EDITORIALS

Pakistan’s hand
Instead of blaming it, make it ineffective

DEPUTY Prime Minister L.K. Advani has confirmed what the public and the security agencies suspected all along: the twin explosions at Mumbai on Monday were the handiwork of forces which owe allegiance to Pakistan. The incident will greatly hamper the process of normalisation of relations. Perhaps that was the intention of the perpetrators. Whenever any attempts are made to make a new beginning, the efforts to scuttle the process are immediately started. It is immaterial whether it is the government in Islamabad which does so directly or there are renegade elements in Gen Pervez Musharraf’s establishment who play this mischief on the sly. But the end result is always the same. The General was himself involved in doing a Kargil on India when Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee was trying to mend fences through his bus yatra. It seems that not much has changed since then. Mr Advani’s allegation that the blasts were a result of the proxy war being waged by Pakistan is not an off-the-cuff remark. However, instead of holding forth on the “who did it” part, the Deputy Prime Minister will do well to go after the usual suspects in a proactive manner. Since the activities of SIMI and Dawood Ibrahim operatives are no secret, the security agencies should have been more alert in Mumbai.

While an attempt is made by the terrorists to show each such inhuman act as a revenge killing, the fact remains that the real target is the economic progress of the country which they somehow want to halt. Since Mumbai is the symbol of this development, it has been particularly targeted. Since December last there have been at least six serious bomb blast incidents. These should be a grim reminder to those who feel that the bloody saga of violence can be brought to an end by making concessions in Jammu and Kashmir. Even if Kashmir is out of the way as a sticking point, groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba will always find another excuse to shed innocent blood.

The government’s focus at the moment seems to be on preventing attacks in the national capital and Gujarat, for obvious reasons. But the high alert there may only mean that the killers will turn their attention to other places. Since their endeavour is to cause panic in cities which are at the forefront of economic reforms and progress, fears have been expressed in many quarters that Bangalore and Hyderabad may also be on the hit list. Adequate security cannot be mounted in a piecemeal fashion. There is need for evolving a composite plan for the whole nation, including concerted action against organisations which are keen to destabilise India.

NASA blasted
Will space airbus be safer?

THE Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) has held NASA guilty of ignoring several space travel-related requirements. Politics, budgets, schedule pressure and managerial complacency all seem to have played a role in the Columbia shuttle disaster. India’s Kalpana Chawla and six other astronauts were among those who perished in the accident, the worst in the history of manned space flights on February 1, 2003. The CAIB was set up within 24 hours of Columbia’s break-up over eastern Texas. The 248-page report provides evidence of the existence of a form of space jingoism at the decision-making level that over-ruled the genuine safety-related concerns of junior colleagues. NASA’s attitude to safety had not changed even after the 1986 break-up of the Challenger that was carrying a teacher, along with six crew members, for conducting what would have been an improvised class from space. The Challenger crashed minutes after lift-off and the Columbia minutes before its scheduled landing. “These repeating patterns mean that flawed practices embedded in NASA’s organisational system continued for 20 years and made substantial contributions to both accidents”, the report has said.

The CAIB report should help end the debate over the need to phase out the existing fleet of shuttle. The programme to find a replacement must avoid the problems that afflicted the shuttle, such as a fixed ceiling on development costs and the attempt to reconcile the conflicting interests of NASA, the US Department of Defence and the White House. The measure that turned manned space explorations into forced suicide missions was taken in 1970 by President Richard Nixon who drastically slashed NASA’s budget. He was sceptical about the benefits of manned space flights given their high costs. Of course, space exploration can never become a zero-risk exercise. But why did NASA ignore measures that could have at least eliminated the risk of something as innocuous as “that foam” causing Columbia to explode in mid-air?

Now that the CAIB report has more or less paved the way for the induction of new-generation space vehicles, a heavy dose of pragmatism and not blind jingoism should guide future manned space flights. The vehicles that will succeed the space shuttle will be to space flight what the Airbus 320 was to the early barnstorming airplane. NASA designed the shuttle to be all the things to all the people and ended up creating inherently greater risks for crew members than were necessary. It should now set more realistic technical goals. The mistakes of the past should not be repeated while designing the spacebus for replacing the aged shuttle fleet.

Like son, like father
There’s no greater service than donating eyes

FEW other acts are as noble as donating eyes. No one knew this better than Mr Virender Sakhuja of Ambala, who lost his 15-year-old son Virat in an accident. Overcoming the tragedy that befell him and his family, he took a quick decision to donate Virat’s eyes. Today, two people are able to see with the eyes that once belonged to Virat. Incidentally, Virat had pledged to donate his eyes. This reminds one of the saying, like father, like son. In retrospect, Mr Sakhuja is entitled to the satisfaction that his quick decision has gifted vision to two people. What makes the case worthy of mention in these columns is that there are not many Virats and Sakhujas in this country of 100 crore people. The supply falls far short of the demand for corneal transplantation. Of course, things have improved as the report that 37,000 persons have made pledges to the Eye Bank Society, Chandigarh, shows. But there is still a big gap between the pledges and the donations as a result of which needy people do not get eyes.

There are a host of reasons for this sad state of affairs. First and foremost, people who pledge their eyes are hardly in a position to see to it that their pledges are honoured. When death occurs to such persons, their relations may not even know or remember that the person concerned had made such a pledge. Even if they remember, they may not be as public-spirited as the “donors” to inform an eye hospital to have the eyes removed within the stipulated period. Also, they may not be scientific enough to ignore many superstitious beliefs which militate against corneal transplantation. Certain religious beliefs also stand in the way of eye-donations. As a result of all this, eye hospitals do not get even a fraction of the eyes pledged by the would-be donors. Small wonder that eye banks all over the world insist that those who pledge eyes should carry on their person an appeal to have the eyes taken out as soon as death occurs to them.

More important is the need to educate the people about the need to donate eyes. It is a pity that Indians have to depend on donors from other countries like Sri Lanka to meet their demand for eyes. A lot can be done if the religious leaders take the initiative to tell the masses that no religious texts proscribe eye-grafting and there is no greater service to humanity than donating one’s own eyes. The nation needs worthy parents like Mr Virender Sakhuja and worthy sons like Virat to ensure that nobody in need of eyes is deprived of them.

Thought for the day

Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.

— Montesquieu

OPINION

Missiles and N-proliferation axis
The talk of India-China shared interests is pointless
by G. Parthasarathy

FEW Indian analysts tend to keep track of the movements of Gen Xiong Guangkai, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, People’s Liberation Army of China. But his movements are the key to understanding how China uses missile and nuclear transfers with Pakistan and North Korea, both widely regarded as rogue states, to keep countries that it sees as adversaries or rivals, like Japan and India, on their toes. General Guangkai visited North Korea just three weeks before it tested its first medium-range Taepo Dong missile in 1998 — a test that sent shivers down the spines of Japan’s strategic establishment.

China is known to have assisted North Korea’s missile programme since the 1970s. By 1995 it became clear that China had trained hundreds of North Korean scientists to develop a family of long-range ballistic missiles. In return, North Korea acted as the conduit for China’s missile transfers to several countries in the Persian Gulf and West Asia. Defence analysts agree that the long-range Taepo Dong-2 missile that Pyongyang regularly uses for nuclear blackmail is a replica of China’s CSS-2 missiles, supplied over 15 years ago to Saudi Arabia. Even in recent years there has been no dearth of evidence of the supply by China of materials like gyroscopes, precision grinding machinery, accelerometers and chemicals like tributyl phosphate, for North Korea’s missile and nuclear programmes.

General Guangkai’s last reported visit to Pakistan was in March 2002, at the height of the tensions during the deployment of Indian troops on the borders following the December 13, 2001, terrorist attack on Parliament. The ubiquitous Chinese General, who has described Pakistan as “China’s Israel”, duly signed agreements with his Pakistani counterparts on “Joint Defence” and “Joint Defence Production”. In the meantime, General Musharraf paid two unscheduled visits to Beijing and another senior Chinese, General Zhang Wannian, told the hawkish and fundamentalist General Aziz Khan: “ For many years the militaries of our two nations have maintained exchanges and cooperation at the highest and all levels and in every field”. The acknowledgement that Sino-Pakistan military cooperation covered “every field” was the first clear statement made by a Chinese functionary tacitly acknowledging that missile and nuclear cooperation was an important factor in the bilateral strategic partnership between the two countries. It is, therefore, not surprising that on May 1, 2002, American satellites detected the movement of 12 consignments of Chinese missiles to Pakistan through the Karakoram highway. This was, of course, apart from the substantial emergency military assistance that China rushed to the Pakistan air force and army last year.

China’s assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear programme is known to have commenced in 1976. In the years that followed China supplied fissile material, nuclear weapons designs and ring magnets for Pakistan’s nuclear programme. Gary Milhollin, Director of the Wisconsin Project on Arms Control, has aptly commented: “If you subtract China’s help from the Pakistani nuclear programme, there is no Pakistani nuclear programme”. Even today, China is actively involved in constructing unsafeguarded plutonium processing facilities for Pakistan in Khushab and Chasma. However, while its assistance to Pyongyang’s missile programme is nearly three decades old, China commenced missile supplies to Pakistan just over a decade ago. Interestingly these missile supplies picked up strength following visits to China by Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi in 1988 and Narasimha Rao in 1993. One should, therefore, not be surprised if we learn a few years from now that even as Mr. Vajpayee was visiting Beijing, the Chinese were busy transferring the knowhow to Pakistan to manufacture thermonuclear warheads using plutonium from facilities provided by the Chinese in Khushab and Chasma. There are even now reports indicating that in October 2000 China invited seven Pakistani and four North Korean nuclear and missile scientists to their nuclear test facilities in Lop Nor, to demonstrate, among other things, how to mate miniaturised nuclear warheads with missile systems.

Given the close nexus that existed between China and North Korea, it was only a question of time before China’s true and trusted ally Pakistan moved in to establish a “trilateral missile and nuclear proliferation axis” comprising China, North Korea and Pakistan. Duly encouraged by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, father of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, Dr A.Q. Khan paid a series of visits to North Korea, resulting in the sale of around 20 Nodong missiles (christened as “Ghauri”) in return for the supply of the knowhow for uranium enrichment to Pyongyang by Islamabad. There are indications that during the visit of a three-member team of its nuclear scientists to North Korea in 2001, Pakistan shared data of its nuclear tests with Pyongyang. In July 2002 US satellites picked up pictures of C 130 transport aircraft of the PAF picking up missile spares from North Korea. Around the same time, a “Shaheen Airlines” aircraft transported 47 tonnes special aluminium (acquired by the Kahuta Research Laboratories established by Dr. A.Q. Khan from the U.K.) to Pyongyang for its nuclear enrichment programme. All this could not have happened without Chinese knowledge, acquiescence and encouragement. In the meantime, two North Korean diplomats with the knowledge of the Islamabad-Pyongyang nuclear/missile nexus stationed in Islamabad, who were known to be on the verge of defecting, were murdered or disappeared under mysterious circumstances, shortly after Pakistan’s nuclear tests in May 1998.

It is now clear that over the past decade both the Clinton and Bush Administrations have been fully aware of the cozy “trilateral axis of proliferation” linking Beijing, Pyongyang and Islamabad. The Clinton Administration followed a policy of virtual appeasement of China. It pretended that it did not have enough evidence to impose sanctions against either Islamabad or Beijing for their missile and nuclear transfers, as required under American law, in much the same manner as it described the Taliban as a “stabilising” force in Afghanistan, at least till Osama bin Laden became a direct threat to American security. Likewise, Mr Colin Powell now seems content to accept the bland assurances of General Musharraf that there are no ongoing nuclear transfers between Pyongyang and Beijing. In much the same manner, he accepts the assurances of General Musharraf that he is not supporting cross-border terrorism, either in Kashmir or Afghanistan.

Given the ambivalence and obfuscation that has characterised the approach of both Clinton and Bush Administrations to the activities of the Beijing-Islamabad-Pyongyang axis of Proliferation, it is obvious that New Delhi will have largely to act on its own in dealing with the security challenges it faces from the axis. Washington is deeply divided on how to deal with China, which now has powerful commercial, diplomatic and military lobbies across the United States, arguing for a policy of constructive strategic engagement with Beijing. Those who speak of an Indo-US partnership to deal with Beijing are, therefore, living in an unreal world. Quite obviously, there are areas like the environment and WTO negotiations where an India-China partnership is possible. There is also significant scope for the expansion of bilateral trade and economic relations. Similarly, both countries share an interest in peace and tranquillity along their borders. But our political leadership would be well advised not to mislead our own people or even itself, with glib talk about shared Indian and Chinese interests in a multipolar world order, when Beijing is obviously engaged in a long-term policy of strategic containment of India.

MIDDLE

Small step and giant leaps
by J. Sri Raman

I didn’t go to the moon. I went much farther. For, time is the longest distance between two places.” Not every Prime Ministerial peroration from the ramparts of the Red Fort would have recalled to the enraptured listener’s mind the memorable lines from Tennessee Williams play The Glass Menagerie. If it did so this August 15, it was because of the way the satellite planet of borrowed splendour figured in the otherwise familiar Independence Day address to the nation.

The haunting lines are from the final soliloquy of the play’s non-hero, sparked by his mother’s scream, “Go to the moon, you selfish dreamer!” They suggest a transformation that is more far-reaching than mere space travel. Similar can be the response to the promise of a moon-bound vehicle, made on the special occasion. For, Chandrayaan, a national dream with a chaste-Sanskrit name, scheduled to rise to its celestial challenge in four years, does raise ambitions of going farther.

2008: A Space Odyssey is a ready-made title for our tryst with the heavenly object of many a honeyed description. Bur how about target dates for travel plans on terra firma, which might have thus far seemed as much of fantasies as cosmic cruises once did?

In 2004, as we all knows, falls the date set by Balasaheb Thackeray for a discontinuance of all travel to Mumbai undertaken with the outrageously unlawful and absolutely evil intent of settling down there. With the further objective of marring the beauty of the metropolis and maliciously misusing its facilities by making oneself at home in slums not authorised by the Shiv Sena. Can the same 2008 be the target date for the restoration of links with the city snapped (with an air of finality that those who periodically board the bus to Lahore cannot put on convincingly) for livelihood-seekers of the lower orders?

And can any deadline be set for travel to Kashmir by domestic tourists of a special category from the same Mumbai? The Valley’s wait for cell phones may have ended. How much longer, however, must we wait for Bollywood’s leading pairs to re-enact scenes of love in same old, snowy landscape as before, but in the now mandatory company of multitudes performing mass drill of a pelvic kind?

Some incorrigibly adventurous souls may venture to envisage the day of a MiG flight from here to anywhere but eternity. A day when the detractors of the dreaded aircraft won’t have to be belied by a daredevil defence minister boarding it for a breathtaking demonstration. The controversial ‘flying coffin’ need not, however, figure in our calendar of forthcoming events.

Trains, however, are on a different track, but on a no less dangerous one. Revival of the Orient Express, made famous by an Agatha Christie murder, may be the event the rest of the world would like to schedule at the soonest. We in India can think of a greater wonder: an official announcement of a date from which the country will be assured of a restriction of railway accidents to a ridiculous low of a dozen per year. The average, however, will allow for more than one man-made mishap in certain months to get railway ministers the extra media and national attention, to which they have grown used and which they may expect as a matter of right.

The Chandrayaan, come to think of it, will be just one small step. The giant leaps, it would seem, are all waiting to be taken in our part of a planet 238,700 miles below the spot Neil Armstrong landed on over three decades ago.

English yet to entrench itself in govt schools
Middle schools have no teachers
by Jangveer Singh

AKALIS are prone to think from their hearts. the argument that children in the villages also deserved to learn English, the language which supposedly set urban children apart from rural ones, seemed to have pulled at the heart strings of former Education Minister Tota Singh. The Minister swung into action nearly five years back declaring English would be taught in all Government Primary Schools from Class I instead of the then prevailing system of introducing the language in Class V.

Thus was born the concept of teaching English, “the language of opportunity”, in government schools. Though the decision was good from the political angle with the Akalis having claimed to bring English to the villages, it was doomed from the outset. The Akali- BJP government did not do homework before taking this decision. No time was earmarked for teaching English at the primary level, no English teachers were recruited and even English teaching books did not arrive in the schools for nearly one year.

As a result, the attempt to teach a language which was foreign to village children foundered. Teachers, who had never specialised in the language themselves, started teaching students thus: A stood for “seb”, B for “munda”, C for “billi” and D for “kutta” and so on. There was no means to adjudge the level of learning achieved by the children. For it has been a general policy to pass all students irrespective of their grades till they reached Class V. Captain Amarinder Singh’s government has inherited a scheme mired in controversy.

The present government, despite a brainstorming session in which educationists were also invited, has failed to take a decision on the matter. The old rule continues officially even though the new government has informally told the Education department to introduce English vigorously from Class III. There is confusion on the way this policy is to be implemented because of divergent views expressed by the Chief Minister and his Education Minister. The former wants English at the primary level so that government school students would not feel left out in the new environment in which English has become a global language. The Education department has been slightly conservative in its approach.

The odds are presently stacked against the government. Of the 13,000 primary schools in Punjab, 8,000 are two-teacher-two- room schools. This means a teacher gets only around two and a half hours with each primary class from Class I to IV and is expected to teach a new language besides mother tongue, Maths and Environmental Science to the child.

Moreover, Punjab does not have a cadre of English teachers at the middle level. During the last 50 years, not a single English teacher has been recruited to teach English at this level. Social Science teachers, most of whom have not studied English Literature at the graduation level, teach English in primary and middle schools. There are no English books in the middle school libraries. Other teaching aids such as blocks, linguaphones, records or cassettes are almost extinct.

Educationists and linguists are against imposing English on children from rural areas from Class I. For instance, Dr S S Joshi, former head of the Linguistics Department in Punjabi University, says one has to acquire four skills to master a language. He says these are listening and understanding, speaking, writing and reading. He says in case of Punjabi language, children from rural areas are able to learn the two skills of listening and understanding and speaking at home. Dr Joshi said in this case the students could learn the remaining two skills at school. He says in case of English, students in rural areas had no scope of even hearing English due to which the learning process was extremely difficult for them. He feels English should be introduced to these children in Class IV by which time they could associate the skills acquired to learn their mother tongue to learn the new language.

Veteran educationist Dr T R Sharma says that even the NCERT recommends that only the mother tongue, Maths and Environmental Science should be taught to students in Classes I and II. He says even in the United States, foreign language is not taught at the primary level. He said the International Encyclopedia of Education Research stated that the UNESCO had tried to bring in multiculturalism at a global level and had eventually decided not to recommend the experiment. He said bilinguism caused many problems, including aversion to the mother tongue which could retard mental growth.

Meanwhile, it is felt that if English is to be taught even from Classes III, IV or V, it must be taught well which everyone feels is not happening right now. The present drive to amalgamate primary and middle schools to form elementary schools under the “Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan” is a good step. Under this scheme, a better pool of teachers would be available to teach English in Class III if the present government takes a decision in this regard. Besides, the government would have to make a cadre of English teachers which could form the backbone of dedicated English language education in the State.

As a short term measure, educationists also recommend taking the help of computers and computer assisted language teaching programmes. They feel it is possible to orient some of the teachers to teach English with the help of these programmes. The government could take the help of the Regional Institute of English at Chandigarh to organise refresher courses for English teachers. Even the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages at Hyderabad could be roped in to provide distance education courses to government teachers teaching English as a second language in the state.

FROM PAKISTAN

Pervez: LFO part of Constitution

HYDERABAD: President Gen Pervez Musharraf reiterated his view here on Tuesday that the Legal Framework Order (LFO) was a part and parcel of the Constitution, and without it, the October elections could stand invalidated.

Speaking at a news conference at the Hyderabad district Nazim's secretariat during his visit to the city, the president pointed out that if the LFO was repealed, joint electorates, women's representation in assemblies and 10 million additional voters also could have to go.

He said the Supreme Court had given him the authority to amend the Constitution without bringing about any structural changes and that was exactly what he had done to the best of his abilities.

Gen Musharraf said he could say with confidence that Sindh had received more than its due right not only of water but also of other resources since he assumed power.

He said he was a Sindhi and had ensured that Sindh must get its rights. “I guarantee that Sindh will receive more than its rights in every walk of life and there should be no doubt whatsoever about this.”

He said Punjab, as an elder brother, had rendered sacrifices for Sindh and shown magnanimity and large-heartedness, as an elder brother should do. — The Dawn

Opposition to intensify protest

ISLAMABAD: The combined Opposition on Tuesday vowed to continue its struggle till elimination of the military’s role in politics, and said that its anti-LFO protest would be intensified from next sitting of the House.

“The struggle of the opposition would succeed in closing the door for army’s intervention in politics once and for all,” said the Parliamentary leader of Alliance for Restoration of Democracy Makhdoom Javed Hashmi while addressing a joint Press conference here after staging a boycott of the National Assembly proceedings.

The top leadership of Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal, PPP-P and PML-N was also present on the occasion.

The MMA leader Qazi Hussain Ahmad said that the objective of the opposition’s struggle was to eliminate the political role of army from the country. “We want to free military from the political responsibilities as it is in the best interest of the army itself,” Qazi said. — The Nation

Autonomy for small provinces

ISLAMABAD: Awami National Party (ANP) President Asfandyar Wali Khan says Pakistan’s smaller provinces are dissatisfied with the federation and his party will seek more provincial autonomy through constitutional amendments.

In a Dawn Dialogue interview in Islamabad, he said the ANP, with the return of some leading personalities to the party fold, was moving towards reversing its rout in last October’s “engineered” election in its Frontier stronghold.

He said his party sought creation of a separate province of Pakhtun-inhabited regions of the country but suggested a referendum on the issue in the Pakhtun areas of Balochistan and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas.

The ANP chief saw an “ego problem” hampering a settlement between the government and opposition parties on the Legal Framework Order, but said any constitutional amendments sought by this controversial package of decrees giving sweeping powers to President Pervez Musharraf must go to parliament for approval. — The Dawn

Growth fails to reduce poverty

ISLAMABAD: While appreciating Pakistan’s macro-economic stability, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Tuesday said Pakistan needed to continue its efforts to achieve the desired fiscal deficit targets because public sector enterprises losses during the current financial year may hinder the achievement of these projections.

Pakistan’s dazzling economic growth has made for great report cards but failed to lift an estimated one third of its 145 million people out of poverty, ADB country director Marshuk Ali Shah said.

“There is a lag effect and it will take some time before the improving macroeconomic indicators show an impact on the living conditions of people,” he said.

“The fiscal deficit target of 4% of GDP is likely to be missed due to persistent higher losses being faced by public sector and resulting into growing need for subsidies during ongoing fiscal year 2003-04,” he said during a Press conference for releasing fifth issue “Pakistan Economic Update”. — The Nation

REFLECTIONS

The spiritual perfection which opens before man is the crown of long, patient, milennial outflowing of the Spirit in life and nature. This belief in a gradual spiritual progress and evolution is the secret of the almost universal Indian acceptance of the truth of reincarnation.

— Sri Aurobindo

Whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be; if you think yourselves strong, strong you will be.

— Swami Vivekananda

Make haste and do what is good; keep your mind away from evil. If a man is slow in doing good, his mind finds

pleasure in evil.

— The Dhammapada

This is the absolute, unconditional Truth which is life itself. I want therefore to set man free, rejoicing as the bird in the clear sky, unburdened, independent, ecstatic in that freedom.

— J. Krishnamurti