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Tackling terror syndicate
Playing to Marathi gallery |
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Pawar scares again
Revamping security set-up
The cook and I
What went wrong at Copenhagen summit
Obama’s year in power
Drinks industry ‘seducing teenagers’ Corrections and clarifications
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Playing to Marathi gallery
The
Congress in Maharashtra seems to be following the dictum that if you cannot beat them (read MNS goons), you should join them. The decision taken by its Cabinet on Wednesday to give licences to only those taxi drivers who know Marathi is a brazen, parochial move which reeks of similar activities by the Shiv Sena and the MNS. It would have been bad rhetoric even by a splinter group as an expression of intent but coming from a national party, which happens to be in power, it is unpardonable. Stung by the widespread criticism that the decision evoked, Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan backtracked on Thursday, saying that the local language could be Marathi, Hindi or Gujarati, but the damage had been done, because earlier in the day he had said clearly that only those who knew Marathi could drive a taxi in Mumbai. This has happened in spite of the fact that when the Shiv Sena and the MNS had spread similar us-versus-they venom, the Congress was in the forefront of those who condemned the move. Not only that, it has ordained that taxi drivers must be residents of Maharashtra for at least 15 years. Being the ruling party in Maharashtra and at the Centre also, the Congress must understand the alarming implications of the ill-advised decision. It would not only ruin the cosmopolitan character of Mumbai and other cities of Maharashtra, but could unleash similar demands in other states of the country. With such barriers raised by every state, India’s unity will be under grave threat. This dirty identity politics is being played apparently to wean Marathi youth away from the MNS and the Shiv Sena, but it does not make even political sense. Taxi drivers, most of whom are from the North, have traditionally supported the Congress and this move might end up antagonising them. Instead of invoking archaic Maharashtra Motor Rules, the government should show some common sense and swear by equality of all Indians. Mumbai is what it is today because of the hard labour of millions of Marathis as well as others. It must not propagate ghetto mentality for the sake of a few votes.
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Pawar scares again
Agriculture
Minister Sharad Pawar is increasingly becoming an embarrassment for the government he represents not as much by his incompetence in handling the relentless price rise as by his off and on foot-in-mouth statements. Every time he opens his mouth to say something these days, he ends up inviting ridicule. His latest speculative remark that milk could get costlier in northern India immediately provoked UP Chief Minister Mayawati to demand his head and fuelled another Opposition attack on the UPA government, already under fire on the volatile price situation. If such a minister has been tolerated for so long for so frequent self-goals and allowed to be vested with the responsibility of managing prices, it has been because of the compulsions of coalition politics. But there is a limit beyond which even a fairly tolerant Congress may not like to walk with the veteran politician from Maharashtra if he remains hell-bent on damaging his reputation earned over the long innings in politics as a good administrator. Some in the Congress this time joined the Opposition in baying for his blood. A Congress spokesman helped him understand something as simple as this: if you see a problem, come up with a solution too. Milk prices had been inching up in North India even before the Agriculture Minister created a scare. Though India remains the largest producer of milk in the world, demand is soaring faster than supply. The country, therefore, can ill-afford to be complacent. The government has banned the export of milk products, but that is not enough. Given the fact that the per capita milk consumption in the country is still very low, the production needs a boost. Not only milk has to be available for all, it has to be affordable too for the vast majority of Indians. |
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A man of great common sense and good taste, meaning thereby a man without originality or moral
courage. — George Bernard Shaw
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Revamping security set-up EVER since the New Delhi grapevine started forecasting National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan’s departure from the Prime Minister’s Office to Raj Bhavan in Kolkata, it has been clear that the change is a prelude to a revamping of the entire national security architecture in this country, such as it is. The institution of NSA has existed in the United States since the end of World War II and in Russia also for a long time. Here, however, it is very new and in an evolutionary stage. To be sure Mr Narayanan was very briefly the NSA and chief executive of the first ever National Security Council in V.P. Singh’s time. But the whole exercise was no more than a flash in the pan. Both the NSC and the NSA disappeared with the fall of V.P. Singh’s government. Mr Narayanan went back to his earlier post of Director of Intelligence Bureau from which V.P. Singh had shifted him, and served for several years. It was only in 1999 when Atal Behari Vajpayee was Prime Minister that the first functioning NSC was formed and the first functioning NSA was appointed. However, Atalji assigned the onerous task to his already overburdened Principal Secretary, Mr Brajesh Mishra, which was totally contrary to the recommendations of the task force on the subject. (Interestingly, Mr Mishra is now opposed to the institution of NSA because he thinks it is incompatible with parliamentary democracy.) In 2004 when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance came to power, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appointed J.N. Dixit, a former foreign secretary, as his NSA. Simultaneously, Mr Narayanan joined the PMO as an adviser on internal security. Coordination of all intelligence agencies and ministries involved in making national security policy remained with the NSA. After Dixit’s sudden death in January 2005, Mr Narayanan became the NSA and took over the overseeing of both external and internal security. Being a veteran of the intelligence establishment and a long serving DIB, he also started micromanaging intelligence agencies that aroused criticism. Too much executive responsibility, the critics argued, detracted from the NSA’s job of coordinating the making of national security policies and monitoring their implementation. But this had no impact. Mr Narayanan, like Mr Mishra, acquired a very high profile that was — in some ways though not entirely — comparable to the roles played in the US by Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. To say this, however, is not to overlook the good work Mr Narayanan has done and services he has rendered. Even his critics acknowledge his constructive role in negotiating the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. It is also remarkable that after 26/11 the Prime Minister refused to accept his resignation while others were allowed, if not actually told, to leave. Some attributed this to the confidence that the Congress President was perceived to repose in him. If a date has to be fixed for the waning of Mr Narayanan’s star, it has to be the day when the hands-on P. C. Chidambaram took charge of the Union Home Ministry in the wake of the horrendous Pakistani terrorist attack on Mumbai. Wanting to establish a firm grip on internal security, he started holding a daily meeting at which not only the heads of the I.B. and the external intelligence agency better known by its acronym RAW but also the NSA had to be present. The word went round that at times tension at these meetings was palpable. Apparently, things began to move faster after the parliamentary elections in May last when the Manmohan Singh government Mark II was formed. The Prime Minister asked Mr Narayanan to stay on as NSA but only for a limited period, not for the government’s five-year term. The watershed, some observes believe, was reached when Mr Chidambaram, in his lecture on the centenary of the IB, outlined a comprehensive scheme to revamp and reinvigorate the Home Ministry. He wanted it to deal with every aspect of internal security and shed other responsibilities, ranging from national disaster management to the welfare of freedom fighters, to other ministries and departments. The general reaction then was that the idea behind the Home Minister’s scheme was sound but the same could not be said about all its details. However, Mr B. Raman, a former deputy chief of RAW and now one of the finest security analysts, wrote that Mr Chidambaram’s reorganisation plan, if accepted, would make him “Internal Security Czar”. It is in this context that there has been widespread and intense speculation about a turf war between the Home Minister and the NSA in which the former has prevailed. Mr Chidambaram has pointed out, however, that he has never even mentioned the NSA. All he wants, he adds, is that every agency having to do anything with the problem of terrorism must report to the National Counter-Terrorism Centre under the Home Ministry. This arrangement would leave the NSA with a large number of other functions. In any case, as he underscores, Mr Chidambaram’s lecture has yet to be converted into a precise proposal to be presented to the Cabinet for approval. Be that as it may, the main point that is being overlooked is that whoever may be the Home Minister and whoever the NSA the entire national security architecture in this country needs to be restructured and revamped to cope with the great and growing challenges to Indian security, internal and external. It also needs to be recognised that at present internal security has assumed greater importance than ever before. The United States had made sweeping reforms in its security apparatus after 9/11. It had set up a new department of home security without making it excessively powerful, and taken other measures. Yet, the latest incident at Detroit where the US homeland became vulnerable to airborne terrorism shows the even the wholesale American reforms haven’t been enough. Our system, sadly, is chaotic by comparison and needs to be streamlined speedily. What the government proposes to do is not yet known. But there is a clear and urgent need to appoint a Director of National Intelligence who would relieve the NSA of the responsibility to coordinate the operations of intelligence agencies and report to the Prime Minister through the NSA and to the Home Minister directly. Equally patent is the need to ensure that everyone concerned shares fully all intelligence inputs. The doctrine of sharing them on the basis of “need to know” simply will not
do.
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The cook and I A
SINGLE person charged with the responsibility of administering large land areas quickly comes to terms with silent bungalows, loneliness and keeping his own counsel and after the day’s innings in court, in office, in the field and, in fact everywhere he takes a step, at home, it is to the cook or the ‘nafar’ (valet) that he must turn for company. My first cook C.L. Chetri, an elderly Nepalese, came to me with impeccable credentials; he had never worked for an Indian and had been in the service of a severe English spinster for decades. I watched his work with anxiety for after a breathtaking escape from wedlock I realised that the cook would superintend my domestic felicity. Chetri turned out good Indo-Anglian fare. He was punctual, honest and well turned out. In his cooking as in his conduct, tradition guided his conscience. He kept a beautiful table; also he was an excellent ballroom dancer. I then came across Sher Khan in the stately Morar guest house at Gwalior. As I was taking in the magnificent circumstance of wide spaces, statues and sun dials, silhouetted in the moonlight and wondering how the night would pass, I found this turbaned nafar pouring out whisky measuring the soda against my brow. He returned after 20 minutes with a fresh glass to enquire whether he should render raga Malkauns or whether I would prefer listening to Darbari Kannada, a little later. Sher Khan belonged to Faizabad from where the then Maharaja of Gwalior had taken him into service. In Calcutta I came across Munir Mian, an elderly servitor at the Burdwan house. Dressed in black achkan and a long velveteen cap with ‘itr’ behind his ear, he had devised the ingenious method of escorting me between monsoon-drenched palaces by gently clapping his hands rhythmically in the direction of our destination. Till late Devinder Kaur of Faridkot and I became close friends, she would visit me escorted by a trim elderly Sikh gentleman in khaki uniform. Makhan Singh ate with us and I found that he wielded the cutlery easily changing it course by course, never permitting a morsel to rise to the border of a plate. He had been in-charge of the royal ‘Bustarkhana’. I also recall a special attendant in the Haryana Civil Secretariat, who endeared himself after he hurled a matchbox across the table in a studied gesture of extreme politeness to help me light a cigarette . Michael has been my khansama for long years, escorting me through the large Commissioners’ residences at Patiala, Ferozepur and Faridkot. Both of us have aged and slowed down. His manners rank him many notches above most colleagues that I have left behind. In the evenings he holds a small salver for my drink as we walk beneath the tall trees. Some mornings when I am late he gently touches my feet suggesting I continue the
journey.
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What went wrong at Copenhagen summit As we move into the new year, the hope for a cleaner and safer future fades away. With the curtains falling on the Copenhagen climate summit ‘09, what came out was a lot of statements and assurances but without any concrete way to fulfill them. The Copenhagen Accord was signed and the world leaders (besides blaming one another for non-cooperation) announced that the deal has been ‘good’ and that they ensured their country did not lose out. But the big questions remain: Is climate change a country-specific issue? Should not it have been given priority over the interests of the fossil fuel industry in various countries? For several years now we have been witnessing a lot of summits on the issue but none has yielded any concrete results towards containing climate change. Come the year 2012 the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol gets over and the world is left with no legally binding treaty on the reduction of greenhouse gases that are poisoning the atmosphere. Even if the nations agree to sign a new legally binding treaty in 2010, it is not sure that it can come into force before the end of 2012. Not that the Kyoto Protocol helped much but then it was the first legally binding treaty towards containing climate change. It was better than nothing. And now we have the prospect of nothing. The Copenhagen summit made it evident that governments are more concerned about traditional industries than about people. Their leaders seemed more interested in ensuring their country did not have to compromise, leading to an accord that may well prove worse than no accord at all. That is why we had all this talk about a recession affecting the power of developed countries to help developing countries cope with the effects of climate change that they have caused. There had been no such excuse when they bailed out their banks. And that is why there was this other way to deflect attention from the main issue – the tussle over whether developed countries could oversee the greenhouse gas control efforts of large developing countries like China, Brazil, India or South Africa. Such essentially non-issues kept the focus away from the main problem – climate change is here, it is accelerating, people are suffering, and they will suffer far more unless the world takes some very strong steps here and now. The summit is now over with an assurance from global leaders that they will address the climate change challenge, yet no one agreeing to a legally binding treaty. In the western Press, China is now being blamed for it, despite being at the forefront of countries that have acted domestically to fight climate change. It is dismantling one of its old coal-based thermal power plants every week and replacing it with a cleaner plant. What else is it expected to do? The summit was reduced to separate lobbies of various nations all bent on not compromising but blaming everyone else. This effectively obscured the fact that 20 per cent of the world’s population living in developed countries contributes 70-80 per cent of all the greenhouse gas emissions, yet they want the developing nations to shoulder more responsibilities. As Greenpeace International
Executive Director Kumi Naidoo said recently, “The world is facing tragic crises of leadership. Rather than
coming together to secure a future for hundreds of millions of people by agreeing to a historic deal to avert
climate chaos, leaders of the world’s most powerful countries have betrayed future and current generations. Averting climate chaos has just gotten a whole lot harder.” The world today lacks leaders and all that we have are politicians. As the climate disaster stares us right in the face there is no option but to agree to emission cuts. If we don’t get a legally binding treaty for this by the next climate summit in Mexico City this December, we are condemning
not only our future generations but also ourselves to a world we cannot live
in.
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Obama’s year in power It’s been tough, and in the short term it’s probably going to get tougher still. That, in a nutshell, is the road ahead for Barack Obama as he embarks on the second year of what, 12 months ago, was the most eagerly anticipated American presidency in half a century. The mood, a week before Mr Obama delivers his first State of the Union address to Congress next Wednesday, could scarcely be more different. His Democratic Party faces losses in November’s midterm elections, and the only question is how large those losses will be. Whatever the result of yesterday’s special Senate election in Massachusetts, growing doubts surround his ambitious legislative agenda. Republican obstructionism on Capitol Hill is only likely to grow. The most immediate challenge is healthcare reform. One way or another the measure’s fate will be decided in the next few weeks, maybe days – and it must be. Mr Obama was elected on the promise of bringing real change. Yet his other priorities, of overhauling the country’s energy policy, the regulation of its financial markets and immigration laws, have all been stalled by the unrelenting focus on healthcare. Somehow the President must re-invigorate his troops. But even before the spectre of defeat loomed in Massachusetts, dozens of Democrats facing tough re-election battles in November were wavering. In the months ahead, the pressure to break rank on legislation unpopular in their home states and congressional districts will only grow, further jeopardising Mr Obama’s ability to deliver on his promise of tackling problems ignored during eight years of Republican neglect. At least the legislative agenda is, to a degree at least, within his control. The economy, the biggest domestic cloud over this presidency, is not. Mr Obama’s flagging poll ratings, and the sour and obstreperous national mood, reflect the loss of jobs and wages in America’s worst recession in 75 years. The recession may have originated when George W Bush was in office but, – fairly or unfairly – this is Mr Obama’s economy now. And while statistical indicators may have turned up, every sign is that recovery will be slow. Technically the recession may be over, but for most of 2010 it won’t feel like it. That alone bodes continuing difficulties for the White House. The foreign policy outlook is equally tricky. Mr Obama may be winding down US involvement in Iraq, but that war has been replaced in the headlines by the equally unpopular conflict in Afghanistan. Having decreed his own surge in Afghanistan, that war unquestionably now belongs to Mr Obama. If US casualties continue to increase, and no perceptible progress is made – either on the ground or in the quality of Hamid Karzai’s governance – he will come under fresh pressure. The toughest problem though is the entwined dilemma of the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock, and Iran and its nuclear programme. For the Obama administration, even more than for its predecessor, the military option against Tehran represents the very last resort. But if tougher sanctions have no effect, its hand could yet be forced by Israeli action. That, however, would almost certainly draw a retaliation from Iran, perhaps disrupting global oil supplies and sparking new attacks from Hamas and Hizbollah against Israel, possibly sparking a new regional war. Complaints about Mr Obama are many, even from supposed allies. He is too cerebral in office, they say, too analytical and too solipsistic. He does not “feel the people’s pain” as visibly as he should. The criticism, however, ignores a basic truth about the modern presidency: the campaign to win it requires a candidate to promise far more than he can possibly deliver. In Mr Obama’s case, the mismatch between words and deeds has been greater than usual. One reason has been the ferocity of a Republican opposition whose only ambition is to block every piece of legislation he proposes. The other is an ever more dysfunctional system of government that makes it easy for them to do so. But at least the absurdly high expectations of 12 months ago are over. In 2010, and for the rest of his term, he will have to grind out his successes – some of which will not be seen as such at the time. He will have to move on past the inevitable failures. As the healthcare battle has proved, perfect solutions are impossible. In politics however, nothing is ever quite as good or as bad as it appears. Suppose the Democrats do lose
Massachusetts, and with it their health bill. Mr Obama will look rather like another young Democratic president who failed in a bid to overhaul healthcare in his second year, and was then humiliated in the 1994 midterm elections – to the point of pleading that, despite everything, his office was still “relevant”. Yet Bill Clinton came back from the depths to win a second term handsomely. Today he is generally regarded as a successful president. Whatever the likely travails of his second year, the script for Mr Obama could be
similar. — By arrangement with The Independent
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Drinks industry ‘seducing teenagers’ A row has broken out between the alcohol industry and a leading medical journal over allegations that the industry is using dubious tactics to promote its products to young people. Internal industry documents reveal that firms are “pushing the boundaries” of the code on alcohol advertising, according to researchers writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). They say market research on 15- and 16-year-olds is used to guide the development of campaigns and that many references were made to the need to recruit new drinkers and establish their loyalty. The alcohol industry spends £800m a year promoting drinking in the UK, 45 times more than the Government spends on educating people about its dangers. Promotion is restricted by a voluntary code of practice which bans advertising aimed at under-18s, encouragement of irresponsible drinking, linking drinking with social or sexual success or with masculinity or femininity. The BMJ analysis was carried out by Professor Gerard Hastings, director of the Institute for Social Marketing at the University of Stirling, and colleagues. Professor Hastings advised the Health Select Committee, which obtained the documents in order to explore how self-regulation was working. The authors say the UK needs to tighten regulation of the alcohol industry and that an independent regulator should vet all alcohol advertisements. “The current problems with UK alcohol promotion are reminiscent of those seen before tobacco advertising was banned, when attempts to control content and adjust targeting simply resulted in more cryptic and imaginative campaigns... History suggests that alcohol advertisers are drinking in the last-chance saloon,” they write. The alcohol industry reacted angrily. David Poley, chief executive of Portman Group, a trade group of UK alcoholic drinks producers, said: “We are proud of the regulatory system for alcohol in the UK which is admired across the world”. Simon Litherland, managing director of Diageo GB, said: “This article is a gross misrepresentation of the strict internal marketing process that Diageo applies, and a distortion of the evidence we provided to the Health Select Committee as part of its inquiry”. The BMJ called for a clampdown on alcohol promotion and a minimum price per unit of alcohol to curb the harm caused. The editorial by Trish Groves, deputy editor of the BMJ, said: “It is time to put away the rhetoric, popular with the drinks industry, that alcohol misuse is largely an individual problem best avoided and managed through education, counselling and medical treatment.” Advertisements for alcohol must not appeal strongly to people under 18 or be associated with, or reflect, youth culture. No one who is, or appears to be, under 25 years old may play a significant role in any advertisements. Drunkenness and excess Advertising must not link alcohol with brave, tough, unruly or daring people or behaviour; nor should it encourage irresponsible, antisocial or immoderate drinking (whether in terms of style or amount). Sociability and social success Advertising must not link drinking to the social acceptance or success of individuals, events, or occasions. It should not imply that it can enhance an individual’s popularity, confidence, mood, physical performance, personal qualities, attractiveness or sexual success. Masculinity and femininity Advertising must not link drinking with enhanced attractiveness, masculinity or femininity, nor with daringness, toughness, bravado, challenge, seduction, sexual activity, or sexual
success. — By arrangement with The Independent
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Corrections and clarifications
Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them. This column appears twice a week — every Tuesday and Friday. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find
any error. Readers in such cases can write to Mr Kamlendra Kanwar, Senior Associate Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections”
on the envelope. His e-mail ID is kanwar@tribunemail.com. H.K. Dua, Editor-in-Chief
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