The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Maharaja buys truce
Not easy to bail out Air India

The government and the passengers and employees of the ailing Air India would have felt relieved following the pilots of the airline calling off their five-day-old strike on Wednesday. The truce, however, may not last long. The warring parties, pilots on the one side and the government on the other, appear to have merely secured some breathing time. This is because the pilots claim to have received assurances that their incentives would not be cut. The claim is clearly not without basis since the Civil Aviation Minister, Mr Praful Patel, is also on record as saying that pilots have no reason to strike work because their performance-linked incentives (PLI) had not been cut yet. Mr Patel may pat his own back and claim that his tough-talking ultimatum forced the pilots to see reason but clearly it is his ministry which has buckled down and given in to pressure by the pampered high fliers.

The minister’s public stand is that cost-cutting measures would be taken in consultation with the pilots and other employees. It implies that no such consultation was held before announcing the slew of measures, including cutting the pilots’ incentives by half that led to the strike in the first place. The strike, therefore, is one more instance of Air India mismanaging its affairs , which has been headed primarily by bureaucrats and administered directly by Mr Praful Patel’s ministry. Also, once consultations resume, it is doubtful if the government will still be able to maintain its tough posture and impose the cuts.

Pilots and planes will fly, but putting the Maharaja back to good health is going to be a tough task and there is already a clamour for Air India’s privatisation. Accumulated losses of over Rs 7,000 crore and hefty overdrafts can scarcely be undone by promised improvement in efficiency or cost-cutting. With competition becoming increasingly fierce , stop-gap measures can bring about little difference to the balance-sheet.

The endgame
Mr Q can have the last laugh

Those who are familiar with playing scrabble know that ‘Q’ becomes a problem when not used in time. Q stands for Quandary, or Quiz or various other variations. It also stands for Mr Q or Mr Quattrocchi. The Central Bureau of Investigation was in a quandary over what to do about the man from Italy accused of being involved in the Bofors gun deal that hit the headlines in the late 1980s. As we all know, the CBI sleuths plan their journey according to the weather report coming from the government of the day. In this case, the political forecast was in conflict with the professional advice. The CBI had once suggested that a strong case existed against Mr Q. But the opinion has undergone a sea change with the passage of time. So, after full 23 years, he is finally off the hook. The Opposition can be depended on to raise a bit of stink but it too will be hard pressed to explain why it could not nail him when the NDA happened to be in power.

Mr Q has been more agile in movements than the men of the CBI. The trial continued longer than any soap opera. As far as the CBI, which is often given to positive thinking, is concerned, it seemed to think that he had committed neither a sin, nor crime. Perhaps that is why it had permitted the defreezing of his accounts in London. Nor did it lose its sleep over its failure to obtain his extradition from Malaysia and Argentina or whichever country Mr Q chose for being away from law. The red corner notice against him which was in force till last year was subsequently dumped somewhere.

The petitioner against him is not amused and has accused the Centre of being hand in glove with the accused. It is a matter of nitpicking who is hand and who is glove. The CBI somehow fails to recognize — willingly or otherwise —which is the hand and which is the glove. Mr Q can have the last laugh while playing the end game.

Thought for the Day

Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five. — W. Somerset Maugham

ARTICLE

Non-proliferation talk
Obama’s double-speak won’t do
by G. Parthasarathy

ON July 8, 1996, the World Court held that countries possessing nuclear weapons had not just a need but an obligation to commence negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament. The court also held that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons would be generally contrary to the principles of international law, though there was some doubt about the extreme contingency when “the very survival of a State was threatened”. Despite this World Court opinion, the United States, Russia, France and the UK reserve the right to use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons whenever their interests so demand. The US and Russia together possess around 19,000 nuclear warheads; France has around 350 warheads and the UK 160.

The 2005 US Doctrine of Joint Operations spells out several contingencies when the US could use nuclear weapons, including situations where the US wants to “rapidly end a war on terms favourable to the US,” or to ensure that the US and international operations are successful. President Chirac announced in January 2006 that France reserves the right to use nuclear weapons against States supporting terrorism, or seeking weapons of mass destruction. In 2003, British Defence Secretary Geoffrey Hoon warned Iraq that “in right conditions” the UK reserved the right to use nuclear weapons.

China and India have both ruled out the “first use” of nuclear weapons. Israel and Pakistan have indicated that they would use nuclear weapons if their very survival is threatened. Despite President Obama’s protestations that the 2005 US Doctrine would be reviewed, neither the US nor its NATO allies will rule out the use of nuclear weapons against States that do not possess such weapons, or give a “no first use” pledge against countries possessing nuclear weapons.

President Obama has indicated that he does not expect to see the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world achieved in his lifetime. The so-called “nuclear weapons States” may talk about arms limitations and undertake some token cuts in certain categories of strategic warheads. But they have no intention of eliminating nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future. Moreover, the American record on nonproliferation has been selective. In their book, “Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Global Nuclear Weapons Conspiracy”, Adrian levy and Catherine Scott-Clark have revealed how the CIA and successive US Administrations covered up information they had about Pakistan’s relentless, China-assisted quest for nuclear weapons because of larger strategic considerations.

The American “Nonproliferation Ayatollahs,” who roar like lions when talking about proliferation by Iran and North Korea, squeak like mice when it comes to proliferation by China. The Americans have for long known that China has provided Pakistan with nuclear weapon designs, fissile materials and enrichment equipment. They have deliberately turned a blind eye to China’s activities. Over the past decade, China has provided Pakistan with plutonium reactors and reprocessing technology to enable Islamabad to make lighter warheads for fitment on Chinese-supplied ballistic and cruise missiles. Successive US Administrations have ignored this.

Moreover, despite recent revelations about Dr A.Q. Khan, which the Americans must have known about over five years ago, the Obama Administration continues to maintain that Pakistan’s proliferation activities were carried out solely by a rogue “A.Q. Khan Network”, thus absolving the Pakistan Army establishment, which was the prime culprit, of its culpability. If President Reagan overlooked Pakistani proliferation in the 1980s to keep General Zia-ul-Haq pleased, President Obama does likewise now, evidently to keep General Kayani pleased. The Obama Administration remains tongue-tied on issues of the Pakistan Army establishment’s role in nuclear proliferation, or on the ISI’s support for Taliban leaders and groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba, whose members kill American soldiers and nationals in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

New Delhi is not the only capital where there is a sense of outrage at the repeated chants by the Obama Administration that it seeks “universalisation” of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and wants India, Israel and Pakistan to accede to the NPT. Responding to repeated statements on this issue by Obama Administration luminaries, Israel’s normally soft-spoken Defence Minister Ehud Barak retorted on September 7: “Until the Muslim world from Marrakesh to Bangladesh behaves like Western Europe, there can be no debate on nuclear nonproliferation”. Rarely, if ever, has Israel reacted in such terms to sermons on its security imperatives from an American President.

India has rejected the Obama-sponsored UN Security Council Resolution of September 24 calling on it to accede to the NPT. India should, however, make it clear that a major reason why the US is now placing such repeated emphasis on the nuclear nonproliferation treaty is that it is desperately keen to ensure that the NPT Review Conference, scheduled for 2010, does not end in a fiasco like the Review of 2005. But the reasons why the non-nuclear weapons countries stood firm in the 2005 Review still remain valid, as the nuclear weapons States pay only lip-service to nuclear disarmament, still insist on their right to use nuclear weapons against those who do not posses such weapons and selectively deny technology for the development of nuclear energy. It should also make clear that while India would be prepared to join a multilaterally negotiated and non-discriminatory treaty on a fissile material cut-off, we cannot accede to the CTBT in its present form, as among other reasons, it was accompanied by secret understandings and exchanges between “nuclear weapons States”.

India-US relations saw a remarkable turnaround in the last two years of the Clinton Administration and throughout the eight years of the Bush Administration. The 2002 Bush National Security Doctrine resulted in the US regarding India as a partner in areas ranging from nuclear nonproliferation, to climate change and global economic issues. The policies the Obama Administration has pursued since it assumed office on such issues give the impression that it regards India as a target rather than as a partner.

Including the provisions in the UN Security Council resolution of September 24, which are at variance with the letter and spirit of the 123 Agreement and subsequent NSG waiver, only accentuates misgivings and suspicions in India. Similarly, the threats held out about trade sanctions against countries that do not toe the US line on climate change by Democratic Party Senator John Kerry smack of crude intimidation. One wonders if, given the Obama Administration’s approach to relations with China, one could really see any prospect of the type of swift and effective Indo-US cooperation that followed the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Such misgivings and suspicions will have to be addressed when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits Washington.

MIDDLE

Well turned out!
by Rashmi Talwar

You should ‘always be well turned out,” this was the jewel of advice for appropriate appearance that my father gave me. Although the idea stuck and pushed me to take great pains at dressing up right, during my tennis career, it often took a toll on my performance!

In time, the jewel was lost, as I felt that repeating a “winning garment” during a tournament —washing only its armpit section— was the true mantra for winning! Many a winning thus rested solely on superstition. For the times it worked, my resolve only became stronger.

Years later, when I graduated to matrimony, my father’s jewel struck again. I was reprimanded often for not appearing as a newly-wed. A crackpot neighbour added fuel to the fire with his comment: “How has she been kept in the family without any jewellery?” It stung my in-laws! I escaped from the caustic remark as the entire neighbourhood considered him a crackpot.

Miscellaneous excuses. Heat, itching, rash etc helped me to shun customary bangles and my only daily accessory remained a watch, till a younger cousin advised how true dress sense plays many a trick. The shopkeeper is attentive, people flock to you, chat more openly...

I took the baggage of “well-turned-out” with me yet again when I entered newspaper reporting. Thus, politician’s interviews were forthcoming. Dignitaries prioritised my query, refreshments arrived as I waited. Undoubtedly, it felt superb. Initially I felt like a hypocrite but later drew myself as an “expert”.

In my enthusiasm to share my good fortune from the jewel, I pushed this advice: “Look your best when you go for an interview”, I told a senior journalist on her assignment to the university.

Elated, she shored her tresses of rubber bands and went all loose-haired, smart in the hottest month of June! A few kilometres further, sweating and panting, her struggle for a lone rubber band proved futile. Fanning herself and holding her hair in a mock knot, a clerk seeing her dishevelled, promptly handed her a stapler: “This is all I have”. Surely cursing me, she stapled with the oddity! Pulling hair over the silver staples, wishing them to be invisible to the interviewee!

At another time, on a reporting assignment in Pakistan, a fellow journalist washed her crinkly hair. In their washed state, I complimented that her hair reminded me of Bollywood actress Kangna Raunaut’s curls. Her thrill to be the actress’s look-alike was only short lived. During the Punjabi “boliyan” session when the Indian jatha jumped into bhangra mode, a cocky devotee sang: “bari barsi khatan gaya si, khat ke liyandi chhoti bhen, , mainu ki pata si oh vichon “niklegi daain” and pulled the “Kangna” to dance the “bhangra”.

The cutting look she gave me stays with me.

OPED

Bonus on MSP for paddy
Help farmers, but don’t burden people
by Joginder Singh

Labourers engaged in post-paddy harvesting operation at Bhankarpur near Dera Bassi. A Tribune photograph

The controversy over increase in minimum support price (MSP) for paddy by Rs 100/qt for the marketing year 2009-10 is apparently lopsided and fine-tuned only to echo the voice of the state government.

Surprisingly, many state economists who so far has been strong advocates of diversification of state agriculture and were all for linking MSP with global prices of cereals, particularly paddy, have taken a U-turn, terming paddy price hike as “inadequate” without commenting on many other facets of the issue.

No one has uttered a word about its implications on the livelihood of landless poor consumer. No issue of parity in price has been raised. Where are the environmental concerns now, particularly sustaining water resource and soil health for the sake of which we wanted to slash the area under paddy by almost half? Or do we want these problems to aggravate further?

The bonus on MSP is due to natural calamities and treating it as part of MSP is a misconception. The farmers need to be compensated through bonus on MSP due to increase in the cost of production but the incidence of such natural abnormality should not fall on an average consumer.

The prevailing retail price of sugar has already touched Rs 35 a kg. Who is responsible for this? The failure of successive governments to check hoardings is said to be sole reason.

Apart from this, the basic reason of the inability to maintain parity of sugarcane price with that of rice-wheat has led to sugar crisis which needs the government’s due consideration in the price policy.

The state prices of sugarcane will have to be enhanced at a faster rate to increase or even to sustain the existing area under the crop. Taking lead, Haryana has already announced Rs 185/qt which would compel the other states to follow.

This sequential chain of events would put a strong economic pressure on sugar mills, ultimately landing into a helpless situation evoking the problems of delayed payment to the sugarcane growers, hoarding of stocks etc. Sugarcane is a crop planned for two years by the farmers for which suitable parity has to be ensured in advance to stabilise its area.

The area under cotton crop in Punjab declined from 7.6 lakh ha in 1988-89 to just 4.5 lakh ha in 2002-03 due to serious pest problem. Now in spite of best efforts and resultant increase in yield of cotton crop, its area which was captured by paddy crop could not be brought back in its fold, obviously due to lack of parity between cotton and paddy prices.

It is time emphasis is laid on the revival of cotton crop in the south-western districts. This is the most effective way of achieving agricultural diversification in the state. This will also rejuvenate cotton based industries and generate job opportnities.

Escalation in the price of cotton is faster than even in paddy. It could be a thrust point in the pricing policy which has not been properly taken care of. Not only absolute prices, but the high degree of production risk and malpractices in cotton market should also be a serious matter of concern for us.

The demand for diversification in favour of pulses and oilseeds could not make much headway because of the lack of effective support price backed by procurement. Unfortunately, the paddy price has overshadowed manyimportant issues.

The writer is a former Professor & Head, Department of Economics & Sociology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana

The real story is Ireland, not Brighton
by John Rentoul

Party conferences are all very well, but they are not always closely related to life on this planet. That doesn’t usually matter, because life in the dangerous and lovable; it has fights, feuds and reconciliations; and endless speculation about who is up or down.

In Labour’s case, though, we will be treated to a particularly otherworldly experience this week, in that the one bubble-world question is hardly going to be discussed, namely whether Gordon Brown will still be Prime Minister at the election.

Journalists will still use the conference as an excuse to interview each other about it. That will only add another layer of unreality to the proceedings. Not since the Conservative conference of 2003, in which Iain Duncan Smith’s speech was interrupted by 17 standing ovations, will a party put on such a strenuous show of unity in defiance of the bubble’s own obsessions.

Let us skip over the bubble, therefore, to Friday, when a real political event occurs that does have implications for life on this planet, or at least this European corner of it.

It could, of course, be argued that European politics is even more detached from Earth-bound matters than the Westminster bubble, and there is some truth in that. The detail of the Lisbon Treaty is technical and confusing.

This supposed “tidying-up exercise”, as Jack Straw once called it, has spawned a bureaucratic Hydra of heads: a president of the council, a president of the commission and a foreign and security high representative thing. None of the changes in the treaty will make any difference to the shape of our bananas or which side of the road we drive on.

And yet there is a larger and simpler truth, which is that Britain’s place in Europe is a basic alignment of our politics. It does make a real-world difference whether the British Government is working with the grain of the rest of Europe or against it. Which is why the response of British leaders to the Irish vote is so important.

In my interview with David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary is scathing about David Cameron’s refusal to spell out his response to a yes vote. So far, the Conservative leader has clung to an ambiguous form of words: that, if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified, he “would not let the matter rest there”.

On Friday, that slogan is likely to become unsustainable. At that point, Cameron faces a series of choices. What to say, and when to say it? To anyone observing from the outside, both are no-brainers.

He has to say that a Conservative government would accept the Lisbon Treaty now that it is likely to be ratified before the election. And he should say it within minutes of the result of the Irish vote becoming known. Waiting until his conference speech the following Thursday is the sort of thing that Gordon Brown would try to do.

Yet it looks as if Cameron will not say what he ought to say, in which case when he says it becomes irrelevant. I understand that the Conservative leadership is still hoping that, even if the Irish say yes, the treaty will be delayed by a legal challenge in the Czech courts. Vaclav Klaus, the Czech President, has not put his blob of sealing wax on the parchment yet, even though it has been approved by his parliament.

Klaus is a Eurosceptic, whose party is a member of the Tories’ new group in the European Parliament. But there is an air of wishful thinking about all this. British Eurosceptics have wound each other up for months about how the Lisbon Treaty could be derailed, seizing with an alarming lack of proportion on rogue polls in Ireland and a ruling by the German constitutional court that was reversed, as expected, last week.

My knowledge of the Czech legal system consists of a novel by Franz Kafka, but Foreign Office officials who are paid to know about such things say that the challenge is “not a problem”.

Miliband is not wrong to say that “it looks like the Tebbits, etc” won’t let Cameron say, “Of course we’ve got to live with Lisbon.” The transformation of the parliamentary Conservative Party into an almost exclusively Eurosceptic body is one of the longest-lasting and most poisonous legacies of Margaret Thatcher. Cameron himself is a gut sceptic, though he has the political wit to include the pro-European Kenneth Clarke in his Shadow Cabinet. But does he have the political courage to tell the rest of his party what it is so unwilling to hear? Not yet.

Hence the discussion, as we report today, about other referendums that a Conservative government could hold. Cameron as prime minister could not hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty once it has been ratified, as the Europhobes want: to repudiate the treaty after it has come into effect would be to leave the EU. Hence the compromise plan for a popular vote on other issues that might come up in future negotiations. It is not going to satisfy the hardliners.

— By arrangement with The Independent

Power crisis: Think beyond vote banks
by Vandana Bansal

With several issues on the boil, power crisis has emerged as a major issue. The common man has every right to enjoy the basic amenities with which he or she can lead a comfortable life. But long power cuts are the root cause of major public discomfiture.

Even after 62 years of Independence, we could not resolve the power crisis. It is impossible to lead an easy life without electricity. Schools, colleges, hospitals, banks, corporate sectors, industries, agriculture etc. all are facing a big problem due to power cuts.

Generators are used regularly and they add to the noise and air pollution. This has also become an environmental hazard. Enormous quantity of diesel consumed in generators goes wasted everyday.

Claims by the government of no power cuts during night time are a cruel joke. People continue to face powerless days and nights. Irregular and insufficient power supply have played havoc with the industrial and agriculture sector.

Unscheduled power cuts (in addition to the scheduled ones) are compounding the woes of domestic customers in urban areas. Summers were unbearable for the common man because of the crisis.

The situation during the ongoing autumn is no better. There is no dearth of electricity cuts. If any curative measures are not taken, this state of affairs will worsen in the upcoming winters and summers.

It is the duty of government to give power to all citizens without discrimination. Increase in tariff is no solution to this problem. Inflation has already broken the backbone of the common man. The government should realise that people who are misusing the facility given to them should be put under check.

Those who have been provided free electricity are misusing it. The government has provided free electricity to some farmers and people below poverty line just to strengthen their vote banks but these people, oblivious of the sufferings of their fellow countrymen, are brazenly misusing the benefit. These people waste power by cooking food on heaters. This is adding to the crisis.

Some people also manage to steal electricity. They devise new methods to pilfer power without bothering about the wastage as they know fully well that they don’t have to pay for it from their pocket.

All ministers and bureaucrats residing in VIP zones are being provided 24 hours uninterrupted power supply. So how can they realise the problem of a common man? Had power cuts been there in VIP areas too, they would have known where the shoe pinches.

The government should review its policy of providing free electricity to select classes. Instead, they should also be charged, may be a nominal tariff so that the disproportionate burden on the common man is rationally distributed. Those availing themselves of free or subsidised power should use it judiciously. They should switch off the electrical appliances not in use.

Politicians need to think beyond vote banks. It is not wise to appease one section for the sake of votes at the cost of a major section of society. It is also the responsibility of everyone to combat this crisis.

The government and the general public should join hands to combat this crisis collectively. The focus should be on energy conservation and effective execution of power generation projects to solve the power crisis.