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The only way Blueline killers |
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George visits Beur Just to defend a murderer THERE was a time — it is hard to recall now — from the 1960s to 1980s when Mr George Fernandes could be trusted to take up every right and rightful cause. Now, in a perverse reversion of form, Mr Fernandes simply cannot resist the lure of supporting the most despicable causes and characters.
Oppression in Pakistan
Unforgettable courtesy
The
mysterious Burmese junta Europe’s success as a ‘workfare’ state New avenues for
financing healthcare
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The only way THE imposition of President’s rule in Karnataka was unavoidable following Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy’s resignation and Governor Rameshwar Thakur’s recommendation to the Centre. Ever since the BJP withdrew its support to the 20-month-old government following the refusal of the Janata Dal (Secular) to transfer power to it on October 3 in conformity with the 20:20 power sharing agreement, the government was reduced to a minority. In the 224-member House, the Janata Dal (S) has 58, the BJP 79 and the Congress 65 members. Even after the BJP’s withdrawal of support to his government, Mr Kumaraswamy, in cahoots with his father and former Prime Minister, Mr H.D. Deve Gowda, desperately tried to cling on to power. The father-son duo thought that the Congress would extend outside support to the government to avoid a mid-term poll. However, once the Congress leaders met the Governor and demanded the government’s dismissal and imposition of President’s Rule, Mr Kumaraswamy’s fate was sealed. Incidentally, the BJP had also demanded dissolution of the Assembly. Interestingly, the Chief Minister’s tactic in convening a special session of the Assembly on October 18 to prove his government’s majority came a cropper. A floor test is justified only when the government’s majority support is in doubt. In Mr Kumaraswamy’s case, it was crystal clear that his government was reduced to a minority the moment the BJP withdrew support. Not surprisingly, the Governor curtly told him to either resign or face dismissal. Consequently, the lameduck Chief Minister had no alternative than to fall in line and put in his papers. The ugly side of the episode was the hurried resumption of parleys between some Janata Dal (S) and BJP leaders, of course, with the idea of installing a BJP Chief Minister this time, when it became clear that the state was heading for President’s rule. This speaks volumes about the politicians’ lack of integrity and insatiable greed for power. Mr Deve Gowda’s rigid stand on his son’s continuance as the Chief Minister was the root cause of the crisis. Had the Janata Dal (S) not betrayed the BJP and duly transferred power as promised, the alliance would have continued. Its leaders had second thoughts only when most partymen opposed fresh polls, but it was too late. With the imposition of President’s rule, the ball is in the people’s court again.
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Blueline killers Blueline buses of the national capital are supposed to be a public service but often they mow them down, as one bus did on Sunday, killing seven. On Tuesday, they claimed two more lives. This has been going on for several years now, with the number of deaths in the past three years mounting to 500, 97 this year alone. To say that things are horribly wrong will be an understatement. Instead of venting one’s ire on half-trained drivers or unscrupulous contractors, it is necessary to have a hard look at the overall problem. The DTC has shown many times in the past that it is incapable of providing an efficient public transport system on its own. A partnership with private operators was inevitable. But the regulatory mechanism in place is so corrupt that bona fide players just do not dare to enter the fray. They know that everyone from politicians to police officers to transport authorities wants one’s cut underhand. No wonder it is only fly-by-night contractors who frequent the shady world. There is a widespread impression that some Blueline buses are owned by politicians and police officers or their friends and relations. The contractors who ostensibly run the service manage to get licences and fitness certificates in a jiffy because of their influence. There is no question of such smart operators observing traffic and other norms. As a result, Delhi has ramshackle buses driven by vest-clad drivers racing each other and killing people at will. This has gone on despite court orders, forcing a Delhi High Court Bench to direct the government to inform it on the next date how many politicians own Blueline buses. It had earlier asked the police to apprise it of the names of police officers who owned Blueline buses. Ironically, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has come up with a shocking statement that “I wish we had control over all this but unfortunately we don’t”. If anyone is supposed to have control over the transport department, it is she and her transport minister. If only they can rid the department of the perennial corruption, the norms can be strictly enforced, encouraging serious contenders to run the public transport system with some modicum of decency and safety. |
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George
visits Beur THERE was a time — it is hard to recall now — from the 1960s to 1980s when Mr George Fernandes could be trusted to take up every right and rightful cause. Now, in a perverse reversion of form, Mr Fernandes simply cannot resist the lure of supporting the most despicable causes and characters. Five days after a Patna sessions court sentenced a former MP and two former MLAs to death for inciting a mob that lynched an upright district magistrate G. Krishnaiah in 1994, Mr Fernandes rushed to the rescue of the criminals. He visited the Beur Central Jail in Patna to provide “moral support” to convicted MP Anand Mohan and others, including Mohan’s wife Lovely, also an ex-MP. There is not much further that Mr Fernandes can ignore the standards which public life demands. And, Mr Fernandes was not alone in lending support to the criminals. He was accompanied by eight other MLAs; five from the JD (U), of which Anand Mohan was an MP and a number of Thakur bosses owing allegiance to the JD(U), the BJP and the LJP. Not only did Mr Fernandes meet and lend support to Anand Mohan but went so far as to say that there was no substance in the charges framed against him and others in the case of Krishnaiah’s killing. Mr Fernandes and those who accompanied him are obviously in search of any stick with which they can beat Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Yet, they must have taken leave of reason and all political values to defend and support a criminal punished for heinous crime. Mr Fernandes has not served the cause of Parliament or the people by glorifying a criminal in the eyes of the public by visiting his friends in the Beur Central Jail in
Patna. |
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Is it progress if a cannibal uses knife and fork? — Stanislaw Lec
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Oppression in Pakistan
THE stately building of the Supreme Court stands on the Constitution Avenue in Islamabad. The avenue has
seen the Pakistan constitution being battered again and again. It has come to remind one of the Tiananmen Square in Beijing where the pro-democracy protestors are beaten and bundled to jail when they criticise the rule of the Communist government. Totalitarian regimes, whether of the Left or the Right,
are the same when it comes to oppression. People in Pakistan, unlike the Chinese, have not yet surrendered their right to rule themselves. The flame of democracy still burns, although dimly. The desire to protect it has inspired the Pakistanis to defy the authorities for years as they did a few days ago on the Constitution Avenue. Their dem
onstration was against the Supreme Court’s six-three judgment to allow President Gen Pervez Musharraf to contest for another five-year term without shedding his uniform. The police and soldiers beat some 200 lawyers and journalists, coming like waves in a battlefield. What one could on Pakistan’s television screens, before they were switched off, was no beating. It was carnage. Leading lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan, who won Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary his reinstatement, seemed to be the main target. Some journalists at the risk of their own life spread themselves on him and saved him. They are lying in hospitals with broken arms and deep wounds. That the Supreme Court ordered a suo motu inquiry of the beating in Islamabad is a commendable step. Two police officials have already been suspended. But the Supreme Court went over a similar exercise a few months ago. That too was a suo motu inquiry. At that time also, the “police” was equally brutal in beating up the lawyers who were agitating for the reinstatement of Chief Justice Chaudhary. I do not recall the dismissal of the Director-General of Police or Inspector-General of Police, nor any arrests. If some ordinary policemen were punished, no one knows about it. One is not surprised at the brutalities. When governments run amuck, they use every method, illegal and repressive, to chastise opponents and critics. The idea is to use power to break the morale of the opposition and the intelligentsia. One could see this happening in India during the Emergency (1975-77) when the police and the government servants became a willing tool of tyranny. What hurts one is that the ethical considerations inherent in public behaviour become generally dim and in many cases beyond the mental grasp of many of the government functionaries. Desire for self-preservation is the sole motivation for the official action and behaviour. What the police on the Constitution Avenue did could not have been possible without a word from the above. Reports are that the “police” were given instructions by the powers that be. The police zulum is not uncommon in India as well. There are instances of Gujjars being beaten up in Rajasthan and workers in Haryana. The difference in India is that people have their revenge when free and fair elections take place. They see to it that the rulers who use the police for their own ends are defeated. One wishes elections in Pakistan could give the kind of the freedom which the Indians have. The democratic system makes all the difference despite the excesses which the security forces commit. In an open society, justice catches up with the criminals, sooner or later. What one is not able to make out is why Ms Benazir Bhutto, chief of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), is conspicuous by her silence. Many lawyers who were beaten up are her party’s stalwarts, particularly Mr Aitzaz Ahsan. There has been no public condemnation, nor any warning to the government which behaved as if it was pitted against the enemy. That Ms Bhutto has been negotiating a deal with General Musharraf has been known for some time. Now the cat is out of the bag. The details of the deal are coming out. Ms Bhutto will return to power after the next elections which may have to be “managed” in such a way that a particular number of seats go to the PPP and a particular number to the religious parties. General Musharraf will see to it and balance the two in such a way that he and his supporters become arbiters. This way he hopes to complete his five-year term as President even without uniform. Ms Bhutto may go down in the estimate of the public because all cases of corruption against her have been taken back and the questionable bank
accounts, frozen so far, have been released. One hopes she is aware of the protest within the PPP, particularly for not standing by the side of the members who have given their all to the party to attaint the position she enjoys today. Beating was bad enough, but her tacit acceptance was worse. Is it a part of the deal that some articulate and radical members should be eliminated for smooth management of the new relationship between Ms Bhutto and General Musharraf? The General has created confusion in the Opposition ranks. The surprising part is that the PPP, once in the forefront, is now seen on the side of General Musharraf and his kind of politics. Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, who resigned from the National Assembly, has said that they will now go to the masses and awaken them against the General, who has now managed to win the undeclared presidential election. That alone is not enough to restore democracy in Pakistan. The soldiers have to go back to the barracks and stay there as is the practice in India and other democratic countries. It is a pity that the US, which calls itself the strongest democracy in the world, has been a party to what has been agreed upon between Ms Bhutto and General Musharraf. Washington has its own ways to “save”
democracy.
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Unforgettable courtesy
I had the good fortune of interacting with the most powerful men and women on earth (Heads of States; Heads of Governments, including of both erstwhile super powers; kings and queens; military dictators, and the religious heads like Agha Khan) over a period of approximately three years at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Deputy Military Secretary to the President of India is an appointment with zero-mistake tolerance. One of my duties was to attend to the Prime Minister of India whenever she was in Rashtrapati Bhavan, which was more than once a week. I had been duly warned that the PM was a great stickler for time and efficiency and that no one was ever spared for any kind of dereliction. Being a perfectionist, I left nothing to chance and was always very strict with myself to ensure proper decorum and all courtesies due to a lady in addition to the ones due to the Prime Minister. While receiving her on her arrival at the Bhavan; as the attendant opened the car door for her to alight and I bowed and wished her; she would invariably give a broad smile and say, Hello. She did remark once or twice that there was no harm in giving a little smile even in the trappings of military uniform and whenever she noticed a fleeting smile on my face, she never forgot to acknowledge saying that, that is certainly better. Mrs Indira Gandhi was to escort a foreign Head of Government to the Palam Airport for the send-off ceremony. I had got two VVIP cars inspected and serviced by the authorised workshop and obtained fitness certificates in accordance with the Standard Operating Procedure. The Chief of Protocol (COP), Ministry of External Affairs, was visibly upset on his arrival at the airport and declared: “Someone is going to really buy it today”. The PM’s car had stalled in the middle of road halfway to the airport. The announcement was within my hearing and with a meaningful glance at me. I did not know how to react to the bad news. The COP was extremely conscientious, energetic and decent person who always exuded confidence and efficiency. He had a habit of climbing the stairs of the VVIP aircraft and also at Rashtrapati Bhavan at the run. He did not want to embarrass me but, to only forewarn me. The PM’s fleet of cars soon arrived and I opened the door for her, basically to meet her ahead of all others and to apologise to her for the fiasco. Having saluted her I said, “Madam, Muje bahut afsos hai ke aapki car raste me ruk gai” (Madam, I am extremely sorry to know that the car stalled en route). She always conversed with her staff in Hindi in the presence of foreign dignitaries. Pat came the reply with a broad smile and with her hand on my shoulder, “Oh nahin nahin, gaari to gaari hai, aur kahin bhi ruk sakti hai. Hamen car badalne men koi dikkat nahin hai — (Oh, no, no, vehicle is a machine, after all, and it can get stalled anywhere. We had no problem in changing over to the followup car). The COP had overheard the conversation and was very pleasantly surprised. Later he told me “Bhup, you are very lucky indeed. The PM was in good mood. Otherwise she doesn’t spare anyone”. Little did Mr Mohammed Hamid Ansari, now Vice-President of India, the then Chief of Protocol, Ministry of External Affairs, know about the very special rapport that had developed. Unlike many other VVIPs it was her greatness that Indiraji was all smiles and courtesy to me, whenever we were face to face — always and every time. How can that sort of courtesy be ever forgotten!n |
The mysterious Burmese junta THESE are supposed to be humbling times for foreign policy analysts – chaos in Iraq having made it harder to cast the United States as omnipotent, omniscient and self-actualising. But judging by the reactions to the recent protests in Myanmar, also known as Burma, the commentariat hasn’t stopped ascribing otherworldly powers to ambitious governments. It’s just that they’re choosing different governments.
The “shame and misery of the Burmese junta,” claimed Christopher Hitchens in Slate magazine, will endure just “as long as the embrace of China persists.” Hitchens isn’t the only pundit casting China as puppeteer to the junta. “China must use its ‘special relationship’ with the junta,” explained Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams in the Wall Street Journal, “to arrange the release of Ms. (Aung San) Suu Kyi and hundreds – if not thousands – of other political prisoners.” US Senator John Kerry has expressed similar sentiments, and various human rights groups are calling for the United States and Europe to boycott the Summer Olympics in Beijing. But how much sway do Chinese leaders actually hold over Myanmar’s famously intransigent, xenophobic military? “They actually have very limited leverage, as all foreigners do,” said William Overholt, who advised the pro-democracy coalition of 21 tribal groups that created the Provisional Revolutionary Government in Burma in 1989 and is now director of Rand’s Center for Asia Pacific Policy. “The whole theory of this government is to cut itself off from the world so no one can influence it.” That certainly comes through in the propaganda, which I saw much of during the year and a half I spent living and working in Yangon. Under Burmese law, all printed material must contain a government statement of Burmese nationalist principles under the heading “people’s desire.” Principle No. 1? “Oppose those relying on external elements, acting as stooges, holding negative views.” That message applies to China too: Stooges come in many stripes. John H. Badgley, a retired Cornell University professor who has studied Myanmar for 50 years, says its rulers are best understood as a nationalist party not easily influenced or bought off. “The notion that some external group can come bludgeon them into behavior modification is just false”. The truth is that no one really understands what makes Myanmar tick. It is an information vacuum, characterised by a surreptitious, paranoid political culture suspicious of all things foreign. The world is watching footage of Myanmar’s protests in a way that would have been impossible in 1988, but it’s not as if C-SPAN can set up shop in the Ministry of Home Affairs. The generals’ decision-making process remains a mystery, and pundits fill the void with their a priori commitments. Exiles push sanctions; isolationists advocate restraint; China hawks blame China. But China is not the cause of Myanmar’s backwardness. It may not even be much of an accomplice . In the late 1960s, China began openly supporting the Communist Party of Burma, contributing to a long and bloody civil war. “Burmese generals remember the bitter civil war, with China on the other side, and China doesn’t really trust those erratic guys,” said Bertil Lintner, a former correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and a Myanmar expert who has been blacklisted by the government. “They are new allies.” Despite, or maybe because of, this fragile alliance, China has stood by Myanmar recently, vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution in January (as did Russia). But although it makes sense to pressure Beijing in areas in which it clearly has control, such as its own veto power, most of the anti-China arguments are not political but economic. Here China hawks have lost a clear sense of how much influence Beijing really has. China is not Myanmar’s biggest trading partner; Thailand is. “You keep seeing these references to Chinese oil and gas assets in Burma,” Overholt said. “The reality is that they’re trivial. China’s attitude toward Burmese gas is that the Thais have already signed up for most of it and the Indians want the rest.” China is building an oil and gas pipeline – but the gas it will carry will flow to the Middle East. This is weak stuff to hang a boycott on; Overholt calls the idea “nutty.” So why all the focus on Beijing? The West has been repeatedly frustrated in its attempts to influence a small group of secretive generals; a decade of sanctions has not brought Myanmar closer to democracy. It may be that leaning on China – a country we expect to respond rationally to incentives – channels the need to “do something” in the same way embassy protests, candlelight vigils and online petitions do. It may also be that China is a locus of negativity already, ripe for scapegoating. Western companies with valuable oil holdings in Myanmar have attracted less attention than has China. The point isn’t that wealthy nations have no role to play in coaxing Myanmar forward, or that applying pressure is futile. But casting the world in terms of all-powerful actors and weak client states is no more likely to lead to smart policymaking than casting it in terms of good and evil. A smart assessment of Myanmar starts with acknowledging how little we know, and how powerless we – and even China – may well be. The writer is a senior editor at Reason magazine who spent 18 months at the Myanmar Times. By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post
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Europe’s success as a ‘workfare’ state IN the global economy, today’s winners can become tomorrow’s losers in a twinkling, and vice versa. But what about Europe? You may be surprised to learn how Europe has been faring during these roller-coaster times – and how successfully it has been knocking down the Europessimist myths about it. 1. The sclerotic European economy is incapable of leading the world. Who’re you calling sclerotic? The European Union’s $16 trillion economy has been quietly surging for some time and has emerged as the largest trading bloc in the world, producing nearly a third of the global economy. That’s more than the U.S. economy (27 percent) or Japan’s (9 percent). Despite all the hype, China is still an economic dwarf, accounting for less than 6 percent of the world’s economy. India is smaller still. 2. Nobody wants to invest in European companies and economies because lack of competitiveness makes them a poor bet. Wrong again. Between 2000 and 2005, foreign direct investment in the E.U. 15 was almost half the global total, and investment returns in Europe outperformed those in the United States. “Old Europe is an investment magnet because it is the most lucrative market in the world in which to operate,” says Dan O’Brien of the Economist. In fact, corporate America is a huge investor in Europe; U.S. companies’ affiliates in the E.U. 15 showed profits of $85 billion in 2005, far more than in any other region of the world and 26 times more than the $3.3 billion they made in China. And forget that old canard about economic competitiveness. According to the World Economic Forum’s measure of national competitiveness, European countries took the top four spots, seven of the top 10 spots and 12 of the top 20 spots in 2006-07. The United States ranked sixth. India ranked 43rd and mainland China 54th. 3. Europe is the land of double-digit unemployment. Not anymore. Half of the E.U. 15 nations have experienced effective full employment during this decade, and unemployment rates have been the same as or lower than the rate in the United States. Unemployment for the entire European Union, including the still-emerging nations of Central and Eastern Europe, stands at a historic low of 6.7 percent. Even France, at 8 percent, is at its lowest rate in 25 years. That’s still higher than U.S. unemployment, which is 4.6 percent, but let’s not forget that many of the jobs created here pay low wages and include no benefits. In Europe, the jobless still have access to health care, generous replacement wages, job-retraining programs, housing subsidies and other benefits. In the United States, by contrast, the unemployed can end up destitute and marginalised. 4. The European “welfare state” hamstrings businesses and hurts the economy. Beware of stereotypes based on ideological assumptions. As Europe’s economy has surged, it has maintained fairness and equality. Unlike in the United States, with its rampant inequality and lack of universal access to affordable health care and higher education, Europeans have harnessed their economic engine to create wealth that is broadly distributed. Europeans still enjoy universal cradle-to-grave social benefits in many areas. They get quality health care, paid parental leave, affordable childcare, paid sick leave, free or nearly free higher education, generous retirement pensions and quality mass transit. They have an average of five weeks of paid vacation (compared with two for Americans) and a shorter work week. In some European countries, workers put in one full day less per week than Americans do, yet enjoy the same standard of living. Europe is more of a “workfare state” than a welfare state. As one British political analyst said to me recently: “Europe doesn’t so much have a welfare society as a comprehensive system of institutions geared toward keeping everyone healthy and working.” Properly understood, Europe’s economy and social system are two halves of a well-designed “social capitalism” – an ingenious framework in which the economy finances the social system to support families and employees in an age of globalised capitalism that threatens to turn us all into internationally disposable workers. Europeans’ social system contributes to their prosperity, rather than detracting from it, and even the continent’s conservative political leaders agree that it is the best way. 5. Europe is likely to be held hostage to its dependence on Russia and the Middle East for most of its energy needs. Crystal-ball gazing on this front is risky. Europe may rely on energy from Russia and the Middle East for some time, but it is also leading the world in reducing its energy dependence and in taking action to counteract global climate change. In March, the heads of all 27 E.U. nations agreed to make renewable energy sources 20 percent of the union’s energy mix by 2020 and to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent. In pursuit of these goals, the continent’s landscape is slowly being transformed by high-tech windmills, massive solar arrays, tidal power stations, hydrogen fuel cells and energy-saving “green” buildings. Europe has gone high- and low-tech: It’s developing not only mass public transit and fuel-efficient vehicles but also thousands of kilometers of bicycle and pedestrian paths to be used by people of all ages. Europe’s ecological “footprint,” the amount of the Earth’s capacity that a population consumes, is about half that of the United States.
By arrangement with
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New avenues for financing healthcare HEALTH policy in India has shifted its focus from being a comprehensive universal healthcare system as defined by the Bhore Committee (1946) to a policy confined to family planning, immunisation, selected disease surveillance and, to some extent, medical education and research. The current health scenario however is abysmal. Annually, 22 lakh infants and children die from preventable illnesses; 1 lakh mothers die during child birth, 5 lakh people die of tuberculosis. diarrhoea and malaria continue to be killers while millions of people are suffering from AIDS. The geriatric population, estimated to be the largest in the world, will also put additional healthcare demands in the near future. Jeffrey Sachs, who is the Director of the UN Millennium Development Project, has said that so far India has “underinvested” in the health sector. “India ranks 165th out of 177 in the share of public sectoral spending on health. As part of its National Health Mission, India should make a National Health Insurance scheme as one of its priority areas, with a large population of the country still living in poverty”. Public spending on health in India has declined. Despite the commitments to raise it to 2-3 per cent of GDP, it seems to remain static. As per WHO estimates there is a backlog of eight lakhs hospital beds. With the public healthcare system adding only 8000 beds per year, the private companies in India and abroad have a huge business opportunity to fulfill the demand for quality healthcare for domestic patients as well as foreign medical tourists. A recent CII - McKinsey study forecasts growth from US$ 18.7 billion to around US$ 45 billion – equivalent to 8.5 per cent of GDP by 2012. The Indian Healthcare Federation estimates fresh investments of US$ 25 billion over the next 8-10 years. With US$ 12-15 billion expected in domestic investments, the Indian healthcare sector represents a US$ 10 billion opportunity for foreign investors. The Government of India’s National Health Policy (2002) envisages an overall increase in health spending to 6 percent of GDP by 2010, of which one-third would be committed to public health investment. Some of the measures suggested in the policy are: Assessing infrastructure status in the healthcare industry, reduction in import duty on medical equipment from 25 per cent to 5 per cent, raising depreciation limit on medical equipment to 40 per cent from 25 per cent, reduction of customs duty to 8 per cent from 16 per cent for medical, surgical, dental furniture and on medical equipments to 5 per cent, and income tax exemption under Section 80 1B of the Income Tax Act for the first five years to hospitals set up in rural areas. Besides medical tourism, healthcare BPO could potentially be a US$ 4.5 billion opportunity for India, offering employment to about 200,000 people. It includes off shoring of processes such as medical billing, disease coding, forms processing and claims adjudication. Already, over a dozen companies are either consolidating operations or have kicked off pilot projects in this space. As healthcare BPO players mature, other businesses like claims repricing, medical diagnosis and actuarial work are expected to gain momentum. The opportunity is being driven by the US$ 1.4 trillion US healthcare industry, which is trying to rationalise costs. India has an opportunity at hand to reap financial rewards and finance its healthcare system, not only from the USA but also from other countries of the world. |
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