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Ex-MP Jaya Bachchan Dam must go on |
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Net presence India should rise higher than No. 10 INDIA being the 10th largest user of the Internet in the world is hardly a cause for celebration. Its online population of 16. 713 million users is only a tiny fraction of the total 694 million worldwide. The US, with 152 million online users, is still at the top.
Kargil and after
My loving lake
Business across borders Quest for truth should be paramount Towards a foreign policy of realistic idealism
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Ex-MP Jaya Bachchan THE Supreme Court’s rejection of Jaya Bachchan’s petition against her disqualification from the membership of the Rajya Sabha by the Election Commission on grounds of holding an office of profit was not entirely unexpected. Ms Bachchan has been caught on the wrong side of the law. Significantly, the court has rejected her contention that she did not hold any office of profit because she neither drew any remuneration nor enjoyed any perks as Chairperson of the Uttar Pradesh Film Development Corporation. The three-member Bench headed by Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal ruled that the question whether Ms Bachchan actually received any pecuniary gain or not is of no consequence because the law on this point had been settled by the apex court decades ago. It maintained that any government office capable of yielding pecuniary gain or material benefit would automatically attract disqualification. The apex court ruling is timely because Parliament is in the process of amending the Prevention of Disqualification Act, 1959, to bail out over 30 MPs and 200 MLAs against whom disqualification proceedings for holding various offices of profit are pending before the Election Commission. Most likely, Parliament, which will resume its post-Budget session from May 10, will hasten the Amendment to Article 102 (1) of the Constitution dealing with the office of profit. In the light of the current experience, there is a need for uniform legislation for Parliament and state legislatures. The office of profit should be clearly defined, leaving no scope for ambiguity or misinterpretation. The Supreme Court ruling will, certainly, act as a guiding principle in this regard. Nonetheless, the lawmakers should also promote healthy parliamentary practices and conventions. The root of the problem lies in the propensity of the political masters to keep legislators in good humour by doling out offices of profit. What is the use of the Constitution if the powers that be show scant respect to it? Consider how the states scuttle the Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act that curtails the ministries’ size and appoint parliamentary secretaries. The lawmakers should themselves show respect for the laws instead of tinkering with them for narrow partisan ends.
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Dam must go on NOW that the Supreme Court has declined Narmada Bachao Andolan’s plea to stop the ongoing construction work to raise the height of Sardar sarovar Dam from the existing 110 metres to 121.92 metres at this stage, the NBA should not put any more hurdles in the way of the construction because the dam happens to be the lifeline for millions of water-starved residents of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. How essential the dam is to improve the country’s precarious power supply situation can also not be overstressed. There is no dispute whatsoever over the fact that there is need for proper relocation and rehabilitation of the people whose land is going to be submerged. This has not been as satisfactory as it should have been. But that should not be used as a pretext to condemn the dam. All mega projects, be they dams, highways or new cities, entail dislocation of some people. This process has to be made as painless as possible. But debunking the mega projects in toto will guarantee that millions of people continue to live in poverty and all it entails. The three-member committee constituted by the Prime Minister to look into the relief and rehabilitation work for project-affected families in Madhya Pradesh should take care of all the shortcomings that may have cropped in. With so much focus on their plight, it is doubtful that either the Centre or the states will leave the oustees in the lurch. Their welfare should be a responsibility of the states concerned and the nation. Concern of the protesters for the well-being of the affected people is understandable. Collective bargaining to ensure that everyone gets adequate compensation is welcome, but this should not become an excuse for putting spokes in the wheels of progress. India needs electricity and irrigation water in huge quantities if it has to get over its economic backwardness. These essential requirements cannot be fulfilled by becoming a perennial
naysayer.
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Net presence INDIA being the 10th largest user of the Internet in the world is hardly a cause for celebration. Its online population of 16. 713 million users is only a tiny fraction of the total 694 million worldwide. The US, with 152 million online users, is still at the top. It is followed by China (74.7 million), Japan (52.1 million), Germany (31.8 million), and the United Kingdom (30.2 million). The online world is no longer a Eurocentric one. A significant one-forth of the online usage comes from China, Japan, India and South Korea. These four Asian countries have a total of 168.1 million users, which is higher than the total number of users in the US. Though infrastructure has taken impressive strides in the recent past and India has scored higher than countries like Russia, Australia, Spain and Brazil, the position is just an indication of the nation’s potential. While the younger generation and the business community on the whole have been quick to seize the usefulness of the Net, the mindset has to change for wider adoption of the medium. E-governance can go a long way in both improving the quality of life of the citizens at large as well as the efficiency of administration. The main difficulty in implementing such measures has been the resistance from the bureaucracy, which is loathe to untangle endless red tape. Similarly, more stress needs to be laid on distance learning through computers. Though impressive strides have been made in integrating various Indian languages into computers, widespread adoption of the computer in a non-English environment is lacking. Less than a decade ago, such a high Internet penetration and broadband services would have seemed impossible. The nation has progressed much and IT now occupies much mindspace of the government, state governments, businessmen, educationists and even common people with an eye on the future. The potential for growth of IT is great, and so are the expectations.
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The danger chiefly lies in acting well;/No crime’s so great as daring to excel. — Charles Churchill
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Kargil and after HISTORY of human conflict and wars has persistently included three elements. More often than not, fighting men, unless they are incapable or lack the grit, inevitably bear the cost of (military, political and bureaucratic) planning and intelligence failures. While numerous parameters and factors can be identified for this phenomenon, what is clear from the past experience is that this mostly results from the problem of a mindset that refuses to open up to even identifiable trends and/or makes assumptions about the adversary that, in reality, cannot be justified. Rarely does the enemy behave as you would want or expect it to; and rarely do we look at the persistency in the mindsets of the adversary or, for that matter, our own. Secondly, there is the proverbial “fog of war” which not only affects the planning processes, but also its existence strongly influences the conduct and outcome of war. It is not necessary that the initiator of a war is subject to any less fog and can see things more clearly than the defender. And rarely has post-war analysis dispelled the whole of it. What is common to all wars is that they create their own fog of myths. For example, the head of Pakistan’s premier think tank, Institute of Strategic Studies, claimed in her book three years ago that India started the Kargil war in 1999! We in India have added to our own problems by not writing authentic history of the wars we have had to fight. Thirdly, the victor and the vanquished tend to gloss over even clearly visible trends in the nature of war and the influence of technology and doctrine on it. For example, we seem not to have adapted our conventional military-defence strategy to the existence of nuclear weapons with Pakistan at least since 1987, while Pakistan crafted a strategy to exploit the strategic space below the nuclear level through its sub-conventional war with the help of terrorism and limited conventional war in Kargil. It is in this context that the just-released book by Gen V. P. Malik (Kargil: From Surprise to Victory, a Harper-Collins India Today venture), who was the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) during the Kargil war in 1999, stands out as perhaps the most valuable contribution to our military literature since Independence. Bias is an inevitable companion of history. But General Malik does an excellent job of keeping it to the very minimum. He is candid in admitting that we were surprised (as indeed the title itself indicates) and the Indian Army itself was a contributor to that failure. With intelligence, the failures receive much more attention than successes. But we have had more than our share of such failures in the past, especially in military-related intelligence. But the malaise was known. Good one year before the Kargil war, serving and retired heads of intelligence agencies and the JIC (Joint Intelligence Committee) were unanimous in their personal opinion to the NSC Task Force that our intelligence system was fundamentally weak and unable to deliver! Inter-agency coordination was absent. The Kargil Review Committee came to a similar conclusion. By exploding the myth that has been built up about our higher defence organisation candidly by recording the details, General Malik has rendered yeoman service to the nation (and he is likely to be criticised for it by many who rely more on their beliefs than on facts) that parallels his role as the chief of a victorious army. Contrary to conventional wisdom, an objective reading of the book by the then COAS clearly indicates that while there were inevitable differences of professional judgement, they did not in any way impinge negatively on our prosecution of the war, and the Chiefs of Staff Committee and the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) worked in harmonious synergy on a near-daily basis. One wonders why the GOM (Group of Ministers) asserted that the Chiefs of Staff Committee “has not been effective in fulfilling its mandate.” Obviously, they were wrongly advised, and that too after the defence forces won a victory notwithstanding intelligence failures and the resulting strategic surprise. The conclusion is inevitable that the Group of Ministers’ recommendation has been shaped not by facts or logic but only by a desire to create a CDS (Chief of Defence Staff)! One of the myths that grew out of the war was that the IAF did not want to come to the aid of the Army. Though he appears unhappy that the IAF told the Army that attack helicopters could not operate at those heights and political approval was necessary in view of the risk of escalation, General Malik makes it clear that the CCS at its meeting on May 18, 1999, agreed with the Air Chief and did not approve of the proposal to employ the IAF. He also records that Lieut-Gen Krishan Pal, GOC 15 Corps, responsible for the Kargil sector, had told a Press conference the following day that the intrusion was “a local situation to be dealt (with) locally.” Our knowledge and understanding of the situation evolved in the three weeks of May 1999 from the assumption that the intruders were a handful of jihadi fighters to the view (contested by our intelligence agencies) that the intrusion was extensive and entirely by Pakistan Army troops. It would have been natural for the political leadership to exercise restraint while hopes were pinned on track-2 diplomacy. At the end, General Malik agrees that the use of air power (IAF and Army Aviation Corps) “altered the dynamics of the war” in our favour. This is indeed refreshing when seen in the context of former army commanders either ignoring the role of the IAF (as Lieut-General Candeth did writing his book on the 1971 war) or outright condemned it (as Lieut-General Harbakhsh did while recording evidence to the contrary in his own book regarding the1965 war). It is sad to read that the Prime Minister, having asked the Secretary, NSCS, for an updated assessment due to previous differences, ignored the assessment of the Army Chief that we were facing Pakistani military forces fighting from positions of advantage and instead accepted that of the Secretary’s endorsement of the intelligence agencies’ assessment that the Pakistan mujahideen to army ratio was 70:30. As an explanation at the CCS meeting, he shared the knowledge with the Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee, in an aside, saying that “General Malik, inki (intelligence agency heads) bhi to laaj rakhni hai” (we have to save their honour too). Hopefully, this was meant as a joke, and not the basis for a national assessment critical for military planning in a war. The writer, a former Director, Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, is Director, Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi.
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My loving lake EVERY time I come back to the valley, it seduces me in new ways. The last I came, it had looked beautiful even in vulnerability. This time too it looks much the same but for different, more pleasant reasons. It seems closer to its soul, much more at peace with itself. Not that the dark shadows of the past have ceased to haunt its boulevards. But somewhere along the line they have fallen out of pace with a future that is both bright and beckoning. Much of this brightness finds a reflection in still waters of Dal Lake, which has finally emerged from the gloom to wear bridal hues, and entice all that pass it by, I being no exception. So the moment I got an invitation for dinner at a houseboat, I amassed all the romanticism I could. It was my turn to seduce the valley back, and strike the critical balance in love. Ready to embrace the Dal under a star-studded sky I stepped into the shikara, releasing the memories I had long withheld in the recesses of my mind. It was here in these waters that I took my first lessons in flowers, with special reference to lotus — queen flower of Dal Lake. I still remember my first shikara ride through lotus gardens inside the lake, and the amusing revelation that had followed. “Do you know the lotus stem is edible and incredibly delicious?” the old shikara man had asked me. And I had returned a “genuinely curious” glance, lacing it with all my childish innocence. Without wasting a moment, he had pulled out a fresh nadru (the Kashmiri name for lotus stem) from the Lake, taken it home to his houseboat and laid it as a feast for me to savour. The taste still lingers, so does the memory — caressing and comforting as ever. Those were the days when a month in a year was religiously reserved for sparkling waters of the Dal. I hate to remember how the promise was broken, more so to recall a dreary Dal that lost its sheen to secession in the valley. But like painful memories that die their own death, Dal was casting away its gloom. Sitting in the shikara under the night sky that day, I witnessed the resurgence of a legendary lake. Even at that hour in the night, it was brimming with life and energy. It was wearing a familiar, self-assured look and priding in pristine glory. But before I could soak up in the newfound bliss my lake was offering, it was time to alight on the deck of “Mother India” — our host houseboat for the night. It was an incredibly luxurious boat - one that had been lavished with antiquities and exquisite woodwork created by master craftsmen, now very far and few. I sipped the tastefully presented cup of “Kehva” — traditional Kashmiri tea — and wondered if I could revisit the lingering taste of lotus stem. “It is not the season,” someone whispered from behind. Just when I was about to consign my wish to a corner, here it was. The hosts had managed to lay a feast of “nadru” despite the hitch of season. The valley had seduced me, yet
again!
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Business across borders THE current peace process between India and Pakistan is operating at several levels and the constituency of peace offers rich dividends for the political class and the people. Yet its speed sometimes belies hope and a skeptical and apprehensive public feels disheartened. Look at the trade barriers the two countries have erected – they just do not go away despite a host of meetings, pious declarations and agreements. Trade talks move at a snail’s pace despite the demand from the industry, trade and the public. How does one explain the denial of the Wagha – Atari land route for India to reach Afghanistan? The two countries have active links via road (Amritsar to Lahore) and rail links (Atari- Lahore) linking the two Punjabs. The Munabao-Khokhrapar rail link connects Rajasthan and Sindh. For trade purposes, these remain underutilised. Bilateral trade between India and Pakistan is extraordinarily meagre – less than one percent of their global trade. In turn, it has impacted economic integration in the South Asian region as a whole. Pakistan allows Indian goods either to be smuggled or imported from Singapore and Dubai. In 2000-2001, India exported goods worth only $186 million to Pakistan, out of $44 billion of its total exports. Pakistan’s total export was $8.8 billion, but only $65 million to India. Despite the large increase in the list of “positive items” to 1059, bilateral trade continues to be small, at less than one billion dollars. Currently, Pakistan has an adverse balance of trade of $259 million. The total volume of trade between the two countries in 2004-2005 was $835 million, an increase from $436 million a year earlier. Pakistan exported to India in 2004-05 goods worth $288 million and its imports from India were $547 million. State Bank of Pakistan estimates that the immediate potential of exports to India was to the tune of $1.8 billion Experts estimate that the full scope of bilateral trade between Pakistan and India, once estimated at three billion dollars and recently at five billion, is now projected at ten billion dollars. Instead of trading through third countries like Dubai and Singapore and suffering outright smuggling and criminalisation of society, the two neighbours could directly exchange goods with each other. Even the sealed borders remain attractive to smugglers for goods and drugs, giving rise to mafias in areas like Amritsar, Ferozepur, Sri Ganganagar and Jodhpur on the Indian side and Lahore and Kasur on the Pakistani side. The two sides have been heavily burdened with expenditure to check this smuggling. Instead, the legal way could get the two governments to enlarge tax revenue, trade and industry could flourish and competition would help industry to upgrade and improve standards. The consumers would get variety and at competitive rates. Many items like sugar, wheat and meat when in short supply could quickly move from one country to another and offer consumers respite by checking spiraling prices and obduracy of the traders. Right now India needs wheat and Pakistan is surplus by 1.5 million tonnes. Why go to Australia and Canada for that? Similarly Pakistan needs sugar and India is surplus. In fact, India has recently helped Pakistan through the export of sugar and meat. Insurance and transport costs are much lower, particularly through rail and road. Pakistan could reap a real harvest if trade relations between India and Pakistan improve in the area of energy cooperation. India as a rapidly growing energy market can absorb new sources of supply and Pakistan could fulfill that need as a potential transit route from Iran and Central Asia. India has shown keenness for the construction of one or more new pipelines, a major capital investment. This is possible only if there is political stability and economic feasibility and not sabre rattling. According to an Iranian proposal, Pakistan could gain up to $800 million per year as transit fee. It could also fulfill its own energy needs. India would benefit from diversified sources of pipeline gas and lower its dependence on more expensive liquid natural gas (LNG). Major hurdles continue to be political and psychological. The burden of the song has been Kashmir first and Pakistan little realises that its most backward, poverty stricken areas of Balochistan, Wazirabad and NWFP and even the Kashmir portion it controls, are a political bombshell threatening the disintegration of the state. Normal political and trade relations could be helpful in a big way. For good reason now, traders and industrialists in Pakistan do not think anymore that India will “just swallow” them. There is greater confidence and they feel they could do business. Pakistani media reflects this abundantly. Nevertheless, bright spots are emerging. Pakistan has officially agreed to abide by SAFTA and it should be moving towards granting Most Favoured Nation status too. India has granted that status long back in 1995-96. At the recent Dhaka meeting of commerce ministers, both have agreed not to levy import duties of more than five percent on products traded within the South Asia Free Trade Area. The agreement is to lower import duties by 2008. Five other countries of the SAARC have agreed to keep the duties between zero and five percent. This silver lining was clear when Indian commerce secretary, SN.Menon held a three day long meeting with his counterpart in Pakistan in mid April. Discussions remained positive all along and disagreements were kept at bay. There is a demand from all sides to relax visa restrictions. The two governments have agreed in principle to do that. Indian proposals for amendments in the visa regime sent a year ago are yet to get proper response. Visa centers at Amritsar and Lahore would greatly enhance travel and trade. It is time for civil society to exert pressure and help remove political and psychological barriers. More free movement of people and full trade can take care of Kashmir too.
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Quest for truth should be paramount THE shocking acquittal in the Jessica Lall murder case has aroused a national debate on the basic health of the Indian Criminal Justice System and the dysfunctionalities of its constituent subsystems — the police, prosecution and judiciary. It is an excellent case study which highlights the glaring chinks in the working of the entire system which cumulatively resulted in the abortion of justice. Although the status of the victim and the perpetrators in the case lent drama in the episode which may have gone unnoticed otherwise, in actual terms, it compels us to ponder whether we should acquiesce in a moribund system or go in for a paradigm shift to make it more credible and efficacious. The Committee on Reform of Criminal Justice System popularly known as the Justice VS Malimath Committee, submitted its report in 2003. It addressed itself, to the problem of developing “synergy among the Judiciary, the Prosecution and Police as restorers of the confidence of the common man in the criminal justice system by protecting the innocent and the victim and by punishing unsparingly the guilty and the criminal”. The committee has enunciated that the system followed in India for dispensation of criminal justice in India is the adversarial system of common law inherited from the British colonial rulers. The accused is presumed to be innocent and the burden is on the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he is guilty. The accused also enjoys the right to silence and cannot be compelled to reply. The truth is supposed to emerge from the respective versions of the facts given by the prosecution and the defence before a neutral judge. The trial is oral, continuous and confrontational. “The judge,the Committee observes, “in his anxiety to maintain his position of neutrality never takes the initiative to discover the truth.” It quotes the observations of the learned Supreme Court in the case of Ram Chandra Vs State of Haryana ALR 1981 SC 1036 that “there is an unfortunate tendency for a Judge presiding over a trial to assume the role of referee or umpire and to allow the trial to develop into a contest between the prosecution and the defence with the inevitable distortion flowing from the combative and competitive elements entering the trial procedure.” Lauding the features of the Inquisitorial system prevailing in France, Germany, Italy and some European countries as opposed to the Adversarial system the committee recommends the incorporation of some of its features in our legal procedure. In the Inquisitorial system power to investigate offences rests primarily with Judicial Police Officers. The Judicial police are required to gather evidence and present it to the trial court. In respect of serious and complex offences investigation is done under the supervision of an independent Judicial officer — the Judge of Instructions who for the purpose of discovering the truth collects evidence for and against the accused. The committee observes “Truth being the cherished ideal and ethos of India pursuit of truth should be the guiding star of the Criminal Justice System. For Justice to be done truth must prevail”. In a country where the national edict is “Satyamev jayate” it is important that we accord due deference to another dictum “Satyam, Shivam, Sundram”. While reform in all the agencies of Criminal Justice System simultaneously is the crying need of the hour there is no use indulging in individual witch hunting when the system as a whole calls aloud for a paradigm shift. |
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Towards a foreign policy of realistic idealism RECENT events in Iraq and the Middle East have revived the hoariest of academic debates – between the so-called realists in foreign policy and the idealists. Realists, who come in both Democratic and Republican varieties, argue that the Bush administration has been naive to promote democracy in Arab countries, as evidenced by ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq, recent gains by Islamist parliamentary candidates in Egypt and Hamas’ victory in the Palestinian elections. They suggest that, in the storm-tossed atmosphere of the Arab Middle East, democracy will do less to extinguish terror, as President Bush predicts, than to ignite it. It is customary for politicians and commentators to distance themselves from those responsible for foreign policy setbacks. Because Bush is increasingly viewed as overly ideological and out of touch, the herd will increasingly want to appear hardheaded and realistic. My fear is that, in the process, a new conventional wisdom will emerge that promoting democracy in the Middle East is a mistake. It is not. We should remember that the alternative to support for democracy is complicity in backing governments that lack the blessing of their own people. That approach confuses the appearance of stability with the reality, betrays Arab democrats and smells of hypocrisy. America cannot refurbish its tarnished reputation as a global leader by abandoning what sets it apart from the likes of China or Vladimir Putin’s Russia. At the same time, we should keep a rein on our expectations. Bush has said that America “has a calling from beyond the stars” to proclaim liberty throughout the world. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice argues that the democratic transformation of the Middle East is the only way to guarantee that men do not fly airplanes into buildings. Such rhetoric is overblown. Just because the denial of political freedom is bad, that doesn’t mean that the exercise of freedom will always be to our liking. Democracy is a form of government; it is not a ticket to some heavenly kingdom where all evil is vanquished and everyone agrees with us. If Arab democracy develops, it will do so to advance Arab aspirations based on Arab perceptions of history and justice. The right to vote and hold office is unlikely to soften Arab attitudes toward Israel or to end the potential for terror, just as it has been unable to prevent terrorist cells from organizing in the West. Democracy should, however, create a broader and more open political debate within Arab countries, exposing myths to scrutiny and extreme ideas to rebuttal. Though some may fear such an opening, Americans should welcome it. For if we fail to value free expression, we forget our own history. The debate between idealism and realism in foreign affairs moves back and forth like a pendulum because neither extreme is sustainable. If all America stands for is stability, no one will follow us for the simple reason that we aren’t going anywhere. The time has come to start looking beyond the Bush administration to its successor. Our new leaders, of whichever party, will face daunting challenges, including that of redefining what America stands for in the world. Their “to do’” list is sure to include winning the battle of ideas – as we should have long ago – against the likes of Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, halting nuclear proliferation, devising a sensible energy policy, and restoring America’s reputation as a supporter (and observer) of international law and human rights. At the top of that list, however, must be a reaffirmation of America’s commitment to liberty and respect for the dignity of every human being. Without such a commitment, all else will be in vain. (The writer is a former US secretary of state.)
By arrangement with LA Times – Washington Post |
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From the pages of Signs of revolt Signs of revolt against the Congress decision to accept the statement of the British Government of December 6 are already visible in Punjab, Bengal and Assam. In Punjab, the Hindu and Sikh minorities have been completely upset. They consider the Congress resolution as a grave betrayal of their cause. They regard the clause in the resolution giving the provinces and the minorities the right to opt out of the sections in case the League resorts to compulsion and coercion as just the expression of a pious wish and, therefore, useless. Sardar Mangal Singh has aptly remarked that the Congress advice to the Hindus and Sikhs seems to be: “Go to the Muslim League and be content with whatever the Muslim League is pleased to give you.”
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The creator made life and then inspiration. Without inspiration, evolution would not be possible. — The Upanishads Watch the prince lead forth his sister, the bride, to the swayamvara. In loud and lofty accents, he announces to her the names, race, lineage and deeds of each suitor. This information helps her to make her choice. — The Mahabharata (O you who believe) let not people laugh at people, perchance they may be better than they; nor let women (laugh) at women, perchance they may be better than they. Neither find fault with your own people, nor call one another by nicknames. — The Koran In all bodies, there’s one without a stain. Here I wander, here I stay. — Kabir Brother, what shall I do with a mere bread-winning education? I would rather acquire that wisdom that would illuminate my heart and give me satisfaction forever. — Ramakrishna
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