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Duplicity won’t do
Real or a blip?
The ways of babus |
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Fighting terrorism
(Im)perfect love story
End of an era
In China anger rises as economy goes down
Chatterati
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Duplicity won’t do
Pakistan
has limitless capacity for making excuses that never stand scrutiny. It blamed “non-state actors” for the November 26 terrorist attack on Mumbai, but now it cannot deny their Pakistani identity. The confessions of Ajmal Ameer Qasab, one of the terrorists caught alive, are enough to expose Pakistan’s involvement in the ghastly crime committed by the elements born, brought up, trained and armed in Pakistan. Contrary to Islamabad’s refusal to accept Qasab’s Pakistani nationality, his father in Pakistani Punjab’s Faridkot village has confirmed that the terrorist in India’s custody is his son. The nine terrorists killed by security forces could also have been identified by their parents in Pakistan had they been alive. They were men of the Lashkar-e-Taiyaba (LeT), which had been functioning under the guise of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD). The Jamaat has been banned by Pakistan after being declared a terrorist organisation by the UN Security Council whereas the LeT was banned when the US included the outfit in its terrorist entities’ list in 2001. Officially, the JuD’s offices are said to have been sealed with its bank accounts frozen. Some of its leaders, too, have been either put under house arrest or taken in police custody. But there is no guarantee that the JuD will really stop functioning. Pakistan is used to taking such steps only for protecting the elements it ought to punish. It is indulging in deceptive tactics to prevent the declaration of Pakistan a terrorist state, as has been admitted by Pakistan Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar. When the so-called crackdown began on the Muridke (near Lahore) headquarters of the JuD, there were few people at the premises. The orders to freeze its accounts were issued after allowing the terrorist outfit enough time to withdraw the enormous funds it had in its coffers. The United Jihad Council, headed by terrorist mastermind Syed Salahuddin, has been allowed to temporarily dissolve itself with its leaders going underground. This is Pakistan’s way of fighting terrorism! Endorsing what India has stated, the US - which, hopefully, understands the situation in Pakistan better than any other country --- has made it clear that Islamabad has to do more than what it is doing to stamp out terrorism. The world, now fully aware that Pakistan has become the base for terrorism, will be watching.
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Real or a blip? FOR the first time in 15 years, India’s industrial production has turned negative. This is the first industrial contraction since the Index of Industrial Production was launched and has naturally worried the Manmohan Singh government, already grappling with the issue of slowdown. This has deepened the economic gloom caused by a liquidity crunch and the recession in the developed world, which has now seen a fresh bout of trouble after the US Senate slayed the automobile bailout package, earlier passed by the House of Representatives. The decline in industrial output, particularly in the manufacturing and infrastructure sectors, also indicates the extent of the problem in India. However, the 0.4 per cent dip reported in the IIP numbers for October, 2008, is considered as more an aberration than a normal pattern by a section of the analysts. They include Dr Pranab Sen, Chief Statistician of India, who believes that the latest IIP dip is because of a high base in October last year when industrial production had grown by a massive 12.2 per cent. He feels the IIP behaviour will return to normal from next month. What lends weight to this view is the way the stock market snubbed this negative information on Friday as the BSE Sensex went up despite a negative trend in other parts of the world. This does not mean woes on the economic front are not serious enough. The employment outlook for the last quarter presented by Manpower India is down by 24 per cent. Global rating agency Moody’s has attributed the poor industrial show to the “liquidity squeezing policy” of the RBI, which went overboard in its bid to rein in the price rise. The slowdown has propelled industry organisations to ask the government for another stimulus package, particularly for the automobile, real estate, steel, cement, textile and leather sectors. There are reports that the government is cobbling together another bailout.
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The ways of babus IT may be welcome relief for badminton ace Saina Nehiwal that she could get her passport on a Saturday afternoon, but it is no less a shame that she was made to run around for it for three days. But for the media reports and the intervention of the Chief Passport Officer in New Delhi, Mr R Swaminathan, there was strong likelihood of Saina not making it to the BWF’s Super Series Masters Final in Kinabalu (Malaysia) beginning on December 18. The country, and badminton fans the world over, may be eager to see Saina play in the Super Series Masters Final, but the Regional Passport Office (RPO) in Hyderabad couldn’t have cared less. Saina, on cloud nine last week after becoming one of the world’s top 10 players, was rudely brought down to earth by the RPO in her home city. Despite her repeated pleas, the officials had refused to renew her passport in time to leave for the event. Saina, who is the first Indian woman to be named the most promising player of the year by the Badminton World Federation (BWF), has been in exceptional form throughout the year. She has had a terrific run in major international events, but ran into trouble at home. She had applied for renewal of her passport on December 2. It was due to be delivered on December 10, but the RPO failed to do so. Her plea to meet the officer in charge for hastening issue of the passport fell on deaf ears. The fact that she is one of the world’s eight best players to be invited to the Super Series was of little consequence to the RPO. It is ironic that on the day the Administrative Reforms Commission came out with a report on making officials accountable and linking their continuity in service to performance, the RPO should have exposed babudom for what it is. Thanks to the Chief Passport Officer, Saina may have got her passport, but that does not absolve the RPO in Hyderabad who deserves to be told that every citizen has the right to a passport and Saina was to represent the country at an international event.
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When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war! — Nathaniel Lee
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Fighting terrorism WITH Pakistan being read the riot act by the Americans and the EU, Islamabad is trying to figure how to deliver sufficiently, even if minimally, while maintaining the pretence that it has nothing to answer for the terror strike on Mumbai. At home, anger was justified but not the near-fascist hysteria fanned by vacuous socialites, sundry busybodies and sponsored children at irresponsible media “shows”. The terrorists and their mentors must have been delighted to see Indians rubbishing their own democracy. That storm has fortunately passed and the poll results have snubbed the BJP’s divisive politics trading on terror. The new Home Minister has admitted to a failure of intelligence and security systems and the government has promised to put better and more effective mechanisms in place in short measure. While this is welcome, the proposed new edifice will be built on sand unless the foundations are well and truly laid to ensure independent and efficient police and intelligence structures and operations that are currently vitiated by flagrant political interference for sordid party-political and personal gain. The Mumbai security operations were uncoordinated and media management and larger public relations wholly inadequate. None of this need have happened. Police reforms have been on the anvil for over three decades since the National Police Commission reported in 1978. The Nth professional-cum-political update of this was done by the Sorabjee Committee in 2006 and reinforced by a Supreme Court directive that the salient features be implemented by January 2007. All political parties in power have joined hands to scuttle meaningful reforms. If the basic police cadres are insecure, politically infiltrated and corrupted, how can the upper echelons remain uninfluenced by such gross abuse. Police reform must now be placed above petty politics and guided by the national interest. Good policing is the country’s first line of defence in upholding the rule of law, the bedrock of good governance. Proposals for intelligence reform were advocated by a high-powered committee under the late L.P. Singh a quarter century ago. One of its principal concerns was to shield the intelligence apparatus from being misused as an instrument for spying on and fixing political opponents, thereby corrupting the service and diverting it from its task of objective collection, collation, analysis and dissemination of intelligence. The post-Kargil Review Committee Task Force on Intelligence went into the matter in great detail, but it is not known how much has been implemented. On the management and dissemination of defence and security information, the NDA Defence Minister in 2002 invited this writer to look at all aspects of the matter, including information flows within and to the armed forces, and its interface with national and external information dissemination. The Report, “Information as Defence”, was cleared at the highest levels of the Defence and MEA establishments only to be strangled with red tape. What is to be done is well known, but implementation is stymied for lack of political will. This applies equally to tackling corruption, which lubricates relationships between corrupt elements among the bureaucracy, the political class, businessmen, contractors, foreign suppliers and a powerful global underworld. The so-called “single directive” precludes prosecution of senior officials and politicians without higher clearance - something not easily forthcoming. The seminal UN Convention on Corruption, designed to deal with the Quattrochis and Dawood Ibrahims of this world, which India has signed, has not yet been incorporated into Indian law. Nobody wants to fight corruption. Pakistan is still in denial as it was in 1947-49 and 1965 over J&K, in 1971 over Bangladesh, in 1984 over Siachen, in the 1990s over Punjab and its proxy war in Kashmir, in 1999 over Kargil, with regard to the notorious A.Q Khan, its nurturing of the Taliban and much else besides. It does not help when Simon Jenkins of The Guardian, typically, writes magisterially that the Mumbai attack was really “about Kashmir and the status of India’s Muslims”. The heavy turnout in the first four rounds of polling in J&K gives the lie to such piffle. The US and the West turned a blind eye towards Pakistan for decades for purely self-regarding motives resulting in a great deal of “collateral damage” to India. Fortunately, the world is now reappraising Pakistan as a rogue state that must be tamed. The problem is that power is fragmented between the military-corporate-jehadi-feudal complex that holds the country in thrall and a fledgling democracy struggling to set down roots. In citing aided non-state actors operating from Pakistan, President Zardari is pleading helplessness. Islamabad has been compelled to take some steps to rein in the LeT/Jamaat-ud-Dawa around Muzaffarabad. But describing this as designed to prevent “banned organisations” from collecting and selling the skins of animals slaughtered during Eid, insisting on the authenticity of a dangerous hoax call said to have been made by the Indian Foreign Minister to the Pakistan President, and demanding yet more clinching evidence on the Mumbai attack betrays the fragility of the regime. While we need to strengthen democratic forces in Pakistan, they in turn must stop living in a world of make-believe. India is not out to destroy Pakistan, which does not need “strategic depth” to foil this plot. Kashmir is a non-issue, artificially kept alive to sustain a flawed and discredited two-nation theory. A J&K resolution is, however, necessary but can only be found along the road-map indicated by Dr Manmohan Singh. Meanwhile, we need to be firm and vigilant but keep our powder dry.
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(Im)perfect love story THERE they — Chander Mohan aka Chand Mohammad and his second wife Anuradha oops Fiza — were. On camera, a trifle sheepish, a bit coy, thoda bahut belligerent too and candid above all, making open declarations of undying love. So as the nation gaped, mocked, even scorned, the TV channel joined in the fun, cajoling them to say “I love you”, hum film songs. They with a defiant “we don’t give a damn” attitude, so characteristic of love, played along, only too keen to look the part of “very much in love” couple or may be encash upon their “aggrieved” status. Indeed, it could have been a perfect love story, another real Laila Majnu (tongue in cheek, the TRP obsessed TV channel did dub them so, only the inference was quite the reverse), a love tale of supreme sacrifice. After all how many men, that too thick-skinned breed of politicians, exchange love for kursi with mortal love for a woman? For don’t we know their real high stems from “made in India” ministerial chair, not from some flesh and blood “God made” woman. Undeniably, in another set of circumstances the former Deputy Chief Minister’s act would have been worthy of a pat, if not outright commendation. But here he stands condemned, ostracised. For his new-found love comes laced with previous baggage — a wife and a family. Not that spouse and children have ever deterred men or even women from falling in love again. In west, they do it without batting an eyelid. In India, it is done with greater discretion. But often caution is thrown to the wind and love as well as marriage a second time is made public. Hmm… so does love second time make it any less exciting or less pious? We, the “moral fibre” of society, certainly think so. So Shabana Azmi might take immense pride in how she and Javed Akhtar (not his first wife Honey Irani) make a “made for each other” couple, we believe God served her right by denying her motherhood. So she has to contend (and content) with Javed’s children from Honey. And when Dharmendra displays exemplary loyalty towards first wife Prakash Kaur, we stand vindicated. Did we not say ‘kahin zameen kahin assman nahi milta.’ Dream girl Hema Malini can’t have it all either. The world simply loves “love stories”. All of us fall in love again and again, each time a perfect love story surfaces or an old love legend is retold. But faced with a flawed version of love, we stand clueless. Black and white, we understand, but grey often makes us see red. Invariably, we take a high moral ground. Thus the very obvious and unanimous kneejerk reaction is — derision. The more sensitive among us try to rationalise, but accept we don’t. Rab ne bana di jodi… So who can condone mortals going about making jodeeyan? One man’s meat they say is another man’s poison… And one man’s love story can be another one’s sob. Of course, we are free to take sides — love “raised” to power two or tears. Oh, by the way the world loves tears more than
love.
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End of an era INDIA is likely to spend over $50 billion on defence acquisitions over the next five years. Among the weapon systems and equipment to be acquired, the big-ticket items will include the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya (Admiral Gorshkov), 126 multi-mission, medium-range combat aircraft, six C-130J Hercules transport aircraft for special forces, eight maritime patrol, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft — possibly Boeing 737 P-8I, six Scorpene submarines, and a large number of main battle tanks (MBTs), 155mm towed and self-propelled artillery howitzers and equipment for counter-insurgency operations. Will India’s plans for defence modernisation lead to a substantive upgradation of India’s defence technology and manufacturing prowess, or will the country’s defence procurement remain mired in disadvantageous buyer-seller, patron-client relationships? One of the major spin-offs of the Indo-US nuclear agreement is that it has sounded the death knell of the era of defence technology apartheid practised against India by the US and many of its partners in the Western alliance. It will still be a decade or more before the ghosts of technology denial regimes are finally buried. The deeply entrenched bureaucracies in the departments of state, defence and commerce in the Washington beltway will take quite some time to finally accept India as a co-equal partner with whom dual-use technologies can be shared to mutual advantage. US MNCs, which have always taken their bearings from their government’s foreign policy leanings, will surely lead the charge and make a beeline for India. Meanwhile, India too has some growing up of its own to do as the country sheds its suspicions of the past and gradually moves away from the rather overzealous chanting of the mantra of self-reliance towards joint ventures. While the government continues to retain its monopoly on defence research and development (R&D), it is slowly moving away from relying primarily on the public sector for defence production. The revised Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP 2008), announced recently, continues to emphasise public-private partnerships and encourages the private sector to enter defence production — either on its own or through joint ventures with multi-national defence corporations, which may bring in up to 26 per cent FDI. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is in the process of deliberating upon and implementing the report of the P Rama Rao committee that asked the DRDO to identify eight to 10 critical areas which best fit its existing human resource, technical capability and established capacity to take up new projects. Since its inception in 1958, while the DRDO has achieved some spectacular successes, it also has many signal failures to its name. The successes include the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme that produced the Prithvi and Agni series of ballistic missiles and, subsequently the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile in a collaborative venture with the Russians. Among the failures are the MBT Arjun that has not met some critical General Staff requirements of the Indian Army despite time and cost overruns and the light combat aircraft that still appears to be light years away from operational induction into the Indian Air Force. However, to the DRDO’s credit, it worked under extremely restrictive technology denial regimes and with a rather low indigenous technology base. Consequently, the policy of self-reliance did not yield substantial gains as India continued to import almost 70 per cent of its defence equipment for over four decades, primarily from the Soviet Union and, later, Russia. And, if some MiG-21 aircraft and other weapons systems were produced in India, these were manufactured under licence and no technology was ever transferred to India, with the result that even though India spent large sums of money on defence imports, the technology base remained where it was. As a growing economic powerhouse that also enjoys considerable buyers’ clout in the defence market, India should no longer be satisfied with buyer-seller, patron-client relationships in its future defence procurement planning. In all major acquisitions in future, India should insist on joint development, joint testing and trials, joint production, joint marketing and joint product improvement over the life cycle of the equipment. The US and other countries with advanced technologies will surely ask what India can bring to the table to demand participation as a co-equal partner. Besides capital and a production capacity that is becoming increasingly more
sophisticated, India has its huge software pool to offer. Today software already comprises over 50 per cent of the total cost of a modern defence system. In the years ahead, this is expected to go up to almost 70 per cent as software costs increase and hardware production costs decline due to improvements in manufacturing processes. If a new weapons development project needs 500 software engineers, where else but in India can such a high quality work force be found? However, India cannot leap-frog to a higher plane virtually overnight. The immediate requirement is to think big in keeping with the country’s growing international status and to plan for the future with a level of confidence that policy planners have not dared to do before. Perhaps, a showpiece joint project with the US will lead to the unshackling of India’s real potential. A candidate project for such a venture can be the joint development of a theatre ballistic missile defence system that is a key priority for the US and will also benefit India’s nuclear deterrence. It will take the trajectory of Indo-US relations to a much higher orbit. The writer is Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi
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In China anger rises as economy goes down THE signs of discontent are small but unnerving in an authoritarian country where public demonstrations are not permitted. Laid-off toy company workers smash windows and computers and overturn police cars in Guangdong province. Employees of a liquor company in Harbin come to Beijing to protest unpaid wages at their company’s headquarters. Taxi drivers, as many as 20,000 of them, scuffle with police in protests that have spread into seven provinces. Even the police have gotten into the act: Auxiliary officers surrounded a Communist Party office in Hunan province last week to demand higher wages, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights & Democracy. As China’s economy hits the skids, such protests have thus far been sporadic and have usually involved fewer than 100 people. But in recent weeks, they spread across the country like brush fires and, according to some analysts, could spiral out of control. “Definitely, this is the most serious problem we have seen since 1989,” said Zhou Xiaozheng, a professor of sociology at People’s University in Beijing. “You have millions of college students who can’t find jobs. ... You have migrant workers who have lost their jobs at factories and don’t have land to go back to.” It is counterintuitive that a global financial crisis that started with the excesses of Wall Street should be undermining the Chinese Communist Party. But academics such as Zhou believe that the economic crisis could present the Chinese leadership with its biggest political challenge since the student protests at Tiananmen Square nearly two decades ago. To a large extent, China’s fiscal problems pale next to those of the United States. Chinese unemployment is not expected to top 4.5 percent, compared with the most recent rate of 6.5 percent in the U.S. Although the World Bank recently slashed China’s growth forecast for 2009 from more than 9 percent to 7.5 percent, even the lower figure keeps China at the top of the pack. The problem is that ordinary growth might not be enough for a system that’s been sustained by double-digit gains over the last five years. New York University economist Nouriel Roubini predicted last month in a widely quoted newsletter that without 9 percent to 10 percent growth, China is headed for a “hard landing.” It is the conventional wisdom that the China Communist Party’s rule has survived into the 21st century because of the nation’s extraordinary economic growth. China watchers often speak of an implicit bargain between the people and the party: Give up demands for democracy and free speech and we’ll make you rich. “I think the leaders are scared stiff,” said Susan Shirk, a professor at the University of California, San Diego. “Certainly the Chinese Communist Party leadership believes there is a connection between economic growth, social stability and the survival of one-party rule.” Even members of the Chinese intelligensia has become more vocal, demanding political change in a petition released this week that was modeled after the 1977 one that challenged the Soviet Union’s domination of Czechoslovakia. “In the world, authoritarian systems are approaching the dusk of their endings,” the charter signed by more than 300 prominent figures said. What makes the Chinese government especially vulnerable is that the people hurting have few legitimate outlets to air grievances. Unable to vote out their leaders, strike or collect compensation from the courts, they protest. And when the police wade in, the scenecan quickly turn violent. That is what happened Nov. 25 after 1,000 workers were laid off from the Kai Da toy factory in Dongguan, a southeastern city often called the real-life Santa’s workshop because of the large number of toy factories there. The financial crisis is hitting hardest in places like Dongguan where factories once churned out toys, shoes and clothing to satisfy the seemingly insatiable demand of American consumers for ever-cheaper merchandise. Now demand has plunged because of the recession in the United States and the flurry of scandals over tainted foods and dangerous toys produced in China. The Chinese government has reported that for the first time in seven years, exports last month declined. — By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post
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Chatterati Delhiites
are on a high with Sheila Dikshit sweeping the Delhi polls. The “aam admi” of Delhi has heaved a sigh of relief. The warm, genuine and simple elegance of Sheila Dikshit had no match in the BJP. With Arun Jaitley escaping at the last minute from fighting the election, Malhotra stood no chance against Sheila. Arun Jaitley spearheaded the whole campaign. Her balanced approach to governance and her concern for the masses worked. Terrorism and price rise took a back seat to development and stability. In Madhya Pradesh infighting of the Congress leaders made sure that Shiv Raj’s win was made easier. The queen Vasundhra was dethroned by Ashok Gehlot, who is also affectionately called “Jadugar” by his close friends. Ashok’s victory is, once again, thanks to his simplicity and low profile. The arrogant queen must surely be missing her mentor, the late Pramod Mahajan, who ran her campaign in her last election. Vasundhra’s tales of corruption and inaccessibility went against her completely. In this largest democracy I do salute not only this young breed of voters but also the people of Jammu and Kashmir who have braved the snow and bullets to come out and vote. A tight slap on the face of the separatists who have tried to suppress the democratic rights of the public. The voters here have shown they are fed up with self-proclaimed leaders, who play with their lives and future on the religion card. But these results also show that the regional parties are not doing too well.
Thumbs up to new faces The young first-timers have all won, obviously, due to the new-generation voting. In MP the anti-incumbency factor was broken by taking in 61 new faces. The fresh blood was taken in place of the deadwood. In the BJP the rebels did not get enough time to protest. Non-performing MLAs were out. In Rajasthan and Delhi also new faces portrayed by both parties have won. Like in Bikaner 25-year-old Sidhi Kumari won with a handsome margin. The mother of this fresh face is, incidentally, Princess Padma from the Chamba royal family in Himachal.
Victory for cheap rice “Chawalwale Baba” is the new nickname of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh. Many agree that his win was due to his Rs 2 kg rice scheme. The BJP says that “when the Congress was busy with a different kind of rice (Condeleezza Rice) the party was giving rice that maters, that too cheap”. Well, whatever, at least, he won no matter how difficult a fight Ajit Jogi gave him.
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