The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Let PU flourish
Central status alone can help

The issue of conferring Central status on Panjab University has again cropped up as Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal has squarely blamed the Punjab government for stalling the move. As is well known, Mr Parkash Singh Badal had first agreed to PU getting Central status, which essentially means more funds for the premier institution, but later backed out on the advice of some critics, who feared the move would dilute Punjab’s claim to Chandigarh. Punjab has got two more Central universities, which will come up at Amritsar and Bathinda.

With its finances going from bad to worse and allocations for education falling over the years, Punjab has failed to meet its financial commitments for Panjab University. Instead of paying 40 per cent of the budget of Panjab University as agreed, the state pays only 10 per cent. Haryana, which was also to pay an equal amount under the initial arrangement, has disaffiliated its colleges from PU and stopped paying its 40 per cent share. As a result, the university has been left to fend for itself and forced to raise money through various means, partly by raising the charges for students and virtually selling NRI seats in top courses. The other universities in the state too suffer from the resource crunch. Higher education has become very expensive and gone beyond the reach of students from families with modest means.

If Panjab University is to grow into an institution of global standards — and a rising India badly needs such academic institutions comparable to the best in the world — then the university cannot be left at the mercy of some myopic academics and politicians. The faculty members of the university firmly stand behind the demand for Central status and they have not stooped to street protests to press the issue. But such dignified behaviour has not made much impact on politicians with goals other than promoting academic excellence.

Players on strike
Hockey India out to score self goal

Nothing could be more embarrassing for a country than its national hockey players boycotting their training, that too weeks before it is to play a major tournament like the World Cup. The main provocation for this rare protest was the failure of the authorities to redress the financial demands of the players, but there were many other maladies too. The overall picture is of the neglect of the game and players, while the organisers play petty games of one-upmanship. Talking of the financial demands first, it is really scandalous that nobody has cared to give them match fee for even international tournaments like the Olympics, World Cup, Asia Cup, Asian Games, FIH tournaments, Champions Trophy and test matches. They have even been denied the logo money. The Indian Hockey Federation had promised them cash incentives for winning a medal in recognised international tournaments. This promise too remained only on paper.

This neglect of hockey stars has gone to such ridiculous lengths that some of the players from Oil India and BPL who get Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 per month when they play for their departmental team, get virtually nothing when they join the national camp and play for the country. There could not be a better way to discourage and humiliate these sportsmen. No wonder, the players are now demanding, besides incentives, fixed salaries citing that the Pakistan Hockey Federation pays Rs 50,000 a month to its players.

Even otherwise, there is serious factionalism among the hockey administrators as well as coaches. Players are suffering because of it and at times become pawns. Now that the rumblings are out in the open, it is necessary to address the issues thoroughly. Instead of showing their anger over the strike by the players, the hockey bosses should gauge the extent of their frustration which forced them to take this extreme step. The issue had flared up in 1998 also when seven players, including Dhanraj Pillay, Mukesh Kumar, Ashish Ball and Sabu Varkey, who won gold at the Bangkok Asiad demanded match fees. The then IHF president KPS Gill simply threw them out.

Thought for the Day

For an idea ever to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old-fashioned. — George Santayana

ARTICLE

Handling ULFA
Media messes up the message
by Sanjoy Hazarika

It is more than a month since the chairman of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) was arrested by Bangladeshi security officials and handed over to Indian forces on the Bangladesh-Meghalaya border, after he and his cohorts were intercepted as they fled to Chittagong and planned an escape to Myanmar to link up with Paresh Baruah, the organisation’s military chief.

After screaming headlines in Assam and in the metro media, and near-hysteria in the visual media both in New Delhi and the North-East for a few days, the issue of Arabindo Rajkhowa, his future and that of ULFA and its association with Assam diminished and even vanished barring a few odd articles for the metro media by reporters based in Guwahati.

I recall doing something like 11 interviews for television, by phone and directly with the studios of the major networks in the space of those days. And always there was a feeling that one was being hustled or sought to be hustled by prejudiced and noisy anchors (anchors are supposed to “anchor” or hold a discussion together, not try and push interviewees to their point of view) who had an agenda and were determined to hector and try and browbeat people into submission. It is not a pleasant experience, especially so when the interviewee fights back — the discussion is no longer about substantial issues but about scoring points. The most professional and balanced interview was by the anchor on NDTV; I was interviewed in that time-frame by Times Now, Headlines Today and CNN-IBN, among others.

As far as the Rajkhowa incident was concerned, almost every channel was interested in one pet theme, barring the circumstances of his capture: when would the talks be held? (to be fair to the anchors, it was not really about them as to what would they or the channel heads — at times this was made more complex since the anchor himself or herself was either the top honcho in the channel or one of its top guns – thought would sell). I kept asserting in interview after interview that all this speculation was premature, that while dialogue was good and important, ULFA had not clarified its position. That came later when Rajkhowa, both in his first public appearance in decades after his arrest, declared that he would not hold talks, adding the rider and shaking his handcuffs: “Can one hold talks with handcuffs on?”

But the interviews that really angered me were when the anchors, in two separate channels, declared outrageously that since ULFA was on the backfoot and it never had been trustworthy, wasn’t it time to wipe them out? Why bother about talks at all since they would only use the opportunity to regroup?

At the end of the first interview, I got a call from an editor-friend in Guwahati, “You were visibly annoyed, the anchor was just not prepared to listen to anyone except the sound of his own voice.” Yes, I was angry — not because I felt I had not had a chance to say what I felt. I tried my best, by raising my decibel level, but because the anchor kept hurling his view relentlessly that “these people” should be “finished off”. I completely disagree, in these times, when openness and democracy are imperilled as much by the actions of those who speak in its name, especially in terms of protecting its security, as by those opposed to it. We must exercise restraint, especially at a time of great sensitivity and opportunity.

In a democracy every side has a right to be heard. And you cannot have democracy without transparency or justice. And for those who throw the justice idea back to us, one has to say this too: “Even a murderer has a right to a fair trial: the media cannot be the judge, jury and prosecution.”

That was the sum of my assertions in both interviews; in the second, a retired head of the army staff and a former chief of the Border Security Force were also on the panel. I was interviewed at home because I was recovering from a bad cold. I finally could not contain myself and told the anchor, “Neither you nor anyone in the room has the slightest idea of how bad conditions are in Assam and the North-East; you sit in that studio and talk without knowledge or the ground realities and you try and form public opinion!” There was silence from the others and I realised that my shot had hit home.

In another interview a day later by phone, a breathless interviewer (in this case a woman; the two anchors I have referred to were male) asked me when the talks would begin and started chattering away about what news reports were saying. When I tried to respond, she kept saying, “But, Mr Hazarika, the news reports say…(about possible talks).” I offered to cut the phone connection since I was not being heard; she then agreed.

I talked along the following lines: that I didn’t know on what basis the media reports were saying all this, but we haven’t heard anything from Rajkhowa. Until there’s a statement from him, there really isn’t anything to go on, and the news reports had been consistently wrong: first they say he surrendered, then that he was arrested in Bangladesh, then he was loitering around at the Indo-Bangladesh border (does a wanted and hunted man “loiter” around, waiting to be caught?), then he was secretly transported to Delhi. There was little point in jumping the gun and, if possible, the channels should stop hyperventilating.

Both Rajkhowa’s statement on sovereignty not being negotiable (though the longer he and the other leaders remain in prison and discuss the future among themselves, this may not remain an absolute) and his armed wing chief Paresh Baruah’s declaration from Myanmar buttressing the claim ended the chimera of talks, floated so clumsily by the media catching on to deliberate “leaks” from “security sources”, especially in the Assam Government.

In all this, very few discussions on the television, radio or print news reports that I have seen spoke of the small numbers of ULFA armed cadres, based both in Assam and Myanmar, or even raised it at Press conferences. My understanding is that ULFA has a total of about 450-500 armed fighters; that is not a large number by any means but for a guerrilla group, as is well-known, you do not need large numbers to inflict damage. But can such numbers seize sovereignty or even speak seriously of it? The Naga factions (between the two of them) have nearly 18,000 men and women with arms and they have been at war with India since the 1950s. That is a huge army, in terms of capability, but even they have not worn the Indian State down; rather they are fatigued as are the people.

The Nagas are in a standstill agreement where there is a form of political dialogue and a ceasefire with the government. So, how long does ULFA’s surviving leadership want their armed struggle to continue? How many more innocent and not-so-innocent people — security forces and cadres — must die before the guns fall silent? Because sovereignty from India’s perspective also is non-negotiable and it is no longer ULFA which speaks from a position of strength. But who discusses this outside of the news rooms and studios of the North-eastern media? Certainly not in the metro media.

It is time, considering the rubbish that we have to listen to, day in and day out, the anchors should go back to the science of anchoring: weaving discussions with different viewpoints, bringing the others out and perhaps asserting their own at the end and not hectoring their panelists. All channels, I think, need to conduct an independent review of the performance of their anchors not as far as how they dominate interviews or discussions or how much noise they make but how good are the content of their “shows.”

There you have it — their programmes are shows, as they themselves declaim so often: “Your channel was the first to … and so and so said this first on this show.” Show time is different from news time. It’s not about ethics or balance even: it’s about professionalism. These other qualities will come naturally into an approach that is truly professional.

As far as television reporting is concerned, most reporters don’t even know, it appears, that they have to get other viewpoints apart from that of the main person they have gone to interview. The message is simple: you’re messing up and missing the real stories. Get real and get back to the basics.

MIDDLE

“Hands in your pockets”
by Raj Mehta

IT was in September 1971 that my tank regiment received its long anticipated orders to move to the Indo-Pak border. Those last few days in Patiala cantonment were full of palpable excitement, intense preparation, anticipation of combat and the brash feeling of invincibility that all subalterns seem to have in their DNA.

Forgotten were the endless dinner nights when we would sit bolt upright in stiff summer formals, compelled by intractable Mess protocol to listen with sham interest as our 1965 Indo-Pak war veterans carried on animatedly, sometimes fractiously, about the mystique of war; inter-unit war rivalries and the like.

With war near certain, the ’65 veterans suddenly found us now listening with rapt attention on what it actually felt like when “crossing the border,” or firing to destroy a real Patton tank 800 metres away; crushed with the kinetic force of tank-defeating ammunition generating a massive force of 50 tons per square inch on impact.

I recall the memorable night when we hit the GT road in an endless column of ammunition-carrying vehicles and our monstrous, 80 feet long, Centurion tank-carrying tank transporters, all headlights blanked out. Lying facing a starlit sky in our black dungarees on bundles of camouflage nets dumped in the transporter-trailer, Pushkar, a fellow subaltern and I spoke in monosyllables, each lost in his thoughts. We instinctively sensed that, in an ineffable way, the war would change us; converting from callow subalterns to real men of substance.

The long wait in our operational area under cover and camouflage was one of intense activity. In keeping with our higher plans, the regiment moved several times, each movement conducted in pitch darkness and filled with excitement and anticipation. Most available time was spent on day and night border reconnaissance or in battle-group operational planning.

One day in late November, we received the electrifying news that “Sam Bahadur”, our iconic Army Chief, General SHFJ Manekshaw, would address us in our operational area close to the border. I had a vantage view of his handsome, dapper, faultlessly turned out visage, as he bounded to the stage with his swagger stick raised to his rakish side cap in acknowledgement. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop when he spoke to us soldier-to-soldier.

Recounting the monstrous evil that Pakistan had wrought in then East Pakistan, he said that the Pakistani Army had raped, murdered and pillaged, thus dishonouring and defiling the noble profession of arms.

“When you go in, soldiers, remember to ‘keep your hands in your pockets,’ he thundered. “Do not do anything that brings dishonour to our just war! Now give me your word!” he demanded. We did, with a roar that must have been heard up to Shakargarh. In the war that followed in West Pakistan, we regrettably did not go deep enough, but, hell, we honoured his diktat fully — right through the 1971 Indo-Pak war!

OPED

US weapons for India
Technology transfer remains an issue
by Gulshan R. Luthra

THE India-US defence cooperation seems to be steadily growing with Washington now offering its latest Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) F-35 Lightning-II aircraft to India. But in the long run, there could be limitations over issues of transfer of technology (ToT) that India mandates now for major arms deals.

Representatives of Lockheed Martin, which is developing the aircraft, had indicated in the past that the aircraft could be available to India if the Indian Air Force (IAF) opted for the F-16 Super Viper in its quest for some 200 Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MRCAs) but recently the company made a presentation to the Indian Navy without this condition.

Lockheed Martin’s Vice President for Business Development Orville Prins told India Strategic defence magazine that the presentation about F 35 was made to the Indian Navy recently after it expressed interest in the newer generation of aircraft for its future carrier-based aircraft requirements.

Although the best of the weapon systems in the US are developed by private companies, the funding for their research and development is provided by the government, which exercises control on the resultant products and their sale to any foreign country. ToT is a serious issue and in most cases, technology, particularly source codes, is not shared even with Washington’s best allies in the West or the East.

Lockheed Martin apparently made the presentation to India after an authorisation by the US Department of Defense (DOD), but Prins pointed out that the F 35 could be sold only after clearance from the US State Department, for which bilateral negotiations between New Delhi and Washington would need to be held once India expressed its interest.

The US is steadily emerging as a new supplier of sophisticated arms to India, which urgently needs to replace and augment its mostly outdated Soviet-vintage systems with high technology weapons of the 21st century.

Beginning 2002, when an agreement for the sale of 12 Raytheon’s artillery and short-range missile tracker system, the AN/TPQ 37 Weapon Locating Radars (WLRs) was signed, the US has supplied systems worth nearly $ 4 billion.

The figure though is much lower than what India still spends on air, land and sea systems from Russia. For instance, India has already committed to buy 280 SU 30 MKI aircraft, several ships, missiles and more.

US companies are steadily making presentations in India, and the acquisition of WLRs has been followed by deals for Boeing P8-I Multimission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) for anti-submarine operations in the Indian Ocean, Harpoon anti-shipping missiles, Lockheed Martin’s six C 130J Special Operations aircraft with an option for six more, one amphibious transport dock ship Trenton, named INS Jalashwa, and its six onboard Sikorsky helicopters at nominal rates.

Over the last few weeks now, the Indian Ministry of Defence has sent firm orders, or Letters of Request (LoR) for 10 C 17 Globemaster III strategic lift aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF) and 145 Bofors M 777 ultra light howitzers the Indian Army badly needs for its mountain operations.

The competing gun from Singapore Technologies lost out as the company was mired in allegations of corruption in an Indian Ordnance Factory Board scam.

Originally, a Swedish company, Bofors, was purchased by the US United Defense in 2000, and later acquired by the US arm of BAE Systems. In fact, as the US Administration had imposed restrictions on the sale of military equipment to India after the 1998 nuclear tests, President Bill Clinton went out of the way to allow United Defense-Bofors an exception to sell its guns to India if the Indian Army opted for them.

The Indian Army is badly in need of various types of artillery guns, and keeping in mind the developments in the neighbourhood, the Indian government recently cleared the acquisition of this ultra light howitzer in a government-to-government deal under the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme.

The gun has been deployed with excellent results in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan. Made with titanium alloys, the M777 is about 40 per cent lighter than a standard gun and can be easily transported under-slung by a helicopter.

Bofors has been much maligned in India due to the allegations of corruption in the sale of its 155 mm FH 77B guns in the mid-1980s. Operationally, however, these guns played a significant role in India ‘s victory in the 1999 Kargil War to evict Pakistani intruders from the Himalayan heights on the Indian side of the border.

India has also deployed the gun at the highest battlefield in the world at Siachin. Ferrying them to those daunting heights in parts and then assembling them has been a tedious job by itself for the Army.

LoRs for both the C17 and M777 have been issued only in the past couple of weeks. India has less than 20 IL 76 Soviet-supplied IL 76 aircraft, which will mark 25 years of their induction in April 2010.

The C 17 has nearly double the capacity of an IL 76 but full load on an aircraft is never really carried as it hinders its range and fuel capacity. Unlike the IL 76, the C 17 can be refuelled midair for much longer flights, and needs only two pilots and one loadmaster for operations, that is half the crew of what the IL 76 requires.

Despite its massive size, the C 17 can take off and land on unpaved grassy fields like a football ground at very steep angles, an important capability in battle conditions. It’s the same for C 130J. On offer is also Northrop Grumman’s Hawkeye E2-D, a battle management and electronic warfare aircraft that can operate from carriers or land.

Like the Boeing P8-I, this aircraft is also under development for the US Navy, and if the Indian Navy opts for it, then it would get this highly sophisticated technology at nearly the same time as the US Navy.

According to Orville Prins, Lockheed Martin had also given demonstrations on “the world’s most advanced shipboard anti-missile Aegis system,” which had been used two in 2008 to shoot down a satellite apparently as part of technology demonstration by Washington.

Boeing’s Integrated Defense Systems head for India, Dr Vivek Lall, describes this transfer as “unprecedented.” The US is steadily opening its stable of sophisticated weapons to India. But how far India goes in buying the US systems will largely depend not only on the technology and price offered, but also on the transfer of technology that most major deals now warrant as a policy.

The writer is a defence analyst.

Yemen new home for terror
by Donald Macintyre

The governor of a key province in the front line of Yemen's struggle against al- Qa'ida has admitted that the government's control in his area is "not strong", and says that no extra troops have been deployed there despite official suggestions that the threat of al Qaida is being contained with a new crackdown by Yemeni forces.

As Yemen faces mounting US and international pressure to combat the use of the country as the new base for al Qaida in the Arabian peninsula, the governor of Abyan province, one of the southern provinces seen as al Qaida strongholds, said "truthfully and honestly, it [government control] is not so strong". Ahmed Bin Ahmed al-Misri, who said the threat from al Qaida in the mountain regions of his province had grown in the last six months, added: "There are not enough weapons, there are not enough soldiers."

The difficulties faced by Abyan's most senior official provide a rare insight into the problems in conducting the so-called "war on terror" in a relatively remote, rugged and undeveloped country where deep poverty, tribalism and religious conservatism allow radical influences to flourish.

Despite reports from Sana'a, the capital, that Yemen is currently moving reinforcements into areas like Abyan in a new crackdown on the resurgent militants, the governor said he had seen no sign of it.

There had, he said, been redeployments of troops from Abyan to the Marib governate and vice versa. But, in an office guarded by soldiers with AK-47s and crowded with lieutenants and allies including a uniformed army brigadier, he added: "There are no new troops, no new army." The governor said he lacked helicopters needed to pursue militants if there was an incident outside the capital.

Mr al-Misri went out of his way to stress that "social development" help from the international community was urgently needed for his country, the poorest in the Arab world. Airstrikes and military force were not the "solution", he added. "We need more help to get the tribes to kick them [al-Qai'da] out. The government does not have the resources to do that."

Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province, seems calm for now. Instead of sitting in the back of his official SUV between bodyguards, the governor, who is known to be tough, took the wheel himself, ahead of a security convoy of one police car and two army pickups carrying soldiers.

The problems he faces now, after what he sees as an acceleration in the growth of al-Qa'ida over the last six months, embody the daunting bundle of military, political and economic contradictions that will have to be considered by the conference on Yemen that Gordon Brown has convened in London for the end of the month.

It was in the Abyan mountain village of Al Majaala that a lethal air strike on al-Qa'ida was launched on 17 December. The assault had the "good effect", Mr al-Misri said, of killing, according to his own figures, 14 al-Qa'ida militants, including Muhammed al-Kazemi, a prominent local leader obliged to return to Yemen from Saudi Arabia by Riyadh's heavy crackdown last year.

But it had the "bad effect" of also killing 45 civilians, including 18 women and children. And the governor is frustrated that central authorities in Sana'a have yet to follow his own example by giving an official apology for the non-combatant deaths. "It is not necessary for the President to do it himself," he said. “But if he did make condolences and apologies to the people it would be wonderful.”

It takes a high-speed, hour-long drive from neighbouring Aden, and a local police escort to get us through three big military checkpoints on the desert coastal road, to reach Mr al-Misri's heavily guarded villa on the outskirts of this city of 100,000 people.

But while the job comes with a residence and garden rich in banana plants and flowering desert shrubs, and an – albeit empty – swimming pool behind its steel gates, the governor now wonders wryly whether he was right to take the job two years ago before outlining the national and international help he believes he needs.

Saying the jobless toll in Abyan is 50 per cent, compared with an estimated national average of 40 per cent, in a country where 45 per cent live on less than $2 a day, he describes how al-Qa’ida adherents insert themselves into local tribes, often nomads who do not see TV and know little of the movement's existence. First, he asserts, a member who belongs to the particular tribe will introduce others who will bring financial and practical help – like the digging of water wells – to the local community.

— By arrangement with The Independent

Rape and women
by Sajla Chawla

An MP from Goa has made a statement in Parliament that when rape is against “a woman who is moving around with a person beyond midnight” it should be treated differently. The question that comes to mind is: What does the MP mean by the word “different”? Does he mean it in the same way as one should not drive at night as it might cause an accident?

Well, perhaps he was just trying to defend Goa, which unlike what the media is currently projecting it to be, is relatively a safer place for women. Undoubtedly so, if one compares it to the country’s capital, Delhi. Whatever his motives might be, the MP obviously spoke with his foot in his mouth and consequently created an uproar in Parliament.

Rape is a word which exudes repugnance, shame and trauma, especially in the psyche of a woman. It is the ultimate physical subjugation of a woman. No matter how empowered she might be, “rape’ confirms that she is physically weaker than man.

For a woman, the word “rape” signifies something that can happen to her and thus is always associated with fear. For a man, the word “rape” means much less because it is something he is not ever likely to suffer. Men and women thus view rape entirely with different perspectives.

So the whole question of “women who move around with men past midnight” is sought to be seen as “different” because that is the only way rape can be justified, in other words by implying that the woman invited it.

Hence, the victim becomes a culprit, while the real culprit sits pretty in the smugness of this skewed argument. The accused is absolved and so is the government and the police of Goa.

But one would like to ask the MP: How will he justify if the woman is different and where does the difference lie and where will one draw the line between an ordinary woman and a different one?

Everyone needs to change and everyone needs to start accepting the “different” women, beginning with the MP, of course, since his responsibility is not just towards men and traditional women, but also towards “different” women, just as towards people from different castes and religions.

Women are torn between the way they are supposed to be traditionally, and the way modern science, industrialisation and technology are naturally evolving them and their functions in society. The conflict is so intrinsic that women are often uncertain and trying hard to keep a balance between tradition and modernity.

Hence, many rape victims do not even file a complaint and many retract their statements as the whole fight for justice becomes almost as traumatic as the rape itself. What kind of message does the statement of the MP send to the rape victims? What confidence, then, can the victim have in herself or the government and the judiciary?

In such a scenario, dilemma, confusion, self-doubts, wrong choices and desperation abound. Leave alone rape, The Times of India recently reported that over 40 per cent women in India are victims of domestic violence and 54 per cent of them think it is justified!

Women like Sonia Gandhi and Pratibha Patil obviously do not represent the general women in our country. They are mere exceptions. For a large number of women in India life is, at best, a compromise. Dalit women are often raped and killed by upper cast men

Coming to men, well, not all men are rapists. The ones who rape are ‘different’ from the norm. Then why is it that in all the cases where men are accused of the crime, it is the woman’s background, morality, psychology, family and ethics are questioned. What about the man who has committed the crime?