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Denying the
desecration Back to Dabhol |
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Marksmanship Good score, many lessons learnt PRIME Minister Manmohan Singh is a modest man who really does not have much to be modest about. Yet, if he has given himself a modest score of six on a scale of 10, it is because as the leader of the United Progressive Alliance – the first Congress-led coalition at the national level – he has to constantly moderate the performance and perorations of his allies.
Of defence controversies
Anarkali, we miss you
India’s suicide epidemic is blamed on the British Let’s get rid of public schools Women fuel
China’s growth
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Denying the desecration IT all began with a small write-up in a recent issue of Newsweek. The report was written by two seasoned journalists, one of them known for his investigative reporting. But their lack of understanding of people’s religious sensibilities has done irreparable damage to an otherwise highly respected magazine and the US. The report mentioned an incident of desecration of the holy book, the Quran, by American interrogators at Quantanamo Bay, Cuba, without ensuring the veracity of the information given. The magazine could not have been a loser had it “killed” the report at the production stage, keeping in view its serious implications, particularly when its source was anonymous. The failure to act in time has proved disastrous. The anti-US protests in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia and elsewhere, leading to the loss of many human lives could have been avoided had the magazine’s senior editors sensed trouble even after the publication of the report and issued a detailed and immediate clarification. But they did not bother. Their apology that has come after a long gap, that too when the magazine has been chastised by the US administration, is insincere. The White House too acted late and not as forcefully as was required under the circumstances. Denials and clarifications at this stage are unlikely to serve the intended purpose. Blaming Pakistan’s cricket legend Imran Khan, now a politician in the opposition camp, will not do. Of course, he should not have indulged in inflaming religious passions. The moulvis and maulanas who have provoked people to act violently should have realised the consequences of their thoughtless reaction. No compensation will be enough for those who have lost their dear ones. Clerics in Afghanistan have refused to believe Newsweek’s clarification and the US denial. For them, US officials can go to any extent so far as Muslim sentiments are concerned. The US image among the Muslims in other parts of the world too is no better. Washington should be conscious of this fact. It must launch a world-wide drive to bring about a change in this perception. |
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Back to Dabhol AGRICULTURE Minister Sharad Pawar has hinted that the government may take over the controversial Dabhol power project. A group of ministers headed by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee is scanning the project for a final Cabinet decision. Mr Pawar’s announcement has far-reaching implications. Governments are usually getting out of power business; here the Centre plans to buy a project which is in a mess. Besides, a second blunder after the Enron fiasco would be unpardonable. Mr Pawar has gone to the extent of suggesting that the Centre will sign an agreement with Maharashtra to sell power at Rs 2.20 a unit. This is significantly lower than the Rs 4 to Rs 7 a unit agreed to in the power-purchase pact with the Dabhol Power Corporation. Dabhol cannot produce power cheaper than the Centre’s proposed rate since it uses imported naptha which is expensive unless it is modified to use natural gas. Set up by Enron Corp that has gone bust, the 2,184 MW project has been rendered non-functioning since May 2001. After the Enron collapse, international lender General Electric and project builder Bechtel picked up the project equity for a mere $ 20 million. The project’s debt is more than Rs 10,000 crore. Of this Rs 3,000 crore is from foreign lenders. Indian financial institutions like the IDBI, the SBI and the ICICI have also financed the project. Efforts to revive the Dabhol project are welcome, but a cautious approach is required. The decision will have to be above political pulls and pressures since a lot of money is involved and states are keenly watching the Centre’s move. Maharashtra, now in the grip of a power crisis, badly needs additional generation capacity. Hence the stakes are high in reviving the project. When first announced in 1992, Dabhol was touted as a great FDI achievement. There were many to take credit. When everything went wrong, everyone managed to escape responsibility for committing such huge sums in a project that was unviable right from the start. |
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Marksmanship PRIME Minister Manmohan Singh is a modest man who really does not have much to be modest about. Yet, if he has given himself a modest score of six on a scale of 10, it is because as the leader of the United Progressive Alliance – the first Congress-led coalition at the national level – he has to constantly moderate the performance and perorations of his allies. Hence he has chosen moderation as the better part of valour in assigning what would be acceptable as a reasonable score for his government’s one year in office. Had he given the UPA Government five out of 10, he may have risked the charge of being a man who places himself midway because he is unsure of the administration’s accomplishments. It would certainly not do to mark down the grade to four out of 10, for that would be a pedestrian pass class; and passed the UPA has – both the test of majority in Parliament and almost a year in office. Besides, his more critical allies would have seized upon this score to underscore non-performance. There can be no question of the good Doctor Singh, giving himself a Perfect 10 or even nine on a scale of 10. That is a score he must be all too familiar with through a distinguished academic career though he does not wear his forbidding scholarship on his sleeve. To assign himself such a score in politics would, to say the least, be impolitic and serve as an avoidable provocation to allies and opponents as well. Dr Singh’s distinctions in an eventful and brilliant career are only too well known for him to need the distinction grade of 7.5 or more out of 10. In the event, he has graded himself not well, but wisely. Now, if all this sounds like Dr Singh putting himself back through school, it is not entirely inappropriate. He is yet to be schooled in the rough and tumble of politics like many of his peers. In fact, he brings a schoolboy’s earnestness to his job as borne out by his pledge to not remain satisfied with 60 per cent, but do better. Best of luck, Mr Prime Minister. |
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The aim of education is the knowledge not of facts but of values. — William Ralph Inge |
Of defence controversies
Even after more than 50 years, the Indian system of procurement of defence hardware gets mired in controversies and scams. Bofors and HDW have become household names, thanks to their having been at the centre of corruption, which refuses to die down. Even coffins have been dragged in. While partly the reasons are in the political domain, there is no doubt that the defence procurement system suffers from inherent faults which make it easier for scamsters and arms dealers to thrive. To understand the reasons for this state of affairs, it is necessary to know the system of procurement of weapons and equipment for the armed forces. The basis of any procurement, indigenous or from a foreign source, is the Five-Year Defence Plan. This plan is approved at the Cabinet level and is made after a detailed study of various factors. The actual procurement is done through the Defence Procurement Board. This new mechanism was introduced through the recent reforms undertaken under the aegis of the Arun Singh Committee. This reform has made the system more effective by reducing the number of steps in the procurement process, thereby reducing the time taken for implementation and doing away with one of the reasons of the malady by which vested interests used to thrive on account of inordinate delays. A coordinated and standardised approach has also improved the quality of the procurement process. However, some serous flaws are still there in the system. The first and perhaps the most serious issue is the non-approval of the Defence Plan itself. The existing Defence Plan has not been approved despite being in the final phase of the plan period. This makes the entire process of planning a mockery and leads to ad-hocism, which in turn results in chopping and changing schemes causing disruption and lack of clarity and consistency. While there would always be a certain amount of refinement to cater to unforeseen contingencies, undue haste as depicted by the Kargil procurement invariably leads to serious difficulties. So why did so many new schemes become necessary all of a sudden? How and why were these schemes considered operationally urgent? What were we doing to the normal development process of the Services before Kargil? Why were these schemes not implemented as a part of the normal planning process before Kargil? Why was the preparedness allowed to decline to an extent that a frenzy of buying from abroad became necessary? It is our experience that when the normal planning process breaks down or when the defence procurement is halted for a period on whatever grounds that are justified, the degeneration and deterioration of equipment efficiency continues unchecked, thereby increasing the backlog of the requirement, which in turn unleashes tremendous internal pressure that finds a way out through unbridled procurement mostly resorted to from foreign sources. This leads to wrongdoings in the procurement process. The foreign sources also know when we bargain from a position of weakness. Most of the problems of defence procurement, therefore, emanate from the breakdown of the normal planning process. The second major reason is our desire for procuring weapons and sensors from abroad. Somehow even after half a century, the “foreign” craze has not disappeared. Partly, of course, we are to blame ourselves. Our efforts at self-reliance have not been successful despite the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) doing its bit. This is not to downplay the DRDO, for we can be justifiably proud of the aeronautical development portrayed by the LCA and the ALH projects. On the missiles front too, there has been good progress. However, we must reflect as to why the DRDO has not been able to achieve success to the level of ISRO or the AEC? Is it possible that we have not been focused in tasking the organisation? Have we spread ourselves too thin in trying to achieve results in too many areas? Did our vision get blurred? While in a race we could perhaps be happy at being a runners-up, unfortunately this luxury is not available in war. At the same time, there is a tendency at Service Headquarters to generate qualitative requirements which are based on foreign origin equipment. One cannot totally blame them, since there is also inordinate delay in the fructification of indigenous schemes and a high degree of obsolescence is built in, which acts as a strong disincentive, forcing procurement from abroad. Our development cycles need to be reduced so that we can keep in step with the changing technology. Having said that, it must be accepted that it was the sanctions which made us self-sufficient in the field of high technology, especially in the computational sector. What it means is that we are capable of producing results but only under exceptional circumstances with a very high degree of effort. It also appears that software comes easy to us than hardware. For general defence capability, we must augment the public sector resources by the private sector joining in partnership. This initiative has yet to take off. It is also time for our private companies to forge alliances with foreign companies. Some more “Brahmos” are required before we start believing in ourselves. The next lacuna is the lack of transparency in the defence procurement process. Undue secrecy in the purchases leads to hush-hush underhand methods where wheeling dealing is the order of the day. Consequently, the middleman assumes much greater role. Commissions are paid to “obtain” orders. When the government wanted to regularise the agents of foreign firms, no one came forward to register since it would mark them in the public eye. They would have to declare their incomes and pay taxes. There is, as it is, great stigma attached to arms dealers. Who wants to be labelled as one? But if there is greater transparency in the process of tendering, the middleman loses importance, information is more freely available and there are less chances of wrong-doing. You also cannot play favourites! If we are able to improve our system by following the laid down process of planning and get the Defence Plan approved in the right time-frame, strengthen the private-public partnership in indigenous defence capability, allow more flexibility to the private sector and bring about transparency in purchases, controversies and corruption in defence procurement could be substantially reduced. We should also try not to over politicalise such issues, as endless inquiries infuse undue caution among the officials. This paralyses the system and the eventual losers are the armed forces and the
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Anarkali, we miss you
I
was born in Lahore close to Sitlamandir. Right next to it was Anarkali bazar, considered the Oxford Street of Lahore. At the northern entrance of this grand bazar was a halwai shop excelling in dahi lassi. An elderly, bulky man, Chandu, squatting on a wooden chowki close to rows of curd “chaatees” used to pour lassi in long “chooridar” metal glasses with style and flavour the same with a sprinkling of rosewater. Churning of “malaiwala curd” was carried out by hand with the help of a long wooden “madhani.” We used to watch this ritual with keen interest. Chandu used to start his job early in the morning and continued till the breakfast hours were over. After partition Chandu had shifted to Chandni Chowk, New Delhi. After settling down in Yamunanagar my urge to revisit Lahore persisted. I was successful in getting visa. At Lahore railway station. I was received by Aziz Qureshi whose brother I knew. First he escorted me to outskirts of Sitlamandir. I could locate my birth-place. Our old house seemed to have been completely renovated by Dr Rashid Ahmed, the new owner of the place. I conveyed my good wishes to him and his family and stated my purpose of visiting the old home and birth place where my late father, Dr Harbans Singh, had also lived. Dr Rashid Ahmed had also passed out as a medical graduate from the same King Edward Medical College, Lahore, as my father did. Dr Rashid knew of Dr Chuttani who had been eminently associated with The Tribune Trust, Chandigarh. He treated us warmly and recalled that he had moved into the house after partition. He sprang a surprise by showing us a stethoscope which he was still using and which was left behind by my late father in the house. I noticed that our prayer room was being used as a mini library. I left the place with moist eyes. Dr Rashid then took us to Anarkali bazar of which I was carrying fond memories. As we entered Anarkali from north side I noticed that a new shop had replaced the lassi shop. We moved towards the place where Bhalla’s famous shoe shop existed with a giant shoe with laces prominently displayed near the entrance. This used to amuse kids and grownups alike. Now there was neither the Bhalla shoe shop nor the famous giant shoe. Anarkali abounds in modern cassette shops, departmental stores or restaurants. After walking for about an hour our host decided to take us to a restaurant where we were served Baluchi naan with paneer curry, Kasoori methi and phalsa sharbat. It was still Anarkali bazar but not quite the same
Anarkali.
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India’s suicide epidemic is blamed on the British Trade reforms backed and funded by the British Government have caused an agricultural crisis in India which has sparked an epidemic of suicide among impoverished farmers, a leading charity claimed on Monday. More than 4,000 farmers have killed themselves in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh since a programme of free-market measures was implemented by a “hardline liberalising regime” with the help of a £1.65m grant from the Department for International Development (DfID). A study for Christian Aid claims that the dramatic increase in the suicide rate, which saw 2,115 farmers take their lives last year compared with 588 in 2003, is directly linked to British support for policies joining aid to economic liberalisation in developing economies. Research found that farmers in Andhra Pradesh who had traditionally grown their own food were persuaded between 1999 and 2004 to swap to cash crops and incurred large debts which they were unable to pay due to wildly fluctuating global The result has been a catalogue of family tragedies among thousands of peasant farmers who were forced to approach unscrupulous money lenders to fund fertilisers, pesticides and water boreholes that produce little or no financial return. Among the methods of suicide chosen by victims has been to drink the pesticide they hoped would transform their economic prospects. Daleep Mukarji, director of Christian Aid, said: “It is a scandal that the British Government has backed policies and pumped British taxpayers’ money into schemes which have contributed to poor Indian farmers killing themselves. “The report shows in stark detail the damage that is done to poor people when the dogma of so-called ‘free’ trade is pursued in the name of poverty relief.” The study commended DfID, which has spent £248m on aid to Andhra Pradesh since 2000, for its work on improving health and education in the region. But it found that the ministry was also bankrolling the closure, restructuring and privatisation of 43 state-run enterprises, including agencies supporting farmers. The programme, run by the ultra-liberal state government of
Andhra Pradesh until it was voted out of office last year, was advised by consultants from the London-based Adam Smith International — a commercial enterprise affiliated to the right-wing free-market think tank, the Adam Smith Institute. The consultants were working for the Implementation Secretariat - a body set up by the state government with the help of a £1.65m grant from DfID. Professor Jayati Ghosh, an academic in Delhi who chaired a commission on farmers’ welfare charged with investigating the results of free market reforms, said it was clear that there was direct link between the suicides and the liberalisation measures. He said: “The crisis of suicides is very clearly a result of public policy. And this has been guided by and substantially determined by agencies like DfID.” The Christian Aid study found that the reform programme, which was also backed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, aimed to turn much of farming in India into “agribusiness”. Among the measures taken by the Implementation Secretariat in Andhra Pradesh between 1998 and last year was the closure of four state agencies, including one which sold farmers machinery and tools at subsidised rates. Another body which provided a reliable source of seed to poor farmers was reduced to a “dormant” state. In the decade from 1991, the area of farmland in India used to grow traditional grains such as rice declined by 18 per cent. In the same period, land dedicated to the production of cotton and sugar cane increased by 25 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. At the same time, subsidies for fertilisers were slashed and cheaper loans from banks were reduced, resulting in farmers going to private lenders charging interest rates of at least 36 per cent to fund new crops that rapidly became worthless on the global market because of over-production
and cheap imports. A survey of 40 farmers who committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh found that each on average owed 106,000 rupees (£1,300) — roughly five to 10 times their normal income. The Christian Aid report said: “These are not deaths from just one area or from just one type of farming. This is suicide on a scale that is surely unique in modern times. The immediate cause of these deaths is debt. This debt was brought on by a number of factors, all of which, except for the weather, can be ascribed to Both Adam Smith International, which said it had had no role in drawing up the liberalisation policy, and DfID denied that there was a direct link between the high levels of suicide and the market reforms. The Government announced earlier this year that there should no longer be a formal link between aid and economic liberalisation. A DfID spokesman said: “Our support for economic reform in Andhra Pradesh, including the privatisation of state-owned enterprises, has helped safeguard the livelihoods of around 2 million people. Without reform, the state government would have continued to spend hundreds of millions of pounds subsidising loss-making enterprises.”
— By arrangement with The Independence, London |
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Let’s get rid of public schools Increasingly I wonder why. Why should there be any public schools? I don’t ask merely because the public schools are performing badly, although (as usual) they are. One survey found that 12 percent of graduating U.S. seniors were ``proficient’’ in science. Global rankings place our seniors 19th among 21 surveyed countries. Agreed: The national interest requires that all children be educated and that all taxpayers contribute. But it doesn’t follow that we need public schools. We need military aircraft; all taxpayers help pay for them. Which doesn’t mean that we need public aircraft companies. (Although if American airplanes ranked 19th best out of 21 contenders, the public might be moved to do something about it.) Schools aren’t the same as airplane factories, but the analogy is illuminating. I believe that public schools have a right to exist insofar as they express a shared public view of education. A consensus on education, at least at the level of each state and arguably of the nation, gives schools the right to call themselves public and be supported by the public. Once public schools stop speaking for the whole community, they are no different from private schools. It’s not public schools’ incompetence that have wrecked them. It’s their non-inclusiveness. American public schools used to speak for the broad middle ground of American life. No longer. The fault is partly but not only theirs. A hundred years ago, a national consensus existed and public schools did their best to express it. Today that consensus has fractured, and public schools have made no effort to rebuild it. The broad national agreement that made such statements possible no longer exists. Americans today disagree on fundamentals — on the ethics of sexuality and the family, for example. Recently The Boston Globe described an argument at a Massachusetts kindergarten over a book for young children about ``multicultural contemporary family units,’’ including gay and lesbian ones. One 6-year-old’s father arrived at school to insist on his right to withdraw his child from class on days when this book was on the program. School administrators ``urged’’ him to leave and, when he didn’t, had him arrested. Then there are parents like my wife and me. We sent our children to public and not private secondary school so they’d become part of a broad American community. Instead, our boys have been made painfully aware nearly every day of their school lives that they are conservative and their teachers are liberal. Making parents feel like saps is one of the few activities at which today’s public schools excel. Public schools used to invite students to take their places in a shared American culture. They didn’t allow a left- or right-wing slant, only a pro-American slant: Their mission, after all, was to produce students who were sufficiently proud of this country to take care of it. Today’s public schools have forfeited their right to exist. Let’s get rid of them. Let’s do it carefully and humanely, but let’s do it. Let’s offer every child a choice of private schools instead. And if this kind of talk makes public schools snap to and get serious, that’s OK also. But don’t hold your breath.
— LA Times-Washington Post |
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Women fuel
China’s growth Indian
leaders and industrial captains may never be tired of citing “hire and fire” policy and autocratic rule behind the Chinese miracle, but they have often ignored the contribution of women empowerment, high female work participation rate in the Chinese success story. According to a study “Gender Empowerment and Basic Education: Social Aspects of China Miracle” by Ms Pallavi Shankar Aiyar, CII representative in China, women in the Chinese society contribute around 40 per cent to the family income and have a 45 per cent share in the total work force as against 35 per cent world average. Despite the fact that Chinese women had historically remained confined to the four walls of their house, they have succeeded in “ taking control of their lives,” under communist China as also with the opening of the economy over the past two decades. “Enjoying the benefits of rising economic prosperity and freed from the burden of raising several children as a result of China’s one-child-policy, women in urban China today enjoy high status and freedom of choice,” says Ms Aiyar. Women can be seen in Beijing and Shanghai driving buses, the taxis, besides working as entrepreneurs, doctors and engineers. According to the Shanghai Women’s Development Forum, 6.6 per cent of the women run their own companies in Shanghai as opposed to only 5.7 per cent of men. It is true that even today women in China do not have a major say in the political decision making. For instance, “the Central Committee of the Communist Party has only 7 per cent women as members. And they have a negligible presence in the Politburo Standing Committee.” Further, women have paid a high price during the restructuring of the economy. Ms Aiyar says, “Across the nation, among the total layoffs, 65 per cent were women, even though they comprise 45 per cent of the total work force.” According to an IMF paper on China’s labour market, an estimated 25 million workers were laid off in 1998-2002 from the state owned enterprises and collectives. In fact, like other countries women in China are also less likely to be hired by private enterprises because of “productivity loss” due to their maternity leave. A UNDP report claims that there has also been an increase in the number of female suicides, largely in the countryside over the past decade. Across the nation, 25 per cent more women than men commit suicide in China. According to Chinese government statistics, “from 1990 to 2000 the illiteracy rate among women fell from 32 per cent to 13.5 per cent. Today the net enrolment rate for girls at the primary school level is 98.61 per cent, just 0.4 per cent behind that of boys. Across China, the girl/boy ratio is 90 per cent in education.” Ms Aiyar claims that China is today far ahead of India on every parameter of basic education. “ In India in 2000 only 47 per cent of all the children had managed to complete fifth standard as against 98 per cent of Chinese children.” |
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From the pages of Education of princes and chiefs
It goes without saying that our ruling princes and chiefs are destined to prove a powerful factor in the future amelioration of our country. They possess germs of unbounded usefulness and can confer unlimited goods on the people at large, if opportunity be allowed to those germs to expand and fructify. What they want most is a sound liberal education... We know a few native Princes who have been brought up under the tuition and guardianship of men appointed by, or at the suggestion of, the British Government; but as these are often Englishmen, the training imparted to them has been fraught with more mischief than good. They have become “accomplished gentlemen” in the Anglo-Indian sense of the expression, and careless of the welfare of their subjects, waste their substance in dinners, balls and suppers, in pleasing people in power and in paying the confectioner’s, the wine-seller’s and the upholsterer’s bills. They are well up in drink, lawn-tennis, and polo, in dancing and flirtation, but as rulers they are entirely or almost entirely worthless. Nothing can be more welcome, therefore, than institutions in which they can receive a sound physical, intellectual and moral training. |
If we call him the father of all, then why do we not realize our brotherhood? — The Upanishads Look upon hardships with eagerness. They should not bring tears to the eye. Look upon them as ordained to serve you, to chasten you through trials and tribulations and finally leave you stronger, healthier, wiser than before. — The Mahabharata When you feel lonely, when you feel unwanted, when you feel sick and forgotten, remember you are precious to God. He loves you. Show that love for one another. — Mother Teresa
At least once a day, allow yourself the freedom to think and dream for yourself. — Albert Einstein We know, that
He (The Master) is the True One. He reveals Himself in truth and he is described in countless ways. — Guru Nanak Where are you searching for me, friend? Look! Here I am, right within you. Not in the temple, nor in mosque, not in the Kaaba, nor Kailas, but here right within you. — Kabir Who can stand without legs? Vedanta are the legs on which the Supreme Consciousness stands.
— The Upanishads |
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