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Lacklustre at Asiad A billion-strong nation should do better THAT as populous a nation as India should put up a stronger show is an old lament. But the fact that it continues to hold true should provoke some thought ahead of the Olympics coming up in Beijing. Once again, at the Asiad, we did not exactly do the nation proud despite some sterling examples.
Dismal scenario in
B’desh
Cellphone monogamy
Pay parity for
Services: delink status from salary Why history is a
casualty in West Asia Chatterati
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Yen for growth BEING two great Asian democracies, India and Japan have convergence of views in many areas. Even in the case of the India-US civilian nuclear cooperation deal Japan’s attitude has not been altogether negative, though it could be expected to have its own reservations because of historical reasons. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Japan has provided proof that Japan fully realises India’s problem of how to meet its fast-growing energy requirements, which was one of the basic reasons why India clinched the nuclear deal with the US. The joint statement Dr Manmohan Singh signed along with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday on the conclusion of his fruitful visit clearly says that the two countries have no differences of opinion on the significance of nuclear energy because of its being the cleanest and cheapest power available today. Thus, Japan can be expected to play a helpful role as an important member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which is yet to amend its rules allowing nuclear trade with India. The real challenge for India and Japan, however, lies in exploring the opportunities for expanding their economic cooperation. As Dr Manmohan Singh told the Japanese parliament (Diet), the trade volume is hardly $7 billion, which is just one-third of the total trade between India and China, and 128th of that between Japan and China. Massive Japanese investment in China has helped it to develop a world-class infrastructure despite a history of political tensions between the two countries. There is, however, no such problem between India and Japan. Their trade and investment flows have increased to some extent since 2004, but that is still only a fraction of the potential. Japanese investors have been reluctant to invest in India mainly because of bureaucratic delays in clearing projects and poor infrastructure. India is ready to address their concerns provided they show interest in enhancing their presence in this country. Initially, India needs large-scale Japanese investment in infrastructure building so that this major obstacle for business and industrial development disappears. Dr Manmohan Singh’s visit to Tokyo, one hopes, must have convinced the Japanese that they have a major role to play in India’s growth story. |
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Lacklustre at Asiad THAT as populous a nation as India should put up a stronger show is an old lament. But the fact that it continues to hold true should provoke some thought ahead of the Olympics coming up in Beijing. Once again, at the Asiad, we did not exactly do the nation proud despite some sterling examples. The final medal tally for the 15th Asian Games at Doha put India in the eighth position, with a total of 54 medals: there were 10 golds, 18 silvers and 26 bronzes to take home to a billion-strong nation. The eighth position is no different from the one India found itself in last time around, at the 14th Asiad, in Busan, though we picked up a few more silvers and bronzes this time, in comparison to the total tally of 35 in 2002. Such a record is nothing to be pleased about. It is difficult to escape the feeling that India’s lack of presence at a big sporting event is not because of a talent deficit but a woeful inability to find and nurture talent without everything from politics to insufficient training and infrastructure getting in the way. India had some expected successes in shooting, but then, the medals were also scattered across athletics, wrestling, billiards, chess, equestrian, tennis and others. India has some range, but little depth. Of course, India had to drop participation from many events in the last minute, as there was absolutely no hope of a medal — hardly an edifying way to enter a major competition. While comparisons with China have become blasé, it is a fact that the sheer dominance of the Chinese must be fully taken into account. The Chinese tally of 316 medals, with 165 golds, leaves number two Korea far behind, with 58 golds. It is also interesting that women played such a big role, with 91golds and a total tally of 171 to their Men’s 71 and a total tally of 139. Sports bosses — it is time to stand up and be held accountable. |
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Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be breakthrough. — R.D. Laing
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Dismal scenario in B’desh JOI Bangla was the slogan that resounded in the streets of Dhaka and outside this month 35 years ago. Once again the same slogan reverberates all over. Then it was a war cry for liberation from West Pakistan and it exuded optimism and exuberance. This time it is for holding free and fair elections and arouses pessimism and anxiety. Those days one call from Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the Bangla nation, made people surrender arms which they carried freely. Today, uncertainty has gripped people and they want to possess arms. Yet they are worried over security as an untoward stream of passion runs through the streets. The scene is, however, familiar. It is the same old confrontation between the liberation and anti-liberation forces. It takes different shapes at different times and erupts occasionally without rhyme or reason. Yet the basic characteristics remain the same. The liberation forces are non-communal in their approach. They are anti-fundamentalist and firmly embedded to the land. The anti-liberation forces are parochial and pro-fundamentalist and still roam in their imagination to the land beyond India. Bangladesh has not yet been able to reconcile the differences between the two. They are at war against each other all the time in every facet of life. The anti-liberation forces do not regret the formation of Bangladesh, nor do they want any dilution in its sovereignty. But they tend to tilt towards Pakistan and find themselves more at home with the military than the democratic wherewithal. The pro-liberation elements are generally pro-India and strongly oppose even an indirect say of the armed forces in governance. They believe that the armed forces are on the opposite side. The armed forces have, however, refused to get involved. Their problem is not the opposition which they might meet when they take over, but what they do after stepping in. They have refused several requests to come in. Only recently did they say “no” to intervene to enforce peace. They are said to be in favour of a national government, picking up eminent people like Kamal Hussain, Mohammed Yunus and Naimuddin Ahmed. This can become a probability if elections do not take place or take a violent turn at any stage. Both the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the two main political formations, are determined to get a majority in the House by hook or by crook to be in power. This means a lot in a country where power is an end in itself and where an extra-constitutional authority like Begum Khalida Zia’s son Tariq comes to have his say. That is the reason why thousands of people came on the streets when they found that the electoral roll had 10 million bogus voters. That also explains why there was a vociferous demand for the reconstitution of the Election Commission which the BNP had appointed. Whatever their purport, hartals and bandhs have exhausted people’s patience. They increasingly feel apprehensive because of their frequency. To quote an eminent Bangladeshi former judge, “The agitation will result in unnecessary bloodshed and loss of innocent lives and will ultimately pave the way for unconstitutional rule which will bury democracy in Bangladesh for decades. It will turn into another Pakistan.” The scenario becomes more dismal when you find the anti-liberation forces joining hands with religious parties. They are hardly bothered about democracy. They never were. They use the name of Islam to describe themselves as a purer side so that they go down well with the gullible voters. But this time there is a determined thinking to rise above rhetoric. Interest by India could have changed the perspective to some extent. But its ignorance about Bangladesh is appalling. The Indian media hardly covers anything with sympathy and understanding. The reporting is like that of the Western Press about South Asia, full of preconceived notions. Here is New Delhi which once helped freedom-loving Bangladeshis to liberate themselves from the distant rule of Islamabad. It is the same New Delhi which seems to think that Bangladesh is a gone case, lost to fundamentalism and the ISI machinations. It is true that all the elements fighting against India, whether the hostile Nagas or the Manipur insurgents, take shelter in Bangladesh. Dhaka denies it but at the back of its mind is the thinking that India is harassed this way. This may well have prejudiced New Delhi. But it could have played some role behind the scenes because its voice still counts. Moreover, the current challenge is the gravest that Dhaka has faced since independence in December 1971. What New Delhi does not understand is that the confrontation between the liberation and anti-liberation forces has been there from day one. India has itself erred in supporting the anti-liberation elements at one time or another. All are reaping what they had sowed. The anti-liberation forces were substantially there when the Sheikh was in power. But he was so tall and so popular that even the non-liberators had to get into the clothes of liberators. The Sheikh was conscious of that and he, therefore, merged all political parties into one, not to give space to the anti-liberation elements. He earned the title of a dictator. But he did not care. He should have dealt with the anti-liberation forces severely. Since nobody raised voice against the Sheikh, he believed that there was no other voice. The anti-liberators only bid their time. They killed him and gradually penetrated society in connivance with the cantonment. They are now emboldened, particularly when the BNP uses them as their foot soldiers. The support of the Jamaat-e-Islami was always there. Being part of the Khalida government, the party has exploited the position to the hilt to spread fanaticism. Liberal Bangladeshis have been pushed to the background. Extremists are ruling the roost. Yet secular forces are beginning to assert themselves. They are somewhat late and still lack coherence. But they at least know the stakes. If the anti-liberation forces manage to control the government, this may well be the last election in
Bangladesh.
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Cellphone monogamy MEN typically have polygamous and peripatetic propensities. They are constantly upgrading and moving on. They coast through the whole gamut of toys for boys: Cars, phones, laptops, et al, and yes even newer mates with enviable facility. It was, after all, successful older men, trading in graying spouses for younger ones, who gave currency to the term, “Trophy Wives”. Women, on the other hand, honourable exceptions notwithstanding, tend to have steadfastly monogamous affinities. As with husbands, so it is with cellphones. Women find it difficult to upgrade, let alone move on. And it has nothing to do with being techno-savvy. Women surprisingly are very technology-friendly. And I’m not talking about the Carly Fiorina’s but your average Anne. Women are, today, using more technology than their male counterparts. Take the everyday kitchen, dish washers, ovens, microwaves, food-processors, washing machines and refrigerators — they all add up to quite an overload of techno-logic. Also newer phones really do incorporate increasingly user-friendly technology. So upgrading actually means progressing, metaphorically that is, from stone-age dinosaurs to sleek new age design and comfort. But women being women will typically think with their hearts rather than with their heads. Don’t be surprised then, if you see a Prada clad female executive or a Dior sporting
power-femme clutching a shabby phone — it’s a manifestation of the “Monogamy Syndrome among Women” or MSaW. It should, I believe, pose a tremendous marketing challenge for the cellphone companies. Of late some successful, single, older women, have shown marginal movement up the emotional evolution chain. No, they aren’t trading in old faithfuls. They are just trying to get a life, after being left behind. They are the ones who have found themselves “toyboys”. But then not everyone is a Liz Taylor, Gina Lollobrigida, Demi Moore or even a Zeenat Aman, happily sporting a much younger male partner as arm candy. And having found a partner, they then tend to be embarrassingly monogamous. It probably has to do with wrinkles and grey hair looking better on a man than on a woman or then again just plain MSaW. Would my mother trade in her graying better half for a younger model? Never! Her whole MSaW DNA should revolt at the very idea. So also with her cell phone. It suffers from battery problems, is chipped and worn around the edges and the touch-screen wont respond to touch. But she’s loathe to part with it. And then my father who values efficiency over mushy sentimentality, bounced off an idea, “How about a little “toyboy” on the side, he suggested helpfully, eyes twinkling with merriment and challenge?” Suddenly, Mommy seemed to look at her well-worn cellphone in a new light, and clearly the idea of having a reliable back-up on the side was appealing. “Why not!” she twinkled right back, as we watched slack-jawed. Whoops! Is the Indian woman evolving or what, I ponder ? There’s hope then, that in time, they will get over their MSaW too. But the Punjabi males had better watch out. Women upgrading might spell boom-time for cellphone companies but doom time for MCP’s
i.e. 90 per cent of the Punjabi male
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Pay parity for Services:
delink status from salary The
VI Pay Commission has been constituted. Yet again there is no member of the defence forces associated with it. There is genuine apprehension on the part of defence personnel that their interests may not (again) be adequately addressed, and internal deliberations have begun. In the current milieu an infantry soldier at Rs 3250 per month starts lower than the national minimum wage of Rs 3312 of an unskilled labourer. Also, while a school drop-out with reasonable command of spoken English is employed by a call centre at around Rs 20,000 a month, our defence officers, after long and hard training start at Rs 8250. While formulating their recommendations the forces need to keep certain parameters in mind. Firstly, they must project a joint front and must not let inter-service differences weaken their case. Secondly, they should avoid a dichotomous approach. While highlighting their unique service conditions marked by hazards, risks, round-the-clock duties, separation etc, in the same breath they also insist on parity with other central services. The forces should stop comparing themselves with the IAS, who have a higher intake level, different promotion system and separate responsibilities. Similarly, the proliferating of senior police ranks is unavoidable to handle law and order in the increased diverse population and should not be used as a plank for argument. Any comparison among the dissimilar is never valid. Thirdly, the forces need to delink status from salary. The equation of a Major General with some 33 years service with a Joint Secretary with 15-16 years for example, is a ground reality and will not change. The forces stand a better chance if they approach the Commission and plead that since they have unique service conditions they deserve a separate and distinct consideration. A major problem in the services is early retirement. Nearly 56 per cent of the soldiers are compulsorily retired at 35-37 years age when their family commitments are high. This puts them at a disadvantage vis-à-vis their civilian counterparts who retire at 58. The officers have limited promotional prospects. Nearly 60 per cent of officers do not make it to the select ranks and get superseded as Lt Col when they are in their mid-thirties. The soldiers retiring early should have an assured second career till they reach 58. Despite promises and attempts this has not been possible. They should instead be compensated financially so that they can maintain a reasonable living standard. The existing pension is not adequate for that purpose. Similarly, officers who get superseded still have 15-17 years of service left before they superannuate. There is a need to ensure that remain motivated so that they continue to serve with zeal and dedication. An inflation-related yearly increase in the salary should partially recompense their supersession. The Army has long been deficient by some 12000 officers. Being mainly in Captains and Majors, it affects only the units, the cutting edge. It is normal for a unit in peace station to have only 50-60 per cent of their authorised strength of officers. But we never accept, or even contemplate a corresponding reduction in the output. Resultantly, each officer ends up performing at least two duties and the government saves the salary money of the deficient officers. If the same situation continues, after a few more years, some conscientious auditor might argue that if an Army unit can function with 10 officers for so long, why do we need 20? The least we can do is to compensate the officers for the extra duties that they are performing. For example, if a unit is authorised 20 officers of different ranks, their total monthly salary entitlement should be released and be distributed among those actually posted and performing duties. Considering that we already have a system where a junior officer performing duties of a senior in addition to his own, gets an extra allowance, the proposal may not seem too outlandish. One more point seems pertinent vis-à-vis shortage of officers. There is a case for increasing the percentage of soldiers getting commission as officers. By virtue of their training, discipline and ethos they can ably fill the posts of sub unit commanders. Being of a higher age group, they will not be in competition for the limited senior posts. Besides, this will also provide added incentive for soldiers. Another point, though only indirectly connected to the current subject, relates to the grading awarded to the officers who do not make it to select ranks. Earlier, they were graded ‘unfit’. Notably, almost 90% of these ‘unfit’ officers have an above average profile; they are not promoted only because of limited vacancies. If an officer wants to leave and seek employment in the civil sector, the ‘unfit’ tag is a negative. After great persuasion the Army has changed the term ‘unfit’ to ‘un-empanelled’, which is rather technical for a potential civilian employer. The answer lies in grading such officers as ‘fit for promotion but cannot be absorbed due to non availability of vacancies’. In this manner all those wanting to quit would be able to go with their chest out instead of squirming. Inadequacy of pension is another sore point, as is the demand for one rank one pension, which remains unresolved. The writer is a former Deputy Chief of Army Staff
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Why history is a casualty in West Asia
OH how - when it comes to the realities of history - the Muslims of the Middle East exhaust my patience. After years of explaining to Arab friends that the killing of Jews by the Nazis, is an indisputable fact - I am still met with a state of willing disbelief. And now, this week, the preposterous President Mahmoud Ahmadinajad of Iran opens up his own country to obloquy and shame by holding a supposedly impartial “conference” on the Jewish Holocaust to repeat the lies of the racists who, if they did not direct their hatred towards Jews, would most assuredly turn venomously against those other Semites, the Arabs of the Middle East. How, I always ask, can you expect the West to understand and accept the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 men, women and children from Palestine in 1948 when you will not try to comprehend the enormity done to the Jews of Europe? And, here, of course, is the wretched irony of the whole affair. For what the Muslims of the Middle East should be doing is pointing out to the world that they were not responsible for the Jewish Holocaust, that, horrific and evil though it was, it is a shameful, outrageous injustice that they, the Palestinians, should suffer for something they had no part in and - even more disgusting - that they should be treated as if they have. But, no, Ahmadinajad has neither the brains nor the honesty to grasp this simple, vital equation. True, the Palestinian Grand Mufti of Jerusalem shook hands with Hitler. I met his only surviving wartime Palestinian comrade before he died and it is perfectly true that the intemperate, devious Had al-Husseini made some vile anti-Jewish wartime speeches in German, in one of which he advised the Nazis to close Jewish refugee exit routes to Palestine and deport Jews eastwards (why east, I wonder?) and helped to raise a Muslim SS unit in Bosnia. I have copies of his speeches and his photograph hangs in the Yad Vashem Museum. But the downtrodden, crushed, occupied, slaughtered Palestinians of our time - of Sabra and Chatila, of Jenin and Beit Yanoun - were not even alive in the Second World War. Yet it is to the eternal shame of Israel and its leaders that they should pretend as if the Palestinians were participants in the Second World War. When the Israeli army was advancing on Beirut in 1982, the then Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, wrote a crazed letter to US president, Ronald Reagan, explaining that he felt he was marching on “Berlin” to liquidate “Hitler” (ie Yasser Arafat, who was busy comparing his own guerrillas to the defenders of Stalingrad). That courageous Israeli writer Uri Avneri wrote an open letter to Begin. “Mr Prime Minister,” he began, “Hitler is dead.” But this did not stop Ariel Sharon from trying the same trick in 1989. By talking to the US State Department, Arafat was “like Hitler, who also wanted so much to negotiate with the Allies in the second half of the Second World War”, Sharon told the Wall Street Journal. “... Arafat is the same kind of enemy.” Needless to say, any comparison between the behaviour of German troops in the Second World War and Israeli soldiers today (with their constantly betrayed claim to “purity of arms”) is denounced as anti-Semitic. Generally, I believe that is the correct reaction. Israelis are not committing mass rape, murder or installing gas chambers for the Palestinians. But the acts of Israeli troops are not always so easy to divorce from such insane parallels. During the Sabra and Chatila massacres - when Israel sent its enraged Lebanese Christian Phalangist militias into the camps after telling them that Palestinians had killed their beloved leader - up to 1,700 Palestinians were slaughtered. Israeli troops watched - and did nothing. The Israeli novelist A B Yehoshua observed that, even if his country’s soldiers had not known what was happening, “then this would be the same lack of knowledge of the Germans who stood outside Buchenwald and Treblinka and did not know what was happening”. After the killings of Jenin, an Israeli officer suggested to his men, according to the Israeli press, that, with close quarter fighting, they might study the tactics of Nazi troops in Warsaw in 1944. And I have to say - indeed, it needs to be said - that, after the countless Lebanese civilian refugees ruthlessly cut down on the roads of Lebanon by the Israeli air force in 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996 and again this summer, how can one avoid being reminded of the Luftwaffe attacks on the equally helpless French refugees of 1940? Many thousands of Lebanese have been killed in this way over the past 25 years. And please spare me the nonsense about “human shields”. What about the marked ambulance of women and children rocketed by a low-flying Israeli helicopter in 1996? Or the refugee convoy whose women and children were torn to pieces by an equally low-flying Israeli air force helicopter as they fled along the roads after being ordered to leave their homes by the Israelis? No, Israelis are not Nazis. But it’s time we talked of war crimes unless they stop these attacks on refugees. The Arabs are entitled to talk the same way. They should. But they must stop lying about Jewish history - and take a lesson, perhaps, from the Israeli historians who tell the truth about the savagery which attended Israel’s birth. As for the West’s reaction to Ahmadinajad’s antics, Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara was “shocked” into disbelief while Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert responded with more eloquent contempt. Strangely, no one recalled that, the holocaust deniers of recent years - deniers of the Turkish genocide of 1.5 million Armenian Christians in 1915, that is - include Lord Blair, who originally tried to prevent Armenians from participating in Britain’s Holocaust Day and the then Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres, who told Turks that their massacre of the victims of the 20th century’s first Holocaust did not constitute a genocide. I’ve no doubt Ahmadinajad - equally conscious of Iran’s precious relationship with Turkey - would gutlessly fail to honour the Armenian Holocaust in Tehran. Who would have thought that the governments of Britain, Israel and Iran had so much in common? By arrangement with
The Independent |
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Chatterati The
stiletto set is breathless once more. Weddings, birthdays and celebrations abound in this month of December. With thirty thousand marriages in the capital in a day it obviously means unavailability of space and a full day for the pundits, bandwalas, hoteliers and dabhewalas. The “ghodis” to carry the bridegroom have been hired from out of town on exorbitant prices. Pundits are making 10 times the usual and invitees are getting stuck in traffic jams for 2-3 hours. Absolutely chaos as always. But the people who really are running from one scene to the other are not only the cops but also the local netas. Their schedule may be over-booked but the netas are trying to improve their image by attending more weddings everyday, especially when they are not too popular with Delhiites over the sealing. Shiela Dixit and the cabinet attend approximately a dozen weddings each day, trying to cover every nook and corner of the city. But the biggest hassle for the netas attending these weddings is their health. How many cold drinks, mithai and chat can you have in one day? Talking points Delhi is always a place where there are enough speculations and discussion about everything. The latest topic doing the rounds is Vasundhara Raje’s famous kiss with Kiran Mazumdar Shaw. Too much has been made of wrong camera angles on which the media has gone hysterical. Now, Vasundra chooses to call it all anti-feminist. Navjot Singh Sidhu’s case has taken the capital by storm. It is alarming that a person with Sidhu’s calibre and stature, instead of showing regret and feeling remorse, is actually boasting about his hot Jat blood, and the BJP is supporting him. After all, how can anyone just hit a 65-year-old senior citizen? That act in itself is shameful enough. Just last week, when Sidhu went to the Chandigarh local court to furnish a bail bond, he reportedly parked his car in a slot reserved for judges. The local lawyers were up in arms saying it was a breach of protocol. Intentionally or unintentionally, murder is murder, and hopefully the BJP realises that they are backing a wrong cause. Delhiites are also busy speculating about Madan Lal Khurana’s comeback to the BJP in the coming municipal elections in the capital. He sure does not take long to make up his mind. Khurana is credited with reviving the BJP in the capital. He has a reputation of a foot soldier which has earned him the title of “Dilli Ka Sher”. Squatters’ bash Over 300 VIP bungalows in Lutyens’ Delhi are illegally occupied. Some netas of ours also rent out their government bungalows. VIPs refusing to vacate government bungalows in the Lutyens’ zone even after repeated notices and court orders is old news. A BJP general secretary recently spent Rs 10 lakh on his birthday bash in illegal premises and all leaders turned up. It is also a known practice in Delhi for MP’s to misuse their official residence by renting it out on monthly basis and by letting out their huge lawns for weddings and other bashes. |
No charter of freedom will be worth looking at which does not ensure the same measure of freedom for the minorities as for the majority. — Mahatma Gandhi There is no one except him, the One Lord, to go to for refuge and sustenance. — Guru Nanak Prajna, all-powerful and all-knowing Dwells in the hearts of all as the ruler. Prajna is the source and end of all. — The Mandukya Upanishads |
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