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War room breach
Elixir of death
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Death of a king
The architect of modern Saudi Arabia KING FAHD, who died on Monday after protracted illness, will be remembered as the architect of modern Saudi Arabia. Even when he was the Crown Prince till 1982, during his half-brother King Khalid’s reign, he started a number of projects that led to the blooming of the desert kingdom with ultra-modern commercial buildings, universities and colleges.
The climate change deal
The gatekeeper
Dateline Washington
Relate key values to work
TV channels sell violence
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War room breach
A SECURITY breach in the heart of the Naval Headquarters in South Block, in the briefing room traditionally known to officers as the War Room, is a serious matter. Attempts to play down the incident by describing the pilfered information as `not serious’ are unacceptable. The files downloaded from a computer in the war room do not have to be about operational plans and movements of ships and submarines, for the theft to be considered a breach of national security. The probe ordered by the Navy is specifically set to inquire into the motives of obtaining the files and “whether they had been made available to commercial interests.” That is serious enough – the Navy’s modernisation plans and specifics about the equipment that it intends to acquire can certainly compromise its interests if leaked out.
In any case, the fact that such an attempt was made and information successfully retrieved from a supposedly sanitised area, is a matter of great concern. The threat is not just from high-flying spies and agents, though they exist as well. The flight of a senior RAW official from the country with a bagful of secrets to the US is still fresh in memory. There are many others who serve as information brokers, stalking the by-lanes of power looking for marketable wares. The defence sector, where high-cost capital purchases are made with the potential for massive kickbacks and bribes, is a particular attraction. Everyone has an eye now on the Rs 15,000 crore Scorpene submarine deal now being renegotiated. An additional problem with such payouts is that beneficiaries leave themselves vulnerable to blackmail and are easily compromised by hostile interests. With increasing levels of technological sophistication and network-centricity in the armed forces, ensuring information and communications security is a major challenge. Of course, vulnerabilities stem more from insider penetration than technological chinks, as seems to have happened in this case. An expeditious probe and remedial action are warranted, as is unremitting vigil. Leaky boats are dangerous. They sink.
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Elixir of death
SINCE time immemorial, milk has been considered the elixir of life. It is the perfect food which suits everyone from a child to an aged person. No longer. Those who swear by it had not accounted for the avarice of the ubiquitous milkman. In circa 2005, what he palms off as milk may bear only physical resemblance with the white liquid. It is laced with such chemicals and dangerous elements that it is no longer fit for human consumption. Instead of being an elixir of life, it has come to be an elixir of death. As a recent Tribune survey found out, almost all samples of milk collected from various places in Chandigarh contained harmful adulterants. Increasing the volume of milk by adding water is old hat. Today’s milkmen add dirty pond water because that increases the thickness of their product. How are they bothered if the bacterial water causes serious health problems ranging from kidney failure to reproductive complications?
Things do not stop at dirty water. Samples collected earlier this year from all over Punjab were found to be adulterated with formalin, nitrate fertilisers and ammonia compounds. It is shocking that this witches’ brew has been on sale without impunity. If it is any consolation, packaged milk of some reputed brands was found to be free from harmful chemicals. But that may not be true of all the brands. Those who copy the packet design of better-known producers might very well be compromising with the quality as well. A thorough and comprehensive investigation is called for. Somehow, the public seems to have more faith in doodhwalla than milk packets. This mindset will have to change in the light of the latest revelations. The government has failed to safeguard the interests of the public. The latter will have to fend for itself. It will be a good idea to regularly check the quality of the milk you buy. That is going to be bothersome as well as costly. But considering that the health of your near and dear ones is at stake, that much of trouble is worthwhile.
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Death of a king
KING FAHD, who died on Monday after protracted illness, will be remembered as the architect of modern Saudi Arabia. Even when he was the Crown Prince till 1982, during his half-brother King Khalid’s reign, he started a number of projects that led to the blooming of the desert kingdom with ultra-modern commercial buildings, universities and colleges. He promoted industrial activity on a massive scale and emerged as the real power-centre much before he was crowned the King.
He had a great liking for everything western, particularly American. His obsession with Americanism led to his country coming dangerously close to the US. Dangerously in the sense that Saudi Arabia under him became the target number two — after the US — of Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda. The terrorist network turned against Saudi Arabia after King Fahd allowed the stationing of US forces in his country for liberating Kuwait. But the terrorist strike in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, also earned Saudi Arabia the reputation of promoting extreme fundamentalism and terrorism. The charge was undeniable because most of the terrorists who caused 9/11 were Saudi nationals. King Fahd pampered fundamentalists mainly because he believed that their support could help maintain stability in the kingdom, which had been experiencing a silent power struggle for a long time. This might have been the idea behind his excessive display of religious piety at home, which did not fit in with his past of having been a great gambler. He and his Crown Prince Abdullah, who is now the King, used corrupt practices to eliminate any threat to the monarchy. He crushed with an iron hand the forces working for human rights. Despite all this, a process for change has begun with municipal elections on a limited scale. The world is keen to know whether the new King will allow this process to continue. But his major problem will be to ensure that the Islamists are not able to weaken the power structure in Saudi Arabia.
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I know that’s a secret, for it’s whispered
everywhere.
— William Congreve
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The climate change deal
Important India-US deals seem to “come not single spies, but in battalions”, now that mutual suspicion and distrust have given way to trust and confidence. Even before the ink dried on the nuclear deal comes the Asia-Pacific Partnership on climate change, which is less controversial domestically, but dubbed “Machiavellian” by environmentalists.
On an issue on which the two countries have been at loggerheads right from the beginning of the climate change negotiations, there is now a meeting point. Four signatories to the Kyoto Protocol (India, China, South Korea and Japan) have joined hands with its two opponents (Australia and the US) to complement it, as claimed by both India and the US. “We are not detracting from Kyoto at all. We are complementing it”, said Mr Robert Zoellick, the US negotiator. It is a perfect quid pro quo; if the US offered India an alternative to the NPT, we have offered the US an alternative to Kyoto. Like in the case of the nuclear deal, the balance-sheet of advantages and disadvantages of the pact must be seen rather than ruminate over past positions or loyalties. By that yardstick, the Asia-Pacific Partnership may be benign from our perspective. Our objectives in the climate change negotiations were to get the world recognise that poverty is the worst polluter and that the polluters must pay not only for the alleviation of the damage caused to the earth, but also to enable the developing countries to adopt environmental technologies. In Rio, the developing countries accomplished much when the International Framework Convention on Climate Change (IFCC) was adopted. It recognised that the industrialised nations have a special responsibility to reduce the emission of Green House Gases (GHG) and that the developing countries have the right to increase their emissions to facilitate industrial growth. The industrialised countries accepted moderate, but mandatory cuts on their emissions and agreed to meet the incremental costs of environment-friendly technology to be adopted by the developing countries. In the 10 years after Rio, some of the industrialised powers, notably the US and Australia, have been dragging their feet on implementing the mandatory cuts and devising ways and means to wriggle out of future commitments by challenging the scientific data, introducing emission trading and insisting that the developing countries like India, China and Brazil should also be asked to accept cuts in their emissions. The Europeans took a more enlightened position by reducing their emissions and promoting a protocol to meet the requirements beyond the period envisaged by the IFCC. India and the other major developing nations insisted till Kyoto and beyond that they would accept no commitments on the strength of the Rio understanding on the right to increase “survival emissions”. They had no quarrel with the methods that the developed countries adopted to meet their commitments, but demanded financing and transfer of technology on concessional terms, which were promised in Rio. The US and Australia have been fighting a battle on two fronts after the adoption of the Protocol, one with the Europeans, who have been breathing down their necks to make them accept the Kyoto reduction of emissions by 5.2 per cent from their 1990 levels by 2012, and the other with developing countries in a bid to drag them into commitments. The US argued that emission cuts would affect their industrial growth and lifestyles, while the developing countries urged the West to reduce their conspicuous consumption of energy and let the poorer nations eliminate poverty by rapid industrialisation. The G-8 summit in Gleneagles showed the first sign of the US finding common cause with the developing world by saying that the rationale of development was the same for both. This was the only nuance that the US added to its position at Gleneagles. It is now clear that the US had the support of the leading developing countries, with the notable exception of Brazil, in this approach. Instead of bringing the developing countries into the commitments net, the US, in a smart move, joined them by pleading that they too have the compulsions of development to eschew obligatory commitments. It has been characterised as “a serious attempt by the US to deflect attention away from their own profligate emissions” (Chatham House). The acceptance by India and China of the new US argument undermines the logic that the emissions of the US and the developing world should not be put on an equal footing. We had argued that survival emissions should grow while luxury emissions should be curtailed, even if that involves change in lifestyle in the West. By conceding that voluntary action to restrict future emissions rather than adopt measures here and now, the sting has gone out of the Rio strategy to tackle climate change. The small island developing states, which have been agitating for immediate measures for fear that they will be the first to sink as the sea level rises, will see no comfort in the new approach. Moreover, the new partnership does not seem to bring any new and additional resources to the developing nations. We have, undoubtedly, safeguarded our position that we shall have no commitments to reduce emissions. The parties to the Partnership will join hands to work together “to develop and accelerate the deployment of cleaner, more efficient energy technologies to meet national pollution direction, energy security and climate change concerns in ways that reduce poverty and promote economic development”, as President Bush stated. Considering that the IFCC brought little money and even less technology to developing countries, we had nothing to lose by embarking on this alternate path. At the same time, it opens up new possibilities for collaboration with the US, Australia and China. In other words, we have lost nothing and gained some promises. The expectation that the promises of Vientiane will be more substantial than the promises of Kyoto will sustain us. The climate change deal changed the rebel status of the US with regard to Kyoto just as the nuclear deal changed India’s status with regard to the NPT. But both will be challenged by others as motivated and even cynical. It will be seen as another instance of triumph of mutual interests over principles that the two countries had shared with others so far. Another similarity is that both deals are yet to be tested. The climate change deal is all about technology that may be available in 30 years or more. Faced with immovable obstacles, India and the US have begun to find alternate uncharted paths to unknown destinations. Innovation and inventiveness mark both
deals.
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The gatekeeper
LIFE in Dhanbad had come to a standstill. The police could not have expected that the arrest of Awaaz editor Brahmadeo Sinha Sharma would snowball into a police-journalist clash in which several newsmen were seriously injured. The call for a bandh in the coal capital against the police highhandedness evoked a massive response. Agitated journalists in Patna decided to send a three-member fact-finding team to Dhanbad. That is how Mr Alok Mehta, now editor, Hindi Outlook, Mr Mohan Sahay of The Statesman and I reached Dhanbad. At Dhanbad, word reached us that SP Jagdish Raj and ADM Rajabala Verma, whose conduct had caused the trouble, were in no mood to talk to us. They, perhaps, resented the fact that we were all journalists. They also nursed the fear that our sympathies would naturally be with our brethren. We did not have any judicial powers to summon the two officials. Our mission would have failed if the two officials had not cooperated. It was the Amritsar-born SP who got the venerable editor arrested and paraded through the streets of Dhanbad. His excuse was that he merely implemented a court order. The editor had not committed any crime. All he did was to write a hard-hitting editorial headlined Adalaton ki bhumika: Mukhya Nyaayadhish ki guhar. The peg for his editorial was a statement the then Chief Justice of India, Mr Justice R.S. Pathak, had made. A lawyer filed a case against him under Section 500 of the IPC at Giridih. In due course, he also managed to get an arrest warrant issued against the editor. The SP, who wanted to settle personal scores with him, jumped at the opportunity. In doing so, he followed the dictum, "use the fist of law, not yours", as he later told us. The arrest provoked some journalists who barged into the ADM's office. They were beaten black and blue by the police, who even registered a case against one of them for trying to molest her. We were keen to have their version. We had nearly lost hope when the divisional commissioner came to our rescue. He took the responsibility of bringing the SP and the ADM to the state guesthouse, where he got a big room opened for us. He did not want to make any comments on the incident and thereby "prejudice" us. In fact, he wanted us to hear from the horse’s mouth. The commissioner made a few phone calls from the guesthouse. Soon, both officials reached there. Initially, they did not seem to relish the idea of being "questioned". But once the proceedings began, there was a change in their attitude and they answered all our questions. Ms Verma even admitted to us that there was no attempt of molestation. Mr Raj was equally cooperative, though he protested when I took out my camera. But I tricked him into allowing me to take his picture. I told him I had a bad photograph of his with me. If he did not allow me to take a fresh picture, I would be forced to use the old one. Immediately, he straightened his collar and posed for me. All this while the commissioner sat outside patiently. He did not want to either overawe his subordinates or influence our mission. He believed in fair play and transparency. He is Mr G.S. Kang, who has vacated the post of Chief Secretary in protest against the improper transfer of some officials by Governor Buta Singh.
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Dateline Washington
Washington: Saudi King Fahd’s death is unlikely to dramatically alter the kingdom’s relationship with the United States of America, though it may add momentum to calls for political reform in the country.
The reason for this predictable status quo is that when the 82-year-old King Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud died in Riyadh on Monday, his half-brother Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud was immediately appointed successor. King Abdullah served as the facto ruler of Saudi Arabia since Fahd suffered a debilitating stroke 10 years ago. Prince Turki al-Faisal, the outgoing Saudi Ambassador to Britain who will replace Prince Bandar bin Sultan as Ambassador in Washington, said he could not imagine there would be any particular change in foreign policy undertaken by the late King Fahd. James Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, noted “King Fahd was instrumental in shaping the special relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States that exists today.” He was confident that under the leadership of King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia will continue to advance and the U.S.-Saudi relationship will deepen. King Fahd assumed leadership of Saudi Arabia in 1982. He was the son of King Abdulaziz al-Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia. As the country’s fifth ruler, King Fahd was committed to modernising Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure, educational, housing, and communications systems, and to its economic and social advancement. Jean AbiNader, an AAI board member, noted that in 1981, King Fahd launched his Fahd Plan for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict, adopted by the Arab League at the Fez Summit, which was the first time that Arab countries proposed full recognition of Israel. The plan, which proposed a just and lasting peace to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was later revived in 2002 at an Arab League meeting. His efforts to help end the Lebanese civil war, concluded with an agreement signed in the Saudi city of Taif. “It is because of these efforts and so many others that King Fahd became the central player in Saudi-U.S. relations. He was seen as a supporter of the U.S. when many other Arab leaders were distancing themselves from certain U.S. policies in the region”, Ms. AbiNader said. That support is unlikely to diminish during King Abdullah’s reign. At the State Department on Monday, acting spokesman Tom Casey said the state of Saudi-U.S. relations continues to be “excellent.” However, Washington’s “special relationship” with Riyadh has been afflicted by severe stresses and strains since the revelation that 15 of the 19 hijackers who attacked America on September 11, 2001, were young Saudis. The kingdom’s inclusion on a State Department list of “countries of particular concern” was another crimp in the relationship. Tom Lippman, adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute, said the succession process after King Fahd’s death “will only demonstrate further that decision-making power lies and will continue to lie with a very small circle of senior princes, who make no pretense of seeking public approbation.” Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud was expectedly appointed Crown Prince on Monday. While some in the kingdom have aired their dissatisfaction with the monarchy and demanded a shift to a “constitutional monarchy,” Mr. Lippman said neither King Abdullah nor Crown Prince Sultan “nor any known person behind them in the line of succession is interested in a constitutional monarchy.” Since King Abd-al-Aziz died succession has gone through his sons. “At some point it will be inevitable that there will be no more of the king’s sons. And there is no template or precedent of how succession goes to the generation of grandsons,” cautioned F. Gregory Gause III, associate professor of political science at the University of Vermont. Before the generation of sons disappears, Mr. Gause said, “it is incumbent upon them to have a procedure in line so that the generational transition is shown.” In a discussion on reform in the kingdom at a Washington think tank last September, Osama bin Mohammed al-Kurdi, a member of Saudi Arabia’s Majlis Al-Shura (consultative council) that advises the royal family, pleaded for the “opportunity to do things at our own pace… We will change whatever we think is necessary for us to change.” “We don’t think we have to follow a certain model [of democracy] for it to be acceptable to others,” Mr. al-Kurdi said. Last month, an appellate court in Riyadh upheld lengthy sentences for three men after they attempted to circulate a petition calling for a constitutional monarchy in the kingdom. Human rights activists and analysts interpret the jail terms as unwillingness on the part of the monarchy to embrace reform. For decades, the U.S. has counted on the Saudis for cheap oil and lucrative business relationships, while providing in exchange a reliable market for the kingdom’s vast oil reserves. Analysts predict this dependence on Saudi oil will ensure that the relationship between Washington and Riyadh continues to prosper. Reinforcing that sentiment, author Robert Baer notes his book, Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude, “Like it or not, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are joined at the hip. Its future is our future.”
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Relate key values to work
There she was — at the pinnacle of the academic community. An assistant professor at Harvard University. But Stacy Blake-Beard told a room filled with some 90 women the other day about a nagging, internal voice she had been squelching for four years. Finally, that voice insisted on being heard and helped her realize, ``I made it, and I’m miserable.’’
She recognized that one of her core values — the need for community — was not being met in Harvard’s more go-it-alone culture, though she says she wouldn’t have missed that experience for the world. So, three years ago she found a different pinnacle — this as an associate professor of management at Simmons College in Boston, a place where she says, ``the air we breathe is collaboration, community, connections.’’ Her point? That to decrease misery and increase joy, people have to identify their key values, then determine the gap between those needs and the reality they’re living. Once they’ve done that, they need to develop and implement a plan to close the gap. Take risks, she told attendees at Working Mother Magazine’s third annual Best Companies for Women of Color Multicultural Conference in Manhattan. ``Nobody can push you out of the rut. . . . Otherwise, you blink your eyes and 10 years have gone by.’’ She first asked those in the group to identify their three key values from a list of 38 — ranging from adventure and competition to fame and inner harmony. One attendee had a question: Should those values relate to work or personal lives? Both, said Blake-Beard. ``Life is intertwined.’’ Another woman in the session expressed guilt: ``I wanted to pick my family,’’ she said, ``but they didn’t make it into my top three.’’ But a bank vice president, Jacqueline Graham-Mills, said some values on the list do relate directly back to family. Economic security was one of her top three values. As the first in her family to reach the executive level, she said she’s now in a position to help relatives with educational costs and medical needs. ``I can take care of my family,’’ she said. ``I write a lot of checks.’’ After determining to what degree your work and home life veer away from what you value, you’re ready to develop a plan to close that gap. You need support and input from others to do that, Blake-Beard said, but you have to ``create your own map.’’ That ``map’’ should include a goal, a list of steps to reach it, a time frame, and a list of those who’ll support you. Don’t underestimate the role others play, she said. In her case, she received valuable guidance and encouragement from a group of other young academics that she helped form. One of the big pluses — ``an accountability system.’’ There’s also value to identifying ``self-limiting behaviors.’’ Do you allow low-priority interruptions to gobble up your time? Or keep your head down so as to blend in with the crowd? Do you stand out so much that you’re ``hyper-visible?’’ (What’s needed, she said, is what she calls ``tempered visibility,’’ alternating between heated and cool responses, picking battles wisely.) None of this is rocket science, Blake-Beard said in a phone interview after the session. What’s valuable is for women to come together. ``It’s an opportunity to step out of their busy lives and sit and think in an environment and context with others.’’ —
LA Times -Washington Post
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News channels in India are under attack for showing too much violence, but insiders say that it is not so and that they, in fact, do a lot of self-censoring.
Critics and television journalists are battling it out following the televised images of the brutal police attacks on the striking Honda factory workers in Gurgaon last week. “It is a game of survival for channels driven by the savage rules of competition. News channels face a crisis of content and creativity and resort to any means available to grab eyeballs,” charged Akhila Sivadas, executive director of the Centre for Advocacy and Research, a media think tank. “Going by the ever increasing trend of crime shows in today’s primetime programming, it is rather obvious that news channels use violence and graphic imagery just to remain in the fray,” Sivadas told IANS. Media critic Sevanti Ninan added that violence did fetch viewers. “Violence sells, and TRPs of the countless violence related shows on prime time TV prove this,” she said. Ninan also accused the television channels of placing undue emphasis on the violence perpetrated by the police on the Honda workers while playing down the violent acts of the strikers. “Why wasn’t the police’s side of the picture shown? Why weren’t bytes from police personnel who had also suffered shown? There was also another side of the story that needed to be shown but why wasn’t it shown?” asked Ninan. The channels have a different viewpoint. “The ugly face of police brutality has to be shown and it is our responsibility to do so,” countered Ashutosh of Aaj Tak, referring to the Gurgaon violence. Ashutosh, who prefers to be called by just his first name, is deputy executive-producer with the leading Hindi news channel. He said television channels censored a lot of scenes they shot. “There are countless images we’ve considered inappropriate for public viewing but the scale and degree of violence in this case was so large that society had to witness it,” he said. Added Sonia Varma Singh, NDTV 24X7’s managing editor: “We don’t carry images just for the sake of carrying them, the issue is not sensationalising things but showing what is needed to be shown.” Countered Sivadas: “Showing is all right, but it is equally the responsibility of the media to frame what is shown. One has to decide responsibly how much is shown and to what end the graphic images are being broadcast.” Reporters who covered the Gurgaon troubles have a lot to say. “The media’s presence actually helped as it placed restrictions on police personnel. Or else who knows to what lengths they would have gone?” said Sandeep Kumar, an Aaj Tak reporter who was in Gurgaon covering the violence. N. Bhaskara Rao, chairman of the Centre for Media Studies, said the standing of television channels was going down. “Because of incidents like this, their credibility is falling. The maxim of seeing is believing is no longer true.” Sivadas warned that there was an urgent need to check the television imagery. “If there are no internal checks, society will soon become emotionally coloured and prejudiced. Senseless exposure to such images causes immense damage and I shudder to think what is happening to children exposed to
this. —Indo-Asian News Service
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From the pages of December 15, 1897
Sir M. Hicks-Beach is one of the fading lights of the Conservative Party, but he still holds high office and is entitled to be heard with respect. He has also come to the rescue in the battle that is raging round the Indian frontier policy. Speaking at Bristol he said it was a complete misnomer to call our Indian frontier policy a forward policy; it was merely the fulfilment of past responsibilities, which was requisite for the preservation of the Empire peacefully in future. Government, he added, would not hesitate, if required, to also ask Parliament to help India financially! When it has come to a question of despatches and precise facts the talk about the fulfilment of pat responsibilities will not help matters much, though Sir M. Hicks-Beach seems determined not to strain either at a gnat or a camel.
The offer of helping India financially has yet to be tested. It is somewhere stated that the cost of the present expedition will be about 3-1/2 crores, but, as on every previous occasion, this will be found to be a low estimate.
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By obeying him man, even when alone, is on the path of achieving salvation. — Guru Nanak Feel ye the presence of the spirit within yourself. And taste the amrit. — The Upanishads The senses are blind inwards. So man cannot see the spirit with his senses and thinks that it does not exist. — The Upanishads Happiness is like a sunbeam, which the least shadow intercepts, while adversity is often as the rain of spring. — Book of quotations on Happiness He sits in judgement on who is good and who is bad. All are judged according to their deeds on this earth when they face him in his heavenly abode. — Guru Nanak A man able to think he isn’t defeated even when he is defeated. — Book of quotations of Success Feelings and emotions are but fleeting clouds reflected in a forest pool. — The Upanishads To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, if stupidity is lacking, all is lost. — Book of quotations on Happiness By obeying him, man is always on the right path and does not go astray in the performance of his duty. — Guru Nanak See the cowherd at his task. With a staff in his hand, he drives the cow into the shed at night. So does age drive the life of men towards death. — The Buddha
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