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Sarkozy Mission Kidney robbers |
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World Bank cheated Need to bring the guilty to book AT a time when the country’s health sector is crumbling because of fund crunch and the prohibitive cost of medicines and hospital treatment, the World Bank report on large-scale corruption, kickbacks and bribes in five health projects is cause for serious concern.
Internal security
challenges
A mystery
unravelled
How safe is
Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal? Conscription need
not be the solution Chatterati
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Kidney robbers As grizzly details of the Gurgaon kidney racket tumble out, the question that agitates the mind the most is as to how such a heinous crime could go on for so many years in the Millenium City right under the nose of the police. The sheer scale of this inhuman operation takes one's breath away. Over 500 kidney transplant operations took place illegally with recipients coming from countries like the US, the UK, Greece, Canada and Saudi Arabia while the losers were poor and hapless daily-wage workers mostly from Western Uttar Pradesh. Some of them were given a pittance for their vital organ. Many "donors" were simply robbed of their kidneys. All this was being done as a well-oiled racket by doctors who tore their sacred Hippocratic oath to pieces shamelessly. The police has identified four of them and arrested one. What is all the more galling is the fact that the same gang had been busted several times earlier. Yet, they continued to implement their barbaric designs and made something like Rs 100 crore. The prime accused, Dr Amit Kumar, is believed to be the Dr Santosh Raut whom the Mumbai Police had been chasing since 1993. According to the UP Police, he was also arrested in Delhi 's Nizamuddin area in 2000. The gang also operated its illegal trade from Jaipur, Guntur and Hyderabad . The mastermind has once again given the slip to the police. That raises another vital question: is the government machinery at all capable of tackling rackets of such dimensions? Given the scale of the operation, there are reasons to suspect that this may be only the tip of the iceberg. Reports of similar rackets keep emanating from various places off and on. These dots may very well be connected. Now that the police of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh has stumbled on the scandal providentially, following a fight over money between a middleman and a donor, there is need to conduct a thorough investigation for once and rid the country of the shame of this outrage. |
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World Bank cheated AT a time when the country’s health sector is crumbling because of fund crunch and the prohibitive cost of medicines and hospital treatment, the World Bank report on large-scale corruption, kickbacks and bribes in five health projects is cause for serious concern. Clearly, the politicians, the contractors, the officials and NGOs have all joined hands to siphon off money. The five projects funded by the World Bank are the malaria control project ($114 million), the second national HIV/AIDS control project ($193.7 million), the tuberculosis control project ($124.8 million), the Orissa health system development project ($82.1 million) and the food and drug capacity building project ($54 million). While the first four have already been completed, the fifth is still on. Disturbingly, this is the second time in less than two years that the World Bank’s department of institutional integrity has found rampant corruption in the health projects funded by it. The report has found serious discrepancies such as fraud in the bids, deficient civil works certified as complete, broken or damaged equipment cleared as compliant and under delivery of services. While the same companies have been accused of colluding, rigging bids and tampering of drugs in the malaria and TB control programmes, substandard kits were bought for the HIV/AIDS control project. The Centre may have ordered a CBI inquiry into all these lapses to bring the guilty to book, but as this agency’s track record has been shoddy, its sincerity to punish the offenders is suspect and open to question. The Centre and the states cannot take the report lightly because the Wold Bank has now suspended funding to the tune of $1.3 billion to nine ongoing health projects intended for the poor. Consequently, the report should goad them to tighten rules regarding the process of bids and procurement and make them foolproof, open and transparent. There is need for comprehensive auditing of the expenditure and no short-cuts should be allowed. More important, NGOs’ finances need strict monitoring. If some of them were indeed “fake” in the execution of the projects in question, according to the World Bank, accountability must be fixed on all those politicians, officials and the staff responsible for the irregularities. |
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But words are words; I never yet did hear/ That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.
— William Shakespeare |
Internal security challenges Of
the four kinds of dangers — internal, external and their combinations — internal dangers should be got rid of first; for it is the internal troubles like the fear from the lurking snake that are serious than external troubles”, said Kautilya in Arthshastra. On December 20 last year, addressing an internal security meeting attended by all Chief Ministers, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh displayed exceptional determination to root out the Naxal menace, the “single biggest security challenge”, as he described it. Much political rhetoric and re-invented old suggestions were heard as if the political leadership of the nation was confronting the serious internal security situation for the first time. Three days later, 100 Maoists attacked a railway station in Dantewada and looted all communication equipment kept there. Statistics indicate that about 370 civilians and security personnel were killed due to left-wing extremism in 2007. We had 55 districts in nine states affected by this kind of violence in October 2003. It has now spread to over 160 districts in 13 states. Maoists’ activities and violence are an indication of the people’s sense of desperation and alienation who feel marginalised, exploited and dispossessed in their homeland. A statement issued by the Maoists on October 14, 2004, had stated, “We hereby declare that the two guerrilla armies of the CPI (ML) (Peoples’ War Group) and Maoists Communist Centre of India have been merged into the unified Peoples’ Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA). Hereafter, the most urgent task of the party is to develop the unified PLGA into a full-fledged liberation army and transforming the existing Guerrilla Zones into Base Areas….The new party will also continue to support the struggle of the nationalities (presumably secessionists in J & K and the North-East) for self-determination, including their right to secession.” Recent attacks on railway stations, police posts and patrols in central India, and the recovery of mines, semi automatic rifles, machine guns and rocket launchers should give us an idea of their strength, motivation and potential. No wonder, someone called the December 20 meeting as an “expression of sterile intentions” by the political leadership! India has huge diversity. When socio-political and socio-economic equilibrium is maintained, there is unity in diversity. But if there is slight imbalance, we have more diversity and less unity. This has been the hallmark of India’s history, always exploited by external elements. Even after 60 years of Independence, our secular, open and pluralistic society remains vulnerable to several internal contradictions. Here are some of the issues we are faced with and which have had a major impact on internal security: One, there are problems of national assimilation and integration, particularly of border areas in the North and Northeast. Two, we have porous borders which enable illegal trans-border movements and smuggling of weapons and drugs. Many people think that by erecting fences on our international borders, we can stop all illegal trans-border movements. That is not correct. Firstly, it is not possible to guard or police each and every metre of the land, sea and air borders. Secondly, construction of a fence along land borders is expensive, and it requires huge manpower for effective surveillance. Three, the country has the problem of poor governance, a weak law and order machinery and large-scale corruption. More and more people seem to be getting disenchanted with social justice. In Orissa, over 72 per cent of all adivasis live below the poverty line. At the national level, this figure is 45.86 per cent. Four, there is also the well-known nexus between crime, insurgency and politics. Communal terrorism poses yet another grave threat to India’s sovereignty and integrity. The primary objective of terrorists has been to trigger riots in communally sensitive areas. Since the mid-1980s, India’s share of terrorists’ incidents and civilian casualties has risen to become the highest in the world. Terrorist organisations have now perfected their modus operandi. Serial, high-intensity blasts in crowded places of metropolitan cities get them the best results --- maximum damage and the loudest message. Such incidents require strategising, meticulous planning, extensive logistic support and trusted execution. Obviously, only well-organised outfits with considerable expertise and support can carry out such deeds. Let me now come to some specific problems and suggestions. First of all, we have the deep-rooted constitutional problem of the law and order being a state subject and internal security the responsibility of the Union government. The Constitution has vested policing authority in the state governments. The Central government feels incapable of affecting the quality of policing; a source of much of the problems in managing internal security. This is a problem of political will and consensus. The state governments refuse to recognise the linkages between basic policing and internal security. They have neither the money nor inclination to upgrade the quality of the state police or to raise extra forces without substantial financial help from the Centre. So, they let the internal security situation deteriorate. In addition to the “beat” and armed police in the states, of which a large portion is deployed on VIP guarding duties, the Centre has raised 354 central police and paramilitary force battalions (including 220 battalions for border guarding). At least 25 more battalions are to be raised in the near future. But unless the law-enforcement agencies across the country are reinvigorated, well trained, equipped and managed, we cannot hope to use them effectively to achieve the desired results. The responsibility without resources at the state level and the lack of accountability at the Centre need to be resolved urgently. The government must implement the recommendations of the National Police Reforms Commission of 1979 and the recent orders from the Supreme Court on a PIL filed by an ex-DGP, Mr Prakash Singh, in letter and spirit and not half-heartedly as is being done in some states. Timely and accurate intelligence is critical in countering terrorism. There has to be greater focus on acquisition, coordination and time-bound action on intelligence. We need multi-agency counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence centres in all the affected states. The Centre should enable effective coordination of intelligence and other operations through a dynamic regional centre wherever insurgency or serious law and order situation spreads across a region such as in the Northeast and central India. Intelligence and databases must flow automatically among the states, the Centre and the security forces. The states and the Central government must desist from using intelligence agencies for their narrow partisan ends and encourage them to be professional. Insurgency, proxy war and terrorism are acts of war. For that we need tougher anti-terrorism laws. The United States and the United Kingdom have provisions in their anti-terrorism laws that are much tougher than India’s. It is time our professionals had a greater say in framing appropriate anti-terrorist legislation. The professionals should advise political leaders sincerely and expose anyone who misuses these provisions for political purposes. Strategically, India cannot afford to be perceived to be buckling down under internal security or externally-induced terrorist pressures. That would be disastrous. India requires hard decisions based on the analysis of the options available. We need a comprehensive Centre-State strategy to deal with different insurgencies which should include broad-based domains of national and state policies. Most importantly, it should focus on providing dedicated and effective governance, a prompt and fair judiciary and law and order machinery that inspire public confidence. The internal security situation in the country demands urgent multi-pronged actions, and not rhetoric or
speeches.
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A mystery unravelled It
was July 1959. I had completed three year’s service in the I.A.S. of which one year was spent at the I.A.S. Training School, Metcalfe House, Delhi, seven months at the Punjab Revenue Training School Chandigarh and five months on my district training. My tenure as S.D.M. Mahendragarh, then a part of Punjab was, therefore, just one year. I was surprised to receive a letter from the Punjab Government about my nomination for the Staff Course 1959-60 at the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington. I did not know what the course was about and was not even aware that there was a place like Wellington in Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu besides the one in New Zealand. This was followed in due course with information about the course and an order to report for pre-course training at the 4 Infantry Division Ambala. Lt. Col. I. M. Vohra, the CO of 8 Light Cavalry (later a Lt. General) with which I was attached told me that I should feel complimented that I was selected for a course which meant so much for the career of defences services officers. He advised me to get married as Wellington was a beautiful station for honeymooners. At the Staff College too I was told of the importance of this course for officers of the defence services. I was convinced that I must be an exceptional civil service officer to make it to the course. The mystery of nomination was unravelled 12 years later when as Joint Secretary, Personnel. I dealt with the case of another officer of the Punjab Cadre for nomination to this course in 1971. It was then that I saw the file concerning my nomination. It opened with a letter from M.K. Vellodi, Defence Secretary, to E.N. Mangat Rai, Chief Secretary, Punjab, asking for nomination of an officer against the civil service quota as Punjab was a border state and had not sent an officer since 1954. Mangat Rai sent a terse reply saying that the State was short of officers and could not spare anyone for as long as a year. Two weeks later came a note from Partap Singh Kairon, Chief Minister, referring to a telephone call from Mr V.K. Krishna Menon and suggesting that unless the Chief Secretary had some compelling reason, he would like to defer to the request of the Defence Minister. Mangat Rai recorded an angry note to the effect that Vellodi had not learnt to take a no for a no. He was amazed at the degree of centralisation in the Ministry of Defence where over a little matter like nominating an officer, the Defence Minister’s intervention was being invoked. Mangat Rai then added: “However, since the Chief Minister wants to accommodate the wishes of the Defence Minister, I would recommend the name of Shri P.H. Vaishnav in sending whom we lose no experience”. Kairon then noted that he did not know the officer recommended by the Chief Secretary but hoped that someday he would bring a name to the State. The controversy whether I brought a name to the State or not died with my retirement from the I.A.S. in
1990.
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How safe is Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal? RAWALPINDI – Facing mounting international concern over how Pakistan safeguards its nuclear arsenal, military officials there have insisted their system was fail-safe and that the weapons would never fall into the hands of extremists. Retired Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai said his nation’s nuclear security apparatus is “second to none,” with a strictly controlled military chain of command, checks and balances, and monitoring of scientists and others with sensitive
knowledge.
“There is no conceivable scenario that Pakistan’s military weapons are going to fall into the hands of extremists,” he told foreign journalists in a briefing at the Chaklala military garrison here. “The weapons are absolutely safe and secure.” Kidwai, who heads the Strategic Plans Division that handles Pakistan’s nuclear program, acknowledged that officials had become more alert to threats posed from within the volatile South Asian nation -- including political turmoil and a rising terrorist threat. Some international experts have questioned whether Pakistan’s security is adequate to prevent nuclear material from falling into the hands of extremists. The country was shaken by the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto last month, an attack many here believe was carried out by government forces. The crime is under investigation, though officials have blamed Taliban militants. Meanwhile, the military has been waging waged war with Taliban and other Islamic extremists along its border with Afghanistan. President Pervez Musharraf, on an eight-day trip to Europe, has faced questions about Pakistan’s nuclear program. He has said that the only way weapons could become endangered is if religious militants were to rout the army or come to power in elections. He said neither was “remotely possible.” Pakistan’s nuclear question has been an issue in U.S. presidential debates. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested that Pakistan’s estimated 50 nuclear warheads should be safeguarded by a joint U.S.-British security team. On Saturday, Kidwai said Pakistan’s arsenal was in the safe hands of 10,000 soldiers who secure facilities and provide intelligence under a control system headed by top military and political leaders. “We are capable of thwarting all types of threats, from insider, outsider, or a combination,” he said. The military has also improved its transportation of nuclear materials. Kidwai said there are 800 incidents a year internationally involving the illegal transportation of illicit radioactive materials. “None of them,” he said, “are in Pakistan.” Pakistan detonated its first nuclear weapon in 1998. Its security program was tightened in light of a scandal in 2003 involving the father of the Pakistani bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who sold nuclear weapons designs and components to Iran, North Korea and Libya in the 1980s and 1990s for personal gain. Many experts believe senior Pakistani military and intelligence officials were complicit in Khan’s ring. His voice touched with anger, Kidwai on Saturday vehemently defended his military brethren. “Don’t you think that after all these years, at least one name would have surfaced if that was true?” he asked. Pakistan, a staunch ally in the Bush administration’s battle against al-Qaida, has recently launched a public relations campaign to reassure the international community about the safety of its nuclear stockpile. Several U.S. lawmakers visited Pakistan and met Kidwai and other officials. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said he was reassured that there was no danger of the Muslim nation’s weapons falling into the hands of militants. Others question that assessment. “I don’t think we can rest easy given the situation in the country as a whole,” said Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. In the past, he said, some Pakistani military officers had collaborated with extremists plotting to assassinate Musharraf. “If we can’t trust the people guarding the president, how can we trust the people guarding the nuclear weapons?” Bunn said. “I believe that their security is impressive, but I also believe it faces impressive threats. I remain worried.” Kenneth Luongo, executive director of the Partnership for Global Security, a Washington-based research organization focusing on weapons of mass destruction, said his group had published an article on the strides Pakistan’s nuclear program has made since 1998. “Their No. 1 vulnerability is people,” he said. “It’s clear that people in military and physics departments in various universities are more fundamentalist than in the past.” On Saturday, Kidwai said two Pakistani nuclear scientists had met with Osama bin Laden prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but they were later cleared of wrongdoing. After the attacks, he said, his nation accepted an American offer of what he called basic training and some materials totaling less than $10 million. He said Pakistan’s nuclear warheads and missiles are so complex that some have 20,000 working parts. “Even if terrorists got a hold of one of these things, they couldn’t use it,” Kidwai said. “They’re not do-it-yourself kits.” By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post |
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Conscription need not be the solution Both in terms of pay and status, the military has been brought down, in a sustained and systematic manner, and it has now hit rock bottom. On its part, the military has been pleading, both with the government and successive pay commissions, for a fair dispensation for the troops and officers in the defence forces, but to no avail. In a desperate attempt the military tried to avail the services of an advertising agency, at a huge cost, to show case a career in the military, but this too seems to have drawn a blank. The fact is that no advertising agency can whitewash the obvious drawbacks of a career in the Indian military. Because no informed and discerning person can possibly miss the unenviable position in which the military has been placed. Therefore, as a last option, the army chief has fielded the idea of conscription to meet the shortfall. His concern is on two counts. One, endemic shortage in the officer cadre and second, those already in it want to troop out in large numbers. He could not have gone public on the issue without coming to the conclusion, after meeting failure on all fronts (government and successive pay commissions ) that there will continue to be lack of volunteers and that the only option left is conscription. Considering constraints of training facilities, not more than two thousand per year would be conscripted, which for India is not even a drop in the ocean. However in a liberal democracy, the very idea of conscription does not appeal. Yet national security is not something that can be outsourced! It is essential to know as to why suitable young men are not willing to join the military and those already in it want to leave in large numbers. There are far too many disadvantages, such as poor promotion prospects, inadequate pay and allowances, early retirement, long periods in non family stations in remote and uncongenial environments with attendant medical problems, running two establishments, disturbance in children’s education, risk to life in an unending fight against insurgents and all the other travails, attendant to life in the Indian military. All these can be clubbed under what may be called the ‘ X’ factor, which has to be duly compensated. Even glamour has gone out of military service. Consider this. Only at the threat of resignation, were the service chiefs able to get, ‘running pay band’ for their officers as a compensation for extremely limited promotion avenues and early retirement etc, from the Fourth Pay Commission. The same with rank pay, in addition to basic pay, upto the rank of brigadier. Through a sleight of hand the rank pay was deducted from the basic pay, bringing these officers back to square one. The Fifth Pay Commission went the whole hog to further disadvantage the services. This then is how the defence forces of the country have been dealt with by successive Pay Commissions with the tacit support from the government. No wonder the shortages, lower standards of intake not withstanding, persist. There is near exodus from the army and the IAF. Therefore, the question, who will soldier for the country! During our meeting with the PM at Punjab Raj Bhavan, when I pointed out to him that inspite of promises from the President down to the defence minister for grant of ‘one rank one pension,’ only the other ranks upto havaldars have been given some monetary increase in their pension whereas JCOs and officers have been left out. He was completely surprised. Since then JCOs have been given increase in their pension but officers have been again left in the cold; their case to be dealt by the Sixth Pay Commission. There is no defence services officer on the Sixth Pay Commission nor any one on the staff for the preparation of the report. There have been serious problems in the management of the officer cadre, be cause of its pyramidal structure, which is a service imperative. But any further tampering with it, by increasing numbers in the higher ranks, will be detrimental to the service. There is a strong case to enlarge the short service cadre and on completion of 5 years service there should be assured induction into state and central police, civil services and or professional training institutions, depending on qualifications, choice and suitability. There should be a statutory provision to this end. Such a course would be more in keeping with democratic values rather than conscription and at the same time resolve the perennial problem of cadre management and shortages. The rank and file in the military is equally if not more disadvantaged than the officer cadre. There are no shortages because of unemployment in the country. Even here the better material goes to state police, CPOs and other government avenues and only the left over seeks entry into military. A soldier retires at the age of 34 to 38 years. There is no alternate job for him. His pension, because of lesser length of service and 33 years conditionality works out to less than half of that of a peon from the government. He is the same soldier to whom the PM gave the award of ‘Indian of the year’ at the NDTV award ceremony, only a few days earlier! Responding to the army chiefs loud thinking on the issue of conscription, the defence minister stressed the need to create more facilities and better pay packets to make a job in the defence services more attractive rather than resort to conscription. Such false promises have been made by the politicians in the past as well. Perhaps Mr Antony is of a different genre. |
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Chatterati Mr
and Mrs Brown are simple people first, and Prime Minister and First Lady of Britain later. The First Lady visited a slum cluster and a primary healthcare centre in the capital without any fanfare. Sarah stayed away from shutterbugs, keeping her schedule low profile. Husband Gordon heaped praises on their hosts. At Delhi University, where he was awarded an honorary D.Litt, he said the institution was “one of the best in Asia”. He ensured that Manmohan Singh ends up as his best chum. Cleverly, he touched on Indian cricket and what it did to Australian cricket. He said Indian sports and commonwealth interests will play an important role in shaping the world economy. Britain and India are driven by the same ethos, he said. Mr Brown is thinking about conferring honorary knighthood on apna Sachin Tendulkar, considering the UK is quite generous in handling them out. Sarah Brown’s interest in India extends to its fashions too. She went for Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla’s creations. All the outfits she picked up were variations of the sherwani. These designers’ USP has always been Indian cuts adapted to Western styles, with beautiful embroidery. She picked up an off-white embroidery suit and a shahi navy blue kali coat with earth tone embroidery. From Amrapali jewellery boutique, Sarah Brown was seen in stunning emeralds, pearls and diamond earrings. She dressed in a beautifully embroidered Indian suit and an equally exquisite accessory. The first couple of Britain were absolutely non-fussy. They got a taste of Indian food as chefs served up an array of Indian and European snacks. Among the former were galoti khasta roti, murg ke parche, khas seekh kebab, rumali roti with kathi kebab and samosas, which they loved. The only thing Brown asked for was “caramel custard” for dessert. They did not touch caviar and egg on six-grain bread, prunes, olives, etc.
Press parties It is party time for the Press. First, Sachin Pilot hosted a “kisan lunch.” Then Jaipal Reddy offered the Andhra Pradesh treat, which was a generous mixture of vegetarian and non-vegetarian fare. Kapil Sibal stepped in and played a perfect host at his farmhouse, followed by Veerappa Molly. They had arranged for pick-up services. Rahul walked in late for the New Year lunch hosted by senior colleague Veerappa Moily. The seniors were sidelined as he hogged the limelight and held forth on issues ranging from Sonia Gandhi’s health to his impending Bharat Yatra. Forced into a media interaction before he could queue up for the dessert counter, Rahul expressed worries about his mother’s health. Rahul is unhappy about “the poor delivery system” in Bundelkhand and Mayawati’s approach towards the famine-like situation there. Rahul sounded more upbeat than Congress’s graying leaders. The electoral defeats in Gujarat and Himachal are not the end of the road: “In politics there’s no on-off switch. I don’t think we are fighting with our backs to the wall,” he declared. |
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