The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Fuelling growth
Move to slash oil prices welcome

Petroleum Minister Murli Deora has announced the date, November 24, for oil price reduction. Since global oil prices hover around $50 a barrel — much below the all-time high of $147 touched in July — the government has little justification for not slashing prices. The delay is due to the model code of conduct now in force. As Europe and the US are in recession, there is little likelihood of an oil price reversal in the near future. In fact, the downward trend may continue for longer time, leading to a sharper price cut by December-end than is thought of now.

Apart from yielding political mileage to the ruling parties, relief on oil will help the government bring down prices further. Inflation is declining but is still unacceptably high. Once it moves in the RBI comfort zone, the apex bank may cut key rates, resulting in lower interest rates. Cheaper fuel and credit will provide the much-needed comfort to consumers as well as the industry, currently caught in the vicious financial turmoil. Oil lubricates the economy and price reduction will boost growth by lowering costs. Easier loans will push up demand for houses and consumer goods.

The oil price cut, however, may unsettle the financial health of the government oil marketing companies. The oil subsidy bill stands at Rs 110,000 crore in the current fiscal. The government is having second thoughts on issuing fresh bonds to the oil companies. This along with an oil price cut can spell trouble for them. The three marketing companies have started making profits on petrol and diesel only this month but still lose Rs 22.40 on a litre of kerosene and Rs 343.49 on each LPG cylinder. The net loss is Rs 80 crore a day. The government is under pressure to release funds for infrastructure projects to meet the challenge of slowdown. That is urgent. However, it cannot let the oil companies bleed.

Targeting newsmen
Pitfalls of reporting in North-East

Life has never been easy for journalists in the conflict-ridden North-East. But now, there is no guarantee of life at all, with two journalists having been murdered in Manipur and Assam only a few days apart. Konsam Rishikanta, a junior sub-editor of The Imphal Free Press, an English newspaper of Imphal, was abducted and taken to a deserted hillock after being blindfolded and then shot dead on November 17. Then on November 22, unidentified gunmen shot dead Jagajit Saikia, the Kokrajhar district correspondent of a leading Assamese daily Amar Asom. The murder has agitated the entire North-East because the journalistic community has openly expressed its suspicion that it is the handiwork of some security personnel. The spot where Rishikanta’s body was found was in a highly secured area with personnel of the state forces manning all three entry points. There was no possibility of any outsider being able to commit the crime and escape. Ironically, there has been no response from the state government in spite of the fact that all newspapers had stopped publication in protest.

The journalists are caught in a pincer attack. On the one hand, the militants want that their mostly anti-nationalist propaganda must be published verbatim on the front page of various publications. On the other hand, the security personnel, instead of providing security to the journalists, themselves target uncooperative journalists at times. So, free and fair journalism has become very difficult in the region.

This is not the first time that journalists have had to lay down their lives in the line of duty. In fact, 16 journalists have been killed in Assam since 1991 while six have been shot dead in Manipur. Then there are hundreds of others who have survived attempts on their lives. That is an unacceptable situation, particularly because the government tends to be as ruthless as the lawless militants. Manipur is the first state where two journalists have been detained under the National Security Act. Thousands have been endlessly harassed. Naorem Birendrakumar, Editor of the Paojel, a vernacular newspaper, was arrested for publishing a one-paragraph report on the rise in rice price! It is time the Centre—which has a major responsibility to discharge in the North-East—takes note of what is happening to the journalists in the region.

Thought for the Day

Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind. — W.H. Auden

ARTICLE

Obama looks at Kashmir
Solution lies in softening the LoC
by G. Parthasarathy

The international community is evolving a strategy to prevent Pakistan from collapsing economically. With its foreign exchange reserves rapidly declining to a level which would enable it to meet its needs only for six weeks of imports, Pakistan was facing a situation of defaulting on a sovereign debt, when a $500 million Euro Bond matures in February 2009.

In order to ensure that Pakistan did not get assistance without undertaking drastic macro-economic reforms, the United States put together a new consortium, including China and Saudi Arabia and named “Friends of Pakistan”, to bail out Pakistan. Finding that even Saudi Arabia and China were unwilling to bail it out unilaterally, Pakistan has been forced to accept a 23-month standby arrangement with the IMF for $ 7.6 billion, under which it will have to significantly reduce defence expenditure and subsidies.

Worse still, the Pakistan Army is fighting a grim battle with Afghan and the Pakistani Taliban, in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, with virtually the entire NWFP now Talibanized. Key urban centres in Punjab like Bahawlpur are now controlled by gun-toting jihadis of Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Maulana Masood Azhar. In Lahore, a restaurant frequented by coed students is reduced to rubble, with neighboring shopkeepers cheering, while the Lashkar-e-Taiyaba’s leader calls Jews, Christians and Hindus as “enemies of Islam”.

The capital Islamabad has been transformed into a fortress, with diplomats evacuating their families and IMF officials demanding crucial talks in Dubai, rather than in Islamabad. In Afghanistan, the Karzai regime is under siege, with substantial areas in Afghanistan, south of Kabul, under the control of the Taliban, whose political leader Mullah Omar and military commander Jalaluddin Haqqani function with ISI protection from Pakistani soil.

Amidst this chaos in Pakistan, the world is told by Pakistani writer Ahmed Rashid, now a key adviser to US military commander General David Petraeus, that the United States must “redefine” its goals and avoid targeting “local groups” like the Lashkar-e-Taiyaba, and focus only on Al-Qaeda. Rashid proposes direct UN Security Council intervention through a “Contact Group” comprising the permanent members and Saudi Arabia to find a solution to the “Kashmir dispute.”

While Rashid wants the “Contact Group” to define India’s role in Afghanistan, a perceptive Indian diplomat recently noted: “The Pakistani argument is not about “strategic depth” in Afghanistan, rather than that as a prominent Islamic state, it has the right to call the shots in Afghanistan, by determining its internal and external alignments”. Given the past and current anti-Indian role of the Taliban, New Delhi can hardly countenance such Pakistani ambitions. Rashid’s policy prescriptions, moreover, appear part of a well-crafted diplomatic drive to deflect attention from Pakistan’s own failings by diverting attention to its “disputes” with India and Afghanistan. Pakistan’s former Ambassador to the UN Munir Akram and other Pakistani academics are echoing Rashid’s views in the US.

US President-elect Barack Obama recently averred: “We also have to help make the case that the biggest threat to Pakistan right now is not India, which has been their historical enemy; it is actually from within their borders”. While these views are unexceptionable, what has raised eyebrows in India was his assertion: “We should probably try to facilitate a better understanding between Pakistan and India and try and resolve the Kashmir crisis, so that they (Pakistan) can stay focused not on India, but on the situation with those militants”.

No government in Delhi will countenance an intrusive foreign role on an issue affecting its secular and pluralistic nationhood. Prime Minister Vajpayee declined an invitation from President Clinton to visit Washington to meet Mr Nawaz Sharif, during the Kargil conflict. It would, however, be naïve to treat these developments as not being interconnected as there are other recent instances of influential Think Tanks affiliated to the Democratic Party articulating such views. At the same time, however, there is also said to be recognition, even among Mr Obama’s advisers, that the best the US can do is encourage the dialogue process between India and Pakistan, rather than being overly intrusive.

New Delhi should respond coolly and diplomatically to these developments. Relations with the US have now expanded sufficiently for any American administration to realise their importance to US strategic interests. In his letter of September 23 to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr Obama noted: “Our common strategic interests call for redoubling US-Indian military, intelligence and law enforcement cooperation”, while calling for a “new partnership” with India. The American corporate sector is all too aware of the immense potential for the sale of nuclear reactors, F-16 aircraft and other defence equipment to India and for cooperation in areas like space and energy.

The point that needs to be made by New Delhi is that since the November 2003 ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir, tensions along Pakistan’s borders with India are virtually non-existent. Moreover, CBMs, including on military exercises along the common borders, are in place. New Delhi can even offer a reduction of troops along the LoC and international border if Pakistan disarms and effectively bans the Lashkar-e-Taiyaba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed and disbands the ISI-backed United Jihad Council in Muzaffarabad. It is disingenuous of General Kiyani and Ahmed Rashid to conjure up mythical Indian threats to Pakistan’s security as an excuse, to avoid eliminating their Taliban and other jihadi protégés.

Pakistan’s former Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri acknowledged that substantial progress had been made in addressing the Kashmir issue during “back channel” talks between India and Pakistan. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh owes it to Parliament and the people of India to disclose what transpired during these talks, based on his proposal that while borders cannot be changed, they can be made “irrelevant”.

While President Zardari appears ready to move forward on these proposals, he evidently lacks the clout to do so in the face of opposition from the hardline military establishment and his foreign office mandarins. Thus, the Americans would be well advised to follow the approach of the European Parliament which has broadly supported resolving the Kashmir issue by “softening” the LoC, promoting cross-LoC cooperation and harmonising the level of autonomy/self-governance on both sides of the LoC, rather than being intrusive on such a sensitive issue.

Moreover, New Delhi should make it clear that the Pakistan-Afghanistan dispute over the Durand Line should be resolved through bilateral discussions, which take into account Pakhtoon aspirations. Even Pakistan’s Taliban allies have refused to recognise the Durand Line as the international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. For too long has India remained silent on this issue.

MIDDLE

Full of Himmat
by A.J. Philip

SIX years ago when I reached Chandigarh, Himmat Singh Gill was my only acquaintance in City Beautiful. He had a sharp nose for news and landed at my house the next morning. He had brought a large packet of sandwiches, a flask of tea and a bottle of Old Monk.

I was really touched by his gesture, though I was not sure whether the sandwiches were to be washed down with tea or rum. He was in a tearing hurry as he had to go to the PGI with food for his son, who was admitted there.

I told him that my kitchen was already running, thanks to a gas cylinder, stove and saucepan the thoughtful and civil then General Manager of The Tribune had sent across.

My acquaintance with Gill began when I was in charge of the editorial page of the Indian Express. He used to send more articles than I could ever accommodate, forcing me to return them. Every article I rejected, I noticed, would appear in The Tribune. Not only that, he would send me clippings of those articles to my eternal annoyance.

He said The Tribune was like his mother and the Indian Express his wife. “While my mother tolerates all my non-sense, my wife is very strict.”

Once I asked him why he did not revise his articles before they were shot off. “Mr Philip, I am a soldier. When I go to war, I don’t bother whether my shoe is polished or not. For me writing is like soldiering.” In other words, he wanted me to polish his shoes!

A few weeks after my arrival, he gave me a letter protesting against an IAF hoarding that showed a smiling Sikh pilot with a helmet in his hand and hair tied into a knot. “This is not how a Sikh should be depicted,” he said as I noticed his own trimmed beard. I cut the letter and published it. This time, he shocked me by getting the edited-out portions published in the Indian Express.

Again, he shocked me with a call one morning. We had carried an article about Guru Nanak’s visit to Iraq in the context of reports that the Baghdad gurdwara had been damaged. “It contains objectionable references and we Sikhs will not tolerate it.”

Since the paper had not yet reached me at the guesthouse in Bathinda, I called my colleague Roopinder Singh to check, if necessary, with his father Giani Gurdit Singh whether anything was religiously objectionable. I heaved a sigh of relief only when he called me later to say that the article was as harmless as Jesus.

For all his peccadilloes, he was an amiable person who could be depended upon. I sprang a surprise on him when he came to wish me on Christmas. The Old Monk he had gifted me had gone into the plum cake my wife had baked. “We army men do not eat rum, we drink it.”

Once in a while he would come to office, either to pick up a book for review or submit an article. Every time we met, he reminded me of his standing invitation for dinner. Finally, a few months ago, he asked me to come to the Golf Club for dinner. And that was an order!

Gill turned up at my office last week to ask me about my visit to Siachen. “Let’s meet more often,” he said as the bell rang for the editorial conference. I had no clue that it was our last meeting as he was as sprightly and agile as always.

OPED

Right to die in a dignified way is required
by Major-Gen (retd) Himmat Singh Gill

Major-Gen (retd) Himmat Singh Gill died on Tuesday. He wrote this article for The Tribune last week.

Two socio-medical issues should continue to plague the mind of a conscientious and caring citizen of this country and cry out for an early national debate. This writer is referring to the right to live as also the right to die on one’s own terms, and more specifically, the issue of organ transplant.

Recently ADC of Tarn Taran Kirpal Singh died because of the lack of a kidney. This is about euthanasia, or “good death” as the Greeks termed it, and permitted in some countries where one, afflicted with an incurable disease and with the patient’s approval, can have the artificial life support systems done away with to let one go more comfortably and with some dignity.

The alternative in such cases is, of course, living on indefinitely on life support like a vegetable with terrible pain and untold consequences for both the patient and his or her kin.

In India as per the law organ donation is allowed by the patient’s children, parents, brother, sister or spouse without any government clearance with the necessary paper formalities and checks for authenticity in place.

All other relatives who wish to donate an organ have to appear before an authorisation committee for approval. An unrelated donor is required to file an affidavit in court stating that he is giving away his body part “out of affection” or words to that effect.

Any exchange of money between the donor and the recipient makes both offenders, and before the operation, the donor has to file documents and be medically tested so that a healthy organ is made available for transplant.

No foreigner is permitted to avail of a local donor’s organ and the Gurgaon transplant scandal is but recent history. The aim is to stop illegal trafficking of human organs and get hold of syndicates that harvest organs.

However, while all the essential legality and paperwork is set in motion a critically ill patient may have to endure painful dialysis three or four times a week at a considerable cost and pain awaiting a donor to come and gift away his kidney to a complete stranger.

In the dispensation legally acceptable relatives permitted to donate might often not agree to do so, or their organs might not be healthy or fit for transplant. And all this while the patient and his well-wishers, let’s face it, go about secretly looking for someone wishing to sell a body part.

It has to be said that authorisation committees round the country, while right about following the law and not permitting a transplant where they feel that money has exchanged hands, do hardly take into account a patient’s point of view and all the suffering that he goes through while his relations have second thoughts about such donations.

In cases like these is then a case for considering suitable amendments to the law. We can have state-run hospitals where donors who wish to sell for a payment are permitted to do so legally.

Do we even have a justification, one might ask, to question as to why a person wishes to sell away a body part if he is compelled to do so for any reason he deems fit?

After all, we have blood donors who get paid. So why not have “kidney hospitals” dedicated to the removal, storage and transplant of the organ under a safe medically monitored environment? A serious debate on legalising paid organ donation by non-relatives in our country is, to my mind, a pressing need.

Once the law is changed by common consent, there would be a reduction of illegal trading, the price paid would also be less and the system would be well regulated with lesser manipulation and corruption.

Euthanasia is legal in many countries like the Netherlands, Switzerland, certain states in the US and Thailand. Some can call it assisted suicide where a physician may administer medication aware that it would shorten the patient’s life.

Needless to say that under these circumstances the performing physician is covered by way of litigation at a later date by any party.

A case was reported abroad where the doctor had requested permission of a court to withdraw artificial nutrition thereby starving the body of fluids and food.

One view has always been that it is only the Almighty who will terminate life, man is no one to take such a decision, and mostly all religious groups go along with this line of thought.

Be that as it may, what would a non-believer or atheist have to say in the matter? In any case if a terminally afflicted patient wishes to live only when he can be assured some dignity and not be carried about on life support systems, why should the state have any objections to it?

Yes, admittedly, there could be a misuse of this sanction by interested parties for an early exit, but surely foolproof checks can always be instituted for this eventuality.

On the issue of living and dying honourably, do we not need a serious national debate? Or should we sit complacently by pretending that all is well and our patient is resting away peacefully? A doctor’s oath commits him to ease a patient’s pain, but he can only do so when the law covers him against libel.

Tribal chiefs offered ‘bribes’ to fight Taliban
by Jerome Starkey in Kabul

Britain plans to pay tribal elders in Helmand province monthly cash “bribes” as part of a controversial “Afghan Awakening” scheme to raise the tribes against the Taliban.

British officials in Kabul are bankrolling an Afghan initiative to pay community leaders monthly wages to get them talking to the government.

News of Britain’s involvement came as the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, met President Hamid Karzai during a surprise visit to Kabul yesterday. He then flew to Helmand to meet some of the community leaders likely to be involved.

Parallels have been drawn with the Iraqi “Awakening Councils”, overseen by General David Petraeus, now the head of US central command, which helped unite Sunni tribesmen against al-Qa’ida insurgents in Iraq.

Similar tribal militias in Pakistan have also begun to mobilise against the Taliban and its al-Qa’ida backers. But the problems in Afghanistan are complex because the Taliban, and other extremist groups, are often from the same tribes as the people the Afghan Social Outreach Programme (Asop) scheme hopes to reach.

The new strategy comes amid growing violence across Afghanistan and a steady trickle of British casualties in Helmand. Afghan officials have accused Britain of “losing the support of the people”. The Asop is seen as the first step towards winning back influential tribal elders, on a district level, who might one day command irregular forces against the Taliban insurgents.

The elders will be handpicked by Helmand’s governor, Gulab Mangal, and they are expected to earn about £800 a year for attending up to two meetings, or shuras, a month. But critics fear the payments, which are about 30 per cent more than civil servants earn, are President Karzai’s way of bribing tribal elders to deliver votes ahead of elections next year.

A senior Western policy analyst in Kabul said: “It’s anti-democratic. If this is perceived as more political patronage, or bribery, it runs the risk of generating friction and resentment.” US officials are financing a similar initiative in the east, where their troops are based.

It comes ahead of a major strategy review by General Petraeus which is expected to advocate closer engagement with Afghanistan’s myriad tribal communities when Barack Obama takes office next year. Mr Obama said before the election that the “Awakening” scheme should be explored in Afghanistan following the success of the Sunni Awakening in Iraq which “changed the dynamic fundamentally”.

Western backers insist the cash payments are just a way of harnessing informal government structures, so people in the provinces can air their grievances to the governor. Afghan officials insist it is the beginning of a much more ambitious plan to connect with fighting-age men who give their loyalty to village, family and tribal elders before any allegiance to Kabul.

Britain would increase its support for “community defence initiatives, where local volunteers are recruited to defend homes and families”, last year. But the plans were put on hold because of a lack of American support. The programme will be piloted in two districts in Helmand in the coming weeks, and it is expected to be rolled-out across the province next year.

But charities fear it could legitimise militias and store up problems for the future after years of international efforts to disarm irregular forces. Matt Waldman, Oxfam’s head of policy in Afghanistan, said: “Given the fragile security situation, Asop is a high-risk strategy which, if mishandled, has the potential to make matters worse.”

Afghan officials insist it is a means of extending the writ of Kabul’s fragile government. “By supporting tribal structures you are actually supporting the traditional structures of governance. You are empowering the individuals who have led the people for centuries,” Mr Hamidzada added.

A spokesman for the British embassy in Kabul said Asop would “establish community councils in Helmand and build trust between communities and government”.

The tribes in Helmand have been heavily fractured by decades of fighting, and the balance of power is now inextricably linked to the multibillion- dollar drugs trade. Tribal experts insist it will be harder to identify elders who can deliver security there than in the east, where the Americans are working. The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force is working with Afghan security chiefs to agree how the tribal forces might be controlled.

— By arrangement with The Independent

All so cheap in Shanghai
by Alana Semuels

You surely will need good eyesight to find Shanghai’s underground eyeglasses market.

It’s near the city’s main train station, where masses of people wait in long lines and carry bundles so large you wonder whether they’re catching the last train off Earth before destruction comes.

Visit this area on a weekend or holiday and you’ll think all of China has come to this square to jostle you and cram the narrow sidewalks and eat at the KFC across the street. The crowds are so bad that police have resorted to holding ropes across crosswalks when the light turns red so that jaywalkers don’t stop traffic.

It’s a shame the market’s so hard to find, because it’s a Four Eyes’ dream. Dozens of independent shops line the underground hallways near the No. 3 exit of Shanghai’s 3 and 4 subway lines. They sell plastic, metal and rimless frames of all shapes and sizes, and offer an array of machines that will measure your eyesight and tell you just how blind you are.

Best of all, a pair of prescription glasses will set you back for less than $20, depending on your bargaining skills and your style sense.

There are lots of things for sale on the streets of Shanghai that we don’t normally see: live ducks, police sirens, books of Mao quotations. But inexpensive eyeglasses are the one thing I saw that I fervently wish we had in America.

It might seem risky to trust eyewear from a country that also brought us melamine in milk, poisoned pet food and lead jewelry for little girls, especially when the prices are so low. But most of the stores in the market show you how they make eyeglasses, every step of the way.

From the outside, a banner above an alley reads, “Shanghai Sanye Wholesale Market of Eyeglasses.” Go down a twisting stairway, and the small eyeglass stores are lined neatly in rows. It seemed quintessentially Shanghai: hip and fashion conscious but hidden underneath a chaotic, crowded place.

Store owners called out to me, offering designer names, so I decided to go into the first shop that ignored me, Li Da Glasses.

I described what I wanted: a pair of brown, plastic frames, and the clerk, Wen-Wen, started opening drawers, pulling out models from behind walls and under cabinets I hadn’t even seen. She had Coach, Gucci, Burberry, Ray-Ban and even Playboy (although it might not be a great idea to buy frames from a brand that also makes shot glasses).

I picked out a pair, and the bidding began. Wen-Wen said it would cost 180 yuan, which is about $27. I told her I knew a friend who had gotten them for 90. She offered 150. I went up to 100. We settled on 120, or about $17.

Next, a machine tested my prescription; all I had to do was peer into it. It was the same prescription I had paid $80 for at an eye doctor’s office.

To make sure the prescription was right, an employee named Zhong had me put on test glasses and read from a chart.

“Very good! Good! Beautiful!” he exclaimed as I got them right.

I watched as an employee made the lenses in another corner of the store popped them into the frames and put them on me. I saw as clearly as I had since I had first arrived in.

— By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post