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Wheat imports again Signalling change |
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Cop shunted out
Race to the bottom
‘Mere Paas Maa Hai’ Q1. The person who nags you the most about cleaning your room\ your eating habits\your friend? Q2. Who paces restlessly around you as you chat with your friend on the eve of your examination?
Delayed response to climate change will be costly Chocolate is funding war in the Ivory Coast Inside Pakistan
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Wheat imports again
The government has decided to import 50 lakh tonnes of wheat. Last year it had procured 55 lakh tonnes from abroad. Due to the shortage, speculators and traders mopped up stocks, leading to a hefty price rise. High prices, particularly of wheat and pulses, had caused an electoral setback to the Congress. Last year the FCI had failed to meet its procurement targets. This year the situation is a little better. The government agencies have procured higher stocks of wheat: 10.75 million tonnes compared to last year’s 9.2 million tonnes. A few days ago the government had cancelled the import of 10 lakh tonnes of wheat because of high prices quoted in the tenders. It was felt that the government should wait for prices to cool after the harvests in Australia, Europe and the US. The sudden U-turn seems to have been caused by the rising freight charges. It was realised the gains of cheaper prices could be offset by higher freight charges if imports were postponed. If the wheat prices quoted are high, it is partly because of the absence of the US from bidding. US wheat does not meet the high standards set for Indian imports. The US has questioned the Indian norms. An Indian delegation recently went to the US to sort out the issue, but the talks remained inconclusive. The price and quality of wheat imported last year are both questionable. A Green activist has moved the Supreme Court alleging that the wheat imported last year was not fit for human consumption and that 53,000 tonnes of contracted wheat was lying unused at ports. These are serious allegations and call for an inquiry. The government, anyway, is mishandling the country’s food security. Encouraged by last year’s price rise, traders and even farmers, according to reports, are holding back stocks. The only way to deal with speculation is to remove shortages through imports in the short term and by raising agricultural production in the long run. |
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Signalling change An
agreement to “seriously consider” something is better than nothing at all, and that forms the crux of the “deal” on climate change agreed to at the G-8 summit. Developed countries, including the hitherto recalcitrant United States, have committed to “taking strong and early action”. The major emitters will “consider seriously decisions made by the EU, Canada and Japan, which include at least halving global emissions by 2050.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others are hailing the agreement as an achievement, even though it falls well short of what Germany and most other European countries have been pushing for. Ms Merkel wanted countries to commit themselves to the 50 per cent reduction target, as well as specific measures like allowing no more than a two degree Celsius rise in temperature before measures to control it kicked in. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has also welcomed the deal, which he said would operate “within the UN framework,” something he had called for earlier. US President George Bush’s proposal for US-led talks in the run-up to the G-8 summit was seen by Europeans as an attempt to “hijack” the process. Mr Bush is still talking about the US taking the lead, even as his close ally, outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair, holds out the possibility of a firmer pact. It is not just the Trans-Atlantic clash that points to areas of dissent in arriving at a global consensus. “We commit to achieving these goals and invite the major emerging economies in this endeavour,” the declaration states, in a clear reference to China, India, and Brazil. The traditional concern of developing countries with regard to climate change protocols, where the developed North seeks to impose curbs on nations which still need fast growth, continues to persist. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stressed at the summit the need for “common but differentiated responsbility” and taking into account the “respective capabilities between the developed and the developing world.” Negotiations for a Kyoto protocol replacement will begin in December, and everyone with a stake in the planet’s future should keep his or her fingers crossed. |
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Cop shunted out The
peremptory transfer of Rajasthan police officer Virendra Jakhar, who is inquiring into the high profile Biti Mohanti case, raises serious questions of impartiality and fairness of the ongoing investigation. Mr Jakhar has been shifted to Banswara, a tribal area 500 km away from Jaipur. He has been punished for having searched the official residence of Biti’s father, Mr Bidya Bhushan Mohanti, who is the Director-General of Police (Fire Services and Home Guards), Cuttack. Mr Jakhar went to Cuttack to arrest the DGP, believed to have helped his son jump parole from Jaipur last December. (Biti Mohanti was serving a seven-year imprisonment after he was convicted for having raped a German tourist by a fast track court). According to Mr Jakhar, Orissa’s DGP Amarananda Patnaik and Home Secretary Tarun Kanta Misra took him to task for having searched Mr Mohanti’s house. They told him that Mr Mohanti was Rajasthan DGP A.S. Gill’s batchmate in the IPS, both were colleagues at the CRPF, and hence he should not be arrested. Surprisingly, Mr Mohanti did a vanishing trick when Mr Jakhar went to Cuttack to arrest him. He reported sick but was not available either at his home or in any hospital. And he attended office only after Mr Jakhar and his team returned to Jaipur! Unfortunately, the rule of law is the biggest casualty in this episode. While Biti is still at large and no effort has been made to nab him either by the Orissa police or the Rajasthan police, his father has been evading arrest. Worse, he did not comply with even the Supreme Court’s six-week deadline to surrender before the Jaipur court on May 21 for further interrogation. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik continues to say that law will take its own course, but nothing is happening. This strengthens the impression that the political leadership (the BJP and the BJD are allies) and top IAS and IPS officers of both states are helping the Mohantis. This, indeed, is a travesty of justice and makes a mockery of the criminal justice system. Is the law meant only for the common man and not for top bureaucrats? |
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Art is ...pattern informed by sensibility.
— Herbert Read |
Race to the bottom
Even
as the Meenas of Rajasthan have expressed their opposition to the However, it is the very meagreness of the opportunities which holds out fateful portents. Hence the resistance of the Meenas since they believe that the granting of the ST status to the Gujjars would mean a further division of the limited options for education and jobs among the tribal groups. And it was the same reason which propelled the Gujjars to seek a lower status since the induction of the Jats into their present OBC category in 2003 meant that they felt there wasn't room enough for both communities. Clearly, it is the stagnant nature of society, which grew at a snail's pace It is obvious that if Mr V.P.Singh had not let the reservation genii out of the bottle in order to undercut his rival, Devi Lal's clout on the OBCs, The Indian society was wise enough to understand that positive steps were needed to undo the centuries of injustice that had been inflicted on the "untouchables" and the Adivasis. Nor were there any murmurs of protest when the reservations for the SCs and the STs were increased after the expiry of the first 10 years, and after every 10 years since then. The social and historical reasons for the measures, as opposed to merely political, were widely appreciated. Mr V.P.Singh's contribution to the present volatile situation was the gratuitous infusion of the political angle into the issue. What was worse, the basis of his initiative in inviting the OBCs to share the reservation pie was shaky, to say the least, for the Mandal report was formulated after a survey of 800-odd villages out of a total of 500,000. In fact, the Mandal Commission was aware of its own inadequacies, for it admitted that "it may be emphasised that the survey has no pretensions to being a piece of academic research". It is this rickety foundation which the Supreme Court is now examining, much to the distress of the politicians who saw, in their pandering to the OBCs, a surefire way to consolidate their vote banks. But the latest upsurge may induce second thoughts. The politicians were seemingly not too perturbed by the violent outbreaks in the wake of the implementation of the Mandal report in 1990 because the mainly upper caste social base of the upper and middle class protesters were known to be minuscule compared to that of the OBCs. Except for the furore created by the attempted self-immolation by a 20-year-old student, Rajeev Goswami, the government experienced no difficulty in adding yet another group of castes to the SCs and the STs. But when Mr Arjun Singh tried to emulate his fellow Thakur in posing as a champion of the deprived, the government could no longer be dismissive of middle class protests because in the intervening 15 years, this class had grown numerically bigger and politically influential because of the deregulation of the economy, which has emasculated the public sector and curbed the government's clout. Hence the setting up of the Veerappa Moily Committee to clean up the mess created by Mr Arjun Singh, with the promise that the number of seats will be increased to accommodate both the OBCs in the institutes of higher education and the rest. However, the present situation is different because the Gujjars cannot be fobbed off like the more quiescent middle class. Nor can the Meenas be easily persuaded to accept a new group in their midst in the ST category. For the first time since the greedy politicians transgressed the constitutional wisdom of reservations for the SCs and the STs only in order to woo other numerically strong caste groups to secure their votes, they have realised the danger of playing the game of merrily distributing quotas. Now, it is doubtful whether they will be too eager to respond positively to the suggestion from the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities to provide quotas to the Muslims as well. The politicians have seen what havoc can be caused by the fire lit by their blatant pandering to caste identities. Even in 1990, a suggestion was made by the Raja of Manda himself that a certain percentage of quotas should be set aside for the economically deprived in all castes. The suggestion was reiterated recently by Ms Mayawati after her electoral victory in UP and endorsed by the Congress and the BJP. While fixed quotas carry the potential of creating trouble in the future, what is more advisable is some form of affirmative action on an informal basis, which is directed at the poor irrespective of caste or creed. Only What is more, the affirmative action should emphasise the educational aspect rather than providing jobs so that the beneficiaries learn to stand on their own feet instead of depending on the crutches supplied by the government. The Mandal Commission itself had stressed this point when it said that "unless adequate follow-up action is taken to give special coaching assistance . not only will these young people feel frustrated and humiliated, but the country will also be landed with ill-equipped and substandard engineers, doctors and other professionals". In their eagerness to get votes, the politicians conveniently overlooked this sage
advice.
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‘Mere Paas Maa Hai’
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, answer to the following in one word: Q1. The person who nags you the most about cleaning your room\ your eating habits\your friend? Q2. Who paces restlessly around you as you chat with your friend on the eve of your examination? Q3. Has an uncanny genius for saying the wrong thing in front of your girl/boy friend/spouse/in laws? Q4. Has a 99 percentile in embarrassing you in front of your boss/peer group? You are feeling like the coolest dude as you stroll into the drawing room with a tray of drinks. There she is regaling your friends with your childhood pranks, beginning with your precocious potty training Q5. Whose tears hurt and hassle you the most? Q6. Having been chosen Miss Fresher, you are walking on air till she pricks your ego balloon by pointing to your double chin and slouching shoulders. Q7. Magically appears by your side to convince you that you are the BEST when the whole world smirks at you. Q8. As you preen in your new saree, she remarks that it looks like an elegant bed cover. Q9. You say you are bored to death she recommends painting the garden chairs. Q10. You are tired of studying, she suggests listening to music while you clean the cupboard. Alternately you could prepare the evening snack for the family. Q11. You have barely scraped through in your first semester but she makes you believe that BASICALLY you are Nobel material! Q12. The sadistic boss gives you work only in the evening, which he requires first thing in the morning. She asks you to be patient. After you have slogged through the nights for a week, the meek deeply religious woman is ready to kill the man she has never seen. Q13. She can’t eat because you have morning sickness. She can’t breathe because your chest is congested. Q14. When you accompany her for a party/shopping, 9 out of 10 times you wish you were invisible. Q15. You are the much sought after investment banker. That does not stop her from advising you on how to invest your savings. Q16. She may be long gone but the first person you call out for in extreme joy or excruciating pain. Q17. Her spirit is omni-potent and omni-present. As you fret through a particularly harrowing day, her gentle words come to you, “Busy days are happy days”. You grumble about the income tax, the not so gentle voice remonstrates, “Don’t crib, Thank god that you have a good income.” Apprehensive about the Herculean task, you are about to give up, when you hear her earnest voice reading to you as you dozed off, “When you are going on a long journey just think of the first mile.” God is certainly the best and the cleverest CEO. He knew that he could not be everywhere so he put a reliable agent in each family to nurture his creations and to train them to negotiate through the maze of life. He did not promise any incentives, increments, bonuses. This was purely a labour of love, not for nothing the words “Mere Paas Maa Hai” could easily be the answer of the
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Delayed response to climate change will be costly
So, the lines are drawn. As the industrialised nations of the Group of Eight gather in Heiligendamm, the forces mustered to fight global warming have divided into competing camps. Germany and Britain seek urgent talks on a new climate change treaty, to go into effect when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. They talk of stiff measures to curb carbon emissions and limit the rise in global temperatures to two degrees Celsius over the coming four decades. The United States, offering an initiative of its own, opposes what it considers to be arbitrary targets and time-tables. We shall see how all this unfolds. But while the U.S. and Europe debate, some basic facts are beyond dispute. First, the science is clear. The earth’s warming is unequivocal; we humans are its principle cause. Everyday brings new evidence, whether it’s the latest Greenpeace report on Mt. Everest’s retreating glaciers or last week’s discovery that the Antarctic Ocean can no longer absorb CO2. Think of that: the world’s largest carbon trap, filled to capacity. Second, the time for action is now. The cost of not acting, most economists agree, will exceed the costs of acting early, probably by several orders of magnitude. The damage Hurricane Katrina inflicted on New Orleans may or may not have anything to do with global warming, but it’s a useful caution nonetheless on the financial and social perils of delay. It’s equally evident that we can no longer afford to endlessly parse our options. Today’s solution du jour – the rage for carbon-trading – is but one weapon in our arsenal. New technologies, energy conservation, forestry projects and renewable fuels, as well as private markets, must all be part of a long-term strategy. So must adaptation. After all, mitigation can only go so far. There’s a third fact – as I see it, the most important of all. That’s a basic issue of equity – a question of values, ranking among the great moral imperatives of our era. Global warming affects us all, yet it affects us all differently. Wealthy nations possess the resources and know-how to adapt. An African farmer, losing crops or herds to drought and dust storms, or a Tuvalu islander worried his village might soon be under water, is infinitely more vulnerable. It is a familiar divide: rich-poor, north-south. Put bluntly, solutions to global warming proposed by developed nations cannot come at the expense of less fortunate neighbors on the planet. How else would we achieve our Millenium Development Goals of halving world poverty, so solemnly laid down at previous G8 meetings, if the developing world’s aspirations for a greater stake in global prosperity are not honored? A sense of human dimension should govern any issue which we peoples of the world together must face, climate change included. I consider it a duty, an extension of the sacred obligation to protect that is the foundation of the United Nations. Each day, I walk through the lobby of UN headquarters in New York, where some of the world’s most famous photojournalists are currently displaying their work. They capture the faces and voices of people too often unseen and unheard, from all parts of the globe, many of whom live daily in severe hardship made worse by climate change. Our debates in the Security Council, often dull affairs conducted in opaque diplomatese, occasionally burst astonishingly to life-and for moments become anything but diplomatic. I recall in one discussion in April, when the representative of Namibia spoke out on his perception of the dangers of climate change. “This is no academic exercise,” he all but shouted. “It is a matter of life or death for my country.” He told of how the Namib and Kalahari deserts are expanding, destroying farmland and rendering whole regions uninhabitable. This made me think of my own country, Korea, more and more often choked by dust storms swirling across the Yellow Sea from the expanding Gobi Desert. Malaria has spread to areas where it was once unknown, the Namibian representative went on. Species of plants and animals are dying out, in a land famed for its biodiversity. Developing countries like his own are increasingly subject to what he likened to “low-intensity biological or chemical warfare.” These are strong emotions, drawn from life and not imagined. For those in the developed world, it is important to hear, and to act accordingly. This is the message I will deliver over the coming days in Heiligendamm. It is why I will soon announce a special high-level meeting on climate change, to be held in New York in September before the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly, as called for by Bangladesh, Netherlands, Norway and Brazil, as well as Singapore, Barbados and Costa Rica. It is why I recently appointed three special envoys, whose brief is to speak out for the interests and concerns of nations most vulnerable to climate change, home to the vast majority of the world’s people. I welcome President George Bush’s recent declaration that he, too, will launch an American climate initiative. I urge that this take place within the UN’s global framework for discussion, so that our work may be complementary and mutually reinforcing. In December, the world’s leaders will gather again in Bali to build on what is decided in Germany this week and in these subsequent meetings. But let us remember. A G8 agreement that is not global in scope can not hope to offer solutions to a global problem. It is time for new thinking, and a new inclusiveness. We can no longer go about our business as usual. Courtesy, UN Information
Centre, New Delhi |
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Chocolate is funding war in the Ivory Coast Call
it Death by Chocolate. An estimated $120 million from the cocoa trade being siphoned off into war chests in Ivory Coast, according to a new report. “There is a high chance that your chocolate bar contains cocoa from Ivory Coast and may have funded the conflict there, which leaves a bitter taste in the mouth,” said Patrick Alley, director of Global Witness, the London-based group behind the report. Companies like Nestle and Mars source some of their cocoa from the troubled West African nation. While much has been written about child labour on African cocoa plantations, the Global Witness report ‘Hot Chocolate’ is the first to catalogue how cocoa has become a bitter-sweet version of ‘blood diamonds’ fuelling conflict on the west coast of the continent. Ivory Coast supplies some 40 percent of global cocoa, making it the number one producer worldwide. On the back of this natural resource the country built itself up into the so-called ‘Paris of Africa’, with a downtown of gleaming skyscrapers and leafy suburbs where residents could enjoy an exquisite fillet steak washed down with a glass of expensive claret. But in September 2002, rebels launched an attack and after a brief bout of fighting, the country was divided into a rebel-held north and a government-controlled south with UN peacekeepers patrolling a buffer zone in between. Before long Ivorians were battling with rising insecurity and poverty and expatriates and aid workers were scurrying to relocate elsewhere in the region. Among the abuses of cocoa revenues during the ‘no war, no peace’ stand-off that ensued, Global Witness says some $20 million was embezzled by Ivorian national cocoa institutions and diverted to the government. Another $40 million in levies were funneled into the president’s war effort. On the rebel side, militants extorted $30 million each year from companies trucking cocoa through their half of the country -- a illegal tax that “enabled them to survive as a movement”, the report says. Campaigners want the intermediary cocoa-exporting companies to be transparent about exactly what payments they make, and want big confectioners to be up-front about where their cocoa comes from. “The chocolate industry is so secretive about their recipes that they don’t tell you what’s in the mix. The consumer can pressure chocolate companies to put that information on the label so they know they are buying conflict-free chocolate,” said one of the researchers, who goes by the name of Maria Lopez. She has been forced to adopt the alias, because of the danger of investigating the lucrative Ivorian cocoa sector. Three years ago a French-Canadian journalist Guy-Andre Kieffer who had been probing the industry was kidnapped in the capital Abidjan never to be seen again. Local media swirled with reports that he had been tortured to death. When contacted by The Independent, spokespeople from Mars and Nestle, which makes KitKat and Aero, said their companies sourced cocoa from a number of countries, including Ivory Coast. A Cadbury spokesman said its cocoa came from Ghana. Campaigners say that with a wobbly peace process just about staying on track in Ivory Coast, now is an important window of opportunity for making crucial changes to the cocoa industry practices. Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and rebel leader Guillaume Soro signed a deal three months ago, mapping out the path to peace that would end with the country being reunified and elections in January 2008. But UN officials have already publicly said that the timetable has slipped behind schedule. By arrangement with
The Independent |
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Inside Pakistan As if General Pervez Musharraf did not have enough problems to grapple with, he opened another front on Monday by issuing the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Ordinance, 2007, with a view to forcing television channels to fall in line. TV talk shows and other programmes are gaining in popularity day by day because of widespread illiteracy and other factors. Although protests by journalists forced the government on Friday to postpone the implementation of the controversial ordinance till the committee appointed to review it submits its report, the debate over media freedom in Pakistan is getting intense. There are enough indications to believe that the media’s fight against the Army-controlled government will continue till the draconian PEMRA Ordinance is finally withdrawn. It is only a partial victory the media has achieved and hence the continuing protests by journalists. As Daily Times pointed out in an editorial on June 5, “The freedom that President Pervez Musharraf had allowed the media in Pakistan was not an act of generosity because the free media was originally instrumental in building up his image as a liberal leader with new ideas. His popularity at the Gallup surveys was as high as 80 per cent at one time because of his projection through the privately-owned channels. It is only in contrast to the earlier rulers – who committed political suicide by blocking free channels, and by literally squatting on the state-owned TV – that President Musharraf’s treatment of the media was appreciated. “It is the fallout from the presidential blunder of firing the Chief Justice of Pakistan that has shaken the government and undermined its confidence vis-à-vis the media. Earlier, one must point out that on most channels, some of them interactive, the government was broadly winning the argument against the Opposition.” Writing in The News on June 5, commentator M. Ismail Khan says: President Musharraf, who stands out as one of the most televised personalities in the last five years, has had the opportunity to pride in Pakistan’s independent media as a sign of democracy wherever he went. Almost daily grilling of the least prepared political figures during the initial years on talks shows helped his government to paint the Opposition leaders as a bunch of untrustworthy individuals drifting like a rudderless ship on the high seas of politics.” According to Dawn (June 6), “The government has upped the ante, and things are now moving towards regression. The first indication of the government’s anger over the legal community’s protest against the treatment meted out to the ‘non-functional’ Chief Justice was the police attacks on the offices of Jang and Geo in Islamabad on March 16. “Since then relations between the government and the media have gone downhill. The worst came on May 12 in Karachi when the MQM, a government ally, was seen involved in the attack on the offices of Aaj TV for several hours. That widened the chasm.” However, what seemed to have got on the government’s nerves was the live coverage of the (recent) seminar at the Supreme Court auditorium in Islamabad. After all, it was a seminar, and if some speakers got carried away by their rhetoric and said things that sounded more political than legal, it was a reflection on their failure to make a distinction between the two. But the government should have claimed credit for the degree of dissent expressed there. Instead, it let this opportunity slip, and Friday’s meeting of the corps commanders took ‘serious notice’ of what the Inter-Services Public Relations Press release called the ‘malicious campaign against state institutions’…” Lahore’s fast disappearing trees have unnerved many concerned citizens of Pakistan. After all, trees play the role of lungs in the cities. However, instead of launching a concerted drive for planting trees, the authorities in Lahore have approved of a road project that will lead to felling of thousands of trees. Says Alefia T. Hussain in an article in Daily Times (June 6), “The new destructive ‘development’ is, in fact, a part of the 14-kilometre-long project for remodelling the Canal Bank Road at a cost of Rs 800 million. The project will devour 60 acres of green public parkland and fell thousands of trees.” The explanation given by the authorities is that they need an underpass along the canal to connect New Garden Town with Muslim Town. Environmentalists like Lahore Bachao Tehreek convener Imrana Tiwana, as quoted by Alefia, are up in arms, wondering how the remodelling project can be “preferred over miles’ long uninterrupted canopy of trees, rich in bird-life, shading the canal”. In the May 20 issue of Nawa-i-Waqt, Basheer Mehmood highlighted the importance of trees saying, “Darakht nahin to zindagi nahin” (No life without trees). But who bothers? |
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