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Policy bargains Left is always asking for more THE UPA government may heave a sigh of relief at having mollified the Left parties — on the issues of Iran and public sector disinvestments — ahead of the Parliament session, but such tradeoffs betray adhocism and poor policy coordination.
Danger signals from US
Unexpected visitors How to tell if your partner is cheating
Dateline Washington Iraq’s oil: the spoils of war
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End of the Lalu Raj A NEW era has begun in Bihar with the people voting out the Lalu Prasad Yadav regime and giving a clear mandate to the JDU-led National Democratic Alliance. In retrospect, Mr Nitish Kumar, who is set to become Chief Minister, will be thankful to Governor Buta Singh for dissolving the Assembly, rather than allowing him to form a ramshackle ministry, which would have been unstable. The verdict is clearly against the Rashtriya Janata Dal, which ruled the state almost continuously for 15 years. At the end of such a long rule, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav and his wife, Mrs Rabri Devi, had nothing tangible to show by way of development in the state. Social justice is a lofty term, which would be understood only in terms of the economic empowerment it brought about. Alas, the couple had nothing to show off even in this regard. They lost their credibility. The big beneficiary is the NDA, which legitimately and successfully exploited their failure. When Mr Lalu Yadav became Chief Minister 15 years ago, the people had high expectations from him. For one thing, he was not dependent on the support of what was known as the “High Command”. Mr Lalu Yadav can blame only himself for his defeat. The backward castes, the minorities and the marginalised, particularly, looked up to him as their messiah. But in no time, he squandered their goodwill when he got involved in scandals like the fodder scam. However, it was his track record in fighting communalism and preventing riots that helped him to survive for so long. The February elections showed that the people did not want Mrs Rabri Devi to come back to power. Alas, he did not see the writing on the wall. Instead of projecting a more acceptable leader as a rival to Mr Nitish Kumar, he persisted with his choice only to get a rebuff from those who stood by him so far. Mr Nitish Kumar has a big task before him. Administration in the state is in a shambles as is underscored by what happened at Jehanabad last week when the Maoists raided the high-security prison, kidnapped their “class” enemies and released their comrades. More than anything else, what people want is a sense of security. They also want Bihar to achieve rapid economic progress. The criminal background of many of the JDU-BJP MLAs does not inspire confidence. Even so, it is a now or never opportunity for Mr Nitish Kumar to change the face of Bihar.
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North by North-West NOTWITHSTANDING its severe drubbing in the Bihar Assembly elections, the Congress has every reason to feel happy with its performance in the byelections held in Maharashtra. Its candidates — Priya Dutt and Narayan Rane — have won the prestigious Mumbai North-West Lok Sabha and Malvan Assembly by-elections respectively. The two Congress candidates have inflicted a crushing blow on the Shiv Sena. Though smart and articulate, Priya Dutt is a novice to politics. She exuded confidence about her victory during the campaign as she spelt out plans for Mumbai’s improvement and providing basic necessities as her priorities. But she won mainly because of the respect her late father Sunil Dutt commanded among the predominantly urban electorate — from Bandra to Goregaon — for the good work he had done as a filmstar, parliamentarian and, above all, Union Minister. The byelection was caused following his sudden demise in May. Sunil Dutt had never lost an election from this constituency since 1984. Equally significant was the Malvan Assembly byelection result. It was a do-or-die battle for the Shiv Sena which had pooled all its resources to defeat Maharashtra Revenue Minister Narayan Rane who quit the party in July following differences with the party leadership and joined the Congress. Malvan in the coastal Konkan region has been the Shiv Sena’s bastion particularly because Mr Rane hails from this belt. No wonder, the political (and electoral) arithmetic changed after he rebelled against the Sena leadership. The Congress leadership is bound to feel worried over its performance in the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha byelection. The CPI candidate of the Left Democratic Front (LDF), Mr Panniyan Ravindran, won the seat by a huge margin. What has been worrying the Congress High Command is that though the Kerala Assembly elections are due in six months, the party seems unable to win the people’s confidence. It had consistently bit the dust in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, Assembly byelections and local bodies elections. Chief Minister Oomen Chandy and Kerala PCC chief Ramesh Chennithala may have a lot of explaining to do. Tuesday’s outcome is expected to see the formal entry of former Chief Minister K. Karunakaran’s Democratic Indira Congress (Karunakaran) to the LDF, with which he had been having tactical ties since the last local bodies elections.
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Policy bargains THE UPA government may heave a sigh of relief at having mollified the Left parties — on the issues of Iran and public sector disinvestments — ahead of the Parliament session, but such tradeoffs betray adhocism and poor policy coordination. In this case, it does not redound to the credit of either the Left or the UPA; rather, it shows that policy and programmes are subordinated to political bargaining. No doubt, the Left has to be mindful of its constituency and, for this, populism and rhetoric have their uses; however, to exert those pressures through the street at every stage, be it on foreign or economic policy, undermines an elected government’s decision-making prerogatives. On the issue of Iran being referred to the UN Security Council, the Left’s arguments and campaign have no basis because not just the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but even the other powers are not headed in this direction. In fact, the resolve of the international community, and New Delhi, to keep the issue of Iran’s nuclear capability within the confines of the IAEA shows that the Left’s protests are against an imagined conspiracy. There is no connection between the Iran issue and the disinvestment of government holding in public sector undertakings (PSUs). Yet, the Left and the government have chosen to link the two, and thereby reduced policy directions to bargaining chips between political parties. The Left appears to be driven more by an urge to impress that it is a force to reckon with, when this point is not disputed by anyone, and least of all the UPA. Where then is the need to work up a “confrontation” for flexing its muscle when it has been accorded the status of both partner and opposition. The Left and the UPA can do without such spurious contests and, instead, devote its energies to governance.
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I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions. — Lillian Hellman
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Danger signals from US FOR those of us who walked the corridors of the Capitol in May 1998 in a bid to “sell” Pokhran II to the US Congress, the danger signals from there on the nuclear deal come as no surprise. Congressman after Congressman, Senator after Senator, lectured us on the evils of the atom and shed tears over India taking the forbidden path. Even the acknowledged friends of India in the “India Caucus” minced no words. Some of them quoted Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru to us. Some said that if the Congress party was in power in India, the tests would not have occurred. Many of them still hold positions of power and influence there, with their spots intact. Any semblance of reward for Pokhran II is anathema to them. The votaries of non-proliferation lined up before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by one among them, Senator Luger, and the House International Relations Committee to testify that full nuclear co-operation with India would sound the death knell of the NPT and the non-proliferation regime. Mr Robert Einhorn, Mr Henry Sokolsky, Mr Leonard Spector, Mr Michael Krepon and others suggested drastic changes in the India-US deal to bring it in line with the old benchmarks, that Mr Strobe Talbott offered to Mr Jaswant Singh as conditions for normalising relations, not to begin nuclear co-operation. They are disappointed that the Bush Administration has conceded to India points that Mr Talbott had held back. Like the critics of the deal in India, they are unable to appreciate the advances made by the Bush Administration and the Manmohan Singh government to meet the needs of the times. Their criticism should give some joy to our negotiators for having obtained a deal that defied the collective consensus in the powerful non-proliferation community. Mr Michael Krepon of the Stimson Centre in Washington has circulated the testimony given by Mr Robert Einhorn, the non-proliferation point man of the Clinton Administration and presently Senior Adviser for Strategic and International Studies to the House International Relations Committee with the comment that “members of Congress and outside experts are struggling with the very large question of how to improve bilateral relations without also improving prospects of proliferation.” His testimony is crucial not only because of his status as the high priest of non-proliferation (Mr Krepon considers the “Ayatollah” sobriquet offensive) but also because the revolving doors of Washington are likely to bring him back as a policy maker. Mr Einhorn sees some of the commitments made by India (moratorium on testing, export controls and support to a multilateral treaty on fissile material cut-off) old and some others (non-transfer of technology, adherence to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines, placing peaceful facilities under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards and signing of the Additional Protocol) of limited non-proliferation value. Among the downsides of the deal, he lists possible confusion in the NSG, the temptation by Russia and China to make concessions to Iran and Pakistan respectively and encouragement to potential proliferators like Iran. In suggesting measures to enhance the effectiveness of the deal, Mr Einhorn overlooks the fact that the NPT focused more on horizontal rather than vertical proliferation. Unlike India, the US was not unduly concerned about the stockpiling of weapons by nuclear weapon states. The steps that he suggests are precisely to prevent vertical proliferation in India. Capping, if not elimination, of India’s nuclear assets was the objective of the Talbott team, of which Mr Einhorn was a member. For this reason, halting of fissile materials production under a multilateral moratorium is the most important step that he recommends. But he fails to mention that it is China, which is blocking the negotiations for a Fissile Materials Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) in Geneva. Another condition that Mr Einhorn recommends is that India should go beyond its vote in Vienna and make a real effort to persuade Iran to forego its enrichment capability and vote to refer the matter to the Security Council. This amounts to direct interference in India’s relations with a third country and that too on the matter of enrichment, which is not a prohibited activity under the NPT. Further, it undermines the Indian claim that the Indian vote in Vienna was independent of the nuclear deal. On the supplies to India, Mr Einhorn, like his colleagues, favours a restricted regime, which retains the ban on the transfer of those items that are most closely related to a nuclear weapons programme. Moreover, he makes a distinction between the facilities under the safeguards “in perpetuity” and those under voluntary safeguards. He also suggests a country-neutral approach, a general exception for any state, “not party to the NPT that meets certain criteria of responsible nuclear behaviour”. He then goes on to prescribe conditions that go beyond the India-US agreement that are obviously unacceptable to India. Ironically, it is not just the opponents of the deal who are making life difficult. The Bush Administration officials themselves have given embellishments to the new arrangements, which are deeply embarrassing for India. Most serious among them is the assumption that India is committed to supporting the US position not just on Iran but also on all non-proliferation measures, which even the other nuclear weapon states do not endorse. The controversial Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) for the interdiction of nuclear weapons or materials is being mentioned in this context. The most sensitive issue on the separation of civilian and military facilities too has been projected in a manner that runs contrary to the understanding in India. The offer of parity with nuclear weapon-states gets more and more illusory as new conditions are revealed. China, which had more or less reconciled to the India-US arrangements as a fait accompli, has also jumped into the fray to signal support to those who have expressed fears that other nuclear weapon-states might make their own deals with their favourite clients. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, who was optimistic that the agreement would be in place in time for the visit of President Bush in early 2006, now speaks of a delay in finalising the measures of implementation. But if Congress begins to amend the deal in a manner prejudicial to Indian interests, the visit itself may be vitiated by arguments and counter-arguments. India-US relations may be better served if the visit takes place after the deal is implemented even if it means a slight postponement of the
visit. The writer is a former ambassador to the UN in Vienna.
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Unexpected visitors THEY came late in the evening, three of them. I saw them through my glass door, looking at the noticeboard. They had open beards, dishevelled turbans and lohis wrapped around their shoulders. They must have come in connection with the soon-to-be held Punjab government scholarship exams, thought. The staff had all gone home so I went out to them, invited them in and offered them seats. Only the eldest sat down. “So you have changed the uniform.” It was a statement, not a question. The school had changed the uniform after the Principal of a school in Rajpura had been shot for not responding to the militants’ call for a change. My visitors had not come about the scholarship; they were worried that there ward had not been able to cope with the change, I thought. “Don’t worry. The children have all been provided with uniforms.” “But there was no notice in the papers, on the gate. No letter to parents. How does the world know that YPS too, has changed?” They were militants. I felt no fear, only the deep stillness that comes with the certainty of being face to face with death, a stillness that sharpens the wits and gives a supreme self-confidence because there can be nothing worse. “I didn’t know that was expected.” My voice was calm and strong. His eyes never left my face and I, in turn, looked steadily back at him. “And Punjabi?” The Principal of a neighbouring college had been shot for not ordering a large enough number of Punjabi books for the library. “The signage is now all in Punjabi. All official correspondence is in Punjabi and Punjabi is taught right from class one.” This was not strictly true because children with the third language option started Punjabi only from class V. “Dhillon Sahib, whenever we call for a bandh yours is the only institution which does not respond.” This was true, with the teaching days lost to the Mandal Commission agitation, I could not afford any more holidays. But I was not going to admit this. “By the time your announcement appears the children have already left home. If you let me know the day before I would be happy to observe the bandh.” He stroked his beard. “Will you issue a notice of clarification in the papers regarding these points?” “I will,” surprisingly my voice remained clear and strong. “Good night,” I said. But at the door they turned back and in the swirling of their lohis I glimpsed the AK 47s of the two younger militants. “Will you now go to the police?” “No. You have not asked me to do anything which the school is not already doing and which is against the school policy.” They turned and left. I sat on, staring fixedly at the glass door. One difference of opinion, one contradiction and Budhi Sagar the peon, would have found my dead body when he came to open the office in the
morning.
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Dateline Washington MEMBERS of the US Congress were pleasantly surprised recently by rare visits from Indian and Pakistani Americans working together for a common cause. “They welcomed us with open arms… and then they would tell us they didn’t expect to see Pakistanis and Indians working together on the same side of an issue,” said Sumanth Krishnamurthy, one of the visitors at the legislators’ offices. Ripples generated by the October 8 earthquake in the Himalayan passes of Kashmir have tossed together Indian and Pakistani communities thousands of miles away to help those living through horrors of the natural disaster. Mr Krishnamurthy, an Indian American, is a founding member of the Committee for Global Relief. The other founders include Amina Khan, a Pakistani American, Sanjit Shah, an Indian American and Nilofer Afridi-Qazi, a Pakistani. The group set up the committee to channel aid to victims of the earthquake in South Asia after discovering the absence of a “link” between the Indian and Pakistani communities in the U.S. The committee’s efforts paid off handsomely at a recent fundraiser at the World Bank in Washington. The event, attended by Pakistan’s Ambassador in Washington, Jehangir Karamat, former assistant secretaries of state Karl Inderfuth and Robin Raphel and members of Washington’s ubiquitous think tank community, helped raise more than the $ 50,000 target set for the evening. The Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University supported the fundraiser for victims of the earthquake and the SAIS Dean, Dr Jessica Einhorn, chaired the event. Walter Andersen, associate director of the South Asia Studies programme at SAIS, said one of the reasons the programme supported the event was that it “represented a unique organisational effort linking the Indian and Pakistani American communities.” “Indeed, they founded the Committee for Global Relief because they could find no group that sought to link the two communities,” Dr Andersen told The Tribune. “Their cooperative efforts are a model that might be followed in the region.” Ms Khan told The Tribune joining the Indian American community and the Pakistani American community “in this spirit of friendship for a humanitarian cause is something that the American political landscape offers us the opportunity to do.” At the November 19 reconstruction conference in Islamabad the leader of the American delegation, USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios, announced an increase in the overall U.S. commitment to Pakistan for relief and reconstruction to a total of $ 510 million. The earthquake, the latest in a series of major catastrophes to strike in less than a year, has tested the generosity of the American donor. While an outpouring of aid followed the Asian tsunami and hurricanes Katrina and Rita, individual donors have been slower to respond to victims of the quake. Ms Khan, while noting that this latest tragedy is “worse in terms of its after-effects than the tsunami,” admitted it would be inaccurate to say the committee did not sense a “donor fatigue.” “The Pakistani community is being extremely active … people went into immediate action mode, there were fundraisers and collection drives from here to California,” said Ms Khan, adding that the surfeit of events resulted in “donor fatigue” in the community. “There is not only donor fatigue, but short-term memory.” Mr Krishnamurthy added: “We found a lot of donor fatigue among individuals, but when we talked to a number of corporations they weren’t aware of a channel to give to this cause.” Intelsat, a leading satellite service provider, is sponsoring an “employee matching programme” whereby the company will match the donations made by its employees to earthquake relief. The Committee for Global Relief is working through CARE in the U.S. and has an agreement to send funds to Rural Support Programmes Network, the largest NGO operating in the northern areas of Pakistan and CARE India. Of the funds raised, 85 per cent will go through CARE to RSPN, and 15 per cent to CARE India. This money will be used “solely” for earthquake relief. The committee’s founders, meanwhile, have set their sights on their next mission. They plan to ask pharmaceutical companies and hospitals to donate medical equipment and medicines for survivors of the quake. “As the winter sets in, so will disease,” Ms Khan said. “Getting medicines across is a priority.”
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How to tell if your partner is cheating YOU'RE reading the newspaper, and your husband or wife could be cheating on you at this very moment. Not possible, you think? How can you be so sure they are — or aren’t? Relationship and infidelity experts, private investigators, technology specialists and divorce attorneys say if you know the subtle and not-so-subtle signs to look for, they’ll point you to the answer. You can put your five senses to work. Or you can shell out hundreds — or thousands — of dollars to hire a private detective. You can also invest in the newest high-tech products on the market — computer spyware, electronic tracking devices, in-home evidence-gathering kits among them — in an effort to catch cheating mates. Tru-Test Forensic and Applied Sciences Corp. in Newburgh, N.Y., is marketing a patented home evidence-collection kit that will help spouses detect with 100 percent accuracy whether their mates have been intimate with someone else. The kit contains an ultraviolet light that will detect stains on your mate’s clothing that are normally impossible to see or feel. Protein and enzyme formulas included in the kit also will identify the presence of bodily fluids. And if you require further proof, you can mail specimens you’ve collected in an enclosed envelope to a laboratory for testing to determine whether they match your DNA, your mate’s — or someone else’s. The kit costs $79.95 (877-362-9900 or www.trutestinc.com). To Ruth Houston, the New York author of “Is He Cheating on You? — 829 Telltale Signs” gizmos and gadgets won’t tell the whole story. Houston, who has been researching infidelity for more than a decade since discovering her ex cheated on
her, says ‘’If you know what to look for, you can find countless signs of infidelity using only your eyes, your ears and your personal knowledge of your mate. The key is knowing what to look for.” That involves being tuned into your mate’s work habits, daily schedule, and likes and dislikes, Houston says. ‘’Then you can zero in on what’s happening. You will see changes across the board. There will be things you pick up in their conversation, personal hygiene, how they relate to you, personal behaviors, changes in all those areas,” which she lists on www.infidelityadvice.com. Some focus on obvious signs (lipstick on the collar, coming home late) and overlook the subtle clues, Houston says. For instance, your spouse takes a sudden interest in things, like volunteering to take over paying the monthly bills — a job you’ve been doing — to give you, he or she says, a much-needed break. “You say, `That’s nice,’ but maybe he doesn’t want you to see the bills and what he’s been spending his money on,`` Houston says. Don’t confront your spouse with only your suspicions, some say. Go with proof. When you confront your spouse about suspicions, pay close attention to his or her reactions, looking for anything that would be a break from the norm: a glitch in their body language or a change in the cadence or pitch of their voice, says Greg Hartley, a U.S. Army interrogator for 15 years who co-authored the new book “How to Spot a Liar: Why People Don’t Tell the Truth ... and How You Can Catch Them” (Career Press, $14.99).
— LA Times-Washington Post
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Iraq’s oil: the spoils of war IRAQIS face the dire prospect of losing up to $200bn (£116bn) of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year. A report produced by American and British pressure groups warns Iraq will be caught in an “old colonial trap” if it allows foreign companies to take a share of its vast energy reserves. The report is certain to reawaken fears that the real purpose of the 2003 war on Iraq was to ensure its oil came under Western control. The Iraqi government has announced plans to seek foreign investment to exploit its oil reserves after the general election, which will be held next month. Iraq has 115 billion barrels of proved oil reserves, the third largest in the world. According to the report, from groups including War on Want and the New Economics Foundation (NEF), the new Iraqi constitution opened the way for greater foreign investment. Negotiations with oil companies are already under way ahead of next month’s election and before legislation is passed, it said. The groups said they had amassed details of high-level pressure from the US and UK governments on Iraq to look to foreign companies to rebuild its oil industry. It said a Foreign Office code of practice issued in summer last year said at least $4bn would be needed to restore production to the levels before the 1990-91 Gulf War. “Given Iraq’s needs it is not realistic to cut government spending in other areas and Iraq would need to engage with the international oil companies to provide appropriate levels of foreign direct investment to do this,” it said. Yesterday’s report said the use of production sharing agreements (PSAs) was proposed by the US State Department before the invasion and adopted by the Coalition Provisional Authority. “The current government is fast-tracking the process. It is already negotiating contracts with oil companies in parallel with the constitutional process, elections and passage of a Petroleum Law,” the report, Crude Designs, said. Earlier this year a BBC Newsnight report claimed to have uncovered documents showing the Bush administration made plans to secure Iraqi oil even before the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US. Based on its analysis of PSAs in seven countries, it said multinationals would seek rates of return on their investment from 42 to 162 per cent, far in excess of typical 12 per cent rates. Taking an assumption of $40 a barrel, below the current price of almost $60, and a likely contract term of 25 to 40 years, it said that Iraq stood to lose between £74bn and $194bn. Andrew Simms, the NEF’s policy director, said: “Over the last century, Britain and the US left a global trail of conflict, social upheaval and environmental damage as they sought to capture and control a disproportionate share of the world’s oil reserves. Now it seems they are determined to increase their ecological debts at Iraq’s expense. Instead of a new beginning, Iraq is caught in a very old colonial trap.” Louise Richards, chief executive of War on Want, said: “People have increasingly come to realise the Iraq war was about oil, profits and plunder. Despite claims from politicians that this is a conspiracy theory, our report gives detailed evidence to show Iraq’s oil profits are well within the sights of the oil multinationals.” The current Iraqi government has indicated that it wants to treble production from two million barrels a day this year to six million.
— The Independent
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From the pages of The “Times” in tears
The Secretary of State’s Explanatory Memorandum relating to the Accounts of the government of India for 1913-14 and the estimates for 1914-15 and 1915-16 has brought tears to the eyes of the expert responsible for writings on military finance. The writer in the Times is appalled to think of this “enormous” recurring liability which is to include all extra-Indian pensionary charges arising form these campaigns. “For years to come,” he laments, “thousands of Indian widows and orphans and wounded officers and sepoys will be receiving pensions and allowances from the British and not the Indian Exchequer. The entire world acknowledged the noble scarifies which British taxpayers have been marking in the present war; and India and with the rest of the Empire stands loyally, firmly and unflinchingly by the mother country with her own offering. But the writer in the Times is hard to please and tries to minimise the value of India’s contributions. |
Hatred breeds only hatred. Neither in this world nor in any other does hatred cease by hatred at anytime. The only way to decimate hatred is through love. —The Buddha Moribund are the hands of the inflamed, and moribund is he. His wealth does not enrich him and does not profit him. He will burn in a flaming fire, with his wife bringing the firewood, a rope around her neck. —Islam The man who is sleepless feels that the night is endless, it stretches before him like infinity. The man who is tired finds a mile too long, it stretches before him like infinity. So to the foolish and the thoughtless, the troubles of life appear endless. —The Buddha Only he himself knows of his own greatness. We only know that we receive everything through his kindness and his grace, says Guru Nanak. — Guru Nanak Real prosperity is not just material but has a spiritual dimension, which is in fact what gives overall meaning and coherence to the strivings and achievements of life in the world. — Islam To practise self-control one must avoid excess in everything; be it work or play, eating or fasting, pleasure or pain. He must become temperate in nature and behaviour. Balance in everything that he does becomes important to him. —Bhagvad Gita Have we not expanded your chest for you? And removed your back-breaking burden from you? And raised your repute for you? For truly relief comes with distress; indeed, with distress comes relief. So when you are finished, be diligent still, and be attentive to your Lord. — Islam We can do not great things, only small things with great love.
—Mother Teresa
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