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Cars and crores Patients before patents Dal-roti woes |
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What lies ahead in Pakistan
The brave die just once
Putin’s polar venture headache for West Beijing Olympics turn spotlight on China’s record Who needs a president, anyway?
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Cars and crores EVEN if Ashok Malhotra was never a chholewala in Delhi as he claims, his is a rags-to-riches story. A man who started humble running a canteen, he was one of the key men of an alleged attempt to destabilise the Delhi government. However, he earned notoriety for the large number of fancy cars with fancier registration numbers he possessed. He has not explained why he had such a large fleet of new cars when reports suggest that they were meant for Congress MLAs, who were ready to shake the Chief Minister’s boat. Before the CBI arrested him, he claimed in an interview to a television channel that he was worth only Rs 10 crore and he did not know any politicians, save two MLAs who helped him obtain the numbers he wanted for his cars. For a man of such limited means, amassing a fortune of even Rs 10 crore is no small deal. It was, perhaps, with the Malhotras in the mind that a wisecrack said, “Show me a rich man, I will show you a criminal”. Obviously, the path to his riches was not paved with good intentions or noble acts. On the contrary, there are reports that he earned his crores by acquiring through dubious means plots of land allotted to slum dwellers and then selling them to the affluent to fetch a huge margin. He could not have carried on his nefarious business on his own without bureaucratic and political support. That two Congress MLAs were ready to help him obtain what is known as “VIP numbers” shows he was part of a well-oiled machinery. It is difficult to believe that political leaders who are supposed to look after the needs of the common people would collaborate with such a person to hoodwink them but that is what the Malhotra saga suggests. Only a thorough investigation by the CBI will reveal the extent of the racket he spearheaded. All those who helped him in amassing his considerable illegal properties need to be placed under the scanner so that necessary legal action can be taken against them. For the Congress government in Delhi, which has been facing a threat from within the ruling party, the scandal could not have come at a worse time. Elections to the Delhi Assembly are not far away and the episode is bound to tarnish further the image of the ruling party. But that is no excuse not to go to the bottom of the case so that all the guilty persons receive the punishment they deserve. |
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Patients before patents Cancer
patients in the country will feel relieved somewhat following Monday’s Madras High Court judgement dismissing the petition of Swiss company Novartis AG which challenged the Indian patent law applicable to Glivec, an anti-cancer drug it manufactures. An immediate fallout of the ruling is that the cheaper and generic version of Glivec will continue to be available in the country. In its petition, Novartis has stated that Section 3 (d) of the Patent (Amendment) Act 2005 was not compatible to the agreement on trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and that it was “vague, illogical and arbitrary”. It also maintained that the amendment violated the right to equality under Article 14 of the Constitution. The Bench consisting of Justice R. Balasubramanian and Justice Prabha Sridevan ruled that the amendment in question cannot be held to be bad in law since it had several in-built provisions which would control and guide the discretion to be exercised by the statutory authority. Concerned groups — cancer patients, NGOs and the civil society — have reason to feel happy because the High Court order will set a precedent for several life-saving AIDS and cancer drugs available in the country. Glivec is the brand name under which Novartis sells “imatinib mesylate”. It is the pricing of the drug that lies at the heart of the controversy. The drug is used to treat chronic myeloid leukaemia. While Novartis’ Glivec costs a cancer patient about Rs 1 lakh a month, its generic or copycat variety costs about Rs 10,000 a month. Some of the domestic players making similar or generic version of Glivec include Natco, Cipla, Ranbaxy and Hetero. The issue in question is that if a company like Novartis is allowed to assert its right to patent even minor modifications of the existing formulations, drug prices will touch the roof and become completely out of the patients’ reach. Consequently, no firm can manufacture generic drugs which are less expensive. As patents near the expiry date, manufacturers seek permission to sell generic versions. Since they don’t incur huge development costs like Novartis, they can sell drugs at reasonable discount. Moreover, once generic drugs are approved, there is greater competition, which keeps the prices down. |
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Dal-roti woes That
bags of wheat stored in a Markfed godown have been found underweight may surprise only those not familiar with the ground reality. Wheat pilferage with official connivance is common not only from Markfed and FCI godowns, but also during its transportation. A statewide checking of wheat stocks will be quite revealing. The stolen wheat was meant for the Badal government’s controversial atta-dal scheme, which is expected to cost the exchequer Rs 527 crore. This is one election promise in keeping which Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal may have to pay a price. The scheme has already given the Opposition an opportunity to take potshots at the Chief Minister. While promising atta-dal to the poor, the Akali Dal did not fix any income limit. The subsequent income ceiling of Rs 30,000 has disappointed many hopefuls. Arranging money is the next major problem. The government is already in a tight corner, having stopped provident fund withdrawals and TA/DA payments. The Centre too has refused any help on this account. Besides, the delivery system is leaky. That Mr Badal is himself unsure of its efficacy is evident from the fact that even at this stage he is toying with the idea of offering cash instead of the food items. This idea too is equally open to misuse. Giving food stamps could be a better option. How far the government is able to prevent the misuse of the atta-dal scheme and ensure supplies to the needy remains to be seen. However, instead of wasting time, effort and funds on the new scheme, the government could have revamped the existing public distribution scheme, plugging its loopholes. Mr Badal should realise that populism does not pay in the long run. Despite the supply of free power in his previous term, he had lost the election. There is no substitute to effective governance and fast development. |
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Writers, like teeth, are divided into incisors and grinders.
— Walter Bagehot |
What lies ahead in Pakistan
Pakistan
was born in the midst of doubts regarding the legitimacy of its birth. But what should worry it more is that its future is more in doubt today than at the time of any of its previous sixty anniversaries. The supports which have held it up in the past have cracked one after another, and at the time of this writing, more than at any other time, it is in danger of collapsing like a house of cards around the ears of the only two people who can hold off that tragedy, at least for a few years: the fading dictator, General Musharraf, and the halting democrat, Ms Benazir Bhutto. Each has diminished the capacity of the other to build a reliable future for the country. What will take their place if they destroy each other? This is one of the mysteries of Asia today. Take its founding ideology, that of Islam. Its founding father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was in any case openly sceptical about the capacity of any such medievalism to hold a modern state together. But even those who followed him and swore in its name drew less of their strength from the scriptures of the faith than from the hatred they preached against India. The result was that in the course of years India caught up with and sometimes surpassed Pakistan in winning the support and respect of many countries of the world, and even some countries of the Islamic world. The most eloquent reminder of that came with the partition of Pakistan into two countries, each with a predominantly Muslim population but each following its own separate interests as a state, and each at times more distant from the other than from secular India. The latest happenings in what has remained of Pakistan since its partition have been more cataclysmic in many respects but also as evidence of the failure of Islam as the glue for holding the country together. There are many Islamic stretches from Karachi to Kabul which are a part of Pakistan and strategically important for it but which are in revolt against Islamabad in the name of Islam, and on behalf of some of the most fanatically religious elements of the faith. What part they have played in firing Pakistan up against “Hindu” India does not need to be told in this story of what they have done to Pakistan. What is important to ponder over is what they may do yet to Pakistan and to its relations with the Islamic world itself, and all the more so to its relations with that part of that world which is the most viable in social and economic terms. Nationalist fervour played a part in the first couple of decades of the history of Pakistan, the more so when it was harnessed against India’s opposition to its own partition in the 1940s in the name of the demand for Pakistan. So intense was this fervour that it did not allow most people of what was to become Pakistan to see what else was in the minds of the British in conceding “their demand”, including the use they would make of Pakistan in playing their own games in Afghanistan and further to the west. This “national fervour” could have won a longer lease of life and a larger role for itself if it had been invited to be a player in its own name in the affairs of the world, particularly in the affairs of the Middle-East. But it was neither invited nor even allowed to do so. Before it had grown up enough to speak in its own name it was so tied to the apron strings of the purposes of other countries that it never got the chance to become an authentic voice on its own behalf. Thus, the prop of national pride was eroded by the reality that before the title of that book, “Friends, Not Masters”, could sink into the conscience of the people of Pakistan, Britain and America had already become “Masters” of Pakistan instead of remaining its “Friends”. Turning the gaze inwards did not help either. If some of the earlier military rulers, who did indeed give good government to the country for some time, had also, like Ata Turk, given democracy a chance to take root, then Pakistan, too, like Turkey, might have had a different story to tell in subsequent years. But as it happened, as the years went by Pakistan neither got good government nor democracy. A spark of possible greatness in future was ignited during the early years of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and during a few earlier years when the judiciary achieved some eminence even if democracy did not. But the spark was first doused by Bhutto’s own blunders and then buried when his daughter, Benazir, stormed into the irrationalities of her earliest years in office. But it was between the years of the father and daughter Bhutto that General Zia, who had conferred some stability on Pakistan for a while before he was killed in a mysterious air crash, sowed the seeds of the turmoil which is still tearing the guts out of the country. The Taliban are his progeny directly, and so also, at least indirectly, are the Pakistani brand of Al-Qaeda. Both are a threat to the sanity, which has lately been trying to lift its head in the politics of Pakistan and trying to give it a democratic turn. An American institute of public opinion has reported of late that Ms Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party will get a bit more than half the total vote if elections are called soon. The PPP’s own claim is reported to be that it is the most popular political party. These estimates and claims are probably correct reflections of public opinion. But the outcome of an election is a different matter. It depends upon many imponderables. Some of these are more in the hands of the government than of the opposition parties, and some are unpredictable. Will the elections be held soon and will they be fair? Will the democratic parties come together to oppose further extension of military rule or will they fight each other? Will Benazir and Nawaz Sharif be allowed to return home to campaign for their parties? How far will the PPP go in supporting Benazir’s preference for elections? What part will be played by actors like the Taliban and other such agencies? Will the outcome be obeyed? But one thing is more certain than many of these. If the electoral alternative fails this time, it will be a very long while before another
appears.
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The brave die just once
THE brave die only once and the cowards die a thousand deaths in their lives before the final one. This is the conviction that our Army carries and this is what I learnt when a faulty bomb fired by us during the course of our training in 1963 claimed the life of our high-profile trainer, a Subedar and left many of us writhing in pain after being hit by its splinters. I belonged to the very first batch of the Emergency Commissioned Officers recruited in the wake of the Chinese aggression on our soil in 1962. The war had taken quite a toll of our young officers and the setback to our armed prowess had given wrong ideas to Pakistan. We were, thus, desperately needed on the borders. So, our training was rushed through. After just three months training in the Indian Military Academy at Dehradun, I was assigned to the Regiment of Artillery and sent for specialised training to the School of Artillery at Deolali. After a stint of basic training on our good old 25-pound field gun, we were allotted our branches. I, thus, became a mortar gunner. A mortar is a simple smooth barrel gun. Since its barrel is not spirally grooved like that of the other artillery guns and howitzers, the bomb does not have to rub hard against the inside of the barrel while being fired. As a result, the mortar bombs, as against the artillery shells, have much thinner capsules and can, thus, be stuffed with much more explosive. On exploding, the mortar bombs get fragmented into a much larger number of splinters that can wreak havoc in the infantry exposed in the open. I, being a first-class graduate in mathematics, had a preference for more sophisticated guns. But my slight disappointment on this score was soon overcome when I learnt that it was the physically and mentally tougher gunners who were assigned to the mortar regiments. After all, mortars have the maximum mobility. If needed, these could even be carried to Mount Everest where even the mountain guns cannot go. By the way, an Everest expedition had once toyed with the idea of firing oxygen cylinders to the South Col of the Everest to save on time and effort. The idea was abandoned because the cylinders could get sprayed over a large area making their recovery a hard task and also the firing of mortars could cause avalanche in the region. Coming back to the accident during our practice shooting of the mortars, the J.C.O. was cremated with full military honours and the injured received prompt attention in our hospital. The very next day, we were taken to the same spot where the ghastly accident had occurred and the firing exercise was resumed. We fired our guns with great gusto, determined in our mind that we will die, if God so willed, but just one
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Putin’s polar venture headache for West Russia
has taken a giant leap for the Kremlin by planting its flag under the North Pole in a politically-charged symbolic gesture to claim the rights to the sea bed which could be rich in oil and gas. In a technical feat almost defying the imagination – if not international law – the Russians dispatched two mini-submarines four kilometres to the ocean floor in what is believed to be the first expedition of its kind. Both submersibles, with crews of three on board, completed their dangerous return to the surface yesterday after what was described as a “smooth landing.” But the expedition raised the hackles of Russia’s neighbours, which also have their eye on the vast mineral deposits that could lie under the hotly disputed Arctic area, and which consider the Russian move as a brazen land grab. “This isn’t the 15th century. You can’t go around the world and just plant flags and say ‘We’re claiming this territory’,” Canada’s Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said. Russia has fired the first diplomatic shot in a really cold war. The new oil rush has been galvanised by the accelerated shrinking of the polar ice cap because of global warming, which has allowed exploration that had been previously unthinkable because of the extreme conditions. Russia claims that the Lomonosov ridge, an underwater mountain range crossing the polar region is an extension of its territory. The UN has rejected Moscow’s 2001 claim to the ocean bed which it says is part of its continental shelf under international law, but the Russians are due to resubmit their case to the committee administering the Law of the Sea. A brains trust of 135 Russian scientists, led by a bearded 68-year old personal envoy of President Vladimir Putin, explorer Artur Chilingarov, plan to map out part of the ridge’s 1,995km length. But last week’s scientific achievement of dropping a titanium capsule containing the Russian flag onto the seabed could not conceal the political advantage gained by Putin. Once again, he has demonstrated to the West Russia’s determination to expand its energy empire. The news of the mission’s success dominated Russian television news. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said the president considered it “very important. Being a unique scientific expedition, it is of course supported by the president.” The foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said: “I think this expedition will supply additional scientific evidence for our aspirations.” But he added that the issue of territorial claim to the polar region “will be resolved in strict compliance with international law.” If recognised, the claim would give Russia control of more than 1.2 metre sq kms, almost half of the Arctic seabed. But four other nations – the US, Canada, Norway and Denmark – also have claims on the ocean floor which could hold as much oil and gas as Saudi Arabia. According to the US Geological Survey, the Arctic seabed and subsoil account for 25 percent of undiscovered oil and gas reserves. The Russian convoy, consisting of a research vessel and a nuclear-powered ice-breaker, and the two submersibles which had been used in the filming of “Titanic,” set sail from the northern Russian city of Murmansk last week, catching the world by surprise. Initial concerns that the expedition could be thwarted by thick sea ice proved unfounded, although the research vessel, the Akademik Fyodorov suffered from engine trouble on the journey. Chilingarov was on board the Mir-1, the first submersible to spend 8 hours and 40 minutes under water after being launched through an icehole near the North Pole. The last 40 minutes were tense, as the crew tried to find an opening free of ice. “It was so good down there,” he said on his triumphant return. “If someone else goes down there in 100 or 1,000 years, he will see our Russian flag.” The Mir-2 had an international crew on board, including Australian deep sea specialist Mike McDowell who previously led tours to the Antarctic. The co-sponsor of the voyage, Swedish pharmaceuticals millionaire Frederik Paulsen, was also on the submersible, according to the Russian news agency Itar-Tass. In addition to the scientific challenge which has been compared to the first moon landing, the dark depths of the Arctic waters are so mysterious that the Russian crew-members did not know what they would find. Vladimir Gruzdev, who accompanied Chilingarov on Mir-1, mused before their dive: “And what if we encounter Atlantis there? Nobody knows what is there. We must use the opportunity given to us 100 percent.” The operation was straight out of Jules Verne, with expectations that exotic underwater creatures would appear from the uncharted depths. But in a momentous anti-climax, the expedition’s leader declared: “There is yellowish gravel down here. No creatures of the deep are visible.” While in the Arctic, until mid-September, the scientists will continue to study the climate, geology and biology of the polar region. But the Russians had better watch their backs: the Danes hope to prove that the Lomonosov Ridge is an extension of Greenland, which is part of Denmark. Canadian and Danish scientists are currently on two icebreakers mapping the north polar sea. By arrangement with Th e Independent |
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Beijing Olympics turn spotlight on China’s record BEIJING – China’s Olympic organisers have declared that they will not allow the 2008 Beijing Games to be turned into a sounding board for foreigners with a political agenda. But even as they spoke, foreign demonstrators this week demanded the release of political prisoners and unfurled a banner depicting the five Olympic rings as handcuffs. The protest, staged by the international press freedom advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, was a rare open expression of anti-government sentiment in the heart of the capital. Although it involved only a handful of people, it dramatised official concerns here that protests could cast a pall over what the country’s political leaders intend to be a joyful coming-out party for modern China and its Communist Party government. The warning and the brief protest were both timed to the start of an elaborate one-year countdown of ceremony and civic events, scheduled to end with the Games’ opening ceremonies on Aug. 8, 2008. In recent days, international human rights groups have accused the government here of reneging on promises of press freedom and other rights that it made to gain the International Olympic Committee’s approval to host the Games. Reporters Without Borders’ secretary general, Robert Menard, said during Monday’s demonstration that the group fears there has been little change in China’s attitude toward access to the Internet, free expression in print and broadcast media and imprisonment of dissident journalists. “It is the Chinese government that has taken hostage the Olympic Games, because it does not respect its own commitments,” Menard told the Reuters news agency at the protest across the street from the Beijing Organising Committee’s headquarters. Some U.S. and European entertainment and political figures have also called for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics unless China brings more pressure on Sudan to resolve the conflict in its western region of Darfur. China is Sudan’s largest oil customer and has provided weapons to the Khartoum government. Closer to home, Chinese officials have expressed worry that anti-government groups such as separatists in Tibet and Xinjiang province or the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement could use the international focus on China during the Olympics to promote their causes. This would be particularly difficult to handle, analysts said, in the case of sympathisers holding foreign passports who arrive during the Games to stage demonstrations. Jiang Xiaoyu, one of the organising committee’s executive vice presidents, told reporters that China welcomes intense foreign news coverage, including criticism, before and during the Olympic Games. But he added that Beijing organisers will not accept attempts by rights groups and others to inject into the mix political agendas unrelated to the competition. “We are absolutely opposed to politicisation of the Olympics,” Jiang said. “This is against the Olympic spirit and against the Olympic charter.” The Foreign Ministry issued new regulations beginning Jan. 1 that say foreign reporters have the right to report without interference by authorities. But despite the new rules and Jiang’s pledge of openness, Beijing police forced several foreign reporters who were covering the Reporters Without Borders protest to remain at the site for more than an hour. Some were pushed and shoved, they reported, before being released without explanation. The protesters were escorted by police to Beijing’s international airport Tuesday morning for a previously scheduled flight out of the country, the group reported. One of the prominent foreigners threatening to turn his back on the Beijing Games is movie producer Steven Spielberg, who had agreed to serve as artistic adviser for a spectacular opening ceremony on Aug. 8, 2008, at 8:08 p.m., a date and time reflecting the Chinese folk belief that the number 8 brings good luck. Spielberg’s spokesman, Andy Spahn, told ABC News last month he was considering pulling out because of China’s role in the Darfur crisis but was awaiting a statement from Beijing. Jiang, asked about Spielberg’s status, said that the producer had volunteered to help design the ceremony but that no contract had yet been signed. “We welcome Mr. Spielberg’s participation,” he added, without addressing the Darfur issue. By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post |
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Who needs a president, anyway? Now
that the mudslinging is over, one showman has moved out and a woman with a real Indian family (not necessarily a good thing) has moved in to Rashtrapati Bhavan, it is time to ask a more fundamental question: who should that huge mansion be for, and why does India need a president anyway? To begin with, there are two types of “presidents” in the world. In the US a “president” is of course equivalent to what a “prime minister” is in India – the person who has the final political authority. The office is not ceremonial. This is best illustrated by a sign that Harry Truman is supposed to have had on his desk: “the buck stops here.” But the US also has no one above its president, no equivalent of India’s “president” to play ceremonial roles. Ceremony of course is there in the US and the president has grand versions of it, but it is much more limited than in India. The White House is relatively small and modest, especially compared to Rashtrapati Bhavan, reportedly the largest mansion in the world. The reason the US has no one above the president for ceremonial roles is that it was rejecting the British system at the time of the 1776 Revolution. The Americans did not (they didn’t have the opportunity) go so far as the French did in beheading a monarch; they simply rejected the whole idea as abhorrent to a democracy. The US of course was undemocratic in other ways – slavery, no vote for women etc. – especially until the Civil War, which was the real democratic revolution in the US. Why didn’t the Indians do this when they became independent? The British of course (and interestingly enough, democratic Denmark) still have a monarchy. It no longer has much power or significance, though it provides a good show for the whole country, if not the world. Nevertheless, it is still formally a King or Queen who is above the Prime Minister. India has done things halfway by having both a “prime minister” and a “president.” It should choose between the American system and the British system. One the one hand it could be honest and call the inhabitant of Rashtrapati Bhavan a Queen. Having an openly admitted monarchy, after all, could be interesting. The dynasty part should be no problem; there are dynasties in Indian politics anyway, and free marriages would affect this one, as they are doing in England, where Diana was certainly more of a commoner than any proposed inhabitant of Rashtrapati Bhavan. The oldest son or daughter of the reigning monarch could be described as the Prince or Princess of India. Or, India could go the democratic way and abolish the posts of president and governors and just live with PMs and CMs elected by the people. Turn Rashtrapati Bhavan itself over to the people - not the bureaucracy in the name of the people, invite squatters to move in. Finally – where will the rupee stop? The writer is an American-born Indian scholar, sociologist and human rights activist |
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