 |
|
No Maya this MP loot scheme |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
VIP squadron
When Tigers fly
Sam Bahadur
When the computer wins, we win Taliban continue to gain in strength Research needed on RTI usage
|
No Maya this ONE of the major reasons for Mulayam Singh Yadav’s downfall in Uttar Pradesh was the ascendancy of criminals inside and outside the government. The public was sick and tired of a crime wave. The high-pitched publicity campaign spearheaded by none other than Amitabh Bachchan that UP had less crime than other states not only fell flat but also boomeranged. That is why Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati announced on coming to power that her first priority would be to end the goonda and mafia raj. The people were happy. They were expecting that she would put all such undesirable elements in their rightful place — behind bars. But certain things in India never change, it seems. She has sworn in at least 10 ministers who have serious criminal charges against them ranging from murder to extortion. If slightly lesser crimes are also included, the number of tainted ministers may go up to 22. One of the ministers of state could not take oath because he happened to be in jail. If this is the team she is going to function with, how can she even think of giving a clean government? It is true that the BSP has the highest number of MLAs facing criminal charges —70 of the 206 elected — with Mr Yadav’s Samajwadi Party at number two with 49 criminals out of the 97 elected. But that surely left her with over 130 with a clean record to choose from. It is a matter of shame that she has patronised criminals with a vengeance. What the Chief Minister should not forget is that although the public has given her a clear mandate, this support can start vanishing if she goes on the wrong track. Ideally, she should get rid of the tainted. Slightly less ideally, she should make sure that none of them does anything even remotely illegal the way they had been doing all along in the past. Anything less ideal than that will be a replay of the goonda (read Yadav) raj. |
|
MP loot scheme THE demand for a raise in the allocation under the MP Local Area Development Scheme from the present Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore per MP per year is irrational and unjustified. During the zero hour in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, some members even demanded Rs 10 crore per year to take care of the needs of their constituencies. Not surprisingly, no member had the courage to oppose the demand. Surely, when it is a question of increasing the MPLADS fund or perks and allowances, members, cutting across party lines, are unanimous in supporting it. When the P.V. Narasimha Rao government launched the scheme in 1993, MPs were given Rs 1 crore per year. Within a few years, it was doubled to Rs 2 crore. A close look at the track record of this scheme during the past 14 years would suggest that there is every reason for the government to scrap the scheme. Over the years, several studies by expert committees have suggested that members have misused crores of rupees under this scheme. Funds have either been embezzled, diverted or remain unutilised. Often, there is no accountability. Moreover, there is no effective implementation and monitoring mechanism at the district level. To buttress their argument, some MPs claim that the District Collector, as the nodal agency, scrutinises and implements works under the scheme. However, the scheme has many gaping holes. It is said that while an obliging Collector promptly sanctions a ruling party MP’s project proposal, he creates hurdles in the case of an Opposition MP. An MP’s primary job is to make laws and keep a check on the functioning of the government and not to sanction and execute projects. Ideally, funds earmarked for this scheme should be diverted to panchayats and municipalities which are perpetually short of funds. These self-governing institutions, which are the real engines of development, need to be empowered with funds. In other words, scrapping of the MPLADS scheme will help strengthen grassroots democracy in the country. |
|
VIP squadron
AMONG the various crimes of omission and commission discovered by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India and placed before Parliament in its reports, is the one pertaining to Indian Air Force (IAF) officers and wives using VIP aircraft as personal transport and running up Rs 75 crore in bills. Now, while there is a definite case for better pay and facilities for our armed forces personnel, such costly joyrides surely cannot be part of the package. The matter is all the more serious considering that CAG has found an unjustified diversion of 19 aircraft of a communication squadron for such “VIP duty”. The spouses of the air force and army chiefs, who are presidents of the Air Force Wives Association (AFWA) and the Army Wives Welfare Association (AWWA) have come under the scanner. Presidents of these associations are not even covered under the category of OEPs —other entitled persons — as CAG stresses. And this is evidently happening on the ground as well, with CAG indicting the Army Training Command in Shimla for irregularities in the hiring of light vehicles and their misuse for duties for AWWA, on golf courses and the like. This “badesaab” and “memsaab” culture in our armed forces operates to the detriment of all concerned, and should be eschewed. CAG reports are frequently shrugged off as routine pin-pricks, to be forgotten after they get due attention in the media. Whether it is laggardness and corruption in defence acquisition and production, or gross violation of safety rules in the running of goods trains, or tax breaks for the rich and famous, many a CAG report has laid bare exactly what is wrong with the system. It is our tolerance for these lapses that enables them to stay the same, report after report, year after year. It is time for a different response. |
|
As to moral courage, I have very rarely met with two o’clock in the morning courage: I mean instantaneous courage.
— Napoleon I |
When Tigers fly As
millions of cricket fans, glued to their television sets in Sri Lanka and India, were watching Sanath Jayasuria and Kumara Sangakara launch a fierce attack on the Australian bowling in the World Cup Final in Barbados, the lights suddenly went off in Colombo as power was switched off. Two propeller-driven aircraft of the LTTE's "Tamileelam Air Force" had conducted a low-level bombing run on the capital, hitting some of Sri Lanka's petroleum storage facilities. This was the third air attack launched by the LTTE in the course of just over one month. On March 26 the LTTE launched an aerial attack on the capital's Katunayake air base and followed it up with an attack on the Palaly airfield near Jaffna, which is the sole supply base for the Sri Lankan armed forces in the Tamil-dominated Northern Province of Sri Lanka. Though the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE pay lip service to a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire declared in 2002, both sides have grossly violated its provisions. The LTTE used the ceasefire to strengthen and consolidate its position in Sri Lanka's northeast. The government of President Mahenda Rajapaksa appears to have reached he conclusion that it can severely weaken the LTTE with ground and air attacks. While denying that it seeks a military solution to the ethnic conflict, the Rajapaksa government has used its Israeli Kfir ground attack aircraft and newly acquired MiG 27's to launch heavy air aids on LTTE strongholds. Given Velupillai Prabhakaran's obsession with "eliminating" all his rivals, the Sri Lankan government has used its alliance with Prabhakaran's arch rival Karuna, who wields considerable clout in the Eastern Province, to significantly weaken the hold of the LTTE in the east. Sri Lanka is seen in India as one of its friendliest neighbours. Sri Lanka supported India’s candidature for Permanent Membership of the UN Security Council. It has joined India in advocating greater economic integration in SAARC, with President Rajapaksa even proposing a South Asian Monetary Union at the New Delhi SAARC Summit. Bilateral trade and investment relations with Sri Lanka are booming after the two sides concluded a free trade agreement. India is the fourth largest investor in Sri Lanka, with Indian business and industry seeing immense scope for rapid expansion. Indian public sector companies like the IOC, NTPL, RITES and IRCON are poised for further expansion of these ties. While India has not been unduly concerned about Sri Lanka's arms acquisitions from China and Pakistan, it will have to keep a close watch on agreements Sri Lanka has reached with China for the development of the Hambantota Port, for which China has extended a loan of $375 million to Sri Lanka. Given China's attempts to encircle and contain India in the Indian Ocean by establishing its presence in Sittwe in Myanmar, Gwadar in Pakistan, and its interest in port facilities even in the Maldives and Seychelles, New Delhi cannot but keep a close eye on the Chinese presence in Hambantota. It is unfortunate that New Delhi has been forced to curtail its military assistance to Sri Lanka because of the "compulsions" of "coalition politics" in India. But as the LTTE has developed contacts with groups ranging from ULFA to the Maoists, it is imperative to reinforce maritime cooperation and intelligence contacts with Colombo to ensure that the LTTE's air capabilities are detected and eliminated as soon as possible. Terrorist organisations in India’s neighbourhood cannot be allowed to have pretensions that they can sustain their maritime and air warfare capabilities. Given the adverse public reaction even in Chennai to attacks by the "Sea Tigers" on fishermen from Tamil Nadu, it is unfortunate that no sustained campaign has been mounted within India on the national security risks posed by LTTE activities in and around Tamil Nadu. At the same time, however, India has to encourage Sri Lanka to put forward credible proposals for the devolution of powers to its Tamil population. Responding to calls from the international community for plans that would meet legitimate Tamil aspirations, Sri Lanka's ruling SLFP put forward proposals for the devolution of power on May 1, 2007, which fell far short of even minimal Tamil aspirations. Even mainstream and moderate Tamil parties friendly to the SLFP rejected these proposals, as they do not contain provisions for empowered provincial legislatures. They envisage the establishment of District Development Councils as units of decentralised power. Under the Rajiv Gandhi-Jayawardene Accord of 1987, which came into force under the Thirteenth Amendment of the Sri Lankan Constitution, Provincial Councils were set up with temporary unification of the Northern and Eastern Provinces. Between 1995 and 2000 President Chandrika Kumaratunga and her two constitutional advisers, Prof G.L. Peiris and Dr Neelan Tiruchelvam proposed a devolution package with federal characteristics. President Kumaratunga was unfortunately forced to back off because of fears of a Sinhala backlash. The recent devolution package proposed by the SLFP and backed by President Rajapaksa is akin to proposals put forward by Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake on June 5, 1968. Under those proposals elected Tamil representatives at the district level were made virtually subordinate to a Chief Executive Officer appointed and paid by the Federal Government These proposals were rejected even by mainstream Tamil political parties, and when implemented by President Jayawardene in June 1981, these were faced with growing Tamil separatist demands. Sri Lankan officials claim that their current proposals for district-level devolution really envisage grassroots, village-level democracy and that they have been inspired to move in this direction by the presentations made on panchayati raj by India's Panchayati Raj Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar when he visited Sri Lanka. But surely even the loquacious Mr Aiyar was not suggesting that panchayati raj is a substitute for meaningful provincial devolution. New Delhi will have to clarify this unambiguously to Colombo. Influential sections of the leadership in Sri Lanka appear to believe that they have the LTTE on the run and can now afford to go back on earlier proposals for a meaningful devolution of power. This is a recipe for continuing civil strife. While India and the international community have an obvious interest in the unity and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka, they equally have a responsibility to encourage Sri Lanka to seek abiding political solutions to the ethnic conflict. The Rajiv Gandhi-Jayawardene Accord of 1987 is even today the most viable framework for resolving the vexed ethnic issue in Sri Lanka. It needs to be remembered that even Prabhakaran initially agreed to abide by its provisions in a speech he delivered shortly after the accord was
signed.
|
Sam Bahadur
When
Gurkha lads come of age and don the uniform of the Indian Army, each of them is affectionately called by the generic name Bahadur. Woe betide the evil eye which may dare India thenceforth! Now back in 1944, the handsome and somewhat reclusive Capt/Maj SHFJ Manekshaw had led his company of Gurkha soldiers on a mission against the Japanese in Burma. They carried the assault to victory, Manekshaw leading from the front despite taking a bullet in his stomach. He was instantly christened Sam Bahadur. The Military Cross for gallantary which followed, elevation to the rank of General, conferment of the Padma Vibhushan award and a Field Marshal’s baton for life were accepted by the soldiery with aplomb. For, where they were concerned Sam Bahadur was born to this legacy. Of course, it was altogether a different matter when on his elevation to the Chief an adoring Army especially composed the martial music score of a “march” they called Sam Bahadur. Every soldier pulls up his five foot something frame to six foot plus to this music as they strut down Rajpath to admiring, thunderous applause every January 26. Sam Bahadur’s stellar performance in the 1971 war is a part of India’s history. What is perhaps not known to most is his brilliant strategy to contain and vanquish insurgency in Mizoram for ever at the incipient stage itself. In the 1960s, there was just one North-South road in Mizoram. All Mizos were persuaded and induced to resettle in permanent village-clusters on either flank of this single road. Security forces successfully threw a protective cordon and administrators created the socio-economic modules for a resurgent new lifestyle. Insurgency was stamped out from Mizoram as nowhere else in the North-East. It was the brain-child of the Eastern Army Commander, Lieut-Gen SHFJ Manekshaw. Sam Bahadur is noted for his sense of mischievous humour. I read an anecdote relating to the annual “At Home” at the residence of the COAS on January 26, 1972. The President of India as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces headed the list of invitees followed by the Prime Minister of India. When Mrs Indira Gandhi arrived at Army House, General Manekshaw walked up to receive her. No one can deny that Mrs Gandhi was among the most elegantly dressed, petite and charming ladies of her time. General Manekshaw would also rate as one of the trim and handsome chiefs in uniform. On this occasion, his right foot was heavily bandaged and leaning on a walking stick he limped up to receive Mrs Gandhi. The sight evoked Mrs Gandhi’s sympathy and she enquired with genuine concern. “Oh! what happened Sam?” Sam Bahadur at his mischievous best and with a twinkle in his eyes replied: “To tell you the truth Madam Prime Minister, this is just a ruse to garner affection of beautiful ladies!” Mrs Gandhi blushed and could not repress a chuckle. That too is Sam
Bahadur. |
When the computer wins, we win Ten
years ago this month, a computer beat the world chess champion in a six-game match. Since then, human champs have played three more matches against machines, scoring two draws and a loss. Grandmasters are being crushed. The era of human dominance is over. Chess was supposed to be a bastion of human ingenuity, an art machines would never conquer. Now they’re conquering it. The smarter they get, the more threatened we feel. Don’t be afraid. We, too, are getting smarter, and computers are a big reason why. They’re not our enemies. They’re our offspring – our creations, helpers and challengers. We certainly needed the challenge. Chess computers, in particular, have exposed our complacency. Grandmasters used to dismiss computers as calculators, unfit for elite competition. Our vanity was so blinding that in 1997, when world champion Garry Kasparov lost to a machine called Deep Blue, he implied that the computer had received human coaching during the match. Computers kept winning, and we kept whining. In postgame press conferences, players swore that they’d been winning right up until the moment when, for unclear reasons, they lost. Five months ago, the current champ, Vladimir Kramnik, overlooked an instant checkmate by his artificial opponent, Deep Fritz. “I rechecked this variation many times and analyzed quite far ahead,” Kramnik protested. “It seemed to me I was winning.” Kramnik’s blunder was no accident. It happened because of flaws in the human brain. We thought we were smarter than computers for two reasons. First, we could choose a goal and figure out how to get there, whereas computers had to start with the available moves and see where they led. Second, computers had to think through every possible move, whereas we could recognize crucial patterns and focus on the moves that mattered. But that’s why Kramnik missed the checkmate: It looked different from the usual threat pattern, and he was thinking too far ahead. Even the best brain sometimes needs computer assistance. The remarkable thing about us isn’t our supremacy over computers. It’s our interaction with them. Yes, chess programs have been getting smarter. But they didn’t do that on their own. Humans design the hardware and write the code. Grandmasters test and refine it. The machines get smarter because the code gets subtler because the programmers get wiser. In the old days, chess programs went around killing enemy pieces at every opportunity. Their human opponents understood that in chess, as in war, other factors often matter more: territorial control, mobility, initiative, reach, coordination, supply lines, impregnability and safety from decapitation. By trading material for these advantages, the humans won. So programmers taught the machines to recognize and consider the same factors. Unable to win with their old tricks, human players learned new ones. They played quirky openings to throw computers off script. They plotted attacks a dozen moves ahead. They hunkered down in defenses that to a computer looked impregnable. They cluttered the battlefield with obstructions, making it harder for computers to see threats or payoffs. They left irrelevant pieces on the board to absorb the machines’ attention. It was a whole new game. The humans named it “anti-computer chess.” Now programmers are adding a third layer: anti-anti-computer chess. They’re teaching machines to break old habits, see through clutter and force the wide-open bloodbaths at which computers excel. In 2003, Deep Junior flummoxed Kasparov with a kamikaze attack unprecedented in computer annals. Last year, when Kramnik forced Deep Fritz off its opening script, the program invented a new variation and went on to win the game. In the big picture, whether the computer beats us isn’t important. Either way, it’s a human triumph. In fact, it’s a greater human triumph when the computer wins. As a player, you can conceive a brilliant move without understanding where it came from. As a programmer, you have to do something much harder: articulate rules that will generate such brilliance. From microwaves to cellphones to word processors, computers are extending our intelligence, forcing us to higher levels of thought. Pitting my brain against yours is hard. Pitting my program against yours – teaching one machine to spot and exploit another’s subtle flaws – is much harder. When the cosmic game between humans and computers is complete, here’s how the sequence of moves will read. In the opening, we evolved through engagement with nature. In the middle game, we projected our intelligence onto computers and co-evolved through engagement with them. In the endgame, we merged computers with our minds and bodies, bringing that projected intelligence back into ourselves. The distinction between human and artificial intelligence will turn out to have been artificial. You don’t need to be a machine to see the endgame unfolding. Last year, a Missouri teen-ager reached the third level of Space Invaders by operating the gun through wires attached to his brain. Today, the European Union is developing a cybernetic dental implant that can medicate you according to a dosage and schedule programmed by your doctor. In Russia, Kasparov has retired from chess and moved on to what he calls “larger competition” – leading a movement against the country’s authoritarian regime. You can read all about it on his Web site. All you need is a computer. By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post |
|
Taliban continue to gain in strength The
principal confederacy of terrorism, the Al Qaida, driven by a messianic and insane zeal, has managed, by all accounts, to obtain a viable territorial foothold in the borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan. There for some time now, the writ of the Pakistani state has ceased to exist. A Pakistani analyst, Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group has noted recently that “the state has ceded this territory and the Taliban have been given their own little piece of real estate.” Truly the chicken have come back home to roost! The noted columnist Selig Harrison had observed much before the 9/11 outrage that “the key to ending the threat from Osama bin Laden and the Taliban does not lie in Afghanistan but in Pakistan”. The US government, continuing with its traditional penchant for being selective in asserting its wrath and continuing with a short-sighted policy of bailing out Gen Musharraf vis-à-vis a democratic set-up in Pakistan, must now be ruing the indisputable fact that even if Osama bin Laden were to be dead, he has assumed such an iconic presence in the world of terrorists that his death will only give more fillip to their cause. It is a well chronicled fact of history that the areas constituting what is being referred to now as ‘Talibistan’, since time immemorial, have never been fully subjugated by any country or power and local tribal chiefs have held sway and run these rugged and remote areas according to their own customs and archaic laws. Even during the over 150 years of colonial rule, the British realised the futility of lording over them and bought peace with them in return for protecting the local frontiers from marauding northern invaders. After Independence in 1947, successive Pakistani regimes followed the time-honoured arrangement and it was only since 2001 (after the Taliban were pushed out of Afghanistan) that, prodded by his American mentors, General Musharraf, reluctantly and half-heartedly, engaged the Taliban and the Al Qaida cadres. It was without much success and a large number of casualties to his troops. In September 2006, the helpless General had to broker peace with the local chieftains, withdraw his troops in exchange for the local militants/tribals not siding with Al Qaida and Taliban cadres, who were crossing over frequently into Afghanistan to engage in various subversive activities against the Karzai government. With the Pakistan army having scaled down operations in the FATA, in fact, the terrorists are having a free run and violence against US, NATO and Afghan troops and establishments has increased considerably. Even in these areas internally, the situation has gone from bad to worse with the Taliban imposing strict Sharia laws including forbidding girls from going to school or children learning maths, science or English, and has introduced religious indoctrination for the young. The central government in far off Islamabad prefers to look the other way with the beleaguered General fighting for his own survival on many other fronts. Thus, while the Pak government adopts an ostrich like attitude to these goings-on in its remote areas, the Al Qaida with the blessings of the local Taliban leadership is getting stronger and better organised by the day. The hapless local Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line are consequently caught between the Devil and the Deep Sea and are fed up of this situation, which mercifully does not have their support. They have been repeatedly appealing to the Karzai government in Kabul to come to their rescue as they know of Musharraf’s reluctance. The proud and independent minded Pashtun desires the foreign terrorists to leave his areas and with whatever they can muster, have been determinedly engaging the Al Qaida cadres. The implications of the Al Qaida and Taliban getting firmly embedded in these areas is fraught with danger not only for Afghanistan and the Coalition Forces located there, but equally for the Pakistanis and consequently for the civilised world including, in particular, India. The US National Intelligence Director John McConnell in his recent testimony to the US Armed Services Committee, has stated that “the Al Qaida is forging stronger operational connections that radiate outwards from their camps in Pakistan to networks throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe”. For this battle to be won, the Pakistani ISI will have to modify its traditional agendas of supporting the Taliban and all those extremists and terrorists it has been funding and equipping since long years in the sub-continent. No one must ever forget the basic tenet that all ‘Frankensteins’ created ultimately devour their own masters! On the other hand, India must proactively assist Afghanistan wholeheartedly in Kabul’s endeavours to stabilise itself and keep the Taliban fundamentalists at bay, as a politically stable Afghanistan is essential to peace and security in the entire South Asian region. |
|
Research needed on RTI usage
A quick look at the implementation of the Right to Information Act (RTI) so far conveys mixed messages. The disappointment has been particularly on three fronts. Firstly, the political leadership and the political parties by and large have done nothing so far to give a push to the Act, as if doing so would adversely affect them. Both at the Centre and in most States, governments have done little to create much needed awareness among large sections of the people and to help open an important window of the Act – suo motu obligations, maintenance of records, and management. Thirdly, the Information Commission in the States have yet to demonstrate proactive initiatives. The RTI Act is a means, not an end, for change, equity, activism, citizen participation and good governance. The better RTI is implemented, the better it is for everyone, including for those in the system – contrary to what they think. Their credibility and respect in the society will go up. This is even more so for the news media as an institution and for the journalists individually. They can play a more proactive and positive role – irrespective of seniority in the profession – and increase their viewership or circulation. A comprehensive review of the performance is unfortunately not possible since hardly a couple of States have come up so far with their annual reports, which they are obligated to submit to their respective State Assemblies. Nevertheless, a quick analysis of applications filed under the RTI Act indicates that applications (over 75 percent) mostly have been (1) by men (Most Commissions have no women Commissioners), (2) by those in power or within the system, (3) by those in the metros (4) over 60 per cent are for personal or individual reasons or advantage, (5) pertain to service matters, and (6) most of the applications are by the same people (who have filed more than one application). Equally disappointing is the lack of efforts by the Commissions to reach out. For example, in the case of one important State having multiple Information Commissioners and having a relatively better budget, about 40 per cent of the departments having PIOs have not received any application in the year. In the case of another with 50 percent of the departments under the RTI Act, the number of applications received during the year for the entire State was hardly 10 per cent. And the concentration was on just a couple of departments. This is despite claims that PIOs of all these departments were trained. All this brings out the urgency to take stock of the “who, what, where, when and how” aspects of usage of the RTI Act in different States. Only then would we be able to take quick corrective actions or interventions – by the Government, by the Commissions themselves and by civil society groups. That would also help achieve better performance in various programmes of the Government. The writer is Chairman, Centre for Media Studies, New Delhi |
God’s benevolence is great and is beyond description. He is the great Giver who gives all and covets nothing.
As the mother, always full of affection, takes into her lap her crying son with love and care, so does Ishwara, mercy incarnate, ever-loving his devotees, accepts their hymns of love devotedly sung to him.
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
