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Splintered front Dropping out of school |
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Agenda for Punjab Awaited: ‘action taken report’ To help the Punjab Government accelerate growth, CRRID (Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development) has come out with an “Action Plan Punjab” which, in brief, says: cut fiscal deficit to 3.5 per cent, slash the committed expenditure from 112 to 60 per cent, disinvest in PSUs, set up IT cities at Patiala, Ludhiana and Jalandhar, allow local bodies to raise funds from the capital market, push power reforms and raise user-charges for education, health and transport facilities.
Pipelines or pipe dreams?
Not jest, Page 3?
Military doctrine: no radical change Jaafari’s vision isn’t quite what U.S. wanted From shyness to social phobia
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Splintered front NATIONAL Democratic Alliance convener George Fernandes has prophesied the emergence of a third front in national politics. Though he has not elaborated on his prophesy, he has darkly hinted at some behind-the-scene talks going on in this regard. It is no secret that ever since the NDA lost power, this former socialist leader has been trying to cobble together some political parties to stay afloat. But when he lost out to his rival Nitish Kumar in his own party, Mr Fernandes could have done little but fantasise about a third front. His own commitment to the third front idea is clear from his assertion that it would only strengthen, and not weaken the NDA. What kind of a third front is that which strengthens the second front, which till the last Lok Sabha election was convenient for him. The irony of the third front is that its constituents, including the one headed by Mr Fernandes himself, are all hitched to the bandwagons of either the Congress or the BJP. The blame for this should be laid at the door of the erstwhile “Socialist Parivar”. A recall of the past shows that the closest the third front came to success was when the United Front came to power in the nineties. The children of Jayaprakash Narayan’s “Total Revolution” got a splendid opportunity to prove to the nation that they could relegate the Congress and the BJP to the background. Far from fulfilling their promises, the UF leaders allowed themselves to be carried away by selfish motives even to the extent of supping with the Congress and the BJP. Small wonder that as one analyst said at the time, “it was on the rapidly decomposing yet unclaimed corpse of the United Front that the BJP-led coalition rode to power.” Today, most of the UF constituents are either with the Congress or the BJP. Even when Mr Harkishan Singh Surjeet takes an uninvited Samajwadi Party leader, Mr Amar Singh, to Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s dinner or when Mr Fernandes talks about the third front, their objective is merely to strengthen their own bargaining power vis-à-vis Congress and the BJP. Seen against this backdrop, how can the idea of the third front ever enthuse the common man? |
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Dropping out of school That education is the key to growth, personal and national, is now widely recognised. Parents, educated or illiterate, rich or poor, no longer need persuasion to send their children to school. If India’s literacy rate at 65 per cent is still less than satisfactory, it is partly because of an uncomfortably high dropout rate in schools. Official figures show that of the 100 children who join school in Class I, only 47 reach Class VIII. This disturbing fact has been recognised by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh. At a meeting of the governing council of the National Mission for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan on Monday, he pledged more funds to boost elementary education. Welcome as the Prime Minister’s promise is, the fact is the country does not spend enough on education in general and primary education in particular. The education cess will help, but only up to a limit. Education is a state subject and the states, barring a few like Kerala and Himachal Pradesh, are not giving it the desired attention. Schools in rural areas lack the basic infrastructure, including classrooms and toilets. In the absence of adequate supervision, absenteeism among teachers is widespread. The lack of facilities and indifference of teachers vitiate the academic atmosphere, forcing students to discontinue their studies. No wonder, private schools are getting popular, though hefty charges put them beyond the reach of many. If quality education is to reach the grassroots level, one way is ensure more effective intervention of panchayats. As for the dropout menace, the mid-day meal scheme has, to some extent, served the twin purpose of attracting children to schools and improving their health standards. However, the scheme is resisted in schools facing staff shortage. In Punjab government schools, for instance, some 20,000 posts of teacher are lying vacant. Maybe, panchayats can chip in and takeover food arrangements. |
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Agenda for Punjab To help the Punjab Government accelerate growth, CRRID (Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development) has come out with an “Action Plan Punjab” which, in brief, says: cut fiscal deficit to 3.5 per cent, slash the committed expenditure from 112 to 60 per cent, disinvest in PSUs, set up IT cities at Patiala, Ludhiana and Jalandhar, allow local bodies to raise funds from the capital market, push power reforms and raise user-charges for education, health and transport facilities. Few pro-market economists will question the merits of these measures. What Punjab needs to show up is an “action taken report”. Punjab does need an IT push beyond Mohali. It will be better if new projects are located at neglected districts like Ferozepur, Gurdaspur and Bathinda to avoid additional pressure on the infrastructure of the already crowded centres. Raising the user-charges for education and health does not go well with the Centre’s policy of giving the reforms a “human face”. Higher education and advanced health care are already going beyond the reach of the middle and lower strata of society. The civic bodies do need funds to clear urban chaos and build infrastructure, but unless these are efficiently managed and come up with bankable projects with the state government guarantee, no one would buy their bonds. Two basic hurdles will arise in implementing these reforms. One is the opposition from the entrenched interests — be it the employees of PSUs and the PSEB or the laid-back bureaucracy. The second is lack of political courage to take the reforms to their logical end. It is three years now when free power supply was stopped to the farm sector, but power reforms are terribly slow. Roads in several districts need vast improvement. Reducing the committed expenditure from 112 to 60 per cent means cutting down on salaries, pensions and debt repayments. This is politically inconvenient. |
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Success must be felt within before it can be seen on the outside. —Unknown |
Pipelines or pipe dreams?
New Delhi has indulged in two notable flip-flops in its relations with Pakistan in recent days. After initially insisting that passports would be required for travel across the LoC in the proposed Srinagar-Muzzafarabad bus service, we backtracked on this demand when Mr Natwar Singh visited Islamabad last week. The government earlier agreed to drop its insistence on linking progress on the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline with trade and transit concessions from Pakistan. The Petroleum Ministry was authorised to proceed with proposals for pipelines to India from Iran, from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan and also from Myanmar through Bangladesh. The insistence on passports to travel from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad was illogical as we regard the whole of Jammu and Kashmir as an integral part of India. One does not require passports to travel within one’s own country. But questions still remain on our new-found haste to base our energy security on pipelines through some politically volatile and not too friendly countries Mr Natwar Singh stated in Islamabad: “We have now agreed to consider a pipeline through Pakistan subject to satisfaction of our concerns related to security and assured supplies”. What are the “concerns” he alluded to? Less than a decade ago our High Commissioner Satish Chandra asked Pakistan’s then President Farookh Leghari what guarantees he could give that Pakistan would not halt energy supplies to India. Leghari blandly told Satish that as India-Pakistan conflicts had never lasted beyond a few weeks, supplies would, at best be interrupted by Pakistan for a few weeks! The other “concern” in New Delhi is that the proposed pipeline would traverse through around 750 kilometres of the Baluchistan province - a Province that has been in turmoil ever since it was forcibly taken over by the Pakistan army in 1948. The turmoil in Baluchistan manifested itself dramatically on January 11, 2005 when Bugti tribesmen and the secretive Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) attacked Pakistan’s largest gas producing plant in Sui that accounts for 45 per cent of the country’s gas production. As many as 430 rockets and 60 mortar rounds were fired at the Sui gas plant. Even after thousands of troops were rushed to the Sui area, protests continued. The attack on Sui was followed by mortar and rocket attacks on electricity transmission lines, railway tracks and telephone communication networks. After these attacks, steel, fertilizer and electrical plants were forced to curtail production. Domestic consumers in cities like Karachi had supplies cut for over twelve hours a day. While General Musharraf initially warned the Baluchis of severe military action, wiser counsel appears to have prevailed. A Parliamentary Committee headed by Senator Wasim Sajjad has been in touch with Baluchi leaders to consider their demands, including greater autonomy, the end of army dominance of the Province and greater royalty from exploitation of the Province’s gas and mineral resources. But given the Pakistan army’s rapacious appetite for acquiring cantonment lands and wielding a monopoly of power throughout the country, it remains to be seen how legitimate Baluchi aspirations will be fulfilled. If the Baluchis can manifest their discontent by blowing up Pakistani pipelines and communication networks, they can hardly be expected to have any qualms about dealing similarly with pipelines headed towards India. Added to this is the fact that even the CIA has indicated not too long ago that unless Pakistan mends its ways and ends its indulgence of Jihadis, it is entirely possible that by 2015 the writ of its Federal Government will be confined to Punjab and few urban hubs like Karachi. New Delhi has rightly indicated that it will deal only with Iran on issues like prices, guarantees of assured supplies and penalties for the non-fulfilment of contractual obligations. General Musharraf initially appeared to have rather exaggerated expectations of receiving royalties of over $ 500 million annually as transit fees.Ifitqar Rashid Ali, Additional Secretary in Pakistan’s Ministry of Petroleum, recently confirmed that contrary to popular expectations, Pakistan could expect transit fees of around $70 to $ 80 million annually. (When the Iranians finish negotiating with the Pakistanis the amount will probably be less.) Ali added that Pakistan’s hopes of a pipeline from Qatar had been found to be uneconomical and that the prospects of gas from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan are uncertain because of the volatile security situation in Afghanistan and the unavailability of certification of the Daulatabad gas fields in Turkmenistan. There are also indications that Moscow wants Turkmen gas pumped through its pipeline network and not southwards. It thus appears that despite unwarranted optimism in Delhi there are still serious uncertainties about getting gas from Central Asia via Afghanistan and Pakistan. India has secured a 30 per cent equity participation in the exploration of gas off the Myanmar coast. While several options are available to transport this gas to India, we seem to be focusing primary attention on a pipeline through around 290 kilometres of Bangladesh territory. Bangladesh has demanded that India should give transit rights to its territory from Bhutan and Nepal, facilitate electricity supplies from these countries and also grant unilateral trade concessions to enable it to balance its trade deficit with India, before it considers the Indian proposal for a pipeline through its territory. Its Minister of State for Energy A.K. M. Mosharraf Hossain proclaimed: “If India does not allow these, we shall not sign any tripartite agreement (on a gas Pipeline).” Bangladesh, of course refuses to grant road and rail transit rights across its soil for India. It also makes no demands on China to reduce its huge trade deficit, as it does with India. It is strange that India is willing to consider all these demands when the Khaleda Zia Government denies its citizens are being virtually facilitated to illegally cross into India and actively provides support to virtually every insurgent group in our north-east. It appears that the proposals for pipelines are being processed without due consideration of their security and foreign policy implications. Have these proposals been studied by the National Security Advisory Board and the National Security Council? While we are actively pursuing projects for liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Iran, have we devised arrangements to make up for disruptions in supplies through Pakistan, other than some limited storage facilities in Gujarat? Have we carried out a detailed study of how Bangladesh is saddled with uneconomic contractual obligations with western oil companies and may soon have little option but to market its gas in India if its gas enterprises are to avoid going bankrupt? Why should we not go ahead with options like LNG, CNG or undersea pipelines for delivery near Haldia from offshore gas fields in Myanmar, instead of pandering to Bangladesh? Flip-flops and decision-making marked by overzealousness and haste are not entirely desirable in pipeline
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Not jest, Page 3? The talk about what goes on in certain drawing rooms has spilled into many a living room. The people who feed on large helpings of publicity are now themselves food for thought. All thanks to filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar’s brainwave to lift ‘Page 3’ out of newsprint onto celluloid. This new cinematic offering has the public chattering about the relevance of the chatterati. The big-screen caricatures are the latest “mock tales” doing the rounds in the cocktail circuit. “What a spoof this film is on all those social butterflies who flit in and out of parties with as much alacrity as out of newspaper columns!” say some. “All that's glitterati is not gold,” opine others. But love them or hate them, you can't miss them. The Page 3 People (P3P) are everywhere. Their plastic smiles glimmer more as they pout out of glossies. Dailies too have their daily dose of the divas. Even publications devoted to stock talk like to have a share of the P3P brand. That’s not all. The bare-all-dare-all divas are now the starring in another kind of exposure. Overexposure on the small screen. You may have a strong stand against them, but wait till you're seated. Before the idiot box, that is. Plunging necklines seduce eyeballs as much as or even more than soaring sensex lines. Not so long ago, primetime family viewing was mostly a potpourri of the political highlights, the sporting sidelights and the ‘saas-bahu’ slights of the day. Until along came this latest lavish serving of masala delights — shows devoted exclusively to spicy P3P talk. Picture the change. If you’re more into social concerns than into unconcerned socialites, you may have tuned into an engaging debate on the cultural invasion in our society, as a run-up to Valentine's Day. You're sure to have been treated to heated views, much of it hate talk directed at lover's day. Take heart! Post the P3P invasion on the tube, there are shows aplenty that generate heat, but of a different type. They not only toast love and lovers but also take the cake in spicy talk. Like, there was Pooja Bedi squealing away excitedly at her Page 3 Papa, Kabir Bedi, “Daddy, you have had so many women in your life…how many more mommies am I going to have?” Not words loaded with substance. But certainly dripping with juicy sound bytes. Socialites may offer nothing much to write about. But it also isn't easy to write them off as jest. Not until there are eyes eager to sight them. Or slots and spaces vying to cite
them.
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Military doctrine: no radical change The military doctrine of India after 1947 has not undergone any radical change. India today follows the same doctrine as the British did for colonial India. This doctrine was to subdue any independence movement. Sometimes British Indian troops were sent to Africa and China. They were used in World Wars I and II as well. But the main bulk of the British Indian army was always stationed on Indian soil to save British colonial interests. To lessen the strain on the Indian military, British policy remained centric to creating buffers on India’s frontiers, hence Persia, the Gulf States, Afghanistan, Tibet etc against Russian and Chinese adventurism. This policy was abandoned in 1947 by Nehru, exposing India to face the two big powers directly. Since then the military doctrine has been confined to throwing out European powers from the Indian peninsula, the Portuguese from Goa, to a lesser extent the French from Pondichery. The so-called police action in Hyderabad was, in fact, a military campaign. Sikkim has also been annexed. The armed forces have been sent to Sri Lanka to call to heal the LTTE guerrillas, initially trained by India in Chakrata and other secret RAW and military bases. What the Indians have called wars against Pakistan and China, have really been battles. The one against China in 1962 was a rout. Post 1947, India should have become a major producer of military wares — naval ships, military aircraft, field guns and tanks. France, Germany, Japan and other countries developed throbbing arms industries after total devastation in World War II. Israel, China and India got their freedom around the same time in the late 1940s. Israel and China have made technological strides and manufacture their own military weapons. India is yet to make its military planes, tanks, battle ships, artillery pieces. After years of bluffing, India has produced a tank christened Arjun. It weighs a good 59 tonne. No sensible commander wants to operate it in the soft sands of Rajasthan or in the well irrigated plains of Punjab. It will become a sitting duck for the enemy, dug into the sands of Rajasthan and bogged in the marshes of Punjab, which are created by its intensive irrigation system. In Parliament I had asked for an independent commission of inquiry to examine why India could not keep pace with these countries in building a powerful military industry. The right-wing BJP-led NDA government evoked no interest in this matter. I was horrified when I learnt that India was buying a retired, moth-eaten, and second-hand aircraft carrier from Russia for its Navy. Earlier Krishna Menon as Defence Minister had all the junk and scrap of World War II weaponry purchased for the Indian Army, which was one of the reasons why India was so severely beaten by the China in 1962 and has about 60,000 sq miles of its territory under Chinese occupation in Ladakh alone. The Chinese still don’t want to sit down with the Indians to define the Indo-Chinese border. Fingers were raised at Menon’s wisdom in buying this junk and at his integrity too as many arms dealers made huge profits. All enquiries on defence deals including Bofors have been all consigned to the dustbin. India is now hemmed in by nuclear powers, Pakistan and China. The former has a quasi NATO status. So where will the Indian military find adventure? At the moment, as with British Indian military policy, the present day Indian state uses its military muscle to subdue its own people and is heavily committed in performing internal duties. Sea lanes in the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Malaccan Straits are busily patrolled by the American navy. There is no great scope for the Indian Navy manoeuvres in these waters. As such we do not see any revolutionary change in any new so-called military doctrine. |
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Jaafari’s vision isn’t quite what U.S. wanted Two years ago, as the United States planned to march into Baghdad, many in the Bush administration had a vision for Iraq’s first freely elected government in decades. It would be a pro-U.S government that would support American military bases, embrace U.S. businesses, and serve as a model for democracy in the region. Now, as Ibrahim al-Jaafari seems certain to become Iraq’s new premier, the United States faces the prospects of dealing with a government whose views may be closer to Tehran’s than to Washington’s. And U.S. officials are left wondering how many of their assumptions will prove to be true. The soft-spoken physician who spent nine years as an exile in Iran lately has been at pains to appear as a moderate on issues of religion in government. He and members of his United Iraqi Alliance slate have stressed they have differences with the Iranian theocratic model of government and that Iraqis need a government that will represent all groups. “Iraq is actually made of various populations from all nationalities, sects and religions,’’ al-Jaafari said in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times at an ornate government office here. ``Nobody can rule Iraq unless he would walk alongside all Iraqis and represent all the Iraqi people.’’ But many Iraqis and foreign observers note that he heads Iraq’s oldest Islamist party and are worried that he will seek to impose a more religious government than he is letting on. They note that he has been lukewarm to the U.S. presence in Iraq and has stated that he would like to see U.S. troops withdraw once Iraqi forces are trained. They also recall that former Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini initially disavowed political motives after an Islamic revolution overthrew the Shah of Iran in 1979. ``All the experts got it wrong in Iran too,’’ said one senior U.S. diplomat here with considerable experience in the region. Before long, Khomeini was espousing the doctrine of “velayat-e-faqih,’’ or rule of religious jurists. The Islamic state has since been a U.S. nemesis and was named three years ago in President Bush’s so-called axis of evil. For the Bush administration, it would be painful if the doctrine resurfaces in Iraq, especially since the U.S. invasion cost more than 1,400 American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. U.S. officials said Tuesday they would work with whoever is elected, although they would have preferred current Prime Minister Ayad Allawi or Adel Abdul Mehdi, the interim government’s finance minister. One senior administration official declined to say how U.S. officials view al-Jaafari. ``We have a studied neutrality on that,’’ he said. But U.S. officials have cause for concern. Al-Jaafari resisted U.S. offensives against insurgents in Fallujah and Najaf, leading to speculation that he could try to halt future American attacks. And while al-Jaafari has declared publicly that he favors human rights and an inclusive Iraqi government, he wants religion to have a key role in the government. Al-Jaafari was one of the Shiite leaders who walked out during deliberations on Iraq’s transitional law because he feared it would not make Islam the sole source of Iraqi law. Juan R. Cole, an expert on Iraq at the University of Michigan, said al-Jaafari may not suit the Americans as well as Allawi would have, but he is not expected to be hostile. “He’ll get along with them,’’ Cole said. But many here worry that Shiite clerics could pressure al-Jaafari. The Khomeini-like turbaned image of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Iranian-born spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shiites, was ubiquitous on campaign posters before the Jan. 30 elections. Al-Sistani’s tacit endorsement was considered key to the successful al-Jaafari’s slate. The reassurances by al-Jaafari and other slate leaders of moderation and independence from Iran have failed to mollify fears that Tehran could wield significant influence in the new Iraqi government. The slate’s two major Shiite parties — al-Jaafari’s Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq — are seen by some Iraqis as Iranian fronts. U.S. officials are convinced both parties receive financial aid from Iran. The current defense minister, Hazim Shalaan, a secular Shiite, derided the Shiite slate as “an Iranian list.’’ Al-Jaafari and other Shiite leaders have noted the Arab character of their slate and say they resent the second-class treatment meted out to Arabs in Iran, which has a Persian majority. U.S. officials and others here hope that the Shiites’ power would be checked by the Kurds who received the second-largest number of votes in the elections. The Kurds, by most accounts, would oppose any Shiite efforts to turn the country toward religious rule. — By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post |
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From shyness to social phobia Years ago, when parents came to him worried because their kids seemed abnormally shy, Murray Stein, a psychiatrist at UC San Diego, would tell them not to worry — that most children outgrow periods of intense shyness. “Now we’re not so quick to dismiss their concern,” he says. Although most very shy kids do emerge from their shells, as many as one in three become more and more troubled, according to Stein, one of the country’s leading experts in childhood anxiety disorders. They go on to develop social phobia, also called social anxiety disorder — shyness so extreme that it causes physical symptoms, such as racing heartbeats and shortness of breath, and interferes with a normal life. As their dread of meeting people or being in the spotlight intensifies, they withdraw more and more from the world. “These are kids who eventually drop out of college because they’re so terrified of being called on in class,” says epidemiologist Ronald Kessler, a professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School who studies anxiety disorders. “They miss out on jobs they’re qualified for because they’re too afraid to go to interviews.” There are other dangers. Recent nationwide surveys that Kessler has directed show that people with social phobia are at greater risk of developing severe depression, panic attacks and substance abuse problems. They are also more likely to commit suicide. Given those risks, a growing number of childhood psychiatrists and psychologists say it’s important to be alert to early signs of problem shyness. “Social phobia has the earliest onset of almost any mental disorder,” says Stein. “People with the earliest onset generally fare the worse. So if we can intervene and treat children or adolescents early, we may be able to help prevent more serious problems later.” Fortunately, the disorder has turned out to be among the most treatable of all mental conditions. One approach is psychosocial therapy, which uses counseling to encourage people to face their fears, overcome them and then develop social skills to feel more comfortable in the company of others. Another widely used approach is cognitive behavioral therapy. Although individual programs vary, most involve helping patients recognize negative thoughts that feed their fears — for example, “If I say something, everyone will laugh at me” — and replace them with more realistic expectations. The next step is to disarm anxieties by being gradually exposed to the social situations that trigger them. The treatment usually involves 12 to 16 weekly sessions. “Exposure is a powerful tool,” says Thomas Rodebaugh, associate director of the Adult Anxiety Clinic at Temple University in Philadelphia. “When the worst thing people fear doesn’t happen, they begin to lose that fear.” The toughest challenge, experts say, is getting help to the people who need it most. Only about 15% of people with serious social phobia seek medical help, surveys suggest, making it one of the most under-treated of all psychiatric disorders. “Most extremely shy people are just too shy to ask for help until their problems become so severe that they feel they have no other choice,” Kessler says. The very nature of the disorder prevents many people from getting treatment. At the other end of the spectrum, some people with garden-variety shyness are being inappropriately diagnosed and treated for social phobia, some experts acknowledge. Part of the problem lies in the definition of social phobia. Ever since social phobia was added to the list of anxiety disorders in the 1986 revision of the official classification of mental disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III), critics have complained that there is no objective way to distinguish between normal shyness and social phobia. “We don’t have a laboratory test for social phobia, the way we do for blood pressure or cholesterol or cancer,” says Paul Chodoff, a psychiatrist at George Washington University. “Even the term ‘disorder’ is deliberately vague.” As a result, he worries, people whose shyness falls well within the range of a normal personality trait may be told that they have a mental problem that needs to be treated. In the commercial, people are depicted in everyday situations — walking into the cafeteria at work, sitting on a sofa at a party, putting on lipstick in the mirror — wearing nametags that supposedly describe their emotions, including “self-conscious” and “nervous.” — By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post |
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have read with great interest “Needed a cohesive military doctrine” (January 8) written by Vice Admiral K.K. Nayyar (retd) and Vice Admiral R.B. Suri (retd) and some more on this doctrine by Col. P.K. Vasudeva (retd) on 18.1.2005.