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Kidney merchants Speaker cracks the
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Brand
wagon
To rig or not to rig
Daughter
of the East
Terror threats darken
Kabul mood Make 11th Plan
people-centric Defence notes
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Kidney merchants THE ramifications of the kidney racket unearthed in Gurgaon warrant a CBI inquiry as sought by the Union government and the Indian Medical Association. The details of the case, as revealed so far, suggest that the racket could not have been carried on without the connivance of the authorities concerned. In fact, there is every reason to believe that the Gurgaon police has been half-hearted in its attempt to arrest the culprits. The UP police has even alleged that someone in the Haryana police had tipped Dr Amit Kumar, who masterminded the racket, about the impending police raid so that he could escape. As it now transpires, he was not even a qualified allopathic surgeon, though he operated from different centres. Cases were pending against him but that did not deter him from spearheading a well-oiled racket in which touts, police and doctors, fake and real, collaborated to rob the poor of their kidneys. Only a national-level police organisation like the CBI can investigate such a case. Since the victims are poor people from rural areas for whom Rs 30,000 for a kidney may appear a big sum, there are not many complainants against such racketeers. But that does not make the Amit Kumars any less guilty. In Gurgaon, the doctor used to charge Rs 18 lakh for a kidney operation. This shows how lucrative the whole racket was. Small wonder that reports have come about an Amritsar doctor, who had been in the dock for illegal kidney transplant operations, but has shifted his base to another state to rake in huge sums of money. As it is, the law that bars illegal kidney operations is strict. In fact, it is so strict that it is nearly impossible for either a donor to donate his/her kidney or for a patient to receive it. If anything, this suggests that a racket like the one in Gurgaon would not have been possible without the connivance of some people managing the district administration. It is true that those who have been advised to go in for kidney transplant face a great difficulty in getting kidneys, as there is a great shortage of donors. The draft law that seeks to encourage donation of kidneys has many welcome features. There is a need to facilitate easier removal of organs, including kidney, from brain-dead persons. However, no leniency can ever be shown to the merchants of kidneys, who need to be sternly dealt with.
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Speaker cracks the whip Lok Sabha
Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has rightly disqualified three Bahujan Samaj Party members of Parliament for having defected to the Samajwadi Party. According to the anti-defection law, if a member has voluntarily given up his membership of a political party, he stands disqualified. The Speaker has ruled that open dissidence is tantamount to voluntarily giving up the party membership. In his petition in April 2007, BSP Parliamentary Party leader Rajesh Verma had alleged that the three members - Ramakant Yadav, Bhal Chandra Yadav and Mohd Shahid Akhlaq - had actively participated in the public meetings of the Samajwadi Party and were abusive of the BSP and its leader, Ms Mayawati, in the rallies held in 2006. The Speaker has not disqualified the members in a hurry. Before cracking the whip, he had referred the petition to the Privileges Committee, examined its report and gave personal hearings to the complainants and the MPs. Significantly, Mr Chatterjee has accepted the media reports on the three members’ dissident activities as “conclusive evidence” in the adjudication of the cases. In his ruling, he said, “…the newspaper reports, though not strictly proved as per the law of evidence, can be taken as providing reliable circumstantial evidence, unless proved otherwise…” The Speaker treated the members’ speeches against their party and the leader, Ms Mayawati, and in favour of the Samajwadi Party, after their suspension from the BSP, as acts of defection, inviting disqualification under the law. Unfortunately, despite the Anti-Defection Act, defections continue unabated, particularly in states with fractured mandates and hung legislative assemblies as in Goa and Jharkhand. That’s why, it is doubtful whether Mr Chatterjee’s ruling will help check floor crossing of the UP variety or dissidence in various political parties. Changing parties cannot be justified in the name of “inner party democracy”. If a member wants to leave a party, he is free to do so, but only after resigning from his seat and seeking a re-election. In fact, to avoid disqualification, Independents are allowed to join any party within six months of their election. A split in or merger of a political party is allowed under the law. But our MPs and MLAs have been taking advantage of these provisions for reasons other than ideological.
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Brand wagon BJP president Rajnath Singh has an unenviable task. He wants the country to buy the idea of Mr L K Advani as the future prime minister, but he himself is reduced to selling Mr Narendra Modi as the political brand of choice. Now, everyone knows that he is the president of the BJP; even those who had forgotten have now refreshed their memory. Unfortunately, when he is remembered as the BJP president, it is also recalled that Mr Rajnath Singh was the man who dumped the Gujarat Chief Minister from the party’s parliamentary board. With Mr Modi revived as the flavour of the political season, Mr Singh has begun making amends: he has been adopted virtually as the mascot of the BJP, and is projected as the model to be emulated by other BJP chief ministers. If everyone, including the party chief, keeps rooting for Mr Modi, where does that leave Mr Advani? Of course, he is the Prime Minister-in-waiting. In fact, he has been the PM-in-waiting even when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was in office at the Centre. This is not a constitutional or governmental post, and, actually, PM-in-waiting is not even a party post. Yet, Mr Advani does not mind waiting until the 2009 elections. Beyond the next election waiting will be of theoretical value for Mr Advani. As the BJP has made known time and again, Mr Advani —and not Mr Modi — is the party’s “natural choice” as the future Prime Minister. Where does that leave Mr Rajnath Singh: as a person selling Mr Modi but supporting Mr Advani? Or is it the other way around? Mask, mascot and, now, masquerade, would appear to sum up Mr Rajnath Singh’s dilemma.
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We’re all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress. — Tennessee Williams
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To rig or not to rig
Notwithstanding
his loud protestations and assurances, hardly anyone in the world believes that President Pervez Musharraf’s regime will hold a free, fair and transparent election. A truly clean election may throw up a result that the quasi-military regime in Pakistan will find unpalatable. The parade ground mentality of Pakistan’s real rulers cannot countenance, much less accept, the shocks and surprises that a popular mandate might hold. For the Pakistan Army, elections are like war exercises in which military doctrines are tested in a controlled environment and the results are known beforehand. The Pakistani establishment quite simply cannot allow a repeat of the 1970 elections, when all the calculations, machinations and manipulations of the military regime went awry and the Awami League attained a simple majority by winning almost all the seats in East Pakistan. Therefore, there is absolutely no question that this year’s election results will largely be determined before the votes are counted. The dilemma is only how much to fix the result so that the elections are seen as credible and legitimate and yet serve the political objectives of the military establishment. Until Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, President Musharraf’s minions seemed to be pretty well-placed to control the balance of power in the next national assembly. They had loaded the election deck of cards in a way that they held almost all the trump cards, especially in Punjab and to some extent in Sindh, the two provinces that elect bulk of the lawmakers. The Election Commission was working entirely on the directions of the government and turning a complete blind eye to complaints of the Opposition. The judiciary was packed with compromised and corrupt judges who would not dare to give any ruling against the government or candidates supported by it either before the elections or after. The civil administration in districts was stacked with hand-picked men who were working over-time to ensure the success of Musharraf loyalists. Most of the locally influential politicians were either coerced or co-opted to side with what is called the king’s party. The Baradari factor had been worked upon carefully to ensure a winning caste combination. Last, but not the least, enormous amounts of campaign funds were made available to Musharraf supporters. And if all this failed, then there was always the dirty tricks department of the infamous intelligence agencies that would conjure a favorable result in closely fought contests. With all pieces in place, the regime was confident that its political underlings would emerge as the single largest block in the national assembly, and might even be able to cobble together a wafer-thin majority. Their worst case scenario was a hung parliament in which the PPP led by Benazir was the largest party. But even in this case, the numbers game would force the PPP to seek the support from at least a section of President Musharraf’s men to be able to form a government. Back of the envelope estimates of election results, including those by political analysts sympathetic to the opposition parties, suggested that the PPP would get between 90-110 seats, the PML (N) around 30-35 seats, the PML (Q) 100-120 seats, the MQM 20-25 seats and the rest would be divided between the ANP, the JUI, the PML (F), the PPP (S) and independents. Such a split verdict suited the military-led establishment because not only would it appear to lend a degree of credibility and legitimacy to the electoral farce, it would also allow the establishment to play puppeteer with whatever political group came into power. But Benazir’s murder changed everything. It has generated not only a tidal wave of sympathy but also a tsunami of anti-regime sentiment, and this not only in Benazir’s pocket borough of Sindh but also in the rest of Pakistan. Except for President Musharraf’s camp-followers, every single Pakistani has reacted to Benazir’s death as though a member of the family has passed away. More importantly, the Pakistani people hold the regime responsible for the assassination. The foul-mouthed fulminations of President Musharraf’s minions — former Punjab Chief Minister, Pervez Elahi and former Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Rahim — against Benazir’s husband, Mr Asif Zardari, has only deepened the anti-regime sentiment inside Pakistan. Under these circumstances, had elections been held according to the original schedule, the pro-Musharraf politicians would have been wiped out. Interestingly, for a day or two after Benazir was killed, the regime continued to insist that the polls would be held on time. The calculation was that the PPP would be in complete disarray and the polls would be a walkover for the establishment-supported candidates. But the moment the PPP insisted on going ahead with the elections, the regime panicked. No surprise then that the regime found it expedient to postpone the elections in the fond hope that the anti-regime and pro-Opposition feelings will abate. The wound of Benazir’s assassination is, however, so deep that the 40-day postponement is not likely to erase her memory and her murder from the minds of the people. In the meantime, a serious flour and electricity crisis has erupted in the country, which has only added to the anti-regime sentiment, especially since the so-called caretaker regime is nothing but an extension of the king’s party. Add to this the abysmal law and order situation in Pakistan and the growing disquiet over the war on terror, and the electoral prospects of President Musharraf’s allies look extremely bleak. As things stand today, nobody in Pakistan is willing to give more than 30-40 seats to the PML (Q). Its allies like the MQM and others might add another 30-40 seats to its kitty. But this is not enough to hold the balance of power in the next national assembly, much less form a government. The most that the establishment can now hope for is an unstable coalition in which it can call the shots by being the arbiter between contending political interests. But unless the regime can raise its tally by another 40-50 seats, its political plans will come crashing down. And this is where the rigging dilemma comes. If the regime over-plays its hand, the electoral exercise will lose whatever little credibility and legitimacy it enjoys. What is more, it could unleash a storm of protest that will severely destabilise the State. On the other hand, if the establishment fails to cobble together enough numbers for the PML (Q), then regime change will become inevitable, especially since below a certain threshold, the pro-Musharraf coterie will find its legislators deserting in droves, swelling the ranks of the Opposition. Staring at their political death in the face, people like Mr Pervez Elahi will pull out all stops to ensure that this doesn’t happen. But his ability to do so will depend critically on how much the state machinery backs him in this adventure. It is entirely possible that the establishment calculates that even if the Opposition wins enough seats to form a government, it will not change the equation of the troika — President, Prime Minister and Army chief — that will come into place post-elections. Since it is unlikely that the anti-Musharraf forces will have the numbers to impeach him, he will continue to occupy Aiwan-e-Sadr. Everything will then depend upon how President Musharraf constructs his relationship with the new government. The tension between an interfering President and an assertive political administration opposed to him is inherent in the system. It won’t be long before this tension erupts. At this stage, the choice before the establishment will be to either side with the political forces or with a highly unpopular and despised President. The odds are that President Musharraf will end up as the
fall-guy.
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Daughter of the East Benazir Bhutto
was the President of the Oxford Students’ Union. Reading for the Bar at the Inns of Court School of Law, London, I was that of the Inner Temple Students Union. I believe the year was 1976. Basically a debating society, Oxford Students Union has a much wider role and dimensions in Britain. Two of our members on the committee were from Oxford and Cambridge, each. My friend from Oxford knew Benazir well. He suggested we should invite her for a luncheon. All agreed, all arranged! At the convenient corner table four of us received her at the Inner Temple dining hall. No ordinary Sally Cathy, she walked in, full of confidence and beauty. Long dark brown hair falling on a fair skin, there was exceptional beauty in her eyes. Conversation with wine flew. Grace dripped from her as she talked! Full of ambition, she was looking into the future with an air of certainty. She was all praise for her Pakistan (and in particular her father who was P.M. at that time, I think). We were impressed with her knowledge of the affairs of the sub-continent. And also that she was out to dwarf us, particularly me — from India. I tried to maintain studied indifference. Surveying the majestic hall in youthful vain glory where only a few evenings before I had, as President, hosted Lord Denning, known to be the greatest judge of the century, she carried on the conversation about Nehru, incidentally of the Inner Temple. She said a slight push-over from the Chinese and our great leader fell! The remark hurt me from inside. I said that our great leader would live in the human heart till there are tiny fingers to turn pages in World History. “India is not a nation,” she remarked, “it’s only a geographic entity!” Not even a full time patriot, I could take no more! Positioning myself, I looked into her eye and said that my knowledge of history was not as good as hers — fresh from Harvard — but those very disjointed tribals from the geographic entity could wipe her Pakistan off the map! She abruptly left the table. The Oxfordian Fitzgerald pulled me closer and whispered, “still apologise”. Two of my fellow students brought her back to the table. And I did offer a conditional apology. The other day our young boy walked into the room and told us that Benazir had been shot dead! With stunned silence in wilderness did I stare! No questions remained to be asked. For the “forms” of bullet, let fools contest. For the mad, hungry assassin, bullet is the best that hits the target! Loss of a great woman. Loss of a world starry
figure!
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Terror threats darken Kabul mood
KABUL, Afghanistan – Shattered glass has been replaced, debris swept away and guests have begun trickling back to the Serena Hotel more than two weeks after Taliban militants killed seven staff members and visitors, sending a shudder through Kabul’s foreign community. The psychological damage is proving to be harder to repair. The commando-style attack on the Serena, which included a suicide bomber shot dead by security guards before he could enter the lobby, brought jitters to foreigners living in a city previously regarded as a haven from the violence plaguing much of Afghanistan. Expatriates were unsettled not only by the strike against one of Kabul’s few international landmarks but also by the Taliban threat to target other places in the capital where foreigners gather. “There is no panic, but no one’s relaxed,” said Anja de Beer, director of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an umbrella group for 94 nongovernmental organizations working in Afghanistan. “It’s worrisome. In the back of our minds, it’s a real threat.” The operative phrase among the United Nations and foreign aid groups is that they are “reassessing security” and advising staff to keep a low profile in their off-hours. De Beer said no organization has pulled up stakes, although some hotel operators say some long-term foreign guests have left the country. “Our business is business as usual,” said Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the U.N. mission in Afghanistan. “What has changed is that the Taliban has specifically said they will be targeting restaurants where foreigners go, so you won’t see a lot of U.N. staff in restaurants around town.” Restaurants and bars have felt a sharp pinch. The most popular spots, some accustomed to hosting 80 to 90 people a night for dinner and drinks, say they have seen their guest count fall despite increased security. The bars arrived with the international community after the Taliban was ousted in 2001. They cater to foreign aid workers, guards and journalists looking for a social life – and a drink in a country where most citizens practice Islam, which shuns alcohol. But in the wake of the Serena attack there have been recriminations within the foreign community. Some mutter that a minority of expats courted trouble with behavior that offended the modest sensibilities of many Afghans. Bar owners acknowledge that the partying, driven by alcohol and the stress of living in foreign ghettos, occasionally gets out of hand. Yet others reject any attempt to ascribe blame for the attack to excessive revelry. Most bars and restaurants are out of sight in fortified compounds where security contractors are urged to check their guns at the door and Afghans are usually banned to avoid the appearance of corrupting Muslims. “The Taliban aren’t going after restaurants and hotels because we behave badly,” said De Beer, noting that the Serena Hotel does not serve alcohol. “These are terror attacks. They are designed to frighten us, not change our behavior.” In fact, diplomats say the Serena attack was part of a trend in which the Taliban have shifted tactics from open engagement with U.S. and other NATO forces to suicide bombings and kidnappings aimed not at capturing ground but a spreading fear. There are some signs that the approach is having an effect. The government’s Afghanistan Investment Support Agency reported Monday that private investment fell by almost half in 2007 from the nearly $1 billion the year before. It blamed the decline of investor confidence on the deteriorating security conditions. “These kidnappings are not political. It is criminals kidnapping for extortion,” said Atiqullah Nusrat, membership director of the Afghan International Chamber of Commerce. “But the drop in private investment is because of the security problems.” The Serena attack and threat against the Western presence have added to that unease. This week, the foreign community has been awash in rumors that a suicide bomber is moving through Kabul, looking for a chance to strike. “Things are actually getting better in Afghanistan,” said a Western diplomat who did not want to be identified. “It’s just that it doesn’t feel better.” That leaves the foreign community caught in a position of having to wait to see if the Taliban can follow through on their threats and whether more strikes could trigger an exodus of foreign organizations. “I can cope with a certain amount of danger,” said De Beer, who began working in Afghanistan seven years ago when foreigners’ movements were far more restricted than they are now. But she added: “To go back to a period of having to isolate yourself? To not be able to talk to your Afghan friends except at the office? That would be a reason to reconsider being here.” Others remain optimistic that Kabul’s foreigners won’t lay low for long. “The best people who come to Afghanistan are the ones who don’t like taking orders or following rules,” said Peter Juvenal, owner of a Kabul pub popular with foreigners. “Those people may be staying away now. But I fully expect they will soon get sick of staying in their rooms and playing cards. And when that happens, they’ll be back.” By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post
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Make 11th Plan people-centric
It
was heartening to read the Prime Minister’s address to the National Development Council in December last year, where he argues that the main concern of the 11th Plan, in its aim to achieve 9 per cent growth rate, is equity; and it is the purpose of building that equity which can brand the 11th Plan as being inclusive. He said: “Equity is the foundation on which our democratic polity has to rest and thrive. It is the basis on which our citizens develop a sense of ownership of the state and its organs. Inequity can lead to large-scale migration, disaffection and discord” He acknowledges what the public has been pointing out across political and social spectrums, that in this last phase of rapid economic growth, there has been an intensification of regional disparities, urban-rural disparities, though he skirts the frontal issue of intra people disparities. The prescription is more investment in education and health and industrialization of rural areas, while bemoaning the slowing of growth in agriculture and calling attention to the challenge and the threat of food insecurity – put more boldly, of hunger and deprivation. The concern on increasing disparities has been expressed somewhat differently by other groups – with a greater questioning also of the interpretation of the new buzz word or mantra ‘inclusion’, and inclusive growth. The word is evocative and mesmerising perhaps because it is derived from a word that has been powerful, especially as articulated by dalits, of social “exclusion”. Inclusion as its opposite, thus has an evocation, emotive, political, powerful. However, what is almost totally left out of not merely the PM’s speech, but the entire exercise of the 11th Plan are people. Examining sectoral chapters - especially key chapters such as agriculture, labour and employment, industry and especially the foreign exchange earning special industries such as export oriented industries and services and SEZ, apart from a break up of the sector called industry – it is found that women are some of the predominant contributors to this growth. Women are 40 percent of agricultural workforce and the percentage is rising; The unorganised sector’s contribution to overall GDP is 56.7 per cent; 60 per cent of total savings comes from informal sector; 73 per cent of informal workers contributions come from home based work; 53 per cent of all women workers are home based workers, women are more than 90 percent of workers in the informal economy; and 44 per cent of all women workers are involved in unpaid work In that value chain, women are the predominant ‘contributors’, often as unpaid family workers or self employed. Going to export oriented production of goods and services, women are predominant, if not the major value adders, whether it is BPO or SEZ. A study has found that savings, that the PM celebrates, largely comes from the SME. In other words, it could somewhat imprecisely be argued that India’s women are the growth agents on which our Prime Minister and his colleagues are building the Indian dream of a powerful economic actor – and the informal economy is the base. Interestingly, a deeper analysis of Chinese growth has also similar shades of being somewhat heavily borne on women’s backs. Perhaps if Mao Tse Tung was alive, he would say women hold up half the sky. Truly, women hold up half the economic sky. Perhaps if we had today a woman leader of high visibility – somewhat lacking in today’s globescape, she would have added ‘yes’. But their feet is in dirt and deprivation, even exclusion – if exclusion can be described as not being recognised, not being given an opportunity to participate intellectually, apart from valued physically Inclusion can be more than rhetoric. It has to be participation through provisioning of the knowledge which a social or an economic category has. Inclusion can also be an engine of growth as those who are knowing will bring their knowledge to bear on design and that knowledge can add value, as was recently revealed by a committee set up by the Planning Commission of women economists. But as the late Raj Krishna with his graphic imagery had deplored or lamented, those in positions of decision making - and in those days he meant his colleagues on the cabinet as he used to be invited to cabinet meetings – were “knowledge proof”. ‘Wo bathi nahi chalthi hai saab’, he used to say with his characteristic laughter, using his hands to demonstrate a bulb that would not light up in the minds of those around the table. This neglect of who is adding value even for those who are obsessed with a particular kind of growth, will be the Achilles Heel of this growth path. It is also alarming that almost immediately after the NDC meeting, it is being stated that Naxalism has to be crushed with commandos. Another expert group set up by the Planning Commission on tribal areas and the analysis they made, clearly showed that the same point that the Prime Minister makes – disparate development, exclusion from development in tribal areas, in fact exploitation by the developers, was responsible for driving youth in tribal areas into Naxalism. Thus Raj Krishna’s knowledge proof comment does seems somewhat on target. The regional disparity issue has to be broken down into more sophisticated classifications. Inclusion has to be respectful in that the excluded have to be included in articulating not only what they want, but their analysis of what is exclusion, as was pointed out by the committee of women economists. Economic contributions and the way those contributions are either encroached upon or neglected, not even known if not valued, needs to be brought out to the screen. Evening out inequality requires bread, water and salt for those on whom Indian growth is riding.
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Defence notes The military and security agencies are now facing the threat of ‘terrorism’ from professional hackers. A major headache has cropped up in the form of hackers hacking into sensitive military data and e-mails of key personnel in the government. The National Informatics Centre (NIC) reportedly has been getting complaints regarding this new problem and are trying to secure the system. Apparently, officials at NIC have also managed to track down the IP addresses of the hackers, which have been found to be originating from one of India’s neighbouring countries in the North-East. Reports suggest that the cyber attacks were being mounted from dialled internet connections and were allegedly targeting the e-mails of ministers and top army officials. There has been no assessment of the damage that could have occurred but reports suggest that Indian servers were being targeted at least three times a day. Elite brigade Chief of Army Staff General Deepak Kapoor has taken over the mantle of Honorary Colonel of The Brigade of The Guards. It is the senior most Infantry Regiment in the Indian Army with a history of over 250 years. The gallant “Guardsmen” have been in the forefront of all army activities and have actively participated in all operations, including counter insurgency operations, and have received commendations even from foreign dignitaries for their role in United Nation Peace Keeping Missions. Late Field Marshal KM Carriappa, the first Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, founded the modern Brigade of the Guards. Ever since, the Chief of Army Staff is the Honorary Colonel of the regiment. 15 Corps’ day The Srinagar-based 15 Corps celebrated its 93rd raising day. GOC Lt Gen Mukesh Sabharwal, laid a wreath at the Corps War Memorial. A special philatelic cancellation ceremony and photo exhibition was organised at Badami Bagh Cantonment. Lt General S K Sinha (Retd), the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir released the special cover on the occasion. 15 Corps was first raised pre-independence in 1916 at Port Said in Egypt and was re-raised post Independence in 1955 at Udhampur. It was made responsible for security of the complete state of J&K. Subsequently, on raising of HQ Northern Command, the Corps shifted to its present location at Badami Bagh, Srinagar in 1972. 15 Corps also known as the “Chinar Corps”, for the formation’s sign of a Chinar leaf with a battle axe on it. Since Independence, 15 Corps has kept vigil over the Line of Control in J&K. Its soldiers have fought all the wars post-independence in 1965, 1971 and 1999, and have also been fighting the menace of terrorism. The Corps has excelled in all operations it has undertaken and has an enviable record of gallantry. It also works tirelessly for the welfare of the people in the valley.
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