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Neglected granary Women in the House Two cheers from IT |
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Hopes yes, realism no
Mourning by proxy
How effective are Patriots? How Latin America has turned to the Left
From Pakistan
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Neglected granary The 2005-06 Budget, like the previous ones, has failed to take notice of the emerging crisis in agriculture in Punjab and Haryana. Growing paddy on the Centre’s bidding to meet the national needs, the two states have over-used their energy and water resources, pushing the watertable to a new low year after year. In his Budget speech Finance Minister P. Chidambaram admitted that “water-use efficiency in Indian agriculture is one of the lowest in the world”, but left the subject after suggesting drip and sprinkler irrigation. Expecting an average farmer, pushed to the margins by declining returns from agriculture, to start using drip and sprinkler systems betrays ignorance of the ground reality. Agriculture being a state subject, the Centre’s role is limited, no doubt. But it alone can push the states, ruled mostly by visionless leaders who busy themselves politicking, to take concrete steps to avert future water battles. In his last Budget Mr Chidambaram had announced a commendable national project to repair and restore water bodies. The project is yet to start and covers only 16 districts in nine states. The Centre’s emphasis is on increasing farmers’ access to credit, but that helps only to some extent. By buying high-powered, expensive tractors without realising their full potential, farmers raise their production costs while their produce, withstanding the vagaries of nature, brings lower returns. The result: debt trap and farmers’ suicides. The Budget talks of crop diversification to focus on fruits, vegetables, pulses and oilseeds, but leaves it to the Agriculture Ministry to draw the roadmap. In the July Budget Mr Chidambaram had announced a National Horticulture Mission; it is still not operational. Economists are divided on whether the shift from wheat and paddy to alternative crops would yield better returns. Farmers, who are equally confused, stick to the existing crop pattern. The drain on water resources, meanwhile, continues. The Johl report on diversification has neither been rebutted nor implemented. Government inaction, both at the Centre and in the states, leaves farmers unprepared to meet the post-WTO situation. |
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Women in the House With the limelight focussed on the unprecedented number of seats won by the Congress in the Haryana elections, another record achievement has not received the public attention that it deserved. The new Assembly has as many as 11 woman MLAs – for the first time in the history of the male-dominated state. In contrast, the highest number achieved by them earlier was seven in the 1968 and 1972 elections. That would be considered a quantum jump anywhere, all the more so in a state where the fair sex is yet confined to the purdah in most areas. Discrimination against women is rampant and most of the news emanating from the agrarian land is relating to adverse sex ratio, female foeticide and child marriages. Only lately have women like Pooja of Charkhi Dadri in Bhiwani district, who sent back her wedding party after certain baratis misbehaved with her family members, have started emerging. This breaking of the centuries old shackles seems to be duly reflected in the election results. What is all the more creditable is the fact that all the winning women defeated male candidates. In fact, such was their domination that they claimed four of the six seats in Karnal. There were only 60 women in the fray among a total of 983 candidates. Many political parties speak loudly about ameliorating the lot of women but fall shy of giving tickets to them, citing “lack of winnability” as an excuse. This time women have broken the jinx and established that they are no doormats. Hopefully, parties will be fielding more women candidates in the future. Becoming members of the Assembly should not be the end of the new women MLAs. Several of them are capable enough of discharging ministerial responsibilities as much as their male counterparts can do. It is an encouraging sign that out of the 11 victorious women, nine happen to be from the Congress which is set to form the next government. How many women get the nod of the incumbent Chief Minister will be watched with keen interest. |
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Two cheers from IT The information technology sector has done well with minimal government support. It has created jobs and given an international presence to the nation, and according to the Finance Minister, it is expected to create 70 lakh more jobs by 2009. The IT sector has been included in the Finance Minister's vision of creating a world-class infrastructure for knowledge-based industries. On the whole, IT has reasons to be happy with his Budget. The hardware sector has much to cheer about, since 217 components that go into making the electronic devices for IT and telecom will not have any customs duty. Imported computers will become cheaper by 5 per cent. Local manufacturers like Wipro Infotech, however, are pointing out the countervailing duty (CVD) of 16 per cent on components as well as the additional 4 per cent CVD will make it unviable to manufacture computers, because such systems will be more expensive than the imported ones. Laptops, however, are expected to continue their southward march. On the software front, the introduction of fringe benefit tax is likely to hit software companies While the logic behind the tax is impeccable, its implementation will hit the software majors hard, even though two of the main fringe benefits, canteen and transportation, have been left out of the ambit of this tax. There have been various calls from industry leaders for a clear definition of "fringe benefits." Taxes aside, the biggest fillip the government can give to the industry is by increasing the pace of e-governance in the nation. E-governance has proved successful in cutting the notorious ret tape and the government must do more to computerize its records and the billing of various departments. Increasing the outlay of community information centres six times to Rs 30 crores will also help in making IT, including e-mail, Internet and services for citizens available to more people. |
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There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water.
— Alan Clark |
Hopes yes, realism no
IT is not easy for any Finance Minister to keep stock-brokers and socialists equally happy. What Mr Palaniappan Chidambaram has done with his Union Budget for 2005-06 is to ensure that the Communists on the one hand and the ardent economic liberalisers on the other are both not particularly unhappy. Since it would have been next to impossible to keep both these sections reasonably satisfied, Mr Chidambaram has sought the middle ground and attempted to spread the dissatisfaction a little evenly. To that extent, he has been partially successful. Every budget is a balancing act, a tightrope walk to keep conflicting interest groups at arm’s length from one another. This budget has been no different. In keeping with the UPA government’s National Common Minimum Programme and, more specifically, Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Finance Minister has stepped up outlays on education, health-care, rural infrastructure and the food-for-work programme that is to be converted into an employment guarantee scheme. The extra money that has been allotted under these heads is in the region of Rs 25,000 crore. The higher social sector outlays as well as the loud rhetoric on the government’s “assault on poverty and unemployment” were to a large extent anticipated. The Left is unhappy only to the extent that these outlays have not been hiked even higher. Mr Chidambaram has sought to emphasise the fact that what is more important than “outlays” are “outcomes” and that it is crucial to streamline delivery mechanisms. To a considerable degree, the Finance Minister has been helped by the fact that the performance of the Indian economy has been much better than what had been expected until recently. The first few months of the new UPA government’s tenure saw inflation as measured by the rise in the wholesale price index soaring to a level of 8.7 per cent (in August) in the wake of a sharp and sudden rise in the international prices of crude oil and petroleum products. The uneven spread of the monsoon worsened the country’s economic outlook and the Reserve Bank of India forecast that the gross domestic product (GDP) would grow between 6 per cent and 6.5 per cent during the current financial year ending March 31. The country’s economy has shown far greater resilience. The advance estimates of the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) have placed the current year’s real rate of growth of the GDP at nearly 7 per cent, to be precise 6.9 per cent. The CSO’s revised figures also indicate that India’s GDP had grown by an impressive 8.5 per cent in the previous year (2003-04) against only 4 per cent in the year before that. In his budget for 2005-06, Mr Chidambaram has assumed a real rate of GDP growth between 7 per cent and 8 per cent and a 4-5 per cent inflation rate. These estimates do not appear optimistic. Where the Finance Minister has gambled is in his assumption that there would be tremendous buoyancy in tax collections. In July 2004, he assumed the Union government’s gross tax revenues would rise by 24.6 per cent whereas the actual rise was 20 per cent – these proportions are based on a comparison between the revised estimates (RE) for 2003-04 with the budget estimates (BE) for the current year and those for next year. If one compares this year’s RE with next year’s BE the expected rise is nearly 21 per cent. Mr Chidambaram hoped that excise duty collections would go up by 18.2 per cent this fiscal year; he now says these would increase by less than half the proportion or 9 per cent. Yet, he expects excise collections to jump by 20 per cent next year. The story is repeated again. Against an expected rise of 26.5 per cent in income tax collections this year, the amount is budgeted to rise by over 30 per cent next year – that too, after cutting the incidence of income tax. Corporation tax collections are slated to increase by 31.8 per cent this year against 40.4 per cent assumed in the previous budget – this has been largely on account of lower tax collections from banks and oil companies. Nevertheless, corporation tax revenues are budgeted to rise by more than one-third next year. The present Finance Minister, like most of his predecessors, is hoping for a best-case scenario. A bad monsoon or another unexpected rise in world crude oil prices would upset his budget arithmetic. That would mean that he would not be able to stick to the restrictive legal provisions contained in the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act. He has, in any case, already stated that he would not be bringing down the revenue deficit as a proportion of the GDP in the coming fiscal year, that there would be a “pause” in reducing the revenue deficit. Two specific proposals in the budget have aroused a lot of controversy. The first is the move to tax all cash withdrawals from banks that exceed Rs 10,000 a day by 0.01 per cent or by Rs 10. Mr Chidambaram has stated that this move is to check black money transactions and not for raising revenue. His critics argue that this step would not help unearth illegal transactions but impose hardships on the middle class. There are indications that the Finance Minister may increase the cash withdrawal limit specified, even if he does not seem inclined to roll back the proposal altogether. The other budget proposal that has not been welcomed is the move to tax “fringe benefits” given by companies to its employees. Whereas there can be many arguments and counter-arguments about what exactly constitutes a fringe benefit, those who have opposed this proposal contend that the proposed new tax would eventually impose a burden on the salaried class. The personal income tax base in India is already abysmally narrow – only three per cent of the population in the country pays income tax, most of them being salaried individuals whose taxes are deducted at source even before they receive their monthly pay cheque. As the Finance Minister himself pointed out during his post-budget Press conference, it is difficult to accept that barely 80,000 individuals in this nation of over one billion currently declare an annual assessable taxable income in excess of Rs 10 lakh. It is not at all certain whether more individuals will come into the income tax net in view of the concessions proposed by Mr Chidambaram in his budget. He would, however, have us believe that the tax base would widen and compliance will rise because the government’s tax enforcement machinery and information systems are becoming more efficient. Whereas time will only tell whether the Finance Minister’s 2005-06 budget would prove to be a “dream” for aam admi, one gets a distinct impression that the savvy lawyer-turned-politician has allowed optimism to gain the upper hand over
realism. |
Mourning by proxy
IN certain countries of the West there is such scarcity of land for burying bodies that old graves are being dug up to make room for new burials. In fact it is feared that the time may come when it will become necessary to bury bodies in the ground vertically instead of horizontally as at present in order to save space. Even today the price of funerals and plots of land for burial has risen so high as to be beyond the reach of all but the very affluent. A wag has indeed remarked that the position has become so very difficult that one has to think twice before dying. In Egypt, it is said, they make use of an ingenious device which reduces the trauma of the family’s mourning very appreciably: they hire professional mourners who undertake breast-beating and wailing on their behalf. The number of the professionals so engaged, of course, is an index of the social and political standing of the family and of its wealth, just as — if one may be forgiven the comparison — the number of baratis and guests is at the Indian weddings of the super-rich where money flows like water. Occasionally the passing away of an inanimate entity also becomes noteworthy. One recent example is the courtesy title ‘Esq’ of ‘Esquire’ at the end of a name. The British are, of course, very particular about the use of titles of the royalty and the upper-crust aristocracy, but for a long time protocol was quite strict as regards the lower levels of the society also. Trading classes, shopkeepers etc were called “Mr so-and-so” while members of the liberal professions had the title ‘Esquire’ added after their names — apparently derived from ‘squires’ who were attached with knights in earlier times. Then gradually ‘Esq’ disappeared, possibly under American influence, and left ‘Mr’ for almost universal use. This came home very pointedly to an Englishman of the old-school when he happened to visit the continent on a holiday. He was expecting quite a number of letters to be re-directed to him from England regularly, but for many days nothing arrived for him. He made anxious enquiries and then the mystery was cleared. All his letters had been placed by the hotel staff not in the cubbyhole marked “P” (the initial of his name) but in the one marked “E”, “Esquire” having been taken to be a surname! There are no reports about there having been actual mourning for the demise of “Esq” but it has certainly left many people feeling a little sad.
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How effective are Patriots? There is no business like war, and who should know it better than America, the world’s current top-ranking arms exporter. They have now put up Patriot missile for sale, notwithstanding the restrictions under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), and objections by Pakistan, their major non-NATO ally (MNNA). Patriot is the acronym for “Phased Array Tracking Intercept of Target”, but no one mentions it any longer. On February 22, Pentagon officials gave a presentation on the Patriot missile defence system at New Delhi, and reportedly, offered Patriot (PAC-2 version), which stands for Patriot Advanced Capability-2, for sale to India. Patriot is being touted as a solution to India’s quest for ballistic missile defence. India has been in negotiation with Israel since 2002 for their Arrow-2 missile system. In 2001, India’s Defence and Research Organisation (DRDO) had acquired a green pine radar system, a part of the Arrow-2 system from Israel for building up indigenous anti-missile defence capability. How effective is the Patriot system? Does it meet India’s requirements? The Patriot missile defence system is designed to detect and destroy incoming enemy tactical missiles, cruise missiles or aircraft. Basic Patriot firing unit comprises; (1) phased-array radar; (2) engagement control station (ECS); (3) eight interceptor (missile) launchers mounted on trucks; (4) truck mounted electric power plant, and; (5) communication towers. The launchers can be placed up to a kilometre away from the radar and ECS, linked by microwave communications. The phased-array radar is the heart of the system. It uses a fixed flat area consisting of many small aerials instead of a large rotating aerial. Each of the identical small aerials transmits and receives signals. It can track hundreds of targets. A single phased-array can do what previously required a battery of mechanically steered dishes. The phased-array radar of the Patriot system gives early warning of an air attack, tracks the hostile missiles and aircraft, fires surface-to-air missiles at the appropriate moments, and guides missiles to their targets. Conceived in the 1960s as an anti-aircraft system and in development since 1976, Patriot was deployed in 1984 and adapted (PAC-1) in 1988 to have a limited ballistic missile defence capability against Warsaw Pact tactical missiles. The missile made its war debut in the 1991 Gulf War. In the period leading up to war, considering the changed mission requirement, the Patriot was marginally upgraded (PAC-2) and deployed against Iraqi Scud missiles. Simultaneously, the US Army began the Guidance Enhancement Missile (GEM) programme to make improvements to the Patriot interceptor (missile with warhead and fuze). The total systems upgrade (PAC-3) — including improved radars, launchers, battle management hardware and software and new interceptors was initiated in 1995, to be fielded by 1998. The PAC-3 system is a major improvement over the PAC-2. The PAC-3 missile is slimmer at 25 cm diameter (against 41 cm for PAC-2), lighter, has a launch weight of 312 kg (900 kg), is capable of in-flight manoeuvring, and is programmed to hit-to-kill with a 73 kg HE warhead with proximity fuze. PAC-2 is designed to do its work only by exploding close to the incoming missile. Both can attain speeds up to 5 Mach within 20 feet of leaving the launcher. Each PAC-2 launcher can hold and launch four missiles against 16 in the PAC-3 model. Estimates of Patriot effectiveness in the Gulf war 1991 vary from highly commendatory to outright condemnation. In one instance 28 American soldiers were killed when a Scud hit a barrack in Saudi Arabia as the defending Patriot system could not work properly because of a software fault. The US Army has placed the Patriot success rate at 40 per cent in Israel and 70 per cent in Saudi Arabia. It felt Patriot could protect a defined small area near the Patriot battery; it was not designed or suitable for defending large metropolitan areas. However, an evaluation of the army report from the video recordings of the engagements by two Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors, George N. Lewis and Theodore A. Postol, Defence and Arms Control Studies Programme in September 1992 “found no convincing evidence in the video that any Scud warhead was destroyed by a Patriot”. They found that, “the median minimum miss distance was roughly 600 metres” whereas to “achieve lethality against Scud targets, a system like the Patriot must routinely achieve miss distances of metres to tens of metres, not hundreds to thousands of metres as observed.” It is this finding that must be critically examined as the system being offered to India is PAC-2. Patriot achieved mixed results in the Gulf War 2003. A British Tornado and a US Navy Hornet were downed by a friendly fire. As per one report, Patriot systems destroyed all nine Iraqi missiles that were targeted. By another estimate, only nine missiles were intercepted out of 20 Iraqi missile attacks. Possibly, the Patriots also missed two cruise missile attacks. The defined mission of the Patriot in the US is to “provide defense of critical assets and manoeuvre forces belonging to the corps and to echelons above corps against aircraft, cruise missiles, and tactical ballistic missiles.” India is unlikely to use Patriot with the field forces. India’s requirement is more in the nature of ballistic missile defence of national command centre and retaliatory nuclear forces. It has been argued that possession of Patriot by India would make India’s no-first-use nuclear posture more credible by raising the stakes for the enemy against first use. Clearly, Patriot system is not up to this task in its present state. At best PAC-3 may form a part of multi-tier ballistic missile defence architecture but cannot be the solution in itself. Besides, it is indeed strange logic; first we build nuclear weapons and then want more weapons to defend these. India’s nuclear posture can never be credible without the backing of an unflinching will. Patriot’s reliability as an effective weapon system vis-à-vis other systems, its ability to match up to India’s operational requirements and the cost-benefit analysis calculus must be factored into the decision-making matrix along with strategic and political factors. |
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How Latin America has turned to the Left At presidential inaugurations, as at weddings, the guest list says everything. In Montevideo Tabare Vazquez was sworn in on Tuesday as the first left-wing President in the 170-year history of Uruguay. That is noteworthy enough, but even more remarkable were the foreign dignitaries in attendance. Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva, the centre-left President of Brazil was there. So was Hugo Chavez, the fiery demagogue who leads Venezuela, and Argentina’s Nestor Kirchner. Adding the revolutionary topping was none other than Fidel Castro. No gathering could better symbolise the slow drift of Latin America out of the US orbit. Until 31 October, Uruguay could be counted upon as one of Washington’s staunchest friends in the hemisphere. But then Mr Vazquez, an oncologist and former mayor of Montevideo, broke the traditional two-party mold of Uruguayan politics by leading the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) leftist coalition to an overwhelming election victory. Today Washington’s unqualified, 100 per cent loyal allies to the south of its border with Mexico are no more than one or two — El Salvador and Honduras certainly, but who else? Even Chile defied the superpower by refusing to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a slight not yet entirely forgotten in Washington. Instead, a de facto centre-left bloc is emerging across the continent. Its members vary greatly from Chile, the economic poster-boy, to Washington’s bugbear Venezuela. One thing, however, they have in common. They may not be necessarily opposed to the US on every issue, but they are no longer beholden to it. Their drift away is testament to an historic failure of American foreign policy. In recent years the US approach to Latin America has been hopelessly distorted by its fixation with one modest-sized island 90 miles south of the Florida Keys. In economic and military terms Cuba is of little significance, but its symbolic importance has been vastly magnified by the attentions lavished upon it by Washington. Isolation has been the watchword - first of President Castro, and now of another regional “bad boy” in the person of Mr Chavez. But the strategy has backfired utterly. American bullying has given the Cuban leader a nationalist support he might never have had otherwise, consolidating his position as the longest-serving government leader on the planet. The US has bullied Mr Chavez too, clumsily backing a failed coup against him in 2002, and subsequently criticising him at every turn. Today, boosted by his state’s surging oil wealth, Mr Chavez is more assertive than ever. “Washington is planning my death,” he claims, using Mr Castro’s tactics to mobilise supporters against an external foe. Once upon a time, the US tried to understand Latin America. In the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt and his top Latin American adviser, Sumner Welles, realised that US military interventions in Cuba and elsewhere were counterproductive. Instead they devised the “Good Neighbour Policy”. Two decades later, John Kennedy proclaimed the Alianza para el Progreso (the Alliance for Progress). Since then, however, US diplomacy has been cack-handed in the extreme. Its illogical obsession with Cuba, its insistence on seeing the world through a single prism - first the struggle with communism, then the spread of free markets and free trade, now the “war on terror” - have blinded it to the sensitivities of the region.
— By arrangement with The Independent, London. |
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From
Pakistan QUETTA: The four-party Baloch alliance has warned the federal government that the continuing violence against the Baloch people will be resisted and that extra-constitutional steps will adversely affect relations between the Centre and Balochistan. Speaking at a news conference at the Press Club here on Tuesday, leader of the opposition in the Provincial Assembly, Kachkol Baloch (NP), former Chief Minister Mir Hamayun Marri (JWP) and Senator Sana Baloch (BNP-Mengal) condemned the recent raids on the homes of Marri tribesmen in Quetta. They said that violence and excesses would not succeed in ending the struggle of the Baloch people and urged the government not to repeat the mistake of launching a military operation in the province. —
Dawn Protest against Kalabagh dam
SUKKUR: More than 500 activists of different political parties started a protest march from the Clock Tower here on Tuesday towards Karachi against the Kalabagh dam and greater Thal canal projects and making population as the basis for the National Finance Commission award. Awami Tehrik president Rasool Bux Palijo is leading the march. Activists of the People’s Party Parliamentarians, Jeay Sindh Mahaz and the Taraqqi Pasand Party are participating in the protest. Mr Palijo accused the government of creating hatred among the provinces by initiating disputed projects. He said the government’s attitude had put Pakistan’s solidarity at stake. —
The Dawn Massive operation in Waziristan
MIRANSHAH: The armed forces conducted a massive operation in the Janekhel area of the Bannu Frontier region early Tuesday morning. The military personnel, including Special Services Group (SSG) stationed at Miranshah, Headquarters of North Waziristan Agency, started door-to-door search and seiged houses of a suspect Shah Wali and others. However, none of the wanted men could be arrested during the operation. According to reliable sources, the military in Miranshah has been alerted following reports of foreigners being sheltered in the area. —
The Nation Motor-cyclists start wearing helmet
LAHORE: Most of the motorcyclists in the city have started using helmets after the implementation of the Punjab government orders, making wearing of helmets compulsory while driving from March 1. According to a survey conducted by The Nation, 83.33 per cent of motorcyclists were seen wearing helmets while the rest, though in a far less number, compared to those before the implementation of the order were still seen without the essential safety measure. When the ban was announced two months ago, a Nation survey had shown only 25 per cent of the motorcyclists wore helmets. A good number of motorcyclists still consider helmets as troublesome and a hurdle in smooth driving despite the fact that the essential safety measure could save them from fatal injuries in case of a mishap. — The Nation Road construction is top priority
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Tuesday said his government was giving top priority to improving infrastructure, especially roads, so that travel time between the cities could be reduced for flow of goods and comfort to passengers. He was addressing a meeting at the Prime Minister’s House to review the overall performance of the National Highway Authority. NHA Chairman Maj-Gen Farrukh Javed briefed the Prime Minister on the ongoing as well as new projects being undertaken by the
authority. The Prime Minister directed that no compromise should be made on the standard of roads, as the country would be requiring more roads with the growth of the economy. —
The News |
God is a spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. — Jesus Christ Love each other as mother-cow loves the calf born to her. — The Vedas Trust in truth, ye that love the truth, for the kingdom of righteousness is founded upon earth. The darkness of error is dispelled by the light of truth. We can see our way and take firm and certain steps. — The Buddha First gain God, and then gain wealth; but do not try to do the contrary. If, after acquiring spirituality, you lead a wordly life, you will never lose your peace of mind. — Sri Ramakrishna The truth cures our diseases and redeems us from perdition; the truth strengthens us in life and in death; the truth alone can conquer the evils of error. — The Buddha God is the only spouse, all other beings are His brides. — Guru Nanak 
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The world over, weapon systems are given evocative names with allusion to potency, aggression and power — there are Agni, Nag, Cobra and Tomahawk missiles, Hawkeye surveillance aircraft, Leopard, Challenger and Arjun tanks, and of course, Patriot missile to guard the skies.