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Back from space Reform pensions |
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Riot slur
Possibilities in Pak poll
Destiny
Crimes against Dalits Elite Davos forum
on the decline When sanity was voted out
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Back from space THE successful re-entry and recovery of the Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE) - 1 satellite has a significance that belies its modest name. Just the first step towards eventually attaining the capability for manned missions and re-usable launch vehicles, the fact that the Indian Space Research Organisation has made a substantive beginning is cause for cheer. The scientists are thrilled with the technologies that went into the capsule, each working perfectly to enable the small craft to be recovered after a gentle splash down in the Bay of Bengal, from an orbit 625 kilometres above. For a satellite to be recovered from orbit, several key technologies have to work well. One is that the outer shell has to be able to withstand the extreme heat generated during re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere. And whatever the thermal protection, it still has to be slowed down significantly with the help of a deceleration system. Travelling at some 28,000 kilometres per hour in orbit, it had to be slowed down, steered and plunged into the atmosphere, with navigation, guidance and control systems working in tandem. Once past the atmosphere, the parachute and flotation systems had to work as well, or the craft would be lost at sea. In the end, it came down with heartening accuracy, within just a few kilometres of its intended splash-down point. ISRO is thinking big in space. In the short term, it has a moon mission coming up and is seriously considering the possibility of sending a human being to the moon. That will mean the ability to send a vessel into space and bring it back. It is already looking at critical life-support systems for such a mission and the whole host of other technologies that will be required. Re-entry and recovery are also needed if reusable launch vehicles are to be built. This calls for advanced propulsion technologies. ISRO is doing the right thing in dreaming big and preparing for it, while staying within the achievable in the short term. The SRE-1 is a great beginning. |
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Reform pensions WHAT stands out in the government decision to put in place an interim model of investment for funds collected under the new pension scheme is its new-found confidence to go ahead with this crucial piece of reform despite opposition from the Left parties. Instead of waiting for the passage of the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Bill, the UPA government seems to be making light of the Leftist resistance, specially in the wake of support to the pension reforms from as many as 19 states. The latest bold venture comes soon after the government announcing its plan to raise the foreign direct investment cap in insurance from 26 to 49 per cent. This too has been unacceptable to the Left. The state and Central employees joining service after January 1, 2004, are covered by the new pension scheme. The government has, till date, collected Rs 1,500 crore, which awaits investment. The pension Bill will help the government to ease the increasing pressure on its resources. An indication of this is available from the fact that the government’s pension liability has risen from Rs 3,272 crore in 1990-91 to Rs 28,963 crore and is expected to touch Rs 101,000 crore in 2009 due to longer life expectancy of Indians. The pressure on state finances is equally severe. The government has found a way out by handing over pension funds to fund managers, who will invest the corpus according to the guidelines to be framed by the regulator. The pension reforms, according to the Prime Minister, will help the government focus on social sector spending. The Left disapproves, a little irrationally, the parking of pension funds in stock markets, even if it is just 5 per cent of the total amount, because of the risks involved. It wants the government to continue with the existing system or ensure guaranteed returns to the employees. A via media has to be found whereby pensioners are not exposed to heavy risks but are assured of better returns on their money. |
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Riot slur COMMUNAL violence in any part of the country is condemnable, all the more so in Bangalore, a reputed centre of cosmopolitan modernity. The city, which has become internationally known for the IT strides it has made, finds its reputation sullied because of the mischief of a few unemployed politicians and some perpetual hotheads. The city has had such flare-ups in the past too, but the violence during the weekend was all stage-managed. It occurred during an agitation organised by former Union Minister C. K. Jaffer Sharief to condemn the hanging of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Holding such a strike three weeks after the hanging made it clear that the aim was more to focus limelight on himself. The way some of the agitators targeted homes and properties of the majority community also showed their mischievous intent. Surprisingly, the police remained a silent spectator. Two days later, the RSS paid back in kind by organising conventions at three places to mark the birth centenary of their leader Madhawa Sadashiva Golwalkar. Violence broke out amidst rumours that miscreants had damaged an idol at a place of worship. That again set the eastern part of the city aflame. Such incidents have also taken place in Mangalore and Udupi in the recent past. Had the government been resolute, many of these clashes could have been avoided. Even if there is an undercurrent of tension among members of different communities, it is the responsibility of the government to anticipate trouble and nip it effectively. Communal violence is the easiest way to scare away investors. Mercifully, hostility has started dying down on its own. Politicians may not feel ashamed over what they did, but at least community leaders should mull over the damage caused by taking recourse to such short-sighted tit-for-tat bouts. The loss of Bangalore will not be the loss of any one community. Why should politicians be allowed to run riots? |
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When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun with nettles.
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Possibilities in Pak poll
THE political battle-lines in Pakistan are getting blurred and confusing with the general election approaching fast. The existing alliances are suddenly in danger of breaking apart. New alliances are being thought out. Rumour mills are working overtime, fuelled by deliberate and motivated leaks by political rivals. And yet, it appears as though the end result of all the backdoor shenanigans will be an election fought largely around a single issue. Ironically enough, both the issue and the final line-up will depend largely on the decision and calculation of a party which has been in political wilderness for more than a decade — the PPP. There are broadly three possibilities as far as the dominant issue is concerned. The first is that the current Opposition parties — the PPP, the PML(N), the MMA, the ANP and others — may come together and fight the elections entirely on the issue of General Pervez Musharraf’s continuance in power. In this case, the ideological battle-lines will get totally confused since parties with a similar ideology will be fighting against each other and in the company of their ideological foes. For instance, the PML(Q), which works as the General’s party, is closer ideologically to the Jamaat-e-Islami and the MMA and finds it difficult to identify with the General’s “enlightened moderation”. On the other hand, the PPP and the ANP, despite being natural allies of the General, will find themselves in the company of the Mullahs and the socially conservative and orthodox parties like the PML(N) rather than liberal and progressive parties such as the MQM. The second possibility is that the current alliances — both ruling and in the Opposition — break down and new alliances are forged. The new alliances will be based on a combination of ideological affinity and political expediency. In this scenario, the dominant issue will be the future ideological orientation that Pakistan as a nation will take. In a sense, an election fought on purely ideological lines will decide whether Pakistan must emerge as a moderate, modern and progressive Islamic state or whether it will go down the path of radicalism and become another Iran. Under this scenario, parties with liberal pretensions and programmes — the PPP, the ANP, the MQM and even some smaller nationalist parties — will coalesce around General Musharraf’s programme of “enlightened moderation”. Ranged against them will be the socially conservative and religious reactionary parties like the PML(N), the Jamaat-e-Islami and some factions of the current ruling party, the PML(Q). The bulk of the PML(Q) will remain with General Musharraf, for no other reason except that most of the political bigwigs from the PML(Q) have no independent status and their political careers depend on their closeness to the powers-that-be. The only question mark in this scenario is the position that the Jamiat-ul-Ulema Islam (JUI) will take. The third possibility is a repeat of the 2002 general election with the Opposition unable to become a single block and the ruling alliance managing to hold its own with a little help from its “friends, (if) not masters” — the infamous agencies like the ISI, the IB and the MI. In this scenario, there could be local-level adjustments between the Opposition parties but nothing close to a common front against the candidates of the ruling alliance. The Opposition parties, particularly the PPP and the PML(N), will find themselves hamstrung because of the absence of their main leaders, Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif. Their ability to mobilise their supporters and party workers will suffer greatly if these two leaders do not enter the fray. The divisions between the component parties of the MMA will also be exploited to the hilt to ensure that the MMA doesn’t enjoy the sort of success it got in the last elections. The only problem with this scenario is that it has already played itself out in the last five years. It is unlikely that the sense of political drift and low-level political skullduggery that has pervaded Pakistan’s body-politic by the hotchpotch coalition loyal to General Musharraf will be sustainable for another five years. But if the General is unable to cobble together a new alliance he will have no choice but to continue to promote the Chaudhry brothers and their cohorts. Interestingly, all the three possibilities outlined here depend critically on the decision of the PPP as to which way it will swing just before the coming elections. The dilemma for the PPP and its top leader is that if it compromises with General Musharraf then it will lose its political image as the party of the toiling masses of Pakistan and one that has stood up against the famed establishment to safeguard the interests of the people. On the other hand, the PPP knows that without a compromise with the establishment it will not even get a peak into power. Having been out of power for nearly 11 years, many PPP leaders are getting a little desperate to get back in a position where they can dispense patronage to their supporters. The dilemma is not just in making a compromise with General Musharraf; there is also a dilemma in aligning too closely in a joint Opposition front, especially one in which the MMA is an important component. The PPP and Ms Benazir Bhutto would never like to get into an alliance in which they have to play second fiddle, something that is likely to happen if a grand Opposition coalition comes into being. The MMA, which has for long projected itself as the vanguard of the Opposition, will tend to spearhead an Opposition coalition. If both Mr Nawaz Sharif and Ms Benazir Bhutto are not physically present to lead their parties, there is a strong possibility of the Mullahs hijacking an Opposition alliance and tailoring it around their social and political agenda. The last thing Ms Bhutto would want is to play the game on a pitch prepared by the Mullahs. But if playing second fiddle to the Mullahs is a problem for the PPP, then it will also have a huge problem in cohabiting with General Musharraf, especially in a situation in which the General will continue as both President and Army Chief. Unless the PPP behaves as a pushover like the PML(Q) currently does, it will have a tense and uneasy relationship between the General. This will be a cause for constant political instability, something that will affect Pakistan’s diplomatic relations as well as domestic governance, not to talk of the impact that this instability will have on a struggling economy. While there are no easy choices before the PPP, there are many people who believe that any alliance that the party strikes with a military ruler will damage it grievously and deprive it of its core support base. But there are others who believe that the PPP revolves around the Bhutto name, and as long as Ms Benazir Bhutto is the party leader it can survive any political U-turn or ideological somersault. Ms Bhutto is keeping her cards close to her chest and her next move will depend largely on the direction the US sets for
her.
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Destiny
Dictionary
defines destiny as predetermined events. It is an “effect” and its “cause” is a hidden unknown, unexplored and undefined power which rules individuals and the countries in many mysterious ways. Many events in my personal life have led me to believe in this strange phenomenon. Before 1947, in a small village of Pakistan, during my adolescent age, I was coaxed and tutored by a senior lad to head to the house of a young pretty girl, who was also senior to me in age and for whom I had developed a fancy, so as to express my love for her in the specified manner. When I met her, she was alone in the house and as I was about to make measured and tutored advances so as to bring out her responses, her elder brother just dropped in and I had to take to my heels. Thus, in the nick of time, I was saved from a situation which could have had long- term consequences. Partition of India led to transmigration of populace on religious basis. Hindus of my village were eager to be escorted safely to the nearby camp by “Hindu” army contingent only. For this purpose, we used to visit the camp secretly under the cover of darkness. One day while we were crossing a bridge on a canal, we were confronted with a Baloch army patrolling party. Thank God, they let us go but not without warning not to come back again. Nevertheless, we had to
return. On the way back, we were intercepted by the same party, that too, surrounded by a group of Muslims holding spears, sticks etc. They warned us: “You Hindus never obey. Why have you returned? If these Muslims may harm you now, what can we do?” We froze with terror and remembered all our gods in a single breath. Lo! the hidden power appeared. One member of the Muslim group turned out to be married in our village. He recognised us to be his “village brothers-in-law”, warned the group not to harm us and ensured our safe passage back home. What Destiny? I had to survive to write this piece. After being uprooted from our birth place, my father wanted me to join a petty job. I was directed to meet a professor, in a district town, who in his kindness guided me to the employment exchange. There instead of a job, I happened to come across an admission notice put up by a technical institute. Luckily, I was quite in time, got admission and completed my technical studies successfully. Destiny had further designs on me. During a visit to a relative’s place in Delhi, I happened to pick up an old bit of newspaper which I started reading. There I came across an advertisement which, as destined, subsequently culminated into a happy and successful career. Retiring as the head of a prestigious engineering college, I often wonder — what an astounding deviation destiny had planned for me from what my father
thought. |
Crimes against Dalits Weeks have passed since the eruption of the Dalit rage that dominated the headlines for a few days. To most non-Dalits, it is a non-issue, despite the numbers and even the principles of nationhood involved. Khairlanjis may and do come and go, but India’s public life goes on, after a passing protest and debate, as though no profounder introspection was called for. A survey by the Tokyo-based International Movement against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR) some years ago made the following findings, among others: In India, on an average, two Dalits are assaulted every hour, three Dalit women are raped every day and two Dalits are murdered and two Dalit houses burnt down every day. This is happening to a community that forms 19.18 per cent of India’s population, meaning that one in about every five Indians is a Dalit. If atrocities of this scale and frequency happen to any other community, none of them is likely to be forgotten by the newspapers and the nation so soon as Khairlanji has been. No candles were lit and no courts subjected to popular pressure over the country’s recurring Khairlanjis. It is not just the number and scale of atrocities that make the Dalit issue what it is, but the dehumanization it involves. The quality, and not the quantity, of the anti-Dalit crimes is what sets them apart as a social phenomenon. Nearly one-fifth of the nation’s population is not only subjected to perennial and all-pervasive oppression, but placed outside the pale of the society in actual and unabashed practice. Nowhere else is a section of the people seriously considered a source of pollution and, in that sense, sub-human. A refusal to face this reality, a non-recognition of this special national shame is what makes the Dalit issue so impossibly difficult for India’s society and polity. Without a shocked awareness of the problem in all its starkness, no solution to it is ever possible. Mahatma Gandhi had this in mind, perhaps, towards the end of his life, when he said: “The tragedy is that those who should have especially devoted themselves to the work of (caste) reform did not put their hearts into it.” If this implied criticism of the upper-caste leadership of the Congress, parties and politics of intermediate castes did not advance the Dalit cause, either. They did not do so either in the north or in the south, including
Tamil nadu of ‘Dravidian’ ideology, with its ‘social justice’ stopping short of a new deal for Dalits. The identity politics of Dalit parties, too, has failed to promote the cause beyond the point that statues and renamed districts represent. It is a pretended nationalism that has been employed to prevent national awareness of the kind the Dalit issue demands. A recent illustration followed P rime Minister Manmohan Singh’s comparison of untouchability to the apartheid of yesteryear’s South Africa - a restrained statement considering that even that racist system did not reduce its victims to the status of untouchables. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) reacted indignantly, with its vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi saying that this will “denigrate India’s image in the comity of nations”. To the main opposition party, the image was a more important concern than the sordid reality of the Dalit issue that should matter far more to Indians with a different idea of national pride. The brief episode suggests a way of bringing about a broader awareness about the issue as inescapable for India any more. The BJP and several other quarters reacted in a similar manner over five years ago, when some pro-Dalit organizations tried to take the point now made by the Prime Minister to its apparently logical conclusion. The demand by these organisations for a United Nations denunciation of caste oppression, of which Dalits are the worst victims, was deplored as “anti-national”. The articulation of the demand at the World Congress against Racism and Xenophobia of September 2001, held symbolically in South Africa’s Durban , was condemned almost as an act of treason. The demand elicited opposition even from avowedly pro-Dalit sections. These objected to the Durban congress as an attempt, among other things, to equate or associate Dalits’ oppression with racial discrimination. According to them, Ambedkar himself would not have approved, as he had argued: “Caste system does not divide races; it is the name of social division within a race.” This particular objection can be met easily. It was anticipated and answered, in fact, at the Global Conference against Racism and Caste-based Discrimination held in New Delhi on March 1-4, 2001 , as a prelude to the Durban congress. In its final declaration, the New Delhi conference recalled the concluding observation of the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) that “the situation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes falls within the scope of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination”. The declaration pointedly noted that the term “descent” contained in Article 1 of the Convention did not refer solely to race, but encompassed the situation of the SCs and the STs. The conference characterised untouchability as “a crime against humanity”. There can be no serious objection to an international declaration to this effect. As for those who can be expected to denounce such a demand, too, as “anti-national”, they ought to be silenced if confronted with a concerted South Asian campaign in its favour. The New Delhi conference, after all, had the participation of Dalit representatives from Pakistan, Bangladesh , Sri Lanka and Nepal as well. The BJP, of all parties, should have no objection to a campaign that castigates Islamabad and Dhaka for inaction against the inhuman practice of untouchability. Only a campaign of this kind, it should be clear by now, can shock mainstream India into an awareness of the national disgrace that the anti-Dalit crimes are, even without any UN declaration against them. Without such awareness, there can be no worthwhile programme to prevent other Khairlanjis waiting to happen. |
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Elite Davos forum
on the decline ON Wednesday, the World Economic Forum will begin in Davos, Switzerland. If the meeting sounds like a collection of economists lulling each other to sleep talking about interest rates, think again. What the in-crowd simply calls “Davos” is an assemblage of business leaders, politicians, visionaries and - more recently - celebrities at an isolated ski resort for an intense three-day discussion of global issues. Since Swiss business professor Klaus Schwab launched the forum in 1971, it has become the ne plus ultra of elite meetings. At least, that’s what the rhetoric surrounding Davos suggests. According to the World Economic Forum’s Web site, Davos is “an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” Political scientist Samuel P. Huntington asserted that “Davos people control virtually all international institutions, many of the world’s governments and the bulk of the world’s economic and military capabilities.” Its critics hold a similar view. Anti-globalisation protests have targeted the conference, causing its security budget to grow at an alarming rate. To many of them, Davos is the epitome of how globalisation is managed by the elite to impoverish the many. One of the few scholarly studies of the Davos experience characterizes the meeting as “a polymorph platform of intermediations on the new frontiers of capitalism.” I’m not entirely sure what that means, but it does not sound good. Some of this criticism is misplaced. Claiming that Davos is the secret cabal that runs the world would be like claiming that playing for the NBA makes people taller - it confuses correlation with causation. Given that the forum’s organizers listed giving “sports leaders a voice” as one of the major achievements of last year’s meeting, critics might be exaggerating the power of Davos just a wee bit. The official rhetoric about solving global problems is overblown as well. The few Davos attendees who have kissed and told suggest that the conference is more about networking opportunities and ego gratification than shaping global agendas. In an online Davos diary from last year, author David Rothkopf observed, “Delegates were all collectors, collecting big names, anecdotes to share with friends, validation.” At this point, Davos appears to serve three purposes. First, it is a useful place for politicians to launch new, grandiose initiatives that never quite live up to their billing. Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan launched the U.N.’s Global Compact there in 1999. The U.S. proposed a Middle East Free Trade Zone in 2003. And British Prime Minister Tony Blair used Davos in 2005 as the platform to launch the G8’s Second, Davos serves as a convenient meeting place for negotiators. Because everyone who is anyone is in attendance, political and business leaders can paradoxically reduce their travel by knowing that they will see each other at Davos. It is now standard practice for trade negotiators to meet at the conference. For many world leaders, Davos is merely another stop on the summit train, like the G8 meetings or the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Third, Davos has become the place where political and business celebrities can meet the only kind of celebrities the rest of the world really cares about. In recent years, Bono, Brangelina and Sharon Stone have shown up. Although this has only intensified media interest, it has also elicited complaints from longtime participants that Davos has become the international equivalent of the Sundance Film Festival. What used to be a small, intimate gathering has metastasized into something bigger - and slightly more crass. There are signs that Davos may have jumped the shark. Activists used to demand a voice at the forum. In recent years, however, they have abandoned it altogether. Instead, they attend the rival World Social Forum, which is held at about the same time as Davos. Even more disconcertingly, Davos sponsored a Gallup poll that found, across the globe, growing distrust of political and business leaders - the very people who attend Davos. The World Economic Forum will not go down without a fight. According to Schwab, “our annual meeting will help (leaders) to address the global agenda and hopefully restore much needed confidence in the ability of global leadership to improve the state of the world for all.” Perhaps - but the polling data could be a harbinger of Davos’ irrelevance. This leads to an interesting existential question: What if they threw an elite meeting and no one cared?
By arrangement with
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When sanity was voted out THE ‘Save Shilpa’ episode staged on the
Real-life Show of Racial Tolerance has produced its desired results. The
baddie of the show Jane Goody has clearly been the loser and damsel in
distress Shilpa Shetty has emerged the victor in the ‘vote of tolerance.’
This is the outcome, on the face of it. But in all this theatre of the absurd
played out in the name of reality TV, have there been any real winners and
losers? Certainly, all the so-called voices of tolerance that rose to an
unprecedented crescendo in this entire episode can claim it as a resounding
moral victory for themselves. For the TRPs too, it has been out and out a
thumping win. And it’s not just the TRPs for the show Celebrity Big Brother
that have ridden this wave. The Indian Tamasha TV, a dubious distinction
that many of the desi news channels have earned, too, benefited greatly from
this drama outsourced from the land of Shakespeare. As our own channels went
into an overdrive to throw their weight behind the Bollywood starlet, who was
suddenly catapulted from a peripheral existence to the central, exalted status
of an ambassador of India’s tolerant multicultural values, the entire
coverage assumed the colour of a East-West collision, an exaggerated reaction
to perceived xenophobia. One channel even described it as a ‘Clash of the
Civilisations’. Even India’s literary ambassadors like Kiran Desai were
called in to comment on the racial prejudices our writers encounter in the
western world. The entire debate centering a mere reality programme blew up
into an India Shining campaign, which ultimately had most of India Whining,
for a voluntary participant in the show whose personal victimisation came to
be seen as a collective insult, whose individual slights got perceived as a
slap on the face of Indianness. The show virtually became synonymous with Big
Power bullying and intimidation, with shades of the Orwellian Big Brother. In
the sense of the public outrage the racist comments evoked and the pressure it
exerted on the powers that be, yes the whole incident can be cited as a clear
win for aggressive media activism. And if 2006 was hailed as the year of the
‘citizen journalist’, the couch potatoes-turned-activists can surely get
into self-congratulatory mode this year too. For, 2007 promises to be a year
of consolidation for them, going by the way they reasserted themselves as a
force to reckon with, even if a ‘remote’ one exercised through SMS polls,
in building public opinion on this entire issue. Who then were the losers?
Obviously, all those voices of restraint and rationalism that got drowned in
this din, who pleaded that the episode didn’t call for such overreaction
considering that India itself is not above caste and class prejudices. In
short, the ones to lose were the saner elements who were not game to getting
into a frenzy over what was, after all, just a game show. |
It is not easy to live among material objects and give up all attachment to them. The wise person is not disheartened by failures. He tries again and again till he masters the art. Perseverance and determination are facilitators to the way of
success. When affection for the ‘I’ and what is own is dead, the work of the teacher is over. The purpose of labour is to learn; And, when you’ve learned it all, the labour is
over. Radiating kindness over the entire world, spreading upwards to the skies, and downwards to the depths; Onwards and unbounded, freed from hatred Faithful believers, do not take usurious interest, multiplied and compounded; and be wary of God, that you may
prosper. All sins may be eliminated by the supreme nector of God’s
love.
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