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Unravel the mystery
Elected for walkouts? |
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Compromise on Davis But the problem is not over for Pakistan AS was expected, Pakistan has finally released arrested US Embassy staffer Raymond Davis after the families of his two victims agreed to accept blood money.
The chaos in Libya
On the wings of sycophancy
Impact will go far beyond Japan Corrections and clarifications
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Unravel the mystery
THE mysterious death of A.M. Sadiq Batcha, a close associate of former Union Minister A. Raja, in Chennai on Wednesday, has given a new twist to the 2G Spectrum scam being probed by the CBI. Doubts have arisen whether it was a case of suicide or there was foul play involved. The exit of Batcha, who was the director of the Chennai-based real estate firm Greenhouse Promoters, comes at a time when the CBI is on the verge of filing a charge-sheet in the 2G case. Batcha was not only a suspect in the case but also a key link in the money trail as he promoted five companies soon after Swan Telecom, a company allotted spectrum by Raja’s ministry, sold its share to Etisalat. It is alleged that all these firms acted as a front for the kickbacks in the scam. Mr Raja’s wife, brother and nephew are all directors in Batcha’s firm. According to the doctor who performed the post-mortem, Batcha died due to asphyxia and that only pathological results can confirm whether it was suicide or murder. The CBI should probe it thoroughly to unravel the mystery. The CBI had questioned Batcha a couple of times in connection with the case, being monitored by the Supreme Court. The documents seized from him suggest that there were transactions between the firms he owned. Speculation is rife that Batcha was contemplating turning approver in the case, which would have allowed him to be let off lightly in return for giving evidence against key suspects. Of late, mysterious deaths of key witnesses and suspects have become a major problem in the country. In the absence of a witness protection programme, the criminal justice system has failed to address this problem. The deaths of Asutosh Asthana (Ghaziabad PF scam, 2009), Bharat Borge (Anil Ambani chopper sabotage case, 2009), Arindam Manna (Rizwanur suicide case, 2009), Ram Singh Maurya (BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai murder, 2005) Keki Balsara (Gulshan Kumar murder case, 2001) all reveal how key witnesses are eliminated by vested interests to hoodwink the law and subvert justice. Considering the fact that Batcha knew many things about Mr A. Raja and his links, he should have been given adequate protection. Not surprisingly, the AIADMK has urged the authorities to tighten security for Mr A. Raja and DB Realty managing director Shahid Balwa (who had told the CBI that Batcha introduced him to Raja), currently lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail after being arrested in the 2G case. An impartial inquiry into the purported suicide of Batcha is the need of the hour to establish the truth behind his mysterious death.
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Elected for walkouts?
WHEN a journalist asked former Capt Amarinder Singh about shorter sittings of the Punjab assembly a couple of months before the present budget session, he had said: “The Akalis try to run away from debate on vital issues of the state’s economy …” On Wednesday he did exactly what he had said about the Akalis. The Captain trooped out of the House along with his party MLAs after having his say on the budget. The Congress has decided to boycott the debate on the budget because, as the Captain put it, “we cannot discuss a bogus document on the floor of the House”. It is a sad fact of Indian democracy that whether it is Parliament or a state assembly, opposition parties tend to skirt debate on issues of public interest and instead resort to cheap gimmicks to disrupt the House proceedings, quite often to attract media attention. Legislators spend huge sums to get elected. On election, they make high-pitched noises, run down one another, even use abusive language and, if nothing else works, resort to walkouts and boycotts. What for? Why pay them hefty pay and perks if they cannot even perform their basic duty? If a budget has to be passed without a discussion, what else is more important? For a change, the Haryana assembly set a good example during its just-concluded session by having a healthy debate on various issues. Questions have been raised about the authenticity of certain data carried in the 2011-12 Punjab budget. Former Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal was the first to raise doubts. It is possible that what Capt Amarinder Singh says is true. But he should present his case with figures and sources on the floor of the House to prove — to the satisfaction of all — that the budgetary figures are fudged. What is the point in asking for a White Paper and what is the guarantee that figures won’t be fudged again? Instead of cribbing about the state’s fiscal deterioration, the political leaders should sit together and evolve a consensus on a long-term plan to pull the state out of the fiscal morass. |
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Compromise on Davis
AS was expected, Pakistan has finally released arrested US Embassy staffer Raymond Davis after the families of his two victims agreed to accept blood money. The Additional Sessions judge in Lahore who had earlier sentenced him to imprisonment for 41 days as an under-trial prisoner acquitted him on Wednesday as he was pardoned by 19 legal heirs of his victims on the payment of “diyat” or blood money. However, the formal announcement in this regard was made by Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah in the evening after the US national, believed to be a CIA operative, had already left Pakistan by a special aircraft. This indicates that the government expected some trouble after the release of Davis. That is why no one can say with certainty that the Davis problem is over for the Pakistan government. The US pressure on Pakistan is bound to ease with Davis finally getting freedom. Initially, Pakistan had been reluctant to release him as his claim for diplomatic immunity had proved to be hollow. The US had virtually failed to prove that Davis was a diplomat and, therefore, could not be proceeded against in accordance with the Pakistani law. Later on Pakistan was giving the impression of having buckled under US pressure, as it began to look for some legal loophole to free Davis. But the extremists in Pakistan had made it clear that they would not spare the PPP-led government in Islamabad if it accepted the US diplomatic immunity argument. Their viewpoint was strengthened by the then Pakistan Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, having lost his job owing to his insistence that Davis had no diplomatic status. The court ruling also supported the minister’s line. Releasing Davis on the payment of blood money is, obviously, a middle-of-the-road policy. Now the government can argue to silence the extremists that what had ultimately happened amounted to US admission that the suspected CIA operative had committed the double murder, which was not in self-defence, as was the American plea. But how the extremist section will react is difficult to predict at this stage, as they had been in favour of giving no concession to the US. The Pakistan government may find itself in a difficult strait if the Opposition led by Mr Nawaz Sharif’s PML (N) also takes the extremist line. |
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The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.— Zeno
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The chaos in Libya
THERE is chaos in Libya with forces loyal to the Libyan dictator, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, repulsing a rebel push to the west and then counterattacking with air strikes and increasingly accurate artillery fire on the strategic refinery towns. As Gaddafi's forces retake a series of strategic oil towns like Ras Lanuf and Zawiyah on the east coast of the country, which fell early in the rebellion to anti-government rebels, the West continues to debate what actions to take, including the creation of a possible no-flight zone to ground Libyan warplanes. The opposition forces have failed to coalesce together and appear outmatched by government forces and troubled by tribal divisions that the government, reverting to form, has sought to exploit. Libya appears to be splintering along tribal lines, with the historically rebellious east falling quickly to the rebels while western Libya, traditionally more loyal to Colonel Gaddafi, remains under his control. With momentum seeming to shift, the rebels face the prospect of being outgunned and outnumbered in what increasingly looks like a mismatched civil war. The debate on a no-flight zone has been getting louder in world capitals. European countries like Britain and France seem to favour the idea while the United States Defense Secretary, Mr Robert M. Gates, has underscored the difficulties of imposing such a ban, though he has seemed to soften his resistance in recent days. Britain and France are working on a United Nations resolution to authorise a no-flight zone, although it was unclear whether such a measure could gain the necessary votes of Russia and China in the Security Council. The Gulf Cooperation Council has demanded that the Security Council should impose a no-flight zone. The Arab League, after dilly-dallying for weeks, has also decided to back the creation of a no-fly zone and wants the pan-Arab organisation to play a role in implementing it. NATO has expanded its air surveillance over Libya from 10 hours to 24 hours a day to gather information on Libyan troop movements. There are now demands that it should find a way to share relevant information with the rebels. The Obama administration is throwing out so many conflicting messages on Libya that it is blunting any potential pressure on the Libyan regime and weakening American credibility. Mr Obama inherited two wars in Muslim lands, which would seem to offer an argument for not getting entangled in a third. In his 2009 speech to the Muslim world from Cairo, he took pains to say that America had no imperial designs on Iraq or Afghanistan — a pledge that would be sorely tested if American military forces entered another Arab country, even if for humanitarian reasons. This is a time of great tumult in the Middle-East, which is also testing the resolve of the international community to tackle difficult issues in the region. All major global powers are struggling with tough choices as they try to strike a balance between their values and strategic interests in crafting a response to the prevailing crisis in Libya. India is no exception but it is under the spotlight at the moment as it has assumed the non-permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council. New Delhi has supported the Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on the Muammar Gaddafi regime that include a comprehensive arms embargo on Libya designed to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale, or transfer of arms and military equipment to that country and a freeze on the economic resources "owned or controlled, directly or indirectly," by the designated Gaddafi family members. But this has not been an easy choice given the domestic political sensitivities involved. The ongoing discussions about the possibility of imposing a no-fly zone are making New Delhi more nervous. India, despite being the largest democracy in the world, has largely watched the events unfold in the Middle-East in silence. In many ways, this reticence is understandable. The region has been witnessing a highly unpredictable situation and the government was taking its time to think through the implications. Moreover, for New Delhi to comment on events unfolding in the region would have been hypocritical given how seriously India takes the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Much like China, India has traditionally resisted interventionist foreign policy doctrines emanating from the West and displayed conservative attitudes on the prerogatives of sovereignty. Yet, India claims to be a rising global power today. America's endorsement of India's candidacy to the UN permanent membership, and India's easy victory in the election to the Security Council as a non-permanent member, do indeed represent recognition of India's credentials as a major global power. But India still needs to convince the world that it has a legitimate claim to a permanent seat on the council. Now in the spotlight, India is finding its actions on critical global issues — including its silence on the democratic turmoil in the Middle-East — being subjected to close and critical scrutiny. As a result, India is being forced to jettison its old foreign-policy assumptions and strike a delicate balance between the pursuit of its narrow national interest and its responsibility as a rising power to help maintain global peace and stability. India's success in this endeavor will, to a large extent, determine its future global
profile.
The writer teaches at King’s College, London.
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On the wings of sycophancy
Gone are the days when you called a spade a spade, believed in being upright and did not sacrifice your principles at any cost. Today, if you followed these ethical but outdated and discarded rules of life, you are sure to run the risk of finding yourself on the wrong side of your boss. Don’t blame your boss for this but blame the system, which pushes a majority of the sycophants to the upper rung of the ladder in our democracy. No doubt, every boss wants to have good and efficient workers under him. But the one who knows the knack of pleasing his boss, scores over the good workers hands down. If you do not believe this, then I have to quote the recent and well-known example of Padam Singh, a DSP rank personal security officer to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati. The other day after alighting from her helicopter, when she accidentally slipped over a puddle, Padam Singh wasted no time in taking out his handkerchief and wiping mud from her sandals. No wonder, 61-year-old Padam Singh was given an extension of two years after he retired from service last year and has been managing Mayawati’s security for the last 15 years. No eyebrows are raised over such shameful incidents these days because a majority of the politicians and bureaucrats have started viewing them as a sign of loyalty and respect towards them. Now think of the top man in our Republic about three decades ago who went to the extent of saying openly that he could hold a broom in his hand and start sweeping, if the Prime Minister asked him to do so. There are many more such examples in our polity. Sycophancy has assumed new dimensions over the years because of the encouraging response that it gets in our political system. The human nature being what it is, praise and adulation sound like music to one’s ears. An intelligent sycophant can always chalk out a successful career for himself. And at the end of it, he can tell us all: “Nothing succeeds like success”.
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Impact will go far beyond Japan THE economic costs of a catastrophe such as that which has struck Japan should always rank second to the human costs. Economic losses can be recouped; human losses cannot, and it seems almost improper to be trying to make a tally of the economic and financial consequences of what has happened as the terrible story continues to unfold. But such is the harsh reality of our ever more global economy, that these calculations are indeed being made — even if the answers may turn out to be wildly wrong. So what can sensibly be said? Some thoughts first about Japan itself; then about its influence on the world economy and financial markets; and then finally about one industry that will be most radically changed by these events: nuclear power. There is for Japan a template of sorts: the Kobe earthquake of 1995. Kobe is the port of Osaka (Japan’s second city) and the earthquake there, while smaller in magnitude, struck a more densely populated area and resulted in 6,500 deaths. The size of the local economy directly affected is broadly similar, some 7 per cent of Japan’s GDP, though the balance then was more skewed towards trade and services while now it is manufacturing. The overall cost in 1995 worked out at about 2.5 per cent of GDP and that was a real loss of wealth carried by the country. But in terms of GDP there was little overall impact: some lost in the early months offset, maybe more than offset, by reconstruction-spurred growth thereafter. How can you have a real cost to wealth but no negative impact on GDP? Because resources used to rebuild are resources not available to be consumed. Debt is higher and living standards are further depressed. If Kobe is the template, then this event feels somewhat more serious, sadly in human terms but also in economic. That is because the damage to the country's power infrastructure may have further-reaching consequences than the considerable physical damage in Kobe. But barring some further disaster it is hard to see the losses being more than, perhaps, 5 per cent of GDP. That is huge of course, for this is the world’s third largest economy, but it is not unmanageable. Japan does in any case face great challenges: its ageing population, its national debt, its anaemic growth, its social and economic rigidities and so on. This is an additional blow and one coming at a particularly difficult time, for the economy was already shrinking. But countries do recover remarkably swiftly from physical destruction and Japan has the social cohesion to speed it on its way. The rest of the world? Well, we have seen the impact on the financial markets. It would have been astounding had they responded to the news, with all its uncertainties, in any other way. There may, as a result of the financial disruption, be some further and unforeseeable consequences: companies that might go under as a result, or financial institutions that would collapse if they are not rescued. The Bank of Japan has made the right response by pumping money into the system and it is quite possible that the increases in interest rates that would shortly have occurred in Europe and the UK will now have to be delayed. On the other hand, this blow comes at a time when demand in the emerging world seemed to be slackening, reducing pressure on commodity and energy prices, so an improvement in inflation prospects might quite separately justify holding off a while yet before the inevitable tightening of monetary policy kicks in. Unless something unspeakable happens in the next few days, the markets should be able to look through the disruption and focus on the still-evident global recovery. One thing however will be changed for a generation, maybe for ever. That will be the developed world's attitude to nuclear power. Power plants in most other countries are not built in earthquake zones but in Europe at least they are arguably more exposed to terrorist attack than those in Japan. This, mercifully, does not seem to be as dreadful in technical terms as the Chernobyl disaster, but in political terms its effect will be at least as big. This is not an inherently unsafe design in what was then part of the Soviet Union. It is a supposedly safe one in a technically competent, advanced economy. We have already seen the reaction in Germany: it is taking seven of its 17 plants off-line for three months as it assesses the plans to extend their life. Whatever the balance of scientific argument, it will become very difficult to win authority to build new plants in the developed world. It may be that China can race on with its nuclear programme, and it has nearly half of all nuclear power currently being built. Maybe other emerging economies will be able to build new plants too, but to put the point at its weakest, nuclear power will not be a significant element in the global shift to a low-carbon economy. This changes things. What is the point of switching to electric cars, with all the rare elements needed for their batteries, if the power to drive them is going to be produced by thermal power stations? We become a world even more dependent on the Middle East, and/or on oil and gas from difficult and dangerous ocean and Arctic locations. Maybe, just maybe, the developed world will use the price mechanism more aggressively to make people conserve energy. If that were so it would be a silver lining indeed. We need to learn from this. There are many lessons — economic, commercial and social — that we can take from Japan. Anyone who visits the country will be aware of that, just as there are things that Japan can learn from the UK and Europe. What Japan does matters to us directly: it has, after all, played a huge role in rescuing the British motor industry. But it also affects us indirectly in that Japanese manufacturing technology has been one of the forces that have over the past generation reshaped the daily lives of everyone in the world. And now, as this dreadful story unfolds, the world economy will be reshaped again.
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The following are main developments after a massive earthquake and tsunami devastated northeast Japan and crippled a nuclear power station, raising the risk of uncontrolled radiation: *
Japan’s top government spokesman says radiation levels around the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex in northeastern Japan are not at levels to cause an immediate health risk. *
Operator of the nuclear power complex in northeastern Japan recorded the site’s highest levels of radiation at the No.3 reactor on Wednesday. *
Operator says it is unable to resume work on cooling the reactors due to radiation risk, and it is not easy to bring equipment to the site due to debris on the roads. *
Workers ordered to leave the plant were allowed back in after radiation levels fell. Operator says there were 180 workers on site as of 0230 GMT. *
Fire breaks out at reactor No.4 a day after a blast blew a hole in the building housing spent fuel rods. White smoke seen from No.3 reactor most likely to be steam from the water that is being poured to cool the rods. *
Authorities plan to bulldoze an emergency route to crippled reactor No.4 to allow access for fire trucks. A helicopter separately preparing to pour water on to No. 3 reactor—whose roof was damaged by an earlier explosion—to try to cool its fuel rods, broadcaster NHK said. *
World Health Organisation says there is no evidence of significant international radiation spread from Japan. *
No plan yet to extend evacuation zone near the facility, 240 km north of Tokyo. *
Australia urges its citizens with non-essential roles to consider leaving Tokyo and the most damaged prefectures, and Turkey warns citizens against travelling to Japan. *
France urges nationals living in Tokyo to leave country or move south. Two Air France planes on their way to begin evacuation. *
Radiation levels in Ibaraki, north of Tokyo, 300 times normal level but well below hazardous levels, Kyodo says. *
Fuel rods in the No. 1 reactor were 70 per cent damaged and the rods in the No. 2 reactor were 33 per cent damaged, Kyodo says. *
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei average closes 4.5 per cent up on Wednesday after suffering its worst two-day rout since 1987. The index surged over 6 per cent at one point. *
Tens of thousands of people still missing since Friday’s quake and tsunami. Food and water in short supply in parts of the northeast. About 8,50,000 households in the north without electricity in near-freezing weather. *
Some residents leave the capital; others stock up on food. * Death toll is expected to exceed 10,000, and rescue workers are continuing to search coastal cities for survivors.
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Corrections and clarifications
* In the report “England must win to avoid early exit” (Page 20, March 17), in the third para Ireland has been preceded by ‘the’ which is wrong since Ireland is a proper noun. *
The headline “Panel to look into licence procedure” (Page 1 March 16) is unclear. A more explicit headline would have been “Panel to study procedure for pilot licences”. *
In the headline “Regulatory structure mulled for MFIs” (Page 20, March 16), the word ‘mulled’ is inappropriate. ‘Mooted’ would have been an apt word. *
The headline “Will it be a please-all budget?” (Page 5, March 14) amounts to asking the reader a question. Instead, the headline should have been “Punjab braces for a please-all budget”. 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. Raj Chengappa,
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