EDITORIALS

Judges on the scanner
CJI opts for open-court hearing, rightly

Chief Justice of India Justice K.G. Balakrishnan’s decision to hear in an open court on July 17 the petition on the alleged involvement of 26 judges — including a Supreme Court judge — in the Rs 23-crore Ghaziabad scam deserves to be lauded. Having agreed to hold an open hearing, the CJI has sought to prove that in a democracy, the judges are not above the law and that the people have every right to know about the conduct of the judges, like all other functionaries. Moreover, Justice Balakrishnan has reportedly told the counsel that he does not want to create an impression that the apex court was against an open-court hearing because of the petition against the alleged involvement of some judges in the scandal. According to the PIL, 26 judges — who include a Supreme Court judge, seven High Court judges, six retired High Court judges, 10 serving district judges and two retired district judges — are allegedly involved in the scam. Provident Fund contributions of Class IV employees to the tune of Rs 23 crore have been allegedly misappropriated with the “connivance” of officials and judges. The scandal, if true, is of enormous proportions and sweep.

The people hold the judges, particularly of the High Courts and the Supreme Court, in high esteem. As the Ghaziabad scam bears huge ramifications on the image and prestige of the judiciary, the ends of justice will be met only if there is a comprehensive, transparent and full-fledged inquiry. If the judges are found guilty, exemplary action should be taken against them to protect the sacred portals of the judiciary from unhealthy influence. At the same time, if the charges are proved wrong, the petitioners should be given the severest punishment for bringing the judiciary into disrepute.

The open court is expected to decide the mode of investigation into the scam. The Ghaziabad Bar Association had appealed to the Allahabad High Court to transfer the probe from the UP Police to the CBI. However, when the court declined to intervene, the Bar Association approached the apex court. All eyes are on the open-court hearing which will instil a lot of confidence in the public in the apex court’s keenness to inquire into the allegations against a sizeable chunk of the judiciary. As the issue involves the fair image of the judiciary, every effort should be made to ensure that the investigations are transparent and completed speedily.

A strike against Iran?
Talks remain the best option

The lingering crisis over the Iranian nuclear programme appears to be taking a turn for the worse. There are unconfirmed reports that the Bush administration has given a go-ahead to Israel for militarily destroying Iran’s nuclear installations whenever it feels diplomatic efforts are not fruitful. If true, the US has made up its mind to find a military answer to the Iranian nuclear question despite top military generals not endorsing the plan because of the serious risks involved in the venture. Such a course of action will not only lead to disastrous consequences, but will also constitute “unacceptable international behaviour”, as India has pointed out with some concern. With little hope of the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq getting normalised in the near future, opening another front in the volatile region will indeed be a dangerous idea. Peace and progress will suffer a major jolt.

Why should Israel be allowed to indulge in what is not permissible by international law or not in the interest of world peace? Iran will obviously not take it lying down. Only last week it tested a series of medium-range ballistic missiles which, it claimed, were capable of striking deep inside Israel in retaliation. Even if Iran is finally tamed with US-backed Israel’s military might, this will be a remedy worse than the disease. An Isreali strike against Iran will aggravate the situation in West Asia and cause more terrorism.

It is difficult to understand why the US favours a course involving military strikes against Iran when the world has succeeded in untying the North Korean nuclear knot by diplomacy. When dialogue can lead to a happy ending in North Korea, why can it not bring about similar results in the case of Iran? Nothing should be left undone so long as there is scope for finding a solution by peaceful means. If Iran cannot be permitted to realise its nuclear ambitions, the idea of a military solution must be abandoned with a view to preventing the region from sliding into chaos.

Asif caught and bowled
Keep cricket free of drugs

Pakistani cricketer Mohammed Asif has tested positive for drug use – again – underscoring how talent and front-line career opportunities are not enough to keep sportsmen away from the menace. The tragedy is that the young pacer has had the chances to get over temptation and focus on his cricket, but he has frittered these away. He suffered a one-year ban when he tested positive for drug use during the the Champions Trophy in 2006. Even the Pakistan Cricket Board, which stood by him on earlier occasions, is now fed up with him, declaring, “he is on his own.”

Asif will no doubt seek reconfirmation with the testing of the so-called ‘B’ sample. But assuming that the agencies hired by the BCCI have done their job correctly, there is unlikely to be any relief for the pace bowler. Asif was tested after the semi-final of the Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 tournament. The IPL is a tournament run by the BCCI, but the Indian board had wisely decided to follow all ICC-mandated procedures, thus adding to the stature and legitimacy of the tournament. This was underscored by the strict action taken against spinner Harbhajan Singh, playing for the Mumbai Indians, after he slapped S. Sreesanth.

The BCCI and the IPL leadership should thus be expected to continue in the same vein. A life ban on the player may well become inevitable. The cricketer had even got into trouble in Dubai for carrying banned stuff. Drugs and betting, after all, are the two evils that can completely destroy any sport and player. A hectic, well-followed and incredibly lucrative edition of a sport like the IPL will be particularly vulnerable, with players willing to cut corners not just for national or team pride, but for monetary gain also. Punitive measures for violations must be decisive and swift, with no room for misplaced mercy.

Thought for the day

It was beautiful and simple as all truly great swindles are. — O Henry

ARTICLE

Envisioning the Northeast
Break the stranglehold of poverty, isolation
by B.G. Verghese

IT has happened before, so there are many who may scoff. Yet the Northeast Vision 2020, prepared with huge effort with technical, popular and political inputs, just released by the Prime Minister in the presence of all the NE Chief Ministers and Governors and many hundreds of NE students should not be dismissed as another glitzy “road show” going nowhere. It hopefully represents a new collective will to bring this long sequestered region developmentally on a par with the rest of the country by the end of 13th Plan by breaking the stranglehold of poverty and isolation.

If the country is able to maintain its current growth rate of 9 per cent per annum, the NE will have to grow by around 13 per cent to catch up with the rest. This will obviously be a most formidable, though not impossible, challenge. The provision of basic minimum services through participative planning and development must provide the bedrock coupled with infrastructure development, especially connectivity, human capacity building and opening up to its external neighbourhood so that the region becomes a vibrant land bridge to the heartland of Inner and Southwest Asia and the Ocean to the south and no more a forlorn outpost as an insular outlier of India.

The NE is highly plural and politically fragmented but can be bought together through a revivified North-Eastern Council that should ideally be the designated regional planning authority with delegated control over the Union Ministries’ non-lapsable fund and other Plan allocations for the region. The MEA’s new “regional branch office” (in Guwahati) should be replicated by the Union Commerce Ministry, both these operating through the NEC so that the NE Plan and Look East planning and programme implementation are suitably integrated and orchestrated within a unified security and geo-strategic framework.

It is sometimes said that the NE states lack sufficient parliamentary clout and have little opportunity for mutual political consultation. These handicaps can be overcome to advantage were the states and autonomous regions of the NE to nominate members to what could initially be a consultative council that would help build a common regional identity.

Even with sound plans, implementation could falter on a weak administrative structure and grassroots delivery system. Participative planning and entrustment to panchayati raj and indigenous local and community bodies would obviously impart responsiveness and accountability. But it would be desirable to reconstruct relevant parts of the administrative structure to restore a single-window, field-oriented cadre on the lines of the former Indian Frontier Administrative Service that was somewhat hastily disbanded around 1970.

Infrastructure development is being prioritised. But there has to be concurrent thinking and planning for its utilisation. There has been gross failure on this front in the past with sequential and uncoordinated thinking with the result that the Moreh-Tamu-Kalewa road leading to Mandalay and the Guwahati international airport have remained white elephants, with the former becoming a super-highway for licensed smuggling from the very countries about which it has been official policy to cry “wolf” for fear of dumping or security threats. This must not be repeated. So, if the Kaladan corridor, a good initiative to secure an ocean outlet, is to be not merely built but beneficially operationalised without delay, a number of players must be involved here and now and forward an backward linkages put in place.

Some critics are ideologically opposed to large dams or uranium mining without an impartial examination of the facts and considering whether or not adequate safeguards are available and can be put in place or looking at overall social and economic cost-benefit ratios. Even so, 7000 MW of hydro-power projects are sanctioned or under construction (Dibang, Lower Subansiri, Tipaimukh, Kameng) but none appears to have given thought to how this may be optimally utilised. Merely appropriating the host-state’s 13 per cent free power entitlement ignores the fact that feeding the balance to the national grid would entail exporting Northeast jobs, incomes and capacity-building dividends.

One answer would be simultaneously to create NE special economic zones on disputed flat lands bordering Assam and Arunachal/Meghalaya/Mizoram and elsewhere, with Central participation, to marshal construction capability to build these projects in the first instance and subsequently to attract investments to develop processing and energy intensive industries based on cheap power, water availability and good communications (including improved water transport facilitated by regulating stream flows behind multipurpose dams). Locals, including those displaced or otherwise affected, could be made stakeholders and provided training to fill the jobs and exploit the opportunities created on a preferential basis.

This would also answer the question as to what the NE could export to its international neighbours so that it is not reduced to a transit route or emporium for unprocessed raw materials. A Look East policy would also gain impetus from bilateral growth poles or growth triangles across borders, which proved successful in Southeast and East Asia by creating critical building blocks for larger regional cooperation. This would build confidence, compel trade facilitation and solve the last mile problem by forging the little links that makes things happen.

Much else can be said. But if well begun, the job is half done.

MIDDLE

Maternal ward
by A.J. Philip

LET me begin with a disclaimer. My attempt is not to establish the paternity of a success, in line with the saying that success has many parents while failure has none.

A few years ago, a lady colleague unfolded to me her agony over her only son. By her own admission, he was a brilliant student. He was studying at a prestigious institution. What worried her was that he was going “astray”.

“He is no longer interested in studies. He spends most of the time with his friends. He comes home late and gets irritated when I remind him of studies. At this rate, I doubt whether he would pass, let alone get good marks”. The mother went on and on.

With most parents describing their sons and daughters as Albert Einsteins and Kalpana Chawlas in the making even when they are unable to add and subtract properly, this mother’s was a litany of a different kind. Of course, I could empathise with her as I myself had caused a lot more worries to my parents.

In comparison, my colleague was luckier to have a more disciplined ward. But she was not prepared to understand. Her world revolved around him and she had high hopes from him.

I had no clue why she was confiding in me until she dropped the bombshell: “You must call him and advise him to be more studious. I know he will listen to you.” I do not know why she was confident that I could do the job.

I knew advices “enter through one ear and leave through the other” without leaving any trace of it. Besides, he was a total stranger to me.

I also had my doubts. Would he come if I called him? Why should an educated young man come all the way to my office to listen to “sane advice”? With no alternative, I told her to send him to me. I was sure he would not come.

But to my surprise, a tall, handsome, young man turned up at my office the next day. “Mom told me that you wanted to meet me”, he introduced himself.

How could I tell him that I wanted to advise him? Instead, I told him that I wanted to meet him because his mother had praised him to the skies. “All mothers praise their children,” he interjected.

I found it easy to draw him into a conversation. I asked him about his ambition, his friends, his daily routine and he answered all the queries to my full satisfaction. I still did not know how to broach the subject.

I told him how dear he was to his parents and how much they expected from him. He was blessed with brilliance and he must not squander away his blessings. Now his singular objective should be to study well and earn good marks. I told him that I wanted to hear about his successes rather than failures.

As he left, I wondered why his mother was worried about him. I found him obedient, well-mannered, disciplined and focused. I was sure he would do well in life. As regards my colleague, I concluded that her fears were totally unfounded and she suffered from an anxiety syndrome.

I kept monitoring his progress. The last I heard was that he has taken admission in one of the most prestigious Indian Institutes of Management. When his father gave me this good news, I remembered the young man, who was tricked into meeting me by his mother.

OPED

The Putin politburo
What price “stability” in Russia?
by Leon Aron

Vladimir Putin’s appointment this spring as prime minister of the symbolic “union” of Russia and Belarus was yet another example of the troubling similarities between today’s Russia and the other most stable and prosperous Russian regime of the past 80 years: Leonid Brezhnev’s Soviet Union in the 1970s.

That economy, too, was fueled by then-record oil prices. And while there are clear differences between the two Russias, if these tendencies go unchecked, the increasingly authoritarian and economically statist country may soon face crises of the kind that became apparent under Brezhnev and contributed to the Soviet Union’s demise.

The most disturbing of these propensities include:

The national alcoholic binge: In the 1970s, Soviets annually consumed eight liters of strong (40 to 80 percent proof) alcoholic beverages per person -- more than any other country. Between 1964 and 1980, male life expectancy fell from 67 to 62.

Today, per capita consumption of vodka, which is four times cheaper in relation to the average salary than 30 years ago, has grown to 10 liters, according to official statistics (outside experts say it is higher).

By contrast, the most recent data available from the World Health Organisation show the corresponding U.S. figure is 2.57 liters. One in 10 Russian men is thought to be an alcoholic. Life expectancy for Russian men is less than 60.6 years, more than 15 years shorter than in the United States and European Union and below current levels in Pakistan or Bangladesh.

Oil-for-food: This spring, Putin admitted that 70 per cent of the food consumed in Russia’s largest cities is imported, a situation he decried as “intolerable.” This problem, too, first surfaced in the 1970s, when grain imports were so high that by the end of the decade they supplied the flour for every third loaf of bread.

When oil prices collapsed, Russia was forced to spend gold reserves and seek loans – and eventually found itself without grain or gold. After agricultural land was denationalized in the early 1990s, food became available almost immediately – for the first time in almost 70 years it could be had without hours-long lines and rationing coupons. Russia started to export grain. Yet agricultural land was never legally privatized, and rules for long-term leasing have been left to local authorities.

Not surprisingly, such legal gray areas have given rise to corruption, increased production costs and hampered innovation. Provincial governors, who are no longer elected and answer only to the president, pressure successful entrepreneurs and farmers to “share” with local authorities.

A leading industrialist told me that at least six local agencies conduct almost weekly “inspections” of his potato farm. State agriculture subsidies often go to the largest and best politically connected enterprises, not necessarily the most productive ones.

The ruble’s steady appreciation because of huge petro-dollar inflows further depresses the domestic food industry. Should Russia allow the ruble to float, at least partially, to help curb inflation, it would become even more expensive, encouraging demand for better-quality and, often cheaper, imported food.

Putin’s remedies have the same flavor as Brezhnev’s: Throw billions in subsidized credits and grants at the problem instead of strengthening property rights and making it easier for independent producers to compete.

One-party rule: With its opposition marginalised and demoralised, and election results rigged, United Russia has emerged as the “ruling party,” the term that used be reserved for the Soviet Communist Party. “Today we are the party responsible for the government,” a top United Russia functionary told a Russian newspaper this year, “since our leader (Putin, the party’s chairman) is the chairman of the government.”

Those who argue, rightly, that United Russia membership is only a ticket for ambitious apparatchiks to punch should remember that there was precious little ideological fervor and much cynicism in the 1970s as well.

Lack of sincerity then did nothing to ameliorate the absence of corrective societal feedback and, with it, the inability to reverse dead-end policies that led to the crisis.

A new oligarchy: Brezhnev drew some of his loudest cheers in his six-hour “reports” to party congresses when he declared “respect for the cadres.” Delivering his presidential valediction this spring, Putin’s longest applause came when he cited “stability” as his crowning achievement.

With virtually every top Putin official and adviser retained, sent to the Security Council or made “presidential envoy” to some part of the country, a new nomenklatura has emerged – insulated from media criticism, spared political competition and effectively immune from criminal prosecution.

As in Soviet times, the members of this political master race are almost never fired, only retired with honors or reassigned. Since the Putin “Politburo” and “Central Committee” are a good 20 years younger than Brezhnev’s, retirement is not an option.

The 1970s made clear what the belief in official infallibility and omnipotence, utter disregard for public opinion, ossification, and pandemic corruption could lead to. Most of all, the experience of Brezhnev’s Russia confirms that authoritarian “stabilisation” is a curious political commodity.

Its benefits are instantly apparent but its price is revealed only gradually – and may be devastatingly high. As he moves forward, President Dmitry Medvedev would do well to remember the lessons from Russia’s other most stable regime.

The writer is director of Russian studies and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author, most recently, of “Russia’s Revolution: Essays 1989-2006.”

By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

Oldest blogger was a “stand-out talent”
by Kathy Marks

Some older people have an aversion to the internet and its myriad forms of communication. Not Olive Riley, who began blogging last year at the age of 107 and posted more than 70 entries before dying in an Australian nursing home last weekend.

Born in 1899 in the outback mining town of Broken Hill, Mrs Riley took up blogging at the suggestion of a friend, jokingly calling it her “blob”. A great-great-grandmother, she acquired an international following, with thousands of people responding to her tales of bringing up three children on her own and surviving two world wars and the Depression.

Mrs Riley, who had spells working as a barmaid in Sydney and a cook on a Queensland cattle station, kept her blog going until two weeks before she died. In her final entry on 26 June, she confided: “I still feel weak, and can’t shake off that bad cough.”

Her friend Mike Rubbo yesterday recalled putting the blog idea to Mrs Riley. “First of all, I had to explain to her what a blog was, and that took some doing,” he said. “Then I got across the idea it was a sort of diary she would share with the world. The reason for its popularity is that she was such a stand-out talent -- just so touching and funny, and such a great story-teller.”

Mrs Riley, who liked a shandy and was a keen follower of the Sydney Swans, an Australian rules football team, also posted clips of herself talking and singing on YouTube. Her great-grandson, Darren Stone, said: “She enjoyed the fame -- it kept her mind fresh. She had people communicating with her from as far away as Russia and America. What kept her going was the memories she had.”

Scores of people from around the world posted tributes and condolences on Mrs Riley’s site yesterday. With her death, the title of world’s oldest blogger passes, it is believed, to 96-year-old Maria Amelia Lopez, a Spaniard.

When Mrs Riley was born, Queen Victoria was still on the throne, and Australia was not yet a nation, just a collection of British colonies. She would have turned 109 this October, but was still singing “a happy song” every day with nursing staff just before she died.

Mrs Riley was the youngest of 12 children. She left Broken Hill in the 1920s, a single mother with three children, and was present at the opening of Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932. She spent her final days in Woy Woy, north of Sydney.

One of her friends, Eric Shackle, said: “She had a wonderful memory and an amazing zest for life. Just two weeks ago, she recalled the words of a song that was popular before the Second World War and sang the chorus with me.”

A typical Riley post

“You 21st-century people live a different life than the one I lived as a youngster in the early 1900s. Take washing day, for instance. These days you just toss your dirty clothes into a washing machine, press a few switches, and it’s done. I remember scratching around to find wood to fire the copper for Mum.”

By arrangement with The Independent

Inside Pakistan
Tough times for coalition
by Syed Nooruzzaman

Will the PPP-led coalition government continue to survive with the PML(N) refusing to join the ministry in Islamabad? All the efforts made by the PPP so far have failed to bear fruit. According to The News, the last time Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani approached Mr Nawaz Sharif to persuade him to allow his party members to join the government was on Sunday but without success.

Mr Sharif expressed confidence that he would get all the differences between his PML(N) and the PPP resolved through talks, but there was no question of becoming a part of the Gilani ministry so long as the judges issue remained unsettled. After all, his popularity rating is the highest among all the leaders in Pakistan mainly because of his stand on this issue.

The PPP has, however, again postponed the filling of the vacancies caused by the withdrawal of the PML(N) ministers from the government. But can it do so forever? As Daily Times asked in an editorial on July 13, “In these circumstances, can the two parties go on supporting each other at the Centre and in Punjab?”

The daily adds: “The PML(N)’s departure from the federal Cabinet has already provided the slippery slope … to slide back into old rivalry…. If it announces its next exit from the coalition, too, the retrogression into old postures could be at the speed of lightning.”

Once confrontation starts between the PPP and the PML(N), the government’s survival will be in jeopardy. President Musharraf will be happiest person in such a situation though Pakistan will slide into chaos of the worst kind.

Will the US really attack?

Pakistan’s coalition government appears to be working overtime to prevent the threatened US military intervention in the militant-infested NWFP, particularly FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas). It is not only PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari who has urged the US to allow Islamabad to handle the situation in its own way. The US is being asked by the media, particularly the newspapers, too, to maintain restraint.

The Nation says “Fears are being expressed that the US casualties in (Afghanistan’s) Kunar province on Sunday might be used as an excuse by those in the Pentagon itching to get involved in FATA. Washington has to understand that it is easier to get into the tribal areas than to come out. Any shortsighted operation would be counterproductive and harm long-term US interests in Pakistan.”

The paper warns, “Most of the tribal area comprises formidable terrain and the population possesses modern weapons. US air-strikes are likely to unleash an army of suicide bombers who would make a beeline for Afghanistan.”

Dawn wants the US to realise that “If Pakistani security forces fail to control the Taliban’s movement (across the Durand Line), what keeps the US, NATO and Afghan forces from stopping them? … Many NATO commanders do not send their boys on night patrol, many insist that they are there on ‘security duty’, and others say their job is to protect development projects and aid personnel. This has worked to the Taliban’s advantage…”

Will the US listen to all this? That remains to be seen. But the emerging reality is that the number of drones entering the NWFP has reportedly increased considerably.

Terrorists vs Pakistan

In an interesting article in The News (July 15), a political economist, Mosharraf Zaidi, gives three main reasons why Pakistan is unable to fight terrorism effectively. He says, “…whereas the terrorists have money, leadership and ideology, Pakistan has none of the above.”

The writer concludes, “Pakistan is losing the war on terror because it is not a war of equals. It is a war between organised, well-financed and motivated cavemen, and a disorganised, broke, and confused state. In short, a state lacking competence. Only a competent and effective state can fight this war successfully.”

Pakistan unfortunately continues to believe that its policy of entering into “peace” deals wherever possible may yield dividends. As part of what it calls the “carrot and stick policy”, the latest agreement that Islamabad has reached is with militant commander Mangal Bagh of Bara in FATA, nearly 12 km from Peshawar. The new deal has the backing of the Afridi sub-tribes.

However, Rahimullah Yusufzai, Executive Editor of The News says, “Though he is bound by the undertaking given by the Afridi tribal elders, it is difficult to believe that the likes of Mangal Bagh could be reined in fully. Besides, there is always the risk that a desperate Mangal Bagh could join hands with the Baitullah Mahsud-led Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and become an even bigger threat to the government.”