The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Judicial checkmate
Scrapping VIP plots a slap for HUDA

The Punjab and Haryana High Court’s ruling quashing the allotment of industrial plots at Bhiwani in Haryana to VIPs is worthy of appreciation. A division bench consisting of Chief Justice Tirath Singh Thakur and Justice K.S. Ahluwalia gave the landmark judgement on the ground that the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) had circumvented the rules and established procedure to favour VIPs including the relatives and friends of politicians and bureaucrats. They agreed with the petitioners’ contention that the allotment of plots in January 2008 smacked of nepotism, favouritism and lack of transparency. As it happens, HUDA authorities, in their eagerness to please VIPs, had turned a blind eye to the claims of many ordinary applicants.

HUDA boasts of an elaborate procedure for plots allotment. It professes to assess objectively the entrepreneurs’ applications, their individual merit and financial capability. Evidently, this exists only on paper. As the Bhiwani case reveals, no evaluation was done and no criteria were adopted to assess all the applications for plots. That this disregard of norms is not confined to Bhiwani alone is no consolation. The VIP menace has increased so much in the country that over the years powerful politicians, bureaucrats and influential people have been cornering prime sites everywhere with impunity.

In Punjab, too, this has assumed scandalous proportions. One may recall the Kansal land grab case. In February 2009, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had expressed anguish over police officers abusing their authority to purchase property in connivance with government functionaries. In this case, the Bench made it clear that every purchase by an IAS or IPS officer is not made with mala fide intent. Considering the scope and magnitude of the problem, there is need for a thorough investigation of such cases and fixing accountability on those involved, however high they may be. The culprits must be tried in fast track courts and duly punished. There is indeed a need to make the rules of allotment transparent and foolproof.

Time to take off
Clouds clear for the airlines

There is good news from the civil aviation sector: passengers are back. October saw a 25 per cent jump in passenger traffic. In fact, more people (39.7 lakh) flew last month than in October 2007 (36.39 lakh) when the going was good. Credit it to the economic recovery, a pick up in business sentiment, the booming stock markets, the restoration of salary cuts or increased recruitment in the corporate sector or all of them. One major difference now is: more people are flying by low-cost carriers, which account for 76 per cent of seat utilisation.

This does not mean the airlines will soon return to profits. The accumulated losses are enormous. Government carrier Air India has reported Rs 5,548 crore loss in 2008-09. The government has offered a bailout to Air India provided it cuts costs, which also means a reduction in the incentives and allowances to the staff, and possibly retrenchment. In trying to cope with the downturn Jet Airways has exposed itself. A number of missteps — the hasty removal of employees and their re-employment under pressure, the mishandling of the pilots’ strike, the takeover of Sahara Airlines at a hefty price and the reckless launch of international flights — have multiplied its financial troubles and left its image in tatters. Smaller airlines have relatively fared better.

If the oil prices do not go up wildly, the aviation industry in India may soon be able to breathe better. But there may not be an immediate end to air passengers’ woes caused by delayed flights, unsafe journeys (planes keep skidding and drunk pilots tend to scuffle or overshoot destinations) and congestion at airports as infrastructure projects take their own time. The airline managements will have to learn from mistakes made when the business was thriving. The financial meltdown, which brought global air traffic to a trickle, must have taught airlines the world over a precious lesson: Do not overstretch yourself and always be prepared for the rainy day.

Thought for the Day

Ego blinds one to the feelings of others. — The Upanishads

ARTICLE

Pak’s high-end terror
India should take the threat seriously
by Maj-Gen Ashok K Mehta (retd)

Last month on three successive days, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh extended the hand of friendship to Pakistan acknowledging that India could grow and prosper only if its neighbours did the same. For Pakistan last month was the worst and bloodiest in its history of violence: 12 suicide attacks (and continuing) in 17 days surpassing all records in suicide terrorism in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan. The perpetrators of the carnage are mainly the Tehreeq-e-Taliban Pakistan and the target the army and security establishment, switching to soft targets when these became inaccessible.

The arrival of the human bomber at India’s doorstep is a warning to Delhi, especially after TTP terror mastermind, Hakimullah Mehsud declared last month that after Pakistan it would be India’s turn. The intelligence and security establishments must heed this threat of high-end terrorism seriously and not be lulled into complacency after a one-year long freedom from it. Pakistan is unarguably the epicentre of terrorism — its soil is being used for cross-border terrorism against all her major neighbours: Iran, Afghanistan and India. Besides a war being waged against TTP by the Army in South Waziristan, largely due to US prodding and financial backing, three debates are raging inside Pakistan — ownership of the war on terrorism, identifying the enemy and utility of the good Taliban, the so-called strategic asset.

Whose war is it any way is not a new question. Pakistanis have been living in denial and blaming others for a decade about sourcing and nurturing Taliban when it is clear that the root and branch of terrorism has spread right across the country. With Afghan, Pashtun and Pakistan Taliban bonding becoming a reality, some Pakistanis still believe that faith-driven terrorism is a secondary problem to the US-led war in Afghanistan. If the Americans and foreign forces were to leave Afghanistan, terrorism would fade away, they have been made to believe.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The seizure of Swat and parts of Malakand Division by the Pakistan Taliban earlier in the year was the first step towards establishing an Islamic Caliphate in Pakistan. The focus of the war has to be shifted from anti-Americanism and blaming others to the survival of the state.

Identifying the enemy was never a problem in Pakistan. It was done through textbooks, waging war by stealth, crusade in Kashmir and cross-border terrorism. Since 9/11, India’s unquestioned enemy status has been challenged by the Taliban and its associates. After the storming of the Lal Masjid in 2007, Pakistani interlocutors told their counterparts that India was no longer enemy No. 1. It was the jihadis. That was the time when both countries had clinched the backchannel four-point agreement on Kashmir.

26/11 brought India back into enemy No. 1 rating. But the most recent Pew polls indicate that while 11 and 53 per cent of Pakistanis say Al-Qaeda and Pakistan Taliban are the enemy, only 18 per cent name India. But poll ratings have proved quite fickle.

For the Army which has redeemed its primacy among the power troika of the President, the Prime Minister and Chief of Army Staff, India remains enemy country and Eastern sector the vital front. Pakistan has always had a one-front strategy and never been geared to fight on two fronts. So while the majority of the people are giving India the benefit of doubt, the Army and ISI remain irreconcilably adversarial. Now, not only is India being blamed for Pakistan’s woes in Afghanistan and Baluchistan but in Punjab also.

While the US State Department officials have told Pakistan it sees India’s role in Afghanistan in a positive light, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says US has no evidence of India’s involvement in Baluchistan. Pakistan acting neither against the Afghan Taliban nor Al-Qaeda nor even the Punjab Taliban has led to some plain speaking by the US. First, through the Kerry-Lugar Bill and later through visiting senior military commanders and State department officials. The discussion on merit of these strategic assets has been joined.

National Security Advisor Gen James Jones said there were no more than 100 Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan implying that the bulk were in Pakistan. Hillary Clinton created a furore in Lahore recently saying, “it is hard to believe that no one in Pakistan government including the country’s military establishment knew where Al-Qaeda leaders were hiding and couldn’t get them if they rally wanted to”.

All of President Obama’s top Generals are breathing down Pakistan’s neck, seriously doubting its intent and capacity to fight the war on the West. The two-Division military offensive, backed by other tribals and militant groups, the fourth in Southern Waziristan is approaching one month. South Waziristan has a population of 500,000, 90 per cent of whom are Mehsud tribe whose one sub-tribe specialises in churning out suicide bombers.

US military support and financial incentives will ensure this offensive stays on course. Three months before the operation, Pakistan Army and Air Force softened the battleground with artillery, aircraft and helicopter gunships along with a coordinated economic blockade. US drones, Special Forces Trainers, Mi17 Troop Lift helicopters and other high-tech US equipment have acted as force multipliers. Pakistan had previously refused direct US assistance during the Swat offensive. After the current phase of suicide terrorism, 51 per cent of Pakistanis support military action against militant Islamists.

The Army has made impressive territorial gains and followed a scorched earth policy. The valley floors and the immediate surrounding heights in the area of operations are being cleared. Of the 15,000 TTP, more than 300 have already been killed, so the Army claims. But the majority will escape into Afghanistan via North Waziristan.

It is not clear whether the aim of the offensive is to disperse or destroy TTP. Some Pakistanis believe that this must be a decisive fight to eliminate the enemy. If that is the goal, the Army will not only have to clear but also hold the liberated areas. At least two more Divisions would be required for a concerted counterinsurgency campaign.

The real test of the Pakistan Army’s seriousness about fighting the war will come when it takes the campaign into North Waziristan, the hub of the Haqqani network which is a key ally of the Afghan Taliban and a thorn on the side of the US-led NATO forces. The Pakistan Army is already overstretched and will have no resources for another offensive unless it is prepared to thin out from the east.

Further, winter will preclude operations in the higher reaches this season. The ISI will least likely order the Army to fight the Afghan Taliban (and Punjabi Taliban) which targets India whom TTP leaders call “our Punjabi brethren” as it regards both as strategic assets which according to the ISI manual means that the entity does you bidding and not act autonomously.

Islamabad’s ongoing offensive in the Frontier and the war against terrorism inside Pakistan can at best be a tentative exercise till the core issues of identifying the real enemy and rating the strategic assets are resolved.

MIDDLE

Bau Ji
by Rajbir Deswal

Bau Ji was an ordinary person. But he was a special father. I had never thought of addressing him in ‘historical terms of having had been!’ Not that he was immortal, but that he was mortally alive and succumbing to all my needs, all my life, made me look up to him being more than a father. And having brought me in this world, who else could have done this to me except him! Bau Ji. My father.

As a boy, I saw in Bau Ji all that I could have dreamed to be. As an adolescent, I found him affording me all support I needed. As an adult, I discovered in him an indulgent counsellor. As a man, I had him as my spiritual guru. But more he grew old and infirm, he became a child. Dependent. Emotional. Needing to be repaid for what I owed him. Without asking for it.

He was my role model. His upbringing made me follow only him. Being his natural part. If he liked Nehru or Churchill, I too liked them. If he adored Dilip Kumar’s style of acting and Talat Mehmood’s velvety voice, I too rooted for them the same way. If he preferred to dress immaculately, I too would not let a crease on my clothes get crumpled.

I followed Bau Ji even in his initiation into a faith of his choice at the hands of his spiritual master. I heard him compose verses and sing them to small congregations in our village. He made me sing and write like him. His love for Urdu and good English was duly imbibed and emulated by me. He was a graduate of the 1940s vintage.

Bau Ji was a true son of the soil. I remember him carrying me as a child on his broad shoulders. Having grown up a little more, I started accompanying father on his tractor to the fields. I would marvel at his sinewy arms with jet black hair down the elbow.

Noticing a water channel overflow, father would stop the tractor, come down, roll up his sleeves, pick up the spade and divert the water. I watched his biceps and triceps almost frog-throbbing now and then with the lifting and dropping of the spade into hard soil.

With mother having parted company forever about 24 years ago, Bau Ji became a loner, more by choice than by disposition. He became hypertensive, diabetic, and spondylitis literally took the better of him and his upright posture. The hair on his hands turned white and the skin got loosened; sans the rugged texture it once had.

Early this month, Bau Ji called up almost gasping for breath on the phone: “I am not well, Bhai!” He had never uttered such words of helplessness — ever! It did not portend well. We took him with us. That night I slept (!) with him when he kept asking the domestic help to ‘go and relax’ but confirming about me, “Bhai, are you around?” His condition deteriorated the next day and till late evening, he could not hang on. Bau Ji was gone. For ever.

On the way to Hardwar, while carrying his ashes to be immersed in the Ganga, I received a call from his mobile left back in the village. The text which appeared on my phone-screen read, “Bau Ji calling!” For a second I preferred not to suspend my disbelief and keep feeling Bau Ji’s presence around. You were very special to me, Father! Like all fathers, I believe.

OPED

Durbar move
A tradition that unites diverse regions
by Ehsan Fazili

When Maharaja Gulab Singh decided to move his "Durbar" (royal court) for every six months between Srinagar and Jammu to meet aspirations of the people from different parts of the state, very little did he know that this would be going a long way down the historical bondage of the state. After it first began in 1872, the practice has been continuing for the past 137 years, making the State distinct with two capital cities, Srinagar during summers and Jammu in winters.

The biannual shift has led to a socio-cultural bondage between the two distinct regions of the State on either side of the Pir Panjal ranges of the Himalayas.

The Kashmir valley is connected to the rest of the country through the 296-km-long Srinagar-Jammu national highway, the only surface link through the Jawahar Tunnel. In order to reach out to the people in all the three geographical regions, the State continues to be divided into two administrative divisions – Kashmir, which also includes the thinly populated frontier cold desert region of Ladakh and Jammu division.

"Though the biannual shift is a massive task, it has become a necessity and sentiments of the people are attached to it", said a senior officer of the State government. Some time is also lost in the working of the offices in the biannual shift, for packing and transporting the official records and employees.

When the government had ordered to retain some of the departments in Srinagar for the winter in 1987, there was a prolonged agitation in Jammu that finally prompted the government to rescind the order for "truncated Durbar move".

The practice has also been a "unifying factor" between the two regions that was clear in the wake of last year's Amarnath land agitation. Though the two regions were divided over regional and religious lines, there was a warm welcome to the "Durbar move", which included employees from all the three regions of the State.

For many people in both the divisions, the "Durbar move" has been serving a dual purpose – to pursue their pending cases in the Civil Secretariat and be away from the respective treacherous weather conditions. Thus, it also serves as an economic activity through tourism. For these people from Kashmir it provides a chance to shift away from the chilly winters in the snow-clad valley, and for the people of the Jammu region during sizzling hot summer, an opportunity to visit florescent, scenic and serene Kashmir.

But the employees moving with the durbar, whose number in the latest move stood at over 7,500, have different tales to unravel, particularly those who have been spending the entire service tenure between the two capitals cities.

Shadi Lal, who moved to Jammu last month-end with the Durbar, has spent his 35 years of life moving between the two capital cities since 1973. He opines that the family life suffers a lot in this biannual movement, though the weather greets pleasantly on both sides. He had to shift his children, then in nursery and pre-primary in one of the leading schools in Srinagar , when militancy erupted in the valley in 1989-90. The family life was disturbed like that of all other Kashmiri Pandits, who had then to migrate from the valley. While Shadi Lal, like his community members, shifted his children to schools in Jammu, he had to remain associated with the bi-annual durbar.

"Overall the practice is not so good for an employee", he opines, adding that the proper attention to the studies of children at their primary level cannot be devoted properly by the parents, who remain separated for half the year.

"The move is a good practice during the initial years of service and early years after marriage, till kids are sent to schools", opines Qazi Mohammad Shafi, a resident of Srinagar, who has been moving with the Durbar for the past more than 20 years.

The national highway has also been playing a spoilsport with usual blockades due to bad weather during winter months, keeping the employees belonging to Kashmir away from their families in good and bad times.

Though the frequency of highway blockade in winters over the recent years has declined, it is also hoped that the rail connectivity between Qazigund and Udhampur will further lessen the distance.

The employees from the Jammu region have same stories to unravel, says Aijaz Ahmad, adding that family life of the residents living far away from the two capital cities is more disturbed for they virtually have to run three kitchens.

Over 7,500 employees have shifted from Srinagar to Jammu this season. They include 850 gazetted officers and 5,500 non-gazetted officers. Of these 3,500 employees required accommodation in Jammu , out of which only 2,800 have been provided with government accommodation.

The residential accommodation is a challenging task before the Estates Department, which has hundreds of residential quarters, ministerial and senior bureaucratic bungalows, tenements at both the capitals. It has been more challenging in Srinagar to accommodate non-local and migrant Kashmir Pandit employees in summers due to the trouble since early the 1990s. They are lodged in government houses and private guest houses and hotel quarters and escorted in chartered buses to and fro the Civil Secretariat and other offices.

Official sources said that it cost the State about Rs 4.50 crore as compared to Rs 4.30 crore spent last time. Every employee on each Durbar move gets a uniform move allowance of Rs 5,000. This apart, the total amount on boarding and lodging of employees, those from Kashmir division in Jammu (during winter) and those from Jammu region or Ladakh in Srinagar (during summer) involves an huge amount of Rs 35 crore annually, sources said.

Dithering over nuclear plant
by Sarbjit Dhaliwal

IN the past 40 years Punjab's ruling parties have failed to resolve whether the state should have a nuclear power plant. Since 1970 Punjab has continued its struggle for a nuclear power plant half-heartedly.

Inadequate power has paralysed the growth of the state. Prolonged power cuts in the urban and rural areas, especially during summer, have become a norm. The state needs to double its power generation capacity in the next five years to cope with the rising power demand as well as to meet the deficit.

Unfortunately, the state's decision-makers have been laying too much emphasis on setting up coal-based thermal plants, a major source of pollution. Whereas already three thermal plants are functioning, four more will be set up in the next five years.

When all seven thermal plants will be in operation, the daily consumption of coal would cross the figure of one lakh tonne. Punjab will virtually become a smoky state. Some of the experts have linked the high incidence of cancer in Malwa to toxic elements in the ash generated in huge quantity in thermal plants located in the Bathinda belt.

As an alternative source of energy, the Union Government has been urging the states to opt for nuclear power plants, relatively a source of clean energy.

First in 1970, the Union Government sought options from states to set up nuclear power plants. Showing its inclination for the nuclear energy, the Punjab Government offered six sites – Doburjee and Asron, near Ropar, Reilli on the Hazipur-Dasuya Road, Dhilwan on the Jalandhar-Amritsar road, Jugial near the Mukerian Hydel Channel and a site near Chamkaur Sahib.

The Department of Atomic Energy selected Doburjee, near Ropar, as a site for setting up a nuclear power plant in 1970. However, the plant did not come up there. Instead, a thermal plant was set up later.

The second exercise for locating the site for the nuclear plant began in 1982. A site selection committee led by Er N.S. Vasant, the then Chairman of the PSEB, was set up.

The Vasant Committee visited Dhilwan, near Amritsar, Tapprian near Ropar, Moara near Kiratpur, Uchhi Bassi near Mukerian, Hazipur and Ralla, near Mansa. The list was submitted to the site selection committee of the Department of Atomic Energy. However, the Atomic Energy Department rejected all the sites.

During another visit in July 1983, the DOA committee inspected sites at Daroli near Patran, Dhanaula and a site near Chamkaur Sahib. The Patran site was cleared. However, as Punjab had sunk deep in violence then, the Union Government dragged its feet from setting up a nuclear plant near Patran.

As Punjab became calm in 1995, another attempt was made to set up a nuclear plant. In March that year, a meeting between the Chairman of the PSEB and the MD of the Nuclear Power Corporation was held in New Delhi. A decision was taken to update the data regarding the Patran site. The updated data was sent to the Nuclear Corporation on May 23, 1995.

However, the plant did not materialise. Again the corporation sent a reference to the Punjab Government in January 13, 2000 asking for the latest data on Patran site. The State Government set up another site selection committee on June 13, 2000, asking its members to take up the site selection exercise afresh and submit the report at the earliest.

The then Chairman of the PSEB, G.S. Sohal, was made the head of that committee. Its other members were D.S. Guru, then Director, Industries, Punjab; Dr G.S. Chahal, then Director, Animal Husbandry; Santokh Singh Sachdev, a former Project Director of Tarapur Atomic Plant, and Dr H.S. Virk, a nuclear physicist, who is at present working as Director, Research in the DAV Institute of Engineering and Technology at Jalandhar.

The nature of sub-strata was tested, details regarding population density were collected, site meteorology was studied, details with regard to potential for surface faulting, soil liquefaction and potential for flooding were also collected. The Punjab Pollution Control Board conducted environmental studies.

After completing the exercise laid down by the Department of Atomic Energy, the Patran site was offered to the corporation. A meeting of the Chairman of the PSEB and other members of the committee and a team of the corporation led by its then Chairman-cum-Managing Director, V.K. Chaturvedi, was held on December 14,2000.

Before that meeting, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had written a letter to the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on October 23, 2000 requesting him to advise the Department of Atomic Energy to give top priority to the Patran site in Patiala district.

There are reports that the Union Government had asked the State Government to deposit Rs 250 crore as the initial installment of money to set up the plant. However, as some senior Congress leaders from the Patiala region became active against the plant, the State Government started dilly-dallying, leaving the plant issue in suspended animation.

Dr H.S.Virk says because of the indecisiveness of the state's ruling politicians, Punjab failed to get the nuclear plant. "We need the plant most because due to the shortage of power our development is being affected severally", he says.

The Union Government had also not shown its seriousness with regard to allotting the plant to Punjab whereas it had given the same to Haryana now. Had Punjab pushed its case hard, it would have got the plant by now.

Inside Pakistan
Rift in ruling coalition
by Syed Nooruzzaman

The PPP-led government’s failure to get the controversial National Reconciliation Order (NRO) passed by Pakistan’s National Assembly (parliament) has led to a major rift in the ruling coalition. The PPP has started ignoring its partner in the government, the Sindh-based MQM, particularly while holding discussions to find solutions to various issues.

As reported by The News, Sardar Ahmed, the MQM’s high representative in the coalition core committee for Sindh to resolve the issues arising out between the PPP and the MQM, has pointed out that his party was not invited to participate in a recent meeting of the Karachi Coordination Committee in Islamabad. Mr Ahmed said, “his party was being completely ignored”. The meeting was called by President Asif Ali Zardari.

This is being interpreted as the fallout of MQM chief Altaf Hussain’s advice to Mr Zardari to resign in the interest of democracy in Pakistan instead of trying to wash his past sins through the controversial NRO, issued by former military dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf.

The government had to ultimately withdraw the NRO from parliament as it was certain to face defeat.

As Business Recorder says, “They had no idea that by the end of the day, the PPP would be all-alone, deserted by its coalition partners. During the day, Nawaz Sharif advised President Zardari not to table the NRO and Shujaat Hussain had warned that his party would oppose the bill. But the tipping point came when Altaf Hussain dropped the bomb-shell by asking President Zardari to 'offer himself as a sacrifice' in order to save the system.”

Beneficiaries of NRO

The government has ultimately been saved from certain defeat and humiliation, but the ill-thought-out move relating to the NRO has led to a fresh controversy. There were many other beneficiaries of the NRO than Mr Zardari. Who were they?

According to Dawn, “The government told the National Assembly that it was ready to provide lists of beneficiaries of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) as well as of big loan write-offs in the past, and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said politicians could be less than ‘other people’ who gained from former President Pervez Musharraf’s controversial decree.”

There was a demand raised by many members of both the Opposition and the ruling coalition that the government should come out with a list of the people who got big bank loans written-off during the Musharraf regime. Nothing has happened beyond this. But the demand is likely to be raised again to expose the looters of Pakistan.

Pak Taliban in Afghanistan

Can one believe that the US-led multinational forces in Afghanistan will allow Taliban activists from Pakistan to take shelter in Afghanistan? But that is what The Nation newspaper has alleged. It says in one of its editorials that “… an alarming development has taken place, as ISAF commanders have removed security check-posts located on the Afghanistan side of the international border. This move entails multiple intriguing motives.

“First, it will encourage infiltration of militants into Afghanistan to justify the American claim that key Al-Qaeda-related insurgents are present in FATA and Balochistan. Second, the open border can be used by the Afghan Taliban commanders to send large-scale reinforcements in South Waziristan to sabotage the military operation.”

An editorial in Daily Times, too, talks of removal of security check-posts on the Afghanistan side of the Durand Line. “Successive military operations against the local (Pakistani) Taliban have crippled their organization, which is why they could now be crossing the border to safeguard their interests. The alarming factor is that that the ‘anvil’ (a reference to a 2004 hammer and anvil strategy between the US and Pakistan) is nowhere to be seen as the NATO forces have vacated more than half a dozen key security check-posts on the Afghan side of the Pak-Afghan border opposite South Waziristan”, where the Pakistan military is engaged in a war against the Taliban.