The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Setback for SP in UP
BSP, Congress the gainers

The Samajwadi Party of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav has suffered a major setback in the November 7 byelections for UP’s 11 Assembly seats and Firozabad Lok Sabha seat as the results show. The BSP and the Congress are the real gainers. The voters, perhaps, realised that favouring a party in the Opposition may not be in their larger interest. Hence their resort to tactical voting, expressing their choice for the BSP in most of the constituencies. There may be some other factors, too, that worked against the SP. But the results are surprising as most of these constituencies were known to be Samajwadi Party pocket-boroughs. It is with great effort that the Lucknow West seat has gone to the Congress.

Interestingly, Ms Mayawati herself could spare little time for the constituencies which went to the polls. However, she had deputed as many as 40 ministers to ensure the victory of her party in the byelections. These ministers were told very clearly that they would lose their position in the government in case the BSP failed to capture at least 50 per cent of the seats it was fighting. The BSP poll managers evidently used all the resources at their command for their party candidates’ victory. The SP has alleged that BSP leaders indulged in booth-capturing in the Rari and Isauli constituencies but these claims are unsubstantiated.

The SP concentrated more on the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat than on the assembly constituencies, as the party had fielded Mr Mulayam Singh’s daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav to try her luck there. Though fighting an election for the first time, she had the advantage of contesting for a seat vacated by her husband Akhilesh Yadav, who had won it along with another seat in the April-May Lok Sabha polls. The SP used its “star” power, too, against the Congress party’s Raj Babbar, considered the most formidable candidate. But nothing worked against Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s rising appeal among the voters, particularly the youngsters. The prestigious Firozabad seat ultimately went to the Congress, giving hope to the ruling party at the Centre that it can do much better in the 2012 Assembly polls if it continues to concentrate on UP in the manner it has been doing so far.

Dinakaran must quit
Lawyers should respect the majesty of law

Even as Justice P.D. Dinakaran’s continuance as the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court has become untenable following charges of land grabbing, acquisition of wealth beyond known means and abuse of office levelled against him, the advocates’ conduct in the High Court premises in Bangalore on Monday was highly deplorable. They not only forced Justice Dinakaran to abandon a hearing but also locked in two judges who continued to sit in their courtrooms. Later, they allegedly assaulted a television crew member. Clearly, the advocates have no right to take the law into their own hands and disrupt the court proceedings. If lawyers behave like this, they can hardly be expected to uphold the dignity and decorum of the court and help ensure smooth dispensation of justice.

Be that as it may, Justice Dinakaran should have learnt a lesson or two from the episode by now and resigned gracefully from his post. Significantly, the District Collector of Thiruvallur has, in a report to the Tamil Nadu government which was duly forwarded to the Supreme Court collegium for its consideration, confirmed that Justice Dinakaran has indeed encroached upon the land at Kaverirajapuram.

Though the Chief Justice of India has sought comments from the Survey of India regarding the charges of encroachment against Justice Dinakaran, the latter has lost the moral authority to continue as the Chief Justice of the High Court. Even if he delivers very worthy judgements, these will lack sanctity because he is under a cloud and in the eyes of the people he is a tainted judge. In the circumstances, the CJI would do well to advise him to quit office forthwith as it is a question of protecting the image and reputation of the judiciary and the majesty of law. Eminent jurists Fali S. Nariman and Ram Jethmalani have also spoken identically, maintaining that Justice Dinakaran should not be elevated to the Supreme Court even if the collegium exonerates him of the charges.

Thought for the Day

Better by far you should forget and smile/Than that you should remember and be sad. — Christina Rossetti

ARTICLE

Bhabha’s dream comes alive
Bright Indian vista of N-energy unfolds
by O.P. Sabherwal

The year 2009, Dr Homi Bhabha’s centenary year, marks India’s emergence as an advanced nuclear capability nation. If Dr Bhabha was alive today, he would be enthralled to see his nuclear dreams fructifying in full measure.

A new phase of the Indian nuclear programme has commenced. Following the ratification of the Safeguards Agreement between the IAEA and the Indian nuclear establishment by the government, decks have finally been cleared for India to take-off on an ambitious nuclear power programme, which for the first time includes advanced light water reactor imports, augmentation of India’s scarce uranium resources from abroad, and nuclear interaction and commerce with advanced as well as developing countries.

The target for nuclear power installed capacity by 2020 has been pushed up to 50,000 MW — a big jump on its original target of 20,000 MW. The Integrated Energy Policy envisages increasing the nuclear power capacity to 63,000 MW by 2032 from the present 4,120 MW: This large quantum of nuclear power would be over 40 per cent of India’s present total electricity generation.

How is this big leap to be realised? A major component of the hiked nuclear the power target for 2020 is the proposed import of 30,000 MW capacity advanced light water reactors from France, the US and Russia during the decade ahead. This would be additional to Indian indigenous PHWR design reactor construction, which will be enhanced, thanks to the augmentation of the country’s scarce uranium resources by uranium imports.

Negotiations with France, Russia and the US for the import of advanced light water reactors “are already in progress”, Dr Anil Kakodkar, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and head of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), said in an authoritative interview.

Areva, the French nuclear technology leader, has offered its top of the line 1600 MW nuclear reactor — European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR). Considered to be one of the most advanced and largest capacity reactor worldwide, with the lowest recurring cost, EPR is being offered at Euro 3.5 billion a piece. A site at Jaitapur in Maharashtra has been selected where the French are to build a nuclear park capable of locating nuclear reactors generating upto 10,000 MW of power. To begin with, negotiations are in progress with Areva for the construction of two EPR reactors with an installed capacity of 3200 MW.

The Russians are already constructing two reactors of VVER design of an installed capacity of 2,000 MW at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu. The first of these reactors is expected to go critical by December this year, while the second reactor will commence operations by March 2010. The Russian nuclear operator AtomExport has offered to construct eight more VVER design reactors — the most advanced light water reactor with the Russians. Negotiations with the Russians for constructing two more VVER reactors of a 1,000 MW capacity each at Kudankulam itself are in an advanced stage, it is learnt.

A site at Haripur in West Bengal is to be allocated to the Russians for further nuclear reactors, while sites have been selected in Gujarat and Andhra for American and Japanese companies for nuclear reactors.

Westinghouse is presently negotiating the construction of two reactors of an installed capacity of 1,200 MW each. GE-Hitachi has offered to construct its advanced 1,400 MW installed capacity boiling water design, light water reactors. GE contends that enriched uranium fuel for its reactors will be the cheapest in the world because of the latest enrichment technology that it has developed. Japanese companies have a major share in both these leading nuclear companies.

Another major push to the Indian nuclear programme is large-scale uranium imports which will ensure adequate fuel for the country’s indigenous reactor construction of PHWR design. Negotiations for these imports have been on shortly after the Nuclear Supplier Group’s Vienna conclave gave clearance for India’s international civil nuclear trade. France and Russia have already delivered 500 tonnes and 2000 tonnes natural uranium, respectively, to ensure capacity utilisation of the 17 operating Indian reactors. Large-scale natural uranium import deals have been concluded with Kazakhstan, Namibia, Mongolia and Argentina to back up accelerating indigenous nuclear construction.

Having mastered PHWR reactor design of a 220 MW installed capacity, the Indian nuclear establishment is pushing with building PHW reactors of large installed capacity. Tarapur 3 and 4 reactors of 540 MW have been a big success and are working at 92 per cent installed capacity. The NPCIL has commenced pre-construction work on four 700 MW capacity PHWRs, cleared by the Union government. The 500 MW prototype fast breeder construction at Kalpakkam is making satisfactory progress and is expected to be ready by 2011. Two more 500 MW fast breeders based on sodium metal fuel are to follow.

As Bhabha visualised, nuclear power’s share of India’s total electricity generation is set to enlarge in a big way as the availability of fossil fuels — coal, petroleum and gas — decline. Indian nuclear scientists have fulfilled Bhabha’s mission by developing nuclear capability along the entire nuclear fuel cycle, building a chain of R&D centres matching those of the advanced countries, and opening the last stage of Bhabha’s three-phased route to nuclear capability. Yet, the chapter that commences now will present even bigger challenges — in technology development, expanding scientific human resources and, above all, in developing nuclear industry, a large part of which needs to be built in the private sector.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s impending visit to the United States will be watched for the expected clearance for American reprocessing technology transfer to India in order to build the dedicated reprocessing plant to handle imported nuclear reactor spent fuel. Light water reactor spent fuel reprocessing incorporates a special technology since the fuel used in these reactors is enriched uranium, while Indian design reactors use natural uranium. To fulfil this aspect of the Indo-US civilian nuclear cooperation deal, the US is morally bound to provide the advanced reprocessing technology to India.

MIDDLE

Coincidences
by Harish Dhillon

SOMEONE has rightly said that life is stranger than fiction. In the past I have dismissed many stories and novels for being based on improbable coincidences. But I have now discovered that life itself often throws up coincidences which defy all probability.

I was on a flying visit to Calcutta and as the train drew into Howrah station, I thought of the senior Bala who had come to see me a few months earlier. He had insisted that I spend time with him on my next visit to Calcutta and I had promised to do so. But this visit to Calcutta was to be so short that I couldn’t possibly meet him. As a result I had not informed him he need never know. I stepped off the Rajdhani and much to my embarrassment, came face to face with him – he had come to receive a relative.

It was my first year as Headmaster and I was on my way to attend the Headmasters’ Conference at Gangtok. I was delighted to find that my colleague RD, the head of the sister school in Mohali, was a co-passenger. While we were waiting to get out of the airport, RD teased me:

“What kind of a Sird are you ? Any other Sird would have found a relative who lived in the neighbourhood and got a limousine to drive us to Gangtok”.

I caught sight of a placard with my name on it. I had an uncle who ran a service station in Benaguri. He had heard of my trip from my mother and sent his driver to meet me with the message that I should take the car to Gangtok and tell the driver when he should come and pick me up after the conference. So, in a way, RD’s wish came true.

One winter my friend Khurshid decided to go to Kufri to try his hand at skiing. On his way back he spent a few days with me in Sanawar. It snowed that evening and after the snow the temperature fell sharply. We were grateful for the warmth of the fireplace around which we huddled. The liquor, quite appropriately, was rum with hot water. While on his third drink Khurshid exclaimed:

“All that is missing are some prawns”. Just then Jeet Bahadur walked in with a dish of crisp, golden, fried prawns. An old student had gone into the sea food business and was supplying sea food to all the fancy hotels and restaurants in Delhi. That morning he had sent up a member of his staff with an icebox with two dozen king prawns in it. Fortunately for Khurshid, they had arrived at a time when they could fulfil what would otherwise have been an impossible wish.
With these three experiences behind me I have become a little more tolerant with seemingly improbable coincidences in fiction. After all, if I was to build a story around any these my readers would dismiss it as being ridiculously improbable.n

OPED

Green signal to Bt brinjal
Take advantage of the second GM crop
by S.S. Chahal

ON the recommendation of an expert committee, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), the statutory body for biosafety regulation, accorded clearance to the cultivation of Bt brinjal on October 14. Though its immediate introduction has been delayed by the Ministry of Environment and Forests for want of public comments, yet it is a welcome step which will dispel fears and apprehensions propagated in public mind by certain quarters that are either not aware of the scientific basis or simply interested in making their presence felt.

The minister has rightly said that "his objective is to arrive at a careful, considered decision in the public and national interest".

Genetic modification of plants involves the copying and transfer of genes from one organism to another because of universal construction of the all-important genetic code since the DNA of all organism is made up of building blocks which are similar and encoded in completely the similar fashion.

This is accomplished through an artificial transfer of genes or fragments of genes from one organism to another producing new desirable traits in the recipient organism. This is commonly called as "genetic engineering" or "recombinant DNA technology," which is now well established.

Genetically modified plants grown through this technology are called GM crops, transgenic crops or biotech crops. The first such modification was done in the laboratory in 1971. However the large-scale cultivation of GM crops began in 1976 with the approval of herbicide-resistant soyabean and insect-resistant Bt cotton and Bt corn.

The USA, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China and Australia are among the world leaders in the cultivation of GM crops. Within just 12 years of commercial cultivation of these biotic crops, the global area under these crops has registered a consistent and steep increase from a mere 1.7 million hectares in 1996 to more than 125 million hectares in 2008, showing a spectacular 74-fold increase.

Now more than 25 countries are growing biotic crops with more than one-third of the global GM crop area in developing countries. A noticeable increase in the adoption rate by five developing countries like China, India, Argentina, Brazil and South Africa is clearly an indicator of the worldwide acceptance of crops evolved through genetic engineering technology.

Brinjal is one of the most affordable vegetables in India. It is low in calories and high in nutrition. India with one quarter of its global production is the second largest producer after China.

The crop is highly susceptible to attacks from insect pests and diseases; the most destructive and serious of all is the fruit and shoot borer (FSB) widely prevalent in all brinjal-growing areas. The larvae of FSB (Leucinodes orbonalis) with very high reproductive potential bore into tender shoots and fruits causing as high as 95 per cent losses of up to 70 per cent in commercial planting, thus making the produce highly unfit for human consumption.

The FSB larvae remain concealed within shoots and fruits, escape insecticide sprays prompting farmers to repeated sprays of insecticides because of a subjective assessment of the visual presence of the pest. As a result, it adds to the financial cost due to an indiscriminate insecticides application, environmental pollution as well as high pesticide residues posing a serious risk to the health and safety of consumers.

Bt brinjal is developed in India through private and public sector partnership. A leading seed and biotech company Mahyco (Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company) donated this technology to Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore and University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad.

The GEAC's green signal to Bt brinjal is based on enormous data generated through strenuous scientific tests pertaining to toxicity, allergencity and nutritional studies on mammals and animals, confirming that biotech brinjal is as safe as the conventional brinjal. The experiments have revealed nil effect of Bt brinjal on beneficial insects such as aphids, lady beetles, leafhoppers and spiders.

The objection by certain environmentalists that a large-scale cultivation of Bt brinjal would lead to gene pollution by contaminating other varieties is only a hypothesis and lacks scientific evidence. It involves the principle of incompatibility. Results of biosafety studies on pollen escape, effects on plant growth promoting rhizosphere and soil microflora and non-target organisms, invasiveness and Bt protein degradation etc. have been duly considered. These results reveal no merit in these objections.

It is a proven fact that with best efforts not more than 30 per cent mortality (control) of FSB is achieved that too compromising with ill-effects related to the over use of insecticides. However, there is 98 per cent FSB mortality in shoots and 100 per cent in fruits in biotech brinjal. There is far less requirement of insecticides for control of other pests in Bt brinjal than the conventional brinjal varieties.

On an average as high as 120 per cent increase in marketable fruits has been reported through multi-location trials in biotech brinjal over non-biotech hybrids of the crop. There is, however, genuine fear of high cost which poor farmers may have to pay for getting seeds which may require government subsidy for promoting such crops looking into advantages expected out of the cultivation of Bt brinjal.

Such joint contribution of the private and public sectors is of immense importance for achieving national food security. The example of the first biotech crop, Bt cotton, is before us. Its commercial cultivation has rejuvenated the crop in the country.

Though Punjab was late by two years to reap the benefit by its delayed introduction, yet it has instilled confidence in farmers of the cotton-growing areas of the state who previously had faced repeated failures of the crop adding to their miseries.

Looking at the advantages, there is every likelihood of the clearance of commercial cultivation of biotech brinjal by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry and Punjab must not lag behind in harvesting the benefit this time.

The second push after the Green Revolution in agriculture lies less in further enhancing production of cereals but in increasing the production of fruits, vegetables, oilseeds, pulses and cash crops.

New technologies are here, farmers are responsive; however, the urgent need is for the policy-makers to be proactive and safeguard the interest of poor farmers who become easy targets of many malpractices like spurious seeds whenever such technologies are put to practice.

The writer is the Vice-Chancellor, Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur.

Five myths about elections
by Paul Collier

The US has invested heavily in promoting free elections around the world, with the expectation that they in turn will promote legitimate governments and democratic ideals. It hasn’t always worked out that way - not in Iraq, not in the Palestinian territories and not, most recently, in Afghanistan. Dispelling some common myths about what elections can and cannot do in emerging democracies will help us face more realistically the difference between a ballot box and a magic bullet.

1. Elections usually produce legitimate governments.

After the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, elections became an emblem of modernisation: Dictators everywhere agreed to hold them. A few, such as President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, were ousted in honest elections, having believed their own propaganda about their popularity. But many realised it was possible to adhere to form without substance.

When my colleague Anke Hoeffler and I studied data on 786 elections in 155 countries from 1974 to 2004, we found that fraud may have affected the results in 41 per cent of them. Incumbent politicians who cheat to get reelected stay in office 2.5 times longer than they would have playing it fair and square. These sham elections do not fool the citizens, who view the resulting governments as illegitimate and do not hold the “elected” officials accountable.

2. The democratic process promotes peace.

Unfortunately, the effect of democracy on the risk of political violence depends on a country’s income. Above $2,700 per capita, democracies are less prone to violence than are autocracies. But in countries where income is far below that threshold, democracy is associated with a greater risk of bloodshed.

In recent years, elections have served as a de facto exit strategy for peacekeepers after a conflict has ended. The theory has evidently been that by establishing a legitimate and accountable government, a democratic election reduces the likelihood of continuing turmoil. But my research found that, although the risk of violence falls in the year before an election, it rises in the year after.

This makes sense, because in the run-up to balloting, efforts to gain power are diverted into politics; after a vote, the winner no longer feels pressure to govern inclusively and the loser regards the outcome as fraudulent.

3. Fair elections can happen everywhere.

The apparent success of democratisation in post-Soviet Eastern Europe helped persuade the international community that elections would work anywhere if only the dictators were toppled. But evidence of stolen elections among the new democracies challenged that assumption.

Eastern Europe didn’t fit this picture because its population was already in the middle-income range, it was not resource-rich, and it had the advantage of prior democratic experience.

Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, however, have all the characteristics that undermine elections, giving them a mere 3 per cent chance of an honest vote, according to my calculations.

By this measure, electoral misconduct in Afghanistan was almost inevitable.

4. Elections compel new democratic governments to overspend, worsening economic policies and performance.

In investigating elections’ effect on economic policy in newly democratic countries, I found that populist pressure does cause policies to deteriorate somewhat in the year before an election, as in Ghana in 2008. But governments that face frequent elections have significantly better economic policies when they are averaged over the political cycle, and governments that become subject to elections improve their policies.

Unfortunately, there is a caveat: Elections in which there is misconduct have, at best, no effect on economic policy because governments are off the hook of accountability. For example, President Robert Mugabe chose to wreck the Zimbabwean economy precisely when he was facing contested elections. His policies were not even populist; he simply relied on fraud and intimidation to establish policies that benefited only a tiny political elite.

5. We can’t do anything about electoral misconduct.

If 41 per cent of elections aren’t conducted fairly, disconnecting governments from true accountability, there is a problem. But the international community can help solve it. Incumbents often steal elections through patronage financed by looting the public purse, as President Daniel arap Moi did in Kenya. So countries, such as the United States, that finance democratic elections should make their aid conditional upon the government’s being both transparent and accountable to its citizens in its budget processes.

Supporting governments can provide high-powered incentives for incumbents to keep elections honest. What incumbents fear most is not losing an election but being overthrown by their own military. When the international community can protect a government from such a threat, it should do so, conditional upon the election being properly conducted.

— By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

When Hungary led the way
by Mitchell Koss

The breaching of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago this month has become the symbol of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and, ultimately, the triumph of democracy. But sometimes I wonder if we actually know yet what we were witnessing.

I didn't see the wall come down, but I was in Hungary eight months earlier for what was in retrospect the beginning of the end of the Soviet system. At the time, we didn't know what we were seeing, but on March 15, 1989, I was part of a team filming a crowd of demonstrators estimated at 100,000 who had flooded into the square that housed Magyar Televizio, Hungarian state television in Budapest. The people were carrying Hungarian flags and were there to deliver a petition demanding democratic rights.

It was a far cry from the Budapest I'd reported on just two years earlier, when it seemed as if the Soviet presence in Eastern Europe would last for a thousand years. The U.S. Embassy was then one of the most heavily bugged structures in Budapest, so when we went there to interview embassy personnel, we talked about the weather, carrying on our actual communication by passing notes.

When we interviewed dissidents on that trip, they took great pains to keep the meetings secret. Among the few people who dared to say anything mildly challenging against the regime were a group of university students who spread a blanket on the lawn of their school and talked on camera about having read George Orwell's anti-authoritarian novel, "1984."

By 1989, when I returned, everything had changed. When I visited that same embassy the first week of March, a U.S. official talked openly to us – and presumably to the KGB eavesdroppers – about how, as the impending March 15 demonstration seemed to get bigger, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was not responding to pleas for instruction from Hungary's communist rulers. "We don't know what to make of it," he said.

On March 15, as we videotaped from the steps of Magyar Televizio, some people carried a list of demands for democracy up out of the crowd. The door of the television station opened, and the list was accepted. That evening, it was read on the news. Tens of thousands of people marched peacefully through the city. The world was changing as we watched, but we didn't report that the Iron Curtain had torn open, because we had no idea that it had.

It all began to come into clearer focus two months later, when Hungary removed the barbed-wire fence along its border with Austria and told guards not to shoot those who wanted to cross. Months after that, the Berlin Wall fell, and two years later the Soviet Union dissolved, albeit with fewer memorable images. Before the decade was out, Viktor Orban, one of the mildly rebellious students whom we'd interviewed in 1986, had become prime minister of Hungary.

In retrospect, some things that seemed puzzling at the time now seem so clear. The embassy wondered why Gorbachev was ignoring the Hungarian leaders' plea for assistance.

But as it turned out, his not responding was central to all that happened next. Months later, he also didn't take the calls from panicky East Germans seeking guidance for how to react when the wall was breached. He had decided to disengage, and that made all the difference.

— By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post