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Question of
credibility Jailhouse
rock |
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Embarrassment
for Bush Inquiry goes against his stand President George W. Bush will no longer be able to mislead the American public that the erstwhile Saddam Hussein regime of Iraq had collaborated with Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida to attack the US on September 11, 2001.
Road map for
Kashmir
Descent of a cherub
Towards broadband
economy Defence
notes
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Question of credibility So many bizarre things have happened in Mr Narendra Modi's Gujarat in the recent past that it is difficult to take anything said by the police there without a large pinch of salt. This disbelief is all the more strong in the case of the June 15 encounter in which the crime branch of the Ahmedabad police shot down four persons allegedly connected with the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), including two Pakistanis, who were reportedly on a mission to assassinate the Chief Minister. The opposition has expectedly called it a fake encounter. It may be doing so for political reasons, but even otherwise there are many holes in the police story. The most inexplicable is the killing of Ishrat Jahan Shamim Raza, a second year science student at Mumbai's Guru Nanak Khalsa College. The Thane police, the suburb to which she belonged, says it has no evidence to link 18-year-old Ishrat with the terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba. But the Ahmedabad police counters that she was shot because she was traveling in a car along with heavily armed militants plotting to kill the Chief Minister. The Ahmedabad police already has a reputation of shooting first and asking questions later. Tuesday's encounter will help strengthen it. Incidentally, this is the fourth encounter in Ahmedabad city after the 2002 riots, of which three were plots to assassinate Mr Modi. Eight persons have been killed in these four encounters. Interestingly, no policeman has been injured, let alone killed, in any of these fierce battles. The police "success" comes at a time when Mr Modi is being targeted not only by the Opposition but also by his own party MLAs. The Sangh Parivar has come to his rescue although former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is not backing him this time. The sensation generated by the encounter may help him gain some sympathy, provided it is proved to be genuine. No one can grudge the Gujarat police providing very efficient security to Mr Narendra Modi, but it must answer questions that are being asked all around. May be it has the answers that do not strain credibility. |
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Jailhouse rock Time was when someone truly deprived or threatened would contrive to manoeuvre a situation that would land him in jail if only because he would be provided for or protected. But anyone who entertains such an idea today would be in for a terrible disappointment. Conditions in Indian jails are no longer what they used to be. At one level they are stifling and oppressive given the subhuman conditions. At the other extreme, there are jailbirds who are doing much better than they would have done had they not been
gaoled. The rioting inside the Jalandhar Central Jail once again brings to the fore the conditions in our prisons and the urgent need to address them. Reports say that the violent clashes were triggered by inmates who were angered at the supply of substandard narcotics; that the "smack" supplied was "cut" a bit too much. Obviously, there's a regular racket going on here, like in many of our other jails, which ensures that there is no dearth of any contraband stuff required for use by the convicts. Clearly, everyone down the line, from the jail-keepers to the warders and the inmates, had a good thing going and had their cut, of cash or smack. So much so that narcotics supply had become an entitlement, and a deviation from the terms of contract provoked a clash. This is not surprising. Only the other day, it was found that the Amritsar jail was the acme of comfort, where prisoners were living in literally "plush" conditions with every conceivable gizmo and luxury from colour TVs and luxury mattresses to mobile phones and what have you. All of this makes one wonder why some convicts want to break out of jail at all. Every time there is a break-out or an outbreak of violence, the jail administration laments that "overcrowding" makes it hard to manage the men behind bars. The real problem is that a compromised jail staff involved in illicit rackets can hardly be expected to keep the prisoners in their place. |
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Embarrassment for Bush President George W. Bush will no longer be able to mislead the American public that the erstwhile Saddam Hussein regime of Iraq had collaborated with Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida to attack the US on September 11, 2001. The National Commission enquiring into the terrorist strikes against the symbols of the US military and economic might has come out with a report denying any such links as claimed by the Bush administration. The finding is significant because the administration's repeated assertion of Saddam's "long-established ties with Al-Qaida" had made 57 per cent of the Americans believe that pre-war Iraq had helped Al-Qaida and 20 per cent thought that Iraq had a role in 9/11. The latest enquiry report is very embarrassing for President Bush when his rating against the Democratic Presidential challenger, Mr John Kerry, is going down with every passing day. Mr Bush had built the case against the Iraq war primarily on Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction". When the dreaded WMDs could not be found, even after the end of the war, he shifted his stress to the Saddam regime's links with Bin Laden's terrorist network. He continued to justify the war quoting this factor till the National Commission's finding was made public on Wednesday. But that is not possible now. In the absence of any justification for the US-led allied action against Iraq, what President Bush did amounts to misleading his country and the rest of the world. The American public is unlikely to laud him for such a serious blunder. Of course, Saddam was no saint to be defended by anybody. But the US or its allies have to explain to the world what really made them launch war against Iraq. |
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The best things in life are never rationed. Friendship, loyalty, love do not require coupons. — G.T. Hewitt |
Road map for Kashmir The talks between the central leadership and various Kashmiri dissident groups are expected to begin shortly. There is an expectation on the part of Pakistanis of progress on the Kashmir issue in the forthcoming meeting among the foreign ministers, then the Prime Ministers and thereafter between the Indian Prime Minister and General Musharraf. Meanwhile, day in and day out various Kashmiri political leaders in India assert that the views of the Kashmiris should be taken into account in any negotiations between Delhi and Islamabad. Some leaders in Kashmir valley urge that they should be allowed to go to Pakistan to consult the leaders of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the Northern areas. The Delhi government is the butt of criticism of a majority of the parties and all expect that Delhi should come out with a solution and, of course, that should be to their liking. Obviously the situation in the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir today is not what it was in the previous decades. There is an elected assembly and an elected coalition government. Besides there are elected parliamentary members. While the percentage of polling in certain areas of Kashmir valley may not have been satisfactory the fairness of the elections has been vouched by the international community. If at all one has to make a beginning with political process leading to an ultimate solution to the issue of Jammu and Kashmir one must logically begin with the elected representatives. Those who denounced the elections and did not take part in them cannot claim to have a greater representative character than those who fought and won the elections. In a sense even those who fought and lost the elections narrowly can claim greater representative character than those self-styled leaders who are yet to prove their credentials. The former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, as Justice Owen Dixon put it in his report in 1950, "is not really a unit geographically, demographically or economically. It is an agglomeration of territories brought under the political power of the Maharajah. That is the unity it possesses." In the last 57 years because of development of communications, trade and commerce, expansion of education and representative government (with all its flaws) there have been remarkable changes in the attitude and aspirations of peoples in different parts of the former princely state and it is totally unrealistic to think of the issue as one frozen in October, 1947. J&K has Kashmiris, Gujjars, Dogris, Paharis, Punjabis, Ladakhis, Poonchis, Mirpuris and a number of other small ethnic groups in Northern areas. This diversity on the Indian side is reflected in the number of political parties, both national and local, who have elected legislators in the last state and Lok Sabha elections. In these circumstances Delhi should take a fresh initiative which would devolve the entire responsibility for developing a roadmap towards a solution for the problems of J&K on the people's representatives of the state. Delhi should encourage the ruling coalition in Srinagar (it is fortunate that the Congress party is part of the coalition) to convene an all-party Round Table Conference, including all members of the assembly and Parliament. The conference should be able to formulate its own rules of procedure and should be free to invite others, including the dissidents who did not participate in the elections (like the Hurriyat). If they consider it necessary the conference should be free to invite those which it thinks have representative character from the areas across the Line of Control. While a number of leaders from the J&K complain about the Centre either not talking to them or not paying adequate attention to them, they hardly talk to each other. They should be asked to get together in this Round Table to formulate their ideas on roadmap to the solution. The Round Table is not to come up with a final solution to the issue. Given the ethnic diversity of the former princely state no single solution adopted by majority may be equitable or fair. The purpose is to elicit the views of the peoples of the state before the Government of India could consider the best way of dealing with the Delhi-Srinagar relationship and then formulate a framework of negotiations with Islamabad in the light of expressed range of views of representatives of the peoples. Those who refuse to take part in such a Round Table Conference would expose themselves that they are unwilling to engage in dialogue with their fellow Kashmiris. There is no doubt a problem how to treat on an equal footing the views of those who are elected representatives and others. That is the reason why the conference should not be required to arrive at its findings on voting but only record the range of views. The advantage of a Round Table Conference is it will enable the diverse parties and groups to interact and discuss the future of the peoples in the light of the political, economic and social developments that had taken place in the last five decades and are on the anvil. They will also be able to evaluate the costs and benefits various parts of J&K derive from their linkages with the rest of India and what is the scope of potential development etc. The Central Government should keep out of the deliberation of the Round Table Conference. National parties which have elected representatives or significant electoral strength will no doubt be present. It should be strictly a matter for the peoples of the state. When the Round Table deliberations are completed and they are handed over to central government, there will be something
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Descent of a cherub DEFYING the doctor’s calculations and our own arithmetic he busted the date-chart and arrived to surprise and delight us. After checking with the gynaecologist our son had flown to Delhi for a business meeting and asked us to be in Mumbai in a week or 10 days. That very day in the midst of the meeting he got a call to rush back by the earliest flight. In the evening we received a similar call to be in Mumbai just the next day. A couple of hours later came another call to say that we had become grandparents of a baby boy. We remembered the saying that things happen when they have to happen, no matter when we want them to happen. “Well, I can’t believe that one day could make such a difference,” remarked our son as he drove us from the airport to the nursing home. On the way he said they had shortlisted a few names and wanted to know how “Arjit” sounded. And when we met the little one lying in the cot, asleep and bundled up, we went down the memory lane. Thirtytwo years ago Mukul was born in a Delhi nursing home, initially looking just like Arjit. I lifted the little one “trailing clouds of glory” and introduced myself. His dadi did alike and wanted him to open his eyes. He didn’t, though he did sign a quiet pact of understanding with his grandma and grandpa. When the young mom and our little heir came home, I suddenly remembered those home-spun melodies with which I used to enthrall our son. I didn’t want to repeat that stuff with the grandson. At once my creative self started composing couplets and stanzas with an astonishing rhyme scheme which could bewitch any new-born. A couplet being short, whether heroic or otherwise, and a stanza being a bit too long for an infant. I composed a triplet with a soul-stirring import. When I tried it on him, he reacted like a sensitive literary critic preferring substance to form. In addition to my own limericks, I hummed age-old lullabies when he looked restive in a soaked diaper. Well, we spent over two months cradling Arjit up and down in our arms. At crucial moments when he would question his mom’s ways to pacify him, she would walk fast to me and say: “Papa, please try your triplets on him.” And, believe it or not, the fellow immediately stopped crying, showing respect both for my age and my push-pin. I must mention here that dadi and dadu differed in their art of pacification. While she always prevailed on him through a sitting position, either on the bed or in a sofa chair, I would walk him to serenity, from one corner of the apartment to the other — all the time pleading with him to be fair and reasonable in his expectations. And, of course, all the time fine-tuning the thrust of my triplets. You must be wondering what I said in those magical three lines. Well, something like this: “I’m my dadu’s little man, the Lord’s little son, and Arjit is my name.” I could use only words and content myself with his angelic responses. I carried no flute of the Pied Piper. But his speechlessness said things far deeper than my triplets could ever
convey. |
Towards broadband economy India’s entry in the elite group of G-8 nations is reason enough for many to believe that the country has indeed reached the takeoff stage. However, from the takeoff stage to the stage of mass consumption, as is characterised in industrialised societies, the level of efficiency in the economic system will be of critical importance. Needless to say, the Internet and the World Wide Web is going to be one of the main drivers of this competence — both at the macro level and also at the level of the firm and the individual. While much has been said about the achievements of India’s software professionals in the world arena, back home the digital divide among those having access to Internet and those who do not remains much the same — yet another manifestation that partitions the vast majority of the rural folk with the tiny minority of the urban denizens — in terms of technology usage and access. A few facts may be in order to put the issue in a broader perspective. In India there are 0.4 Internet connections per 100 persons. In every 100 persons in this country, there are six cable television subscribers and less than 1 per cent of the total population own or have access to a computer. Compare this to China, our co-entrant to the cream of the crop G-8 nations. With a per capita GDP of 965 dollars (India’s per capita GDP is 465 dollars) China’s Internet penetration is much higher at 2.5 subscribers per 100 persons and there are nine cable TV connections per 100 persons. The accessibility to computers is also much higher in China with 2.8 per cent. Asian tiger Korea is perhaps the poster-boy with a PC penetration level of 78.6 per cent and Internet connectivity of 26 per cent. And there are a few lessons for India to be learnt from the Korean success story. It was achieved in a period of less than five years by an optimal of mix of appropriate regulatory framework that allowed multiple technologies to flourish and co-exist in an extremely dynamic and competitive environment and aggressively encouraged the use of cost-effective digital infrastructure in the form of broadband technology. In pure technological terms there is no single standard definition of broadband. The OECD, International Telecom Union (ITU) and international regulators define broadband as an Internet access infrastructure technology which provides an “always on” connectivity with minimum speeds of 256 kbps to 2mbps. To prevent any loss of generality, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has defined broadband connectivity as an “always on” data connection with a minimum download speed of 256 kbps. Broadband networks are best not seen as “technologies” but as non dial - up, always-on, integrated communication highways delivering voice, data and video along with interactivity at speeds necessary for delivery of different services at required quality levels and in a manner that current delivery mechanisms do not enable. The alternative to broadband, as it exists today in India is the conventional dial-up connectivity, with an average download speed of 64kbps with the telephone line being the medium of data transmission for the final user at home or office. The tangible fallout of this high-cost medium manifests itself in the efficiency level of the economy. All-pervading and low-cost public and private broadband networks are perhaps as important today as voice based telecom networks were in the previous decade. Internet based services and connectivity for small and medium enterprises are crucial for enhanced productivity and maybe even survival. A number of stumbling bottlenecks can be identified that have hindered the growth of high-speed Internet infrastructure in India resulting in a situation where the prices of broadband are 1,200 times higher than in Korea. (In India, on an average, a broadband user pays 15.63 dollars per month compared to Korea’s 0.25 dollars.). The primary among these are the low quality of cable TV infrastructure and lack of organisation, the high costs of use of technologies such as DTH and VSAT, policies preventing wireless solutions from spreading and time required for clearances for right of way. The consensus opinion now is veering around the view that the growth models of the mobile telephony have to be replicated for India to leapfrog several stages in terms of Internet connectivity and usage. The success of the cellular telephone market was the allowance of the unhindered adoption of newer technologies in a competitive environment by service providers. While competition has ensured that prices do not skyrocket, access to technology has enabled the quality of service to reach elevated levels. In the case of broadband, it is now suggested that the “last mile” problem is of paramount importance. Typically, a “last mile” problem is defined as one where the connectivity to the final consumer takes a lot of time even though the whole city or area may have had widespread network. To circumvent this, TRAI has now suggested that the last mile to a broadband subscriber be over five access paths — local loop DSL (digital subscriber line), satellite (DTH and VSAT), cable , terrestrial wireless — Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, CorDECT and optic fibre to home, building or community. For a developing country technologies like these can be used in archetypical situations such as those of providing information to farmers on the likelihood of rain and also on market prices through, maybe, an information kiosk set up in a village which provides access to the Internet using broadband technology. To achieve the targeted 40 million Internet subscribers by 2010, to make appropriate and locally relevant e-education, e-health, e-governance, entertainment and e-commerce services and employment opportunities available through the Internet in towns, villages and cities in India, broadband has to be medium. After all, the medium is the message. |
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Defence notes The Indian Air Force (IAF) has often displayed its operational strength during air exercises with various countries, including the US. Two IAF IL-76 transporters participated in exercises in the US last year. This year Indian fighter jets will cross the Atlantic to take part in a multi-nation exercise in which some NATO countries will also participate. Six Jaguars and two each of the newly inducted IL-78 refuelers and IL-76 transport aircraft will fly from the Ambala Air Force station to the Alaska-based US Pacific Command to be part of the exercise called Cope Thunder 2004. Incidentally, the Jaguars for the US exercise will be from the same fleet which was recently brought to the ground for a complete check-up by experts from British Aerospace after recent accidents. The aircraft, on their way to Alaska, will stop in Qatar, Egypt, Portugal, New Foundland and Canada. The IAF has also organised a special ceremony in Ambala for the aircraft to be flagged off to Alaska. The exercises begin early next week.
Admiral Gorshkov One of the missile systems being evaluated for the recently acquired aircraft carrier, Admiral Gorshkov, is the Israel-manufactured Barak, which will replace the on board Kashtan missile system. It was first installed on India’s sole aircraft carrier—INS Virat—and later the Godavari class guided missile frigate INS Ganga. The three Delhi class destroyers and two other Godavari class frigates are also in line to be fitted by the Barak system. Although recently the Barak missile system did give trouble to the Indian Navy as it failed during test trials, it is still considered to be the best choice despite the Russians trying hard to sell their missile system to India. Russia has already pressurised India into accepting a package for Admiral Gorshkov if New Delhi wants some other critical military hardware from Moscow.
NCC for AIDS awareness Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs Sunil Dutt feels that the NCC with a strength of almost 13 lakh cadets can be the most effective organisation to create awareness about the HIV and AIDS. At a recent workshop, the minister pointed out that as long as medical science is not able to develop an effective cure for the disease, awareness is the best and the only way to prevent it from spreading.
‘Constructing
peace...’ The International Centre for Peace Initiatives is organising a two-day international conference in Delhi on “Constructing Peace, Deconstructing Terror” in which over 30 strategic thinkers will participate to explore new rules of the game to deal with terrorism. The countries which will be represented at the conference include the US, the UK, Germany, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, the Philippines and Thailand. |
The magnetic needle always points to the North, and hence it is that the sailing vessel does not lose her direction. So long as the heart of man is directed towards God, he cannot be lost in the ocean of wordliness. — Sri Ramakrishna None can reach the Lord’s court by serving all and sundry (i.e. by believing in many gods); for, whoever boards a boat of stone, must surely sink with it. — Guru Nanak Forgive us our sins; for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us. — Jesus Christ Silent meditation is the best for attaining spiritual enlightenment. — Zarathushtra It will not do merely to listen to great principles. You must apply them in the practical field, turn them into constant practice. — Swami Vivekananda |
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