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Left-UPA
hiatus Tigers
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Ban on
rice export
Disturbing
statements
In the
corridors of power
Big
brother is watching... Next
wave of reforms crucial N-deal
politics reflect divided nationalism
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Left-UPA hiatus AN early end to the UPA-Left stalemate on India’s nuclear deal with the US is now ruled out. Few believe that the UPA-Left committee, which will meet again on November 16, will be able to sort out the differences, given the contradictory stances of the two sides. In fact, CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat’s meeting with the Third Front leaders on Tuesday, ostensibly to explain the party’s stand on the issue, makes it doubly sure that a rapprochement is out of question. After UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh virtually admitted — although after second thoughts — that they were not prepared to sacrifice the government for the sake of the nuclear deal, the Left leaders have only raised the ante to demand that the government announce, once and for all, that the deal is over. Such an announcement would amount to a loss of face, for which the government is not prepared. The reported discomfiture of the Prime Minister notwithstanding, the UPA feels that it would not be wise to go to elections on this single issue. The constituents of the UPA, including Congressmen, would have realised that the need to have nuclear energy to meet the growing power needs of industry is not something on which votes can be garnered. And to make matters worse, allies like the RJD, the DMK and the NCP had also openly come out against mid-term elections. Even the Congress is not united on facing elections at this juncture. What is certain is that if at all elections become a reality, the government would not like the nuclear deal to have triggered it. In other words, the UPA would like the elections to be fought on issues that are dearer to the people than the nuclear deal with the US. The UPA would rather face the elections on the strength of the flurry of people-oriented decisions the government has taken in the recent past. On their part, some sections of the Left feel that they no longer can have a cosy relationship with the UPA after nearly scuttling the nuclear deal. They, too, do not want to be caught unawares if the Congress decides to go in for a mid-term poll on any pretext. A tie-up with the Third Front — which is yet to take a recognisable shape — is an option the Left has always been considering. The talks Mr Karat had with the Samajawadi Party, the Telugu Desam and other Third Front constituents could be exploratory at a time when no political party is sure of the future line-up. Incidentally, the Samajwadi Party had opposed the nuclear deal even before it was inked. Converting the converted could not have been Mr Karat’s objective.
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Tigers strike again There
appears to be no stopping the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from carrying out their military strikes on the ground and from the air at a time of their choosing. So it appears, given the fact that after three air attacks, the LTTE has now carried out its first simultaneous air and ground attack. Despite the minimum damage, the LTTE’s bombing of Sri Lankan Air Force’s base at Anuradhapura, 210 km north of Colombo, is a reminder of the rebel outfit’s awesome military power; and, that it endangers not only Sri Lanka but is fraught with implications for the whole of South Asia, particularly India. It is time the international community woke up to the terrorist threat that the LTTE represents and took a stand in keeping with the new reality. The world needs no reminder that since the collapse of the peace talks, the LTTE has mobilised its forces, finances and firepower. It is, perhaps, the only designated terrorist organisation in the world that runs a de facto state with an army, navy and air force. The first evidence of this came in March this year, followed by a second one less than a month later. The third show of the LTTE’s air power was seen during the August attack on Colombo. The Sri Lankan armed forces appear to be no match for this hit-and-run guerrilla force, preoccupied as Colombo is with taking forward the military campaign, which has succeeded in the eastern part of the island. In fact, the achievements of the military offensive deluded Colombo into believing that the LTTE was on the run and defensive. The latest air-cum-ground attack, the fourth major raid this year, proves the fallacy of this assumption. It reinforces the view that the LTTE remains as potent a threat as ever and not only to Sri Lanka. It is time New Delhi made other interested capitals realise the enormity of what a terrorist army across its border implies. While Washington has been more appreciative of this reality, the European Union and Japan tend to gloss over the depredations of the LTTE and prefer to focus on the failure of the Sri Lankan state. This has given rise to a feeling that the LTTE is encouraged, if not emboldened, by this ambivalence towards its terrorist acts. This is an area of concern for India and, for all it’s avowed refusal to intervene in the Tamil-Sinhala conflict, interests of national security demand more visible diplomatic activism on this score.
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Ban on rice export Traders
in Punjab and Haryana have been protesting against the ban on the export of non-basmati rice for the past some days, disrupting the procurement of paddy and bringing down prices of certain exportable varieties of rice. The ban is meant to help the official agencies procure sufficient quantities of rice to build a buffer stock. Farmers had grown long-grain varieties of rice like Sharbati, 1123 and Muchhal on the advice of rice exporters and government agencies since these consume less water and fetch a higher price. Along with basmati, these varieties are exported to Gulf countries. Haryana exported rice worth Rs 10,000 crore last year. The Punjab and Haryana Chief Ministers have reasons to take up the traders’ cause and pleaded with the Centre to lift the ban. Their concern is understandable as the rice millers’ boycot of mandis has hit the procurement process. Small farmers, who cannot hold back stocks, are forced to dispose of their produce at whatever price is available. The Centre’s significant raise in the minimum support price of wheat and announcement of merely a bonus of Rs 50 per quintal for paddy had left paddy growers disappointed. Given the sharp decline in the water table in both Punjab and Haryana, it is not in the interest of the two states and their farmers to grow paddy as they had been doing in the past. Experts agree that there is need to discourage paddy cultivation and schedule it in such a way as to take the maximum advantage of the monsoon. There are alternative crops whose marketing is less problematic now and the returns too are reasonable. The long-term damage done by paddy sowing has to be understood. The two northern states are no longer suitable for growing paddy at a large scale, especially for exports.
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Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. — Samuel Johnson
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Disturbing statements This
is about two statements that India heard on the same day. They must have disturbed many Indians who value the country’s democracy, despite its various flaws. The statements were all the more disturbing for coming from representatives of two institutions that have arguably done much to keep the country’s democratic polity on the rails by their non-political role. The statements emanated on October 1 from the highest levels of the armed forces that, unlike their counterparts in the neighbourhood and many developing nations, have kept away from politics and of the judiciary that has kept perceptibly above politics for most of the post-Independence period. The first statement came from Gen Deepak Kapoor, who took over as the Chief of Army Staff on that day. It came as a shock to many, who had been watching the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters by Myanmar’s military rulers on the television with mounting indignation, when the new army chief reportedly made his first message to the nation an expression of warm friendship and solidarity with the junta. The context made the statement all the more conspicuously appalling. New Delhi had been on the mat in much of the democratic world and among the democracy-loving Indian public for its embarrassing silence on the crackdown. The embarrassment had only been enhanced by the unmistakable attempts of South Block to sound solicitously supportive to Yangon in its moments of increased international isolation. None of the three arguments advanced in defence of such a stance carried conviction. India, eager to display its democratic credentials on every other occasion, was doing itself no justice by claiming an imperative need to match China in support for the military rulers. India’s concern over its energy security, too, did not warrant unprincipled collaboration with Myanmar’s regime that could not be expected to keep its oil and gas resources under its own oligarchic control forever. The third argument, the most ridiculous of them all, was that insurgents in India’s North-East, who found sanctuaries on Myanmar’s borders, made friendship with that country indispensable. This boiled down to the plea that India must succumb to the junta’s blackmail. General Kapoor emphasised this argument when he reportedly proclaimed that India’s “strategic interests” were “more important than other issues”. This was a policy pronouncement that India’s army chief was not empowered to make, to go by any interpretation of the polity of the country’s adoption. He was and is entitled to his view. He might not share the possibly more widely held view that stable democracy in its neighbourhood also serves India’s vital strategic interests. It is also, if debatably, within his province to rhapsodise over the military-to-military relations with Myanmar. But he had no business to plead that Myanmar’s “internal scenario” was solely for its government to deal with, even while New Delhi and India’s Parliament had yet to respond to global appeals for a more pro-actively pro-democracy stance. The new army chief has not mended matters with his statement on Kashmir. His assertion that conditions in the state did not permit a cut-down on India’s troop deployed there could have, at best, served as unpublicised professional advice to the policy-makers. It was not for him to answer another General across the border, who is all set to shed his uniform, or to political parties represented in the state’s elected assembly. General Kapoor would seem to have made it only worse with a subsequent clarification that “we will be happy to go back to the barracks” if the policy-makers decided on a troop reduction. No opinion poll is needed to prove that a large majority of Indians never thought the Army had the luxury of the right to react in any other way to any such decision. The second statement came from the Supreme Court of India in the form of obiter dicta in the course of hearing a clearly political case. One does not have to be a staunch admirer or sympathiser of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi or his DMK government to wonder whether the court did not let itself be carried away by an apparent non-compliance with law and its earlier order in the matter. The court had disallowed a bandh or shutdown called by the ruling Democratic Progressive Alliance in Tamil Nadu, headed by the DMK on the Sethusamudram ship canal issue, on the basis of an earlier court judgment disapproving of such cessation of activities as a form of protest. This blanket ban on bandhs is still debated. But, as the court rightly pointed out, it was for a larger bench to review the law in this regard. Parliament, too, could take up the matter, but the law against bandhs could not be breached in the meantime. The apex court was understandably angry at reports that the DPA had gone ahead with the bandh despite its order. Though the bandh had been officially called off, it was carried out in several parts of the state with the government winking at it, by many accounts. The court was certainly within its rights to warn of contempt proceedings against the state government and the Chief Minister. But was it right to threaten dismissal of the DMK government on this score? The court, according to reports, said the Central government “should not fight shy of dismissing” the state government on the ground of “a total breakdown of the constitutional machinery in the state”. Judicial counsel for the dismissal of an elected state government, which had not lost its majority support in the assembly, would also not just seem to be part of the polity of the country’s adoption. The ground cited for the court’s advice to the Centre cannot but give rise to many questions. Why, for example, did no court advise the Centre to dismiss the Gujarat government in 2002 when thousands were being murdered, maimed and raped in the streets of the state? Did not the bloodshed spell a breakdown of constitutional machinery? Why was no similar advice forthcoming when a bandh called by Ms. Mamata Banerjee and company brought parts of West Bengal to a standstill not long ago? And, as common people in Tamil Nadu want to know whether the court asked for the dismissal of the Karnataka government for disobeying its orders on the Cauvery issue? Agreed, politicians, especially those in power, cannot be allowed to get away with contempt of court, an offence for which ordinary mortals like journalists are made to pay. But is not anything smacking of contempt for democracy and the people’s electoral mandate perhaps more
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In the corridors of power There
used to be a post of establishment officer in the C.R.P.F. in the rank of a Commandant who dealt with the appointment, leave, confidential reports, postings and promotions of the officers. He was directly responsible to the Director-General and in fact, acted as a sort of bridge between the government and the Force. He was the only officer in the Force authorised to authenticate on behalf of the President in the matters approved by the government. No wonder then that the post carried a clout far in excess of the rank of the appointee. The late Mr P.R. Rajgopal who was earlier the Secretary to the Shah Commission (appointed to look into the alleged misuse of authority by the Indira Gandhi government) was posted as the Director-General in the wake of a mini mutiny in the C.R.P.F. in 1979. He had a great desire to restore the Force to its old glory. He, thus, went about visiting all his battalions deployed in various nooks and corners of the country to carry a message that the turbulence needed to be forgotten quickly as a bad dream. During his visit to my battalion, he felt that I could be of service to him in his mission. So, he appointed me as the establishment officer to the Force over the head of many competent seniors. Thus, I had my first taste of being in the corridors of power in the Central Secretariat and felt good for a while. Soon, however, I found officers coming to me in droves with all sorts of problems. Whenever, I was unable to help them I felt uncomfortable. Finally, I felt that there was hardly any fun involved in my position. After the return of Mrs Indira Gandhi to power in early 1980, Mr Rajgopal became a persona non grata. Along with him, not only I but also my personal staff down to my office orderly got shunted from the Secretariat. Mr Rajgopal applied for voluntary retirement. Mrs Indira Gandhi had the grace not to chase him the way she herself was chased after losing power in 1977. He was allowed to retire and die in peace. A few years later, I also sought early retirement. In the course of my post-retirement work I appeared in a pre-admission test for LL.B. in Delhi. I was placed first in this Delhi University competition, while a Secretary to the Government stood second. Understandably, the serving Secretary could not find time to attend all classes in the evening and he needed somebody to brief him regularly about the lectures in our Law Centre. This brought us together as personal friends in course of time. Often he would invite me to his office in Parliament House and later in the Central Secretariat to discuss the lectures delivered or for proceeding together to the university for the examinations. I was, thus, back in the corridors of power as a curious visitor. With no strings of responsibility attached to it this time, I enjoyed being
there.
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Big brother is watching... GLOUCESTER, UK – The closed-circuit television camera lurking just down the street from the fast-food restaurant bellows menacingly at the first sign of a cast-off cigarette butt or fast-food wrapper. “Pick it up,” commands a booming voice from ... where, exactly? The CCTV cameras in Gloucester and several other British towns now come equipped with speakers, meaning Big Brother is not only watching, he’s telling you what to do. “When people hear that, they tend to react. They pick up the litter and put it in the bin,” said Mick Matthews, assistant chief police constable in this old cathedral city of 110,000 in the rolling Cotswold hills. For all the increased anti-terrorism security measures in the U.S., there is probably no society on Earth more watched than Britain. By some estimates, 4.2 million CCTV cameras, or one for every 15 people, quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, monitor the comings and goings of almost everyone – an average person is caught on camera up to 300 times a day. Thanks in part to Britain’s history of terrorist attacks by the Irish Republican Army, some early, high-profile law enforcement successes helped imprint the potential benefits of closed-circuit television on the popular imagination. With more than $200 million in funding since 1999, CCTV was a fixture in British cities long before attacks by Islamist militants began prompting other governments to step up surveillance of their populations. Cameras are fixed on lampposts and on street corners, above sidewalks, in subways, on buses, in taxis, in the stores, over the parking lots, in mobile police vans, and in some cities, even perched in the hats of police officers walking their beats. Surprisingly clear images of Britons engaged in apparently nefarious activities have become a staple on the evening news; few of the country’s many terrorism trials unfold without the jury being presented with multiple images of the defendants carrying alleged backpack bombs or driving up to a storehouse of explosives. Pub patrons in one town last year had their fingerprints scanned as they walked in (bringing up their criminal records on a computer screen); some cities are talking of putting electronic chips in household trash cans to measure output; a toll-free “smoke-free compliance line” takes snitch reports on violators of the new national ban on smoking in public places. The DNA profile of every person ever arrested – even those briefly detained for, say, loitering and released without charge – is on file in what is believed to be, per capita, the largest such database in the world, with 3.9 million samples. It includes the genetic markings of an estimated 40 percent of Britain’s black male population . For the majority of Britons, polls show, there is nothing wrong with much of this monitoring. “I didn’t know the camera was even up there until it started talking,” said Clive Anthony, who blinked and twirled for a moment one recent afternoon while shopping in downtown Gloucester when the CCTV camera started barking at something. “I haven’t got a problem with it, basically. To my mind, if you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing and going about your business, just because somebody’s watching that, it’s not taking anything away from me.” Public acceptance of closed-circuit television skyrocketed after the murder of toddler James Bulger near Liverpool in 1993. In CCTV footage that shocked the country, the killers, a pair of 10-year-old boys, were shown leading the trusting boy away from a shopping center. “The last known sighting of this boy was on CCTV. And there was this kind of iconic image that was used to say, ‘If we had more CCTV, we would be more likely to spot horrible crimes like this,’” said Kirstie Ball, an expert on surveillance systems at Open University Business School in Milton Keynes. “It got to a point where if you were opposing CCTV, you were in favor of child murder.” But a growing number of people, including some police officers and the country’s information commissioner, are beginning to wonder if Britain isn’t watching itself too closely. In a round-the-world survey conducted by Privacy International, a London-based civil-rights group set up to monitor government infringement on privacy, Britain was roughly keeping company with Russia and China near the bottom, colored in black on a world map, with the U.S. not far behind, in red. Britain’s information commissioner, Richard Thomas, has warned that the country is “waking up in a surveillance society “ and has called for greater public discussion of what it really means to make one’s life a virtual open book. “The U.K. has more CCTV cameras per head of population than any other country in the world, but it’s not only that,” Thomas said. “Every time we use mobile telephones, every time we use credit cards, every time we use the Internet for shopping or a search, every time we interact with the government for social security or taxes or passport checks, every time we go to our doctors or hospitals now, we are leaving an electronic footprint. And this of course is not just a U.K. issue, it is an international issue.” Government authorities say their new surveillance tools not only guard against terrorists but also against welfare cheating, illegal immigration and the juvenile delinquents who plague many of Britain’s cities. Although studies have shown the CCTV cameras have had a negligible effect on crime in most areas where they’re placed – other than parking lots, where they do help prevent thefts – police say they are an invaluable tool in catching suspects after the fact, helping track missing children or the elderly and directing police to potential problem situations before they escalate. In Gloucester, the CCTV cameras not only talk, they can be linked to software that scans vehicle registration plates to track suspects even before they have committed crimes. “If there’s a criminal we’re interested in, not necessarily in a position to arrest him, but if you’re trying to track this criminal, learn his lifestyle, his movements, his vehicle number will be put into the system, and any time he comes into the city, his movements will be tracked,” said Roger Clayton, chief inspector of Gloucester. By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post
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Next wave of reforms crucial Since
the mid-1980s successive reforms have progressively moved the Indian economy towards a market-based system. State intervention and control over economic activity has been reduced significantly and the role of private-sector entrepreneurship increased. To varying degrees, liberalisation has touched on most aspects of economic policy including industrial policy, fiscal policy, financial market regulation, and trade and foreign investment. Overall, reform has had a major beneficial impact on the economy. Annual growth in GDP per capita has accelerated from just 1Ľ per cent in the three decades after Independence to 7˝ per cent currently, a rate of growth that will double average income in a decade. Potential output growth is currently estimated to be 8˝ per cent annually and India is now the third largest economy in the world. Increased economic growth has helped reduce poverty, which has begun to fall in absolute terms. Liberalised areas have grown rapidly. In service sectors where government regulation has been eased significantly or is less burdensome – such as communications, insurance, asset management and information technology – output has grown rapidly, with exports of information technology enabled services particularly strong. In those infrastructure sectors which have been opened to competition, such as telecoms and civil aviation, the private sector has proven to be extremely effective and growth has been phenomenal. At the state level, economic performance is much better in states with a relatively liberal regulatory environment than in the relatively more restrictive states. Further reforms are needed in a number of areas. In labour markets, employment growth has been concentrated in firms that operate in sectors not covered by India’s highly restrictive labour laws. In the formal sector, where these labour laws apply, employment has been falling and firms are becoming more capital intensive despite abundant low-cost labour. Labour market reform is essential to achieve a broader-based development and provide sufficient and higher productivity jobs for the growing labour force. In product markets, inefficient government procedures acts as a barrier to entrepreneurship and need to be improved. A number of barriers to competition in financial markets and some of the infrastructure sectors, which are other constraints on growth, also need to be addressed. The indirect tax system needs to be simplified to create a true national market, while for direct taxes, the taxable base should be broadened and rates lowered. Reform must continue if government is to achieve its growth targets. The Government’s target of reaching GDP growth of 10 per cent in 2011 is achievable if reforms continue. In addition, if the relatively restrictive states improve their regulatory frameworks towards that of the better-run states, growth will be more inclusive and income gaps across states will narrow. The impressive response of the Indian economy to past reforms should give policymakers confidence that further liberalisation will deliver additional growth dividends. The next round of reforms needs to focus on a number of key areas that have the potential to further boost economic growth, while ensuring that the expansion becomes more inclusive. Recent reforms have made a number of sectors of the economy more dynamic, especially in the service sector. However, there are still a number of barriers to growth in product, labour and financial markets, and the provision of infrastructure, where reform is needed both at the central and state levels. Indeed, India has a much smaller proportion of employment in enterprises with ten or more employees than any OECD country. The number of workers has also fallen in the manufacturing sector where the share of labour income in value-added is low compared to other countries and capital-intensity is relatively high. Such developments indicate that India is not fully exploiting its comparative advantage as a labour-abundant economy. The financial sector has one of the highest shares of public ownership in the economy and needs to be liberalised further. Successful reforms have already restored the health of the public banks, most of which now have minority private shareholders, and have created new regulators. Despite progressive deregulation, banks can still allocate only 41 per cent of their assets completely freely, notwithstanding long-standing recommendations by government committees that this ratio should be increased. Reform of direct taxation also has the potential to further improve growth. Despite large cuts in direct tax rates, which have strengthened the economy, the share of direct tax revenues in GDP has risen. Nonetheless, the tax system still bears some traces of past interventionism, through extensive loopholes and exemptions which introduce distortions and complexity, facilitating tax evasion. They are most noticeable in the areas of saving, agriculture and corporate taxation. The treatment of some forms of savings is so favourable that they are often exempted from taxation at the time of initial savings, during the period when invested funds earn returns, and finally when investments are liquidated – a level of generosity that has rarely been found in the OECD area. Agricultural incomes are not subject to income tax and numerous exemptions exist in the corporate tax system. Indeed, these are so prevalent that corporate tax collections are only half of the theoretical yield. The government should consider reducing exemptions and loopholes in all these areas, creating room for cuts in statutory rates, thereby moving towards equalisation of effective tax rates across sectors and activities. The above is excerpted from the first OECD Economic Survey of India, 2007
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N-deal politics reflect divided nationalism Whether
or not the Indo-US nuclear deal goes through, the bickering among the ruling Congress party, which wants to set the seal on the agreement, its coalition partner the CPM and the opposition BJP, unfortunately reveals sharp political disagreements over the defining of India’s national interest. These disputes stem from the regrettable fact that, 60 years after independence, Indians do not agree on the content of their nationalism or what constitutes their national interest. Indeed the differences over the n-deal echo, in the realm of foreign policy, the political discordance over everything from the content of NCERT text-books to the content of the Indian identity. Which means, in plain English, that Indians do not know who they are. And since they do not know who they are they cannot agree on a vision of the nation and the national interest, and how to translate any vision on the ground. At least Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has a vision of India. He thinks, among other things, that India needs more energy to make economic progress, and that the n-deal could present the fastest way of getting that energy. But he has been accused of a sell-out to the US by his CPM partners in coalition, who think that any improvement in Indo-US ties would compromise India’s sovereignty, that the US would bully India, and that alternative sources of energy can be found elsewhere. But the CPM’s stance reveals lack of confidence in the ability or desire of Indians to safeguard their own interests, to stand their ground or to defend themselves. This is hardly a compliment to the Indian people. The CPM has also failed to suggest a single alternative source of energy that could be on a par with the energy offered by the n-deal. The CPM’s ‘nationalism’ is grounded in anti-Westernism and wrongly implies that India’s national interest lies in opposing the West at all costs and at all times. It goes against the pragmatism of Nehru’s nonalignment which was based on the principles of judging each issue on its merits and of maximising India’s diplomatic options. That is why the CPM is silent about the fact that it was the US which offered military assistance to India during its disastrous war with Communist China in 1962; that China aids armed groups on India’s north-eastern borders who threaten India’s territorial integrity; that a few days ago the Russians rebuffed the Indian foreign minister when theirs refused to meet him in Moscow. Always voicing their fears that the US could browbeat India, their nationalism is mute when Russia or China humiliate or trouble India. Much has already been written about the communal ‘Hindu-ising’ aspects of the BJP’s brand of nationalism which need not be repeated here. What is worth remembering is that, in September 2001, the BJP-led coalition paved the way for better ties with the US by making India the first country to offer the US bases which could be used to defeat Afghanistan’s fundamentalist Taliban government, because global terrorism threatened both countries. Out of office, the BJP’s sole aim in opposing the deal seems to be to embarrass the Manmohan Singh government by calling for its resignation. Like the CPM it offers no counsel on available alternative sources of energy which would help India’s power infrastructure to grow and give a fillip to its economy. Both the BJP and CPM claim to be patriotic. But the nature of the B JP’s opposition to the n-deal reveals that its patriotism is a refuge of the opportunist without a vision; that of the CPM exposes a party caught in a cold war time-warp discarded by both Russia and Communist China a long time ago. The Congress is reluctant to call the CPM’s bluff of withdrawing support to his government, and going to the polls, despite having every proposal for economic betterment blocked by the CPM over the last three years. The Congress shrinks from rallying itself to put into practice the policies its leadership claims could lead to the economic betterment of India’s people. ‘We divide’, Mahatma Gandhi used to say before independence. He was right. The politics of expediency, threatening to block the n-deal, reflect more generally, an inchoate and divided political nationalism and nation.
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