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Editorial
month october 16, edition 000325, 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
- TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT
- KILLED FOR BEING HINDU
- WHEN SILENCE TELLS A STORY - BALBIR K PUNJ
- ISLAM DEBASES WOMEN - TRINA JOSHI
- CRUSH THE RED TERROR - KALYANI SHANKAR
- CREATING A WIN-WIN FORMULA - PRAFULL GORADIA
- IN MOSCOW, SOVIET PAST LOOMS LARGE - JIM HEINTZ
- HIGH TIME WE GOT OUR ACT RIGHT ON CHINA
- LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP
- US JUST CAN'T LEAVE - BY VIKRAM SOOD
- US- AF- PAK- INDIA: OPTIONS - BY NAJAM SETHI
- FICTITIOUS DIARY OF NAWAZ SHARIF - JUGNU MOHSIN
- INDIA MUST BEWARE OF BEIJING'S DESIGNS
- IS PAKISTAN REALLY JUST A PIECE OF LAND?
- TIME TO TALK
- WIN THE PEACE
- WORLD WITHOUT HUNGER
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- 'GULABI HAS A STRONG MESSAGE FOR ALL WOMEN'
- TAILOR-MADE TAMASHA -
- JUST FOR KICKS - JUG SURAIYA
- BULLYING IN THE CHINA SHOP
- GREAT GRAND-DADS
- ALL HAIL THE ROLE MODEL - ARCHANA DALMIA
- DROWNING THINGS OUT - RAJDEEP SARDESAI
- SEEING GHOSTS - NAYANJOT LAHIRI
- TRAINING TEACHERS - WHO WILL TEACH THE TEACHERS? - SWAHA SAHOO AND CHITRANGADA CHOUDHURY
- FOOD FOR THOUGHT
- AUDACIOUS, UNENDING
- DAMMED TRUTHS
- FIX THE COORDINATES - C. RAJA MOHAN
- COMMON CAUSE WITH THE COMMONS - MINOTI CHAKRAVARTY KAUL
- 'INDIAN HEGEMONY CONTINUES TO HARM RELATIONS WITH NEIGHBOURS'
- THE HALLMARK OF A TRUE PROFESSIONAL - SARITHA RAI
- WHAT NOT TO LEARN FROM INDIA - YUBARAJ GHIMIRE
- DAMNED IF WE DON'T
- GENERALLY MARVELOUS
- THERE IS A JOB TO DO ON JOBS - MANISH SABHARWAL
- ELEPHANT GETS BRINJAL, MORE TO COME - YOGINDER K ALAGH
- POLICY CROSS-CONNECTION - ANANDITA SINGH MANKOTIA
- THE DOLLAR'S FALL
- IMPROVING PUBLIC HOUSING
- THE EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION DEBATE - PRABHUDEV KONANA
- TRAFIGURA FIASCO TEARS UP THE TEXTBOOK - ALAN RUSBRIDGER
- U.K. STUDENT VISA SYSTEM IN CHAOS - HASAN SUROOR
- SECOND GREATEST KILLER
- FEARS RISE: PAK OUT OF CONTROL?
- WILDE ADVENTURES – ASHOK MANDANNA
- GAMES BAN HURTS FIJIANS THE MOST - SHUBHA SINGH
- LIVE YOUR TRUTH - ROBIN SHARMA
- US AID: A SAGA OF CARROTS, NO STICKS - SRINATH RAGHAVAN
- IDENTITY CRISIS
- BANISH DARKNESS
- INTELLIGENT SUCCESSORS
- WELCOME THE LIGHT - SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR
- RACIAL ABUSE CAN BE A PUBLICITY STUNT - FARRUKH DHONDY
- FOOD FOR THOUGHT
- THE LAHORE STRIKE
- DECISIVE ACTION NEEDED
- BAINGAN IN YOUR PLATE
- CHOOSING JUDGES - BY P.P. RAO
- WOMAN, THY NAME IS MIGHT - BY ASHOK KUMAR YADAV
- FRAGILE FOOD SECURITY - BY HARENDER RAJ GAUTAM
- FROM POWER SURPLUS TO SHORTAGE - BY K.S. CHAWLA
- SHORTENING A CANCER PATIENT'S ORDEAL - BY KELLY BREWINGTON
- CHINESE SALVO
- JUVENILE JUSTICE
- BHIMAJULI MASSACRE AND GOVT RESPONSE - DR AKHIL RANJAN DUTTA
- PRE-ANAESTHETIC EVALUATION - DR MAITREYEE CHAKRAVARTY
- WORRY ABOUT HUMAN ETHICS
- ON TO NELP IX
- A SLASH OF A MISTAKE
- CRUDE POLICIES IN HYDROCARBON SECTOR - SOMA BANERJEE
- MARKET'S READY TO GIVE A ROUSING WELCOME TO SAMVAT 2066
- IT MAY BE THE RIGHT TIME TO BOOK FORWARD DOLLARS - GAURAV PAI
- TOP PSUS MAY HAVE TO JUSTIFY BULGING KITTY OR PAY DIVIDEND - DHEERAJ TIWARI & SUBHASH NARAYAN
- D-STREET: OLD TIMERS MISS MUHURAT BONHOMIE - SHAILESH MENON
- THE MARRIAGE OF TWO MINDS - MUKUL SHARMA
- CHINA'S LOCUS STANDI ON ARUNACHAL?
- THERE IS ALSO A CHINA-BASHING LOBBY AT WORK
- THE BASIS OF ITS TERRITORIAL CLAIM IS LAUGHABLE
- 'THERE IS CONTINUED OPPORTUNITY FOR INNOVATION HERE' - ANIRVAN GHOSH
- 'NO MEANINGFUL CORRECTION BEFORE ANOTHER RAPID RISE'
- FEARS RISE: PAK OUT OF CONTROL?
- US AID: A SAGA OF CARROTS, NO STICKS - BY SRINATH RAGHAVAN
- FIGHTING IN AFGHANISTAN WON'T WIN THE WAR - BY ROBERT A. PAPE
- WILDE ADVENTURES - BY ASHOK MANDANNA
- GAMES BAN HURTS FIJIANS THE MOST - BY SHUBHA SINGH
- WALL STREET SMARTS - BY CALVIN TRILLIN
- BRINJAL BHARTA
- STRAITS OF AL QAIDA
- REFLECTED GLORY
- CHOCOLATE, WATER REDUCE PAIN: STUDY
- FOOD SECURITY & EQUALITY - BY BHARAT DOGRA
- BORDER BAITS
- GENE REVOLUTION
- IN SEARCH OF OLD TERRITORY - SWAPAN DASGUPTA
- FAMILIAR WORRIES RETURN - MALVIKA SINGH
- A NEW BEGINNING
- GLARING BIAS
- DEATH OF THE DAILIES - IGNACIO RAMONET, IPS
- CLIMATE DEBATE CAN'T IGNORE SMALL FARMERS - PANDURANG HEGDE
- CLEARLY AMBIGUOUS - LEELA RAMASWAMY
- WHO LOST TURKEY?
- 'GOLDSTONE REPORT A DISGRACE TO JUSTICE'
- NOT ABOVE THE LAW - BY HAARETZ EDITORIAL
- IS THE OBAMA EFFECT TURNING THE WORLD AGAINST ISRAEL? - BY YOEL MARCUS
- ETHICAL AFFAIRS MINISTER - BY NEHEMIA SHTRASLER
- ABBAS IS A DEAD MAN - NETANYAHU AND BARAK KILLED HIM - BY YOSSI SARID
- THE LAST NOBEL PRIZE? - BY CARLO STRENGER
- SO CLOSE AND YET SO FAR - BY TAMAR ARIELI
- STOP USING ISRAEL AS A SHIELD - BY AFDHERE JAMA
- ANOTHER CASE OF FRENCH EXCEPTIONALISM? - BY CORINNE MELLUL
- RECONSIDERING CARBON CUTS - BY BJORN LOMBORG
- BACK WHERE HE BELONGS
- OCTOBER EXODUS
- GOV. PATERSON'S WARNING
- 10,000: THEN AND NOW
- THE REALITY MOMENT - BY DAVID BROOKS
- HAS CONCEPTUAL ART JUMPED THE SHARK TANK? - BY DENIS DUTTON
- TERROR UNRELENTING
- A CLEARER MESSAGE?
- DEMOCRACY UNDER A CLOUD - AYAZ AMIR
- THE KERRY-LUGAR DISTRACTION - AHMAD RAFAY ALAM
- INCOMPETENCE INC. - ZAFAR HILALY
- KERRY-LUGAR AND OUR RESPONSE - DR MASOODA BANO
- TAKING ON THE REAL ENEMY - SHAFQAT MAHMOOD
- ROCKY ROAD AHEAD - TAYYAB SIDDIQUI
- WINDOW-DRESSING OF KLB
- SCO CAN CONTRIBUTE TO PROSPEROUS FUTURE
- POLITICAL STORM IN AJK
- INDIA, CHINA, PAK: THE THREE DONKEYS - M D NALAPAT
- DOWNSIDE OF MORE INDIAN N TESTS - SULTAN M HALI
- HOLY PROPHET'S (PBUH) MESSAGE OF PEACE - SANIYASNAIN KHAN
- S WAZIRISTAN, FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION - DR HUMA MIR
- CLOSE THE WINDOWS..! - ROBERT CLEMENTS
THE INDEPENDENT
- HAMID'S PRUDENT MOVE
- 'NOW CLAWLESS TOO'
- CRIME FREE INDIA...!
- HOSPITAL PASS NOT AN OPTION FOR RUDD
- REFORMS THAT WORK
- A NEW WORLD ORDER
- THE WRONG END OF THE MICROSCOPE
- SILK ROAD NEEDS A CLEARER MAP
- BANKERS' BONUSES: GOLDEN SACKS
- IN PRAISE OF… KINDER SCOUT
- PAKISTAN: A FIGHT TO THE FINISH
- KOREA-VIETNAM TIES
- INTEGRATION PANEL
- TREATING OF AL-QAIDA BY SAUDI ROYALS - BERNARD HAYKEL
- CLARIFYING THE IDEA OF COMMUNITY
- WINNY CREATOR RIGHTLY ACQUITTED
- SUMMIT HIGHLIGHTS MEDIA PROBLEMS IN CHINA - BY FRANK CHING
- GOVERNMENT'S GATEKEEPER
- GIVE SBY-JK A SIX FOR TRYING
- THE END OF RI'S DEMOCRACY OR A REBIRTH OF PLURALISM? - AHMAD JUNAIDI
- COUNTY PARTY SECRETARIES
- THOUGHT FOR FOOD
- CHALLENGES ABOUND IN VULNERABLE AREAS
- PILLARS OF MA'S CROSS-STRAITS POLICY
- KNOW-IT-ALL ATTITUDE - BY MICHELE A. BERDY
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THE PIONEER
EDIT DESK
TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT
HURRIYAT MUST ABANDON SEPARATISM
The Union Government, we have been informed by Minister for Home Affairs P Chidambaram, is in the process of initiating "quiet talks" to find a "unique solution" to what he has described as the "problem of Jammu & Kashmir". On the face of it, there can be no reason to cavil at the Government's decision to hold the proposed talks "silently, away from the media's glare". After all, the Government neither needs to consult media nor is it obliged to disclose every step it takes towards conflict resolution at home or abroad so long as it does not lose sight of national interest. It's unlikely that the UPA regime will risk doing something that militates against the national consensus on Jammu & Kashmir, notwithstanding the Prime Minister's penchant for 'out-of-the-box' ideas. Hence, in all fairness, any adverse comment at this stage would be not only premature but also premised on presumptions that may not be entirely true. However, it would be in order to highlight three points that are crucial to talks leading to a breakthrough in a situation that is dominated by the intransigence of the 'aggrieved' party — in Jammu & Kashmir's case, it would be the separatists — and which affords an opportunity to cynical politicians to fish in troubled waters. This is best exemplified by the PDP's proclivity to indulge in rhetoric which is often indistinguishable from that of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference.
First, the Union Government will have to ensure that dialogue is not limited to those who are part of the political mainstream. Frankly, it makes little sense to sit across the table with the National Conference, the BJP, or, for that matter, even the PDP, and discuss the "problem of Jammu & Kashmir". This is not to suggest that sections of the State's population or some shades of opinion should be kept out of the dialogue process; that would be self-defeating and Mr Chidambaram has rightly stressed the "need to hold consultations with all sections". But the most important section which needs to be convinced of its folly is the one which aggressively promotes the State's separation from the Union. Which brings us to the second point: Are the separatists willing to talk? If they are indeed agreeable to the idea of dialogue with the Centre to settle contentious issues, what are the terms of reference of their participation in talks? Needless to say, these terms must conform to the Constitution of India. There cannot be any fruitful dialogue if there are no pre-conditions. This, then, is the third point: The separatists will have to accept the provisions of the Constitution of India and abjure violence as well as denounce the jihad sponsored by Pakistan against India to make the talks meaningful, or else it will be no more than a futile exercise.
There have been several attempts in the past to solve the "problem of Jammu & Kashmir" through dialogue; on each occasion, the Centre's efforts, no doubt sincere and well meaning, have foundered on the rock of Hurriyat's obduracy. If Mr Chidambaram is so confident of achieving what has till now seemed impossible, we cannot but assume that the Hurriyat has signalled its willingness to give up the platform of violent separatist politics and hostility towards the Union of India. If the assumption is misplaced, then so is the Home Minister's confidence in negotiating a settlement. For, little or no purpose is served by fudging issues, especially when Jammu & Kashmir is concerned.
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THE PIONEER
KILLED FOR BEING HINDU
WILL POLICE GET AWAY WITH MURDER?
The shocking apathy of the authorities in Jammu & Kashmir with respect to the custodial death of Rajneesh Sharma deserves to be condemned in the harshest of terms. There is no denying that the death of the 35-year-old businessman from Jammu under mysterious circumstances in Srinagar's Ram Munshi Bagh police station, where he was found hanging, has more to it than what meets the eye. Rajneesh was picked up by the police on the night of September 29 from his brother Pawan Sharma's house. He was found dead on October 5. Though the police claim that Rajneesh committed suicide, the post-mortem report suggests that he had been tortured in custody. Custodial deaths are a matter of serious concern. They amount to grave human rights violation. Each and every such death deserves to be thoroughly investigated and the policemen under whose watch they take place must be made answerable. But what sets Rajneesh Sharma's death apart from straightforward police barbarity are the underlying circumstances. Back in August Rajneesh had married Amina Yousaf, a Kashmiri Muslim. Amina adopted Hinduism and took the name Aanchal Sharma. However, the marriage did not go down well with Rajneesh's parents-in-law. Reports suggest that the couple was routinely harassed by Aanchal's father and brothers. Following Rajneesh's death, Aanchal has accused them of conspiring with the police to 'murder' her husband.
It is unfortunate that neither has the Jammu & Kashmir Government been seen to be coming down heavily on the policemen involved nor has it bothered to institute a fair and speedy probe into the incident. The routine magisterial inquiry is no more than hogwash. It is the lack of urgency on the part of authority that is cause for concern. It is precisely because the response of the Government to the incident has been lukewarm that it has been drawing criticism from all quarters. Had the Omar Abdullah Government been more proactive, things would not have come to this pass with Aanchal threatening to immolate herself if those behind her husband's murder are not brought to justice. The Jammu & Kashmir Government, under the leadership of Mr Abdullah, should have ideally viewed this as an opportunity to showcase its sincerity and credibility. By moving quickly it could have pre-empted what appear to be credible charges of being insensitive to the problems of the Hindu minority in the State. Now it is essentially in damage-control mode. Nonetheless, the State Government can still turn things around if it so chooses. It must immediately order a CBI inquiry into the custodial death. If it doesn't, then the lapse would be too glaring to ignore. If Srinagar can be sensitive to Shopian, there is no reason for it to ignore the sensitivities of Jammu.
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THE PIONEER
COLUMN
WHEN SILENCE TELLS A STORY
BALBIR K PUNJ
He and his kith and kin were hounded for over a month. No human rights organisation came to their defence. On the fateful night of September 29, the lawless arm of the law finally caught up with him. He was whisked away from Jammu to Srinagar. A week later — on October 6 — his body was found hanging in the Ram Munshi Bagh police station in Srinagar. The police said it was suicide. Just five weeks after their marriage, his bride became a widow.
Rajneesh Sharma's only crime was that he was a Hindu from Jammu who had fallen in love with a Muslim woman from the Valley. He did not convert to Islam. Instead, the girl, Amina Yousaf, adopted Hinduism and took the name Aanchal Sharma after marriage. Her father, Mohammad Yousaf, a Sub-Inspector in the Sales Tax Vigilance Department in Srinagar, could not reconcile himself with this. At his instance, the helpful State police and the pliable, communalised administration came down heavily on Rajneesh and his family.
"My father, who works with the Vigilance Department of the State Government, knows how to arm-twist the law. He must have bribed the policemen to kill my husband," Aanchal told the media in Jammu. "They brutally tortured my husband and killed him in cold blood," she added. While the local media covered this macabre tragedy in detail, the national dailies, with the exception of The Pioneer, almost blacked it out.
The torture marks on Rajneesh's body, seen by scores of people on its arrival in Jammu exposed the brutality the policemen practised. There were cigarette burn marks all over. His nails had been pulled out. Other evidence of torture suggests that he was given the option of giving up either the woman he loved or his faith. The courage Rajneesh showed in the face of such torture — which has been confirmed by post-mortem as well — needs to be commended.
True, custodial deaths are not rare in this country. But in Rajneesh's case there is a communal angle to it. It is ironical that the same Kashmir Valley witnessed protests over the murder of tow Muslim women in Shopian. But the horrific custodial death of a Hindu man was treated with indifference. There have been numerous instances of Muslim men marrying Hindu women after converting them to Islam. Such marriages are happening all over the country. But the police are never called to intervene and the conversion to Islam is welcomed. Yet, if anyone converts the other way, all hell breaks loose.
The question here is why don't the self-styled liberals in the country stand up and condemn the Muslim community for its allergy to someone from their own community converting to another faith although it welcomes conversions to Islam.
There are several instances of individual families and communities of all description in the country seeking to undo inter-community marriages and even punish couples involved in them. In such cases civil society and the police are supposed to protect the couples. Where individuals or communities inflict punishment on these couples, the police are supposed to investigate the deaths and prosecute the perpetrators. Civil society is expected to stand by the victims. So why is civil society silent on Rajneesh's case?
Srinagar bursts into flames whenever someone is killed in the crossfire between security personnel and terrorists. But there have been no protests over Rajneesh's death in Srinagar. The Omar Abdullah Government has done nothing to act against the murderers. As a mere formality, two low-ranking policemen have been placed under suspension and orders have been issued for a magisterial inquiry into the custodial death.
There is something sinister behind this apathy. It would appear that someone is trying to give the message that Jammu & Kashmir is 'autonomous' or in someway out of the orbit of Indian law. As the militants and the separatists push their agenda, the Hindus of Jammu are being treated as second class citizens who cannot even depend on the protection of the law. In many Islamic countries this kind of a situation is normal.
Perhaps Rajneesh's murder is not even a crime in the eyes of the authorities in Jammu & Kashmir. Otherwise, the 'sensitive' majority community would have definitely protested against the actions of the police in Srinagar. The blame for this state of affairs does not lie with a particular community as such or the individuals therein. The blame lies with the system that keeps the community insular and builds high walls to protect it from the winds of change, and the 'secularists' who conveniently look the other way when such incidents occur.
Let us contrast the indifference towards Rajneesh's death case with how civil society reacted in Kolkata when an influential and rich Hindu, Ashok Todi, was accused of getting the police to help him deal with a Muslim man, Rizwanur Rahman, who dared to marry his daughter. The people of Kolkata, irrespective of their religion, rose in protest. Some of India's greatest intellectuals went and forced the Government to order an impartial probe which led to the prosecution of both Todi and the police officers who colluded with him.
Contrast Kolkata's reaction with the deafening silence in Srinagar and Delhi over Rajneesh's custodial death. The victim is from Jammu & Kashmir's minority community. Will Rajneesh have to become a Rizwanur to get justice in India?
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THE PIONEER
COLUMN
ISLAM DEBASES WOMEN
TRINA JOSHI
Corporal punishment may sound medieval to most of us in the 21st century, but it is still a reality for a considerable size of the global population, especially those who follow Islam. The world has moved ahead in time with respect to upholding democratic values and dignity of men and women, but the Islamic world is yet to catch up. The flogging sentence handed down to a Malaysian model for drinking beer exemplifies the atavism of Muslims.
In Pahang, one of the three Malaysian States where Muslims are flogged for consuming alcohol, part-time model Kartiaka Sari Dewi Shukarno was sentenced to six lashes and fined $1,400 for drinking at a night club in 2007 by a Sharia'h High Court. After an interim order to stop the execution until after the holy month of Ramadan, the decision was upheld by the Chief Justice of the Islamic High Court in September. The final date of the punishment being carried out has not been announced as yet.
Ms Shukarno is not the only Muslim to meet this fate. The flogging of 150 women and 50 men in Maldives is another case in point. They pleaded guilty to committing adultery. In Sudan, 10 women were canned for wearing trousers. Not even teenagers are spared lashes. An 18-year-old girl fainted after receiving 100 lashes for having sex with two different men.
Flagellation as punishment is disproportionate to crime of any magnitude. Its supporters may contend that flogging is just to teach a lesson by way of humiliating and hurting the offender. But that is not true. There is need for Muslims to reflect on the inherent violent tendencies of Islam. To teach the right moral values by way of flogging will only breed violence, defeating the very purpose as violence is itself an immoral act.
Religious codes are mostly inspired by the prevailing conditions of the time. If Sharia'h permits flogging, as claimed by the 'custodians' of Islamic law, then it is time for the community to revisit those laws in the light of true democratic values practised by civilised beings today. Legal system has progressed so much that there are certainly other ways of teaching the right way.
In the name of protecting their religion, Muslims are committing a crime by condoning a punishment that debases human beings and infringes their civil rights. Such cruelty is completely out of sync with the world which is striving to attain peace.
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THE PIONEER
OPED
CRUSH THE RED TERROR
AT LAST THE UNION GOVERNMENT IS WAKING UP TO THE FEARSOME REALITY OF THE TERRORISM UNLEASHED BY MAOISTS ACROSS THE COUNTRY. AN ALL-OUT WAR AGAINST LEFT-WING EXTREMISM HAS BEEN PLANNED. BUT THIS WAR CAN BE WON ONLY IF IT IS TAKEN TO ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSION
KALYANI SHANKAR
The Maoists are once again on the rampage, killing innocent people and targeting security personnel and national infrastructure. Over the years the number of security personnel and civilians killed by the insurgents has gone up substantially. So much so even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh admitted at the Directors-General of Police conference last month that Left-wing extremism is "the gravest internal security threat" to the country. While saying so Mr Singh made a frank admission that not much success has been achieved in containing the menace and the violence perpetrated by the Maoists is on the rise. To counter the threat a nuanced strategy and a holistic approach are required, he said.
However, Mr Singh is not the first Prime Minister to have made such a statement. In the past few decades every Prime Minister talked about the need to tackle Red terror. Unfortunately, despite this realisation, the Maoists — overtly or covertly — continue to run a parallel Government in the areas they hold control on by solving land disputes on their own and imposing taxes on the villagers. According to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, Maoists have presence in 18 of the 28 States and they are responsible for 90 per cent of the violence in the country.
The Maoist movement started during the 1960s in the Naxalbari region of West Bengal and soon spread to other neighbouring States of Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. Today the Red Corridor has spread its wing far and wide to Maharashtra and down south to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
So how did it manage to expand so far? The Prime Minister put it succinctly, "Despite its sanguinary nature, the Maoists managed to retain the support of a section of the tribal communities and the poorest of the poor in many affected areas. It has influence among certain sections of the civil society, the intelligentsia and the youth. It still retains a certain élan. All this adds to the complexity of the problem."
Still our Governments have been unable to contain the Maoists? It is because they know that the authorities are not coordinated and cannot act at once. Incidents like Jehanabad jail break and the recent beheading of a police officer in Jharkhand are classic examples of their behaviour. Singur and Nandigram show their hold on the villagers. They target corrupt officials and politicians. Their method of killing is gruesome. Villagers support them out of fear. Jobless youth in badly underdeveloped areas get attracted to their concept. They have their own network and operate in an orchestrated manner. Maoists kill political leaders and take hostages, kidnap officers, blast railway tracks, indulge in arson looting, jail breaks and, in short, adopt guerilla warfare.
They operate from remote tribal areas where the police have limited or no reach. The Maoists claim to champion the cause of the poor and landless and manage to fund their activities from collection of compulsory donations from industrialists, contractors and land lords.
Alarmed by the growing menace the Centre now wants to change its strategy in dealing with the Maoists. The suggestion of hawks to delink the anti-Maoist drives from development seems to have found favour with the Home Minister. The priority is to first clear the area from the Maoist influence before undertaking development works. With the Union Government hinting at a massive operation against the Maoists has provoked them to resort to more killings. The capture of some of their top leaders and seven Polit Bureau members has also angered them which is apparent from their recent mindless violence.
Perhaps the Government is looking back to 1971 when massive anti-Maoist operations with the help of the Army were used to stop their illegal activities. However, times have changed and so have Maoists' modus operandi. They have improved methods of communication, own upgraded arms and remain secretive about their plans. The Home Ministry has ruled out Army deployment against the Maoists and it will be the paramilitary forces which will form the buffer zone.
However, before launching such a drive, the Government has to ensure certain things. First of all preparations for any anti—Maoist drive should be effective enough to take it to the end. Second, the Government must make sure that the local people are taken into confidence. Coordination between the Centre and the concerned State is vital to fight against the Maoists and intelligence sharing among the Maoist-affected States should be ensured.
The Union Government seems to have realised the urgency to counter the Maoists and with local authorities it has launched a huge publicity campaign to make people aware of the Maoist menace. But more than strategy and resources it is the will power of the Government that will ensure a decisive victory against the Maoists.
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THE PIONEER
OPED
CREATING A WIN-WIN FORMULA
PLOTTING VICTORY ON THE CRICKET FIELD IS NO DIFFERENT FROM CHARTING THE COURSE OF A WAR FOUGHT WITH MODERN WEAPONS. STRATEGY IS IMPORTANT IN BOTH. IS BCCI LISTENING?
PRAFULL GORADIA
Defeats will come and victories will go whether for the Indian cricket team or any other. The crucial element of any combat is to be in step with the challenge of the game. While ODIs are being played with enthusiasm, the mindset of many a captain is still moulded by the experience of Test cricket. The ODI is a game of the batsman — he is the attacker, he wins or loses the match. Whereas Test matches depend more on bowlers, they are still discussed as pace attack or spin attack and so on. The role of the bowler is to take wickets by giving away minimum runs. Batting is looked upon as the team's defence; score as many runs as you can. If not, remain at the crease so that if one cannot win, the match can be dragged to a draw.
The ODI has no concept of a draw. It allows 300 balls in the course of which the batsmen must score as many runs as possible. It matters little whether only one wicket is lost or 10. To that extent bowlers have limited responsibility of taking wickets. By the same token, they have the duty to minimise the runs being scored by the opponents. Keeping the scoring down is the crux of a bowler's function in an ODI. Bapu Nadkarni, who played for India in many Test matches, would be the role model of any ODI bowler. Every ball he bowled was a good length and most of the time it headed for the middle stump. He could not turn the ball nor did he try to very much. Flighting the ball was not his style either.
He seldom took a wicket but could bowl 20 or more maiden overs in a row. That is just what is needed in an ODI and a new incarnation of Nadkarni would be worth his weight in gold in this regard. The opponents are bound to lose their patience, try to force scoring shots and get themselves out. Or not score enough and their team could lose. Where is the need for a speed merchant who swings in or out or both ways? In endeavouring to take wickets, the bowler may go wayward now and then resulting in runs being scored.
Why not instead reduce the speed, control line, length and bounce of the ball with the sole aim of preventing the batsman from playing scoring strokes. Similarly, slow bowlers, in trying to deceive the batsman by spinning, breaking or flighting, may bowl more scoring balls than wicket taking ones. Let the batsman take his own wicket by hitting out accurate balls. All in all, negative bowling should be order of ODIs.
Cricket coaches and captains should stop thinking of selecting 11 players to play an ODI. Conceptually, they ought to keep in mind 52 roles. The wicket-keeper could play two roles, that of a batsman also. In the ICC Champions Trophy match against West Indies, MS Dhoni also bowled and took a wicket! The remaining 10 men can hypothetically play five roles each: That of a first rate fielder, a batsman with both hands and a bowler with both arms. Sourabh Ganguly could bat as a lefty and bowl as a right arm bowler. If trained from childhood and an aptitude to do so can make this happen.
There are any number of cricketers who are potentially ambidextrous. It is a question of the Board of Control for Cricket in India sending out a message that the selectors would prefer comprehensive all-rounders.
The mindset needs a change. One had not seen a reverse handed pull to the third man until Mohammad Azharuddin began to do so. Until Jam Ranji started cutting, glancing and pulling the ball, few deliberate scoring shots were played behind the wicket. Batsmen tended to hit the ball in front of the wicket and not behind. Moreover, teams had long tails of specialist bowlers who seldom chased the ball, in the belief that they should conserve their energies for bowling. That fielding is really not their function was the general acceptance.
However, times have changed since then and now the best of bowlers try to field like any other player. Most of the best cricket teams today have a combination of five all-rounders, five brilliant fielders and a wicket-keeper batsman. If every one of the 10 players were a comprehensive all-rounder, imagine what will be the beauty of the game!
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THE PIONEER
OPED
IN MOSCOW, SOVIET PAST LOOMS LARGE
TOTALITARIANISM HAS NOT ENTIRELY DISAPPEARED WITH THE EMPIRE BUILT BY STALIN, WRITES JIM HEINTZ
Tourists at the souvenir stands on the edge of Red Square smirk and chuckle as they buy T-shirts emblazoned with Lenin's glowering visage and Soviet propaganda posters. But 20 years ago, the Soviet Union was no joke.
For a history-minded visitor, Moscow may be one of the world's most challenging destinations. In a city now full of consumer goods, one of the hardest things to find is a sense of how bleak life was under the hammer and sickle.
Unlike Rome or Athens, where the tourist is called upon to imagine the glory that once was, in Moscow you have to visualise what wasn't there. Walk into a food store and imagine the shelves empty; picture the store without a clever name or attractive logo — its sign would have read only "meat" or "milk" or "products."
These days it's unlikely that one's tour guide briefs the secret police at the end of the day. Your hotel may not be cute or comfy, but it's probably not overtly scary like the Rossiya, a signature Soviet monstrosity that's now a vacant lot. In a way, this may be kind of a disappointment: Going to the Evil Empire had more cachet than a trip to the Overpriced Capital.
Nonetheless, there are a few places where visitors can feel like the clock's been rolled back to long before the Berlin Wall fell, and get a small taste of totalitarianism, of how the Soviet system quietly bullied even its most submissive citizens.
The most potent site is Lenin's Mausoleum, the epicentre of the overwhelming blind devotion to a man whose every utterance was treated as revealed word. Despite repeated suggestions that it should be closed and Lenin's mummified corpse buried, the mausoleum is still open 15 hours a week.
And it's still a profoundly unsettling experience. Guards take umbrage at any even mildly disrespectful behaviour, admonishing a recent visitor to take his hands out of his pockets. The corpse, under a glass cover, shows a sickly white face set off with garishly rouged cheeks. Visitors get only about 30 seconds to take a look as they walk by, the point apparently being to make a show of devotion rather than to reflect on what Lenin did.
As institutional and deferential as this may seem, it's less so than it used to be. The line of pilgrims used to snake across Red Square; now, visitors marshal in an adjacent alley, as if setting out for a slightly shameful activity.
Soviet authorities took every opportunity to lecture their people on the regime's purported nobility and accomplishments and to exhort them to live up to the image — not only in words but in images. Nowhere is that more visible today than in the older stations of Moscow's subway, masterpieces of Stalinist all-encompassing propaganda.
The Kievskaya ring-line station is a favourite of connoisseurs. Well-executed mosaics of diligent tractor-driver brigades and collective-farm workers dancing at harvest-time festoon the pillars. Another shows Lenin editing the revolutionary newspaper Iskra , and nearby some apparatchiks open a huge hydroelectric plant, their faces showing benevolent expressions that may not have been seen in real life.
The station called VDNKh isn't much for such decor, but what's above it is perhaps the ultimate example of Soviet propaganda kitsch. The acronym stands for Exhbition of the Achievements of the People's Economy, a 500-acre (202-hectare) spread of huge, elaborately decorated pavilions begun during Stalin's time.
Although many are less than 60 years old, the pavilions' architecture is rooted in styles from centuries past, resembling pashas' palaces and Egyptian temples; one even seems to combine elements of mosques and cathedrals. But look closer and see the hammers-and-sickles entwined in the filigree; the friezes and statues are not of gods and mythical heroes, but of workers.
The anachronistic architecture reflects the conservative, even reactionary, strain within Soviet authorities' claims to be boldly pushing into the future. Instead, the future came to VDNKh and worked strange changes.
After the Soviet collapse, most of the pavilions were stripped of their propaganda exhibits and turned over to small vendors. The central pavilion — a classic Stalinist Gothic tower — still contains a Russian ethnographic exhibition, but it's difficult to find amid the kiosks selling cheap watches, glow-in-the-dark panties and other cheerfully tacky goods that would have given a dour apparatchik a fit.
None of these sites can replicate the Soviet experience for more than a few moments, but for many visitors that's more than enough.
"I don't think I would have liked it here then," said Assumpta Abondo, a visitor from Dubai doing some desultory shopping at a souvenir stand.
For her companion Yasmin Mazouzi, the problem isn't that the Soviet experience is hard to find, but that it still seems so prevalent.
"The people are rude, policemen stare at you," she said. "You're a bit scared, really."
AP
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MAIL TODAY
COMMENT
HIGH TIME WE GOT OUR ACT RIGHT ON CHINA
ALL the while when the Indian government spent almost all of its foreign policy energies on Pakistan, its bigger neighbour in the east, China, did just about everything to irk India in the event of a diplomatic stand- off between the two nations.
It upgraded roads in Tibet, has started building dams on its side of the Brahmaputra and accepted mega contracts in Pakistan- occupied Kashmir that involve river diversion projects, large power plants and even construction of highways. At the Asian Development Bank, it almost succeeded in blocking a $ 2.9 billion loan to India only because a part of it — $ 60 million — was to be used for an irrigation project in Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state China lays claims on. It was also the only country that threatened to block a vote in favour of India at the Nuclear Suppliers' Group which authorised the sale of nuclear raw material and technology as part of the India- US civilian nuclear deal.
At the same time, India's single- minded obsession with Pakistan has left New Delhi with no ability other than to give a kneejerk reaction to circumstances orchestrated by Beijing in both the western sector in Ladakh as well as the eastern front in Arunachal Pradesh. Ergo, it is not clear whether the ministry of external affairs or the defence ministry or the Prime Minister's Office has a well- thought out China policy, or how deeply the three key departments even engage each other on this issue. So, the question we are forced to ask ourselves is: who runs our China policy? Indeed, is there one? India must wake up and act before China wrests the diplomatic initiative, something it has partly managed to do with its recent statements on various issues, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Arunachal Pradesh and then asking for a Prime Ministerial conference on the sidelines of ASEAN summit later this month.
It's not that New Delhi does not have the arsenal to come up with a coherent China policy. India's foreign secretary, Nirupama Rao, is one of the country's foremost experts on China. In addition, there are several think tanks and Sinologists that can draft such a document without compromising New Delhi's stated positions.
With China upping the ante by building a dam on its side of the Brahmaputra, a diplomatic stand- off cannot be ruled out.
While it seems unavoidable in the present circumstances, we only hope India is well prepared.
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MAIL TODAY
COMMENT
LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP
THE humble eggplant or brinjal is all set to undergo a high tech metamorphosis in India, with the approval of its genetically modified version for commercial application.
The GM brinjal which has received the nod of the biotech regulator contains the same Cry1Ac toxin from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis which is present in the GM cotton introduced a few years ago in the country. It may be alright to have a foreign gene in cotton if it helps the crop withstand pest attacks because cotton is not going to be eaten by humans.
But GM brinjal is edible and we don't yet know what impact this crop can have on human beings. No human trials have been conducted — just as they are done before introducing a drug in the market — for this variety of brinjal. This is very crucial because with GM brinjal — and other such food crops which are awaiting clearance — we are allowing genetic material from another species to enter the human food chain. Anti- GM groups cite studies done on rats and chickens that have shown that GM brinjal causes diarrhoea, increases water consumption, decreases liver weight and the ' liver to body' ratio.
These are all serious health impacts. The environment ministry panel is only concerned about the impact of GM brinjal on the environment. Secondly, we are introducing a food crop with a foreign gene in it without giving consumers a choice because India does not yet have a labeling system for GM foods. And even if we have a labeling system, how are you going to label GM brinjals or GM okra ( the humble bhindi )? The government seems in undue haste to allow GM foods without giving satisfying answers to all such questions. Hopefully, environment minister Jairam Ramesh and his counterpart in the health ministry will take a decision that is in favour of consumers and not of corporates or scientists.
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MAIL TODAY
US JUST CAN'T LEAVE
AFGHANS TO THEIR FATE
BY VIKRAM SOOD
IT was expected that Gen McChrystal would seek more troops for Afghanistan in his assessment report of June 2009 and that he would scapegoat India for doing good work among the Afghan people. The report also showed up that, eight years into the Long War, the Americans have still not understood the culture of the people they ostensibly went to help while securing themselves.
It was clear from Gen McChrystal's observations that the Americans were still groping for a strategy against their enemy.
President Obama will now have to live up to his Nobel image as he fights his necessary war. But he is surrounded by military men who determine policy in Afghanistan; not Clinton nor Holbrooke. His advisers include retired Lt General Karl Eikenberry, currently Ambassador in Kabul, Lt Gen Douglas Luke, Presidential Adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistan, James Jones a retired Marine Corps general is the National Security Adviser and former CIA Chief, Robert Gates is the Secretary Defence. By inclination they will ask for more troops and funds.
Meanwhile, a Norman Mailer style campaign reminiscent of the Vietnam war era has begun in America.
The argument is that Afghanistan means little to Americans who do not even know where it is located. The fear that if Afghanistan falls to the Taliban then Pakistan will surely follow, is misplaced.
The idea of bombing the country and then offering aid is considered hypocritical and ineffective. Andrew Bacevich begins his most recent article with the comment " No serious person thinks that Afghanistan — remote, impoverished, barely qualifying as a nation state — seriously matters to the United States." But surely the Americans went into Afghanistan to make Americans safe from Al Qaeda and to ensure that no terrorist attack would take place from that country against the US and its friends.
DILEMMA
The dilemma is that losing is not an option for the US; stalemate is strategic defeat for a superpower; troop augmentation to the extent required is unacceptable, and even a surge of 40000 is difficult. The much talked of Afghan army is still a ghost army. Ann Jones in her report in the Nation ( Sep 21, 2009) describes the Afghan Army as a figment of Washington's imagination. It does not exist in the numbers claimed, it is poorly trained, many of the recruits/ trainees are repeats who come back with new names for the money, the food and the equipment they can take away and sell. It is a frightening thought to have a man trained with rubber guns for three weeks, then given the real gun and sent off to fight battles for his country.
This became apparent when the Helmand campaign began last July and the ANA could muster only 600 men, far short of the 90000 that are supposed to be enlisted. The hope that Afghanistan will suddenly have an efficient 134000 strong army in two years is very much a false hope.
What should worry Washington is that now there are reports of demoralisation and self- doubts among some sections of the US forces. The state of the Afghan police is even worse with 60 per cent suspected to be on drugs. Ill- equipped and illtrained, they are easy pickings for the Taliban. No wonder Pakistan will continue to hedge its bets with the Taliban, targeting only those that they see threatening them. They are aware also that NATO countries may not be able last out in Afghanistan much beyond 2010.
Vice President Joe Biden's alternative plan to resort to off shore targeting of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan does not make sense since the Al Qaeda, the Pakistan Taliban and the Afghan Taliban hierarchy are all comfortably located in NWFP, FATA, Balochistan or elsewhere in Pakistan. It is obvious to all that the US/ NATO is staring at a stalemate in Afghanistan.
The US has already spent 50 per cent more time in this war than it did in the two world wars with an estimated military expenditure of US $ 4 billion a month and no light at the end of the tunnel.
There is no getting away from several aspects of this arduous campaign.
The US needs to have substantially increased troop deployment if it wants to subdue the Taliban. There is just no other alternative.
Worse than no troops is an inadequate force which runs the risk of military defeat or overkill tactics.
The present spin portraying the Taliban as a local territorial problem that does not threaten the US is patently shortsighted and leaves no one in doubt that the US is preparing to negotiate with the very force that it has been battling for eight years and which has now regained dominance in varying degrees over 70- 80 per cent of Afghan territory. Negotiating now will be appeasement.
Instead be prepared for the long haul. Any dithering now in Washington will only strengthen the hands of the fundamentalists in the Pak Army.
The Afghans do not understand democracy the way the Americans do but to leave them now in the hands of the Taliban would mean leaving them in the hands of the Al Qaeda, under a strong Sunni Wahhabi Islam preached in Saudi Arabia and increasingly in Pakistan.
ASSISTANCE
The American forces must not give the impression that they are fighting for themselves. This makes it America's war and a war of occupation.
Instead, foreign forces must fight for the Afghans and show it. This means spend more money on them instead of on the forces or the for- profit private military companies or the notfor- profit NGOs. It would be difficult for the ISAF/ NATO to protect themselves without protecting the Afghan from the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Apart from sheer military force, in a country where 40 per cent of the men are unemployed it is not enough to dole out money. They need jobs and the dignity that goes with it. We cannot get rid of the opium — which is a source of revenue for the Taliban and livelihood for the peasant — unless we simultaneously provide alternative livelihood for the Afghan peasant.
NEIGHBOURHOOD
The fear is that unable to go in for the long haul, the US may opt for a surge, a quick thrust, parry and withdraw after proclaiming victory. The US is realising, perhaps a bit too late, that Pakistan never intended to be the most suitable boy, who would let his benefactors down repeatedly. In tremendous difficulties in the Punjab, the Pakistan Army is unlikely to be willing to do anything substantial for the Americans, citing dangers from its traditional enemy. It is not that the Pakistan Army fears an assault by the Indian forces but for them to move troops away from its eastern borders would mean that the threat from India is minimal and this would undercut its very own primacy. Then there is China, waiting in the wings for the Americans to get sufficiently unpopular and then move in with its deep pockets. Pakistan would be comfortable with an increasing Chinese profile in Afghanistan but not with an Indian profile.
This is where India comes in. It must stay the course in Afghanistan and concentrate on the various infrastructure projects in the country — roads, dams, bridges, communications, schools, hospitals, power stations and transmission lines. Training of the Afghan Army and police, civil servants, education in various disciplines can be handled by the Indians. This would be far more economical and relevant to local conditions and requirements.
Pakistan will respond in its own way. There will be more bombs and attacks on Indian interests in Afghanistan. Sending troops to Afghanistan is not an option.
Do we back out or do we hunker down, more determined than before?
The writer is a former chief of the Research & Analysis Wing
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MAIL TODAY
THE LAHORE LOG
US- AF- PAK- INDIA: OPTIONS
FOR WAR OR PEACE
BY NAJAM SETHI
Two significant developments in Pakistan in the last seven days have hit world headlines. They are inter- related. But there is an underlying third dimension that has not been explicitly debated. Therefore we should lay our cards squarely on the table if we are sincerely in quest of workable solutions. Consider.
Pakistan's military leadership has whipped up the religio- nationalist media and opportunist political opposition to attack the Kerry- Lugar Bill as an unacceptable American attempt to undermine Pakistan's sovereignty. But a close look at the Bill's conditions doesn't reveal any extraordinary trespass that is significantly different from past practice during the military regimes of General Zia ul Haq and General Pervez Musharraf.
Why has GHQ rapped the US administration and the Zardari regime? What is its message to both? But the Pakistan army is also on the receiving end. The Al- Qaeda- Taliban network has smacked it squarely where it hurts. Four major terrorist attacks in seven days, including the audacious daylong siege of GHQ, and 114 killed, including a brigadier and a colonel. What is the message of the terrorists to the army's leadership? Is there a link between these two developments that explains what is going on? Far away from Rawalpindi and Waziristan and Kabul, a debate is raging in Washington DC. The US national security establishment led by the Pentagon in DC and General Stanley McChrystal in Kabul wants a 40,000- troop surge in Afghanistan. But the liberals in the White House, National Security Council and media who devised President Obama's winning constituency for change and peace want the opposite— they want to bring the boys back home and let Afghanistan boil in its own sordid juices just as it did in the 1990s after America quit the scene without a backward glance. There is now a third option on the table put by the US vice- president, Jo Biden.
H e wants the status quo about troop levels to be maintained.
But he also wants US war- strategy to focus on the Al- Qaeda- Taliban network in Waziristan and Baluchistan rather than in Afghanistan. In other words, he is advising a defensive and holding posture in Afghanistan and an offensive and forward position in Pakistan. This is why there is increasing debate in the US media, think tanks and among defence and political analysts of targeting Mulla Umer's " Quetta Shura" in Baluchistan.
This is also another way of pressuring the Pakistan army to go into Waziristan all guns blazing, stop protecting the Quetta Shura and finish the job itself.
Here's the rub. The Pakistan army doesn't like General McChrystal's idea of an American troop surge or Mr Biden's notion of an aggressive posture inside Pakistan's tribal areas. Emotional issues of " occupation" and " sovereignty" aside, both options would amount to the same thing for GHQ: if successful, they would strengthen the current Washington- Kabul- New Delhi axis now calling the shots in Afghanistan and deprive Pakistan's military of political leverage based on select pro- Pakistan and anti- India Taliban or Pashtun " assets" in any future political dispensation in its backyard.
The Pakistan military is also uneasy at the prospect of launching full- scale operations in Waziristan without first having fully mopped up Swat and motivated its soldiers for the tougher task ahead. The onset of winter and the regrouping of the Pakistan Taliban under Baitullah Masud's successor Hakeemullah make the task even more daunting.
Obviously, the Al- Qaeda- Taliban network doesn't like these options either. As if to drive their point home, the Afghan Taliban launched a well- planned and ferocious attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul and the Pakistani Taliban a desperate and audacious one on GHQ in Rawalpindi last week. This is meant to say that, far from digging in to withstand the proposed US- Pakistan offensive in Waziristan, the Al- Qaeda- Taliban network is determined to carry the battle to the heartland of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Meanwhile, India is pointing to an ISI hand in the attack on its Kabul embassy and Pakistan is noting a RAW shadow behind the attack on GHQ. All that is needed now to scuttle these two America- sponsored options in the war against the Al- Qaeda- Taliban network is a terrorist attack inside India that unleashes the demons of Mumbai and brings the two countries to the brink of war, diverting and diminishing attention from America's " war against terror" and leading to political convulsion and possibly regime change in Pakistan.
T he Pakistani military leadership is on the horns of a dilemma. If it concedes the proposed American strategy to confront the Al- Qaeda- Taliban network, it risks losing its long- term " assets" for political adjustment in Afghanistan. But if it balks over a bold new operation in Waziristan alongside the Americans, it will suffer a blow to its wounded pride over the attack on GHQ. The media that backed it to the hilt over the redherring of the Kerry- Lugar Bill to deflect American pressure to up the ante against the Afghan Taliban in Waziristan is now demanding a similar " honour- saving" exercise from the army against the Pakistan Taliban. The problem, of course, is that, while we may talk of different categories and targets of Taliban, we are in fact dealing with a dangerous nexus between Al- Qaeda, Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban and Pakistan jihadi and sectarian parties and groups that has become one network with one main objective – to drive the Americans out of Afghanistan, seize Kabul and then turn their guns and guerillas on Pakistan in order to create instability and anarchy and try to seize a nuclear weapon or two.
Where do we go from here? Clearly and realistically speaking for a host of reasons, the powerful Pakistani military and national security establishment must be part of any regional solution and not be treated as a problem. It must be accorded a greater role in America's roadmap for determining Afghanistan's future as a peaceful and stable state that is friendly and not hostile to Pakistan.
If that doesn't happen, and America chooses to cut it down to size instead via any dependent civilian regime in Pakistan, the odds are that it will strike back, first deliberately as in the case of its attack on the Kerry Lugar Bill, and then desperately, possibly via renewing the spectre of conflict with India and regime change in Pakistan. If that happens, there will be no regional or international winners or losers.
The writer is the editor of Friday Times and The Daily Times ( Lahore)
FICTITIOUS DIARY OF NAWAZ SHARIF
JUGNU MOHSIN
Asif called me and did gila shikva that why Shbaz Saab and Chory Nisar went to see the fauji. I told him that it's all your own faalt. You should have sat dawn with me and done muk mukaa, lain dain, give and take on Charter of Democracy and we would have sarted out everything.
You have pushed me to vaal Asif, I told him. That's why I sent them to see fauji. Asif said don't you know that faujis will never be your lovers. I said I know but I will see them when tam comes. Finally, Asif asked, what is your adwize. I decided not to be blunt but to give dipsomaniac answer so I said, please don't buy any long playing records, hain ji? I have great political abdomen. I decided to make secret trip to Pindi to hob nob with faujis. I arrived in Pindi Mess. There was a function going on there. I started talking to a fauji in civvies. I said " excuse me. Is that buoy standing there your son?" The fauji in civvies said, " no, she is my daughter". I said, " very sorry. I dint know that you are her father". " I am not" said the fauji, " I am her mother". See, in civilian life this sart of thing never happens. There we always know who's who. Then I tried to make further conversation with fauji. I said population is exploding. He said, " no elected government can stop having babies". I said politely, " You are so clever. I'm sure you know how many women are having babies every minute of the day, hain ji? If so, what will you do about it?" Fauji said, " It's Standard Operating Procedure. We will find all those women and order them to stop." To make further conversation I said, " why you never liked shaheed Benazir?" Fauji said, " because if she'd become PM, and with Sonia Gandhi ruling India, whole of subcontinent would have become No Man's Land". Then to be further charming, I said with a polite smile," would you like a Defence and National Security Council?" " Oh yes!!" said the fauji. " In which Defence would you like it? Karachi? Lahore? And how many plots in this Defence will be civilian quota?" I asked. There was no answer from fauji. To make conservation I further asked charmingly, " what do you have against politicians?" Fauji said, " they are all thieves. From smallest to biggest thefts they are doing. From stealing perfumes in shops to taking billions from exchequer. It is all vagrancy". Again I said charmingly, " I'm sorry but I bag to duffer. Stealing perfumes is not vagrancy, it is fragrancy." Desaan vich des Punjab, Nee sayyo, Jivain phhulaan vich phhul gulab, Nee sayyo
NS
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MAIL TODAY
INTERACTIVE
INDIA MUST BEWARE OF BEIJING'S DESIGNS
BY EXPRESSING its objection to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh, China has once again staked its claim over the entire state in front of the international community.
Its aggressive stand on Arunachal Pradesh is aimed to make the state a " disputed area" rather than just a border dispute issue that India rightly thinks it is. India must understand Beijing's dangerous design of internationalising this issue. Earlier, by terming Arunachal Pradesh a " disputed area", Beijing put pressure on the Asian Development Bank to try and stop a loan which India sought for various projects in the state. India's weak protest on the issue also has encouraged China to go all out to make Arunachal Pradesh another Kashmir- like problem.
China has settled all its border disputes with all its neighbours except India. Despite India's repeated attempts to normalise its relations with China, it has again hardened its anti- India stand. After the sudden eruption of unrest and violence in Lhasa and other towns of Tibet last year before the Beijing Olympics, China increased its hostility towards India. China believes that this insurrection was a handiwork of various Tibetan groups based in India.
Thus, repeated incursions of its army into Indian border and its renewed claims on Arunachal Pradesh are clear warnings to New Delhi on its Tibet policy. For India, the dilemma is clear: will New Delhi change its decades- old Tibet policy for normalising its relations with Beijing?
Manoj Parashar via email
IS PAKISTAN REALLY JUST A PIECE OF LAND?
THIS is with reference to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi's statement that Pakistan is just another piece of land and that India needlessly gives it too much importance.
May we recall for Mr Gandhi's benefit a statement made by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee about one being able to choose one's friends, but not one's neighbours.
Therefore, not only do we have to live with Pakistan and China next to us, we also would have to deal with their insecurities and inimical attitudes, whether we like it not.
In that sense, India is neither obsessed with Pakistan nor should we consider it just a piece of land. When neighbours fight amongst themselves or when they gang up against a certain individual ( as Pakistan and China seem to have done with India) the " victim" cannot concentrate on anything else.
It will be in his nature to be obsessed about his own security and his family's well- being if his neighbours continue to behave as if he is public enemy No 1. This is precisely the case with India.
New Delhi cannot afford think of anything else because the security of the nation depends on how we tackle Pakistan as it is now the confirmed source of export for terror all over the world.
Therefore to dismiss Pakistan as just another piece of land is not only wrong, it is politically immature.
Ranganathan Ramadass via email
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IMES OF INDIA
COMMENT
TIME TO TALK
The latest salvo in the India-China border contretemps has been fired, this time by New Delhi. The ministry of external affairs's reprimand to Chinese president Hu Jintao is meant as a clear signal. If Beijing continues to bring up development work and Indian politicians' visits to Arunachal Pradesh as undesirable, New Delhi too can turn up the heat on Chinese development work in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Now that New Delhi has made its point, however, it is time to step back, take a breath and consider the issue objectively.
From the Indian perspective, two points must be recognised. China is a rational actor and this is not 1962. The one scenario that would be the most damaging to its global power aspirations would be getting embroiled in a neighbourhood conflict. Neither is this the woefully unprepared Indian military of 1962. Secondly, officials from both countries have set a trade target for $60 billion in 2010. Trade and business flows are where the 21st century action is going to be, rather than jostling over territory. With its eyes on the big prize, Beijing is unlikely to misread this calculus.
This does not mean, of course, that New Delhi should not be vigilant. The scramble to build infrastructure in the border regions, although belated, is welcome. But it ^ and Beijing ^ would do well to shift the emphasis to the former part of Theodore Roosevelt's injunction: Talk softly but carry a big stick. Both sides have focused on the latter part, but needless rhetoric serves neither country. The pity is that this is occurring at a time when both have seen evidence of the advantages to be gained from collaborative effort.
It's high time to resolve the border dispute between the two countries. But even if that can't be achieved in the near term, the issue can be bracketed while the two nations work on areas of common interest.
Burgeoning trade ties between them should not only be developed, they could evolve into common negotiating positions at international fora on issues of trade or climate. India and China also have a mutual interest in seeing Afghanistan and Pakistan stabilised and freed of the spectre of Islamist fundamentalism. New Delhi's concerns are long-standing. But Beijing has lately been threatened by al-Qaeda, and it has shown concern at the possible cross-border impact of extremism in its restive Xinjiang province. There's room for India and China to work together even in the Af-Pak theatre, the epicentre of global terrorism.
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TIMES OF INDIA
COMMENT
WIN THE PEACE
The significance of the five-day visit to Sri Lanka by a 10-member delegation of parliamentarians from Tamil Nadu goes beyond the nine-page summation the MPs have come out with, on the plight of nearly 2.53 lakh war-displaced Tamils living in pitiable conditions in congested camps ringed by barbed wire. For, the mission marks the first direct attempt by Tamil Nadu to engage the Sri Lankan government at the political level on its decades-old ethnic problem.
Accustomed for decades to viewing Tamil Nadu with suspicion as a cross-shore base for Tamil separatism, the Sri Lankan government would have found it a novel experience to play host to MPs from the state, especially a team that included members who signed their purported resignation letters from Parliament barely a year ago in protest against the continuance of what turned out to be a decisive war. New Delhi has often been charged with ignoring political opinion in Tamil Nadu while devising its approach to Sri Lanka. But the Manmohan Singh government did much to undo this image by arranging for a political team from the state - albeit, to its discredit, comprising only alliance partners - to gain first-hand knowledge of the conditions of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
The delegation has made an impassioned plea for quick rehabilitation and resettlement of the camp inmates and has reported that the government there intends to resettle 58,000 displaced people in their respective homes within a fortnight, while the remaining, too, would be allowed to go back in phases, subject to progress in ongoing demining operations. In their report, the MPs have packed just enough faith in the Sri Lankan authorities to address the problems of the displaced people in a humanitarian perspective, as well as just enough scepticism to place their sincerity under test until they carry out their promise of early rehabilitation.
Detractors will relish the irony of once-belligerent MPs calling on President Mahinda Rajapaksa - after some of them denounced him as a genocidal annihilator of the Tamil race - and discussing the future of Tamil civilians. Questions, too, are bound to be asked whether the Indian MPs had sought to apply enough pressure on Sri Lanka to find a political settlement that would satisfy Tamil aspirations. While not discounting the merits of the mission as a pragmatic attempt to keep international pressure on Colombo, the DMK and Congress will still have to demonstrate by sustained diplomatic activity that theirs has not been a partisan exercise to win over Tamil sentiments or a drama to prove their commitment to the Tamil cause.
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TIMES OF INDIA
TOP ARTICLE
WORLD WITHOUT HUNGER
For one billion people around the world, the daily effort to grow, buy or sell food is the defining struggle of their lives. This matters to them, and to all of us.
Consider the daily life of the world's typical small farmer. She lives in a rural village in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia or Latin America, and farms a piece of land she does not own. She works all day in a field. If she's lucky, drought, blight or pests don't destroy her crops, and she raises enough to feed her family. She may even have some left over to sell. But there's no road to the nearest market and no one there who can afford to buy from her.
Now let's consider the life of a young man in a crowded city 100 miles from that farmer. He has no job ^ or a job that pays pennies. He goes to the market ^ but the food is rotting, or priced beyond reach. He is hungry, and often angry. She has extra food to sell; he wants to buy it. But that simple transaction can't take place because of complex forces beyond their control.
Meeting the challenge of global hunger is at the heart of what we call "food security" ^ empowering the world's farmers to sow and harvest plentiful crops, effectively care for livestock or catch fish ^ and then ensuring that the food they produce reaches people most in need.
Food security is not only about food. It represents the convergence of complex issues: droughts and floods caused by climate change, swings in the global economy that affect food prices and threaten the fate of vital infrastructure projects, and spikes in the price of oil that increase transportation costs.
But food security is all about security. Chronic hunger poses a threat to the stability of governments, societies and borders. People who are starving or undernourished, have no incomes and can't care for their families are left with feelings of hopelessness and despair. That desperation can lead to tension, conflict and even violence. Since 2007, there have been riots over food in more than 60 countries.
The failures of farming in many parts of the world have a powerful impact on the global economy. Farming is the only or primary source of income for more than three-quarters of the world's poor. When so much of humankind works hard everyday but still can't support their families, the whole world is held back.
The Obama administration sees chronic hunger as a key priority of our foreign policy. Other countries are joining us in this effort. Major industrialised nations have committed more than $22 billion over three years to spur agriculture-led economic growth. And on September 26, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and i co-hosted a gathering of leaders from more than 130 countries to build international support.
The US approach to food security will be informed by our experience with development. The truth is, we have spent too many years and too much money on development projects that have not yielded lasting results. But we have learned from these efforts. We know that the most effective strategies emanate from those closest to the problems, not foreign governments or institutions thousands of miles away. And we know that development works best when it is seen not as aid but as investment.
Our food security initiative will be guided by five principles, which will help us get to the roots of the problem and pursue lasting change. First, we understand there is no one-size-fits-all model for agriculture. So we will work with partner countries to create and implement their plans. Second, we will address the underlying causes of hunger by investing in everything from better seeds to risk-sharing programmes to protect small farmers. Since the majority of the world's farmers are women, it's critical that our investments leverage their ambition and perseverance.
Third, no one entity can eradicate hunger on its own. But if stakeholders work together ^ coordinating on the country, regional and global levels ^ our impact can multiply. Fourth, multilateral institutions have the reach and resources that extend beyond any one country. By supporting their efforts, we will benefit from their expertise. Lastly, we pledge long-term commitment and accountability. To prove it, we will invest in monitoring and evaluation tools that will allow the public to see what we have done.
This effort may take years, even decades, before we reach the finish line. But we pledge our full resources and energies. We will maintain our deep commitment to emergency food assistance, to answer the urgent cry for help when tragedies and disasters take their toll ^ as is happening now in the Horn of Africa, where drought, crop failures and civil war have caused the worst humanitarian crisis in 18 years.
Revitalising global agriculture will not be easy. In fact, it is one of the most ambitious and comprehensive diplomacy and development efforts our country has ever undertaken. But it can be done. It is worth doing. And if we succeed, our future will be more prosperous and more peaceful than our past.
The writer is US secretary of state.
Today is World Food Day.
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TIMES OF INDIA
Q&A
'GULABI HAS A STRONG MESSAGE FOR ALL WOMEN'
Veteran theatre and film actress Umashree won the National Award for her portrayal of Gulabi in Girish Kasaravalli's award-winning Kannada film Gulabi Talkies. She's also known for taking up the cause of weak and exploited women in society. G S Kumar spoke to Umashree:
How challenging was your role in Gulabi Talkies?
Not particularly. With a theatre background and 375 movies behind me, i felt there was no need for special preparation for the role. I observed the people of Kundapura to know more about their lifestyle. The Kunda Kannada they speak is quite different from the Kannada spoken elsewhere. It took a couple of days to learn that. I just gave life to the character.
Would you call this the role of your lifetime? How significant is Gulabi's message?
Gulabi's role was really good. Through my career, i have done comedy, played a vamp, senior citizen, cop and a variety of other roles. That's been the beauty of my career. Gulabi's role symbolises patience ^ she is brave, morally strong and faces life boldly. But she is also a soft-natured woman. This is a strong message for all Women.
Having spent many years in theatre and popular cinema, did you nurture a desire to do meaningful cinema?
Most roles i've done are about the exploitation of weak and downtrodden women. It's great to face up to such situations in life. The best example is the role of Sakavva in the popular Kannada play, Odalala. Similarly, Gulabi faces exploitation, but manages to overcome all hurdles. Such roles are dear to me.
What would your dream role be?
I can't think of any. Perhaps, it could be an aged person with a baby's mind or a nomad. It's surprising that nobody has touched upon the life of nomads who leave their villages for six months to a year and earn their livelihood. It is a good experience to do such roles. Even folk characters have a lot to give to society ^ they are part of our culture. I've become popular thanks to my roles of women from the middle and lower middle classes.
Did you have any screen idols?
Of course, the late thespian Rajkumar as well as Balanna. They were at ease with any role and portrayed a number of characters that are close to our hearts. Be it religious or folk or romantic roles, they were always memorable. That's the inspiration for me.
Do you see a marked change in the portrayal of on-screen women over the years?
Now, there isn't much importance given to a woman's role. Women's roles have just become 'shringarada vasthu' (glamorous object). They always portray negative roles, especially in serials. The sad thing today is that the heroine herself has to do an item number. See to what level we have sunk.
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TIMES OF INDIA
NEW LOOK
TAILOR-MADE TAMASHA
That nippy October afternoon in the late 1940s, the needle-thin tailor Thanu showed up at our buzzy Poonamallee household sporting an inch-tape garland, kindling the delirious Deepawali mood. I was called first for measurement as the eldest. Thanu turned me around, like a buyer inspecting a frisky lamb in the cattle fair, and exclaimed in wonderment: "He has grown up. His shorts can be without braces," thereby affirming my transition from childhood to boyhood and ran his inch-tape along my body, tweaking playfully at will. My granny bullied him into delivering the dress in advance of the D-Day since the previous year it had arrived after the sticky oil bath. The feeble excuse offered was that his wife had delivered twins the previous day. Pregnancy and the consequential delivery being sacrosanct, my granny had pardoned him with angelic sympathy. But my illiberal grandpa did not. "What about this year?" he asked, "Is she pregnant this time with triplets? At this rate, you'll have more kids than the buttons on a sherwani." Thanu bashfully cackled like a hen on a circular run. I loped along beside him to the front door to whisper discreetly, "Please fix the fly buttons properly. I squatted to light a cracker last year and Radha aunty, who was passing by, screeched, 'shame shame'. I looked down with alarm. The fly buttons had fallen and the show was on." Thanu nodded, pinched my thigh playfully and left.
Came Deepawali morning. With no sign of our dress, we had an oil bath, wondering what to wear. "Won't Naragasura take offence if new clothes are not worn?" i asked grandma with a whimper. She smiled mysteriously producing a neat bundle. "What is this?" my equally puzzled grandpa asked. "New dresses," she said. "I knew Thanu's wife will have yet another Deepawali release. She delivered her next promptly last night. I had a spare set stitched by the cantonment guru as a standby because Thanu's delivery is iffy." I picked up the new shorts with a squeal of delight. It was military green, my favourite colour. And Ooooooo! No braces, with buttons fixed firmly especially in the fly. Aha! There will be no 'shame, shame' from any peeking aunty! I wore it with a flourish. I cockily thrust my hands deep into the pockets, assuming the air of an army general. Both hands brushed my bare thighs. Guru had forgotten to stitch the pouches.
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TIMES OF INDIA
JUST FOR KICKS
JUG SURAIYA
My friend Reva - editor and publisher of Sommelier India, the country's first and, so far only, wine magazine - is puzzled. So, presumably, is Sharad Pawar who, according to popular report, owns acres and acres of grape-producing vineyards in the Nashik region. And so would have been Thomas Jefferson, who remarked that no people who drank wine and beer in preference to hard liquor would ever find themselves in dire need of applying en masse for membership to Alcoholics Anonymous. All these very different people are ^ or in Jefferson's case, were ^ advocates of the civilised practice of enjoying the occasional glass of wine. To them, and many others like them, wine does not represent the demon drink. Far from it. Wine is a lyric in liquid form, music turned into moisture, a rhapsody played on the palate. So, how come, they ask, don't more Indians drink wine? Dry days, punitive excise duties and economic downturns notwithstanding, the sales of whisky, rum, vodka, gin and brandy show no signs of decline. On the contrary, they get higher and higher, as presumably do the customers of these products. But, by and large, wine remains a no-no among India's drinking glasses.
And the reason for this is simple: the idiom of wine is all wrong. When asked to 'nose' a wine you aren't meant to snort the stuff up your nostril, like snuff, but rather to inhale its 'bouquet', or the smell it gives off. Or when your host urges you admire the 'legs', don't gawp around looking for the young female in the micro-mini; the 'legs' are the streaks of wine which adhere to the side of the glass when you tilt it. A wine said to have an 'excellent finish' is not an invitation to grab the bottle by the neck and swig it down till empty in record time; 'finish' denotes the lingering aftertaste that the wine leaves in your mouth. 'Well-structured tannins' don't refer to generously endowed bikini-clad sunbathers bronzing themselves on a beach but to the acidic elements, which add complexity to the wine. And no, a 'complex vintage' is not a senior citizen in need of psychiatric care but a wine which has matured and gained subtle nuances of taste with age.
In short, wine talks too much. Or rather, people talk too much about it. This was brought home to me succinctly some years ago at a Haryana liquor vend when i was buying a bottle of Bosca (which in Haryanvi is pronounced 'Bose-ka'). In those days Bose-ka was the only Indian wine available, and which, as a wine, made for an admirable varnish remover. A fellow customer buying an Auntie Kooty (not a female relative but a brand of local whisky, namely Antiquity, the second most preferred drink in Haryana after Arkoolis rum, known to the outside world as Hercules rum) looked at my bottle of Bose-ka and asked 'Usme kick-shick hai?' (Does it have kick-shick?)
In a single sentence that unsung Haryanvi had summed up the fatal flaw in the wine marketing strategy in India: never mind your noses, and legs, and fruity bouquets and rare vintages. Where was the kick-shick quotient? If Reva, and Sharadji, and others, are serious about popularising wine culture in India, they have to address the issue of the kick-shick, which is the main ^ some would say the only ^ reason why people drink in India, or at least in Haryana, where men are men, and don't care who knows it. Tannins-shannins. Show us the kick-shick.
To be a success, in Haryana anyway, wines should be rated by the kick they provide. A mild, low-kick wine should be given a 'One Mule' rating, a stronger wine be given a 'Two Mule' grade, and a real pehalwan super-strong wine be accorded a 'Three Mule' status. And an appropriate name for them? What else but Chauteau di Khachchar ki Laat?
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HINDUSTAN TIMES
EDITORIAL
BULLYING IN THE CHINA SHOP
The two nations that embody two of Asia's oldest civilisations seem unable to sustain a civilised conversation. Last month, New Delhi and Beijing brought an end to an excited debate about border incursions by blaming the Indian media. The latest exchange of words, however, has its origins in the musty ranks of officialdom. Beijing made an unusually harsh and public criticism of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Arunachal Pradesh — some 10 days after the visit. India responded by denouncing Chinese plans to build infrastructure in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Neither position is unusual. What is exceptional is the stridency and openness of the exchange. China seems to have fired the first shot in the latest exchange of unclear motives. Among the theories: the Dalai Lama's planned visit to Arunachal, a desire to give troubled ally Pakistan a moral boost, and a general move to push the envelope with India.
All this underlines the shallowness of bilateral relations. Iron and steel may drive trade between the two, but political relations have all the fragility of porcelain. Small incidents, wild rumours and misinterpreted statements easily spark a frenzy of media speculation and even governmental tit-for-tat. It is a cliché to say that China is India's biggest trading partner. But history is littered with cases of countries fighting their biggest trading partners. Better measures of confidence are the degree of bilateral investment, people-to-people contacts, military and technological cooperation. In all these areas, Asia has a continental divide.
No one expects India and China to ever become strategic partners. China's focus is the Pacific; India has its own ocean to worry about. Perhaps, they are two countries emerging from the margins of history and now determined to make up for lost time. Both governments recognise that picking a fight would be at the expense of broader global and economic ambitions. The prime minister has expended considerable political capital pursuing Pakistan, a country that can barely keep soul and body together. He may be better off trying to work out a modus operandi with China, whose government is noted for its pragmatism and long-term view. At least then New Delhi and Beijing will have something positive to talk about.
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HINDUSTAN TIMES
EDITORIAL
GREAT GRAND-DADS
It had to be an Australian, pointing out how today's men are essentially wimps. Instead of going about things the normal way — arm wrestling, binge drinking, speed racing and other testosterone-demanding activities — Aussie anthropologist Peter McAllister has come to that conclusion, courtesy empirical evidence, that evolution is recessionary, at least for human males. In his book Manthropology, Mr McAllister does more than Desmond Morris-dancing. His research shows that prehistoric men could go higher and faster and were stronger than their modern counterparts. So if it came to hand-to-hand combat or a race to the finish line, be assured the modern man would have bit the dust.
And how, pray, has the more intelligent than the tough Cro Magnon man McAllister managed to build his thesis? Well, the speed of Australian aboriginals 20,000 years ago has been gathered by fossilised footprints of six prehistoric men chasing their prehistoric prey. The analysis shows that on the soft, muddy edge of a lake, these runners reached a top speed of 37 kilometres an hour. Compare that with the top speed of 42 kilometres an hour on rubberised tracks with spiked shoes by the world's faster runner Usain Bolt. The same principle of physical decline holds for strength.
So what's the reason for us turning into wusses? Mr McAllister, sounding a bit like our 'When we were young...' grandfathers, blames the decline on modern man's inactivity and the Industrial Revolution that really signalled a technologically-sprung laziness. Which makes us think is whether it would be more worthwhile to bolster our sagging physical prowess by chasing a prey or two rather than plan to settle down with the sedentary object entitled Manthropology.
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HINDUSTAN TIMES
EDITORIAL
ALL HAIL THE ROLE MODEL
ARCHANA DALMIA
We are a thinking, thriving nation. We always have something to toot or tweet about. Well, that's a nice thing.
But sometimes, the music is so loud that it can drown the message. That's not so nice.
For, louder isn't necessarily more logical. The louder the voices become, the more incongruous the arguments. And before long all that we are left holding are split ends.
Take the by-now 'old' issue of Sonia Gandhi travelling economy class. The fact that the thinking class is actually looking at events with eyes askew is well illustrated by the exact opposite reactions another event of the sort caused. When Shashi Tharoor and S.M. Krishna were found living in 5-star luxury, a cry went up berating their 'elitist' sensibilities. But when Gandhi made a conscious decision to travel economy, the logic was turned on its head, this time mocking her measures at being austere.
We are being myopic in not seeing the message she tried to drive home. The government is concerned about the drought situation in the country. The people in power realise more than others the importance of economising in these difficult times. What better way than to lead by example? In one stroke Gandhi made sure that her partymen took and showed responsibility when it comes to spending money.
It is impossible to expect her to travel economy always. Logistics disallows it. Leaders such as her can't travel without elaborate security covers as that would put their lives at risk. If it hurts some people's sensibilities that the government spends too much on her security, then they must understand that it will hurt us immeasurably if she should come to any harm. Her journey was a symbol for all to realise the 'need for austerity'. It was purely an internal axiom to be followed by Congressmen.
Being ridiculed sometimes for a well-intended move is a hazard of public life. Gandhi has shown that she isn't deterred by such perceptions in pursuit of a larger goal. Hers is an approach that's different and refreshing. She seeks to create a class of people who can turn into agents of change.
Rahul Gandhi, too, is following the diktat. It is no secret the ease with which he mingled with the common
people and brought victory for the party at the Lok Sabha hustings. People noticed how he was just as comfortable sitting on a village charpoy as in a plush deluxe suite. Then why the uproar if he travels by chair car?
People know that Sonia Gandhi isn't given to gimmicks. She has always conducted herself with grace and dignity. In this particular case she has emerged as a conscientious leader once again. A strong signal went out to members of the Congress across ranks about the responsible behaviour expected of them. Amusing, that even those who criticised Gandhi will have to perforce display a measure of austerity in their lives. That is if they value whatever little political standing they have.
Archana Dalmia is Chairperson, Grievance Cell, All India Congress Committee
The views expressed by the author are personal
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HINDUSTAN TIMES
EDITORIAL
DROWNING THINGS OUT
RAJDEEP SARDESAI
Having grown up in the megalopolis, I have an obvious emotional attachment to Mumbai. Which is why when at a studio discussion this week, when a panelist referred to the 'Maximum City' registering minimum voting as a sign of Mumbai's 'resident non-Indian' mentality, I felt aggrieved.
Surely, a city with the energy and enterprise of Mumbai, a city which literally never sleeps, can't be seen through such a cynical worldview. And yet, as voting day for the Maharashtra assembly elections wore on, it became apparent that Mumbai was struggling to pass Pappu's electoral test. The overall voting percentage was just around 45 per cent, only a shade better than the disgraceful 43 per cent in the Lok Sabha elections, and well below the state average of 60 per cent. If Naxal-affected Gadchiroli could see a voter turnout of 63 per cent, what stopped half of Mumbai's enlightened citizenry from coming out and voting?
Perhaps, it's the same reason that stopped them from speaking out when Karan Johar had to apologise to Raj Thackeray for referring Mumbai as Bombay in one of his films. It's also possibly the reason why, within weeks of angrily claiming that 'enough is enough' in the aftermath of 26/11, Mumbaikars seemed to have allowed the government to whitewash its role in the utter mishandling of the terror attack.
Maybe, it's the same mindset that has chosen to watch the city being reduced to a giant slum by a political class, which sees slum-dwellers as one large votebank and little else. Perhaps, that's also why year after depressing year the city goes under water in the monsoons. It also explains why no one has been able to challenge the builder-babu-neta nexus, which has allowed the mangroves and green areas to be concretised. You commute for aeons in a creaking railway system, flyovers don't get built on time, a sealink takes years to come up, dilapidated buildings remain hostage to antiquated laws: nothing seems to change.
A look at the morning papers will give you a sense of how the city lives in a bubble of its own. Nowhere has Page 3 been merged as effortlessly into Page 1 as in Mumbai. Shah Rukh's trousseau, Salman's antics, Priyanka's twittering — Mumbai seems to have magnified the trivial and made Bollywood its temple of worship.
It wasn't always like this. This is the city that had a ringside view to the freedom movement. It was here that Gandhi gave his clarion Quit India call, where Jinnah cut his political teeth, where Ambedkar shaped his ideological fervour. It was a city whose professional middle class was deeply engaged in public life. The 1960s, for example, were a period of political churning, with the likes of the Congress's S.K. Patil, the communist leader S.A. Dange, the firebrand George Fernandes and the demagogue Bal Thackeray fiercely competing for political space. The 1967 election of South Mumbai is seen as a defining moment: the socialist Fernandes defeating the city's then uncrowned king, Patil. Could anyone imagine in today's Mumbai a trade unionist with meager resources being able to take on the mighty political machine backed by the all-powerful real estate empire? When did it all change? Most analysts suggest it was the failed Datta Samant-led textile strike of the 1980s that broke the soul of a city and deprived it of a large industrial workforce that almost acted as a buffer between the elite and the poor. The strike led to mill closures, massive unemployment and left the labour movement discredited and leaderless.
The 1992-93 riots and bomb blasts ended up communally dividing a city's ersatz cosmopolitanism. A Mumbai of mixed neighbourhoods was now a city of hostile communities. The underworld was now overground as gangs bypassed the legal machinery for dispute resolution. The political class was building its own self-protective mechanism by engaging in rapid capital accumulation. Unemployment, crime, communalism, corruption: Mumbai was nestling on a tinderbox.
Rather than confront a difficult situation, a large number of elite and middle class Mumbaikars have chosen the soft option: secede mentally, if not physically from the world around them. Who cares what happens to Naxalism in Gadchiroli so long as the violence is confined to a distant border of Maharashtra? Farmers can commit suicide in Vidarbha. But so long as malls are well-stocked, why be concerned? North Indian students may get beaten up while appearing for an exam. But till our son can take his SAT and GMAT and apply to an American university, how does an attack on migrants change our lives?
Okay, so the potholed roads trouble us, we don't like getting stuck in a traffic jam and, yes, we hate being caught in a flooded street. But at the end of the day, that's the price one pays for living in India. In any case, there is always the escapist fantasy world of Bollywood or Bigg Boss to turn to for succour.
What's true of Mumbai could be equally true of all our mega-cities, each dominated by a mindset that is self-centred, depoliticised and perhaps resembling that of a 'resident non-Indian'. Maybe I was wrong to have believed that Mumbai was different. Maybe, it's time to snap out of the sepia-tinted nostalgia that is still Mumbai for me.
Rajdeep Sardesai is Editor-in-Chief , IBN Network
The views expressed by the author are personal
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HINDUSTAN TIMES
EDITORIAL
SEEING GHOSTS
NAYANJOT LAHIRI
Can India's Afghanistan policy be guided by history? Ashok Malik (Great Gaming 2009, October 13) seems to think so. Malik has suggested that India follows the principles set forth in the 1838 'Simla Manifesto' of Lord Auckland, which he believes provides a "timeless exposition of the goals of Indian near-neighbourhood policy". The objective of Auckland, the then Governor-General of India, was to prevent the continuance of a government in Afghanistan that was a threat to the security and peace of the frontiers of India.
Of course, the frontiers of India that Lord Auckland 'lorded' over in the early 19th century, are dissimilar to those that circumscribe it today. The present day borders make India's current interests qualitatively different from what Auckland prescribed in 1838. But, more importantly, is Malik's perspective the only one which can be derived from history to serve as a guide for present policy?
How would Pakistan, for instance, use history to bolster its hostility to India's presence in Afghanistan? For one, Pakistan can quite easily demonstrate that till the 19th century, from a geo-political perspective, the southern part of the Oxus basin, the eastern part of Iran, Afghanistan and the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent (now in Pakistan), constitute an area which has had highly significant political and economic interactions. In this sense, if not in any other, that area as a whole may be visualised as a sphere that belongs neither to the Iranian heartland on the west nor to Gangetic India on the east.
As for Afghanistan, if anything, its composite character has had elements of Iran, the Oxus and the Indus plains. Herat belonged to Persia — culturally and, through most if its history, politically too. Balkh in the Oxus valley connected up with Central Asia and China. Kabul itself lay within the cultural ambit of the area that extends from the Peshawar area to the Indus basin. Whether it was a Harappan outpost or the presence of Buddhism in Afghanistan, those links were likely to have been mediated through Peshawar that has been described the 'transformer station' in the transmission of cultural currents from Western and Central Asia.
The engagement of Pakistan, therefore, with Afghanistan, in the light of history, would appear to be both logical and desirable. India's present borders, on the other hand, simply do not justify the same kind of engagement. Like Malik, Pakistan would also cite the views of distinguished experts to underline that Hindustan in the real sense should be the concern of India. 'True India' as a geo-cultural entity, according to the geographer O.H.K. Spate, "does not begin before the temples of Mathura".
Since history can be (ab)used to sanction all kinds of policies, is it perhaps more politic for realpolitik to look elsewhere for justifications?
Nayanjot Lahiri teaches at the Department of History, University of Delhi
The views expressed by the author are personal
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HINDUSTAN TIMES
EDITORIAL
TRAINING TEACHERS - WHO WILL TEACH THE TEACHERS?
INDIA'S TEACHER EDUCATION SCHEME IS IN DECAY, PLAGUED BY TEACHER SHORTAGE AND A CURRICULUM THAT HAS NOT BEEN REVISED IN 10 YRS IF THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF ITS SCHOOLS, THE CONTENT OF TEACHER EDUCATION WILL HAVE TO GO THROUGH A SEA CHANGE.
SWAHA SAHOO AND CHITRANGADA CHOUDHURY SWAHA.SAHOO@HINDUSTANTIMES.COM
The state teacher-training institute in Rajinder Nagar in the western part of New Delhi, the teachers are an unhappy lot.
The institute is facing an acute shortage of instructors, and fighting an outdated curriculum that hasn't been revised for over 10 years now. Teachers also complain of not being treated on a par with university teachers since they have not been given salary increments following the Sixth Pay Commission revisions.
With government schools catering to a high number of children from poorer families, teacher-training deserves much more importance than it has got so far. And the problem assumes even more importance from the point of view of the fact that the government is addressing the problem of disparities, and this cannot be done without education for the poor.
While the intake of the institute has doubled from 150 to 300 over the past few years, the number of its regular teachers has fallen to one-third its sanctioned strength, which is 17.
"We have just six regular teachers against a sanctioned strength of 17. We are trying to fill the gap with contract teachers, but it is difficult to find good quality teachers," said a faculty mem ber on condition of anonymity, since government employees are not autho rised to speak to the media.
The story is similar in the District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) in various states. The DIETs, which are instrumental in training elementary teachers and catering to a district's education needs, have a large number of vacant posts for instance, 180 out of 364 sanctioned posts were vacant in Delhi, 364 out of 761 posts were vacant in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal has filled only 261 of its 400 positions.
According to official estimates, India's government schools are currently facing a shortage of 700,000 teachers, despite the fact that 986,000 teachers were recruited under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (Education for All) till March 2009. The all-India teacher and pupil ratio for primary schools in 2005-06 stood at 1:46. But states like Bihar had a teacher to pupil ratio of 1:104, Jharkhand 1:79 and West Bengal 1:50.
The demand will only increase in the coming years as the recently legislated Right to Education law alters the pupil-teacher ratio from 1:40 to 1:30.
The over 700 state teacher-training institutes including the DIETs are therefore critical to the success of the new law, which makes universal secondary education a legal entitlement.
But as a year-long evaluation by the National Council for Educational Research and Training of India's 1987 Teacher Education Scheme catering to the country's government schools has revealed, there is widespread decay in teacher training institutes.
Many states including Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi have hired para teachers, many of whom have not had any training.
For instance, only 3,941 of the 13,954 teachers in Arunachal Pradesh are trained, a majority at the primary level.
In Chhattisgarh, 30 per cent of primary teachers and 33 per cent of secondary teachers are untrained.
The findings also reveal that 87 per cent of `Colleges for Teacher Education' in states do not have the requisite staff, with most of them having less than 50 per cent of the required manpower. For example, Allahabad's College for Teacher Education has only five of 17 academics. And none of these has the requisite academic qualifications.
The State Councils for Educational Research and Training too have become an extension of the government. According to the report, 65 per cent of them did not avail a Rs 2 crore central grant meant to improve their quality, because the state governments did not match it with equal finances.
"The original vision with which the country had set up these teacher-training institutions has gone berserk. The child is bearing the consequences of this systemic damage," said educationist and former NCERT Director A.K.
Sharma, who had helped conceive the 1987 Teacher Education Scheme.
Private institutes often did not have qualified trainers. The National Council for Teacher Education which recognises such institutes has woken up to the problem and recently derecognised 400 of these across the country.
While Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal has repeatedly said that teacher training is a big challenge, the ministry has yet to come up with any concrete plan to address the problem.
The issue goes beyond the shortage of trainers for teachers. The curriculum of most state DIETs and SCERTs is outdated and not in sync with what is being taught in schools.
"A major restructuring is required all over the country. Teacher education should be linked with practice and how children understand. The current syllabus in DIETs is completely outdated," said Anita Rampla, professor in the Department of Education, Delhi University.
But hiring more people to teach the teachers is just the first step in the reform process. If the government wants to increase the quality of its schools, the content of teacher education will have to go through a sea change. Teacher training institutes will need infrastructure upgrade, more teaching material has to be made available and stricter norms have to be put in place to ensure quality of teachers.
Till that happens, government schools will remain poor cousins to their elite private counterparts. THE WAY OUT The NCERT suggests the following: Setting up 10 regional institutes of education to develop innovative teacher preparation programmes Recruiting academicians on the basis of University Grant Commission norms.
Stopping transfers from administrative to academic cadres.Having refresher courses for existing faculty by central agencies.Introducing functional internal quality mechanisms. Changing the current 50:50 Centre-State funding pattern to a 75:25 to reduce financial
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INDIAN EXPRESS
EDITORIAL
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Since the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee has given its nod to the commercial cultivation of Bt Brinjal after two years of extensive field trials, and the final clearance rests now only with the Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, is it prudent to hope that the debate on genetically modified crops has been settled once and for all? A speady clearance, and then large-scale cultivation of Bt Brinjal, will demonstrate how and why GM crops are more about helping the Indian farmer, than about competing with the agricultural sector of economies like the US, Argentina or China whose farmers have long enjoyed GM options.
It is one thing to subject transgenic crops and their commercial cultivation to a strict regulatory mechanism for bio-safety standards — necessary for genuinely scientific reasons — and another to buy into the rhetoric of alarmists on the one hand and votaries on the other. Those reasons are the need to assess the ecological impact of GM crops on existing vegetation in diverse environments, to ensure that the promise of higher productivity and greater resistance to pests is sustained on the fields. With edible GM items, the regulatory mechanism will be understandably stricter. But none of that has anything to do with the routine scare-mongering that critics have used to distort public perceptions of an economically indispensable, science-aided improvement. What's more, India's success with Bt Cotton is an object lesson in slaying the alarmist demon and also learning the continuous development of better varieties.
From a single GM crop, India is on the threshold of two, the new one its first edible one. Almost 50 other GM crops, including rice, wheat, tomato, cabbage, are in the experimental stage. An estimated 50 to 70 per cent of brinjal is destroyed by pests. The Bt Brinjal is expected to be more resistant to pests and raise yields. Farmers and consumers will welcome it, and hope the GM scope is extended soon.
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INDIAN EXPRESS
EDITORIAL
AUDACIOUS, UNENDING
Having already taken their battle to the Pakistan army's GHQ in Rawalpindi last week, militants continue to underscore that they can choose where to strike, and when. With coordinated attacks Thursday morning on key security installations in and around Lahore, as well as on a police station in Kohat, they escalated the urban terror currently pervading Pakistan. These attacks come in a 10-day cycle that has had, besides the army headquarters incident, suicide bombers strike at bazaars in Peshawar and Sangla (near the Swat Valley) and at a UN office in Islamabad. The attacks come in the midst of widespread speculation about a forthcoming army offensive on the so-called Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan. By all accounts the Pakistan army had wanted time to prepare for the offensive. Indications are that it will now be advanced.
The current spate of militant strikes — reportedly carried out by the Tehrik-e-Taliban, but with affiliates from other terrorist groups — also comes amidst a controversy in Pakistan over a US legislation. Conditionalities about monitoring mechanisms in the Kerry-Lugar Bill for $1.5 billion annual assistance have not gone down well with the Pakistan military. And its reservations have ignited a political debate. Additionally, with the Taliban expanding their area of dominance in Afghanistan and with the Pakistani Taliban asserting their resilience after the death of their leader, Baitullah Mehsud, this August, the Obama administration is expected to take a call on how to calibrate American military involvement in the region.
What this month's attacks on key army and police installations would have highlighted is Pakistan's lack of options other than taking on the militants. Coherence in the military strategy against the Taliban can only help stabilise Af-Pak, and by extension reduce the security threat posed beyond the borders of the two countries. However, this
coherence can only be had if Pakistan rethinks its long-time strategy of treating some militant groups as assets, of "fighting some and feeding some". The army is seen to be particularly wary of taking on the Afghan Taliban or groups with a Kashmir focus. How Pakistan rethinks this strategy will have implications not just for its own security. It should also inform how other countries affected by violence from Pakistan-based groups redraw their Af-Pak strategy.
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INDIAN EXPRESS
EDITORIAL
DAMMED TRUTHS
The decision of the People's Republic of China to build a dam on the Brahmaputra will naturally cause concern. China's dismissal of Indian concerns will predictably be viewed as another sign of Chinese arrogance in bilateral and multilateral affairs. But, even as India justifiably questions China's plans, uncomfortable questions present themselves. What is India doing for its water security? Where is the urgency on this side of the border? Why are there so many internal hurdles?
News of the Tsangpo dam shows that in China the need for water resources to be properly harnessed is understood; the dam-building process is underway in quick time. The contrast to India, where large water resources projects are continually held up by irresponsible politics, is stark. (The Sardar Sarovar Dam is but the most glaring example.) Development in India — even the very minimum of preparedness for coming challenges — is less a subject for farsighted decision-making and democratic compromise between different groups, and more a hostage to the last man standing. Placating every individual who disagrees, handing out vetoes to every interest group simply breeds a home-grown fifth column against development and growth. Thus a weary state decides on the basis of what is not vetoed. Remember again the Narmada project. And how Saifuddin Soz, then water resources minister, stalled the completion of work on the dam — in particular, on the gates and to take it to its proper crest height — for overtly political reasons, and to placate the same set of do-nothing activists. The dam's height was raised eventually, but the radial gates are still held up.
Consider too Arunachal Pradesh. Rather than speeding up attempts to tap Arunachal's vast reserves of hydro-electric potential in response to the country-wide, chronic power shortage over the past decade, the years since 2000 have instead seen a frittering away of energy. Of the 60-plus power projects the Arunachal government lists, a mere 23 started operation this millennium. India is prepared to make the case, over and over, for its political and public values over those of the People's Republic. And yet that case is undermined by the immaturity of those, whether in politics or in civil society, who have an imperfect understanding of the fact that liberal democracies also require constructive debate on agendas for inclusive growth.
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INDIAN EXPRESS
COLUMN
FIX THE COORDINATES
C. RAJA MOHAN
As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh heads to the White House next month, there is a variety of proposals for elevating Indo-US cooperation to the next level. None of the issues on the table — from high-technology cooperation to mitigating the effects of global warming — is more important than the shared challenge of stabilising Afghanistan and Pakistan.
By the time Dr Singh arrives in Washington, President Barack Obama would have unveiled a new US strategy for Afghanistan. The president's decisions on a new course would no way alter the reality that managing the badlands across the Indus river has become the single-most important foreign policy burden for Obama.
Pakistan, which is at the heart of US strategy in Afghanistan, is sliding down a slippery slope. Note the militant attacks on military and civilian targets across Pakistan over the last few days aimed at undermining the GHQ's commitment to America and the world on confronting the extremists in their Waziristan redoubt.
Meanwhile, as the first anniversary of the Mumbai carnage approaches, there has been no progress in Pakistan on bringing those who plotted the attack to book. Nor has Islamabad given any credible assurances on preventing its soil from being used against India.
Despite New Delhi's unfolding war of words with Beijing on Tibet and Tawang and Kashmir, it is the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan that poses the real and present danger to India. The recent bombing at the Indian Embassy in Kabul — the second in about 15 months — is an ominous signal that another spectacular attack on soft urban targets in India may be round the corner.
As multiple crises brew across the Indus, here is a strange antinomy that confronts Dr Singh and Obama. On the one hand, the principal national security threats to the United States and India emanate from the Af-Pak region. On the other hand, there is a strange reluctance in New Delhi and Washington to begin a genuine dialogue, let alone cooperation, on the shared security threats they confront in the north-western marches of the subcontinent.
To be sure, there has been unprecedented cooperation between the US and Indian intelligence agencies in the wake of the Mumbai attacks last year. That valued cooperation is no guarantee against further terror attacks being organised and promoted from Pakistan.
A crisis, according to the White House, is too important to be wasted. Since he took charge of America amidst a financial turmoil, Obama has used the moment to force fundamental changes in the US, for example, on health care.
The same can be said of the Af-Pak crisis that stares at Dr Singh and Obama and presents a rare opportunity for Indo-US cooperation to transform the turbulent lands between the Indus and the Hindu Kush.
Any exploration of such cooperation must be premised on three important factors: an American recognition of India's enduring national security interests in Afghanistan; an Indian acknowledgement that American defeat in Afghanistan would empower extremist radicalism and inflame the subcontinent; and an acceptance of the reality that neither New Delhi nor Washington can achieve its objectives in Pakistan by pursuing separate policies.
Three potential areas of Indo-US cooperation can be conceived. The first is an expanded Indian role in the security of Afghanistan. This does not mean India sending a division of its army into Afghanistan — that red herring has only served Pakistani propaganda against India. It is not an offer that Washington will ever make and New Delhi accept.
Where India can make a real contribution is in the training of Afghan security forces. India already has a modest training mission that can be expanded significantly as the US decides on a new strategy and puts special emphasis on rapidly strengthening the Afghan armed forces and police.
Second, there is a strong view in Washington that India can contribute to the stabilisation of Afghanistan by improving its relations with Pakistan. This proposition is not contested by New Delhi, which had invested so much diplomatic energy in resolving the conflict with Pakistan during 2004-07.
Since 2007, New Delhi has had to come to terms with the reality that the Pakistan army and the ISI have slowly but surely destroyed a core assumption of the peace process — that Islamabad will stop its support to cross-border terrorism.
If Washington can persuade Islamabad to shut down its terror machine — an outcome that is in the interest not just of India, but also of the US — New Delhi may be ready to walk more than half way to clinch many agreements that it already has negotiated with Pakistan.
The third is a triangular agreement between Kabul, Islamabad and New Delhi on expanding overland trade and transit and modernisation of historic transport infrastructure between the three countries. Such a move would at once unlock the economic potential of the Af-Pak region as an economic bridge between South Asia, the Persian Gulf and Central Asia.
Once such a trilateral framework is in place, India and the US could join hands to support a wider international effort to stabilise Afghanistan and Pakistan. The idea of great
powers underwriting a regional framework for the Af-Pak region is now widely acknowledged as central to any endgame in Afghanistan.
No such initiative, however, will work without a solid kernel of cooperation between Kabul, Islamabad and New Delhi. Exploring the prospects for that regional reconciliation must be the centrepiece of the meeting between Dr Singh and Obama.
A mutual understanding on the future of the trans-Indus territories will make it a whole lot easier for Dr Singh and Obama to put in place the many other pieces they need to found a solid Indo-US strategic partnership.
The writer is Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC express@expressindia.com
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INDIAN EXPRESS
COLUMN
COMMON CAUSE WITH THE COMMONS
MINOTI CHAKRAVARTY KAUL
The 2009 Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded to Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom. This award confirms a turning point in the history of economic thought, which began with the recognition in 1990 of Ronald Coase's theory of firms and transaction costs, and continued with an award to Douglass North for his work on the importance of institutions, among others.
Elinor Ostrom's contribution goes beyond a scholarly landmark, as she and her husband Vincent Ostrom pioneered an entrepreneurial venture for knowledge-building where the rule of conscience was key. The Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis in Bloomington was founded by them on the campus of Indiana University. Here they have invited scholars from the world over to come and contribute what they know, and take back what they think is valuable to them. They
established a link to a roving biennial conference of scholars who study the commons: the IASC. This is a self-governed association reflecting the aspirations of those people who battle with the growing scarcity of natural resources against uncertainty and risk, both natural and man-made.
The contribution of Elinor Ostrom is of special importance to us in the developing world, for she is a champion of consensual democracy as opposed to majoritarian tyranny. She has given attention to the much-neglected, if not vilified, village community based on proven efficacy of self-governance within communities who govern their "common pool resources", a term which she has used to avoid ambiguity. She has invested in a huge database of the commons from almost all countries of the world. The one on Nepal, in particular, has inspired research on the historically
resilient farmer-managed irrigation systems in the Himalayas; these systems are in some cases more equitable than those the government managed! In fact, in several regions in India, the riparian systems of cultivation and pastures along rivers of the Punjab, and irrigation systems like warabandi and osrabandi, did a remarkable job.
The recognition of "Lin" Ostrom's award has several ramifications in India. It is first of all an endorsement for the commons as a heritage institution, and recognition of the accompanying wisdom of diverse systems of allocation suited to local ecological conditions. Second, timely though this is, nevertheless it may be difficult to reverse some of the institutional erosion that has already taken place, either through enacted laws or through the legal system overriding the operational customs. Thus the conditions of governance based on reciprocity and trust in operating the commons, like village common lands and land-use in rural India, have changed; but it is nevertheless important to recognise the principles embedded in them.
A few examples here will illustrate that it may not be too late to recognise that Delhi, for example, is losing its heritage. Water bodies which served Delhi's urban and rural needs for over 2000 years have been lost simply because the ecological principles of building on recharge channels were ignored. Further, the need for drinking water for transhuming pastoral livestock which pass through Delhi from Gurgaon to the Doon Valley has been ignored. These livestock can no longer be accommodated in rural Delhi, as the villages are fast losing their common woodlots and pastures, known as shamilat-deh. These are lost because rules protecting common lands have been nullified and they have been distributed, allowing conversion to other uses. As the amount of pasture decreases, the remaining village pastures of urban Delhi get eroded by over-grazing.
Other pressures, to homogenise breeds for example, are leading to the loss of indigenous breeds of cattle capable of withstanding climate change, even when fed on very poor herbage, in Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. Farther from Delhi, pastures are lost to poorly-planned developments which allow no consideration for organic resilting of riverine areas, disturb long-distance eco-systemic grazing, and push hapless shepherds into more fragile alpine areas of the Himalayas. Finally, the most important pressure is on the institutional capacity of humans, driven to free-ride in competitive mode, dispensing with any respect for mutual need or collective action as a mode of governance.
Perhaps the most important area of concern which is addressed by the corpus of ideas espoused by Elinor Ostrom is the question of agency for institutional change — especially where bio-diversity of living and natural resources is concerned. The passage of laws cannot be an end in itself. This is evident in the case of land reforms enacted immediately after independence, which were instrumental in eroding the village commons — because of an assumption that all common lands were necessarily feudal! Then the recent legislation giving de jure rights to tribal people and forest dwellers took little account of who was to police the rules and who was to sanction the infringement of the rules. Who indeed?
The writer is a founder-member of the International Association for the Study of Commons. She lives in Delhi express@expressindia.com
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INDIAN EXPRESS
OPED
'INDIAN HEGEMONY CONTINUES TO HARM RELATIONS WITH NEIGHBOURS'
" Nobody can deny that today's India is a power. In recent years, Indians have become more narrow-minded and intolerable of outside criticism as nationalism sentiment rises, with some of them even turning to hegemony. It can be proved by India's recent provocation on border issues with China.
Given the country's history, hegemony is a hundred per cent result of British colonialism. Dating back to the era of British India, the country covered a vast territory including present-day India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh as well as Nepal. India took it for granted that it could continue to rule the large area when Britain ended its colonialism in South Asia. A previous victim of colonialism and hegemony started to dream about developing its own hegemony. Obsessed with such mentality, India turned a blind eye to the concessions China had repeatedly made over the disputed border issues, and refused to drop the pretentious airs when dealing with neighbours like Pakistan.
Many Indians didn't know that Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, had once said that India could not play an inferior role in the world, and it should either be a superpower or disappear.
Although the pursuit of being a superpower is justifiable, the dream of being a superpower held by Indians appears impetuous. The dream of superpower is mingled with the thought of hegemony, which places the South Asian giant in an awkward situation and results in repeated failure.
Throughout the history, India has constantly been under foreign rule. The essence for the rise of India lies in how to be an independent country, to learn to solve the complicated ethnic and religious issues, to protect the country from terrorist attacks, to boost economic development as well as to put more efforts on poverty alleviation.
Additionally, the hegemony can also be harmful in terms of geopolitical environment. The expansion of India is restricted by its geographic locations. It has Himalaya Mountain to its north, a natural barrier for northward expansion; it has Pakistan to the west, a neighbour it is always at odds over the disputed border issues.
To everyone's disappointment, India pursued a foreign policy of "befriend the far and attack the near". It engaged in the war separately with China and Pakistan and the resentment still simmers. If India really wants to be a superpower, such a policy is shortsighted and immature.
India, which vows to be a superpower, needs to have its eyes on relations with neighbours and abandon the recklessness and arrogance as the world is undergoing earthshaking changes. For India, the ease of tension with China and Pakistan is the only way to become a superpower. At present, China is proactively engaging in negotiations with India for the early settlement of border dispute and India should give a positive response."
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INDIAN EXPRESS
OPED
THE HALLMARK OF A TRUE PROFESSIONAL
SARITHA RAI
Subroto Bagchi, born and raised in small-town Orissa, and educated in government schools in the vernacular medium, is not your usual, garden variety technology entrepreneur-CEO. Bagchi is not a techie by either education or qualification. He holds a degree in political science. He does not act or speak like a techie. Rather than industry outlook or quarterly results, he prefers holding forth on multiple intelligences. He can talk eloquently and with insight about the vulgarity of amassing wealth or about Pakistan. For instance, he prophecies that Pakistan cannot come anywhere close to India in technology capability even in the next 500 years because it is a feudal society.
And now with his book, the Hollywood-ishly titled The Professional — his third in as many years — Bagchi proves yet again that he is singular. His prose is more appealing than that of most techies. How can a full-time top executive find the time to write so prolifically? He writes columns and management journal pieces frequently too. Bagchi explained tongue-in-cheek recently, "I don't play golf."
His first book The High Performance Entrepreneur was about co-founding and building MindTree. The second, Go Kiss the World, his dying mother's last words, is based on his own life story. In India, successful entrepreneur-CEO authors are a rarity. Kishore Biyani of Pantaloon Retail/Future Group whose 99-rupees-a-copy 'Big Bazaar' priced bestseller is a standout example. Infosys founder Narayana Murthy's A Better India, A Better World, and co-founder Nandan Nilekani's Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century are among the recent handful of Indian entrepreneurs nearly as successful in writing books as in running companies.
Bagchi's book draws from his own remarkable career as a professional. The co-founder of the Bangalore-based outsourcing company MindTree stepped down as its chief executive to take on the title of its chief gardener in order to tend to the emotional wellbeing of the top 100 professionals in his company. Bagchi is now the vice-chairman of the company. The political science major was formerly the chief of Wipro's Global R&D. That is an enviable journey and provides ample material for his latest book. Bagchi's book is a stirring example for other professionals. The CEO-turned-author trained himself to observe minute human responses and gestures right from the start of his career when he was in sales.
The Professional details the author's affinity for nonconformity. During one of his team-building trips outside Bangalore, where he traveled ahead in his car and his colleagues followed behind by bus, he orchestrated a surprise mob attack on the bus that put to test his colleagues' confidence and leadership capabilities. For many years in various leadership roles, Bagchi has seen many episodes of amateurish and unethical behaviour that got his mind lobbing around the core idea of the book. He recalls that his daughter once got an email from a friend of hers working in a multinational bank. Hey, guess what, the email said, your dad has just opened a savings account with us. The lack of confidentiality and ethic was astounding to the author. When he was posted in the United States early in his career, an outsourcing customer called embarrassedly with a question. One of Bagchi's team members in Austin, Texas, was running up hundreds of dollars in phone bills by making personal international calls to Chennai. How do I deal with him, the American customer wanted to know. In crisp chapters, Bagchi deals with the whole array of such unprofessional behaviour. Faked travel vouchers, offering references without pre-checking with the referee, name dropping, fudging academic and work experience.
Mere professional qualifications do not make a good professional, says Bagchi. The Indian education system falls flat in equipping students with an understanding of professionalism. There is a total lack of conversation on professional behaviour in the Indian context, he adds. That is the gap he hopes to bung.
Bagchi's book opens with the example of a 70-year old grave-digger Mahadeva who has dug over 40,000 graves in his lifetime. Nobody oversees Mahadeva's work. Day after day, night after night, Mahadeva accepts unidentified dead bodies and gives them an honourable burial. He works unsupervised. He self-certifies the completion of his own tasks. That is the hallmark of a true professional, according to Bagchi.
saritha.rai@expressindia.com
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INDIAN EXPRESS
OPED
WHAT NOT TO LEARN FROM INDIA
YUBARAJ GHIMIRE
The United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) has come forward to support the National Coalition against Racial Discrimination (NCARD) in Nepal. The recipient sounds almost like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) — founded in the early 20th century for the rights of black Americans. Nepal, with more than 80 per cent of the population as Hindus, has no doubt treated Dalits as 'untouchables' despite the existence of a 46-year old law banning it, and done little for their social, economic and educational uplift. All the castes, not just the Brahmins and Chhetris but also ethnic groups, have been equally responsible in that discrimination. But the current initiative against 'racial discrimination' attempts to bring all the castes together as collective victims of racial discrimination and the Brahmins and Chhetris as the perpetrators of that crime. An advertisement meant for hiring experts for the campaign also says that those belonging to the discriminated communities will be given priority — that means exclusion of the candidates belonging to the castes projected as discriminators.
With growing demands for the creation of caste and ethnicity-based states when Nepal goes federal, there is a tendency to invent new cases to prove how the state has belonged to a small section in the past. This tendency seeks to magnify the existing socio-economic disparities and misinterpret them as 'racial discrimination'. The UN and the international system's instant support to such campaigns projects Nepali society as one full of racial discrimination, like the ones that existed in the US until the mid-sixties, or in South Africa during apartheid. Internal factors and politics have contributed to the rise of such misgivings. The left parties, mainly the Maoists, don't recognise the existence of a demarcation line between caste and class in Nepal. In fact, they treat almost all the castes — save Brahmins and Chhetris — as the victims. Hinduism and the two upper castes within its folds are identified with the old state, listing the rest as 'oppressed and racially discriminated'. They are using, and in fact exploiting the agony that the Dalits went through, putting themselves in the category of Dalits by projecting themselves as the victims of the past. There are around 100 ethnic groups in Nepal. Such a gang-up, and easy recognition by the international agencies as 'racially discriminated', has also triggered an opposite, if not equal, reaction or social alliance of the 'upper castes' with the possibility of religious and communal fundamentalism emerging as its by-product. No one thought that the country's switch to federalism and the unforeseen emergence of caste as a dominant political feature, would invite so much trouble and uncertainty. Federalism was mainly perceived as an administrative-cum-geographical issue with the general perception that it's a simple and easy way of enforcing the long-cherished devolution of power, and far better than the unitary model that Nepal has had through out.
In fact, the movement for 'One Madhesh One Pradesh' as a single province in a proposed federal Nepal triggered reactions from several regional and ethnic groupings. Madhesh — comprising 22 districts in the plains of Nepal, accounting for 24 per cent of the total area and 48 per cent of the population congruous to north and eastern India — would be the biggest and dominant province if such a demand is accepted. But political parties have not yet come together on what should constitute the basis of federalism and formation of the provinces. The aboriginals in Terai, mainly the Tharus, have vociferously opposed the demand for 'One Madhesh One Pradesh', saying the formation of a state of that size would go against the very concept of federalism, and would be impractical as well.
The proposed movement against racial discrimination plans to unite groups, both from the hills and the plains. It intends to ensure their 'equal status' and rights in the new constitution. But the state has become so weak that its ability or capacity to deliver has already come under question. Its ability to enforce its primary duties — state security and law and order — have suffered a massive erosion. Castes no more remain mere social strata, but have assumed the form of major determinants of the new constitution and the model of future governance as well as federalism. The different groups demanding separate ethnic states with the right to self-determination, and the endorsement of such demands by the Maoists — all in the name of progressive politics — reinforces that fear. As an initial reaction to this consolidation, Brahmins and Chhetris — the two upper castes — have ganged up in many places to resist any onslaught on them. The Chhetris constitute 17 per cent of the population, are the biggest 'caste', and yet feel marginalised.
The erosion of the state, and a lack of will, vision and character on the part of political parties to discourage caste-based politics, are making people more cynical and frustrated. A miracle can perhaps save Nepal, but it won't come from the politics that is being pursued today.
yubharaj.ghimire@expressindia.com
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FINANCIAL EXPRESS
EDITORIAL
DAMNED IF WE DON'T
As The Indian Express reported yesterday, China has begun constructing a dam on its side of the Brahmaputra river. As a lower riparian country, India has cause for concern. The government's statement makes the case that India was misinformed by China on the latter's intentions. India's China challenge is growing more complex. But let's look at another perspective: what can we learn from China? First, compared with 9.56% of India's surface area being covered by water, only 2.8% of China can boast the same. Going forward, growing further, the water issue is equally urgent in both countries. Weather fluctuations aren't helping; climate change bodes ill; both drought and flood are annual threats. River management on China's side does not just threaten India's water access, but also that of, say, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar (all of whom share Mekong waters). But, remember, India is also playing Goliath to the Bangladesh David, as it, for example, builds a hydro-electric dam and a reservoir on the Barak river. Remember also, the intra-state bickering over water resources—for instance, the decades-old fight for Krishna waters in the South.
Second, given that the situation is dire and becoming more so by the year, India doesn't have much to show in terms of adequate planning. It's not that China has gotten it right every time. Forays like the Three Gorges Dam are very controversial in terms of the cost-to-benefit ratio. But, both at their best and at their worst, such projects show a coherent vision—displacing people with impunity that no democracy can countenance, they yet have the upside of generating renewable energy and providing large-scale irrigation. However mired in second thoughts and controversy, China has used the Three Gorges project to sell similar projects overseas. Hosting more than 25,800 dams at home, more than in any other country, China is now building more and more dams around the world as western financiers take a backseat in the business. What's the grandest of Indian plans? A river interlinking project that can't get off the ground and that policymakers can't get around to agreeing on. Jairam Ramesh and Rahul Gandhi have nayed it, but the PM has said it needs more looking into. Third, from farmers to posh capitalwallahs, Indians haven't gotten their heads around to paying for the water they use, China has habituated its people to metered usage. Tampering is rare and rarer still is power suppliers incurring losses. The result: wastage of water and electricity is down. China's water policies, like many of its other policies, will pose problems for India. Those have to be smartly addressed. But let's look at the good things it has done and be successfully competitive — that's also something China will have to respect.
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FINANCIAL EXPRESS
EDITORIAL
GENERALLY MARVELOUS
India's first experiment with commercial cultivation of genetically-modified (GM) vegetables came one step closer to fruition on Wednesday after the genetic engineering appraisal committee (GEAC) cleared Bt brinjal for cultivation. The decision still needs to be ratified by the environment minister before it becomes policy. The minister would be well advised to endorse the views of the GEAC as soon as possible. At the moment, India allows commercial cultivation of just one genetically modified crop: cotton. And, despite widespread scepticism that greeted the first cultivation of Bt cotton, it has been an unqualified success with yields multiplying many times over. For vegetables—there are some 40 varieties in different stages of trials—the case for genetically-modified crops isn't simply about higher yields. It is as much about developing varieties more resistant to pests, which destroy a significant proportion of vegetable crops at the moment. Estimates suggest that Bt brinjal could add to the current annual production of 80 lakh tonnes by 50-70%—that's as much destroyed by pests. It will be good for farmers and good for consumers.
Much will be written by sceptics on safety issues, but India's regulatory record on genetically-modified crops and vegetables is very credible. Bt brinjal has been in various stages of trial for many years now. At least two years have been devoted to actual field trials in 11 select locations. No adverse effect has either been reported on the soil or in the consumption of Bt brinjal. In fact, some studies suggest that Bt Brinjal may be more environment friendly than regular brinjal. Another concern often expressed about genetically-modified seeds is that the intellectual property is owned by multinational firms. In the case of Bt brinjal, however, Indian research institutions have been very closely associated with the research—the Tamil Nadu Agriculture University and University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad. The seeds are being manufactured by the Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company in collaboration with Monsanto. Given the periodic scenario of high food prices and reports of supply crunches, India has little choice but to raise yields of key foodgrains and vegetables. There is much talk of another Green Revolution. GM is one technology that can be used in the very near future to facilitate such a revolution. Many other parts of the world are already leading us by some margin on the production of GM crops. It's time we stopped debating it and put GM into the fields.
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FINANCIAL EXPRESS
COLUMN
THERE IS A JOB TO DO ON JOBS
MANISH SABHARWAL
We should be delighted that a recent Planning Commission expert group chaired by Suresh Tendulkar has recommended revising our poverty estimate from 28.5% to 40%. Why? Because this is not a new estimation but a new definition. Poverty has been measured relative to per capita calorie norms of 2,400 (rural) and 2,100 (urban) but this new poverty calibration takes into account education, health and actual spending on rent and conveyance. This redefinition is a logical concomitant of India's economic reforms—the definition of needs, wants and desires must recalibrate as we graduate from a low to middle income country. The costs of India's rising economic inequality (which measures individually irrelevant standard deviation) do not outweigh the benefits of a rising per capita (which measures the hugely relevant personal income mean). In fact, this redefinition of poverty may be Exhibit A for the success of economic reforms and the argument that garibi hatao needs ameeri banao.
I make the case for revising our current official 7-9% unemployment estimate because it is at best unfair and at worst, wrong. What struck me most about the US when I landed there for business school in 1994 was their definition of poverty—it often referred to somebody with a used car, a small home, or no savings. Given the tragic poverty of hunger and shelter of India, does anybody really recognise fairness or truth in our official unemployment rate? There are no doubt huge measurement problems—the huge unorganised and agricultural workforce means that regular salary workers may only be 15% of the workforce. But there is something wrong with our definition of unemployment because of the clear disconnect in the logical relationship between our poverty and unemployment rates. This raises important questions; should the 40% of our labour force who qualify as working poor—they make enough money to live but not enough to pull out of poverty—qualify as employed? Should that part of the 93% of our labour force who permanently toil in the unorganised sector—victims of unrealistic labour laws that breed informal employment with no employability corridor—really qualify as employed? Our definition of unemployment must be recalibrated to include any job which does not move an individual to living wages within one year. Using this logic, India's unemployment is not 7-9% but about 26%—a number that seems intuitively right to the many policymakers, labour market players and NGOs.
The logical next question; how do we eradicate this 26% unemployment? Many of our solutions since independence have been biased towards consumption (ie, subsidies) rather than investments (soft or hard). Even new age legislations like NREGA and Food Security Act—while relevant for abject poverty—are not only inefficient but mostly treat the symptom rather than the disease. Public policy must make investments in fertile job creation habitats (ie solving the infrastructure deficit) and human capital (ie healthcare, education and employability). A job creation agenda must make land less valuable by bridging the infrastructure deficit to raise productivity outside the usual suspects by creating new cities out of existing towns. The human capital agenda must focus on making our people job worthy.
A related but neglected public policy debate pivots around the 93% of our labour force in unorganised employment. Nobody—individuals, employers, taxmen, labour market economists—likes unorganised employment. Our irrational labour law regime not only breeds unorganised employment—the slavery of the 21st century—but also amplifies the replacement of people with machines and sabotages skill development. The Left parties and trade unions are an important minority but our trade union aristocracy represents only 7% of the labour force and does not fight for issues like unemployment or informal employment because their self-interest lies in positioning job preservation as a form of job creation. Only somebody completely ignorant of how firm-level decisions on hiring are made would believe that labour laws are irrelevant in the recipe to fix our 26% unemployment. Globally competitive companies are instinctually drawn to organised employment because the lower wages of unorganised employment often do not compensate for lower predictability and productivity but our labour laws sabotage these instincts.
Sceptics may ask an important question: do definitions matter? I believe they do because democracy is a battle for ideas. India does not change for a better option but when it has no option and today unemployment is not a crisis in India because of the shock absorber of the working poor. But this shock absorber burdens the disadvantaged disproportionately. The true and tragic cost of our hideous labour laws, our failed employment exchanges, our infrastructure deficit and our poor education regime will only really show up in a realistic definition of unemployment. As India slowly and surely redefines poverty, we must also consider a definition of unemployment that reveals more than it hides.
The author is chairman, Teamlease Services
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FINANCIAL EXPRESS
COLUMN
ELEPHANT GETS BRINJAL, MORE TO COME
YOGINDER K ALAGH
Slowly but surely, the elephant is catching on. We have to do this right for land is being gobbled up by the sharks. Somebody well-informed told me only a quarter of land price was declared for tax purposes; and so cropped area is falling. This makes seeds terribly important.
We did not exactly cover ourselves with glory in the initial thrust on cotton Bts, but brinjal has all the possibilities. We are not as gung ho as the Americans and Chinese who do it anyway. Europeans don't do it at all although in the Lisbon Protocol there was rethinking. We introduce a seed after checking it out. The strategy comes from a Swaminathan Committee which was set up by the agriculture ministry, and pushed by me as science and technology minister; since in my day biotechnology was also a part of my work. Swaminathan said we won't just do GM or say no to GM.
The advantages are too great and if you goof up, so are the costs. So we do it case by case, experimentally grow GM crops under protected conditions and only when the science boys say yes, we go ahead. MNCs will crib, but tough luck. So Bt brinjal made the grade after a couple of years of checking it out. It will spread fast for the gains are high. Others will follow.
GM cotton was not a good story initially. Mind you, one of India's finest cotton breeders swears it was not genetically engineered perhaps only accidentally modified and any way was sponsored initially by the State. When the ruckus started it had been around for a few years and no damage had been seen.
In any successful system, Nav Bharat Agro, the highly successful cotton Bt enterprise, would have built strategic alliances. But our regulators called him a criminal and threatened to burn the fields of half a million farmers who bought his seeds. Now it's all memory, but even today a lot of the Bt seed is not hundred percent pucca in terms of approvals and now you have it in paddy and other crops also.
We need a high level review. My favorite model is the pharma model. When I was science and technology minister, we set up the Technology Development Board to help Indian firms to cover the last mile with Indian technology. We got CII to champion the cause. A struggling company helped was Shantha Biotech—to productionise the Hepatitis Vaccine with an Indian technology. Shantha was heavily critiqued by the French MNC leading the pack for the product. But later, another French company wanted to merge with Shantha.
Strategic alliances are the name of the game. There probably are not more than 20 MNCs in a field, but more than a thousand smaller fellows can really spread the technology. We need a new regulating regime. Uncontrolled, even if benignly illegal, Bt can be a potential disaster. Yet the advantages of descaling must be garnered.
The legal regime also needs a look at. These seeds are expensive. The farmer buys them for his unit costs go down as yield expands and other expensive inputs like pesticides are needed less. But in the one in a thousand failure he is doomed to, a large unpaid loan will drive him to the wall.
In the old days the seeds corporation or the agricultural university could be held responsible and the State would step in. Now there is a grey area. One collector can be gung ho and take 'action' on the company, another one may not, for the law is hazy. We need clear laws and regulatory drills. But all these are solvable problems.
The ICAR should now build a research plan as a private public partnership using a long term genetic mapping structure for the different agro climatic regimes of India. The Pusa gene bank should be the base. Bt brinjal is good. The prospect of more GM seeds is even better.
The author is a former Union minister
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FINANCIAL EXPRESS
COLUMN
POLICY CROSS-CONNECTION
ANANDITA SINGH MANKOTIA
The problem with our policy makers is not that they are unable to make cogent policies, which work for a reasonable span of time but the fact that they end-up making too many too soon, which end up contradicting and competing with one another. Take the country's telecom sector, which apart from being the world's fastest growing market also sees the largest number of policies at frequent intervals. Here, the department of telecommunications (DoT) is currently trying to bring about consolidation, which would effectively mean proposing measures to reduce the number of players by bringing about liberal M&A norms. However, at the same time, the same body is busy canvassing with new foreign telecom operators to participate in the 3G auctions, which would in turn increase the number of operators.
The exercise of conducting 3G auctions should ideally be driven by the fact that consumers have long been deprived of the latest technologies and the country must catch up with the rest of the world, at least in terms of technology in a sector which has been a run away success. However, in the Indian context, the 3G auctions seem to be driven more by the needs of the finance ministry rather than a part of the government's long-term telecom policy.
The DoT's committee on 2G spectrum pricing has recommended mergers and acquisitions that would consolidate the telecom industry and promote spectrum efficiency thereby passing on the benefits to both the consumers and the service providers. The recommendations explain that there isn't much availability of the scarce resource 'spectrum' hence it must be used optimally and so one needs to regulate the number of operators and rightly so. The recommendations also suggest that the licence must be de-linked from the spectrum allotted and the 2G spectrum must not be allotted at an administered price but must be auctioned.
The government, however, has made it clear that while the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's recommendations are awaited on the report, it wants to conduct the 3G spectrum auction as the finance minister has already budgeted Rs 35,000 crore as receipts from the auction in the current financial year.
Fair enough. But the problem arises as on the one hand there is an attempt to consolidate the sector and promote efficiency, on the other hand the government has allowed foreign telecom operators to participate in the auction (more the number of participants, higher the competition and meatier auction proceeds!).
In case a foreign telecom operator does win a bid it would automatically be allotted a Unified Access Service Licence, the government is then likely to give it the start-up 2G spectrum of 4.4 Mhz and at the end of the day what we would have is another telecom operator to our existing tally of 13! The auction proceeds might even beat government estimates, but all this would be in complete disagreement and against the logic of market consolidation, something everyone understands is a must. Another way could have been to first implement the 2G spectrum recommendations, de-link the licence and the spectrum and also use these directives in 3G spectrum auction.
anandita.mankotia@expressindia.com
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THE HINDU
EDITORIAL
THE DOLLAR'S FALL
The dollar, which has been under pressure in the global foreign exchange markets recently, fell to a 14-month low against the euro. Over the past six months, the American currency has depreciated in trade-weighted terms by as much as 11.5 per cent in relation to currencies such as the yen, the euro, as well as the Canadian, New Zealand, and Australian dollars. The weakening dollar has made exports from the U.S. more competitive. By the same token, exports from countries whose currencies have strengthened are losing their edge in the all-important American market. While global imbalances are being corrected, a precipitous fall in the exports of other countries will certainly not be good news for the global economy that is slowly coming out of the recession. The U.S. economy continues to suffer from structural deficiencies. For instance, its level of external debt is very high and the fiscal deficit is almost 13.5 per cent of its GDP. However, partly aided by the currency depreciation, the U.S. has made impressive strides in trimming its current account deficit to nearly a half of what it was at the start of the financial crisis. On the domestic front, the falling dollar has become a political issue, with the Obama administration coming under pressure to intervene and stem its fall. That would involve, among others, pushing up the interest rates, a course of action unlikely to be accepted as it will imperil recovery in the U.S., and given also the broad agreement among leading countries to keep the stimulus measures in place for some more time.
The decline in the dollar has revived the debate over its role as the world's principal currency. It is the currency of choice in trade transactions and the undisputed benchmark in currency trading around the world. This is not the first time that a terminal decline of the dollar has been predicted. Yet no real alternative has emerged as a safe haven currency. At present, 65 per cent of the world's reserves are in dollars and 25 per cent in euro. There would be some shift over the next few years, but the dollar's supremacy is unlikely to be challenged for a long time to come. Even its current fall is viewed by Paul Krugman and others as a symbol of success of the measures to revive the world economies including the U.S. economy, not as a sign of weakness. Simply stated, at the height of the crisis, investors flocked to the dollar, the traditional refuge currency. The dollar is merely climbing down from the inflated values to which it was pushed up. In India, the sharp appreciation of the rupee caused also by the surging portfolio inflows is posing major policy challenges.
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THE HINDU
EDITORIAL
IMPROVING PUBLIC HOUSING
A survey of cityscapes would testify that urban development polices and programmes have not been sufficiently inclusive. The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation concedes that even the City Development Plans funded through the flagship programme Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) have not adequately addressed the concerns of the urban poor, especially the slum dwellers. This, the Ministry believes, has more to do with the lack of re liable data than anything else. As a corrective, it has gone in for an extensive enumeration of the slums in various cities and set up a committee to take another look at the numbers relating to affordable housing. Efforts to improve and update the data are undoubtedly necessary, but to frame the issue entirely as a matter of inaccurate statistics will be to miss the point and deflect responsibility. The Ministry's progress report shows that of the 14.5 lakh dwelling units sanctioned under JNNURM that are expected to be completed by 2012 only about 1.3 lakh units have been built so far. The Eleventh Five-Year Plan estimates too show the supply of housing units for the poor is inadequate. Such delays cause cost overruns and affect affordability.
Countries such as the United Kingdom that faced similar problems have put in place a range of construction improvement initiatives and process innovations. Since 2005, public sector construction agencies in the U.K. are expected to reduce the pre-construction time leading up to the award of contract by 25 per cent. These measures are estimated to increase the delivery of units four-fold and bring in savings of the order of 10 per cent of the annual construction capital costs. It is time the government agencies in India opted for radically improved construction standards, enhanced technologies, and efficient management practices. Much remains to be done on the policy front too. The government assumes that its directive to reserve 20-25 per cent of developed land in private and public housing project for economically weaker sections would deliver results. However, this provision has been so diluted that it has contributed very little to affordable housing, as evidenced by the ground reality in several cities. The experience in quite a few countries shows that unless such a stipulation is applied to smaller development projects also — not just to the larger ones — the supply of affordable housing will not increase in any significant degree. Without a total overhaul of the housing agencies and their mechanisms of supply at the level of the States, affordable housing will remain a mirage.
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THE HINDU
LEADER PAGE ARTICLES
THE EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION DEBATE
EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION IS ABOUT ETHICS AND NOT REGULATIONS. INDUSTRY SHOULD SELF-IMPOSE REASONABLE CAPS ON THE RATIO OF EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION AND AVERAGE EMPLOYEE SALARY.
PRABHUDEV KONANA
There is justified public outrage at the obscenely large executive compensation. Should the government regulate compensations in the private sector even when there is no government money involved?
Let us first consider a compensation method that exemplifies the best in the capitalistic system. Whole Foods, headquartered in Austin, is an $8 billion company selling natural and organic foods and promoting sustainable agriculture worldwide. They have a self-imposed limit on executive salary and bonuses, which is a maximum of 19 times the average salary of all full-time employees. Additional compensation is tied to stock options. The executives benefit if the average salary of employees goes up. The wealthy CEO and founder, John Mackey, takes a token $1 as salary and all his stock-based compensation is channelled to Whole Food's not-for-profit foundations that do outstanding work all over the world.
What is interesting is that the CEO, John Mackey, is a well-known libertarian who firmly believes in free market capitalism and that the government should have little role in economic activity. He is strongly against unions and socialised medicine. In fact, his recent article in The Wall Street Journal arguing against government-supported healthcare attracted numerous protests. However, under his leadership Whole Foods governs itself to maximise the benefits of all stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, customers, and community. Ninety per cent of all stock options are awarded to non-executive members. All employees receive generous healthcare benefits. Five per cent of the profits go to non-profit and community organisations. The company believes in the greater role of firms in creating a better environment and opportunities for others. This remarkable company culture is rooted in capitalism and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Mr. Mackey deviates from the popular libertarian view that CSR is unadulterated socialism.
Many executives like Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google, and Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, are also in this $1 club and receive compensation only through stock options. Some criticise this, contending that that $1 grandstanding obfuscates real compensation from stock appreciation. But they ignore the fact that these executives could rake in millions in salary any way.
However, the real stinker is the overall executive compensation has grown uncontrollably over the years. In the United States, the ratio of CEO compensation to average employee pay increased from 42:1 in 1980 to 400:1 early this decade. (India's corresponding numbers were not readily available, but the current compensation of top executives supports such large ratios.)
Steven Kaplan, Professor at the University of Chicago, and others use market equity, firm profitability, and shareholder returns to justify executive compensation. Mr. Kaplan argues that executives are underpaid when a comparison is made with the historical share of adjusted gross income (about 1 per cent). But he fails to explain historical low compensation to average employee salary ratios. His arguments cannot explain why CEOs in oil industries deserve huge bonuses when a large fraction of profits were a result of irrational increase in oil prices.
The arguments cannot explain the differences in compensation of CEOs in the U.S. and those in other developed economies. The CEO compensations of equally powerful global companies in Germany, Japan, and other developed countries range from 10 to 25 times that of average employee salaries.
The rampant increases and somewhat reckless compensation significantly correlate with scandals such as stock option backdating and large severance packages. Managers potentially resort to inflating stock prices through investor expectation management. The short executive tenure adds to the challenge. It breeds short-term focus and potentially drives executives to seek creative accounting methods to show performance. Even worse, executives who inherit mess will seek greater compensation to guard against potential unknown downside creating a vicious cycle. The market equity drives up compensation each time as firms try to out beat peer firms.
The U.S. Congressional report rightly suggests that executive compensation in many sectors, particularly financial services industry, has de-coupled from actual firm performance. How to rein in executive compensations? It is a non-trivial matter. The government enforcing compensation caps on private firms has unintended consequences. As reported in The Wall Street Journal, since the 1980s the U.S. has tried regulation, legislation, and tax penalties to rein in executive pay, but compensation has skyrocketed. A few executive compensation outliers have become the industry norm after regulations. If one has it, others will want it. The competition to get talent forces firms to match others' bloated compensation.
Government mandates raise other questions. Should there be a cap on compensation of sport personalities, movie stars, or singers? Should the government put a cap on what proprietary and partnership-based businesses earn? Will the government interfere with how five-star hotels charge their customers? There is no end to this mandate.
Further, what will happen to thousands of non-profit organisations that rely on the wealthy to survive? Will mandates encourage job-creating investments pushed to other countries? Will top talent be poached by other countries with no such restrictions? Will angel investors who support entrepreneurs during high-risk early phase of a start-up disappear? There are numerous unknowns in this debate.
Of course, the government has a responsibility to protect shareholders and the economy from a reckless incentive system. Sensible regulations should give shareholders greater say in executive compensation referred to as "Say on Pay" that companies like Microsoft have adopted. This provides greater transparency and removes the undesirable nexus between the Board of Directors who set the compensation and executives. The clawback provisions to recall bonuses and compensation resulting from incorrect financial reporting or outright fraud need to be strengthened. Corporate fraud must be pursued vigorously. There are ways for the government to make these non-interfering regulations. It can consider tax benefits for firms that voluntarily set reasonable compensation limits.
It is time industry self-regulated proactively to benefit all stakeholders. Otherwise, it opens up for government intrusion since such intrusion may be popular among the public.
Assuming every company replicates or improves Whole Foods' compensation system, I am confident there is no better economic system than the capitalistic system to create wealth and improved living conditions. There is no need for government intervention and CSR with the right tax incentives can address societal needs.
In the context of India, the above may have greater relevance. There is little evidence that the government can substitute efficient privately run for-profit or non-profit organisations. Since Independence, the government has initiated hundreds of programmes and billions of rupees to improve rural India and socially and economically backward sections of the population. As I heard in one of the talks, considering the amount of money India has spent on various programmes every village should have been a Singapore by now! Obviously, let alone villages, no town or city in India comes close to Singapore on any dimensions.
Unfortunately, there is more tolerance towards corruption than executive compensation in the political establishment. The political establishment should rein in corruption rather than address outrage on executive compensation — it has no impact on the masses who want opportunities to succeed.
In the end, executive compensation is about ethics and vision that is best left for private firms to revisit. John Mackey said in the Harvard Business Review debate on executive compensation — "In my experience, deeper purpose, personal growth, self-actualisation, and caring relationships provide very powerful motivations and are more important than financial compensation for creating both loyalty and a high performing organisation." This is indeed a powerful statement from a die-hard libertarian.
The media and academia should play a greater role in a meaningful discourse on compensation ethics to inform industry and to bring greater attention. Of course, the government has the right to interfere if the private sector seeks government bail-out or subsidies.
Finally, it is also an ethical issue as to how these wealthy executives spend their fortune. Do they spend it on buying jumbo jets, build massive mansions surrounded by poverty, or plough back part of their fortune for the greater social good? I bet public anger will be non-existent when it is the latter.
(Prabhudev Konana is William H. Seay Centennial Professor and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and can be contacted at pkonana@mail.utexas.edu)
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THE HINDU
OP-ED
TRAFIGURA FIASCO TEARS UP THE TEXTBOOK
A MIX OF OLD MEDIA AND THE TWITTERSPHERE BLEW AWAY CONVENTIONAL EFFORTS TO BUY SILENCE.
ALAN RUSBRIDGER
One day — if it's not happening already — they will teach Trafigura in business schools. This will be the scenario for aspiring MBAs. You are in charge of a large but comfortably anonymous trading company based in London and have a tiresome PR problem. Three thousand miles away are 30,000 Africans in one of the poorest countries in the world claiming to have been injured by your company dumping toxic sludge. You are being hit by one of the biggest lawsuit s in history. Worse, you now have a bunch of journalists on your case.
What to do? The business school textbooks will advocate a mix of carrot and stick. In charge of your carrot you hire Lord (Tim) Bell, who once performed a similar role on behalf of Mrs Thatcher. He will be in charge of attempts to reposition positive public perceptions of the Trafigura brand. He might, for instance, suggest you become an official sponsor of the British Lions tour of South Africa and an arts prize. And in charge of your stick you hire Britain's most notorious firm of libel lawyers, Messrs Carter-Ruck, who like to boast of their reputation for applying chloroform over the noses of troublesome editors.
For a while all goes well, especially on the stick front. Carter-Ruck spray threatening letters around newsrooms from Oslo to Abidjan. They launch an action against the BBC. And they persuade a judge to suppress a confidential but embarrassing document which has fallen into journalists' hands. A new term is coined: "super-injunctions", whereby the existence of court proceedings and court orders are themselves secret.
Nice work, large cheques all round. But the plan began to unravel rather rapidly on Monday (October 12) when it transpired that a British MP, Paul Farrelly, had tabled a question about the injunction and the awkward document in parliament. That was bad enough, what with the nuisance of 300 or so years of precedent affirming the right of the press to report whatever MPs say or do. There was a tiresomely teasing story on the Guardian front page. And then there was Twitter.
It took one tweet on Monday evening as I left the office to light the virtual touchpaper. At five past nine I tapped: "Now Guardian prevented from reporting parliament for unreportable reasons. Did John Wilkes live in vain?" Twitter's detractors are used to sneering that nothing of value can be said in 140 characters. My 104 characters did just fine.
By the time I got home, after stopping off for a meal with friends, the Twittersphere had gone into meltdown. Twitterers had sleuthed down Farrelly's question, published the relevant links and were now seriously on the case. By midday on Tuesday "Trafigura" was one of the most searched terms in Europe, helped along by re-tweets by Stephen Fry and his 830,000-odd followers.
Many tweeters were just registering support or outrage. Others were beavering away to see if they could find suppressed information on the far reaches of the web. One or two legal experts uncovered the Parliamentary Papers Act 1840, wondering if that would help? Common #hashtags were quickly developed, making the material easily discoverable.
By lunchtime — an hour before the Guardian was due in court — Trafigura threw in the towel. The textbook stuff — elaborate carrot, expensive stick — had been blown away by a newspaper together with the mass collaboration of strangers on the web. Trafigura thought it was buying silence. A combination of old media — the Guardian — and new — Twitter — turned attempted obscurity into mass notoriety.
So this week's Trafigura fiasco ought to be taught to aspiring MBAs and would-be journalists. They might nod in passing to the memory of John Wilkes, the scabrous hack and MP who risked his life to win the right to report parliament. An 18th-century version of crowd-sourcing played its part in that, too. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2009
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THE HINDU
OP-ED
U.K. STUDENT VISA SYSTEM IN CHAOS
THE SYSTEM IS SO BUREAUCRATIC THAT A LARGE NUMBER OF STUDENTS ARE STILL WAITING FOR THEIR VISAS WHILE THEIR CLASSES HAVE ALREADY BEGUN.
HASAN SUROOR
For a country whose higher education system might collapse if overseas students, who contribute some £2.5 billion annually to its economy in tuition fee alone, stopped coming it is strange that Britain should have a student visa policy which appears to have been designed actually to prevent them from coming here.
While universities woo foreign students and look upon them as cash cows because they pay three to four times more than what their British and European Union counterparts do, the government views them with suspicion. It believes that student visas are open to widespread abuse with extremists and illegal immigrants exploiting "loopholes" to enter Britain.
A new, more stringent, system introduced earlier this year to check the alleged abuse is so bureaucratic and time-consuming that a large number of students in different countries are still waiting for their visas to come through while their classes have already begun. The government says it is designed to make sure that the applicant is a genuine student, has sufficient means to support him or her while in Britain and — in the case of countries such as Pakistan —has no obvious terror links but students complain that it is often used by local staff to harass and humiliate them with all applicants treated as potential terrorists and cheats. The "humiliation" doesn't end there. At Heathrow airport they are subjected to "insulting" questions and often made to stand in a separate queue for hours.
``We pay through our nose to come here but are treated so shabbily," said one Indian student who spent more than an hour at the airport.
Among other things, he was asked about his bank account details although he had already provided them to the British High Commission in Delhi (indeed without that he wouldn't have been given a visa) and made to undergo a chest x-ray.
Compared to their Pakistani counterparts, however, Indian students are lucky that they get a visa at all. In Pakistan, according to immigration agency's own figures, as many as 5,000 students are waiting for their visa to be processed, and some 9,000 appeals against visa refusals are pending.
Many fear losing their university places if their visas don't come through by the end of this month. The BBC reported one student as saying that he was waiting for his visa for three months.
"I applied for my visa on 9 July and I mentioned that I intend to go to England on 10 September as I have been given a government scholarship from my employer university… And till now I haven't received any response from the U.K. Border Agency. I have sent them many e-mails," Zubair Jatoi from Islamabad said.
Another student said it had been his "dream" to study in Britain but it had turned into a "nightmare." He was supposed to join Sunderland University in the first week of October but his visa had still not been processed.
"My classes have started. Unfortunately I am more than 7,000 miles away from my campus. You can imagine what I feel. I wish to attend my class but I can't," Hafiz Yousef told BBC.
Indeed, the issue has sparked a diplomatic row and, during a visit to Pakistan last week, British Home Secretary Alan Johnson was forced to apologise for the delays. He attributed the chaos to new technology and problems with background checks and assured Islamabad that waiting time for visa would be reduced from two months to 15 days by next month.
AMERICANS NOT SPARED
It seems that even friendly Americans, for all the much-vaunted special relationship, have not been spared the visa blues. According to media reports students in Los Angeles have had to wait for more than 40 days for a visa. Applicants from some other American cities have also complained about inordinate delays.
Meanwhile, British universities, desperate for cash that foreign students bring, are livid. They have accused the government of not only undermining their efforts to attract these students but also damaging Britain's reputation as a friendly higher education destination at a time when other countries are going out of their way to welcome overseas scholars.
"We are all extremely worried about the damage that this could do to the reputation of British higher education overseas, particularly in the Indian subcontinent. It comes at a time when universities' finances are under enormous pressure," Simeon Underwood, head of admissions policy at the London School of Economics told The Economist.
The journal pointed out that despite a weak pound which should make Britain a cheaper option for overseas students their numbers have actually "fallen by a fifth because of difficulties in getting visas."
In recent years, foreign students have got caught up in Britain's domestic immigration politics on the one hand and the government's larger "war" on terror on the other with universities being urged, effectively, to spy on their students and inform police if a student overstays his visa or shows sign of "radicalism."
To their credit, most vice-chancellors have resisted such pressures so far but the prevailing climate of suspicion on British campuses has killed the joy of university life for many foreign students. And, in the long run, it could kill the golden goose itself.
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THE HINDU
OPED
SECOND GREATEST KILLER
Despite the existence of inexpensive and efficient means of treatment, diarrhoea kills more children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined, according to a report issued here Wednesday by the U.N. Children's Fund and the World Health Organisation. The report, titled "Diarrhoea: Why Children Are Still Dying and What Can Be Done," includes information on the causes of diarrhoea, data on access to means of prevention and treatment, and a seven- point plan t o reduce diarrhoea deaths. "It is a tragedy that diarrhoea, which is little more than an inconvenience in the developed world, kills an estimated 1.5 million children each year," said UNICEF Executive Director, Ann M. Veneman.
"Inexpensive and effective treatments for diarrhoea exist, but in developing countries only 39 per cent of children with diarrhoea receive the recommended treatment." Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, said: "We know where children are dying of diarrhoea. We know what must be done to prevent those deaths. We must work with governments and partners to put this seven-point plan into action."
Diarrhoea is a common symptom of gastrointestinal infection. However just a handful of organisms are responsible for most acute cases of diarrhoea and one, Rotavirus, is responsible for more than 40 per cent of all diarrhoea-related hospital admissions of children under five. A new vaccine for Rotavirus has been found to be safe but is still largely unavailable in most developing countries. — Xinhua
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THE ASIAN AGE
EDITORIAL
FEARS RISE: PAK OUT OF CONTROL?
The deteriorating security situation within Pakistan ought to be a matter of serious concern to us in India, although the dramatis personae responsible for the spate of attacks at different places in the country, including the three synchronised assaults on separate leading institutions of the police establishment in Lahore on Thursday, are wards of its own Inter-Services Intelligence who flex their muscle from time to time to signal their autonomy in furtherance of specific aims. Not that the recent spurt in terrorist violence in Pakistan necessarily means that the ISI, which is always known to have its reasons, disapproves. In the absence of reliable information, analysts will, however, need to worry about the possibility of the present Pakistani state being overwhelmed by extremists, whether all elements of the state apparatus approve of this or not. This worry won't be limited to foreign observers and is certain to extend to the people of Pakistan as well who, by all accounts, are terrified of such a prospect but are unable to exert themselves to avert it. Those that may be ranged against the present establishment have grown way too strong over the decades, thanks to official mollycoddling. India has a serious cause for apprehension here. In the hands of the Army and the ISI, even a supposedly rule-bound Pakistan has been a treacherous and aggressive neighbour. With all restraints off, if the extremists come to rule, the situation is likely to become wholly unpredictable.
But there is another consideration that can plausibly be entertained. It deals with the short term. In the past fortnight, there have been half a dozen major terrorist strikes in Pakistan which have taken more than a hundred lives. The targets have included the Army headquarters in Rawalpindi, Pakistan's chief garrison town, and key police institutions in Lahore, the capital of the country's most important province in every respect, including political. Peshawar, the principal town of the North-West Frontier Province, of course, has been rocked over and over again. And who knows, it may be Karachi's turn next to burn. The domestic political backdrop to these goings-on is the bad blood between the military establishment — who are the country's real rulers — and the so-called civilian establishment which was brought into being in order to provide a veneer of democracy, mainly for the benefit of aid-providers in the West, particularly the United States. If the country is in turmoil, and the civilian rulers give the appearance of being babes in the woods, an official military takeover might appear to be the need of the hour, even in the eyes of the Pakistani people. Typically, the military men have made matters worse over time, but with the Taliban-types knocking at the gates, the people would be made to "understand". As for the Kerry-Lugar US legislation, which doesn't mind $1.5 billion in American aid flowing to Pakistan every year for the next five years so long as Pakistan doesn't proliferate nuclear technology and reins in the "jihadists", it is for the birds. India needs to publicly question such aid in the context of the overall US aid of $15 billion since 2001 not having achieved anything at all by way of curbing the dynamics of terrorism.
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THE ASIAN AGE
OPED
WILDE ADVENTURES
ASHOK MANDANNA
To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play.
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom and austere control...
Thus, in 1960, Micheál MacLiammóir, co-founder of the Dublin Gate Theatre, began his famous one-man tribute, The Importance of Being Oscar, to the "poet, aesthete, scholar, sage, philosopher, critic, dramatist, and wit", opening with the lines from Wilde's poem Hélas and ending with his death in 1900. "I am not sure", Oscar Wilde mused in his last days, "the world will forgive me if I should survive into the next century".
For the next 15 years MacLiammóir travelled the world to thunderous and universal appreciation of Oscar Wilde's and his own genius, ensuring, if all else is forgotten, that Wilde's name remains as fresh today in the 21st century as it did in the 1890s. Micheál MacLiammóir died in 1978, unaware that his play had just received a fresh lease of life... in India.
The year was 1976. Barely had the applause died on MacLiammóir's world tour when a cocky, fresh-faced young man, based in Bangalore and straight out of the National School of Drama (NSD), stood on the Shri Ram Centre stage in Delhi and tried to emulate his feat as part of a nationwide tour.
I was that fresh-faced young man and (looking back) must have had a huge respect for my own abilities as an actor to have ventured on stage alone. Wilde may even have approved. "I have no wish", he declared, convinced early in life of his own genius, "to pose as being ordinary, great heaven!"
Ebrahim Alkazi, still the director of NSD at the time, was among the audience that night. I began with Hélas and ended with Wilde's last days in a Paris hotel two hours later. (Wilde's room at the hotel in question was reputed to have wallpaper "of three shades or tints: magenta and magenta and magenta". With each passing day Wilde's desperation at observing the wallpaper grew till he finally cried out, "Yes, of course, one of us has to go!")
Alkazi came backstage after the performance to say "good show" and pointed out a couple of moves I could have done better. He then asked in dulcet tones, "Where did you get the script?" I confessed that I had "borrowed" the book from the NSD library the previous year and hadn't bothered to return it. He didn't bat an eyelid before replying gently, "At least you did something with it". Of all the accolades I received through the 70s and 80s (the run of the play), that qualifies to be the best.
What Alkazi didn't know (and only a few people in the world knew at the time) was that I was also, at that precise moment, an "unofficial" courier for the underground movement headed by George Fernandes against the Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi.
Let me set the scene. Indira Gandhi's election in Uttar Pradesh was struck down by the Allahabad high court, whereupon she declared Emergency, herded (almost politely) all the Opposition members into jail (including a friend of mine, Snehalata Reddy, who had co-founded the Abhinaya Drama Group in Bangalore with me — for her association with the labour union leader George Fernandes), and then proceeded to run the country with the sort of discipline not seen since the British Raj.
One of the few people to escape the dragnet was George Fernandes, who promptly went underground.
The Emergency lasted from mid-1975 to early 1977, exactly coinciding with my departure from NSD to make my independent foray as a one-man performer — only to fall into the clutches of a band of freewheeling revolutionaries! Let me be frank; I did it willingly. My friend and mentor was in jail, after all.
My cover was perfect; I was only performing a "bloody play" and who the heck cared if it was about an Irishman who had been in prison himself...
The year was still 1976...
I was again in Delhi staying with a friend of mine in Defence Colony (preparing for a performance of the play at the India International Centre, IIC) when I received a mysterious phone call. "Wait outside the gate" at "precisely such-and-such time" with "your package". "An Ambassador car will pick you up".
I'm not saying I don't like playing silly buggers or imitating the heroics of Che Guevara but this was a day before my performance. If this "Ambassador car" should transport me to Himachal or Gujarat for a clandestine meeting... it was a long way back to satisfy my audience (including that very kind gentleman, Roshan Seth — he can correct me if I'm wrong — who had cut through the red-tape at the IIC to get me their stage to perform on).
The car drove me only as far as another house in Delhi. I handed over my package of leaflets before I was escorted to a room at the back of the premises, which housed, among other things... George Fernandes.
"George", as I like to call him, had grown a beard since being declared persona non-grata by Mrs Gandhi. I was tempted to say, "Dr Livingstone, I presume". He was stunned to discover I was in Delhi to do a "play", a far cry from what he expected of his regular cadres.
The next time I met "George", he was industries minister in the Central government.
The year was still 1976... I was in Bombay to perform the play for IPTA at an open-air school stage in Bandra when — but that, as they say, is another story, one that features the Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi and the filmmaker M.S. Sathyu (The editor said, "Keep it to a thousand words, PLEASE!")
But strange that I was not told
That the brain can hold
In a tiny ivory cell
God's heaven and hell
As with Oscar Wilde, there is a tragic finale. It was now 1977 and the Emergency was lifted. I was travelling by bus from Bombay to Bangalore (as tedious a journey then as it is now) and when we stopped at Tumkur, a town barely an hour out of Bangalore, I picked up the morning paper. A headline read: Actress Dead. Snehalata Reddy, soon after her release from prison, had succumbed to a heart attack. To borrow a line from MacLiammóir, I was too late even to say goodbye.
Oscar Wilde, an Irish playwright, poet and author known for his
biting wit, was born on October 16, 1854. His works include The
Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Ashok Mandanna is an actor and theatre personality. He studied at the National School of Drama and London's Weber
Douglas Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
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THE ASIAN AGE
OPED
GAMES BAN HURTS FIJIANS THE MOST
SHUBHA SINGH
The Commonwealth Games Federation suspended Fiji from its membership during its meeting in New Delhi earlier this week. The decision was a consequence of Fiji's formal suspension from the Commonwealth in September this year after its military regime failed to set a timetable to hold elections in the country by 2010. Fiji has been facing international isolation since a military coup in 2006 and suspension from the regional body, the Pacific Islands Forum and the Commonwealth. It has also been facing stringent sanctions from its two large neighbours, Australia and New Zealand.
It is, however, the ban on participating in the 2010 Commonwealth Games that is hurting the sports-crazy people of Fiji, many of whom are fervently hoping that some way could be found to reverse the decision. They are drawing hope from the Commonwealth Games Federation's plan to make a representation to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to remove sport from the sanctions imposed on any member.
The Commonwealth had set a deadline of September 1, 2009, for the Fiji government to resume negotiations with the Opposition and to set a timetable for holding credible elections by October 2010. Interim Prime Minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, however, stuck to his proposed Strategic Framework for Change that plans to put in place various socio-economic, political and legal reforms under which general elections would be held by September 2014.
This is not the first time Fiji has been suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth. It has twice earlier been suspended from Commonwealth meetings, both times after the democratically-elected government was overthrown in 1987 and 2000. Both times Fiji was re-admitted into the Commonwealth as it made its way back to democratic functioning. But this time, the Commonwealth's disapproval goes a step further — it means cutting off Fiji from all contact with the Commonwealth, including stopping of all aid and assistance programmes.
In 2006, Fiji's military commander, Cmdr Bainimarama, overthrew the government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase with whom he had a fraught relationship. The military commander asserted that he had acted to protect the rights and interests of all the people of Fiji; he vowed to clean the system of corruption and ensure equity among the ethnic groups. Fiji's multi-racial population comprises of the majority indigenous Fijians community (57 per cent), a large minority of people of Indian origin (37 per cent) and other Pacific islanders. The two earlier coups had been carried out by people who claimed to be protecting the interests of the indigenous Fijians and ensuring their political supremacy in the country. Both coups resulted in violence and rioting that targeted the Indian population. Cmdr Bainimarama's was a bloodless coup and the Army kept a firm grip on the law and order situation.
Shortly after he took over as interim Prime Minister, Cmdr Bainimarama had promised to hold elections by March 2009. He went back on the promise, saying more time was needed to root out corruption and reshape the country's political system, especially its race-based electoral system. In the past year, Cmdr Bainimarama tightened his hold on the country as he abrogated the Constitution and sacked the higher judiciary after an appeals court held his government as illegal.
Cmdr Bainimarama's critics have charged that since he took over the government, Fiji's Constitution has been suspended, opponents have been detained without due process of law, the media has been censored and individual freedom and freedom of speech has been suppressed under "emergency" regulations.
Over time, Cmdr Bainimarama has steadily lost the support he had received when he first came in with his promises to clean up the corrupt system. The campaign against corruption did not net any major gains, but there is a general view that the military commander has raised many critical issues on the need for land reforms, reform of the electoral system and non-discriminatory policies. Cmdr Bainimarama proposed a draft "charter for change" but his attempts to initiate a political dialogue on the charter with the Opposition parties have not made much headway.
According to the charter for change, Fiji's electoral system is racially discriminatory and undemocratic. Under the recently abrogated 1997 Constitution, the 71-member House of Representatives had 46 communal seats and 25 open seats. Out of the 46 communal seats, 24 were for indigenous Fijians, where indigenous Fijian voters elected indigenous Fijian candidates, while ethnic Indians voted for Indians in 19 constituencies. Three seats were reserved for "the other races" while only 25 constituencies had mixed voting. According to Cmdr Bainimarama, this race-based voting had perpetuated an unequal polity and had contributed to the "coup culture" by not providing one value for one vote.
The charter proposes to "establish a system of voting so that all the interests and wishes of the people of Fiji can be represented in the Parliament through an Open List Proportional Representation Electoral and Voting System". It also plans to incorporate specific anti-discrimination measures into Fiji's electoral laws to ensure that no person is discriminated against by political parties on the grounds of race, religion, gender or circumstance.
Fiji Labour Party leader and former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, whose government had been deposed in the 2000 coup, had joined the interim government as finance minister. But Mr Chaudhry quit the interim administration in 2008. Just days before the Commonwealth deadline expired, Mr Chaudhry joined his political rival, Laisenia Qarase, in sending a joint letter to interim Prime Minister Cmdr Bainimarama suggesting ways in which they could work together to resolve the situation.
Meanwhile, some of Fiji's Melanesian neighbours have re-opened talks with Cmdr Bainimarama to encourage him to continue with his plans for reforms.
The European Union, a major donor, that had stopped its aid programme, has resumed discussion with the Fiji government. The World Bank is also holding discussions on the government's reforms agenda. But there is greater interest in Fiji on whether their sports contingent will be there at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October 2010.
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THE ASIAN AGE
OPED
LIVE YOUR TRUTH
ROBIN SHARMA
I had a conversation with an old friend the other day. He's done some tremendous things with his business and carved out a meaningful life. He said something that I wanted to share with you. Because it speaks to the best way to influence other people. Leadership by example.
"Robin", he said, "the greatest sermon in life is the one you see". To me that meant, make your life your message. Live your truth. Walk your values. Behave your philosophy. That's how you move those around you to play at their best.
It's so easy to talk a great game. Far harder to live it. But the great ones do. Elegantly. Consistently. Passionately. As famed psychologist Abraham Maslow said, "In order for us to become truly happy, that which we can become, we must become".
Excerpted from The Greatness Guide 2 by Robin Sharma. Published by JaicoPublishing House, jaicopub@vsnl.com
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THE ASIAN AGE
COLUMN
US AID: A SAGA OF CARROTS, NO STICKS
SRINATH RAGHAVAN
The enactment of the Kerry-Lugar Bill marks the onset of an important phase in US-Pakistan relations. The bill provides $1.5 billion annual economic assistance to Pakistan for the next five years. This is in addition to the existing aid packages, including the Coalition Support Funds (CSF) and programmes for the Tribal Areas. The Obama administration has hailed the bill as symbolising America's long-term commitment to Pakistan. The Pakistan Army and Opposition parties have decried certain provisions of the legislation as undermining Pakistan's sovereignty.
The rhetoric about the bill from both sides, however, masks its insidious consequences for the region — problems that India (and Afghanistan) will have to anticipate.
The provisions of the bill that have riled the Pakistanis pertain to issues of accountability. The bill requires the administration to certify every year that Pakistan was working to dismantle nuclear proliferation networks; that it had "made progress" on stopping support to terrorist groups operating out of its territory; that the military was not subverting the political process. But the US President can waive this requirement if it was important for American "national security requirements".
Despite the military's indignation, Islamabad will have to embrace the aid package. Given Pakistan's dire economic straits, the country's ruling elite, including the military brass, can scarcely afford to spurn it. Yet the military will also strain every nerve to ensure that notwithstanding the bill's requirements, it maintains its hold on security policy. The history of US-Pakistan interaction on such matters is a useful guide to the most likely response of the Pakistani military.
The Symington amendment of 1976 prohibited US assistance to any country found trafficking in nuclear enrichment equipment or technology outside of international safeguards. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter held Pakistan in violation of this amendment owing to its clandestine construction of a uranium enrichment plant. Yet, by 1982, aid began flowing to Islamabad through the use of presidential "waivers" very much like those incorporated in the Kerry-Lugar bill. By this time, of course, the US was seeking Pakistan's assistance in using the Mujahideen to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.
In 1985, the Pressler amendment was enacted. It proscribed most economic and military assistance unless the President certified annually that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear explosive device and that the provision of aid would significantly reduce the risk of Pakistan possessing such a device. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush issued this certification despite mounting intelligence on Pakistan's efforts to possess a nuclear device. Indeed, American "national interest" demanded that evidence of Pakistan's furtive activities not just be ignored but actively suppressed.
Only in October 1990, after the Soviets had disengaged from Afghanistan, did Washington find Pakistan in violation of the Pressler amendment, triggering the prohibitions. The Brown amendment of 1995 removed most forms of economic aid from the Pressler list; but additional sanctions were imposed on Pakistan after its nuclear test of 1998. All of these were revoked in the wake of 9/11, as Pakistan yet again became important vis-à-vis Afghanistan and the security of its nuclear arsenal a matter of international concern. Since 2001, Pakistan has received $15 billion in American aid — a sum not much less than what is now being promised.
This experience has led the Pakistani military to conclude that so long as it remains important to advancing American interests, the latter would overlook Pakistan's pursuit of its own strategic goals. The Pressler prohibitions were invoked in 1990 precisely because Pakistan was no longer considered a strategic ally.
The Pakistan military is likely to respond to the latest aid package by continuing to support the Afghan Taliban, so keeping alive the insurgency in Afghanistan and ensuring its own importance to American efforts. At the same time, the military will maintain a low-profile in its support to the anti-India outfits, thereby ensuring that the Obama administration can issue clean chits to Pakistan.
The Americans, for their part, tend to look back on the 1990s as the lost decade. Because of the Pressler prohibitions, contacts with the Pakistani military sharply dwindled. They believe that this period sowed the seeds of mistrust in the Pakistani military mind. The present divide between the two sides — on objectives and strategies — is traced to this evaporation of trust.
The best way to rebuild a strategic relationship, they reckon, is to provide abundant incentives to the Pakistani military to abandon its support for insurgent groups and terrorist outfits. The provision of military aid is the major incentive; also important is the move towards privileging Pakistan's "strategic interests" in Afghanistan. The latter trend is evident in the recent review by General Stanley McChrystal.
The fatal flaw in this calculus is that American incentives will not be sufficiently attractive to convince the Pakistan Army to abandon the Afghan Taliban and the Kashmir tanzeems, both of which have advanced its regional interests. The more so, since it appears possible to maintain these links while pocketing the aid.
The current US policy towards Pakistan, then, carries the seeds of its own failure. The central problem is the excessive reliance on carrots to modify Pakistan's behaviour. The Obama administration needs to think seriously about some effective sticks too.
New Delhi might draw some comfort from the language of the Kerry-Lugar Bill. But its potential impact on Pakistan's strategic orientation will be a matter of concern. In effect, the package sets up incentives for the Pakistan military to stir the pot, albeit not too vigorously. The bill, moreover, does not have any stringent provision to ensure that the "significant majority" of the military aid is, indeed, used for counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism. The only requirement is an assessment by the administration of whether the aid is enabling Islamabad to expand its nuclear arsenal.
This is problematic, especially in the light of recent revelations by retired Pakistani generals that many of the billions of dollars provided under the CSF were used to acquire conventional equipment that could be used against India. New Delhi had conveyed its concerns to Washington, but they have evidently gone unheeded. Clearly we need to do more than merely petitioning the Americans.
Srinath Raghavan is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
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DNA
EDITORIAL
IDENTITY CRISIS
The unique identity (UID) — based on biometric parameters — is supposed to subsume all other forms of identification commonly used in India like the ration card, the driving licence and the PAN card.
Though it is supposed to be just a unique number rather than an identity card, it will be unique for every citizen and is meant to simplify the hassles that ordinary people face in transacting business with governmental and private sector agencies.
There is now the added factor of national security as well; properly handled, the UID could be a useful thing for the state as well as the citizen. The fact that prime minister Manmohan Singh has entrusted Information Technology maestro Nandan Nilekani with the job is reassuring, but it does not set to rest all apprehensions, misgivings and fears.
The report that a biometric database will be set up which will contain the fingerprints of each and every citizen highlights some of the complex problems. The government proposes to collect these fingerprints when the citizen applies for documents like the passport, the ration card, driving licence or even — and this is intriguing — a mobile phone connection.
Two points arise. It is not yet clarified if these fingerprints will be collected each time. Second, is there a foolproof plan to protect the data thus collected? The Indian experience suggests that a good plan often spawns a humungous bureaucracy. Needless filling of forms is a way of life and the same information is often filled multiple times for different things.
True, computerisation is supposed to remove such multiplicity, but it is legitimate to fear that this may not actually happen. This is a danger that Nilekani and his team will have to avoid, because it will be hugely inconvenient and expensive.
The other worry is more troubling. What is the guarantee that such information will be kept safe? As the database will be in digital form, how will it be protected from hackers or viruses? Given how bureaucracies in India leak like a sieve, what are the measures that Nilekani and his team are taking to avoid such occurrences.
The UID is meant to cut through bureaucratic red tape and make life simple for the citizens. There is however the real danger that it could all be messed up because of inherent governmental ineptitude in collecting and managing information. This is the challenge before Nilekani.
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DNA
BANISH DARKNESS
Long ago, our ancients sounded a call asking us to shake ourselves free from the state of sleep where everything is shrouded in darkness. The state of ajnana or the darkness of spiritual ignorance is when one loses self-awareness.
So they gave a call: 'Awake! Do not be in this state of sleep. Attain Illumination. Go to those who have awakened. Ask them to awaken the light within you. Attain full awakenness by approaching worthy teachers.
The significance of Dipavali is a re-enacting of this banishing darkness from within yourself; of shaking yourself free from the sleep of ignorance and waking up into the light of a new dawn of full awareness. And this is the process you have to work out yourself.
To remind you of this, each year the festival of lights is held during the darkest night. It comes as an annual reminder of what you have to do — banish darkness, bring in light and revel in the Illumination. Fill yourself with the Light. Fill the whole world with light by your own being in it.
To remind us, they put this great call into our everyday prayer: Asato Maa Sat-Gamaya, Tamaso Maa Jyotir-Gamaya, Mrityor Maa Amritam-Gamaya (Lead us from the unreal to the Real; lead us from darkness to Light; lead us from mortality to Immortality).
To be in darkness is death. To arise from darkness into Light is to rise up from mortality and death into everlasting life. To awaken the Light within is to break this net of illusion, and rising into full awareness of that which is Reality.
We are inheritors of heritage that tells us: You are the Light. Awaken that Light within you. Realise that great Light of lights beyond darkness, and become blessed. Live your life for this ultimate attainment and Experience. Let us claim our birthright and move towards the great Light. This is the supreme rejoicing. May we all thus rejoice!
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DNA
INTELLIGENT SUCCESSORS
We, as in modern humans, may think of ourselves as more sophisticated than our ancient forbears, but is that the case? New research by an Australian scientist shows that the humans of today are the weakest and wimpiest in human history. The perception of the lumbering human of that time is therefore not true. But humans have progressed substantially since the Neanderthal man. We have invested in our intelligence to the extent that we no longer need to chase gazelles for dinner. And which woman would like to be an arm-wrestling Amazon? As for wimpy, look at that the destruction that humans have wrought in the last two millennia.
AUSSIE BIGOTRY
The knee-jerk reaction has kicked in. As soon as the numbers of ''boat people'' became a trickle, the Opposition reverted to its despicable old form, warning of a threat created by a Labor government ''soft on border protection''. Various media have already rolled out the lazy descriptions of a flood or tide of arrivals. And prime minister Kevin Rudd, knowing how the issue has played out in the past, has begun to echo the language of his predecessor, John Howard, after asking Indonesia to stop a boat carrying 260 asylum seekers.
It is instructive that most arrivals by boat are now from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, while the number of Iraqis has dropped. Australia is running an advertising campaign in Sri Lanka to discourage boat people, but has shown little interest in the conditions in which 300,000 Tamils have been held in military camps, with up to 1400 dying each week, according to aid agencies. The Coalition, under the leadership of Brendan Nelson, supported the Rudd Government's abandonment of the Howard government's ''Pacific Solution''. Immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone was one of the Liberal members on the joint standing committee on immigration who all endorsed the report Immigration Detention in Australia: A New Beginning on which the changes were based. Now Stone is making the public running on this issue, while Philip Ruddock and another former immigration minister, Kevin Andrews, are again shaping Coalition policy. The emerging policy reeks of the worst kind of political opportunism, that would inflict the most punitive treatment on the most vulnerable of refugees. Those who stoop to this deserve the same condemnation as they did when they first tapped the deep, dark well of xenophobia. —The Age (Australia)
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DNA
WELCOME THE LIGHT
SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR
Diwali, the festival of lights, is lighting the lamp of love in one's heart; the lamp of abundance in one's home; the lamp of compassion to serve others; and the lamp of knowledge to dispel darkness. The festival celebrates the victory of good over evil, light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance.
We celebrate by bursting firecrackers, performing puja and lighting lamps. It is only through lights that the beauty of this world can be revealed and experienced. Lights are lit not just to decorate homes, but also to communicate a profound truth about life.
Darkness represents ignorance. Light dispels darkness. When the darkness within is dispelled with the light of wisdom, the good wins over evil. A lit diya symbolises destruction of darkness and negative forces like greed, lust, fear, violence, injustice and wickedness, through knowledge. Diwali, which means rows of lights, throws light on the wisdom one has gained in life. It is the celebration of the triumph of truth and love over ignorance.
The destruction of Narakasura by Satyabhama symbolises this victory. It was on this day that the demon Narakasura was killed. King Narakasura (Naraka means hell) had been granted a boon that he could be destroyed only by a woman. Lord Krishna's wife Satyabhama was the one to destroy him.
Why only Satyabhama could kill Naraka? Satya means truth and bhama means the beloved. Untruth or lack of love cannot conquer hell. It cannot be removed by aggression. Hell can only be erased by love and surrender.
Non-aggression, love and surrender are the inherent qualities of a woman. Hence only Satyabhama, the true beloved, could remove hell and bring the light back. And Narakasura's last wish was that every house should celebrate his exit with lights to mark the end of darkness.
Diwali is the celebration of the light of love and wisdom thus born. Also it was on this day that Lord Rama returned to Ayodhya, his kingdom, after his victory over Ravana, the demon king. Ayodhya means that which cannot be destroyed, that is, life. Ram means the atma (the Self). When Self rules in life, then knowledge lights up. There is life everywhere. But when the spirit is awakened in life, Diwali happens.
Life has many facets and stages to it. It is important that you throw light on all of them. For, if one aspect of your life is in darkness, there can be no complete expression of life.
That's why rows of lights are lit to remind you that every aspect of life needs your attention and light of knowledge. Wisdom is needed everywhere. Even if one member of the family is shrouded in darkness, you cannot be happy. So, you need to light the lamp of wisdom in every member of your family. Extend it to every member of society, every person on the planet.
When true wisdom dawns, it gives rise to celebration. Often in celebrations, you tend to lose focus or awareness. To maintain awareness in the midst of celebrations, the ancient rishis (sages) brought sacredness and rituals to every celebration. For the same reason, Diwali is also time for pujas. Honouring is a sign of divine love. That honouring is called puja.
The ceremony of puja imitates what nature is already doing for you. In puja, you offer everything back to the Divine. Puja means honour and worship, offering one's self. Puja is feeling grateful for all that the divine has bestowed upon you. Honouring leads to devotion.
Flowers are offered in puja. The flower is a symbol of love. The Divine has come to you in love through so many forms: mother, father, wife, husband, children, friends. The same love comes to you in the form of the Master to elevate you to the level of divine love, which is also your own nature. Recognising this flowering of love from all sides of life, we offer flowers.
Fruits are offered, because the Divine offers you fruits in due season. You offer grain, because nature provides you food. Candle light and cool camphor light are offered. Incense is offered for fragrance. All the five senses are used in puja, and it is performed with deep feeling. Puja is honour and gratefulness.
Another profound symbolism is wrapped in the firecrackers. In life, you often explode like crackers with your pent-up emotions, frustration and anger. So when you burst a firecracker let go the suppressed emotions and become hollow and empty. Become free and let the light of knowledge dawn.
This Diwali, light the lamp of love in your heart; the lamp of abundance in your home; the lamp of compassion to serve others; the lamp of Knowledge to dispel the darkness of ignorance on this planet and the lamp of gratitude for the abundance that the Divine has bestowed on us. Diwali is an occasion to unite society in wisdom, joy and celebration. May this Diwali reinforce the message that we all belong to one God, One World and One Family !
The writer is a spiritual guru
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DNA
RACIAL ABUSE CAN BE A PUBLICITY STUNT
FARRUKH DHONDY
In the beginning, or in the 1960s and '70s in Britain, was a word and the word was 'Paki'. It was short for Pakistani, but packed an insulting abbreviated punch and was used by nasties as a word of abuse and insult to any person of South Asian descent.
It was strangely effective, even though, say abbreviating British to 'Brit' would not be.
Since then, 'Paki', like all curses, with constant use, lost its potency and power in very many contexts. Still it never crossed over into polite discourse, staying on the wrong side of decency, as the 'f' word has, even though its meanings now embrace being devastated, told to go way, expressing surprise, being in despair.
Through three generations of immigrant settlement in the sceptred isle, the word has become somewhat anodyne when used in certain contexts. People refer to the Asian-owned corner shop as the 'Paki-shop' without giving their words any thought, but also without meaning much offence.
So it was surprising that the word hit the headlines again last week after one of the dancing partners of a duo on a hit BBC ballroom dancing show called Strictly Come Dancing, used it unthinkingly and jokingly on his partner.
The TV show, watched by millions, features one professional dancer training a semi-celebrity to dance ballroom. We see the rehearsals and then the dressed performances in front of judges. The dancers who climb the pyramid of selection through a process of judgment, public voting by phone and elimination, perform different steps each week.
Getting to the top of the pyramid in this series were Laila Rouass, Indo-Morrocan TV and film actress (who I recall acted in a film which I scripted called Split Wide Open and directed by Dev Benegal), and her professional dancer partner, Anton du Beke.
Laila, it seems, brought a fake-tan can into the rehearsal studio and Anton looked at it and remarked that it would make her 'look like a Paki'. It was probably a light-hearted of-the-cuff remark but the instant reports in the newspapers and on the TV said Ms Rouass was reduced to tears by the insult and Anton had to apologise profusely and beg to make it better.
It was then reported that his apology had been immediately accepted and the couple went on to dance like a dream in the next night's televised competition. I have no idea if this was a cynically manipulated publicity stunt, but am certain that the attention that du Beke's single-word slight received from the press and public is part of what is known in Britain as the Shilpa syndrome — the mild racially identifying abuse, followed by tears, apologies and a trip to the bank for all.
Contrast the treatment meted out to my strong and steadfast, 'best beloved', youngest daughter when she went to a new secondary school at the age of 12. It's a mixed school and she gravitated towards a set in her class who were known as the most popular girls and boys.
They may not have been the company I would have chosen for her but then playground alliances and after-hours Facebook contacts are not a matter of parental choice. The dynamics of the group turned nasty as those of teenage groups sometimes do, but this being Henley-on-Thames, a particularly conservative and vicious preserve of British middle-class half-wittedness, the boys and girls of the group turned against my child and began calling her a 'Paki' and systematically isolating her for no discernible reason.
It was nasty and there was no publicity or TV money to be had. Other friends, girls she had known at primary school, rallied round her and soon the two boys who were the instigators of the racial abuse were isolated from the girls of the original group whose gender loyalty proved stronger than the racial divide and who befriended my daughter again through generously accepted apologies.
The writer is a London-based scriptwriter
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DNA
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The clearing of bt brinjal for consumption in India by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee may be just one step in a long process before this genetically modified vegetable is available in the market, but it is an important one. Even so, a contentious debate has broken out. The opponents of genetically modified crops, whether for sale or consumption, had already raised several red flags. Now they are bound to vigorously up the ante.
The supporters claim that this form of brinjal is resilient to certain pests and therefore is easier for farmers to produce. Its opponents however point out several flaws in the argument. For one, India is home to the brinjal, eggplant or aubergine, of which there are innumerable varieties. If a new version is introduced, it may seriously affect not only biodiversity but also the versions of indigenous brinjal. A bigger concern, as expressed by the naysayers, is the safety aspect; research has reportedly shown that laboratory rats have suffered health problems after consuming modified brinjal. There are reports that it increases resistance to antibiotics.
The battlelines then will be drawn between greater yield and possible health problems, potentially between farmers and the eating public. India produces over 9,000,000 metric tons of brinjal every year. The brinjal is also widely consumed in India, across all socio-economic groups.
For now, the government has decided to play down the GEAC approval and has accused environmental bodies like Greenpeace of needlessly heating up the debate. Union minister for forests and the environment Jairam Ramesh has made it clear that the government will decide only after hearing all the arguments.
At its most basic level, the problem is between maintaining status quo for the sake of it and thereby stalling progress and, conversely, blindly moving towards progress without adequate understanding of consequences.
Both stances are limiting and counter-productive. Instead of emotional posturing and high-decibel fights, we need reasoned and informed argument about the benefits and dangers of genetically modified foods. We also need transparency from the agencies concerned — the corporates, the scientific community, the environmentalists and the government. The advances of science are taking us further than ever before. Since these changes are exciting and frightening we need to know how they work. Genetically modified vegetables are being consumed across the world. What makes bt brinjal so scary? We need clarity on it since it involves safety issues.
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THE TRIBUNE
EDITORIAL
THE LAHORE STRIKE
PAKISTAN PAYS FOR PAMPERING TALIBAN
THE expected ground offensive by the Pakistani army against an estimated 10,000 hardcore Taliban in their stronghold South Waziristan is yet to begin, but the militants seem to have already launched an offensive of their own, that too right there in the heart of the country. On Thursday, they carried out a series of attacks on police offices in Lahore, traditionally the seat of power, including the regional headquarters of the Pakistani Police's Federal Investigation Agency, in which at least seven persons were killed. The same building was targeted in March last year also, killing 21 people. Gunmen also attacked two police training centres in Lahore taking several hostages. The Lahore incidents came shortly after a suicide car bomber set off his explosives outside a police station in Kohat in the troubled northwest region killing 10 persons. The number of casualties has already reached 24 and is expected to mount further.
It has been a bloody week for Pakistan in which more than 100 persons have died. By first launching a brazen assault on the army headquarters in Rawalpindi and now on the police establishments in Lahore, the militants seem to be throwing an open challenge to the might of the government and warning it not to launch its anticipated assault on the Taliban by sending in ground troops. They have also vowed violence in revenge for the killing of their leader Baitullah Masud in a US missile strike in August.
Pakistan's difficulty is that most of the Frankensteins which are now mounting a challenge to its very existence happen to be its own creations. They have turned against their mentors following the US drive against them. The US has made its frustration known to the Pakistani authorities over their failure to eliminate Taliban sanctuaries on its side of the border and the latter has now no choice except to go along with the American offensive. That was bound to cause reaction against its own forces. The Taliban offensive is going to be painful for Pakistan, but may perhaps teach its ruling establishment a lesson that promoting terror as an instrument of state policy is fraught with grave risks which are better avoided. India has been giving this advice for years now but sadly it was always ignored by Pakistan.
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EDITORIAL
DECISIVE ACTION NEEDED
MAOISTS THREAT IS MOST SERIOUS
THE Maoists have been on the rampage in Jharkhand and other states killing people and policemen with impunity. On Tuesday they attacked polling personnel and a police station in Gadchiroli in Maharashtra , seeking to disrupt the electoral process. They have also enforced a 'bandh' in large parts of rural Jharkhand and Bihar, set railway stations on fire, torched trucks and blew up sections of the railway track, disrupting movement of trains between New Delhi and Howrah. They are also suspected to have killed on Monday two senior officials of a coal mine in Pakur district of Jharkhand when they were out on their morning walk. The Maoists at the same time seem to be holding their own in the Lalgarh area of West Bengal despite the four-month-old offensive launched against them. Seldom before have the Maoists asserted their potential for mischief and violence in such an extended area and at the same time. It is a grim reminder that the 'Red Corridor' may not just be a Maoist rhetoric. This is bound to force any government to resort to taking a decisive action to counter perhaps the most serious threat to the state.
Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee have both indicated their readiness, if not preference, to have a dialogue with the Maoists. The Home Minister's offer for talks came with the rider that the talks would be held only if the Maoists gave up arms.
The Centre is right when it says that the campaign against Maoists is going to be a long haul. While its responsibility for launching massive operations against the Naxalites has enormously increased, it should also impress upon the states that they cannot abdicate their responsibility in tackling the menace. Individually, neither the Centre nor any state can fight the threat. The operations in the offing will have to be well-coordinated and decisive.
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EDITORIAL
BAINGAN IN YOUR PLATE
GREEN SIGNAL TO GM FOODS
FOR the first time, a government committee has approved a genetically modified (GM) food crop for commercial cultivation in the country, sparking a controversy fiercer than that surrounded the clearance of Bt cotton a few years ago. Critics who had warned of adverse environmental effects of Bt cotton are more hostile towards Bt brinjal as its long-term effect on human health are not yet known. The recommendation by the country's regulator for GM crops is subject to clearance by the government. Since opinion is sharply divided on the emotive issue of genetically altered crops, it may take quite some time before the new brinjal variety is ready for mass consumption in India.
Unlike the natural crops, the GM crops are modified in laboratories by altering or adding to their genes supposedly to make them pest-resistant, improve their nutritional value, prolong their shelf life and enhance their yield. That is why agricultural scientists like Dr Norman Borlaug have favoured them to rid the world of hunger and malnutrition caused by shortages of fruits, vegetables and foodgrains. GM foods like brinjal, tomato, cauliflower and cabbage are widely used in the US. Argentina, Brazil, China and India too have accepted them. Last August Britain too opened up to GM crops to improve crop yields and meet the nutritional needs of the future generations. But Europe, by and large, is still hostile to them.
Civil society groups and NGOs like Greenpeace resent the near monopoly of a few MNCs on GM seeds, their marketing and research. Profit motive of these multinational companies is quite clear. The politicians and regulators, it is feared, may succumb to MNC pressure and temptations, ignoring concerns about public health and the environment. It is for the government, therefore, to address these concerns and evolve a transparent and independent regulatory mechanism involving reputed persons of integrity and competence so that benefits of biotechnology are not delayed by needless controversies. GM foods cannot be objected if they can help fight malnutrition and hunger, but the government will have to guarantee that the GM vegetables don't cause harm to the health of the people, or affect their taste.
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THE TRIBUNE
COLUMN
CHOOSING JUDGES
A STATUTORY SEARCH COMMITTEE CAN HELP
BY P.P. RAO
Recent developments concerning the integrity of Chief Justice P.D. Dinakaran of the Karnataka High Court have caused serious embarrassment to the collegium of the Supreme Court. They underline the need for an appropriate mechanism to assist the collegium in making proper selection of candidates.
Integrity is an indispensable requirement of a judge. Socrates said: "Four things belong to a Judge: to hear courteously; to answer wisely; to consider soberly; and to decide impartially." A dishonest Judge cannot decide impartially. Over the years, there has been a growing concern about the deteriorating standards in judicial appointments.
At the inaugural sitting of the Supreme Court in January 1950, Chief Justice Harilal J. Kania observed: "Unfortunately, during the last 20 years, that respect for the position, status and dignity of the judge has not been fully maintained."
Forty years later, Nani A. Palkhivala observed: "Public disenchantment with judicial administration has been vastly aggravated by the recent developments in the Bombay High Court. If you lose faith in politicians, you can change them. If you lose faith in judges, you still have to live with them. Corruption in the upper reaches of the judiciary is illustrative of the incredible debasement of our national character."
In the words of Chief Justice S.P. Bharucha: "The quality of our judges has regrettably fallen". Seven years ago, he made a public statement that 20 per cent of the judiciary was corrupt, mostly the subordinate judiciary. What is the position today? Obviously, things have gone from bad to worse.
Even after the superior judiciary has assumed the power of final selection of candidates for High Courts and the Supreme Court by a strained interpretation in the Second Judges Case of Article 124 requiring the executive to consult the Chief Justice of India, the quality of judicial appointments continues to cause concern to the Bench, the Bar, the government, the litigants and the public alike. The Supreme Court in that case noted: "Legal expertise, ability to handle cases, proper personal conduct and ethical behaviour, firmness and fearlessness are obvious essential attributes of a person suitable for appointment as a superior judge."
The judgement aroused great hopes that henceforth the quality of appointments would be very high, but experience of last 16 years has belied the expectations. A few deserving Chief Justices of High Courts were constrained to resign having been overlooked by the collegium.
When Chief Justice M.L. Pendse of the Karnataka High Court was superseded in 1996, Mr Fali S. Nariman lamented: "There may have been good reasons why a judge with an excellent record was not appointed in one of the vacancies in the Supreme Court. But this `non-appointment' has put in doubt the continuance of a system by which secrecy governs the entire selection process. We do not know, and we cannot know, why Justice Pendse was overlooked. No one can be asked what were the written reasons for not appointing one of the then senior-most judges in the country, and a person of reputed competence and integrity. The judges' lips are sealed, because of confidentiality; inevitably this gives rise to gossip and rumour which cannot be contradicted without breaching the code of confidentiality. This is not good for the system. It is not good for the Chief Justice of India nor for the judges of the Supreme Court."
There were several instances where the then Chief Justice of India and his senior colleagues could not agree over the selection of candidates for appointment as judges. In some cases, highly deserving persons were made to wait for years together before appointment, without any justification.
There is no country in the world where the power of appointment of judges is exercised by the judges themselves and the executive's role is restricted to issuing formal warrants of appointments. Conceding that the executive lacks credibility, it cannot be kept out altogether in a democracy. If the selection of candidates for judgeship had been left entirely to the judiciary from the beginning, a pathfinder like Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer would never have been appointed a judge.
Some of us who had assisted the court in interpreting Article 124 of the Constitution the way it did, now realise the handicaps of the collegium. It has no machinery at its disposal to collect and screen the relevant data about all prospective candidates for judgeship. They select candidates based on their limited personal knowledge and the assessment of a few others whom they choose to consult individually.
The collegium has been giving undue weightage to seniority and Chief Justices of High Courts in preference to more meritorious Judges. This practice has resulted in some unsatisfactory appointments. Before the last batch of appointments was made in May this year, for the first time, the government was constrained to raise queries as to why certain senior Chief Justices were overlooked and juniors selected.
The need for transparency and accountability in the selection process is urgent. The problem is crying for a solution. It has to be within the existing framework. Handing over the power of final selection back to the executive is neither feasible nor desirable. Parliament can put in place a mechanism to assist the collegium and facilitate proper and better selection without in any manner curtailing its power of final selection, by providing for the constitution of a statutory search committee by the President in consultation with the CJI consisting of eminent persons of impeccable integrity including a former Chief Justice and a retired Judge of the Court, two senior renowned lawyers of the Supreme Court, the Attorney-General, the Secretary (Law) as Member-Secretary, the Secretary (Home), and a very senior and well reputed journalist.
The functions of the search committee would be to collect all relevant data from the executive, the Bar and the judiciary throughout the country, analyse it and make assessments of probable candidates who are eligible and deserve to be considered for elevation to the Supreme Court both from the Bar and the Bench and also mention the names of Chief Justices and senior judges of the High Courts who do not enjoy good reputation.
The former CJI could be the Chairman of the Committee. The search committee shall prepare a panel of selected candidates, three times the number of vacancies to be filled and forward it together with the entire material to the collegium for consideration. It should be open to the collegium to consider any other candidate, for reasons to be recorded, who deserves such consideration.
Generally, universities while advertising the post of a Professor, insert a clause to the effect that it would be open to the selection committee to consider cases of other deserving candidates who had not applied for the post in question. There are several high posts like Vice-Chancellors for which search committees make the preliminary selection.
In the matter of judicial appointment, the question to be considered is not whether a particular candidate is proved to be corrupt, but whether he or she is a person of doubtful integrity. Only men of undoubted integrity ought to be considered for elevation.
As David Pannick observes: "Judges are mere mortals but they are asked to perform a function that is truly divine." The judiciary has acquired credibility because, in the past, by and large, the members had conformed to standards of life and conduct which are, in the words of Sir Winston Churchill, "far more severe and restricted than that of ordinary people". It is the credibility which sustains the judiciary. The day the last citadel loses its credibility, there will be no rule of law.
The writer is Senior Advocate, the Supreme Court of India.
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THE TRIBUNE
COLUMN
WOMAN, THY NAME IS MIGHT
BY ASHOK KUMAR YADAV
FRAILITY, thy name is woman", was how William Shakespeare, the greatest bard of English literature, painted the 'fairer sex' in his famous play, Hamlet.
These 'contemptuous' sentiments were 'echoed' by another eminent writer, Khushwant Singh, four centuries down the lane when he also passed an 'unilateral decree' in mid-seventies that a female was a 'perpetual parasite' on a male 'from her cradle to grave' — on father as an unmarried daughter, on husband as a wife and on son in the 'evening' of her life.
The observations left a permanent 'etching' on my thought process.
How could a woman be dubbed as 'weak' when she even as a neonate could tolerate the 'shock' given by her own 'not-so-happy' parents at the time of her birth? As the little 'fairy' starts spreading her wings, she is again 'shocked' to find that she is being 'unfairly' discriminated vis-à-vis her brother.
As an adolescent girl, she is made to 'confront' with nature-conspired challenge of menstrual cycle which tends to 'dwarf' her growth while boys on the other hand keep growing uninterrupted. She turns shy, becomes an 'object' of eveteasing and conscious of hormonal changes cascading in her body. Here, she learns another 'lesson' of her life to perpetually keep struggling to survive.
She then sets on in a 'roller coaster' when she is 'transplanted' in a family of strangers after her matrimony. She is treated as an 'alien' and has to wade through the 'saas-bahu' and 'nanad-bhabi' ordeals day-in and day-out and compromise her dignity every now and then.
The Elizabethan poet and his Indian incarnation omitted to 'peep' into the 'psyche' of a woman and appreciate her feminine persona before passing an ex-parte judgment against her. Nor did they have the courage to nail the real 'culprits' for her predicament.
Is it not the male-dominated society that keeps 'exploiting' her real 'self' despite her presence lending sobriety and elegance to a habitat? Without her, any place would obviously acquire the notoriety of a 'stud' farm.
In spite of all her inherent handicaps, natural or male-sponsored, she has somehow managed to launch herself in all arenas of life, be it the army, aviation, space, sports or police.
Though the father helped her to just 'walk' a bit, Kalpana Chawla taught the art of 'space walk' to the posterity. While the father just helped her to 'climb' the stairs at home, Santosh Yadav taught how to 'climb' the highest peak in the world known for its hostility.
As an epitome of sacrifice, patience, love and inspiration, a woman ever loves to 'propel' her man to achieve newer heights in life. Little wonder that behind every successful man, there is always a woman!
How can a woman be a 'parasite' when she has so much to offer? It is different that she smilingly 'accepts' to perform 'errands' for a male all throughout her life, be it her father, brother, husband or son.
A bubbling 'resolve' in the eyes of my daughter, Archna is an indicator of a sea change in the 'outlook' of women who are now getting mightier. Little doubt that I seize all opportunities to condemn female subjugation, female foeticide and male chauvinism!
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THE TRIBUNE
OPED
FRAGILE FOOD SECURITY
HIGH PRICES CURTAIL ACCESS TO FOOD
BY HARENDER RAJ GAUTAM
THE World Food Day, which is celebrated by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations on October 16 every year, focuses the attention of the world on the crucial issue of food which is a vital input of our survival. Today the availability of food has been affected in more than 30 countries and thus the theme for 2009 is "Achieving food security in times of crisis".
Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy lifestyle .
Directly or indirectly, agriculture provides the livelihood for 70 per cent of the world's poor. With food prices remaining stubbornly high in developing countries, the number of people suffering from hunger has been growing relentlessly in recent years.
The global economic crisis is aggravating the situation by affecting jobs and deepening poverty. According to the FAO estimates, 75 million of the world's hungry are a direct result of high food prices.
There are 923 million under-nourished people in the world. The FAO estimates that the number of hungry people could increase by further 100 million in 2009 and pass the one billion mark. With an estimated increase of 105 million hungry people in 2009, there are now 1.02 billion malnourished people in the world, meaning that almost one sixth of all- humanity is suffering from hunger. The gravity of the current food crisis is the result of 20 years of under-investment in agriculture and neglect of the sector.
India has 3 per cent of the world's crop land but feeds 17 per cent of the world's population. In India also food and nutritional security is very fragile and had been a prime concern in 2009 as adverse weather conditions complicated the situation.
Food is the backbone of our livelihood security system and, therefore, it has a different significance in our country in contrast to the industrialised nations where hardly 2 to 3 per cent of the population derive their income from farming.
While the share of agriculture in national income declined from 38.8 to less than 18 per cent between 1980-81 and 2000-01, the workforce engaged in it registered only a marginal reduction, from 60 to 52 per cent.
According to the latest report of the United Nations World Food Programme, our country has 23 crore under-nourished people, which is the highest in the world.
The report further elaborates that 43 per cent of children under the age of 5 years in the country are underweight, more than 70 per cent suffer from anaemia and malnutrition accounts for 50 per cent of child deaths.
The report indicates that the proportion of anaemic children has actually increased by 6 per cent in the last six years with 11 out of the 19 most affected states having more than 80 per cent of its children suffering from anaemia. As food prices are rising, more than 15 lakh children are at risk of becoming malnourished.
There is an urgent need for securing food security. In fact, 2009 is a classic case of uncertain monsoon behaviour and that should serve as a wake-up call to end complacency over decision-making in agriculture.
The country first a faced drought in the traditionally wet months of June, August in most parts of north, central and southern India and then floods in late September, October in the southern states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Goa.
The country may have to rewrite its seasons. Meteorological evidence indicates that temperatures would increase in India by 2-4 degrees by 2050 and the number of rainy days in a year would come down by 15 or more.
The future planning in agriculture should, therefore be based on facts that frequency of drought, flood, unseasonal rains and high temperature will increase and the future technologies have to match that.
In future, we should be prepared to deal with monsoon failure, acute water and energy shortage by building a weather-resilient water, food and livelihood security system. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme should focus on rainwater harvesting, aquifer recharge and watershed management and synergise with the priorities of the agriculture sector.
In India, food security for the most vulnerable masses is ensured through our public distribution system of foodgrains. At present, the Planning Commission estimates that only 28.3 per cent of the population qualifies for below poverty line (BPL) benefits. However, the committee on BPL surveys, formed by the Ministry of Rural Development and chaired by Supreme Court-appointed food commissioner N C Saxena, has recommended that 50 per cent of India's population be given BPL cards.
Thus, the country has more than 33 crore people who require assured supply of foodgrains for their survival. The Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY), launched in 2000, sought to provide affordable food to below poverty level (BPL) households.
The objective of the scheme was to make the TDPS more focussed and targeted an identified 10 million of the poorest of the poor in different states.
Wheat and rice at subsidised prices of Rs 2 and Rs 3 per kg, respectively, are provided to these households under the scheme.
In 2005, the government passed the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which has been now named after Mahatma Gandhi to improve the livelihood security of rural households.
The Central Government has announced to bring the National Food Security Act (NFSA) to eradicate hunger and reduce malnutrition in the country. Implementation of this Act will ensure that every BPL card-holder gets 25 kg of either rice or wheat at Rs.3 a kg every month.
The estimated annual requirement of foodgrains is about 446 lakh tonnes under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) and 50 lakh tonnes under other welfare schemes.
An important initiative towards food security was the launch of the National Food Security Mission (2007) to increase the production of rice by 10 million tons, wheat by 8 million tonnes and pulses by 2 million tonnes by the end of the Eleventh Plan (2011- 12).
The buffer stocks of the Central Government are enough to feed the nation for 13 months. The foodgrains (wheat and rice) stocks in the central pool as of June 1, 2009, stood at 204.03 lakh tonnes of rice and 331.22 lakh tonnes of wheat.
Harvesting of the wheat crop for 2009 is also almost over with primary estimates put at 77.6 MT, below the previous record set last year at 78.4 MT, but much higher compared to the five-year average of 72.85 MT. According to the latest estimate by the FAO, the country's paddy output may decline to 145.2 million tonnes (MT) in 2009 after hitting a record of 149 MT in the previous year. In 2007, total paddy output was recorded at 145 MT.
As the problem of food security is not confined to individual countries, there is need for concerted efforts at the global level. In a significant shift in focus from food aid to practical help for local agriculture, the richer nations have pledged $ 20 billion to fight global hunger.
The fund is aimed at reversing the long-standing trend of underinvestment in agriculture and food security. The FAO is organising a World Summit on Food Security in Rome from November 16-18, 2009 with a prime aim of eradicating hunger from the earth.
Not only to ensure sufficient food production to feed a world population that will grow by 50 per cent and reach 9 billion by 2050, but also find ways to guarantee that everyone has access to the food they need for an active and healthy life.
The writer is a scientist at Dr. Y.S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni (Solan)
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OPED
FROM POWER SURPLUS TO SHORTAGE
BY K.S. CHAWLA
Punjab has been facing a severe power shortage for the past many years and the two major political parties — the Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal — have been blaming each other for it. However, both cannot be absolved of the responsibility.
In 1956 when the Bhakra power complex was inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru, the state was faced with a problem of plenty. The power demand started picking up only after the reorganisation of Punjab in 1966. Industrial development started during the tenure of Pratap Singh Kairon as the Chief Minister.
It was Justice Gurnam Singh who headed the first two non-Congress governments in Punjab that launched the first thermal plant at Bathinda in 1969.
Although Justice Gurnam Singh laid the foundation stone of the Bathinda thermal plant, the first and second units went into stream during the tenure of Giani Zail Singh as the Chief Minister in 1974 and 1975. The third and fourth units were put on stream during the SAD-Janata regime headed by Mr Parkash Singh Badal in 1978 and 1979.
Darbara Singh (Congress), who became the Chief Minister of Punjab in 1980, accorded top priority to power generation. He allotted maximum funds for the Nangal and Mukerian hydel projects. The Ropar thermal plant has now six units and is one of the biggest thermal power plants in the country. The first unit of the Ropar plant was put on stream in 1984 and the second in 1988 when Punjab was under the rule of the Akali Dal led by Surjit Singh Barnala. Barnala could not do much on the power generation front.
Again in 1997 Mr Parkash Singh Badal headed the SAD-BJP government which had a full term of five years. The first and second units of the Lehra Mohabbat thermal plants went into generation during this period in 1998 and the third and fourth units of this plant started generation during the current tenure of the SAD-BJP government in 2008.
Although Mr Badal is now having his fourth term as the Chief Minister but there is no concrete planning for the generation of power in the state. He keeps criticising the Congress for not taking care of the power needs of Punjab.
Punjab has at present 578 lakh units of power from three thermal plants daily. Besides, 120 lakh units are generated by the hydel projects of Punjab and 116 lakh units of power are supplied daily by the BBMB.
At present 22 per cent of the total supply goes to the farm sector, 25 per cent to the domestic sector and 55 per cent to the industry.
The state government gives a subsidy of Rs 3,100 crore every year to the PSEB in lieu of the free power supply to tubewells.
Lately, the urban consumers have also started demanding subsidy and the state government has asked the regulatory authority to keep in abyance the new power tariff hike effective from April, 2009. The consumers are getting power bills at the new tariff despite the decision of the state Cabinet.
Work on two thermal plants at Talwandi Sabo and Goindwal Sahib has started and the first unit of the plants are likely to be commissioned by the end of 2012 and 2013.
The state needs to go in for collaboration with Himachal Pradesh for hydel generation which can be made available through joint ventures. The political parties should stop mud-slinging and work for the welfare of the state.
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THE TRIBUNE
HEALTH
SHORTENING A CANCER PATIENT'S ORDEAL
BY KELLY BREWINGTON
WHEN Rhonda Bautista Grenier learned she had breast cancer at age 42, she faced not only a terrifying diagnosis but the daunting logistics of treatment. How could she tackle a grueling schedule of chemotherapy and radiation, full of painful side effects and hours spent away from three teenagers and a full-time job?
Grenier learned of a new clinical trial at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center that promised to shorten treatment from more than seven months to as a little as seven weeks for women who had been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. Instead of treating the cancer first with months of chemotherapy, then weeks more of radiation, patients received chemotherapy and radiation at the same time. The radiation treatments were significantly shortened by delivering higher doses to just a portion of the breast.
Combining chemotherapy and radiation treatments was once unheard of in breast cancer treatment, because it posed a high risk of toxicity, resulting in painful, disfiguring burns. But with the experimental treatment at Hopkins showing promising results — fewer side effects, less toxicity and increased convenience for patients — Grenier decided to go for it.
"The C-word alone is devastating, then you have to decide how you're going to attack this thing," said Grenier, now 46. "The way I looked at it, this new trial was attacking the cancer from both angles at the same time. I was really scared, but it sounded logical to me."
As new technologies enable specialists to detect breast cancer earlier, researchers are searching for ways to treat the disease faster, in shorter intervals and with greater precision.
A clinical trial in Canada last year found that giving women just three weeks of radiation to their entire breast worked just as well as the standard five or more. Another huge national trial is under way testing whether giving high doses of radiation to just a portion of the breast is as effective as treating the entire breast.
And still other researchers are experimenting with high-tech tools that administer radiation in specialized ways. One, known as MammoSite, is a small balloon connected to a tube that is placed in the breast for several days. Radiation is given through the tube and the balloon is removed a few days later when the treatment is completed.
At University of Maryland Medical Center, researchers have received funding from the National Institutes of Health to develop a device that delivers high doses of radiation to small areas. Their hope is that one day women may never need to go under the knife to have their cancers treated — and cured.
For many women, a cancer diagnosis comes at the most productive part of their lives as they juggle the demands of work and family life. It means getting time off work for treatments, finding a baby sitter and adding something scary and exhausting to already chaotic schedules.
Shortening treatment is not just about improving quality of life; it has practical implications, he said. Some women don't show up for their treatments because it takes too long, they have to travel too far or they can't get time off work. Shorter courses mean being able to deliver treatment to more people, he said.
Reducing the course of radiation also means limiting radiation exposure to other areas of the body — such as the lungs, ribs and even the heart, said Dr. Richard Zellars, the assistant professor of radiation oncology at Hopkins who is heading the trial.
By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post
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THE ASSAM TRIBUNE
EDITORIAL
CHINESE SALVO
China has never made secret of its expansionist designs, carefully crafting its strategy to suit its needs at specific periods. It had not been the desire to acquire barren, mountainous territories that had induced the Chinese to forcibly occupy Tibet in the face of international condemnation. The Tibetan Plateau is also the region from where many of the major Asian rivers originate, thus control over it gives China control of enormous amounts of water, a resource that will become increasingly scarce in the coming decades. If China is illegally occupying over forty thousand sq km of Indian land in Jammu and Kashmir, it is because of the military advantage this entails. Though China has elevated shadow-boxing into an art-form as far as relations with its neighbours are concerned, its expansionist past should make India wary of its articulated designs vis-a-vis Arunachal Pradesh. The communist regime has gone on record that it does not consider Arunachal to be a part of India and has staked claim to the State's 90,000 sq km of land. As if to reiterate this claim, it has now used harsh words expressing "its strong dissatisfaction on the visit by the Indian leader," implying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, "to the disputed area in disregard of China's grave concern." The Chinese salvo has come ten days after the PM's Arunachal visit, clearly in response to the high turnout in the State's Assembly election.
On what grounds it considers Arunachal to be a "disputed area" has never been spelt out by China, precisely because there are no grounds at all for such an assumption! No doubt the ethnic identity of the numerous tribes inhabiting Arunachal is Mongoloid, an outcome of migration from Western China. But this fan shaped migration occurring through two millennia had populated most other South East Asian countries too and China certainly can not lay its claim to these! Historically, what today is called Arunachal had always been politically and culturally bonded with India. Many of the tribal heads had owed allegiance to the Ahom kings during the heydays of this dynasty, coming down to the Brahmaputra valley to barter produce. During the Raj period the region was brought under administrative control by the British, who named it as North East Frontier Agency and integrated it into their Indian empire. Thus, in the natural course of events, when India attained independence, NEFA became an integral part of India and was later rechristened as Arunachal. But such historical considerations have never weighed heavily on the Chinese, their annexation of Tibet on spacious grounds bearing witness to the fact. Thus India needs to proceed in the assumption that, far from shadow-boxing, China does indeed have Arunachal in its sight, and embark on diplomatic and defence measures based upon such an assumption.
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THE ASSAM TRIBUNE
EDITORIAL
JUVENILE JUSTICE
Juvenile problems were always there but never as accentuated as it is today. The reason is varied and it is hard to pinpoint one single cause for it. But the reality is that crimes committed by the young impressionable minds are on the upswing. What is making the matter worse is that the juveniles found involved in criminal activities are being treated at par with the adults by the law enforcing authorities. Instead of meting out harsh punishments the stress should be on rectifying them. Though there is the Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection) Act 2000, it is seldom implemented by the law enforcing authorities while dealing with juvenile delinquents.
The effective implementation of the Act will help in protecting the rights of the child who have gone astray.
Though a number of Assam Police personnel have been trained in child friendly policing under the Ashwas project, a lot remains to be done in this regard. One of the most important provisions of the Act, that is setting up of Special Juvenile Police Units is yet to be implemented in the true spirit.
The importance of the Special Juvenile Police Units needs no exaggeration. The efficient functioning of these units will go a long way in speedy disposal of the cases. The men in uniform manning these units should have adequate training on child psychology, child rights, principles of juvenile justice and other related subjects so that they can handle the cases in the best possible way. The Special Juvenile Police Units will also come handy in preventing crimes by the young adults as it would be in a position to identify the delinquents and to discipline them. Along with the police, the child welfare organizations set up by the government along with the NGOs should coordinate their activities to tackle this problem head on. Even the teachers at schools should be able to identify the problem child and arrange special counselling to rectify the errant behaviour. Moreover if the activities of a child are not properly monitored the chances are very high that he may go astray. Along with it factors like peer pressure and environment play a significant role in shaping up the personality of a child. But what has now made the society sit up and take notice is that juvenile crimes are going up alarmingly. It is time the child got care and the guidance to choose the right path in life. The society needs to come forward and assist the stakeholders who are working for child welfare to ensure a better tomorrow for the delinquents.
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THE ASSAM TRIBUNE
EDITORIAL
BHIMAJULI MASSACRE AND GOVT RESPONSE
DR AKHIL RANJAN DUTTA
The October 4, 2009 massacre at Bhimajuli and Balichang in Biswanath committed by the Ranjan Daimary faction of NDFB has been condemned by every section of the society. The incident reflects the political and ideological bankruptcy of the 'revolutionary' (?) outfit. Biswanath is a miniature form of the linguistic and cultural plurality of the greater Assamese society. It is the homeland of the various ethnic communities like Nepalese, Bodos, tea tribes etc. Biswanath has also retained the legacy of communal harmony and no aggressive form of communal violence was reported from this area in the recent past. Both the places where the incident took place are concrete examples of this plurality and harmony. The incident could have resulted in severe forms of communal violence. Deployment of security forces would have miserably failed to contain it. May be some sporadic incidents of communal violence took place in the aftermath of the massacre. However, the goodwill and commitment of the communities towards mutual existence have saved the State from communal violence. So, the common people of those communities deserve salute for their political and cultural wisdom. It should also be a political lesson for the State government and in the aftermath of this incident neither the government nor the opposition parties should indulge in any form of divisive game plan for political mileage.
Having said this, it is also necessary to point out the political bankruptcy of the Indian State towards addressing the issue of insurgency in the region. It needs to be asserted that the massacre of October 4, 2009 is the fallout of wrong and divisive policies on the part of both the State and Central governments towards the whole issue of Bodo ethnic assertion. The Bodo politics is polarized around three factions today—the erstwhile BLT faction, ABSU faction and NDFB faction. However, historically, there were at least two opportunities to prevent such a polarization. One was in 1993 when ABSU signed a Moll with the government for the formation of Bodo Autonomous Council (BAC). The government. however. meddled with the Council in all possible manners. First, the then State government led by Hiteswar Saikia tempered with the Bill itself introduced in the State Assembly to enable the process of formation of the Council which resulted in ransacking of the property of the Assembly by its members. Secondly, the State government indulged in creating faction within the Council forcing the main signatory S K Bwisumutiary to resign from the post of Chief Executive Member of the Council. Thirdly, the territorial demarcation issue was handled in such a foolish manner by the State government that it resulted in aggressive chauvinism and intolerance on the part of the Bodo ethnic community and distrust between the Bodos and other ethnic communities in the proposed council area. The Bodo insurgency of late 1990s was the product of such a mishandling of the historical opportunity. The second opportunity came with the signing of the Bodo Territorial Council (BTC) Accord with the Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT) in 2003. This Accord was fully backed by ABSU. In the aftermath of the Accord both BLT and ABSU formed the political platform i.e. Bodo Peoples' Progressive Front (BPPF). Interestingly, this political party was led by former ABSU president Rabiram Narzary. The day of formation of the BPPF was marked by unprecedented enthusiasm among the Bodo people and their unparalleled commitment to peace and progress. The unity between BLT and ABSU would have probably helped towards persuading NDFB to go in for peace talks. The State government, however, considered this united strength of the BPPF as a threat and indulged in manipulation. It resulted in bitterness among the two components of BPPF and immediately had a split. The horror of bloodshed between these two factions on the eve of the first election to the Council is still alive among the people. As if all these were not enough, the State government has even drawn unwarranted happiness from the split within NDFB recently. It failed to internalize the fact that the factionalism in the past, at least in case of the Bodo ethnic community had always brought disaster. The October 4, 2009 massacre is indeed the outcome of such historical mistakes on the part of the State government. Such an assertion, however, should not give any impression that the present author has any sympathy for any terrorist organisation in general and NDFB in particular. NDFB is not a revolutionary organisation and both politically and ideologically it is bankrupt today. However, the onus of bringing peace and ensuring peoples' security lies in the hands of the government because it is not the insurgent organisations but the government which is accountable to the people. The government, therefore, is expected to learn from its historical mistakes which the successive State governments of Assam has refused to do.
The Chief Minister of Assam, while visiting the victims of the massacre on October 9, 2009 came up with a proposal for the security of the people which is bound to have serious negative political implications. The Chief Minister acknowledged the failure on the part of the police towards ensuring peoples' safety and expressed the government's firmness to fight insurgency. He also revealed the plan of the government to bring dynamism to the police force. But, what surprises the conscious citizens of the state is his proposal for providing arms to the communities for self protection. In the recent decades the government has been revealing its intention to withdraw its responsibility from the collective security issues as a part of part of privatisation process under globalisation. Now, the government while failing to ensure the very basic security of the people i.e. physical security of its own citizens intends to put the burden of this security too on the citizens. This indeed is a policy of 'self-indictment' on the part of the government. The very origin of the State rests on the fact that such an institution is necessary to ensure physical security of the population within a particular geographical territory that is now defined as nation-state. Responsibility of ensuring social security by the State emerged though centuries' long peoples' struggles for rights, justice and equality to be secured through a democratic process. The State, by withdrawing its responsibility from the issues of collective security has indeed been insulting the democratic process itself. Now, by suggesting that people themselves have to take the responsibility of their physical security, the State is indulging in indicting its own legitimate existence.
These theoretical issues apart, the whole proposal will have dangerous implications for a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society in Assam. First of all, will those forces' be based on ethnic lines? If it is so, under any ethnic tension, which is bound to happen in the present political situation in Assam, how those forces will behave? Will not those forces consider other forces as its enemy in the pretext of 'self protection'? In other words the forces of self-protection will backfire and creale unmanageable social and political anarchy.
Second, what Liat kind of armaments will be provided to these forces to fight against the insurgents? Whether those will be mere pistols or most sophisticated ones being used by the insurgents? What will be the mode of control? Will those be controlled by the State or by the respective communities? If controlled by the communities, what will be the forms of legitimacy? Thirdly and most importantly, through such an unwarranted suggestion is the government suggesting that it is wiser to get people prepared to protect themselves than trying to bring the insurgent groups into negotiation table through well-crafted efforts and commitments?
By all counts, the proposal of providing arms to the common people for self protection is a dangerous one and the State government should immediately withdraw it. Rather, it should take all communities into confidence to fight against insurgency and keep itself away from divisive politics as it has been doing with the Bodo ethnic Movement for decades together now. The government should also appreciate and promote the healthy tradition of co-existence of various communities as is in practice in Bhimajuli. As a long term strategy, the government should focus on universal security concerns like food, livelihood, water etc. and rally around these issues to mobilize peoples' opinion against insurgency in the State.
(The writer is Reader in Peace and Conflict Studies, Department of Political Science. Gauhati University)
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THE ASSAM TRIBUNE
EDITORIAL
PRE-ANAESTHETIC EVALUATION
DR MAITREYEE CHAKRAVARTY
Anaestheiology is one of the youngest branches of medical science that has made immense development. Advances in anaesthesiology have paralleled advancements in surgery.But mass awareness about anaesthesia and anaesthesiologists vis a vis other medical specialties, till date is very poor in our country. In a recent study conducted by Jathar et al (India) it was found that only a meagre 42 per cent patients knew that an anaesthesiologist is the person who gives anaesthesia during surgery and 38 per cent knew that he is a doctor! A sizeable number expressed wrong concepts that chloroform is still used for induction of anaesthesia prior to surgery.
A detailed preoperative visit by an anaesthesiologist is definitely one of the ways to improve patients' perception of anaesthesia. It is the time to discuss the choice of anaesthetics in the light of patient's preferences, his or her clinical state, the operation itself and the anaesthesiologist's own preferences and skills. The dialogue bring in discussion of risks and benefits and alleviates doubts about any aspect of anaesthetic care. This is also the time for gaining patient's explicit consent to what is agreed.
The information about how the patient will go to the theatre, what he/she will experience in the operating room, recovery room, at what time operation is scheduled, how post-operative control of pain after discharge will be managed and what choices there may be for those can all be obtained by the patient during the pre-operative meeting with the anaesthesiologists. Patient cooperation and compliance can also be enhanced if he is told during the pre-operative visit as to how he would find himself when he wakes up at the end of anaesthesia (eg with intravenous lines or epidural catheter in the back for post operative pain relief etc). Recovery occurs quickly where the anaesthesiologists effectively allays patient's concerns. There should be as few surprises as possible as surprises can be alarming.
Pre-operative assessment by the anaesthesiologists is invaluable because it is the time when the anaesthesiologists obtains pertinent data about the patients' medical history including drug history, history of allergy and prior exposure to surgery or anaesthesia, physical and mental condition, exercise tolerance and determines their anaesthetic implications. Accordingly, he can decide whether the patient is fit for anaesthesia, or require further medical consultations, preparation or laboratory tests before being considered fit to be put up on the OT table. A good pre anaesthetic assessment also helps in identifying potential anaesthesia difficulties and improving safety by planning of intra operative care.
Evaluation of children before operation deserves special mention. This is because, firstly, children cannot express their medical or surgical problems themselves and also children are prone to illness that require unique surgical and anaesthetic strategies. Pre-operative visit by the anaesthesiologists provide an opportunity for a dialogue with the parents and obtain invaluable information regarding the child's medical/surgical problems, significant past illness, immunisation status etc. which may influence anaesthetic techniques. Moreover it must be remembered that "paediatric patients are not small adults". Hence a pre-anaesthetic evaluation apart from gaining patient cooperation also enables the anaesthesiologists to plan a safe anaesthetic technique well in advance.
A good preoperative assessment helps reduce cost and improve outcome by optimising patients' health before surgery and planning the most appropriate pre-operative management. It also provide an opportunity for the patient to discuss with the anaesthesiologists any self help matters to improve immediate as well as long term outcome ( stopping smoking, alcohol, tobacco, losing weight etc.). Pre-operative treatment of co existing diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart ailments like cardiac failure, coronary artery disease, heart blocks, asthma, epilepsy, liver and kidney diseases, bleeding disorders etc help reduce severity of disease and thus peri operative morbidity and mortality.
The job of the anaesthesiologists is not simply to put the patient to sleep and wake him or her up when surgery is over, but to maintain function of the all the organs as normal as possible during the assault of surgery and provide pain relief to blunt the effects after the assault. To do this, the anaesthsiologists must interfere with the stress response induced by pain, such as high blood pressure and high heart rate. Elaborate knowledge of the patient's co-existing diseases helps the anaesthesiologist to plan for rare situations in which the patient's medical condition may occur acutely during operation.
As changes in health care systems decrease reimbursement and length of stay in the hospital, more and more surgical patients are entering the hospital on an out patient basis or a same day admission. Same day admission presents the anaesthesiologists with a formidable challenge from both an organisational as well as clinical perspective. The amount of time available to evaluate medically complex patients has decreased.The establishment of a centralised Anaesthesia Preoperative Evaluation Clinic (APEC) or "Preoperative or Pre procedure Assessment Clinic (PPAC) can be a positive investment for the Anaesthesia Group and the hospital for decreasing hospital cost improving the efficiency of hospital services and increasing patients and surgeon's satisfaction.
Thus pre-operative evaluation is as important as intra-operative management of anaesthesia. It creates trust and confidence and builds a rapport between the patient and the anaesthesiologists. Meeting the anaesthesiologists whom the patient will see again in the operation theatre establishes a relationship between them. The recognition that takes place between people on seeing each other again is special. The patient will feel re assured that he or she is under the care of an expert.At the same time anaesthesiologists can also lessen their own anxiety by performing the very best pre-anaesthetic evaluation possible.
(Published on the occasion of World Anaesthesia Day)
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
WORRY ABOUT HUMAN ETHICS
There are multiple streams to the rather widespread opposition to genetically modified food and commercial crops, evident in the reaction to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee's decision to permit commercial cultivation of Bt Brinjal. The most potent, and rational one, relates to scepticism about the integrity of the approval process. Some worry that man would be playing god, by transferring genes naturally found in one species to an unrelated one, and cringe waiting for the wrath of the heavens to fall.
Others worry that genetically modified (GM) foods would cause genetic modification in those who eat them, converting them or their progeny into creatures that are fish and fowl at the same time. Yet others worry that GM foods would destroy all traditional crops, and make farmers and consumers bonded slaves of giant agribusiness corporations. Such worries present healthy commercial opportunities — for the shrink, for science fiction publishers and the seminar/protest circuit, respectively — but pose no serious threat to human well-being.
Three possible consequences of GM foods present rational risks: allergic reactions, gene transfer and outcrossing. The first is self-explanatory. The second one relates to the possible transfer of the ingested new genes to the bacteria inside the gut leading to unforeseen consequences like resistance to antibiotics. Outcrossing is jargon for GM crops getting mixed up with traditional crops. All GM foods are extensively tested to prevent and control for these risks. Only when it is ensured after repeated trials and tests that these risks are minimal or have been mitigated is approval given for introduction of a GM crop or foods based on GM crops.
The problem in India is the general lack of faith in the integrity of the testing and approval process. Even if the final committee that grants the approval is above board, suspicion lingers that the data they are presented with have been tampered with. People fear that agribusinesses can influence decisionmakers in high places, who could, in turn, make science pliable in the mouths of weak-kneed scientific personnel. This is a systemic issue that goes beyond particular ministers and officials. Reforming this is the key to introduction of GM foods.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
ON TO NELP IX
The response to the latest round of bidding for oil and gas blocks — the eighth, under the New Exploration Licensing Policy, Nelp-VIII — has been tepid or worse, but it's no disaster. As many as 20 blocks attracted only single bids, mostly from state-owned ONGC; there were no takers for another 34 blocks. Overall, there was bidder interest in just over half the blocks on offer. But the fact is that other hydrocarbon licensing regimes abroad have fared far worse in the recent past, in soliciting bids.
The severe global downturn, from which the world economy is just about emerging, seems to have stymied risk appetite in general, and led to cut-backs in oil exploration and production (E&P) in particular. Also, E&P costs appear to have risen sharply in recent years, reportedly due to limited availability of rig capacity and the like. Besides, Indian sedimentary basins still do not command global geological appeal, despite recent large gas finds.
Which may explain why, once again, in Nelp-VIII, global oil majors have preferred to stay away from bidding. But the fact is, a global major like Shell did prospect but failed to find oil at Barmer, Rajasthan, which has since become one of the world's largest recent oil finds.
The point is that oil & gas prospects in India remain quite attractive, as former director general of hydrocarbons Avinash Chandra has been stressing for long. The estimates suggest that 1 billion tonnes of crude and a trillion cubic metres of gas may be in situ in sedimentary basins here. The way ahead is to benchmark our hydrocarbon licensing regime to the best practices abroad, and simply wait for the economic slowdown to be behind us for renewed investor interest in E&P.
Abroad, in the mature regimes, transparency is the hallmark in licensing norms, complete with up-to-date legislation. Yet our Oil Fields Act is of 1948 vintage, when production in the deeper offshore was unheard of. Also, we do not have a separate Act for natural gas, a standard feature internationally. We need to shore up investor comfort to garner funds in the high-risk E&P sector.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
A SLASH OF A MISTAKE
The man who makes no mistakes," the saying goes, "does not usually make anything." Well, what happens if a man makes a mistake along with the making? And it becomes another one of life's niggling little problems for literally millions of people? The chap offers his apologies, that's what.
So, Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, has gallantly confessed to burdening humanity with an offensive backslash. The "//" in all those "http://" addresses it turns out, was just a case of one too many. We are duly informed that it could just as well have been a single, solitary "/".
Making this startling revelation during an interview, in response to a question on what he would have changed in the way he went about inventing the internet if he could go back in time, Sir Timothy surprisingly pointed to the slash. That, he said, was wholly unnecessary and merely a result of his not having coded the thing properly.
And to those who might query the significance of the little slash, he went on to wonder how much paper, how many trees and minutes, and the amount of human labour could have been saved had the two slashes been just one — given the gadzillion times people have to type or write down these web addresses.
Now, we've all had our share of mistakes. It's part of the learning process, we are told. But maybe we all have just that one particular mistake we'd so dearly like the chance to go back in time and rectify. But this does take the cake. It involves vast mathematical and philosophical proportions. In fact, chaos theory, more commonly known as the 'butterfly effect', revolves around the same notion of vast consequences emanating from a rather small action.
The 1972 paper read at a US science meet, which first made this idea popular, was in fact titled "Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?" The idea being that the flapping of those wings might alter or affect the course of a storm far away. The nondescript "/", it seems, is set to become proverbial.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
CRUDE POLICIES IN HYDROCARBON SECTOR
SOMA BANERJEE
The eighth round of auction of India's oil and gas blocks will go down as a turning point in India's hydrocarbon history either for the better or for the worse. The eighth bidding round under the government's new exploration licensing policy (Nelp), that enables private, public and foreign oil companies to explore India's sedimentary basins, has seen one of the worst responses in the last few years.
Consider these facts. A total of 70 oil and gas exploration blocks were put up for bidding as against 57 in 2008. There was, however, a no show in 49% of the acreages that were on the block. As many as 34 exploration blocks of a total of 70 failed to attract a single bid as against 12 or 21% that did not get a response last year. And there was a sharp decline in the number of companies participating in the auction too — 45 in 2009 as compared to 95 in 2008.
While 56% of the blocks received just one bid as compared to 42% in 2008, the number of foreign participants fell to a mere seven from a high of 21 in 2008. As many as 35 foreign energy majors had participated in 2007. While most big and mid-sized global oil companies abstained from bidding, despite an impressive turnout at the road shows all across the globe, India's largest private oil company Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) too did not bid for a single block, for the first time since 1999.
These telling facts possibly have a lesson for policymakers and regulators which have to be reckoned with and acted upon before it is too late. Most investors who have visited data rooms and have attended the road shows have pointed out to the lack of prospectivity and sufficient data. Secondly, the government's move to launch the auctions so soon was perhaps ill-timed as most economies are still struggling to come out of the recession and exploration of blocks requires huge investments.
The petroleum ministry may have earned some brownie points for launching the NELP round on time, but the fallout of the auction only points to the gaping policy hole in the oil and gas sector. Foreign players, who have stayed out, often come with technological expertise that would give India the much needed edge as we move on to high-risk areas of exploration.
Government officials argue that the auction was fast-tracked to give a push to economic activity to propel growth. Also, it was felt that most oil companies would want to take advantage of the idle service, drilling facilities and capacities that would come at a low cost.
Petroleum ministry officials have further claimed that the response was relatively better than that in many other countries like Algeria, Brazil, Indonesia, Norway and Iceland who have called for bids earlier this year. While this may be true, one needs to remember that an auction in the early part of the year was unlikely to have any takers and a comparison with India's own records is perhaps a better yardstick to asses the progress of the sector.
Most importantly, investors have pointed to the inconsistency in policies that have left them confused and unsure of what to expect in future. Although most of these multinationals have been diplomatic in their public stance, pointing to how the blocks did not "fit into the global investment strategy" at this point, it sounds hollow and unconvincing given the proven prospects and the recent records set in India.
This year, two of India's largest success stories in oil and gas — RIL's gas discovery in the Krishna Godavari region and Cairn India's oil production from Barmer — have gone commercial over the past six months. This could be a single magnet to attract investments into India's upstream sector but for the policy hitches that have over shadowed these achievements.
Take, for instance, the entire fiasco over tax exemptions on the production of natural gas. While finance minister Pranab Mukherjee did well to clear the air over the uncertainty on tax breaks, it is unfortunate that it has come a little too late. For, all investments made so far (till 2008) will not be eligible for tax breaks if the exploration results in the production of natural gas. This is bizarre, as companies are unaware of the find when they begin explorations in a block.
And if earnings from the sale of crude oil can be exempted from tax, one wonders why gas should not be exempted as well. More so as natural gas is a green fuel the use of which needs to be encouraged. Investors argue that although tax sops will be available for new finds irrespective of oil or gas, they are unsure of how long it would continue. After all, there were no questions over these tax exemptions till two years back.
But most importantly, the flip-flop over the terms in the production-sharing contract and the various interpretations to the tenets of the contract over the last one year has raised far too many questions on the contractual sanctity and India's regulatory regime. The two ongoing legal battles, which have now drawn in even the government as a party, have left investors wary and uncertain.
The PSC has made it clear that the oil company will have to sell as per the government's utilisation policy and at prices approved by the government. This makes it clear that the oil company will have neither the marketing nor pricing freedom. This has taken several investors by surprise as earlier PSCs were more liberal and market friendly. The new PSC, which may have been designed to avoid any misinterpretations, has reduced the oil company to a mere contractor.
It is still debatable whether government control alone is the best solution to such issues. In fact, if one were to go by expert views like that of the director general of the directorate general of hydrocarbons (DGH) V K Sibal, India may soon have a problem of plenty as far as gas is concerned and the market would find its own solutions as far as price is concerned.
Last but not the least is the impact of the ugly legal battle between two of India's largest corporate groups — RIL and Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group — that has raised some fundamental questions over regulatory issues and the role of the government. India's hydrocarbon sector would do well to put in place an independent regulator who could be entrusted with the task of taking timely decisions to avoid such controversies.
Policymakers, who have prided on drafting one of the most investor-friendly bidding policies also need to step back and take lessons, instead of opting for the blame-game, dismissing signals sent out by investors.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
MARKET'S READY TO GIVE A ROUSING WELCOME TO SAMVAT 2066
MUMBAI: Last year around this time, when brokers and investors gathered at the Bombay Stock Exchange to flag off Samvat 2065 — a year in the Hindu calendar — the mood was morose. Global markets were going through one of their most turbulent periods and a recovery seemed a distant prospect, then. A year later, as market participants assemble to welcome Samvat 2066 on Muharat trading day on Saturday, they would be a relieved lot. With key indices having risen 110% over the last seven months, Indian shares are now just 20% away from their record highs touched in early 2008.
Despite all the optimism around, driven by initial signs of recovery in the Indian economy and stability in global financial markets, concerns over the endurance of this rally remain. Market participants fear the market may choke on an overdose of liquidity, which has been fuelling stock prices in the past few months.
"Though liquidity has rescued global markets and companies, it has driven stock prices to higher-than-expected levels and, now, will result in higher volatility in earnings and PE (price to earnings) too," said Anand Shah, head — equities, Canara Robeco Asset Management. "We should not assume that the kind of liquidity that we are seeing now would remain and the reversal of liquidity could lead to a fall that is much-more than needed," he added.
Central Banks world-wide, including India, have started signalling the possibility of tightening of monetary policy early next year on fears that excess money supply may spark rapid price jumps of commodities and goods. Brokers said the hike in rates could result in some foreign investors liquidating their equity portfolios in emerging markets, including India, that have been created by borrowing at near-zero interest rates in the US. A hike in interest rates in the US would result in dollar rising against the rupee, resulting in the value of their Indian holdings eroding.
Foreign institutions have pumped in close to $13 billion since early March, when the markets resumed their ascent after the tumultuous 14 months from January 2008. This, coupled, with domestic institutional inflows have driven Sensex's valuation to close to 18 times 2009-10 and 15 times 2010-11 estimated earnings, considered steep in comparison with other markets.
"Large liquidity flows into the Indian market from global and domestic funds has resulted in steep increase in stock prices, without commensurate increase in earnings," said Sanjeev Prasad and Sunita Baldawa of Kotak Securities in a report. "We recommend investors to prepare for a likely correction in the Indian market over the next few months," they added.
Market participants are estimating a correction of 8-10% in benchmark indices and a bigger fall in the mid- and small-cap shares. A possible fall should be used to buy shares that will benefit from the likely revival in India's and global economic growth, they said.
"Indian equities continue to be vulnerable to a sell-off in global equities, or a sudden spike-up in crude oil prices. However, we believe that investors should use such volatility to buy Indian shares since the growth outlook for the next 12-18 months remains firm and is still not priced into equities," said Amitava Neogi, ED of Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management.
Enam Securities, in a recent report, said: "Any corrections should be used to build core holdings in long-term scalar sectors linked to consumption (retail), infra (power), savings (insurance), & global suppliers (resources and IT)."
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
IT MAY BE THE RIGHT TIME TO BOOK FORWARD DOLLARS
GAURAV PAI
MUMBAI: Bankers are urging importers and other corporates with exposure to foreign currency loans, to take advantage of the current upswing in the rupee and book their future dollar needs. They feel it's only a matter of time before the rising rupee loses steam and stabilises at lower levels, possibly in the range of 47-48 a dollar.
At Thursday's high of 45.80, the rupee has risen 4% since the beginning of the month and is up 14% from its record low of 52.2 touched in early March. Most bankers say the rupee may trade in a range of 45.25-46.75 in the short term and may dig back towards 48 levels eventually.
"Importers should be rushing to cover their forward dollar requirements as they are currently available at very reasonable rates," said Moses Harding, head of global markets group at IndusInd Bank. He explained that three month forward dollar is available in the range of 46.10 and dollars one year from now can be booked at 47.25. "Such levels may not come back in a hurry," he said.
Most other bankers say the timing is also right for companies with exposure to non-rupee loans to protect their books. They point out that the three-month London Interbank Rate (Libor) is hovering near zero (0.28% to be precise) and six month Libor is at 0.59%. Libor is used by bankers to price corporate loans essentially for periodic resetting of interest paid. This, added with the buoyancy in the dollar, would mean that companies would find it relatively cheaper to hedge their dollar commitments.
After the rupee's unexpected fall in 2008, companies took major hits in their forex transactions. "For many months now, companies were going slow on using currency derivatives after swallowing big losses," said Sudarshana Bhat, chief dealer, foreign exchange at Corporation bank. "With the currency becoming very volatile again, we are expecting companies to slowly come back in the market," he added.
Most exporters, however, have been panicking with the sudden rise as their operating margins would erode with the rising rupee. But exporters are more or less hedged for all their receivables for the next six to 12 months. However, the unexpected rise did mean staring at losses beyond this period. Most of them have been selling their dollar receivables ever since the rupee was trading at 52 levels.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
TOP PSUS MAY HAVE TO JUSTIFY BULGING KITTY OR PAY DIVIDEND
DHEERAJ TIWARI & SUBHASH NARAYAN
NEW DELHI: Blue chip state-run companies with cash reserves in excess of Rs 10,000 crore may have to deploy the fund in fresh ventures as the government moots a review of their business plans to ensure that public sector firms get more aggressive.
A government official told ET that there are more than 15 companies, which have a cash surplus of more than Rs 10,000 crore. The move comes after some administrative ministries reported that cash reserves of many public sector undertakings (PSUs) such as BSNL, HAL, Coal India and NMDC far exceeded the amounts they needed for investments.
The review may be conducted by a panel comprising officials from finance ministry, Planning Commission, department of public enterprises and officials from the respective administrative ministries. If the PSUs do not have a convincing plan the government could even demand hefty dividend to meet its own funds needs.
When contacted an NTPC official said that their cash surplus paled in comparison to their massive investment requirements.
"The review should focus on removing bottlenecks than unnecessarily exploring avenues to spend surplus funds," said the official asking not be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media. Currently, navratna and miniratna companies are permitted to invest in SEBI regulated public sector mutual funds. Some PSUs have already parked their surplus with mutual funds.
The government official said that some of the blue-chip companies are highly risk averse, with no clear business plans. "The government wants PSUs to be more aggressive and contribute towards national development," he said requesting anonymity since the review plan is yet to be made official.
The large cash surplus allows PSEs to generate income from investments, which could mask under-performance in the operating business. In the case of BSNL, for instance, the company had an interest income of about Rs 3,900 from its cash reserves, helping the company mask operating losses and declare a net profit of Rs 575 crore in 2008-09.
Among the measures being considered, the government wants to give more autonomy to the PSUs to manage their business better. "There is a new category of Maharatna being worked upon, which will give more financial autonomy to the PSUs. The exercise will help in identifying the roadblocks that these companies face about their expansion plans," the official said.
CIL, which is a Maharatna aspirant, has a cash surplus of Rs 30,000 crore while it plans to spend only about Rs 24,000 crore during the Eleventh Plan. The company is also looking at tapping the markets with a public offer sometime next year.
According to Vikas Vasal, executive director at KPMG India, companies sitting on huge pile of cash becomes attractive investment option for investors looking at participating in their public offer. "But idle cash should ideally be used for exploring domestic and overseas opportunities as with such cash surplus companies can make attractive buys," he said.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
D-STREET: OLD TIMERS MISS MUHURAT BONHOMIE
SHAILESH MENON
MUMBAI: Manubhai Maneklal was a delight to watch on the Muhurat trading day. The dreaded bear of the Dalal Street Exchange would amble into the trading ring — occasionally greeting friends Shubh Deepavali, along the way or stopping for a warm hug from an old acquaintance. Those standing along the stuffy corridor — making a narrow pathway for brokers to get into the trading ring — could never miss the rhythmic 'swish-swash' of his starched dhoti and Jaipuri mojari.
Once in the ring, Manubhai would be his ruthless self — be it a Muhurat session or a regular one. Peals of the trading gong would set him off. The 'Cobra' (as he was known among traders who disliked him) would call out prices boisterously, walk around the ring and make deals with consenting brokers — never noting down a single deal he entered all the while.
After sealing 250-300 trades, Manubhai would go to his office and start writing down the trades he had done, from his memory. While Manu was away, his father Maneklal Keshavlal would step into the ring and remain there for the entire Muhurat session. He'd chat up with brokers and their relatives, visit their offices, distribute sweets and also burst crackers in the lobby. And when the festivities drew to a close, Maneklal would go to his office and make entries of the voluminous number of trades he had done a few hours ago — wholly relying on his memory and the "face of the opposite broker". The father-son duo never erred in any of their entries.
"Perhaps, astuteness made them dominant brokers of our times," said BSE's former executive director MR Mayya.
"There were several others who were as shrewd as the Maneklals. These people were very influential — yet they lead a very simple life. The brokers of those times could well be the last of true dalals on the Dalal Street, who greatly valued tradition and customs," added Mr Mayya.
Old-timers still cherish Diwali, Muhurat trading and Chopda poojan with religious fervour. Those were the days when the markets remained shut for three-four days, starting from Dhanteras. More than anything, Diwali was an occasion for the family members of brokers to visit the exchange — the Laxmi gruh for traditional brokers. Quite a few fancier brokers even hired horsecarts from Chowpatty to transport their family — Maharajah style — to the Dalal Street on the Muhurat trading day.
"The entire broker clan, along with their important investor clients, came to BSE to participate in the Muhurat trading," said veteran broker KR Choksey of KR Choksey Securities. "Brokers never allowed the market to fall on that day. They thought an upbeat market on first day would spread luck charm for the entire year. Things have changed so much; institutional investors book profits on the Muhurat session these days," said Mr hoksey with a sense of loss.
Among high-profile investors, who unfailingly participated in the run-up to Diwali (and the Muhurat trading), were the Kapadias of Saurashtra, the Chamarias of Kolkata, Unit Trust of India (UTI), the Maharajas of Gwalior and Jaipur, and big corporate players like the Tatas, the Wadias, the Birlas and the treasury department of Killick Nixon.
The only time when Diwali celebrations got a bit muted were in 1974 and 1975, when the market slipped into a recession mode. The Dividend Restrictions Ordinance (introduced by the government in July 1974) restricting companies to stop paying dividend more than 12% of face value (or one-thirds of distributable profits) pounded the market beyond quick recovery, reminisces the old-timers. "Diwali is still celebrated well, but the fervour is missing. One reason for this could be the fact that the era of ring trading has ended. Broker offices have moved out of the Dalal Street; this has also killed the bonhomie among brokers, that was so attached to Diwali," said septuagenarian broker Jasvantlal Shah of JGA Shah Share Brokers.
Over the years, several brokers, who were deeply rooted in traditions and customs, found it difficult to withstand the sweeping waves of modernity and one-market strategy. Many shut shop or sold their firms to bank-rolled financial institutions. The Quixotic ones, who thought they could stay afloat on speculative trading and punting, were caught in regulatory crosshair; others like Sumati Jamnadas and Harkisondas Laxmandas were rolled over to extinction by heavy-volume institutional traders and stricter. "The new generation will never see the glory of old Diwali. And that's sad," sums up Jasvantlal Shah.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
THE MARRIAGE OF TWO MINDS
MUKUL SHARMA
A scientist specialising in geology who studies mountains among other structures constituting the Earth with the tools of physics, chemistry, biology and other sciences knows a lot about the Himalayas, for instance. He or she knows that the main range runs, west to east, from the Indus river valley to the Brahmaputra river basin, forming an arc over 2,500-km long, which varies in width from 400 km in the western Kashmir-Xinjiang region to 150 km in the eastern Tibet-Arunachal Pradesh region.
And that it consists of three coextensive sub-ranges, with the northern-most, and highest, known as the Great or Inner Himalayas.
Such a person also knows that the Himalayas are among the youngest mountain ranges on the planet and consist mostly of uplifted sedimentary and metamorphic rock. And that according to the theory of plate tectonics, their formation is a result of a continental collision between the Indo-Australian Plate and the Eurasian Plate which began about 70 million years ago, when the north-moving Indo-Australian Plate, moving at about 15 cm per year, collided with the Eurasian Plate.
The Indo-Australian plate continues to be driven horizontally below the Tibetan plateau, which forces the plateau to move upwards. And, finally, that it's still moving at 67 mm per year, and over the next 10 million years will travel about 1,500 km into Asia which leads to the Himalayas rising by about 5 mm per year.
A person of artistic vision, on the other hand, who longs to revel in the rhythms and cadences of nature and has backpacked or hiked from the foothills to 2,500 metres up in the clouds and sits facing the same range on some late evening could have a different take on these mountains which have revealed their local names but still hide a lot of other intimate and timeless history from wonder filled eyes.
He or she sees the pre-sunset colours form a winterline pencil of darkly flattened mist run a tabletop ridge high over the myriad peaks; a gleaming temporary palette of green and gold which fades to dusk as the Earth keeps turning away into darkness.
Later, this person could paint a picture of light and shade or letters and words on a canvas or journal and, who knows, one day millions might be able to participate in the shared harmony of the experience and revel in their minds too. But if the person was also a geologist we would have a perfect marriage of science and spirituality.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
CHINA'S LOCUS STANDI ON ARUNACHAL?
THE BASIS OF ITS TERRITORIAL CLAIM IS LAUGHABLE
Has China got any locus standi on Arunachal? A "yes" answer would be an invitation to India to assert its locus standi in the matter of Tibet, given that China's claim to Arunachal is based not on any Han connection, but on alleged historical links with Tibet. In making that claim, Beijing indeed advertises that Tibet is the core issue and that it covets Arunachal as a cultural patio to Tibet — a classic attempt at incremental annexation.
The Dalai Lama has publicly said that Arunachal historically was not part of Tibet. That is why, as he has explained, the 1914 Simla Agreement, of which the then-independent Tibet was a party, did not include present day Arunachal Pradesh in Tibet. China does not recognise the McMahon Line because its acceptance of the 1914 border will be admission that Tibet was once independent, seriously undercutting the legitimacy of its control over an increasingly restive Tibet.
Beijing thus fashioned its claim to Arunachal originally as a bargaining chip to compel India to recognise Chinese control over Aksai Chin. That was the reason why in the 1962 war, China withdrew from the Arunachal areas it invaded but retained its territorial gains in Ladakh.
But as part of its hardening stance toward India, China has since 2006 publicly raked up the long-dormant Arunachal issue. The basis of its territorial claim, however, is laughable. Just because the 6th Dalai Lama was born in the 17th century in Arunachal's Tawang district, Beijing claims that the state belongs to Tibet and thus is part of China.
By that argument, it can also lay claim to Mongolia as the 4th Dalai Lama was born there in 1589. The traditional ecclesiastical links between Mongolia and Tibet actually have been closer than those between Arunachal and Tibet. In fact, as part of its cartographic dismemberment of Tibet, China has hived off the birthplaces of the 7th, 10th, 11th and present Dalai Lama from Tibet.
The issue in India-China relations up to 1962 was Aksai Chin; the issue now is Arunachal. If history is not to repeat itself, India must put the spotlight on the source of China's claim — Tibet.
THERE IS ALSO A CHINA-BASHING LOBBY AT WORK
It is an accepted norm that when bilateral negotiations are on, the conflicting parties do maintain the status quo. Two decades after the Sino-Indian border clashes, during Rajiv Gandhi's premiership, India and China agreed to make a new beginning to resolve all disputes between the two countries.
The basic principle of restarting the negotiations was that the two sides will concentrate on confidence-building measures and will not rake up the more complicated issues like the border dispute. It worked well for over two decades and the two sides built an atmosphere of mutual confidence. In a much better situation, the two countries appointed high-ranking representatives to resolve the border dispute. The 13th round of talks resulted in considerable progress.
Unfortunately, during this period China did not strictly adhere to the norm of maintaining status quo. On several occasions, it issued statements that did threaten the shattering of confidence. The latest is the statement on the PM's visit to election-bound Arunachal Pradesh. In the interest of retaining mutual confidence, China should have avoided its belated statement.
But that does not justify the China-bashing campaign conducted by a certain section of the Indian media. During the last two-three months, certain sections of the media, both electronic and print, have attempted to create an anti-China hysteria. Cooked-up stories of border violations were flashed up. The campaign reached absurd levels. It was so ferocious that the government had to threaten the journalists indulging in it of legal action.
After the government's threat the campaign subsided for a while. Now the statement of the Chinese foreign ministry on Arunachal Pradesh has provided a fresh weapon to these China baiters. There seems to be a certain lobby, most probably the arms manufacturers of the developed countries, who are interested in promoting hostilities between India and China.
The two countries are incidentally the most promising ones in economic development. That is another aspect that needs to be kept in mind while taking a position on the present controversy. It will be in the larger interest of the two countries to avoid such controversies and concentrate on confidence building measures.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
THERE IS ALSO A CHINA-BASHING LOBBY AT WORK
It is an accepted norm that when bilateral negotiations are on, the conflicting parties do maintain the status quo. Two decades after the Sino-Indian border clashes, during Rajiv Gandhi's premiership, India and China agreed to make a new beginning to resolve all disputes between the two countries.
The basic principle of restarting the negotiations was that the two sides will concentrate on confidence-building measures and will not rake up the more complicated issues like the border dispute. It worked well for over two decades and the two sides built an atmosphere of mutual confidence. In a much better situation, the two countries appointed high-ranking representatives to resolve the border dispute. The 13th round of talks resulted in considerable progress.
Unfortunately, during this period China did not strictly adhere to the norm of maintaining status quo. On several occasions, it issued statements that did threaten the shattering of confidence. The latest is the statement on the PM's visit to election-bound Arunachal Pradesh. In the interest of retaining mutual confidence, China should have avoided its belated statement.
But that does not justify the China-bashing campaign conducted by a certain section of the Indian media. During the last two-three months, certain sections of the media, both electronic and print, have attempted to create an anti-China hysteria. Cooked-up stories of border violations were flashed up. The campaign reached absurd levels. It was so ferocious that the government had to threaten the journalists indulging in it of legal action.
After the government's threat the campaign subsided for a while. Now the statement of the Chinese foreign ministry on Arunachal Pradesh has provided a fresh weapon to these China baiters. There seems to be a certain lobby, most probably the arms manufacturers of the developed countries, who are interested in promoting hostilities between India and China.
The two countries are incidentally the most promising ones in economic development. That is another aspect that needs to be kept in mind while taking a position on the present controversy. It will be in the larger interest of the two countries to avoid such controversies and concentrate on confidence building measures.
***************************************
THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
THE BASIS OF ITS TERRITORIAL CLAIM IS LAUGHABLE
Has China got any locus standi on Arunachal? A "yes" answer would be an invitation to India to assert its locus standi in the matter of Tibet, given that China's claim to Arunachal is based not on any Han connection, but on alleged historical links with Tibet. In making that claim, Beijing indeed advertises that Tibet is the core issue and that it covets Arunachal as a cultural patio to Tibet — a classic attempt at incremental annexation.
The Dalai Lama has publicly said that Arunachal historically was not part of Tibet. That is why, as he has explained, the 1914 Simla Agreement, of which the then-independent Tibet was a party, did not include present day Arunachal Pradesh in Tibet. China does not recognise the McMahon Line because its acceptance of the 1914 border will be admission that Tibet was once independent, seriously undercutting the legitimacy of its control over an increasingly restive Tibet.
Beijing thus fashioned its claim to Arunachal originally as a bargaining chip to compel India to recognise Chinese control over Aksai Chin. That was the reason why in the 1962 war, China withdrew from the Arunachal areas it invaded but retained its territorial gains in Ladakh.
But as part of its hardening stance toward India, China has since 2006 publicly raked up the long-dormant Arunachal issue. The basis of its territorial claim, however, is laughable. Just because the 6th Dalai Lama was born in the 17th century in Arunachal's Tawang district, Beijing claims that the state belongs to Tibet and thus is part of China.
By that argument, it can also lay claim to Mongolia as the 4th Dalai Lama was born there in 1589. The traditional ecclesiastical links between Mongolia and Tibet actually have been closer than those between Arunachal and Tibet. In fact, as part of its cartographic dismemberment of Tibet, China has hived off the birthplaces of the 7th, 10th, 11th and present Dalai Lama from Tibet.
The issue in India-China relations up to 1962 was Aksai Chin; the issue now is Arunachal. If history is not to repeat itself, India must put the spotlight on the source of China's claim — Tibet.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
'THERE IS CONTINUED OPPORTUNITY FOR INNOVATION HERE'
ANIRVAN GHOSH
Infosys chief mentor NR Narayana Murthy is currently busy giving shape to his next big dream—launching a private equity fund. In an interview with Anirvan Ghosh, he explains his role as a mentor, why some businesses fail and how to ensure knowledge creation is in sync with customer needs. Excerpts:
It's been 28 years since you started Infosys. How easy or difficult will it be to create another Infosys now?
I think there is continued opportunity for innovation here, and so it will in 2050. As long as you have minds who can convert ideas into marketable products, you will be able to create institutions. But yes, raising funds is much easier these days.
Yet, we see more ventures failing than succeeding. Why is that so?
That is so mainly because the entrepreneur does not understand how his idea can add value to the existing system. I have met many such people myself.
Has Infosys been engaged in any projects to help start-ups or small firms with its software expertise?
Not in India. But in the US, yes, we have collaborated with people. For instance, DN Prahlad, who was a senior VP with Infosys, started his own risk management company called Surya Systems. We helped him and now offer that software with our financial software, Finacle.
How about plans to launch a PE or VC fund and lend financial support to those with ideas?
Yes, I have contemplated that. And I am planning to launch a fund sooner or later. I have had talks with some of my friends. But I have not made a concrete decision as yet. I will decide soon.
What is your role as chief mentor?
When we started our leadership institute, we found that professional development required classroom training, application of training to real situations, and mentoring. Among all three, mentoring is the only one which is a voluntary private relationship between the mentor and the mentee. So people can discuss problems at work and also in their personal lives with the mentor. I happen to be the first such mentor at Infosys, and when I retired the board of directors wanted me to continue the task.
Do you mentor people only in Infosys or outside that as well?
For the most part, I mentor Infoscions. But I have helped others too, who had good entrepreneurial ideas.
Many Infoscions have become entrepreneurs. You encourage them, but you lose talent, don't you?
I believe in one thing above all, that the dreams of Infoscians who want to start on their own is as important as my dreams when I started out in 1981. So I encourage them to follow their dreams. Many Infosions put up their ideas to me. I assess whether the the person has the requisite attributes. If he does not have them, then I suggest that he first needs to develop them. Also, even if someone has left Infosys, my doors are always open for them.
How do you ensure knowledge creation in sync with customer needs?
For that we made our Knowledge Management System, in which were built ideas from university professors, academic research papers, our customers, and the ideas we developed while creating software for clients. We incorporated those best practices into the knowledge system. That is available at the touch of a button to every Infosys member to see and learn. As most of this knowledge emanates from customers and from our own research, it is always aligned with customer needs. And as the latter changes, we are on top of it.
What are these attributes?
Well, the person should have an idea whose value to the market can be conveyed in a single sentence. For example, my idea will reduce costs by this much, or it will raise customer comfort by this much and so on. Second, the market should be ready for that idea. Thirdly, the entrepreneur should be able to assemble a good team with complementary skills. Fourth, a sound value system is most important. It is all about making sacrifices in the short term and there are no shortcuts. And finally, he should be able to raise money for his venture.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES
EDITORIAL
'NO MEANINGFUL CORRECTION BEFORE ANOTHER RAPID RISE'
The flood of money waiting on the sidelines means that the market is unlikely to see a meaningful correction anytime soon, says Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, leading stock investor, and partner, Rare Enterprises. In an interview with ET, he says a delayed recovery in the world economy is not a bad thing for India, as we stand to gain from moderate commodity prices.
You mentioned at a recent seminar that the market appears poised for a bust. What according to you, are the symptoms?
What I said has been grossly misinterpreted. What I said was that this kind of systematic rise in the market, where the market goes up, then corrects briefly — both price and time wise — and then once again resumes its gain, cannot even have a meaningful correction without a burst of a rise, which means a very, very rapid rise.
Key indices have more than doubled in the past seven months, many mid-caps have given unbelievable returns. Is the market over heated?
I surely feel that in terms of commitment and belief, the market is not heated at all. There is disbelief all around and huge money on the sidelines. This is a reason why we don't get any meaningful correction, and this is also the reason why we could still have a sharp rise ahead of us.
But a correction is only inevitable. Whenever that happens, do you see the market retesting the lows of March 2009 or October 2008?
Markets by their very nature will naturally correct at some point of time. The markets, as I see them, are not as of the moment indicating any signs of meaningful correction.
Whenever markets correct, I do not expect the correction to be anywhere near what we saw last year, and I expect the markets to remain far, far, far above the lows of October and March.
Which are the sectors in the Indian economy that you are bullish on?
I am bullish on all sectors which are domestic economy dependent and under-penetrated. Banking, retailing, infrastructure, pharma are among the key ones.
What is your reading of the key events likely to play out in world markets over the next few months, and what implications do you see for India?
I do not expect that the western and the developed economies can make any meaningful recovery and sustain it. Mr Bernanke is well known for his views of having a loose monetary and fiscal policy in times of difficult economic conditions. Thus, I believe interest rate worldwide in general, and in the western world in particular, are not going to go up in a hurry. Even if the western and developed world do not make any meaningful recovery, I see no reason why the Indian economy and the Indian markets cannot continue to sail alone smoothly. If the world does not recover, commodity prices will remain moderate, which is a big plus for India. What is vital is what happens to Indian software exports.
My personal view is that there is more than a fair chance that India will grow well and outperform, even if the world does not recover.
Is there any lurking negative that the market appears to have overlooked?
I think that the western and developed economies are set for sub-par/negative growth for a good period of time. There has to be a transition of both consumption and power from the developed world to the developing world. What effect this will have both economically and geopolitically is a matter of uncertainty and no one can definitely predict the smooth course of this transition.
This, I surely think, is a matter that could unsettle markets if the transition is unruly and geopolitically destabilising. Be that so be, I have no doubt in my mind that this transition has to and will take place.
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DECCAN CHRONICAL
EDITORIAL
FEARS RISE: PAK OUT OF CONTROL?
The deteriorating security situation within Pakistan ought to be a matter of serious concern to us in India, although the dramatis personae responsible for the spate of attacks at different places in the country, including the three synchronised assaults on separate leading institutions of the police establishment in Lahore on Thursday, are wards of its own Inter-Services Intelligence who flex their muscle from time to time to signal their autonomy in furtherance of specific aims. Not that the recent spurt in terrorist violence in Pakistan necessarily means that the ISI, which is always known to have its reasons, disapproves. In the absence of reliable information, analysts will, however, need to worry about the possibility of the present Pakistani state being overwhelmed by extremists, whether all elements of the state apparatus approve of this or not. This worry won't be limited to foreign observers and is certain to extend to the people of Pakistan as well who, by all accounts, are terrified of such a prospect but are unable to exert themselves to avert it. Those that may be ranged against the present establishment have grown way too strong over the decades, thanks to official mollycoddling. India has a serious cause for apprehension here. In the hands of the Army and the ISI, even a supposedly rule-bound Pakistan has been a treacherous and aggressive neighbour. With all restraints off, if the extremists come to rule, the situation is likely to become wholly unpredictable. But there is another consideration that can plausibly be entertained. It deals with the short term. In the past fortnight, there have been half a dozen major terrorist strikes in Pakistan which have taken more than a hundred lives. The targets have included the Army headquarters in Rawalpindi, Pakistan's chief garrison town, and key police institutions in Lahore, the capital of the country's most important province in every respect, including political. Peshawar, the principal town of the North-West Frontier Province, of course, has been rocked over and over again. And who knows, it may be Karachi's turn next to burn. The domestic political backdrop to these goings-on is the bad blood between the military establishment — who are the country's real rulers — and the so-called civilian establishment which was brought into being in order to provide a veneer of democracy, mainly for the benefit of aid-providers in the West, particularly the United States. If the country is in turmoil, and the civilian rulers give the appearance of being babes in the woods, an official military takeover might appear to be the need of the hour, even in the eyes of the Pakistani people. Typically, the military men have made matters worse over time, but with the Taliban-types knocking at the gates, the people would be made to "understand". As for the Kerry-Lugar US legislation, which doesn't mind $1.5 billion in American aid flowing to Pakistan every year for the next five years so long as Pakistan doesn't proliferate nuclear technology and reins in the "jihadists", it is for the birds. India needs to publicly question such aid in the context of the overall US aid of $15 billion since 2001 not having achieved anything at all by way of curbing the dynamics of terrorism.
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DECCAN CHRONICAL
EDITORIAL
US AID: A SAGA OF CARROTS, NO STICKS
BY SRINATH RAGHAVAN
The enactment of the Kerry-Lugar bill marks the onset of an important phase in US-Pakistan relations. The bill provides $1.5 billion annual economic assistance to Pakistan for the next five years. This is in addition to the existing aid packages, including the Coalition Support Funds (CSF) and programmes for the Tribal Areas. The Obama administration has hailed the bill as symbolising America's long-term commitment to Pakistan. The Pakistan Army and Opposition parties have decried certain provisions of the legislation as undermining Pakistan's sovereignty.
The rhetoric about the bill from both sides, however, masks its insidious consequences for the region — problems that India (and Afghanistan) will have to anticipate.
The provisions of the bill that have riled the Pakistanis pertain to issues of accountability. The bill requires the administration to certify every year that Pakistan was working to dismantle nuclear proliferation networks; that it had "made progress" on stopping support to terrorist groups operating out of its territory; that the military was not subverting the political process. But the President can waive this requirement if it was important for American "national security requirements".
Despite the military's indignation, Islamabad will have to embrace the aid package. Given Pakistan's dire economic straits, the country's ruling elite, including the military brass, can scarcely afford to spurn it. Yet the military will also strain every nerve to ensure that notwithstanding the bill's requirements, it maintains its hold on security policy. The history of US-Pakistan interaction on such matters is a useful guide to the most likely response of the Pakistani military.
The Symington amendment of 1976 prohibited US assistance to any country found trafficking in nuclear enrichment equipment or technology outside of international safeguards. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter held Pakistan in violation of this amendment owing to its clandestine construction of a uranium enrichment plant. Yet by 1982 aid began flowing to Islamabad through the use of presidential "waivers" very like those incorporated in the Kerry-Lugar bill. By this time, of course, the US was seeking Pakistan's assistance in using the Mujahideen to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.
In 1985 the Pressler amendment was enacted. It proscribed most economic and military assistance unless the President certified annually that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear explosive device and that the provision of aid would significantly reduce the risk of Pakistan possessing such a device. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush issued this certification despite mounting intelligence on Pakistan's efforts to possess a nuclear device. Indeed, American "national interest" demanded that evidence of Pakistan's furtive activities not just be ignored but actively suppressed.
Only in October 1990, after the Soviets had disengaged from Afghanistan, did Washington find Pakistan in violation of the Pressler amendment, triggering the prohibitions. The Brown amendment of 1995 removed most forms of economic aid from the Pressler list; but additional sanctions were imposed on Pakistan after its nuclear test of 1998. All of these were revoked in the wake of 9/11, as Pakistan yet again became important vis-à-vis Afghanistan and the security of its nuclear arsenal a matter of international concern. Since 2001, Pakistan has received $15 billion in American aid — a sum not much less than what is now being promised.
This experience has led the Pakistani military to conclude that so long as it remains important to advancing American interests, the latter would overlook Pakistan's pursuit of its own strategic goals. The Pressler prohibitions were invoked in 1990 precisely because Pakistan was no longer considered a strategic ally.
The Pakistan military is likely to respond to the latest aid package by continuing to support the Afghan Taliban, so keeping alive the insurgency in Afghanistan and ensuring its own importance to American efforts. At the same time, the military will maintain a low-profile in its support to the anti-India outfits, thereby ensuring that the Obama administration can issue clean chits to Pakistan.
The Americans, for their part, tend to look back on the 1990s as the lost decade. Because of the Pressler prohibitions, contacts with the Pakistani military sharply dwindled. They believe that this period sowed the seeds of mistrust in the Pakistani military mind. The present divide between the two sides — on objectives and strategies — is traced to this evaporation of trust.
The best way to rebuild a strategic relationship, they reckon, is to provide abundant incentives to the Pakistani military to abandon its support for insurgent groups and terrorist outfits. The provision of military aid is the major incentive; also important is the move towards privileging Pakistan's "strategic interests" in Afghanistan.
The latter trend is evident in the recent review by General Stanley McChrystal.
The fatal flaw in this calculus is that American incentives will not be sufficiently attractive to convince the Pakistan Army to abandon the Afghan Taliban and the Kashmir Tanzeems, both of which have advanced its regional interests. The more so, since it appears possible to maintain these links while pocketing the aid.
The current US policy towards Pakistan, then, carries the seeds of its own failure. The central problem is the excessive reliance on carrots to modify Pakistan's behaviour. The Obama administration needs to think seriously about some effective sticks too.
New Delhi might draw some comfort from the language of the Kerry-Lugar bill. But its potential impact on Pakistan's strategic orientation will be a matter of concern. In effect, the package sets up incentives for the Pakistan military to stir the pot, albeit not too vigorously. The bill, moreover, does not have any stringent provision to ensure that the "significant majority" of the military aid is indeed used for counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism. The only requirement is an assessment by the administration of whether the aid is enabling Islamabad to expand its nuclear arsenal.
This is problematic, especially in the light of recent revelations by retired Pakistani generals that many of the billions of dollars provided under the CSF were used to acquire conventional equipment that could be used against India. New Delhi had conveyed its concerns to Washington, but they have evidently gone unheeded. Clearly we need to do more than merely petitioning the Americans.
* Srinath Raghavan is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
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DECCAN CHRONICAL
EDITORIAL
FIGHTING IN AFGHANISTAN WON'T WIN THE WAR
BY ROBERT A. PAPE
AS President Barack Obama and his national security team confer to consider strategies for Afghanistan, one point seems clear: America's current military forces cannot win the war. General Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander there, has asked for 40,000 or more additional American troops, which many are calling an ambitious new course. In truth, it is not new and it is not bold enough.
America will best serve its interests in Afghanistan and the region by shifting to a new strategy of off-shore balancing, which relies on air and naval power from a distance, while also working with local security forces on the ground.
Gen. McChrystal's own report explains that American and Nato military forces themselves are a major cause of the deteriorating situation, for two reasons. First, Western forces are increasingly viewed as foreign occupiers; second, the Central government led by America's chosen leader, Hamid Karzai, is thoroughly corrupt and viewed as illegitimate.
Unfortunately, these political facts dovetail strongly with developments on the battlefield in the last few years. In 2001, the United States toppled the Taliban and kicked Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan with just a few thousand of its own troops, primarily through the combination of American air power and local ground forces from the Northern Alliance. Then, for the next several years, the US and Nato modestly increased their footprint to about 20,000 troops, mainly limiting the mission to guarding Kabul. Up until 2004, there was little terrorism in Afghanistan and little sense that things were deteriorating.
Then, in 2005, the US and Nato began to systematically extend their military presence across Afghanistan. The goals were to defeat the tiny insurgency that did exist at the time, eradicate poppy crops and encourage local support for the Central government. Western forces were deployed in all major regions and today have ballooned to more than 100,000 troops.
As Western occupation grew, the use of the two most worrisome forms of terrorism in Afghanistan — suicide attacks and homemade bombs — escalated in parallel. There were no recorded suicide attacks in Afghanistan before 2001. But in 2006, suicide attacks began to increase by an order of magnitude — with 97 in 2006, 142 in 2007, 148 in 2008 and more than 60 in the first half of 2009. Moreover, the overwhelming percentage of the suicide attacks (80 per cent) has been against US and allied troops or their bases. The pattern for other terrorist attacks is almost the same.
The picture is clear: the more Western troops America has sent to Afghanistan, the more the local residents have viewed themselves as under foreign occupation, leading to a rise in suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks.
So as Gen. McChrystal looks to change course in Afghanistan, the priority should not be to send more soldiers but to end the sense of the US and its allies as foreign occupiers. Our purpose in Afghanistan is to prevent future attacks like 9/11, which requires stopping the rise of a new generation of anti-American terrorists, particularly suicide terrorists, who are super-predators able to kill large numbers of innocent people.
What motivates suicide attackers, however, is not the existence of a terrorist sanctuary, but the presence of foreign forces on territory they prize.
Fortunately, the US does not need to station large ground forces in Afghanistan to keep it from being a significant safe haven for Al Qaeda or any other anti-American terrorists. This can be achieved by a strategy that relies on over-the-horizon air, naval and rapidly deployable ground forces, combined with training and equipping local groups to oppose the Taliban. No matter what happens in Afghanistan, the US is going to maintain a strong air and naval presence in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean for many years, and these forces are well-suited to attacking terrorist leaders and camps in conjunction with local militias — just as they did against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in 2001.
Early this year the US started what it calls the Afghanistan Social Outreach Programme, offering monthly stipends to tribal and local leaders in exchange for their cooperation against the Taliban insurgency. The programme is financed at too low a level — approximately $20 million a year — to compete with alternatives that the Taliban can offer, like protection for poppy cultivation that is worth some $3 billion a year.
One reason we can expect a strategy of local empowerment to work is that this is precisely how the Taliban is gaining support. As Gen. McChrystal's report explains, there is little ideological loyalty between the local Pashtuns and the Taliban, so the terrorists gain local support by capitalising on "vast unemployment by empowering the young and disenfranchised through cash payments, weapons, and prestige". We'll have to be more creative and rely on larger economic and political carrots to win over the hearts and minds of the Pashtuns.
Robert A. Pape, a professor of political science at theUniversity of Chicago, is the author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism
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DECCAN CHRONICAL
OPED
WILDE ADVENTURES
BY ASHOK MANDANNA
To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play.
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom and austere control...
Thus, in 1960, Micheál MacLiammóir, co-founder of the Dublin Gate Theatre, began his famous one-man tribute, The Importance of Being Oscar, to the "poet, aesthete, scholar, sage, philosopher, critic, dramatist, and wit", opening with the lines from Wilde's poem Hélas and ending with his death in 1900. "I am not sure", Oscar Wilde mused in his last days, "the world will forgive me if I should survive into the next century".
For the next 15 years MacLiammóir travelled the world to thunderous and universal appreciation of Oscar Wilde's and his own genius, ensuring, if all else is forgotten, that Wilde's name remains as fresh today in the 21st century as it did in the 1890s. Micheál MacLiammóir died in 1978, unaware that his play had just received a fresh lease of life... in India.
The year was 1976. Barely had the applause died on MacLiammóir's world tour when a cocky, fresh-faced young man, based in Bangalore and straight out of the National School of Drama (NSD), stood on the Shri Ram Centre stage in Delhi and tried to emulate his feat as part of a nationwide tour.
I was that fresh-faced young man and (looking back) must have had a huge respect for my own abilities as an actor to have ventured on stage alone. Wilde may even have approved. "I have no wish", he declared, convinced early in life of his own genius, "to pose as being ordinary, great heaven!"
Ebrahim Alkazi, still the director of NSD at the time, was among the audience that night. I began with Hélas and ended with Wilde's last days in a Paris hotel two hours later. (Wilde's room at the hotel in question was reputed to have wallpaper "of three shades or tints: magenta and magenta and magenta". With each passing day Wilde's desperation at observing the wallpaper grew till he finally cried out, "Yes, of course, one of us has to go!")
Alkazi came backstage after the performance to say "good show" and pointed out a couple of moves I could have done better. He then asked in dulcet tones, "Where did you get the script?" I confessed that I had "borrowed" the book from the NSD library the previous year and hadn't bothered to return it. He didn't bat an eyelid before replying gently, "At least you did something with it". Of all the accolades I received through the 70s and 80s (the run of the play), that qualifies to be the best.
What Alkazi didn't know (and only a few people in the world knew at the time) was that I was also, at that precise moment, an "unofficial" courier for the underground movement headed by George Fernandes against the Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi.
Let me set the scene. Indira Gandhi's election in Uttar Pradesh was struck down by the Allahabad high court, whereupon she declared Emergency, herded (almost politely) all the Opposition members into jail (including a friend of mine, Snehalata Reddy, who had co-founded the Abhinaya Drama Group in Bangalore with me — for her association with the labour union leader George Fernandes), and then proceeded to run the country with the sort of discipline not seen since the British Raj.
One of the few people to escape the dragnet was George Fernandes, who promptly went underground.
The Emergency lasted from mid-1975 to early 1977, exactly coinciding with my departure from NSD to make my independent foray as a one-man performer — only to fall into the clutches of a band of freewheeling revolutionaries! Let me be frank; I did it willingly. My friend and mentor was in jail, after all.
My cover was perfect; I was only performing a "bloody play" and who the heck cared if it was about an Irishman who had been in prison himself...
The year was still 1976...
I was again in Delhi staying with a friend of mine in Defence Colony (preparing for a performance of the play at the India International Centre, IIC) when I received a mysterious phone call. "Wait outside the gate" at "precisely such-and-such time" with "your package". "An Ambassador car will pick you up".
I'm not saying I don't like playing silly buggers or imitating the heroics of Che Guevara but this was a day before my performance. If this "Ambassador car" should transport me to Himachal or Gujarat for a clandestine meeting... it was a long way back to satisfy my audience (including that very kind gentleman, Roshan Seth — he can correct me if I'm wrong — who had cut through the red-tape at the IIC to get me their stage to perform on).
The car drove me only as far as another house in Delhi. I handed over my package of leaflets before I was escorted to a room at the back of the premises, which housed, among other things... George Fernandes.
"George", as I like to call him, had grown a beard since being declared persona non-grata by Mrs Gandhi. I was tempted to say, "Dr Livingstone, I presume". He was stunned to discover I was in Delhi to do a "play", a far cry from what he expected of his regular cadres.
The next time I met "George", he was industries minister in the Central government.
The year was still 1976... I was in Bombay to perform the play for IPTA at an open-air school stage in Bandra when — but that, as they say, is another story, one that features the Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi and the filmmaker M.S. Sathyu (The editor said, "Keep it to a thousand words, PLEASE!")
But strange that I was not told
That the brain can hold
In a tiny ivory cell
God's heaven and hell
As with Oscar Wilde, there is a tragic finale. It was now 1977 and the Emergency was lifted. I was travelling by bus from Bombay to Bangalore (as tedious a journey then as it is now) and when we stopped at Tumkur, a town barely an hour out of Bangalore, I picked up the morning paper. A headline read: Actress Dead. Snehalata Reddy, soon after her release from prison, had succumbed to a heart attack. To borrow a line from MacLiammóir, I was too late even to say goodbye.
Oscar Wilde, an Irish playwright, poet and author known for his biting wit, was born on October 16, 1854. His works include The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray.
* Ashok Mandanna is an actor and theatre personality. He studied at the National School of Drama and ondon's eberDouglas Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
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DECCAN CHRONICAL
OPED
GAMES BAN HURTS FIJIANS THE MOST
BY SHUBHA SINGH
The Commonwealth Games Federation suspended Fiji from its membership during its meeting in New Delhi earlier this week. The decision was a consequence of Fiji's formal suspension from the Commonwealth in September this year after its military regime failed to set a timetable to hold elections in the country by 2010. Fiji has been facing international isolation since a military coup in 2006 and suspension from the regional body, the Pacific Islands Forum and the Commonwealth. It has also been facing stringent sanctions from its two large neighbours, Australia and New Zealand.
It is, however, the ban on participating in the 2010 Commonwealth Games that is hurting the sports-crazy people of Fiji, many of whom are fervently hoping that some way could be found to reverse the decision. They are drawing hope from the Commonwealth Games Federation's plan to make a representation to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to remove sport from the sanctions imposed on any member.
The Commonwealth had set a deadline of September 1, 2009, for the Fiji government to resume negotiations with the Opposition and to set a timetable for holding credible elections by October 2010. Interim Prime Minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, however, stuck to his proposed Strategic Framework for Change that plans to put in place various socio-economic, political and legal reforms under which general elections would be held by September 2014.
This is not the first time Fiji has been suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth. It has twice earlier been suspended from Commonwealth meetings, both times after the democratically-elected government was overthrown in 1987 and 2000. Both times Fiji was re-admitted into the Commonwealth as it made its way back to democratic functioning. But this time, the Commonwealth's disapproval goes a step further — it means cutting off Fiji from all contact with the Commonwealth, including stopping of all aid and assistance programmes.
In 2006, Fiji's military commander, Cmdr Bainimarama, overthrew the government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase with whom he had a fraught relationship. The military commander asserted that he had acted to protect the rights and interests of all the people of Fiji; he vowed to clean the system of corruption and ensure equity among the ethnic groups. Fiji's multi-racial population comprises of the majority indigenous Fijians community (57 per cent), a large minority of people of Indian origin (37 per cent) and other Pacific islanders. The two earlier coups had been carried out by people who claimed to be protecting the interests of the indigenous Fijians and ensuring their political supremacy in the country. Both coups resulted in violence and rioting that targeted the Indian population. Cmdr Bainimarama's was a bloodless coup and the Army kept a firm grip on the law and order situation.
Shortly after he took over as interim Prime Minister, Cmdr Bainimarama had promised to hold elections by March 2009. He went back on the promise, saying more time was needed to root out corruption and reshape the country's political system, especially its race-based electoral system. In the past year, Cmdr Bainimarama tightened his hold on the country as he abrogated the Constitution and sacked the higher judiciary after an appeals court held his government as illegal.
Cmdr Bainimarama's critics have charged that since he took over the government, Fiji's Constitution has been suspended, opponents have been detained without due process of law, the media has been censored and individual freedom and freedom of speech has been suppressed under "emergency" regulations.
Over time, Cmdr Bainimarama has steadily lost the support he had received when he first came in with his promises to clean up the corrupt system. The campaign against corruption did not net any major gains, but there is a general view that the military commander has raised many critical issues on the need for land reforms, reform of the electoral system and non-discriminatory policies. Cmdr Bainimarama proposed a draft "charter for change" but his attempts to initiate a political dialogue on the charter with the Opposition parties have not made much headway.
According to the charter for change, Fiji's electoral system is racially discriminatory and undemocratic. Under the recently abrogated 1997 Constitution, the 71-member House of Representatives had 46 communal seats and 25 open seats. Out of the 46 communal seats, 24 were for indigenous Fijians, where indigenous Fijian voters elected indigenous Fijian candidates, while ethnic Indians voted for Indians in 19 constituencies. Three seats were reserved for "the other races" while only 25 constituencies had mixed voting. According to Cmdr Bainimarama, this race-based voting had perpetuated an unequal polity and had contributed to the "coup culture" by not providing one value for one vote.
The charter proposes to "establish a system of voting so that all the interests and wishes of the people of Fiji can be represented in the Parliament through an Open List Proportional Representation Electoral and Voting System". It also plans to incorporate specific anti-discrimination measures into Fiji's electoral laws to ensure that no person is discriminated against by political parties on the grounds of race, religion, gender or circumstance.
Fiji Labour Party leader and former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, whose government had been deposed in the 2000 coup, had joined the interim government as finance minister. But Mr Chaudhry quit the interim administration in 2008. Just days before the Commonwealth deadline expired, Mr Chaudhry joined his political rival, Laisenia Qarase, in sending a joint letter to interim Prime Minister Cmdr Bainimarama suggesting ways in which they could work together to resolve the situation.
Meanwhile, some of Fiji's Melanesian neighbours have re-opened talks with Cmdr Bainimarama to encourage him to continue with his plans for reforms.
The European Union, a major donor, that had stopped its aid programme, has resumed discussion with the Fiji government. The World Bank is also holding discussions on the government's reforms agenda. But there is greater interest in Fiji on whether their sports contingent will be there at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October 2010.
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DECCAN CHRONICAL
OPED
WALL STREET SMARTS
BY CALVIN TRILLIN
"If you really want to know why the financial system nearly collapsed in the fall of 2008, I can tell you in one simple sentence".
The statement came from a man sitting three or four stools away from me in a sparsely populated Midtown bar, where I was waiting for a friend. "But I have to buy you a drink to hear it?" I asked. "Absolutely not", he said. "I can buy my own drinks. My 401(k) is intact. I got out of the market 8 or 10 years ago, when I saw what was happening".
He did indeed look capable of buying his own drinks — one of which, a dry martini, straight up, was on the bar in front of him. He was a well-preserved, grey-haired man of about retirement age, dressed in the same sort of clothes he must have worn on some Ivy League campus in the late '50s or early '60s — a tweed jacket, grey pants, a blue button-down shirt and a club tie. "OK", I said. "Let's hear it".
"The financial system nearly collapsed", he said, "because smart guys had started working on Wall Street". He took a sip of his martini, and stared straight at the row of bottles behind the bar, as if the conversation was now over.
"But weren't there smart guys on Wall Street in the first place?" I asked. He looked at me the way a mathematics teacher might look at a child who, despite heroic efforts by the teacher, seemed incapable of learning the most rudimentary principles of long division. "You are either a lot younger than you look or you don't have much of a memory", he said. "One of the speakers at my 25th reunion said that, according to a survey he had done of those attending, income was now precisely in inverse proportion to academic standing in the class, and that was partly because everyone in the lower third of the class had become a Wall Street millionaire".
I reflected on my own college class, of roughly the same era. The top student had been appointed a federal appeals court judge — earning, by Wall Street standards, tip money. A lot of people with similarly impressive academic records became professors. I could picture the future titans of Wall Street dozing in the back rows of some gut course like Geology 101, popularly known as Rocks for Jocks. "That actually sounds more or less accurate", I said.
"Of course it's accurate", he said. "Don't get me wrong: The guys from the lower third of the class who went to Wall Street had a lot of nice qualities. Most of them were pleasant enough. They made a good impression. And now we realise that by the standards that came later, they weren't really greedy. They just wanted a nice house in Greenwich and maybe a sailboat. A lot of them were from families that had always been on Wall Street, so they were accustomed to nice houses in Greenwich. They didn't feel the need to leverage the entire business so they could make the sort of money that easily supports the second oceangoing yacht".
"So what happened?" "I told you what happened. Smart guys started going to Wall Street".
"Why?" "I thought you'd never ask", he said, making a practiced gesture with his eyebrows that caused the bartender to get started mixing another martini.
"Two things happened. One is that the amount of money that could be made on Wall Street with hedge-fund and private equity operations became just mind-blowing. At the same time, college was getting so expensive that people from reasonably prosperous families were graduating with huge debts. So even the smart guys went to Wall Street, maybe telling themselves that in a few years they'd have so much money they could then become professors or legal-services lawyers or whatever they'd wanted to be in the first place. That's when you started reading stories about the percentage of the graduating class of Harvard College who planned to go into the financial industry or go to business school so they could then go into the financial industry. That's when you started reading about these geniuses from MIT and Caltech who instead of going to graduate school in physics went to Wall Street to calculate arbitrage odds".
"But you still haven't told me how that brought on the financial crisis".
"Did you ever hear the word 'derivatives'"? he said. "Do you think our guys could have invented, say, credit default swaps? Give me a break! They couldn't have done the math". "Why do I get the feeling that there's one more step in this scenario?" I said.
"Because there is", he said. "When the smart guys started this business of securitising things, who was running the firms they worked for? Our guys! The lower third of the class! Guys who didn't have the foggiest notion of what a credit default swap was. All our guys knew was that they were getting disgustingly rich. All of that easy money had eaten away at their sense of enoughness".
"So having smart guys there almost caused Wall Street to collapse". The theory sounded too simple to be true, but right offhand I couldn't find any flaws in it. I found myself contemplating the sort of havoc a horde of smart guys could wreak in other industries. I saw those industries falling one by one, done in by superior intelligence.
"I think I need a drink", I said. He nodded at my glass and made another one of those eyebrow gestures to the bartender. "Please", he said. "Allow me".
* Calvin Trillin is the author, most recently, of Deciding the Next Decider: The 2008 Presidential Race in Rhyme By arrangement with the New York Times
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THE STATESMAN
EDITORIAL
BRINJAL BHARTA
TRY THIS ONE OUT?
A brinjal, developed on the strength of bio-technology, may yet be on the menu card with the regulating authority, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, awarding environmental sanction for commercial cultivation. This indubitably is a watershed in the development of genetically modified (GM) food crops. However, the huge decision on commercial cultivation must rest with the parent environment and forest ministry. It will be a momentous development for agricultural India, one that ought to hinge on a thorough examination of the pros and cons. If introduced, brinjal will be the first genetically modified vegetable. The critical determinant must be the long-term benefits of science and technology and the impact on health. And not, as minister Jairam Ramesh has been prompt enough to warn, on the "pressure of either companies or NGOs". At least three members of the GEAC have reportedly expressed reservations and there has been an immediate demand from consumer activists to label all GM products not least because of the consumers' right to choose what they want to eat. There is, for instance, a label that is stuck on every apple or date packet from abroad, although its origin may sometimes be dubious.
The immediate benefit touted by the American company lobbying for GM food is that the bio-technology will act as a pesticide for plant-eating insects that can extensively harm, if not totally damage, the crop. To that extent, the brinjal of the GM variety will reduce the requirement of pesticides. If crop destruction is similarly minimised, a larger area may well come under the crop. Indeed, the area under GM vegetables is said to be expanding the world over. That having been said, the flip side is no less critical even if the charge of "intellectual corruption" can be treated as an over-reaction of the adversarial lobby. The consumer loses the right to choose if the GM products are not labelled, a task that the government is committed to introduce but has somehow stopped short of carrying out. The safety of GM crops is yet to be conclusively established, another factor that has a direct bearing on health and nutrition. A standing deterrent must be the adverse physiological effect on animals during trial runs of GM crops. Bio-technology, and genetic engineering in particular, have admittedly made phenomenal strides. But one must accept that it is a relatively fledgling discipline, after all.
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THE STATESMAN
EDITORIAL
STRAITS OF AL QAIDA
A DETERRENT TO FURTHER STRIKES?
AS Barack Obama weighs his options against the Taliban in Afghanistan ~ however cruel the irony in the context of the Nobel peace award ~ the US Treasury has orchestrated the dire financial straits of Al Qaida. What the administration is yet to acknowledge is that the outfit's "worst financial state for years'' can scarcely douse its fantastic fanatical fury, still less its intent to carry forward its agenda on the date and the time of its choosing. The current funds crunch can, at worst, sap its material foundation. Its influence may also have waned, to the extent of hampering its recruitment and training.
David Cohen may have had two objectives behind going global on Tuesday over Al Qaida's financial crisis. Studiously enough, he has hastened to contrast the predicament of one outfit with the solvency of another: the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan is in a better position, thriving on the proceeds of poppy cultivation and the international drugs trade. That itself can be a sufficiently convincing raison d'etre to step up the pursuit of the Af-Pak policy. General Stanley McChrystal, the US ground commander in Afghanistan, has assessed in a document to President Obama that Taliban funds are a potent factor behind the relentless insurgency. The attack on the GHQ in Rawalpindi is the latest testament to its increasing might. The Assistant Secretary of the Treasury department may also have intended to underscore the success of the US efforts to choke the Al Qaida's sources of funds. He has attributed the organisation's "four public appeals for money" to the success of the attempts by the USA and its allies to identify the major donors, notably Osama bin Laden's Arab benefactors and front companies.
Indeed, snapping the Al Qaida's funding channel has been the main prop of America's counter-terrorism policy since 9/11. The task has doubtless turned out to be easier than scuttling its ideology. Eight years later, the US Treasury has confirmed the effectiveness of that strategy and at a juncture when the Anglo-American forces confront the challenge of the Taliban. Yet the West must reflect whether it is really forbiddingly expensive to carry out a strike. Experts have now fairly established that 9/11 cost about $500,000 to plan and execute, the 2004 Madrid bombings $10,000, and the 7 July 2005 London attacks just a few thousand pounds. Funds may not be the singular constraint, after all. The intent to strike is all and everything.
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THE STATESMAN
EDITORIAL
REFLECTED GLORY
HOW WE LOVE BASKING IN IT
DESPITE Nobel Laureate Venkataraman Ramakrishnan going slow on the personal dimension of the award, and not making too much of his Indian origins, it is so apparent that there is population explosion of people from this country wanting to jump on his bandwagon. So much so that he has protested the spate of e-mails clogging his inbox, his having to waste hours clearing what he rejects as junk. A spate of congratulations would have been understandable, but he is also having to suffer a host of bogus claims of being acquainted with him ~ like someone who said he had taught him in an educational institution he had never attended. Apart from being upset that important communications are getting buried under the junk, he has also taken exception to a number of exaggerrated/false accounts in the Indian media engineered by people who seek to feast off the crumbs of the cake just presented to him. "There are people who have never bothered to be in touch with me for decades who suddenly feel the urge to connect. I feel this strange," the man who shared this year's Nobel prize for chemistry told an interviewer. It would be oversimplistic to write this off as the price of stardom. Scientists neither seek nor appreciate such adulation. Particularly when they suspect its sincerity.
Perhaps the only source of comfort to "Venki" is that he has not been singled out for the treatment. When Dr Hargobind Khorana visited New Delhi after winning the Nobel prize for medicine in 1968, a local political bigwig mustered the Khurana clan at the airport. The embarrassment on the doctor weighed heavier than the plethora of garlands around his neck. This is true of those accomplished in other fields too: many a cricketer with an Indian-origin name has been discomfited at being involuntarily "adopted". To determine whether this is indicative of a huge inferiority complex or a misdirected sense of national pride will require the kind of research and analysis that would merit evaluation for another award. Must we do ourselves such discredit?
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THE STATESMAN
EDITORIAL
CHOCOLATE, WATER REDUCE PAIN: STUDY
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
LONDON, 14 OCT: Experiencing severe pains? Fret not. Munching a bar of chocolate or sipping a refreshing glass of water can give your relief, says a new study.
An international team, led by Chicago University, has carried out the study and found that the distraction of eating or drinking for pleasure acts as a natural painkiller, even in the absence of hunger or thirst, the Daily Mail reported.
According to researchers, a part of the brain called the raphe magnus helps blunt pain when eating or drinking. The same area eases pain while sleeping or going to the lavatory. Although the findings come from studies on animals, researchers believe the same effect takes place in people.
Lead researcher Dr Peggy Mason said the study found that the rats were less bothered by pain if they were eating a chocolate chip or drinking water. "It's a strong, strong effect but it's not about hunger or appetite."
She added: "If you have all this food in front of you that's easily available to reach out and get, you're not going to stop eating, for basically almost any reason."
CASSINI FINDS SATURN'S MOONS RESHAPING ITS RINGS
WASHINGTON, 15 OCT: Some deformations from the normal pattern in the shape of F ring, one of the seven rings of Saturn, have been recently captured by Nasa's Cassini spacecraft.
Scientists at Nasa believe that the deformation in the shape of the ring, considered to be held together by its "shepherd moons" ~ Prometheus and Pandora ~ could be a result of the gravitational force exerted by the oblong moon Prometheus, visible just inside the ring.
The images captured by the spacecraft features channels carved into the ring supposedly when Prometheus occasionally forays into the ring structure while travelling on its elliptical orbit.
"These so-called streamers are formed when the elliptical orbit of Prometheus brings the moon into the F ring. The gravity of the moon pulls material out of the ring, carving out a new streamer on each 15-hour orbit," according to Nasa.
A subtle deformation in the narrow F ring, situated approximately 1,40,180 km from the centre of the planet, is also visible, in the images, toward the outer portion of the A ring, which lies close to the F-ring.
The A ring is nearly 15,000 km across while the F ring is just a few hundred kilometers broad at its widest point. PTI
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THE STATESMAN
EDITORIAL
FOOD SECURITY & EQUALITY
ECOLOGY AND SMALL FARMERS MUST BE PROTECTED
BY BHARAT DOGRA
Today, 16 October, is World Food Day. Floods and drought have threatened food security. The adverse and erratic weather conditions, said to be related to climate change, are likely to persist. Food security must be rooted in equality and environment protection. A firm base can be established only when land is distributed equally, the rights of small farmers are adequately protected and ecologically protective methods are implemented.
In recent years, large-scale hunger and malnutrition amidst adequate food stocks have exposed the fundamental weaknesses of India's food security system. A senior economist has confirmed this embarrassment of riches by calculating that if every bag of foodgrain is placed in a straight line then this 'grainline' could traverse the entire distance to the moon. More recently, food protection has suffered and the availability of adequate food to support the security network cannot be taken for granted.
HUNGER AND FAMINE
However, certain achievements cannot be denied, particularly if comparisons are made with the colonial past. Two centuries of British rule in India witnessed about forty million famine deaths, or an average of 2,00,000 famine deaths every year. William Digby, a British scholar, estimated 28 million famine deaths during 1854-1901. The last decade of the 19th century proved to be particularly disastrous. Nearly 4.5 million perished in the famine of 1896-97, followed by another 2.5 million deaths in 1899-1900. The Great Bengal Famine of 1943 claimed about 4 million lives.
Since independence, there has not been a single instance of hundreds of thousands of famine deaths. While such mass casualties have been reported from China and Bangladesh, India has thus far been able to avoid such tragedies.
However, the ecological havoc has threatened the sustainability of adequate food production. Glaring inequalities lead to poverty and denial of basic needs. Many regions bear witness to a combination of weak/vulnerable people, devastated fields and shortage of drinking water. There could be large-scale hunger-deaths if a natural calamity disrupts the aid flow from the government and voluntary sources.
Therefore, India cannot be complacent about its ability to avoid large-scale famine deaths in the post-independence years. The challenge is to provide nutrition to all sections of the people on a sustainable basis and in an ecology-friendly manner. All villages should be independent of external sources for meeting the basic needs of food and water. Within the village all should have adequate access to these essentials. This is the basic pre-requisite for avoiding hunger in normal times and avoiding famine deaths in the worst of times.
A sound food and agricultural system can ensure satisfactory livelihood to all members of the farming community and wholesome, nutritious food to all. This can also ensure the welfare of farm animals and protect the soil.
Unfortunately, there is considerable economic tension and uncertainty among farmers not only in developing countries but also in some of the richest countries like the USA. A significant section of the farming community is landless (or near landless) and is deprived of a fair share of the agricultural income. Many landholders are in danger of losing control over their land.
Again even in the richest countries, the soil is not taken care of sufficiently. The machines, that have taken over most of the work in the farms, can produce more food; but they cannot protect the soil for future generations. More and more skilled peasants are being driven away from agriculture. Eventually, it is unlikely that there will be enough people to produce food and protect the land. Farm animals are treated as a commodity; there is little or no concern for their welfare.
On the consumption side, poverty and inequality can deny adequate food to a large number of people. But even those with enough purchasing power find it increasingly difficult to get wholesome, nutritious food because of the increasing presence of chemicals in the food that is cultivated. It is bereft of the valuable nutrients; on the contrary, it absorbs harmful substances.