E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

EC’s plea: unfair response
WHAT a shame! The Central government has said "no" to the Election Commission's simple plea for disciplinary control over poll officials and effective enforcement of the model code of conduct. This once again shows the lack of seriousness on the part of the political leadership to think positively and act decisively in matters that have a direct bearing on the quality of democracy.

Nature’s fury
MAN is having to pay a heavy price for defying the laws of nature. The first drops of rain after the worst ever drought in living memory brought boundless joy to countless people across the country. But the joy proved to be short-lived. Drought 2000 was replaced by Deluge 2000 and man does not know whether to express happiness at the end of an unbearably hot and dry summer or seek divine protection from the fury of an extraordinarily hostile monsoon. 

OPINION

OMINOUS MESSAGE FROM MUMBAI
Mockery of the rule of law
by Inder Malhotra
NO one should pretend that the country hasn’t been forewarned. The message of the confrontation in Mumbai between the Maharashtra government and the Shiv Sena is crystal clear: Leave the Sena’s supreme commander-in-chief, Mr Bal Thackeray, alone, or arrest him and face the catastrophic consequences.

March of man: glimpses of the future
by P. D. Shastri
IT used to be said of the 20th century that in it the velocity of change was greater — even breath-taking — than in any previous period in man’s history. When in 1853 we entered the railway age, when the first train steamed off from Bombay (now Mumbai) to Thane, a distance of 30 miles, people thought that the ultimate in transport had been achieved. 

WORLD IN FOCUS

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

EC’s plea: unfair response

WHAT a shame! The Central government has said "no" to the Election Commission's simple plea for disciplinary control over poll officials and effective enforcement of the model code of conduct. This once again shows the lack of seriousness on the part of the political leadership to think positively and act decisively in matters that have a direct bearing on the quality of democracy. Though both issues are pending before the Supreme Court, the Chief Election Commissioner, Dr M.S. Gill, has reportedly been against a legal battle between the commission and the government. That is the reason why he recently took up the matter with the Prime Minister but in vain. As it is, elections have become a big business. Vested interests and mafia groups are known to have entrenched themselves in the poll arena in connivance with vulnerable officials and convenient police persons. How do we stem the rot? The Election Commission cannot discharge its responsibility of ensuring free and fair elections if it has no right to punish erring officials on poll duty. This is not a matter of prestige. Fairplay and justice demand that such power should rest with the Election Commission. Otherwise, it will not be able to deliver the goods.

It is no secret that poll officials often indulge in undesirable practices either for monetary considerations or under pressure from the government they happen to work under. How can a well-meaning Chief Election Commissioner fulfil his constitutional obligation if he does not have direct control over the persons deputed for poll work? The government's attitude is all the more regrettable after the Prime Minister's initial positive response to Dr Gill's proposal. In fact, only a month ago the Prime Minister had reacted favourably to the Chief Election Commissioner's letter seeking disciplinary control over poll officials and enforcement of the model code of conduct from the date elections are announced. Why then Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee subsequently changed his mind remains a mystery. Perhaps, he came under pressure from the "political bosses" of the ruling partners at the Centre who would wish to keep their options open for possible manipulations during election time.

It is a pity that we have been drifting dangerously. We must halt it and set our sights on the goals which will help improve the quality of our democratic functioning and exploit the energy and creativity of people. This requires proper understanding of the ground realities. However, one major problem in the country is the absence of political will to do the right thing firmly and decisively. The Election Commission's plea should not have been a matter of bargain or manoeuvring. It is a simple and straight proposition which was mooted by Dr Gill to make the country's election process transparent and accountable. Without making the officials on poll duty directly responsible for their acts of omission and commission, it will be difficult for the Election Commission to deal with poll-related lapses fairly and promptly. After all, the quality of Indian democracy depends on how the authorities conduct themselves so as to keep public confidence alive in the system. Alas! There are at present several grey areas which remain to be corrected. What can the Chief Election Commissioner do to improve matters if the government remains reluctant to embrace the reforms regime in this critical area of electoral democracy?

Urea industry reform

REFORM is set to shake up the fertiliser industry within the next seven years. The focus will be on cutting the present level subsidy, goading the manufacturing units to use liquified natural gas as raw material and not naphtha as at present and closing down or selling loss-making public sector units. The draft policy was formally presented on Monday for a nationwide discussion at a seminar in New Delhi. A quick reading shows that the contours are well drawn and if the details are matching, the switch-over to a new regime will be both smooth and rewarding. The most complicated is the pattern of subsidy. Since 1977, the government pays each unit a subsidy to insulate it from any loss. Called retention price and now renamed as the base rate of concession, the amount varies from unit to unit and depends entirely on the figures each produces. Aged plants draw a higher rate and those using naphtha as feedstock Rs 13,000 a tonne (against Rs 7,500 for gas-based units). In addition, there is also a freight subsidy of Rs 400 a tonne. These concessions have earned the government the right to fix the maximum retail price at the factory gate.

The government has all along known that this policy is highly flawed and has periodically tinkered with it with a view to correcting it. It was during one such exercise early this year that it stumbled on a collective practice of the plants overcharging it by as much as Rs 450 crore a year. The price rise through a budget provision will mean another saving of about Rs 750 crore. Still the total subsidy is Rs 1,350 crore. The proposal is to completely decontrol urea prices as was the case with two other fertilisers (pottasic and phosphatic) by 2007. If it comes about before the urea units change over to using natural gas, the prices will shoot up. Naphtha is very costly. But there are problems about gas. India produces only about 65 million standard cubic metres and imports a similar volume. Gas as feedstock will push up the demand to more than 300 MCM, and when gas wells turn dry in another 10 years, import will further go up. Coal too can be used but most coal-based units like those in Talcher, Ramagundam and Gorakhpur are either closed or waiting to be closed.

It is the pricing factor that worries the government. It is comforting itself by the availability of urea neutralising any impact of subsidy withdrawal. But without a financial prop some units cannot survive. There is also a threat from imports. Under the WTO agreement, free import has to be allowed and one calculation is that even after a 30 per cent impost of customs duty, imports will drive one-third of the existing units to closure. What is noteworthy is that right now world prices are high. And fertiliser plays a key role in food security and hence the need for an integrated policy. If foodgrains production were to go up, ready availability at affordable prices is crucial. As it is, there is a sharp imbalance. About 100 districts across the country consume 70 per cent of all fertilisers and for growing three crops — cereals, sugarcane and cotton — in irrigated land. Total decontrol of both movement and price of urea requires great skill which warrants close attention to the details.

Nature’s fury

MAN is having to pay a heavy price for defying the laws of nature. The first drops of rain after the worst ever drought in living memory brought boundless joy to countless people across the country. But the joy proved to be short-lived. Drought 2000 was replaced by Deluge 2000 and man does not know whether to express happiness at the end of an unbearably hot and dry summer or seek divine protection from the fury of an extraordinarily hostile monsoon. There is hardly a part of the country which is not reeling under the fury of floods of “unprecedented” dimensions. Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana like the rest of the country are having to pay for not taking timely and adequate flood-control measures. Ironically, when the heavens opened up after a prolonged spell of dry weather what broke loose was hell. Reports of deaths and devastation caused by water-logging, flash floods, landslides and caving in of unsafe buildings continue to pour in from all parts of the country. A primary reason for the erratic behaviour of seasons has something to do with the pulling out of most of the commas and stops from the vocabulary of Nature. Unregulated urbanisation of vast tracts of land too has played a major role in causing water-scarcity during the summer months and flooding of ill-planned localities during the monsoons. Whether it is Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh or a small town in Haryana and Punjab the pattern of devastation caused by even a slightly heavy downpour is the same.

City fathers organise emergency meetings during the summer months to discuss water harvesting and drought management and when it starts raining cats and dogs they convene another emergency meeting to discuss flood management and measures for preventing water logging. Once the crisis is over, not because of their efforts, but because the weather cycle never stops, they go back to sleep and wake up when the alarm bells ring again. But the people too must take their share of the blame for the havoc wrought by Nature. Town planners have, from time to time, identified the factors responsible for devastation caused by water-logging and floods. Unauthorised constructions without any respect for even the elementary principles of town-planning have aggravated the problems for which the civic authorities are blamed. But then, who allowed the unauthorised colonies to come up? Indifference to finding durable solutions to problems caused by tinkering with Nature is the USP of the Indian system of administration. Take the case of Chandigarh. Planners have recommended the relaying and expansion of the drainage system so that roads and localities do not get submerged after a robust round of rain. But who cares? The civic authorities do not even bother to have the missing covers of the manholes replaced at least before the onset of the monsoons. Open manholes are an invitation to disaster even when the roads are not submerged under water. The situation in Ludhiana and Jalandhar [ or any other town in the region] is no better. In Himachal Pradesh reckless felling of trees has made the entire unstable Shivalik range of mountains even more landslide-prone. In the overall context it may not be wrong to say that unless man learns to translate his dreams into reality within the limits imposed by Nature even the best technology may prove ineffective in restoring the missing commas and the full stops to the vocabulary of the seasons. Respect for the grammar of Nature holds the key to the survival of mankind.

OMINOUS MESSAGE FROM MUMBAI
Mockery of the rule of law
by Inder Malhotra

NO one should pretend that the country hasn’t been forewarned. The message of the confrontation in Mumbai between the Maharashtra government and the Shiv Sena is crystal clear: Leave the Sena’s supreme commander-in-chief, Mr Bal Thackeray, alone, or arrest him and face the catastrophic consequences.

These, incidentally, have been spelled out by the supremo himself. ‘‘The whole of Hindustan’’, he says, ‘‘will burn. There will be communal riots for which the state government alone would be responsible.’’ His lieutenants, including a son and a nephew, have added, for good measure, that the Maharashtra government, a coalition of the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party that should really be called the Congress (Pawar), is ‘‘digging its own grave’’.

Two other elements in the situation, at once both grim and bizarre, merit close attention. First, that the offence of inciting violence and hatred between different groups of Indians, for which Mr Thackeray’s arrest has been ordered is seven years old. It dates back to the traumatic days following the demolition of the Babri Masjid when there was a macabre death dance in large parts of the country though nowhere so virulent as in Mumbai.

Secondly, and more importantly, no one in the Shiv Sena denies the charge against Mr Thackeray which is that he did not just pour oil on a raging fire but incited it in the first place by his inflammatory writings in the Sena’s official daily, Saamna, edited by him.

In short, the real message of Mumbai is that Balasaheb is above the law, as he has doubtless managed to be all these years, irrespective of his egregious transgressions. Touch him, and all hell would break loose because the Shiv Sainiks will immediately resort to what they do best — pelt stones, bring road and suburban rail traffic to halt, force people to shut down their businesses and, if necessary, spread murder and mayhem. So much for the rule of law and equality before the law that has been enshrined in the Fundamental Rights chapter of the Constitution.

Appalling and alarming such a state of affairs would have been even if it were confined to Maharashtra alone. But that, regrettably, is far from being the case. The dangerous doctrine that some in this country, especially those able to command blind loyalty of sections of people, are vastly more equal than others has struck deep roots across the world’s largest democracy. Orwell ought to have been living at this hour to savour the irony.

After all, it was not long ago that following the conviction of the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and the AIADMK’s reigning queen, Ms Jayalalitha, on a serious charge — a court decision that was subject to appeal and has since been appealed against — irate mobs went on a rampage. In their orgy of violence and arson, three college girls were burnt alive in a bus that was torched. If anything has happened to the perpetrators of this monstrous crime, the country has yet to hear of it.

Equally revealing is the more recent case of the Bihar minister, Mr Lalit Yadav, who ‘‘imprisoned’’ and tortured a luckless truck driver in his official bungalow, under the watchful eye of his security detail. For once, his mentors were unable to trot the ‘‘innocent-until-proven-guilty’’ plea. Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav got him sacked from the Rabri Devi ministry and expelled him from the state’s ruling party. However, to this day the police has failed to trace him!

Any temptation to dismiss this as something peculiar to the ‘‘benighted state of Bihar’’ must be resisted. For within days a similar case involving a minister in neighbouring UP also came to light though nobody seems to have done anything about it. All this, however, is only the visible tip of the unseen iceberg.

To revert to the dismal drama in Mumbai, several of its intriguing and Byzantine twists and turns that do not do credit to any of the parties concerned must be noted. Mr Sharad Pawar himself was the Chief Minister of Maharashtra when the offences with which Mr Thackeray is now being charged were committed. All the Pawar government did was to register no fewer than 14 cases against the Shiv Sena chief. None of these was pursued.

Then came the 1996 elections during which the Congress lost Maharashtra to a coalition of the Shiv Sena and the BJP, and was replaced in New Delhi by the United Front government. The new Maharashtra ministry lost no time in withdrawing 13 of the 14 charges against Mr Thackeray who was then boasting, accurately enough, that he was running the state government through ‘‘remote control’’. Why the 14th charge now being resurrected was not also dropped remains a mystery.

Sometime after the charges were being withdrawn, the Srikrishna Commission of enquiry submitted its long-awaited report, delayed partly because of the obstructive tactics of the Shiv Sena-BJP ministry. It indicted Mr Thackeray, among others, not the least for the Saamna writings. But the then Maharashtra ministry virtually consigned it to the dustbin.

When the present Maharashtra ministry was formed late last year, with the Congress leader, Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh, as Chief Minister and the NCP leader, Mr Chhagan Bhujbal, as his deputy, it showed a marked reluctance to proceed against Mr Thackeray and other wrong-doers of 1992. No wonder then questions are being asked about the state government’s sudden alacrity in meting out to the Shiv Sena chief his just deserts. And thereby hang two rather interwoven tales.

One relates to ‘‘politics of revenge’’ that appears to have become the hallmark of Indian polity since the days of Indira Gandhi. Time was when Mr Bhujbal was Balasaheb’s protege with a promising future. But then the relationship soured partly because Mr Thackeray, too, started practising the familiar pattern of family politics, promoting his kith and kin. An outraged Mr Bhubjal defected to the camp of redoubtable Mr Pawar. Mr Thackeray is openly blaming him for trying to ‘‘settle old scores’’.

That is where the second instructive tale comes in. Mr Bhujbal, evidently a shrewd individual, had patiently bided his time and acted only when he knew that the Shiv Sena had fallen into the trap it was laying for others. All through the previous session of the state legislature, the leader of the Opposition and former Chief Minister, Mr Narayan Rane, had kept up intense pressure on the state government to prosecute an ally of the ruling coalition, Mr Abu Asim Azmi of the Samajwadi Party. The charge against him is the same as that against Mr Thackeray, spreading hatred between Hindus and Muslims!

After verifying the veracity of a tape of Mr Azmi’s offending speech, Mr Bhujbal sanctioned his prosecution. But simultaneously he ordered that, to ‘‘hold the scales even’’, Mr Thackeray should also be prosecuted. It is thus that the fat is well as truly in the fire.

What about the future? Deeming discretion to be the better part of valour, Mr Thackeray has suspended the use of street power. But he is threatening the Maharashtra ministry with dismissal under Article 356 should it be foolhardy enough to act against him. The Chief Minister is undaunted, however, though there is every likelihood that the process of prosecuting both Mr Thackeray and Mr Azmi might be put in exceedingly slow motion, thus producing a stalemate in which both sides can claim victory. Unless, of course, something utterly unforeseen and unforeseeable intervenes.

The Maharashtra unit of the BJP has given its full backing to Mr Thackeray. The Central leaders of the party, too, have been habitually kowtowing to him. Even so, the present murky spectacle in Mumbai must be an embarrassment to them. In any case, they would be foolish if they yield to the Shiv Sena chief’s dictates for a gross misuse of Article 356, especially in view of their experience in the case of Bihar.

The writer is a well-known political commentator.

March of man: glimpses of the future
by P. D. Shastri

IT used to be said of the 20th century that in it the velocity of change was greater — even breath-taking — than in any previous period in man’s history. When in 1853 we entered the railway age, when the first train steamed off from Bombay (now Mumbai) to Thane, a distance of 30 miles, people thought that the ultimate in transport had been achieved. After the telegram, the telephone and big machines of mass industrial production that created massive wealth for the nation, came the wireless, which was hailed as the greatest miracle of the age. But it was soon to be superseded by television. We called it the best and the greatest invention. However, the best is not the best as we can say now. All these wonders have changed the rhythm of life on the planet. We could not live in a less developed world. Even visits to the moon — always thought to be a matter of fairy tales and mythology — became a reality.

In the new age, in place of aeroplane for journey, we would have spacecraft — even for branch lines. Once oceanic journey from England to India took months (the first Englishmen who visited India in the reign of Jehangir and who got the king’s permission to set up a factory at Surat, took a year and more for the journey). As late as 1931, Gandhiji took 17 days to sail to England for the Second Round-Table Conference. A journey to America by spacecraft may take just an hour or so and to England a few minutes.

Actuality would surpass the wildest dreams of the past generations.

It would be a new world. We already talk of the Internet, computers, e-technology, e-mail, fax, IT (information technology) websites and many other new terms of which man had never heard in the past. By pressing a button, you can get all information world-wide, even a printout for future use. Then why pour over dusty old volumes of Aristotle, Socrates and Plato and all other old sources of wisdom when we can get all the elixir at a touch at the Internet. The growing world of books and the gigantic libraries might lose their importance and just remain things of the bygone “backward” age.

The latest super-computer can solve a billion sums in one second — quicker than even the speed of imagination. Facts would be stranger than fiction. A super-computer cannot only work wonders but also swallow millions of jobs. Machines will do all the work and man will find his occupation gone — and with it his importance and indispensability. A major section of the world population will become unemployed, living on the dole granted by the government.

Under the compulsion of necessity, the system of passports and visas would get abolished. Large populations would migrate to lands of opportunity and it would become impossible to check each one in the age of spacecraft and computers. All countries may have mixed populations. All humans will form one human nation — though human nature being what it is, they will have narrow-mindedness and divisions on the basis of family, caste, religion and other institutions that have divided humanity into warring groups.

Our present institutions, such as marriage, family life, relations with children, love affair, business methods, nationalism, casteism and a host of such other matters will change past recognition. They have played their part on the stage of life and have nothing more to offer in the changed world. Some of them may stage a comeback, with old names and guise. But most will be swept off the scene due to the logic of events.

In every age there has been a tussle between continuity and change. Man is by nature conservative and status-quoist, but in the tussle it is the change that always wins — it inflicts itself on us with the force of inevitability and we have to submit to it whether we wish it or not, whether we like it or not.

“We may live to be one hundred and sixty years”, says a screaming headline in the newspaper. Man has conquered many diseases that took a toll of millions of lives like plague, cholera, malaria and smallpox. When I was a teenager (now I am 90 plus), India’s expectation of life was 22 and wailing over deaths heard from all sides every morning. It is no longer so. During the decade 1911-21, according to the Census figures, India had a whopping birth rate of 49 per thousand, but the death rate being even higher, the net result was that our population actually decreased.

Man claims to have burst God’s mystery of life and death. The newest medical technique by rearranging genes and chromosomes gives the hope of abolishing diseases (even cancer and heart attacks) and even conquering death. Man may become disease-free. In that case, the earth’s population will increase by leaps and bounds leaving hardly even standing space for us nor land for agriculture for producing food. We would have to manage with synthetic foods and synthetic drinks. We may revert to the earlier time, before agriculture was invented, when men lived on fish, fowl or other animals’ flesh. Cannibals even ate their own kind.

What of housing? A few top rich people might migrate to the moon or other planets or to the colonies, which may proliferate in space. But the majority of mankind will remain bound to this dusty earth. The ocean has usurped 70 per cent of the globe’s surface. Future may see a growing number of towns and establishments on the surface of the ocean.

Nature has her own methods to control population. It may send epidemic (new type), earthquakes, floods and other catastrophes. Or man’s evil nature may unleash a nuclear or thermonuclear war that may kill millions upon millions with the twinkling of the eye.

Scientific inventions and discoveries are for the sake of inventions and discoveries, not for the good of man. They move with their own momentum. Man split the atom and its ultimate end may be the death of the human race, so that our planet, like the moon, will spin blindly in the space, lifeless, cold and purposeless.

Future man may have complete control over winds and weather (how much rain to allot to each region).

In the political climate of the future, foreigners will not be the people from America or Russia, but denizens of the moon and other worlds in the space. Adventurous heroes will bring their (foreign) brides from the moon or other settlements in space.

When space journey will have become a routine thing as train or air journeys are today, those living on some other planet may attack man’s home, to establish their empire here, with their superior technology of war as the British once did. In that case, all the residents of the earth—the Americans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, the Pakistanis et al — will have to unite like one man to give a tough fight to the aggressor who comes from beyond the sphere of the sun and the moon.

Prophets of doom, as also star-gazers like Nostradamus — warn us that we may be the last generation of humans to be living on the planet earth. Are the human races in a hopeless condition without any future? The only hope — a lonely hope for survival — is the leadership of prophets of all religions. But modern science and technology seeks to consign them to the dustbin of history, though many still pay lip-service to them and follow them in a ritualistic, not real, manner. These much-maligned religions taught lessons of truth, love, justice, virtue, non-violence, doing good to others, sympathy for the suffering and happiness that is born out of self-sacrifice. These ideals and values can still save our world. The religious way can make life worth-living and lead us to heaven while the miracles of science and technology may see the end of the world.

IT and the digital divide
by A. Balu

AT the recent inauguration of the state-of-the-art Tidel Park in Taramani near Chennai, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee warned against the “digital divide” between IT haves and have-nots”, and declared that if speedy corrective measures were not taken, it would “threaten to deepen the existing social and economic inequities in our society.” He renewed this concern at a conference in New Delhi of state IT ministers, which, in fact, turned out to be a chief ministers’ meet. Notwithstanding the discordant note struck by Bihar’s proxy chief minister, Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav, in a television interview, Information Technology, like globalisation, is becoming the favourite “mantra” in developing countries.

Mr Vajpayee’s concern found an echo in the deliberations of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in New York earlier this month on the role of IT in the context of a knowledge-based global economy. Bridging the digital divide dominated the debate at the conference which was noted for the participation of some heads of state and a number of heads of international agencies, including the World Bank, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the WTO, besides representatives of the private sector.

The concern of the developing countries about IT were perhaps put succinctly by a French delegate, who spoke on behalf of the European Union, Michel Duffour, Secretary of State to France’s Minister of Culture and Communications, noted that IT was a formidable tool in combating poverty, but its benefits were inequitable, divided between North and South, and within countries themselves. The quantitative need for equipment infrastructure should not be underestimated, he said, pointing out that, without electricity, a computer would serve no purpose.

How could IT promote development in the face of the huge “digital divide” between the developed and the developing countries? This pertinent question was posed at the ECOSOC meeting on behalf of the Group of 77 developing countries and China by Nigeria’s minister, Ebitimi Banigo. While the presentations of the World Bank and the WTO and others had revealed the importance of IT and the central question he had posed, he had not found any convergence of views on funding or establishing basic infrastructure towards information technology.

In the view of the World Bank President, Mr Jamese Wolfensohn, the ability of individual countries to cross the “digital divide” depended, among other things, on leadership, which needed to be supportive of computers, and not afraid of them. Government should create an environment in which IT could function and where cheap electricity was possible.

With regard to countries lacking the most basic requisite for climbing the Internet ladder upward, Mr Wolfensohn told ECOSOC it was not a matter of having to choose either computers or bread, as had been pointed out by some delegates. The question was how to give people both these things. That involved creating and nurturing a culture of learning. An olympian plan was not needed. Rather, it was necessary to remain flexible and be user-oriented.

As noted by the President of ECOSOC, Mr Makarim Wibisono of Indonesia, there seemed to be agreement that the great challenge in a period of unprecedented growth and prosperity was to assist the over two billion people living in poverty to get their share of development and growth through IT.

At the end of the three-day dialogue at the United Nations, ECOSOC recorded its deep concern that the potential of information and communications technology for advancing development, particularly in the developing countries, had not been fully captured. It called on the members of the international community to work cooperatively to bridge the “digital divide” and to foster “digital opportunity.”

The ECOSOC ministerial declaration recognised the need to address the major obstacles to increased participation in information technology, such as lack of infrastructure, education, capacity-building, investment and connectivity. Investment in education, including basic and digital literacy, remained the fundamental way of developing human capacity and should be at the heart of any national, regional and international IT strategy.

With the adoption of the Declaration, preparations for a global task force to link the work of the United Nations system in the field of information technologies with the private sector are set to commence. The Declaration is expected to be endorsed at the Millennium Assembly in September this year.

What emerged out of the ECOSOC meeting on IT was that the UN could play a crucial role in providing interface between the information technology community and the development community. As Mr Nitin Desai, Under-Secretary-General for economic and social affairs, told a Press conference, the crux of the high-level debate was how IT could be used to enhance the developing world. “The dialogue is still at an initial stage. The first step has been taken. The issues of IT community are now entering into a wider development dialogue.”

G-8 urged to increase aid

AS the Group of Eight rich nations (G-8) prepares to meet in Okinawa, Japan, for a three-day summit on Friday, World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn has appealed to its leaders to employ the power of globalisation in making a dent on poverty and disease worldwide.

In a letter dispatched to all G-8 leaders, including President Bill Clinton, Mr Wolfensohn said a world in which the rich get richer while the poorest countries are left out can never be secure and stable.

The letter, copies of which were made public here last night, made out a strong case for increased foreign aid to developing countries, debt relief, sharing of experience and access to markets.

The G-8 annual summit will focus on the impact of the information technology revolution and on how best to help developing countries confront problems ranging from disease to education.

It will issue an Okinawa charter to help mobilise and coordinate both public and private sector efforts to bridge the digital divide around the world.

At the same time the G-8 will focus on how to provide aid to the developing world, particularly to help fight diseases, such as HIV/AIDS tuberculosis and malaria, and commit to help poorer countries that commit themselves to improving primary education.

G-8 leaders, for the first time, will meet on the eve of the summit with prominent developing nation leaders, including those of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) at a gathering in Tokyo.

With the issue of debt relief to the highly indebted developing nations likely to feature prominently at the summit, Mr Wolfensohn favoured speed and flexibility in delivering debt relief and other assistance.

On the basis of the enhanced heavily indebted poor countries initiative (HIPC), nine countries will have been approved for substantial debt relief by the time of the Okinawa summit. These countries — Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Honduras, Mauritania, Mozambique, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda — will receive relief amounting to more than 15 billion dollars. Of this total the bank will contribute some 4.5 billion dollars.

Sixteen countries have been reviewed under the HIPC initiative, for debt relief packages amounting to some 25 billion dollars.

“Over and above debt relief, the world should not lose sight of the longer term objective which is to work with all low-income countries to help them design and implement the high-quality reform programmes, with stronger institutions and governance, needed for sustained development and poverty, Mr Wolfensohn said.

In addition to asking world leaders to support the development prospects of developing countries the world bank president also called for a number of global initiatives that would supplement national efforts in leading the fight against communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.

Another global initiative urgently needed, he pointed out, was to bridge the digital divide between rich and poor countries so that everyone has access to the power of new technology and its ability to transform personal and national livelihoods. — UNI

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

He who does not feed either a respectable guest or a poor friend in distress, but eats all alone, has only sin to his credit.