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Monday,
October
20, 2003,
Chandigarh, India
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Pakistani operation Global terrorist |
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Big bad wolf
Don’t
privatise oil companies
This
week for astrologers
Nations
must cooperate to fight terrorism
How
jewellery buyers are taken for a ride
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Pakistani operation THE nation is relieved over the failure of the terrorist attempt to storm the official residence of the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed. The Prime Minister, Mr A.B. Vajpayee, expressed the national sentiment when he said at Panipat on Saturday that India would not be cowed by such affronts. It was one of the most daring attacks reported from the state in the recent past. The terrorists had nearly succeeded in penetrating the security cordon around the Chief Minister's residence. That they could engage in battle with the BSF personnel for a whole day and night speaks volumes for their preparedness. They could also inflict severe damages on the security personnel, who lost two jawans in the operation. The BSF had its limitations as it did not want to cause any damage to civilian property or injure innocent people. But no such considerations weighed with the two fidayeen, who wanted to cause the maximum damage to attract international media attention. The Chief Minister has squarely blamed Pakistan for the attack. The sophisticated weapons the terrorists carried and the manner in which they tried to strike at the seat of power suggest that they had obtained considerable training and support of the kind the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI, is known to provide to the jehadis. Obviously, this too is the handiwork of the agency whatever may be the nomenclature of the organisation to which the slain fidayeen belonged. The Mufti has every reason to know this as he has been at the receiving end of the terrorists ever since he came to power. For the terrorists at large, the Chief Minister symbolises the strength of the Indian democracy. He is there despite all the efforts they had made to defeat the democratic process. What's more, the success the Chief Minister has achieved in winning the support of diverse political opinion in the state poses a threat to the militant strategy. That is why they have been relentlessly targeting him and his family. The incident underscores the threat the terrorists pose to security in the state. There is no disputing that they have the wherewithal to penetrate the toughest security cordon. While this necessitates keeping security personnel in a state of high alert, there is also need to address the basic problem of the origin of militancy. The fidayeen are all from across the border and they are able to infiltrate into the country only because of the logistical and other support they get from the Pakistani intelligence and military authorities. By now the world realises that Pakistan is the epicentre of international terrorism and unless it is dealt with, it would be difficult to rid the world of the menace of terrorism. From the Balkans to the Baltic and from Sudan to Singapore, every terrorist incident has had some Pakistani connection. It is this connection that has to be snapped if the Indo-Pak border is to remain free from infiltrators. And Jammu and Kashmir from fidayeen. |
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Global terrorist INDIA has won the first round of the battle for capturing crime lord Dawood Ibrahim. The US has finally accepted that Dawood's area of operation is much bigger than Mumbai and that he has established connections with terrorist outfits like Al-Qaeda and the Lashkar-e-Toiba through his smuggling network. The US has been closely studying his financial transactions and business interests for a long time to come to this conclusion. Its intelligence network has gathered enough proof saying that Dawood is not only an underworld don but also a terrorist king. America could not suppress the reality despite its obvious compulsions vis-a-vis Pakistan. Hence the US decision to include Dawood's name on its global terrorist list. This is not the only gain for India. Despite Pakistan's persistent denials, the US has declared that Dawood lives in Karachi and has a Pakistani passport. India's intelligence agencies know more than this. Dawood lives nowadays in an ISI-protected house in Peshawar. In any case, he is very much in Pakistan. He was accorded Pakistani citizenship so that he could save himself from the clutches of law in India for his role in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts and other cases registered against him. India has been asking Pakistan to hand him over to New Delhi along with the others whose names figure on the wanted list of 20 fugitives submitted to Islamabad, but the stock reply from the other side is that Dawood is not in Pakistan. This is what Islamabad has said again after the American admission of the Indian viewpoint, though the lie has been nailed. The situation has changed with the US describing Dawood as a "specially designated global terrorist" asking the UN to tell the member-states to take similar action against him. It is now the responsibility of the global community, particularly the US, to make Pakistan see reason. Islamabad should not be allowed to fool the world on the Dawood issue as it has been doing on Osama bin Laden. If Pakistan succeeds in such tactics, this will send a wrong signal to terrorist masterminds, endangering world peace. Can the world afford this? |
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Big bad wolf IT is surprising that neither politicians nor bureaucrats have tried to stop the making of a full-fledged film on the Indian wolf. What has happened to their over-sensitive noses that they have not smelled a rat in the project? Where is the Indian wolf that a group of British and Indian filmmakers want to shoot in its natural habitat? The stated objective is to examine and explain certain ambiguities in Rudyard Kipling's "Jungle Book". It could turn out to be a Trojan Horse for smuggling in cameramen for capturing the deeds, or rather misdeeds, of an endless variety of wolves in sheep's clothing that live not in caves but in extravagantly plush urban settings. There are other chinks in the story. The wildlife protection laws came a tad too late to be effective in protecting either the animals or the habitat in which they mate and multiply. Animal rights activists now insist that it is a misnomer to call them wild. This attribute is more pronounced among some members of the human race and certain lower forms of pests and vermin. They mate recklessly and multiply like mad in any environment. But not the majestic lion or even the much maligned wolf. Take away from them their habitat and they begin to show signs of becoming endangered species. Why do the filmmakers want to give the Indian wolf an image makeover? The poor creature got extremely bad press not in India but the West. The tale of Little Riding Hood would provide a good case and cause to the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals to claim damages on behalf of the reviled wolf. Or the tale in which a naughty shepherd boy lost his life because of the habit of crying wolf when there was none. The project would have a wider appeal if it were to focus on the pigs, the skunks, the rats, the vermin, the donkeys, the monkeys, and, of course, the wolves among men. The focus should not be only on India. They are found in all human settlements, but mostly among the rich and the famous or in the corridors of power. |
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Once in the racket you’re always in it. — Al Capone |
Don’t privatise oil companies LET'S imagine a hypothetical scenario. Assume that your government owned a highly profitable, technologically sound, decently modernised, and relatively well-managed public sector enterprise (PSE) in a major infrastructural field. It happened to be your Third World country’s sole company (private or public) to belong to the Fortune-500 list of the world’s biggest corporate giants. It continues to give the public a massive return on investment, with dividends on equity as high as 60 per cent , even 200 per cent. Sixty per cent of the company’s profits come from its retailing business where there is stiff—and growing—competition. The company is in a globally ramified industry where size matters, and where consolidation rather than fragmentation is the dominant trend—and key to success. In short, the company is like the goose that lays the golden egg. Would you want to sell off that company? Or worse, would you bleed it to sure, cruel death by divesting it of its most profitable component? And would you do this just because your country’s highest lawcourt had debarred you from selling off some other companies without obtaining clearance from Parliament under whose Acts they were
nationalised in the first place? Bizarre as this might seem, the scenario is not in the least bit hypothetical. The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is a Rs. 120,000 crore-turnover reality. And surreal as the whole plan might seem, selling off IOC is precisely what Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie insists the government must do. This is being rationalised on the ground that the fate not just of disinvestment, but of economic “reform”, indeed of the economy itself, hangs by the slender thread of privatisation of the oil PSEs. If Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) cannot be sold off because of the Supreme Court’s stay, then the very least the government must do is privatise IOC. Or else, disaster will befall us all. Yet, the stockmarkets do not reflect any trend towards disaster. They may not accurately mirror the state of the economy; but they do indicate the state of private business’s mood. And that is definitely buoyant. The Sensex has risen by a good 500-plus points or by 12 per cent over its level on the day the Supreme Court barred the BPCL-HPCL sell-off. No wonder, the IOC sell-off proposal has drawn flak not just from the political Opposition, but even from economists and opinion-shapers of different hues, including staunch supporters of neo-liberal policies, who don’t oppose privatisation in principle. For instance, most of our newspapers, including the highly pro-business “pink” financial papers, have opposed it—and accused Mr Shourie of distorting the minutes of the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment, which do not mandate hiving off IOC’s 11,000-odd retail outlets, but only say that “the ministries of petroleum and disinvestment have been directed to examine if the marketing assets of IOC can be disposed of separately...” Prof
T.T. Ram Mohan, who teaches at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, has sharply criticised Mr Shourie for not working jointly with the Petroleum Minister, but presenting him with a fait accompli. He argues that Mr Shourie is driven by his “antipathy to the very concept” of PSEs; that he is “unsuited” for his job and must be divested of his portfolio. Strong words indeed! But they contain a great many truths. Put simply, the proposal to privatise IOC makes neither economic nor political sense. Take economics. The oil sector is a highly globalised business where the only way an Indian oil company can remain competitive is by aiming for a big size. IOC (turnover, $26 billion) is a giant by Indian standards, but it is puny in relation to global companies such as Exxon Mobil or even Royal Dutch Shell ($235 billion). IOC has proved its competitiveness not only in oil refining with its world-class capacity of 38 billion tonnes, but also in marketing. Two years ago it beat the aggressive Reliance group to take over the small public sector marketing firm, IBP. IOC has also plans to expand abroad. It has acquired a number of petroleum outlets in Sri Lanka. The other oil PSEs are too impressive. Together they generated profits of Rs. 23,252 crore last year! HPCL alone paid a dividend of 200 per cent. International management consultant A.T. Kearney ranks it among India’s 16 best-managed private and public companies. IOC must expand its operations through upward and downward integration. We need to create a huge public oil conglomerate, or at least strong partnerships between IOC, BPCL, HPCL and above all, ONGC, which too is a world-class—and increasingly global—player through its subsidiary ONGC-Videsh which has taken up numerous blocks for exploration and production in different countries. Less than five years ago, Finance Secretary Vijay Kelkar sensibly proposed a strong, long-term partnership between IOC and ONGC. Mr Shourie is doing the opposite. All over the world, vertical integration, and mergers and acquisitions have promoted growth and competitiveness in oil. Thus, after such mergers, the after-tax profits of US oil companies rose by over 140 per cent to $40 billion between 1999 and 2000. Their growth was especially spectacular in the case of Chevron-Texaco and Phillips-Tosco. Similarly, China—whose example our policy-makers cite in great admiration—has also followed the world trend and consolidated its oil companies. Politically, too, selling off oil companies makes no sense. The government has never offered even a half-way credible justification for it. There are a number of reasons why a vital sector like oil should remain under public control and accountable to the people via the government, including the crucial importance of this energy resource, the long-term objective of energy conservation (which no private sector company would want to promote), the need to cater to the requirements of different strata of the population (for example, kerosene and diesel, the demand for which far outstrips that for petrol), and promoting public accountability through Parliament. The issue is not just a technical one, of approaching Parliament to amend an Act which it had passed. The issue is about making economic policies accountable in the true spirit of democracy. Decisions on disinvestment cannot be made by ministers, bureaucrats or accountants, especially in respect of PSEs that have been created as an “instrument of service” or “to subserve the common good” or promote “public interest”. This very rationale was cited when Burmah-Shell, Esso and Caltex were nationalised in the 1970s after India’s far-from-happy experience with them in the Bangladesh war: they failed to keep the supply-lines functioning. It’d be unfair to change the oil PSEs’ status without Parliament’s approval. By bypassing Parliament, the government counterposes economic policy-making to democracy. This is wrong. No economic policy has succeeded anywhere unless there is strong political support for it and unless it’s tied to a larger programme of improvement and transformation of governance. In India, such support has always been missing. On the contrary, privatisation here is driven by an authoritarian agenda; arbitrary decisions are made without parliamentary debate or approval. This agenda has a special obsession with the mode of disinvestment—namely, transfer of control to a “strategic partner”, usually, some favoured private business house. This has made privatisation seem scandalous in India—just as it has become “robberisation” elsewhere, as Nobel Laureate and former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz puts it. If India’s experience in private electricity generation is anything to go by, especially with the now disgraced and bankrupted Enron Corporation, such high-cost infrastructure development will violate all criteria of competitiveness. Enron’s plant in Maharashtra produced “gold-plated” power, which cost more than double the price of electricity generated by the state’s public sector board. So, it’s time to pause and take a break from target-driven disinvestment. Above all, it’s time to jettison dogma as policy. |
This week for astrologers ARIES (March 20-April 22). A paradoxical week. You will be worried about the future. Your forecasts and predictions will be disastrously wide off the mark, but with Jupiter favourably aspected in your 9th stellar mansion, you will wriggle out of a tight spot. Don’t lose heart because more suckers will be coming your way. Taurus (April 21-May 21). The worst side of your Tauran personality can rather too easily come to the surface and causing you to snap at your clients when they question your predictions. Don’t forget, a satisfied customer is your bread and butter. Gemini (May 22-June 21). You will make a killing predicting disastrous consequences for the world from the impending planetary conjunction. Invest the proceeds wisely preferably when the stock markets are bullish. Cancer (June 22- July 23). A week of solid progress. Your predictions, however, ridiculous and unscientific, will be “taken in.” Leo (July 24 - Aug 23). An adverse combination of planets might entangle you in an ugly public brawl with rationalists who debunk astrology and astrologers as charlatans. Keep cool and avoid arguments. Virgo (Aug 24- Sept 23). A political bigwig will consult you about the chances of his making it to the Cabinet as excise and commercial taxes minister. Humour the poor fish along and nick him for a fat fee. Libra (Sept 24- Oct 23). This week will bring to the fire the latent business streak in you. You will give your fees for casting horoscopes from Rs 50 to Rs 250 and charges for answering any three questions from Rs 50 to Rs 150 citing inflation and higher taxes. Scorpio
(Oct 24- Nov 23). An unsettled and unsatisfactory week. Some physical problems might crop up like skeptical clients who threaten to bust you on the nose for making wrong predictions. Keep your cool and turn your other nose. Sagittarius
(Nov 23-Dec 22). Your opposite number will discover in you hidden charm which enables you to explain with a straight face why your predictions haven’t come true and get away with it. If you’re contemplating marriage. Don’t. Capricorn
(Dec 23- Jan 20). An exhilarating week. With Mars favourably aspected in your third stellar mansion. You’ll take more people for a ride than you ever imagined was possible and you will be left wondering of the supply of suckers and fall guys will ever give out. Aquarius
(Jan 21- Feb 20). You will be engaged in housecleaning chores which you have neglected lately. You might find that worms have got at your almanacs and priceless ephemerals. Tranquility on the domestic front with your wife away to consult a rival astrologer about her future married life with you. Pisces
(Feb 21- March 21). Time to take stock. You’ll be in a contemplative mood speculating why your predictions are so disastrously going haywire. If single, stay That way.
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Nations must cooperate to fight terrorism THE following are excerpts from the report “International Terrorism: Legal Challenges and Responses” prepared by the International Bar Association’s Task Force on International Terrorism”:
While terrorism is a phenomenon that has blighted communities for centuries, it is now perceived to be an increasing threat to international peace and security. The events of September 11 and elsewhere have widely been regarded as a renewal of the challenge to combat terrorism. It is vital to acknowledge that the use of violence to instill terror among civilians is not exclusively the preserve of the non-state actor. Although some state violence is popularly referred to as “state terrorism”, this term is not recognised in international law. However, a framework within the UN and regional bodies governs the behaviour of state forces and their agents. There appears to be a growing trend for states to deal with international terrorism by unilateral action. The deliberative processes of collective action should, wherever possible, be preferred over unilateral action. The role of multilateral organisations must be enhanced wherever possible to make the multilateral effort more effective in the field of cooperation to prevent and suppress terrorism. Judges and lawyers play a crucial role in protecting the rule of law when threats are posed to national security. They should be at the forefront of monitoring anti-terrorism laws which confer powers on the executive and have the potential to violate fundamental human rights. The judiciary should be alert to, and resist, being collusive in the erosion of the rule of law and its own independence by, for instance, presiding over tribunals which fail to provide due process guarantees. Equally, lawyers should not be exposed to undue pressures when they take on roles as prosecutors and defenders in terrorist cases. A role too exists for the media in helping ensure protection of the rule of law, civil liberties and human rights standards. When national security is under threat it is crucial that the media offer independent and balanced information. This task may be made more difficult when governments attempt to control information and restrict freedom of expression. The protection of human rights and civil liberties is not incompatible with the safety and security of the wider community. It is at times of stress to the nation that human rights and civil liberties take on even greater importance and yet are under the greatest threat. Governments must strike a balance between national security and the protection of civil liberties and human rights. Yet some states with a tradition of human rights protection appear to be shifting the balance away from commonly accepted standards, undermining their credibility as good examples to the international community, and eroding the applicability of universal human rights. During extreme threats to the nation many treaties permit the suspension of certain human rights to the extent strictly require. However, governments might he tempted to use threats to national security to justify human rights restrictions that go further than required and may fail to respect fundamental guarantees that cannot be derogated from under any circumstances. Moreover, there is a danger that restrictions of human rights applied to suspected terrorists will be in place for longer than strictly necessary, allowing such procedures to be embedded in the general fabric of the law. Procedural rights such as those protecting from arbitrary arrest and unfair trial are particularly at risk when a state faces terrorist threats. Whilst human rights treaties allow for the restriction of these rights, certain fundamental guarantees must he respected at all times and failure to apply them may result in miscarriages of justice. Restrictions of substantive rights, such as the freedom of association and assembly, might be used by states to suppress legitimate dissent. Such action constitutes a blunt instrument which may have little effect in combating threats to national security. Similarly, overbroad measures which target asylum-seekers or citizens of certain states may be both discriminatory and ineffective. Yet these concerns do not necessarily conflict with the ability of states to take preventative and effective measures to protect themselves from threats to national security, including terrorism. The Task Force believes that in order to both respect human rights and be effective, any anti-terrorist activity should be based on sound investigative and intelligence gathering methods, thus promoting a targeted approach over sweeping measures.  |
How jewellery buyers
are taken for a ride IF you are planning to buy gold jewellery for Divali, then this is for you. Even otherwise, it would be good to know how to be an alert consumer while buying jewellery so that you are not cheated on quantity, quality and price. Let’s look at quantity first. Given the high cost of gold, even a small error in measurement could cause considerable loss to the consumer. And there are reports of jewelers cheating consumers by short-weighing gold ornaments. It is therefore important to make certain that jewellers are not using unverified balances or balances that are not prescribed or approved by the department of legal metrology. For example, jewellers should use only class 1 and 2 weighing machines for weighing gold or jewellery. Since these are very sensitive instruments, they must be enclosed in a glass case and at the time of weighing, the door of the glass case must be shut so that external factors such as a wind from a fan or a cooler does not affect the accuracy of the weight. The weighing machines should have dual indicators — one for the customer and one for the jeweler. So check the weight of the jewellery and make sure that you are getting the correct quantity. It is equally important to buy quality jewellery. Many of you may remember the results of the first-ever market survey of gold jewellers, conducted by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) three years ago in eight cities. The results showing that 88 per cent of the jewellers surveyed cheated on the purity of gold sold by them brought home the fact that all that glitters is not 22-carat gold and that while buying jewellery, a golden rule that one should follow is to look for third party authentication of gold quality or to put it simply, go for hallmarked jewellery. The BIS bought as an ordinary consumer gold jewellery from 15 different outlets in each of the cities that it surveyed: Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad,
Hyderabad and Jaipur. And it got the samples tested at the gold assaying centres to verify the claim of the jewellers that they were of 22-carat purity. Recognising the need for protecting consumers from such malpractices, the government, through the BIS, introduced in April 2000, hallmarking of gold jewellery in the country. Hallmarking is a system of
analysing or assaying of precious metals like gold in a laboratory to ascertain its purity or fineness and certifying it. Right now, hallmarking is a voluntary scheme and out of an estimated three lakh jewellers in the country, only 610 have the licence from the BIS to sell hallmarked jewellery. So the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs has constituted an expert committee to go into the question of whether hallmarking should be made mandatory to protect the interests of consumers. A hallmarked
jewellery will have five markings: the BIS logo, the fineness number, the mark of the hallmarking centre, year of marking and the jeweller’s mark. Since they are very minute, a jeweller is expected to give you a magnifying glass to help you read them properly. As purity is expressed in so many parts of gold per 1000 of jewellery, the jewellers are also expected to display a board specifying their equivalent in carats, since consumers are more familiar with it. For example, fineness expressed as 958 corresponds to 23 carat, 916 to 22 carat, 875 is 21 carat. 750 corresponds to 18 carat and so on.. You can get a list of jewellers selling hallmarked jewellery from the BIS office or by logging on to their website: http://www.bis.org.in |
O Son of Spirit! — Baha’u’llah Falsehood exhausts itself; truth alone prevails ultimately. — Guru Nanak Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all else shall be added unto you. — Saint Matthew We change from moment to moment. Personality is not cast in a rigid mould; the whole secret of personality is that it is a process. — The Buddha |
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