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Victory for diplomacy Dead man talking Campus elections |
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Boosting defence ties with US
Cent per cent
indigenous!
Dateline
Washington Seeing a loved one
lose memories The stalemate in Germany
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Victory for diplomacy The success in persuading North Korea to agree to abandon its nuclear weapons programme is a tribute to the international efforts to end the crisis through dialogue. It is a matter of great relief for not only the six nations — the US, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea, besides North Korea —engaged in the prolonged exercise, but also the rest of the world. North Korea signed the historic agreement after it got a security guarantee and an assurance for massive economic assistance, including energy-related aid. Its crucial demand for a light-water reactor will be taken up for sympathetic consideration “at an appropriate time”. This demand had been proving to be the stumbling block on the negotiating table for some time. There are, however, some serious problems that may arise at the time of implementation. The light-water reactor demand, whenever it is taken up, may lead to some tension again. Then there is the question of who should make the first move —- the North Koreans or the other signatories to the accord. The US insists that Pyongyang will have to first dismantle its nuclear facilities to become entitled to the promised aid. But North Korea wants the guaranteed benefits to start coming to it first. The next round of talks, scheduled for November, will reveal which side bends in the interest of peace and stability. There is a lesson to be learnt from the North Korean experience: perseverance in pursuing the dialogue process ultimately pays off. Every party is a gainer. This rarely happens when military might is used, as can be seen in the case of Iraq, which formed along with North Korea and Iran what President George W. Bush described as the Axis of Evil. The success achieved at the North Korean front should encourage the European Three — Britain, Germany and France — and the international community not to give up the path of negotiations in their efforts to get the Iranian nuclear crisis resolved. |
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Dead man talking IN the cloak-and-dagger world of international espionage, it is difficult to sift fact from fiction. And when what is purveyed is stolen material from the archives of an intelligence agency, the task becomes even more difficult. This cautionary note has to be borne in mind while picking up The Mitrokhin Archive, Volume II: The KGB and the World, excerpts of which have appeared in the Press. They do not show the Congress and the Communist Party of India (CPI) in a good light. Leaders of both parties are on a denial mode with one of them dismissing it as a spy thriller. On the other hand, the BJP has demanded an inquiry into the allegations contained in the book. Between these two extremes is the grey area in which the book should be placed. It is true that the erstwhile Soviet Union had valued its friendship with India. Small wonder that there were hundreds of Indo-Soviet friendship societies in every state of the country. Since the CPI was ideologically closest to Moscow, the Soviets would have found a close ally in the party. Many of its organs and functionaries would have benefited from the association. In such a milieu, the KGB too would have had its moles in various wings of the government and the political establishment. But to believe that a leader of the stature of the late Pramod Dasgupta was an intelligence operative and that Indira Gandhi would periodically receive suitcases of money from the KGB at her house is to stretch the imagination beyond the tolerable limits. Equally difficult is to believe that the KGB would have enjoyed a field day influencing policy decisions in the government. Most of the leaders who figure in the book are dead and so is Mitrokhin, who stole the papers from the KGB archives and found a sanctuary in the West. Intelligence personnel the world over have compulsions to prove their worth. It is a common practice among them to claim credit even for natural phenomena. The KGB might have planted 3,789 articles in Indian newspapers in one year as the book claims but questions like whether anybody read them and whether they influenced public opinion have not been answered. The book will be an addition in the marketplace of knowledge and there is no need to get excited about it, either for or against. |
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Campus elections The Supreme Court has rightly sought the Centre’s opinion on the need to evolve appropriate guidelines on conducting the students’ union elections in all the colleges and universities in the country. In the absence of guidelines, these elections have become a free for all today, with absolutely no check either on the contestants or on the expenditure incurred by them. Backed by various political parties, the students’ union elections have affected academic discipline and vitiated the campus life. As in the elections to Parliament and state legislatures, in these elections too, the role of money and muscle power has increased manifold. The court has said that money spent in these elections is equivalent to the one spent in a parliamentary constituency! The entry of “divisive and disruptive tendencies” in the colleges and universities has led to increasing campus unrest. The apex court aptly referred to instances of even Vice-Chancellors being locked up by the student leaders in support of their demands. One way of checking these tendencies, according to the court, is to screen the contestants in the elections. In most institutions, student leaders get admitted repeatedly in different courses so that they can keep contesting the elections. Surely, such things would not be possible if there are well-defined rules and regulations for funding and conduct of election campaigns. But the larger question remains — who will enforce these rules so framed? Perhaps the educational authorities themselves may have to shoulder the responsibility. It may not be desirable to rope in the district administration in this task because that may amount to encroachment on the autonomy of the educational institutions. Ideally, these issues need to be examined at length by the UGC Chairman and the Vice-Chancellors during their regular conferences. The Supreme Court is forced to intervene in such matters owing to the failure of the educational authorities to stem the rot, but clearly it had no alternative but to do so. |
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Resolve to be thyself: and know, that he who finds himself loses his misery. — Matthew Arnold
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Boosting defence ties with US
Giving a big push to their defence ties, India and the United States have signed a new Framework Agreement. The pact, signed by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his American counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld, recently, promises to expand defence trade and increase the opportunities for technology transfer, collaboration, co-production, research and development (R&D). A new panel called the Defence Procurement and Production Group has been established to oversee defence trade, and a Joint Working Group will carry out a mid-year review to be supervised by the US-India Defence Policy Group. The Framework Agreement says: “The United States and India have entered a new era. We are transforming our relationship to reflect our common principles and shared national interests.” The pact talks of defence cooperation to maintain security and stability, defeat terrorism, prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and protect free flow of commerce via land, air and sea routes. The agreement stresses that the two countries will work to conclude defence transactions; however, it is not solely as an end in itself but as a means to strengthen their security and to reinforce strategic partnership. The US side has reportedly offered to advance a proposed briefing on the Patriot PAC-II system, which is part of the second phase of the “Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP)”. The two sides will also sign a letter of acceptance on naval pilot training. These include involvement in the US Ballistic Defence (BMD) system and its associated Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) system; “multinational” operations, i.e. US-led military-imperial schemes whether sanctioned by the UN or not; naval military operations in the Indian Ocean and beyond; and collaboration in countering terrorism, i.e., joining hands with the US as it wages its selective war and hypocritically defines “war on global terrorism”. Removal of barriers to strategic cooperation has also been highlighted in a report prepared jointly by the US Pacific Council on International Policy and India’s Observer Research Foundation (ORF). Former US Ambassador to India Richard Celeste — co-chairman of the task force that finalised the report — said, “India ought to be taken out of the sensitive list of countries that are subjected to restrictions on the transfer of technology as India doesn’t belong there.” Indeed, the accord that was subsequently signed during Dr Manmohan Singh’s state visit to Washington in late July, in which the US promised to clear the non-proliferation barriers both within the US and internationally (the Nuclear Suppliers Group regulations) so as to help India develop its civilian nuclear energy sector, was clear confirmation of the political-strategic significance that must be attached to the Defence Framework Agreement. The importance of this agreement becomes clear once one goes beyond outlining its particular features and situates it in the wider historical, political and strategic context that merges and evolves the post-Cold War situation — of a US out to establish an informal global imperium and most certainly looking for “partners” to fulfil this project. The framework (4 H) itself holds that India and the US will expand collaboration relating to missile defence. Interestingly, Mr Mukherjee spoke about the need to fill critical gaps in India’s missile programme. The framework only reveals again the American interest in collaborating in “multinational operations” (4B) when it is in the common interest of the two sides. Also, it commits the two sides to assist in building worldwide capacity (4J) to conduct successful peacekeeping operations. Nowhere is there a reference to the UN in the defence framework of the fact that India is already one of the largest troop contributors to UN peacekeeping operations along with countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan. What is the multinational operation that India wants to participate in outside the mandate of the UN? If at all there is to be any capacity building, India can and must do it under the auspices of the UN. The American definition of “multinational”, as demonstrated by the invasion of Iraq, does not necessarily include sanction from the UN Security Council. Given the continuing unilateralist trends in American foreign policy, it is very much in the realm of possibility that its next “multinational” operation would again be without the sanction of the Security Council. By committing to the June 28 framework, the US can now legitimately point to India’s promise contained in the defence framework. For instance, one of the key focus areas of the “nuclear proliferation” in the US remains Iran and its nuclear programme. If the US assembles an Iraq-type coalition of the willing nations for Iran, will India take a position against a friendly country that has been central to tackling the Taliban and is a key energy partner for India? However, there is need to be realistic when it comes to building good relations with the US India has no reason to turn away from having good relations with the US, but at the same time it has no reason to subscribe to the unilateral American agenda without reservations. The UPA government’s Common Minimum Programme (CMP) commits the government to pursue an independent foreign policy, keeping in mind the past traditions. “The policy will seek to promote multipolarity in world relations and oppose all attempts at unilateralism.” And, most important, the CMP has a guideline for building good relations with the US. “Even as it pursues closer engagement and relations with the US, the UPA government will maintain the independence of India’s foreign policy position on all regional and global issues.” Does the June 28 defence framework conform to this paradigm? Clearly, it does not. Such a framework also goes against the grain of foreign policy initiatives such as the Russia-China-India trilateral initiative as well as the India-Brazil-South Africa forum. In the long term, lip service to multilateralism will be exposed. The UPA’s Leftist partners have openly crtiticised this Framework Agreement saying that it is against the independent Indian foreign policy. However, the Left has not enunciated any clear or accurate perspective on China. What is the vision that Left has for its kind of India? Does the Left want to chase the chimera — India becoming a “major world power”? It is not the least a coincidence that subscribers to economic neo-liberalism are usually subscribers to conventional realistic thinking in the field of international relations, which fact must be understood by the
Left. The writer is a defence analyst.
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Cent per cent indigenous!
The
proverbial cat is out of the bag. The Light Combat Aircraft (LCA)
project which had been trumpetted around as a “totally” indigenous
effort by the resurgent Indian aeronautical industry is running more
than a decade behind schedule and with cost overruns exceeding 500
crores and a statement issued by the Aeronautical Development Agency
(ADA) in Bangalore has said that the country might have to seek
foreign collaboration in “selective” areas for the speedy
completion of the project. What constitutes “selective”? I have been talking to a top aeronautical expert, who is one of the moving spirits behind the
LCA. “Of course, the LCA is going to be cent per cent Indian technology,” he declared jingoistically, “but it’s a fact that we’re at present on the lookout for foreign collaboration in selective areas.” “What do you mean, selective areas?” I asked. “Well,” said the aeronautical expert, “Engines for instance. As you perhaps know, the aero engines we’ve developed so far can’t get an anaemic sparrow off the ground and we’ve therefore no alternative but to look for foreign help to build engines for the LCA.” “Engines, that’s all,” I said, “all other technologies and systems will be wholly Indian?” “No, not quite,” said the aeronautical expert, “we’re lagging slightly behind in manufacturing aircraft wings and there’s a proposal to approach the British for transfer of technology in this field.” “I see,” I said, “engines and wings and I suppose all other systems for the LCA will be wholly indigenous which will make us feel proud to be Indians?” “You’re substantially correct,” said the aeronautical expert, “but there’s a technology gap for the manufacture of switches to start the engines and for rudder, cockpit windows and landing gear and for this, we’re seeking French collaboration.” “What about the air frame?” I said, “at least, will that be Indian technology?” “I’m proud to say that India is in the top league where airframe technology is concerned,” said the aeronautical expert,” and everything is in place and we’re rarin’ to go — drawing boards, set squares, pencils, erasers — everything is in place and we’re poised to launch the design work, but as the drawing boards are rather wobbly and the drawing pencils have to be sharpened which might take some time, we’re seeking German assistance.” By now, I was getting the hand of what constituted “selective”. “But what’s wholly indigenous in the LCA?” I asked. “As an Indian proud of his country’s progress and technological prowess,” said the aeronautical expert, “I’m glad to say that the horsehair brush used to paint the LCA will be cent per cent indigenous. Another thing, LCA no longer stands for the Light Combat Aircraft.” “Oh, is that so? What does it mean now?” “Licence, Collaboration Agreement.”
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Dateline
Washington The continued presence of Jewish settlements in the West Bank will be a stumbling block to peace in the region, according to Yael Dayan, deputy mayor of the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality. In an address to a Washington think tank on Monday, Mrs Dayan, the daughter of Israeli General-turned-politician Moshe Dayan, said the Jews living in the settlements were not contributing to the development of the region and were there to “create trouble… we know all about the criminal deeds of settlers toward [Palestinian] residents in the West Bank.” In 1979 Gen Dayan resigned as Foreign Minister over his disagreement with Likud Party Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s policy of building Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. The late General’s daughter, a former member of the Israeli Knesset, criticised Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s “unilateralist plan” to evacuate settlers from the Gaza Strip in August. “This must not serve as a model for dealing with the West Bank,” Mrs Dayan, said, adding, “Bilateral and multilateral negotiations are the way” to a solution in the West Bank. In August Israel forcibly evacuated Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the West Bank. “Don’t let us for one minute think this is the end of the occupation,” Mrs Dayan said, adding, “Gaza is just a minor part — the major sense after the withdrawal was ‘good riddance’ — not that we are moving toward peace or a Palestinian state.” Mrs Dayan, who confesses she didn’t cry when the settlers were evicted, said a majority of Israelis feel an empathy toward the settlers but “many sensible Israelis” were shocked at the way the settlers exploited the Holocaust. Children were dressed in striped uniforms that brought back painful memories of Nazi concentration camps and Israeli soldiers were accused of being Nazis during the operation. “That left a bitter taste… The abuse of the Holocaust and the children will stay with us,” Mrs Dayan said. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, two prominent militant groups in the region, have claimed the Israeli withdrawal was a result of their
intifada, a five-year campaign of suicide bombings and other acts of violence aimed at Israelis. A “huge majority of Palestinians want to believe that the withdrawal is proof that terror can work to get rid of the enemy,” Mrs Dayan admitted. She said this was “perhaps the most dangerous result of the evacuation that is being cultivated by some in the Palestinian leadership. Not by Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas], but by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.” She cautioned that a terror campaign by these Islamic groups would produce the opposite result of what they seek. “Now is the last opportunity — not a window or a door but a crack in the wall — in which circumstances have enabled an Israeli Prime Minister to give Palestinians a point from which that they have something to lose,” she said. Mrs Dayan criticised Israel’s construction of a barrier between the Jewish state and Arab villages. “The barrier’s contribution to peace is contradictory… If nuclear bombs don’t make us feel secure, I doubt a five-foot high wall with barbed wire will help,” she said. “If I want security I need peace. If by building a wall I create difficulties in everyday lives [of the Palestinians] the wall turns into a violent occupation,” she said. In many parts of the West Bank the barrier bifurcates Palestinian villages forcing residents to
manoeuvre a daily obstacle course of police check-posts in order to get to their places of work, schools and families. The International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, last year deemed portions of the barrier illegal because they amounted to a de facto annexation by Israel and infringed on the rights of Palestinians. Last week, the Israeli Supreme Court upheld Israel’s right to build the barrier on land inside the West Bank, though it ordered the government to reconfigure a section because it isolated five Palestinian villages. Meanwhile, Palestinians are scheduled to hold elections in January. Mrs Dayan said Israel should not prevent Hamas from participating in this election, but it must insist that the group disarm before doing so. She contended it was also in the Palestinians’ interest to ensure Hamas disarm. “You cannot have your own army and arsenal and at the same time claim to be democratising society,” Mrs Dayan said referring to Hamas. The group made considerable gains in recent elections raising, for some, the worrying spectre of an Islamic militant administration in a future Palestinian state. Mrs Dayan warned the Israeli government against weakening the Palestinian Authority saying it needed Israel’s support to be able to check Hamas. “It is very tempting to mock the Palestinian Authority, but in doing so we are undermining ourselves,” she cautioned. “Israel has got to be able to absorb terror acts without letting it disturb our peaceful future. We cannot afford to be hostages in the hands of Hamas — or the settlers who are threatening a civil war,” she said. The plain-speaking Mrs Dayan was critical of the Bush administration’s involvement in Iraq and said she was shocked at the lack of concern in America over the mounting toll on Iraqi civilians and American soldiers. President George W. Bush’s ambitions to democratise the Middle East and topple Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq have hurt his credibility, she said, adding the administration in Washington could not be an honest broker for peace in the Middle East. Looking to the future, Mrs Dayan hoped the Palestinians would see the evacuation of Gaza as a “turning point” from which to improve their lives. “They deserve a Palestine as much as we deserve an Israel,” she said. |
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Seeing a loved one lose memories
A cure for Alzheimer’s disease which afflicts hundreds of elderly people may be a long way off, but continuing social interaction and activity can keep patients mentally agile and slow the crippling illness, say experts. “Not many know that Alzheimer’s is a disease and not a normal process of ageing with phases of forgetfulness and slowing down of activities. Once the early stage is past, the person slowly goes blank,” N.M. Narula, President of the Delhi chapter of Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders Society of India (ARDSI), told IANS. Marking World Alzheimer’s Day on Wednesday, ARDSI has planned weeklong activities to put the spotlight on a disease that is estimated to have afflicted over three million in India. Experts say if immediate family members and caretakers of Alzheimer’s patients are taken into account, the number of people touched by the illness could be anywhere between six and 30 million people. So far scientists have not found any clear-cut answers to prevent or cure Alzheimer’s disease, said Vijayalakshmi Ravindranath, director of the Manesar, Haryana-based National Brain Research Centre. Experts have also stressed the need for a population study to know the burden of people suffering from Alzheimer’s in India and to spread awareness as early detection of the disease can help tackle the early stages of the illness and improve the quality of life. Work is still on to replicate in humans evidence that oestrogen hormone replacement, if given to women at the onset of menopause, can help prevent Alzheimer’s which generally occurs in people over 65 years. Similarly, genetic studies to pinpoint the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease has established that genes in 10 per cent of cases can be blamed for the occurrence, but “in the bulk of cases there is no such evidence”, said Ravindranath. A source of some satisfaction for neurologists like
K. S. Anand, who heads the neurology department at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital here, is that there is greater awareness about Alzheimer’s among medical practitioners and the public. “An active lifestyle, healthy diet with plenty of greens and higher education are among things that can help slow down the progression of Alzheimer’s, as has been found in a study of the rural population in southern India,” said Anand. Among the large number of patients he attends in the out-patient department of his hospital, Anand on an average comes across two to four new cases of Alzheimer’s every week. In the first stage of Alzheimer’s, a debilitating disease, the patient goes through the agonising stage of knowing the progression of the illness. After this, it is the caregiver who faces the agony of seeing a loved one gradually lose memories and become totally dependent for every need. Many among caretakers end up requiring treatment for depression and other stress-related problems. Each stage of the illness generally lasts three to four years and by the third or last stage, the patient can lose the ability to speak, become bedridden and even lose understanding about body motions. — Indo-Asian News Service |
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The stalemate
in Germany The stalemate in Germany cannot be blamed on proportional representation. The trouble is that we keep trying to impose the outcome that we want. To read much of the London-based Press you would think the German people had let us down by failing to vote in the way that our leading commentators had urged. Those of us who know our Brecht can only marvel at the dismissal of the democratic choice of the people in Europe’s biggest democracy. In Berlin I was puzzled at the sight of a right-wing party campaigning to raise taxes on consumption — Ms Merkel’s proposed 15 per cent hike in VAT— at a time when German internal demand is at an all-time low. The flat-tax bonanza for the uber-rich proposed by an economics professor in the Merkel team was viewed simply as an idea whose time has gone. Mr Schroder, by contrast, seemed almost demob happy. His carefree, vigorous and scornful speeches demonstrated that political campaigning and the power of the word still matter in democratic politics. The saddest loser was Europe’s most innovative Foreign Minister, Joschka Fisher. He had led the Greens to help Schroder rewrite the German constitution so that German soldiers can serve overseas. But no one, neither Merkel, Schroder nor Fischer, still less the economically ultra-liberal FDP nor the communist-Trotskyist-old SDP left party, emerged as clear winners. Suppose, however, that is what the German voters want. They can now have a centre-based government that repudiates the anti-reform corporatists and vested interests of both left and right. Germany has failed, ever since the Berlin wall came down, to find a government that can implement necessary reforms. The Germans have shown they want reform but not at the price of the wilder right-wing ideas such as flat taxes, and nor to be held back by trade unions who have lost a thousand members for every working day in the past four years. Where does all this leave our debate about proportional representation? Has the German result shown up its failures, as one friend argues when he e-mailed me as soon as the result was known yesterday? He lamented the absence of a simple first-past-the-post system that he thought would give Germany clear leadership. Actually, under a British-style majority system, it is Mr Schroder who would now be forming a government all by himself, just as Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan were able to govern for five wasted years in the 1970s with a majority to begin with of just three seats. PR systems can deliver stable, calm government as in the Nordic countries. But they can lead to anti-semitic or racist parties getting a strong foothold. They can also produce confused multi-party governments in which socialists, conservatives and/or liberals try to hold power as in Belgium. And, most notoriously, PR can allow tiny fundamentalist or religious parties to hold a government to ransom, as in Israel. As far as decisive outcomes are concerned, the truth is that FPTP has delivered both strong government under Clement Attlee, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, and weak government under Jim Callaghan and John Major. It is not PR itself that makes the difference — the policies adopted, the people who become MPs and ministers, and party structures determine the success or failure of an electoral system. — The Independent |
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From the pages of November 15, 1906 WIGS AND ROBES
Something of the sloughed skin of the past still hangs in about us and we are tempted sometimes to lapse into archaic ways. This accounts for the recrudescence in the Allahabad High Court of the old practice of wearing wigs as also robes. After all, it is a novel and interesting sight to find these heavy weights of the law appearing in all the glory of wigs and giving, as it were, a tableau of the times of Dr Johnson. From the picturesque point of view, no one is inclined to find fault with the learned Benchers who have revived the old practice. But the 20th century is a bit utilitarian and as such is not likely to favour the picturesque in the same light as its predecessor of the 18th century. On the other hand, it is apt to consider the glorious old costume as a useless appendage. |
A man develops best in what interests him. So one may become a scholar. Another a warrior of repute. A third into a valiant archer. A fourth, into a great horseman. Though they study together, they develop differently. —The Mahabharata To find out what one is suited to do and to secure an opportunity to do it is the key to happiness. —Book of quotations on happiness Anyone, male or female, who does what is good and faithful will enter the Garden and will not be oppressed at all. —Book of quotations on Islam You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say that there are no stars in the heavens during the day? O man, because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not there is no God.
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