The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

The Medicity row
There is need for a judicial inquiry

EVERY mega project should not only be above board but should also be seen to be so. That transparency, unfortunately, is just not there in the case of the Medicity project which Administrator Gen S.F.Rodrigues (retd), is over-eager to push through but without taking into account vital factors that need definite consideration. Apparently, there is no check on his powers as Administrator of the Union Territory and he has felt free to steamroll his proposal. Far too many things are unexplainable about this project. In the first place, it is not clear why it should be set up in the Union Territory of Chandigarh which is surfeit with medical facilities rare to a city of this size. Many patients from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and even Jammu and Kashmir come to Chandigarh mainly because of the excellent reputation of institutes like the PGI. The Medicity should have been set up in any of the states where the patients come from and where medical facilities are lacking.

Then there is also the question of finding a parallel model. As has been pointed out, there is no successful example of a hospital set up in the private sector on land given at concessional rates, meant partly for service of the poor. But the most contentious is the issue of giving away 45 acres of prime land at a throwaway price of Rs 203.70 crore to developers whereas its actual price may be almost 10 times as much. The Adviser to the Administrator, Mr Pradip Mehra, who is practically in charge of the union territory administration, is vehemently opposed to its basic concept as well as the PPP model under which it is to be set up and also the throwaway price at which the land is being given away at an enormous cost to the exchequer.

The differences between General Rodrigues and Mr Mehra are evident in the notings in the files, a copy of which is available with The Tribune. The questions raised by the Adviser cannot be ignored in case public interest has to be guarded. The facts which have now come into the open as well as the exchanges between the U.T. Administrator and the Adviser make the intervention of the Central Government necessary and possibly a judicial inquiry into all aspects of the project before it is too late.

United in crisis
Nations keen to swim or sink together

IT took a global financial meltdown to bring together nations, big and small, of diverse political and social cultures, and adopt, more or less, a collective approach to face the situation. That has become possible because the once mighty and arrogant United States has been humbled and forced to look for outside help, especially of Europe, to de-clog its money markets, save its banks and financial institutions from crumbling and restore public confidence in the capitalist system. One reason for this coming together is that hardly any country has escaped unhurt by the turmoil and fears of a recession in the US and Europe. This has prompted governments to cut interest rates, increase liquidity and boost spending to arrest the fall of global growth.

In 1997-98, when faced with a crisis, the East Asian countries failed to agree on a coordinated regional response. They are still not through with their differences. At the recent Asia-Europe Meeting in Beijing they set up a $80-billion emergency fund. But, ultimately, Europe led by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France managed to rally their support for forging a collective front at the November15 summit in Washington called by US President George W. Bush. Since the rich nations have suffered the most, they are looking at Asian ways of regulating financial systems and even asking Asian leaders to take the lead.

Besides, the revival of US and European growth will depend much on cheaper Asian products and financial investments. Hence, the need to take Asia along. Despite raising a question mark on the future of capitalism, the financial crisis has united countries in taking a common response. The political consensus on the US bailout, nationalisation of banks or purchase of their shares, insurance cover to depositors, the lowering of interest rates and the injection of more liquidity have eased public outrage at the destruction of wealth in stock markets. However, it may still be premature to say that the worst is over.

Thought for the Day

Genuine politics is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. — Vaclav Havel

ARTICLE

Pak finger at RAW
Allegations are utter nonsense
by Sushant Sareen

IF the most inveterate haters and baiters of India in Pakistan are to be believed then India’s external intelligence agency, RAW, has pulled off a coup that few in India or rest of the world are even aware of. Apparently, RAW is not only directing, financing, training and equipping the Al-Qaeda and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)-led Islamist insurgency inside Pakistan, it has also managed to recruit luminaries of the TTP like Baitullah Mehsud, Mullah Fazlullah and Maulvi Faqir Mohammad to destabilise Pakistan.

But the most remarkable achievement of RAW is that despite knowing that the TTP is working at India’s behest, the Jamaat Islami (JI) - in particular its chief Qazi Husain Ahmad - and other Islamist political organisations are neither willing to condemn these “Indian agents” by name nor support the war being waged by the Pakistan Army against these Indian-sponsored Islamist insurgents. On the contrary, by demanding a cessation of hostilities against the insurgents and pleading for a dialogue and negotiated settlement with these Indian-sponsored guerrillas and saboteurs, Pakistan’s Islamist politicians and jihadist ex-servicemen are wittingly becoming agents of RAW themselves.

Clearly, allegations of Indian involvement in the Islamist insurgency are utter nonsense. To the extent that Pakistani state agencies point a finger at India simply to build up public opinion against the insurgents, it is understandable. But when political Islamists in Pakistan blame India for acts of terrorism by the Taliban, it flies in the face of all reason, logic, rationality, or even common sense. Subscribing to conspiracy theories is an obsessive compulsive disorder that most right-wing and radical parties in Pakistan suffer. And these days the neurosis has scaled new highs.

A classic case is that of the JI chief Qazi Husain Ahmed who first says that Indian and US meddling is destabilising Pakistan and then in the same breath says the military operation against the insurgents is not in Pakistan’s national interest.

Not that this is something new. Some years back when sectarian violence wrecked Balochistan, the immediate reaction after every incident was to blame India for the violence. Subsequent investigations invariably revealed the involvement of Pakistan-based sectarian mafias like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba, which were anything but proxies of RAW.

Under normal circumstances it would be easy to dismiss the canard being spread against India as the raving and ranting of jaundiced minds. Unfortunately, after having worked themselves into a psychosis in which they see enemies even where none exist, many Pakistanis are increasingly lending credence to these ridiculous allegations. The unpalatable truth, however, is that Pakistan is really paying the price for its policy of using the jihadists as instruments of foreign policy.

Undoubtedly, many people in India think that Pakistan is getting just desserts for its policy of exporting jihad. But the last thing that India would like to see is a severely destabilised Pakistan, much less a Talibanised Pakistan. If anything, India would be more than happy to see the Pakistan army slay the demons and monsters it created for use against India. But perhaps this is the precisely the reason why the political Islamists oppose any army action against the insurgents.

Therefore, rather than India, it is the self-appointed guardians of Pakistan’s Islamist ideology who are doing everything possible to ruin their country by supporting the culture of religious militancy that has been assiduously built up over nearly three decades.

The overt and covert defenders and supporters of the Taliban in Pakistan talk with forked tongues when they say that they are opposed to the bombing of military and government installations, barber and music shops, and civilian targets like the Marriott Hotel. Invariably, the condemnation is qualified by saying that there’s no evidence that it is really the Taliban who are behind these actions. After all, they argue quite fallaciously, no Muslim can ever commit such heinous crimes.

Even after the Taliban claim responsibility for acts of terrorism, their defenders in the media raise doubts by asking how anyone can be sure that it was actually the Taliban who claimed responsibility! The most exacting standards of proof are demanded against Islamists, but the foreign hand theory or wild allegations against the Pakistan army are gobbled up unquestioningly.

To say that the funds and armaments for the militants are being supplied by India is nothing but a denial of reality. Pakistan’s involvement in dirty wars in the region has spawned a flourishing market for arms and drugs in the country. There is no dearth of weapons inside Pakistan. The funding comes partly from the drugs trade, partly from charities and partly from crimes like kidnapping, extortion and dacoity and runs into billions of rupees. All this is well documented in the Pakistani press, which has also reported that former military officials have joined ranks with the insurgents and are directing their war effort against the Pakistan army.

Interestingly, the apologists for Taliban have never satisfactorily answered questions regarding the source of funds, weapons and sophisticated tactics and training of terrorist organisations like Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harkatul Jihad Islami. Whenever the Lashkar-Taiba chief, Hafiz Saeed, was asked his source of weapons, he would glibly answer that all their weapons were sourced from inside India. If this was true in the case of India, then why is the same not true for Pakistan which has been awash with assault weapons of all types?

On the issue of border crossings, Pakistan argues that if, despite all the measures that it has taken, infiltration still takes place then the ISAF forces are free to use all means at their disposal to tackle this problem on their side of the border. But then how come the same logic does not apply to the movement of militants into Pakistan from Afghanistan?

Perhaps the most disingenuous argument made by the Taliban apologists in Pakistan is that there was no problem in the insurgency affected areas before 9/11, the suicide attacks are a reaction to the pro-American policies of the Pakistan government and that the threat of talibanisation is a fiction created to justify the military operation against the Islamists. This is akin to a chain-smoker saying that he has been a smoker for two decades and didn’t have lung cancer for so many years; so how come he has got it now!

Like cancer, the symptoms of radicalism were there for all to see. But because no clinical examination was done to confirm the disease, it was assumed that it was not present. Had the problem been acknowledged in the early stages, perhaps it would not have spread as much as it has today. Unfortunately, or fortunately, 9/11 and the events that followed made the Pakistani establishment aware of the cancer of religious extremism that was spreading through its body politic and threatened to consume it.

The military operation is the surgery that Pakistan desperately needs to get rid of the cancer of radicalism and religious extremism. Of course, once the infected mass of radicalism is removed, Pakistan will need chemotherapy and perhaps some radiation to remove all remnants of the disease. The convulsions and pain that the country will undergo is part of the healing Pakistan needs before it is able to confidently walk hand in hand with the international community. But if Pakistan does not undergo this treatment, it is certain that the state of Pakistan, as the world knows it, will die.

MIDDLE

Pleasant oddities
by Asad Farooqui

While serving in the Delhi Police, I had received an invitation to send “two officers and two men” for a Diwali get-together. Sensing the strangeness of the invitation, this is how I had to respond to the letter to the officer concerned:

“My dear, I am reading the invitation you have sent for the Diwali get-together, on behalf of the CP, Delhi. Apparently, the assembly seems meant for officers of all ranks of the Delhi Police, but the language used in the invitation has bewildered us all. Invitees are not just officers but Officers and Men!!

“It is heart-rending, my dear, because in the past, too, I have come across this refrain of Officers and Men in your papers. I personally feel I am an officer, but then, nonplussed over your baffling classification, do you want me to prove that I am a man, too?

“Now, you see, you have invited ‘two officers and two men’ from each District/Unit. Here in my unit I have several constables, a head constable, two ASIs and two SIs beside two Inspectors and one DCP. They are all officers, and I firmly believe that each of them is a man.

“I would also like to be illuminated on the disconcerting phrase used by you because, as per my knowledge, men are men and women are not men. Here if you want to say you are inviting all officers, men and women, you should specify names of the women officers. But, how can you presume all officers to be women? Well, if your classification aims to discriminate between officers who are ‘manly and unmanly’, you just can’t choose like that and, moreover, the choice can’t be all-pervasive in such a big force.

“My study of the laws, my dear, reveals no discrimination like this (not aware of any amendment), and a constable to a Director-General, all are to be known as police officers. So, in my lexicon, even the other gender is to be treated in a similar manner.

“Concluding my argument it occurs to me, my dear, that the fabrication appears to be your own Shararat. It could be due to a false feeling of liberation you might be harbouring after the departure of two of your bosses; or else, is nothing but a Diwali cracker.

“From my side, however, please convey my heartiest greetings to the Hon’ble Commissioner, all other officers and, whosoever you call ‘men’ and their families for a happy Diwali. Four police officers would participate from the Special Riot Cell — all men, would gather on the day of Diwali.

OPED

Mission to moon
Chandrayaan-1 boosts national pride
by Radhakrishna Rao

The successful launch of India’s maiden lunar probe Chandrayaan-1 has turned India into the third Asian country after China and Japan to send a probe to moon.

Of course, India joined the race to explore the moon more than a year after Japan orbited its Kaguya mission and China launched its Chang’e-1 probe. Incidentally, the cost of Chandrayaan-1 has been computed to be one-third of Chang’e-1 and one-fifth of Kaguya.

Even as ISRO has denied a space race with China and Japan for a “place in space”, G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman of the Indian space agency, has made it clear that India cannot afford to lag behind in the endeavour to explore and exploit lunar resources and set up colonies on our nearest celestial neighbour.

Not to be left behind, M. Annadurai, Project Director of Chandrayaan-1 has driven home the point that “we should be working on technologies that will be part of the proposed moon base. There is certain expectation from us that we will do well in space technology. And if we are to become a developed country by 2020, it will be crucial for us to develop such technologies”.

For quite some time now, western space analysts have been projecting the view that Chandrayaan-1 like Chang’e-1, is a space spectacular meant to boost national pride and signal India’s emergence as a technology powerhouse.

Significantly, Chandrayaan-1 had its echo in the US with Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, stating that “with India’s launch of its first unmanned lunar spacecraft, closely on the heels of China’s first space walk, we are reminded just how urgently the US must revitalise its space programme, if the country has to remain an undisputed leader in space science and technology”.

Futura, a high-tech consulting firm, has ranked India as only fraction behind China in global space competitiveness and well ahead of Japan, Israel and Canada.

Clearly and apparently, Japan’s space programme with its thrust on research and commercial exploitation of its spacecraft constellation stands apart and is quite distinct from the dynamics of the Indian and Chinese space enterprises, which appear cut out for making a splash on the global space scenario.

More importantly, unlike the Indian and Chinese space enterprises, which are largely driven by the spirit of “self-reliance and national fervour”, Japan’s space programme took off with the launch vehicles developed with the American technology.

“The most important thing is that China has developed and formed its own system for space aviation independently”, says Huang Hai of China Aviation Science and Research Institute.

Similarly, right since its inception, the Indian space programme’s key goal has been to attain self-reliance in all the conceivable areas of space research and technology.

In particular, the denial of critical technologies by the US in the wake of the 1998 Pokhran nuclear blasts by India, spurred ISRO to develop many of the systems in house.

In fact, the home-grown cryogenic engine, which will be used in a GSLV flight slated for 2009, stands out as a tribute to the US coercion of Russia into dropping its commitment of transferring the cryogenic engine technology to ISRO in the early 1990s. Despite American sanctions, both China and India have succeeded in marketing their satellite launch service to international customers.

There is no denying the fact China has stolen a march over India with its successful of 2003 and 2008 manned flights and the stunning spacewalk of 2008. The reason for this is not too far to seek.

China had a head-start in mastering the launch vehicle technology because of its obsession with building long-range missiles. There are many common elements between a launch vehicle and a missile.

By contrast, India had to begin its space journey from scratch without any outside assistance. Nair has stated India will not be averse to any foreign collaboration in realising its dream of launching its manned flight.

ISRO is now preparing the ground for India’s first manned flight slated for 2015. The manned flight programme is considered a response to the Chinese success in manned flight.

Chinese space activities are not open to public scrutiny. In contrast, ISRO is a 100 per cent civilian space agency committed to peaceful uses of outer space and is answerable to Parliament.

“The difference between India and China is that we doubt ourselves whereas the Chinese just go ahead and do it”, says Roddam Narasimha, a member of the Indian Space Commission.

Stating that India is not in any race as far as space is concerned, Nair says that the priority of ISRO is to diffuse the fruits of space technology into the mainstream of national development even while concentrating on planetary probes and manned flight.

“ISRO will continue to use its space technology and assets for enriching the life of the people of India”, says Nair. A study by the Chennai-based Madras School of Economics says that India realises a benefit of US$2 for every US$1 invested in its space programme.

Justifying the Chandrayaan-1 probe, Nair says that it is unique in that for the first time it will attempt a detailed and comprehensive mapping of the lunar surface. For the probes launched to moon so far focussed on specific areas of interest.

Growing rural unrest in China
by Maureen Fan

More than 1,300 soldiers and riot police massed on a verdant ridge in Hebu village in southeastern China earlier this month, facing off against a nearly equal number of angry farmers protesting plans to build a massive plastics factory on their land.

Tens of thousands of such standoffs take place each year in China, and they reflect the Communist Party's greatest fear: social and economic instability. Six days after the demonstration in the village of Hebu, the Chinese government announced reform measures that, at their core, are designed to curb demonstrations of rural unrest.

Described by the party as the most significant land reform package in three decades, the measures are intended to ensure that farmers receive compensation for land lost to development, without slowing the breakneck pace of industrial growth. They do so by allowing farmers to directly transfer their land, still technically owned by the state, to developers or other businesses.

But in the rice-and-corn-growing region of Guangdong province, where tensions are still running high, farmers say the changes do not address their main grievance: corruption, much of it directed by local party officials far below the radar of the central government in Beijing.

"I don't think this will give us more protection," said a farmer in the village of Xianyi, two hours' drive from Hebu, who gave his surname as Li. "We have no expectations. We just hope the government will not further take away our land, because we live on the land. If it's sold, we will lose our livelihoods."

Guangdong province is where the economic reforms that led to the dismantling of communes first took root during the 1980s. But in the intervening years, the wealth gap has widened between the cities, where a prosperous middle class is taking shape, and the countryside, whose peasants were at the heart of the Chinese revolution.

In recent years, farmers in western Guangdong have been told their land is needed to help make room for industry moving inland from the more prosperous and expensive coastal regions. Residents of Xianyi say they have lost 33 acres of collective village land to a road project, 165 acres to an industrial park and 13 acres to a market — all without adequate recompense.

Farmers are allocated land based on the size of their households, but they also bid for land held by the collective, or village officials. Every year, there's less and less of it.

"Again, they acted before telling us," said Li Wuzai, 65, a retired farmer in Xianyi. The highway project brought in about $448,000 for the little town, Li said. But residents saw only about $90,000 of that, with each of them pocketing $29.

An agriculture official in the town of Xiangang, which oversees Xianyi, said residents would welcome the central government's new policy because it was already working in practice.

But farmers said that compensation for seized land has been virtually nonexistent and that the transfers seemed primarily designed to line the pockets of party officials.

"All the officials here are corrupt," a vegetable farmer said as he set up a market stall in Xianyi. "They sold away our land without paying us. Most villagers are afraid to talk about it because they're afraid of retaliation."

Other farmers also declined to give their names but echoed the same view. "Compensation?" said another vendor, bursting into laughter. "No compensation at all. Not a single penny."

The plastics factory planned for Hebu will consume land from six villages and is expected to bring in $1.5 billion a year and employ more than 10,000 villagers.

Farmers who protested the factory's construction said it will pollute the air and afford them little economic benefit.

Behind the protests is a backdrop of anger shared by many of China's nearly 800 million farmers, who have been bypassed by the country's explosive economic growth. Even with a recent slowdown, growth in China's gross domestic product is at 9 percent, a rate other nations can only envy.

The booming economy is partly to blame for the large amount of land requisition, said Wen Tiejun, director of the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development at Beijing's Renmin University. "Rural land is so cheap because the power of government, combined so closely with capital, prevents farmers from having much of a say in deciding the value of the land."

— By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

British legal eagles fly to India for support
by Robert Verkaik

Some of Britain's biggest law firms are cutting costs for the duration of the downturn by sending tasks including conveyancing, accident claims and due diligence investigations to young lawyers in India.

Thousands of Indian lawyers and recent law graduates are being employed by British firms for a fraction of the cost of having the work done in this country.

Leading the charge for the cheaper support services is Clifford Chance, the world's largest law firm, which has set up its own bespoke offshore centre in Delhi.

Eversheds, another leading UK law firm, has confirmed it is making use of Indian-based legal resource centres. Now it has emerged that dozens more legal businesses have expressed an interest in following suit by outsourcing hundreds of millions of pounds worth of high-volume work.

CPA Global, a legal process outsourcing company, said more than 30 law firms and company legal departments are in talks to use its legal support base in India, which employs 450 graduates and lawyers. Two law firms have already signed deals but are sensitive about going public.

CPA is one of the biggest providers of these services in India and counts Microsoft among its clients. It says the downward pressure on legal costs in the economic downturn has forced the once-conservative legal profession to consider radical means for delivering legal services to clients who want fees to be fixed, rather billed at an hourly rate.

Indian firms have responded by offering US and UK law firms litigation support and compliance work at around 100 different legal outsourcing centres.

Andrew Loach, vice president of business development at CPA, said: "Legal process outsourcing has been on the agenda for some time for corporations and law firms looking to reduce costs, but the economic downturn has significantly accelerated this trend.

“We have seen enquiries increase dramatically. At the beginning of the year, we were talking to five prospects. Now we're in discussions with over 30 – more than 20 of these being law firms and another 10 being corporate legal departments."

He added: "Law firms recognise they have no control over external factors such as market conditions, so they are starting to focus on things they do have control over, and one of the most important is their internal cost base.

“Many managing partners of law firms have recognised that top-line organic growth will be difficult to achieve during 2008-2009, and that profits may suffer during this period. They have become much more receptive to assessing alternative and innovative ways of reducing their cost base to reflect current trading conditions."

Law firms are attracted to India because of its large pool of English-speaking graduates – around 80,000 graduate each year – and its common law system based on English law.

The often negative image of call-centres is increasingly being replaced by more accurate perceptions of the quality of legal work available from professionals in India.

— By arrangement with The Independent