The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Hardly cricket
IPL affairs need to be probed

When all 11 Pakistani players were given the go-by in the IPL auction on January 19, the organisers had darkly hinted that there were “security and availability” issues. But Home Minister P. Chidambaram has punctured that balloon by saying that there was no “hint” or “nudge” to overlook the Pakistanis. Not only that, he has called the exclusion a “disservice to cricket”. So where did the “suggestion” come from? If the government is out, then it has to be the IPL authorities themselves which precipitated such a furore and almost an uncalled for row between India and Pakistan. Even the franchisees have now come out to guardedly insinuate that the IPL was to blame. Shah Rukh Khan, the owner of Kolkata Knight Riders, has said that it was “humiliating” to see none of the Pakistani players being picked up and the issue could have been better handled.

He has revealed that he and KKR captain Sourav Ganguly wanted to pick up allrounder Abdul Razzaq but “I am not going to be the one who is opposite from what everyone else is doing,” he told NDTV. Rajasthan Royals coach Darren Beery went a step further and lashed out at the IPL authorities for “humiliating” the Pakistani players and alleged that “politics and foreign affairs got in the way of cricket decisions”. His team was eying Umar Akmal.

All that leaves enough circumstantial evidence that it was all the IPL’s doing. Given the dubious track record of its Chairman Lalit Modi, the allegations need to be taken seriously. There is need to investigate whether there was something hanky-panky in the incident. If there was cartelisation, as the circumstances indicate, then the tendency must be curbed with a firm hand. After all, the IPL is not just any private jagirdari. Its affairs must be fully above-board and transparent. If some officials want to maintain a veil of secrecy, then ways and means must be found to show them the door and to ensure that the working of the entire IPL set-up is subjected to a probe.

Hopes from Davos
Go beyond empty talk

The World Economic Forum meeting this year (January 27 to 31) at Davos in Switzerland will be a much more relaxed affair than last year’s when bankers were conspicuously missing as countries, big and small, grappled with the financial crisis, dubbed the biggest since the Great Depression. The economic pain has eased since then and the world is witnessing a recovery, though sceptics still talk of a double-dip recession. The atmosphere over-all is friendly. There is no more talk of globalisation on the retreat. Few question the future of capitalism or offer alternatives. No immediate fears of financial institutions crumbling. There may, however, be pressure from the true believers to return to free trade and lift barriers that countries had erected to fight recession.

The US usually sets the agenda. This year bank regulation and reform of financial systems may gain the centrestage as President Barack Obama is still fuming at Wall Street excesses and pushing measures back home to curb excessive risk-taking by banks and financial firms. Bankers are expected to return to the Swiss mountain this time not as much for socialising and networking as to fight back reformers who propose stringent requirements on capitalisation and debt ratios to avoid a repeat of 2008. The reformers have the support of the Group of 20, which has also pressed for a cleanup of the global financial sector.

The annual talk show has often invited derisive comments from critics. If those participating in the Davos jamboree want themselves to be taken seriously, they should shun needless confrontation and work to remove structural deficiencies that have crept in the regulation of global financial institutions. What British Prime Minister said at the last Davos summit still holds true: “This is a global crisis and we need global cooperation and action to cope with it”. Since world leaders are already wrestling with global warming, Davos can lead the way by promoting green technologies and pledging equitable growth that does not sacrifice environmental concerns.

Thought for the Day

With full-span lives having become the norm, people may need to learn how to be aged as they once had to learn how to be adult. — Ronald Blythe

ARTICLE

Waiting for peace in Afghanistan
Regional cooperation can help
by Maj-Gen Ashok K. Mehta (retd)

The stunning attack this month in Kabul due to intelligence and security lapses — in the Red Zone near the Presidential Palace when the new Cabinet was being sworn in — shows that the Taliban movement is winning the war. The attack was on the eve of the international London conference of 63 countries on Afghanistan, mainly to work out “the transfer plan” to Afghan command and control from ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) when US troops start withdrawals in July 2011.

Despite announcing the exit time-line, the US has followed a policy of ambiguity dictated by political, not military, considerations. It is insisting there will be no cut and run; the transition and transfer of responsibility will begin after measuring progress against an elaborate mechanism of benchmarks. The military surge - clear, hold, build and transfer charge - will be accompanied by a civilian surge underscoring a US-Afghan partnership.

Organised confusion has followed from the lack of clarity in both military and political objectives. The main issues are rightsizing the Afghan National Security Forces, (ANSF) creating CIS and policing capacities, shoring up governance, reducing corruption and reconstructing infrastructure. An immediate problem is about holding of parliamentary elections or extending the term of Parliament through a constitutional amendment. For militarily marginalising the Taliban, disrupting its sanctuaries in Pakistan is essential. But with friends like Pakistan, who needs enemies?

Scenario builders have painted three contingencies based on two assumptions: that the ANSF will acquire the requisite skills and motivation to contain the Taliban and the West, including the ISAF, will not pull the plug prematurely. There is wide consensus that Taliban rule is not acceptable to the majority of Afghans and virtually all of the international community, including even Pakistan.

The scenarios are: staying the course; gradual withdrawal commensurate with progress on benchmarks; and muddling through after an impromptu deinduction of the ISAF.

There is a fourth contingency: breakup of Afghanistan-Pakistan on ethnic lines straddling the Durand Line into Pakhtunistan or Pakhtunkhwa. The first contingency is not likely, the second most desirable and the last best avoided. In 1992, everyone thought that the Najibullah regime would collapse in two weeks against the onslaught of the Mujahideen, but it survived for three years.

The third review of Af-Pak later this year has to come up with more realistic time-lines of a phased withdrawal with benchmarks for measuring progress. Training and motivating Afghan forces from scratch and equipping them with skills and artifacts for CIS will take time, patience and perseverance.

The fate of Afghanistan has been in the hands of Western powers the US, the UK and their NATO allies. The march of NATO eastwards to defeat Al-Qaeda (and the Taliban) is its first out-of-area mission, well thought out with an eye on Central Asia, Iran, China and Russia. The strategic investment in the region will preclude a precipitate withdrawal, rather a long-term commitment is on the cards. It is up to regional powers to create the conditions for Western forces to vacate by ensuring an orderly transfer of power and resources to Afghanistan.

As the US-led Af-Pak strategy continues with the empowerment of Afghans in peacebuilding, security and stabilisation, a regional initiative must be ready and equipped to occupy the space vacated by Western forces. Many Pakistanis and some Afghans believe that the presence of ISAF in Afghanistan is the key driver of insurgency though this reasoning has diluted following the socio-economic development programmes undertaken by the UN, the coalition forces and India. Many Afghans now want ISAF to stay longer to keep the Taliban off their backs.

A military solution in Afghanistan is impossible. While targeting Al-Qaeda and keeping the Taliban at bay, efforts have also to be made to mainstream the resistance much in the manner that the Maoists were brought into the reconciliation process in Nepal. The Japanese who have pulled out of their refuelling of ships mission off Afghanistan are hosting a $ 5 billion programme for the rehabilitation and reintegration of the Taliban. The UK, the US and Saudi Arabia are already engaged in direct and indirect talks with the hard-core Taliban. India is totally opposed to the idea of reconcilable Taliban but lately has softened its position.

Five types of the Taliban have been identified: ideologically motivated hard-core insurgents; those disaffected by the government; the financially underprivileged; those fed on drugs money, possess weapons and are paid more than government soldiers; and the foreign Taliban. Reconciliation is best achieved at the local level by village elders, but the good old tribal system has broken down.

The Mehsud tribes in Waziristan boast they can make a suicide bomber in six minutes. Indoctrinated youth, graduated from madarsas and served with the Taliban take an average of four years to detoxify. Nearly 15,000 Taliban insurgents have to be neutralised either by the gun or through the lure of dollars. Al-Qaeda and other foreign fighters are not eligible for reconciliation.

At some stage in 2012, the US should transfer its responsibility to a contact group under the UN auspices comprising Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Central Asian Republics, Pakistan and India. It will ensure that the prescribed benchmarks are achieved. Once the reconciliation process is activated, qualified Talibs will be rehabilitated and their leaders inducted into Parliament and democratised. Again the Maoist model in Nepal is a useful reference point. The Japanese and the Norwegians have valuable experience in mainstreaming of rebel groups, but the ownership of reconciliation and the political process must return to the Afghans in substance and perception.

How proactive must India be to shape its future role in Afghanistan? In a recent Gallup poll, India topped the list of countries doing good work in Afghanistan. Pakistan figured last and at least 33 per cent of Afghans saw Islamabad supporting the Taliban. In another poll, India also was number one among the countries with good relations with Afghanistan.

At present, Delhi has no intention of expanding its footprint beyond the use of its soft power. On several occasions, the US has noted that India is doing a great job which in no way impinges on Islamabad’s security concerns. The view from South Block is that it is cognizant of Pakistan’s legitimate concerns though doing more by way of training the Afghan Army will not constitute any overreach.

A more vocal minority is advocating offering upto two divisions of troops for North-West Afghanistan and gifting military equipment for arming two divisions of the Afghan Army. The rationale is that as the Taliban pose a direct threat to India, it must be confronted at source. The difficulties of maintaining two divisions without any logistics corridor will be enormous.

Many Pakistanis recognise that as a regional power, Delhi has legitimate interests and goals and since the Taliban factor is a common threat for all three — India, Pakistan and Afghanistan — they should unite to fight terrorism. In the transition phase, Delhi must plump for the regional mechanism to dilute Islamabad’s centrality in the Af-Pak area. At the same time, India and Pakistan must reopen the composite dialogue process at the earliest so that their mutual concerns on Afghanistan can be allayed. Focussing on trilateral cooperation within the regional compact will help promote peace and stability in Afghanistann

MIDDLE

School nicknames
by Harish Dhillon

THE subject of school nicknames could be a rich field of study in itself. School nicknames can be of many kinds. They could originate in physical attributes. For instance, a huge fat boy could be called “Katta” and a bald headed teacher could be called “Eggie”. They could originate from the individual’s attitude towards life. For instance, an individual who is very cocky could be called “gassy” and, as an extreme example, one who exhibits great lassitude could well end up being called “dead”.

Nicknames can also be contractions of names. For example when a child says “Ahloo and Gobi came to dinner at my parent’s place,” he is not talking about the vegetables at all but about two individuals with the names ‘Ahluwalia’ and ‘Gobind’.

School nicknames also tend to be generic. For example, a girl who had buck teeth was called ‘Tusky’ and when her younger siblings joined school, they in turn were called ‘Tusky’ and ‘Chut Tusky’. Incidentally, there was also a ‘Katti’ who was sister of ‘Katta’ and yes, a ‘Chut Dead’! This generic trend is not necessarily limited to blood relatives. There was a time when all boys with the surname ‘Gupta’ were called Chappu only because there had once been a boy named Gupta who had earned that nickname.

The wonderful thing about school nicknames is that they may have originated with derogatory connotations but with frequent use all negativity is worn out and sometimes replaced by very deep and warm affection. When I was in school we had a very young, new history teacher who had a huge walrus moustache. He was immediately given the nickname ‘Mucho’ and there was a tinge of amusement in this christening. Over the years he rose to be the Deputy Headmaster and one of the most enduring legends in the School’s history. Today when former students refer to him as ‘Mucho’ they do so with tremendous respect and equally tremendous love.

In my own case I was nicknamed UD. I was told that it was because when I initialled the pupils’ notebooks my ‘H’ looked like a ‘U’. I didn’t believe this – my handwriting was bad but not so bad. Then I wrote a letter to someone in Solan, H.P. After months of travelling around and a long stint in the dead letter office the letter came back to me.It had travelled to a host of places like Sitapur, Shajahanpur and Ballia – all in UP. I had to finally admit that my ‘H’ did read like a ‘U’.

I know that my nickname too originates in a faint contempt for my inability to write legibly. But with long and frequent usage this contempt has been worn away. Almost 30 years after I taught him, one of my former students, who runs a chain of educational institutions, sent me a corporate new year gift – a personalised copy of the year planner, only it did not have my name ‘Harish Dhillon’ stamped on the cover. Instead, it carried the initials ‘UD’.

OPED

Growing lawlessness on Indian roads
by Ram Singh

The first week of every New Year is observed as the ‘road safety week’ throughout the country. The traffic police launches campaigns to sensitise people and make them obey the traffic rules.

However, any semblance of civilised driving disappears soon after, even before the official rituals are over and campaign-hoardings are pulled down.

For the rest of the year, road users need three things to return home safely: good brakes, a good horn and, most importantly, good luck!

In civilised societies, vehicles stop to give way to vulnerable road users like pedestrians. In India, it’s the other way round. Indeed, lawlessness is at its worst display on Indian roads.

As a result, the accident rate is intolerably high; 35 per thousand vehicles. In contrast, for several developed and developing countries it is in the range of 4-15. According to the World Road Statistics, the per vehicle casualty rate is the highest for India.

With just one per cent of the world vehicles, we account for 10 per cent of fatalities. On an average, more than 400 people die or get permanently incapacitated in road accidents everyday!

Even by conservative estimates, economic costs of accidents and congestion are at least 3 per cent of the GDP. The actual numbers are much larger since many accidents go unrecorded.

The omnipresent road-chaos aside, the country has a law known as the Motor Vehicle (MV) Act. The law has two stated objectives: to minimise the number of accidents and to provide just compensation to victims of road accidents.

The Supreme Court has declared the law welfare legislation. The 1988 amendment to the MV Act had adopted several measures to check the accidents’ menace. Among others, it increased the fines for traffic offences and also the ex-post accident liability of injurer drivers.

The result, as an analysis of accident data has revealed, was a structural and downward shift in the accident rate. These measures worked notwithstanding the popular beliefs about the corruption in the traffic police and judicial delays.

But the amendment has outlived its utility. While the per capita income has increased more than threefold – from Rs 11,899 in 1988-89 to Rs 38,084 in 2008-09 – fines have remained stagnant at ridiculously low levels.

Most of the fines have remained in the range of Rs 100-400. So it is not surprising that accidents have gone up from little over two lakh in 1988 to more than four lakh in 2008. During the last 4-5 years the annual rate of increase has been 8 per cent or more.

The intended legal objectives can be realised only if the executive enforces traffic rules that are apt and effective. And the judiciary provides timely relief to victims. Unfortunately, both organs of the state have failed society.

Courts have failed to ensure an expeditious settlement of disputes and to provide adequate compensation to the victims. As a result, the accident liability has no deterrent effect on the arrogant, drunken and reckless drivers.

However, the failure of the executive in enforcing and updating the traffic rules is more serious. It has resulted in excessively large number of accidents and the resultant legal disputes. This, in turn, has compounded the problems created by judicial delays and has further undermined the victims’ entitlement to timely relief.

Several measures by the Central and state governments can help in the matter. For instance, a majority of the victims on city roads as well as highways are pedestrians, bicyclists and other vulnerable road users.

In the absence of exclusive lanes, these people fail to dodge dangerously driven vehicles. Provisioning of sidewalks, cycle-tracks and side-lanes can drastically reduce fatalities by making roads safer.

Also to apprehend the reckless drivers, more policemen and high-tech equipment can be deployed. Unfortunately, these crucial measures are costly and, therefore, get postponed year after year.

However, enhancing the existing fines is costless to impose and perhaps prove more useful. In fact, in the absence of effective fines the other measures may help. To illustrate, during 2009 the Delhi Traffic Police launched several awareness drives. Besides, it used more of men as well as machinery to apprehend offenders.

Consequently, the number of challans issued went up from 34.1 lakh in 2008 to 41.77 lakh in 2009. Yet, the number of accidents declined only marginally.

In fact, the number of fatal accidents in 2009 was 12 per cent higher than in the previous year. Why? Because fines are negligible. Police efforts would have been more successful, had fines been substantial.

Regrettably, the Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Bill, in its present form, leaves much to be desired. The proposed increases in fines are nominal. For example, for excessive speeding the fine has been increased only by Rs 100, and there is no effective increase in fine for dangerous driving! In addition to the higher fines, the prospective law should provide for a scheduled increase in fines over time to offset their depreciation.

The writer teaches in the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.

Let’s not waste growth
by Hamish McRae

Some growth at last... but it is a measure of the dire state of the economy that even a minuscule 0.1 per cent rise in economic activity should be greeted with relief. Even if the official figures understate what is actually happening, and most economists expect them to be revised upwards as more data comes through, it is clear that this recession will roughly equal what was until now the worst of the postwar recessions, that of the early 1980s.

This recession is not unprecedented, but it has by any standards been grave. As anyone who can recall the early 1980s will know, recessions generate huge swathes of human misery, with many people’s lives wrecked though no fault of their own.

This leads to two sorts of discussion. One is the practical one: what will happen next and how we might avoid getting ourselves into similar messes in the future. But there is another deeper set of issues that, as growth is resumed and sustained, is worth exploring.

These concern the nature and purpose of economic growth: not just how to get richer but the nature of the wealth that is generated, how it is shared between people and between generations, and the benefits and costs it brings with it. We need to learn how, as far as we can, to avoid the slumps; but we also need to work out how to make the best of the booms.

We have I hope learnt some things over the past couple of years – and by “we” I mean the entire developed world, not just those of us who happen to be involved in the 3 per cent of the world economy that takes place on these islands. One lesson is that growth is better than decline.

To most people that would seem pretty self-evident but one of the troubling aspects of an economic downturn is that the voices advocating a “zero-growth society” seem to chime louder. This comes in all sorts of guises, from people saying they can’t see why others need more income or that people should not be allowed to work harder even if they want to, to those who believe family size should be limited – the latter group usually having had several children themselves.

Well, we are experiencing a zero-growth society in the sense that it will take another two or three years before we regain the level of GDP we reached at the peak, the early part of 2008. Four years of no net growth means not just fewer new cars or fewer foreign holidays. It will mean closing more hospitals, fewer places at universities, more people on the dole.

There is a bit of the puritan in most of us and recession brings it to the forefront. Conspicuous consumption will look out of place for some time yet and maybe that is no bad thing. But as we draw up the balance sheet of this period of zero growth we will surely find that the list of minuses is much longer than the list of pluses. Pity we need the experience of recession to remind us of that.

There are, however, more positive lessons that we can draw, things we should keep at the front of our minds as growth resumes. One obvious one is that growth in economic activity has to be environmentally sustainable. We have had a scare in the surge in energy prices, in particular oil and gas, and though these have now fallen back a bit, we have come to appreciate that oil in particular is likely to be in short supply, probably for ever. The world will have to find other sources of energy. Meanwhile, we had better use what we’ve got as sensibly as we can.

A second thing we need to be more aware of is intergenerational equity. Here in the UK the government will have more than doubled the national debt. So we have loaded the costs of recession, and the costs of unfunded current public spending, on future generations of taxpayers: young workers, children and the unborn.

There is a new book examining this out next month. It is called The Pinch – How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children’s Future – And Why They Should Give It Back, and what gives it legs is that it is by David Willetts, shadow minister for universities and skills.

His argument, that the generation born between 1945 and 1965 have behaved selfishly and need to make amends, will I hope help shape policy under the next government. But the government will only be able to rebalance fiscal policy if voters grasp that unfunded public spending is both unjust and indeed immoral, and will impoverish our children and our children’s children.

The third issue is why the last boom led to rising inequality just about everywhere. As a crude rule of thumb, inequalities within counties rose, while inequalities between countries diminished. To some extent governments have been able to mitigate the worst effects of rising inequality by progressive tax policies and subsidised public services, but that is to put a patch on a social wound. Better far not to have the wounded society in the first place.

The reaction of people to rising inequality tends to become quite political, which is a shame because to see the issue through a political prism is to fail to delve into its underlying economic causes. So let’s just observe that this is a phenomenon evident in places as diverse as China and the United States, India and Sweden, and it is something that needs open-minded examination during the upturn.

And finally there is that tantalising, difficult, will-o’-the-wisp notion of happiness. Insofar as it can be measured, we have become less happy as a result of recession, but even during the boom it was not clear that added wealth was bringing much of an increase in happiness.

Lord Layard, the economist and Labour peer, has argued that governments should seek to reduce wealth differentials as inequality increases unhappiness, but since one thing almost everyone is agreed on is that they dislike government interference in their lives, I am not sure that is a great idea. The Tories talk in terms of economic “wellbeing”, a thought in the same broad area but again I am not sure that this is something governments can do much about. Maybe they should do fewer things and do them better and then we would all be happier.

The big point, though, is that growth is an opportunity. It is an opportunity to do better next time. The more growth, the greater the opportunity. So welcome it and hope it lasts.

— By arrangement with The Independent

Athens exhibition inspires passion
by Anthee Carassava

A giant marble phallus. An ancient brothel. A seductive statue of Eros and Psyche exchanging a passionate kiss. This is the untold story of love in antiquity, revealed in a stirring, spine-tingling exhibition in Athens.

Dedicated to Eros – the winged and whimsical god whom ancient Greeks adored for aeons – the exhibition takes an unabashed look at an attitude to love and lust. It might have set many modern Greeks blushing, but the show’s startling success in its opening month has the Louvre yearning to bring it to Paris, city of love.

Organisers say they are considering the offer, but it would mean having to cut short the Athens show, which has proved to be a popular addition to the tourist trail since it opened at the Museum of Cycladic Art last month.

“We want to show the sweeping scope of love in ancient times,” said Nicholaos Stampolidis, the museum’s director. “But for this to happen, visitors must have their eyes and minds wide open.”

With its 272 artefacts that span a millennium from the sixth century BC to early Christianity, it is the first major exhibition on this theme. Organisers spent three years researching and surveying items before convincing 50 other museums to collaborate.

“It’s easy to read and write about love,” Mr Stampolidis noted. “But it is extremely difficult to convey love through art, and the project, altogether, was a challenge.”

From phallic-shaped lamps, vases and urns depicting men and women gnarled in sexual scenes, to a 2,500-year-old love note and the incised text of a jilted lover’s curse, the display documents the changing perceptions of Eros from the 8th century BC when ancient Greeks idolised him as an omnipotent god, to Roman times, when – less potent and renamed to Cupid – he became a mere companion of Venus.

The show is divided into nine sections ranging from the birth of Eros, his upbringing by Aphrodite, the status of women in ancient society, and love in religion and marriage.

The crowd-puller, though, is the second floor. There, visitors face up to the bold and bawdy attitude that the ancient Greeks and Romans had towards homosexuality, prostitution and even bestiality – or, to use the organisers’ euphemism, “bucolic love affairs”.

Indeed, in room after room, viewers gaze at a cornucopia of vases, charms and trinkets depicting graphic scenes of erotic play between an unimaginable combination of partners in unthinkable positions. Tucked away in the inner sanctum, the exhibit also hosts a life-size recreation of an ochre-coloured Roman brothel unearthed in Pompei, Italy.

The exhibition is open to schools and children, although a discreet sign leading to the second-floor advises parents to accompany children under 16. “This doesn’t mean that the particular section is barred,” Mr Stampolidis said. “It’s just best to have a teacher, parent or curator along to answer questions appropriately, allowing no room for any misinterpretation.”

— By arrangement with The Independent