The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

Spare the poor
THE Punjab Government has announced a hefty rise in the tuition fee in the government and aided colleges, increased the hostel charges ten times and discontinued free college education for women. This is bound to hit the middle class students, particularly those who do not enjoy concessions normally given to the SC/ST and poor students, and those from the rural areas where incomes do not keep pace with the increase in the cost of living.

OPINION

Freedom on sale, off-the-shelf
Business fine-print is at the bottom
K. Raveendran
WHEN it comes to money and business, the only people who can be more brazen than the Americans are the Americans. While the French find it obnoxious that the coalition, almost a euphemism for the US, goes about reconstruction of Iraq as some kind of a cake to be shared between partners, US officials have no qualms about their claim: as leaders of the coalition, they have made “life and blood” sacrifices to liberate Iraq and so they deserve the spoils.

MIDDLE

When top executives went on rampage
Trilochan Singh Trewn
WE often notice workers, middle-level officials and sometimes officers taking to streets in several countries. However, it is rare to witness top mandarins, captains of industry and business chief executives — tastefully dressed in their three piece suits — getting out of their chauffer-driven Mercedes Benz and other luxury cars and rampaging in main street.

ANALYSIS

War and reconstruction in Iraq
Himmat Singh Gill
AS the sledge hammer of the coalition forces reduces Baghdad, Basra and the Kurd-dominated north of the country into submission, it is only a question of a few days or even less, that the Saddam regime would have crumbled away into non-existence, on both military and political fronts. Actually, in the coming days it will not matter in material terms whether Saddam lives or not, or whether he has fled the country or just disappeared into oblivion. Jockeying for the post-war spoils of war has already begun in real earnest.

SIGHT & SOUND

Salute to the media
Amita Malik
NOTHING, it seems, can be as shattering for their colleagues and, indeed, for the rest of the world than the callous and, in the face of it, deliberate manner in which the American forces killed international journalists covering the war in Iraq. These were from well known news agencies and were duly “embedded” with the US forces (You and I call this accredited) and they were staying, had their offices and were operating from the well-known Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. When it came to the crunch there was no discrimination in the targeting: From Reuters to Al Jazeera.

TRENDS & POINTERS

How to get kids eat healthy vegetables
WHILE getting kids to eat their veggie can sometimes feel like an exercise in futility, you should not give up. If you have run out of ideas on how to get your kids eat these healthy foods, try these tactics suggested by the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

EDITORIALS

Freedom to loot

IT is easy to bring down an unsafe structure, but extremely difficult to replace or reconstruct it. The world is not going to mourn the fall of Saddam Hussein. But it is not going to cheer the Anglo-American forces either for the chaos their action has unleashed in Baghdad and Basra, in Najaf and Nasiryah. Iraq is on the brink of a civil war and unless America and Britain put into place a stable alternative for restoring order in the benighted country, the cure that they offered to the people of Iraq — getting rid of Saddam —may prove worse than the disease. In Najaf a highly respected Shia cleric, Majid al-Khoei, became the first victim of the sectarian fury that is going to spread like a prairie fire. Khoei was flown in specially from London as part of the various alternatives the clueless duo of US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are exploring for winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. The harder they try, the faster the people want them to get out. Nothing has worked to a plan because the coalition was in a tearing hurry to bring down Saddam. Early this week, the US President flew out to discuss with the British Prime Minister the blueprint of the post-Saddam Iraq. The language Bush spoke thereafter, at the press conference, was clearly dictated by Blair, who is facing considerable local opposition because of the gross human rights violation by the coalition forces in Iraq. They spoke of an important role for the United Nations. When? After the present state of anarchy runs out of steam? It never will. The demon that has been uncorked is not going to get back into the bottle just because Bush holds the most powerful office in the world.

The Geneva Convention and The Hague Declaration have had no meaning for the invaders in dealing with civilian resistance. The pictures of jubilation on Day 21 fooled the world into believing that the next phase of the present action would have a happy beginning. It now transpires that the media was manipulated into beaming the cheerful images not to announce the endgame of a messy operation, but cause confusion in the enemy ranks. It was part of the well-orchestrated mind-game the coalition forces have been playing for changing the course of the engagement through more foul than fair means. So long as Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf was in circulation, he extracted equal propaganda mileage through his daily interaction with the media in Baghdad as the army of coalition spokesmen could for their campaign. Nothing went right for the invading armies from Day 1. And now that there is complete breakdown of civil authority in most parts of Iraq the situation is going to get nastier. The trigger-happy marines fired recklessly at civilian targets when the operation began. They are going to get more reckless with each passing day for dealing with the anarchy that rules Iraq today. Soldiers are trained to kill, not restore civil order. Iraq is in danger of becoming another Afghanistan where President Hamid Karzai’s writ does not seem to run beyond the limits of Kabul.

A flawless launch

THE uncertainty caused by the last-minute delay in the launch of INSAT-3A has made way for relief and euphoria one day later because when the satellite finally went up from the French Guyanese space port of Kouru in South America on Thursday, it did so in a textbook fashion. A country needs such achievements to keep the collective mood of the public upbeat. A technologically precise launch was the dire need of the Indian scientists also so that they could put the INSAT-2 disappointment behind them. No wonder that the event was telecast live by Doordarshan. The 2 series was the first attempt by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at building operational communication satellites. The INSAT-1 series satellites were built by what was then Ford Aerospace of the US and only two of the four worked. Even the INSAT-2 series satellites encountered various problems which greatly reduced their communications capacity. ISRO suffered the biggest setback when INSAT-2D had to be abandoned just months after its launch in 1997 due to a short-circuit. The INSAT-3A success was equally significant for Arianespace also, considering that this was the first Ariane-5 launch this year following the December 2002 failure of the 10-tonne heavy lift rocket.

Now that India’s biggest and costliest satellite is in orbit for the next 12 years, the country can look forward to far better space-based broadcasting, communication and weather monitoring services. Government agencies have first call on its capacity. Some of its transponders will be available for non-government users, including private TV channels. The satellite will also provide highly reliable point-to-point communications, even from remote places. The successful launch augurs well for Internet service providers (ISPs) as well. They use foreign satellites to connect to international networks. There are at present about 15 foreign satellites with coverage over India. INSATs do not provide such a link. The launch of the multipurpose 2,958-kg satellite will remedy the situation to some extent. Now is the time for ISRO to prove that it is equally efficient in attracting private users. Once the first three of the next-generation INSAT-4 series satellites become operational, the number of Ku-band transponders available will rise from three to a phenomenal 50. But the demand is also growing very quickly and ISRO will not find it easy to cope with it. If all goes well, the INSAT series will soon become the largest domestic communication launch system in the Asia Pacific region.

Spare the poor

THE Punjab Government has announced a hefty rise in the tuition fee in the government and aided colleges, increased the hostel charges ten times and discontinued free college education for women. This is bound to hit the middle class students, particularly those who do not enjoy concessions normally given to the SC/ST and poor students, and those from the rural areas where incomes do not keep pace with the increase in the cost of living. Combined with the hike in the water, power and bus charges, the burden becomes unbearable and may well put higher education beyond the reach of many a youth. Already, Punjab’s performance on the education front has been dismal. In the overall literacy rate, it ranks 16th in the country as per the 2001 census. The situation is worse on the female literacy front — it is 63.55 per cent compared to the 75.63 per cent male literacy level. Rural families are already not very enthusiastic about sending girls to the college. The high cost will further discourage them. School education, given its present quality in villages, does not equip anyone with any talent to earn one’s livelihood. The worst hit, therefore, will be the girls from low-income rural families. Had the government any plans to divert the unregulated flow to colleges with meaningful alternatives like updating and popularising vocational education or at least raising the standards of primary and secondary education, the college fee hike would have been understandable. But nothing of this sort is on the government’s agenda.

It is true the government’s financial position is tight with the CM spending Rs 1.44 lakh daily on his helicopter, significantly raising the salary and perks of his ministers and MLAs and buying expensive vehicles for each of them. It is also true that higher education in government institutions is cheaper than primary education in private schools. Again, it is true that the college and university teachers’ salaries have gone up significantly after the Fifth Pay Commission Report. Building and maintaining modern, elegant temples of higher learning also cost money. But hasn’t somebody said that education, like health, has to be a priority area in a welfare state? Either it is not a welfare state or it has got its priorities wrong. The middle way for the government would have been to make available affordable education for the disadvantaged and encourage the growth of private educational institutions, which can collect “user charges” from those who can afford them. The government has not indicated whether it plans to offer any improved or additional education and hostel services. What then is the justification for the fee hike?

OPINION

Freedom on sale, off-the-shelf
Business fine-print is at the bottom
K. Raveendran

WHEN it comes to money and business, the only people who can be more brazen than the Americans are the Americans. While the French find it obnoxious that the coalition, almost a euphemism for the US, goes about reconstruction of Iraq as some kind of a cake to be shared between partners, US officials have no qualms about their claim: as leaders of the coalition, they have made “life and blood” sacrifices to liberate Iraq and so they deserve the spoils.

The Americans are indeed right. They have taken a great political risk by going into war in Iraq without a mandate from the international community and cannot be faulted for expecting to be economically rewarded. And yet, there is one question that remains to be answered: Was all that risk-taking really meant to bring freedom to the Iraqi people? One must appreciate the French for their high moralistic posture, but it is difficult to imagine that they are not feigning. For, the French know as well as everyone else why wars are fought.

Behind the high rhetoric of human rights and freedom, there are always underlying business and commercial interests. This is what Mark Malloch-Browne, the head of the UN Development Programme, said the other day when he was asked about Iraq’s reconstruction programme. As a person who handled a number of such projects, Mr Malloch-Browne must know what he is talking about.

Public opinion in the Arab world hardly conceals its disgust that the real “target of opportunities” of the US-led war against Iraq is the country's oil wealth. The Americans have been going great lengths to assure the Iraqis that it is their wealth and, therefore, will be used for their own benefit. But widespread fears of an oil colonisation persist.

While the role that Iraq’s oil wealth will play in the reconstruction of the war and sanction-ravaged country is infinite, Iraqi oil is also capable of changing the current fundamentals of the oil market. There is no need for the US to drill crude out of Iraq to keep its strategic oil reserves to the brim; all that it needs to do is to ensure that Iraq contributes its due share to the market. Once that happens, the oil price has no option but to behave. With more than 110 billion barrels in proven oil reserves and a similar quantity existing in unexplored areas, Iraq has the second largest supply resources after Saudi Arabia. But 20 years of war and sanctions have kept Baghdad on the sidelines of the international oil market. The “exclusion” has clearly benefited other producers through their ability to exercise greater control over the market.

With the prospects of an administration in Baghdad that will do Washington’s bidding, the US will be greatly empowered to deal with OPEC. A meeting of Iraqi exiles and US officials has already served notice on the oil cartel that Baghdad would accept no output caps. It would be some time before Iraq’s oil wells can produce optimum levels, but once that happens it would be tough for OPEC to stay afloat in a market flooded with oil.

In the context of some cooling off in the US-Saudi relations, Washington desperately needs a more secure supply source. Iraqi oil is thus a great risk diversifier. Also, it would be business as usual for US exploration companies, keeping off Iraq for long due to their adversarial role.

The economics of war is truly fascinating. The liberation of Iraq has a price tag of $ 75 billion as notified by the Bush Administration. An increase of $ 10 in the price of a barrel of crude is estimated to necessitate a US tax hike of $ 100 billion, and lead to a slowdown of half-a-per cent in growth for each year. On the other hand, if post-war oil prices return to the low $20s from the $30s, where prices have been ruling since war tension started building up last November, it would be equivalent to the injection of an additional $150 billion into the economy.

This will be in addition to the price of freedom that Iraqis will be made to pay, because freedom does not come free of cost. And when it is off-the-shelf, as is the case with Iraq, it comes with a premium. Just as every bomb has a cost, the need for reconstruction that it creates also has a price tag. So, the business of war makes sense only when the effort yields the total cost of the war and the cost of post-war reconstruction. With a war bill of $ 75 billion and the reconstruction cost, estimated between $ 20 billion and $ 100 billion, the cumulative total of Iraq business would be somewhere in the range of $ 100 billion to $ 150 billion. This will safely cover the cost as well as a return on investment.

As a business, there are no viability issues about Iraq, because the country has the resources, including oil, to fund it. But there is a hitch: the Iraqis do not have enough cash in hand. That is where the “vital” role of the United Nations comes. After having gone into war without the support of the international community, represented by the UN, the coalition partners have now agreed that the UN must play a vital role in the humanitarian and reconstruction effort. President Bush is suddenly showing a lot more respect to the UN! He has apparently acquired some new knowledge.

Under the international law, the coalition forces will be considered only as an occupying force, and therefore will have no legal right to use Iraq’s oil money for any purpose. An occupying force also cannot take any decision that will have long-term sovereign implications. In the given situation, this right only rests with the UN and only the world body can appropriate funds from Iraq’s oil wealth. So, the UN holds the key to Iraqi coffers and is thus central to the coalition plan’s success.

The mandate issue is, in fact, throwing a spanner in the works of coalition efforts to quickly award deals of reconstruction and development to their preferred bidders. The billion-dollar deals involve long-term commitments by companies as well as government guarantees, which can be issued only by a sovereign authority in Baghdad and not an interim occupation authority. Similarly, companies lining up for lucrative Iraqi oil development projects are in no position to enter into any deals, as such contracts involve long-term commitments of 15-20 years, for which they need proper guarantees. Such guarantees can come only from the UN or an authority designated by the world body, until such time as Iraq’s own regular government is in place in Baghdad. This partly explains the new coalition stress on the need to have Iraqis themselves running the interim government even as there is less abrasive talk on “life and blood” sacrifices. All said and done, the US will make a good deal off Iraq. But it is unlikely that they will have the entire cake for themselves as they had once hoped.

The writer is a Dubai-based journalist

MIDDLE

When top executives went on rampage
Trilochan Singh Trewn

WE often notice workers, middle-level officials and sometimes officers taking to streets in several countries. However, it is rare to witness top mandarins, captains of industry and business chief executives — tastefully dressed in their three piece suits — getting out of their chauffer-driven Mercedes Benz and other luxury cars and rampaging in main street.

This happened in Buenos Aires. All banks were the targets and this happened in Argentina, which was considered a model country and a toast of Wall Street even a decade after the end of the Eva Peron era.

Overflowing granaries and meat and milk farms constructed with Danish technology were once exporting their cheap products all over the US and Europe. For years Argentinian meat and wheat could feed the entire South America. Then followed the depressing days of Anglo-Argentinian war over Falkland islands due to unimaginative policies of successive egoistic Argentinian rules.

Loss of export orders followed the rapid and abysmal fall of peso. A 500-peso note worth Rs 500 in 1978 could hardly buy 500 grams of local black carrots. Mr Antonio Vargas, a processed cheese maker who once danced in the boulevards of Buenos Aires until midnight with his young wife, now found it difficult to make both ends meet. While neighbouring countries like Uruguay and Brazil flourished, this great country could be seen as a beggar in front of the gates of International Monetary Fund.

The public was fiercely critical of the egoistic policies of the politicians. The confused government first stopped banks from free exchange of peso into US dollars. When the situation worsened in the face of heavy currency withdrawals, the banks stopped all transactions.

Strange situations arose. Next morning saw well-dressed crowds in thousands advancing towards Banco Dela Nacio Argentina located in high grounds of Buenos Aires. Most of them were senior executives, managing directors, retired generals, chairpersons of dairy and meat corporations, captains of industry and serving elite of shipping business.

They picked up spanners etc from toolkits or whatever else came in their hands and alighted allowing their chauffeurs to park their Luxury cars in distant parking lots. As if for reasons of protocol, the chauffeurs and car drivers took no part in the massive protest by the big ones. These top men were guided more by anger than design or pre-plan. Hundreds more of lesser rank soon joined, led by a director of medical college Jossep Gonsalez with his wife Laudo Gonsalez, herself a head of department. Those holding serving spoons and knives from nearby restaurants shattered windowpanes of the bank while the rest were seen hammering huge birchwood main gates of the bank. No gatekeepers or policemen were in sight.

It was a spontaneous and unprecedented show of top elite of the country against the sudden freezing of all accounts by banks. Curiously, from the post where I stood I saw chauffeurs bringing firstaid kits to provide dressing material for their rampaging bosses. Masters were heard shouting foul words in garbled Spanish.

One of the agitators tried to pull down the bank’s pennant from the leaning flag staff and broke it while doing so. The flag came crashing down to be trampled upon by perfumed, elegant, but angry ladies who were bewildered to suddenly face a no-cash situation.

This continued for a day before the government relented and banks started issuing a trickle of currency from accounts.

We sailed from Rio De La Plato for Sao Paulo the same day, to tell our story there. As we sailed along we saw hundred of crates of famous Merda wine lying unshipped on quayside because of lack of funds!

ANALYSIS

War and reconstruction in Iraq
Himmat Singh Gill

AS the sledge hammer of the coalition forces reduces Baghdad, Basra and the Kurd-dominated north of the country into submission, it is only a question of a few days or even less, that the Saddam regime would have crumbled away into non-existence, on both military and political fronts. Actually, in the coming days it will not matter in material terms whether Saddam lives or not, or whether he has fled the country or just disappeared into oblivion. Jockeying for the post-war spoils of war has already begun in real earnest.

Anyone with some knowledge of the invasion, consolidation and reconstruction phases of countries such as Afghanistan or Vietnam, will know that initially the Army Command of the US and the UK would subdue and bring under control, their respective areas of operational influence and strategic reach. Of particular importance will be the control of the oilfields and the access to the sea lanes around Basra, and quite naturally the seizure of the capital, Baghdad. Though the US has vowed to hand over power to the Iraqis themselves, it would be quite some time before their forces will pull out of Iraq and go back home.

Some sort of a sizeable force, under or outside the ambit of the United Nations, could be in place in Iraq in the coming years. A systematic purge of the Baath Party or whatever is left of it having been first affected, a pro-US regime Iraqi regime bolstered on the lines of the Hamid Karzai government installed in Afghanistan, could be placed in Baghdad to govern (at least in name), the country for the coming year or two.

One tricky configuration that could come up in Iraq, could be that whereas the people of Afghanistan really hated the Taliban, the same might not be so true of the Iraqi people, and some acts of hostility and subversive depredations against the occupation forces could continue for some time. The American team of civilian and military administrators and advisers would need to be sagacious men and women, who could apply the healing touch to a very disturbed yet proud nation that has just been bulldozed into a war, not of their choosing ,but that of a dictator who cared little for his people. Eventually, an interim indigenous government first, and then a duly elected government some time later, when the US control over this bastion of the Arab world has been assured, could follow. But what is clear on the horizon in strategic terms is that after the post-Afghan war period when the US has effectively ringed the CIS with bases and “centres of influence”, the masterstroke of the Iraqi occupation, affords the US a crescent of power and influence, all the way from the Middle-East to the underbelly of Russia, and then onto South Asia and Pakistan. This one-sided grip of a superpower will have major ramifications for the entire world in the years ahead, which India will have to watch very carefully.

The rehabilitation and reconstruction of Iraq will be a tricky affair. After the bloody nose the UN received from the US in the present situation, it is not clear what level of a role it would be prepared to undertake in Iraq once the shooting stops for good. Also to be seen would be the question of taking the relief measures to the countryside, when tribal internecine infighting and subversive action on the civilian lines of supply, could result in long delays in distribution and hardships to the sick and wounded. In Afghanistan one saw that in spite of the Bonn conference and all the tall promises of major nations committed to aiding the country, the flow of relief and assistance has not been constant, much to Mr Karzai’s chagrin and distress. Ironically, with America having taken on Iraq while the war continues in Afghanistan, the situation poses the question: had the US thought long enough before it committed its troops in Gulf war-II? Even the US will face difficulties, if it stays on in Iraq, not only from the Arab world but also its own population back home, which does not like too many troop casualties or the slackening of its commerce and business interests. And certainly not to be forgotten will be the question of the Kurds (not only in Iraq but also along the border with Turkey), who if not given their legitimate share in the pie, could have their own ideas of power sharing and governance.

Where do many of the nations stand, in their relations with the US, now that the latter has nearly won the war. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been used, as they say, and the UK is likely to only play a subsidiary role, in spite of his sticking his neck out for the Americans. France and Germany will be put in the diplomatic and economic freezer for some time at least, and Russia in any case with its weak economy, has never mattered for the US.

India in my view, has again not played its cards well in the present crisis. After 9/11, the US has no time for nations who sit on the fence and who are not emphatic in their foreign policy. In 1979 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Indira Gandhi did not condemn the Soviets ,and till today we have seen that the average Afghani has not forgiven India.

In Iraq, we should have better weighed the pros and cons of gains from the Arab world, as opposed to that from the US. But here too our foreign policy has faltered, and we can look to little assistance or no special relationship with the US in the sharing of contracts and deals in oil and other business-related activity. So, having got little from the Arab world all these years, we have put at stake the special bonding that had been affected post-Kargil war in the Clinton era. All this portends a disturbed South Asia ahead, where Pakistan will not be reined in Kashmir by the US.

The war in Iraq is more or less over. Now will come the real challenge of how to govern that country. One only hopes that President Bush can now quickly apply the healing balm on the foreheads of the Iraqi people. Being over-centric over Osama bin Laden or Saddam is not going to help, and the President and his advisers would now need to fight for peace on a more sustained footing in Iraq. In the interests of mankind, one hopes he would succeed in doing that.

The writer is a retired Lt.-General.

SIGHT & SOUND

Salute to the media
Amita Malik

NOTHING, it seems, can be as shattering for their colleagues and, indeed, for the rest of the world than the callous and, in the face of it, deliberate manner in which the American forces killed international journalists covering the war in Iraq. These were from well known news agencies and were duly “embedded” with the US forces (You and I call this accredited) and they were staying, had their offices and were operating from the well-known Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. When it came to the crunch there was no discrimination in the targeting: From Reuters to Al Jazeera. But it seems that it was the Arabic media, particularly TV channels, which were prime targets since their highly professional and less biased reporting had given the lie to the heavily biased and subservient Western media, which had been feeding viewers on government hand-outs, and pre-censored at that, with which viewers had to be content. The Arabic channels, on the other hand, had done independent, professional reporting and become highly popular even in the Western countries where channels such as CNN had become totally discredited and, as I said last week, worse than Doordarshan. It seems this had so infuriated the American establishment that they bombed the hotel where the journalists were staying and three of them died — from a Spanish agency, Al Jazeera and Reuters. A Dubai agency was targeted elsewhere and to date 21 media persons have died in the Iraqi war in something like three weeks. There were poignant shots on TV and the newspapers, of colleagues carrying their wounded colleagues to safety, one of whom died within minutes. And then keeping a candle vigil over their bodies. John Simpson of the BBC, whose walk-about reporting has become famous was seen with a bleeding ear, reporting from the spot where he had been standing while the missile missed him by about 10 yards. Incidentally the hundred of journalists whose lives were endangered by the hit on the Palestine Hotel testified that there had been no small arms firing by rebels from their hotel, which is the excuse the trigger — happy US marines gave for shooting people in the hotel.

One saw the immediate strong protest made on TV by the Secretary-General and President of the International Press Union. Every journalist present at the site during the attack stood by the story and one hesitates to call this one “frendly fire” considering its devastating effects not only on the lives of professionals going about their jobs but also the reputation of the USA towards press freedom and its so-called democracy. A dangerous attitude that if you don’t like someone’s reporting you can always kill him in cold blood, just as you kill thousands of unarmed women, children and elders while you are trying to assassinate Sadaam Hussein and his sons without holding a proper trial or proving that he had concealed stocks of items for chemical warfare. Sadaam is proving as elusive as Osama Ben Laden in searching for whom thousands of innocent Afghan civilians were killed, many more than in the September 11 outrage and certainly more than 89 “coalition” combatants allegedly killed up to now.

Some of the women war reporters, including some from the Arab media, are extremely good and far more humble and less haw-haw than the darling of the American media, Christine Amanpour for whom I lost respect when she came to ‘Kolkata to report on Mother Teresa’s funeral and said in arrogant and patronising tones that she was surprised to see there were Christians in India and they observed the same funeral rites as Christians in her part of the world.

All the same, I have been wondering all these months why the Western media have suddenly stepped up their quota of women reporters in danger spots or near them. Do they get extra protection and respect in the conservative Asian or West Asian areas from where they report? They seem less vulnerable to hostility. However, before concluding, I would like to mention that I think a splendid job has been done, within obvious limitations, by Somaliaborn Rageh Omaar of the BBC, who also took a three-month course in Arabic at the university of Jordan. He is balanced and precise, uses wonderfully descriptive language and never loses his cool.

I can only comment next week on the new news channels, particularly the two English Channels from NDTV and India Today and NDTV’s all-Hindi channel because at the time of filing they are only doing test runs or not being given at all on my cable circuit. But my initial reaction to the others, including the incredible decision of Star News to be based in Mumbai remains. No wonder some of the news readers and anchors on some channels are not only models disguised as anchors and reporters but they look and act like bit characters from Mumbai films.