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Consensus on
delimitation Nobel for the
subcontinent Ban at the UN |
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Mechanism to fight
terrorism
General’s wor(l)d
play
Reduce Army, expand
Air Force and Navy Woman tops list of
rich in China Chatterati
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Nobel for the subcontinent The
contours of what constitutes “peace” seem to be changing. Generally, it is only supposed to be the absence of “war”. But now it seems to include a just and equitable order in which there is absence of disparity between regions, peoples and gender. That is why the Nobel Peace Prize this year has gone to Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank that have done a tremendous service in fighting poverty in Bangladesh through the empowerment of women by giving them small loans. Through small loans extended to marginalised persons, mostly women, the 66-year-old economics professor from Chittagong has brought about a revolution of self-empowerment and self-employment. Doing so is not an easy task in any of the 40 countries where his pioneering work has been replicated. It is all the more so in Bangladesh where there is grinding poverty and women lead a wretched existence. The prize will give a further impetus to the unique idea and the movement all over the world. That is why Ela Bhatt, founder and Chairman of SEWA Bank, which has been doing similar work in India, has said effusively that “it feels as if we have won the Nobel”. It is now being recognised that the seeds of conflict lie dormant in the inequality and deprivation prevalent in the world. The cause of peace can be better served if these seeds are made sterile at the very beginning. Perhaps that is why the 2004 prize had also been given to Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathan. It is another matter that the pendulum swung to the other extreme last year, with the IAEA being chosen for the award. Even otherwise, the selection of Amartya Sen (economics) first and Muhammad Yunus now is a clear sign that the world focus is on the Indian subcontinent. This year, there is a special significance to the Nobel awards. The Literature Nobel has also gone to a Muslim (Turkish Orhan Pamuk). That emits an unmistakable signal that the world is against terrorism, not Islam. One just hopes that opponents of a just order will see it in that light.
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Ban at the UN The
South Korean Foreign Minister, Mr Ban Ki-Moon, has ultimately made it to the United Nations as its Secretary-General. He was the front-runner in each of the four straw polls conducted by the Security Council. South Korea was accused of using its economic might to promote his candidature, but he overcame it with the US support and his appreciable role during the six-party negotiations on the North Korean nuclear crisis. However, the real challenge for Mr Ban will begin when he assumes charge on January 1, 2007. He will have to deliver results against strong pulls and pressures from powerful capitals. As he himself says, “The true measure of success for the UN is not how much we promise, but how much we deliver for those who need us the most.” The tasks before the new Secretary-General are formidable. The 192-member world body’s image has suffered considerably during the past few years, particularly after the US began manipulating it to its advantage. The UN in the post-Cold War period has been functioning almost in accordance with the wishes of the surviving super power, and its western allies or at best the five permanent members of the Security Council enjoying the veto power. The permanent members have used their veto power only to promote their own world-view. As a result, the UN’s decisions have rarely reflected the collective opinion of the member-countries. It needs drastic reforms like the addition of new permanent members with the same status as enjoyed by the original P-5. Only then can the UN function as a truly democratic institution. Immediately, the UN has to handle the North Korean and Iranian nuclear crises as its top priority. But by the time Mr Ban’s tenure begins, some progress might have been achieved in this regard. The world will expect the new UN chief, a professional diplomat, to look beyond the present challenges. Of course, he does not have the charisma as Mr Annan came to acquire. He is unlikely to function as an activist diplomat. He has some communication problems too. But Mr Ban is a man of conviction, which should help him in coming up to the expectations of the world at large. Much will depend on the kind of equation he may succeed in building with the members of the General Assembly from different continents and on his crisis-handling capability. |
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When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window.
— An American proverb |
Mechanism to fight terrorism The
decision “to put in place an India-Pakistan anti-terrorism institutional mechanism to identify and implement counter-terrorism initiatives and investigations” is by all means a “bold and new beginning” in Indo-Pak relations. If it works, it holds the potential for effecting a paradigm change in the security relations between the two neighbours. But it could quite easily also amount to no more than what the main opposition party, the BJP, calls “a fig-leaf for the resumption of dialogue”. Frankly, as “fig-leaves” go, this one is not so bad especially when we consider the fact that not only is India incapable, ill-equipped or unwilling to exercise any of the hard options on Pakistan, it also has a fairly good thing going as far as the composite dialogue with Pakistan is concerned. The deep scepticism with which the joint anti-terror mechanism has been greeted in India is perfectly understandable. After all, Pakistan has been the source of much of the terrorism that India has faced for nearly 30 years now. Even today, the signals emerging from Pakistan are quite ambiguous as far its commitment to eliminate “all forms of terrorism” is concerned. For one, there is a definitional problem regarding terrorism. What India considers terrorism and the people in India call terrorists are seen as “mujahideen” and “freedom-fighters” in Pakistan. For another, terrorism has been used quite effectively by Pakistan to keep India unsettled, and strategically it remains a low-cost option for Pakistan to address the asymmetry in power between the two countries. Third, it is still not clear whether Pakistan and its “friends and masters” (read the US and the UK) will continue to differentiate between “good” terrorists and “bad” terrorists, the former being those who follow orders and strike where they are ordered (against India and Shia Iran) and the latter being the “free-lance” or recalcitrant elements who are opposed to the US and its local allies, namely the Pakistan army. Finally, the continued patronage of jihadi organisations like the Jamaatud Dawa, the Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Hizbul Mujahideen, the sanctuary provided to international terrorists like Dawood Ibrahim, and the facilitation of terrorism in India through Bangladesh and Nepal continue to raise doubts whether Pakistan has indeed forsaken the use of terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy. Therefore, criticism of the new initiative is quite natural, and to impute motives and make political insinuations against former officials is not only distasteful but also smacks of intolerance for any counter-view. In fact, this is exactly the kind of intolerance that prevents serving officials from giving professional advice to political masters. In private, senior officials often admit that they try and gauge what the political master wants to hear and give advice accordingly; otherwise they fear they might be victimised and sidelined. The “Yes, Prime Minister” culture that has seeped into the serving officials is precisely the reason why the note of caution sounded by retired officials, whose patriotism and service to the country is above doubt, needs to be taken more seriously. Having said this, the issue remains whether or not to try the joint anti-terror mechanism with Pakistan. While the nay-sayers have a point when they say that this is akin to asking Dawood to investigate the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, the fact remains that police officers often use criminals to catch criminals. Therefore, it would be a mistake to write off this new initiative without first giving it a good try. This mechanism can be an excellent tool in testing the commitment of Pakistan against terrorism. If nothing else, the joint anti-terror mechanism will call Pakistan’s bluff on the issue of terrorism and expose it, especially since the eyes of the security community around the world will be focused on how effectively this mechanism works. Of course, it is important to be careful while sharing information or cooperating with the other side. This is so because of some past experiences when Pakistan used information that was given to plug holes in its operational strategy and tactics so that it could continue to maintain “plausible deniability”. Pakistani academic Hussain Haqqani has, in his excellent book, highlighted how the ISI would ask the Americans for proof only to try and figure out the their source of information and then plug those leaking holes. There have also been cases, especially in dealing with Bangladesh, where information regarding the whereabouts of wanted terrorists was exchanged and this was used by the Bangladeshi intelligence to clean up the place so that nothing incriminating was found. Ultimately, however, the proof of the pudding will lie in its eating. If both India and Pakistan are genuinely serious and sincere about making this initiative work, then there is no reason why it will not work. Of course, expectations must be kept low, at least for the first few months, if not years. India should not expect that this mechanism will lead to the handing over of the most wanted terrorists. This will not happen, not now, not in the future. This is so for two reasons: one, unlike India, Pakistan doesn’t forsake its friends, allies and proxies easily; and second, because handing these criminals will be diplomatically and politically disastrous for Pakistan. It would be akin to Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden being discovered from one corner of Army House in Rawalpindi. But what can happen is that if there is any “freelance” terrorist activity, it can be either pre-empted or efforts can be made to bring the perpetrators of freelance terrorist acts to justice. In this the handling of the Mumbai train blasts (7/11) will be critical. Again, it is extremely important that both sides avoid any grand-standing on intelligence cooperation or even joint operations and investigations. They must also resist the temptation of political and diplomatic point-scoring. This mechanism can work only behind the scenes because any publicity will only end up killing it. Equally important will be the structure and scope of this institutional mechanism. Replicating the mechanisms that exist with other countries and which are generally dysfunctional will most certainly fail in the Indo-Pak case. Therefore, careful thought will have to be given to the structure of the mechanism, and its mandate will have to be well-defined if it has to work effectively. While there are no guarantees that can be given as far as this new and quite revolutionary institutional mechanism is concerned, if it works it can prove to be the beginning of a joint Indo-Pak cooperative security mechanism which could ultimately set the foundation for some sort of a joint defence and security framework between the two countries. However, if this initiative fails, then India will have been no worse off for it, provided it has not compromised its intelligence gathering systems, investigative techniques and security structures. Indeed, if the mechanism fails, then it will provide India a lever at the international stage (for whatever that is worth) to press its case against Pakistan’s perfidy on the issue of terrorism. This will leave India to exercise whatever other options it wishes to combat cross-border terrorism. But this will also confront India with the basic question: does India have what it takes to eliminate terrorism, because if it does then what is the need to enter into such an agreement with Pakistan in the first place unless, of course, the entire scheme is part of a grand reconciliation strategy, something that seems quite
unlikely?
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General’s wor(l)d play The
news of General Musharraf himself being in the line of fire for authoring a commentary full of “howlers” and thereby generating protests from many parts of the world has put my search for a good publisher for my “self composed” autobiography to an end. Of course I am not that “bad”, despite living close to Farida Bad. I can now safely excuse myself for producing an intended bad copy, a sin rendered pardonable with the “work of art K’reated” by the General who with his presence, during the “promos” of his “historical document” hogged the limelight in the Big Apple, despite the printer’s devil’s “Bad” presence. Whoever could have done that, is what remains to be “blamed for” but I grew in my personal esteem, Colossus like, as a pretentious scribbler. And all of a sudden “A Call to Honour” from my own land, for some quaint reason, started to tickle me quite refreshingly, despite all the dust this commentary also kicked up, in the so-called politico-literary circles, ehm ehm squares. But then it did not say “Del Hi” or “Jaish Won Sin” or even “Mooch Rakh”. I had experienced a similar letup when even Rushdie himself found his “Newfoundla(n)dy” Luxmi, less “intellectually challenging”. Be it the General or Rushdie, the accusations of blasphemy, indiscretion, sacrilege, etc. do not seem to differentiate between a “writer general” and a “verse teller”, be they satanic. Sorry readers, excuse me for taking a potshot “in the lie(n) off fir(e)”. I have re-libel information that perturbed by his criticism, the General approached Shakespeare himself for damage control in his reputation as author of repute. Here we go: Shakespeare: What is in a name? General: Nothing, Mr Shakespeare, only if the proper noun is not spelt the way it should be. Shakespeare: To bush or not to bush? Is that the ‘K’ash-chen? General: That’s settled but what is so “Bad” about a place? Like, if I say- Islamabad! And say it in two parts. Shakespeare: You mean there’s nothing good about a place if pronounced as one word? General: Oh hellovelot, if the kalling begins with “K”. Shakespeare: Mark me for my words Dear Jinn Earl of Islamabad.er.er.did I say it Karak tele? General: Yes, so long as you kare for the ‘K’ faktar in your verse. Shakespeare: Oh yes, this reminds me of your publisher’s blunders. General: But tell me first, did your parents not name you Sheikh Peer? Were you not born of Mir Kas(h)im who lived in Kashmir. I wonder why you derived pleasure in being called Bardo Favon! Well, their’s a tied in the affairs of men Dear Shaker which Moves their destiny. And I aka dingily did take my chance. Why then so much of song and dance? Shakespeare: Do you know General, that false beliefs arising out of arrogance, ruthlessness, and ambition have been the tragic flaws in my Generals? My heroes. General: But those heroes wanted to become ‘K’ing(Liar)s themselves whereas I am heppy and Willin Sir venting Un Kal Sam of Ne
Jerk. |
Reduce Army, expand Air Force and Navy Former
Air Force Chief, Air Chief Marshal Tipnis has criticised the account of the Indian defence efforts on the Kargil conflict as presented by the then army chief, General V. P. Malik in his book “Kargil: From Surprise to Victory.” This is not the first time the air force has come out with such criticism about the army. In the 1965 war then army chief General J.N. Chaudhuri was criticised for not taking the air force into confidence before he started his counter-offensive operations against Pakistan in the Lahore Sector. This criticism was voiced by Air Chief Marshal Pratap Lal in his National Security lecture years later. The conduct of the War of 1971 and the Army chief’s condescending attitude towards the Air Force were criticised again by Air Chief Marshal Pratap Lal in his book “My Years with the IAF” published posthumously in early eighties. Therefore the present criticism should not cause any surprise. Tipnis has charged the army of utter lack of coordination with the air force. He also found fault with the army for not communicating intelligence to air headquarters. “There had been no call for joint briefing, leave alone joint planning.” he
said. These charges are likely to result in a healthy debate on the organisation of our defence forces and how they train, conceptualise, plan and execute future operations. This debate also has a bearing on the appointment of a Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff committee. Unfortunately the term Chief of Defence Staff has been borrowed from the UK and is used in India. In the UK model the CDS is the operational commander of the fighting services. Vesting of the combined command over three services is something the Indian political leadership very justifiably rejects. India does not need the UK model and it is totally inappropriate for India. What this country needs is a full time chairman of the chiefs of staff committee who will have no powers to command any troops at all. His role will be mostly in areas of policy, coordination among the three
services, training, budget, long term planning and evolution of future war doctrines. The point raised by the former air chief, which is a repetition of what happened in the earlier two wars, is about the basic approach to war-fighting by the services. Does each services assess the threat and prepare to fight the war on its own? Or do the three services assess the threat, plan jointly to deal with the threat and use their resources most effectively towards that end? In the US all the theatre commands are integrated with a Commander-in —Chief having all services —army, navy, air force and marines—under him. The theatre commander plans his operations and executes them in an integrated way and he reports directly to the Defence Secretary. He, in turn has the advice of the Joint chiefs of staff. In India the three services function separately. For historical reasons their sizes are vastly disproportionate. The army is many times the size of the Air Force which is larger than the navy. Therefore there is a tendency among the army leadership (though many individual army leaders try to get over this attitude) that theirs is the primary role in defence and the air force is a supplementary service mainly to support the army operation. But the nature of war fighting has changed radically and in today’s war air power plays a crucial role in all operations. In modern operations it is unrealistic to think of roles for the ground-deployed elements and air-deployed elements separately. Our armed forces have not undergone major restructuring since World War II and there is an imperative need for a high-powered commission to examine the restructuring of our forces and make recommendations on the future sizes of the forces. There is a good case to reduce the manpower of the army and expand the air force and the navy. The navy needs to be expanded to discharge the obligations of a major power in this part of the world. The expansion of the air force and jointness in conceptualisation, training, planning and operations are absolutely vital if the Indian army is to discharge its role effectively in the coming decades. Modernisation is not merely a question of acquisition of hardware. It involves modernisation of thinking about defence operation of the future and preparing the defence forces jointly for the task. This problem has remained unaddressed in India. In 2001-2002 a committee appointed by defence minister Jaswant Singh submitted a report on establishing a national defence university to promote jointness,. In the last combined commanders conference the Prime Minister enquired about the progress in implementation of the report.. Our services are now exercising jointly with more and more militarily advanced countries. They are increasingly coming into contact with the jointness concept in operation in those countries. Our own senior officers in the three services are all in favour of reforms in the structure and operational procedures of the services to bring them up to world-class standards. What is needed is the political will to initiate the reform. India cannot play its due role in the 21st century with the armed forces structure on the Second World War model. The appointment of the full time chairman of the chief of staff committee has been resisted by the air force mainly because of its past unhappy history and the disproportionality in the sizes of the three services. One way of getting over it is that the first two incumbents of the chairmanship would come from Air Force and Navy with three year tenure each. Secondly, in the integrated defence staff, the three services should have representation on the basis of army to air force to navy of 2:1:1 The politicians should get over the fear that the chairman of the chiefs of staff committee would be able to wield command over the forces. |
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Woman tops list of rich in China
BEIJING: Chairman Mao once said women hold up half the sky, but he surely could never have predicted that one day self-made paper recycling tycoon Zhang Yin would top the list of China’s wealthiest people with a fortune of 1.8 billion pounds. Nor could he have foretold that her riches would be built on a pile of old rubbish, but socialism with Chinese characteristics is capable of producing all kinds of surprises. Zhang, the 49-year-old founder of Nine Dragons Paper, which buys scrap paper from the United States for use in China, shot from 36th to top position in the annual China Rich List compiled by Hurun Report, making her the first woman ever to top the Rich List. “She is the wealthiest self-made woman in the world,” said researcher Rupert Hoogewerf, who has been compiling the rich list for seven years. Her fortune trumps that of US chat show queen Oprah Winfrey and Harry Potter creator JK Rowling. Last year her wealth was estimated at 202 million pounds but shares in Nine Dragons have tripled since she listed her company on the Hong Kong stock exchange and the market for recycled products is growing at a furious pace. China is getting richer at a staggeringly fast pace. The number of billionaires in the booming country has doubled to 15 from last year. There are 35 women on the 500-strong Hurun list, just seven per cent of the total. The Rich List highlights the mammoth task facing the government of President Hu Jintao in narrowing the gap between rich and poor in China. In recent years the ranks of the super-rich have included real estate barons and dot-com tycoons. But with raw materials in short supply, the demand for recycled products has turned paper into gold for Zhang. The eldest of eight children in a military family in northeastern Heilongjiang province, she moved to Hong Kong in 1985 and set up her business with just 2,000 pounds. She moved to the US in 1990 with the dream of becoming an “empress of waste paper”. Proving the old adage that where there’s muck, there’s brass, in 1996 she set up in Dongguan, near the southern Chinese boomtown of Shenzhen in Guangdong province. She now lists multinationals such as Coca-Cola, Nike and Sony, as well as domestic giants Haier and TCL, among her customer base. Asked what the secret to her success is, Zhang says modestly that her down-to-earth personality has been a big factor. And luck. By arrangement with
The Independent |
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Chatterati The
Champions’ Trophy is on, and the “spaghetti-strap” version of cricket is being aggressively marketed by the BCCI. Lesser known beauties have found a new vocation – popularising cricket which is already an over-popularised sport. The idea could be that even if the team continues to lose, the cash counters should keep ringing. Well! When has India really been at the top in cricket? One World Cup win in 1984 saw us getting smashed immediately thereafter. We are a super power in cricket today because of the money power. How generous and forgiving is our public towards our batting heroes! We applaud their TV advertisements more than their miserable performances in the field. Of course, games are not just about winning but having the right spirit about losing. The board comprises politicians and businessmen who have an unbiased perspective only about making money. What a successful experiment the tournament at Malaysia was – so much moolah was raked in for the TV rights alone. So what if there were hardly any spectators? Lalit Suri, a large-hearted Punjabi The untimely death of Lalit Suri has left the capital in a state of shock. Lalit was known for grit and determination. He had a dream and a vision. Here was a man who never forgot his Punjabi roots. He was large-hearted, hospitable, giving and forgiving. He started with one hotel and took them up to 12. I met him for the first time in 1982 when Rajiv Gandhi asked him to give me some jeeps for my father’s election. I was a little embarrassed, but for Lalit, I realised it was an everyday affair for friends, cutting across party lines. He was polite and helpful to businessmen, politicians and bureaucrats. He hated to talk about the numerous charities he ran. When a politician friend died, one saw him standing near the door, day and night, just in case the family needed anything. Whether his friends were in power or out of power, his hotel, house, cars and whatever he had was theirs to use day and night. He could not stop talking of how proud he was of his three daughters and son who are all toppers from the London School of Economics. The Indian sanskar was there for all to see when one went to his house, whether it was him touching his elder brother’s feet or his sons carrying on with family traditions. He always said his wife Jyoti was his backbone. A devotee of Lord Ganesha, he has a collection of nearly 400 vigrahas in various shapes and sizes in his office room. A dear friend of mine from Himachal, who became a young widow and suffered from cancer, is still his employee at his hotel’s health club. All it took for me to get her a job two decades ago was a phone call. The staff of the hotel then got together and paid for her treatment abroad. It obviously says a lot for the chairman of the group. There is no way to express my grief towards his family, but his loss is immense and will be felt by all, for it’s not everyday a man like him is born. Penance at India International Centre Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav has been denied membership of the elite India International Center (IIC) as he has criminal cases pending against him. Over the next few days, one can expect the pros and cons of having Lalu as a member discussed in IIC’s lawns. But knowing the railway minister, he is quite capable of making even this snub work to his advantage. Dr. Karan Singh resigned from the IIC trust in protest at the decision. He was chairperson before Soli Sorabji. Some say it could also be that Karan Singh is eyeing the Rashtrapati Bhavan. His resignation may get him Lalu’s support. Dr Karan Singh emphasised the fact that as his ancestry is traced to warrior-king Ram’s Raghuvansh clan, failure to keep a promise calls for penance. Karan Singh had given his word that Laluji would become an IIC member. Since that could not happen, as a Raghuvanshi, he had no choice but to put in his papers. Even Lalu’s followers, like central minister Prem Chand Gupta, did not accept his membership. |
If you don’t believe in God, you can help others by doing works of love, and the fruit of these works are the extra graces that come into your soul. — Mother Teresa The wedding-songs of bloodshed are being sung The wedded-ones are being anointed with blood instead of saffron. — Guru Nanak |
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