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Defiant dictator Water scarcity |
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UN-bundle the Net Time to globalise control of the web THE Internet is seen as an autonomous entity, without any governmental administration. It is widely believed that no one controls it. While this may be true in a technical sense, actually, the management of the Internet is in the hands of various entities of the US government.
Nature’s fury,
man’s villainy
Did you do it?
Bold initiative
towards Indo-US partnership Bill to check food
contaminants Delhi
Durbar
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Water scarcity OF late the Himachal Pradesh government has taken steps to encourage water conservation. A Bill was introduced in the Assembly earlier this year to regulate the extraction of groundwater. A supervisory authority has been proposed to ensure that groundwater exploitation does not exceed its natural replenishment. Rainwater harvesting structures are being made mandatory for all buildings. A draft water policy is ready, an interesting feature of which is to encourage industries to reuse water. Also under way shortly will be a special drive to revive traditional water bodies. All these measures, though belated, are commendable and have been forced by the perpetual water shortage in many parts of the state. This summer Shimla suffered an acute water scarcity. The continuous migration from villages to towns, unplanned urbanisation, unauthorised and unregulated construction activity, concentration of government offices in select towns and non-diversion of tourists to less known places of interest have led to an explosive situation. Shimla’s civic amenities are particularly under pressure in summer. People have got so used to water shortages that they usually accept it without grumble. The passive acceptance of the situation has led the successive governments to ignore the problem. Otherwise, the water conservation steps being pushed now would have been taken long back. The hill states usually get good rains, but rainwater is allowed to go waste. This is largely due to the absence of water harvest structures and lack of awareness. The states can study and replicate Singapore’s success in water management. States in the plains, too, face drinking and irrigation water shortage, but their water conservation measures remain inadequate and half-hearted. The watertable is sinking year after year to new lows in Punjab and Haryana, but this has not yet alarmed the authorities into taking remedial action. Like Delhi before, Himachal Pradesh has woken up to the reality. It is time the other states, too, realised the gravity of the crisis. |
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UN-bundle the Net THE Internet is seen as an autonomous entity, without any governmental administration. It is widely believed that no one controls it. While this may be true in a technical sense, actually, the management of the Internet is in the hands of various entities of the US government. Today the Internet is a global phenomenon, an information highway and a major centre of commerce and business. With the globalisation of the Internet, there has been a growing concern over the US dominance of certain aspects of the Net. All domains like .com, .org, .edu for the Internet must be approved by Icann, an autonomous body, set up by the US Department of Commerce in 1998. An Australian now heads it but the Department of Commerce retains veto power over which domains can be approved. On the hardware side, because of the inherent strength of the US telecommunication system, most of the major Domain Name Server (DNS) facilities also exist in the US. A major part of Internet routing is also in the US. All this makes it more vulnerable to interception by Echlon, the US system of signal intelligence that has the capability of intercepting all telecommunications, including Internet messages and e-mails, thus causing privacy concerns. The UN World Summit on the Information Society met for the first time in Geneva recently, and many nations demanded that the control of the Internet should not be in the hands of a single nation, namely America. Among the options offered was a UN-administered Internet. To the chagrin of the US, even the European Union nations have come out in support of China, Russia and Brazil. The meeting in Geneva was acrimonious and the issue is expected to come up again at Tunis, Tunisia, where the summit will be held next month. While how exactly the issue is resolved remains to be seen, there is no doubt that a necessary corollary of the Internet’s universal reach is that its control should also be globalised. |
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Life is a jest; and all things show it./I thought so once; but now I know it. |
Nature’s fury, man’s villainy
IN the midst of the grave tragedy of the South Asian earthquake it is once again becoming clear that human contribution to aggravating a natural calamity can be shocking beyond words. President George Bush of the United States has not yet lived down the shame of his government’s failure to bring timely succour to the people of New Orleans at the time of their greatest need in the wake of the hurricane Katrina. What had made this disgrace mortifying was that America’s racial divide and the ruling establishment’s disdain for the dispossessed had a lot to do with the Bush administration’s callous neglect of the sufferers. After the horrific earthquake in Pakistan — with its epicenter at Muzaffarabad, the now virtually extinct capital of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir — and in our own state of Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan President, Gen Pervez Musharraf has also been at the receiving end of criticism from his people. Anger against delayed and inadequate relief, especially over the absence of any relief at all at inaccessible places, may be common to both sides of the Line of Control. But there is a significant difference in the two situations. Pakistanis in large numbers are dismayed that, for several hours on October 8, their government apparently had no idea of the enormous scale of death and destruction. Even after the mind-boggling dimensions of the disaster had sunk in, the critics allege, the military regime had spent the first 24 hours concentrating on the ravages and confusion the earthquake had caused within the Army formations. The turn of the traumatised civilians came only afterwards. The essence of the Pakistani complaints has indeed been summed up in one sentence by someone: “The Army took precisely 30 minutes to stage the coup six years ago that brought General Musharraf to power, but it needed more than an hour and a half to reach the totally destroyed Margalla Towers in the heart of Islamabad.” It is equally revealing that the 10-storey edifice had been declared unsafe but its inhabitants hadn’t bothered, obviously because each family had paid a crore of rupees for its flat. Whatever their other grievances, the bereaved, homeless, foodless and helpless victims of the deadly earthquake in J & K haven’t complained of indifference or lethargy on the part of the top leaders here. The Congress president, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, was in Uri, the worst affected area, almost immediately. A longer visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh followed at the end of which he announced a generous package of financial aid to Kashmir. The state Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, has also been travelling — with the Prime Minister and on his own. To be sure, the Hurriyat leader, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and even Ms Mehbooba Mufti, the Chief Minister’s daughter and leader of his People’s Democratic Party, have been critical of the captains of the country’s flourishing trade and industry for doing little for the Kashmiri victims of the earthquake, “in sharp contrast to” what they had done for those devastated by the Gujarat earthquake some years ago. Remarkably, their criticism has evoked both prompt response from the quarters to which it was addressed and sharp rejoinder from those who have lost patience with the “motivated whining” of the likes of the Mirwaiz. This underscores that whatever the role of “India Inc” in the current tragedy, no one has had any cause to blame the national leadership. Were this all, there would have been cause for satisfaction. But, alas, it is impossible to expect the Indian system, particularly the politico-bureaucratic complex, not to mess up even the best of situations. In Kashmir a Congress minister in the Mufti Ministry, Mr Mohideen, has amply proved this. He represents the Uri constituency in the state legislature. This, by his book, had given him the divine right flagrantly to interfere with the distribution of relief to canalise it only to his followers. When the official in charge of relief and rehabilitation protested publicly, the minister saw to it that the poor man was downgraded and sidelined. Another officer was appointed above him, and things have started going the way the minister wants them to. However, not content with this, Mr Mohideen, told the media, “Yes, I was interfering at every level (because) I am the government and he (the demoted official) is a government servant. All the relief that is available comes to the government, and it is our job to distribute it.” This may well be the view of most politicians in power, irrespective of their party affiliations. But so far no one else has spelt it out so brazenly. If anyone — the Prime Minister, the Congress president or the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister — has remonstrated with him, the country has yet to hear of it. Nothing better may be expected of Mr Mohideen and those of his ilk. But surely Ms Mehbooba Mufti ought to know better than she evidently does, judging by her remarks during a TV discussion. She stated blandly that the armed forces should not be involved in the distribution of relief and this task should be left exclusively to the civil administration of the state. Does she only appear on TV without ever watching it? For, if she had, she would have seen for herself how jubilant and grateful the stricken people were when the Army officers and jawans took over the responsibility of supervising the disbursement of food, blankets and tents, etc. Until then the arrival of every relief truck used to be a signal for an orgy of looting. Lack of discipline is not the only problem, however. Over the years ubiquitous corruption and humongous diversion of disaster relief funds into private pockets has become the real bane. Witness, the recent wholesale embezzlement of the entire flood relief grant to Bihar, through the courtesy of an official supposed to be an icon of the 21st century. The malaise is nationwide and not confined to any particular state. But sadly the record of Bihar and J & K has been particularly bad — in the latter case right from the days of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed, if not even earlier. As far back as in the mid-sixties, the well-known Socialist leader, Asoka Mehta, as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, had declared that more money was diverted from the disaster relief funds for the “laying and relaying of roads that never existed” than the entire plan allocation for road-building! Since then the situation has worsened, not got better.
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Did you do it?
Nosey
Parker was snooping around as usual with his beak buried deep in the garbage when to his utter exhilaration he heard the cries in the sky, “Did ye du et — Did ye du et did did?” Nosey Parker looked up to shoot; I mean record in his camera, the exclusive bytes. The Jungle Babbler, known for his intrusive, naughty and yarn-spinning habits, tweeted at the journo, winked at him and beckoned as if to give the official version. Taken aback, as if someone else had also picked up his exclusive scoop, the journo questioned the impish bird if he also heard the shrieks of, “Did you do it!” The Babbler knew the anxiety of Nosey Parker and in furtherance of his innate endeavour to tease him he whispered something in the ears of the stringer. “Can you arrange an interview with her? Oh please don’t say no!” “Well, it happens almost daily. It’s not something unusual with her. It’s not at all which makes news, I mean the man-biting-the-dog sort of?” the Babbler tried to rubbish the reporting idea. Nosey Parker insisted, “No dear, what after all was there in Gudiya, Farzana and Anara episodes? Still we had to drag these poor things out of their homes and present the “real picture” before the people in larger public interest, particularly when every journalist, howsoever incredible, had been doing it”. “Oh yes, there you are. You followed the stories since everyone was (over) doing it. Well, there ees a point in that.” The Babbler muffled the “over” part and stressed the “is”. Again the tweet of “Did ye du et duet — did did” rented the open skies. Nosey Parker became restless when the Jungle Babbler grimaced turning his eyes away from the curious reporter. The Babbler asked Nosey Parker to watch and record from a distance when he would be interviewing the victim of “Did you do it?” “Behenji, will you tell our audience how do you feel after going through the ordeal of ‘Did you do it’ since you have been tweeting for quite some time seeking to know the culprit?” The victim squeaked at him scornfully, “D,did ye du et?” “No, no behenji, I am a journalist. I don’t do myself. I simply fling the others’ doing in public-ehm-ehm, bird interest only!” The Babbler again sneered with his tongue firmly in his beak. Having interviewed the “victim”, Nosey Parker rushed and pridefully presented the story to the Editor. Lo and behold, everything got washed out — video, audio and everything. The disgusted Editor gave good amount of birdshit to Nosey Parker who rushed back to look up the Jungle Babbler. He overheard the naughty Babbler talking to the forgetful Lap Wing: “I knew that you as habit would forget the place of your laying eggs and then scream around as if someone had stolen them squeaking ‘Did you do it’, but this Nosey Parker fellow thought he had picked up the best of scoops.” Having known this now, Nosey Parker asked them as if cheated, “But what happened to my recording?” Replied the Jungle Babbler, “Don’t you know we have beepers and jammers planted under our wings to ward off the recording done by the likes of you in larger bird interests.” They laughed to their guts content while Nosey Parker again buried his beak in the garbage. |
Bold initiative towards Indo-US partnership US Undersecretary Nicholas Burns is to have discussions with Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran today to discuss the implementation schedule for mutual commitments under the civil nuclear agreement. India is to work to develop a way to segregate its civil and military nuclear sectors and develop an appropriate safeguards regime of the sort envisioned in the July 18 Indo-US declaration. In his Asia Society speech delivered on October 18, Nicholas Burns said: “By demonstrating our ability to follow through on our commitments, we gain the confidence to embark on even more ambitions projects in future”. In that sense this discussion will be the first of several steps in confidence building leading to US-India strategic partnership. Till now the world has experienced confidence building between two ostensible adversaries. This will be the first experience in confidence building leading to strategic partnership between two “estranged democracies” burdened with half a century’s history of mutual suspicion and misunderstanding. It is also one between two unequal parties — one a super power under increasing challenge and the other a rising power trying to find its place in the globalised world. The initiative for the partnership has come from the established power and the response of the rising power is full of suspicion, hesitation and uncertainty. One wishes that there was another Thomas Schelling who could have written a textbook on “Strategy of strategic partnership between unequal powers” on the lines on Schelling’s “Strategy of Conflict”, which was awarded this year’s Nobel Prize for Economics. The initiative for strategic partnership has come from the United States in the light of its assessment of the future global developments in which India is likely to be numbered among the world’s five largest economies. As Mr Burns put it in his Asia Society speech: “It will soon be the world’s most populous nation, and it has a demographic structure that bequeaths it a huge, skilled and youthful work force. It will continue to possess large and ever more sophisticated military forces that, just like our own, remain strongly committed to the principle of civilian control. And, above all else, we are confident that even when we look out 50 years into the future, India will still thrive as a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-lingual democracy characterised by individual freedom, rule of law, and a constitutional government that owes its power to free and fair elections”. “India will also be a natural partner to the US as we confront what will be the central security challenge of the coming generation, the global threats that are flowing over, under and through our national borders, terrorism, the proliferation of chemical, biological and nuclear technologies, international crime and narcotics, HIV/AIDS, climate change, our interests converge on all these issues”. The US looks at India of the future and counts on advantages that would accrue to it from a partnership. With a few exceptions like Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the Indian establishment, while hesitatingly responding to US overtures remembers the past and the US attempts to get India to half and roll back its nuclear programme even as it looked away from China’s missile and nuclear proliferation to Pakistan. Their suspicions are not assuaged as they learn more about the links between the CIA and Dr A.Q. Khan as disclosed by the former Dutch Prime Minister, Lubbers. Since the Indian establishment has a highly exaggerated and distorted view of the sole super power’s domination over the rest of the world, there is not adequate appreciation about the need of the US from democratic strategic partners in the 21st century, while facing rivalries from China and the European Union in a global balance of power system. Therefore, the pace of advance towards strategic partnership and confidence building is bound to be unequal. The pronouncements of the cold warriors in the US and non-proliferation fundamentalists have not been of much help. As American analyst George Tanham pointed out, India does not have a strategic tradition and does not convey our long term assessments which would explain to the Indians what the long-term US interests are and how India features in those long-term calculations and therefore, how this proposed strategic partnership will not turn out as unequal one as they fear. The US will be hurting its own long term interests of getting a rising democratic India as a partner in the world of 21st century if in this confidence-building exercise it is to insist on mechanical reciprocity while in the US there is only a grievance about India not siding with them during the cold war on the basis of a distorted version of cold war history. In India there are deeply engraved memories of US actions which hurt Indian national security interests. It showed great vision and statesmanship for the US to have taken the initiative to cultivate India as a strategic partner in its own long-term interests. The US leadership must also understand that confidence building to build this partnership needs far greater inputs from its side. This is an unbiased and objective assessment of the state of affairs as inherited from the past and exists at present and just an Indian view. |
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Bill to check food contaminants The
official approval to release the report of toxic heavy metal contamination by the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PCCB) is timely. A legislative remedy in the form of an integrated food law Bill is rumoured. Therefore, can consumers take a sigh of relief? What about the producers? The role of public agencies in such trying times becomes crucial. The need is for being more proactive as well as competitive. It is important to recall our sovereign responsibility, economic growth with social justice. There are three important backdrops to this engagement. First, the high-powered joint parliamentary committee that went into the question of pesticide residues in soft drinks. The sanitary and phytosanitary measures agreement of the WTO is the second. Third, the repeal of nine existing Acts and scores of other legislative orders envisioned in the Food Safety and Standards Bill 2005. All three, though important, are never considered in an integrated manner. Scientists and food technologist rarely get a place to air their scientific concerns and risk apprehensions in sufficient measure with decision-makers. There is apparent “knowledge proofing” at this level. There is no competition to received knowledge at the policy-making or at the administration level. The Food Safety and Standards Bill 2005, for instance, is a classic case in this genre. The draft Bill does not explain how the enforcement at the consumer’s level will improve in days to come. The existing legal framework is obtained in the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act 1954 (PFA). The Act has undergone a number of amendments to make it more contemporary in terms of the changing consumers tastes and habits, especially the food items. An exhaustive Annexure B of the PFA Act 1954 (Rules) has detailed pertinent standards for almost all food items. The enforcement domain at the ground level vests with the Health Department. The modern challenges in the food business certainly require strengthening of this ground level infrastructure. Instead the draft Bill proposes to repeal the PFA Act along with many other statutory provisions. Thus it is clear that consumers in the country will suffer in the period the draft Bill remains pending. The favourable argument for establishing a food safety and standards authority in India can be appreciated on two ground truths. The scientific merit of the standards to be followed in the domestic food chain is the first. Secondly, the welfare and social justice plaint of consumers as well as producers cannot be abdicated by the state. Ironically, the proposal in the draft is oblivious of both these manifestations obtaining in the country. In the competitive world today there is need for separating the standards setting and examining body from the enforcement body. The French brought about such structural changes in 1999. India too can go in for a cooperative adaptation. This is very easy and cost effective in the present globalised world. There are five apex level agencies in the US. Multiple agencies exist in many OECD countries. A cooperative adaptation system is different from the authoritative implementation model envisaged in the draft Bill. The French structure was a response to the exploitative and manipulative muscles of the private players. Besides, the consumers are better organised and have a distinct space in society. The production landscape too is different. |
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Delhi Durbar Maneka
Gandhi’s son Varun Gandhi maintained on BBC’s “Hard Talk” that there is no rift between him and his aunt Sonia Gandhi. While admitting that the Gandhi name has its advantages in politics, he maintained that he has never bad-mouthed Sonia Gandhi or his cousins Rahul and Priyanka. Despite being asked several controversial questions about his mother’s uneasy relationship with the late Indira Gandhi, he kept his poise and cool and answered without hedging. He denied that his mother was thrown out of the Gandhi household. On the contrary, there were forces outside which had compelled his mother to leave the Gandhi household on her own. He also made it a point to bring to the fore that his father, the late Sanjay Gandhi, was a much misunderstood man. He supported BJP President L.K. Advani praising Mohammad Ali Jinnah, insisting that the controversy had arisen as his comments were taken out of context. Mangal Pande in English Its Bollywood version was named “Mangal Pandey: The Rising”. Its English version, which is being commercially released in the United States later this month, is simply known as “The Rising”. A preview of the English version of the film is being organised at Siri Fort on October 28 as part of a cultural festival called “Building Bridges”, which the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) is organising in association with the United Nations Information Centre. The cultural festival also marks the completion of 60 years of existence of the United Nations and coincides with 60 years of India’s membership of the UN. DG Pavan K. Verma says that the ICCR is thinking about organising a cultural festival like “Building Bridges” on an annual basis. Left hobnobs with SP The Left’s hobnobbing with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party has found some heads turning in the Congress. The Left’s patent double standards are there for all to see, observed a Congress leader. He drew attention to the Left roping in the SP following India voting against Iran in Vienna last month. CPI (M) heavyweight Prakash Karat had even travelled to Lucknow to meet Mulayam Singh Yadav. And the SP was specially invited to the recent Left meet to rally support against the Manmohan Singh government’s Iran policy. Earthquake centre in Delhi Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal is keen to set up an earthquake precursor centre in the national Capital. It is in this connection that he is on a tour of Iceland, the world leader in earthquake precursor sciences. The October 8 earthquake had caused huge loss to life and property. The aftershocks are still being felt. Global earthquake specialists have warned that there is a more serious one waiting to happen. Contributed by S. Satyanarayanan, Rajeev Sharma, R. Suryamurthy and Prashant Sood. |
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From the pages of Contracts for Delhi Durbar
There is one sentence in Mr Harkishen Lal’s address delivered the other day at the annual meeting of the Desi Beopar Mandal which is deserving of the careful attention of Government. Referring to the approaching visit of Their Majesties the King-Emperor and his noble consort, Mr Harkishen Lal said that “it is said that the visit will appeal to the imagination of the imaginative East, but I may very humbly and respectfully submit that to the imagination of the commercial community of the Province profits made out of Durbar contracts will appeal more effectively than the absence of them.” We have already pointed out in these columns that the absence of the non-official Indian element from the governing body of the Durbar is a most unsatisfactory feature of the arrangements. The complaint is loud and persistent that although the Durbar is going to be held in the Punjab, the contractors and others to whom the various profitable jobs have been entrusted do not belong to this Province. In fact the bulk of the contracts has been given to European firms. |
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. — Robert Frost First secure the oil of divine love, and then set your hand to the duties of the world. — Ramakrishna Who is greater sinner... One who knows and yet sins willfully or one who sits not knowing what he does. — Book of quotations on Hinduism An honest man is the noblest work of God. — Book of quotations on Religion |
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