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Diversionary tactic Nuclear blackmail |
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Gas from Iran Don’t mix politics with business TEHERAN has been behaving funnily on the supply of gas to India. The Iranian Foreign Minister, Mr Manouchehr Mottaki, now talks of “some specific difficulties” in honouring the $22-billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) contract signed by the two countries in June 2005. This suggests that there is need for hard bargaining to get the contract revived.
The enemy within
Suspense in the
sands
Crop
diversification vital for distress alleviation British secrecy
surrenders to the Internet Delhi
Durbar
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Nuclear blackmail THE Pakistani Ambassador to the United States, Mr Mahmud Ali Durrani, has made it clear that the new plutonium-producing reactor coming up at the Khushab complex in Pakistan is intended to increase Pakistan’s arsenal. Pakistan’s repeated arguments about wanting to correct a regional imbalance are disingenuous. Ever since the Indo-US nuclear deal was announced in July last year, Pakistan has been seeking a similar arrangement, citing its own energy needs. But the US has stood firm in making a distinction between the two countries. Given Pakistan’s track record, the US will have to do more to rein in its nuclear ambitions. Pakistan’s latest venture can seriously destabilise the region. The ambassador has sought to link the Khushab expansion with the Indo-US deal. These manoeuvres, including the timing of Mr Durrani’s statement, are of a piece with the general strategy of nuclear blackmail being adopted by Pakistan. On the one hand, it sees its nuclear capability as an umbrella under which it can prosecute war of a different kind against India. On the other, it is used as a leverage against the West. The US continues to shore up Gen Pervez Musharraf in return for support, albeit limited, against Al-Qaeda and the fear of matters getting worse under a different regime. The possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the jehadis is particularly worrisome and remnants of the A.Q. Khan underground network are still in existence. Elements of extremist networks permeate Pakistan’s security establishments and have consistently ensured support for terrorist activities against India. It was just the other day that a satellite picture of a terrorist training camp operating in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir was produced in a US court by a Federal agency. And provocative acts continue, as witnessed in the unwarranted arrest and expulsion of an Indian diplomat. Continued Chinese and North Korean assistance for Paksitan’s nuclear and missile programmes is well known. The US cannot take a segmented view of the nuclear threat coming from Pakistan – history has shown that it is bound to backfire. It is time for change. |
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Gas from Iran TEHERAN has been behaving funnily on the supply of gas to India. The Iranian Foreign Minister, Mr Manouchehr Mottaki, now talks of “some specific difficulties” in honouring the $22-billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) contract signed by the two countries in June 2005. This suggests that there is need for hard bargaining to get the contract revived. Iran is quoting the LNG price as $5.1 per mbtu (million British thermal unit), which is too high compared to what it had agreed to in 2005 — $3.25 per mbtu. India gets LNG from Qatar at $2.53 per mbtu. In any case, the Iranian unwillingness to honour its commitment reflects poorly on its conduct as a member of the international community. One can understand that under the changed global scenario, Iran may not enter into a fresh deal with India which shows in any respect that the latter has been given any concessions. But a deal that had already been finalised should not require fresh negotiation. It will only widen the gulf between the two, otherwise, friendly countries. A pragmatic nation would avoid mixing politics with economics under all circumstances. Also, the Iranians no longer appear to be enthusiastic in the case of the $7-billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. Instead of India and Pakistan showing disinterest in the project, Teheran is creating roadblocks to prevent the pipeline from becoming a reality. Iran has demanded a price ($7.2 per mbtu) for its gas which is at least 50 per cent higher than the prevailing market-determined price in India. This, obviously, cannot be acceptable to India. New Delhi has responded by saying that it can pay at the most $4.25 per mbtu for the gas that will be delivered at its border. Iran should remember that it, too, would be a loser if the project is abandoned at this stage. |
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Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.
— Marcus Aurelius |
The enemy within INDIA is perhaps the only country where two forms of fanaticism is currently prevalent. One is Islamic fundamentalism and the other is Maoism. The first has an external sponsor in Pakistan. Although the Naxalites no longer receive overt encouragement from communist China (because communism in China has changed), they still derive their inspiration from the dogma of Mao Zedong. Let it be clarified at the outset that the followers of neither of these doctrines pose a serious threat to the integrity of India. While the Naxalites are supposed to have established their base in 120 to 160 of the country’s 607 districts, these are notional figures. It is like saying that the inaccessible Chambal ravines were once the impregnable strongholds of the dacoits of the region. Like the Naxalites, they were there because of the absence of the state, as is customary over huge areas of the hinterland. But once the state sends its forces in large enough numbers, the Naxalites would have to run for cover. The belief that they have the support of the poor is also a myth fostered by city-based Leftist intellectuals. The poor are simply terrorised into silence and acquiescence. They have little faith in, and less knowledge of, the Maoist doctrine of a “liberated” countryside launching an offensive on the towns. For the Naxalites, the present period of history is the wrong one for their thesis. What Mao could achieve in war-torn China which had never known democracy cannot be replicated in an open and vibrant democratic society like India’s. Even in Nepal with its fledgling democracy, the Maoists had to abandon their “revolution” because of the realisation of the futility of their task. They realised that the armies of today are not like the undependable mercenary forces of Chiang Kai-Shek. But Islamic terrorism presents a more complex picture. Its motivating force — the deadly “opium” of religious fundamentalism — is seemingly stronger than Maoism or Marxism. If the latter designates the bourgeoisie as the adversary, the Islamic extremists see the non-Muslims as their enemy. What is more, their resolve is strengthened by what they perceive as a crusade against them by powerful international forces, viz. the US and Israel. Communists, too, detest America. But they once had the equally powerful Soviet Union and China to sustain them with funds and ideology. Little wonder, therefore, that today they are a loose end, with the demise of the first and the transformation of the second into a virtual capitalist state. The Islamic fundamentalists may receive monetary and doctrinal support from countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and Syria. But, essentially, they are on their own — a stateless, amorphous, pan-Islamic enterprise which regards some of these Muslim regimes as puppets of the US. Hence their recourse to indiscriminate terrorism, which can hit the Muslim countries as well, like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The scene in India is complicated by the entwinement of Pakistan’s territorial ambitions with ideological bigotry. Once Islamabad realised that it could not wrest Kashmir from India through war, it began to use terror as a weapon with the Taliban-and Al-Qaeda-dominated Afghanistan providing strategic depth in case India lost patience. But it was these friends of Pakistan which upset its game plan when they took on America on 9/11, forcing the latter to armtwist Islamabad into abandoning its fundamentalist allies. But even if Pakistan has been compelled to pretend that it no longer supports terrorism, it obviously finds it too tempting not to offer what it considers “moral” support to the jihadis in Kashmir. One might have expected this two-faced policy to finally become a victim of its own contradictions but for the boost which Pakistan’s jihad machine has received from India’s home-grown militants. They may be few in numbers, and are likely to remain so because the very nature of terrorism favours small clandestine groups. But, irrespective of numbers, the very fact that a section of Indian Muslims has taken to terrorism is deeply disturbing. They are, of course, not the only Indians to follow such a self-defeating line. Apart from the outlaws in Kashmir and for a limited period in Punjab, there have been such militant outfits in the North-East since Independence. Their emergence in Assam with the demand for “sovereignty” also reflects the unsettled conditions in the North-East. While these rebellious groups appeared because of instigation from abroad or perceptions of neglect by New Delhi or political machinations, as in Punjab where the Congress initially encouraged Bhindranwale to counter the Akali Dal, the success of the Pakistani sponsors of terrorism to enlist the support of a section of Indian Muslims is due in large measure to the saffron brotherhood’s demonisation of the Muslim community from the time of the Babri Masjid demolition. As BJP leader Jaswant Singh has noted in his recent book “A Call to Honour”, the Babri Masjid episode and the Gujarat riots are the two events which will haunt the BJP for the rest of its life. It is these two tragedies which apparently enabled the ISI to persuade the gullible among the Muslims that their faith in Indian democracy and secularism is misplaced because the BJP could make political gains by destroying a mosque and allowing a communal conflagration to burn unchecked for nearly two months in Gujarat. Although the Supreme Court played an exemplary role in both cases, it is the political instigation of the riots and administrative culpability which underlined a deliberate suborning of the system, or a “loss of state control”, as Mr Jaswant Singh says. While a failure of the state machinery because of inefficiency or inadequacy of policemen is understandable, what is unpardonable is the purposeful emasculation of the forces of law and order in the matter of saving the victims of a communal outbreak. Hence the Supreme Court’s reference to the “modern day Neros” of Gujarat, a veiled allusion to Mr Narendra Modi. If India had earlier taken pride in the fact that Al-Qaeda had been unable to recruit a single Indian Muslim, the reason was that the country’s open society, which gave a voice to all sections, and the absence of a glass ceiling, which allowed everyone with talent to rise to the top, gave a sense of belonging to all communities. This spirit of tolerance has been a feature of Indian society for ages. When the Zoroastrians of Persia felt threatened in their home country by the invading Arab Muslims in the 8th century, where else could they have gone but to India? When 12 centuries later, the Tibetans felt similarly under siege from communist China, which other country but India could be their destination? Indian democracy and pluralism are far too deeply implanted to suffer any permanent damage from either the Naxalites or the terrorism sponsored by Pakistan. But, on its part, India, too, has to be on guard against any political recourse at home to xenophobia by sectarian parties ostensibly to counter Islamic fanaticism, but really to boost their election prospects through the fanaticism of their own supporters. Such cynical tactics will erode the country’s sense of tolerance with fateful consequences. Similarly, no effort should be spared by the government to crack down on the terrorists. Fear of offending a community should not act as an inhibiting
factor.
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Suspense in the sands This
relates to the period when villages in India were not connected with the
outside world by pucca roads and my village, Kot-Isa-Khan Distt
Ferozepore, was not among those fortunate ones. People travelled by
bullock carts or by horse-driven bonebreaking ikkas. I often
visited my maternal uncle’s village, Ghal Kalan (near Moga) which was
seven miles (about 12 km) from my village as the crow flies. Once I and
my cousin Ram Kishan had to travel from Ghal Kalan to Kot-Isa-Khan. On
my persuasion Ram Kishan agreed to accompany me to walk the distance on
a full moon night. It was April and the cool breeze and the aroma of
sandy soil made the journey very pleasant. But it was not to last for a
long time. Suddenly Ram Kishan, pointing towards one side of the
footpath uttered in a voice choked with fear and anxiety, "Brother,
look there, a chhaleda (a deceptive evil spirit in Punjabi) has made its
appearance". To my utter astonishment, I saw hundreds of birds
sitting in neat rows like military men ready for a drill. I did not buy
the argument and insisted that we should go there and see what it
actually was. Ram Kishan cursed that I was a damned soul misguided by
Pandit Ghandi Prashad, a preacher who used to be sent to our village by
Lahore Arya Samaj and was given this name due to his very prominent
pyramid like ghandi (Adam’s apple). He always preached rational
thinking and I was much influenced by his philosophy of life. While my
cousin uttered charms taught to him by Baba Giriji, the priest of our
village temple who believed in ghosts and spirits, I threw a piece of
clay into the rows but there was no movement or flutter in the rows.
Although I was thrown a little off my feet, this made me more
inquisitive and Ram Kishan dumfounded. I advanced towards the rows and
on reaching there I found that these were pairs of clay bricks placed
there to dry up in the form of inverted Vs. The colour of the bricks
mingled with the soil below but their shadows in the moon-lit nit gave
the illusion of birds standing in neat rows, the shadow of the vertices
giving the illusion of their beaks. I called out to Ram Kishan to see
his chheleda for himself. He was in a contemplative mood and it seemed
that Baba Giriji was fading away from the canvas of his mind and that of
Pandit Chandi Prasad was taking over. But the transformation was yet
incomplete. As we approached a sand dune we heard the sounds of women
singing and frantically dancing on it although nothing was visible. Baba
Giriji seemed to be taking another chance with Ram Kishan’s thought
process. I started moving to the top of the dune with Ram Kishan
following me like a sacrificial goat. On reaching the top we found that
the sound was coming from a hamlet at the foot of the dune where the
ladies were dancing and singing. Although the sound was coming from the
bottom of the dune, it seemed to be emanating from its top. I cast a
look at Ram Kishan’s face and could read on it feelings of
enlightenment mixed with that of defeat. I felt elated, thinking that I
had won a great battle for Pandit Ghandi Prasad against Baba Giriji. |
Crop diversification vital for distress alleviation Since
the submission of the report on restructuring of agricultural production patterns for productivity and growth in Punjab in 2002, some hard-boiled opponents of diversification are putting forth arguments that are not tenable in any respect. The points raised and repeated off and on have been discussed and amply replied to in several seminars and discussions. I have been ignoring these misplaced observations for long, but now some clarifications are necessary so that policy makers are not misled by half- baked arguments. The first claim is that there is no danger to the sustainability of rice-wheat rotation in the short and long run. Hydrological data produced by the Punjab Agricultural University indicates water table going down by 70 cm per annum in central districts of Punjab. This depletion takes place exactly during the rice growing period. There is no place in central Punjab where water balance is not negative. More than one-third of the tube wells have been replaced by submersible pumps. Hand pumps are things of the past. Even drinking water in villages is pumped through submersible motors The declining water table is visible to the naked eye. It does not require any microscope to see this depletion. How then is the rotation sustainable? They harp on the lowest cost of production of rice in Punjab and use terms like optimum use without defining the parameters. Economic costs involve individual and social costs. What cost can be put on a depleting water table? What is the opportunity cost of electric power diverted from secondary and tertiary sectors? Do the depleting resource base, degradation of soils, pollution of water, declining total factor productivity and environmental degradation, leading to hellish life for three months with temperatures around 40°C and relative humidity at 90 to 95 per cent, all due to standing water like a shallow lake over 2.5 million hectares of land, enter their cost calculations? Therefore, emphasis on replacing rice with high value crops is not any shift of convenience. It is a priority consideration. The argument that if rich countries eliminate subsidies and create a level playing ground, our wheat and rice can compete in the world market is applicable to most of the alternatives to wheat and rice as well. Farm enterprises change with time, and technology is one of the important drivers of change. Today’s diversification is not reversion to sorghum, guar, sesame, flex etc. of the nineteen sixties. Today’s diversification is towards certified dairy products, fruits, vegetables, flowers, aromatic and medicinal plants, carbon-credit-earning plantations etc. One has to keep in step with developing technology and changing markets to understand the intricacies of the approach to the demand — driven diversification. One wonders how rice-wheat rotation can be helpful in shifting the population out of farm sector, unless one derives sadistic satisfaction from the push- out effect of distress in the farm sector. It is the fruits, vegetables, dairy and high value crops that require state-of-the-art handling, packaging, processing and high-end marketing, creating jobs outside the farm sector. It needs to be understood that the problems of the rural incomes cannot be solved within the farm sector. The rural economy has to be diversified for that purpose. At least forty per cent of the farms that are small and marginal are totally unviable, specially under the existing wheat-rice rotation. There are a number of justifications for agricultural diversification and their relative importance change over time. It is not a question of change as per convenience. Supply exceeding demand for foodgrains still holds. In the first decade of the 21st century, the food surpluses have not withered away. Even with huge exports, the country still holds 12.81 million tons of rice on July, 2006, which is higher by 2.8 million tons compared to 1st July 2005. If the country had not exported stocks, India on 1st July, 2006 would have been saddled with 35.91 million tons of rice and 22.94 million tons of wheat. Is it not a justification for diversification away from wheat and rice.? We have to remember that all these exports have been made at a tremendous loss. On an average rice has been sold between Rs.8.64 and 10.63 per kilogram. If paddy is priced at Rs.600 per quintal, the procurement price itself works at Rs 10 per kg. Add to this handling, shelling, storage, spoilage and theft over a period of at least six month, the loss would not work out to less than Rs. 6.0 per kg. The story is the same for wheat. Average value realised for wheat during this period ranged between Rs.4.08 and 7.78 per kg. Many lots had to be sold at prices lower than BPL price and quite a few of the lots were rejected by the importing countries. We should not forget that more than 90 per cent of the interstate movement of food grains in India is of Punjab grains and almost total exports are also of Punjab grains. If we translate it to the depleting resource base of the state, it amounts to exporting of underground water of Punjab to the tune of five hundred thousand crore gallons annually, free of cost, because, while recommending Minimum Support Prices, free water and electricity to the farmers is not counted in the costs of production of these crops by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and prices. The Commission counts only the individual costs incurred by the farmer. No social costs are included
anywhere. The writer is Vice-Chairman, State Planning Board, Punjab. |
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British secrecy surrenders to the Internet The
precise locations of dozens of secret military and spy bases in the United Kingdom are to be revealed on government Ordnance Survey maps for the first time, ending one of the last remaining legacies of the Cold War. For decades, tourists and ramblers in the small island nation have stumbled across secret radar bases, nuclear bomb stores and rocket testing ranges tucked away in quiet woods or remote hillsides because they had been “airbrushed” out of even the most detailed official maps. But the Government’s security chiefs have quietly abandoned that policy by scrapping its list of secret military and intelligence facilities – known officially as the “sensitive sites register”. The decision was made earlier this year by the Cabinet Office but never formally announced; it acknowledged that the internet had defeated its attempts at secrecy. Aerial and satellite photographs of the country are available on the internet, while web-based mapping services such as Multimap are competing directly with Ordnance Survey (OS). The change in policy means the last remaining 50 sites on the register – including the nuclear warhead factory at Burghfield in Berkshire – will now be marked on all the maps printed by OS. The obsession with secrecy, which deepened once spying by the Soviet Union intensified during the Cold War, has been relaxed recently. The “sensitive sites register” has been slowly whittled down and OS has begun including some sensitive sites on its most detailed Explorer series of maps, but anomalies remain. In western Scotland, buildings and railway tracks for Glen Douglas armament depot near Faslane nuclear submarine base are marked but unnamed on the most detailed Explorer maps, but are “airbrushed” out of the larger-scale touring maps. A rocket testing range in Wyre Forest near Kidderminster, Worcestershire, is shown by an unnamed rectangular field in the detailed maps, but omitted in all large-scale maps. Some of the most sensitive sites will still not be named or will have misleading labels such as “disused airfield” or “depot”. But the decision is a victory for anti-secrecy campaigners such as Alan Turnbull, an internet enthusiast who first exposed the availability of this apparently secret mapping data on the web. Mr Turnbull built his own site, www.secret-bases.co.uk, in August 2003 with the reluctant agreement of the military. He said yesterday he was “pleasantly surprised” at the Cabinet Office decision — particularly after Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, said last week he wanted to restrict access under the Freedom of Information Act. “It seems that there’s some back-pedalling going on in Government about freedom of information, and this is an important step to counter that,” he said. “It’s nice to think the Cabinet Office has been pushed along a little bit by my highlighting this in such a public manner.” A spokeswoman for the Cabinet Office confirmed: “The decision was taken because of the availability of this information from open sources.” — By arrangement with The Independent |
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Delhi Durbar All parties have office-bearers who are more accessible than others but in the Congress the choice could well rest on the old war horse Motilal Vora. The senior party leader is available to hundreds of Congress workers who come to the AICC everyday for personal work or to meet central leaders. The septuagenarian leader strictly follows the advice of Congress president Sonia Gandhi to party MPs to attend parliamentary debates regularly. A former journalist, Vora, however, is extremely stingy in sharing party information with journos. Divided Left While the Communist
International calls for unity of the working class across the globe, there seems to be little unity among the Left leaders in the country on an issue of vital national security. On the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, there seems to be difference on the tactics to be adopted — whether to side with the BJP to corner the government and set parameters for the Manmohan Singh government to negotiate the nuke deal or to adopt the high moral ground of treating the saffron party as a pariah. While the CPM wants to tactically shake hands with the BJP, the CPI cannot see eye to eye on this issue. Open doors Former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, who has been sidelined by the Congress leadership, has found new friends in other parties. The other day, when the Lok Sabha was adjourned over the leak of the Justice Pathak Inquiry Authority report into Iraq’s Oil-for-food scam, mediapersons made a beeline to SP leader Amar Singh. In his inimitable style, he said, “The Congress party is trying to make Natwar Singh a scapegoat to save Sonia Gandhi. Otherwise he is a nice person and an old friend.” Pressed further he said with an enigmatic smile “Jab koi tumhara hridya Tor de, to mere pass aana Priya, mera dar khula hai, khula hi rahega,” (when anyone breaks your heart, my sweetheart, you can come to my home and my doors will remain open). The couplet is from a famous song from a Hindi film
Purab aur Paschim. Occupational hazard Just the other day Samajwadi Party and AIADMK Members of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha raised the issue of Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s alleged connivance with an industrialist to manipulate the stock market as reported in the book “Vedanta’s Millions”. Although Chidambaram declined to respond to the allegations it is widely believed in political circles that Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh and his wife, who are under the scanner of the income tax department, are trying to pressurise the Finance Minister by embarrassing him. Later at a Cabinet briefing, Chidambaram asked reporters “do you really believe in these allegations? I can understand the discomfort of some members of Parliament. One should be ready to face such occupational hazards.” He was also quick in observing that he will respond within an hour if he gets a notice from the Chairperson of the Upper House. Contributed by Prashant Sood, R Suryamurthy and Manoj Kumar |
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From the pages of Chief Justice — For a purpose
Mr Gokhale’s argument that the new incumbent (for the post of Chief Justice) has been chosen with a purpose makes mincemeat of the claim that he had been chosen only on merits. It is not suggested that he is without merits, but in so far as the discovery of his superior merits has been subjective and has been made with a purpose which, by necessary implication, the superseded Judges could not serve, it is most unfortunate. The
Government has relied on the recommendation of the Law Commission made some 20 years ago that the appointment of a Chief Justice need not necessarily be made on the basis of seniority. But all the leading lights of the Commission — Mr Setalvad, Mr Chagla and Mr Palkhiwala, to name only a few — have unequivocally condemned the Government’s action. They have called it a black day, if not the blackest, in the history of the country. But, for what it is worth, even they will concede that it is not so black as in Uganda where General Amin whisked away his Chief Justice, Mr Benedicto Kiwanuka, from the Court, and reportedly burnt him alive. After all, these are days when one has to be thankful even for small mercies.
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Love the sinner as well as the pious. Sin and piety are mortal distinctions. — The Upanishads The noble king does not wish to continue enmity with this kinsmen. He wishes them good for the evil done and shames them into silence. Thus does he make them realise his virtue. — The Mahabharata God, please give me only that much which will maintain my family that I will not remain hungry nor will any
sadhu go without a meal. — Kabir They are the truthful ones, and they are the conscientious who donate goods and money for love of God to relatives and orphans. — The Koran There is but one Benefactor of all creatures.
— Guru Nanak |
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