 |
|
Break the nexus Blasts in Iraq |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Paying a price
Nuclear duplicity
Queen’s English
Market rediscovers the State From Pakistan
|
Break the nexus INDIA needs to do a lot of soul-searching following the publication of a strategy report by the US State Department which has placed it in a list of 77 countries which are of “primary concern” in terms of major money-laundering business. The agency has only articulated what is well known in the country: that along with the rise in its financial strength, this kind of leakage has also increased manifold. This has happened despite strict foreign exchange laws, which have come in for praise even from the Americans. The avenues for laundering money are many. The biggest source is, of course, hawala and tax evasion. But other nefarious activities like narcotics trafficking, trade in illegal gems, smuggling, trafficking in persons and corruption cannot be ignored. Terrorist groups have also used these channels for financing their activities. Why such nefarious activities are taking place on such a large scale is no secret. There are several well-meant laws but the implementation is tardy. For instance, the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) calls for the tracing and forfeiture of assets that have been acquired through trafficking. But the punishment under the Act is indeed minimal and not many cases have been prosecuted to date. The officials who are supposed to keep a hawk eye on the criminals themselves join the law-breakers, as has been proved like never before by the stamp paper scam. Another major reason why such trade is thriving is the blatant patronage extended by politicians. Leaders as well as parties need greenbacks in abundance and get these freely from those laundering money. Scamsters bankroll election campaigns of many candidates. Small wonder that political will to grab the bull by the horns is lacking. Unless this nexus is broken, it will not be possible to bring the offenders to heel. |
|
Blasts in Iraq TUESDAY'S bomb blasts in Baghdad and Karbala appear to be aimed at sabotaging the process of establishing a democratic order in this war-torn country. The blasts, which killed over 200 innocent people, were the worst of their kind on any single day in post-Saddam Iraq. That the victims, most of whom belong to the numerically preponderant Shias, were targeted on the last day of Muharram indicates that a new kind of power struggle has begun. Those behind this well-planned attack are believed to be the forces representing the minority Sunni sect — supporters of the Saddam regime, Al-Qaida and Saudi fundamentalists — who were ruling Iraq. They are feeling uncomfortable because they may lose the status they have enjoyed once the promised elections are held. Significantly, top Shia religious leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has taken to task the US-led occupation forces for their failure to provide adequate security when over two million pilgrims had gathered at Karbala for the observance of Muharram. His idea apparently is not to highlight the emerging clash of interests between the two major sections of the Iraqi society. He and the others on his side of the social divide want the Americans and their allies to leave Iraq as quickly as possible. Obviously, a Shia-versus-Sunni situation, when there is chaos all around, may harm the cause of transfer of power to the Iraqis. How the Americans react to the new scenario remains to be seen. While the pro-Iran elements, which means the Shias, capturing power in Iraq is not in the US interest, Washington cannot afford to go back on the commitment it has made for leaving Iraq to the Iraqis by June 2004. The latest violence occurred soon after the finalisation of an interim constitution for holding the elections to form a democratic government. Reports suggest that there may be more killings to force the Americans to postpone the election schedule. But any change in the poll plan too may lead to increased bloodshed. It is definitely a Catch-22 situation for the US in Iraq today. |
|
|
Paying a price THE Election Commission has disqualified 3,300 candidates from contesting the ensuing polls for their failure to submit the accounts of expenses incurred during the elections between 2001 and 2004. This is bound to have a salutary effect on the electoral system. Under the Representation of People Act, the candidates are required to submit their poll accounts within 45 days of the completion of the election process. The defaulters will not be able to contest elections for three years. Some may view it as a harsh punishment. However, given the apathetic attitude of the political parties and the candidates towards electoral laws, there was, perhaps, no alternative before the Commission than to take a serious view of the matter as part of its commitment to reform the electoral system. This problem will not arise in future if the candidates follow the rules and submit their poll accounts to the observers or the returning officers once in three days during the campaign. It is incumbent upon the Commission to put in place an open and transparent mechanism for processing the accounts. The candidates need to be enlightened about the tasks and functions of the expenditure observers and the involvement of the income-tax officers in the scrutiny of the candidates' declaration of assets. The Commission's decision not to raise the ceiling on election expenditure is also welcome. For, only a few months ago, the ceiling was increased -- up to Rs 25 lakh for the Lok Sabha election as against Rs 15 lakh earlier and Rs 5-10 lakh for the Assembly election as against Rs 3-6 lakh earlier. As it is, the candidates follow the ceiling more in its breach than in practice. A level-playing field cannot be ensured in the elections without an effective check on poll spending. |
|
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. — Eleanor Roosevelt |
Nuclear duplicity AS time goes by and both Pakistan and the United States persist in their respective charades about the massive Pakistani nuclear proliferation, it is difficult not to be disillusioned and dismayed by what has been going on. It is not merely that over the nuclear issue, as it affects our part of the world, the US has been adopting double standards. Far more shocking is the cynicism and callousness of successive American administrations, particularly that of President Bill Clinton, towards this country’s security, as latest disclosures have sadly underscored. Mr Harry Rowan and Mr. Henry Sokolski are former Assistant Secretaries of Defence who are suddenly coming clean about what went on during their watch at the Pentagon. Their revelations are shocking beyond words and they give a lie to the current American claims that the US came to know of Dr AQ Khan’s shenanigans only after Libya chose to admit that it had received nuclear technology and materials from Pakistan in return for hefty cash. It was around the same time — so runs the American story line — that they learnt of the findings of the IAEA, the UN’s “nuclear watchdog”, about Pakistani help to Iran in its quest for nuclear capability. No one, of course, believes that the CIA and other all-seeing and all-knowing US intelligence agencies are so incompetent as to be totally unaware of astonishingly widespread proliferation activities over a remarkably long period. But this hasn’t prevented the Americans from sticking to the myth that they didn’t know. Now, Mr Rowan and Mr Sokolski have revealed that as far back as 1990, General Aslam Beg, then Pakistan’s Chief of the Army Staff, had told them bluntly that his country was being left with no option but to “share its nuclear secrets with Iran and other countries”. It is important to mention the context of this tough talk and of the US decision to keep quiet about it all through the years. As part of its deal with General Zia-ul-Haq for Pakistan’s participation in the “jihad” against the “Evil Empire” in Afghanistan, the US had agreed to look the other way while Pakistan engaged itself in developing nuclear weapons. General (retired) KM Arif, Zia’s number two in the Army, has recorded this in his book, Working with Zia, published several years ago. There was, however, an understanding between the two sides that Pakistan would not enrich uranium beyond an agreed point. Well after Islamabad had “crossed this red line” did President Bush Senior invoke the Pressler Amendment and stop all economic and military aid to Islamabad. General Beg’s outburst was in reaction to this. In retrospect, this should also explain his public advocacy, at the time of the first Gulf War, of “strategic defiance” of the US even though officially Pakistan was offering “full support” to the US-led war on President Saddam Hussein for his annexation of Kuwait. This, together with the present Bush administration’s stubborn refusal to say or do anything about the Pakistan-based nuclear proliferation activities that involved China, North Korea, Iran, Libya and several European countries, has stark implications for this country. The most important of these is America’s insensitivity to India’s security and supreme interests. The US did not merely acquiesce in Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons with China’s blatant help. More shocking was that while fully realising that India was sandwiched between two nuclear countries, China and Pakistan, America went on lecturing this country on the virtues of nuclear abstinence. All through the eight years of the Clinton administration — despite Mr Bill Clinton’s attempt during his last two years in the White House to improve Indo-US relations — this country was constantly told to “cap, reduce and eliminate” its nuclear capability. Curiously, there was no let-up in this hectoring even after the Shakti series of nuclear tests in May 1998 that were followed a fortnight later by Pakistani tests in Chagai hills. Mr Strobe Talbott, Deputy Secretary of State in the Clinton administration who held nearly a dozen rounds of talks with the then Foreign Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, was in Delhi recently for Track-II diplomacy. He was asked about the storm over the exposure of the massive web of proliferation the responsibility for which is being pinned on Dr AQ Khan alone. His curious reply was that if, after the 1998 tests, India had signed the CTBT (ironically rejected by the US Senate) and put in place nuclear export controls, it might have been possible to “persuade” Pakistan to do the same. Against this backdrop the question we must ask ourselves is whether, in the absence of vigorous action by us, we might not be treated equally shabbily yet again, now that the US is trying to fashion a more stringent nonproliferation regime. There is no doubt that President George W. Bush is a lot more sympathetic to India than his predecessor. He also has respect for Indian democracy and a vision of mutually advantageous partnership with this country that is a rising power both economically and militarily. But this is no guarantee that he would be amenable to the plea that India, a responsible nuclear weapons power, must not be treated on a par with Pakistan, the epicentre of nuclear proliferation. For, his administration, especially the State Department, is infested with nonproliferation fundamentalists and partisans of Pakistan capable of thwarting him. One such official was also here only the other day for arms control talks with his Indian opposite numbers. He had the temerity to say that India’s nonproliferation record was “not spotless”. This flies in the face of reality, but who cares? The future of the “glide path” Indo-US agreement on the transfer of high technology, including civilian nuclear technology, never very bright, is now uncertain. Immediately after the announcement of the agreement, a top US official had declared that it would take “months, if not years”, to implement it. Since then Mr Bush has stipulated that civilian nuclear technology would be given to only those countries that sign the Additional IAEA Protocol that is unacceptable to this country. Moreover, no one has failed to notice that China is about to be welcomed into the 40-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). All that this country is being offered is a “dialogue” with the NSG. The moral of the story ought to be clear enough. The world respects only those who respect themselves sufficiently to stand up and defend their interests. Whining is never
enough. |
Queen’s English WE speak a language rich in poetic splendour, magnificent in its possible rhythms, admirable in its sonorities, ancient in its lineage and glorious in its achievements — but a bit spotty in the matter of precision”. So wrote a scholar of English which, I have always thought, is the most difficult language in the world with the possible exception of Chinese. Perhaps even Chinese is simpler and more precise once you have learnt to read it the right way up — or down. The reason, of course, is that English contains many words which, though phonetically similar, have vastly different meanings depending on the way they are spelt or the context in which they are used. A slight inflection of the tongue and you may do irreparable damage to your own popularity or someone else’s reputation. The writer of the passage I have quoted gives the example of an ad in a Canadian paper. It said, “Wanted — unmarried girls to pick fruit and produce at night.” The editor of the paper must have had implicit faith in his readers’ ability to distinguish between a verb and a noun! The French and the Britain have had plenty of time to get to know each other ever since the Norman conquest of Britain. Our own association with the British extends to only about 250 years. So no one can blame us if we make an occasional mistake while conversing in English. For example, it isn’t our fault if the word ‘architect’ is meant to be pronounced ‘ar-ki-tect’ and not with the first two syllables as in the name ‘Archibald’. And why are eyebrows raised in polite society if someone says that he lives on ‘backside’ of the G.P.O. or some other landmark? The building in question has a front and a left side and a right side as you stand facing it. So the fellow who is inviting you to his house is merely indicating its exact location instead of saying, vaguely, that he lives near the G.P.O. “Uncle” says the Queen in Shakespeare’s Richard II, “for God’s sake, speak comfortable words.” I cannot think of anything more comfortable than the portion of one’s anatomy one uses for sitting
down.
|
Market rediscovers the State
TWO recent developments, apparently disparate, are united by the fundamental questions they raise about the nature and role of the Indian State in a time of market-driven liberalisation. The first development was the Human Resources Development Ministry’s decision to slash the fee of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). Murli Manohar Joshi set the government cat among the corporate pigeons who, for all their protestations, tamely capitulated to the diktat. The second development relates to the offer of shares of the public sector undertakings (PSUs) and Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie wielding the government stick to force a stalling market bull to run. The initial public offerings (IPO) driven by the government’s disinvestment policy is intended to rake in about Rs 17,000 crore to meet the fiscal target. These are some of the prized units, including Navratnas, that once occupied the “commanding heights of the economy”. ONGC, GAIL, CMC and IPCL are but a few of the mega issues. The share market was on the uptrend but the bull run faltered at a critical juncture— just when the government was riding in for a rich picking. A day after the minister’s tough talk, the perceived bear cartel retreated and the bulls returned. The Supreme Court order giving the IIMs the go-ahead for the fee-cut, following withdrawal of the PIL, and the markets bouncing back to toe the government’s line happened on February 28. The government had every reason to feel good about the coincidence. These developments give rise to some disturbing questions. For all the wealth and power of the corporate class, it opted for discretion as the more profitable part of valour, thereby conceding that no attempt would be made to resist the State’s bidding even when it came to matters on their turf. They could have rightfully contested the government trespassing on the autonomous terrain of the IIMs. Of a piece with this is the way the men who run the market caved in after the Disinvestment Minister’s outburst. True, the market is subject to regulation but the regulator is an agent of the State and not of a particular government or ministry. When the government as a dis-investor is a market participant and the public, at least in theory, are the investors, and the bankers and institutions are manager-intermediaries in the process, is SEBI correct in casting its lot with the government of the day? SEBI as regulator should exemplify the mediatory role of the State it represents and not take sides. Its role should be guided by the larger interest of the economy and its clout exercised in favour of greater public good. Conspiracy theories have no place in this context any more than the ideological persuasions of the individual ministers involved. The larger issue at stake is the nexus between the State and the market. Under the sweeping tides of globalisation, the State has condemned the vast majority of this country to the market and its mantras. But when the government, the chief instrument of the state, is faced with the prospect of its own coffers not filling up to expectations, it bares its claws to make the market behave. Otherwise, the economy and those subsisting on it have been left to the mercy of the market in the name of globalisation and liberalisation. A market driven by the State, even if it be for a bull run, is no less suspect. Regardless of party labels, governments are increasingly willing instruments of the market and abandoned addressing survival issues such as water, food, shelter, health and education to the vast majority. Yet, when the government’s own bids for profit-making in the stock market are threatened, the state’s might is displayed in full force. Rarely, in the last two decades has the State intervened with such alacrity, be it during the 1984 riots or the communal killings in Gujarat, to mention but two blots on our democracy. This underscores the reality that the State is capable of interceding effectively to exercise its historically assigned role as a mediator but is unwilling to do so except when it is expedient for limited and partisan objectives of the parties in office at any given point. After the Emergency, a delegation of leading industrialists met Indira Gandhi to pledge their support for the 20-point programme. “They are men who would have gone anyway — honourably if they can and dishonourably if they must,” was how one eminent observer pithily summed up the character and attitude of the captains of our business and industry. The Emergency has long gone but the culture of authoritarianism, (mis)use of the intelligence services, kow-towing to the party in power are no less pervasive than it was during those intimidating times. Liberalisation may have banished the licence-permit Raj in formal terms, but the agencies of an authoritarian mindset are still active with the same old methods. The most pertinent question this raises is whether illiberal politics is the flip side of economic liberalisation. Equally disturbing is the loss of institutional memory and values. Under Indira Gandhi there was erosion of democratic institutions as well as the democratic character of institutions. Despite that, the underlying values that were the foundation of these institutions survived. Now those very same values seem to be disappearing and with them the integrity essential for them to survive. The controversy over the IIMs was healthy and revived the habit of debating government action. In contrast, the protests were muted when other institutions such as the ICSSR, NCERT, ICHR, ICPR and several others were “reprocessed” for political purposes. The IIMs cannot thrive as islands of autonomy and excellence when these other institutions have been overrun by government-dictated politics. The rich and the powerful, be they at the helm of the IIMs or on the crest of a bull run, are as vulnerable as the average citizen when the government chooses to lower the boom. This calls for a collective resolve to safeguard all institutions and their values by moderating the objectives as well as the actions of the State. The State should deal equitably and in an even-handed manner with all sections of its citizenry, or it should let those who live by the market perish by it. And this is equally applicable to the State itself. |
|
From Pakistan KARACHI: At least 3,000 primary schools have been non-functional and lying closed for many years. This was disclosed by a reliable source in the Sindh Government. He further said that millions of rupees were spent in the construction of buildings and roads for these schools and there is no trace of furniture purchased for these institutions. This is criminal neglect, said the source. Though more than one year has passed when these schools were transferred to the local government, the Nazims have not succeeded in reopening them. The story does not end here as about 12,000 teachers working in these schools are untraceable. They are the ghost teachers, said the source.
— The Nation
Operation in tribal areas
ISLAMABAD: Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) acting president Qazi Hussain Ahmed has urged President Pervez Musharraf to resign as army chief without waiting for the December 31 deadline so that the ongoing military operation in the tribal areas could be stopped. He told a news conference that the MMA supreme council would chalk out a strategy for launching a countrywide movement against what he termed as the government's “complete submission” to the United States’ dictates on the country's internal and external policies. He called upon the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice of the killings of innocent tribesmen and fix responsibility for the action. The MMA chief, who is also the parliamentary leader of the alliance in the National Assembly, condemned the “criminal act of killing of 11 tribesmen by security forces in Wana”.
— Dawn
Contest polls, women told
KARACHI: Speakers at a meeting here urged women to actively participate in the coming byelections for union councils. Out of the total 9,794 seats, for which byelections are being held on March 28, 4,861 are reserved for women. The meeting was organised by the Aurat Foundation. The speakers said their organisation intended to set up camps in the province to provide assistance to the women candidates. The camps would be established only in those districts where there were at least 25 vacant women seats. One of the major reasons for such a large number of women seats lying vacant is that at many places in the NWFP and Balochistan, women were not allowed to contest elections, the speakers said.
— Dawn
Mangla Dam project
ISLAMABAD: The Commissioner for the Mangla Dam, Chaudhry Amir Afzal, has said that the work on the Mangla Dam Extension Project would begin in May with the construction and setting up of four new towns and one new city where the affected persons of the project would be rehabilitated. He said the extension project financed by WAPDA alone would be completed on time. Besides, during the work on the project, the construction of the Dhan Gali bridge, six new grid stations, a greater water scheme and laying of a new sewerage line would also begin, he added.
— The News International
|
Human life finds its fulfilment through self-devotion to a commanding end and not in the unfettered pursuit of endless possibilities. — The Bhagavad Gita That woman alone is beautiful who adorns her forehead with the jewel of love. — Guru Nanak If a man who enjoys a lesser happiness beholds a greater one, let him leave aside the lesser to gain the greater. — The Buddha Ahimsa is the height of Kshatriya dharma as it represents the climax of fearlessness. — Mahatma Gandhi The wordly people want to amass the material possessions which are short-lived. Happiness can only be attained from God. This is our message which we are to carry forward to the world. — Nirankari Baba Hardev Singh |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | National Capital | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
