The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

Message from LoC
People yearn for peace

MONDAY was supposed to provide a life-time’s opportunity to the Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control to meet their near and dear ones, but this could not happen because of procedural problems. Even the transfer of relief material for eathquake victims could be possible only at one point despite an agreement to make such arrangements at five points. The large number of people, particularly on the other side near Titrinote village, who had gathered to make use of the opportunity went back disappointed but not without expressing their long-cherished desire: make the LoC irrelevant.

Of course, walking over to either side of the LoC is an entirely different experience than that by using the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service. But the point is that people are mainly interested in meeting each other; who controls which side is not their problem. Once they are able to cross over the LoC with little documentation required, the Kashmir question, at least for them, will become irrelevant. Hence the need for promoting people-to-people contacts, as emphasised by India on every available occasion. But Pakistan has not been as forthcoming as it ought to be. It suspects every Indian move even if meant for purely humanitarian purposes. That is why Pakistan did not allow the Indian trucks carrying relief material to reach the other side of the LoC on Monday. Earlier, it refused to accept Indian helicopters for rescue operations if piloted by Indians after the earthquake hit Muzaffaraband and other PoK areas. Pakistani’s mindset is yet to change.

On its part, India has been taking a lot of risk by allowing the softening of the LoC. Pakistan has not done enough to eliminate the terrorist problem. Earthquake relief work has provided fresh proof that the terrorists remain as active and organised as ever, despite the promises made by Pakistan to tackle the problem. Softening of the LoC can be a permanent feature only when the terrorist menace disappears forever. The terrorists must not be allowed to come in the way of the people who yearn for peace.

Quota for Muslims
AP govt should respect court order

IT is no surprise that a five-member Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court has – and rightfully so – quashed as “unconstitutional” the state government’s order on 5 per cent reservation for Muslims in jobs and education. The principle on which the Andhra Pradesh government passed this order has no constitutional basis. Secondly, the way in which Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy fabricated this policy and sought to implement it is flawed. Finally, the motives of the state Congress party for pushing this measure are blatantly political and highly suspect. Although two of the three judges differed on the validity of religion as a basis for reservations, at present this is only of academic interest. More important is that the judges were unanimous in striking down the reservations extended to Muslims.

Muslims deserve every encouragement and support for education and employment to attain greater social and economic mobility. But reservation is not the route through which it can or should be done as such an approach would further ghettoise the community as a whole and entrench a siege mentality. There are other feasible approaches, which the Andhra Pradesh government should consider instead of appealing against this decision in the Supreme Court – which the Chief Minister said he intends to do. Such a course would be mere grandstanding with an eye on sectarian politics.

The fact that the reservation for Muslims has failed to pass legal and constitutional tests at every stage since May 2004 is rationale enough for the state government to desist from pursuing this any further. The order was struck down earlier too by the AP High Court and the expedient setting up of a Backward Classes Commission with the sole purpose of listing the Muslims as a Backward Class has not achieved the desired result. On the contrary, it has only exposed the deviousness of the state’s political leadership. It would be folly to persist with a move, which though futile, is fraught with unpalatable sectarian sentiment.

No longer white gold
Cotton goes begging

DESPITE a bumper crop and a respite from pest attacks this season, cotton growers in Punjab are a worried lot. Some protested outside the Bathinda office of the Cotton Corporation of India on Monday and later blocked road traffic to demand faster procurement and an increase in the minimum support price of cotton. They desperately need money to buy inputs for the next crop. Their demand for a hike in the cotton MSP has gone unheeded, though they have a valid case. The MSP was fixed at Rs 1,800 by the Centre in 1990 for varieties no longer grown. Today the MSP is at Rs 1,835, though last month the price had crashed to Rs 1,735. Cotton fetches a better price elsewhere — up to Rs 1980 in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

Although farmers blame the not-so-uncommon trader-official nexus for the low prices, it is actually surplus global production, sufficient stocks within the country and a decline in internal demand which are driving down the prices. Because of poor quality and a high market fee, the Punjab cotton cannot compete — domestically or globally. The market fee in Punjab is 4 per cent — 2 per cent for the urban development fund and 2 per cent for the rural development fund. The market fee ranges from 0.5 per cent to 1.6 per cent in Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat. Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Traders find it less remunerative to buy cotton in Punjab.

Surprisingly, while cotton growers suffer losses, textile millers, particularly exporters, stand to gain. This is not just because the prices are low, also because of a surge in textile exports after the European quota’s abolition. The exports to Europe have jumped from 6 per cent to 17 per cent within a short time, though the gains are no where near that of China. Punjab farmers, on their part, need to cut their costs of cultivation to stay competitive. The state government will have to shed flab and extravagance, and the taxes to let farmers and industry thrive.

ARTICLE

Softening of the border
Time for reality check by India
by Sushant Sareen

UNLIKE individuals, nations can seldom afford mushy sentimentalism. Even in the face of a monumental calamity, nation-states try to ensure that their vital interests, as they see them, are not compromised on the altar of sentimentalism. This is exactly what we are witnessing in the game of one-upmanship underway between India and Pakistan to win the hearts and minds of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, who are reeling in the aftermath of the most devastating earthquake in living memory in the region.

In the initial flush of the tragedy, India offered assistance to Pakistan, including military helicopters to ferry supplies and evacuate people. The instinctive Pakistani reaction was to say, “thanks, but no thanks”. Clearly, the imagined political sensitivities attached to any involvement of Indian military personnel across the Line of Control (LoC) far outweighed the urgency of providing relief and rescue to the affected people living under Pakistani occupation. But after facing flak over the refusal of Indian assistance at a time when its own forces were unable to respond promptly enough to provide succour to the hapless people of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the Pakistan government needed to do something that would restore its image and credibility among the Kashmiris as well as the international community.

This is perhaps what prompted the Pakistani establishment to propose softening of the LoC so that Kashmiris from both sides could travel freely across the divide to provide support to their relatives as also to participate in the relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction of the devastated areas. The Indian side responded to this proposal by announcing the setting up of three relief camps on the LoC for the benefit of the quake-affected people of PoK.

On the face of it, these proposals seem almost revolutionary, something that could affect a paradigm change in Kashmir. But a closer scrutiny reveals that these are really a variant of proposals that were already doing the rounds in informal as also formal negotiations between the two countries and which have been publicised through either the media or public statements by leaders on both sides. For instance, General Musharraf has been talking about “making borders irrelevant” as a possible solution to the Kashmir problem.

Similarly, India had proposed setting up of designated spots along the LoC where divided families could come and meet. In this sense, there is really nothing new in these proposals as they were already being considered as a part of the continuing confidence-building measures on Kashmir between India and Pakistan. The earthquake has only fast-forwarded the sequencing of these CBMs.

In the normal course, these proposals would have come up for discussion in the next round of the composite dialogue, and perhaps it would have taken anything between six months and a year and maybe more for these to be implemented. During this time, the ground work necessary for successfully delivering these proposals without compromising on the political and security interests of both sides would have been done. But the competitive haste (despite the urgency lent by the tragedy of the quake) with which these proposals are now being considered could end up creating more difficulties in the path of the peace process, especially from India’s point of view. The big question is whether India has even thought through its rather limited proposal of setting up relief camps along the LoC.

For one, these camps can never become operational without the concurrence of the Pakistani side. This much became clear when Pakistani soldiers stopped the Indian Army from building a foot bridge on the Kishanganga river in the Tithwal sector. Even more serious is the political implication of these camps. How long will India host the people who come to these camps? What if these people, many of whom might have lost everything in PoK and still have families in Jammu and Kashmir, want to settle in the Indian-controlled part of the state? Assume the LoC is softened. Can a concession once given be withdrawn as it will have to be if there is a further increase in terrorist activity from across the LoC. Can we once again block the LoC without any serious political repercussions?

The answers to these questions depend on how one interprets the proposals being made on the LoC. There are essentially two interpretations to these proposals. The first and more benign interpretation is that General Musharraf is using the opportunity offered by the quake to bring forward his scheme of softening the LoC and making borders irrelevant and thereby settling the Kashmir issue with India.

The second and more cynical view is that given Pakistan’s obsession with Kashmir (as evidenced by the paranoia of the Pakistan Army, which was more interested in reinforcing its defence lines along the LoC to forestall any possible Indian adventurism before engaging in any relief or rescue mission), the LoC proposal is a continuation of the policy of wresting Kashmir from India through peaceful means. In other words, create political conditions inside Kashmir that leave India with no feet to stand on inside Jammu and Kashmir.

The fact that the only political and military leverage that Pakistan really enjoys and employs inside Jammu and Kashmir - the jihadi militias - has become overactive in both carrying out terrorist attacks and relief work lends some credence to the fears being expressed by the skeptics. If anything, the ability of Pakistan to rein in the Islamists and jihadi groups has been severely compromised by the plaudits they have won on account of their sterling efforts in being in the vanguard of the relief, rescue and rehabilitation of the affected people.

So, even though Pakistan may be open to a settlement on Kashmir, the non-state actors could well play the role of spoilers as far as the peace process is concerned. Already, the jihadi groups have made their intentions clear by notching up violence in the state and a hamstrung Pakistani regime, struggling with getting its act together in the quake-affected areas, will find that its ability to crackdown on these groups extremely limited and indeed perilous.

As far as India is concerned, the LoC proposals demand a reality check over its Kashmir policy. Unless India can turn the political opinion inside Kashmir in its favour, any softening of the LoC could only worsen the situation for this country. So far India seems to have adopted an ostrich-like approach on Kashmir. Far too much capital has been invested in CBMs in the somewhat naïve belief that this will obviate the need to address the political alienation of the people inside the Indian state. In the process, the politics of the Kashmir problem has been ignored, which could ultimately either derail the peace process, or force India into a situation where it has to compromise on either territory or sovereignty or even both in Kashmir.

MIDDLE

Flower Stealing Day
by Jayanti Roy

DAWN is yet to alight. Night’s left hand is still in the sky. There are light steps outside in my garden, hushing tones, furtive activity then fading noises and at last silence. I know, without even glancing at the calendar, it is the flower-stealing day. By the time the sun rises my garden will be shorn of all the blooms, plucked away and gone!

This day comes about 45 times in a year. I can count those dates on my fingers — Saraswati Puja, Shivratri, Janamashtami, 31st March, 5th September, Lakshmi Puja — all these are flower-stealing days. In addition there are Jagrata and Keertan days also.

No, not all flowers vanish on all these days. The stealers are very specific. I must admit.On Saraswati Puja all white flowers are gone — Shefali, Jasmine, Motia, Rajani-gandha. On Shivratri gone are the blue Aparajita — favourite flower of Shiva, three-leafed Belpatras and all varieties of Dhatura. On other puja days marigolds and chrysanthemums are stolen while on 31st March and 5th September roses and gladioli sticks are taken away.

I know my flowers end up on the temple altars, as garlands around the deity’s necks and at the feet of gods and goddesses or in the hands of revered teachers as innocently prepared bouquets.

The flower thieves have a claim on my garden on these flower-stealing days. Their audacity is amazing. Once I caught a middle aged woman red-handed plucking my lovely madhavilata flowers. “Don’t you have any shame offering stolen flowers from somebody’s garden who is working so hard to grow them. If you need them so urgently grow them at your home!,” I said. After all the bashing and lecture on morality she unabashedly said: “OK OK! Now give me some flowers, quickly. I am getting late for the temple,”

On 31st March which is the day results are out in our schools and 5th September — the teacher’s day — are the days when the schoolgoing boys and girls in school uniforms steal flowers, prepare bouquets and present them to their teachers. They dare to take risk, climbing high to cut flowers with long stems. Some little girls even knock at my door and say: “The boys have taken away all the roses. Ask uncle to give us the red roses on the terrace. We need to gift them to our teacher.” How far the teachers are aware their bouquets being booties I am not sure.

Earlier, I was too much resistant to these flower-stealing days, making efforts to foil the flower-stealing ploys and used to mind the sacrilege of my garden. Over the years I’ve grown out of the “Devil’s garden” approach and now like all the other important days in my life — mother’s day, valentine day I look forward to the flower-stealing days too.

OPED

News analysis
Tough challenges before J and K’s new CM
by Ehsan Fazili

FOR the new Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, who took over in Srinagar on Wednesday, it is not going to be a cakewalk. Like his predecessor, he has the challenging task of keeping the multiple party flock together for the next three years apart from accomplishing major tasks specified by him soon after taking over.

His priorities include relief and rehabilitation measures for the earthquake victims of Uri and Tangdhar areas of north Kashmir, the worst hit area in the state. After the present task of providing relief measures and getting those dislocated due to the quake rehabilitated, his long-term priority is peace, which, according to him, is necessary for overall development. This, he said, was essential for growth to seek a confident future for the young generation.

His other priorities include a check on human rights violations and custodial killings, for which the security forces have come under severe criticism over the years. Not only that, Mr Azad had also a word of caution and warning for the militants, who according to him, will “not be allowed to destabilise the peace process through their violent activities”.

In order to ensure a corruption-free administration, the Chief Minister said that the Accountability Commission would probe all complaints of irregularities to book the culprits. The chief of the Accountability Commission was appointed and sworn in by the State Governor on August 26 last, about three years after an Act to this effect was passed by the Mufti-led coalition government.

“Time has come for launching the agenda for good governance and no compromise will be made”, Mr Azad commented. He also resolved to work for the protection of lives and property of the people of this state. He felt that the people of Jammu and Kashmir had realised the consequences of violence.

His predecessor, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, three years back had taken charge with a thrust on healing touch policy, peace with dignity and an end to human rights violations. That was “necessitated” with the people’s verdict going against the National Conference, reducing it to the opposition, even as it was the largest party in the 2002 assembly elections.

Sensing the mood of the people “against the National Conference after 27 years”, the Mufti worked hard on his newly constituted Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), working out partnership with the Congress and other like-minded parties to lead a coalition government. The new Chief Minister will have to take the strings from his predecessor to move ahead.

At the same time by specifying his priorities soon after taking over, he indicated that there would be least deviation from the common minimum programme of the coalition partners. The main issue remained the restoration of peace in this trouble-torn State, where violence remains unabated irrespective of any mainstream party taking the reigns of the government in the State or at the Centre.

Mr Azad felt that the State lacked good governance and good politics. Even as he pointed out that good governance was possible as it was in “our hands”, good politics was not possible for the involvement of outside elements. Both the Mufti and Mr Azad give credit to their leadership and parties for the initiation of the dialogue process both at the Indo-Pak level and the Centre-APHC level.

Though observers opine that little progress has been made on improving relations between the two countries, the separatists regard the change of guard as useless unless the basic issue of Kashmir is addressed.

In choosing members of his Council of Ministers, Mr Azad has tried to give representation to all the coalition partners and all the three regions of the State—-Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. He himself is the first Chief Minister from the Jammu region, from outside the valley.

The new arrangement, however, seems to be disproportionate in many respects, the first for having no representation to five districts out of the 14 in the state—- Kupwra, Pulwama, Rajouri, Poonch and Udhampur. Unlike in the past, there is also no representation to Kashmiri Pandits, Sikhs and women in the Council of Ministers, even as the “distinguished performance” of many in the past like that of Mr Raman Bhalla of the Congress has been ignored. There can be a chance for overcoming these shortcomings as the Council of Ministers will be expanded over the next couple of months.

Moreover, the opposition National Conference, with 24 members against 31 of the Congress and 17 of the PDP, is considered to be “getting closer” to the ruling party. The National Conference President, Mr Omar Abdullah, however, pledges to play the role of Opposition as he did with Mufti Sayeed in the saddle. “We supported the PDP for the peace process and need for dialogue and will continue to support Mr Azad”, Mr Omar told The Tribune.

There is already disappointment among the PDP top leaders and former ministers with the new arrangement and portfolios. Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, though pledged to extend full support to the new Chief Minister, does not seem to be happy with the way the Congress has effected the change of power.

India’s ‘Panama Canal’
by Justin Huggler

FOR centuries, no ship has been able to pass between India and Sri Lanka. The way is blocked by a narrow, 18-mile chain of sand shoals. Known as Adam’s Bridge in the West, to devout Hindus it is Ram’s Bridge, built by the god Ram to get his army to Sri Lanka to rescue his bride Sita from the demon king Ravana.

But the Indian government is cutting a shipping route through the shoals in what it is already touting as “India’s Panama Canal”. The finished canal, 167km long and 300m wide, will shorten the sailing time of ships from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal by more than 30 hours.

But environmentalists warn that the £300m project will be an ecological disaster, destroying precious coral reefs, and starving the endangered dugong, or sea cow. Local fishermen are protesting too, saying the project will kill fish stocks.

“An old wish is finally fulfilled,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said at a ceremony to begin the Sethusamudram canal project in July.

A canal has been dreamt about since British colonial times. Unlike the Suez and Panama canals, which involved cutting through solid land, the Sethusamudram canal is a massive dredging operation. Around Adam’s Bridge, the sea is shallow, varying from 10m deep to as little as 2.5m. India is using dredgers to cut a channel deep enough for ships.

The problem, Sanjeev Gopal of Greenpeace says, is the large amount of underwater sediment that will be disturbed by this dredging. He believes it will wreck coral reefs and affect the nearby Gulf of Mannar marine reserve. Home to more than 3,600 species, the Gulf of Mannar reserve has been designated as a world heritage site by Unesco.

Unlike a land canal, work on Sethusamudram will never stop. Underwater silting means the canal will have to be constantly dredged to keep it open. “[This] will spread the sediment far and wide,” Mr Gopal says. “It will eventually smother the coral reef systems, and if they are smothered the reefs will collapse.”

The Gulf of Mannar is renowned for its critically endangered dugongs. Mr Gopal says they too will be affected by Sethusamudram. “The sediment will make the water cloudy and prevent sunlight getting through,” he says. “Sunlight is essential to the sea grass which the dugongs feed off.”

As well as the dugongs, the Gulf of Mannar is home to sharks and sea snakes, and there have been sightings of humpback whales. Local environmental groups are mounting campaigns against the canal, but the Indian government insists Sethusamudram will not damage the marine life.

Sri Lankan environmentalists are furious that India did not even ask their government for its approval for a project that will have such a severe affect on Sri Lankan waters. But the Sri Lankan government, financially crippled by years of war with Tamil Tiger rebels, and coping with last year’s tsunami disaster, is in no mood to argue with its far more powerful neighbour.

So far, the only government opposition has come from the state government of Tamil Nadu, within India. Environmentalists insist Sethusamudram is not only an environmental disaster, but a white elephant as well.

— The Independent

How not to woo women readers
by Jane Thynne

ALL girls are housewives at heart. They like things to be pretty. They love baking and yoga. And while they enjoy their careers, what most secretly want is to stay at home and knit their own breast cancer cure.

Any Martian picking up one of British papers might be forgiven for thinking that this is the state of play in the gender wars. There is an indefinable girliness in the air, a focus on domesticity as never before.

Why not woo women with harder-hitting news exclusives, or deeper analysis of the pensions crisis? Thrill them with the prospect of more foreign affairs or business content? Instead, it appears that shopping, consuming, celebrity and health are the key weapons in the battle for domestic goddesses.

Coming out of the domestic closet last week was Lucy Cavendish, the Evening Standard columnist, who announced that staying at home was the new feminism. Giving up the office is “breaking the last taboo”, she wrote. “It’s no fun being a woman holding down a full-time job and also trying to run a house, children and a marriage,” she told The Independent.

Rosie Boycott, a former national newspaper editor herself, says “Women know that the everyday is extremely important - what you’re buying and feeding your kids.

“We’ve relocated our centre of gravity since the 1980s, when it was a no-go area for a successful woman to admit you like that kind of stuff, and we were all enslaved by that vile Superwoman thing.”

She adds, “It’s not that women aren’t interested in international politics, but they’re disenchanted by it and realise there’s more you can do in your own life.”

However, journalist Tracey MacLeod deplores the presumptions behind what women want: “I instinctively do a body swerve away from papers that seem skewed to a female agenda. I want to read a mixed offering; I don’t want this idea that someone is producing a special supplement for ladies.”

“Women readers” have long been talked of in Fleet Street with a mixture of yearning and denigration. Anyone who has worked in newspapers in the past two decades can recall meetings full of men in suits agonising about attracting women.

Women are seen as a quixotic constituency, elusive. But, because of their spending habits — the prime choosers of food, clothes and holidays — they are disproportionately desirable to advertisers.

But do women mind being targeted with items on shopping and consuming and celebrity and health? Do they feel flattered or patronised? Not, it seems, if it’s coming from women themselves.

In marked contrast to the days when one tabloid editor used to refer to himself as “chief tampon” because he worked surrounded by female colleagues, everyone on Fleet Street is now accustomed to working alongside, if not under, women journalists.

Female editors abound. As well as Rebekah Wade at The Sun, Veronica Wadley at the Evening Standard and Tina Weaver at the Sunday Mirror, there are deputy editors Georgina Henry at The Guardian and Chrystia Freeland at the Financial Times.

The conundrum is that a female editor does not, except in the case of the Sunday Mirror - where 54 per cent of readers are now women - mean more female readers.

Under Rebekah Wade, The Sun has lost 7 per cent of its women readers, and the female readership at the Evening Standard under Veronica Wadley is thought to have slipped further from 45 per cent.

— The Independent