarhat- like school at Simultalla in Jamui district. It is seeking the help of the Netarhat Old Boys Association and hopes to realise its dream in the next academic session itself. It has asked a central government agency to prepare a detailed project report for the school.

 

A team of the old boys' association along with state human resource department personnel visited the proposed site recently.

 

giridhar.jha@mailtoday.in

 

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MAIL TODAY

COLUMN

SMALL TIME ACTORS GET STAR STATUS HERE

 

BIHAR has never been a favourite getaway for any top Bollywood actor. At a time when bigwigs from the tinsel town do not mind visiting cities for concerts or promoting their new films, Patna remains out of their itinerary.

 

That leaves only the has- beens or wannabes from the film industry to come down to Patna.

 

Last week, three young actresses made it to the Bihar capital to regale the entertainment- starved people.

 

First, Priyanka Kothari came to the city to take part in a dandiya nite. Kothari's claim to fame may have been her role of Basanti in Ram Gopal Verma's disastrous remake of Sholay but that did not diminish her ' star appeal' for the movie fans in Bihar. Another new actress Mahi Gill of Dev D fame, who performed in a dandiya nite during the recent Dussehra festivities here, also had the audiences rooting for her. The next in line was actress Sharbani Mukherjee, who had played Sunil Shetty's wife in Border many years ago.

 

Though she was publicised as the " sister" of her famous cousins Kajol and Rani Mukherjee, the Bengali beauty bowled over the audience with her brilliant dance ballet on Radha on Saturday, proving that she is a performer in her own right.

 

When it comes to showering love and affection, Patnaites certainly do not attach much importance to any artiste's current box office stature.

 

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TIMES OF INDIA

COMMENT

CASTE QUAGMIRE

 

The Khagaria massacre in which 16 people were killed is a warning that caste wars aren't a thing of the past in Bihar. Though Maoists were initially suspected to be behind the killings, the government has now clarified that the violence was over farmland and involved Dalit Musahars and Kurmis and Koeris, two backward caste groups. Interestingly, both the perpetrators and the victims of the massacre belong to castes wooed by Nitish Kumar to be part of a social coalition he has tried to build in Bihar in recent times. The incident, coming after a lull in caste violence, could impact the political future of Nitish and his party, Janata Dal (United).

Nitish's political strategy to counter Lalu Prasad was to build a caste coalition of a few backward castes and Dalit communities. His government created a sub-category among Dalits Mahadalits that included Musahars, ostensibly to streamline delivery of reservation benefits to the scheduled castes. The move helped Nitish to forge a political alliance between Kurmis and Mahadalits that paid off in elections. The alliance could well be unravelling now. Kurmis, the victims in Khagaria, are reportedly angry at Nitish, himself a Kurmi. They have threatened to walk out on him for allegedly favouring the Mahadalits. Clearly, the political alliance has not transformed into a social coalition at the grass roots. The caste arithmetic has not helped to amicably resolve livelihood issues.

Agrarian conflicts need policy interventions that go beyond affirmative action. The chief minister has said anti-socials will not be allowed to break the law. He needs to firm up the law and order machinery, of course. But Nitish must go further and address the root cause of the conflict, which is the desperate struggle in rural Bihar to possess cultivable land. Issues like land rights, wages, low agriculture productivity and incomes call for a political paradigm different from the obsession with caste. A committee, set up by Nitish, to study agrarian relations in the state has reportedly suggested that the government should initiate land reforms. The government, perhaps wary of its political repercussions, has so far refused to discuss the report.

The social justice politics, viewed through the prism of affirmative action, has reached a dead-end in Bihar even though caste continues to be an influential factor in elections. Nitish tried to break the deadlock by focusing on economic development and good administration. He needs to up the ante on governance so that the emphasis doesn't return to building caste alliances. More jobs need to be created in industry and services to lift the pressure off land. Bihar needs to build a broad-based economy to absorb the tensions of social empowerment in a post-Mandal era. That's the challenge staring at Nitish Kumar.

 

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TIMES OF INDIA

COMMENT

FOOT IN THE DOOR

 

The first, crucial step has been taken in breaking the long-standing deadlock between the US and its allies, and Iran. Confounding predictions that the Geneva talks would be no more than another exercise in time-wasting, Iran has agreed in principle to let International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors go through its newly revealed nuclear facility north of Qom. More importantly, it has agreed that the bulk of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) stockpile will be shipped to Russia and then France. The uranium will be further enriched and converted to fuel rods before being returned to Iran, ensuring the availability of nuclear fuel for Tehran's civilian programme while ruling out its weaponisation.

It is too early to know for certain yet the real test will begin on October 25 when IAEA personnel inspect the Qom facility but the talks had echoes of Richard Nixon's breakthrough 1972 visit to China. Now, as then, the dialogue marked the first true diplomatic engagement between erstwhile rivals in decades. Now, as then, it has resulted in the tentative outlines of a way forward. To stand upon its earlier insistence that Iran give up its right to the nuclear fuel cycle is no longer feasible for Washington. It is not something Tehran will or can agree to, whether under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or a more moderate dispensation. The current LEU proposal is a more viable solution; a division of the enrichment process with the ultimate goal of IAEA monitoring on the Iranian side. If successful, it will preserve Iran's rights under the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) while minimising the chances of weaponisation.

Many hurdles remain, however. For one, there is no certainty that Qom and Natanz are the sum of Iran's nuclear programme. It is conceivable that they are links in a larger network of facilities. For another, IAEA experts have tentatively concluded that Iran has the know-how to design and build a nuclear bomb. If Tehran wishes to allay these fears, signing on to the NPT's Additional Protocol - which plugs significant loopholes in the treaty is necessary. So too is clarification on whether the LEU proposal is a one-time deal or in the nature of an ongoing process.

If US president Barack Obama is serious about nuclear disarmament, Washington must engage Tehran. And for that, it will have to accept the reality of Iran's civilian programme. And the onus is equally on Tehran to prove that the programme is just that civilian. Geneva was a good first step. But it is merely the beginning.

 

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TIMES OF INDIA

TOP ARTICLE

FROM RIO, WITH HOPE

BORIA MAJUMDAR

 

Shock and bewilderment greeted Chicago's first round exit from the 2016 Olympics bid process in Copenhagen, despite backing from the world's most powerful man. That's what makes the choice of Rio more interesting and relevant. On one hand, Copenhagen set aside all cliches that suggest that sport and politics do not mix. On the other, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was portrayed in an improved light even as it moved on to newer pastures and newer markets.

The Olympic movement has long been criticised for being insensitive to demands of the global South. That the games have never before been staged in Latin America and Africa is evidence. It has been said that the hosting of the summer Olympic games represents the ultimate marketing initiative, where state leaders stake a claim to the 'premier division of the global urban hierarchy'. Here, the global West has more often than not outbid the global South. This explains why Nelson Mandela, despite leading Cape Town's cause in 1994, suffered a first round loss at a time when the Mandela charisma was at its height.

When we pit this history against the principles enshrined in the Olympic charter universalism, global harmony and equality the choice of Rio looks perfect. Also, by going to Rio, the Olympic movement can tap into a giant market that is just about to realise its potential. With Brazil having witnessed unprecedented economic growth in recent times and with infrastructure already half built for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the business opportunities that will open up in the run-up to the 2016 Olympics are endless.

Rio was a runaway winner. It polled 66 votes to Madrid's 32 in the final round. While the Obama factor resulted in bookmakers backing Chicago as the favourite, the scandalous history of the 2002 Salt Lake City games, the chaos surrounding the summer games at Atlanta in 1996 and the perennial fight between IOC members and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) over distribution of television subsidy resulted in Chicago starting with a huge handicap that even President Barack Obama failed to negate. USOC's demand that it be given 15 per cent of television subsidy, which it continues to receive, has created murmurs in the IOC backrooms for years. For the first time rebellion against the Americans is out in the open. That Chicago managed to poll 18 votes in the first round is a tribute to the effort put in by the president and the first lady against all odds. It is also proof that US dominance in world sport in finally a thing of the past. The Chinese proved it in Beijing by topping the gold medals count. Rio has done the same at the administrative level by winning the 2016 bid.

The Rio win draws attention to the truth that charisma campaigns aren't the deciding factor after all. Following Tony Blair's success in Singapore four years earlier, when he almost single-handedly won the games for London defeating Paris in a nailbiter, charisma campaigns by leading global celebrities came to dominate Olympic bidding. Chicago, with some of the biggest names in its team, raised speculation that celebrity charm could pull it off. Delaying the signing of the host city contract, considered sacrosanct for any claim, the Americans were convinced that Oprah Winfrey and the Obamas would do the job for them. Finally, the old boys club has delivered a royal snub. It has shown that content and emotion matter more than star power; the world can only thank it for that.

Whether or not Rio can pull off a stunning show is anybody's guess. This is more so because the challenges facing the developing world are often more difficult to meet. However, with models to emulate, developing nations can surely bask in the euphoria of a good job done for the time being. For example, Seoul, which had a strenuous time leading up to the games in 1988 in view of the change of guard in Korea, managed to successfully harness the event for the first time to address environmental concerns, a standout aspect of the Rio bid as well. Since then, environmental issues have always received importance. They even occupied centre stage in Sydney when the games were christened 'Green Games'.

While celebrating the turn towards Brazil and Latin America, there's a thought for India. We are the only remaining BRIC member country that's still to host the games. Can we realistically hope to bid for 2020 or 2024? With a successful Commonwealth Games 2010, the Olympic doors will surely open for India. But there are issues of accountability and responsibility. With under-preparedness in Delhi staring us in the face, an Olympic bid seems a million miles away. But if Rio can turn the tide in a little under seven years since the start of the Lula presidency in 2002, there's hope. With just under a year to go for the Commonwealth Games, it is time we prepare to meet the challenge.

 

The writer is senior research fellow, University of Central Lancashire.

 

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TIMES OF INDIA

SPARE US THE MORALIZING

 

Corporate affairs minister Salman Khursheed has cautioned India Inc against huge compensation packages. By his tone, this wasn't just well-intentioned advice at a time of slowdown. By saying that India hadn't "reached the level of liberalism where vulgarity is a fundamental right", he passes a subjective and problematic moral judgement. True, post-September 2008, economic turmoil the world over forced a relook at corporate pay that encourages excessive risk-taking in financial institutions. Consumers in even big spender nations like America belt-tightened to cope with the crisis. In India, the government has pushed an austerity drive recently. But surely none of this justifies a gratuitous swipe at economic liberalism a growth driver the world over in a throwback to pre-reforms India.

There are several counters to the sermonising. One, taxpayer money funds netas' upkeep and work-related expenditure, making austerity on their part desirable. Corporate professionals' pay is performance-linked. The corporate world is highly competitive; its incentives are meant to both retain top quality talent and boost performance. A CEO answers to a board of directors and shareholders for his company's successes and failures. If he gets rich, it's by encashing his own ability to deliver. But even here management and shareholders can demur. Two, Khursheed says ministers shouldn't be the judge of corporate pay. This is contradicted by his apparent insinuation that India Inc isn't regulating itself well in matters of compensation and needs to be watched.

Three, in the global debate on bankers' pay and bonuses, critics in the US targeted only financial institutions bailed out by government. While Wall Street's pay packages did face flak, there's a broad consensus against government interference in corporate affairs with regard to pay. Finally, corporate social responsibility is a must. But the government should know that no country's rich-poor gap is bridged by demoralising those who dream or earn big. The chasm is narrowed by governance, by creating the kind of socio-economic level playing field that gives ever-greater numbers of people access to health, education and job opportunities. Striking moralistic postures is a poor substitute.

 

 

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TIMES OF INDIA

AUSTERITY NEED ALL ROUND

TARA GUPTA

 

In an echo of US president Barack Obama's plan to limit executive compensation in banks that received federal bailout funds earlier this year, India's corporate affairs minister Salman Khursheed has asked corporations to refrain from paying top executives 'vulgar' amounts of money. Austerity is the watchword for the UPA government, and Khursheed's attempt to get business houses to display some sensitivity towards the plight of the common man is to be appreciated. It's been a long, hard year for the economy, reeling from the one-two punch of a global recession and a devastating drought. For chief executive officers to take home salaries some 12,500 times the average per capita income in the country is, indeed, indecent.

It's true the government shouldn't legislate on such matters and in an ideal world, it wouldn't have to. The shareholders through the board of directors decide CEO compensation, at least in theory. If the shareholders want to reward their chief executive handsomely, then the government has no business interfering. But things are seldom that simple in India. Small shareholders are hardly empowered as a single bloc and are unable to affect the decision-making of a big public-listed company. At the same time, is it not unheard of for the board of directors to be constituted entirely of the chief executive's cronies, which means that there is no real check on the performance of the CEO, who is then free to reward himself even for bad business practices, effectively robbing shareholders for personal gain.

Nor do many Indian companies have a rich tradition of philanthropy. Giving back to society is hardly the norm in India, even for corporations that can afford to do so. Since corporate social responsibility is feeble, it falls upon the state to intervene to ensure a minimally equitable distribution of resources. No doubt CEOs perform a highly skilled function in their companies, but what can possibly justify salaries earned in crores when workers in the same companies struggle to make ends meet?

 

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TIMES OF INDIA

MARRY AT LEISURE

G K GUPTA

 

What Socrates said some 2,500 years ago still enlivens the gossip gatherings of friends and presents a hilarious opportunity for jaunty tittle-tattle. Replying to a question, the great Greek philosopher had said, "As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent." But his thinking appeared biased and influenced by the harsh treatment he received from his wife Xanthippe. The pros and cons of the situation 'to marry or not to marry' may broadly be summed up thus: the one who marries and may repent is, no doubt, better off, as he at least has the profit of a wife, a partner in repentance. But the one avowed to celibacy is a loner and has to repent on his own with no one to fall back upon. Clearly, it is deduced by simple arithmetic that the one who decides to marry is a winner. I bid goodbye to bachelorhood with such thoughts in mind.

Well, how prophetic appeared Socrates. I was like a bird with clipped feathers soon after marriage. Late night movies with friends, adda in the coffee house at Chowringhee in Kolkata and stag parties had suddenly become things of the past. Like with a slight turn in a kaleidoscope, the picture had changed completely. I had ceased to fit into the company of my old bachelor friends, who had given me up as a lost cause. I had unknowingly entered a different bracket where the things that mattered were spiralling prices and what is called making both ends meet. But before long, the true picture emerged when my wife left to visit her parents for a month. Keeping up with regular household chores like doing laundry, ironing clothes, paying bills or supervising the part-time maid dusting and cleaning the house was no joke. Breakfast and meals had to be prepared or just skipped. The cluttered look all around was disquieting. The wafting fragrance of talcum or the heady smell of tadka from the kitchen were missing. And so were the feminine giggles and guffaws. I longed for those moments and wanted to move from shop to shop in New Market in her company, searching for that elusive blouse piece which would perfectly match the texture of some sari.

 

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HINDUSTAN TIMES

EDITORIAL

MANIPUR, STILL A PART OF INDIA

 

More than something is rotten in the state of Manipur. And utter neglect lies at the source of the crippling problems that the people of Manipur are reeling from — for nearly 40 years now. Civil society in Imphal and across the state's nine administrative districts has been squeezed out between insurgent groups who have found an opportunity to continue to ply their hafta (protection money) trade under the cover of ideology, and the total absence of law and order that the authorities have decided to leave unrepaired and leave conditions ripe for perpetual exploitation. To put it bluntly, Manipur is in ruins.

Why doesn't the central government, whose mission is to make the Great Indian Success Story an all-inclusive narrative, intervene to at least make that first move of identifying the man-made basketcase that is Manipur? Or do the paltry two Lok Sabha seats and the general apathy of 'mainland Indians' towards the North-eastern states make an intervention not worth the while?

 

In December 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had talked about amending the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 that has been implemented in Manipur since the 1960s. Referring to the Jeevan Reddy Commission's report, Mr Singh had stated that there were genuine 'grievances' of the people of Manipur. Almost three years later, the law that empowers military forces to arrest, shoot and kill 'suspects' remains. The reportedly 'fake' encounter on July 23 this year of a former insurgent by police commandos has since been followed by other similar 'unaccounted for' deaths. In the face of no one being brought to justice and Imphal being, for all purposes, a curfew town where life is increasingly becoming nasty, short and brutish, someone from the venerable government of India — of which Manipur is a part of — should do the right thing: impose President's Rule and start bringing order back.

 

For those — both 'locals' and 'outsiders' — using Manipur for their own devices, such an intervention will be bad news. They will argue their case, pointing to other sources for the mess that is the state. But in a place where roads are crumbling, educational institutions are shut, people are too scared to step out of their houses or of being summarily being dragged out, and where deaths occur without explanations, the Government of India owes it to the people of Manipur to rescue them from oblivion.

 

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HINDUSTAN TIMES

EDITORIAL

IT'S PRIVATE BUSINESS

 

We don't subscribe to the Gordon Gekko theory that greed is good. But do we really care how much CEOs of companies make as long as they ensure that we, the shareholders, get a few shekels too? So, we think that Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid was a bit offline with the bottomline when he asked the private sector to avoid 'vulgar' salaries for their top executives. Now Mr Khurshid means well. We do eat our hearts out when we see our corporate tycoons whiz above us in their helicopters while we are stuck in the traffic. The minister also added the caveat that the government will not regulate private sector salaries. That's nice, considering that the government cannot do so.

 

But perhaps someone is forgetting that the new mantra is private-public partnership and if we have our CEOs worrying about where the next Cartier is coming from, it might just make such partnerships a wee bit unsteady. Now, we do agree that we should have no truck with vulgarity. But tell us, would you rather see a doyen of vulgarity rake in the big ones for fake weddings and babies than an honest to goodness CEO who adds to the wealth and health of millions of shareholders?

 

Post your answers to us and we will pool in from our very unvulgar salaries for a ticket on Air India, that model of governmental management. When those who have invested their savings in companies feel that the CEOs are getting their snouts in the trough at their expense, we are sure that they have ways of letting them know that they will have to sweat a little for that next villa in the Bahamas.

 

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HINDUSTAN TIMES

EDITORIAL

LOST IN STATISTICS

RK PACHAURI

 

Ever since countries across the globe started measuring economic progress in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), several analysts and thinkers have criticised this measure, because according to them, it does not measure genuine progress. French President Nicolas Sarkozy deserves credit for having set up a commission on the measurement of economic performance and social progress, chaired by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, with the involvement of our own Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and Jean Paul Fitoussi of France. The report of this commission was submitted to Sarkozy recently, and he has rightly called for a set of measures for assessing human welfare different from the flawed practice of assessing economic development on the basis of the GDP.

 

Needless to say, conservative organisations have regarded this exercise as meaningless. The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed piece on September 30, which went to the extent of stating that France has come up with this devious exercise only because its own record of growth and GDP in recent decades has been very poor. It stated, "France has excellent reason to suppress GDP statistics," because, as it asserted, since 1982 — among developed nations — France has been lagging in GDP growth with a mere 2.1 per cent annual rate in comparison to the US's 3.3 per cent. However, this assertion is questionable.

 

There are several groups across the world which have been consistently questioning the structure and direction of economic growth in the US, perhaps because the US economy has clearly been increasing its entropy as clearly highlighted decades ago by late Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, a distinguished economist ahead of his time. A California-based organisation called Redefining Progress has pursued a relentless campaign for many years now in attempting a rational assessment of real economic progress quite distinct from measures contained in the GDP of a country.

 

An interesting article brought out by them refers to a newspaper headline that came out on October 28, 2005, soon after Hurricane Katrina, proclaiming, 'Economy brushes off storms and expands by 3.8 per cent in 3Q, beating estimates.' The author of the article rightly laments this characterisation, which according to him in one fell swoop dismissed the inequitable and catastrophic toll associated with 1,836 preventable deaths, over 850,000 housing units damaged, destroyed or left uninhabitable, disruption of 600,000 jobs, permanent inundation of 118 square miles of marsh land, etc. all of which was implied as being irrelevant to the US economy.

 

It is becoming increasingly obvious that GDP fails as a true measure of economic welfare, particularly if the negative impacts of our current patterns of growth and development are lost in minor statistics covering costs of hospital expenses and reconstruction and reparations consequent on damage that is taking place worldwide, say, as a result of climate change.

 

It is becoming increasingly apparent that human activities are imposing a heavy footprint on the natural resources of the earth and are degrading and damaging ecosystems across the planet.

 

Stiglitz's report highlights the limitations of GDP in this context, and mentions in particular the fact that GDP focuses only on production, rather than income and consumption. He also elaborates on how GDP doesn't account for the cost of environmental damage, nor does it take household-level production into account. It was the famous economist Pigou who said that when someone marries his housekeeper, the GDP of the country goes down. Despite these flaws, unfortunately no substitute for the GDP has evolved, and we continue to emphasise production of goods and services as the only means to assess economic progress, completely ignoring all its negative implications and impacts.

 

However, now that a leader like Sarkozy has mobilised the intellectual resources of the distinguished group chaired by Stiglitz, I hope he ignores the distorted view of the Wall Street Journal and mounts a widespread effort to ensure that the world comes up with better measures and metrics of human welfare.

 

On the 140th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi this year, it would be relevant to recall his words, "Speed is irrelevant, if you are going in the wrong direction." We must find measures that flash red lights as we move in the wrong direction.

 

RK Pachauri is Director-General, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and Chairman Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

THREE PICTURES

 

The release of the United Nations' 2009 Human Development Report is likely to start many much-needed conversations. The report, which is produced annually by the United Nations Development Programme or UNDP, is generally scrutinised for its "rankings" — in which countries' relative positions in terms of how well they support individual development are ranked. Much will be made of India's relative fall in the rankings — and, possibly, of China's continued advance. Most such rankings are pointless exercises in self-referential data fetishism. But the Human Development Index is probably the best of its kind, the product of a refashioning of development studies that put people, not abstractions, first. And the conversation that India's "fall" should start must focus on why it has fallen — and that is, according to the report's lead author, because growth has been prioritised more by other countries.

 

The other conversation that the report intends to get moving is on migration. The HDR is subtitled "Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development" and takes as its central thesis the convincing argument that barriers to the movement of workers prevent individuals and economies from achieving anything close to their full potential. This is an argument that the Indian government — which represents people willing and able to move as well as an economy that will benefit from being the source of such movement — should be making on a regular basis at international fora. Instead we have been presented in the past with shameful retreats, such as a former foreign secretary going to DC to say that the number of Indian engineers that the US allows in is not his business. This abdication of responsibility must change. It is in India's interest to call for greater movement for workers, especially from the developing to the developed world, and facts unanswerably marshalled by the 2009 report — such as on how streamlined migration is crucial for developed-world economic recovery — should aid it in making that case.

 

The other vexed question, of course, is of migration within the developing world, and even within countries. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, while releasing the report, correctly pointed out that numbers on internal migration are not very reliable — especially when it comes to comparisons between India and China, which are not only the places with the most people in rural employment, but also represent radically different approaches to internal migration policy. That needs fixing. The big-picture point that the report makes is this: "rural" employment won't help individuals achieve their aspirations. We have to be ahead of the curve in helping people move to where those aspirations are more likely to be fulfilled.

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

ALTITUDE SICKNESS

 

After being grounded for days, Air India staff showed that even 30,000 feet above sea level they cannot be counted on. The safety of 106 passengers travelling on Saturday from Sharjah to Delhi via Lucknow was risked when four onboard crew — two pilots and two crew members — were involved in a brawl. The pilot and the steward have allegedly sustained injuries, and an airhostess has filed a case of sexual harassment against the pilots. Additional details are filtering out, some rumour, some fact: the pilot apparently had a history of bad behaviour, and he threatened to offload the entire crew in Karachi. (That alone is an appalling threat. Would the plane have flown crew-less?) An inquiry has been ordered, but you do not need one to pass this judgment: this petty indiscipline threatened many lives, and injured the already-battered reputation of India's national carrier.

 

The pilots and crew members have been grounded by Air India, and a three-member panel is conducting an inquiry. The Delhi police have registered a criminal offence and are conducting their own parallel investigation. This is the least that should be done, given that the damage was not limited to the staff: it extended to the 106 bystanders whose lives were risked by those tasked (and paid) to ensure their safety. The investigation must be swift, the punishment exemplary. But more than most other sectors, airlines fly on their reputations for courtesy, efficiency and, above all, safety. No matter which individuals are eventually held responsible, the fact will remain that lives were endangered on Saturday, that because of the so-called national carrier there could have been a tricky diplomatic incident.

 

No further case need be made to indict Air India — an airline that runs colossal losses, makes ill-thought-out acquisitions, is milked by management and its political masters, and whose pilots pretend to be ill to affect a blatantly illegal strike. This is a national carrier that is fast proving to be beyond reform. Saturday's fracas only adds to the image of a badly-run excuse for an airline, with poor systems and unruly staff. Air India is unfit for service.

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

PAY-DAY POLITICS

 

Hard times have fallen upon sections of our political class. The Congress party, for instance, has imposed austerity measures on its members. MPs and MLAs have taken a salary cut to assist the exchequer in this dire financial phase. Ministers are folding themselves into airline seats to fly — as one amongst their own joked — "cattle class" as an expression of solidarity with India's crisis-stricken millions. And having shown that exemplary solidarity, it seems, they would like some company. So it is that Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed put it to Indian business that they should avoid "vulgar" salaries to senior staff.

 

Remuneration has been such a contested issue in the long year since the global financial crisis set in that the minister's remark must be engaged with for more than the hypocrisy that sustains the edifice of the austerity debate — a connect between conspicuous austerity, without a political push to reform, and GDP growth is too suspect to be lingered on. The trouble with such political rhetoric — of politicians being divested of any entitlement that spells comfort and of asking the private sector to put ceilings on salaries — is that it breeds a culture of doublespeak, of "don't show, don't tell".

 

Blaming the well-paid is not going to get India's GDP growth to pre-crisis levels, nor is it going to free up credit flows to fuel the business cycle and create jobs. And a country still rectifying issues of corporate governance — by getting companies to clean up their account books and be accountable to their shareholders — should be wary of incentivising hidden salary structures. It also smothers the nuance in the wider global debate about how to clean executive remuneration of clear conflicts of interest.

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

COLUMN

MORE THAN NUMBERS

JAITHIRTH RAO

 

When Nandan Nilekani was invited to take up a government assignment, there was considerable scepticism in many quarters, and justifiably so. Our government has what is known as the "reverse-Midas touch" — the ability to convert gold into lead. Think of so many government initiatives in the history of free India. Do you remember the Community Development Project of the fifties? After five decades and the appointment of thousands of BDOs (block development officers), how many parts of rural India have indeed "developed" (whatever that may mean)? Do you remember Garibi Hatao, the magic slogan some forty years ago? At last count India had the maximum number of "garibs" in the world. So will the same fate await the Unique ID Project — good intentions, tall talk and abysmal delivery leading to cynicism all around? This is a legitimate fear and our track record as a country does not lead to much optimism.

 

And yet, the other day as a couple of dozen of us came away from a meeting with Nandan's team, we were looking at each other, nodding our heads and saying with a mixture of awe, admiration, hope and tautened expectation something along the following lines: "Their plans are intriguing — modest at one level and therefore eminently do-able, simply breathtaking in its audacity at another level and therefore absolutely desirable from the country's point of view." The new Agency is not planning to issue a card as most of us have been thinking. In one utterly brilliant stroke, they have redefined the purpose and the outcome of their endeavour. Each Indian resident is going to be eligible for a single Unique ID Number, not a card. This means that others who issue cards, be it in the state sector (the Election Commission, the passport office, the NREGA authority, the Income Tax Department, etc) or in the private sector (banks, cell phone operators, etc) have nothing to fear and therefore no incentive to resist or sabotage the new approach. On the contrary, they are free (as and when they choose — no compulsion) to leverage the fact that there will be a unique number associated with a unique individual — a symmetric relationship which cannot be violated or subverted as it will be based on non-replicable biometrics. Leveraging this facility can only help various card-issuers and if they choose not to make use of the unique IDs they are no worse off than they are today.

 

The fear many of us had that players, both in the public and private sectors, who have agendas of their own (including the need to protect their turf) will have a vested interest in willing this new effort to fail has thus been subtly eliminated. The ID programme is a neutral, non-threatening one. You can use it if you want to and over time you may benefit from using it, but it in no way impinges on the initiatives and territories of other players.

Also, from the perspective of Indian residents (note the emphasis on residents — the determination of citizenship is left to existing authorities like the passport officer) the entire programme is positioned as a voluntary one. There is no totalitarian Mussolini forcing you to get an ID number. This should make civil libertarians feel good. Just like people who have Internet access voluntarily get themselves e-mail addresses, most residents of India will want to get themselves a national ID number. And this will be true of the rich who need driver's licences, passports and bank accounts as well as the poor who need ration cards and NREGA payments. The key feature of the system as conceived is that once a critical mass is built, the installed base will grow by popular demand, not by fiat. Theoretically a hermit in a cave need not apply for an ID number and that is as it should be. As a committed libertarian, this aspect of the programme appeals to me. It is as though we have a supportive state, not an intrusive big brother.

 

The technological architecture involved (both hardware and software, but primarily software) in pulling off this task is by no means going to be simple. This is especially true for the initial enlistment process. In order to ensure the integrity of the process, every time a new person applies for it, the

 

system would need to run a negative check across hundreds of millions of existing IDs (and eventually across 1.2 billion IDs) and this would need to be done on a near-real-time basis. No one anywhere in the world has attempted anything on this scale. Those who are not sensitive to the technical implications should just trust this writer. Trust me, this is a stupendous task. To some extent this could end up resembling the US mission to the moon. That effort led to technical spin-offs and advances in so many related fields. I have a hunch that we might face a similar situation and a similar set of opportunities. The ID project may actually end up making an IT superpower out of us in a very real sense — not just with marketing hype, which has been in part our story so far. And this will be both in hardware (India may end up becoming the biggest and most advanced user of biometric readers) as well as in software (we will be the first to figure out how to capture, store and retrieve — all in near-real-time scenarios — a few billion photographs and tens of billions of biometric data elements).

 

For someone who went into the meeting as a sceptic, I came out with a profound if cautious sense of optimism. This national project has a greater than 50 per cent chance of success and it is in all our interests to support it to make sure that that probability goes up. The practicality of the approach and the calmness with which we are approaching the stupendous technical challenges would indicate that in the months to come the probability of success will keep going up.

 

The writer divides his time between Mumbai, Lonavla and Bangalore jerry.rao@expressindia.com

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

COLUMN

PEELING THE ONION

COOMI KAPOOR

 

A year back I might actually have agreed that Raj Thackeray's goons had a point in protesting the use of the word "Bombay" in a Hindi movie, while referring to India's commercial capital. I believed that the Bombay of my childhood, a beautiful, tolerant, cosmopolitan city by the sea, had in any case vanished. Every time I returned to the city I searched in vain for many of the old landmarks, only to be confronted by a disturbing reality which had no connection with the past.

 

For instance, the gracious Victorian villas on New Marine Lines, a sleepy, shady lane behind Churchgate station where I grew up, have disappeared. Now when you enter the street during office hours you are overwhelmed by the stench of rotting garbage, teeming humanity, cars honking away and traffic jams. All the houses have long since been pulled down for high-rise offices, though adequate civic amenities are totally absent.

 

All cities change with time. One cannot continue to dwell in the past. The difference is that the rapid metamorphosis of Bombay altered not just its physical exterior but corroded its soul. The Shiv Sena and others of its ilk, determinedly hammered away at the cosmopolitan, secular character of the city, in a bid to assert the primacy of Maharashtrians. Non-Maharashtrians were all lumped together as "outsiders". The irony is that the Marathi-speakers, who come from other parts of Maharashtra state and who now claim to be the true inheritors of the city, are themselves carpet-baggers.

 

The seven islands named in honour of the goddess Mumbadevi were originally inhabited by Koli fisherfolk. In the mid sixteenth century, the Portuguese captured the island. A century later it was handed over to the East India Company. With the British developing Bombay as a major harbour and commercial hub, it attracted a large number of Gujaratis and Parsis by the eighteenth century. The Marathi-speakers who came from the hinterland as labourers in the factories, started trickling in only by the late nineteenth century. In fact, before the division of Bombay state in 1960, the numbers of Gujaratis and Maharashtrians in the city were probably equal.

 

When exactly did Bombay change its identity and transform into Mumbai? Officially in 1995. No one objected to the re-christening, since in Gujarati and Marathi the city was always called by that name. Bombay was simply an anglicised mispronunciation. But "Mumbai" is not just another return to the correct indigenous pronunciation of the name, as with Chennai or Kolkata. The term unfortunately has come to have another connotation, because of the intolerant, Marathi chauvinism associated with the name. The Gujarati-speakers, Parsis, Bohras, Khojas and others who played a major role in building the city's important institutions and giving the city its cosmopolitan character are today made to feel like

 

second-class citizens by the Marathi-speakers who used their political clout and numbers to terrorise. The liberal and secular character of Bombay turned insular and parochial.

 

The physical decline of the city started around the same time. Urban planning was ignored by greedy politicians who looked upon Mumbai as a milch cow for party coffers and their own pockets. Ironically, those who began the process of destroying the city's harmonious social fabric were the first ones to point a finger at new migrants from the south, Bihar and UP that started arriving in large numbers by the end of the century. Today, according to Suketu Mehta in Maximum City, two-thirds of the city's population is crowded into just five per cent of the total area of the island, while the rich or covenanted old tenants monopolise the remaining 95 per cent. In part of the city the density is as high as 15,000 per square kilometre.

 

Mehta went on to make another point: he said Mumbai should not be described as a melting pot but rather an onion with endless layers, each representing a totally different world. And happily, the events of the last year have shown us that pockets of the true Bombay still exist. This was brought home by the heroic response of Bombayites to the 26/11 terrorist attack and its aftermath. The courage displayed by hotel employees, firemen and policemen, the manner in which concerned residents rallied to the defence of their city and ensured communal amity, the display of public outrage against opportunistic politicians, were all reflective of the spirit of Bombay. Spontaneous citizen movements, such as cleaning the beaches, fighting to improve the environment, restoring the city's old monuments and buildings, reviving the museums, the illumination of south Bombay's landmarks and instituting vibrant new folk festivals, testify to the fact that Bombay is still alive. If Bollywood — yet to be re-christened Mollywood — director Karan Johar felt the need to apologise for using the term Bombay in his film, it was simply because he was intimidated by the spirit of Mumbai, which does not have the same tolerance as its earlier avatar.

 

coomi.kapoor@expressindia.com

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

OPED

TECHNOLOGY IS THE EASY PART

VIKRAM S MEHTA

 

Every now and then it is necessary to turn to history for a reality check. This is because whilst history is not a perfect guide for the future, it is arguably the best we have. There is now a broad consensus that the sine qua non for sustainable economic development is energy efficiency, clean technology, renewable sources of energy, reforestation and 'smart' infrastructure. The world must shift from fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) to 'greener' energy.

 

History, however, forewarns against complacency. It throws up example after example of the long lead times and the huge investments required to transit from one energy system to another. The leaders that will congregate in Copenhagen in December to deliberate on what the world must do to mitigate and adapt to the consequences of global warming should keep these examples somewhere in the back of their minds. Because it will help them distinguish between the high notes of the 'ideal' from the dull tones of the 'feasible'.

 

The 19th century is talked of as the era of coal; the 20th century as that of oil. Similarly, people are hopeful that the 21st century will be the age of renewables. The sweep of these comments misses one essential point. The growth of oil in the 20th century did not lead to the end of coal. Equally, the onset of solar, wind and bio energy will not result in the displacement of fossil fuels.The reasons are not simply because of cost and convenience, although these are compelling. It is also because of embedded energy infrastructures and the gestation period between the development of a new technology and its commercial deployment.

 

Edison illuminated New York City in 1885. It was not however until 1935 or so that the factories of mid-west America were able to switch from steam power to electric power. This was because of the architecture of the factories. They had to be redesigned and in many cases totally rebuilt before Edison's revolutionary technology could be deployed.

 

A more contemporary example, LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) was first exported from Algeria in 1964. This was made possible through a transformative technology that converted gas into liquids which enabled its shipment in specially designed cryogenic tankers across oceans. Small countries like Qatar, Trinidad and Brunei were consequently able to monetise their huge gas reserves. The LNG business has grown spectacularly over the past four decades. But its share of the energy basket is still only 2 per cent. Coal continues to be the dominant fuel for power generation. Similarly wind turbines were first installed in the US and Denmark twenty-five years back. But wind energy still occupies only a miniscule share of the market today. And it will not be until sometime in the next decade that it will reach a one per cent share. Were America desirous of replacing all of its coal-based power plants with wind energy, it would require 200,000 wind turbines and a land mass equivalent to the state of Gujarat.

 

The point is that given the nature of the energy sector and the embedded linkages between the infrastructure (i.e. land, distribution, logistics etc) and consumption patterns, it will take a long time for new technology, however cost-competitive and environmentally attractive, to make a material inroad into the domain of 'incumbent' fuels and technologies.

 

Here it might be worth pointing out that unlike the telecom and computer sectors where every 18-24 months the industry is convulsed by a new technology, success in the laboratories of an energy company is often simply the prelude to a 5-10 year phase of experimentation. A demonstration unit is first built. This can take upto a year. Then the technology is tested. This can last anywhere between 4-8 years. Thereafter, and on the assumption that the technology has passed the tests of reliability, a commercial-sized plant is constructed. But usually only one. The investment programme will seldom approve the construction of multiple plants. This would be too expensive. In other words the scientists may have uncorked the champagne bottles but management has to wait many years for a similar celebration. When they do, it is with the knowledge that the new technology will gain market share slowly and incrementally.

 

What do these examples suggest for the future?

 

First, technology per se will not be the obstacle to creating a new energy system. Industry will find a technological answer to existing or emergent concerns — as it has always. Thus offshore drilling when supplies from onshore fields could not keep pace with demand; thus 3D seismic, horizontal wells, 'smart' production tools, enhanced oil recovery etc when 'easy oil' was no longer accessible and companies faced increasing geologic and topographic complexity; thus GTL (Gas To Liquids) and CTL (Coal To Liquids) technology to combat the problems of environmental pollution and GHGs. The technology will be there and if it is not, the companies will develop it. This is the positive lesson. The negative is the problem of dissemination. This has been slow because of the structure of the energy sector and the plethora of infrastructural, policy and regulatory issues that surround it.

 

The question is whether history offers any lesson on how to overcome these obstacles? The specific answer is not clear but there is a generic signal. It is that no one entity, whether government, corporate or NGO can unilaterally remove these obstacles. Many countries have announced national climate mitigation plans. Some of the plans are impressive in their breadth and targets. Indeed so impressive that several leaders have wondered aloud, perhaps rhetorically, whether an international agreement is really necessary. The lesson of history would forewarn against such unilateralism. It would posit that given the globalised nature of the problem a shared and collective commitment is the most effective way of accelerating the pace of technology deployment and the transition to a sustainable energy system. History also posits that there will be no energy silver bullet, at least not in the foreseeable future. The world will depend on and require multiple energy sources and sustainability will depend on the creation of new 'green energy' and the 'greening' of existing energy.

 

The writer is chairman, Shell group in India; the views are personal

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

OPED

HOW THE PICTURES GOT SMALLER

SHAILAJA BAJPAI

 

What do actors who no longer act do? They play themselves. Reality shows have been career-savers for them. At least, they're still out there before our eyes, doing something, anything to catch our attention, pay their bills and hope some kind TV producer will appreciate them for themselves, enough to offer them either another reality check or even, an acting assignment.

 

These stars of yesteryear have had plenty of choice: From the first tentative steps in dance shows like Nach Baliye or Jhalak Dikhla Jaa and comic turns in Comedy Circus, it has been onward forward to the do-and-dare variety of Khatron Ke Khiladi or Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao. Once physically exhausted by such exertion, there's a chance to lie back and behave badly on Bigg Boss.

 

Now NDTV Imagine has found a new way to (pre)occupy them with Pati Patni aur Woh, where childless star couples play parents to little babies. Before we embark on this unusual romp, let's repeat the question: what do actors who no longer act do? Make fools of themselves. Nothing could be more foolish than Apurva Agnihotri wearing a pregnancy contraption for wife Shilpa who cannot carry 'the baby' because she has a bad toe... sorry, back. Nothing could be more foolish than the women who treat the babies like plastic dolls pulling them this way and that, or bouncing them up and down like rubber balls and then wondering why they cry.

 

There have been outraged calls for the show to be withdrawn and the children returned to their lawful, loving parents instead of being left to the ignorant mercies of five childless couples:. For once, we have to agree: Rakhi Sawant is injurious to health — ours. She should have gracefully disappeared from sight after her swayamvara with or without her Swayamvara, Elesh. Instead, they reappear to bring up baby. More like bringing up 'father' and mommie dearest too. The other contestants, Sachin and Juhi, Mouni and Gaurav, Debina and Gurmeet behave like children playing housie-housie (remember how we did that?). They need to grow up. Fast.

 

Rakhi's problem is that she tries too hard. From searching for the wife inside of her, she's moved on to searching for the maternal instinct somewhere in there. In both instances, she's not convincing. As for Elesh, he's stony-faced and looks like he would rather be far away, preferably in Canada, than left holding Rakhi and the baby. Is the honeymoon over?

 

Rakhi's mother has been inspired by her daughter's success at reality TV. She's the unlikeliest participant in season 3 of Bigg Boss (Colors). The others are music composer Ismail Darbar, actors Poonam Dhillon, Kamaal Khan, comedian Raju Srivastava, big sister Shilpa Shetty's younger sister Shamita, Dara Singh's son Vindu Dara Singh, model Aditi Govitrikar, cross-dressing designer Rohit Verma, non-Hindi speaking German actress Ciesta, dancer Sherlyn Chopra, couple Bakhtiyar Irani and Tanaaz Currim — who like Govitrikar have left a young child at home. Do we hear loud protests?

 

Would you watch this bunch for 84 days? There's a certain lack of oomph in this year's line-up but then Rahul Mahajan was not exactly pin-up material and he was the star of last season, so there. One thing's for sure: there are the Bigg Boss participants and then there's the Big B. If Sunday's opening is anything to go by, Amitabh Bachchan will steal the show. Each contestant paid him reverential compliments; Jaya Sawant called him her 'bhagvan', Srivastava and Savita dived for his feet, Dhillon remembered being in his arms, Vindu remembered playing TT with him, Khan accepted the offer only because of him... It was more about Big B than them. Bachchan being Bachchan, tried to elevate the proceedings by quoting gravely from Kabhi Kabhi and asking them existential questions when all they probably wanted to know was the identity of their fellow prisoners!

shailaja.bajpai@expressindia.com

 

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INDIAN EXPRESS

OPED

CITIES OF DIFFERENCE

SAUMITRA JHA

 

At Stanford Business School, one of the very first chapters our MBA students read is an article on the "promise of development" by economics Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. The article highlights India's successes, pointing to the shimmering buildings of Bangalore, but also notes the striking contrasts one finds in Indian cities, with pockets of affluence right next to terrible poverty.

 

These dramatic contrasts would surprise few residents of, or visitors to, India's urban areas. As of 2006, India's towns and cities housed more than a third of the country's poor, a proportion that appears to be increasing. Yet, these towns and cities also produce around 65 per cent of India's goods and services. In fact, it may be precisely the fact that India's rich and poor live side by side that make many Indian urban areas such productive drivers of economic development, in contrast to many areas in the West where the poor live in economically segregated neighbourhoods or even "projects" set up in the name of urban renewal.

 

The central government's major urban initiative — the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) — is a timely realisation of the importance of India's urban sector. However, going forward, the project would do well to target investments at middle-sized towns where they may have the most social benefits and to be wary of creating Potemkin town centres that displace the poor.

 

The JNNURM has approved Rs 238.6 billion to urban projects in some 60 cities between 2005 and May 2009. The majority selected for funding have been infrastructure projects, with water management, drainage and sanitation being particularly important. There is no question that such projects are sorely needed across many, if not all of India's urban areas. Yet a look at the target towns of the JNNURM shows a strong bias towards places that already enjoy strong political voice

 

and disproportionate access to taxpayers' money.

 

Recent research by the World Bank suggests that the gains from investing in infrastructure in India's towns are greatest in medium-sized towns and cities — district centres that are often neglected relative to the reasonably reliable electricity and roads enjoyed in the bureaucratic and political precincts of state capitals. These mid-sized communities also play an important role in acting as marketplaces and employment catalysts for surrounding rural areas. Being a Central project, the JNNURM provides a great opportunity to target these district hubs.

 

The JNNURM also calls for "urban renewal" and "affordable housing" projects, both terms that sound benign but can have serious consequences. Indian cities, like Mumbai, contain some of the most expensive urban real estate in the world. At first, projects that remove slums from high rent areas seem like a win-win proposition. Governments can get revenue from selling the land underlying the slum to development, the city centre is cleared of poverty and the poor can then be placed in "better" affordable housing units in low rent peripheral areas.

 

However, simply put, having slums in close proximity to rich parts of cities can also create opportunities that are good for all. At the most basic level, employers can find workers easily, while workers can find employment and a chance to advance while still being able to afford the rent. The cost of living remains relatively low in Indian cities, despite high rents, in part because of the services that are provided by the relatively affluent and the relatively poor to one another. Given India's global comparative advantage continues to lie in its ability to provide services at relatively low cost, this is not a trivial benefit.

 

In contrast, a tragic irony of America's inner cities is that the poor often face higher costs of living simply because they live in segregated neighbourhoods with less access to goods and services, let alone jobs. Unlike India, slums in many Western cities are not hives of small-scale industry and production, but instead are likely to have a disproportionate number of unemployed residents. "Affordable housing" projects that displace the poor to low-rent peripheral areas run the risk of separating people from opportunities, reducing the very advantages that can make Indian towns globally competitive to work and do business.

 

This is not to say that having rich and poor living side by side can't also create problems. Crime and resentment, sometimes expressed violently, are common problems in places with large inequities. However, segregating the poor is often not an effective long-term solution to these problems. Indian towns continue to provide a space for profound opportunities. Government projects that focus on improving the transport, power and sanitation infrastructure for all, rather than creating a few Potemkin town centres devoid of poverty, would go far to allow them to reach their amazing potential.

 

The writer is assistant professor of political economy at Stanford University

 

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FINANCIAL EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

INDIA'S HDI EMBARRASSMENT

 

If we are truly an emerging economy—and our growth rate over the last decade certainly suggests so—we should be steadily rising on all rankings that relate to economic indicators. However, the latest Human Development Report released by the United Nations Development Programme ranks India at 134 among 180-odd countries, which is roughly the position we have been at for a number of years now—in the lowest ranked 50-60 nations. If anything, India's human development index ranking has marginally slipped in recent years. Perhaps more damningly the report reveals that India's HDI ranking is 6 rungs lower than the country's per capita income ranking in PPP $ terms. This is in sharp contrast to many of our neighbouring countries where the HDI ranking is much higher than the per capita income ranking. These include Bangladesh (with HDI ranking higher than per capita GDP in PPP by 9 ranks), China (10 ranks), Sri Lanka (14 ranks), Nepal (21 ranks), Myanmar (29 ranks). This large discrepancy in rankings once again reinforces the point that India's social development indicators are still woefully poor for a country growing fast. This is, however, not a failure of markets and growth, but instead a failure of governance that has failed to provide basic public goods like education and health to large sections of the population. The ruling and reelected Congress's self-congratulation on focussing on the aam aadmi needs to be mentioned here—the party hasn't done any fresh thinking on public service provision, it has only made somewhat more welfare money reach the countryside.

 

Apart from the rankings, this year's report focuses on the role of labour mobility (migration) in improving human development. By gathering ample evidence on the positive impact of migration, it argues the case for reducing restrictions on the movement of people within and across borders. India's record on migration is evidence of the positive impact of such labour flows on the economy. As pointed out in the report, India is the recipient of remittance inflows ($35.3 billion) despite its emigration rate of 0.8% being just half that of South Asia and less than one third of the global rate of 3%. But the overall impact of the inflows is dissipated by the small size of per capita remittances which stood at $30 per capita as against $131 in Sri Lanka and $3355 in Luxemburg. But migrants definitely benefit with research showing a 15-fold increase in...

 

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FINANCIAL EXPRESS

EDITORIAL

OLYMPICS ARE GOING TO RIO

 

The one emerging economy which gets much less credit than it deserves is Brazil. Usually relegated behind China and India in most popular discourse, the quiet rise of Brazil has got renewed attention with Rio De Jaineiro winning the bid for the 2016 Olympic Games, beating contenders in the league of Madrid, Tokyo and Chicago. The vote for Rio was of course a vote to take the Olympics to a continent it has never been before, but sentiment wasn't ever going to be reason enough. Particularly when one considers the drawbacks of Rio—-among the downsides of having an Olympics in Rio is the city's very high crime rate, congested traffic and hardly first rate infrastructure. Let's put it this way: Rio is no Beijing, not even close. If anything, it is closer to Delhi or Mumbai in its physical capacity. Yet, the city has won a competitive bid to host the world's biggest sporting event. Incidentally, Brazil will also host the 2014 football Word Cup, two years before the Olympics. What makes the world so optimistic about Brazil? The somewhat surprising answer at least for those who know Brazilian history, is the government of that country. In a continent known for shambolic and populist governments, Brazil's government led by Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva has done an admirable job of governing a difficult country. Of course, some of the groundwork had been laid by the predecessor government of President Cardoso, but Lula—who made a passionate personal pitch for the 2016 Olympics—has a led a government which has combined the best of market economics and soft populism over the six years. The results are there for all to see. It is this efficiency of government in recent times which probably gives reason for optimism—Rio will probably be turned around into an Olympic grade city by 2016.

 

Contrast this with our own haphazard preparation for the Commonwealth Games. Ideally, the Commonwealth Games should have served as a platform to showcase our organisational skills and position our own bid for the Olympics. However, on evidence available so far, the Games will probably damage our credibility to host a bigger sporting event like the Olympics. Not only is the infrastructure meant specifically for the conduct of the Games running behind schedule, but the infrastructure to support the games (roads, flyovers etc) continue to be in the planning stage. And this is in Delhi, which probably...

 

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FINANCIAL EXPRESS

COLUMN

US CAPITAL MEETS IDEAS FROM INDIA

SHUBHASHIS GANGOPADHYAY

I was reading an interesting paper by Tamir Agmon and Ido Kallir: The Monetization and the Capitalization of Intellectual Assets: Evidence from the Innovative Technology Start-up Sector in Israel. As the title suggests, it looks at the new technology units that came up in Israel over the last 10-15 years and investigates the impacts it has had on the Israeli economy. The paper's basic conclusion is that it has been immensely helpful to Israel; but my real interest in the paper was the reasoning behind the explanation for such an outcome and, the obvious policy implications that follow from such reasoning.

 

The authors borrow their explanation from a clever application of standard trade theory and finance theory. In the modern world, there are two things that drive the global economy; entrepreneurial ideas and financial capital. By financial capital they do not mean money, or simply investible capital. They describe this resource as "high risk capital", i.e., capital searching for high-risk (but high return) investment. Very simply put, this is what most people mean when they talk about venture capital and/or private equity.

 

Consider two countries A and B. Country A has a comparative advantage in ideas and B has a comparative advantage in high-risk capital. Comparative advantage is a term in trade theory; in the current example it means that country A loses less capital when it produces an idea while country B loses more capital when it produces an idea. Trade theory tells us that in such cases country A should export ideas and country B should export its high risk capital. To fix matters, let us say that country B is the US and country A is a developing country like India (or Israel in the original paper). So, the US has the venture capital and India has the entrepreneurial ideas. The US should export its capital to India and India can export some of its ideas to the US. (Strict and pure trade theorists may object to such a characterisation since no one consumes ideas or capital but we will pass on that.)

 

How does finance theory come into the picture? Both the countries have valuable assets; the US has high risk capital and India has ideas. Ideas are yet to be proven and, hence, are considered risky by ordinary investors who, therefore, stay away from them. Venture capitalists, on the other hand, through their risk exposure, and ownership strategies act as intermediaries between the investors and the holders of ideas. They can fund the risky ideas that an ordinary investor would want to avoid funding. How do they do this?

 

They buy shares in the new start-up that is set up with the entrepreneurial idea and the finance they bring in. By buying shares, they transfer their current asset (low, or no, risk cash) to the future (risky returns). Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, transfer a part of their high risk asset to the venture capitalists in exchange for low risk cash today. Most venture capital in these start-ups acts as commitment to fund employment of highly skilled labour for a period of time in the new company. This, in turn, transfers skilled labour from traditional industries to high paying new sectors. Higher incomes generate demand for other goods and a multiplier effect in the economy that fuels growth in the economy that brings in the venture capital.

 

To allow venture capital to play this role, it is essential to make it easy for them to enter. This has been well recognised. However, what needs to be emphasised is that it must also be made easy for them to exit. Venture capitalists have no interest in owning companies; they want to get out of these companies when they have become successful and that is how they make their money. If this is prevented, or difficult, they will not enter in the first place and the various benefits discussed above will not be realised.

 

I guess the telecom sector is a good example of what we mean by new ideas in developing countries being more valuable for them than old traditional methods that have succeeded in other countries. Not only has mobile phone changed much of the realities in rural India, it has also generated large amounts of employment and income in much of the country. And, the path followed by the telecom sector in India is very home-designed and quite different from what advanced countries did in their context. Indeed, the rapid growth of mobile telephony in developing countries has opened up entirely new possibilities of addressing developmental issues—e.g., the mobile wallet has huge implications for fighting the current and topical issue of exclusion of the poor from formal, or institutional, financial services.

 

In short, we should stop searching for "tried and tested" ideas and encourage our own hitherto untried, and obviously untested, ideas. Making it easier for venture capital to come in means we need not spend any of our own resources!

 

The author is research director, India Development Foundation

 

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FINANCIAL EXPRESS

COLUMN

SHOW SOME ENERGY FOR GREEN ENERGY

VIKRAM S MEHTA

 

Every now and then it is necessary to turn to history for a reality check. This is because whilst history is not a perfect guide for the future, it is arguably the best we have. There is now a broad-based consensus that the sine qua non for sustainable economic development is energy efficiency, clean technology, renewable sources of energy, reforestation and 'smart' infrastructure. The world must shift from fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) to 'greener' energy.

 

History however forewarns against complacency. It throws up example after example of the long lead times and the huge investments required to transit from one energy system to another. The leaders that will congregate in Copenhagen in December to deliberate on what the world must do to mitigate and adapt to the consequences of global warming should keep these examples somewhere in the back of their minds. For it will help them distinguish between the high notes of the 'ideal' from the dull tones of the 'feasible'.

 

The 19th century is talked of as the era of coal; the 20th century as that of oil. Similarly people are hopeful the 21st century will be the age of renewables. The sweep of these comments misses one essential point. The growth of oil in the 20th century did not lead to the end of coal. Equally the onset of solar, wind and bio will not result in the displacement of fossil fuels.

 

The reasons are not simply the cost and convenience although these are compelling. It is also because of embedded energy infrastructures and the gestation period between the development of a new technology and its commercial deployment.

 

Edison illuminated New York City in 1885. It was not however until 1935 or so that the factories of mid-west America were able to switch from steam power to electric power. This was because of the architecture of the factories. They had to be redesigned and in many cases totally rebuilt before Edison's revolutionary technology could be deployed.

 

More contemporaneous, LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) was first exported from Algeria in 1964. This was made possible through a transformative technology that converted gas into liquids which enabled its shipment in specially designed cryogenic tankers across oceans. Small countries like Qatar, Trinidad and Brunei were consequently able to monetise their huge gas reserves. The LNG business has grown spectacularly over the past four decades. But its share of the energy basket is still only 2%. Coal continues to be the dominant fuel for power generation. Similarly wind turbines were first installed in the US and Denmark 25 years back. But still wind energy occupies only a minuscule share of the market today. And it will not be until sometime in the next decade that it will reach 1% share. Were America desirous of replacing all of its coal based power plants with wind energy, it would require 200,000 wind turbines and a land mass equivalent to the state of Gujarat.

 

The point is that given the nature of the energy sector and the embedded linkages between the infrastructure and consumption patterns, it will take a long time for new technology to make a material inroad into the domain of 'incumbent' fuels and technologies. What do these examples suggest for the future?

 

First, technology per se will not be the obstacle to creating a new energy system. Industry will find a technological answer to existing or emergent concerns—as it has always. Thus 3D seismic, horizontal wells, 'smart' production tools, enhanced oil recovery etc when 'easy oil' was no longer accessible; thus GTL (Gas To Liquids) and CTL (Coal To Liquids) technology to combat the problems of environmental pollution and GHGs. The technology will be there and if it is not the companies will develop it. This is the positive lesson. The negative is the problem of dissemination. This has been slow because of the structure of the energy sector and the plethora of infrastructural, policy and regulatory issues that surround it. The question is whether history offers any lesson on how to overcome these obstacles? The specific answer is not clear but there is a generic signal. It is that no one entity, whether government, corporate or NGO, can unilaterally remove these obstacles. Many countries have announced national climate mitigation plans. Some of the plans are impressive in their breadth and targets. Indeed so impressive that several leaders have wondered aloud perhaps rhetorically whether an international agreement is really necessary. The lesson of history would forewarn against such unilateralism. It would posit that given the globalised nature of the problem a shared and collective commitment is the most effective way of accelerating the pace of technology deployment and the transition to a sustainable energy system. History also posits that there will be no energy silver bullet at least not in the foreseeable future. The world will depend on and require a multiple of energy sources and sustainability will depend on the creation of new 'green energy' and the 'greening' of existing energy.

 

The author is chairman of the Shell Group of Companies in India. These are his personal views

 

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FINANCIAL EXPRESS

COLUMN

NO TRUST IN THIS PORT

INDRONIL ROYCHOWDHURY

The Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) is one government body which has started draining huge forex reserves, adding to cost escalation of commodities, and has brought the economy of east and north east India under grave threat. But the government seems to have given little thought to it.

 

It has been nearly a year now since the KoPT authorities feared closure of the port because of alarming draught conditions. And when there has been an alert, the shipping ministry has taken measures, short term mostly. But the need is to either have a deep draughted port on the Bay of Bengal or to find a new riverine channel and realign the entire port for supporting east and northeast India's economy.

 

The UPA-I government had given a budgetary sanction of Rs 10 crore for a study to find a suitable location for deep draughted port somewhere along the coast of Bengal. But nothing came out of it. While the Centre has scrapped the proposal and passed it on to the Bengal government, the ruling CPM, coming around to the realisation that it will in all probability be voted out of power in the next assembly polls, has stopped all action.

 

After Mamata Banerjee entered the UPA-II cabinet and pushed her loyalist Mukul Roy to the shipping ministry as the junior minister, it was expected that the party would go into an overdrive to force the government to take some concrete steps on KoPT. But nothing has happened.

 

When ships remain stranded, unable to enter the dock systems of KoPT, importers have to pay demurrage of $ 10,000 per day to foreign shipping lines. This drains the country's forex reserves. When importers have to pay demurrage for being unable to bring out commodities from the port in time, it adds to the cost escalation of commodities. When port users of the KoPT hinterland have to divert ships to Vizag or Paradeep ports, it adds to the cost of transportation impacting input cost for industrial production, which down the line has an impact on the market. But no one in the government seems to be concerned.

 

indronil.roychowdhury@expressindia.com

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THE HINDU

EDITORIAL

COPING WITH NATURAL DISASTERS

 

It has been a terrible period for countries in the Asia-Pacific region, with natural calamities of one kind or another bringing death and destruction to their lands. On September 26, Typhoon Ketsana ploughed through the Philippines before tearing into Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The storm produced the worst flooding in decades across the northern Philippines, caused extensive damage in the countries it swept through, and killed several hundred people. Before the Filipinos could catch their breath, Typhoon Parma hurtled through the less populated north-eastern part of their island nation before heading towards Taiwan. On September 29, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake set off a lethal tsunami that levelled the idyllic Pacific islands of Samoa, American Samoa, and Tonga. The towering walls of water claimed many lives and wiped out whole villages. Less than a day later, a quake of magnitude 7.6 shook southern Sumatra in Indonesia. Some 1,000 people have been killed in the coastal city of Padang and it is feared thousands more lie trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings. The temblor has torn up roads, making it difficult to reach aid to devastated villages in the interior.

 

Natural disasters are, of course, beyond human control. But human action and inaction can profoundly affect their outcome, exacerbating or mitigating their effects on people. This point was forcefully made in the United Nations 2009 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. Although natural calamities strike the wealthier nations too, the risk of death and economic loss from such events is heavily concentrated in developing countries and within these countries, it is the poor who disproportionately suffer. As U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon observed: "Pre-emptive risk reduction is the key. Sound response mechanisms after the event, however effective, are never enough." With just such foresight, Japan has been able to build one of the world's most prosperous economies on densely populated islands that face the ever-present threat of earthquakes and tsunamis. India too is vulnerable to natural calamities. A report produced by the Central government a few years ago noted that about 60 per cent of the country is prone to earthquakes of various intensities; over 40 million hectares can be flooded; about eight per cent of the land can be hit by cyclones; and 68 per cent of its area is susceptible to drought. Governments in India and other developing countries must find practical ways to reduce their vulnerability to a variety of natural hazards that extract such a cruel toll from their people and economies.

 

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THE HINDU

EDITORIAL

LAND GRAB IN GOD'S NAME

 

The 2001 Census of India threw up the astonishing statistic that there were 2.4 million places of worship in the country (exceeding the number of schools, at 2.1 million). What it did not divulge of course was that a large number of them were unauthorised, built by encroaching on public land. On the face of it, the Supreme Court's interim order banning the construction of any temple, church, gurudwara, or mosque on any roadside or other public space may seem like a mere reiteration of the law. But it must be seen in a larger context. It comes in the wake of a controversy over a sensitive issue that has resulted in a recent consensus between the Centre and the States that there would be no fresh construction of places of worship in public spaces. A directive by the Gujarat High Court in 2006 that all illegal structures, including places of worship, should be demolished resulted in violence following the demolition of a dargah in Vadodara. The approach of the Supreme Court, which stayed this directive following an appeal by the Centre, seems to strike a balance between opposing illegal religious structures and being responsive to the law and order problems that could result from their demolition.

 

Banning fresh construction of unauthorised places of worship is the easy part. The real challenge is to deal with existing illegal places of worship, of which there are an estimated more than 60,000 in Delhi alone. With respect to religious structures obstructing roads and public places, the court has adopted a cautious view — asking State governments and Union Territories to review them on a "case by case" basis and take appropriate steps expeditiously. These places of worship have been constructed through land grabbing in the name of God, usually by anti-social elements out to make a quick buck by exploiting the religious sentiments of the people. The mushrooming of these structures, encouraged by collusive politicians, has taken place under the nose of governmental authorities. They have often chosen to turn a blind eye to the encroachments, which in many places cause traffic snarls and occupy pavement space. The motive behind the defiance of law in such cases is no different from the rampant illegal construction of residential and office spaces; and the enabling factor, weak-kneed law enforcement, is more or less the same. In the case of illegal places of worship, the court is being asked to do what successive governments have failed to do over the years. One hopes that judicial resolve will jolt governments into intervening, without fear or favour, to prevent further construction of illegal religious structures and to find a way of tackling the problem of those that exist.

 

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THE HINDU

LEADER PAGE ARTICLES

A GREAT SCIENTIST AND HUMANIST

THE GREATEST HUNGER FIGHTER OF OUR TIME WARNED AGAINST COMPLACENCY, OBSERVING EVEN TOWARDS THE END OF HIS LIFE THAT 'THE BATTLE TO ENSURE FOOD SECURITY FOR HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MISERABLY POOR PEOPLE IS FAR FROM WON.'

M. S. SWAMINATHAN

 

I had the privilege of knowing and working with Norman Borlaug — who has been aptly described by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee as the greatest hunger fighter of our time — for nearly 50 years. I first heard him in 1953 outline an innovative strategy for combating wheat rusts at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

 

From 1963 onwards, he visited India in March every year to see the wheat crop. During his extensive travels by road, he used to stop frequently, talk to the farmers, and examine the state of the health of the plants. Plants and farmers became his life-long friends and companions. Eliminating the wheat rust menace became his unrelenting mission.

 

Dr. Borlaug started his research career in agriculture in Mexico at a time when the world was passing through a serious food crisis. During 1942-1943, nearly two million people died of hunger during the Great Bengal Famine. China also experienced widespread and severe famine during the 1950s. Famines were frequent in Ethiopia, the Sahelian region of Africa, and many other parts of the developing world. It was in this background that Dr. Borlaug decided to look for a permanent solution to recurrent famines by harnessing science to increase the productivity, profitability, and sustainability of small farms.

 

The work he did in Mexico during the 1950s in breeding semi-dwarf, rust-resistant wheat varieties and its extension to India, Pakistan, and other countries during the 1960s brought about a total transformation in the atmosphere for the possibility of achieving a balance between human numbers and the human capacity to produce food. Developing nations gained in self-confidence in their agricultural capability. He disproved prophets of doom like Paul and William Paddock and Paul and Anne Ehrlich — who even advocated the application of the 'triage' principle in the selection of countries that should and should not be saved from starvation through American assistance.

 

The introduction of Mexican semi-dwarf varieties of wheat in India in the early 1960s not only helped improve wheat production but also led to the union of brain and brawn in rural areas. The enthusiasm generated by the new technology can be glimpsed in the following extract from an article I wrote in 1969 for an Indian magazine: "Brimming with enthusiasm, hard-working, skilled and determined, the Punjab farmer has been the backbone of the revolution. Revolutions are usually associated with the young, but in this revolution, age has been no obstacle to participation. Farmers, young and old, educated and uneducated, have easily taken to the new agronomy. It has been heart-warming to see young college graduates, retired officials, ex-armymen, illiterate peasants and small farmers queuing up to get the new seeds. At least in the Punjab, the divorce between intellect and labour, which has been the bane of our agriculture, is vanishing."

 

The five principles Dr. Borlaug adopted in his life were (to use his own words): give your best; believe you can succeed; face adversity squarely; be confident you will find the answers when problems arise; then go out and win some bouts. These principles have shaped the attitude and action of thousands of young farm scientists across the world. He applied these principles in the field of science and agricultural development, but I guess he developed them much earlier in the field of wrestling, judging from his induction into the Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2004.

 

Having made a significant contribution to shaping the agricultural destiny of many countries in Asia and Latin America, Dr. Borlaug turned his attention to Africa in 1985. With support from President Jimmy Carter, Ryoichi Sasakawa, Yohei Sasakawa and the Nippon Foundation, he organised the Sasakawa-Global 2000 programme. Numerous small-scale farmers were helped to double and triple the yield of maize, rice, sorghum, millet, wheat, cassava, and grain legumes.

 

Unfortunately, such spectacular results in demonstration plots did not lead to significant production gains at the national level, owing to lack of infrastructure such as irrigation, roads, seed production, and remunerative marketing systems. This made him exclaim: "Africa has the potential for a green revolution, but you cannot eat potential." The blend of professional skill, political action, and farmers' enthusiasm needed to ignite another Green Revolution as in India was lacking in Africa at that time.

 

Concerned with the lack of adequate recognition for the contributions of farm and food scientists, Dr. Borlaug had the World Food Prize established in 1986, which he hoped would come to be regarded as the Nobel Prize for food and agriculture. My research centre in Chennai, India [the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation] is the child of the first World Food Prize I received in 1987. Throughout his professional career, Dr. Borlaug spent time in training young scholars and researchers. This led him to promote the World Food Prize Youth Institute and its programme to help high school students work in other countries in order to widen their understanding of the human condition. This usually became a life-changing experience for them.

 

When Mahatma Gandhi died in January 1948, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said: "The light has gone out of our life, but the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light. A thousand years later, that light will be seen in this country, the world will see it, and it will give solace to innumerable hearts. For that light represented the living, eternal truth, reminding us of the right path, drawing us from error, taking humankind to freedom from hunger and deprivation." The same can be said of Norman Borlaug. His repeated message that there was no time to relax until hunger became history will be heard so long as a single person is denied the opportunity for a healthy and productive life because of malnutrition.

 

Norman Borlaug was a remarkable man who was supported by a remarkable family —wife Margaret, son William, and daughter Jeanie. To my mind, Margaret who died in 2007 is the unsung heroine of the Green Revolution. Without her unwavering support, Dr. Borlaug might not have accomplished nearly so much in his long and demanding career.

 

Dr. Borlaug was not only a great scientist but also a humanist full of compassion and love for fellow human beings, irrespective of race, religion, colour, or political belief. This is clear from his last spoken words on the night of Saturday, September 12, 2009. Earlier in the day, a scientist showed him a nitrogen tracer developed for measuring soil fertility. His last words were "Take the tracer to the farmer." This life-long dedication to taking scientific innovation to farmers without delay set Dr. Borlaug apart from most other farm scientists carrying out equally important research.

 

I was present when he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2007. He pointed out that between 1960 and 2000, the proportion of "the world's people who felt hunger during some portion of the year had fallen from about 60 per cent to 14 per cent." But the latter figure still "translates into 850 million men, women and children who lack sufficient calories and protein to grow strong and healthy bodies." So he added: "The battle to ensure food security for hundreds of millions of miserably poor people is far from won."

 

This is the unfinished task Norman Borlaug leaves scientists and political leaders worldwide. It will be appropriate for the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture to become the flagship of the movement for a world without hunger.

 

(This article is based on the Norman Borlaug memorial address given by the author at the Rudder Auditorium, Texas A&M University, U.S., on October 6, 2009.)

 

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THE HINDU

NEWS ANALYSIS

AFGHANISTAN: OBAMA FACES 'KENNEDY MOMENT'

GROWING CONSENSUS TO ABANDON NATION-BUILDING IN FAVOUR OF CONTAINMENT.

SIMON TISDALL

 

Imagine the scene aboard Air Force One, on the tarmac in Copenhagen last Friday. Barack Obama is exhausted, having flown the Atlantic overnight to back Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympic Games. Mr. Obama is also humiliated, since his efforts on behalf of his adopted home town have been roundly spurned.

 

The U.S. President knows he is returning to a White House under siege. Healthcare, the economy, spiralling unemployment and other knotty issues are blighting a first term that began with so much promise. The very last thing Mr. Obama wants to talk about is America's losing war in Afghanistan.

 

Enter General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan. The general, who has flown to Denmark after seeing Gordon Brown in London, is pressing hard for a surge of up to 40,000 extra U.S. troops to stave off what he warns could be a strategic disaster. Mr. Obama's advisers who arranged the meeting know their boss has to get Afghanistan right, and time is not on his side. For 25 minutes, Mr. Obama and Gen. McChrystal chew over various Afghan policy scenarios, just as they did two days before in a teleconference, and as they will do again in more meetings with senior security staff over the next two or three weeks. This review will determine not only the future of U.S. military operations, but those of Britain, too. It may seal the fate of Hamid Karzai's fraud-tainted government.

 

Having rushed his fences earlier this year, Mr. Obama is having serious second thoughts. With advice pouring in from all sides, the bottom line question is: will Mr. Obama pull the plug, will he downgrade the US commitment, will he cut and run, as hawkish Republicans will interpret it? Or will he heed Gen. McChrystal and escalate. Will he pursue a widening, indefinite war, will he risk a second Vietnam, as panicky Democrats see it?

 

The sacked diplomat Peter Galbraith's weekend broadside alleging U.N. complicity in electoral fraud is but the latest of many considerations pushing Obama towards some variation of the latter downsizing option. Mr. Karzai's manipulation of the vote had handed the Taliban its "greatest strategic victory in eight years," Mr. Galbraith said. "Obama needs a legitimate Afghan partner to make any new strategy work." In Mr. Galbraith's estimation, and that of many in an increasingly anti-war Congress, he simply does not have one.

 

The weekend's news that another eight U.S. servicemen have died in Afghanistan's bloodiest year so far; polls showing that only 26 per cent of Americans believe more U.S. troops should be deployed; and the enormous financial cost of Washington's involvement are all signs pointing to the exit. The refusal of most NATO states to fairly share the burden and the studied ambivalence of even Britain on troop increases combine to send the president a tacit message: you are fighting a losing battle.

 

From George Will of the American right to Tom Friedman and Bob Herbert on the progressive and liberal left, a commentariat consensus is forming that Mr. Obama should shift to a policy of containment, using special forces, aerial strikes and money in a more closely defined campaign to disrupt Al-Qaeda.

 

Forget nation-building, they say; do not try to eradicate the Taliban, for you cannot. Encourage "Afghanisation" by training the Afghan police, army and civil leaders to stand up for themselves. Learn the lessons of British and Soviet imperial history, before it's too late. This switch is also forcibly urged on Mr. Obama by his vice-president, Joe Biden, and congressional Democrats.

 

New York Timescolumnist Frank Rich drew a parallel with John F. Kennedy's time in office. All the advice from military commanders favoured a Vietnam escalation, Mr. Rich recalled. "Military leaders lobbied by planting leaks in the press. Kennedy fired back by authorising his own leaks, which, like Mr. Obama's, indicated his reservations about whether American combat forces could turn a counterinsurgency strategy into a winnable war," Mr. Rich wrote.

 

"Though Kennedy had once called Vietnam 'the cornerstone of the free world in south-east Asia' — he ultimately refused to authorise combat troops. He instead limited America's military role to advisory missions. That policy, set in November 1961, would only be reversed, to tragic ends, after his death."

 

Maybe history does repeat. For Mr. Obama, Afghanistan is looking increasingly like his Kennedy moment.

 

 © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2009

 

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THE ASIAN AGE

EDITORIAL

FLOODS IN SOUTH A NATIONAL CALAMITY

 

Rain havoc and rushing floods on a scale usually associated with eastern India and neighbouring Bangladesh have laid low peninsular India. The frightening magnitude of things suggests that more than 200 people have been killed in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, Karnataka taking the biggest hit with 168 deaths so far. Thousands have been injured in the three states. Two lakh homes have been washed away in 15 districts of Karnataka. From the sketchy reports available, four lakh acres of agricultural land have been submerged in Andhra Pradesh and one lakh people evacuated. Krishna, Guntur and Nalgonda districts suffered the most in Andhra, although the towns of Kurnool, Mehboobnagar and Nandyal too presented a disturbing picture with waist-high water all over the urban areas. The worst rains in a hundred years in the normally dry northern districts of Karnataka accounted for the flood, and the rainwater breaking the banks of reservoirs and gushing into neighbouring Andhra Pradesh apparently compounded matters in that state. It is said Andhra Pradesh has not ever known disaster on a scale such as this. The uncommon rainfall at the tail end of the southwest monsoon may well be attributable to climate change. What is shocking, however, is that the government's early-warning systems have failed to have an impact. Either they didn't pick up the signs early enough, or the administration in three states failed to communicate the warning to the community level — rural and urban. In any case, questions may be worth asking about the efficacy of our indigenous satellites that are charged with mapping weather data and forecasting droughts and floods.

 

Battling nature's fury is not easy even for rich countries, as has been shown to be the case in the United States in recent years. But the level of poverty in developing societies makes the quality of suffering worse than it might be. Water-borne epidemics are prone to follow in the wake of flood devastation. Crops, cattle, homes have been washed away on an unprecedented scale. As such, it might be in the fitness of things if the tragic situation in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh is declared to be a national calamity. This will make the provision of relief, and the terms of obtaining succour from different quarters, easier. The Karnataka chief minister has raised a demand of Rs 10,000 crores from the Centre as relief. Andhra Pradesh will also surely need a tidy sum in order to get over the immediate shock. It is to be hoped that the Centre will be sympathetic to the concerns of the people of these states. Agriculture hasn't fared well this year in the country on account of unduly dry conditions, or drought, in many parts. The southern floods can only make matters worse. All of this can't not have an impact on public finances as demand for relief mounts. While managing the economy at a time when the effects of the recession haven't wholly been overcome, the government will be called upon to present a compassionate face.

 

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THE ASIAN AGE

OPED

MIGRATION'S GENDER ANGLE

BY JAYATI GHOSH

 

Women currently make up around half of the world's migrant population, even without taking into consideration short-term and seasonal movements. Despite the widespread prevalence of female migration, there are still some common stereotypes about its nature: that it is mostly women and girls accompanying their male heads of household, or dominantly by young, unmarried women, mostly for marriage or for some defined work enabled by contractors. Yet the migration of women for reasons other than marriage is both more widespread and more complex than is often suspected. Indeed, there is a remarkable diversity of migration patterns among women, and such diversity has increased along with recent economic and social changes in both sending and receiving locations.

 

Women migrate for long and short periods, over short and long distances. They move for many reasons, of which marriage is only one and among which work is becoming increasingly significant. Young women dominate in migration, but older women migrate as well. They move with or without their families. Both single and married women migrate. Indeed, there is growing evidence of women who have borne children moving for work, leaving the care of their children with family members who remain at home.

 

International migration for work shows clear demarcations and separate niches for male and female labour. Male migrants tend to be concentrated in the production and construction sectors, and to a much lesser extent in service activities. Female migrants, by contrast, are dominantly found to be working in specific service activities — in the domestic work and care sectors, as well as in entertainment work.

 

While the driver of the supply of migrant workers may be similar across men and women, the basic demand forces driving women's migration for work are quite different from those of men. This is particularly true for cross-border migration. Since female migrant workers are dominantly in the care and entertainment sectors, demand for such workers is less dependent upon the economic cycle and more dependent upon longer run demographic and social tendencies in the receiving countries. Ageing societies require more care providers. Societies in which women are more active in paid work participation, especially in higher-income activities, need more domestic workers.

 

One significant feature that flows from this gendered migration is the impact on remittances. Total remittance flows to developing countries are estimated to be nearly $300 billion in 2009, significantly more than all forms of capital flows put together. This has provided crucial foreign exchange and been a major contributor to balance of payments stability to countries as far apart as the Philippines and Guatemala, and even for large countries like India and China it has played a significant role in domestic consumption.

 

What has been more surprising to several observers is that remittance flows have not declined in many countries despite the onset of the global recession. This is contrary to the projections made by the World Bank and others that predicted substantial decline in remittances. But to some extent this too can be expected, because even if the crisis leads to large-scale retrenchment of migrant workers who are forced to come home, they would obviously return with their accumulated savings. In such a case, there could even be a (temporary) spike in remittances rather than a continuous or sharp decline because of the crisis. Eventually, as the adverse conditions for overseas employment further aggravate, this would then lead to decline in remittance inflows.

 

But even that need not happen, and remittances could continue to increase — and one factor behind this is the gender dimension. In the first place, female migrants are far more likely to send remittances home, and typically send a greater proportion of their earnings back. Also, male migrant workers find that incomes are much more linked to the business cycle in the host economy, so their employment and wages tend to vary with output behaviour. Thus job losses in the North during this crisis have been concentrated in construction, financial services and manufacturing, all dominated by male workers.

 

By contrast, the care activities dominantly performed by women workers tend to be affected by other variables such a demographic tendencies, institutional arrangements, and the extent to which women work outside the home in the host country. So employment in such activities is often relatively invariant to the business cycle, or at least responds to a lesser extent. Therefore, female migrant workers' incomes are more stable over the cycle and do not immediately rise or fall to the same extent.

 

This in turn means that source countries that have a disproportionately higher share of women out-migrants (such as the Philippines and Sri Lanka) would tend to experience less adverse impact in terms of downturn of remittances. Indeed, in both countries, most recent data indicates that remittance flows are still increasing. This does not mean that there will be no impact at all, but certainly the adverse effects will be less and will take longer to work through than if the migration had been dominated by male workers.

 

The extent to which migration is empowering for women or simply reinforces oppressive and patriarchal patterns depends upon the nature of the migration. But it also depends upon official policy. Currently, very few host countries have legislation specifically designed to protect migrant workers, and there is little official recognition of the problems faced by women migrants in particular. The same is true for the sending countries, which accept the remittances sent by such migrants, but without much fanfare or gratitude, and tend to make little attempt to improve the conditions of these workers in the employment abroad.

 

Indeed, as noted earlier, there are often additional legal restrictions on the migration of women, which put additional constraints on their mobility. Women migrants, who typically are drawn by the attraction of better incomes and living conditions or by very adverse material or social conditions at home, are therefore in a "no-woman's land" characterised by a generalised lack of protection. It is now more important than ever to fill this very obvious policy gap.

 

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THE ASIAN AGE

BY NADEEM F. PARACHA

 

In his biography, Mirror to the Blind, Abdul Sattar Edhi complains how he detests being called a "maulana".

 

"Mine was never a religious beard", he says. "It was always a revolutionary beard", he explains — perhaps inspired by Karl Marx, whom Edhi identifies as an inspiration during his youth. In the book he is quoted as saying that hardly any man in Pakistan used to have a beard in the 1950s.

 

A senior journalist, Ghulam Farooq, agrees: "In the 1950s and 1960s, no self-respecting Pakistani from any class would have liked to be seen with a long beard, apart from the mullahs. All this stuff about the beard having any religious significance played absolutely no role in the lives of Pakistanis. In fact, the beard was seen as a symbol of exploitation and bigotry".

 

Showing me black and white photos of political rallies of the late 1960s, a former progressive student leader, Naushad Hussain, enthusiastically challenged me to point out 10 men with beards among the hundreds that stood listening to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Asghar Khan in the photos. I couldn't.

 

"Look closely", he smiled. "There are only three".

 

"What about the 'revolutionary beards'?" I asked.

 

"Revolutionary beards became famous in the West after Castro and Che Guevara's revolution in Cuba", Naushad explained. "But long hair and revolutionary beards (in Pakistan) really became popular from 1970 onwards".

 

A. Kabir, another progressive student leader (at the Karachi University in 1973-74), suggests that very few male students had beards even in the 1970s. "Ironically, only the most radical Marxists on campus went around with beards, looking like Che. Even the staunchest members of the Right-wing Islami Jamiat Taleba (IJT) were clean-shaven. Being young and having a beard (and long hair) in those days meant that one was a radical Leftist".

 

Beards, especially heavy stubbles, also became popular as an expression of one having a creative and artistic disposition. Mahboobullah, a former graduate of the famous the National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore, remembers that (in the 1970s), coffee houses and college canteens were full of long-haired and bearded young men sipping tea and beer, chain smoking and discussing politics, philosophy and art. "A young man with a neglected stubble or a beard, talking reflectively with a cigarette in his hand became a trendy pose in those days", Mahboobullah chuckled. "Women loved it!"

 

Karamat Hamid, a former student at the Dow Medical College in Karachi in the 1970s, says that by 1976 almost all leading Pakistani TV actors had beards. "Talat Hussain, Rahat Kazmi, Shafi Muhammad… the creative big shots had beards. It became a global fashion. Cricketers like Dennis Lillie, Wasim Raja, Ian Chappel, rock musicians, Hollywood actors and directors, painters, college boys and even university professors all over the world had beards", remembers Karamat. "It was a fashion expressing creativity, intellect and manhood".

 

So exactly when did beards stop being a liberal/Leftist aesthetic and start becoming a "religious symbol"?

 

"I believe the trend started in the 1980s", says Sharib, a former member of the Islami Jamiat Taleba (who later joined the Muttahida Quami Movement).

"I remember a lot of us were very impressed by the looks of the Afghan mujahideen. Then we started to keep beards like them", he explained.

 

In other words, one can say that the ideological symbolism of the beard had started to grow from Left to the Right. Fatigued by the exhaustive liberalism of the preceding decades and now under the propagandist hammer of a reactionary dictatorship, a lot of Pakistanis started rediscovering God, as it were, in the 1980s.

 

"Beards started emerging on the most unlikely of men", laughs Talha Naqvi, a middle-aged head of an NGO. "It became a symbol of piety. Everyone from mujahids to smugglers to traders grew a beard", he said.

 

But according to Talha the real beard explosion happened in the 1990s: "This was the time when we first started hearing about people going around and asking young men to grow beards because it was an Islamic tradition. I used to say, if this was a tradition then so was riding a camel or using a brick for a pillow by early converts, so why not follow those examples as well?"

 

Talha says that the rising number of Pakistani men having beards for religious reasons became even more ubiquitous after the tragic 9/11 episode. "More and more young men today keep a beard as an Islamic edict".

 

It seems after all these years of searching for some kind of identity, many young Pakistanis have ended up finding one with the help of a beard (or hijab). It's become an exhibition of instant piety, and more so, a somewhat long-winded belief system that with their purposeful new looks they belong to a special community of chosen people; a herd-like expression of some divinely cohesive uniformity — at least in looks, which in turn may only have little to do with religion. It's a statement very much opposed to the notion of diversity.

 

By arrangement with Dawn

 

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THE ASIAN AGE

TALK TO GOD

KOTI

 

I believe strongly in Lord Venkateswara and Shiridi Saibaba. When I was in Chennai, I used to visit the Tirupati Balaji temple once every month. It gave me immense peace. I also make it a point to visit Shiridi once every six months.

 

My favourite temple is the Kapaliswara temple in Chennai. In this temple there are deities of almost all the Gods. There I offer prayers to Lord Dakshina Murthy.

 

As I am a musician by profession, I offer prayers to Goddess Saraswati before composing music.

 

Visiting temples and worshipping is the best way to let out your emotions. There we can communicate with God freely. It relaxes a person and is the best de-stresser. Especially for people in the creative field, letting out emotions helps in the professional sphere. Once your troubles are reduced, you feel refreshed.

 

I feel if we cannot share our thoughts with our close ones, then God is the best person with whom we can talk of our troubles. And temples are the facilitating points. Hence, I visit temples regularly for concentration and enhancing my confidence.

 

(As told to Prashanth Bhat)

 

 Koti is a popular Telugu music director

 

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THE ASIAN AGE

 

US WAR IN AFGHAN VITAL FOR INDIA TOO

BY SHANKAR ROYCHOWDHURY

 

"This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity — to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda and its extremist allies... If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which Al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting... this is fundamental to the defence of our people".

 

US President Barack Obama, by no means an "imperialist warmonger", thus addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars earlier this year with reference to "Operation Enduring Freedom", the American military intervention in Afghanistan in 2001. Left unspoken was the implication that the "war of choice" that his predecessor George W. Bush had initiated in Iraq had been unnecessary to begin with, and subsequently turned out to be unwise as well. Launched in the backlash of 9/11 as a quick reaction manhunt in the best traditions of Texas folklore to "Get Osama — dead or alive", the American campaign in Afghanistan foot-faulted primarily because of national-level misdirection by President George W. Bush and his advisers, Messrs Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, who accorded priority to "their" war in Iraq over the original point of main effort in Afghanistan. The concurrent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were a violation of the most basic principle of war — "selection and maintenance of aim" — which advises focusing on "one war at a time" because the sole superpower is actually no longer capable of handling more, and the United States has been paying for the blunders of its neocon leadership ever since (830 killed as on date in Afghanistan, 4,251 in Iraq).

 

Though events went as expected in the initial stages of both conflicts, the real wars in both instances cropped up as violent insurgencies in what had been traditionally considered the post-conflict phase, hitherto a mere formality of mopping up, putting up "mission accomplished" banners and moving out (or staying on!). As a result, the war in Afghanistan was perhaps lost in its very initial months when skeleton US forces working with unreliable local mercenaries failed to prevent the escape of Osama bin Laden from encirclement in the Tora Bora mountains to sanctuary in the Fata (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) area of Pakistan in December 2001, where he is reported to be living ever since.

 

The wars have dragged on since, with mounting American casualties, drawing inevitable parallels with Vietnam, which the Obama administration (like others before them) have been quick to dismiss, and reiterate their determination "to stay the course". But he has an election to face in a few years, and Afghanistan, historically reputed as the graveyard of empires, is proving a difficult war, even for the United States.

 

Those in charge of running it in Washington are fully aware that it may well be ultimately unwinnable largely because of a flawed strategy that leans heavily on support from Pakistan, a totally unreliable partner, with little compunctions in brazenly selling their patrons down the river.

 

In India, successive governments as well as public opinion in general (apart from those prone to knee-jerk anti-Americanism) have always been more comfortable with the American presence in Afghanistan than with the Iraq issue due to the perception that Afghanistan was actually something which India would have itself liked to undertake in the aftermath of the Kandahar hijack episode in 1999 but could only fret impotently as the task was far beyond its international clout and military capabilities. So now that the United States has in effect taken on the war India wanted to but could not fight, what should be India's view of the US action in that country? One thing is sure — with all its shortcomings and flaws, a friendly regime in Afghanistan is vital to India's national interests and if the United States considers that left to itself Afghanistan would relapse into a freehold sanctuary for jihadi terrorists capable of threatening the United States over 10,000 miles away, what should India's perceptions be — as a far softer and much more easily accessible target?

 

Is Afghanistan in many ways a "war of necessity" for India too? And if so, given the geographical and geopolitical compulsions of the situation, how best should India undertake the task? For the present, India's participation has focused exclusively on economic aid for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the shattered country to the tune of $1.2 billion in specific projects and programmes, which makes it the fifth largest donor in the country. The Indian programme has been a runaway success, very well received by the Afghan people. The flagship of the Indian effort is the 218-km Zaranj-Delaram highway constructed by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), under the vigil of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Afghan security guards, which connects landlocked Afghanistan with the Iranian port of Chahbahar in the Persian Gulf. The road was pushed through in the face of violent attacks by the Taliban acting as surrogates for the Pakistan Army and its Inter-Services Intelligence, because it broke Pakistan's stranglehold on Afghanistan's surface access to the world outside, and was obviously detrimental to Pakistan's strategic interests against India. (Incidentally, one fails to comprehend why the admirable determination and efficiency displayed by Indian agencies against heavy odds in a violent foreign environment cannot be demonstrated at home as well, in expanding and creating critical infrastructure in areas with similar problems within the country, particularly Naxalite and militant-dominated regions?)

 

Resolution of the Afghan situation also demands the one thing the United States is unable to deliver on a lasting basis — "boots on the ground" for a long-term presence in country, something key to restoration of long-term stability which can be accomplished only by an indigenous Afghan National Army (ANA). This is where India can most effectively assist the Afghan war effort, with large-scale "soldier factories" as in 1962 after the Sino-Indian border war to rapidly expand all branches of the ANA on a crash action basis. Such an effort requires large-scale resources and experience, which the Indian Army is well placed to provide. Afghanistan is indeed a "war of necessity" for India, and building up the ANA is the obvious area on which India should focus in its own long-term interests.

 

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

 

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THE TRIBUNE

EDITORIAL

COST OF A HONCHO

CEOS' SALARIES ARE 'VULGAR' INDEED

 

WHEN the per capita annual income of the country is less than Rs 40,000 and there are a large number of people who survive on less than even that, it is nothing less than scandalous that CEOs of some companies get as much as Rs 50 crore a year. That is not a question of demand and supply but that of sheer exploitation of shareholders. The CEOs do not make merry on the ancestral money but that raised by the small shareholders. There has to be some relationship with the qualifications of a person and what he carries home. Ironically, even when the companies are in the red, the CEOs and other top honchos continue to be in the pink flush of funds. So, if Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid calls these salaries "vulgar", he cannot be faulted. There should indeed be a thorough discussion on how much is too much.

 

It is the consumer also who suffers because all expenditure gets reflected in the retail price that he has to pay for various goods and services. In the end, it is a lose-lose situation for everyone except those higher ups who fatten themselves on company money. The government has a right to bring some sanity into the whole affair without doing something which is reminiscent of the draconian regulation days.

 

Lessons have to be learnt from what happened in the US. There the CEOs enjoyed perks and salaries that ran into hundreds of millions of dollars while the financial health of the companies that they headed were pathetic. Even when the economy of the US went into a nosedive, they were still flying in their private jets to personal resorts. India should wake up before something similar plays itself out here as well. The government badly needs to show some austerity and cut in its unproductive expenditure. So should the private sector. The corporate world has to cut its non-plan expenditure to contain recession and price rise. It must remember that it has to function in an Indian milieu and cannot afford to look exploitative.

 

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THE TRIBUNE

EDITORIAL

FLOODS IN AP, KARNATAKA

BOTH STATES DESERVE LIBERAL AID TO TACKLE CALAMITY

 

Triggered by heavy rain last week, floods have wreaked havoc in parts of coastal Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The death toll in both states is increasing fast, with Kurnool, Mahboobnagar, Krishna and Guntur districts in Andhra Pradesh being the worst affected. Over 400 villages are under water. Thousands, trapped on rooftops without food and water for three days, are still awaiting help. With the water level in the Prakasam Barrage across the Krishna having reached the maximum level on Monday, the threat of massive floods loomed large over Vijayawada, a major trading and railway hub with a population of 1.2 million, located on the banks of the Krishna. Flood waters have cut off this important city from the Hyderabad side, breaching the Chennai National Highway. Officials termed it as the "worst floods" in the Krishna river in 100 years. The focus of evacuation is mainly on Krishna and Guntur districts.

 

Heavy rain in North Karnataka has flooded several districts, cutting off towns like Bijapur, Bagalkot and Bellary. Karwar had 50 cm of rain on Sunday — highest in 50 years. The waters inundated the Krishna and the Tungabhadra rivers, and the Karnataka government released up to 24 lakh cusecs of water from the Almatti and Narayanpur dams in a single day. Owing to the flooding of the Tungabhadra river following heavy inflows from upstream, the Mantralaya pilgrim town in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh has been devastated.

 

It is a moot question whether the Andhra government could have better managed the systematic release of waters from the Surekshu, Srisalam and Nagarjunasagar dams before things got out of control. However, the state government says that the scale of floods has been so massive this time that the "possible maximum flood" (PMF) happens only after many decades. The Centre is providing all help to both states in the rescue, relief and rehabilitation efforts. It should heed their appeal for liberal assistance to tackle the calamity on a war-footing. Floods occur due to the rivers' inadequate capacity to contain the huge flow brought down from the upper catchments following heavy rainfall. There is need for an effective flood mitigation system to ensure the safety of the people and the economy.

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THE TRIBUNE

EDITORIAL

SIGNALS FROM SILIGURI

CONGRESS, MAMATA ARE TESTING THE WATER

 

Congress leaders in West Bengal are not amused at Ms Mamata Banerjee's dig that they have become "a little too greedy". Mamata's public statement on Sunday came after the Congress nominee defeated the candidate put up by her for the office of the Mayor of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation. Even more galling for her was that the Congress won with support of the Left Front. The alliance between the Congress and Ms Banerjee's Trinamool Congress has been on a roll this year, routing the Left Front in one election after another in West Bengal. With a strong sentiment building up against the three-decades old Left Front rule in the state, the alliance is widely expected to do well in the Assembly election due in 2011. The break-down of the alliance in Siliguri, therefore, is a setback and Ms Banerjee has not minced her words, blaming the Congress for stabbing the Trinamool Congress on the back.

 

The Congress, however, has traditionally been strong in north Bengal, nursed among others by late Ghani Khan Chaudhury, Pranab Mukherjee and Priyaranjan Dasmunshi. Moreover, the party had accepted the Trinamool Congress as the dominant partner in both the general election and subsequent by-elections this year and for once, the Congress felt, it was time for Trinamool to concede some ground. Though it had contested fewer seats in Siliguri than its ally, the Congress still won as many seats as Ms Banerjee's party. It, therefore, staked claim to the Mayor's office, offering the Deputy Mayor's and Chairman's offices to Trinamool. But Didi would have none of it and the offer was dismissed out of hand. The Congress then sought support from 'all' councillors and the Left Front was only too happy to oblige, if for no other reason than to score a point over its arch enemy, Ms Mamata Banerjee.

 

Siliguri appears to be a sort of signal from the Congress that it will henceforth bargain as hard as it can, that it will not bow any longer to Mamata's pressures. As many as 10 byelections for the Assembly are scheduled to be held next month and the even more crucial election for the Calcutta Municipal Corporation and 82 municipalities in the state are due next year. The two parties, however, cannot afford to break the alliance, however. Neither party is keen to oblige the Left Front at this stage.

 

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THE TRIBUNE

COLUMN

LEADERSHIP VACUUM HITS BJP

SEARCH ON FOR RAJNATH'S REPLACEMENT

BY S. NIHAL SINGH

 

THERE was something more than mere comical in the urbane Bharatiya Janata Party politician, Mr Arun Jaitley, unveiling his party's Haryana election manifesto. Because the document promising, among other things, to "ban Western music and obscenity on display in the name of culture by enacting a law" was bad enough. But it reflects, like nothing else before it, the confusion in the BJP about what it is and what it wants to be.

 

The irony is that this foray into medievalism comes after the party's mentor, Mr Mohan Bhagwat of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, had held his widely publicised durbar in Delhi implying that after the damaging internal feuds and tussle for power in the BJP, he had licked the party into shape. He had decreed that Mr L.K. Advani's time was up although he had some leeway in deciding when to go. Second, and most importantly, there was no option for the party but to follow the Hindutva creed.

 

In the short term, what it seems to have accomplished is a virtual vacuum of leadership, with the various wings of the party going their different ways. Facing a string of assembly elections, the BJP has decided at one level to bring in the image and voice of Mr A.B. Vajpayee and other leaders into the election campaigns without leaving Mr Advani out. At another level, the RSS has teamed up with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to begin a long march in defence of the cow, lately in the news for other reasons.

 

The state BJP parties have apparently been given the freedom to do their own thing. In any event, the party's Haryana leadership has interpreted the RSS cracking the whip as giving it the freedom to bash Western music and culture. If desi and old are gold in the new scheme of things, anything alien and Western is bad. Put simply, it has equated obscenity with Western music. The BJP worthies in the state have perhaps never heard the great works of Western classical music or even the more accessible Beatle songs, not to mention Bob Dylan.

 

True, national and other parties have to attune themselves to the never-ending cycle of elections, whatever the nature of the crises they are undergoing. The BJP is particularly vulnerable because it has a lame duck leader who has adopted a low posture, perhaps fearing that his writ does not run. And Mr Rajnath Singh is bestirring himself in the hope of landing a suitable job after he loses the party presidency. The longer Mr Advani takes to relinquish the leader of the Opposition post, the greater will be the confusion in the party.

 

Mr Bhagwat might have done more harm than good in announcing to the party and the world that it is the RSS that calls the shots in the BJP. Sometimes, assertions of primacy yield better results in privacy. The umbilical cord that connects the RSS with the party is a fact of life although the former on occasion cultivates the feint of being a cultural organisation interested in weightier themes than winning political power. But the reinforcing of the BJP with trusted men placed in positions of power and the deference of the most powerful party leaders to it are ample evidence of its clout.

 

Apparently, Mr Bhagwat's attempt was to make the point that he was not interested in micromanaging the crisis in the BJP. But having decapitated the party, he is now at the mercy of second rung leaders furiously fighting for power. To complicate the picture, the power bug has also bitten the not-so- relatively young.

 

On the other hand, the BJP is left with the problem of how to project the Hindutva creed because it must weigh the reality of India if it wants to win elections. This task, to be defined by the next leader, becomes more onerous now that the RSS has called it to account. Partly, the answer will lie with the calibre of Mr Advani's successor; partly the degree of freedom accorded to him by the RSS.

 

In the interim, the BJP has decided to emphasise bread and butter issues in contesting the forthcoming state assembly elections. With the price rise of essential commodities and continuing consequences of the global economic downturn, there are sufficient targets to take on the ruling party at the Centre. Ideological issues can wait until they are sorted out in the fullness of time. But the BJP cannot have a bright future if it were to espouse retrograde social and political themes in an attempt to please what must remain a fringe in society.

 

Many in the BJP are pining for Mr Vajpayee, the great conciliator, but his physical ailments rule him out in any active political role. A mechanism of a collective, which might be favoured by the RSS, will not work in the cut and thrust of politics. Those who fancy Mr Narendra Modi in the leadership role forget a cardinal fact of Indian politics: a leader can lead only if he or she unites, rather than divides, society in a plural set-up.

 

How the BJP and the RSS will pull themselves out of the hole they have dug remains to be seen. Perhaps Mr Bhagwat will need to micromanage affairs in the BJP beyond the firmans he has given to Mr Advani and Mr Rajnath Singh. The RSS seems to be tilting towards picking a state leader, rather than the known aspirants for the top job, to place him as the party leader. That would leave Mr Jaitley in place as leader of the Rajya Sabha and Ms Sushma Swaraj would take Mr Advani's place in the Lok Sabha.

 

The longer Mr Bhagwat waits to complete the task he has begun in re-engineering the BJP, the more arduous would be the party's return to power at the Centre. The present uncertainties can only encourage other state parties to follow the Haryana example by interpreting Hindutva in their own manner, to the glee of other parties and the despair of the intelligent voter.

 

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THE TRIBUNE

COLUMN

A FOR ANGLE, B FOR BANGLE, C FOR CANDLE….

BY ASHIMA BATH

 

PEOPLE tell me that English is a funny language and I can prove it. As a teacher there are always moments of mirth tinged with censure that are filed away.

 

A young lad once ran into me crying that his teacher was wrong. Calming him down with a biscuit I asked to see his notebook. An exercise had been done and one of the words given to be made into a sentence was the word "pregnant".

 

The chapter was about a hospital catching fire. This little mite had written: "the fireman rushed into the building and came out pregnant". Digging deeper I discovered that the dictionary he had used stated the meaning of the word pregnant to be "carrying a child." Now whose baby was it anyway and who was at fault?

 

Yet another particularly memorable one was that of teaching how to write telegrams to Class X a few years ago. The question was to draft a telegram asking your father to send money urgently for your grandmother's illness. X brought his register to me in which was written within the telegram format: DAD GRANDMOTHER VERY SICK STOP SEND MONEY VERY QUICKLY STOP OR SHE'S HISTORY.

 

Once I had managed to control my laughter I asked for the reason behind the word "history", to which with great alacrity X replied: "But, Ma'am, don't you know people who die become history?" When did he become so word smart?

 

During our school entrance examinations there was a question of writing the opposite gender of what was given. In one of the boxes it was typed RAM (I wish I could ask you here to hold your breath) the answer given to which was SITA. Don't laugh, no one told the fifth graders that English wasn't phonetically written.

 

And here I thought that finding a note outside my house that read "BATHHOUSE" was pointed enough. How shall I wash it away? Uh, my last name is Bath.

 

Boarders are always hungry. After coming home and eating mutton curry and rice one of my ex-students remarked: "Gee Ma'am, you're a good cooker." Hawkins, indeed! This has happened to one my colleagues too.

 

I think in my next life I'll teach aerobics, perhaps yoga or even knitting. No papers to be set or marked, I hasten to add. No explanations why two similar words sound so different. Remember Amitabh Bacchan in "Namak Halal" with PUT and BUT?

 

I say this every year and every year I look forward to new students with newer antics. God bless them and us teachers.

 

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THE TRIBUNE

OPED

COPENHAGEN MAY SIGNAL A FRESH START FOR CLIMATE TALKS

BY JULIET EILPERIN

 

WASHINGTON: Like most members of President Obama's climate team, David Sandalow was one of President Bill Clinton's negotiators in Kyoto. And he carries an indelible lesson from the experience of signing off on the international climate pact there 12 years ago: "Only agree abroad to what you can implement at home."

 

He had been elated at the deal by more than 180 nations in December 1997. But within months, a television ad appeared, decrying the agreement for not including developing nations such as China and India. "It's not global and it won't work," said the ad, which was sponsored by business groups including the American Association of Automobile Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute. It captured the growing discontent in the United States over the Clinton administration's signing off on a package that did not force similar cuts by major developing countries.

 

That political backlash is one of several reasons why any deal struck two months from now in Copenhagen will at best signal the start of a new global approach to tackling climate change, rather than its successful conclusion.

 

Kyoto's legacy — including the decision to exclude major developing countries from the agreement, the failure of the United States to ratify it and the fact that many of its signatories have missed their emissions targets — continues to dominate UN talks aimed at curbing the world's greenhouse gas output. It has made the United States more cautious about defining specific reductions, made other industrialised nations sceptical of the US commitment and made developing countries more insistent on getting money from rich nations to address their problems.

 

"If we have any kind of international agreement in Copenhagen, there will have to be some accommodation of American political realities, but you have to meet a number of political realities on the other side," said Melinda Kimble, senior vice president of the U.N. Foundation and a lead negotiator for the State Department when Kyoto was forged.

 

These realities have made it harder for most of the key countries, whose representatives have been meeting in Bangkok, to reach an agreement by December, especially one that involves a massive shift of their nation's economic trajectories for the sake of a long-term reward. Even the Japanese have proposed abandoning the Kyoto agreement for a completely new structure.

 

"The Kyoto Protocol is a very historic protocol," said Kenichi Kobayashi, who directs the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs' climate change division. "But now the situation has greatly changed in the last 10 years."

 

The biggest change is that developing countries such as China, India and Brazil — none of whom are bound to specific climate targets under Kyoto, and continue to say they will not embrace them as part of an international treaty — are much bigger carbon emitters than they used to be. China has surpassed the United States as the world's largest emitter, according to the International Energy Agency, with the two nations accounting for about 40 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

 

The agency said that 97 percent of the rise in energy-related carbon dioxide emissions will come from developing nations by 2030.

 

Jairam Ramesh, India's minister of state for Environment and Forests, told reporters Friday that America's near-term climate targets remain too modest. "The stalemate in negotiations has not been caused by China and India," Ramesh said. "The make-or-break issue is emissions cuts. If there's no agreement on that, there's no agreement in Copenhagen."

 

Todd Stern, the US special envoy for climate change, said he is focused on achieving "the art of the possible. ... The task here is to get a deal consistent with those (constraints), which pushes us in the right direction."

 

In some ways the political climate has loosened the Obama's administration's constraints in recent months. Major US companies and even utilities now back a federal cap on greenhouse gases, and the combination of the House-passed climate bill and legislation introduced last week suggest that the President could meet his goal of reducing the nation's emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020.

 

Several environmentalists say US negotiators have been too hesitant to use provisions in the House bill — such as its emissions targets and funding to help poor countries preserve their forests and cope with climate effects — to lay the groundwork for a global deal.

 

"The ghost of Kyoto hangs over the US more than it does over most nations," said Ned Helme, who heads the Center for Clean Air Policy. "I think we could be a bit bolder now because we have a good story to tell internationally."

 

But on October 2, Obama's top domestic climate adviser, Carol Browner, said it was "not likely" that a final bill would be signed by the president before Copenhagen. Stern is unwilling to codify targets internationally that the United States has yet to adopt.

 

Instead US negotiators, as well as ones like India's Ramesh, are exploring whether the world's major emitters could forge a pact that encompasses nationally binding goals and is subject — at least to some extent — to international review. James Connaughton, who chaired President Bush's Council on Environmental Quality, said the outcome in Copenhagen could resemble what Bush and his top deputies had sought for years.

 

"What all major economies realized this time around is that they need to establish a domestic consensus on an agreed level of effort as a stronger basis for the commitments they make internationally, and as a catalyst for international cooperation," Connaughton said. — By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

 

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THE TRIBUNE

OPED

RAJASTHAN'S DYING FOLK MUSIC FINDS A VOICE

BY MADHUSREE CHATTERJEE

 

Traditional folk music from the remote villages of Rajasthan is finding high-profile voices to carry it mainstream. A five-day Rajasthan International Folk Festival (RIFF), which began October 1 at the sprawling Mehrangarh Fort, in Jodhpur is promoting "unheard of music from the desert villages that is dying a slow death due to lack of patronage and popularity".

 

On Saturday, the country's leading exponent of classical Rajasthani sarangi and vocal music, Ustad Sultan Khan, jumped the "class divide between classical and folk music" to throw his lot with marginalised ethnic folk musicians of Marwar in a rare "folk-meets classical" concert Maru Tarang at the RIFF.

 

"I want to highlight folk music and work with talented folk musicians because I love Rajasthani folk. I belong to Marwar," Sultan Khan, who has worked in several Bollywood movies and has collaborated with rock bands like Duran Duran and Beatles, said.

 

"It is difficult for folk music to achieve the refinement of classical music in the state because folk is memory-based, handed down the generations by word of mouth. There are no written compositions. In contrast, classical music follows the strict grammar of the gharana and is honed with years of 'talim (tutelage)' and practice," he said.

 

Sultan Khan, who will work with rock legend Carlos Santana in California later this year, said, "Folk music is a visual feast because of its sheer energy and colour while classical music is subtle, meant to be heard and felt".

 

"But I am glad to have met them on common ground," the ailing ustad said.

 

Maru Tarang was first performed in December 2008, thanks to the efforts of the RIFF which was trying to make the two genres meet on a common ground, director of RIFF Divya Bhatia said.

 

The concert is a watershed since it "bridges the class divide that exists between the two — folk and classical".

 

"Though the origin of classical lies in folk, the father and the son can look alike,' Sultan Khan's son Sabir Khan, a budding national talent, explained.

 

Maru Tarang featured Sultan Khan, his son Sabir Khan and Sultan's brother Hamid Khan and leading Manganiyar Sindhi sarangi maestro Lakha Khan and vocalist Anwar Khan. The group sang popular Rajasthani wedding and festival numbers, 'sufi' 'bhajans' and 'rajwari maand' (in praise of the maharaja) in both classical and the traditional folk styles, accompanied by the sarangi.

 

Manganiyar guru Lakha Khan said, "The collaboration is a shot in the arm for Manganiyar folk which is dying a slow death in the villages of Jodhpur, Barmer and Jaisalmer."

 

"We are poor people and cannot live on music alone. Moreover, Rajasthan is a dry state and our crops in the villages are erratic. We have to depend on sponsors to promote our music. In this case, we were lucky to have a sponsor like the virasat (royalty) and Sultan Khan as a collaborator," Lakha Khan, a frail old man said.

 

Mumbai-based Sufi and folk vocalist Rekha Bharadwaj, wife of filmmaker Vishal Bharadwaj, is also collaborating with female folk musicians in the state.

 

In a concert on Octoberober 2, 'Maand and More', Rekha pitted her powerful contralto and earthy style of music with the state's living Maand and Bhopi (folk styles) legends, Bhanwari Devi Bhopi and Rehana Mirza singing Rajwari Maand from Udaipur and Sufi Zikr (the whirling chant 'la illaha il Allah') in jugalbandi with the duo.

 

"This is my first collaboration with folk musicians from Rajasthan. Though our styles are different, we sing of the same emotions — love, God and valour. Essentially, it is a bonding of feminine music from the state," Rekha Bharadwaj said.

 

Rekha, who met Bhanwari Devi and Rehana Mirza in June this year for the first time felt she should have spent more time with them. "I had to know their lifestyles and soil to get deeper into their music. I want to take them to Bollywood, if possible," Rekha said.

 

Most of the instruments, barring the sarangi, are on the verge of extinction.

 

Ustad Allaudin Khan Langa, a string maestro from the endangered Langa community of musicians of western Rajasthan, attributes the decline to the unavailability of the instruments.

 

Allaudin and his family of four are the last exponents of surinda, a hand-crafted string instrument from Pakistan.

 

"But there will be nobody to keep the tradition alive barring my son and nephews, who have learnt it from me," Khan said.

 

His grandfather brought the surinda to India from Pakistan 70 years ago but "no one makes the instrument in Pakistan any more", he said.

 

A concert, 'Strings of Thar — Living Legends', at the Mehrangarh Palace October 3, showcased instruments like surinda, kamaycha and the sarangi. — IANS

 

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THE TRIBUNE

DELHI DURBAR

ON GANDHI, CPI BACKS UPA

 

Whatever the political differences between the CPI and the Congress-led UPA, the former is on the government side for once. The binding force this time is Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi, after whose name the UPA has rechristened its ambitious National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).

 

So happy is the CPI with the renaming of the Act after Gandhiji that no amount of pestering the other day could prevent party general secretary A.B. Bardhan from lauding the move.

 

The communist leader even ignored the argument that normally only schemes are named after personalities. When asked if it was proper to rename a law after a historical figure, Bardhan quipped: "This name commands universal reverence. It is finer than many other names. I welcome the move."

 

SC Judge misses chance, repents

The memory of having lost a golden opportunity to bow out with a splash will haunt Supreme Court Judge BN Agarwal, who retires later this week. The Judge, the senior most after the Chief Justice of India, wanted to find a solution to the long-standing problem of unauthorised occupation of government quarters by retired government officials and former Ministers, MPs and MLAs and even some Judges.

 

The Judge tried his best to pass an order when a PIL on the issue came up for hearing on October 1. Holding the proceedings, along with Justice GS Singhvi, he acknowledged that the Bench had committed a mistake earlier by issuing notice only to the Centre and not to the states in the case.

 

Since the states were not given an opportunity to be heard, the court was not in a position to issue any directive before his retirement, he said. Now the problem would have to be tackled by another Bench, Justice Agarwal observed, repenting the miffed chance.

 

Mayawati's new confidant

If there is one thing UP Chief Minister Mayawati will surely be remembered for, it is the sudden rise and fall of her attendants and acolytes. The latest is Satish Mishra, the Supreme Court lawyer who rose to be the Brahmin face of BSP and was credited with securing Brahmin votes for 'Behenji' in the 2007 state Assembly elections, making her the Chief Minister with no outside crutches.

 

Of late, Mishra is not seen around much and gossip mongers in Lucknow say Behenji has asked him to concentrate on fighting her legal battles in innumerable courts.

 

The new rising star is Navneet Sehgal, a young Chandigarh 1988 batch IAS officer who is simultaneously holding the office of Additional Resident Commissioner in Delhi and Secretary to the CM in Lucknow. Along with these two posts, he is also Chairman of UP Jal Nigam; Chairman, Secretary and Managing Director (all in one) of the UP Power Corporation and Secretary, Urban Development as also Coordinator of the prestigious and cash-rich Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

 

 Contributed by Aditi Tandon, R Sedhuraman and Faraz Ahmad

 

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THE ASSAM TRIBUNE

EDITORIAL

COMBATING MAOISTS

 

From the periodic utterances emanating from the Ministry of Home affairs it is apparent that the Union Government has not been able to frame a coherent policy to deal with the scourge of Naxalism. Without doubt the spread of Maoist influence is one of the gravest of internal law and order problems confronting the nation. Despite continuous campaigns by paramilitary forces against it, far from being reduced to a spent force, the CPI-Maoist group has been gaining in strength, sufficient to run a parallel administration in certain regions of the country. Intelligence agencies have estimated that not only does the organisation have a cadre strength running into tens of thousands, but it has also been spreading its tentacles from the initial Andhra-Orissa-Chattisgarh base to encompass other areas of central and eastern India. Its designation as a terrorist group and the ban imposed on it in June this year has not helped much in containing this spread, with reports suggesting that it is trying to join hands with insurgent groups in the North-East as well as foreign Jehadi elements against what each perceives as the common enemy. The latest horrific act of atrocity committed by it has been in Bihar's Khagaria district, where it had unleashed a bloodbath ironically on the eve of Gandhi Jayanti by gunning down 16 backward caste farmers in a land related massacre.

Though the Maoist leadership has disclaimed responsibility, intelligence agencies believe that this was one of the many indiscriminating strikes the organisation is planning in order to divert attention even as the Centre prepares for a nation-wide offensive against it this winter. However, experts are questioning the change of strategy upon which the counter-Maoist offensive has been sought to be launched. As spelt out by Home Minister P. Chidambaram, the Government is proposing to abandon its policy of initiating developmental measures in Maoist affected regions even as it cracks down on the group. Instead, it plans to adopt the "crackdown first development later" policy advocated by hard-liners amongst the Home Ministry's think-tank. Such a shift, to say the least, would be unwise, since it eschews the very key to containment – economic and social empowerment of communities from which the Maoist movement draws its strength! It must be kept in mind that this movement has taken root in impoverished areas of the country, garnering adherents to the cause from the all too many victims of economic backwardness and administrative highhandedness. In any crackdown non-combatants inevitably become victims and, since the Maoists derive their power from the anti-establishment stance they have adopted, a Government campaign might actually prove counter productive because it might add to the number of disaffected. The security component must be balanced by development projects, for as long as social inequalities persist, the Maoists will continue to garner adherents to their cause.

 

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THE ASSAM TRIBUNE

EDITORIAL

ASSAMESE CINEMA

 

In a welcome change, serpentine queues were seen at the screening of an Assamese movie at a city cinema hall after a long time. While one swallow doesn't make a summer, it is indeed a refreshing development with a potential to put the ailing industry back on track. Assamese cinema is passing through a depressing phase, with film production dwindling to a trickle. Notwithstanding the accolades won by the odd film, the industry has had little to cheer about in recent times. While the problems besetting the industry are many, the interventions have been few and far between. A bail-out package is certainly needed but the most crucial role will have to be played by the industry itself. The industry is in urgent need of investments, and the Government, among other things, can make an intervention in reopening closed down cinema halls and starting mini cinema halls in rural and semi-urban areas. The Government has started the process of setting up a film city but it has to be made part of a broader approach because the film city cannot survive on Assamese cinema alone. However, if some correlated concerns are addressed, the city can serve its purpose.

Investment and qualitative improvement are two dire needs for reviving the ailing sector. The audience wants films that are palatable both thematically and technically. Mere imitation of Bollywood films in total rejection of the local flavour is bound to be counter-productive. With the world of entertainment getting larger than ever, it is natural that the viewers would be more discerning as they have wider choices. Film financing is one crucial area where the Government can make a major intervention. The industry's demands for tax exemption and industrial incentives also merit consideration. Apart from the predicaments plaguing regional cinema, some peculiar problems afflicting Assamese cinema have made matters worse. The closure of many cinema halls – beginning with threats from militant outfits banning screening of Hindi films and worsening with the emerging VCD culture – is one such issue. The few running halls too are in urgent need of renovation with up-to-date infrastructure. Notwithstanding changing tastes of the people amidst the cacophony of myriad satellite channels, we need to have an environment that teaches children to appreciate good films. Nurturing the sensibilities of children to make them appreciate arts is essential. Parents, teachers and the environment in homes and educational institutions are the factors that can shape children's sensibilities.

 

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THE ASSAM TRIBUNE

EDITORIAL

MEDIA HYPE OVER CHINESE INCURSIONS

PRAFUL BIDWAI

 

Such has been the hype and hysteria in the Indian media over alleged Chinese border incursions that one would think the two nations are about to go to war. That was indeed the perceptive reaction of a visiting foreign journalist friend after watching Indian TV channels. It's not the substance of the incursion stories which raised alarm and provoked calls for retaliation. It's the manipulative display of file pictures of Chinese warplanes, tanks and long columns of soldiers—with no relationship to ground realities—, and wild comments by TV anchors, that inflamed tempers.

Ultimately, the media allegations of a sharp increase in cross-border shelling, a big military build-up, and the killing of two Indo-Tibetan Border Police jawans proved false, according to the Prime Minister, National Security Adviser, Foreign Secretary, and the Army Chief. They made special public statements within a span of 48 hours to allay fears. Army chief Deepak Kapoor said there's been no increase in shelling (which both sides unfortunately but routinely indulge in from time to time), and appealed to the media not to "overplay" the story.

Where did the media get its stories from? How did it conclude that "the India-China theatre is a hotbed of activity; Chinese intrusions are on the rise; and as China intensifies its military build-up, India is huffing and puffing to catch up..."? Clearly, someone in the government briefed the media. The media quoted "unnamed sources", but never verified a single story. Such verification is admittedly difficult because the India-China Line of Actual Control (LAC) is a prohibited area. But it's possible to corroborate and cross-check accounts from different sources, including the ITBP, the civil administration, and the Army. However, the media swallowed whatever it was fed—and regurgitated it, garnished with prejudice.

Spreading lies and whipping up bellicose sentiments is condemnable. But no less deplorable is the role of the media's "sources" within a split Establishment. By all indications, these were intelligence agencies, with narrow political agendas, mutual rivalries, and scores to settle with the parent ministries, the Army, and their own colleagues. This makes matters murkier. The agencies are extremely powerful, yet far less transparent and accountable to any wing of the government than the armed forces. It's distressing that they should plant patently false stories in order to torpedo any improvement in Sino-Indian relations.

The Army has recently done its utmost to scuttle a settlement of the Siachen glacier dispute with Pakistan. When this seemed imminent last year, it flew defence journalists to Siachen and declared that it wouldn't withdraw from the glacier until its positions were authenticated. Such a veto blatantly violates the elementary requirement that civilian authority is supreme in democracy and must always prevail over the armed forces on policy matters. That's bad enough. It would be far worse if shadowy intelligence agencies sabotaged what the political leadership set out to do. War hysteria is particularly dangerous when both China and India are planning large-scale military exercises near the LAC.

Media hype about China's incursions strengthens the hawks who believe that China poses a grave threat to India, which must be countered–not diplomatically, but militarily, by creating a massive infrastructure of roads and airfields along the 4,000 kilometre-long border, and deploying huge military capacities there. India has just opened an aircraft-landing ground in Ladakh, barely 23 km from the LAC. This is the third airstrip made operational in 17 months.

The build-up under way threatens to undermine the gains from two major Sino-Indian agreements signed in 1993 and 1996 for Peace and Tranquillity along the LAC and measures to prohibit threatening manoeuvres. Under them, India could redeploy as many as one lakh troops away from the border and effect huge savings. The opposite may now happen.

Worse, hostile military preparations could reverse the progress made in 13 rounds of Sino-Indian talks on border issues and on economic, cultural and scientific cooperation, and ignite a terrible arms race in which China and India lose both money and security. India's loss will be greater and harder to absorb. China is three times bigger in economic size, and militarily, considerably more powerful. But our hawks want to continue fighting the 1962 war. They're convinced that China is an expansionist power intent on making life difficult for India. China has gained a foothold in our neighbourhood and frowns at India's nuclear-weapons status.

This view is at best partly true—and dangerously wrong. China is not an expansionist power, leave alone a revolutionary one which wants to radically alter global/regional power balances. Or else, it would have annexed Taiwan. China is preoccupied with sustaining its rapid economic growth and managing its growing social problems.

True, China is building modern ports at Gwadar on Pakistan's Makran coast and also at Hambantota in Sri Lanka. But this may not be a "String-of-Pearls-to-Encircle-India" stratagem. Hambantota was first offered to India for development. India refused. And Gwadar is as much a commercial project as a military one. India too seeks global power projection and influence through a blue-waters navy, and through military arrangements with the United States, Australia and Japan, and with the Southeast and Central Asian states.

China does have problems with India's claims to Arunachal Pradesh and periodically rakes them up. But its recent attempt to stop an Asian Development Bank loan for an Arunachal project failed. As Foreign Secretary Rao said, the loan was sanctioned and "that's where the matter stands". China isn't happy with India's nuclear weapons programme. (Is India happy with China's or Pakistan's?) But it cannot undo it—short of mutual progress towards nuclear disarmament. China has had nuclear weapons since 1964. India has learnt to live with them and didn't protest repeated Chinese nuclear tests for 30 years.

China helped Pakistan's nuclear and missiles programmes. But that was partly in reaction to India's 1974 nuclear test and driven by long-standing Sino-Pakistan strategic collaboration to counter Indo-Soviet military cooperation. Besides, India now has a strategic partnership with the world's greatest power, the US.

This doesn't argue that China is a benign power, only that we must not make a bugbear out of it and abandon diplomatic options for reconciliation. This means putting the 1962 war in perspective. The war is an already-faded memory in China. As I found in my two visits there, Chinese policy-makers, leave alone ordinary people, don't even remember it. The war happened over a frontier which the departing British colonists left undefined. Free India inherited the border dispute with China, but basically refused to negotiate it. Instead, India asserted the British Empire's maximalist or outermost claims, like the McMahon Line.

As the Chinese saw it, this was one of the many boundary disputes that the People's Republic inherited at its birth in 1948 with numerous countries, including the USSR, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia, Burma, Afghanistan, Korea, Vietnam and Laos. Beijing peacefully negotiated border treaties with all except India and Vietnam.

India's border claims are less clear and unambiguous than most of us have been led to believe. They're largely based on British plans to expand their Empire and on contested notions of nationality, ethnicity, traditional frontiers, culture, language, etc. (A highly informed, scholarly but not entirely unbiased account is provided by Neville Maxwell in India's China War. Maxwell, a British journalist posted in India, had the advantage most Indians lack—access to the official Henderson Brooks report on the causes of India's rout in 1962.) China, for its part, laid claim to distant ethnic-minority areas that weren't fully annexed by the Middle Kingdom.

Conflict became inevitable as India and China pressed their rival claims. India launched its Forward Policy in 1961, leading to skirmishes and gunfire exchanges. In October 1962, as India was preparing for an offensive, China launched a pre-emptive attack. India's border posts were wiped out and most Indian battalions simply dissolved.

China declared a unilateral ceasefire in November and moved back its troops 20 kilometres behind the McMahon Line. It's noteworthy that its army didn't take prisoners although it could easily have. Instead, it facilitated the return of Indian soldiers. It returned guns seized from them after cleaning and polishing them! China made a successful punitive expedition. And then it stopped.

India and China resumed border talks after a long interval and have reportedly made considerable progress on a "package deal". But the Indian government hasn't disclosed anything about this. Nor has it released the Henderson Brooks report. Nationalist prejudice and paranoia about the "Chinese threat" have been allowed to fill the knowledge vacuum.

 

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THE ASSAM TRIBUNE

EDITORIAL

PROSPECTS OF PILGRIM TOURISM IN INDIA

SUDHANSU R DAS

 

When global warming threatens lives and property the world over, many surviving natural sectors offer clue to reverse climate change. Over the years pilgrim tourism has been recognised as one of the most vibrant natural sectors of economy. In the western and European nations, Christian religious tourism is a thriving sector. There are around 117 Marian shrines in Canada, 181 shrines in the United States for Roman Catholics and thousands of sites connected to various Protestant denominations and ancient religions of the Native Americans. Majority of those places have become important global destinations for pilgrims. It happens because those countries have a sound approach to pilgrim sector. In India, there are hundreds of pilgrim destinations connected to the Hindu, Budhist, Jain, Sikh and the Muslim religion, which have potential to generate employment on a sustainable basis.

More than 15 crore Indians visit pilgrim places across the country. The nations ancient history and mythological past have sprung up hundreds of pilgrim centres across the country. Many have origins traced in the mythologies. Pilgrim tourism serves the greatest purpose of integrating people from different regions as people from farthest east travel to southern corner and the west to north enjoying the hospitality of one another. The Badrinath, Kedarnath, Mount Kailash, Vaishno Devi, Rishikesh, Haridwar, Amritsar in the north, the Sabarimal, Rameswaram, Madurai and Tirupati in the south, Puri Jagganath temple in the East and Shirdi Sai Baba temples, the magnificent churches of Goa in the western part, the Ujjain, Omkareswar, Sanchi and Ajmer in the central India and a host of other famous pilgrim spots keep more than 15 per cent of Indias population moving.

When people move out of their houses in pilgrimage it triggers a host of economic activities right from their doorsteps. Travel agencies, hotel chains, restaurants, sale of religious artifacts, handicrafts, floriculture activity, health sector, and shops selling travel kits etc get activated. The Tirupathi Devasthanam in Tirumala requires more than 20 tonnes of flowers every day during the peak season. Bangalore city transports flowers worth Rs 30 lakh every day to Tirumala. Faith is the greatest stimulant for economic activities, which could generate revenues on a sustainable basis without putting pressure on environment.

The famous patta chitra, palm leave carvings, appliqu work, painting on tassar clothes originate from the religious practices in the Lord Jagganath temple of Puri. In ancient time people believed a pilgrimage to Puri is not complete unless one carries a piece of patta chitra or an appliqu work with them. Today handicraft traders have carried those traditional crafts to international craft bazaars. A 40 sq feet patta chitra made by a senior artist is sold at a price ranging from Rs 5 to Rs 7 lakh in international craft bazaar. Nearly 15 lakh pilgrims gather in Puri to watch the spectacular Rath Yatra, widely known as the journey of the mankind. More than 20 million people gather in Kumbhamela, which is the largest congregation of pilgrims in the world. Though millions more want to travel, uncomfortable journey, lack of clean and economy class accommodation, poor quality of food and water served in many pilgrim centres dissuade pilgrims to travel. Many pilgrim centers in India have become too commercialised and caught up with making money only. Business opportunities let economics over shadow the very purpose of spiritual places, which ultimately affects pilgrim sector.

Unlike tourists who come to spend and enjoy, the pilgrims generally come to have spiritual experience. Natural surroundings, cleanliness and ethnic culture always provide the spiritual aura. The magnificent hills of Sahyadri range in Maharashtra attracts more than six lakh pilgrims to walk 261 km to have a darshan of their revered god Panduranga at Pendarpur. Recently Maharashtra Government has decided to develop 261 km roads with huge public expenditure. This is actually unnecessary and it may destroy the natural environment of the route.

Amarnath yatra would not fascinate lakhs of people without those snowcapped mountains, forests, springs and vallies.

A well thought out pilgrim policy will undoubtedly help millions of Indians to rise above the poverty line. Children from school must learn how to tap the pilgrim tourism potential. Public awareness about pilgrim sector should be created among people for cleaner and greener environment in pilgrim places. Documenting the myths, mysteries, history and folklore of pilgrim places is the first step towards making a thriving pilgrim sector in India.

 

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

THROUGH THE THIRD EYE

 

As Sonia Gandhi starts her Maharashtra campaign this week, one particular Congress candidate is feeling the heat. President Pratibha Patil's son Rajendra Shekhawat, caught in the choppy Congress factional waters ever since Rashtrapati Bhavan forced his candidature on Amravati, is hoping against heavy odds that Ms Gandhi will respond to his mid-campaign SoS.

After the Amravati unit turned hostile and backed the rebel candidate Sunil Deshmukh, the Shekhawat camp has been trying to get Ms Gandhi to bail him out by campaigning in his constituency. But on feedback from Amravati, she has been advised by many state Congress leaders to keep away from the constituency even as the SoS has intensified from the other end. State leaders, on the other hand, think that Rahul Gandhi's decision to campaign in Tivsa seat might deliver a cracking "no" message to neighbouring Amravati.

Raisina flashback

More on the same theme. The piquant Amravati situation, plainly a result of the AICC's inability to retort bluntly to an eminently avoidable push from Raisina Hills, has prompted some Congress old timers to recall how a similar situation was artfully averted in the past.

During late P V Narasimha Rao's stint as Congress president and PM, a family member of then President S D Sharma also developed a desire to contest elections from Madhya Pradesh. A member of the Sharma household then invited a pointsman of the Rao PMO for a cup of tea and conveyed this in-house desire. Sensing political discomfort, the seasoned aide politely told the messenger that given the sensitivity of the matter it would be better if the issue was directly dealt between the President and the PM. That was the end of the matter. After all, in the good old days the big players knew where to draw the limit, gracefully.

Rescuing the damned

As the BJP-RSS brass keenly awaits November 8 to know whether L K Advani will choose his birthday to, finally, unveil his retirement plans, the Sangh Parivar is slated to hold an important meet at Rajgir in Bihar to find ways to try and pull the BJP out of troubled political waters. Around 350 select members of the RSS and its outfits will meet for three days from October 8 there to finalise an organisational stimulus package for the poll-ravaged and faction-ridden BJP. Among the new prescriptions could be a decision to outsource a large number of fresh RSS pracharaks for full-time BJP organisational work at the party HQ and in states. Does it mean that there is a realisation in the Nagpur-Jhandewalan control room that a BJP revival needs rooted stuff, beyond the bluster of the rootless 24X7 sound-byte strategists?

Helping hands

Meanwhile, J&K saw some massive, and even nationally unprecedented, action. The cabinet secretary along with no less than 15 secretaries and 15 additional secretaries representing around 17 union ministries landed in Srinagar in two aircraft on Monday. The entire state bureaucracy, understandably, is on tenterhooks to ensure nothing goes wrong. The reason for the staggering size of the entourage: the central officers are there for the review of the Prime Minister's Reconstruction Plan (PMRP) as part of the spade work for the PM's visit later this month — for formally announcing 'another package'. The PMRP, however, has been incredibly sluggish. Its latest cost is Rs 29,954.85 crore of which only Rs 6367.53 crores have been spent — an overall expenditure of 21.26%in nearly five years.

 

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

LOUVRE SUCCUMBS TO MCLURE

 

It's a whopper of a cultural McCoup: next month, a McCaf is to open within sniffing distance of the hallowed precincts of the Louvre. It could not have been better placed to assert the continuing permeation of American culture through societies worldwide.

 

Not that this would be the first McDonald's in France (the 1,142nd, to be exact) but its targeted spot at the apogee of French art is devilishly delicious. Its adroit placement in the approach to the famed museum will chip away at the twin edifice of French hauteur, its cuisine and art, and bring into focus France's unpublicised standing as the leading market for the fastfood brand outside the US, despite its snootiness about le burger.

France has clearly come a long way from a decade ago when a farmer called Jos Bov hit the headlines for dismantling a McDonald's outlet as part of his crusade against 'malbouffe' or junk food. Back then, the US company was seen as the harbinger of the end of civilisation as France decreed it. Since then, many burgers have flown off the griddles to the stage when the Louvre authorities, now in an official statement, "welcome the fact that the entirety of visitors and customers, French or foreign, can enjoy such a rich and varied restaurant offer". They also defend their choice by clarifying that the franchisee would ensure "the quality of the project, both in culinary and aesthetic terms."

Meanwhile, critics in France foresee that Mona Lisa's smile will eschew its usual inscrutable cast and take on a more categorical expression (in conjunction with her nose) as the aroma of french fries wafts through hallowed halls. French defences were already breached when another American standard-bearer, Starbucks, opened in the same area of the Louvre, but the final straw may have been the downturn and consequent attraction of cheap eats.

The upside, however, is that the Louvre may have learnt a trick or two from the American fastmovers: the museum is to open a branch in Abu Dhabi in 2013.

 

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

MIGRATING TO PROSPERITY

 

Migrants should get a better deal, enjoy the same rights as locals and have access to basic services such as shelter, medical treatment and education, says the UN Development Programme's latest Human Development Report.

We agree. Migration is a fact of life, and has been taking place since the beginning of history. The early man moved from place to place in search of food. The basic instinct that drives people to migrate from their place of birth has not changed, only the circumstances have. Even the rise in the number of nation states and of border police posts, racial discrimination and regional chauvinism have not really limited the movement of people.

Migration and development are closely linked. The originating region of the migrants as well as the destination gains from migration. This is why migrants deserve all support. By no means is that an easy task, given the size of the migrant population across the world.

The UNDP estimates that one in seven persons is a migrant, meaning about one billion of the world's estimated 6.7 billion people have migrated. Most of the movement happens within the borders of a country, only 214 million are international migrants. Further, contrary to popular perception fewer than 70 million (just about 7% of all the migrants and 33% of the international migrants) move from developing to developed countries.

India is a country that has a large mass of people on the move, thanks to changes in the structure of the economy. People will move from primary activities to secondary and tertiary activities that are more urban-centric. So people will move from country to town. Ideally, new, and better planned, towns should house the bulk of them as well as the burgeoning industrial and service establishments. The migrants will need new skills. In their interest, and in the interest of the economy's higher productivity, migration management policies should also involve teaching people skills that are in short supply and would help them earn a better living.

Most importantly, migrants should be empowered as citizens to seek their due, without resorting to or being threatened with violence.

 

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

THE PORTRAYAL OF A MISGUIDED NOTION

MUKUL SHARMA

 

The 2007 bestseller, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens, received critical acclaim from reviewers who even compared it with Bertrand Russell's classic anti-theist work Why I Am Not a Christian . Religion, wrote Hitchens, is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism and bigotry, and invested in ignorance. Guilty of misogyny, child abuse and fraud on a monumental scale, "it is a plagiarism of a plagiarism, hearsay of a hearsay, an illusion of an illusion."

 

More specifically, he said religion misrepresents the origins of humankind and the cosmos, demands unreasonable suppression of human nature, inclines people to violence and blind submission to authority and expresses hostility to free inquiry.

It's obvious that after unleashing such violence against a belief system adhered to or practised by over 90% of the world, Hitchens would lay the blame squarely at the feet of the source of such belief — God — and pronounce that, under the circumstances, He couldn't possibly be great by any stretch of imagination.

And right he would be. For anyone who manages to wade through the litany of physical and mental savagery perpetrated in the name of faith down the ages should, logically, come to the same conclusion. Is it any wonder then that hostile reviewers (many of those too) didn't acknowledge this fact but instead attacked the author of shoddy research, sloppy erudition, sly distortions, misrepresentation of scriptures and juvenile characterisation of religious belief. Some of this criticism was correct but completely dodged the issue enfolded in the provocative title.

Because where Hitchens is wrong is that God — if such a thing exists, of course — doesn't have to be great. The mistake lies in providing Him, Her or It with a superhuman attribute that can be equated with comic book characters like Wonder Woman or Spiderman, forgetting in the process that something which is capable of creating whole universes would neither need such exaltation from a small planet nor necessarily be honoured by it.

That same God would also have to be intimately associated with everything happening in the cosmos including, as far as our recent existence goes, what we perceive as good and what we think of as evil. Turns out, all Hitchens was doing was demolishing a very simple-minded notion with an equally simple-minded rebuttal.

 

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

WE NEED TO BE MORE CAREFUL IN FUTURE

 

It is normal for trade agreements to have a political overtone. The Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) initiated by the USA during the 1990s are a good example of this. Its FTAs with Caribbean, South American, North American and African countries covered 'substantially all the trade' as required under the WTO norms, but in practice they were all textile-centric , providing for duty-free import of apparel products manufactured out of raw materials obtained from the USA. The ostensible objective was to help garment exports from the poor countries in the neighbourhood, but improving the political relationship with them was part of the agenda. EU followed this approach in Europe, around the same time.

 

India was inspired by these initiatives of the USA and EU to get into FTAs of geo-political significance with neighbouring countries. But while the objectives may have been similar, the economic consequences of our FTAs have been quite different from those of the western countries. The US and EU derived net economic gains from most of their FTAs, in addition to political gains. In the case of textiles, by mandating the use of their raw materials for eligibility to duty-free import of garments, the USA and EU could substantially increase their export of yarn and fabrics, outstripping the economic gains that their trading partners derived.

In our case, the FTAs implemented so far have resulted in widening our negative trade balance with the respective partners. The FTAs with Singapore, Thailand and Sri Lanka are the glaring examples. This will also be the case with our FTA with ASEAN, and BIMSTEC which is on the cards.

True, trade agreements will necessarily increase trade. But it is important to keep a proper balance between the increase in imports and exports through the trade agreements. Our 'Lookeast' policy has been driving us to trade agreements with other Asian countries which have substantially smaller markets and better infrastructure and lower transaction costs, making the competition both in their markets and our domestic market unequal. Thus, we have been opening up our huge market to the trading partners, without any corresponding gains. And this is true of auto parts, marine products and several other agriculture and industrial products, in addition to textiles.

The uncertainty in the successful completion of Doha Round is likely to enhance the interest in FTAs as the second best alternative to global trade liberalisation. We need to be more careful at least in future.

There is nothing wrong in pursuing political objectives through trade agreements. But we also need to make a proper analysis of economic gains. The initiation of FTA proposals with the EU, Mercosur and now the USA are positive steps in this direction. We need to be more pro-active in pursuing such FTAs, which will provide us better market access for several products, with negligible impact on the domestic market.

The US and EU have been preaching benevolence but in practice pursuing their economic interests in the FTAs, in addition to geo-political gains. We have been preaching and practising benevolence, with adverse economic consequences and uncertain geo-political gains.

Confederation of Indian Textile Industry

 

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

INDIA'S INTERESTS GO FAR BEYOND GOODS

 

The ministry of commerce lists 19 regional trade agreements that constitute India's current engagements. Of these, India has recently concluded agreements with the 10-nation ASEAN and South Korea. The other big trade partners with whom negotiations are progressing include Japan, the European Union, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the European Free Trade Area. In addition India is likely to begin negotiations with Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

 

All these negotiations are likely to be concluded over the next two to three years. This means by about 2014-15, India would have agreed on a reciprocal basis to eliminate tariffs on 85%-90 % of products with countries that account for over 70% of India's global trade.

While interests of sensitive sectors have to be safeguarded, it is imperative to note that falling tariffs by itself do not constitute a threat to industry. What is, however, important to understand and study is whether Indian products will have free access into these countries. Tariffs are a transparent form of protectionism which can be tackled, what is, however, difficult to overcome and target in these negotiations are the non-tariff barriers which are opaque. Indian industry needs to undertake a detailed study of the non-tariff barriers in countries where India is negotiating a FTA, if it seeks real market access. Given the fact that falling tariffs make them irrelevant for safeguarding domestic industry, it will be important to identify other barriers in the markets of large trade partners if these FTAs have to benefit industry in India.

The two most important areas to watch out for are technical barriers on industrial goods and SPS measures for agricultural and food products. Industry should keep a close watch on important countries to understand if any technical barriers hamper market access for products of interest to India. New Delhi's approach of seeking comprehensive economic agreements instead of the traditional FTAs covering only goods also helps industry since India's interests, today, go far beyond goods. In fact, Indian services industry views these FTAs as potential growth areas.

One potential area which needs a closer look by industry will be the area of public procurement which is becoming an important area of negotiations in some of the FTAs India is negotiating. While India has not evinced much interest in opening this sector, there is a need for industry to understand if this area can provide greater access into other markets.

Finally, it is not just India which is signing FTAs. But other developing countries like China too are negotiating and concluding FTAs to improve market access across the globe. With elimination of tariffs for developing countries in markets of interest to them, profit margins on exports will be wafer thin increasing the possibility of countries using trade defence measures like safeguards or anti-dumping. Industry will have to keep a close watch in markets where exports are high to safeguard against such practices.

Given the growing number of comprehensive bilateral and regional arrangements, industry should formulate a comprehensive strategy to tackle and benefit from the challenges and opportunities that will arise in the coming years.

 

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

THE SPECIAL THING ABOUT THE OLYMPICS

MYTHILI BHUSNURMATH

 

Are the scenes of wild rejoicing on the streets of Rio following Friday's decision by the International Olympics Committee (IOC) to award the 2016 Summer Olympics to Rio de Janeiro warranted ? Do they have any economic rationale ? What about the three losing cities — Tokyo, Chicago and Madrid — should they be so down-and-out ?

 

With the Commonwealth Games in Delhi looming large on the horizon and the first Olympics ever to be hosted in Latin America just seven years away, it's a good time to look at what such mega events do for host countries' economies.

Fortunately there is an NBER paper* that does just that; it looks at the economic impact (more specifically the impact of trade) of hosting mega-events like the Olympics.

The IOC has no doubts. 'The main reason for applying for candidacy,' says the Committee, 'lies in the possibilities for economic development and tourism inherent in such an event'. It believes potential visitors will be drawn to Olympic venues after being exposed to them through the games.

However, economists in general are more skeptical about the economic benefits of hosting such 'mega-events' : Measured net economic benefits are rarely large and typically negative ; claims of non-economic benefits are difficult to verify. Practitioners of the dismal science count the costs of such events (which are considerable), weigh them against the benefits (which are few) and, not surprisingly, find little to commend in them. In contrast, countries (read politicians and the public) have no such qualms.

But, as evident by the furious lobbying in the run up to the decision and the emotional response to the winning bid, there is more to it. This is exactly what the NBER paper finds. It concludes that hosting a mega-event like the Olympics has a positive and permanent impact on national exports (with trade around 30% higher for countries that hosted the Olympics). But surprise, surprise, the authors find that cities that make unsuccessful bids do just as well. There is a similar positive impact on their exports.

This suggests the Olympic Effect (the marked increase) on trade does not stem from a change in economic fundamentals that might be associated with a 'big push' process that comes from higher economic activity, creation of infrastructure and so on. Rather it is because bidding for the Olympics is a policy signal that is generally followed by further liberalisation. Hence both winners and also-rans benefit; for the losers there is the added consolation that hosting the event per se does not seem to bring any special benefits.

History certainly seems to bear them out. In July 2001, Beijing was awarded the right to host the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. Just two months later, China successfully concluded negotiations with the World Trade Organisation, formalising its commitment to trade liberalization. Nor was this a onceoff coincidence.

Rome was awarded the 1960 games in 1955, the same year Italy started to move towards currency convertibility , joined the UN, and, most importantly, began the Messina negotiations that lead two years later to the Treaty of Rome and the creation of the European Economic Community.

The Tokyo games of 1964 coincided with Japanese entry into the IMF and the OECD. Barcelona was awarded the 1992 games in 1986, the same year Spain joined the EEC; the decision to award Korea the 1988 games coincided with Korea's political liberalization. The correlation, they argue, extends beyond the Olympics; the 1986 World Cup held in Mexico coincided with its trade liberalisation and entry into the GATT.

So will this hold true for India as well? Even if hosting the Commonwealth Games does nothing special for our exports (in any case, that's going to be tough if the global economy remains anemic) if it sends out a signal that the country is increasingly opening up to that in itself will be a bonus. Of course this is contingent on our getting our act together in the limited time that we have before the Games. Else we will find that the next time the NBER does similar research it will have to mention Delhi as an unhappy exception to the rule.

The Olympic Effect, Andrew K Rose and Mark M Spiegel NBER Working Paper No. 14854, April 2009.

 

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

4850-4870 LEVELS CRITICAL FOR UPTREND TO CONTINUE: ANALYST

 

Jatinder Sharma, Partner, EquityStrategists.com believes that while the charts are looking weak, price confirmation of a correction would only come in if the Nifty slips below 4870.

 

A lot of weakness was seen in some key heavyweights in yesterday's trade as well. What are the charts suggesting?
See, the charts are showing certain weaknesses in certain key heavyweights like you mentioned, foremost is the telecom sector, Bharti, RComm, both are looking weak on charts but overall if you look at the market, I think charts and indicators are beginning to look weak but they have looked weak on various occasions in past three months but the price confirmation has never come in. So, I would be looking more at the price range of 4850-4870. Once that level breaks, then I think that price confirmation will come that now the uptrend is slipping and we might be entering into a slightly corrective phase.

Looking at the current market trend, would the sell calls be stronger than the buy ones or how do you take us through the ones that you have mentioned?

No, I would be looking at the individual chart pattern because if you look at the ITC chart pattern, it has been in a consolidation phase for last one, one-and-a-half months and now it is trying to break out. It closed above Rs 238 yesterday and I think that was a crucial level. If it sustains above Rs 238 today also, then I think it can go up to the highs which it had touched from two months back of around Rs 254-255. One must keep a stop loss of around Rs 232 if one is initiating a long trade in ITC.

Then infrastructure is another sector, which has remained sideways for a longish spell now, for about two months now. We have seen chart patterns of Voltas, IVRCL, Punj Lloyd, JP, most of them have a slightly consolidation patterns kind of chart pattern. We like Voltas because it is not slipping below Rs 143-144, so that could be a stop loss for Voltas and it can go up to Rs 161-162 and in fact if it breaks above Rs 162, then it can go up to Rs 186 also, so these are two counters, which has shown consolidation patterns in two months.

 

Then KFA is a unique case, it has broken out after a longish consolidation between Rs 45 and Rs 53. It has consolidated for 2-3 days above 53, now it is again looking to break out, so the short-term target could be around Rs 62 to 67 for KFA and one can keep a stop loss of around Rs 53 for this counter.

 

Now looking at the short side of trades, the banking sector has been a strong out-performer in past one month or so, say 4-6 weeks but the weakest we have found on the charts has been Union Bank. It was a slow mover so to speak, it was a late mover once the whole banking rally was coming to a maturity, then Union Bank had started to move up. Now again it is slipping below certain levels, I think one can keep a stop loss of around Rs 246 and short sell Union Bank for a price target of around Rs 227 and may be Rs 219 if the market also slips. Then coming back to the metal sector, in metal space what we have observed is SAIL has been the weakest link within that metal space but it has broadly remained between Rs 160 and Rs 185 for past 3-4 months, so I would suggest that one can short sell only if it breaks below 160 because 160-159 has been a key support area for SAIL for past four months now, so one can short sell if it slips below Rs 160.

 

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

ABSOLUTE VALUATIONS STRETCHED; IT, BPO POSITIVE: ASHISH DHAWAN, CHRYSCAPITAL

 

Ashish Dhawan, Senior MD, ChrysCapital spoke to ET Now. He believes that valuations, at least in the large cap space, are somewhat stretched and that it will be difficult for the market to run up from here. Here is the full transcript of his interview with the channel:

 

How would you currently rate Indian markets in terms of valuation/liquidity?

I think absolute valuations are now somewhat of a stretch. We at least cannot find any value in the large cap space. Frankly, we have used the opportunity over the last 30 days to be a seller as opposed to be a net buyer. I think there is still some value in some smaller cap or mid-cap types of companies, but, in the 50 largest companies in India there is no value anymore. As far as where we go from here- I am not a forecaster- but my general sense is that I see it is going to be very difficult for the market to have a significant run up from here and the risk is on the downside.

September has been a month really which has been a liquidity fuelled rally, how do you see the situation going forward and do you think that liquidity is going to continue to drive a market upwards?

No, we cannot ignore it. So, I think clearly in the near term liquidity is a big driver of the direction of the market, but, I think that liquidity also comes in at a price. I mean frankly it was an easy decision and I think for a lot of people decision of feeling left out that got them rushing back into the market. I would hope that for incremental liquidity to come in, they are making somewhat of a rational decision. India is already at 18 times earnings and so yes, we will get more capital but I think if the market would continue to run up I would think that at some point people will take a pause and say maybe I ought to allocate my money elsewhere because India is becoming richly valued. We have seen the same happened with China, China got the 30 times earnings and people said hey, let's wait and therefore China hasn't been one of the best performing markets in Asia lately.

One word on liquidity, do you believe that there is a risk in the market that there would a liquidity led bubble for the equities as an asset class?

I would agree with that, but, I think that my assumption would be that this time round people may be a little less euphoric after what they have seen in the last 12 months. But you are right, there is clearly some possibility that we get up to 24-25 times earnings. My general sense is given that people have been burnt in the more recent past that may be they will think of 20 times earnings is sort of toppish levels.

 

What has been your basic strategy, in last three months what have you added, what have you deleted?

Generally as I mentioned you in the last month or so we have been a net seller because view is we are toppish levels. I do not know when the exact top will come but, I think we are reasonably close to that. I think as far as different sectors are concerned I am still somewhat more bullish on IT and export oriented sectors. I know it is somewhat of a contrarian view although IT has gone up in the recent past but everybody knows that domestic India is a great story. All these power stocks that trade extremely well or real estate stocks- that is where the momentum is- we generally want to stay away from the momentum when we are looking at new investments and so I think some of the exporters have been overlooked. I think there are lot of problems in the western world. I think the worst is behind us and frankly a year or two from now I think some of the exporters who have a natural advantage will actually do very well. So one of the sectors we have our biggest investments in where we are not divesting is clearly IT and BPO.

You have been good at identifying sectoral trends and spotting trends ahead of the curve, what sectors do you think are really going to be the next ones to take these markets up?

I wish I could say that. I think if you would have asked me six months ago, yes, there was a turn of value and there were some things we were very excited about. In January 2008 I would have said buy IT because it was a sector that was completely overlooked at the peak of the market because people got bearish about the western world. At this point in time we are not taking a sectoral view it is much more bottoms up, I cannot see one sector which if we bet on we will do much better over the coming five years. So it is much more bottoms up as opposed to top down sectoral view.

What would be a fair PE band for the Indian markets to trade in?

I just think that historically we have seen that markets have been rallied at 15 times earnings, you know, 20 times, 22 times in my mind is toppish; 10 times, 11 times is dirt cheap, we were there, you know, frankly I do not think much has changed personally for me between six months ago and today. I know that everybody is feeling better about the world but if you ask me I was equally confident six months ago that India was going to grow at 7% to 8% over the long-term and over the near term maybe at 5%, 6%, 7% so I do not think a lot have changed in terms of economic growth in India or the prospects of Indian companies and yes, I am bullish but bullish at a price.

 

So what is the immediate downside you expect in the foreseeable future for Indian markets both for large caps and for midcaps?

No, I do not think we are banking on the fact that we will go back to where we were six months ago because those were abysmally low valuations and frankly I think you see those, you know, everyone's in a lifetime you do not see those very often but I think as I said we are looking things more on a bottoms up basis but 20%-30% cheaper we be quite interested in looking at a number of companies.

You were bullish on real estate and auto, what is your view there now?

True, I agree that India has been much more resilient than anybody expected but let's take a couple of the areas you talked about, first look at real estate. I think yes, there has been a big surge in real estate but it is relative to a period of six, nine, 12 months when nothing happened so obviously the improvement is going to look very-very good and by the way there is a lot of pent-up demand in today's numbers. So when somebody launches a new project remember that people who have not bought in that area for often 6, 9, 12 months who were waiting to buy a home, mortgage rates are lower, prices have been cut and so now is a more appropriate time to do it. So I do not think we are necessarily seeing normalise demand, we are seeing normal demand plus pent-up demand in the real estate sector. I think we all look at other sectors like auto, we saw a slowdown earlier, you know, there is now a pick up back to closer to normal levels. So clearly I am not very surprised by the strong pick up in the two wheeler sector or the passenger car sector because we did go through a phase where things slowed down and so we are getting back to normal scene in those areas. So yes, I agree with you, the things are looking pretty good on the domestic front but that's more than factored into valuations already.

 

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

'INDIA WILL BE FIFTH-LARGEST AUTO MARKET BY 2015'

SAI DEEPIKA AMIRAPU

 

German luxury carmaker Audi is optimistic about sales of the affluent cars, while projecting an 80% growth over last year. But he cautiously downplays this scorching pace of growth and talks about being profitable rather than grabbing the market share from his competitors, BMW and Merc. Benoit Tiers, managing director of the company's Indian subsidiary talks to ET NOW after Audi's annual golf tournament (Quattro Cup) at Hyderabad. Excerpts:

Both BMW and Mercedes plan to sell more cars than Audi in India. How do you plan to beat competition?

India is a very interesting market because most manufacturers have their production plants in the country. The customer has a choice of products, even in the luxury car segment. But I am of the view that the quality of product and service of the dealers matter. Audi in India is a long-term commitment and my target is not to be number one in terms of sales figures. My aim is to establish the brand and build service and quality, so that the consequence will be sales. We may be late entrants in to the Indian market, but our rate of growth is higher. We're looking at being profitable first. We sold around 1,050 cars in India last year, a 120% growth.

How has the order rate been in the first half of the year? Are you tempering your outlook for the next three months?
Audi India was incorporated in March 2007, and ever since, we have been ahead of our targets here. We have done extremely well in September by delivering 205 cars to our customers. Our Q7 and A6 are in great demand, and we expect to sell 1,800 units of all models this year.

Do you plan to expand your dealer network from 12 currently? Any hiring plans?

Most certainly. It is important for us to be present where ever our customer is. By 2010, we will have 15 dealers, and by 2011, we wish to have 18 dealers pan-India. We also have our roadside assistance where the customer can avail services just by making a call. We will also marginally increase our headcount in regions where we have dealers.

Mercedes Benz will enter the used-car segment by year-end. You have any plans to foray into this market, although it is highly fragmented?

The used-market will get organised, and the market size will touch 1.6-million cars this year. This market will have more requirements due to its growth and we plan to enter this segment in 2010. We have our pre-owned used Audi car programme worldwide, where each car is technically and thoroughly checked before it is re-sold.

 

The credit crunch cooled demand for luxury cars in the US and the UK. Do you think India and China have a greater growth potential?

Clearly, India in the future is one of the biggest markets. Our estimation says India will be the fifth-largest automobile market in the world by 2015. We sold 1,20,000 cars in China last year. India will soon go that way, though it will not happen overnight. We are studying the market and we want to be ready for it.

Like Indian automakers, are you planning to offer any discounts and special offers to customers this festive season?
I think, it is important for us and our dealers to follow tradition in India. For this festive season, we've brought in more cars and we have a special scheme for Audi A6. About 20 customers in all the 12 dealers can avail this special final offer. We have no discounts, but we're providing greater access to our customers.

Do you plan to add another plant in India to assemble new Audi models that come to the Indian market?
No. Our idea is to have production facility in one location. Aurangabad will be our main facility and all new models that will be brought in will be assembled here. Our new SUV Q5 will be put together from next year. We will bring more models like small cars and others according to the demand.

 

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THE ECONOMIC TIMES

EDITORIAL

FOR HUL, CONNECTING WITH THE CONSUMER MATTERS MOST

KALA VIJAYRAGHAVAN

 

Nitin Paranjpe, CEO and managing director, HULThe only thing that should matter to us is the thing which relates to the consumer and customer. We are here to deal with it. Everything else, including internal issues are irrelevant, said Nitin Paranjpe, CEO and managing director of HUL, in an exclusive interview to ET . There is a visible sense of urgency within the Unilever system that subsidiaries such as HUL deliver strong volume growth. India and China, among the developing markets, are expected to lead Unilever out of the downturn.

 

There is a marked aggression in HUL's approach since June 2009 in the market place. Is it after a Unilever diktat to drive growth?

We are committed to competitive growth. What you are seeing in the past two months is us deploying our full portfolio. And we are not talking in terms of one or two brands here and there. It will be our full portfolio, across all categories because that is what we believe is required to successfully deliver on our ambition and goal to get competitive growth. All I can say is on and off one quarter here and one quarter there may see some reverses in sales that you may have seen in terms of categories.

Has HUL identified the slack in the system that has led to an incompetitive showdown in the marketplace?
I would never use the word slack. Our commitment to competitive growth has been there at all times. There are some quarters when you deliver and some quarters when you don't. We have been here for the past 75 years and have built a strong business, and we are absolutely determined that in the years to come, we build an even stronger business with strong robust brands, represented across categories. We will play our full portfolio, straddle the pyramid and be aggressive to achieve this.

HUL is present in highly-penetrated categories such as soaps and detergents. The criticism from company watchers is that HUL has not focused on a strategy to grow consumption.

Market penetration varies quite dramatically — from very high to extremely low. But I would like to issue a health warning in terms of what the term market penetration means. Even if you use a shampoo once in six months, then the category is penetrated. But there are a large number of personal care categories where the penetration levels are very low like deodorants, hair conditioners, and fabric conditioner in laundry, where the penetration is insignificant. If you take the dish wash segment, surface cleaners will become a very large market. Till now, parts of house cleaners that have been penetrating are really dish wash. We have now introduced 'CiF' to build and grow the market with right penetration.

Has HUL put in a differentiated strategy to take on low-cost competitors?

India is not one India — there are many Indias with India. So you cannot have any one set of approach for anything. We are doing what is called micro-marketing. In certain categories, the differences across regions are very significant in terms of presence and nature of competition. You need strategies which are unique even at the state level. We have organised to recognise the disparity & diversity of the country and our different brands will play a different role in different parts of the country. For example, take categories like laundry or tea or skin cleansing. There is a significant variation which you will see across the country. So in these categories, we will have very region-specific brands.

Last year, the HUL management's bonuses and compensation packages were linked to profitability growth. It was also the time when the company hiked prices, citing rising input costs. Now Unilever has linked compensation to volume-led growth. So how does HUL handle competitive pricing and its impact on margins?
I want us to first recognise that any company which wishes to be delivering competitive growth must be just as tight-focused and ruthless on elimination of cost. Many people ask me are you focused on growth or cost? The way we will manage is by continuing to be really tough from the elimination of structural cost in our business, the cost across our supply chain. We will keep getting better and better. Because that is the only way which will give us head room which is required, i.e. to invest as required behind our brands. So if competition is going to be intensive — we want to be one step ahead and invest in product, quality and advertising. We are also committed to profitable growth. The only way you will achieve this is by creating such headroom by removing costs from your system that it will lead you enough to invest behind the product, and the topline; and yet leave a surplus to deliver your product.

Will HUL's extensive focus on cost-cutting affect productive investments?

We are cutting cost overheads and underheads and not brand investments. We are investing more behind our brands, as we reduce costs. As long as cost exists, there is opportunity to save. There is no end to how more effective it would be. That will be the challenge for HUL.

 

Is HUL changing the mindset of its employees to achieve the focus?

We keep saying we want this organisation to become swifter, responsive, outward-oriented. The only thing that should matter to us is the thing which relates to the consumer and customer. Everything else, including internal issues are irrelevant. The entire organisation has to be outward looking, dealing with the consumer interest. That is the first shift which we want. All of us must be spending more time with consumers and customers because there is no substitute for the first hand feel of what is going on in the market place.

 

How does HUL compare itself with strong marketing-oriented companies such as Airtel, Nokia or L'oreal?

I do not want to comment on us versus others. I can talk about the things that we would like this company to be. We'd like this company to be externally-oriented, focused around the consumer and customer. We would like this company rising out to be nimble, swift, quick in terms of what it does, how it does it. Incompetitiveness of any kind is now intolerable. Over the past few months, we have learnt many lessons about the volatility of 2008 and 2009. We have learnt a few lessons about the criticality of speed and of managing the pipelines, which have hardened and resolved us.

Is volatility around businesses still a concern?

It always will be. We really can't determine what could happen in the world. How volatile the world will be. We can determine what we can do about our internal processes to gear with that. So we worked hard over the last two months, to identify certain internal processes which we have tried to shorten the cycle times, so that we can respond to changes — changes because of volatility, competition, a little faster than what it was originally. To do our job now, we have to wear bifocal lens. A lens which will manage this quarter and the next quarter, and equally a lens which will enable us to look ahead and see what is likely to happen in 3-5 years from now in the market place.

How do you see the market panning out in FMCG? Downtrading is still a worry?

The FMCG market will continue to see a good growth in a medium to long-term view, there are several factors that support a strong market growth. Those could be just the increase in affluence in this country. I think we must distinguish between short-term cycles and a long-term take. When you are travelling in a road — sometimes there are speed breakers which require the speed of the car to come down, but that does not stop the vehicle. The trend can be in that direction. So from time to time, there may be events in the environment which may lead to some downtrading somewhere, in some categories. It is for good reasons. The economic turmoil and the crisis which is going on, inflation, etc. But the consumption trend cannot be broken as long as India continues its growth journey. There may be an odd year when there is a dip. But overall it has to grow.

Like Unilever, HUL is also looking at different way of doing business with its agencies to ensure more bang from the buck?

HUL is not different from Unilever — we are one company. Agencies as our partners, we have to work together to collectively create value. That is our first principle. The second principle is that in any partnership, there has to be a certain framework of business. Just as we say it internally to our employees, we are saying it to our partners. Internally, we want performance orientation and accountability and there is the whole philosophy of pay for performance. So also with the partner, the approach has to be — there has to be an output and output must have result, and there must be a greater incentive for superior performance.

There is this criticism that HUL brands are morphing into Unilever brands.

Today, our largest brand is Wheel, an Indian brand. We have not morphed it. Fair and Lovely is a brand which grew up from here into other markets. People at some stage had got confused between power brands and global brands. All the brands that we have got in our portfolio today are not power brands, some happen to be global brands. Whatever pruning had to be done, happened in the past and have been left with the portfolio brands.

As a CEO, how are you tackling growth challenges?

Leadership has its own sets of challenges. Leadership requires you to be able to watch, be not just bifocal but multifocal. My personal feeling is that there is no substitute for personal involvement.

I travel, I still go to the market — every month — at different places, including small towns, large towns, villages. Because otherwise you are relying too much on second and third hands sort of feel and feedback, which can get intentionally or unintentionally if there is a dilution on the information received. It is about consciously asking ourselves — a series of matrix which you put in place. What is the matrix which affects the health of this business today? What is the matrix which I can track today which is important for the health of the business three years from today or five years from today. The action that you are taking now will protect the health 3-5 years from now.

This portfolio brand is a combination of some global brands and some local brands. We must play the entire portfolio of our things, so whether it is Lifebuoy, Lux, Hamam or Breeze, dove or pears or Rexona — all of them have a role to play in our portfolio.

 

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                                                                                                               DECCAN CHRONICAL

EDITORIAL

FLOODS IN SOUTH A NATIONAL CALAMITY

 

Rain havoc and rushing floods on a scale usually associated with eastern India and neighbouring Bangladesh have laid low peninsular India. The frightening magnitude of things suggests that more than 200 people have been killed in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, Karnataka taking the biggest hit with 168 deaths so far. Thousands have been injured in the three states. Two lakh homes have been washed away in 15 districts of Karnataka. From the sketchy reports available, four lakh acres of agricultural land have been submerged in Andhra Pradesh and one lakh people evacuated. Krishna, Guntur and Nalgonda districts suffered the most in Andhra, although the towns of Kurnool, Mahbubnagar and Nandyal too presented a disturbing picture with waist-high water all over the urban areas. The worst rains in a hundred years in the normally dry northern districts of Karnataka accounted for the flood, and the rainwater breaking the banks of reservoirs and gushing into neighbouring Andhra Pradesh apparently compounded matters in that state. It is said Andhra Pradesh has not ever known disaster on a scale such as this. The uncommon rainfall at the tail end of the southwest monsoon may well be attributable to climate change. What is shocking, however, is that the government's early-warning systems have failed to have an impact. Either they didn't pick up the signs early enough, or the administration in three states failed to communicate the warning to the community level — rural and urban. In any case, questions may be worth asking about the efficacy of our indigenous satellites that are charged with mapping weather data and forecasting droughts and floods. Battling nature's fury is not easy even for rich countries, as has been shown to be the case in the United States in recent years. But the level of poverty in developing societies makes the quality of suffering worse than it might be. Water-borne epidemics are prone to follow in the wake of flood devastation. Crops, cattle, homes have been washed away on an unprecedented scale. As such, it might be in the fitness of things if the tragic situation in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh is declared to be a national calamity. This will make the provision of relief, and the terms of obtaining succour from different quarters, easier. The Karnataka chief minister has raised a demand of Rs 10,000 crore from the Centre as relief. Andhra Pradesh will also surely need a tidy sum in order to get over the immediate shock. It is to be hoped that the Centre will be sympathetic to the concerns of the people of these states. Agriculture hasn't fared well this year in the country on account of unduly dry conditions, or drought, in many parts. The southern floods can only make matters worse. All of this can't not have an impact on public finances as demand for relief mounts. While managing the economy at a time when the effects of the recession haven't wholly been overcome, the government will be called upon to present a compassionate face.

 

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DECCAN CHRONICAL

EDITORIAL

US WAR IN AFGHAN VITAL FOR INDIA TOO

BY SHANKAR ROYCHOWDHURY

 

"This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity — to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda and its extremist allies... If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which Al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting... this is fundamental to the defence of our people".

The US President, Mr Barack Obama, by no means an "imperialist warmonger", thus addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars earlier this year with reference to "Operation Enduring Freedom", the American military intervention in Afghanistan in 2001. Left unspoken was the implication that the "war of choice" that his predecessor Mr George W. Bush had initiated in Iraq had been unnecessary to begin with, and subsequently turned out to be unwise as well. Launched in the backlash of 9/11 as a quick reaction manhunt in the best traditions of Texas folklore to "Get Osama — dead or alive", the American campaign in Afghanistan foot-faulted primarily because of national-level misdirection by the President, Mr George W. Bush, and his advisers, Messrs Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, who accorded priority to "their" war in Iraq over the original point of main effort in Afghanistan. The concurrent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were a violation of the most basic principle of war — "selection and maintenance of aim" — which advises focusing on "one war at a time" because the sole superpower is actually no longer capable of handling more, and the United States has been paying for the blunders of its neocon leadership ever since (830 killed as on date in Afghanistan, 4,251 in Iraq).
Though events went as expected in the initial stages of both conflicts, the real wars in both instances cropped up as violent insurgencies in what had been traditionally considered the post-conflict phase, hitherto a mere formality of mopping up, putting up "mission accomplished" banners and moving out (or staying on!). As a result, the war in Afghanistan was perhaps lost in its very initial months when skeleton US forces working with unreliable local mercenaries failed to prevent the escape of Osama bin Laden from encirclement in the Tora Bora mountains to sanctuary in the Fata (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) area of Pakistan in December 2001, where he is reported to be living ever since. The wars have dragged on since, with mounting American casualties, drawing inevitable parallels with Vietnam, which the Obama administration (like others before them) have been quick to dismiss, and reiterate their determination "to stay the course". But he has an election to face in a few years, and Afghanistan, historically reputed as the graveyard of empires, is proving a difficult war, even for the United States.

Those in charge of running it in Washington are fully aware that it may well be ultimately unwinnable largely because of a flawed strategy that leans heavily on support from Pakistan, a totally unreliable partner, with little compunctions in brazenly selling their patrons down the river.

In India, successive governments as well as public opinion in general (apart from those prone to knee-jerk anti-Americanism) have always been more comfortable with the American presence in Afghanistan than with the Iraq issue due to the perception that Afghanistan was actually something which India would have itself liked to undertake in the aftermath of the Kandahar hijack episode in 1999 but could only fret impotently as the task was far beyond its international clout and military capabilities. So now that the United States has in effect taken on the war India wanted to but could not fight, what should be India's view of the US action in that country? One thing is sure — with all its shortcomings and flaws, a friendly regime in Afghanistan is vital to India's national interests and if the United States considers that left to itself Afghanistan would relapse into a freehold sanctuary for jihadi terrorists capable of threatening the United States over 10,000 miles away, what should India's perceptions be — as a far softer and much more easily accessible target?

Is Afghanistan in many ways a "war of necessity" for India too? And if so, given the geographical and geopolitical compulsions of the situation, how best should India undertake the task? For the present, India's participation has focused exclusively on economic aid for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the shattered country to the tune of $1.2 billion in specific projects and programmes, which makes it the fifth largest donor in the country. The Indian programme has been a runaway success, very well received by the Afghan people. The flagship of the Indian effort is the 218-km Zaranj-Delaram highway constructed by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), under the vigil of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Afghan security guards, which connects landlocked Afghanistan with the Iranian port of Chahbahar in the Persian Gulf. The road was pushed through in the face of violent attacks by the Taliban acting as surrogates for the Pakistan Army and its Inter-Services Intelligence, because it broke Pakistan's stranglehold on Afghanistan's surface access to the world outside, and was obviously detrimental to Pakistan's strategic interests against India. (Incidentally, one fails to comprehend why the admirable determination and efficiency displayed by Indian agencies against heavy odds in a violent foreign environment cannot be demonstrated at home as well, in expanding and creating critical infrastructure in areas with similar problems within the country, particularly Naxalite and militant-dominated regions?)

Resolution of the Afghan situation also demands the one thing the United States is unable to deliver on a lasting basis — "boots on the ground" for a long-term presence in country, something key to restoration of long-term stability which can be accomplished only by an indigenous Afghan National Army (ANA). This is where India can most effectively assist the Afghan war effort, with large-scale "soldier factories" as in 1962 after the Sino-Indian border war to rapidly expand all branches of the ANA on a crash action basis. Such an effort requires large-scale resources and experience, which the Indian Army is well placed to provide. Afghanistan is indeed a "war of necessity" for India, and building up the ANA is the obvious area on which India should focus in its own long-term interests.

 

Gen. ShankarRoychowdhury (Retd) isa former Chief of Army Staff and a former Member of Parliament

 

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DECCAN CHRONICAL

EDITORIAL

POLITICS OF SPITE CONSUMES REPUBLICANS

BY PAUL KRUGMAN

 

There was what President Barack Obama likes to call a teachable moment last week, when the International Olympic Committee rejected Chicago's bid to be host of the 2016 Summer Games.

"Cheers erupted" at the headquarters of the conservative Weekly Standard, according to a blog post by a member of the magazine's staff, with the headline "Obama loses! Obama loses!" Rush Limbaugh declared himself "gleeful". "World Rejects Obama", gloated the Drudge Report. And so on.

So what did we learn from this moment? For one thing, we learned that the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.

But more important, the episode illustrated an essential truth about the state of American politics: at this point, the guiding principle of one of our nation's two great political parties is spite, pure and simple. If Republicans think something might be good for the President, they're against it — whether or not it's good for America.

To be sure, while celebrating America's rebuff by the Olympic Committee was puerile, it didn't do any real harm. But the same principle of spite has determined Republican positions on more serious matters, with potentially serious consequences — in particular, in the debate over healthcare reform. Now, it's understandable that many Republicans oppose Democratic plans to extend insurance coverage — just as most Democrats opposed President Bush's attempt to convert social security into a sort of giant 401(k). The two parties do, after all, have different philosophies about the appropriate role of government.

But the tactics of the two parties have been different. In 2005, when Democrats campaigned against social security privatisation, their arguments were consistent with their underlying ideology: they argued that replacing guaranteed benefits with private accounts would expose retirees to too much risk.

The Republican campaign against healthcare reform, by contrast, has shown no such consistency. For the main GOP line of attack is the claim — based mainly on lies about death panels and so on — that reform will undermine Medicare. And this line of attack is utterly at odds both with the party's traditions and with what conservatives claim to believe.

Think about just how bizarre it is for Republicans to position themselves as the defenders of unrestricted Medicare spending. First of all, the modern GOP considers itself the party of Ronald Reagan — and Reagan was a fierce opponent of Medicare's creation, warning that it would destroy American freedom. (Honest.) In the 1990s, Newt Gingrich tried to force drastic cuts in Medicare financing. And in recent years, Republicans have repeatedly decried the growth in entitlement spending — growth that is largely driven by rising healthcare costs.

But the Obama administration's plan to expand coverage relies in part on savings from Medicare. And since the GOP opposes anything that might be good for Mr Obama, it has become the passionate defender of ineffective medical procedures and overpayments to insurance companies.

How did one of our great political parties become so ruthless, so willing to embrace scorched-earth tactics even if so doing undermines the ability of any future administration to govern?

The key point is that ever since the Reagan years, the Republican Party has been dominated by radicals — ideologues and/or apparatchiks who, at a fundamental level, do not accept anyone else's right to govern.
Anyone surprised by the venomous, over-the-top opposition to Mr Obama must have forgotten the Clinton years. Remember when Rush Limbaugh suggested that Hillary Clinton was a party to murder? When Newt Gingrich shut down the federal government in an attempt to bully Bill Clinton into accepting those Medicare cuts? And let's not even talk about the impeachment saga.

The only difference now is that the GOP is in a weaker position, having lost control not just of Congress but, to a large extent, of the terms of debate. The public no longer buys conservative ideology the way it used to; the old attacks on Big Government and paeans to the magic of the marketplace have lost their resonance. Yet conservatives retain their belief that they, and only they, should govern.

The result has been a cynical, ends-justify-the-means approach. Hastening the day when the rightful governing party returns to power is all that matters, so the GOP will seize any club at hand with which to beat the current administration.

It's an ugly picture. But it's the truth. And it's a truth anyone trying to find solutions to America's real problems has to understand.

 

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DECCAN CHRONICAL

OPED

MIGRATION'S GENDER ANGLE

BY JAYATI GHOSH

 

Women currently make up around half of the world's migrant population, even without taking into consideration short-term and seasonal movements. Despite the widespread prevalence of female migration, there are still some common stereotypes about its nature: that it is mostly women and girls accompanying their male heads of household, or dominantly by young, unmarried women, mostly for marriage or for some defined work enabled by contractors. Yet the migration of women for reasons other than marriage is both more widespread and more complex than is often suspected. Indeed, there is a remarkable diversity of migration patterns among women, and such diversity has increased along with recent economic and social changes in both sending and receiving locations.

Women migrate for long and short periods, over short and long distances. They move for many reasons, of which marriage is only one and among which work is becoming increasingly significant. Young women dominate in migration, but older women migrate as well. They move with or without their families. Both single and married women migrate. Indeed, there is growing evidence of women who have borne children moving for work, leaving the care of their children with family members who remain at home.

International migration for work shows clear demarcations and separate niches for male and female labour. Male migrants tend to be concentrated in the production and construction sectors, and to a much lesser extent in service activities. Female migrants, by contrast, are dominantly found to be working in specific service activities — in the domestic work and care sectors, as well as in entertainment work.

While the driver of the supply of migrant workers may be similar across men and women, the basic demand forces driving women's migration for work are quite different from those of men. This is particularly true for cross-border migration. Since female migrant workers are dominantly in the care and entertainment sectors, demand for such workers is less dependent upon the economic cycle and more dependent upon longer run demographic and social tendencies in the receiving countries. Ageing societies require more care providers. Societies in which women are more active in paid work participation, especially in higher-income activities, need more domestic workers.

One significant feature that flows from this gendered migration is the impact on remittances. Total remittance flows to developing countries are estimated to be nearly $300 billion in 2009, significantly more than all forms of capital flows put together. This has provided crucial foreign exchange and been a major contributor to balance of payments stability to countries as far apart as the Philippines and Guatemala, and even for large countries like India and China it has played a significant role in domestic consumption.

What has been more surprising to several observers is that remittance flows have not declined in many countries despite the onset of the global recession. This is contrary to the projections made by the World Bank and others that predicted substantial decline in remittances. But to some extent this too can be expected, because even if the crisis leads to large-scale retrenchment of migrant workers who are forced to come home, they would obviously return with their accumulated savings. In such a case, there could even be a (temporary) spike in remittances rather than a continuous or sharp decline because of the crisis. Eventually, as the adverse conditions for overseas employment further aggravate, this would then lead to decline in remittance inflows.

But even that need not happen, and remittances could continue to increase — and one factor behind this is the gender dimension. In the first place, female migrants are far more likely to send remittances home, and typically send a greater proportion of their earnings back. Also, male migrant workers find that incomes are much more linked to the business cycle in the host economy, so their employment and wages tend to vary with output behaviour. Thus job losses in the North during this crisis have been concentrated in construction, financial services and manufacturing, all dominated by male workers.

By contrast, the care activities dominantly performed by women workers tend to be affected by other variables such as demographic tendencies, institutional arrangements, and the extent to which women work outside the home in the host country. So employment in such activities is often relatively invariant to the business cycle, or at least responds to a lesser extent. Therefore, female migrant workers' incomes are more stable over the cycle and do not immediately rise or fall to the same extent.

This in turn means that source countries that have a disproportionately higher share of women out-migrants (such as the Philippines and Sri Lanka) would tend to experience less adverse impact in terms of downturn of remittances. Indeed, in both countries, most recent data indicates that remittance flows are still increasing. This does not mean that there will be no impact at all, but certainly the adverse effects will be less and will take longer to work through than if the migration had been dominated by male workers.

The extent to which migration is empowering for women or simply reinforces oppressive and patriarchal patterns depends upon the nature of the migration. But it also depends upon official policy. Currently, very few host countries have legislation specifically designed to protect migrant workers, and there is little official recognition of the problems faced by women migrants in particular. The same is true for the sending countries, which accept the remittances sent by such migrants, but without much fanfare or gratitude, and tend to make little attempt to improve the conditions of these workers in the employment abroad.

Indeed, as noted earlier, there are often additional legal restrictions on the migration of women, which put additional constraints on their mobility. Women migrants, who typically are drawn by the attraction of better incomes and living conditions or by very adverse material or social conditions at home, are therefore in a "no-woman's land" characterised by a generalised lack of protection. It is now more important than ever to fill this very obvious policy gap.

 

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DECCAN CHRONICAL

OPED

... AMERICANS DON'T GET IT, HEALTHCARE IS A RIGHT

BY ROGER COHEN

 

Back from another trip to Europe, this time Germany, where the same dismay as in France prevails over the US healthcare debate. Europeans don't get why Americans don't agree that universal health coverage is a fundamental contract to which the citizens of any developed society have a right.

I don't get it either. Or rather I do, but I don't think the debate is about health.

There can be no doubt that US healthcare is expensive and wasteful. Tens of millions of people are uninsured by a system that devours a far bigger slice of national output — and that's the sum of all Americans' collective energies — than in any other wealthy society.

People die of worry, too. Emergency rooms were not created to be primary care providers.

Whatever may be right, something is rotten in American medicine. It should be fixed. But fixing it requires the acknowledgement that, when it comes to health, we're all in this together. Pooling the risk between everybody is the most efficient way to forge a healthier society.

Europeans have no problem with this moral commitment. But Americans hear "pooled risk" and think, "Hey, somebody's freeloading on my hard work".

A reader, John Dowd, sent me this comment: "In Europe generally the populace in the various countries feels enough sense of social connectedness to enforce a social contract that benefits all, albeit at a fairly high cost.
"In America it is not like that. There is endless worry that one's neighbour may be getting more than his or her 'fair' share".

Post-heroic European societies, having paid in blood for violent political movements born of inequality and class struggle, see greater risk in unfettered individualism than in social solidarity. Americans, born in revolt against Europe and so ever defining themselves against the old continent's models, mythologise their rugged (always rugged) individualism as the bulwark against initiative-sapping entitlements. We're not talking about health here. We're talking about national narratives and mythologies — as well as money. These are things not much susceptible to logic.

But in matters of life and death, mythology must cede to reality, profit to well-being.

I can see the conservative argument that welfare undermines the work ethic and dampens moral fibre.
Provide sufficient unemployment benefits and people will opt to chill rather than labour.

But it's preposterous to extend this argument to healthcare. Guaranteeing health coverage doesn't incentivise anybody to get meningitis.

Yet that's what Republicans' cry of "socialised medicine" — American politics at its most debased — is all about. It implies that government-provided healthcare somehow saps Americans' freedom-loving initiative. Some Democrats — prodded by drug and insurance companies with the cash to win favours — buy that argument, too.

I'm grateful to the wise Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic for pointing out that Friedrich Hayek, whose suspicion of the state was visceral, had this to say in The Road to Serfdom: "Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance — where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks — the case for the state's helping to organise a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong."
That's why, when it comes to health, every developed society but the United States has such a "comprehensive system", almost always with state involvement.

However, pooled risk does not necessarily imply a public option. It can be achieved through mandated private-insurer coverage coupled with subsidies. That, for example, is the Swiss way — and where Congress seems headed.

But it's non-profit insurers who provide the coverage in Switzerland because health insurance is viewed as social insurance — as it is throughout Europe — rather than a means to make money. One fundamental reason a public option — yes, "option", not single-payer monopoly — is needed in the US is to jump-start the idea that basic healthcare is a moral obligation rather than a financial opportunity.

Another is to provide competition to private insurers and so force waste, excess and cosy arrangements out of the American system.

Behind all the socialised medicine babble lurks a hard-headed calculation about money — all the profits skimmed from that waste and the big doctors' salaries that go with it. It's not over yet for the public option. President Barack Obama should still push it with a clear moral stand.

He's been too deferential. The best bit of his speech to Congress on healthcare was the last — and even there he left the most powerful words to the late Edward Kennedy: "What we face is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country."

Obama then said he'd been pondering American character "quite a bit" and did some "self-reliance" versus government intervention musing.

He should have been clearer and punchier. A public commitment to universal coverage is not character-sapping but character-affirming.

Medicare did not make America less American. Individualism is more "rugged" when housed in a healthy body.

By arrangement with the New York Times

 

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DECCAN CHRONICAL

OPED

BEARDS: A TRIM HISTORY

BY NADEEM F. PARACHA

 

In his biography, Mirror to the Blind, Abdul Sattar Edhi complains how he detests being called a "maulana".
"Mine was never a religious beard," he says. "It was always a revolutionary beard," he explains — perhaps inspired by Karl Marx, whom Edhi identifies as an inspiration during his youth. In the book he is quoted as saying that hardly any man in Pakistan used to have a beard in the 1950s.

A senior journalist, Ghulam Farooq, agrees: "In the 1950s and 1960s, no self-respecting Pakistani from any class would have liked to be seen with a long beard, apart from the mullahs. All this stuff about the beard having any religious significance played absolutely no role in the lives of Pakistanis. In fact, the beard was seen as a symbol of exploitation and bigotry."

Showing me black and white photos of political rallies of the late 1960s, a former progressive student leader, Naushad Hussain, enthusiastically challenged me to point out 10 men with beards among the hundreds that stood listening to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Asghar Khan in the photos. I couldn't.

"Look closely," he smiled. "There are only three."

"What about the 'revolutionary beards'?" I asked.

"Revolutionary beards became famous in the West after Castro and Che Guevara's revolution in Cuba,"

 

Naushad explained. "But long hair and revolutionary beards (in Pakistan) really became popular from 1970 onwards."

A. Kabir, another progressive student leader (at the Karachi University in 1973-74), suggests that very few male students had beards even in the 1970s. "Ironically, only the most radical Marxists on campus went around with beards, looking like Che. Even the staunchest members of the Right-wing Islami Jamiat Taleba (IJT) were clean-shaven. Being young and having a beard (and long hair) in those days meant that one was a radical Leftist."

Beards, especially heavy stubbles, also became popular as an expression of one having a creative and artistic disposition. Mahboobullah, a former graduate of the famous the National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore, remembers that (in the 1970s), coffee houses and college canteens were full of long-haired and bearded young men sipping tea and beer, chain smoking and discussing politics, philosophy and art. "A young man with a neglected stubble or a beard, talking reflectively with a cigarette in his hand became a trendy pose in those days," Mahboobullah chuckled. "Women loved it!"

Karamat Hamid, a former student at the Dow Medical College in Karachi in the 1970s, says that by 1976 almost all leading Pakistani TV actors had beards. "Talat Hussain, Rahat Kazmi, Shafi Muhammad… the creative big shots had beards. It became a global fashion. Cricketers like Dennis Lillie, Wasim Raja, Ian Chappel, rock musicians, Hollywood actors and directors, painters, college boys and even university professors all over the world had beards," remembers Karamat. "It was a fashion expressing creativity, intellect and manhood."
So exactly when did beards stop being a liberal/Leftist aesthetic and start becoming a "religious symbol"?
"I believe the trend started in the 1980s," says Sharib, a former member of the Islami Jamiat Taleba (who later joined the Muttahida Quami Movement).

"I remember a lot of us were very impressed by the looks of the Afghan mujahideen. Then we started to keep beards like them," he explained.

In other words, one can say that the ideological symbolism of the beard had started to grow from Left to the Right. Fatigued by the exhaustive liberalism of the preceding decades and now under the propagandist hammer of a reactionary dictatorship, a lot of Pakistanis started rediscovering God, as it were, in the 1980s.
"Beards started emerging on the most unlikely of men", laughs Talha Naqvi, a middle-aged head of an NGO. "It became a symbol of piety. Everyone from mujahids to smugglers to traders grew a beard," he said.
But according to Talha the real beard explosion happened in the 1990s: "This was the time when we first started hearing about people going around and asking young men to grow beards because it was an Islamic tradition. I used to say, if this was a tradition then so was riding a camel or using a brick for a pillow by early converts, so why not follow those examples as well?"

Talha says that the rising number of Pakistani men having beards for religious reasons became even more ubiquitous after the tragic 9/11 episode. "More and more young men today keep a beard as an Islamic edict."

It seems after all these years of searching for some kind of identity, many young Pakistanis have ended up finding one with the help of a beard (or hijab). It's become an exhibition of instant piety, and more so, a somewhat long-winded belief system that with their purposeful new looks they belong to a special community of chosen people; a herd-like expression of some divinely cohesive uniformity — at least in looks, which in turn may only have little to do with religion. It's a statement very much opposed to the notion of diversity.

 

By arrangement with Dawn

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THE STATESMAN

EDITORIAL

LAND AND CASTE

RESURGENCE OF BIHAR'S TRAGEDY

 

IT is sheer coincidence that the massacre of 16 farmers in Bihar's Khagaria district comes in the aftermath of the army and air force gearing up for an offensive against Maoists this winter. Seventy-two hours after the outrage, the involvement of the extremists is still conjecture. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is right in deciding to take a call on the suspicion before confirming the connection; thus far he has pointed merely to a "local criminal gang". There are no giveaways such as handbills and pamphlets; yet if indeed the Left radicals are involved, it points to the extension of their operations to riverine north Bihar from the traditional bastions of south and central Bihar. 

Indubitable is the resurgence of the caste conflict after a gap of ten years. Once a sinister aspect of Bihar's social structure, Friday's gut-churning revival has quite totally stunned the political class, the administration and the class groups. The manner of the butchery ~ dragging out the villagers from their homes at an inhospitable hour, lining them up, tying their hands and then pulling the trigger ~ used to be the standard modus operandi to settle the state's land-related conflicts. It recalls the Ranvir Sena's battles with the landless up until the mid-nineties. The victims of Khagaria were predominantly Kurmis (the Chief Minister's caste) and to a lesser extent the Koiris ~ between them the Lav-Kush caste combination and incidentally the JD(U)'s major support base. They were involved in a land dispute with the Dalits though the administration is yet to establish whether the latter had the support of Maoists. Land and caste had been a scourge in Bihar long before Left radicalism became a forbidding challenge. This time, the tragedy deepens because the subaltern has killed another subaltern. For at stake were 150 acres of sandy land the 200 landless Kurmis and Koiris had bought from upper caste landlords who have shifted to urban areas. The landless Dalits were intent on recovering the land. It wasn't, therefore, a direct encounter between the landless and the Ranvir Sena of the affluent landed gentry. Nonetheless, the outrage has dealt a mortal blow to Nitish Kumar's support base. It devolves on the parties and the government to heal the wounds of the system's own creation. This isn't the moment for sniper attacks on the law and order situation by the likes of Lalu Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan. As regards the government, the suspension of the district's police brass is a stereotyped response. It must admit to its failure to implement the D Bandopadhyay Land Reforms Commission's report which suggested: (a) new legislation to protect sharecroppers; (b) a cap on land ceiling at 15 acres; and (c) computerised land records. The ground realities will have to change and literally so. To speculate on Maoist involvement will only obfuscate the land-caste scourge, as direly fundamental as it is traditional.

 

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THE STATESMAN

EDITORIAL

GOING FOR BROKE

IBOBI SETTING A DANGEROUS TREND

INTIMIDATION of the Press by various militant outfits is not a new phenomenon in Manipur but it sounds incredible when the state administration itself indulges in such activity. According to the All Manipur Working Journalists' Union and other reports, on 25 September about 200-300 people mostly from chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh's assembly constituency and carrying with them pamphlets to say "publishing wrong news unfortunate", stormed into the premises of Sangai Express, Poknapham and Thoudang and threatened their staff for reports on the poster campaign by the Apunba Lup, a 32-party umbrella organisation. That the police were said to have escorted these protesters through prohibited areas, instead of dispersing them, in itself lends credence to the suspicion of the administration's involvement. The Apunba Lup has been spearheading a campaign for the resignation of the chief minister on moral grounds for the death in custody of a former People's Liberation Army corporal on 23 July in the heart of Imphal. Photographic evidence of the episode proves how wrong the police commandos were in claiming that he was killed in an encounter. The incident will continue to trouble Manipuris until the judicial probe submits its conclusion. Agitators have been to ministers' and government officials' houses and students have been boycotting classes for more than three weeks demanding Ibobi's ouster. The more the submission of the judicial probe report is delayed, the more trouble for Ibobi. The daily killing of people on suspicion of being militants or police informers is bad enough, but now the Ibobi government has set a dangerous trend by surreptitiously inciting voters of his constituency to serve his personal interests. Newspapers in the North-east have, of a necessity, to maintain a cosy relationship with the government lest they get no advertisements, the main source of their survival. The 23/7 incident might have remained buried but for an intrepid photographic exposure.

 

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THE STATESMAN

EDITORIAL

BEYOND DOHA~I

 

Well-coordinated international efforts are being made to provide a fresh impetus to the painfully prolonged Doha round of trade negotiations. This time around the club of rich nations is trying to project India as the country that will help the major powers to bring about some order to the distorted trade negotiations that broke down almost completely some time ago.

In the context of the efforts to revive the Doha round, it is pertinent to ask why the negotiations had broken down in the first place. The other question is whether the basic factor behind this has been addressed. One major reason for the failure, that stands out clearly in the midst of all the technicalities and jargon, is the obstinacy of the developed countries, led by the USA and the European Union. They maintain the position that having already carved out an unequal and unjustifiably dominant place for themselves in the world trade and economic system, they are entitled to perpetuate, even strengthen it. They are not bothered about the adverse effect on the overwhelming majority of the world's population.

It reminds one of a cartoon, which was widely circulated at an early stage of the trade negotiations which brought us from GAIT to the new WTO system. Uncle Sam was shown holding a chicken and asking it patronisingly ~ "Shall I eat you with tomato sauce or chilly sauce". The chicken (representing the world's poor countries) replied, "I prefer not to be eaten at all." Uncle Sam then declares that there is no such choice. The only choice the chicken is allowed is whether to be eaten with tomato sauce or with chilly sauce.

RESTLESS

THE developing countries are becoming increasingly restless over the fact that the WTO regime has created a very unjust and unequal trade system in which their choices have become extremely restricted. It will be dangerous to allow the developed countries to squeeze them further. Also, there is an increasing need to examine how the change from GATT to WTO evolved during the earlier Uruguay round. The fact of the matter is that in those early days of the switchover to the WTO-led international trade regime, the overwhelming majority of the affected people in developing countries were not even aware of the changes that were taking place. Indeed, these changes were inherently undemocratic and deserve to be reconsidered keeping in view the adverse, in some cases catastrophic, experiences of farmers, workers and artisans in the developing countries.
As a regulator of world trade, the WTO differed from its predecessor, GATT, in certain significant ways. As a report by Oxfam International titled 'Rigged Rules and Double Standards' pointed out, "When countries participate in the WTO, they do so on the basis of a 'single undertaking' that they accept all its rules unconditionally. Unlike GATT, the WTO does not offer its members the option to choose which of its rules to enforce."

Moreover the rules extend far beyond tariff and non-tariff barriers; they cover investment, services, intellectual property rights, textiles and above all agriculture. "Policy issues previously considered to be the sole preserve of national governments are now subject to scrutiny by the WTO." Its rules operate on a global scale in over 142 countries. Its dispute-settlement system can be used to punish the violators.

This Oxfam report candidly admits that "the WTO is fundamentally failing poor people and poor countries. The authority of the WTO has been extended to broad new areas of public policy, thus limiting the autonomy of national governments in the process. For them there is increasing tension between the imperative of complying with WTO rules and the need to adopt policies which will reduce poverty."

At the same time, "the system of trade governance is failing to respond to major new challenges posed by globalisation, including the threats arising from the enormous concentration of corporate power."
Smokescreen

MANY of the rules enshrined in the WTO, the report argues, "threaten to marginalise developing countries and the world's poorest people within an already unequal global trading system." Many WTO agreements, as well as the manner of their implementation, reflect the strength of rich countries and TNCs. The report asserts that the multilateral system is now little more than a smokescreen for the pursuit of private interests and the subordination of developing countries to the dictates of rich countries.

The Human Development Report for 2005, brought out by the UNDP, supported this view. It stated that the Agreement on Agriculture, which is the basic document for WTO's agriculture-related negotiations, "left most EU and US farm subsidy programmes intact for the simple reason that it was in all but name a bilateral agreement between the two parties that was forced into the multilateral rules system. In effect, the world's economic superpowers were able to tailor the rules to suit their national policies."

According to this report, the problem with the current framework of rules in agriculture "is that it institutionalises unfair trade practices behind a veneer of WTO legality." The report focuses on the well-known reality that more than two-thirds of the poor, surviving on less than $1 a day, live and work in rural areas either as small farmers or as agricultural labourers. It asserts that unfair trade practices systematically undermine the livelihoods of these people, hampering progress towards the millennium development goals in the process.

(To be concluded)

 

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THE STATESMAN

EDITORIAL

NEEDLESS DEATH OF A MILLION BABIES

DANIEL HOWDEN 

LONDON, 5 OCT: More than a million newborn babies are dying needlessly every year around the world because of lack of care in their first month of their life, according to research.

Newborn deaths account for 40 per cent of all deaths of children under the age of five, according to Save the Children, who are today launching their "Every One" campaign to highlight this neglected health crisis. There is a clear link between poverty and high rates of newborn deaths, but many could be avoided by simple hygiene improvements and changes in traditional practices, the report claims.

According to Afghan traditions, "in order to keep the devil away, the newborn must be placed on the floor until the mother discharges the placenta," the report reveals. "The umbilical cord is then cut with a razor and a shoe."
Troubled African nations such as Liberia and Angola are also among those with the highest neo-natal mortality rates ~ the number of deaths per 1,000 births inside the first 28 days of life.

In Liberia, which tops the survey, babies are fed water for the first three days because the early, yellowish breast milk is believed to be inadequate. Babies often develop diarrhoea as a consequence and families use herbal treatments.

The Independent

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THE STATESMAN

EDITORIAL

CHEAP OR BEST

THE DEFENCE DILEMMA CONTINUES

 

GIVEN its present chanting of the austerity mantra, and other signs that Pranab Mukherjee remains imprisoned in yesteryear's mindset, it is no surprise the finance ministry is not enthused by the air force wanting an Airbus-based aerial refueller rather than six more Russian IL-78s ~ after all the latter works out some 30 per cent cheaper. So also its argument that more of the same facilitates maintenance, managing the spares inventory, training etc. All valid arguments ~ except that they are backward-looking. The IAF's opting for the Airbus 330 MRTT is influenced by it being more modern, with a greater payload. Critical to that selection is the armed forces' painful experience with Russian-origin equipment in recent years. Whether it is continued ignorance of commercial dealings, or the Soviet-era attitude that they are doing a favour by selling, the Russians have disappointed in terms of product support, spares, servicing and so on. Especially when compared with what western manufacturers offer. Since all payments are now made in hard currency the forces are unwilling to take what was dished out when the rupee-rouble arrangement dictated the origins of hardware. Another frequent area of dispute between the military and civilian entities is that while the former seek the "latest", the latter prefer to play safe and push for "proven" equipment, which inevitably means it is "dated". A classic example being how in the 1950s the IAF bought the Fairchild Packet freighter when it had an option for then fledgling ~ now truly a world-beater ~ C-130 Hercules.

While it is unfortunately unavoidable that political/diplomatic considerations weigh as much, if not more, than professional evaluations when big ticket deals are negotiated, also complicating the acquisition process is that the Indian forces seldom opt (or are provided enough money) to buy enough units at the same time. The first IL-78 tankers came in 2002, the last of the six in 2004. Had the supply continued there would have been little temptation to use the five-year break to look elsewhere. This particular difference of opinion between North and South Block is not a one-off affair ~ it should serve as a caution to what could develop when the deal to acquire 126 MMCA approaches fruition. The time for getting the act together was yesterday.

 

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THE TELEGRAPH

EDITORIAL

THE FINE BALANCE

 

There is an unmistakable difference between a suggestion and an order. The distinction is valid even when someone as important as a minister makes the suggestion. Salman Khurshid, the minister of state (with independent charge) for corporate affairs, has respected this simple but important distinction when he made the suggestion that heads of companies should not be paid excessively high salaries. The suggestion was made in the context of the austerity drive that the government of India has put in place. Mr Khurshid is only too aware that the government cannot decide, let alone dictate, what salaries business houses should offer their employees. As he himself noted, India is in transition from control under socialist planning to regulation in a liberalized economy. Market forces, profits and the views of shareholders will determine what a company will pay its chief executive and its other employees. There was a time, in the heyday of Indira Gandhi, when the government set a ceiling on how much a head of a company could earn. Mr Khurshid is not suggesting a return to those times. His suggestion — or appeal — is motivated by other considerations.

 

These emerge out of the context of the government's austerity measures and the overall economic climate. Mr Khurshid's argument is that under these circumstances it would appear too ostentatious, and therefore vulgar, for a chief executive of a company to receive a huge salary. He was appealing to the sense of social responsibility of corporate houses and thus make them follow the example set by the government. It is worth noting that as early as 2007, when the downturn of the economy was not even a squint in the eyes of economists, Manmohan Singh had made the same appeal. Excessive remuneration and conspicuous consumption, Mr Singh had then said, were jarring in a country with excessive poverty. It is clear from Mr Khurshid's echo of the prime minister's earlier statement that the government is keeping an eye, albeit up to now a benign one, on corporate salaries. What is surprising is that such comments and suggestions are only directed at business houses and their sense of social responsibility. Sportsmen and actors in India earn huge amounts in fees and endorsements. No one has made an appeal that such earnings should be curtailed.

 

This contradiction is rooted in the deeper anomaly of a government committed to liberalization trying to keep a finger, in however benign and well-meaning a manner, in the corporate pie. Mr Khurshid is right that no one has yet claimed the extreme libertarian position that vulgarity is a fundamental right. But even a moderate liberalism claims that the State should stay away from running a business. Interference is also vulgar. Both the government and corporate houses in a civilized society should behave with responsibility.

 

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THE TELEGRAPH

EDITORIAL

BLOODY ACT

 

Killings in the name of a secessionist movement are not new in India's Northeast. But the carnage in a village near Tezpur in Assam comes as a grim warning to both New Delhi and Dispur. It shows that the banned National Democratic Front of Bodoland is far from a defeated force. True, a major faction of the outfit now favours a dialogue with the government. But another faction, which is opposed to any peace talks, seems desperate to scuttle such moves at any cost. The tragedy at Tezpur is thus, to a large extent, intended to be this faction's show of strength. It is usually of no concern to these militant outfits in the region if innocent people die in the battle for factional supremacy. Ranjan Daimary, the leader of the group that perpetrated the Tezpur killings, was expelled from the parent organization last year following the serial blasts that killed about 90 people. Of course, such killer groups do not need mass support. Their ability to strike at the police or innocent people is no measure of their popularity. They operate very much like small but deadly bands of outlaws, using their secessionist demands as cover.

 

For the administration, though, the killings show how ill-prepared it is to prevent such outrages. On Assam Police Day a few days ago, the chief minister, Tarun Gogoi, warned policemen that the NDFB was still a threat. Unfortunately, this knowledge did nothing to prevent the bloodbath in Tezpur. Mr Gogoi had an opportunity in the NDFB split to strike harder at the anti-talks faction. It now seems that his administration does not have enough intelligence on the activities or hideouts of the group. Success in the battle against insurgent groups depends largely on effective intelligence-gathering. It is known that some of the militant groups use bases in Myanmar, China or Bangladesh. But the challenge is to bust their networks and support bases inside Assam.

 

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THE TELEGRAPH

EDITORIAL

A MAN OUT OF HIS TIME

MANU SHROFF WAS AN IRONIST WORTH CHUCKLING WITH

ASHOK V. DESAI

 

IG Patel is a legend. He was the chief economist in the finance ministry in the 1960s. He left, rather than serve, a corrupt minister Indira Gandhi appointed in the ministry. Later on, he became governor of the Reserve Bank and director of the London School of Economics. To cap it, he wrote some entertaining memoirs when he retired to his home town, Gujarat.

 

He had a friend who also retired to Baroda, and built a house within a stone's throw from IG's. This friend too was an economist, and spent the best years of his life working in the finance ministry with IG. He did not receive accolades like IG; in fact, he was largely unknown except to aficionados of the finance ministry and of economic policy. After retiring from the finance ministry, he became editor of the Economic Times. Anyway, the liaison, not surprisingly, did not last long.

 

I knew Manu Shroff since I spent some time in the 1960s in Delhi. I was always impressed by his robust common sense and sound judgment, and thought it went well with his low-key, unassuming personality. Then I left for other parts of the world, and he for Bombay and Baroda, so I did not see much of him.

 

I had seen virtually nothing written by him, and had assumed that this refusal to express himself was a part of his modesty. But that was a misjudgment. A bureaucrat writes reams in his lifetime; it is just that it is buried in files and never sees the light of day. And there is a convention that it must stay in files and cannot be published. Thus it is that the wisdom of some highly intelligent people remains buried — amongst them, Amar Nath Verma, L.K. Jha and Manu Shroff.

 

It would be hard to retrieve the writings of such a retiring economist, but Deena Khatkhate has, in a labour of love, collected the writings of Manu Shroff (Indian Economy: A Retrospective View, Academic Foundation, 2009, Rs 295). It is disappointing but natural that it contains nothing from Manu Shroff's time as a bureaucrat. Khatkhate calls it a retrospective view, but what I found remarkable was the absence of the retrospective: there is nothing in this volume that would throw light on what Manu Shroff thought of his time in the finance ministry, of the economic problems he encountered while there, why the government did what it did then, and what he thought of the policies he helped sculpt.

 

That matters, not because the policies were much to boast about — I think the years from the 1950s to the 1970s were lost decades, and that stupid socialist dogma set India back thirty years. Nor would they be anything to write home about; if Manu Shroff was an architect of the disastrous policies of that time, then he might as well pass into oblivion with the lost decades.

 

But he was not. He was an intelligent liberal. He was devastatingly critical of the socialist era. This volume contains a response Manu Shroff wrote to Deepak Nayyar's 1993 critique of the reforms. I was then in the finance ministry, and gave a hand in designing the reforms. Deepak Nayyar was chief economic advisor in the finance ministry during the 1980s. That does not mean that he was responsible for the payments crisis of 1989-91. But he was an important member of the team that made an ineffectual response to the crisis. Eventually, all those who dealt with the crisis and failed, from V.P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar down to Deepak Nayyar, were swept aside. Narasimha Rao came in together with Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram, jettisoned the hallowed policies of controls, and heralded the period of high growth and increasing openness that continues till today. Being in the government, I was gagged; but even if I had been able to, I could not have given a better response to Deepak Nayyar. Manu Shroff summarizes Nayyar's attack in ten points and dissects them; in the end, nothing is left.

 

I have just been to the G20 summit in Pittsburgh and witnessed the deliberations that went on there about what to do with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and how to give them more funds. I was disappointed but not surprised that Manu Shroff participated in the same debates 30 years earlier, as a paper from the 1970s shows. The idea was then, and still is, that developing countries are subject to peculiar balance of payments problems. Since they do not produce capital goods and goods in which there are important economies of scale, their growth is highly import-intensive. And since they export mostly primary goods, their exports are highly inelastic. So to develop, they need aid of two sorts. They need temporary loans to support their balance of payments, and they need aid for long-term investment to change their production profile. The International Monetary Fund was designed to give the first, and the World Bank to give the second. But giving money to developing countries is risky, so the IMF and the World Bank cannot easily raise money from the market. If they cannot, they must be given money by industrial countries. Developing countries like that idea; industrial countries do not. They meet every once in a while in nice places like Washington and Pittsburgh, argue and then go their own way. Manu Shroff took part in those civilized debates in the 1970s; I watched them from the sidelines in 2009. Some things will never change.

 

If economists have to think and talk about such serious issues for decades without reaching any solution, their lives must be depressing; one might wonder why they do not commit suicide. The remedy lies in a sense of humour. Manu Shroff had a distinctive line in irony. Take, for instance, what he has to say about Savak Tarapore, a grey eminence of the Reserve Bank of India: "He has been generally conservative. Though one notices an occasional uncharacteristic boldness, which can perhaps be ascribed to the state of 'nivrutti', which he enjoys like many of us."

 

Manu Shroff is essential reading for understanding the economic history of our times; and more remarkably, it is entertaining reading. Reading his writings, I was often struck by how similarly we thought, and how he often put something better than I would. Then I thought, here is a man who could have done just the reforms we did in the 1990s; perhaps he could have done them better. He could have become a celebrity. It was just his misfortune that he was born at the wrong time, and served the wrong government.

 

But I doubt if he would have looked at it that way. He would have had no regrets. He might have taken some satisfaction in the fact that he did his job competently and conscientiously, he might have chuckled at some of the human follies he encountered. He does that often in this book, and he is worth chuckling with.

 

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THE TELEGRAPH

EDITORIAL

LESSONS TO BE LEARNT

MALVIKA SINGH

 

In London last week, India was celebrated with much energy, generating connectivity with the world and a great deal of goodwill. Contemporary art exhibitions merged seamlessly with expositions of a classical past. Subodh Gupta's Aam Aadmi show, spread across two galleries on Piccadilly and Old Bond Street, and Anish Kapoor's exhibition at the Royal Academy on Piccadilly had the street rocking with extraordinary energy that has put these two sculptors at the high table of international art. Juxtaposed with these is the exhibition at the British Museum of paintings from Marwar, and the about-to-open Maharaja extravaganza at the V&A. In addition, Ismail Merchant's private collection of paintings, textiles and other artefacts are open for viewing before the hammer goes down on them tomorrow.

 

The response of ordinary people to all these shows has been unusual and extremely positive. Unlike in India, museums in London beckon the curious passer-by and the scholar alike, and have made the city a Mecca of art of all genres, of experimentation and of expositions where curators are able to conceive the out-of-the-box without the constraints of babudom. We have many lessons to learn from all this. We have to make our museums into spaces that people want to visit regularly and cherish.

 

It was most refreshing to see the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, a young conservative party MP, cycle down Piccadilly, chain his bike at the kerbside, wander into the Subodh show with his wife, and walk through the exhibition. There was no nonsense of guards or officious babus clearing the path. True austerity has made him a hugely popular leader who is besieged by people on the streets using their cell phones to have themselves photographed with "Boris". They all refer to him as Boris and have no hang-ups at all when engaging with their mayor.

 

STANDING APART

The pomposity of the Indian mayors can only be described as farcical posturing when compared to the Boris show. Virtually number three in the leadership hierarchy of the Tory party, Johnson has his red light flashing at the rear of his cycle helmet instead on the roof of his car. Lets hope that sooner or later Indian politicians will feel secure and comfortable enough in their own skin to behave like normal human beings working on the job at hand.

 

Sunday morning shows on the 'box' in London are intellectually appetizing and a real treat. Hard hitting, probing interviews — with political leaders such as Gordon Brown, the prime minister who got miffed and walked out of the show with the microphone attached to his collar, and then one with the prime minister-in-waiting, who was grilled about how he could rectify the mess if elected — gave one a good sense of what British politics is going through as the country gears up for the not-so-far off general election. For someone visiting, the programmes were riveting. The style of interviewing gave the person who was being interviewed enough rope and time to answer with the necessary substance. We, in India, have a long way to go in this sphere.

 

Civilized behaviour in the public domain is another attribute of the British people that makes them stand apart. When you compare London to Delhi, the stark difference in road manners, for one, hits you hard in the face. We are all over the place, breaking every rule, blowing horns relentlessly and unable to pause at pedestrian crossings. The home minister, P. Chidambaram, was right when he recently said that Indians should use this opportunity as hosts of the Commonwealth Games to learn and absorb the simple manners of civil society. Till we respect one another and learn to live as part of society, we shall never come out of the shackles of a messy and careless nation of the third world .

 

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THE TELEGRAPH

EDITORIAL

MEN WITHOUT WOMEN

 

Is it merely a coincidence that some of the greatest men in the history of Western culture were unmarried? wonders Satrujit BanerjeeIf you were asked to name the leading lights of Western philosophy down the ages, the following will, without doubt, feature prominently: Friedrich Nietzsche, George Santayana, Jean-Paul Sartre, Benedict de Spinoza, Arthur Schopenhauer, Henry David Thoreau, Voltaire, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Immanuel Kant, Søren Kierkegaard, John Locke and David Hume. Any listing of great historians, novelists and poets of Europe will feature Samuel Butler, Gustave Flaubert, Edward Gibbon, Oliver Goldsmith, Washington Irving, Franz Kafka, Charles Lamb, T.E. Lawrence, Henry James, Alexander Pope, Marcel Proust, Stendhal and Jonathan Swift. When citing great composers of Western classical music, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Frédéric Chopin and Ludwig van Beethoven can never be overlooked. Eugène Delacroix, Vincent van Gogh, Michelangelo, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Leonardo da Vinci would grace any shortlist of immortal painters and sculptors not only of Europe but also of the entire world. Talking of scientists, among household names are Nicolaus Copernicus, René Descartes, Galileo Galilei, Blaise Pascal and Isaac Newton. Now add to this already impressive list, the economist, Adam Smith, and Giacomo Casanova — better known as a womanizer but who authored arguably the most authentic source of customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century — and the entire list reads like a roll-call of the architects of Western civilization.

 

Incidentally, some insist, not surprisingly, that they were all bachelors. And if one were to take into consideration the immense contributions of the many (ostensibly) celibate medieval monks and theologians such as Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Desiderius Erasmus and Michael Servetus, who were instrumental in dragging Europe out of the dark Age of Faith and paving the way for the glorious Renaissance, then a clearer picture emerges of the vital role unmarried men played in this remarkable journey.

 

"Woman inspires us to great things," remarked Alexandre Dumas, "and prevents us from achieving them." The bitter Nietzsche considered marriage (if not women, in general) to be a distraction from philosophical pursuits. Many other eminent men may not have been bachelors, but were effectively single — in the way Benjamin Franklin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Milton, Thomas Paine or Shakespeare remained. "Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men," wrote Francis Bacon, not a bachelor, but perhaps wishing he were. "Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing," notes Goethe. "A confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished."

 

Some years ago, a noted Japanese researcher analysed the biographical data of some 280 famous scientists and discovered that they all peaked professionally in their twenties, beyond which their careers spiralled downward. Married scientists suffered the worst decline in productivity. However, those who never married remained highly productive well into their fifties. One theory suggests that married men lack an evolutionary reason to continue working hard — that is, to attract females. More likely is the fact that they lack the time and solitude. The polymath and eminent critic, George Steiner, observed, "Philosophy is an unworldly, abstruse, often egomaniacal obsession. Marriage is about roughage, bills, garbage disposal, and noise. There is something vulgar, almost absurd, in the notion of a Mrs Plato or a Mme Descartes, or of Wittgenstein on a honeymoon."

 

The single life may be ideal for a Copernicus or a Sartre, but isn't there some truth in the old Puritan notion that the bachelor is a menace to society? In Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility, Germaine Greer notes that "the most threatened group in human society, as in animal societies, is the unmated male: the unmated male is more likely to wind up in prison or in an asylum or dead than his mated counterpart. He is less likely to be promoted at work, and he is considered a poor credit risk". Also, there is a school of thought which holds, with some justification, that the female, in her dual tasks as mother and wife, plays a crucial role in tempering the testosterone-fuelled excesses of the young male, and are the carriers of morality and the shapers of the next generation. The French diplomat, Talleyrand, may be one of the most versatile and influential personalities in European history, but he is also remembered as a womanizer. He reasoned that the married man was the steady one: "a married man with a family will do anything for money." But the other common belief that men need durable ties to women to discipline themselves for civilized life is debatable as women's attitude to life has changed drastically in recent times. Women now argue that they, too, are equally in need of the good old civilizing influence as much as the men.

 

It is easy to adopt an iconic view of the bachelor — a resigned cynic or hopeless romantic, a man of infinite sorrow and sophistication, of real or imagined conquests, or the misanthropic bar-room brawler. But, in fact, no single image prevails. What could be more bittersweet than the memories of unrequited love nursed by an old bachelor? Irving was one well acquainted with this sentiment: "With married men their amorous romance is apt to decline after marriage…but with a bachelor, though it may slumber, it never dies. It is always liable to break out again in transient flashes."

 

Times have changed, but not quite to the bachelor's advantage. Old dad is unable to work overtime because he has promised to run Missy to her ballet class and Master to his football practice. He is reluctant to leave town because the Missus has been tetchy about his too-frequent travel, and likes to remind him that she too works, and how unfair it is to expect her to do it all. The bachelor, by contrast, is believed to have few responsibilities and can work as many hours as needed or cover for his married colleagues, particularly for the much maligned mothers on the staff.

 

One enduring myth holds that the bachelor is an expert on the female sex, a legend encouraged by the married H.L. Mencken, "the sage of Baltimore", who affirmed that "Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too". The story further goes that the bachelor's married friends seldom speak of their troubles, though their eyes betray a deep-rooted sorrow and a tragic lonesomeness, not least due to an unfilled desire for male companionship. "If you are afraid of loneliness," warned the famous Russian doctor-turned-story-teller, Anton Chekhov, "don't marry."

 

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THE TELEGRAPH

EDITORIAL

FLYING LOW

 

Air India pilots have a point to make, but a strike is not the right way to go about itIt appears that the pilots who grounded the State-run Air India, thereby inconveniencing thousands, were indeed in the wrong. Understandably, passengers were furious with the pilots who are perceived to be 'overpaid' but 'underworked'. Thus, after the strike, the pilots of Air India came to be branded as villains.

 

Yes, the pilots' actions were myopic and unwise. But was it all one-way traffic? What was the reason for the Air India management to propose a pay cut for executive pilots, leaving out the line and foreign pilots? And why was the proposal announced during the festive season?

 

Though the strike has been called off, the damage has already been done. A suggestion to 'privatize Air India' is reportedly doing the rounds. Instead of wasting precious time and effort and throwing more money into the State-owned Air India, the government should privatize the airline, or so goes the logic. The airline, some are suggesting, will have a fighting chance under a private management.

 

The idea is an old one. But whom should Air India be sold to? Among the foreign airlines, Singapore and the Gulf-based carriers could be the possible frontrunners owing to the powerful lobbyists operating on their behalf within India. But should they be allowed to have unrestricted access? Foreign firms operating in India's domestic market can be a potential security hazard. As for private Indian carriers, Jet and Kingfisher are both eyeing Air India. But the closure of a number of domestic private airlines has shown the private sector in poor light. The myth of private airlines being superior vis-à-vis government undertakings has been shattered.

 

However, the Air India management cannot be absolved of not looking after the airline's interests. In fact, of late, a number of steps taken by Air India have helped its rival, Jet Airways. When Air India stopped its Delhi-Frankfurt-Los Angeles service after two years of hard work and market stabilization, the private carrier, Jet Airways, quickly filled the vacuum with its San Francisco operation. It is another matter that the private carrier stopped the flight owing to escalating fuel costs. Again, Air India restarted its Toronto service, connecting Amritsar via London-Birmingham, but the carrier began cancelling several flights and endorsing the tickets to Jet.

 

In fact, the list of grievances gets longer if one were to include issues such as the quality of some foreign pilots,

their flight experience and the quantum of remuneration. However, the three burning issues facing Air India are those of 'merger', 'bilateral air agreements' and the 'purchase' of virtually everything airborne or on ground. The truth is that Air India faces problems within: corruption needs to be checked and cost-cutting measures introduced.

 

The pilots, however, would do better to fly than to highlight the problems within the organization. By resorting

to a strike, the flyers fell into a trap and earned the antipathy of the government and of the management.

 

The pilots do have a point to make, but a different and calmer approach will do them immense good. Air India

pilots need to appreciate the fact that one wrong move on the company's part is likely to throw it out of contention in a competitive market dominated by manipulators and high-stake players.

ABHIJIT BHATTACHARYYA

 

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DECCAN HERALD

EDITORIAL

PEACE'S A MIRAGE IN ISRAEL OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

NABLUS, ONCE AN ECO-NOMIC POWER HOUSE AND MAJOR POLITICO-CULTURAL CENTRE, IS NOW A SAD CITY.

BY MICHAEL JANSEN

 

Peace does not reign in Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Two Sundays in succession there have been violent clashes at the mosque compound, Haram al-Sharif, in the walled city of Jerusalem. Palestinian protests followed threats from militant Jewish groups to enter and pray in the compound, regarded by Jews as the site of their two ancient temples, in preparation for a takeover.

Palestinians are also furious over the decision by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA), dominated by the secular Fateh movement, to delay voting in the UN Human Rights Council on the investigation by Justice Richard Goldstone of war crimes during Israel's January war on Gaza.

Last Saturday, PA minister of national economy Bassem Khoury resigned in protest. He said, "I was in Geneva on Friday. I told Ramallah that we had enough votes to pass the resolution. But they decided to postpone until March. This is a disaster." He dismissed threats by the Obama administration to drop efforts to restart the peace process if the PA insisted on a vote now.

NO CREDIBILITY

The Goldstone report debacle and Khoury's resignation are serious blows to President Mahmoud Abbas. He lost whatever popular credibility he still had when he met Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last month at the insistence of US President Barack Obama without getting any commitment on a freeze of Israeli settlement activity in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Many Palestinians regard the PA as a sub-contractor providing security for Israel in the occupied territories while, Israel continues to colonise these territories.

Palestinians bitterly dismiss as a sham the 'economic peace' promised by Netanyahyu. Although the World Bank predicted a seven per cent growth in per capita GDP this year, Khoury pointed out that GDP had shrunk by 50 per cent since 2000. This year's growth, therefore, may only reduce shrinkage to 43 per cent. Israel's closures, road blocks and checkpoints have made West Bank villages, towns and cities enduring economic basket-cases.

Nablus, once an economic power house and major politico-cultural centre, is now a sad city. While Israel has recently lifted a dozen checkpoints around Nablus after seven years of complete blockage, the city is suffering economic collapse. In its handsome new mall, a symbol of revival, only three shops are open while the ancient souk is crowded with shoppers buying cheap goods from China.

The small Christian village of Taybe held its annual Oktoberfest last weekend. It was a grand occasion celebrated by thousands of Palestinians and foreigners determined to snatch a few hours of normal life from the occupation. They listened to salsa music from a Brazilian band, watched a puppet show, and drank beer — Taybe's most famous product: golden beer, black beer and non-alcoholic beer. During the two-day festival Taybe, also an exporter of figs, grapes, and embroidery, earns more from sales of its produce than it does during the rest of the year.

 

TOURISM
In the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, pilgrims from Mangalore were intently observing a service in the grotto where tradition says Jesus was born in a manger. The Indians had left Herziliya on the Israeli coast at five in the morning to reach Bethlehem early in the day so they could make their tour of the holy sites and carry on to the Dead Sea.

They were firmly in the grip of their tour guides just as Bethlehem, hemmed on all sides by an eight meter high concrete slab wall, is imprisoned by Israel. Victor Tabash who keeps a souvenir shop near the church, said, "This is the worst year for business in 40 years. Tourists come but are directed to certain shops by guides. Mail order business is down due to the economic collapse in the US."

George Juha said his Manger Square restaurant is open only from nine in the morning until six at night. Major Ziad al-Khatib, commander of the Tourist Police said, "This year there is less tourism than last but it is not the worst. We have had 4,59,000 visitors and 2,31,000 stayed at least one night."

Commerce would die in Bethlehem, Nablus, East Jerusalem, and now Hebron if Palestinian citizens of Israel were not bused in two days a week to do their shopping in these cities. Only Ramallah, where new buildings rise on every empty lot, is booming. But a boom in Ramallah does not make an economy and Palestinians are not enthusiastic about Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's plan to build an economy ahead of proclaiming a state. "His CEO approach is good for building a business," said Najla, a young professional, "but not a country."

 

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DECCAN HERALD

EDITORIAL

REEL MOMENTS

AGE OLD PHOTOS ARE THE MOST FAITHFUL HISTORIANS AND TRUE STORY TELLERS.

BY NAVARATNA LAXMAN

 

I recently happened to locate our 70-year-old family album, thought to have been lost, containing photos of my parents, grandparents and their siblings. My 10-year-old granddaughter whose eagerness to know about our ancestral lineage is insatiable, lost no time in scanning each and every picture. Identifying and connecting each one of the photos with the information she had retained in her remarkable memory she was delighted to be transported back to a time that she had only heard of. The black and white pictures had visibly captured her love and adoration for her ancestry.

"Tatha, what would happen if a thing like photography didn't exist at all? We would have never known what our ancestors, about whom we hear so much, looked like!" True. I couldn't imagine a world sans the magic of this marvellous interplay of light and shade.

Age old photos are the most faithful historians and true story tellers of the past events of the family, stirring  memories of vanished worlds besides building bridges of bondage between generations. Even in this age of digital photography, the black and white beauties have maintained their own mystique.

While photos command a certain solemn status in our lives, they have also given rise to not only humourous but also awkward situations. Many years ago a close friend of mine, a proverbial absent-minded professor, had sent a photograph purported to be that of his to-be-married sister to the prospective family. The boy approved the girl in the photograph. All hell broke loose when the photograph turned out to be that of the professor's wife itself!

People, especially ones of fairer sex (with due apologies to this honoured group), have a very natural tendency to defy time and desire to look younger than they are, but the photographs are too truthful to oblige these aspirants. Violating their chronological sanctity, younger photos are attached even in such documents as passports often resulting in embarrassing identification problems.

While on the topic I cannot forget a singularly embarrassing incident that happened when I was in the service of Bhilai Steel Plant: In 1982 Leonid Brezhnev, former president of Soviet Union, had passed away and a local English daily in Madhya Pradesh carried his obituary with the photograph of our managing director who bore a startling resemblance to the deceased leader with his bushy eyebrows and a similar facial profile! To make matters worse the corrigendum in the next morning's issue read thus: "We regret to inform that Mr X whose photo appeared yesterday is very much alive and it is unfortunately Mr Brezhnev who is no more!"

 

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THE JERUSALEM POST

EDITORIAL

THIRD INTIFADA?

 

For a few hours yesterday, it looked like Palestinian leaders were about to unleash a third intifada. That they didn't is perhaps attributable to a recognition that centrally-planned terrorism - drive-by shootings, bus bombings, the slaughter of children in pizza shops - is now as passé as their previous tactic of airline hijackings. Still, there's plenty of room for spontaneous violence, inspired though not coordinated from above.

 

The special priestly blessings of the Succot festival which brought tens of thousands of worshipers to the Western Wall culminated without incident. Still, the joy of the occasion was somewhat lessened by the palpable tension of threatened Arab violence.

 

The background: Prior to Yom Kippur, the head of the Muslim Wakf learned that a fringe group of Jews planned a visit to the Temple Mount. They are harmless enough - part of a stream within the milieu that wants to establish a Third Temple on the site of the Dome of the Rock and reinstate animal sacrifices.

 

Generations of Jewish scholars have studied the practices and rituals of our ancient Temples, praying that one day the Messiah would deliver the Jews, and that God's presence would be manifested for all. But the group in question has busied itself with stitching the garments and crafting the sacramental objects the Israelite priests will "soon" need.

 

Police learned that the Wakf was bothered, and preemptively barred the Third Temple group from the plateau. But as police opened the area to other visitors, escorting a group of mostly French Christians to the Mount, waiting Muslim youths unleashed a barrage of projectiles. The police rescued the tourists and arrested some of the rioters, but the atmosphere in and around Jerusalem's Old City remained tense.

 

CURIOUSLY, Ramadan passed with nary a disruption. Indeed, Israeli authorities took various measures to facilitate the unfettered observance of the holy month in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza also. Too bad, then, that Palestinian leaders could not find it in their hearts to reciprocate by allowing the Jews to observe Jewish holy days in tranquility.

 

But, really, that is comparing apples and oranges. Israeli authorities foster coexistence and maintain free access to the holy sites. Palestinian factions, by contrast, want just the opposite. Jews do not deny the religious significance of the Muslim sites on the Temple Mount. Yet Palestinians can't abide the fact that the Jewish presence in Jerusalem anteceded the Muslim arrival in 636 CE by well over a millennia.

 

No one knows why the Palestinians decided to stir things up just now. Some suggest it was part of an effort by Mahmoud Abbas to distract his people from the Palestinian Authority's unpopular decision not to further exploit the Goldstone Report at this time. Whatever the reason, this much is clear: nothing brings Fatah in Ramallah, Hamas in Gaza City, and the Islamic Movement's Northern Branch in the Galilee more into harmony than "protecting" the Haram al-Sharif from - in the words of the PLO news agency WAFA - "radical Jew colonizers."

 

Sadly, not one Palestinian leader is willing to tell his people that, of course, there was a Jewish temple where the Aksa Mosque stands today. To admit a Jewish civilizational connection would demand that Palestinians agree to share the area and to treat Jewish holy places with respect. It would turn upside down a Palestinian political culture that has socialized generations to think of Jews as interlopers. And this neither Fatah's Abbas, nor Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh nor the Islamic Movement's Sheikh Raed Salah will ever do.

 

SINCE the liberation of Jerusalem in 1967, the Jews have been magnanimous in victory. Not only have they permitted Muslims to retain administrative control over their holy places, Israeli authorities have forbidden Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.

 

The Israel Police restricts visits by non-Muslims to 7:30-10:30 a.m. and 12:30-1:30 p.m. and bars them entirely on Muslim holidays. To appease Muslim sensibilities, since 2006, successive Israeli governments have forbidden the Antiquities Authority from blocking illegal Palestinian excavations below Temple Mount. And invariably, when Arabs threaten violence, it is the Jews who are barred from the site to reduce tensions.

 

So while Israel's "Third Temple" fanatics are carefully policed and marginalized by mainstream society, the Palestinian leadership continues to mainstream fanatical ideas about Jews - making reconciliation unreachable.

 

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THE JERUSALEM POST

EDITORIAL

THE END OF THE ASSAD REGIME?

FARID GHADRY

 

You would not know it if you follow the pro-Assad blogs and the chipper news emanating from Damascus, and you certainly would not know it if you listen to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad himself or see the expediency by which his recent foreign travels have all had a secret economic component seeking foreign investments and aid. The truth is that the Syrian economy is flapping like a dying butterfly.

 

Between US sanctions, a severe drought in an agrarian-based economy, sustained terror that has caused the migration of over 1 million Iraqis to Syria, political risks promoting "resistance" instead of cooperation, dwindling oil revenues, an alarming increase in Syrian population and a determined new Israeli government, Assad is being squeezed like a Syrian olive for its oil.

 

Very few people grasp the reality Assad faces now that he has systematically destroyed whatever he inherited from his father through ill-advised policies. Some Middle East analysts are aware of the economic pressure Assad is under, but the extent of the harm his policies have caused the Syrian treasury is largely unknown.

 

AS IMPORTANT to the piling problems on Assad's shoulders is the latest challenge Iran was confronted with during the G-20 summit last week, regarding the discovery of its secret enrichment plant in Qom. Assad suddenly finds himself burdened by outside forces over which he has no control. Even his most potent tool of terror seems to have gone stale in the face of the overwhelming pressure Iran is facing for its actions.

 

If Iran catches cold, Assad will sneeze uncontrollably. No other nation provides Syria with the political clout Iran does; not even Turkey's short-lived friendliness, about to expire with the expected ruling party's defeat - an eventuality that the latest Turkish municipal elections show is not far afield.

 

As such, the pressure mounting on Assad via Iran is yielding far better results for Syrians and the West than the embrace of "dialogue." Assad is about to give under the pressure, and we should, as John Lennon once said, let it be.

 

As hard-pressed as he is, his illegitimate regime will try to extract some quick concessions in the hope that he continues to rule a country ravaged by structural fault lines Ba'athism decreed to monopolize power. Syrians must hope that the country's 45-year slumber is about to end with the demise of those who knocked the country out.

 

There is no such thing as a "reformed" violent man or a "reformed" oppressor. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's New York circus tent display, unraveling speeches, and deep satisfaction - quite visible on his face - with how the Lockerbie tragedy ended bear witness to this truth. He may not resort to terror himself, but Libya, through oppression and ignorance, is a breeding ground for a hopeless future generation. I can recite the names of Israeli Nobel Prize winners, but can you imagine one Nobel laureate under the rule of Gaddafi or Assad?

 

WERE THE international community to alleviate the pressure on Assad today, all we would be doing is resetting the clock for the bomb to explode at a later time. No matter the political arguments made in favor of a Middle East dictatorship, or "stability" as some have the audacity to call it, our moral compass as humans is to help Syrians deliver their country to their people, to introduce governance, accountability and coexistence.

 

Hate-spewing stability is not the answer to a region already flooded with exclusionary ideologies - which is what the West will be reinforcing if it embraces Assad when history is presenting us with a gift for a permanent and positive change.

 

Just imagine a Lebanon where Hizbullah's power base could no longer rely on Iran and Syria to provide the incendiary Nasrallah with muscle-flexing, gun-toting missions. Imagine Hamas, looking for Assad in Damascus, finding instead accountable politicians and being forced to become the new PLO's bride or be chastized as a Muslim divorcee. Imagine Israel, for the first time, helping the Syrian and Iraqi democracies without the specter of terror shadowing its successes.

 

As Orly Halpern wrote in the Jewish Daily Forward, "normalized relations between the countries [Israel and Iraq] are being discussed unofficially." So will relations between Syria and Israel once we establish our own peaceful democracy aided by a willing West.

 

Will all this come at a price? Certainly. Are we willing to burden ourselves today for a better future for our children? We Syrians are. Our hope is that the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government are, as well.

 

The writer comes from a prominent Syrian family who emigrated to Lebanon after it clashed with the Ba'ath party. Ghadry, along with other in-country activists, started the Reform Party of Syria (RPS) whose goals are to rebuild the country on the principles of economic and political reforms that will usher in democracy. In 2007, Ghadry, by invitation, addressed the Knesset in support of the vision of RPS.

 

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THE JERUSALEM POST

EDITORIAL

BRAND ISRAEL TURNED CANADA INTO A PR BATTLEFIELD

HASKELL NUSSBAUM

 

The "Brand Israel" campaign launched by the Foreign Ministry in Toronto last September has officially ended, and initial evaluations of its impact have begun.

 

The campaign, which aimed to create awareness of Israel in a context other than the Arab-Israeli conflict, showcased Israeli creativity, archeological history and technological prowess.

 

While it remains too early to conclude whether the campaign fulfilled its main goal (the poll numbers have yet to be crunched), one unintended result is clear: Brand Israel has, ironically, kicked up a storm of conflict-related politics.

 

Word of the Brand Israel campaign became a siren call for anti-Israel forces, both Canadian and foreign; calls to boycott Israel were heard from Canadian public union officials and from church committees; anti-Israel activity on campuses resulted in Jewish students being physically threatened at a Toronto university; an academic conference was organized that directly targeted the idea of Israel as a Jewish State; and a Palestinian drive to delegitimize Israel's connection to the Dead Sea Scrolls (being temporarily exhibited at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum) included a letter from the Palestinian Authority itself. Finally, as the year drew to a close, a number of celebrities attacked the decision of the Toronto International Film Festival to spotlight Tel Aviv, accusing the festival of being a 'tool' of the Brand Israel campaign.

 

IN EVERY case, pro-Israel forces rallied and, mostly, carried the day. Reports of proposed boycotts galvanized the Jewish and pro-Israel communities and resulted in an enormous volume of ticket sales for the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, sold-out cases of Israeli wine at a local store being picketed by a boycott-Israel crowd, and church resolutions being defeated or put on hold. In the case of the film festival, all three major Toronto newspapers came out against those opposing Tel Aviv.

 

With all this activity, it's fair to say that, if nothing else, Brand Israel succeeded in exposing the true natures of Israel's enemies. A campaign focused on Israeli technology and arts resulted in a counter-campaign attacking its right to exist. Israeli films provoked charges of Israel being a racist regime. Even casual observers of the rant against the film festival, for example, could discern that if Tel Aviv, founded in 1909, is illegitimate, then Israel in its entirety is illegitimate. Thus exposed, the enemies of Israel were even mocked for being "boring" in one major Toronto paper.

 

The campaign also succeeded in rallying pro-Israel forces across Canada. E-mail campaigns proved effective in gathering supporters and countering boycotts, sales of Israeli products soared, and the media became cognizant of the anti-Israel and, all too often, anti-Semitic flavor of the boycott attempts. Considering that the year included a war in Gaza and all of the negative stories swirling around that narrative, Israel's PR successes in Canada are astonishing.

 

But was it worthwhile? Were any hearts and minds changed? Should Israeli missions around the world replicate this program? An already tough year for Torontonian supporters of Israel was arguably made tougher by the Brand Israel campaign. Then again, it is certainly arguable that Brand Israel provided a platform for exposing the real agenda of Israel's enemies.

 

The ball is now in the Foreign Ministry's court. It can choose to scrap, quietly copy or loudly herald the program in a new city. Personally, I'm betting on a quiet deployment, avoiding much of the PR war that characterized Toronto.

 

It is, after all, supposed to avoid conflict.

 

The writer is author of 101+ Ways to Help Israel: A Guide to Doing Small Things That Can Make Big Differences

 

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THE JERUSALEM POST

EDITORIAL

OF ETERNITY AND GRANDCHILDREN

RACHEL LEVMORE

 

A few days before Yom Kippur, the Illinois State Supreme Court upheld the validity of the last will and testament of Dr. Max and Erla Feinberg, who sought to disinherit grandchildren who married non-Jewish partners. As reported in the article "Illinios Supreme Court upholds will that disinherits grandkids who marry non-Jews" in The Jerusalem Post, September 27, the executor, in accordance with the couple's wishes, was to distribute a significant amount of money to grandchildren who married within the Jewish faith. The one grandchild who had married a Jew received the inheritance, while the remaining four who had not, got nothing.

 

Each year, at the close of Yom Kippur, when the lack of sustenance has taken its toll, the sense of "We, our days, are like a fleeting shadow - while You and Your years are everlasting" is felt intensely. Yet men and women still yearn for eternity.

 

Although natural reproduction does provide a form of eternal existence, by means of passing on genetic material, the quest does not end there. The human spirit strives for a more meaningful existence, beyond biological functions. Beyond that, for many, eternity can be reached only within tradition.

 

THE FEINBERGS, married in 1934, apparently felt that way. The couple attempted to maintain an eternal tradition by employing the instrument of their last will and testament. However, the disinherited grandchildren thought otherwise. An argument presented against the validity of the so-called "beneficiary restriction clause" claimed that one cannot control another person's actions from beyond the grave. Ironically, Judaism seems to take the same position - even to the extreme.

 

According to Jewish tradition, there is no such concept as a "will" that instructs the dispensing of the deceased's material wealth after his death. For after death, there is no ownership of anything in this world. On the contrary, there is an established set of rules as to the disposition of property left behind. As the saying goes - you can't take it with you!

 

On the other hand, it is difficult to square that approach with the modern (particularly capitalist) sensibility - "It's my money; I earned it; I can do with it whatever I want!" All would agree that during one's life, one can choose to whom one gives a gift. One can dispense one's wealth, whether meager or rich, in any manner one pleases. Similarly, a premise within Jewish law states that a man is proprietor of his monies. So Jewish tradition covers that as well. Or does it?

 

According to Torah law, one can sell or grant one's property and pass it on to new owners - up to a limit. An "estate," meaning land-holdings, must remain within the family. The land anchors the family, binds it together and is the physical manifestation of the otherworldly sense of eternity. Offspring will work the very land that gave physical sustenance and shelter to their forebears. The Torah instructs that in the Jubilee year, "you are to hallow the year, the 50th year, proclaiming freedom throughout the land and to all its inhabitants; it shall be Homebringing for you, you are to return, each-man to his holding, each-man to his clan you are to return." (Leviticus 25:10. Translation: Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses, 1995.)

 

The family members return to the land, and the land is returned to the family. The family reverts to its fundamental state - that of eternal bonds.

 

Once the Jewish people was exiled from the land, the ties to the land were severed and family bonds became tenuous. Currency, such as precious metals and jewels, replaced land-holdings and became the bulk of an individual's "estate."

 

The wandering Jew's wealth became portable at the same time that family connections became less grounded. Along with the rest of the modern world, Jews exited the agrarian society and traded it for a commercial social order. Nevertheless, the existential need to strengthen the family within tradition endured.

 

THIS NEED became apparent on July24 in Illinois. According to the will of Max Feinberg, any descendant who married outside the Jewish faith or whose non-Jewish spouse did not convert to Judaism within one year of marriage was "deemed deceased for all purposes of this instrument." In the words of the Illinois Supreme court, Erla Feinberg wished "to reward, at the time of her death, those grandchildren whose lives most closely embraced the values she and Max cherished." Both of these statements reflect two sides of the same coin - the coin used to secure one's familial traditions.

 

In their lifetime, the Feinbergs constructed a postmodern manifestation of ancient mores - maintaining the estate within the family. In keeping with the ground rules the couple laid down, those who chose to bind themselves to the family preserved their foundations in the family's estate. Through these family members, the grandparents from Illinois found their eternity.

 

The writer is a rabbinical court advocate; coordinator of the Get-Refusal Prevention Project of the Council of Young Israel Rabbis and the Jewish Agency; a doctoral candidate in Talmud at Bar-Ilan University; and author of Minee Einayich Medima on prenuptial agreements for the prevention of get-refusal.

 

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THE JERUSALEM POST

EDITORIAL

BORDERLINE VIEW: ISRAEL'S DEMOCRACY AND ITS ARAB POPULATION

DAVID NEWMAN

 

Last week's comments by Minority Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman that the State of Israel should ask forgiveness from its Arab citizens for the way they have been treated during 60 years of statehood, raised, yet again, one of the basic dilemmas facing Israel as a sovereign state - namely how to be a Jewish and democratic state .

 

It's not easy being a democracy, and it's even more difficult being a democracy when your country is self-defined as an exclusive nation-state. On top of that, it is almost impossible to be a democracy when the country's minority population (the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel) is part of a wider regional conflict in which it identifies (as would be expected) with the political and national aspirations of the neighbors, rather than of the state within which it resides.

 

It is a dilemma Israel has faced since the day it was established, and it has never really been resolved. How, indeed, can a state define itself as being both Jewish (exclusive) and democratic (inclusive) at the same time? Democracy means a lot more than simply ensuring that everyone has the right to vote and be elected, regardless of ethnic or religious background. Democracy is about the ability of the state to fully integrate each of its citizens into every potential sphere of state activity. This includes equality in development, resource allocation, political appointments, even in achieving the highest office of state power - a whole sphere of activities that, it must be acknowledged, the Arab citizens of Israel do not enjoy.

 

ONE DOESN'T have to be a radical left-wing activist to pay a visit to any Arab town or village in the country and see how undeveloped these places are in comparison to their Jewish neighbors. The roads, the infrastructure systems and the school facilities are always below par, and it is easy to understand why there is growing resentment among the country's Arab population. And one only has to look at the annual local government data openly published by the Central Bureau of Statistics (and freely available on the government Web sites) to see that the Arab communities receive much fewer resources per capita than any of their Jewish counterparts, even the poor development towns.

 

It is not easy to understand the rationale behind almost every government policy to allocate fewer resources per capita to Arab citizens. It doesn't make sense and, in the long term, has proved to be totally self-defeating for the state. The younger, more educated elements among the Arab population, who find it almost impossible to enter the job market at the same levels as their Jewish counterparts and who encounter silent discrimination in almost every sphere, have, as a result, become increasingly radicalized in their political opposition to the state on the one hand, and their support for the Palestinian cause on the other.

 

One of the biggest mistakes was the attempt by the state to create an artificial distinction between Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza. Prior to 1948, the Arab-Palestinian population residing between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean had been part of a single ethnic community, and this did not change as a result of the imposition of an artificial boundary drawn up in the Rhodes Armistice Talks.

 

Subsequently they have undergone separate processes of development, but they remain part and parcel of a single national entity. The sooner we accept their right to define their own identity, the greater the chance that we will be able to accept them for what they are - equal citizens with a minority identity - rather than always suspect them of constituting a fifth column.

 

The issue of land zoning for settlement expansion is but one of the more acute problems facing the Arab sector. It is ironic that the current Israeli government insists on the right of West Bank settlement expansion to enable internal natural growth of the existing settler population, while the same government does not enact the same principle for Arab citizens, who experience even more rapid internal growth. Their towns (euphemistically called "villages" in most statistical sources, even though they are much larger than equivalent Israeli development towns) are overcrowded and are prevented from growing by strict land-zoning laws. This is in stark contrast to the neighboring Jewish communities, which expand at much lower residential densities.

 

GIVEN THE context of the ongoing conflict between Arabs and Jews, Israel can justly be proud that it does accord equal political rights to all of its citizens, including those who identify with the Palestinian cause. The fact that an Arab member of Knesset can make a speech negating the very essence of the Jewish state within which he lives may not be comfortable for most ears, but it reflects a high level of freedom of speech that few other countries in similar situations would allow.

 

But that does not mean that we can expect the Arab-Palestinian citizens of the country to salute a flag, or sing an anthem, that has been designed to characterize and represent the Jewish and Zionist symbols of statehood. We need to be much more realistic in what to expect from the Arab population while demonstrating to them that we believe they can be fully integrated - politically, socially and economically - within every facet of life. If we succeeded in doing that, we would become a much better democracy than we like to think we are already.

 

This does not mean having to reduce, in any way, the Jewish characteristics and symbols of statehood, the raison d'etre of why the State of Israel was established in the first place. But it does mean recognizing that democracies are judged by their policies toward their minorities and those groups that do not have power, far more than by the simple technicality of whether or not they are able to vote.

 

The writer is professor of politicalgeography at Ben-Gurion University and editor of The International Journal, Geopolitics.

 

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THE JERUSALEM POST

EDITORIAL

CANDIDLY SPEAKING: MARGINALIZE THE RENEGADES

ISI LEIBLER

 

The exploitation of Judge Goldstone's Jewish background by our enemies intensifies our obligation to confront the enemy within - renegade Jews - including Israelis who stand at the vanguard of global efforts to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state. Such odious Jews can be traced back to apostates during the Middle Ages who fabricated blood libels and vile distortions of Jewish religious practice for Christian anti-Semites to incite hatred which culminated in massacres. It was in response to these renegades that the herem (excommunication) was introduced.

 

More recent examples include Jewish communists who, in addition to undermining campaigns to liberate Soviet Jews and defending state-sponsored anti-Semitism, even applauded the Stalinist execution of their kinsmen on bogus charges. Like their contemporary counterparts, some of them attempted to depict themselves as devoted Jews championing "world peace."

 

In practice they simply advanced the objectives of the Evil Empire. They were regarded as pariahs and isolated from the Jewish mainstream.

 

Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, took ruthless measures against Israeli renegades, insisting also that Israeli embassies maintain close ties with local Jewish leaders and persuade them to refrain from publicly criticizing policies impinging on security. The consensus was that it would be immoral for Jews abroad to influence decisions that could have life-and-death implications for Israeli citizens.

 

Unfortunately, in the wake of the Oslo Accords, the massive divisions which tore Israeli society apart shattered this convention, ironically with right-wing politicians encouraging Diaspora leaders to undermine the Rabin government.

 

This occurred simultaneously with the rise of post-Zionism,vigorously promoted by the daily newspaper Ha'aretzwhich published critiques of Zionist doctrine until thenconsidered beyond the pale by the vast majority of Israelis.

 

Ha'aretz also launched an English internet edition which emboldened Diaspora Jewish extremists and provided a green light to global media outlets to run demonizing articles about Israel on the grounds that they had already appeared in a "reputable" Israeli daily. The most recent example was the Ha'aretz campaign defaming the IDF, which proved to be entirely baseless but created an enormous global upsurge of anti-Israeli hysteria and eased the way for the Goldstone Report.

 

IN THIS atmosphere, fringe groups of "non-Jewish Jews," many with no prior involvement in Jewish life, exploited their Jewish origins or Israeli nationality to defame Israel. Today, they occupy leading roles fueling global anti-Israel campaigns.

 

Regrettably, successive Israeli governments failed to respond even when professors at universities funded by Israeli taxpayers and Diaspora Zionists began exploiting their positions to delegitimize their country. They identified with Israel's enemies, calling on the world to boycott Israeli institutions, including their own universities.

 

Israel prides itself on being the only country in the region in which genuine freedom of expression reigns supreme. But it is also a country under siege, surrounded by neighbors seeking its destruction and confronted by an ever-hostile global community. To tolerate such abominations in the name of freedom of expression is taking an ideal to a lunatic extreme. Besides, it is hard to visualize the authorities adopting such a laissez faire approach had the offenders been racists, fascists or even radical right-wing extremists.

In fact, when senior academics like Ben-Gurion University's Neve Gordon, call Israel an "apartheid state" and encourage the world to boycott Israeli institutions, they are the ones abusing academic freedom.

 

It is thus high time for the Knesset to set up a non-partisancommission to recommend legislation to deny tenure at state-sponsored institutions to those indulging in such activities.

 

The rot has extended to the Diaspora, especially Europe and has also affected the United States. Highly vocal Jewish groups like the recently created J Street describe themselves as 'Zionist' but their prime objective is to pressure the US government to use "tough love" against Israel - a euphemism for demanding that the Jewish state make further unilateral concessions to neighbors pledged to its annihilation.

 

In the past two weeks alone, a host of new anti-Israeli initiatives were reported. In Toronto, Jews were at the forefront of a campaign to boycott Israeli films at a film festival because the anniversary of Tel Aviv - 'built on the destroyed villages of Palestinians' - was being celebrated; two Israeli women who evaded national service are conducting a North American campus tour under the auspices of 'Jewish Voice for Peace' to persuade students to intensify their role in the "resistance movement"; in San Francisco the local Jewish Federation is providing funds for a film festival which promotes the vilest anti-Israel films; radical Rabbi Michael Lerner invited a woman who justifies suicide bombings to address his synagogue on Yom Kippur; and so on.

 

IM EIN ani li mi li? If we are not for ourselves, who will be? We are engaged in a battle against fiendish enemies committed to our destruction. The Israeli government must now take steps to neutralize the impact of renegade Jews who present themselves as legitimate alternative Jewish viewpoints. Such an initiative by a country which provides genuine democratic rights to all its citizens, including Arabs, could hardly be categorized as eradicating freedom of expression. It would rather represent a highly overdue effort to exorcise such odious groups from the mainstream and expose them as unrepresentative fringe groups with no standing.

 

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is currently riding a wave after his superb United Nations address. He should summon a global Jewish solidarity conference encompassing Jewish leaders, opinion makers, philanthropists and activists similar to that organized in 1989 under the auspices of then prime minister Yitzhak Shamir and then defense minister Yitzhak Rabin in order to demonstrate the unity of the Jewish people.

 

At a time when we desperately seek allies, in addition to encouraging millions of Jews in the Diaspora who remain committed to Israel to become more actively engaged in our struggle, such a gathering would also provide an opportunity to exorcise the renegades from our midst.

 

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THE JERUSALEM POST

EDITORIAL

REALITY CHECK: ISRAEL'S SELECTIVE FIGHT AGAINST ANTI-SEMITISM

JEFF BARAK

 

Israel has taken the fight against anti-Semitism to new heights of hypocrisy, leveraging charges of Jew-hatred only when it suits this government's particular diplomatic needs. And in the case of the harsh tongue-lashing Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman gave his Norwegian counterpart recently, Lieberman went after the wrong target.

 

Jonas Gahr Støre became a target for Lieberman's ire following Norway's celebration this year of the 150th anniversary of the birth of disgraced Nobel Prize-winning author Knut Hamsun, writer of such pre-World War II novels as Victoria, Hunger and Growth of the Soil. Most of Hamsun's work has been translated into Hebrew and published here, for despite the author's own disreputable political sympathies, his novels are free of anti-Semitism.

 

This cannot be said for his British contemporaries such as George Orwell or T. S. Eliot. The Eton-educated Orwell might be best remembered as an enlightened liberal, warning against totalitarianism in 1984, or providing a damning critique of communism in Animal Farm, but like many of his class, he had a deep dislike of Jews.

 

In Down and Out in Paris and London, his description of life among the poorest of these cities, there isn't a Jew he meets whom he doesn't paint in an unfavorable light. He remarks about one "red-haired Jew" shop owner that "it would have been a pleasure to flatten the Jew's nose."

 

Eliot, the leading poet of the 20th century, was just as blunt, writing in his 1920 poem "Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar" that "On the Rialto once./The rats are underneath the piles./The Jew is underneath the lot."

 

However, were Britain to decide to honor Orwell or Eliot , it's hard to imagine Israel issuing an official protest or summoning the British ambassador to the Foreign Ministry for a dressing-down.

 

SO WHY does Norway deserve this special treatment? One reason is that while Hamsun's works are free of anti-Semitism, the man himself was an out-and-out Nazi sympathizer.

 

In 1940, when German troops were marching across the Scandinavian country, he appealed to his fellow citizens to "throw down your weapons and go home. The Germans are fighting for all of us and are breaking down England's tyranny over us all."

 

He gave his 1920 Nobel Prize medal to Joseph Gobbels and, after the war, wrote an obituary for Hitler, calling him "a prophet of the gospel of justice for all nations." Embarrassed by his behavior, once the Nazi occupation ended, the Norwegian authorities declared him mentally deficient and stripped him of his property.

 

Hamsun, as a person, is therefore a disgrace. But as an artist, the Norwegians do have reason to take pride in him. As the continued discussions here in Israel about the playing of Wagner's music show, the question as to whether one can separate the artist from the man is not a cut-and-dried issue, and opinions will be divided.

 

Importantly the Norwegians recognize this, and among the many events dedicated to Hamsun will be seminars addressing precisely this question and highlighting Hamsun's disreputable political past. The issue of Hamsun's Nazi affiliation is not being brushed under the carpet.

 

Lieberman, it seems, is not a man for subtleties and discussions as to whether the artist can be honored separately from the man, and fiercely attacked his Norwegian counterpart over the Hamsun celebrations at a meeting they held last month on the fringes of the United Nations General Assembly - a meeting Lieberman later told the cabinet was the most difficult he had held.

 

But it is hard to believe that the foreign minister really cares that much about a dead Norwegian author whom most Israelis have never heard of. One can't help but think that Lieberman jumped at the chance to wave the anti-Semitism card at Norway because of Jerusalem's disquiet with Norway's behavior on the diplomatic front.

 

In recent months, Israel has accused Norway of seeking to hold a dialogue with Hamas, while Oslo has announced its decision to pull its government pension fund investments in Elbit because of the Israeli firm's involvement in the security barrier between Israel and the West Bank. Accusing Norway, the present chairman of the 26-nation Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, of abetting anti-Semitism is simply easier and more satisfying than addressing the problems in the relationship between the two countries.

 

ISRAEL'S CASTIGATION of Norway should be contrasted with its low-key approach to the (ultimately failed) candidacy of Egypt's Farouk Hosny for the top job in UNESCO. Given that Hosny, the Egyptian culture minister, once said that he would burn Israeli books if he found them in the Library of Alexandria and resisted any opportunity to improve cultural links between Israel and Egypt during his two-plus decades as a minister, one would have thought that Israel would have taken a leading role in ensuring he got nowhere near the UNESCO leadership.

 

But because of the importance to Jerusalem of its ties with Cairo, Israel muted its opposition to Hosny and even quietly called on leading Jewish intellectuals to drop their campaign against his candidacy. Thankfully the rest of the world realized the idiocy of nominating such a person to the world's top cultural position and instead appointed a Bulgarian diplomat.

 

In the run-up to the elections, Hosny vainly tried to reposition himself, speeding up synagogue restoration works in Cairo and explaining away his book-burning comment. But when the results came through, he reverted to his true colors, arguing that his defeat was due to "a group of the world's Jews who had a major influence in the elections."

 

But has the Foreign Ministry protested this latest reworking of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or is the anti-Semitism card only to be used against small countries with which we have a diplomatic dispute?

 

The writer is a former editor-in-chief of</i> The Jerusalem Post.

 

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HAARETZ

EDITORIAL

STATE-BACKED PERSECUTION

BY HAARETZ EDITORIAL

 

The methods of harassment and persecution used by the ultra-Orthodox organization Yad L'Achim against innocent, law-abiding Israeli citizens goes beyond the limits of legitimate activity by a civilian body and borders on unlawful. The organization, which has deployed a dense net of activists across the country and the world, is proud of "rescuing" Jewish men, women and children from the "claws" of other faiths and belief systems using coercive and dubious tactics.

Particularly serious is the fact - revealed by Yuval Azoulay in the October 2 edition of the Hebrew-language Haaretz Magazine - that behind the threats, the spreading of harmful rumors and harassment are not only the thugs of Yad L'Achim, but top Interior Ministry officials.

The officials, including Amos Arbel, head of the Population Administration in Tel Aviv, received information on the private lives of individuals described as "members of a messianic cult." On the pretext of counteracting "missionaries" who had "acted against the Jewish people," these officials trampled on people's basic rights.

 

It's hard to believe - a government agency tasked with delivering public services to citizens (mainly granting permits) is persecuting people for their opinions and beliefs while leaning on an extremist, violent organization. The infuriating interrogation of the university student Barbara Ludwig for alleged missionary work and the fact that her personal file (which was supposed to be classified) was transferred to Yad L'Achim is a blatant violation of Israel's Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty.

The organization's shady links with the establishment are not new - for years, its activists have provided information to rabbinical courts seeking to stick their hands into sensitive cases at the Social Affairs Ministry.

 

More than once the group has enjoyed the assistance of ultra-Orthodox politicians such as Menachem Porush, who as deputy social affairs minister in 1991 wrote to a court pleading for mercy toward the group's activists who had kidnapped an orphan from relatives who were "not religious enough." But the Interior Ministry employees' collaboration with the group outdoes even that abhorrent precedent.

The government must call its employees to order immediately, to explain to Interior Minister Eli Yishai that he is not responsible for maintaining the purity of the Jewish race according to the formula of ultra-Orthodox zealots, and that any collaboration with Yad L'Achim is, in effect, a grave instance of persecution.

 

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HAARETZ

EDITORIAL

THREE COMMENTS ON THE SITUATION

BY YOEL MARCUS

 

It is inconceivable for a country that considers itself a military power to become a pawn of a terrorist organization. This state, which resolved in its earliest days that it would never negotiate with terrorists - as in the case of the Sabena and Entebbe hijackings in the 1970s - has given in to blackmail in an embarrassing manner. The same Khaled Meshal - who owes his life to the intervention of Jordan's King Hussein and is now publicly threatening to abduct "another Shalit and another Shalit" until all the Palestinian prisoners are freed - could himself be abducted the moment Israel decided to do so. In our present situation, there is really only one question: If we are going to fold in any event, why drag out the negotiations?

I propose that we release all the Palestinian prisoners in our possession. Keeping them under excellent conditions, which includes providing an education, costs the state a fortune. And after Gilad Shalit returns, we can decide, once and for all, on the principle of a one-for-one exchange.

In a country that has sacrificed more than 20,000 of its citizens in wars for its survival, it is unbelievable the extent to which reporters have penetrated the holy of holies of private, familial grief, with their cameras and vulgar questions. Asaf Ramon, who was killed in a plane crash the likes of which the Israel Air Force has seen before, was instantly turned into a saint because of the circumstances of his father's death.

 

"A terrible tragedy for the entire Israeli nation," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "It's more than a terrible accident, it's a disaster," President Shimon Peres said. Journalist Dan Margalit said Ramon and his father had entered the "national pantheon." Ramon's mother noted, correctly, that two hours before she was officially informed of her son's death, photographers were already in her yard. Journalist Amos Carmel asked, with a note of bitterness, whether anyone remembered Hanan Barak and Pavel Slocker, the two soldiers who were killed in the incident during which Shalit was abducted.

When the video arrived, all the country's radio and television stations opened their phone lines to listeners. They brought in psychologists and other experts who analyzed every sound Shalit made and every line on his face. In light of three years of uncertainty, he looked terrific. In the 61st year of Israel's existence, the song "The Whole World Is against Us" has become a reality. How did we get to the point where our defense minister risked being detained in London on suspicion of war crimes? How could it be that senior officers are being warned to review their travel plans carefully? It is inconceivable that in the past eight years thousands of Qassam rockets have been fired at civilian communities, but no Goldstone Committee has been appointed against Hamas.

Israel's image has never been as poor as after Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. There were no executions, no looting and no rapes there. The operation was personally approved by Justice Minister Menachem Mazuz, and every brigade commander had a direct line to legal counsel. Around 1,200 targets considered "sensitive" were not touched. We admitted every error, especially when we killed our own soldiers by mistake. The operation may have gone on for too long - Defense Minister Ehud Barak was in favor of curtailing it, but Olmert opposed that.

Oh, yeah. We lost only 10 soldiers, not 200. If that annoys the enlightened world, then there's nothing we can do but ask for forgiveness for winning.

 

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 HAARETZ

EDITORIAL

A LICENSE TO KILL

BY MOSHE ARENS

 

While the Goldstone report is being eagerly read in Israel and in capitals around the world, it is also being intensively studied by terrorists bent on destroying the State of Israel - and they must be breathing a sigh of relief.

This is not only because the Hamas terrorists in Gaza are in effect getting off scot-free in the report - they, in any case, did not have to be concerned about being brought before the International Court of Justice.

They can also interpret the report as international approbation for carrying out military operations from civilian population centers - schools, hospitals, refugee camps, etc. - as they did in the years when they were launching rockets into Israeli towns and villages in the south of Israel, and as they continued to do during the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip.

 

From the report it is clear to them that establishing military units and rocket launchers in civilian population centers will from now on be an effective military tactic that they can hope to apply with impunity, enjoying at least partial immunity from an Israeli response. That response is likely to be withheld out of concern that it will lead to Israel being charged with committing a war crime.

The report is in effect a license to kill - for Hamas, for Hezbollah, and for terrorists all over the world. No less.

"The bastards have changed the rules," Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon's vice president, supposedly said when his wrong-doings caught up with him. He resigned on October 10, 1973. That was 36 years ago, during the Yom Kippur War, a conventional battlefield war, tanks against tanks and soldiers against soldiers, with no civilians in the vicinity. And also no war crime inquiries.

But since that Israeli victory, things have changed. Faced by the overpowering force of the Israel Defense Forces, terror attacks against civilians have become the weapon of choice for Israel's enemies. And here the Goldstone report is changing the rules of warfare so as to favor the terrorists. As long as they operate in civilian surroundings, they should have nothing to worry about.

Hezbollah pioneered this tactic in Southern Lebanon, and put it into practice very effectively during the Second Lebanon War. Hamas in Gaza, tutored by Hezbollah, followed suit. And the Goldstone report has now enshrined it with international legalese, which may very well serve as a precedent in future encounters with terrorists.

This will have far-reaching effects on the war against terror, wherever it is being waged, and it will empower the terrorists, whether Justice Richard Goldstone realizes it or not. It will be especially damaging for Israel, whose civilians are under almost constant threat from terrorists.

During Operation Defensive Shield the IDF showed that the commonly held wisdom that terrorism could not be defeated by military means was dead wrong.

Whereas Palestinian terrorism could not be deterred, it could be physically eliminated by military means. The terrorists could be pursued into their lairs and destroyed, or brought to justice. Since then, terrorism from Judea and Samaria against Israeli civilians has essentially ceased. Now, after the Goldstone report, that kind of operation is going to be difficult to repeat.

 

The report is a blow to the war on terror everywhere and for all nations engaged in fighting terrorism. Hopefully, the nations of the world will have the strength and political will to reject the report, and make it clear to all that terror operations carried out from civilian areas are the war crime, and not the attempt to eliminate these attacks. That using civilians as a shield is a war crime.

If that does not happen, we can expect that areas densely populated by civilians will become the base for terrorist activities in many parts of the world - with the expectation that "international law" will provide them with immunity from counterattacks.

Israel, knowing that its existence is at stake, will find a way to defend itself even under these changed circumstances. But the peace process is bound to be set back. This will not be the time to take big risks.

Thank you Justice Goldstone. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

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 HAARETZ

EDITORIAL

 

A PENSION AT 42

BY NEHEMIA SHTRASLER

 

While the government cuts its social and welfare budgets, the military is being granted, again, a budget increase - this time of NIS 1.5 billion.

The surrender by the prime minister and finance minister to pressure from the Defense Ministry is the direct continuation of what happened on the eve of the budget's passing five months ago. Then, amid the global recession, virtually nonexistent economic growth and the rising budget deficit, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz demanded a cut of NIS 3 billion in outlays to the Israel Defense Forces. But Defense Minister Ehud Barak insisted on an increase. After a long dispute, the army agreed to a small concession: postponing spending totaling NIS 1.5 billion by two years. Now, five months later, it has been able to get back everything it lost.

While the disagreement over the defense budget dragged on, Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi promised to present a detailed plan on raising the military's retirement age, which he has so far failed to do. Instead, he is continuing his predecessors' well-worn tradition of making a laughingstock of both the Finance Ministry and us all.

 

The call to raise the army's retirement age is an old one (10 years at least), but the IDF continues to dawdle over implementation. Also under debate is a proposal that people serving in certain military positions no longer be considered standing army officials, but civilians from whom the army buys services. The IDF employees in question are those working in certain technical, technological, engineering, economic and legal positions who do not wear uniforms and are not exposed to any military danger, so they needn't be entitled to the same benefits as other career army employees.

There is no reason that an attorney at the Military Advocate General should work only 24 years (from age 21 to 45), and then be allowed to enjoy a pension for 37 years. Logic dictates that the distribution of working years should be reversed - such an employee should work for 46 years (from age 21 to 67) and then receive a pension for 15 years. The IDF would enjoy huge savings - the budget for paying early pensions reaches NIS 4 billion annually.

Another army stratum that should be examined is its noncombat apparatus, which includes around 75 percent of IDF positions. Those employees could see their retirement age raised to 57. Regarding the combat apparatus (the remaining 25 percent of the army), the changes would be small, as retirement age would be raised to 46.

We should recall that today one may retire from the IDF at 42 and immediately begin receiving a pension. In practice, the average retirement age from the army is 45. But this is not the only problem, as the IDF is not fulfilling its promise to submit a streamlining plan, one intended to divert NIS 30 billion from salary payments and benefits toward improving the army's capabilities. In the current situation, 65 percent of the IDF's budget goes toward paying salaries, benefits, pensions, rehabilitation and purchases, and only 35 percent to strengthening its capabilities.

These proportions must be changed in favor of building up the military. The significant points of the downsizing program must revolve around raising the retirement age, cutting benefits, reducing entitlements for rehabilitation, outsourcing, shortening mandatory service, and eliminating redundancies at the Defense Ministry and army regarding purchasing and construction. Also important is trimming down wasteful Home Front Command centers, cutting the surplus of senior officers serving on the home front, and cutting the number of projects and expensive defense delegations to New York, Washington, Paris, Brussels and Berlin.

The military, however, has so far presented only small streamlining programs that do not deal with the big issues. It claims it is operating based on the downsizing program drafted with the help of the international consulting company McKinsey. Finance Ministry officials, however, say this has no relevance regarding the larger program that should have been approved by the National Security Council. They say these are insignificant sums and negligible issues aimed at public relations alone.

If so, it seems the fight over retirement and streamlining programs is likely to drag on. Steinitz will keep making demands and Barak will continue stalling with the prime minister's blessing. The problem is that an organization that is not trimmed down becomes too big, fat, heavy and inflexible. Such an organization is a prime candidate for serious illnesses like osteoporosis and paralysis - maladies we saw affect the IDF during the Second Lebanon War and which we can't allow to afflict us again.

 

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 HAARETZ

EDITORIAL

TURNING OFF THE LIGHTS

BY YITZHAK LAOR

 

A breath of fresh air accompanied the panic that gripped the Israeli establishment with the publication of the Goldstone report. The humane Israeli macho man with his wavy hair no longer appears on the cover of Life Magazine, but rather in the lists of the human rights organizations' suspects, and in the future also perhaps in the international tribunal in The Hague. After years of total disdain for the international community, of violating laws and treaties while Israeli legal experts turn into a kind of public defense counsel for our generals, there are finally members of the military elite who can no longer travel to Switzerland to ski, or to the opera in Covent Garden, or to a high-tech exhibition in Spain, without first consulting their lawyers. And that's a good thing.

David Ben-Gurion's boastful slogan, "It's not important what the Gentiles say, it's important what the Jews do," has always been part of the State of Israel. It not only gave permission to the defense establishment, including the Mossad, the army, and the nuclear research facility, but also supplied the public with the nationalist fervor that helped it unite around the idea, "the whole world is against us."

Another of Ben-Gurion's stupidities, "a light unto the nations," from the days of the raids on Qibya in 1953 and the Gaza Strip, became over the years an extinguishing of the lights so no one would see and no one would know. In short, Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, who provided legal advice to the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza, was invited to teach law at Tel Aviv University while the real work of "a light unto the nations" was done by the Jewish judge Richard Goldstone. (To our legal experts who are now calling for "a commission of inquiry," where were you during the war?)

 

However, Ben-Gurion's slogan was also false. Israel has always been dependent on what the world "says," even now, with all its military might. Israel was born from a dramatic decision by the United Nations General Assembly but permitted itself to spit in the well only when many dozens of countries that had won their freedom joined the organization. That was when they were dismissed as being "unenlightened" and "not developed." The world according to Israel was reduced to the former colonialist West, and it too was rejected by Israel with derision every time the occupation did not provide a good photo-op. With what excuse? Hypocrisy, of course, or anti-Semitism over the generations.

Over time, the West was reduced to the United States, which was reduced to the Israel lobby (which is very unpopular there), the military industries, the intelligence services and the Pentagon. In short, the world was reduced to what the military elite identified as its world. The "special ties" were seen as an achievement because, after all, Israel had made great efforts since its establishment to convince the United States that it was a strategic asset. Our democracy was sold merely as a wrapping for the main thing - we will do our work, which will also be your work.

If once upon a time Israel's wars were planned according to the number of battle days left until the Security Council reached a decision, since 1967, the American veto has freed us even from this obstruction. The defense establishment learned that world public opinion can be based on pictures of atrocities, so the strategic concept of negative news ratings was developed. Gaza was closed to photographers and the war was planned for the saccharine season on Western television between Christmas and New Year's.

To put it briefly, the bluff about "it's not important what the world says" is once again blowing up in our faces. There is a world. Not all of it sells arms. Not all of it is hypocritical. Not all of it is anti-Semitic. There are good Jews who do not carry out each of the IDF's orders. The time has come for us to equip ourselves with a few new examiners of reality.

 

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THE NEW YORK TIMES

SALVAGING IMMIGRATION DETENTION

 

The Obama administration is unveiling on Tuesday an ambitious plan to repair the immigration detention system, a scandal-plagued mix of federal, state and local lockups that grew vastly and rotted under the enforcement crusade led by former President George W. Bush.

 

The homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, and John Morton, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, deserve credit for proposing to clean up a system notorious for shabby and abusive conditions, poor or nonexistent medical treatment and a trail of preventable injuries and deaths. The reforms, if they work and are maintained, would be a necessary corrective to years of willful neglect.

 

Ms. Napolitano and Mr. Morton say that they want to make the system more efficient, more accountable and less costly. The whole point of detaining immigrants, after all, is to quickly figure out which ones should be deported and to deport them, not to let them languish and certainly not to inflict punishment or undue suffering.

 

But immigration detention has strayed far from that basic mission. Tuesday's announcement includes statements of "core principles" so fundamental that you have to wonder what they are replacing. Consider these:

 

• "ICE will detain aliens in settings commensurate with the risk of flight and danger they present." That means the government has finally come to understand that detainees are not all violent criminals. They include young mothers and their children, asylum seekers, upright members of communities who, but for a lapsed visa or bureaucratic snafu, would not be in trouble with the law. Those who can make no case for staying here should be deported. But it's gratifying to hear Ms. Napolitano and Mr. Morton acknowledge that nonviolent noncriminals — particularly those seeking refuge — should not be warehoused behind bars. They have promised to increase alternatives to detention, and we expect them to do that — even if it means a vast effort nationwide.

 

• "ICE will provide sound medical care." This fundamental government responsibility has been shamefully neglected in centers around the country. The reform plan refers vaguely to a new "medical classification system" for detainees that should improve treatment and reduce unnecessary and disruptive medical transfers. ICE should make clear what that means and how that will help those who become sick or injured only after they are admitted and classified.

 

Perhaps the most important principle behind these reforms is the reassertion of central control over the sprawling, subcontracted system. The new plan asserts that central control is not only smarter and more efficient but also cheaper. "Each of these reforms," the agency says, "are expected to be budget-neutral or result in cost savings through reduced reliance on contractors to perform key federal duties."

Immigration detention is a prime example of things going bad when the government subcontracts a vital mission to poorly supervised outsiders. The Obama administration, like its predecessor, is under ferocious political pressure to be seen as tough on people who have been unfairly depicted as a fundamentally criminal, dangerous crowd. It is pushing back with an effort to be sane and proportionate. If the reforms announced on Tuesday work half as well as promised, the country will be closer to a detention system it does not have to be ashamed of.

 

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THE NEW YORK TIMES

EDITORIAL

ANIMAL CRUELTY AND FREE SPEECH

 

The First Amendment protects even disturbing speech, a point the Supreme Court should keep in mind on Tuesday when it hears arguments in the case of a man convicted of selling videos of dogfighting and other animal cruelty. A federal appeals court reversed his conviction, ruling that the federal law under which he was prosecuted is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court should uphold that well-reasoned decision.

 

Robert Stevens, who ran a business called "Dogs of Velvet and Steel," sold videos of pit bulls engaging in dogfights and attacking other animals. He did not participate in the attacks personally, but he was charged under a federal law that makes it illegal to sell depictions of acts of animal cruelty that are themselves illegal in the state where the depiction is sold.

 

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, based in Philadelphia, reversed Mr. Stevens's conviction. The Supreme Court has created narrow exceptions to the First Amendment for a few kinds of speech, including obscenity and, more recently, child pornography. The appeals court rightly declined to create another category for depictions of animal cruelty.

 

Some of the material in this case is truly stomach-churning. There are people who enjoy watching animals being tortured and killed. There is also, the federal government's brief says, a market for "crush videos," in which women trample small animals with their bare feet or while wearing high-heel shoes, images that some viewers are said to find sexually arousing. Videos are also sold showing dogfights and hog-dogfights, in which dogs attack, and sometimes kill, pigs.

 

This is not the only deeply offensive speech protected by the Constitution. Nazis are allowed to march, and racists are allowed to spew racism. If legislatures have the power to disapprove certain categories of unpopular speech, a lot of expression could become illegal. The government seems to think it is enough that the harm caused by the animal-cruelty depictions outweighs their social value, but the First Amendment does not say that Congress can restrict speech if it fails a balancing test.

 

It is also extraordinarily difficult to carve out free-speech exceptions. Animal cruelty is often depicted in videos and on Web sites that seek to call attention to the problem of animal abuse. The law makes an exception for certain depictions that have serious political, journalistic or other value, but there is no clear way to sort through all of the covered expression to determine who should be held criminally liable and who should not.

 

All 50 states have laws against animal abuse. The best way to fight animal cruelty is to enforce these laws more vigorously and to increase the penalties. Anyone with an ounce of decency should be tempted to ban animal-abuse videos, but anyone with an appreciation for the First Amendment understands why we cannot.

 

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THE NEW YORK TIMES

EDITORIAL

WHERE THE DUST BLOWS AND SETTLES

 

It is tempting to think the dust storm that enveloped eastern Australia last month — choking Sydney with an estimated 5,000 tons of orange dust — is an anomalous event, the result of a decade-long drought. There is solid evidence that the number of dust storms is on the rise and a strong possibility that they may become more common as climate change advances.

 

On the global scale of dust storms, the one in Australia was modest — the big ones, in the Sahara and northern China, can throw hundreds of thousands of tons into the atmosphere. Seen from space, they look like — and are — entire weather systems, cyclones of particulates following the prevailing winds.

 

For the most part, these storms are the result of human activity: capturing dust liberated by poor agricultural practices, loss of native ground cover and deforestation. Scientists are only beginning to understand their many, complex effects. Saharan dust may help nourish the upper canopies of South American rainforest. And dust blown from China out over the Pacific Ocean tends to provide the micronutrients — especially iron — needed to cause phytoplankton blooms, which ultimately remove some carbon from the atmosphere.

 

In the freight a dust storm carries, there are also microscopic particles including spores, viruses and bacteria. Some scientists are beginning to believe they may be contributing to the spread of meningitis in Africa, asthma in the Caribbean and valley fever in California.

 

There is nothing to be done about the wind that stirs up dust storms and carries them around the globe. Nor is there anything immediate to be done about pervasive drought. But there is everything to be done about reducing the supply of dust by improving agricultural practices, including water management and restoring native cover in degraded, semi-arid regions of the world.

 

Reducing desertification — keeping the dust on the ground as soil, part of a stable, living ecosystem — will be a critical task faced by every country capable of raising the dust and every country where the dust eventually settles. That list includes most of the world.

 

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THE NEW YORK TIMES

OPED

THE VIEW FROM 1889

 

The Poughkeepsie-Highland Railroad Bridge, built in the late 19th century to link New York and New England to the coal beds of Pennsylvania and the West, is a marvel of Industrial Revolution engineering. It fills the sky over the Hudson River, a muscular lattice of trusses and struts on giant footings, a survivor from a long-gone era before bridge mediocrities like the Tappan Zee.

 

Anyone who has ever gazed on it from the riverbank and wondered what it was like to walk across will now be able to find out. It has just been opened to the public as Walkway Over the Hudson, the latest example of the new kinds of infrastructure — for tourism and recreation — that are reshaping the Hudson Valley.

 

The bridge was abandoned in the 1970s and sat for decades because it was too expensive to tear down. Volunteers made fitful efforts to repair it as a walkway, but the project took off only about five years ago with big infusions of ambition and money, including federal and state aid and a $2 million corporate grant. This year's 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's river trip helped push the $38 million project to completion.

 

The bridge is part of a bigger web of things to see and do up and down the Hudson River. There are trails and bike paths from both sides linking the nearby Mid-Hudson Bridge, downtown Poughkeepsie, and parks, historic homes and landmarks. To the many civic, environmental and historic organizations that look after the Hudson Valley — including Scenic Hudson, whose land acquisitions have given the region a wealth of public greenery — the bridge has two jobs: be lovely to look at (and from), and energize the economy.

 

The Henry Hudson anniversary sparked many plans for legacy projects, many of them — including land purchases as a bulwark against view-destroying sprawl — still unrealized. Maybe as the economic and aesthetic benefits of this once-dreamy, impractical vision — saving and fixing a big old bridge — become clearer, people will summon the will and means to dream even bigger.

 

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THE NEW YORK TIMES

OPED

DOES OBAMA GET IT?

BY BOB HERBERT

 

The big question on the domestic front right now is whether President Obama understands the gravity of the employment crisis facing the country. Does he get it? The signals coming out of the White House have not been encouraging.

 

The Beltway crowd and the Einsteins of high finance who never saw this economic collapse coming are now telling us with their usual breezy arrogance that the Great Recession is probably over. Their focus, of course, is on data, abstractions like the gross domestic product, not the continued suffering of living, breathing human beings struggling with the nightmare of joblessness.

 

Even Mr. Obama, in an interview with The Times, gave short shrift to the idea of an additional economic stimulus package, telling John Harwood a few weeks ago that the economy had likely turned a corner. "As you know," the president said, "jobs tend to be a lagging indicator; they come last."

 

The view of most American families is somewhat less blasé. Faced with the relentless monthly costs of housing, transportation, food, clothing, education and so forth, they have precious little time to wait for this lagging indicator to come creeping across the finish line.

 

Americans need jobs now, and if the economy on its own is incapable of putting people back to work — which appears to be the case — then the government needs to step in with aggressive job-creation efforts.

 

Nearly one in four American families has suffered a job loss over the past year, according to a survey released by the Economic Policy Institute. Nearly 1 in 10 Americans is officially unemployed, and the real-world jobless rate is worse.

 

We're running on a treadmill that is carrying us backward. Something approaching 10 million new jobs would have to be created just to get back to where we were when the recession began in December 2007. There is nothing currently in the works to jump-start job creation on that scale.

 

A massive long-term campaign to rebuild the nation's infrastructure — which would put large numbers of people to work establishing the essential industrial platform for a truly 21st-century American economy — has not seriously been considered. Large-scale public-works programs that would reach deep into the inner cities and out to hard-pressed suburban and rural areas have been dismissed as the residue of an ancient, unsophisticated era.

 

We seem to be waiting for some mythical rebound to come rolling in, magically equipped with robust job creation, a long-term bull market and paradise regained for consumers.

 

It ain't happening.

 

While the data mavens were talking about green shoots in September, employers in the real world were letting another 263,000 of their workers go, bringing the jobless rate to 9.8 percent, the highest in more than a quarter of a century. It would have been higher still but 571,000 people dropped out of the labor market. They're jobless but not counted as unemployed. The number of people officially unemployed — 15.1 million — is, as The Wall Street Journal noted, greater than the population of 46 of the 50 states.

 

The Obama administration seems hamstrung by the unemployment crisis. No big ideas have emerged. No dramatically creative initiatives. While devoting enormous amounts of energy to health care, and trying now to decide what to do about Afghanistan, the president has not even conveyed the sense of urgency that the crisis in employment warrants.

 

If that does not change, these staggering levels of joblessness have the potential to cripple not just the well-being of millions of American families, but any real prospects for sustained economic recovery and the political prospects of the president as well. An unemployed electorate is an unhappy electorate.

 

The survey for the Economic Policy Institute was conducted in September by Hart Research Associates. Respondents said that they had more faith in President Obama's ability to handle the economy than Congressional Republicans. The tally was 43 percent to 32 percent. But when asked who had been helped most by government stimulus efforts, substantial majorities said "large banks" and "Wall Street investment

companies."

When asked how "average working people" or "you and your family" had benefited, very small percentages, in a range of 10 percent to 13 percent, said they had fared well.

 

The word now, in the wake of last week's demoralizing jobless numbers, is that the administration is looking more closely at its job creation options. Whether anything dramatic emerges remains to be seen.

 

The master in this area, of course, was Franklin Roosevelt. His first Inaugural Address was famous for the phrase: "The only thing we have to fear. ..." But he also said in that speech: "Our greatest primary task is to put people to work." And he said the country should treat that task "as we would treat the emergency of a war."

Now that's the sense of urgency we need.

 

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THE NEW YORK TIMES

OPED

BENTHAM VS. HUME

BY DAVID BROOKS

 

I'd like to introduce you to two friends of mine, Mr. Bentham and Mr. Hume.

 

Mr. Bentham knows everything. He went to Stanford, then to the Kennedy school before getting a business degree. He's got multivariate regressions coming out of his ears, and he sprinkles C.B.O. reports on his corn flakes for added fiber.

 

Mr. Hume is very smart, too, but he doesn't seem to make much use of his intelligence. He worked on Wall Street for a little while, but he never could accurately predict how the market was going to move tomorrow or the day after that.

 

Mr. Bentham is a great lunch partner. If you ask him to recommend a bottle of wine, he'll reel off the six best vintages on the wine list, in ranked preference. Mr. Hume can't even tell you which entree to order because he doesn't know what you like.

 

If you put Mr. Bentham in charge of the government, he'd proceed with confidence. If you told him to solve a complicated issue like the global-warming problem, he'd gather the smartest people in the country and he'd figure out how to expand wind, biomass, solar and geothermal sources to reduce CO2 emissions. He'd require utilities to contribute $1 billion a year to a Carbon Storage Research Consortium. He'd draw up regulations determining how much power plants would be allowed to pollute.

 

He'd know about battery efficiency and building retrofit programs, and he'd give you a long string of dazzling proposals. So then you'd ask him to solve the health care mess.

 

He'd say we have to cover the uninsured without bankrupting the country. He'd design a set of insurance policy regulations to make sure everybody gets uniform care. He'd get out his magnifying glass and help pay for expanded coverage by identifying waste in Medicare.

 

Then, he'd say, we've got change the way government reimburses providers. He'd set up a $1 billion-a-year Innovation Center within the Department of Health and Human Services. He'd organize a superempowered Medicare commission to rewrite regulations and hold down costs. He'd set up comparative effectiveness research centers with teams of experts who would determine what treatments work best. He'd encourage doctors to merge their practices into efficient teams because he'd seen successful pilot programs along that line.

 

Mr. Hume, I'm afraid, wouldn't be so impressive. If you asked him to take on global warming, he'd pile up reports on the problem. But if you walked into his office after a few days, you'd find papers strewn in great piles on the floor and him at his desk with his head in his hands.

 

"I don't know the best way to generate clean energy," he'd whine, "and I don't know how technology will advance in the next 20 years. Why don't we just raise the price on carbon and let everybody else figure out how to innovate our way toward a solution? Or at worst, why don't we just set up a simple cap-and-trade system — with no special-interest favorites — and let entrepreneurs figure out how to bring down emissions?"

 

On health care, he'd be much the same. He'd spend a few days reading reports. Then one day you'd find him in

the fetal position, weeping. He'd confess that he doesn't know enough to reorganize a fifth of the economy. He

can't figure out which health care delivery system is the most efficient. "Why don't we just set up insurance exchanges with, say, 12 different competing policies? We'll let everybody choose a policy, and we'll let people keep any money they save. That way they can set off a decentralized cascade of reform, instead of putting all the responsibility on us here." And then Mr. Hume would beg you to leave him alone.

 

I've introduced you to my friends Mr. Bentham and Mr. Hume because they represent the choices we face on issue after issue. This country is about to have a big debate on the role of government. The polarizers on cable TV think it's going to be a debate between socialism and free-market purism. But it's really going to be a debate about how to promote innovation.

 

The people on Mr. Bentham's side believe that government can get actively involved in organizing innovation.

(I've taken his proposals from the Waxman-Markey energy bill and the Baucus health care bill.)

 

The people on Mr. Hume's side believe government should actively tilt the playing field to promote social goods and set off decentralized networks of reform, but they don't think government knows enough to intimately organize dynamic innovation.

 

So let's have the debate. But before we do, let's understand that Mr. Bentham is going to win. The lobbyists love Bentham's intricacies and his stacks of spending proposals, which they need in order to advance their agendas. If you want to pass anything through Congress, Bentham's your man.

 

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THE NEW YORK TIMES

OPED

A TEXAS-SIZED HEALTH CARE FAILURE

BY CAPPY MCGARR

 

THE Senate Finance Committee has for the moment rejected the idea of creating a public health insurance plan. It's difficult to see how Americans will be able to find good, affordable health insurance without one. But if we are to go forward without a public option, it is more important than ever to make sure that we get another part of health reform right: the exchanges, where it is envisioned that small businesses and people without employer-sponsored insurance could shop for policies of their own.

 

Back in the 1990s, I was the founding chairman of Texas' state-run purchasing alliance — an exchange, essentially — which ultimately failed. There are lessons to be learned from that experience, as well as the similar failures of other states to create useful exchanges.

 

The Texas Insurance Purchasing Alliance, created by the Texas Legislature in 1993, was meant to help small businesses, which often cannot afford coverage for their employees. (More than half of all uninsured Americans work for small businesses.) Small businesses are charged higher rates — on average 18 percent higher than those paid by large companies. And their administrative costs, built into those premiums, are typically as high as 25 percent of the premium, compared to only 10 percent for big companies.

 

Our system pooled small employers into purchasing groups large enough to obtain the lower wholesale insurance rates that big companies get.

 

Initially, the alliance worked exactly as planned. Sixty-three percent of the businesses that participated were able to offer their employees health coverage for the first time. The alliance offered small businesses a low-cost, nonprofit option: our administrative arrangements did away with the high marketing costs that insurers pass on to small businesses. And we didn't charge higher rates to firms with older or less healthy workers. This in turn led other insurers, outside the alliance, to lower their prices. We did all this not by creating a government bureaucracy, but by relying on the private sector.

 

Nevertheless, six years after the program got off the ground, it folded. Many factors contributed to our failure. Some elements of the program, like the restriction it put on the size of eligible companies (only employers with 50 or fewer employees could join), proved unpopular. In addition, the governor who helped create the alliance, Ann Richards, was replaced in 1995 by George W. Bush, who did not consider it a priority.

 

Most important, though, our exchange failed not because it wasn't needed, and not because the concept wasn't sound, but because it never attained a large enough market share to exert significant clout in the Texas insurance market. Private insurance companies, which could offer small-business policies both inside and outside the exchange, cherry-picked relentlessly, signing up all the small businesses with generally healthy employees and offloading the bad risks — companies with older or sicker employees — onto the exchange. For the insurance companies, this made business sense. But as a result, our exchange was overwhelmed with people who had high health care costs, and too few healthy people to share the risk. The premiums we offered rose significantly. Insurance on the exchange was no longer a bargain, and employers began backing away. Insurance companies, too, began leaving the alliance.

 

Texas wasn't the only state to see its insurance exchange fail. Florida and North Carolina were also unsuccessful. And California, which had the first exchange (established in 1992) and the largest market, shut its doors in 2006. All these state exchanges failed for the same reason: cherry-picking by insurers outside the exchange.

 

If Congress now creates new exchanges, as seems increasingly likely, it must prevent this phenomenon by setting two national rules: Insurers have to accept everyone and have to charge everyone the same rates regardless of health status.

 

Such rules would force insurers to spread risk. But enforcement would also be difficult. Every aspect of health insurance — from the rules for underwriting and setting premiums to the marketing of policies — would need to be monitored stringently to prevent companies from steering all bad risks to the exchanges.

 

It would be smarter for Congress to revisit the idea of creating a public plan that could provide an attractive choice for consumers and real competition for private insurers, to give them the incentive to offer good coverage at affordable prices.

 

But without a public plan, tough rules and restrictions on insurance companies will be essential. Otherwise, Americans will never be able to count on good, affordable health care.

 

Cappy McGarr, the president of a private equity firm, was the chairman of the Texas Insurance Purchasing Alliance from 1993 to 1995.

 

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 I. THE NEWS

EDITORIAL

 POWER CORRUPTS

 

To the surprise of nobody the Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervaiz Ashraf announced on Saturday after a meeting of the Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) that the installation of some rental power plants might be delayed. The reason for this he said was …"opposition by some political parties and investors' fear about political uncertainty in the country". So there we have it, and the much-trumpeted December end to loadshedding has now been relocated to the middle of next year, far enough away not to have to worry about in the frantic world of short-termism that masquerades as political management. We now face a minimum of nine more months wherein our productivity will continue to decline, the economy dives further into the red and businesses and other forms of commercial enterprise wither on the mildewed vines of the power supply system. In the light of the ministers comments we have to say we view with deep scepticism the possibility of an end to this ongoing disaster.

Quite apart from the loss of power and revenue, the government is inevitably going to see its stock fall but power crises have been with us from the beginning – India flicked the switch on us in 1947, but we were a society of villages rather than cities sixty-two years ago whereas today we are increasingly an urban population. Then a power cut meant little nationally. Today it is fuelling a seething public discontent that has already produced rioting in some places and it is reasonable to expect that security will deteriorate further as the power outages mount. The entire story of our powerlessness is hung about with the usual decoration of alleged corruption, profiteering, circular debt passing from agency to agency; and a long-term and durable solution is nowhere in sight. It has taken decades to wreck our power infrastructure, and it is going to take decades to put it back into working order. Whether the lid can be kept on the national anger that is currently coming to the boil is a moot point, particularly as there were raised expectations as a result of the 'no loadshedding by December' pledge. Once again it is our political establishment that has consistently failed us, and now brought us to the point where we are on our knees and in the dark. We imagine that the Taliban find our discomfort vastly amusing (if indeed they have a sense of humour) as well as very much to their advantage. Why waste bombs and bullets when the government is doing the job for us?

 

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I. THE NEWS

EDITORIAL

THE CUP AND THE LIP

As the saying goes, there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. Pakistan's hopes of lifting the Champion's Trophy were shattered by its semi-final loss to the Kiwis. The fact that Pakistan had been favoured to win added to the sense of distress experienced by followers of the game across the country. The giant screens installed at various locations and the parties thrown to enable friends to view the contest collectively also showed just how much significance good news from the sporting field has come to mean in a country where news has rarely been good over the past few years. Winning and losing are of course part of any game. This goes without saying. But what is true too is that the Pakistan team did possess the ability to defeat the Kiwis and could have prevented an all-Antipodean final. This ability though was almost never visible through the semi-final encounter. The 233 runs put together by a shaky batting line up were never likely to be enough. A vital catch dropped by the captain added to the difficulties.

Pakistan now needs to look to the future. Under Muhammad Younis we have seen a new fighting spirit in the team, a renewed willingness to strive together for success. But the contours of the team are still somewhat hazy. We need a clearly defined batting order and a stable opening pair. It is also true that extraordinary players produce the magic that can inspire teams at key moments. Today, the stars of the past are missing. We need to find a way to usher in players who can rise above the ordinary and produce the bowling spells and stints at the crease that can truly turn matches around on a more consistent basis. Suggestions are now pouring forth on how this can best be done. They must be considered and the best route forward picked.

 

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I. THE NEWS

EDITORIAL

HITTING THE INNOCENTS

 

Whoever bombed the World Food Programme office in Islamabad F8/3 knew that this was an organisation that had done more to help the people of Pakistan than almost any other UN agency. The WFP feeds people, it has no aggressive or warlike face and you would need a very warped view of the world to consider it a threat – or a target. At the time of writing there are four dead including a foreign national and between eight and fifteen wounded. There is some lack of clarity about the means of delivery of the bomb. Early reports talked of a suicide bomber, and then later reports suggested it was a parcel bomb and even later that it was a suicide bomber in a security company uniform who carried the parcel-bomb into the building.

The bomber breached some of the tightest security in the country within what is probably the most heavily guarded sector of the capital other than parliament itself. They were able to get a device into a building that all parties appear to agree had appropriate levels of security. Yet blast walls and razor wire and surveillance were not enough to stop the ultimate 'smart bomb', the thinking bomb that can talk its way past security guards and into the very heart of its target. Even without a claim of responsibility it is reasonable to assume that this was carried out by one of the several extremist groups currently laying siege to our society. They are a clever and sophisticated enemy who could possibly have sympathisers inside our defensive walls who will look the other way as the man with the bomb in the box saunters past. Ultimately, nothing and nowhere is 'safe' any more.

 

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I. THE NEWS

EDITORIAL

THE AFGHAN QUAGMIRE

RAHIMULLAH YUSUFZAI

The death of eight American soldiers in a Taliban attack in Kamdesh District in Afghanistan's north-eastern Nuristan province on October 3 could expedite the planned withdrawal of US-led coalition forces. This is already happening as there are reports that the beleaguered coalition troops have already pulled out from combat outposts such as Machadad Kot, Marghai and Rakha in Paktika and Khost provinces and from the strategic and dangerous, Taliban-infested Sato Kandao pass in Paktia.

In fact, the deaths could also bring urgency to the deliberations currently underway at the highest level of the Obama administration in Washington. President Barack Obama has been accused by his opponents of endangering the lives of American soldiers by delaying acceptance of the request by General Stanley McChrystal -- the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan -- for additional 30,000 to 40,000 troops to avoid defeat at the hands of the Taliban and other resistance groups.

The eight deaths, the heaviest US loss of life in a single battle since July 2008, when nine American soldiers were killed in a Taliban attack on an outpost in the same Nuristan province, could force Obama's hand and prompt him to sanction the dispatch of the required troops to Afghanistan. President Obama seems to be under tremendous pressure to accede to Gen McChrystal's request even though it is obvious that deployment of more troops in Afghanistan would neither cause Taliban defeat nor stabilise the war-ravaged country. Instead, Afghanistan would become a millstone for Obama and haunt him for the rest of his term.

The current US predicament reminds one of the Soviet dilemma in the 80s when the Red Army occupation troops in Afghanistan were pulled out of far-away military outposts to avoid further harm. When this policy was implemented, the Afghan countryside gradually fell into Mujahideen hands, the highways and roads linking cities became unsafe and the communist government of President Babrak Karmal and his successor President Dr Najibullah started weakening. This scenario could be repeated if the NATO forces were to pull back to better defended urban centres, thereby leaving most of the rural areas in southern and eastern Afghanistan in Taliban hands. This would also put to rest any remaining western hopes of winning the hearts and minds by interacting with the Afghan people and solving their problems to make their lives better than under the Taliban.

Few details of the daring assault by militants on the two outposts of the US Army and Afghan National Security Forces at Youmor in Kamdesh have emerged until now. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in a statement conceded that its eight soldiers were killed in the attack along with two Afghan troops. Subsequent reports said seven Afghan soldiers were killed and many other captured by the Taliban. As usual, conflicting figures were mentioned as the ISAF, Afghan government authorities and the Taliban made widely different claims regarding the number of casualties and the outcome of the fighting that continued for a day and night. The Taliban conceded the loss of four of their fighters only and injuries to another seven while a NATO spokesman claimed heavy enemy casualties in a fight-back by the US-led coalition forces. The Taliban also claimed that a number of foreign soldiers and 30 Afghan troops were killed and a huge quantity of weapons was seized. The Taliban said another 30 Afghan soldiers and policemen including the Kamdesh police chief, Shamsullah, were captured. They insisted the two outposts and the district headquarters were over-run by Taliban fighters while the NATO spokesman maintained that its forces were able to defend and retain control.

The NATO and ISAF spokesmen also tried to put a spin on the matter by saying the attackers came from a mosque and a village located on a hill opposite the military outposts. Such statements are meant to justify attacks on mosques and villages and there is every possibility that the mosque and village mentioned by the spokesmen would have been destroyed by now. The Afghan authorities put their own spin on the incident by claiming that the fighters who took part in the attack included militants who had been driven out of Swat. They even suggested that 700 assorted fighters affiliated with the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and Haqqani Network groups took part in the attack. Now we all know that the Pakistani Taliban fighters from Swat have been mostly killed and captured and the ones who managed to escape took refuge in Waziristan, Dir and other places. Some are still hiding in remote mountainous areas in Swat, Buner and Shangla, a fact conceded by civil and military authorities.

The Taliban motive for launching such a big attack in Nuristan could be part of a strategy to un-nerve western forces and governments at a time of crucial decision-making about the fate of their Afghanistan mission. Though one Afghan Taliban commander put it simply as a wish of their fighters to embrace martyrdom and inflict heavy losses on the enemy before the US forces pull back from remote and vulnerable military outposts to strongly-defended bases in big towns and cities, this cannot be the only explanation for the sudden Taliban rush to attack the enemy. The fact that Nuristan has experienced more such assaults is also important. The Taliban attack in Wanat in Nuristan in July 2008 was followed by another massive assault on Barg-i-Matal district in the same province. The district headquarter was captured and then reportedly retaken in a joint US-Afghan attack. Now there is this attack on Kamdesh, another stronghold of the Taliban and their allies in Nuristan.

It seems the Taliban want to capture a province to set up a permanent base, and Nuristan could be the ideal place if it were to fall in their hands. The Taliban have been capturing districts in different parts of southern, eastern and central Afghanistan and then giving up control in the face of relentless NATO bombing. Capturing Nuristan could also prove fatal as it would be heavily bombed by the US and NATO aircrafts. It is also possible that the Taliban have expedited their attacks after realising that the foreign troops are about to evacuate most of Nuristan, in particular the vulnerable military outposts near the border with Pakistan, and pull back to population centres in the neighbouring Kunar province.

The Taliban must also be familiar with history and would want to replicate it as it was in Nuristan and Kunar that the Soviet occupying forces and the Afghan Army suffered their initial defeats against the Afghan Mujahideen in the early 80s and began pulling back to Jalalabad. It was in Asmar in Kunar, which at the time was a larger province area-wise and included present-day Nuristan, that hundreds of Afghan soldiers surrendered to the Mujahideen and changed sides to fight against the Kabul regime and the Soviet troops. Both Nuristan and Kunar subsequently fell to the Mujahideen, who then began threatening Jalalabad, capital of the adjoining Nangarhar province. When the defeated Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan in February 1989, a major Mujahideen assault on Jalalabad was launched but Afghan Army soldiers loyal to President Dr Najibullah were able to defend the city. However, by 1992 the Afghan regime had become weak and Dr Najibullah agreed to the UN-brokered transition plan to step down. It is another matter that the Mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Masood and elements within the Afghan government sabotaged the UN power-sharing plan. The rest as they say is history as then began a period of Mujahideen in-fighting, which paved the way for the Taliban to seize power.

It is thus clear that the latest Taliban attack in Nuristan and the heavy death toll of US soldiers could have implications beyond this under-developed province that doesn't have any paved roads, hospitals or colleges. This could prompt the US government to send more troops to Afghanistan and ask its NATO allies to do so as well to cope with the Taliban threat. Already there are 103,000 foreign soldiers in Afghanistan and the addition of another 40,000 would take the total beyond the strength of the Soviet forces in Afghanistan at the peak of Moscow's ill-fated military campaign. This would mean more fighting, though it is doubtful if the military stalemate in Afghanistan could be broken. And then, after a few months the Obama administration could be carrying out another policy review and wondering what to do next to extricate itself from the Afghan quagmire.

The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar. Email: rahim yusufzai@yahoo.com

 

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I. THE NEWS

EDITORIAL

SUSTAINING THE WHEAT PRICE

DR ASHFAQUE H KHAN

Wheat is part of the staple diet of Pakistanis and is grown in almost every part of the country. It contributes nearly 13 per cent to the value added in agriculture and almost three per cent to GDP. It is for this reason that every government over the last five decades has announced a support price of wheat -- the price at which it buys from the farmers. Like its predecessors, the present government is going to announce the support price for the next wheat crop in early/mid-October.

The support price mechanism was advocated by development economists in the early 60s because, in their opinion, the prices of agricultural commodities were much lower than the prevailing international price. They argued that farmers should be given the international price of the commodity to increase production.

The support price mechanism for the wheat crop has lost its use because over the years, the domestic price of wheat has not only moved closer to the international price but has surpassed it by a wide margin. If the domestic price of wheat exceeds international price, both government and consumers are worse off. The country cannot export wheat unless the government provides export subsidies while consumers are forced to pay higher prices. In a developing country like Pakistan where wheat is a staple diet, keeping the domestic price of wheat higher than the international price is an unjust policy and highly detrimental to the well-being of low-income groups.

The support price of wheat has always benefited the large farmers (with above 12.5 acres of land), constituting only 12 per cent of the entire farming community. Small farmers (holding less than 12.5 acres of land, 88 per cent of total farmers) have little marketable surpluses and as such are always in dire need of cash not only to buy input for the next crop but to pay back what they have borrowed from formal and informal credit sources. Small farmers have little storage capacity and do not have access to procurement centres. Even if they have access, they face problems of grading, weights and delayed payments. Our procurement system is such that large marketable surpluses are procured which only the rich farmers can possess. It is in this background that the two most celebrated development economists – Professor A.K Sen (a Nobel Laureate) and Jean Dreze, have described support price as "nothing short of implicit mass murder." (Financial Times, February 28, 2001).

The support price has been rising over the last two decades but until 2007, the pace of increase has been moderate on an average. Whenever the support price was raised irrationally (of course, for political reasons), for example 39 per cent in 1996-97 and 25 per cent in 1999-2000, the prices remained unchanged for three and four years respectively, to neutralise its inflationary consequences. This practice has, however, changed over the last two years.

The present government has increased the support price of wheat at an unprecedented pace, increasing from Rs425/40 kg to Rs950 – an increase of 124 per cent over the last two years. Such an increase in the support price of wheat has caused serious socio-economic crises in the country.

Firstly, more than doubling of wheat prices have increased the price of flour equi-proportionately and put the fixed income groups under tremendous pressure. The commodity accounts for one-fourth of the total food expenditure. It is for this reason that whenever they find flour being sold at subsidised rates, they throng the area, stay in queue for hours in scorching heat, face humiliation and thrashing by the police. So should we further increase the price for the next season?

Secondly, it has been found empirically that support price of wheat is highly inflationary. A 10 per cent increase in its price would increase overall inflation by three per cent. One of the root causes of the recent surge in inflation was the reckless increase in its support price over the last two years. A high double-digit inflation forced the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to keep the discount rate at a higher level, resulting in a substantial increase in the cost of borrowing, discouraging investment, slowing economic growth and contributing to the rise in unemployment.

In the next couple of days, the government will decide whether or not the support price should be increased. My humble suggestion is that the government should freeze the support price at its current level for the next three years. This will neutralise its macroeconomic consequences on the one hand and allow the poor and fixed income groups to adjust themselves at the higher flour prices. It may be noted that the landed cost of imported wheat is Rs850/40 kg – much less than ours.

Something has gone fundamentally wrong in our agricultural policy. This country has seen a steep increase in the wheat price, Rs40 billion subsidies on fertilisers and no taxation on income derived from wheat production. This country has also seen a reckless increase in the price of wheat and the senseless subsidisation of flour and "roti", thus destroying provincial budget. This is nothing but the result of lack of governance. The sooner we improve governance, the better it is for the economy.

The writer is dean and professor at NUST Business School in Islamabad. Email: ahkhan@nims.edu.pk

 

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I. THE NEWS

EDITORIAL

A PERPLEXING MOVE

ASIF EZDI

The petition filed in the Lahore High Court (LHC) by the Punjab Government at the behest of the PML-N leadership for a postponement of the by-elections in the province on grounds of adverse law and order situation is not just surprising. It is perplexing. For the second time since the Supreme Court ruling of May 26, after a year-long legal battle by Nawaz Sharif, declaring him eligible for election to the National Assembly, the provincial government has requested a delay in polling. It is difficult to think of any political gain that the party can derive from this move. It is also deeply disturbing because it suggests that the leader of the principal opposition party is running away from his responsibilities.

Besides, it indicates a lack of respect for constitutional norms. There is no provision in the constitution allowing for any departure from the mandatory requirement that a by-election must be held within 60 days of a seat falling vacant. Moreover, under Article 218 of the Constitution, it is the duty of the Election Commission to organise and conduct elections. This includes the responsibility for deciding on the polling schedule. The federal and provincial governments are obliged, under Article 220, to assist the commission in holding elections but they have no say in deciding the dates.

The plea of unsatisfactory law-and-order situation is often invoked when the government in power wants to postpone elections for political reasons. The contention of the Punjab Government is that there is a risk to the "larger national interests, security of the state and safety of the individuals involved in the election process." This is hardly credible, as the situation is certainly better than it was at the time of the general election in February 2008 and is no worse than at the time of the last by-elections held in June last year.

Even if the situation was twice as bad as the government claims, that would not be sufficient reason to flout the constitution. The correct response would be to make proper security arrangements which can be provided by concentrating sufficient police and other personnel from the law-enforcing agencies. In India, parliamentary elections stretch over a period of several weeks to allow the deployment of police for the maintenance of law and order. Even in Occupied Kashmir, where the situation is far worse than in Pakistani Punjab, Delhi has been holding "elections" by posting additional police personnel.

The Punjab Government has also referred to reports from the federal government that the life of politicians taking part in the elections could be in danger. In seeking indirectly to justify the plea for postponement, Gilani too has spoken of threats to his own life and the lives of Nawaz and Shahbaz. This hazard no doubt exists but it also true that it is not likely to be eliminated soon. To accept it as a ground for postponing elections would mean saying good-bye to parliamentary elections for an indefinite time. It would also mean that the holding of elections can be held hostage by a small number of terrorists.

Last year, by-elections for about 38 seats were postponed by a compliant Election Commission first by two weeks and then by another two months – from June to August – on the grounds of a "deteriorating law and order situation" and because a new budget had to be presented in parliament and in the four provincial assemblies. It soon transpired that the two postponements had been made in compliance with requests from the Zardari Government.

The first postponement was announced on April 17, 2008 because Zardari was then contemplating contesting a National Assembly seat but stood disqualified because he did not fulfil the "graduation" condition. A constitutional petition for the annulment of this condition was pending at a time before the Dogar court -- the postponement gave it more time to invalidate this requirement, which it did duly on April 21, in time to make Zardari eligible for the election.

The second postponement was intended to delay the election of Shahbaz to the Punjab provincial assembly and to the post of chief minister, in order to gain time for Governor Taseer to put together a PPP-PML(Q) coalition in the province. At Zardari's prompting, his allies in the NWFP Government made a request for postponement. But the move backfired and the elections had to be rescheduled for late June.

This year, following the Supreme Court ruling declaring Nawaz eligible for election to the National Assembly, the Election Commission fixed June 30 for polling in NA-123 (polls for NA-55 had been scheduled for July 4). However, a few days later, the Election Commission postponed by-elections to both constituencies at the request of the Punjab Government. On September 15, without waiting for the concurrence of the Punjab Government, the Election Commission announced that polling for both the constituencies will take place on November 7. This has now been challenged by the provincial government.

While hardly anyone accepts the Punjab Government's contention that by-elections cannot be held because of the law-and-order situation, no plausible explanation has been found for the postponement request. Nor has the government indicated for how long the election will be delayed. Adding to the mystery is the fact that only nine days before the postponement request was filed, PML-N leader Nisar had said that the party would decide on its candidate for NA-55 the following week after Nawaz's return from Saudi Arabia. Nawaz has still not returned although more than two weeks have passed since then and there is no news of when he is coming back.

Whatever the true explanation for PML-N's wish to delay the by-elections, it has contributed to the perception that Nawaz is shying away from taking up the responsibilities of the leader of the opposition in the national assembly. Worse, his long absence from the country at a time of intense political debate on national issues of vital importance have given rise to the question whether he is up to the job of leading the country in a crisis. His complete silence after the meeting with Abdullah on September 14 has reinforced these doubts. Nawaz has also not spoken on the questions of back-channel dialogue with India on Kashmir or on access to civilian nuclear technology.

Nawaz still scores high in public opinion surveys but he owes it to the abysmal record of Zardari rather than his own performance as a national leader. Nearly two years after his return to the country from an imposed exile, Nawaz has yet to visit Sindh, Balochistan or southern Punjab. He has been unwilling to leave the safety of his cocoon in Raiwind and has again surrounded himself with the same group of acolytes, cronies and sycophants whose flawed and self-serving counsel brought about his downfall in 1999.

In a parliamentary system, the opposition is considered as the government in waiting. For more than a year, the leader of the largest opposition party was debarred from taking his seat in the National Assembly because of barriers put in place by Musharraf. This created a void at the centre of the parliamentary edifice. Now that the judiciary has removed those hurdles, Nawaz is inexplicably in no hurry to play his role. He remains the head of the party but is not providing it with leadership. PML-N is often described as a friendly opposition; it is now looking increasingly like a leaderless opposition.

 

The writer is a former member of the Pakistan Foreign Service. Email: asif ezdi@yahoo.com

 

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I. THE NEWS

EDITORIAL

RESTRUCTURING THE POWER SECTOR

PART I

SHAHID KARDAR

A common refrain in Pakistan today is that the role of the middle class and industry has been reduced to earning enough to pay WAPDA bills regularly so that it can stay afloat. The cost of doing business in Pakistan has been rising, affecting the competitiveness of the much-maligned domestic industry. In a highly liberalised import tariff regime industry continues to be under stress simply because of the high cost of energy provided by publicly controlled corporations.

Without trying to defend inefficient manufacturers one must ask that if prices of all major inputs of the manufacturing sector are administered by government-managed enterprises, how can private industry be expected to neutralise, entirely through its own efforts, the higher cost burden of the operational inefficiencies of these corporations? In this article I propose to take up the issue of the cost of one such input, electricity, the unit price of which for industry is one of the highest in the world. That it is the government's skewed resource mobilisation policy that further loads the electricity tariff structure with surcharges and withholding taxes and the distorted tariff structure whereby the bulk consumer, industry, pays a much higher tariff than domestic consumers (whereas it should be the other way around) are other matters that should be the subject of another discussion.

In Pakistan electricity is presently being priced well below the cost of service to less affluent domestic consumers (those consuming up to 300kwh) and farmers – at two-thirds of the average cost per unit (and whose consumption through tube-wells can also be overstated because of lack of metering). The other, more perennial issue is the increase in WAPDA's woes on not being able to pass on the rapidly rising international price of oil and our collective failure to exploit lower- cost alternatives like hydel and coal. With 60 to 65 per cent of the generation being oil-based, the cost of electricity in our homes works out to almost Rs16 per unit, the price of oil alone being Rs8 per unit today!

These factors, combined with overstaffing in WAPDA and the distribution companies which are unable to hold their staff accountable for electricity theft, the failure to get FATA and thousands of electricity consumers in Karachi to pay their dues, its misuse by the subsidised consumers (for example, farmers have changed cropping patterns and started cultivating water-intensive crops) and poor collections have resulted in commercial consumers, industry and domestic consumers in other parts of the country paying higher tariffs--to make up for the losses on these accounts.

The transmission and distribution losses on account of outdated equipment, technological backwardness, poor maintenance, theft and weak collection effort are being classified as "technical losses"; which, at more than 18 per cent for the Multan area, 21 per cent for Quetta, Peshawar 33 per cent and 35 per cent in case of KESC and Hyderabad, are among the highest in the world. This much publicised theft of electricity is, of course, carried out in collusion with staff of the distribution companies (DISCOs), especially in urban areas, by both the well-off and inhabitants of low income settlements and katchi abadis and by both large and small industrial units. All these issues are well known. But no one has the courage to tackle them, except to look towards the honest prosperous consumers to help these utilities cross-subsidise inefficiencies, theft and politicised populist tariffs chargeable to farmers and low-consumption households. The theft simply gets underwritten by a tariff increase: i.e., there is the privatisation of public theft! This is why WAPDA and KESC oppose consumers buying from others or from establishing facilities to meet their own electricity consumption requirements. To prevent this from happening these agencies either charge penal tariffs for using their transmission lines or levy a charge even when their transmission lines are not used.

Power-sector reforms involving foreign investors in power generation have been a costly outcome, largely because of the poor country image and a flawed policy framework. Not only has it been characterised by rent-seeking behaviour, investments have a huge debt component. The lenders want to reduce their risk and require assurance that the money being lent will be fully serviced and on a timely basis. For that they have sought the structuring of the power purchase agreements to guarantee a minimum level of sale of power units and payments of fixed charges (called capacity charge), even if the guaranteed quantities are not purchased, resulting in the transfer of both financial and market risks to the government. Seventy per cent of the tariff is a capacity payment (to be made whether WAPDA buys the power produced or not). This is presently being made to at least two companies which were, in one of the most stupid decisions ever made, committed provision of gas when there is little or no surplus of such a resource available, and which are literally lying idle and getting paid for not supplying any electricity, raising all kinds of doubts about the underlying motives for committing gas to them!

Even a cursory examination shows that, based on the guarantees announced by the government, investors will earn rates of return much higher than those being earned in other sectors, without them having to bear any risk. The returns built into the tariff structure have been truly excessive, especially in the case of the rental power projects--without, for the moment, entering into a discussion on the government's failure to manage and utilise existing capacities better by tackling the issues of the circular debt and the regular maintenance and upgrading of WAPDA's generation capacity prior to exercising the option for rental power.

(To be continued)The writer is a former finance minister of Punjab. Email: kardar@systemsltd.com

 

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I. THE NEWS

EDITORIAL

THE AFGHAN FALLOUT

PART I

DR MALEEHA LODHI

The writer is a former envoy to the US and the UK, and a former editor of The News.

There is a line in Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland which is relevant to the situation in which the US-led coalition finds itself in Afghanistan: "If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there".

The core strategic objective that the US seeks to achieve has been defined by President Obama as: "disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al-Qaeda". The question is whether to attain this objective, pursuing other goals are also necessary: fighting the Taliban and "nation building" in Afghanistan.

The choice for the west cannot be between cut and run from Afghanistan and an open-ended military engagement. Both are unfeasible and can be disastrous for the region.

An effort to pull out precipitously from Afghanistan would repeat the epic strategic error of the 1990s when the US abandoned that country to the chaos that in turn nurtured Al-Qaeda. But open-ended military escalation risks trapping the west, in a Vietnam-style quagmire: a war without end and with no guarantee of success.

Pakistan's stability has been gravely undermined by three decades of strife in Afghanistan. The twin blowback from the Soviet invasion 30 years ago and the unintended consequences of the 2001 US military intervention has created unprecedented security, economic and social challenges for Pakistan.

Pakistan's involvement in the long war to roll back the Russian occupation bequeathed a witches brew of problems including militancy and a huge number of refugees, two million of whom remain in Pakistan.

The 2001 intervention fuelled more militancy and ferment in the tribal areas. Installing a government in Kabul dominated by an ethnic minority also had deleterious effects. As the Afghan war was increasingly pushed across the border into Pakistan and Islamabad took action in its frontier regions, militants turned their guns on the Pakistani security forces.

It is easy to understand in this backdrop how militancy on both sides of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is interconnected. But it is also distinct in origin, goals and magnitude.

The conflict is connected first by common bonds of tribe and ethnicity; second, by the broad appeal of ideology; third, by links to Al-Qaeda and four, by the two-way cross border movement of insurgents who provide each other a degree of mutual support.

It is also distinct because; one, the Afghan Taliban is an older and more entrenched phenomenon with an organized command and control structure. Two, the Taliban have geographically a much broader presence in Afghanistan compared to the Pakistani Taliban whose support base is confined to only part of the tribal areas, which together constitute just 3 per cent of the country's territory and represent two per cent of the population. Three, they have greater confidence that they will prevail over a foreign force.

In contrast, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is a loose conglomeration of a dozen groups that primarily have local origins, motives, and ambitions. It lacks central command and control. Its core group led by Baitullah Mehsud has suffered a serious reversal by his death and the Pakistan military's aggressive actions to blockade and contain his followers in South Waziristan.

Most importantly public sentiment in Pakistan has turned decisively against the TTP, leaving the organization in a position to launch periodic suicide missions, but not expand its influence. Without public backing the Pakistani Taliban are in no position to extend their sway. But the continuing conflict in Afghanistan provides the TTP with its main motivation and legitimacy among its tribal support base.

Pakistan is in a better position than the coalition forces in Afghanistan to disrupt, contain and ultimately defeat its "Taliban", by building on the success of the recent operation in Swat and the tribal area of Bajaur. Within four months of the military action being launched, the Taliban have been driven out of Malakand and the writ of the government has been re-established.

This shows that Pakistan has the capacity to deal with militancy, but without the compounding complications engendered by the fighting across its border. It underscores the most important lesson of counter insurgency: indigenous forces are better able to undertake successful missions.

On the Afghan side, the US and coalition forces will face greater difficulties against the insurgency especially if the present strategy remain unchanged and when a fraud-stricken Presidential election in Afghanistan has denuded the country of a legitimate government.

One response being proposed in the US to this dire situation is a substantial surge of military forces. But to what end, at what cost and with what chances of success? History shows that the Soviet Union deployed 140,000 troops at the peak of its occupation but failed to defeat the resistance.

If the central objective is to disrupt and defeat Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan's border region can this be achieved through a military escalation? Even if the stated aim is to protect the population, more troops will mean intensified fighting with the Taliban.

But Al Qaeda can only be neutralized in Afghanistan and in the border region with Pakistan if it is rejected by and ejected from the Taliban "sea" in which it survives. This urges a strategy to separate the two movements by military, political and other means. Military escalation will push the two closer and strengthen rather than erode their links.

There are three possible scenarios for what could happen in Afghanistan:

1) Military escalation: This will inevitably be directed at the Taliban and will evoke even more hostility from the country's Pashtun-dominated areas and closer cooperation between Al-Qaeda and the Taliban thereby further impeding the core objective of eliminating Al-Qaeda. Although the Taliban do not represent all Pashtuns, they do exploit Pashtun grievances and use the foreign presence as a recruitment tool.

If history is a guide in this graveyard of empires, a military solution is also unlikely to succeed for several reasons:

i) The enhanced military forces will still be insufficient to 'hold' the countryside: independent estimates suggest that the Taliban now have a permanent presence in over 70 per cent of Afghanistan. If Moscow with 140,000 troops supported by a more professional Afghan army of 100,000 could not succeed against the Mujahideen, why should it be any different now?

ii) Escalation will inevitably lead to mounting European/American casualties, which will erode further public support in the west. The insurgents can absorb higher losses and fight on. Pakistan has incurred 7,500 casualties among its security personnel (dead and injured). Can western forces envision such heavy losses and sustain public support?

iii) The economic cost of the war will also escalate. Will western parliaments pre-occupied with economic recovery agree indefinitely to defray the growing costs of an unending Afghan war?

iv) Escalation will likely intensify rivalries among the neighboring powers in a region where a subterranean competition is already in play. Pakistan's concerns about India's role in Afghanistan are well known.

As for the impact on Pakistan, further military escalation on its border is fraught with great risk. The threat of instability will grow not diminish, for many reasons.

i) It will likely lead to an influx of militants and Al Qaeda fighters into Pakistan and an arms flow from across the border.

ii) Enhance the vulnerability of US-NATO ground supply routes through the country as supply needs will likely double. This will create what military strategists call the "battle of the reverse front". Protecting these supply lines will also over stretch Pakistani troops.

iii) It could lead to an influx of more Afghan refugees which can be especially destabilizing in Balochistan.

iv) A surge in Afghanistan can produce a spike in violent reprisals in mainland Pakistan.

v) Most important, intensified fighting and its fallout, could erode and unravel the fragile political consensus in Pakistan to fight militancy.

 

This article has been adapted from testimony given by the writer to the Foreign Relations Committee of the US Senate.

(To be continued)

 

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I. THE NEWS

EDITORIAL

KERRY-LUGAR

MIR JAMILUR RAHMAN

The Kerry-Lugar Bill will soon be presented to President Obama for his assent. Political commentators and economic wizards in Pakistan are opposing it tooth and nail. "The Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009" envisages US provision of assistance worth $7.5 billion for economic and social uplift, over five years at $1.5 billion a year. The criticism largely is that by accepting this assistance Pakistan will lose its sovereignty.

The bill will increase non-military aid to Pakistan threefold. To be sure, helping America in its war on terror, which is also our war, is paying good dividends to Pakistan. Vice President Joe Biden has said that this financial package demonstrates that the US is not a fair-weather ally but an all-weather friend of Pakistan. This is an oblique reference to the United States' leaving Pakistan in a lurch immediately after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan,

Before we take up the issue of Pakistan's sovereignty, a little exercise would be in order to fathom the size of the amount proposed to be given to Pakistan as assistance in the non-military sector. The annual assistance of $1.5 billion translates to Rs124.5 billion. The total package for five years will be a colossal amount of Rs622.5 billion. There is a silver lining to this package of $7.5 billion. Pakistan will receive this amount as a grant and not as a loan, which had to be returned with interest. The commentators have generally failed to mention this all-important point.

Sovereignty denotes that the country is free and independent, commanding control over its destiny. However, a country which is submerged up to its neck in debt, which Pakistan is, cannot be 100 per cent sovereign. Nor can it dictate terms entirely to its own liking. President Zardari and his able team spent nearly a week in the USA lobbying for the passage of the Kerry-Lugar Bill on the best possible terms. The outcome of its efforts is amazing: $1.5b per year for the next five years, not as a loan but as an outright grant for the social uplift of the poor.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has also opposed assistance under the Kerry-Lugar Bill as negation of the country's sovereignty. He has opined that any amount of foreign assistance at the cost of the freedom and prestige of the country is unacceptable to the proud people of Pakistan. We have already sold a part of our sovereignty for the loans amounting to about $55 billion. Yes, we can stop the IMF eating our sovereignty bit by bit; we can have our sovereignty back by clearing our huge debts.

Pakistan has incurred heavy losses by supporting the American war on terror, which is our war also. If our forces had not acted swiftly, the Taliban would have reached Margala Hills, encircling Islamabad. The people of Swat valley were forced to vacate their homes to help the Pakistan security forces to flush out the terrorists from that region. It is expected that our forces will launch more such operations to eliminate the Taliban threat completely. The Kerry-Lugar Bill is in fact a token of US appreciation for the fruitful efforts of Pakistan security forces against the Taliban.

It is in the interest of Pakistan that NATO force remained in Afghanistan until full peace is secured. It is evident now, supported by an American military commander, that India is busy building a large network of consulates and bases in Afghanistan to destabilise Pakistan when Americans are gone. Pakistan therefore is required to make a choice between American and Indian dominance. There is another choice also but it appears remote and unworkable at the moment: mend fences with India.

 

Email: mirjrahman@hotmail .com

 

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PAKISTAN OBSERVER

EDITORIAL

OIC'S WELCOME INTEREST IN KASHMIR

 

THE decision of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to appoint a special envoy on Kahsmir is indeed a step in the right direction, as this would help create salutary environment for resolution of the long-standing dispute. It is in this backdrop that Chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Omer Farooq has described it as a substantial achievement, pointing out that it was for the first time that something concrete has come out of an international conference.

The OIC has always supported efforts for just solution of the dispute and that is why it has been year after year adopting unanimous and strong resolutions on the issue. However, appointment of the special representative is reflective of its desire to play an active role towards this end. Indian opposition to OIC moves notwithstanding, it is quite obvious that once appointed, the special representative will have frequent and deeper interaction with all stakeholders and come out with comprehensive and in-depth reports on different aspects of the issue for consideration by the relevant OIC forums. Visits to the region, engagement with people concerned and preparation of the reports and recommendations by the special envoy would surely go a long way in highlighting the plight of the Kashmiri people and expose Indian machinations. The OIC move is also significant in the background of intensive propaganda campaign by India to portray the just freedom struggle of Kashmiri people as terrorist movement. The decision proves that the elite body representing about 1.3 billion Muslims rejects Indian position. This is also in line with the very raison d'etre of the 54-member OIC, which was formed to safeguard and promote interests of the Muslim world. We believe that OIC has the necessary potential to play a decisive role in regional and international politics provided its members pursue its goals with the required zeal, sincerity and unity. India would understandably create hurdles in the way of the special envoy but we are confident that the initiative would help achieve the desired objectives. While appreciating the OIC, we should gear our efforts to convince other international and regional bodies and groups like UN and EU to appoint their own special representatives on Kashmir to demonstrate their commitment to peace and security in South Asia.

 

 

 

 

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PAKISTAN OBSERVER

EDITORIAL

TO REGAIN LOST GLORY OF TEACHERS

 

LIKE other parts of the globe, the World Teachers' Day was also observed officially in Pakistan on Monday with a view to highlighting the role and recognizing the enviable status that the teachers are supposed to enjoy in a civilized society. In the past too, 'Salam Teachers' Day' was observed featuring events that ostensibly indicated keen interests of the President and the Prime Minister in ameliorating the lot of the teachers but regrettably we still stand in the beginning of the journey to give teachers their due place in the society.

This year too both President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani have released formal messages urging all stakeholders, civil society organizations and the people to play their role in restoring the teaching profession to its pristine glory and serve the cause of education and enlightenment. But their appeals are devoid of substance, as situation on the ground is quite contrary to the claims and commitments of those at the helm of affairs. In the first instance, the emphasis of the messages is on educationists to serve the cause of education whereas the Government has easily skipped mentioning its responsibility towards that end. Secondly, mere tall claims would not change the course until and unless practical measures are taken to improve the lot of the teachers as well as to enhance the standard of education, which obviously requires allocation of necessary resources for the purpose. Progress and development are directly linked to the level and standard of education of a nation, which in turn demands a committed and satisfied corps of teachers. But here salaries of the teachers are lowest and attract only those who find no other job. We hope that Pay and Pension Commission, headed by a competent professional like Dr Ishrat Hussain, would come out with necessary recommendations in this regard and the Government would sincerely implement them. There are also a number of public sector educational institutions where teachers are not given even the appointment letters. This practice needs to be discouraged and teachers of these institutions must be regularized to boost their sense of security. Majority of private sector institutions are also exploiting teachers and strict monitoring mechanism should be evolved to safeguard their rights and interests.

 

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PAKISTAN OBSERVER

EDITORIAL

ATTACKS WITH ROCKET LAUNCHERS AT LYARI POLICE

 

IT is unimaginable in a civilized society that gangs of criminals not only keep on flourishing but also manage to maintain dumps of arms and are better equipped than the Police and other law enforcement agencies. The incidents of day-long gun battles in Karachi city's backward and congested locality of Lyari on Sunday where the gangsters lobbed rockets and grenades at the Police Station and killed two Police officials who were part of the team sent to apprehend the culprits, indicate that sophisticated weapons are around everywhere and there is no will or capacity on the part of the authorities to check them.

This was not the first incident of indiscriminate use of modern weapons in Lyari or for that matter in Karachi. As and when the Police tries to take action against the criminals, they retaliate with ruthless use of weapons and even join hands for their collective cause. Lyari is known to be housing diverse gangs engaged in smuggling of drugs, arms, extortion and even police is aware of those heading them but every government avoided action against them. Because of inaction against gun running mafia, criminal and anti-social elements freely get sophisticated arms and resultantly the country today is witnessing lawlessness everywhere. We may stress upon the authorities to ponder as to how these criminals are able to smuggle in sophisticated weapons and the intelligence agencies, having thousands of staffers fail to check that. Either it is failure of the agencies or there are some black sheep corroborating with the drugs and arms mafias and playing with the destiny of the country. Turning to Lyari firing, we would impress upon the authorities that the campaign against these criminals must go on till its logical conclusion otherwise in future no police official would be ready to go after these outlaws and taking clue from Karachi, gangsters could spring up all over the country and in that case it would be difficult to handle them as we are witnessing in FATA.

 

 

 

 

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PAKISTAN OBSERVER

EDITORIAL

THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE ON EARTH

MOHAMMAD JAMIL

During early 1950s, eminent philosopher Bertrand Russel in an essay titled "The future of mankind" had written that before the end of the century, unless something quite unforeseeable occurred, one of three possibilities would have realized. The first one was the end of human life or all life on the planet as a result of war, and then as a consequence hunger, starvation and disease. The second was reversion to barbarism in view of the first one, and third one was unification of the world under a single government, possessing a monopoly of all the major weapons of war". But since then India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea have tested nuclear devices, and are nuclear powers with credible delivery systems; hence monopoly of major weapons of war for any country is impossible. The philosopher had however hoped that when America will emerge 'victorious', it would play its role to resolve the conflicts between belligerent nations.

There is no denying that today Kashmir, Palestine and Taiwan are three flashpoints. China has steadily gained the position that like Hong Kong one day Taiwan would also fall in the lap of China. Nevertheless, India and Pakistan - nuclear states – could collide one day if Kashmir issue is not resolved. And this makes South Asia as the most dangerous place on earth. Already in 1993 five years before India and Pakistan came out of nuclear closet in May 1999, Central Intelligence Agency Director had said: "The arms race between India and Pakistan poses perhaps the more probable prospect for future use of weapons of mass destruction including nuclear weapons". Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch author of 'The Clinton tapes: Wrestling with the president' claimed in his book that during Kargil conflict in 1999 Indian leaders had portrayed a doomsday scenario to the then president Bill Clinton that in the event of an Indo-Pak nuclear war India will emerge as the ultimate winner after wiping off Pakistan but could lose up to 500 million of its people.

The author claims that Clinton told him that "New Delhi would nuke Pakistan annihilating the entire country, if anyone in Islamabad triggered the nuclear bombs against it". He quoted Bill Clinton having disclosed in private that Indian officials spoke of knowing roughly how many nuclear bombs the Pakistanis possessed, from which they calculated that a doomsday nuclear volley would kill 300 to 500 million Indians while wiping out all 120 million Pakistanis. But on the other side, the Pakistanis insisted that their rugged mountain terrain would shield more survivors than the exposed plains of India. Indian leadership had tried to convey message of threat through the then US president Bill Clinton, but Pakistan being a nuclear state was not cowed down by India's jingoism and threats. Though Pakistan has kept the option of 'first use' of nukes open, yet it has never hurled threats that it would use them. However, efforts are made to create doubts about the safety of Pakistan's nukes, but Pakistan has a foolproof command and control system.

Pakistan has also proved many a time that it is a responsible state. Signing of treaty to reduce the risk of a nuclear arms accident with India is a case in point. In fact, the nuclear tests in May 1998 by India and Pakistan had forced both the countries to think hard about nuclear deployment, and to talk to each other about ways to reduce the risk of war as well as accidents. However, there is a trust deficit because India's stance on every issue is reflective of its patent intransigence. It appears that Indian leadership is not coming out of the big-power syndrome and feels that India does not need any help from Pakistan in any field, though it is craving to have transit facility to trade with Afghanistan and Central Asian Republics. Indian leadership seems to suffer from megalomania to do big things and become a dominant power in the region, which is next to impossible in the presence of China.

Anyhow, India's arrogance and attitude have stymied the progress in enhancing trade between the SAARC countries, as almost all member-countries are wary of India's ambition of extending hegemony over its neighbours. The fact remains that having a sound industrial base India stands to gain more from the cordial relations with the SAARC countries. Therefore it is in India's interest to showcase decency and give practical demonstration of dealing neighbouring countries on equal basis. However, the US and the west are to blame because they continue eulogizing India being the largest democracy while turning a blind eye to India's maltreatment with its minorities and machinations against its neighbouring countries. The US and western countries have an egregious record of displaying double standards on many an occasion - one for their strategic partners and the other one for those who refuse to fall in line with them to promote their interests.

India and Pakistan are outside the global Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and have tested nuclear arms but after the US-India deal for so-called civil nuclear technology the 45-nation nuclear export cartel approved a waiver to its rules allowing trade with India. It was obvious from the Indo-US agreement that India can increase from its current production capacity of six to 10 additional nuclear bombs a year to several dozen per year. It goes without saying that India already has enough material for some 60 to 100 nuclear bombs. In this backdrop, Pakistan is likely to match India's capability in the name of minimum deterrence, while China may also reconsider its fissile production halt for weapons. There is a perception that by concluding a nuclear deal with India, the previous US administration allowed business and political interests to trump up the national security interests of the United States.

Besides, creating asymmetry in South Asia, the US-India nuclear trade legislation had granted India the benefits of being a member of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty without requiring it to meet all of the responsibilities expected of responsible states. India had remained outside the international nuclear mainstream since it misused Canadian and US nuclear assistance to conduct its 1974 nuclear bomb test; refused to sign the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, and conducted additional nuclear tests in 1998. India had been cut off from most US civilian nuclear assistance since 1978 and international assistance since 1992 because of these violations. It was felt that India's willingness to open some nuclear reactors for international inspection in return for the deal was not enough, as the agreement allowed it to keep its extensive and secret nuclear weapons and materials production complex off-limits. By adopting the nuclear bill, Congress had disregarded the provisions that would have required commitments from India to restrain its production of nuclear weapons and nuclear bomb material.

On the other hand, the US had refused to ink similar deal with Pakistan - an old strategic ally that was intertwined with the US and the West in various pacts. Anyhow, the way the US has treated a friend that stood by its allies for about half-a-century, is deplorable. In this backdrop, it is imperative that Pakistan should undertake a major review of its foreign policy, and reassess our national interest in the changed post-cold war scenario, as the US continues with its policy that has led to asymmetry in the subcontinent by providing India with latest technology and equipment. And this policy is bound to make the Kashmir issue more complicated. In fact, die of strategic partnership with India was cast during Bill Clinton era, when paradigm shift in American policy started. During his visit to India at the fag end of his presidency, Bill Clinton had given hope to Indian leadership that the US would help India in making it a global power.

 

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PAKISTAN OBSERVER

EDITORIAL

THE FUSS OVER KERRY-LUGAR BILL

SAEED QURESHI

Why there is so much fuss over Kerry-Lugar Bill? In media and elsewhere, the dark and damning ramifications of this bill are being weighed against the sovereignty and national honor of Pakistan. Ironically, if the bill had not been approved, there would have been a horrendous outcry and this would have been interpreted as a failure of an unpopular government. So the people are never happy: one way or the other. There was a long wait with prying eyes for this bill to see the light of day and when finally it has been processed, an adverse backlash is unleashed against it. There is nothing wrong with Kerry Lugar. Rather it is a timely help and a blessing in disguise. It's an aid package that is essentially different from all such previous aid baskets. It is drastically toned down in its language and contents. The periodic certification by the Secretary of State about the satisfactory performance of Pakistan is not a big deal. If America is giving so much of money to Pakistan, doesn't she have a right to ask how this money was being spent and was it expended on the stipulated targets?

Suppose what could have been Pakistan's plight, if it was under attack by the radical religious outfits and there was no one around to help? Without enough financial resources the whole of Pakistan would have come under the murderous sway of Taliban. Like Swat or Afghanistan under Taliban, in the Islamic state of Pakistan too, the hands of the thieves would be chopped off and the women folk s to be whipped in public. The schools of the girls would be closed, the modern information and music gadgets smashed, the shop owners beheaded and the traders of such businesses hanged in squares or deprived of one of their body limbs. This is not an imaginary fearsome scenario or a mere macabre fantasy. It would have been a sordid fact of life as we have seen, in not too distant past, such gory situations, prevailing in Afghanistan and a part of Pakistan. The unrelenting armed clashes between the frenzied religious militants and the Pakistan army would be a foregone outcome. The army has its limits of fighting. It would be worn down by interminable skirmishes with the hit and run shooters, spread all over Pakistan. Jamat-e-Islami and other religio-political parties that oppose cooperation between United States cooperation are deceitful and backdoor friends of America. When, at the behest of the West, they were mobilizing the whole Islamic world to fight, against the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, they had no such hiccups for Islam and integrity of Pakistan. Now when they are out of that mercenary and henchman's game, they see a smelling rat in Pakistan's collaboration with the United States. Pakistan all along, has never been, in an unenviable position. Thanks to the lack of visionary, courage and patriotic leadership, Pakistan never rose above the flak of being a corny of the United States. Unfortunately, the impression of subservience and toadyism that remained tagged with Pakistan in relation to America has seldom been erased. The mutual relations between the two countries have generally remained clouded by suspicion and love-hate syndrome.

But viewing the current mode and tenure of relationship between America and Pakistan, it is safer to infer that, of late, United States seems to be treating Pakistan as a trusted ally and the misconceptions of the past appear to be evaporating. With the stunning victory that Pakistan has scored against the Taliban in northern valleys, the level of American trust with regard to Pakistan has risen. The situation in Afghanistan is getting worse with the time passage. The casualties of the NATO forces and those of American troops are on the rise. If Pakistan can rein in or check the Taliban and Al-Qaeda's insurgency in the tribal belt bordering on Afghanistan then Pakistan would further conclusively establish its credibility as an effective counter-poise against the radical militants. If areas such as North and South Waziristan are cleared of Taliban and other similar fanatics then America would be left with no tenable reason to blame Pakistan for duplicity or charade against Taliban and their protégé Al-Qaida. That was an accusation against former president Mushrraf for running with the hare and hunting with the hound.

Taliban. Maulana Fazalur Rehman the chief of JUI, a religio-political political party has made an offer to make peace between Taliban and Pakistan. If that happens and if a process of pacification between Taliban and Pakistan is set in motion, Pakistan as well as United States would be utterly redeemed and spared from a calamity. Those elements in Pakistan who plead antagonizing America forget the case of Libya. Libya under revolutionary Qaddafi had to pay a very heavy price for posing herself as a bulwark against the western imperialism. It was declared as a pariah state and remained cut off with the rest of the world for pretty two decades. Iraq is another example. Pakistan could have become another example of devastation and pillage by ruthless imperialist onslaught. The fundamental stark reality to comprehend is that the current times are in favor the technologically advanced and economically prosperous nations. Going against them is like going against the strong current in a stormy ocean. The appeasement strategy of Zardari towards the friendly and hostile nations alike is rewarding both in the long and short terms.

If we cannot act as the new-born revolutionaries nor have we the means to stand our ground, then the most prudent policy is to draw maximum benefit out of an intractable situation as the one Pakistan is currently faced with. Pakistan's pressing problems are all internal. Poverty, illiteracy, lawlessness, unemployment, the upsurge of religious militancy, health, water, a downgraded social and civic life, the ineffectual governance, the institutional breakdown, the mediocrity of the politicians and lack of or slow economic development are the major issues that have to be addressed post haste.

If we want to prove ourselves as honorable and independent people then we have to first put our own house in order. The world is moving towards universal understanding. The ideological differences and divisions are the legacies of the past. Pakistan has to be peaceful and embark upon a rapid economic development revolutionary course. Only then can Pakistan unfetter itself from the bonds of external aid and concomitant condionalities attached to foreign largesse.

 

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PAKISTAN OBSERVER

EDITORIAL

INDIA'S FAKE ENCOUNTERS & SPURIOUS DOSSIERS

MOMIN IFTIKHAR

The chilling exposure of a five year old fake encounter involving a teenage Muslim girl and her four colleagues including her fiancée, executed by the Gujarat Police has served to bare what is becoming norm in the current day India; killing of innocent persons as operatives of Lashkar-e-Toiba and then using the cooked up evidence to brandish the 'cross border terrorism' thesis. Fortuitous for Pakistan, the revelations came about at a time when the Indian Home Minister Mr. C Chidambaram was visiting US corridors of power trying to convince the US politico security establishment that Pakistan's reluctance to prosecute Hafiz Saeed on basis of the evidence chronicled in the Indian Dossier on Mumbai terrorism (26/11) had turned out into a stumbling block in India's quest for an enduring peace with Pakistan. With such exposures coming about with increasing frequency, one hopes that the revelations must have caused Chidambaram's US hosts to hear out his impassioned rhetoric regarding the credibility of the Indian Dossiers (currently sixth edition with Pakistan) with the much needed pinch of salt that they deserve.

Nineteen years old Ishrat Jehan belonging to Mumbra suburb in Thane district was a second year B Sc student at Mumbai's Guru Nanak Khalsa College and sole bread earner for her eight member family of including her widowed mother and six siblings. The family was shocked to hear of her death in a police encounter with Gujarat Police on 15 Jun 2004 along with three – Javed Sheikh, her fiancée and two others who were declared as Pakistani citizens. The Police then claimed that the four were members of a LeT module and were on a mission to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to avenge his role in the Muslim pogrom of 2002.

The impoverished family was traumatized; not only for losing the eldest daughter and a source of economic sustenance but also becoming a target of the society for having terrorist leanings. The circumstances of Ishrat's death were improbable in the extreme. Consequently in 2004, Ishrat's mother filed a petition in the high court, demanding death compensation resulting from a fake encounter and a probe by the CBI to clear her daughter's and the family name. After five long years an enquiry conducted by the Ahmadabad metropolitan Magistrate, S.P.Tamang has ultimately brought vindication for the innocent victims. According to the magisterial report, the Crime Branch Police kidnapped Ishrat and the three others from Mumbai on Jun 12, 2004, brought them to Ahmadabad and killed them in cold blood on Jun 14 in a fake encounter for personal advancement and to get appreciation of the Gujarat Chief Minister. Magistrate Tamang said that there was no evidence to link Ishrat Jehan and the others victims with LeT or Pakistan and that there was nothing to establish that the group had "come" to assassinate Mr. Narendra Modi.

The exposure of Gujarat Police's fake encounter served to focus spotlight on another facet of India's 'cross border terrorism' charade – the spurious inputs provided by Indian intelligence agencies in building up a case regarding Pakistan's involvement in incidents of major terrorism occurring in India. As it happened, a month before Tamang's enquiry released its findings, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) filed an affidavit with the High Court, reflecting Intelligence Bureau's (IB) input in the Ishrat Jehan case. The affidavit was MHA's response to avert a plea by Ishrat's mother in the high court to institute a separate CBI inquiry in to the fake encounter. Unbeknown to its authors, highly superficial contents of the affidavit, were to be effectively undercut by the yet to be released findings by the metropolitan Magistrate.

Filed before the Gujarat High Court by an undersecretary of the MHA, on 6 August, the affidavit falsely asserts that Ishrat and her colleague were indeed LeT operatives; implying that the encounter by the Gujarat Police was genuine. While the accusations of being LeT operatives contained in the Affidavit were damning for those accused , the document provided no supporting evidence to sustain charges; reflecting poorly on the abysmal competence and criminal negligence of the Indian intelligence agencies. The CBI's partisan support for Gujarat Police' fake encounter has turned into an embarrassment for the Manmohan Singh Government which finds itself at the receiving end from Narendra Modi. The wily Gujarat Chief Minister now claims that the fake encounter was in fact prompted by the tip-off received from the CBI, an implement of the Union Government. This has drawn response from the Indian Home Minister Mr. Chidambaram on lines which are close to Pakistan's pique over the lack of actionable intelligence in Indian Dossiers. "You cannot read into it what it does not say. I think it is self evident that intelligence inputs are not evidence, much less conclusive proof. They are just inputs. They are shared with [state] governments on regular basis. That is not evidence. That is not conclusive proof," he argued.

Mr Chidambaram's exasperation with Narendra Modi's cheeky stance notwithstanding, this is exactly what Pakistan has been desperately trying to put across in response to the 26/11 related Dossiers. Exposure of the fake encounter in which young Ishrat lost her life has become a poignant demonstration of how the intelligence – Police combine in India acts in tandem to create the ghosts of 'cross-border-terrorism' and attribute highly exaggerated capabilities to LeT in India. It provides an understanding as to how India's intelligence infrastructure churns up spurious evidence to fill the dossiers that India brandishes with such confidence and authority at Pakistan to support its claims of country's complicity in terrorist incidents ala 26/11. It also provides an insight as to how India's political fixation over fake encounters and spurious evidence is becoming a recipe for long term disaster whereby its intelligence agencies, with their devil-may-care approach are creating a backlash among minorities who in desperation are turning to acts of terrorism in an increasing frequency. The conclusion that blaming Pakistan for its home grown terrorism is simply not going to work out is finally emerging as the proverbial writing on the wall for India to read in good time and digest - if it is really serious in tackling the menace of terrorism in the Indian hinterland.

 

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PAKISTAN OBSERVER

EDITORIAL

HOSTING TROUBLES, ANTICIPATING PEACE

I A PANSOHTA

During the last couple of weeks, the political weather of the subcontinent fluctuated but its decisive shift is still at the mercy of intentions. History of 62 years has taught its South Asian neighbors' New Delhi's regional governance. It was not any surprise when India claims about Pakistan training its terrorists to launch another strike like Mumbai, In addition, New Delhi's rhetoric of acting on her dictates and fulmination over Hafiz Saeed's release from Police custody are moot point which it uses to pave the way for unleashing blame game. On the other hand Pakistan has not been able to win the global approval what all the ground realities bespeak themselves.

The enigmatic suicide bombing which set the whole country on fire is being suspected handiwork of some evil nexus brought some relief to the peace hungry Pakistan after the death of Baitullah Mahsud, reciprocated by his TTP successor Hakimullah but recent elections in Afghanistan again paint a pessimistic picture about Pak-Afghanistan relations. The current uneasy calm is riddled with many risks but little rewards. What most Pakistanis believe, India is actively playing its cards to cause as much damage to Pakistan, as it could in the garb of a loyal ally of the US in her 'War on Terror'. In the recent past, Mumbai fiasco has given birth to a number of new evils as some of the Indian leaders started blowing hot and cold over the joint communiqué of Sharm El-Sheikh. It was a positive development to bring India on the negotiation table and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's nod to discuss ongoing troubles in Baluchistan being fomented and actively abetted by India, through her consulates in Afghanistan Such a dialogue process would have helped to wipe out the mess of misunderstanding or setting our houses in order, had India demonstrated and acted in logical manner by accepting this offer. It has been witnessed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was either compelled or he himself was convinced to take a round turn, anticipating some domestic backlash. Exchange of baseless allegations infringed either the joint communiqué or the verbal assurances between the two leaders lost their appeal for a durable peace. In the background of Dr. Singh's latest statement that "it has been and remains our consistent position that starting point of any meaningful dialogue with Pakistan is a fulfillment of their commitment, in letter and spirit, not to allow their territory to be used in any manner for terrorist activities against India" – a diplomatic face of denial wrapped in terrorism ploy. How agonizing it was to ignore Christine Fair's (a renowned American think tank, RAND Corporation's scholar) says that Indian officials have told him privately that they are pumping money into Balochistan and that Kabul encourages India to engage in provocative activities in Pakistan is an undeniable truth. On the other hand, India keeps on urging Islamabad to act against Lashkar-e-Tayyaba founder Hafiz Saeed and stated to have served Red Notice by Interpol against him. Interpol issued Red Notices to both Saeed and 35 others for their arrests, which Indian External Affair Minister SM Krishna regards vindication for India. Their dossiers were also sent to 15-16 other countries, probably those whose nationals were killed during the Mumbai attacks. Such Indian attempts are actually aimed at tarnishing Pakistan's image abroad through such a chain of actions by recalling, re-echoing and over-stretching the Mumbai events. According to Pakistan officials hollow claims about Hafiz's involvement without any solid evidence in the series of dossiers does not bind Pakistani courts to punish Jamaatud Dawa' Chief. Similarly, Pakistan's requests for sharing intelligence, about Samjhota Express tragedy always fall on the deaf ears of Indian leaders.

Despite unresolved Kashmir dispute, impending holocaust of nuclear safety, keeping blackguards (Indian consulates) on our western borders, ongoing hostile atmosphere in Baluchistan, simmering threat of suicide bombing, dubious India moves, on one fabricated pretext of terrorism or other and facing the tough music due to water scarcity triggered due to illegitimate construction of 60 dams on our rivers are some of the heartburns which keep the embers of animosity stoking between the two neighbors since 1947 – with no respite in sight in future as well. Pakistan's whole hearted unilateral efforts to ensure peace in the region by resolving all the contentious issues through Composite Dialogue Process by spending true virtue of reason, rationality and realism, to extinguish the fire of mutual distrust, bury the menace of sabotage, respect the international law or humanitarian norms continue to face the same fate of burning our resources and precious resources due irrational and intriguing moves of New Delhi.

 

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PAKISTAN OBSERVER

EDITORIAL

USING BOTH OARS..!

ROBERT CLEMENTS

Most of us spend a greater part of our lives worrying about things not going right. Right? But did worrying over some situation ever change anything?

Did it make a child come home sooner? Or a test score higher? Did it put money in your pocket? Or a ring on someone's finger? Make a car run smoother? Or did it help get a better job? No! All that worrying did was waste a lot of your time. So what should we do instead of worrying? There's this little story I read which I found quite revealing: There was an old man who operated a rowboat for ferrying passengers between an island and the mainland. One day a passenger noticed that he had painted on one oar the word Work, and on the other oar the word Faith. Curiosity led him to ask the meaning of this.

The old man replied, "I will show you." Dropping one oar, he rowed only with the oar named Work. Of course, the boat just went around in circles. Then he switched oars, picking up Faith and dropping Works. And the little rowboat went around in circles again—this time in the opposite direction. After this demonstration, the old man picked up both oars Faith and Work, and rowing with both oars together swiftly coursed over the water. He looked at the passenger and said, "You see, that is the way it is in life as well as in rowing a boat. You got to keep both oars in the water, otherwise, you'll just go in circles..!"

And that's what worrying is all about, when we go round in circles. We worry like crazy and then visit every temple, mosque and church about some problem, praying that God will do something, and going back home, hoping for a miracle. That is simply using the oar of faith in the water. Or we worry about a problem and start working from morning to nightfall on it, yet can't come up with a solution. We burn the midnight oil, we go without food or keep unhealthy timings with our sleep and finally find we are nowhere near reaching the answer and then we start worrying why things are not happening.

But you need both together: Work and Faith go together my friend. There's no point praying for a miracle in your exams if you haven't studied hard enough. If you have, then pray God will give you the peace and calm during the exams to recollect everything; and He will.

Or asking for a promotion or a new job if you are lazy. It won't happen, and you'll just go round in circles. So stop worrying, put both your oars into the river of life and start rowing. You'll find unbelievable miracles happening..!

 

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THE INDEPENDENT

EDITORIAL

QUANTUM JUMP

 

Belying fears of market saturation, Grameen Phone (GP) - the country's largest mobile phone operator -- made its first initial public offering (IPO) of its shares this week worth Taka 460 crore. With this GP, jointly owned by Telenor of Norway and Bangladeshi micro-credit pioneer, Grameen Bank, entered the country's capital market. It was feared, earlier, that such a large offering in a small market like Bangladesh where the highest daily turnover is rarely above a thousand crore taka could have a negative impact on the market. But surprisingly as new market players entered the market the GP shares were overwhelmed and it was selling at a premium of 60 taka or seven times its face value.

It is indeed a watershed in the history of the Bangladesh capital market. The GP offering has given "depth and maturity" to the bourse, as the SEC chairman quite aptly remarked. Henceforth, there will be no dearth of quality shares in the market and if the response to the GP IPOs are any indication then there will be no dearth of buyers, either. This is a win-win situation for all concerned - entrepreneurs and investors. Henceforth, the capital market will operate on a higher plateau and the entire country will benefit from it.
GP's IPOs have been matched by an equal amount of shares sold to institutional investors. This means that almost a 1000 crore taka fund has been raised by GP from the local bourse, which will be utilised for expanding the company's rural network. GP already has the largest network in the country with 21 million of the 46 million mobile subscribers. The current expansion will further consolidate its position.

GP's entry will surely encourage other foreign companies operating here to enter the capital market. This will not only broaden the capital market but also give ownership to Bangladeshis in the most lucrative institutions operating in the country. Henceforth other foreign companies operating here or abroad will feel encouraged to fund projects, locally, and share the risks and profits with the locals.

 

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THE INDEPENDENT

EDITORIAL

FREE INTERNET SERVICE

 

It would be a great job done, if free Internet services could be made available for students of all educational institutions of the country. In a welcome move, the government has recently planned to do so. The state-owned telephone company of Vietnam, VIETTEL Corporation, would provide the service to all educational institutions and government offices of Bangladesh, according to a deal finalised between Teletalk Bangladesh Limited and the Vietnamese organisation. 

The imperative is - and it needs to be done as quickly as possible - to build a competent IT-literate workforce and more so as the Alliance government's vision is to create a Digital Bangladesh by 2021. But unlike many developing countries including neighbouring India, where a vibrant IT sector contributed greatly to its economic growth, Bangladesh's IT industry is in its infancy. If the country is to catch up with the rest of the world, particularly the developed West, it is necessary to give serious attention to this sector with an emphasis on making computer education with Internet service available at all the educational institutions, particularly in village schools.

When the IT trained or educated students enter the job market after completion of their education, the country will have people skilled enough to meet the demands of our time. In some private schools in the city, computer education has already been made compulsory. If the educational institutions can be equipped with computers and trained teachers, the achieved connectivity would advance the country in virtually a single leap by several years.

 

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THE INDEPENDENT

BOB'S BANTER

INDIA'S MAGIC SHOW…!

 

It is truly said that a great magician's actual show takes place not on stage but in the hall where audience sits; his performance isn't so much the magic he supposedly creates but the people he truly fools. I believe our great Indian elections whether it be the lowly municipal ones or national, is nothing short of a great big magic show. 'Ladies and gentlemen' say the different magicians standing for various elections, "In five years I will eradicate poverty, and you will eat what the rich man has on his table!" The crowds clap and cheer as the magic works and they truly see food on their table which they think is the food on the table of the rich!" Under the spell of the magician they go to polling booth and caste their vote and slowly the ink wears off, the magic wears thin and their tables remain empty as before, but they wait with bated breath for next magic show after five years when they become willing fools again.

Even cinema can't come near the fantasies these magicians paint.

'Mumbai for Maharashtrians only' says the magician and the audience gasp as they envision a city with no one there except their own. They are too mesmerised to note industrialists and investors, big businesses and small, offices and stores, closing shop and moving out. They are too enchanted with the magician's great lie to see themselves without a job because there are no jobs, with all employers gone.

The magician waves his wand and the gullible are fooled.

'Build the temple, raze the mosque' shouts the magician in the guise of a Varun, and the audience clap and cheer the young trickster and as they clap they see a temple where a mosque once stood, but the magician cleverly hides with his cape, what follows and no one sees heart wrenching scenes of bloodshed and fighting, nobody the hatred among neighbours, and retaliation to their own wives and children.

The magician smiles and the people believe.

'Wage war with Pakistan' the magician roars and the crowd see illusions of an enemy annihilated. If only they'd press fast forward they will see missiles with nuclear warheads flattening out their own homes and those of loved ones. They are so bewitched and enthralled they believe the lie that war solves all problems, not realising the conman has just told them to commit suicide. And the magician's great big magic show takes place year after year; with a billion who are deceived, duped and deluded into believing his magic. And when the smoke clears and curtains fall, the magician leaves the hall, richer than when he had entered, his audience poorer, hungrier, angrier, but alas waiting to be fooled again.

Such is the politician's magic…!

bobsbanter@gmail.com

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THE AUSTRALIAN

EDITORIAL

TAX REVIEW IS ALL ABOUT ADDING VALUE

DR HENRY'S INQUIRY SHOULD SHAPE AUSTRALIA FOR DECADES

 

KEN Henry's review of the tax system is charged with making it simpler, increasing incentives and ensuring it is internationally competitive. This might sound easy if you say it fast, but of all the reviews and inquiries Kevin Rudd has commissioned, the Treasury secretary's is the hardest - and perhaps most important. Modern Australia has never had the root and branch tax reform that John Hewson proposed at the 1993 election. While significant reforms have occurred, they tackled aspects of the system in isolation. The Asprey report called for a broader tax base in the middle 1970s, which finally happened, in a mild manner, in the middle of the 80s, with the Hawke government's tax summit, which gave us fringe benefits and capital gains taxes but choked at the prospect of a GST. And while the Ralph review at the end of the 90s cut the company tax rate, for most income-earners the system remained unchanged. Certainly the Howard government's GST was an enormous improvement in the way it secured a growth tax for the states. Now, 25 years after Bob Hawke's summit, the economy is much bigger, a great deal more complex and Australia is integrated into the global economy to an extent unimaginable in the 80s - but it still has the same sort of tax system.

 

The way Australia raises revenue also shapes rather than reflects the structure of the economy. And it imposes life choices upon people. The tax treatment of housing drives demand for investment property. The way superannuation savings are taxed influences retirement decisions. And in combination the tax and welfare systems direct the way many children are brought up. With low-income earners, especially single parents, losing more in benefits than their after-tax earnings from working more hours, it sometimes makes sense to stay out of employment altogether, depriving children of evidence that working is what they should aspire to. The way tax works is also so complex there is probably not a person on the planet who understands all its intricacies. Despite regular efforts to simplify the system, it has grown ever more complex. Some 30 years ago, the legislation was set out in 500 pages; it is 6000 now, despite the deletion of 4000 pages of bumf three years ago.

 

That Dr Henry has his work cut out for him is obvious, and there is no shortage of experts and special interest urgers who know what he should do. But while he and his team are discreet, it appears they are being driven by economic policy rather than politics, and that the review will come up with a range of policies that will upset people who benefit from existing concessions. There is talk of cuts to company tax and a simplified system for small business but a new national resource rent charge. There are suggestions of changes to the way investments are taxed, perhaps to make savings as tax effective as negatively geared rental property. And it seems certain long recognised problems with state charges and the tax-welfare mix will be addressed. Some ideas that will be enormously unpopular may also be floated, such as a congestion charge for drivers travelling into CBDs and a capital gains tax on the family home. Other than superannuation savings and the GST, the government has wisely not vetoed any idea, and Dr Henry should take the opportunity to put productive proposals that will meet his brief, regardless of who they upset.

 

The most important lesson of the global financial crisis is that strong and globally competitive systems are the best bulwark against disaster in a world where money moves around the the globe in seconds and capital is always searching for the best rate of return in a stable country. Just as good governance and regulation of the financial sector saved us from disaster a year ago, a tax system designed today, rather than one for a world past, will be important in the future. Nor would it hurt to consider an inquiry into the financial system, as the chairman of the Howard government's Fair Pay Commission, Ian Harper, suggested in The Weekend Australian. It is just a decade since the Wallis inquiry into financial services, but the price of prosperity is constant vigilance and financial systems, like tax, must adapt as times change. If there is a case for a new tax system, there is also one for investigating whether our financial structures and their oversight are as suited to circumstances now as they were to those that existed before the slump.

 

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THE AUSTRALIAN

EDITORIAL

TALKING NOT SHOUTING

AT LEAST IRAN WANTS TO NEGOTIATE OVER NUCLEAR ENERGY

 

WHAT has got into the Iranians? Instead of their usual aggressive assertions of their right to nuclear energy and threats to destroy Israel, followed by missile tests, all of a sudden they want to co-operate with the world community. Just days after Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was embarrassed by evidence of a secret plant with the capacity to refine weapons-grade uranium, Tehran started to talk to the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany, the nations charged with restraining his regime. The Iranians have agreed to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Authority to inspect the newly revealed plant. And they have agreed that most of their enriched uranium, which can be used for weapons, will be sent to Russia for processing into higher-grade fuel rods, for use in nuclear medicine. This reflects a long standing international offer to supply Iran with as much uranium for peaceful purposes as it wants in return for Tehran abandoning its infrastructure to create weapons-grade fuel.

 

This remarkably conciliatory step is not easily interpreted given Iran's North Korean style of lying about its nuclear ambitions. Perhaps it reflects some change in the balance of power in Tehran with clerics becoming concerned by the way President Ahmadinejad alienates the West at every opportunity. Or his enemies may be backing the new approach to undermine his authority, shaky since the massive protests that followed his suspect re-election in June. It certainly seems the Iranians realise that having been caught lying over their nuclear ambitions, Russia and China, their closest equivalent to powerful friends, will not want to help them now. Certainly the way the Israelis have stayed silent in the past few days appears to indicate that with the Security Council angry with Iran there is no need for Israel to get involved for the moment.

 

Whatever the reasons, the fact Iran understands it has no alternative to talk is entirely positive. But this is by no means the end of the affair. Like North Korea, Iran has a track record of bluff and bluster and will now try to split the G6. That the French are saying they no longer want to talk of sanctions now is the sort of response the Iranians undoubtedly hoped for. The challenge for the US is to keep the G6 solid against Iran for the months, more likely years, the new negotiations will take. Tehran needs to hear, and keep hearing, that it will be given as much uranium as it needs for peaceful purposes but the world will not allow Iran to build a bomb.

 

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THE AUSTRALIAN

EDITORIAL

THE COST OF HOT AIR

DO WE HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH METHANE LIVESTOCK EMIT?

 

IT'S a good thing the Rudd government will not make a decision on including agriculture in its scheme to cut greenhouse gas until 2013, because by then we might have an idea just how much of our emissions farmers are responsible for. We certainly do not know now. The accepted wisdom is that cattle and sheep produce 10.9per cent of Australian emissions. Unless they don't. As Asa Wahlquist reported in The Australian yesterday, that figure is based on international research and does not address differences between breeds or the impact of diet across a range of conditions - which could account for a difference of 20 per cent to 30 per cent in emissions.

 

Given Australia has herds of nearly 27 million cattle and 70 million sheep, this could amount to a lot less gas. You don't have to be a climate-change sceptic to wonder whether it is possible to consider including agriculture in the proposed emissions trading scheme if such margins of error exist. And until the science is settled, it is hard to see how the government could hope to settle on a standard charge for agricultural emissions - the possibility of differing rates for different breeds on different diets is a prospect only a bureaucrat could love.

 

Although voters want something done about global warming, this does not mean Canberra can set up a scheme that pleases the green extreme but is light on for detail. If livestock producers are to be included in the ETS, the cost should be commensurate to the damage sheep and cattle do. It's an idea Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has four years to chew over.

 

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THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

EDITORIAL

TIME FOR A CHANCE TO SUCCEED

 

THIS week marks the eighth anniversary of the US-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and although the situation there is more pressing than ever, President Barack Obama is right to take his time making a decision about what to do next. He has found out that the military is not of one view and that the civilians he most trusts have profound reservations. There are also signs in the polls that the American public is losing patience with the war.

 

On Friday the commander of troops in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, said a further 40,000 troops were needed to stop a strengthened Taliban overwhelming US forces. He was carpeted soon after by Obama. But at the weekend US forces suffered their biggest death toll - eight - in a single attack in more than a year, bringing to 867 the number of Americans to have died there.

 

The former secretary of state Colin Powell has recently reminded Obama of his view that military missions require clear goals and that more troops would not guarantee success; and Obama's National Security adviser, Jim Jones, has played down worries about the Taliban insurgency, arguing that the government of the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, must improve and give hope to the people of Afghanistan. Jones said that a strong effort by the US to train the Afghan Army and police would give Karzai' s government a chance to succeed.

 

Last month, despite Taliban attacks and intimidation, millions of Afghans risked their lives to have their say as to who governed them. That is not in itself enough for unchecked idealism. President Karzai's victory (the final results are not due for weeks) was probably in some part rigged: falsification and sale of voter registrations and multiple voting were widely reported, as were deals with Islamic extremists and drug-trading warlords to get votes.

 

But Karzai's party is not the Taliban; indeed it is a long way from it and it deserves its chance to succeed. Besides, to abandon Afghanistan now is to risk its return to what it was before September 11, 2001 - that is, to an irrationalist totalitarian state that is at once a haven, training ground and launch pad for al-Qaeda.

 

Obama's decision on Afghanistan will be one of the most significant of his presidency, for the US, its allies including Australia, and for the Afghans themselves, who have already ventured much. The stakes are high. He should take his time.

 

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THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

EDITORIAL

TALENT VERSUS DEMOCRACY

 

THE decision of Queensland Liberal Nationals in the safe Gold Coast seat of McPherson to endorse a local party identity as their candidate would in other circumstances be unremarkable, and a desirable expression of local political will. But right now it is far from that. In doing so, the party's preselectors have ignored the wishes of the present federal parliamentary leader, Malcolm Turnbull, as well as such heavyweights as John Howard and Peter Costello, all of whom back the proven parliamentary performer Peter Dutton.

 

Whatever the merits of the endorsed candidate in McPherson, there is no question that the Coalition needs MPs of Dutton's ability. Dutton, a political activist from his teens, won Dickson from Labor in 1991, and consolidated his grip on it enough to resist an 8.8 per cent swing at the last election. However, a redistribution has made the seat much harder for the Coalition to retain.

 

His case should not be seen as any test of Turnbull's leadership. It is rather another repetition of a continuing theme of Australian politics: the contest between parties' head offices and their local organisations when seats are to be allocated. It is often enough a contest between high-profile talent and local loyalty and ambition. Other countries solve the problem pragmatically - by having a proportion of seats reserved for those nominated by a party's hierarchy. We do not advocate such a course: it is always better for parliamentarians to have to go through the process of local selection, and for them to know they represent citizens who are their equals, not the coalitions of elite interests which can dominate party head offices.

 

But if the present procedure is to work, it must be able to guarantee that candidates of obvious talent are able to seek election, and are reasonably remunerated if they succeed. First, entering politics should not require a vow of poverty: as we have frequently argued, politicians should be well paid, and when the Remuneration Tribunal recommends pay rises they should not be deferred. Second, those who hold safe seats should realise they do so on trust for their parties, not by individual right. There are strong reasons for thinking that, to ensure new talent can enter the ranks on the Coalition side, MPs such as Philip Ruddock and Bronwyn Bishop, who have reached retirement age after distinguished careers, should step aside for younger candidates. Dutton's will not be the last case of its kind, but it should at least get parties thinking about how to maintain their reservoirs of talent.

 

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THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

EDITORIAL

IRAN'S NUCLEAR OFFER A VINDICATION FOR OBAMA

MULTILATERALISM HAS HAD ITS FIRST SUCCESS AGAINST NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION.

 

FOR a man noted for his oratorical gifts, US President Barack Obama's response to last week's meeting between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany was almost bland. Mr Obama described the talks, in which Iran agreed to open its nuclear facilities to international inspection, as ''a positive beginning''. If that emphasises how far there is to go before there can be any assurance that Iran is not intent on becoming the world's tenth nuclear-armed state, it nonetheless also records that the meeting in Geneva achieved all it could have. After President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's belligerent speech to the UN General Assembly last month, there was a real prospect that the talks would have achieved nothing at all. But Iran has not spurned the UN's approaches, and its willingness to allow inspection of the newly announced nuclear-enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom vindicates Mr Obama's strategy of engagement with the Islamic republic.

 

If there were any lingering doubts of the need for the inspections, they should have been silenced by yesterday's report that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) believes Iran has ''sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable'' nuclear bomb. The assessment, contained in an internal IAEA report, Possible Military Dimensions of Iran's Nuclear Program, has also revealed dissension within the agency: its director, Mohamed ElBaradei, has long opposed a confrontational approach to Iran, arguing that it is counterproductive, and has declined to publish the report. The leaking of its contents to news media, however, indicates that at least some of his senior advisers believe that the Ahmadinejad Government will not respond to gentle coaxing.

 

The capacity to build warheads is not in itself sufficient for the production of deployable nuclear weapons, but the authors of the IAEA report believe Iran's Defence Ministry is intent on developing warheads that can be delivered on the Shahab 3 missile, which is capable of reaching targets in Europe as well as the Middle East. That aim could not be achieved in the immediate future, but the alarm within the IAEA confirms that scepticism about Iran's intentions is not limited to Israel, as has sometimes seemed to be the case. France, Germany and Britain also agree that Iran has resumed work on nuclear-weapons research, despite its claims to the contrary, and the US now appears to be inclined towards the same conclusion. In 2007, under the Bush administration, US intelligence agencies reported that Tehran had ceased nuclear-weapons research in 2003, but last week an unnamed American official was reported as saying that the US was re-evaluating its 2007 conclusion. In the elliptical speech favoured by diplomats, that amounts to saying ''we were wrong''.

 

The most important change of attitude, however, has been in Moscow, where President Dmitry Medvedev appears to have accepted that unless Iran is able to allay the wider world's fears about its nuclear program punitive sanctions will be necessary. Russia's previous unwillingness to contemplate action against Iran had hitherto made a united approach by the Security Council unfeasible, which in turn probably emboldened Tehran to take the path of proliferation. Mr Medvedev's change of heart followed the Obama Administration's scrapping of another part of the Bush legacy, the missile shield that would have been deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic, and which Russia had reasonably regarded as arrayed against it. The Obama decision has made multilateralism possible once again, both in the broader goal of progressively eliminating all nuclear weapons, which the Security Council endorsed last month, and now more specifically in concerted action against Iran. Tehran's acceptance of international inspections, the details of which Dr ElBaradei is negotiating with Iranian officials this week, almost certainly reflects its recognition that it can no longer rely upon disagreement within the Security Council to give it a free hand. The success of the Geneva meeting may also discourage Israel from undertaking unilateral military action to avert a threat it has previously believed the rest of the world does not take seriously.

 

Final proof of the effectiveness of the Obama strategy, however, will depend on the outcome of the inspections themselves. Until Iran demonstrates that it really is willing to co-operate with the IAEA, what was agreed in Geneva last week can only be what Mr Obama's cautious, tentative phrase declares it to be: a positive beginning.

 

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THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

EDITORIAL

A SPORTING OR CULTURAL CAPITAL? TAKE YOUR PICK

 

THEY queue in their thousands, overnight if need be, to get in. For these Victorians, the reward is worth it, whether the tickets they seek are for sporting or artistic blockbusters. We are used to seeing AFL fans camp out for finals tickets, but the extraordinary scene of queues from Flinders Street Station to the National Gallery of Victoria's Salvador Dali: Liquid Desire exhibition - at two on a chilly morning - underscored Victorians' enthusiasm for sport and culture alike.

 

On Sunday, as Melbourne Storm powered to a second premiership in four consecutive grand finals, the National Rugby League official program could not resist a reference to ''bleak city'' - something of an irony in a time of sporting and economic recession for Sydney. Melbourne is anything but bleak for fans of the many sports in which Victorians are the reigning national champions: the Storm joins the AFL's Geelong in winning two out of the past three grand finals, while the Melbourne Victory, Bushrangers, Vixens and South Dragons are the titleholders in soccer, cricket, netball and basketball respectively. Victorians are often characterised as sports-mad, but they participate just as enthusiastically in a vibrant culture of art, music and dining. The NGV's problem is not drawing a crowd, but fitting them in. The Dali exhibition drew more than 330,000 people, bettered only by The Impressionists exhibition's 371,000 in 2004. Governments take note: properly sponsoring culture can earn as much kudos as supporting sport.

 

The huge but good-humoured crowds that turn out for all sorts of events are evidence of a tolerant and civilised society. Despite overblown portrayals of the ''mean streets'' of the CBD, based on a drunken minority, cities are enriched by a diversity of people and activities. This is a community that involves itself across the sporting and cultural spectrum, and we are all enriched by the experience.

 

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THE GURDIAN

EDITORIAL

WELFARE REFORM: REVOLUTIONARY WORDS, EVOLUTIONARY PLANS

 

The standard leftwing critique of David Cameron is that he masks vicious rightwing plans behind fluffy New Labour language. But the evidence at the Tory conference in Manchester yesterday was that this caricature is the opposite of the truth in respect of welfare. Artful spinning against "sickness benefit cheats" produced blood-curdling headlines about hitting the workshy in the pocket. Yet the small print of the plans represented modest and evolutionary tweaks to established government policy.

 

Take the historical view, and this continuity appears less surprising than at first sight. With poor children and pensioners, Labour's relative largesse has been in marked contrast to the miserly 1980s and 1990s. For people of working age, though, governments of both stripes have long followed a similar strategy – they have let benefits slip ever further below earnings, ploughing any available cash into welfare-to-work programmes instead. The Conservatives initiated them for the unemployed, before Labour intensified them through Gordon Brown's New Deal. The next step was extending them to others on benefits – first lone parents, then new incapacity benefit claimants, and most recently a move that will in time extend its reach to the long-term sick. As if to cement the consensus, the banker David Freud, who previously advised Labour on welfare, was recently poached to become the resident expert on the Tory frontbench.

 

The Conservative talk of shifting half a million people from sickness benefits to jobseeker's allowance turns out to rely on the government's existing plan to reassess the fitness of long-term claimants for work. Consequently, a row broke out yesterday about whether they were fiddling the figures. There were, however, some useful if minor ideas, in and among the detail. Despite the talk of dismantling the New Deal, the Tories effectively propose to extend it, by making New-Deal-style support available earlier than now. They also sensibly propose more advice for people with health problems which are real but not serious enough to qualify for incapacity benefit. And they say they would extend an approach being tried out by the government, which allows new flexibility to invest in getting people back into work on the strength of anticipated benefit savings. While welcome, this idea could come unstuck at a cash-strapped Treasury, which is likely to regard cutting the headline deficit as priorities number one, two and three.

 

Putting aside the debate about why benefit rates are so low that redundancy automatically translates into poverty – a debate that none of the parties are keen on – there are two specific worries about what a Tory government might mean for the workless. First of all, whatever the policy, the language also matters. Particularly in the case of the near-million claiming benefits in respect of mental ill-health, intimidation as opposed to coaxing can do enormous damage. These people are largely beset by anxiety and depression – and since 1995 they have been subjected to a medical test ranked by the OECD as one the world's toughest. Stigmatising them as scroungers will not give them the confidence which they need in order to take up a job.

 

Of even more pressing importance is the question of macroeconomics. Political rows over welfare ignore the reality: tweaks to benefits or employment support are routinely overwhelmed by the turning of deeper tides. Days after Lehman Brothers collapsed last year, the shadow chancellor, George Osborne, spoke to the Conservative conference and warned that the cupboard was bare, suggesting that retrenchment was the only way to weather the storm. When he stands up today, he must show he has moved beyond this pre-Keynesian thinking. If not then, for all the tough language and the pragmatic policies, grave doubts will linger about whether the Conservatives are really cut out to get Britain working again.

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THE GURDIAN

EDITORIAL

GREECE: GOING SPARTAN

 

The election of a centre-left socialist party in Greece bucks the trend of a European Union that has swung to the right. And the good news is that, in George Papandreou, Greece has a prime minister who is not only a decent man but one with a vision for his country. The emergence of yet another Papandreou as prime minister (his father, Andreas, was elected to the post three times) engenders cynicism. But Papandreou junior is not to the manor born. As foreign minister in the 1990s, he masterminded the policies that led to a tangible improvement in relations with Turkey and Albania, which was no easy feat.

 

Born in the US and educated in Ontario, Stockholm, the LSE and Harvard, he is closer to Scandinavian-style social democracy than to Greek nationalism. (His return home prompted a newspaper column devoted to his problems in speaking Greek.) But he stuck to his guns. He believes, for instance, in governing by consensus, which is not the first concept that comes to mind in normally fractious Greek politics.

 

The bad news is the size of the task. His two predecessors, Costas Simitis and Costas Karamanlis, came to power promising transparency and an end to cronyism and grace-and-favour government. Mr Simitis brought his country into the eurozone, but achieved only incremental change on the reform front. Mr Karamanlis failed altogether. Mr Papandreou also promises a fresh start. His agenda is large: to reform government, the pension system and the bloated public sector; to increase the tax take; and to crack down on illegal immigration through Turkey. These problems are systemic, so entrenched in the way the state functions that they defy party politics. How can any government reform the state when the system is nobbled by kickbacks and vested interests at every level?

 

Greece is thought to lose $17.5bn in unpaid income taxes and $13bn in other taxes annually – six times the sum that Mr Papandreou has promised to invest to stimulate the economy. The black economy is even bigger, between a quarter and a third of national income. So the big question is: how can he clean up government and boost the economy without feeding the beast he is trying to tame?

 

Mr Papandreou is unlikely to be given much of a honeymoon. In Brussels his government will seek a two-year extension to the time when the budget deficit, already the second-largest in Europe, has to be halved. But in return Brussels will demand a major reform of the Greek pension system. That will require agreement from the public-sector unions. Mr Papandreou will have to not just manage a crisis-ridden country, but lead it – a task of a different order of difficulty.

 

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THE GURDIAN

EDITORIAL

IN PRAISE OF … HOLMFIRTH

 

Nestled in one of the greenest of the northern valleys of the green and the grey, Holmfirth has always mixed things up. Three miles north of the Dark Peak, and five south of a sprawl that runs all the way to Leeds, it mingles town and country, for starters. It mixes, too, the temperance of the chapel with the beer of the Nook, ancient stone mullions with double-fronted garages, modern prosperity with crumbling mills. Most of all, though, it mixes people. In the farms that litter surrounding hills, you will still hear a "yonder", or even a "thou". But Yorkshire true-bloods have, for decades, lived in peaceful coexistence with southern "comers-in", their lifestyles familiar to fans of Tamara Drewe. Many small towns are essentially ribbons, but the heart of Holmfirth is a bustling node, where several streets come together. This attractive centre, made famous by the soporific if seemingly immortal Last of the Summer Wine, stands out for its lack of high-street names – there was never a Woollies, a Smith's or a Boots, still less a McDonald's. Unused to the gales of big competition, the small shops and their customers reacted with fear when Tesco announced plans for a megastore just outside the town. The tough retailer was not an easy thing to take on, but last week a spirited residents' campaign claimed victory, and the application was withdrawn. Shoppers from the wuthering heights of Cartworth Moor and the lows of Norridge Bottom will now continue to mingle in the heart of Holmfirth.

 

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THE JAPAN TIMES

EDITORIAL

JAL MUST FACE UP TO ITS PROBLEMS

 

The government has decided to provide full support to Japan Airlines Corp., including possible infusion of public money. A task force of corporate turnaround experts has been created to help the airline, but it will not be able to resuscitate the nation's struggling top air carrier without full-scale efforts from both the workforce and management of JAL.

 

The main cause of JAL's pickle is high costs deriving from such factors as surplus workers, high wages, pensions with higher than normal benefits, and flights along routes that are unlikely to produce profits from the first. JAL has made efforts to improve the situation in each area, but they have been insufficient.

 

External factors have compounded the company's troubles. JAL had to offer flights along so-called "deficit-causing" domestic air routes after pressure to do so was exerted by central and local governments. The global recession and the outbreak of the new influenza have caused passenger numbers to drop. Talks with former employees for reducing pension benefits are not making progress.

 

The JAL group is expected to suffer a deficit of ¥63 billion in the business year through the end of March 2010. There is a possibility that the deficit will be even larger.

 

In June, JAL secured ¥100 billion in loans, some of which is guaranteed by the central government. But the airline is expected to need loans of another ¥100 billion by the end of this year. In order to win financial institutions' confidence, JAL proposed a plan to lay off some 6,800 employees by fiscal 2011, abolish operations along 29 domestic and 21 international routes, and withdraw from seven local airports. However, transport minister Seiji Maehara decided to scrap that plan and write a new one from scratch with the help of the task force.

 

It is hoped that the task force will come up with an effective reconstruction plan. But more important will be efforts from JAL itself, including current and even former employees, to reduce the company's costs.

 

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THE JAPAN TIMES

EDITORIAL

ELECTION REFORM ESSENTIAL

 

The July 2007 Upper House election was challenged by lawsuits claiming that the disparity in the relative value of votes between constituencies was so large that the election should be declared unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has now ruled that the election was constitutional and valid, but the Diet — which is responsible for preventing such disparity from occurring in excess — should not be complacent.

 

The 10-5 ruling, delivered on Sept. 30, said that although the distribution of seats was "not unconstitutional," there existed great inequality in the relative value of votes, which the Diet should rectify. In the election, the ratio of eligible voters per seat in the Kanagawa constituency to Tottori constituency was 4.86, meaning individual votes in less populous Tottori carried greater weight.

 

In the past, the Diet tried to narrow such disparity by changing the allocation of seats. After the July 2004 Upper House election featured a highest ratio of 5.13 between constituencies, two seats each were taken from Tochigi and Gunma constituencies, while Chiba and Tokyo constituencies both had two seats added.

 

Previous Supreme Court rulings suggested that Upper House elections would be constitutional and valid as long as the highest ratio was around 5. But it is significant that the latest ruling clearly stated that shuffling seats between constituencies will not serve as an adequate solution.

 

For the first time, the Supreme Court declared that the electoral system itself for the Upper House should be changed. In an unusual move, Chief Justice Hironobu Takesaki, who served as presiding judge, said that in view of the importance of reducing disparity in the value of individual votes, it is desirable for the Diet to take action immediately.

 

The Diet now faces the daunting task of devising a new electoral system for the Upper House. Preferably, the electoral system should be designed so that the Upper House will have a different character from the Lower House. The Diet should realize that if it does not act with appropriate speed, the top court may declare a future election unconstitutional and demand a do-over.

 

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THE JAPAN TIMES

EDITORIAL

CHALLENGES FOR CHINA CONCERN POLITICAL FUTURE, NOT ECONOMICS

BY BRAHMA CHELLANEY

 

NEW DELHI — Six decades after it was founded, the People's Republic of China has made some remarkable achievements. A backward, impoverished state in 1949, it has risen dramatically to now command respect and awe — but such success has come at great cost to its own people.

 

In fact, China's future remains more uncertain than ever. It faces a worrisome paradox: Because of an opaque, repressive political system, the more it globalizes, the more vulnerable it becomes internally. At the core of its internal challenges is how to make a political soft landing.

 

Unlike its Asian peers, Japan and India, China first concentrated on acquiring military muscle. By the time Deng Xiaoping launched his economic- modernization program in 1978, China already had tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile, the 12,000-km DF-5, and developed thermonuclear weaponry. The military muscle gave Beijing the much-needed security to focus on civilian modernization, helping it to fuel its remarkable economic rise that, in turn, has armed it with ever greater resources to sharpen its claws.

 

China's economy has expanded 13-fold over the last 30 years. Consequently, China has arrived as a global economic player, with its state-owned corporate behemoths frenetically buying foreign firms, technologies and resources.

 

Add to the picture its rapidly swelling foreign-exchange coffers, already the world's largest, and Beijing is well-positioned geopolitically to further expand its influence.

 

Its defense strategy since the Mao Zedong era has been founded on a simple premise — that the capacity to defend oneself with one's own resources is the first test a nation has to pass on the way to becoming a great power. So, even when China was poor, it consciously put the accent on building comprehensive national power.

 

Today, its rapidly accumulating power raises concerns because, even when it was backward and internally troubled, it employed brute force to annex Xinjiang (1949) and Tibet (1950), to raid South Korea (1950), to invade India (1962), to initiate a border conflict with the Soviet Union through a military ambush (1969), and to attack Vietnam (1979). A prosperous, militarily strong China cannot but be a threat to its neighbors, especially if there are no constraints on the exercise of Chinese power.

 

Communist China actually began as an international pariah state. Today, it is courted by the world. Its rise in one generation as a world power under authoritarian rule has come to epitomize the qualitative reordering of international power.

 

As the latest U.S. intelligence assessment predicts, China is "poised to have more impact on the world over the next 20 years than any other country." A long-term strategic vision and unflinching pursuit of goals have been key drivers. But China's rise also has been aided by good fortune on several fronts. Deng's reform process, for instance, benefited from good timing, coinciding with the start of globalization.

 

The Soviet Union's sudden collapse also came as a great strategic boon, eliminating a menacing empire and opening the way for Beijing to rapidly increase strategic space globally. A succession of China-friendly U.S. presidents in the past two decades also has helped. China's rise indeed owes a lot to the West's decision not to sustain trade sanctions after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, but instead to integrate Beijing with global institutions through the liberalizing influence of foreign investment and trade.

 

Although China has come a long way since Tiananmen Square, with its citizens now enjoying property rights, overseas travel and other entitlements that were unthinkable two decades ago, political power still rests with the same party responsible for millions of deaths in state-induced disasters like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

 

That the communist party continues to monopolize power despite its past horrific excesses indeed is astonishing. This is now the oldest autocracy in the world. And it is hard to believe that it can survive for another 60 years. The longest any autocratic system has survived in modern history was 74 years in the Soviet Union.

 

The threat to the communist dictatorship extends beyond ethnic and social unrest. Reported incidents of grassroots violence have grown at about the same rate as China's GDP. The ethnic challenges — best symbolized by the 2008 Tibetan uprising and this year's Uighur revolt — won't go away unless Beijing stops imposing cultural homogeneity and abandons ethnic drowning as state strategy in minority lands. Given the regime's entrenched cultural chauvinism and tight centralized control, that is unlikely to happen. After all, President Hu Jintao's slogan of a "harmonious society" is designed to undergird the theme of conformity with the state.

 

China's challenges actually center on its political future. Although China has moved from being a totalitarian

state to being an authoritarian state, some things haven't changed since the Mao years. Some others indeed have changed for the worse, such as the whipping up of ultranationalism as the legitimizing credo of continued communist rule. Unremitting attempts to bend reality to the dangerous illusions the state propagates through information control and online censors risk turning China into a modern-day Potemkin state.

 

More fundamentally, if China manages to resolve the stark contradictions between its two systems — market capitalism and political monocracy — just as the Asian "tigers" South Korea and Taiwan were able to make the transition to democracy without crippling turbulence at home, China could emerge as a peer competitor to the United States.

 

Political modernization, not economic modernization, thus is the central challenge staring at China. But it won't be easy for the communist leadership to open up politically without unraveling a system that now survives on a mix of crony capitalism and calibrated, state-dispensed patronage.

 

Internationally, China's trajectory will depend on how its neighbors and other key players such as the U.S. manage its growing power. Such management — independently and in partnership — will determine if China stays on the positive side of the ledger, without its power sliding into arrogance.

 

Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the independent, privately funded Center for Policy Research, is the author, most recently, of "Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan."

 

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THE JAPAN TIMES

EDITORIAL

TIME TO ACKNOWLEDGE BENEFITS OF MIGRATION

BY JENI KLUGMAN

 

BANGKOK — Amid the economic recession, lost jobs and ever greater burdens on health care and other public services, migration has become a hotly debated issue in many of the countries that attract migrants.

 

Unfortunately, much of that debate focuses on the apparent burden migrants place on troubled economies. Fear and xenophobia can come to the fore. Lost in the debate are the largely positive outcomes of migration for the majority of people concerned.

 

This should not be the case, because mobility — the ability to seek out better opportunities elsewhere — is a key element of human freedom. Migration policies can meet domestic requirements and concerns as well as help to enhance mobility's contribution to human development.

 

Migration is a process to be managed, not solved, argues the 2009 Human Development Report, an independent report commissioned by the U.N. Development Program. This groundbreaking study, "Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development," carefully examines the evidence on internal and international migration from the perspective of migrants, their families and the communities from which they came and in which they live and work.

 

It demonstrates the potential gains for all concerned as well as the dangers and costs that can arise, particularly for the poorest. Benefits for the countries of origin may be substantial, although the study warns that migration is no substitute for homegrown development. And it shows the barriers that impede movement — absolute prohibitions, the high cost of the "paper walls" involved in moving between countries, and the discrimination and disadvantages many migrants face at their destination.

 

The study debunks many myths that surround debates over migration. Most of the nearly 1 billion people on the move do so within their countries. Contrary to received wisdom, the share of the world's population moving across borders has been remarkably stable over the past 25 years. Yet, more of these migrants are now going from developing to developed countries, and the impacts can vary enormously between one region and another.

 

The report challenges stereotypes that portray migrants as "stealing jobs" or "scrounging off the taxpayer." Migration is rarely an easy process. Conflicts, natural disasters and economic hardship compel many people to move. Some fall into the hands of traffickers, with often terrible consequences.

 

Overall, however, evidence strongly suggests that for the bulk of people on the move the costs, difficulties and stress of moving are more than offset by improved livelihoods — not just in income but in other areas of well-being such as health, schooling and empowerment.

 

The skills, ideas and diversity brought by migrants are largely beneficial for destination societies. The report finds no evidence of large-scale job losses by locals due to migration. The contribution of migrants to economic growth can be high, while the impact on public services is small or even positive in general; although some local communities do face heavier burdens. Importantly, the report presents evidence that public opinion in many countries is receptive to migration — provided jobs are available.

 

Jobs are often the crux of the debate under way in destination countries. The report puts forward a package of labor demand-linked measures that could improve access for migrants. Now is the time for a new deal on migration, one that will benefit those who move, those in destination communities and others that remain at home. Based on best practices, the proposed measures are politically feasible, especially as economic recovery gathers steam.

 

Renewed growth opens up more jobs, and a well-managed migration policy benefits migrants and societies at large. For the aging populations of many developed countries, particularly in Europe, ensuring such a labor flow is a must for sustaining economic growth.

 

Realization of this mutual interest must take place with wider development imperatives in mind. Migration is driven by large and growing inequalities. The poor have the most to gain from moving. Increasing access for the low-skilled, for example, could help to maximize gains for human development. As important is ensuring fair treatment of migrants.

 

Combating discrimination in wages, for example, benefits local workers as much as it does migrants. The rights of migrants must be protected, including those of irregular migrants.

 

Such a balanced policy toward migration is available. The challenge facing governments is not an easy one. Many — though not all — were moving in the right direction, although there have been signs of a rollback during the recession. A long-term perspective is needed in which employers, trade unions and civil society each has a huge role to play. The Human Development Report contributes to more balanced and informed public debates on this controversial issue.

 

Jeni Klugman, Ph.D. in economics, is director of the Human Development Report Office at the U.N. Development Program and lead author of the research team since 2008. She has held various positions at the World Bank.

 

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THE KOREA HERALD

EDITORIAL

WEN'S N.K. VISIT

 

International attention is focused on Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's current visit to North Korea, with the expectation that it could offer Pyongyang an excuse to reverse its boycott of the six-party denuclearization talks that China had been hosting.

 

However, if Pyongyang announces a willingness to return to the conference table during or after Wen's visit, it would only mean a continuation of a tedious process that has continued on and off for more than six years.

 

North Korea's return to the Beijing talks or any other form of multilateral negotiation to be hosted by China will save face for the Beijing leadership at this time when it is particularly enthusiastic about its international influence with rising economic prowess. But resumed talks alone do not promise anything unless China, one of the few friends North Korea has in the 21st century, has a strong will to see an end to the North's nuclear ambition.

 

Even with its formidable diplomatic leverage based on 60 years of friendship with the North, including the wartime alliance in the 1950s that led to more than a million Chinese People's Army casualties, Beijing was unable to restrain Pyongyang from conducting nuclear tests and missile launches. Like South Korea and the United States, China knows it has not much choice but to use economic means if it wants a settlement of the nuclear trouble on its eastern flank.

 

Upon leaving for Pyongyang, the Chinese premier hierarchy hinted at massive economic aid to North Korea and, in Pyongyang, Wen signed agreements in the areas of economics, trade, tourism and academic exchanges. These favors would not be extended to the North simply to commemorate the 60th year of diplomatic ties and the "DPRK-China Friendship Year" but must require certain substantial actions on the part of the beneficiary.

 

Chinese media quoted commentators in Beijing as saying that China would not have sent the high-powered delegation, which also includes the foreign and commerce ministers and the head of the National Development and Reform Commission, without some sort of assurance from Pyongyang regarding the six-party talks. Earlier last month, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il reportedly expressed a willingness to engage in "bilateral and multilateral talks" during his meeting with Chinese presidential envoy Dai Bingguo.

 

Kim personally received Wen at Sunan Airport in Pyongyang Sunday morning, an unprecedented gesture for a visitor who is not a head of state, and watched a theatrical performance with him. North Korean media lavishly reported Wen's visit which the party organ, the Rodong Sinmun, described as an event of "great importance in consideration of its historical timing and political significance."

 

The North Korean head's extraordinary treatment of Wen and the media hullabaloo could indicate that Pyongyang would publicly accept China's request for its return to the six-party talks, but would still procrastinate over taking any practical steps to overcome real obstacles such as verification. At present, North Korea's primary concern is entering bilateral negotiations with the United States to secure maximum economic and diplomatic gains. With China, the North would do just enough not to directly harm the fast-growing international stature of its traditional friend.

 

Participants of the six-party talks had better not pin too much hope on the resumption of the multilateral process. Disenchanted players have already begun looking for alternatives, calling for a "grand bargain" or "comprehensive package." The triangular summit of South Korea, China and Japan scheduled for next week in Beijing should bring the three Northeast Asian nations closer to a consensus on how they can best induce North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

 

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THE KOREA HERALD

EDITORIAL

LISBON TREATY

 

Ireland's approval of the Treaty of Lisbon in its second referendum last week may affect the future of the free trade agreement between Korea and the European Union, probably more positively than negatively. Now the legislatures of all 27 EU members have endorsed the treaty which replaced the draft EU constitution scrapped in 2005. With the necessary signatory procedures by Poland and the Czech Republic, the treaty could take effect as early as Jan. 1, 2010, one year behind the original schedule.

 

Major changes in the workings of the EU under the Lisbon Treaty include the increased involvement of the European Parliament in the legislative process through extended co-decision with the Council of Ministers. Among other highlights are a reduction of the number of commissioners, the creation of a president of the European Council with tenure of two and a half years and a high representative for foreign affairs responsible for presenting a unified EU policy position.

 

The treaty requires any international agreement involving trade issues to be approved by the European Parliament. It means that the Korea-EU FTA should be put to a vote at the European Parliament sometime next year - following initialing by the trade ministers of the two sides in Brussels on Oct. 15, translation of the FTA text, which will take months, and formal signing of the document. With European Parliament approval, the Korea-EU FTA will have a stronger power of implementation, compared to pacts only endorsed by the EU Council of Ministers or those by individual legislatures of member states.

 

But, when the FTA is submitted to the parliament, there will be tough lobbying from representatives of the ACEA (European Automobile Manufacturers Association) and other organizations that opposed the pact over rules of origin, tariff reduction and other auto trade issues. Some countermeasures will be necessary to help members of the European Parliament develop broader, balanced views on the Korea-EU FTA, which will benefit not any one country but both sides in this era of free trade.

 

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THE KOREA HERALD

EDITORIAL

GRAND BARGAIN: LEE'S PARADIGM SHIFT

PARK SANG-SEEK

 

President Lee Myung-bak proposed a "grand bargain" to solve the North Korean nuclear issue in his speech at the Council on Foreign Relations office in New York on Sept. 21. He made the same proposal at the U.N. General Assembly two days later.

 

North Korea rejected it, calling it "an absolutely harmful proposal for the solution of the nuclear issue." The grand bargain calls for the dismantling of key elements of North Korea's nuclear programs through the six-party talks and the simultaneous provisions of a security guarantee and international assistance to North Korea.

 

Lee's proposal has significant implications for South Korea's policy on the North. This and his previous proposals relating to South-North Korean relations show how different his North Korea policy is from the two previous administrations. The grand bargain is a one-shot approach, and North Korea's is a piecemeal approach.

 

The Lee government believes that North Korea has been using a salami tactic to get what it wants by giving up a little piece of concession to gain a greater piece for itself. By repeating this hide-and-seek process indefinitely North Korea has been able to maintain its nuclear programs and gain more time to produce more nuclear weapons, while perfecting the nuclear weapons delivery system.

 

This is precisely why North Korea rejected the proposal. More importantly, North Korea's statement revealed, perhaps intentionally, that it believes its nuclear program is the best leverage for achieving its goal - the preservation of its system - while bullying and extracting concessions from South Korea and the United States. The statement declared that "the nuclear issue can truly be resolved only when the denuclearization of the entire Korean peninsula and the world is realized."

 

Assuming that the grand bargain proposal is placed on the agenda at the six-party talks, the items contained in the two baskets (one basket represents denuclearization, while the other represents a security guarantee and international assistance) will become the most serious obstacle to the negotiations. Considering the items that have been discussed throughout the six-party talks in the past, the denuclearization basket South Korea will show North Korea is likely to contain the following items: dismantling all existing nuclear facilities; shipping all nuclear fuel rods, both unused and used, out of North Korea; and dismantling all existing nuclear weapons and uranium enrichment programs under the principle of comprehensive, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement.

 

On the other hand, the basket representing a security guarantee and international assistance offered by South Korea and the other parties contains the normalization of diplomatic relations with both the United States and Japan; a non-aggression treaty between the United States and North Korea; massive economic aid from the United States, South Korea and other willing parties; the lifting of economic sanctions on North Korea by all nations; and support of North Korea's participation in major international economic organizations.

 

North Korea rejected both baskets. This may be a bluff to raise its leverage. Another possible trap North Korea may use would be agreeing to come to the negotiating table and returning to the old salami tactic, maintaining that since both sides cannot trust each other, there is no choice but to slice each package into small pieces and exchange concessions according to the action-for-action principle.

 

It should be noted that in the past both sides have agreed on vague expressions regarding controversial issues, reaching an agreement but later arguing over the meaning of the expressions, or both sides have interpreted each other's actions differently. The disputes over these issues have given North Korea an excuse to repudiate a whole agreement.

 

Lee's policy statements on North Korea since he took office, including the "Vision-3000: Denuclearization and Openness" formula, the disarmament proposal and now the grand bargain, indicate a paradigm shift in South Korea's policy toward the North, as some government officials suggested. He has tried to turn their relations from an intra-national relationship into an inter-state one.

 

The previous two governments basically treated the inter-Korea relationship as intra-national, placing more value on inter-Korean relations when they conflicted with the South Korea-U.S. relationship. They were also more concerned with improving inter-Korean relations through functional cooperation than the strengthening of South Korea's security posture, as they believed that if economic, social and cultural cooperation between the two Koreas was strengthened, North Korea's hostility toward the South would be reduced and security guaranteed. Because of this perceptional difference, the previous two governments applied the principle of reciprocity very flexibly, treating the inter-Korean relationship as very special.

 

Since the Lee government considers South Korea's security the most important foreign policy goal, especially under the condition of North Korea's nuclear threat, it prioritizes the solution of the North Korean nuclear issue over inter-Korean functional cooperation. Under the principle that inter-Korean relations are actually inter-state, the Lee government tries to harmonize South Korea-U.S. relations with inter-Korean relations.

 

This is definitely a paradigm shift, and one that may have originated from his pragmatic centrism. Whatever it is called, his paradigm shift is an appropriate one. Considering that there is no peace treaty between the two Koreas, South Korea remains under the North Korean nuclear threat and the both countries enjoy sovereign status in the international arena, it is impossible to treat inter-Korean relations as purely intra-national.

 

But Lee's policy should remain short- to mid-term, particularly because Koreans do not want to abandon their ultimate goal of national reunification. One problem with this new policy is that in reality it will be very difficult to treat all inter-Korean relations as inter-state. Therefore, the government may have to make exceptions in some cases, particularly in the social, cultural and humanitarian fields.

 

Park Sang-seek is a professor at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University. - Ed.

 

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THE KOREA HERALD

EDITORIAL

 

CRISIS AND THE MERITOCRATS' REVOLT

JEAN-PAUL FITOUSSI

 

PARIS - The bailout of the financial system was a bizarre moment in economic history, for it benefited those who benefited most from the markets' irrational exuberance - the bosses of financial firms. Before the crisis hit, however, redistribution of wealth (and the tax and social security payments that make it possible) was considered the biggest obstacle to economic efficiency. Indeed, the values of solidarity had given way to those of individual "merit," judged by the size of one's paycheck.

 

The paradox is that a part of this evolution may be attributable to two positive factors: the slow work of democracy, which liberates individuals but at the same time leaves them more isolated; and the development of a welfare system that shares risks and makes individuals more autonomous. With this isolation and autonomy, people increasingly tend to believe, for better or for worse, that they alone are responsible for their own fate.

 

Here lies the conundrum. An individual is free and autonomous only because of the collective decisions taken after democratic debate, notably those decisions that guarantee each person access to public goods such as education, health care, etc. Some sense of social solidarity may remain, but it is so abstract that those for whom the wheel of fortune has spun so favorably feel little debt. They believe that they owe their status purely to merit, not to the collective efforts - state-funded schools, universities, etc. - that enabled them to realize their potential.

 

When merit is measured by money, there is no ethical limit to the size of an individual's paycheck. If I earn 10, 100, or 1,000 times more than you, it is because I deserve 10, 100, or 1,000 times more than you.

 

Merit and skills are how we give an intrinsic value to money. Human nature - ego and/or arrogance - does the rest. It is no surprise, then, that many people think of themselves as priceless. The central place where this self-(over)evaluation meets the fewest obstacles is the financial market. Money there is an abstraction - "the abstraction of abstractions," as Hegel put it - which helps explain why salaries are no longer rooted in reality.

 

Of course, when the crisis hit, financial institutions were the first to argue that autonomy was unrealistic, and that we are all interdependent. After all, why else should taxpayers agree to rescue them?

 

But now these same institutions are deciding that they want to go their own way again. So yesterday's (pre-crisis) world is being resurrected. Dismissing the risks that taxpayers incurred, financial institutions used the bailout to restore profitability and are now reverting to their old habits, which had worked so well for them and so badly for others.

 

No one should be surprised about this. The economic stakes encourage everyone to make the best of their circumstances. The bailout of banks led to a wave of mergers. If they were already too big to fail, what should we now say when banks are even bigger? Their market power has increased, yet they know they incur no risk, owing to the aggravated systemic impact of their potential bankruptcy.

 

Moreover, they face an economy starved of credit, in which the crisis endangered many companies whose bankruptcy would have no systemic effect. Working in so uncompetitive a market is a real stroke of luck. I do not know many businessmen who would not take advantage of this; to be honest, I do not know any.

 

The free-market doctrine, which has become almost a religion, reinforced this belief: markets are efficient, and if they pay me so much (a potentially mind-boggling amount, as seen in recent cases), it is because my own efficiency warrants it. I also participate indirectly and abstractly in forging the common good, by creating value through my work, and I am rewarded for it.

 

But suddenly the system collapses, the creation of value turns into destruction and parallel universes collide. No mathematician can remember so unprecedented and spectacular a result: parallel lines intersecting, with autonomy becoming (for the brief moment of the bailout at least) interdependence. For the connections between the economy and the world of finance are so strong and the interdependency between the so-called parallel universes so tight that there was no choice.

 

Eyes are opened; the illusion of arbitrage between efficiency and solidarity fades. The crisis reminds us what each person owes to others, highlighting an ethical truth that we were quick to forget: the rich benefit more than the poor from their cooperation with other members of society.

 

Two conclusions can be drawn from all this. The first is that we all owe at least some of our success to others, given the public goods that society provides. This calls for more modesty and restraint in determining the highest salaries, not for moral reasons but for the sustainability of the system.

 

The second conclusion is that the most privileged classes, which have benefited the most from the solidarity of others, notably the poor, can no longer deny the latter's contributions. But don't hold your breath waiting for them to agree.

 

Jean-Paul Fitoussi is a professor of economics at Sciences-po and president of OFCE (Sciences-po Center for Economic Research, Paris). - Ed.

 

(Project Syndicate)

 

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THE JAKARTA POST

EDITORIAL

ALL ABOUT MONEY

 

Money, money, money. It is indeed shameful and disgusting money seems to be the only factor in determining who will win the Golkar Party chairmanship in Pekanbaru, Riau, this week. Media reports about alleged vote buying have raised many doubts about the credibility of the party leaders. When leaders are elected because of their wealth, and not because of their capability, it is hard to believe they can achieve quality results.

 

We heard little about comprehensive programs from the candidates — business tycoon Aburizal Bakrie and media baron Surya Paloh are so far the strongest contenders — on what politicians will do to restore the party's past supremacy in local and national elections.

 

We wished they could provide detailed programs to the party stakeholders, but we could only gain information about the mighty power of their wealth. It is true that both Aburizal and Surya boasted Golkar would win more votes in local elections and in the 2014 legislative and presidential elections, but they apparently also know congress participants are more interested in how they can get the highest financial and political benefits from the congress.

 

Vice President Jusuf Kalla easily won the Golkar leadership in 2004, several weeks after he and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono were sworn in as the country's new leaders. He defeated then incumbent chairman Akbar Tandjung, because he reportedly poured in huge money to attract Golkar leaders.

 

When Golkar received fewer-than-expected votes in the April legislative elections, Kalla was largely blamed for the failure.

 

Soeharto established Golkar as his political machine when he came to power in the 1960s. It was the only major political party around during his tenure, although there were also two smaller parties.

 

After his fall in 1998, Golkar votes decreased in the 1999 elections. It only secured 120 seats in the House of Representatives that year, 128 seats in 2004 and just 107 seats in 2009.

 

Soeharto's youngest son, "Tommy" Soeharto, is also trying his luck in this congress. He has also promised lucrative incentives if he wins the race.

 

However there is little hope for Tommy to regain family control over the party.

 

Hopefully the candidates will present their clear and achievable vision and mission to participants of the Golkar congress, which will run from Monday until Thursday.

 

And we hope the 492 regional and 33 provincial chapters, and Golkar's 10 wing organizations, which have voting rights in the congress, use a moral conscience — and not their greed for money and power — to elect the party's new chairman.

 

As long as money is the most dominant factor in determining the winner of the Golkar leadership race,
there is little hope people can gain more trust in the party. But the behavior of Golkar leaders perhaps also reflects the behavior of our leaders in general. How can we expect democracy to flourish in our country when vote buying remains rampant?

 

 

 

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THE JAKARTA POST

EDITORIAL

STRENGTHENING BANKS' FINANCING FOR ORGANIC FARMING

PETRUS F.T.P. TAMPUBOLON

 

The market for organic products has grown rapidly in recent times. Consumers' preferences have been steadily shifting from traditional to organic products.

 

Shops and restaurants selling organic products have become more easy to find in big cities in Indonesia. For healthy and environmental reasons, people have become more aware of the negative impacts of using too much synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals in nurturing plants and animals. Consuming organic produce is becoming a new lifestyle choice.

 

The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) defines organic agriculture as a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and people.

 

It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects. Organic agriculture combines tradition, innovation and science to benefit the shared environment and promote fair relationships and a good quality of life for all involved.

 

Some studies state that from a business sense, organic farming is more profitable than conventional farming practices. It needs lower input costs, but enjoys higher selling prices, so it generates bigger profits.

 

For banks, organic farming is a prospective segment to finance. This may be a way out for banks looking to extend more loans to the agricultural sector. Data from Bank Indonesia shows that the total number of outstanding loans by June 2009 was Rp 1.33 trillion and only 5.5 percents of this amount (Rp 73,267 billion) was from the agriculture sector.

 

These figures also show us something ironic, because conversely, of 51.262 million business units in Indonesia by 2008, 51.257 million of them (99.99 percents) were micro, small and medium business units (MSMEs). Around 55 percent of these MSMEs are dominated by agriculture sector.

 

In connection with local economic growth and development equality issues in all provinces in Indonesia, regional government banks (BPD) should increase the proportion of financing for the agriculture sector.

 

Organic farming may be the best option to finance. As of June 2009, from Rp 110,968 billion in outstanding loans of regional government banks, only 2.96 percent of this amount (Rp 3,289 billion) was disbursed to agriculture sector. 

 

From the data above, it is clear we must analyze this situation. Banks seem not so interested in financing the agriculture sector. Bankers see the agriculture sector as risky business and also less profitable than other sectors.

 

To date, not many banks' loan officers know about the other side of modern agriculture, i.e. organic farming. Financing organic farming will benefit banks and farmers.

 

This kind of farming could be a mitigation of potential risks often encountered in financing the agriculture sector. Bankers need to learn much about organic farming, since it is a new niche market for banks to finance. On the other side, by getting additional working capital from banks, farmers will be able to expand the scale of their farming businesses.

 

There will be a symbiosis between banks and farmers. Banks will make agriculture sector a profit-generating center, and at the same time farmers will get higher incomes and improve their welfare.
The great potential of organic farming supported by banking sector may lead to better and more prosperous farmers. For this, the government can play a vital role.

 

Inter-governmental institutions must work hand in hand to educate farmers how to farm organically.

 

Bankers also need to improve their knowledge so they realize that financing the agriculture sector and farmers is not just a social responsibility program, but something really financially profitable that can generate money for banks.

 

Organic farming is a business that will enable farmers to repay their loans to banks. Organic farming

also ensures sustainable development. It is socially acceptable, environmentally safe and economically profitable.

The writer works for Bank BNI in Jakarta and is currently studying for his PhD from Bogor Institute of Agriculture, majoring in the management of natural resources and the environment. This article represents the author's personal views.

 

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THE JAKARTA POST

EDITORIAL

INDONESIA'S PIVOTAL ROLE IN THE US'S GRAND STRATEGY

EVAN A. LAKSMANA

 

Is Indonesia rising in global politics? Many seem to think so, especially considering its democratic success story, continued economic growth and increasing global profile and influence in a wide range of issues, from human rights to trade and climate change.

 

Most recently, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was at the G20 Leaders Summit in Pittsburgh this week to voice not just Indonesia's interests, but also the concerns of the Muslim world and developing nations.

 

Meanwhile, Indonesia's standing in Southeast Asia also appears unshaken. In fact, when the US signed ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) in late July, some speculated that the move was meant to support Indonesia's regional role rather than to benefit the whole region.

 

It is easy therefore to get caught up in the flurry of excitement as Indonesia seems ready to take on the mantle of global leadership.

 

However, besides Indonesia's domestic economic and political factors that have won President Yudhoyono much praise, one should not overlook the role of the US's grand strategy in Indonesia's rise.

 

In this respect, it is hard to fully dismiss the role that US endorsement plays in facilitating Indonesia's global role. After all, in the age of American primacy, how the US views a certain country goes a long away in shaping that country's international standing.

 

In turn, these views have always been within the corridor of US grand strategy, where military considerations often take precedence.

 

Understanding those military considerations therefore are often, though not always, crucial to discerning the

US's grand strategy.

 

It is in this context that we should place the US-Indonesia partnership over the last few years, which
initially had to address thorny bilateral issues, especially relating to military-to-military relations and the ban on Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and International Military Education and Training (IMET).

 

Once these issues were resolved and sanctions lifted in 2005-2006, US security assistance quickly followed.

 

By 2008, at more than US$151 million, Indonesia, a non-treaty partner, had received more US economic and security assistance, including FMF and IMET, than Thailand and the Philippines, two key treaty allies.

 

The Indonesian military also participated in more than 100 joint programs under the aegis of the US Pacific Command's Theater Security Cooperation (TSC), and received funding for its Lebanon peacekeeping mission, to set up the Indonesian Defense University, and to provide coastal radar systems.

 

On hindsight, it was during these times of rapprochement that Indonesia's global profile seemingly began to grow.

 

Although some claim that this was merely out of the US's interest in capitalizing on Indonesia's value as a beacon of moderation in the Muslim world, we should not downplay the persistence of military considerations in US grand strategy, especially the preponderance of geographical awareness within the US defense and foreign policy establishment.

 

This was an awareness that President Barack Obama also felt and further accentuated as he entered office at a time of economic slump, overstretched military forces and strained relations with key allies
and partners.

 

It seems plausible then that the US should selectively choose a few key pivotal states to assume a larger regional and global responsibility as it tries to recover from the strategic slump.

 

Such pivotal states would also usually be of geostrategic importance for the US and its allies as well, as historian Paul Kennedy noted a decade ago.

 

These considerations are consequently factored in as the US today tries to continually sustain its military forces in the Arabian Gulf, Middle East and Central Asia, while providing a credible deterrent against China, Iran and North Korea, and safeguards allies in Europe, East Asia and Australia.

 

To fulfill these tasks, military movements and rotations between the Pacific and Indian Oceans become critical, and given Asia's geostrategic maritime landscape, are best facilitated through naval access and transport.

 

This requires unimpeded passage through key Sea Lanes of Communications (SLOC).

 

This is a responsibility that falls under the US Pacific Command and the fleet's five aircraft carrier strike groups, 180 ships and 1,500 aircraft.

 

With such a large military contingent in such a crucial theater of operations, and under such a strained military condition, maintaining dominance at sea becomes one of the logical conclusions of President Obama's defense principles.

 

Indonesia enters the strategic equation here by virtue of its control over three key checkpoints controlling SLOCs critical for the US military: the Karimata Strait-Java Sea-Sunda Strait linking the South China Sea and Indian Ocean; the Makassar Strait-Lombok Strait linking the Pacific Ocean, Philippine waters and the Indian Ocean; and the Maluku Sea-Banda Sea-Indian Ocean.

 

These straits influence US military power projection to the Indian Ocean, East Africa and Persian Gulf regions from bases on the West Coast of the US, Hawaii and forward-basing locations in Asia.

 

If denied access, as Jakarta tried to do several times during the 1970s and 1990s, a naval battle group transiting from Yokosuka, Japan, to Bahrain, for example, would have to reroute around Australia, costing an extra $7-8 million and 15 days' delay, when rapid US response during a regional crisis is often critical.

 

Recently, when we consider the need for the US to increase troop rotations and revamp overstretched Orders of Battle (ORBAT) in the Middle East and Central Asia, then ensuring naval passage by using rapprochement tactics and boosting Indonesia's global role makes good geostrategic sense.

 

Even more so when we consider that today, passage through Indonesian straits determines the economic and energy lifelines of US friends (Japan and Korea) and foes (China and North Korea).

 

Thus geography has been, and perhaps always will be, a guiding principle for US grand strategy in the region. One would do well to remember that ultimately, as Colin Gray argues, all politics is geopolitics, and all strategy is geostrategy.

The writer is a researcher at the Department of Politics and International Relations, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta. Parts of this article were recently presented at the 11th ASEAN ISIS-IIR Taiwan Dialogue.

 

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THE JAKARTA POST

EDITORIAL

TV REALITY SHOWS SELL 'JUNK-FOOD'

TEUKU KEMAL FASYA 

 

Two days before Ramadan started, I had a chance to watch a reality show broadcasted by RCTI, Masihkah Kau Mencintaiku (MKM). Helmi Yahya and Dian Nitami were the hosts for this program.

 

Wearing a mask, Hani, a wife told of her experience that she did not have sex with her husband Gatot for a year. Her husband was there as well as her relatives. Both sides then quarreled, blaming each other.

 

The host seemed to let this happen, while the audiences enjoyed the spectacle at the couple's cost.
Once, Helmi Yahya interrupted the debate between the couple by asking Gatot: "Is it true that you haven't slept with your wife for a year, I mean [aside from] only pinching her?"

 

This was really aggravating and insulting. People in the audience — who came to the TV studio to watch the program live — laughed as they thought this was very funny. Instead of focusing on how to solve the problem of the couple, the host exploited the couple and their relatives; inviting viewers to laugh  at their suffering for having been in conflict and for not enjoying sexual relations as a wife and husband are supposed to do.

 

The two psychologists on the program, Mbak Rae and Bu Win; were both sympathetic to the wife. It then became somehow a must to side with the woman for the sake of gender equality.

 

However, the presence of psychologists or experts participating in this kind of TV show gave no guarantee that the show would educate the audience.

 

Instead, reality shows like MKM are simply junk-food for the viewers. If you do not side with the woman in the context of contemporary gender-analysis trends, then you are not a nice guy and they can tell you that you don't understand the problem.

 

Imagine if you are either the husband or the wife on a reality show program. I wonder if you would be willing to tell everyone your problems the way they do on TV unless you are somehow out of your mind or the host has promised you benefits before the broadcast. Or perhaps you think that it will be fun to be on a TV show?

 

Helmi Yahya is himself is a famous host of several TV programs broadcast by private television stations.  These shows imitate what they have in the US.

 

TV stations in Indonesia exploited the political situation after the fall of the Soeharto regime in 1998; they enjoy their freedom to broadcast almost whatever they like for the sake of making money.  

 

The majority of Indonesian viewers are lower and middle class families who enjoy reality TVs programs so they can escape from their own everyday struggle by watching other people's struggles instead.

 

TVs bring modernity with all its implication, penetrating to almost all parts of the country including remote areas.

 

Society portrayed by TV moves so quickly that the majority of local people especially in rural areas cannot keep

up with it.

 

Here we see the collision between exploitative consumerist ideology promoted by ther TV industry pitted against the more fragile growth of local-sustainable culture while coping with modernity. But TV drives viewers to consciously or unconsciously absorb consumerism and junk-food ideologies.


The writer is a  lecturer at Malikussaleh University, Lhokseumawe, Aceh.

 

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