EDITORIALS

Blast in Karachi
Symptom of a failed state

THE midnight blast that awaited Pakistan People’s Party leader Benazir Bhutto on her return to Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile is an indication of the kind of challenges facing her as well as Pakistan. The attack, one of the worst in Pakistan’s history, that reportedly killed 138 people, on the last count, was targeted at Ms Bhutto and her entourage. Indications are that they were engineered by organisations like the Al-Qaida and the Taliban or someone who does not want stability in Pakistan. Islamists have never been comfortable with the PPP leader, whom they see as a lackey of the US. Her deal with President Musharraf, under which she would be allowed to give a shot at Prime Ministership for a third time in the January elections, has particularly antagonised these sections, who see the American hand behind the political picture emerging in Pakistan.

The impact of the blast has been such that even responsible government leaders wonder whether large political rallies can ever be taken out in the country in the run-up to the elections. Apart from the Islamist threat, Ms Bhutto also faces legal and political problems. The ordinance that allowed her to return to the domestic political platform is now being legally challenged and, perchance, it is set aside, the very basis of her deal with Pervez Musharraf would be knocked off. Even President Musharraf faces a threat to his career with the Supreme Court yet to pronounce its verdict on his eligibility to contest for the post of President while retaining the uniform. It is unpredictable how the President would react if the court verdict goes against him. All these are imponderables facing Ms Bhutto as she grapples with the reality in Pakistan after eight years of stay abroad.

Ms Bhutto’s problems are also problems facing democracy in Pakistan. Continued military rule, official encouragement to terrorist outfits and Islamisation of politics have sapped Pakistan’s energy. Like the genie that cannot be capped again, the Talibanised monsters have been making mincemeat of peace in region after region in Pakistan. Unfortunately, those exercising power like the General himself do not have the strength to fight such forces keen as they are to remain in power by means fair and foul.

The sideshow
PM lets Advani have it

The BJP’s L.K. Advani must be almost thankful that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has taken cognisance of his unkind remarks to react in such a stinging manner. The mild-mannered doctor is rarely provoked into giving it back in kind to his critics. In fact, Dr Singh chooses, and often well, which of his critics he wants to dignify with a response and which of them should be made to feel inconsequential by being ignored. The BJP, and particularly Mr Advani, fall clearly in the latter category. Mr Advani’s criticism of Dr Singh has, to say the least, been boring, repetitive, uncreative and very limited. The most he has been able to say is that Dr Singh is “the weakest Prime Minister”.

If he is indeed so weak, then why does Mr Advani need to expend so much energy and time to keep saying it ad nauseam? The only reason one can think of for Mr Advani persisting with this single-point criticism is that he hopes Dr Singh will be stung to respond in a befitting manner. Unfortunately for Mr Advani, while he has drawn a response – and more than once – Dr Singh has not obliged him by saying anything rude or impolite. This time, too, it is no different though there is an uncharacteristic sharpness to the tone of Dr Singh’s reply.

He has — and rightly in the perception of many — dismissed Mr Advani’s barbs by pointing out that he has the least credentials to criticise him. For good measure, he rubbed in the fact that the BJP, with Advani as Union Home Minister, presided over the “holocaust” in Gujarat, slept while Pakistanis sneaked into Kargil and made a fiasco of the Agra summit. In a single sentence he has focused on the BJP’s failure in foreign affairs, security and violent communalism. As the elections to Parliament, whenever these are held, draw nearer, Dr Singh’s sharpened tone promises a new edge to the polemics between the Congress and the BJP. Good for the headline writers.

Leaving agriculture
Alternatives are available

A study by economists of Punjab Agricultural University has found that every ninth farmer in Punjab has left agriculture due to low returns and taken up other occupations in the past 25 years. Agriculture cannot sustain a growing population, especially when land-holdings are getting fragmented and input costs go on rising. Productivity too has become almost stagnant. New technology, farming techniques, farm machinery and latest seeds and chemicals require heavy investment, which only large farmers can afford. With land prices rising, it makes economic sense to the small land-owner to sell the unviable piece of land to take up a new occupation.

Punjabis are known for their enterprise and adventure, and can go anywhere and to any extent to improve their lot. But the transformation is quite painful for the first generation of migrants. There are pull and push factors: those who get pulled by better opportunities and incomes in other occupations and countries and those who are pushed out of land by poverty. It is the second category that needs immediate help. The government should provide them training and resources to make a new beginning and ensure that the transition is less painful. For lack of awareness, resources and motivation, many farmers and farm workers are driven to the labour market, crime, drugs and suicide.

A cultivator has an emotional relationship with his land and the parting is not easy. According to the PAU survey, despite low yields, 70 per cent of the large farmers and 23 per cent of the small farmers expressed satisfaction with farming. It is the small farmers who should get the government subsidies, but in reality large farmers corner a major part of the government largess given in the name of the poor farmer. The displaced farmer and farm worker need jobs, which can be created by encouraging industry. Agriculture needs to be made more lucrative through higher productivity and higher prices of farm produce.

Thought for the day

Friendship is the golden thread that ties the heart of all the world. — John Evelyn

ARTICLE

Doing business in India
Hard to start, difficult to wind up
by Jayshree Sengupta

Many people already know how hard it is to start a business in India and how it is even more difficult to wind it up. Though India has gone a few notches up in the World Bank’s index for “doing business”, it is still among the bottom lot of the 175 countries taken into account for compiling the index. India’s position is 120th whereas China’s is 83rd and Pakistan’s 76th. Singapore (quite expectedly) tops the list.

Ten parameters have been taken to judge a country’s rank like “starting a business”, “paying taxes”, “getting credit”, “employing workers”, “trading across borders”, “dealing with licenses”, “protecting investors”, ‘enforcing contracts, registering property and “closing down of business”. As far as trading across the borders is concerned, India has climbed up a few notches in the ranking since last year. According to the World bank, India has been pretty active in implementing reforms in its border trade . It has online payment of customs duties and the time taken to meet various administrative payments, has also been reduced.

Trade across the borders with Bangladesh and Nepal which have the “least developed country” status among the SAARC countries, has indeed been facilitated in many other ways and the services upgraded by the use of IT. India has also granted free entry for all except a few goods. But in various other categories like enforcement of contracts, payment of taxes, obtaining licenses and closing down business, India has slipped.

It is for all investors and not just foreign investors, that these hurdles remain. Many investors also argue that all the hurdles to investment in sectors like retail, mining, banking, insurance in India should be removed so that it can attract foreign investors the same way as China does. But before different sectors are opened up, basic and important things like enforcement of contracts, registering of property, getting licenses should be addressed first.

Enforcement of contracts takes time because of India’s slow judiciary and the fact that thousands of cases are pending in Indian courts. It takes around four years to enforce contracts. Similarly, environmental clearances and licenses also take time and promote corruption. But for many investors who critique India by saying that it has been dragging its feet on the labour reforms , the surprising news is that India has climbed up in the ranking based on “employing workers”. Basically, despite the archaic labour laws, it is easy to hire and fire in the private sector because most employees are hired on a contract basis. The laws that protect labour from being fired have long been circumvented and no factory or production unit is being crippled by the labour laws.

Similarly, India has gone up in the ranking that are based on the parameter of “getting credit” and “protecting investors”. These are important areas and reforms have played an important part. But many parameters have been left out also like infrastructure services, law and order situation in the country and the proximity to large markets which is always an attractive factor for investors.

In general, according to the World Bank, India is not among the countries that are spearheading economic reforms rapidly in 2007.

Critics have pointed out that the disinvestment process that was begun with much fanfare has also been stalled because of the Left parties within the coalition government but despite their presence, the UPA government has managed to privatise the Delhi and Bombay airports and this is not a mean feat for any government.

It has also privatised power distribution in metro cities. Whether or not these two acts have brought about better services is another question. In fact, other types of disinvestment have been stalled because of resistance from the public and the workers themselves. Unless workers are properly compensated and rehabilitated, disinvestment has not worked anywhere. People want a proper package when job severance takes place but which is difficult to work out and when such packages have been worked out , disinvestment has taken place smoothly.

Similarly the retail sector has been partially opened up to domestic investment and Walmart has also managed to gain a foothold. Again it is the people who are protesting against the entry of domestic big corporate names as well as Walmart in retail trading.

In any case, the Finance Minister has promised that retail sector will be fully opened up in the future. He has also made sending funds abroad easier and it is almost like “capital account convertibility”, another bee in the bonnet of those who see India going slow on economic reforms.

In fact, the reforms that the nation would like to see speeded up more are not those that are directly related to doing business in India but are very important for foreign business to remain in India and not leave. These reforms are related to improving the quality of the work force. Educational and health reforms are most needed for improving the quality of the work force because the biggest advantage that China has over India is its skilled and disciplined workforce.

Also, reforms that improve the standard of living and quality of life of workers in the informal sector are important like housing for the poor, social security, sanitation and disposal of solid waste. All reforms have to benefit the common person or “aam admi” in the country’s workforce because it is they who form the backbone of the country. If reforms are only benefiting intermediaries and traders, there will be protests, strikes and disruption of work.

Basically, it is the social sector reforms that are most needed along with a true revamping of the infrastructure services for the overall improvement in the business climate of a country.

Agricultural reforms too are needed for producing a stable workforce. There is an urgent need to raise the productivity of agriculture and wages of farm labour in order to get a steady supply of workers for industry and services sectors, from the countryside. There is need for reforming the market structure and the supply chain from the farmer to the retail outlets. There is also a need to go into the government’s policy of introducing genetically modified food and seeds and a debate on how the second Green Revolution is being planned.

According to the World Bank, women’s role is very important for improving the climate of “doing business” in a country. Empowerment of women plays an important part in women’s leadership in business and participation in the labour force. In India, despite efforts, there is much to be desired in making women independent in their decision making, self reliant through job availability and enabling them to live and work with dignity. Unfortunately, the hidden parameters are more important than the ten taken by the World Bank for computing the index on doing business in India.

MIDDLE

The house on the sea
by Reena Sen

She stands on an elevated platform of sand, aging, worn out by the ravages of time and the sea but still gracious, welcoming and hospitable. Somewhat like Miss Havisham of Dickens’ Great Expectations, who, as Pip said, looked like she would crumble into dust, but more kindly and gentle….

Chakratirtha House, in Puri has been with my husband’s company even longer than I have known him, and that is a long time. Located in the extreme west of the long unbroken sandy beach that characterises the sea resort of Puri in Orissa, it has an innocuous entrance through a ramshackle blue gate. “Is this it?” asks the weary traveller.

Through a slightly overgrown garden with an occasional burst of colour in some crevices, the friendly stray dog that wags her tail at her, up a short flight of four steps, across the verandah, she comes to the sitting room. Quite unimpressed, she walks across to the patio overlooking the terrace and then holds her breath, spellbound.

In front of her, for as far as the eyes can go, is the Bay of Bengal. Across a short span of beach, the frothy breakers come crashing in, then retreat with a swish. The receding waters cause hectic activity amongst the little crabs; then, a moment of silence and stillness till the next cycle starts…. again and again and again in timeless continuity.

Far into the horizon, where the sea meets the sky, she sees the fishing boasts bobbing crazily. In the afternoon, the boats return with their rich bounty of sardines, mackerels and other marine life.

The house on the sea is intricately woven into the fabric of our life as a family. Our older daughter held on the sides of the white cot, still robust in spite of the peeling paint, and stood for the first time. Images remain untarnished of our two girls and a bunch of their friends, walking across the sandy beach to the sea with their little buckets and spades. Family and friends converged for long weekends… mornings and early evenings spent at the beach, afternoon siestas, songs, laughter and friendly chatter over drinks with the sea providing soothing background music, and shamelessly large and frequent meals.

A description of Chakratirtha House would be incomplete without mentioning those who are part of its warp and weave. Jatadhari, the gardener and helper with his sunken cheeks and fading eyesight, as decrepit as the house; Ramu the cook who whips up the lightest caramel custards and succulent roasts with three and a half pieces of kitchen equipment and a box stove; his predecessor Nazir, sly and wily as a fox; the “mishtiwala” who visits twice a day to tempt you with hot samosas, rasogullas, puntuas and other delectable Bengali-Oriya sweets in containers balanced perfectly on two ends of a weatherbeaten pole he carries on his shoulders, adept as a gymnast; the bucktoothed masseur, smiling contentedly as he massages your head and feet.

Perhaps, the time has come to bid farewell to our grand old lady. Perhaps Chakratirtha House will be remodelled, smartened up and made into a resort hotel but for all those who have met her she will always be the Queen, and reign supreme ever more.

OPED

Dateline Washington
‘Nuclear deal will be revived’ 
 by Ashish Kumar Sen

Xenia Dormandy

As director for South Asia at the US National Security Council, Xenia Dormandy played a key role coordinating the July 2005 visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Washington. The trip resulted in the historic civilian nuclear agreement which today, under attack from the United Progressive Alliance’s Left partners, appears to be floundering.

Ms Dormandy currently serves as director of the Project on India and the Subcontinent at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

In an interview, Ms Dormandy expressed confidence that the nuclear deal would go through. It’s only a matter of when, she said.

Excerpts:

Sen: Can the US-India nuclear deal be saved at this stage?

Dormandy: The deal will go through; the only question is whether it is in early 2008 or after a new U.S. Administration in 2009. For it to move forward soon, it will require Prime Minister Singh to use his political equity to face-down opposition to the deal.

Q: The Bush Administration has invested a lot into this agreement and had hoped it could tout this deal as a foreign policy success. Will there be disappointment/frustration in Washington should this not go through before the end of the president’s term?

A: The US-India bilateral relationship is much broader than the nuclear deal. Regardless of whether the deal goes through during this Administration, this relationship still remains an enormous success. So, while there will likely be frustration at any delay in the deal, there are plenty of other areas in which we can work together and on which we should be focusing.

Q: The deal with China took over a decade to become operational. Did the Bush Administration set unrealistic timetables for the India deal? Were expectations raised too high?

A: It is hard to manage expectations when the two parties can see the incredible potential of engagement. There was no timetable to this deal but a recognition on both sides that they should take advantage of the opportunity to move events forward as fast as the system would allow. In fact, many believed, particularly on the Indian side, that this should have been done much earlier. Expectations are not too high – this will happen in time.

Q:What repercussions will a failure of this deal have on the US-India relationship? Would Washington be less enthusiastic about undertaking such ambitious initiatives with India?

A: The temporary hold on the deal need not have any negative implications for the broader relationship. In fact, it could have positive ones as the two sides are able to exert their attention and political will to address the plethora of other issues of mutual interest such as security, economics, trade, space, agriculture and more. As for lack of enthusiasm, this deal has done more to open the eyes of both bureaucracies to what is possible than anything else. While there will clearly be some who will continue to be reticent to engage, the message that should be taken out from this is the huge potential.

Q: If the deal gets kicked into the next administration how would it fare under a Democratic administration, or a new Republican administration?

A: No one should be under the illusion that this is not going to be a hard sell in the U.S. Congress. However, as the December 2006 vote on the Hyde legislation showed, this deal has enormous support on both sides of the aisle. The political orientation of the next administration is less relevant than the mere fact that this will be on hold while the new officials find their places and learn their portfolios.

Genes play a role in intelligence
by James Watson

Science is no stranger to controversy. The pursuit of discovery, of knowledge, is often uncomfortable and disconcerting. I have never been one to shy away from stating what I believe to be the truth, however difficult it might prove to be. This has, at times, got me in hot water.

Rarely more so than right now, where I find myself at the centre of a storm of criticism. I can understand much of this reaction. For if I said what I was quoted as saying, then I can only admit that I am bewildered by it. To those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief.

I have always fiercely defended the position that we should base our view of the world on the state of our knowledge, on fact, and not on what we would like it to be. This is why genetics is so important. For it will lead us to answers to many of the big and difficult questions that have troubled people for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

But those answers may not be easy, for, as I know all too well, genetics can be cruel. My own son may be one of its victims. Warm and perceptive at the age of 37, Rufus cannot lead an independent life because of schizophrenia, lacking the ability to engage in day-to-day activities.

For all too long, my wife Ruth and I hoped that what Rufus needed was an appropriate challenge on which to focus. But as he passed into adolescence, I feared the origin of his diminished life lay in his genes. It was this realisation that led me to help to bring the human genome project into existence.

In doing so, I knew that many new moral dilemmas would arise as a consequence and would early on establish the ethical, legal and societal components of the genome project. Since 1978, when a pail of water was dumped over my Harvard friend E.O. Wilson for saying that genes influence human behaviour, the assault against human behavioural genetics by wishful thinking has remained vigorous.

But irrationality must soon recede. It will soon be possible to read individual genetic messages at costs which will not bankrupt our health systems. In so doing, I hope we see whether changes in DNA sequence, not environmental influences, result in behaviour differences. Finally, we should be able to establish the relative importance of nature as opposed to nurture.

One in three people looking for a job in temporary employment bureaux in Los Angeles is a psychopath or a sociopath. Is this a consequence of their environment or their genetic components? DNA sequencing should give us the answer. The thought that some people are innately wicked disturbs me. But science is not here to make us feel good. It is to answer questions in the service of knowledge and greater understanding.

In finding out the extent to which genes influence moral behaviour, we shall also be able to understand how genes influence intellectual capacities. Right now, at my institute in the US we are working on gene-caused failures in brain development that frequently lead to autism and schizophrenia. We may also find that differences in these respective brain development genes also lead to differences in our abilities to carry out different mental tasks.

In some cases, how these genes function may help us to understand variations in IQ, or why some people excel at poetry but are terrible at mathematics. All too often people with high mathematical abilities have autistic traits. The same gene that gives some people such great mathematical abilities may also lead to autistic behaviour. This is why, in studying autism and schizophrenia, we believe that we shall come very close to a better understanding of intelligence and, therefore, of the differences in intelligence.

We do not yet adequately understand the way in which the different environments in the world have selected over time the genes which determine our capacity to do different things. The overwhelming desire of society today is to assume that equal powers of reason are a universal heritage of humanity. It may well be. But simply wanting this to be the case is not enough. This is not science.

To question this is not to give in to racism. This is not a discussion about superiority or inferiority, it is about seeking to understand differences, about why some of us are great musicians and others great engineers. It is very likely that at least some 10 to 15 years will pass before we get an adequate understanding for the relative importance of nature versus nurture in the achievement of important human objectives. Until then, we as scientists, wherever we wish to place ourselves in this great debate, should take care in claiming what are unarguable truths without the support of evidence.

The writer, one of the co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA, won the Nobel prize for medicine in 1962

By arrangement with The Independent

Watson’s words disowned by his own institute
By Andrew Gumbel

Los Angeles — Nobel laureate James Watson was disavowed by his own research institute last night over the suggestion that Africans were less intelligent than white people.

The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, which the DNA pioneer headed for more than 35 years, led a chorus of disapproval on the other side of the Atlantic saying it vehemently disagreed with his published remarks and felt “bewildered and saddened”.

“Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory does not engage in any research that could even form the basis of the statements attributed to Dr Watson,” the institute’s president, Bruce Stillman, said in a statement.

The disavowal was stunning for an institution that Dr Watson still serves in the largely honorary position of chancellor and that boasts a Watson School of Biological Sciences as its centrepiece of postgraduate education.

Similar condemnation followed quickly from other parts of the US scientific establishment, where the incendiary issue of race and science is intimately bound up in the history of slavery and segregation.

Dr Agin, a molecular biologist at the University of Chicago specialising in genetics, laid out a powerful scientific case against Dr Watson in a blog entry at the online Huffington Post, arguing that intelligence is not a solid scientific concept to start with and that the literature shows far greater differences in intelligence levels within groups such as blacks or Asians or whites than between those different groups.

“Maybe Dr Watson has attended too many back-slapping Harvard dinner parties with people who have steered him wrong,” added Dr Agin. “I cannot imagine that he’s reached his views by a thorough reading of the scientific literature.”  

Inside Pakistan
Deadly homecoming
by Syed Nooruzzaman

PPP leader Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan after a long self-imposed exile has evoked a positive reaction from almost all sections of society except the extremist elements, including militants, and those who may lose power. Both have provided enough proof of their dislike for the former Prime Minister, who continues to enjoy a massive following throughout Pakistan.

While the militants resorted to a dance of death through bomb blasts on her arrival on Thursday leading to the killing of over 100 people, some of the leading lights of the ruling coalition, opposed to the Musharraf-Benazir deal, tried to create roadblocks in the way of the PPP organising a large-scale reception that it gave to its top leader.

According to Dawn (Oct 17), “Further confusing an already uncertain situation - or perhaps just to demonstrate his loyalty to the national PML-Q boss (Chaudhary Shujaat Husain) - the Sindh Chief Minister ordered the Karachi police and city officials to remove banners welcoming Ms Bhutto from all government buildings and installations.”

The Karachi Nazim had reportedly said that the route from the international airport in the city to Bilawal House, the residence of Ms Bhutto, did not fall under the jurisdiction of the city police. He meant to say that it was the responsibility of the Karachi Cantonment Board to provide security to the PPP leader and her followers on this stretch.

The News (Oct 18) had it that the Chief Ministers of Sindh and Punjab seemed “irked by the ubiquitous portraits of the returning leader and her party flags, and ordered their removal from government buildings and poles.” The Punjab Chief Minister had assigned the task of removal of PPP banners to a “special task force”.

“…Such a reaction on the part of the Sindh and Punjab chief executives is only to be expected given that they are in direct line of the proverbial fire if all goes according to the so-called Musharraf-PPP deal”, the paper added.

Arbitrary laws

Pakistan has a history of enacting laws to serve the interests of the person in power. The National Reconciliation Ordinance, promulgated by President Gen Pervez Musharraf on October 5, falls in this category. This individual-centric law is aimed at not only perpetuating the rule of General Musharraf after he doffs his military uniform, but also granting amnesty to politicians facing serious corruption charges. The other beneficiaries, besides Ms Benazir Bhutto, include some MQM leaders who have been living in self-imposed exile for a long time.

The law has been described by media columnists and others as arbitrary because it grants amnesty to those who reportedly indulged in corruption during a particular period – from January 1, 1986, to October 12, 1999.

Ghulam Asghar Khan points out in his article in The Nation (Oct 18), “A huge amount of public money was wasted on pursuing money-laundering cases in England, Switzerland and Spain against Benazir and her spouse Asif Zardari. Some high-profile bureaucrats were sent to these countries to prosecute them for their alleged misdemeanours. They did spend a lot of public money on their luxury sojourns, but did not achieve any positive results.”

General Musharraf has, however, been following in the footsteps of his predecessors like Gen Ayub Khan and Gen Zia-ul-Haque. I.A. Rehman says in an article carried in Dawn (Oct 18), “The Bassic Democracy Order and the so-called constitution of 1962, signed and proclaimed by Gen Ayub Khan in his sole discretion, were for long accepted by courts as valid legal instruments until the people ruled against them.

In the opinion of Rehman, the Musharraf regime’s pieces of legislation “liable to be branded bad for being arbitrary” include “the graduation condition for candidates for seats in the central legislature, the law to anyone’s third term as prime minister, the President to Hold Another Office Act and the recently issued Reconciliation Order.”

Wheat shortage

Strange things keep happening in Pakistan. It has had a bumper wheat crop, but there is an acute atta shortage. The government has been trying to correct the situation but in vain, as media reports say.

According to Business Recorder (Oct 18), Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz is reported to have said that the “provincial governments of Sindh and Punjab have been directed to streamline wheat supply to the flour mills and to ensure that liberal releases of wheat were made to the operational flour mills only so that atta became available at reasonable prices in the open market.”

Obviously, the crisis is the creation of “hoarders and profiteers”. But, as the financial daily points out, the government has intriguingly failed to “catch hold of them and punish them” suitably.