A bad precedent

DEMOCRATIC spirit has been dangerously diluted with the installation of Ms Jayalalitha as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Twisting a constitutional provision out of shape and out of context, her apologists are busy justifying the Governor’s action. Their argument is that Article 164 allows a person to be a Minister for six months without being an elected member. Ms Jayalalitha is not an elected member of the Assembly, so she too can become Chief Minister. This is elementary logic but will be valid only if she stands a chance of getting elected. That is the rub; she cannot unless the legal system gathers supersonic speed and finally disposes of her appeal. Or she should aim at the unthinkable — getting the 1997 Election Commission guidelines scrapped. These are key elements in yet-to-be waged fight against corruption and criminalisation of politics. Scrapping them will be too high a price to pay to massage the ego of a lady. Governor Fathima Beevi has obviously opted for the softest course. She has no stomach to take on the other lady in a tough and increasingly dirty fight. Ms Jayalalitha made it clear that it was either she or nobody. The AIADMK legislative party resolution spelt that out bluntly. A rejection of her claim to form a government would have meant a state without a government and on the brink of mass agitation. So the Governor took shelter under Art 164 while ostensibly respecting the massive electoral success. She has no business to put a value and assign constitutional power to a popular mandate however pronounced it is.

True, a frustrated Ms Jayalalitha could have pushed the state to the brink of unimaginable violence, but law and order is not the Governor’s responsibility but upholding the Constitution in both letter and spirit is. She did consult lawyers but not the Attorney- General, which act would have brought the Centre into the picture. If she thought she was under pressure to compromise her concept of constitutional framework, she should have resigned as one of her distinguished predecessors, Mr Surjit Singh Barnala, did in 1991. Ms Jayalalitha is not known to have such compunctions. And anyway she is in a tearing hurry. She assumed office on Monday itself to pre-empt a legal challenge. Two, she has to show the door to all those officers who have come close to the rival DMK. She has promised to send her tormentors to jail, for the same number of days and to the same cell. For her the popular verdict is for launching a harsh vendetta. It is an irony that Raj Bhavan played into her hands. 

Didi the self-destroyer

MS Mamta Banerjee has only herself to blame for the electoral drubbing she and her party received in West Bengal. She is welcome to continue with her diatribe against Chief Election Commissioner M. S. Gill, the Left Front government in West Bengal and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance if it is going to help her get out of the political trauma the verdict has caused. However, she will again have only herself to blame if her raving and ranting literally against the whole wide world turns her into an object of political ridicule among her shrinking number of friends and increasing number of enemies. The bitter truth is that after breaking rank with the Congress the Trinamool Congress chief created a make-believe domain in which she saw herself being led to the Chief Minister's chair on the wings of popular will. It would do her reputation a world of good if she were to accept defeat gracefully instead of conjuring up conspiracy theories in which the CEC, the Marxists in West Bengal and the "communalists" in Delhi joined hands to plot and plan the decimation of the Trinamool Congress. She should go back to the point where she parted company with the Congress and retrace her steps to where the West Bengal electorate has placed her today. Only a ruthlessly honest process of introspection can help her realise that most moves she made after launching the Trinamool Congress took her further away from Writers' Building. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu can afford to back the BJP in Delhi without in anyway undermining his political base in Hyderabad.

But what made Ms Mamta Banerjee think that an electorate which had consistently been faithful to the Left Front for 24 long years would accept her as the next Chief Minister? Although the Tehelka expose helped her part company with the BJP, the perceptive electorate of West Bengal was not impressed. When she is through with blaming everyone except herself for the debacle she may realise that the BJP got more out of her in West Bengal than she got out of the BJP by accepting the ministry of her choice in Delhi. If political assessments about the West Bengal verdict are not off the mark, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's New Left may continue from where Mr Jyoti Babu handed over the reins of office to a competent set of hands. The next few months of the New Left's rule in Kolkata should provide some clue whether Ms Banerjee's moment of political glory may have passed her by even before it arrived.

China's search for new role

OVER the years it seems China has come to realise that it cannot sustain its ambition of becoming a global player by ignoring the sensibilities of its immediate neighbours, including India. Hence the talk of “our relationship with Pakistan is not directed against any country, and we want to develop peaceful relations with South Asian countries, including India”. The statement was made in the course of a press briefing by a Chinese spokesperson in Islamabad on Friday during the four-day visit of Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, and surprisingly a representative of the Indian High Commission was also invited. Throughout the visit one could notice that the Chinese leader was very careful about not saying anything which could have its repercussions in India. He did not oblige his hosts by taking a stand on Kashmir which could be interpreted as Beijing’s support to Islamabad’s stand on the vexed issue. Nor did he appear to be appreciative of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in the valley. His stress was on a “peaceful settlement” of the Kashmir issue. Who will oppose such a course of action? Of course, so far as Pakistan is concerned, it has unleashed a proxy war which cannot be described as an effort aimed at finding a “peaceful settlement” of the problem. Mr Zhu also avoided any comment which could be soothing for Pakistan on India’s recent military exercises in Rajasthan except for stating that “we hope that whatever the country (India) is doing is good for peace and stability” in the region.

Besides the illusive support on the Kashmir question, Pakistani ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf was also hopeful of entering into an agreement with China on some major project of the size of the Karakoram Highway. Nothing of the sort came about. The Chinese are mainly interested in using the trade and commerce route to realise their global ambitions. That is why most of the agreements signed in Islamabad related to economic development. China claims to be working for “a new political and economic order” in South Asia and it is in this connection Mr Zhu is on a five-nation tour beginning with Pakistan. Perhaps, India is not on his immediate itinerary, but that does not mean that Beijing is not interested in interacting with this country. The task he is performing elsewhere will be undertaken in New Delhi this week by a senior Chinese leader, Mr Li Changchun. Mr Li’s visit is being seen as part of a “high-level” engagement between India and China in the days to come. China seems to be gauging Indian thinking on the US national missile defence (NMD) plan which will have a serious bearing on the world. The Chinese have come out openly against the American scheme of things, arguing that the NMD move will lead to a fresh nuclear race at a time when everybody is looking for strategic arms reduction initiatives. India’s categorical stance on the subject will be crucial for Chinese campaign against American designs. 

Fresh reverberations on nuclear issue
How credible are arsenal reduction promises?
Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri

THE Bush administration has put its European allies on notice that it intends to move quickly to develop a missile defence, and plans to abandon or fundamentally alter the treaty that has been the keystone of arms control for nearly three decades. The US administration’s position on the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which sets strict limits on the testing and deployment of antimissile systems, has been communicated privately to NATO allies. And it was expressed publicly in Europe in an unusually frank address on May 2 by a senior State Department official.

However, the administration’s announcement that it was going ahead with the development of a national missile defence system (NMD) has been sugar-coated with promises of cutting down its nuclear arsenal and offers to subsequently expand the scope of that umbrella to cover what it deems as its allies.

The missile defence issue will come to the fore shortly, and the scale of the programme and almost the urgent way the administration is proceeding will certainly heighten debate over the system. On April 30, a senior Pentagon official said that the US President would present a broad vision of missile defence but not a specific programme. The President will make clear that his administration is moving beyond the ABM treaty. It will be a statement of intent, the official said, expressed in “very choice” words.

The White House has never been short of articulate and clever speech writers, but spin doctors have been unable to camouflage the basic truth that by going ahead with the NMD, Washington has unilaterally scrapped the ABM which served as the basis for all the limited moves towards eliminating weapons of mass destruction these past 30 years. In terms of principle it suggests that the Bush administration considers itself at complete liberty to act in what it perceives to be self-interest even if it flies in the face of international commitments.

American officials say the Pentagon is developing plans for a multilayered system that would involve ship-based radars and interceptors, in addition to land-based and space-based elements. A panel appointed by Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has recommended vastly increased spending on the development of an airborne laser. Decisions about the design are to be announced in the middle of June, the Pentagon official said.

After Mr Bush would present “a broad vision of missile defence system” the administration plans to dispatch teams of senior officials to allied capitals in Europe and Asia to outline the US proposals for moving ahead with missile defences, a policy that is contentious at home and abroad, and which has drawn sharp objections from Moscow and Beijing. Meanwhile, in addressing the Danish Parliament, Mr Fischer, a senior State Department official, said the aim of the missile defences is to provide safeguard not only from rogue states like Iran and Iraq but also against accidental and unauthorised nuclear launches. That means the defence system needs to have some capacity to counter the launching of Russian and Chinese missiles.

In terms of effectiveness, Mr Fischer signalled that the administration has set a low standard. The goal would not necessarily be to provide an air-tight defence against even a small attack. It would be enough to complicate “a prospective opponent’s calculation of success, adding to his uncertainty and weakening his confidence”, he said. The administration believed that the system should use “the best technologies available, “opening the door not only to land-based systems but to sea-based and space-based systems as well.

There would be some validity in the argument that the old ABM had been conceived in the Cold-War era, that there are new realities to be faced and that the tenet of mutually assured destruction upon which the ABM is founded is skewed. Maybe these are some grounds too for the apprehension that the threats it faces emanate not from the current incarnation of the erstwhile Soviet Union but from North Korea, Iraq, Iran and possibly Libya, though that is another display of classic American mindset of always pointing to “rogue” states to justify its one-horse arms race. All those arguments might have carried weight had the Bush administration genuinely consulted its allies before taking decision which President Clinton had put on hold. Dispatching its envoys to sell the line cannot be equated with consultation.

In Europe, allied governments have been notably unenthusiastic about the plans for a missile defence. But they have grudgingly indicated that they were prepared to go along with a limited anti-missile defence with conditions. Washington should consult first with its allies, and a way should be found to reconcile missile defences with arms control and a working relationship with Moscow. The fast pace and ambitious nature of the Bush administration’s anti-missile defence programme — and the administration’s renewed vow to jettison or fundamentally rewrite the Treaty — is likely to reinvigorate the trans-Atlantic debate.

The accord, which was concluded between Moscow and Washington, was seen for decades as the cornerstone for strategic arms control. And while European officials increasingly agree that the treaty should be revised or updated, they are anxious about getting rid of it without knowing what arrangement would replace it.

To make the missile defence plan more palatable, the Bush administration has signalled its intention to make deep cuts in nuclear arms, including unilateral measures. But it remains to be seen if the prospect of deeper cuts will be enough of a lure for Moscow. The USA is already committed to cutting its strategic nuclear warheads to 3,000 under Start-II, the 1993 strategic arms reduction treaty, and the Clinton administration was prepared to reduce the US arsenal to 2,500 as part of follow-on-accord, which is yet to be notified.

But Russia faces enormous budgetary problems in sustaining its arsenal and has urged that the number of nuclear warheads be slashed to 1,500 on each side. At the same time, however, Moscow has argued that Washington’s pursuit of a missile shield will undermine the basis for preventing the future strategic arms race.

Should China respond to the NMD by augmenting its already considerable stockpile, it could force India to rewrite its manual about what constitutes the “credible minimum deterrence” enunciated in New Delhi’s nuclear doctrine. Just one factor which India now ought to assess is how to keep pace with the new missile regime triggered by Mr Bush.

— The writer is a former Professor of International Relations, Oxford University.

Time to work for total disarmament
Gurmeet Kanwal

SINCE it is now clearly recognised that nuclear wars cannot be won and therefore ought not be fought, each nuclear-armed adversary must develop confidence in the sincerity of the other to ensure that the unthinkable will not be attempted at or allowed to occur due to the laxity in safety and security measures and procedures. Nuclear weapons states (NWS) must clearly spell out their nuclear doctrine and strategy, inspire confidence in their adversaries that they will abide by their declared stance and should give credible evidence that adequate checks and balances have been built into their nuclear decision-making process and nuclear weapons handling procedures. It is also necessary to convince the adversary that nuclear weapons are firmly under civilian control and that such control will not be delegated to the military authorities except under the most extreme circumstances.

The aim of instituting confidence-building measures (CBMs) is to avoid tensions arising from mistrust, misperception, accidents and military brinkmanship. Neither India and Pakistan nor India and China are likely to have such high stakes in a future conventional conflict that they would be prepared to risk nuclear exchanges. Once this realisation dawns on them, it will be but a short step forward to working out a mutually acceptable “no first use” treaty — the ultimate nuclear CBM. However, it will be a long time before China and Pakistan singly or jointly agree to sign a no-first use treaty with India. Unfortunately, China still refuses to accept India as an NWS and loses no opportunity to chant the “cap, reduce, eliminate” mantra.

There is an inescapable necessity for India, China and Pakistan to mutually develop nuclear CBMs and institute verifiable nuclear risk reduction measures (NRRMs). A number of bilateral and multilateral measures could be considered for implementation by the South Asian nuclear weapon states in a graduated manner. The first of these could be an agreement on storing nuclear weapons in a disassembled form — keeping the atomic core and the conventional high explosive bomb casing, including the trigger mechanism, separate during peacetime storage. Another viable measure would be to enter into an agreement on the non-use of short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) for nuclear deterrence. SRBMs like India’s Prithvi (range 150-250 km) and Pakistan’s Hatf (derivative of China’s M-11; range less than 300 km) are extremely destabilising due to their greater mobility, ability to deploy quickly and the short time of flight that gives virtually no reaction time before the missile impacts. India, China and Pakistan would do well to exclude this class of missile completely from their nuclear arsenals. China must withdraw the large number of SRBMs it has stationed in Tibet.

An agreement could also be reached on the non-deployment of intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) regiments and their logistics support elements during peacetime. As India, China and Pakistan do not have the satellite surveillance capability to continuously track each suspected ballistic missile storage site and the numerous highways and railway lines on which the missiles can be moved, the deployment of missile regiments would be inherently destabilising. The prior notification of flight tests of ballistic missiles to all nuclear-armed neighbours and to UN Secretary-General should be a measure that is easy to agree on. In due course, it should be possible to agree to make a distinction between missiles inducted but not deployed. Such an arrangement would be a precursor for a de-targeting agreement.

Subsequently, when the basic warhead and delivery system technology has been mastered to a satisfactory level of assurance, the respective deterrents are credible enough to achieve deterrence stability, and the world draws progressively closer to total nuclear disarmament, nuclear CBMs and NRRMs could be upgraded to include measures that might appear fanciful today: a regional and global missile flight test ban; verifiable deployment restrictions and limitations; missile-free geographical zones and restrictions on the total number of missiles that each of the nuclear weapon states may have in its arsenal. As mutual trust gradually builds up, efforts to upgrade and strengthen the existing nuclear risk reduction measures could include improved hotlines, shared early warning arrangements and intrusive onsite inspections.

Some analysts have been recommended that unilateral measures should be adopted where an agreement is not easy to reach. These could include advance notification of impending missile flight tests, prior information about the movement of nuclear-capable air force squadrons from one base to another, and identification and notification of training areas for nuclear forces units to distinguish them from deployment areas. Such measures undoubtedly have several disadvantages and impact negatively on operational flexibility. However, since the issue at stake is one that is critical for national security, the negative aspects could be overcome with concerted efforts. The de-alerted status that India maintains should go a long way towards reassuring its nuclear-armed neighbours of this country’s lack of hostile intentions. India’s “no first use” doctrine should also inspire confidence while simultaneously reducing the risks of accidental or inadvertent launch of nuclear weapons. However, India’s nuclear-armed neighbours must also respond positively to take the process forward.

Nuclear CBMs and NRRMs would require credible verification regimes to be effective. Verification could involve intrusive techniques such as over-flights up to an agreed depth inside each other’s territory. In the initial stages of mutual confidence building it would be advisable to desist from insisting on foolproof verification regimes. Gradually, as confidence levels increase and the political and diplomatic climate improves, stringent verification regimes can be progressively incorporated. The first short step forward for India, China and Pakistan is to accept the need for nuclear CBMs and NRRMs as an inescapable national security responsibility. It is imperative that the government concerned view this responsibility not only as a short-term necessity but also as their bequest to posterity.

In defence analyst K. Subrahmanyam’s view ‘The most constructive way of building confidence... is to follow the example of the US-Soviet dialogue at Helsinki in which both sides spoke frankly about their respective capabilities. That led to a whole series of arms control negotiations. If knowledgeable teams from India and Pakistan meet and have a free and intellectually honest discussion, they will find many points of convergence.... It is easier to build confidence on the basis of mutual acceptance of harsh ground realities than on the basis of unverifiable declarations. Between the two superpowers and in Europe, arms reductions and detente began only when both sides came to a common understanding on the state of mutual deterrence....” These suggestions are quite obviously unexceptionable.

As long as nuclear weapons are in the possession of some nations and their national security strategy is underpinned by nuclear deterrence, their governments and military establishments must treat nuclear CBMs and NRRMs as a primary responsibility. At the same time, no effort should be spared to pursue the goal of total nuclear disarmament because the most supreme NRRM would be the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

The writer is a former Senior Fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.

Why can’t women be ambitious?
Mariella Frostrup

AMBITION is a filthy word these days. I’m not sure when exactly it was added to the canon of insults but the 80s can’t have helped its cause. Champagne-swilling city boys gave a bad name to a word that hitherto had merely identified a desire to succeed.

In America it’s taken for granted. An immigrant society has no room for hangers-on. In this country we’re still handicapped by a social condition that makes us the laughing stock of the “civilised” world: the class system. As a result, ambition has a curiously unique position in British society. It’s a quality the working class can’t afford to be without, the middle class are embarrassed to admit to and the upper class can’t spell.

Of course if you’re a woman it doesn’t matter what class you are. What on earth can you do with an ambitious woman? Truss her up and slap her down seems to be a popular choice. It’s no coincidence that the dominatrix and the ambitious, career-minded woman are often confused.

Ambition in a woman is acceptable only if she is unthreatening. Which unfortunately appears to mean challenged enunciation and a gift for playing dumb. Trust me, if you are being allowed a steady rise through the ranks, it’s because they think they’re looking down at you. Why do you think the Spice Girls were tolerated for so long as they ran around shouting Girl Power and dancing badly? Because every time they opened their mouths, they were about as scary as a pack of poodles.

Ever since women had the audacity to stick their pretty little heads above the parapet, the front line has been made up of “ambitious women” who were shot down fast. Behind them swarmed “sisters” who mastered the rhetoric but managed to dodge the bullets. In the UK women such as Germaine Greer, were all smart enough to be considered scarily ambitious. Popular TV presenters Denise Van Outen and Sara Cox, on the other hand, might wonder why their rise to success has gone virtually unchallenged by the poison pens of newspaper journalists.

Clinton’s Lady Macbeth

Hillary Clinton wasn’t doing too well in the popularity stakes as the first first lady to take an active role in politics. Often called Clinton’s Lady Macbeth, she finally became acceptable when she got her comeuppance.

The sigh of relief was palpable when Monica burst forth and proved that Hillary wasn’t “having it all”. She may be in line to be the first female President but her husband would rather be playing hunt the cigar with a sexy intern. Forties Hollywood couldn’t have written a better humiliation scenario for the ambitious woman.

Having finally achieved some semblance of equality in the workplace, the pressure is on to pretend we’re just floating coconuts, hanging on to the career ladder by our perfectly manicured nails.

Being asked if I consider myself ambitious still causes me discomfort. It is a word I feel I need to qualify in an attempt to avoid a stereotype that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. My mother’s generation fought to win my right to work. What a shame that now, in the 21st century, I still feel under pressure to belittle their efforts lest I am seen as hard, insensitive and ruthless.

When people visit me in the country, they are always a little surprised that I spend my weekends in the kitchen. The assumption being that an ambitious woman should be wearing an Armani suit, not an apron. Otherwise it’s just too confusing.

Yet ambition is really just a desire to make some kind of mark for yourself in an impermanent world. Even if it’s the perfect sheperd’s pie. Today ambition suggests a shabby obsession with fame, power and money. It is a gross exaggeration to suggest that those are the only things man (including women) aspires to. Nelson Mandela was ambitious for his people, Olympians are ambitious for themselves and their country.

We all aspire to something better, or different, or more fulfilling, or less exhausting, or — superficial as it is — more lucrative. What are new year’s resolutions if not ambitions for the future? Does my ambition to be self- supporting have to define my personality? It doesn’t mean I can only have sex on top, while reciting my resume, or that my potential for loving and caring for a family is diminished. I have an ambition to be recognised for my achievements. Does that mean I shouldn’t leave the house without brandishing a whip and handcuffs?

I hope in my lifetime I will hear a man say proudly about his partner: “She’s wonderfully ambitious and a much better driver than me.” I’ll be tempted to hurl him to the floor in gratitude and jog up and down on his back in my spike heels. 

War on cholesterol
Will Dunham

Washington, May 15
Declaring war on high blood cholesterol, experts convened by the National Institutes of Health issued guidelines on Tuesday that could prompt tens of millions more Americans to take cholesterol-lowering medication in a bid to escape a heart attack.

The guidelines released by a panel of the nation’s top cholesterol experts convened by the NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) urged more aggressive treatment to lower cholesterol for people at high risk of heart disease, including wider use of drugs and lifestyle changes embracing lower fat diets.

Coronary heart disease is the top killer of Americans, claiming about 500,000 lives yearly. High blood cholesterol is one of the major risk factors.

The guidelines, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, urge more aggressive treatment by doctors and better identification of those at high risk for a heart attack. The panel said that by lowering blood levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) — the so-called bad cholesterol — heart disease risk is chopped by as much as 40 percent.

Dr Scott Grundy, who headed the panel, said doctors and patients must take responsibility.

The guidelines call for lifestyle changes in those with high cholesterol, including a diet with lower amounts of saturated fats, more exercise and weight loss. The number of Americans eating special diets to combat high cholesterol should increase from 52 million to 65 million, the panel said.

“The new guidelines are expected to substantially increase the number of Americans being treated for high cholesterol,” said Dr Claude Lenfant, Director of the NHLBI.

He said that if the guidelines are followed, the number of Americans taking a prescription cholesterol-lowering drug would jump from 13 million to 36 million. These drugs work to reduce cholesterol production in the liver, sending a signal to remove cholesterol from the blood stream.

Cholesterol is a vitally important substance for the body. It is required for all membranes of the body’s cells. But the problem comes in the fact that when it is transported around in the blood stream, the proteins that transport it, particularly LDL, seep into the lining of the arteries and start the process of hardening of the arteries that can lead to heart disease.

High cholesterol is caused by some combination of a diet high in saturated fats and genetics that predispose a person to the problem, experts said. The American Heart Association said almost 41 million people have high cholesterol levels and nearly 101 million Americans have borderline-high levels.

The panel called for an all-out effort to identify people who have multiple risk factors for coronary heart disease.

In addition to LDL cholesterol, other factors used to determine risk for developing coronary heart disease over the next decade include the presence of narrowing and hardening of the arteries, cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol, age and a family history of heart disease.

The panel urged adults age 20 and above to have their total cholesterol, LDL, HDL and triglyceride levels evaluated every five years. Reuters

The way we work
Richard Reeves

KARL Popper, perhaps the last century’s greatest philosopher, said that “in all fields of life there are people of great merit who did not succeed’’. Popper had a shoulder full of chips, but he’s still right today. For all the rhetoric about the creation of a “classless’’ society, social mobility is worsening - and nowhere more so than in the workplace. More working-class children have made it into middle-class jobs - but only because more middle-class jobs are available. The relative chances of a middle-class and a working-class kid ending up as a doctor or lawyer haven’t changed one jot.

Education is seen as the engine of social mobility, equipping those with an underprivileged background with the skills to compete at the top end. But education can also be used as a middle-class missile defence system, powerfully excluding People Not Like Us from the plum professions. It used to be possible to work your way from the bottom to the top after leaving the education system. (Mike Matthew, the former chief executive of UK publishing giant IPC magazines, started in the postroom and Cedric Brown, chief executive of the British Gas, is a former gas fitter.) But in the last few decades, the chances of upward career mobility have actually declined.

UK sociologist Jonathan Gershuny similarly shows that entry into higher-status jobs now occurs at the start of careers, often straight from university, with much less movement into management or the professions during the course of a career. Given that the children of the affluent still dominate higher education, the growing use of degree qualifications as a gateway to better jobs is arguably anti-meritocratic.The labour market used to offer a second chance. Those failed by the education system, or unable in their youth to overcome home disadvantages, could still make it to the top with grit, ability and ambition. Big companies would offer apprenticeships and internal management training schemes. Skills could be acquired in the workplace. There was less snobbery about having the “right’’ qualifications for a job, and more interest in whether you could do it.

But now the middle rungs of the career ladder have been torn out by downsizing, outsourcing and delayering. Companies no longer see it as their responsibility to educate: they rail at the state for not sending them ready-made workers, skilled-up and ready to go. You need at least a BA, if not an MBA, simply to get in the race.

Employers will often use higher education as a screening mechanism, even when the job does not require graduate knowledge or skills: a quarter of British graduates are in posts where the qualification they need to get the job isn’t needed to do the job.

Increasing the proportion of poorer children in higher education is critical. But we shouldn’t put all our meritocratic eggs in the education basket. We spend 11 to 16 years in education, 40 in work. We can’t write off the chances of upward mobility in the latter period. There will always be people who flunk school but have the skills to do high-level jobs.

If we are serious about mobility, much greater emphasis needs to be put on workplace learning, on ensuring that “qualifications inflation’’ doesn’t block career paths, and on mentoring schemes linking the successful to the struggling. By arrangement with The Guardian

75 YEARS AGO

Maharaja’s visit to England

The young Maharaja's education has been somewhat disjointed. His period at Charterhouse was short, being of only two terms' duration. 

Sexual abuse second to nun

Shocking incidents of sexual abuse and rape of nuns by Roman Catholic priests have been brought to light through reports compiled by missionaries. These incidents are said to have occurred on a large scale in Africa, and also in the USA, Colombia, Ireland, Italy and the Philippines. The Vatican’s response has been guarded; and attempts to get local and international Church authorities have made little headway. “It is understandable that a sister finds it impossible to refuse a cleric who asks for sexual favours. These men are seen as authority figures who must be obeyed,” says an insider. WFS

Japan princess is pregnant

Japan’s Crown Princess Masako is pregnant with a possible heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne, the world’s oldest monarchy, after nearly eight years of marriage, the Imperial Household Agency said on Tuesday.

If the royal baby is a boy, Japan would be able to avoid a succession crisis in the Imperial family, where no royal males have been born in more than three decades. Moves are already afoot to consider altering the nation’s strict males-only succession statute to allow a female to inherit the throne.

A male baby would be second in line to the throne after his father, Naruhito. No royal males have been born since 1965, when the crown prince’s younger brother, Prince Akishino, was born. Akishino’s two children are girls. Reuters

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

I am in You

You are in Me

There is no distance or distinction.

*****

I am in your hearts,

You are in Mine.

Don't be misled

Into doubt and distress.

— From the discourses of Sathya Sai Baba.

*****

As long as the sense-organs are not properly controlled, 'the agitations of the mind' cannot be pacified. An agitated mind is no instrument either for listening or for reflection or for meditation and without these three, 'the veiling power' cannot be rolled up. The agitations (Vikshepa) and veiling (Avarana) are caused by 'activity' (Rajas) and 'inactivity' (Tamas), and we have already found that, without controlling these two temperaments, the 'un-activity' (Sattwa) cannot come to predominate in the seeker.

— Swami Chinmayananda, The Holy Geeta

*****

The universe is a septuple, a seven-planed existence of which the lowest is the physical, the material creation of which we are a part. And the purpose of this manifestation is the Joy of it, the Delight of the Universe. .... It is out of an ebullition of delight from the Being of God that this Universe comes to be. The purpose of life is to draw that delight from every experience. If you and I are not able to feel joy in our daily life it is because we do not know the art of living.

— M.P. Pandit, More on Tantras

*****

All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society. As human beings living in this monstrously ugly world, ask ourselves, can this society based on competition, brutality and fear come to an end? ... It can only happen ... If each one of us recognizes the central fact that we, as individuals, as human beings, in whatever part of the world we happen to live or whatever culture we happen to belong to, are totally responsible for the whole state of the world.

— J. Krishnamurti, Freedom From the Known, Chapter I