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Snub for General Right to education
sacred Third Front! What? |
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Relevance of NAM
Mobile mania
Out of Africa: The
global family of human beings Dick Cheney,
president by proxy Inside
Pakistan
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Right to education sacred The
Supreme Court has rightly pulled up state governments for their casual attitude towards education and directed them to stem the rot in this critical sector. A three-member Bench consisting of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice Dalveer Bhandari has stayed a Madras High Court judgement and allowed students to participate in this year’s counselling for admission to government medical colleges. This case is a typical example of how insensitive and inhumane a state government can be towards the students. The prospectus issued for 2007-08 provided for candidates who were admitted to various professional courses (except medicine) last year to apply for this year’s medical courses. However, the government took a U-turn and decided not to implement this clause this year, leaving many students out in the cold. By allowing the students to attend the counselling, the apex court has undone the injustice done to them by a thoughtless government. Significantly, the court has expanded the scope of the case and warned all the state governments against stifling of the right to education. Education is a sacred right guaranteed by the Constitution and no government can be allowed to tinker with it according to its whims. If education continues to be in a mess today in most states, it is mainly because of the apathy and neglect on the part of the state governments. Though the Kothari Commission (1966) had recommended that the spending on education should be a minimum of 6 per cent of the GDP, it has not crossed 3 per cent till date. The commission proposed the expenditure in terms of the percentage of national income to be raised from 2.9 per cent in 1965-66 to 3.4 per cent in 1970-71 and 6 per cent in 1985-86. However, there has been a steady reduction of public expenditure on education in many states, including Punjab, Haryana and Delhi. No doubt, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have advanced, but not the other states. If India has to emerge as a major power and economy of the 21st century, the Centre and the states must guarantee the right to education in letter and spirit and invest more on education.
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Third Front! What? The
voting in Thursday’s presidential election offers little reason for any of the leading political alliances to celebrate. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) may find relief in the fact that the presidential election process — which found its nominee, Mrs Pratibha Patil being dogged by controversies — is, at last, over. So must be perhaps Mrs Patil who may not have anticipated that her past would cause her so much embarrassment. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) breached the ranks of those who had sworn to abstain from voting for Mr Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. But these were pennies gained for the pounds lost in not being able to carry along some of the NDA constituents — namely, Shiv Sena, Trinamool Congress, JD(S) and National Conference. Overall, despite the little cross-voting, the BJP is a big loser in this election. The only consolation for the BJP may be that the recently formed United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) was a bigger loser. It was exposed as being neither united nor an alliance and far from making any progress the UNPA has failed its first political test. This has been one of the most divisive presidential elections with the reputation and credentials of the candidates and parties being targeted in a most merciless manner. The bad taste it has left behind is so overwhelming that there are questions about whether the President will acquire political acceptability across the spectrum as had hitherto been the case. All parties viewed the presidential election as a contest for choosing a referee who may be able to advance their interest after the general election in 2009. In the event it was expected that new equations will be forged and some old ones broken. That has already happened with the UNPA becoming the first casualty, and the eight parties of this so-called Third Front are now up for new give-and-take moves between the BJP, the Left and the Congress. Act II in this political drama will be the line-up that emerges for the election of the Vice-President, which promises to be slightly less bitter. |
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The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend. — Abraham Lincoln
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Relevance of NAM I know there are some, who talk of non-alignment foreign policy. May be that made sense during the cold war, when the world was divided into rival camps. It has lost its meaning: one is not aligned with the interests of one bloc or another, but with the values of common humanity.” The most suitable reply to this statement of Secretary Condoleezza Rice is to quote the statement back to her after replacing “non-alignment foreign policy” with NATO. If one cold war relic has survived, expanded and flourished, it is NATO. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) does exist, it holds meetings and makes pronouncements, but it does not have any of the ideological or military teeth that NATO maintains. While the developed world is still an adversary to NAM in its efforts to secure a just and equitable world order, NATO has no identified interests to contain or counter. Capitalism has no enemies today. Ironically, Rice was speaking in the Indian context, particularly in the context of the nuclear deal. She seemed unaware that the nuclear deal itself was possible only because India was able to look beyond bloc politics and act in the interest of global co-operation and security. India could not have acquired nuclear weapons if it had adhered to NAM principles and even if it did for self-defence, it could not have entered into an understanding with nuclear weapon states. The nuclear deal itself is proof, if proof were needed, of India’s pragmatism. The current problems that the two countries face in finalising the deal arise not from NAM, but from real issues of security and self-reliance. No ideology inhibits India, not certainly NAM ideology. To see NAM as an ideological grouping is in itself a mistake. A movement that encompasses Cuba and Venezuela on the one hand and Singapore and Yugoslavia on the other, cannot have a single ideology. The binding principles, the “Panchsheel” (mutual respect for territorial integrity, non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit and peaceful co-existence) are as relevant today as they were when Pandit Nehru enunciated them. They did not stand in the way of beneficial relations with either of the Super Powers even at the time of the cold war. The theory of natural alliance between NAM and the Soviet Union was promoted by some countries, but India never endorsed it. The proximity of views between NAM and the Soviet Union was more of a coincidence rather than the result of careful coordination. Of late, India has declared the United States as a natural ally, given the democratic and civil society credentials of both the countries. It is the values of common humanity that bring India and the United States together. Rice’s assertion that “as fellow democracies with so many principles in common”, people of every culture, “every race and every religion are embracing political and economic liberty” is fine, but her question in this connection as to “what is the meaning of NAM” is totally out of place. An academic like her should not have resorted to such rhetoric just for effect. NAM’s objective has always been to promote certain universal principles among diverse countries, regardless of their political hues and inclinations. Many NAM members, including India, had been through an introspective phase on the relevance of NAM soon after the end of the cold war. An internal debate in the Ministry of External Affairs revealed that there was a sizeable opinion that NAM had outlived its utility. A NAM ministerial meeting in Accra, Ghana, was particularly important in this respect. The then Foreign Minister of Egypt proposed a merger of NAM and the G-77, the grouping of developing countries, which includes most NAM members and others, on the ground that the political agenda of NAM was not relevant anymore. The proposal had some support, but the majority of the members were not sure that the political voice of the developing world should be stifled. The emerging unipolar world, they thought, would present its own challenges for which NAM should brace itself. One political issue that was in the minds of most nations was the reform of the UN. It was also felt that a favourite cause of NAM, namely a homeland for the Palestinians was still a long way away. Incidentally, it was in Accra that several western countries sought observer and guest status in NAM. Subsequent developments proved the validity of retaining NAM as the political voice of the developing world, together with G-77 as the economic voice. For practicing diplomats, NAM provided an instrument of collective bargaining in various international bodies. In the case of UN reform, NAM had a collective position that the expansion should include an expansion of the permanent membership, though there was no agreement on who should be the new permanent members. One of the important accomplishments of NAM in New York in 1993 was that it effectively blocked an expansion of the permanent members to include only Japan and Germany. The U.S., which had wholeheartedly supported Japan and Germany at that time, should be grateful to NAM, now that it is not so enthusiastic about Germany. The U.S. had made up its mind about NAM long ago, when John Foster Dulles characterised it in 1956 as immoral. “Neutrality”, he said, “has increasingly become an obsolete and, except under very exceptional circumstances, it is an immoral and short sighted conception”. If NAM was not with the U.S., it was against it. But the tactic adopted by the U.S over the years was to appear to ignore the insults heaped on it by NAM. Needless to say, the U.S. followed the activities of NAM and relied on their friends to temper the condemnation over its policies. But they did not allow NAM declarations to come in the way of bilateral relations with individual countries. They understood the mechanics of decision making in NAM by which the most radical view got adopted in the absence of any active opposition. In Delhi, the US responses to NAM declarations were conveyed to the Ministry of External Affairs at fairly low levels. India had always favoured moderation and the U.S. appeared to be aware of our efforts to get the documents balanced. This was in contrast to the Soviet tendency to take credit for NAM declarations as the natural ally of NAM. The nature of the NAM documents depended on the venue of the concerned meetings. In the absence of a permanent secretariat, the hosts prepared the initial draft of the declaration. In 1979, the Havana summit virtually hijacked NAM by offering radical formulations on every issue, but India, together with Yugoslavia managed to moderate them, much to the relief of the Americans. No NAM declaration was possible unless a “gang of four” (India, Yugoslavia, Cuba and Algeria) approved it. There were others in NAM, who made specific reservations on certain paragraphs to please the U.S. Voting in the UN General Assembly by NAM members did not necessarily follow NAM declarations because of the pressure that the U.S. put on small nations. But the U.S. actions were low key and they did not try to match the rhetoric of NAM. The U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, Thomas Pickering, who visited Delhi in 1992, sought an Indian presentation on NAM in the post cold war context. Pickering’s response after our presentation was that if NAM would function as India envisaged it, the U.S. would apply for a membership in the movement! The history of the U.S. approach to NAM makes Rice’s direct attack, which challenged the very existence of NAM even more intriguing. Most probably, the failure of the Potsdam talks on WTO was the immediate reason for her harsh words. India was indeed representing NAM interests at Potsdam and the U.S. held India responsible for the failure to revive the Doha Round. But Rice’s remarks served only to begin a new debate on the relevance of the movement. In India itself, many had felt that NAM should be given a decent burial. But even they will rally around NAM, now that it has incurred the wrath of Rice. New merits will be discovered in NAM only to counter the United States. Rice may well have breathed new life into
NAM.
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Mobile mania MOBILE phone is a modern affliction. It has afflicted all sections of society. Gender is no bar. Nor is age. The old, the middle-aged, the young, the prosaic and the romantics, have all fallen to the lure of this diminutive devil. They go about — the device glued to the ear. Girls of a feather flock together. Yes. Give them this little communication casket, and they cluster around their friends. If it is boy, my boy! Visit any college or university campus, and you will begin to think that we are living in a highly advanced romantic electronic republic. Or watch them in market corridors. They are licking ice-cream cones and talking to boyfriends on mobile. Their licking is punctuated with giggling. The lower the voice, the greater the intimacy. They look like ostriches, blissfully burying their head in sand, thinking that no one is either watching or seeing them. They go on whispering intimacies into the phone, in the hope that nobody is around, even when the person next to them is sarcastically smiling! Romance and wishful thinking go steady! In actuality, the mobile phone plays a powerful romantic role in the life of these romantic ostriches. They use it a support network for budding as well as bedding romance. Gals and guys having expensive, fancy phones are turning into verbal vagrants. They blow hot and cold kisses, hi-hay, and bye a hundred times a day. A young one I came across near university library in early morning, was precariously perched on her scooter but talking and smiling, the mobile glued to her ear. Love is blind. So is the mobile passion. These youngsters think that those around them, listening to their romantic inanities are non-people. Hence, the best way to deal with them is to behave that they don’t exist. Mobile
ostriches!
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Out of Africa: The global family of human beings A new study was published this week that purports to “prove” the theory that humans evolved from a single origin somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. It seems to answer two of the biggest questions in human evolution – where we came from and when we began to spread across the world. The answer appears to be that we came out of Africa about 55,000 years ago. The study supports the idea that we derive from an ancestral stock of people who had already been living in Africa as an independent species for about 150,000 years before some began the global migration that led to man’s dominance of the planet. Who did this latest study and what did it involve? The research was carried out by an international team led by Andrea Manica, a population geneticist at the University of Cambridge. The scientists carried out two sets of analyses, one involving the study of human genetic variation in the world today and the other involving a comparison of more than 6,000 skulls of indigenous people collected from Alaska, South America, Africa, China and Australia. Essentially the scientists wanted to see if the study of genetic variation – as determined by the DNA differences between people today – and the study of physical variation, as measured from the skulls, resulted in the same conclusion about human origins. The study, published in the journal Nature, found that both the genetic and the physical variations do in fact suggest a single origin of humanity somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. It says: “We find evidence for an African origin, placed somewhere in the central-southern part of the continent, which harbours the highest intra-population diversity in phenotypic [physical] measurements. We failed to find evidence for a second origin, and we confirm these results on a large genetic data set.” Scientists have been arguing over the origins of man for many decades and essentially there are two rival theories. One, the out-of-Africa hypothesis, suggests that anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) evolved in Africa and migrated from that continent to populate the four corners of the globe, replacing any older ancestral species of humans, such as Homo erectus and Neanderthal man, in the process. The second theory, called the multi-regional hypothesis, suggests that successive waves of H. sapiens came out of Africa and interbred with some of the archaic humans who were already living in Asia and Europe. If this occurred, then it suggests that modern humans continued to evolve in several regional locations around the world, which would mean that people today are, in evolutionary terms, more diverse than they would otherwise be if they were all descendants of a single out-of-Africa stock. Dr Manica and his colleagues found that human genetic variation declined continuously the further away people live from Africa. South American Indians and Australian aboriginals, for instance, have much lower genetic variation within their groups than in those indigenous populations living nearer Africa. Africans themselves have the highest genetic variation. This is precisely what is predicted from the out-of-Africa hypothesis, according to Dr Manica. “The origin of anatomically modern humans has been the focus of much heated debate. Our genetic research shows the further modern humans have migrated from Africa the more genetic diversity has been lost within a population,” he said. One of the ways to visualise this is to imagine a large glass bowl full of different coloured beads, representing genetic variation. This equates to our ancestral population of H. sapiens who evolved some 200,000 years ago and had lived in Africa for 150,000 years, accumulating genetic variation along the way, without straying outside the continent. However, some of these “beads” then went on a migratory journey out of Africa, taking only a small portion of the total amount of genetic variation from the ancestral stock (as measured in the total variety of colours in the original glass bowl). As each subsequent migration occurred, smaller amounts of variation were taken with each migrant group. This would mean that the further people moved from their African homeland, the less genetic variation there is among them today. This is precisely what the researchers found when they studied human genetic variation. What about the physical variation in the skulls? The same thing was found here too. The further from Africa the skulls were, the less variation the scientists found in terms of the physical features they measured. It was thought that this might not be the case even if the out-of-Africa hypothesis were correct because skull shape and dimensions are subject to natural selection, whereas the genetic variations measured by the scientists were in the “neutral”, non-gene part of the DNA, which varies simply by random chance. However, it became clear that – just like DNA - the amount of variation between skulls depended on the distance from Africa, with African skulls showing the greatest variety. As Dr Manica said: “Some have used skull data to argue that modern humans originated in multiple spots around the world. We have combined our genetic data with new measurements of a large sample of skulls to show definitely that modern humans originated from a single area in sub-Saharan Africa.” One of the reasons is that we are still unsure about what happened to other species of more ancient humans, such as Neanderthals and H. erectus. We know they went extinct, of course, but was it possible that they interbred with anatomically modern H. sapiens? Genetic studies suggest that this was not the case, or at least that, if there was some interbreeding, the offspring did not manage to leave any detectable genetic signal in their descendants living today. If these older humans were simply replaced by modern people, the question then is how did this replacement happen? Was is just a result of competition for food and resources, with one group being pushed out of its habitat by immigrant H. sapiens, or did it involve violence and even war? By arrangement with
The Independent |
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Dick Cheney, president by proxy Six
years after the event, The Washington Post
published this week a partial list of those consulted by the task force headed by Vice-President Dick Cheney, set up by President George Bush soon after he took office in January 2001, to map a new energy strategy for the US. The list, which the administration has fought tooth and nail through the courts to keep secret, reveals that the task force relied preponderantly upon experts from, and lobbyists for, the big oil, gas and utility companies. Given the industry backgrounds of the President and the Vice-President, and the massive campaign contributions they and their Republican Party received from the energy companies, this was precisely as everyone suspected. Environmental groups were ignored, until a token meeting near the end of the task force’s deliberations. The symbolic importance of the affair was, and remains, enormous. It set the tone for everything that would come after. It offered a first taste for the obsessive secrecy of the incoming administration, underlining how the old adage about government in the Soviet Union – that you knew nothing but understood everything – applied to this White House almost as much as it did to the Communist-era Kremlin. It demonstrated how Bush, prodded by Cheney, would use every means at his disposal to remove shackles from the executive branch. In short, it was an early, and deadly accurate, clue to how Bush rule would work. The untried and incurious President would reign. But his government would be shaped largely by his vastly experienced Vice-President, contemptuous of Congress and so skilled in the ways of Washington bureaucracy that his authority across every branch of the administration would come to resemble that of a British prime minister. It would not be so bad if the decisions that emerged from this rule by cabal had been wise and farsighted. But this White House, headed by the first president in history with an MBA, and a vice-president who was the chairman of a giant oil services group before he was picked as running mate in summer 2000, demonstrated anything but the efficiency of the boardroom. Its congenital, obsessive secrecy has bred not wisdom and foresight, but monumental incompetence – for which, at least until the Democrats recaptured Congress last November, no one was accountable. In almost every case, the hand of Dick Cheney has been evident: from the ill-planned war in Iraq to the shame of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, from the demeaning refusal to renounce torture to the scandal of illegal warrantless wiretapping – all of them quietly championed by a vice-president utterly beyond public scrutiny. Bush, after all, is obliged to hold press conferences, make public speeches and deliver the odd primetime television address to make his case. Cheney faces no such requirement. But for him, a low-profile is insufficient. His goal is absolute invisibility; hence his order that even the standard secret service logs of visitors to his office should be destroyed. Astonishingly, though, our man not only survives but flourishes. His approval ratings – barely 20 per cent in some polls – may be even lower than those of his nominal boss. But insofar as one can divine such things in Kremlinesque Washington, his influence appears as strong as ever, despite the criminal conviction of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, his former chief of staff, despite the inglorious departure of his old mentor and ally Donald Rumsfeld, and despite the debacle in Iraq. Back in Bush’s first term, the Cheney-Rumsfeld faction saw off Colin Powell in the battle for Bush’s ear, with the national security adviser Condoleezza Rice standing mostly on the sidelines. The replacement of Rumsfeld at the Pentagon by the cagey and cautious Bob Gates, one of Bush senior retainers, and the supposed reincarnation of Rice – now Secretary of State – as a sensible realist in the Colin Powell mould, suggested that Cheney might soon lose his grip on policy. Such reports may be premature. The Bush team still has 18 months to fashion another foreign policy disaster, this time over Iran. All along Cheney has pushed harder for military action. Not long ago, Bush seemed to have accepted that America was in no shape for another military adventure. But who can be sure that however wretched Dick Cheney’s track record, he will not prevail again? By arrangement with
The Independent |
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Inside Pakistan Gen
Pervez Musharraf is an expert in turning an adversity into an opportunity. His latest statement that only a government fully backed by the Army can provide stability to Pakistan shows that he is going to use the situation developing in the wake of the Lal Masjid operation to perpetuate his rule as President as well as Chief of Army Staff. The increasing incidents of suicide bombing will provide strength to his argument. He has no dearth of support for his drive against extremism. Those belonging to the moderate constituency are advising him to get tough with those behind the suicide bombings, particularly in the tribal areas. Says Dawn of July 16: “What we are witnessing in parts of the Frontier is merely a continuation of the anti-government movement launched by pro-Taliban tribesmen since the American attack on Afghanistan and Islamabad’s decision to join the war on terror. “The Lal Masjid affair has come in handy for them. While talks and tact must be part of the strategy to pacify the area, the fanatics led by clerics should be told that force will be met with force, and they will be responsible for the loss of innocent lives. They must be told bluntly that Sharia cannot be imposed through force, and the people of Pakistan will resist any such attempt. “Unfortunately, the acute differences between the government and the opposition have emboldened the militants. While the government, in a show of unilateralism, tried to go it alone, the opposition parties seemed more interested in the London conference than in making sincere efforts to end the Lal Masjid stand-off and save lives.” The alliance of religious parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, appears to be confused. However, the Jamaat-e-Islami has openly come out against the General’s fight against extremism. According to Daily Times, July 15, “The president of the Muttahida Majlis-e- Amal (MMA) and chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, says he will submit his resignation in the next session of the National Assembly to protest the ‘massacre’ of Lal Masjid.” Chinese targetted The Chinese working in Pakistan seem to be one of the primary targets of suicide bombers. Thursday’s suicide attack in Hub town of Balochistan (35 km from Karachi) was aimed at eliminating Chinese engineers travelling in a bus, but they were lucky and reached their destination safe. But many Chinese have died in earlier incidents in Balochistan and elsewhere. “In 2004, Abdullah Mehsud kidnapped two Chinese engineers at the Gomal Zam Dam in South Waziristan. He was an old Banuri Masjid (Karachi) warrior. After all negotiations failed, the kidnappers were stormed, which resulted in the death of one Chinese engineer. Abdullah was helped by five kidnappers, two of them from South Waziristan and three from Afghanistan. Mehsud, who was released from Guantanamo Bay by the Americans the same year after two and a half years, demanded the release of five of his friends from jail in Pakistan as ransom,” as Daily Times pointed out in an editorial on Friday. Kidnapping by Mehsud was, perhaps, the first incident of its kind. Baloch connection Rebels in Balochistan are opposed to various projects, including Gwadar port, which have come up with Chinese assistance. They believe that the Chinese are helping the Islamabad regime in the exploitation of Balochistan’s resources for the benefit of particularly Punjab. Very few local people are employed in these projects. But religious extremists dislike the Chinese for another reason – its harsh treatment of Islamic rebels in China’s Xinjiang province, which has a large Muslim concentration. This was the reason given by the girl students of Lal Masjid’s Jamia Hafsa when they kidnapped some Chinese women in Islamabad a few months back. According to the Daily Times, “The Chinese are being killed in the north because their killing hurts the government in Islamabad the most. It was the abduction of the Chinese nationals by the Lal Masjid vigilantes which finally forced President Musharraf to take action against the seminary. “In Balochistan, the Chinese are being seen as a part of the international conspiracy – allegedly led by America – to deprive the Baloch by “globalising” their natural resources.” According to a Dawn report: “Around 5,000 Chinese people live and work in Pakistan where they are engaged in several Beijing-funded development and engineering projects, many of which are opposed by various militant groups. “Earlier attacks on Chinese nationals in Balochistan have been claimed by separatist, non-Islamic tribal militants fighting for greater autonomy and a share of profits from the proceeds of the province’s natural gas reserves.”
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