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Catch them young Kids’ record should infuse enthusiasm Nobody will venture to say that the next Sachin Tendulkar or even Vinod Kambli has been found; but B. Manoj Kumar and Mohammed Shaibaaz Tumbi’s world record 721 runs in an under-13 game in Hyderabad does serve to remind us that, not too long ago, there was something very special about Indian batting. The unbeaten 721 was put up in 40 overs for St. Peter’s High School in Hyderabad, eclipsing the earlier world record set by Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli way back in 1987-88 in Mumbai.
Yes, but with riders
Netaji and his jail
DOCUMENT Think monetary policy, think Friedman Inside Pakistan
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The Senate nod THE Indo-US nuclear deal has crossed a big hurdle with the US Senate clearing it with an 85-12 vote in a House of 100. The only step that is left to give it the final stamp of approval is the reconciliation process whereby the two Houses of the US Congress edge out any differences that exist in the two versions of the law they passed. Since the Senate and the House of Representatives are strongly in support of the initiative of the Bush administration, the ironing out of differences cannot but be a smooth affair. From the way the Senate rejected some of the “killer” amendments moved by a few Democratic members, it seemed the House was voting with a vengeance for the Bill. After all, the amendments had the potential to scuttle the entire deal, which has been in the works for over a year now.
Nevertheless, it made some changes that India may not easily accept. On its part, India has always been insisting that no departure from the agreement Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed with President George W. Bush was acceptable to the country. In other words, it was incumbent upon the Bush administration to ensure that the Bill passed by the US Congress conformed in both letter and spirit to the agreement. In other words, conditions like a cap on India’s fissile material production and its defence-related relations with Iran that two of the killer amendments sought to impose would have been unacceptable to India. Surely the Senators were aware of India’s sensibilities on such questions. To be fair to the Bush administration, it has been vigorously pursuing the Bill to its logical conclusion. It still needs to deploy all its resources to see to it that the last hurdle on the path of the deal is removed. That the Nuclear Suppliers’ Club has to endorse the Indo-US deal before its members can transfer relevant material and technology to India is just a formality. More important than such transfers is the new impetus the deal will give to India-US relations making the two countries strategic partners. In the long run, it will strengthen India in meeting some of the security challenges it faces in its neighbourhood. In the short run, the deal will help India harness nuclear power to meet the ever-growing needs of power, without increasing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. For the US, the deal signifies a new partnership, which is rooted in democratic values and built on cutting-edge scientific and technological
knowhow.
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Outrage in Scotland Sikhs in Scotland comprise a small but successful community. They have been leading a quiet and peaceful life all these decades. But the idyllic situation stands shattered following a case of racial assault, in which a group of white youths attacked a Sikh teenager and cut his hair in a public park in the capital Edinburgh on Tuesday. He was also subjected to verbal racial abuse. Rightly, the Indian community is shocked. This cannot be explained away, and even the Edinburgh chief inspector has conceded that the manner of the crime, where and how it has happened and legacy that will be left from it is exceptional. The fear is that it may encourage other racial bigots to take law into their hands. This apprehension can be removed somewhat only if the police swings into action and brings the guilty to book quickly. What has happened in Scotland seems to be the handiwork of a few hooligans. But it is a pity that some of the governments too are not averse to hurting the sensibilities of minority communities. Whether it is the French decision not to allow Sikh students to wear their headgear to school or the British controversy regarding the “burqa”, it is obvious that many Western countries have scant respect for the religious symbols of Asian communities. There is an unmistakable undercurrent that most of the foreigners are terrorists or at least potential trouble-makers. Unfortunately, there have been instances of such stereotyping even in India. Just because their articles of faith make them visible targets, Sikhs have specially had to undergo many such ordeals. Such outrage can lead to alienation and worse. It must be clearly understood that targeting members of any community without caring for their affiliations and sensibilities is tantamount to pushing them into the lap of militancy. An honest person traumatised for no fault of his or her can begin justifying violence. There is no alternative to tolerance and showing respect to every religion.
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Catch them young Nobody will venture to say that the next Sachin Tendulkar or even Vinod Kambli has been found; but B. Manoj Kumar and Mohammed Shaibaaz Tumbi’s world record 721 runs in an under-13 game in Hyderabad does serve to remind us that, not too long ago, there was something very special about Indian batting. The unbeaten 721 was put up in 40 overs for St. Peter’s High School in Hyderabad, eclipsing the earlier world record set by Sachin
Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli way back in 1987-88 in Mumbai. The new record came in a game that was part of the Hyderabad Cricket Association’s under-13 inter-school tournament, and their hapless opponents, Philips High School, folded up for just 21 runs. As Vinod Kambli stressed in response to the new record, it takes some talent, determination and technique to score triple centuries, and at such a pace. The feat cannot be dismissed as easy school cricket, Kambli insisted. And top names like Sunil Gavaskar had showed their talent at the school level itself. There may indeed be better batsmen than these two playing school cricket, as Shaibaaz and Manoj themselves, to their credit, were not hesitant in admitting. That is all to the good. Considering that the new Chairman of Selectors Dilip Vengsarkar failed to find “any exceptional talent” in the current reserves, there is not doubt that the process of finding and nurturing talent has to start at the school level. Here is an opportunity to look at the school games right up to the under-19 level in a fresh light, and ensure that the system throws up more talent. There might well be gems waiting to be picked.
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Never doubt the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. That is about the only way it has ever happened in the past. — Margaret Mead
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Yes, but with riders As usual the professional pessimists who were forecasting that the Indo-US Nuclear Cooperation Bill would slip into the next Congress and the Democratic seizure of the control over the two Houses of Congress would make the passage of the bill more difficult have been proved woefully wrong. The bill passed by an 85-12 majority demonstrates that 60 per cent of the Democrats voted for it. There were also predictions that the long interval after the passage of the bill in the House had enabled the nonproliferation ayatollahs to mobilise opposition to the bill. That perception also proved completely wrong. This bill is only the second major hurdle to be crossed. Next step is to have a joint bill agreed to in a conference between the House and the Senate. India and the US have to negotiate and sign a specific bilateral agreement called 123 Agreement. The present enactment is of relevance to the US President and Administration. Only the provisions of the 123 Agreement will be binding on India. Therefore, care should be taken to ensure that there are no objectionable clauses in that agreement. Simultaneously India has to negotiate India-specific safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. This safeguard agreement will not be the same as prescribed for non-weapon states. At the same time it is not reasonable to expect that it will be identical with the safeguards agreements applicable to nuclear weapon powers of the nonproliferation treaty. It will probably be very close to it. India has also to lobby hard with a few nations who still have reservations about modifying Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines to enable India to have nuclear cooperation with all 45 NSG members. The Indo-US nuclear cooperation agreement passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate is only an enabling provision. The US initiated the technology denial regime against India following India’s 1974 Pokhran I nuclear test. This was enacted in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act. Subsequently other technology denial regimes such as Australia group, Missile Technology Control regime and Wassenaar arrangement were linked to the basic technology denial in the nuclear nonproliferation legislation. Initially, all US allies joined this technology denial regime network through respective administrative declarations. Subsequently after the end of the Cold War, many former Warsaw Pact countries, Russia and China, also joined this technology denial regime. Therefore, this enactment has far more significance than as enabling legislation to permit Indo-US nuclear cooperation. In fact, this enactment gives a green signal to all other powers that are in this technology denial regime network that from now on India is no longer to be subjected to technology apartheid and they can now deal with India on high technology. This is the main benefit out of this enactment. China, which has a number of admirers in this country for its so-called anti-imperialist stand, is the latest member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group established by the US. Therefore, India has no option but to deal with the US and remove the foundation stone of technology apartheid in the US Nuclear Nonproliferation legislation. If India had to pay special attention to its relationship with the US, it is because other industrialised countries — not only its European allies and Japan but even Russia and China — have accepted the US leadership in imposing technology apartheid on India. While the US Ambassador assures us that all India’s concerns will be addressed when the House of Representatives and the Senate meet in a conference to evolve a consensus bill, there are possibilities that not all clauses considered objectionable by India may be removed from the joint draft. Out of the objectionable clauses there are two categories — one binding on the US Administration and another expressing the views and desired objectives of the two Houses but not binding on the US President. Already, the White House has issued a statement informing Congress that foreign policy is an exclusive prerogative of the President in the US constitution and therefore the President was not bound by non-binding clauses. Yet in any bargain one side cannot expect hundred per cent satisfaction. Therefore, India has to be prepared for a few clauses not to its satisfaction appearing in the final enactment. Do we reject the enactment on that ground and call off further negotiations with the US, IAEA and NSG? Some would advocate it. But that would be the worst blunder on the part of this country. The unacceptable clauses relate to direct nuclear cooperation between the US and India. When China negotiated a similar nuclear cooperation agreement with the US, it also found similar objectionable clauses in the agreement. Such clauses occur in the Australia-China uranium agreement too. The Chinese took them in their stride and went ahead with further negotiations. After the nuclear technology denial for China was lifted through such agreement they got their reactors not from the US but from Canada, France and Russia. These countries do not have any legislation authorising technology denial to other countries — only administrative declarations as members of various groups, founded by the US. In their dealings with other countries there are no objectionable clauses analogous to the ones the US Congress imposes. Therefore, going ahead with the US to removed international technology denial provisions is absolutely essential. India should follow the Chinese example and go ahead and complete the 123 Agreement, IAEA safeguards and NSG negotiations. Once having freed itself of technology apartheid it is up to its choice from which source it would get is reactors and nuclear technology. An analogy is available in India launching its liberalisation process and joining the globalisation process. Though India was not satisfied with the World Trade agreement. India’s liberalisation was an intermediate step and has not hurt India’s interests. Those who advocate rejection of Indo-US deal are of the view that there are only two alternatives available. Either to accept the US deal with unacceptable clauses or to continue to be condemned to live under technology apartheid. There is a third strategy available. To go along with the US till we get free of the technology denial regime and thereafter to interact with other industrial nations for access to high technology. It is quite possible under such circumstances that the US will be compelled to liberalise its stand further. There are reports about China offering Pakistan large-scale civil nuclear cooperation. India should not find itself in a position that it foregoes high technology cooperation with industrialized nations because it finds some clauses in the US enabling legislation unacceptable and in the process enables Pakistan to overtake India in nuclear energy
production.
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Netaji and his jail Netaji, of the shifting political affiliations fame, had just returned from a jail stint and was furious at the inhuman living conditions prevailing there. After a victory parade and tumultuous welcome that reminded one of the times when he had won the election, he was issuing rapidfire instructions to his PA to improve the situation in prisons. “India has reached the 21st century, but our jails are still existing in medieval times”, he thundered the way he used to do during his public speeches, “I found it impossible to pass instructions from the prison to my boys even on such life-and-death matters as getting someone kidnapped or murdered. Make sure that prisons have state-of-the-art communication equipment”. “What to do, saheb, there is a ban on the use of mobile phones inside the jails,” the PA mumbled sheepishly. “I know, I know,” Netaji said in an exasperated tone, “but there is no ban on video-conferencing. Even if there is, make sure that it is not applicable to honourable prisoners above the rank of MLA. And while at it, also ensure that local-brand TVs, DVD players, ACs and laptops are not brought to my cell. Buy imported equipment for the jailor’s bungalow and use it to do up my cell”. “What is the use of that now?” his wife interjected while peeling potatoes, “you should’ve thought of all that before you went to jail”. She used to be a silent spectator during such confabulations in the past but had found her voice with a vengeance ever since she was made a minister to keep his seat warm during his absence. “Bhabhiji, our saheb has dozens of criminals cases registered against him,” the PA said with admiration dripping from his voice, “He will have many more occasions to pay a visit to various jails.” “Bas, bas, you concentrate on your job. It was so difficult to accommodate all supporters and admirers who came for my darshan to the jail. In future, my cell should have a Vigyan Bhavan-sized conference hall attached to it. Any policeman who restricts their entry should be sent to another district, or another world if necessary. I hope you understand what I mean?” “Of course I do, saheb,” he said with a wink. “The hospital where I spent 10 months of my one-year term was so lousy. Doctors won’t touch my feet and nurses were all behenji-type. Explore the possibility of VIP prisoners being sent abroad for treatment.” “Right away, saheb”. “And while on rest and recreation, you should have seen what tacky dancers they bring to the jails at night. Where are all the cabaret dancers that my colleagues got evicted from Mumbai bars?” “You will have no complaints the next time, saheb”. Netaji’s wife chipped in again: “Sunoji, you are out by the grace of God. But most of our relatives are still there, and for a long time. There must be special family wards for them in all prisons”. “That’s a good suggestion. PA, note
karo.”
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DOCUMENT Unlike wars and natural disasters, the global crisis in water does not galvanize concerted international action. Like hunger, deprivation in access to water is a silent crisis experienced by the poor and tolerated by those with the resources, the technology and the political power to end it. Yet this is a crisis that is holding back human progress, consigning large segments of humanity to lives of poverty, vulnerability and insecurity. This crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns. It also reinforces the obscene inequalities in life chances that divide rich and poor nations in an increasingly prosperous and interconnected world and that divide people within countries on the basis of wealth, gender and other markers for disadvantage. Overcoming the crisis in water and sanitation is one of the great human development challenges of the early 21st century. Success in addressing that challenge through a concerted national and international response would act as a catalyst for progress in public health, education and poverty reduction and as a source of economic dynamism. Some commentators trace the global challenge in water to a problem of scarcity. With population rising and demands on the world’s water expanding, so the argument runs, the future points to a “gloomy arithmetic” of shortage. We reject this starting point. The availability of water is a concern for some countries. But the scarcity at the heart of the global water crisis is rooted in power, poverty and inequality, not in physical availability. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of water for life. Today, some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2. 6 billion lack basic sanitation. Those twin deficits are rooted in institutions and political choices, not in water’s availability. Household water requirements represent a tiny fraction of water use, usually less than 5 per cent of the total, but there is tremendous inequality in access to clean water and to sanitation at a household level. In high-income areas of cities in Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa people enjoy access to several hundred litres of water a day delivered into their homes at low prices by public utilities. Meanwhile, slum dwellers and poor households in rural areas of the same countries have access to much less than the 20 litres of water a day per person required to meet the most basic human needs. Women and young girls carry a double burden of disadvantage, since they are the ones who sacrifice their time and their education to collect water. Much the same applies to water for livelihoods. Across the world agriculture and industry are adjusting to tightening hydrological constraints. But while scarcity is a widespread problem, it is not experienced by all. The underlying cause of scarcity in the large majority of cases is institutional and political, not a physical deficiency of supplies. In many countries scarcity is the product of public policies that have encouraged overuse of water through subsidies and underpricing. There is more than enough water in the world for domestic purposes, for agriculture and for industry. The problem is that some people- notably the poor-are systematically excluded from access by their poverty, by their limited legal rights or by public policies that limit access to the infrastructures that provide water for life and for livelihoods. In short, scarcity is manufactured through political processes and institutions that disadvantage the poor. When it comes to clean water, the pattern in many countries is that the poor get less, pay more and bear the brunt of the human development costs associated with scarcity. People living in rich countries today are only dimly aware of how clean water fostered social progress in their own countries. Just over a hundred years ago London, New York and Paris were centres of infectious disease, with diarrhoea, dysentery and typhoid fever undermining public health. Child death rates were as high then as they are now in much of Sub- Saharan Africa. The rising wealth from industrialization boosted income, but child mortality and life expectancy barely changed. Sweeping reforms in water and sanitation changed this picture. Clean water became the vehicle for a leap forward in human progress. Driven by coalitions for social reform, by moral concern and by economic self-interest, governments placed water and sanitation at the centre of a new social contract between states and citizens. Within a generation they put in place the finance, technology and regulations needed to bring water and sanitation for all within reach. Some 2.6 billion people-half the developing world’s population-do not have access to basic sanitation. And systemic data underreporting means that these figures understate the problem. “Not having access” to water and sanitation is a polite euphemism for a form of deprivation that threatens life, destroys opportunity and undermines human dignity. Being without access to water means that people resort to ditches, rivers and lakes polluted with human or animal excrement or used by animals. It also means not having sufficient water to meet even the most basic human needs. While basic needs vary, the minimum threshold is about 20 litres a day. Most of the 1.1 billion people categorized as lacking access to clean water use about 5 litres a day-one tenth of the average daily amount used in rich countries to flush toilets. On average, people in Europe use more than 200 litres-in the United States more than 400 litres. When a European person flushes a toilet or an American person showers, he or she is using more water than is available to hundreds of millions of individuals living in urban slums or arid areas of the developing world. Dripping taps in rich countries lose more water than is available each day to more than 1 billion people. ————
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Think monetary policy, think Friedman Over half a century, Mr Friedman, the son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants, established himself as arguably the most influential, and certainly the most celebrated, economic thinker of his time. Over that post-war period, “Friedmanism” - the belief that changes in money supply dictate fluctuations in the economy - supplanted Keynesianism as the dominant economic philosophy of the industrial world. Inflation, he believed, was caused by too much money chasing two few goods. Conversely, deflation was the result of too little money in the economy. He argued that the Depression - the defining economic event of his youth - was not a failure of capitalism, but of government, as the monetary authorities in the US and Europe reduced liquidity in the system, thus making a bad situation worse. As Mr Friedman celebrated his 90th birthday in 2002, Ben Bernanke - then a Federal Reserve governor, now chairman of the US central bank - sought belated forgiveness for the error: “Regarding the Great Depression, you’re right,” Mr Bernanke acknowledged. “We did it. We’re very sorry.” Those monetary beliefs underpinned the 30-plus books that appeared under his name, most notably perhaps A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, as well as a host of other writing including a regular column in Newsweek magazine. Unrelentingly, he urged deregulation and individual initiative as the keys to economic success - a view embraced by the US presidents Nixon, Ford and above all Ronald Reagan, and by Mrs Thatcher in Britain. Friedman, and the “Chicago School” of economics he led, helped to bring down the post-war Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, as the dollar was devalued twice in the early 1970s. In 1976 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. In subsequent years, the Fed and other central banks adopted his prescription of rigorous control of the money supply to stamp out the inflation left by the 1970s oil-shocks. His laissez-faire philosophy extended far beyond economics. Mr Friedman was a fierce opponent of the military draft, and called for the decriminalisation of prostitution and drug use. On occasion he ran into controversy, not least when he and other Chicago School economists advised Augusto Pinochet in Chile, after the overthrow in 1973 of Salvador Allende, the democratically elected president. Mr Friedman defended himself by pointing to the ultimate fall of General Pinochet. “Freer markets lead to free people,” he said. “It’s hard to think of anyone who’s had more of a direct influence on social and economic policy in this generation,” Professor Allan H Meltzer of Carnegie Mellon University said. Mr Friedman was a strong supporter of inflation targeting, a practice adopted by the European Central Bank and increasingly by the Federal Reserve under Mr Bernanke. Mr Friedman’s thinking “has been so influential that ... it has nearly become identical with modern monetary theory and practice,” the Fed chairman once said.
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Inside Pakistan Moral policing in NWFP The latest law enacted by the North-West Frontier Province Assembly aims at having a separate police force for enforcing morality in accordance with Islamic injunctions. Called the Hasba Bill, if implemented, it will lead to the appointment of ombudsmen “to enforce virtue” and “prohibit vice”. It also has provisions to ensure women’s rights, discourage honour killings and force children to respect parental wishes. The Bill, adopted this week, is an improved version of a controversial law formulated last year. The News of November 15, however, says: “The Hasba Bill is a wholly unnecessary and intrusive law that the province and its residents could do without. It will compromise the working of various key departments of the province, particularly the police and the judiciary, and place too much discretionary power in the hands of officials -- the Mohtasibs -- to be appointed by the government. Worse, it may promote vigilante behaviour among the activists of the religious parties that rule the NWFP ..” This is the position despite the fact that the most controversial provision meant for empowering officials to force people to offer daily prayers has been dropped. Through a strongly worded editorial, Dawn asks: “.what sort of a message is an elected government giving to its constituents and the country at large? If the MMA thinks it has a duty to serve the people who have voted it to power, then it must ask itself in what way the Hasba Bill promotes the people’s interests and aims at lifting them out of the poverty-ridden life which has been their lot for long.” The provincial government is worried about non-issues at a time when, according to Dawn, “groups of so-called ‘local’ Taliban are going around stopping women from stepping out of their houses and shutting down girls’ schools, civil society organisations’ and NGOs’ offices” in areas not far from Peshawar. Urdu’s plight Those in India who believe that Urdu is prospering in Pakistan because of being its national language should revise their opinion. Going by what Burhanuddin Hasan says in his article carried in The News on November 16, the position of Urdu on both sides of the Indo-Pak divide is, perhaps, the same. According to Hasan, the electronic media and “the so-called English-medium schools” teach the younger generation in Pakistan that Urdu is “a backward and impractical language which needs to be ignored as a language of education and a medium of civilized communication.. As they grow, their anti-Urdu psychosis also grows..” In the opinion of the writer, “The fault does not lie with the students, but with the education system which has schools being run on a commercial basis with faulty perceptions of running down the national language (of Pakistan). The fault also lies with the Ministry of Education, which is the lowest in the government’s priorities and is headed by the least competent person for the job.” It is a pity that Urdu has been “ignored and even persecuted for various historical reasons and prejudices” in a country where it has been accorded the status of the national language. Better health care demanded Pakistan has remained far behind India in many areas, including health care. But now it seems there is increasing realisation that people must get better health care facilities in their own country. An editorial carried in Jang, the leading Urdu daily, on November 15 gives an idea about where exactly Pakistan’s health sector finds itself today. Referring to a recent announcement that the health department is going to be bifurcated into the Public Health Care Department and the Normal Health Care Department, Jang says the minister concerned “underlined the fact that in the past the department of health had remained neglected. As a result, the common citizen had been deprived of the health care facilities which were his right. The minister also highlighted the fact that there were certain diseases which could be fought only through precautionary measures, creating the necessary awareness among the people and undertaking research to go into their genesis. “The minister’s statement acquires special significance if viewed in the context of the virus that causes dengue. Dengue fever cases have been reported in Pakistan for the past 10 years, but there has been no effort to develop a vaccine to prevent the disease..” The paper appreciated the minister’s revelations, but it wanted him to first ensure that “the government hospitals must improve their functioning. The hospitals should provide adequate health care facilities to the people, particularly the poor, free of cost or at the minimum charges possible.”
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Milton Friedman, the Nobel-winning monetarist economist who was an intellectual architect of the free-market policies of many central banks died Thursday in San Francisco. He was 94.