The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Gilgit and Baltistan
Move to alter J&K’s status is unacceptable

The declaration of the first Chief Minister of the so-called “fifth province” of Pakistan, Mr Mehdi Shah, that Gilgit-Baltistan has “no connection to Kashmir” has no legal basis and, therefore, unacceptable to India. New Delhi’s strong reaction to Mr Shah’s statement is understandable as any move to alter the status of Jammu and Kashmir cannot be acceptable to India. New Delhi’s stand remains unchanged — “the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India” by virtue of its accession to India in 1947. That a large part of the state, PoK, remains under the illegal occupation of Islamabad does not mean that Pakistan has the right to do what it likes to suit its designs.

The first elections in Gilgit-Baltistan were held in November last year after the Pakistan government issued the Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self-Governance Order 2009. The Order was ostensibly a part of Islamabad’s package for the Northern Areas to quell the unrest there. The Pakistan government camouflaged it as a move to provide the people of the area the right for self-governance with an elected legislative assembly having powers to make laws on 61 subjects. The package also had it that Gilgit-Baltistan would have its separate Public Service Commission, Chief Election Commissioner and Auditor-General. However, it was cleverly designed to alter the status of Jammu and Kashmir’s Northern Areas, which India considers as its integral part. This was on the lines of what Pakistan did some time ago when it “delinked” Chitral from Jammu and Kashmir and amalgamated it with the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

The truth is that the people of the Northern Areas have been protesting against Islamabad’s high-handedness for a long time. They have been denied of even basic human rights all these years. There was the fear that if their resentment continued to remain ignored the area could become another Balochistan, where most people feel that nothing less than separation of their province from Pakistan can satisfy their democratic urges. But what Pakistan has done in Gilgit-Baltistan is only a cosmetic exercise, as it will continue to remote-control the territory with wide-ranging powers with Islamabad, including the right to dissolve its elected assembly and sack its government.

Freebies for doctors
Break the nexus with pharma companies

Dwindling medical ethics have been a cause for worry in India for quite some time. Among other malpractices, there has been an unhealthy nexus between some members of the medical fraternity and pharmaceutical companies. Thus, the Medical Council of India’s new code aimed at curbing the practice of accepting freebies by doctors from companies is more than welcome. The MCI’s amended code of conduct will include not accepting any gifts or travel facility from any pharmaceutical company and the healthcare industry.

Gone are the days when gifts given to doctors were customary and confined to merely desktop calendars or pen stands. Today pharmaceutical companies, aggressively pushing their products in the market, offer freebies to doctors that range from expensive items to foreign junkets. Though the Indian Drug Manufacturers Association has devised codes of ethical marketing practices, the ground reality leaves much to be desired. Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad too has talked about the unholy nexus and admitted that some doctors, influenced by pharma companies, do prescribe expensive medicines though cheaper options are available in the market. While the Medical Council had been asking for stricter guidelines, the government is even considering a Bill to prohibit doctors from accepting gifts from drug companies in return for favours.

However, the new code can address the problem only if it is accepted by the medical professionals without reservations. As it is, the existing rules are being flouted. The IMA code of conduct states that physicians have to write prescriptions of medicine with their generic names. Yet the rule is often not followed. To ensure that the natural trust deficit between the medical fraternity and patients is not eroded any further, doctors would have to take a call. If only they pay heed to the Hippocratic oath and the MCI code more regulations would perhaps not be required.

Thought for the Day

It ain’t a fit night out for man or beast. — W. C. Fields

ARTICLE

A partnership for future
The logic behind Indo-Russian relations
by Zorawar Daulet Singh

Ever since the disappearance of the Soviet Union, revisionists have sought to belittle the potential of Indo-Russian relations in the post-Cold War era. The tumult of the 1990s and the socio-economic and political convulsions within an emasculated Russia invited obituaries from virtually all segments of the Indian intellengtsia. When the process of political stabilisation did begin in the early 2000s, few anticipated the restoration of Russian power and its impact on a “unipolar” world.

Buttressed by a surge in hydrocarbon prices after 2003, the watershed event came in 2006 when Russia for the first time regained its 1990 level of the real GDP. However, it was only with the events of August 2008 in the Southern Caucasus that India’s strategic community began to take Russian resurgence seriously. What the Georgian conflict produced was a global realisation that Eurasian security cannot be achieved without an acknowledgement of vital Russian security interests and policies.

The past year has also witnessed an infusion of realism in Indian security discourse. There is an emerging consensus that bandwagoning with a declining hegemon is insufficient to attain a higher international profile for India and address its regional security questions. It is against such a backdrop that Moscow and New Delhi conducted their annual summit last month. And while this was the Prime Minister’s sixth visit to Russia, a slew of agreements, including a civil nuclear framework agreement (a comprehensive nuclear deal without strings attached) and an extension of military-technical collaboration to 2020 (including a successful resolution of the Gorshkov issue), indicates a renewed focus on the relationship and a belated acceptance of Russia’s return as a global actor.

The joint declaration identified specific policy themes. Both sides agreed that the “fight against terrorism cannot be selective, and drawing false distinctions between the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban would be counter-productive.” This convergence of views becomes especially relevant in the context of a segment of the western commentariat that holds open the option to forge a bargain with the Taliban with the Pakistani military serving as the conduit. Both Moscow and New Delhi are united in opposition to a stabilisation of the Hindu-Kush that returns a radical proxy regime into power in Kabul. Furthermore, with Washington exploring greater coordination with Beijing in its AfPak plan and encouraging a regional role for China, Russia and India will discover growing opportunities to coordinate their Afghanistan policies.

The joint declaration also focused on Asia, noting “the growing efficacy of close bilateral and multilateral interaction in the Asia-Pacific region as a means to enhance economic cooperation and to maintain regional peace and stability to confront global challenges of security and development of the 21st century.” Clearly, this was a reference to strive for a geopolitically plural and an open security architecture for Asia. What is interesting is that both sides appear to be shoring up each other’s presence in the Eurasian region: Russia supporting India’s membership in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and “full membership in the SCO”; India supporting Russia’s involvement in the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM).

In fact, the allusion to the Asia-Pacific region is timely as the debate over Russia’s evolving role in Asia assumes more clarity. A perception that Russia’s “westernisers” have irrevocably steered Russia away from Asia has gained currency in Russian foreign policy discourse. It is argued that a “European choice” and “the preservation of a predominantly European orientation of Russia” will preclude it from pursuing its objectives in Asia.

The reality, however, is more complex. As Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, has himself noted, the so-called conflict between the Western and Eastern vectors of Russian policy is “artificial and far-fetched”. In fact, what is remarkable is the extent to which Russian foreign policy has come to rely on a non-ideological approach to the West. Geostrategic considerations – Moscow’s resolve to prevent the revival of an anti-Russian trans-Atlantic consensus while restoring Russia’s influence on its periphery – and geoeconomic realties (energy and technological interdependence with Europe) imply Russia’s Western vector is driven largely by realpolitik. Russia is poised to play a major role in Asian security in the coming years after the present phase of transition in completed. Russian strategists are not uninterested in the evolution of the Asian balance of power. The emergence of the RIC and BRIC formats attest to this fact.

As Lavrov argues, “Russia’s energy, scientific, technological and intellectual potential” ensures an important role for it in Asia’s economic rejuvenation. Furthermore, the fact that a majority of Russia’s mineral and resource wealth lies east of the Urals in Asiatic Russia implies that Moscow cannot avoid the challenging task of developing East Siberia and the Russian Far-East. But most importantly, Russia is finally overcoming its “China first” policy – viewing Asia through the Chinese prism – towards more diversified relationships in South-East and East Asia.

The structural logic for greater Indo-Russian cooperation also stems from the construction of a complex interdependence between the United States and China over the past decade. The discernible coopting of China by the West has introduced an additional variable into Moscow’s and New Delhi’s foreign policies. For New Delhi, the recent patronising Obama-Hu joint statement, declaring South Asia as an object of common concern, underscored India’s diplomatic vulnerability to the possibility of Sino-US collaboration on regional geopolitics. Similarly, in the global strategic triangle (US-Russia-China), it is China that enjoys a relative advantage in that the China-Russia and China-US bilateral dyads are more substantial than the Russia-US equation. Indeed, one of Russia’s principal dilemmas has been to overcome this relative disadvantage by stabilising its own relations with Washington and an effort at the construction of new interdependencies with the US at the global level (though the entrenched attitude of US security elites indicates that a policy of Russian constrainment remains active).

Suffice it to say, India and Russia would need to expand their interactions both for purposes of strategic insurance vis-à-vis an ascendant China and as a leverage against expanding US-China collaboration on issues of global governance and Eurasian security.

The realities of international life have ensured that nations can rarely claim to have more than uncertain partnerships. The relative permanence of the Indo-Russian relationship must then surely be an outlier in diplomatic history. Moscow and New Delhi are on the cusp of crafting a partnership that transcends the vestiges of the Cold War. Strategic planners in Moscow and New Delhi would do a disservice to their own countries if they do not provide adequate material and intellectual support to this process.

The writer is an international relations analyst at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, New Delhi.

MIDDLE

An institution called Subedar Major
by B.K. Karkra

It is difficult to describe the position and prestige that a Subedar Major enjoys in a unit. Whatever you say about him would fall short of the parameters of his personality. He is rather an institution in himself. His commanding officer often falls back on his advice in difficult situations-specially, those related to the morale, welfare and discipline of his men and the image of the unit.

Most of the clout that he commands comes out of the position of trust that he enjoys with his commanding officer who regards him as a repository of wisdom, sagacity, sobriety, maturity, loyalty, cool-headedness and above all, a sort of farmer’s horse-sense. But, this is not all. Let me try to explain this phenomenon more properly through a couple of incidents.

An Army unit was on an operational exercise in a highly undulated and slippery area. Their divisional commander, a Major General, came to oversee them. When being escorted to the exercise area, he slipped and fell on the ground. Seeing the plight of the embarrassed General, the Subedar Major of the unit, following behind his C.O. lost no time in slipping himself in an equally ungainly thud. He then stood up smartly and said, “Saab, yahan to hum roz bees bees bar girte hain (Sir, we fall here scores of times every day)”. That put the General at ease instantly, though he did not fail to notice, rather approvingly, why the Subedar Major had enacted all this. Here was a typical S.M. discharging one of his multi-dimensional roles to perfection.

Some 32 years back, the 51 Battalion, C.R.P.Force that I commanded was doing training under an Army brigade at the peak of summer. Our men then did not get any ration allowance. So, their messing had to be managed within their own meagre resources.

Something affordable was needed to be done to save them from heat stoke. I directed that they would be served daily two glasses of diluted milk beverage (lassi). Almond, rose and other essences were to be added for flavour. This worked well, in that none of my men was laid with heat stroke and they enjoyed the drink also.

Encouraged with this, I got another brain wave. The summer was now over. I briefed my faithful S.M. that the sub-units would prepare ‘kanji’, a black carrot based beverage that also works out cheap and is quite tasty and invigorating.

Thus, massive ‘matkas’ (earthen pots) were promptly procured in the unit to brew the beverage for the men. After a few days I checked with my Subedar Major how the idea had done. With his usual sense of obedience, he stated that the men were duly being made to drink it ‘hukamiya’ i.e. under orders. On my prodding, he came out that otherwise the men did not like it.

The incident explains yet another facet of a Subedar Major’s profile — there are, of course, many more to it.

OPED

A solution for power woes of Punjab
by Bikram Singh Virk

Punjab is facing its worst power crisis. Power cuts are being imposed because of the rising gap between demand and supply. Though the state has initiated the process to set up huge coal-based thermal plants, it will take another four to five years to fructify.

Apart from the gestation period, many problems, like coal link, pollution and requirement of vast chunk of land, are associated with such plants. Thus, a viable alternative to these are small biomass-based power plants, as Punjab has a large volume of biomass in the form of agricultural waste. The first such plant that came up at Gulabewala village in Mukatsar district about four years back is running successfully. This 7.5-MW power plant, installed by Malwa Power Private Ltd, generates 1.8 lakh units of electricity daily, which is purchased by the Punjab State Electricity Board under a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) at a pre-agreed price of Rs 3.49 per unit.

The plant uses cotton sticks, paddy husk, crop residue, wild grass, cow dung cakes or any other combustible matter, which is chipped into small pieces through chipping machines and burnt to generate heat. Daily consumption is around 240 tons and it takes roughly 1.3 kg of biomass for producing one unit of electricity. The other input is water. Around 14 tons of water is consumed every day after completely de-mineralising it through the RO system installed on the premises. The water is heated to 460 degrees centigrade and the resultant super heated steam runs the turbine at 7500 RPMs. The speed is reduced to 1500 by adjoining gearbox to run the 7.5 MW gen set. The power so generated is carried to in-built grid, where it is metered and supplied to the State Electricity Board.

The technique of power generation in this plant is same as in case of thermal plants and nuclear plants except for the fuel, which is coal and nuclear fuel for such plants, respectively, and biomass for this one. Though arranging the fuel and disposing wastage of thermal and nuclear plants is a problem, biomass plants are eco-friendly as they have almost zero emissions and produce very little quantity of ash. Because of using non-polluting fuels, these are also entitled to carbon credits under the clean development mechanism. The plant earned 48,300 certified emission reductions (CERs) last year, which at the current market price of 13 Euros a CER are equivalent to over Rs 4 crore, which is an extra income for the company. The gestation period for installing a biomass-based plant is lesser as it takes less than a year to complete. Malwa Power completed its first plant in 18 months and the second one at Gaddadob village, near Abohar, was put to steam recently in six months only. The plant can be set up in 12 to 15 acres of land as compared to thousands of acres required for coal-based thermal plants. It is competitive cost-wise, too, as the total project cost of 7.5-MW plant at current prices is Rs 40 crore, that comes around Rs 5 crores per MW. On the other hand, thermal plants have benchmark installation cost of around 5 to 6 crore per MW with 5 to 6 years gestation period.

These plants generate good employment for semi and unskilled workers who make their living by selling biomass at a handsome price. This single plant currently employs 150 people directly and another 4,000 indirectly. The company purchases biomass worth Rs 16 to 18 crore a year, which directly adds to the purchasing power of rural masses.

To make these plants economically viable, the purchasing price of electricity needs to be raised. The Gulabewala plant at the moment is in trouble as the meagre price of Rs 3.49 a unit is making it uneconomical in the wake of rising biomass prices, which have shot up to Rs 1,700 a ton from around Rs 500 a ton few years ago. These units become unviable if the fuel costs surpass Rs 1,200 per ton lest the electricity purchase price is hiked. The playing field is also not levelled as some other players, like sugar mills, which have similar captive co-generation plants, are free to sell the power in open market under open access, where it fetches Rs 6 to 7 a unit. This makes the survival of these plants difficult as other players push up the biomass prices. So, there is no reason for debarring this plant from selling its power in the open market when the government itself purchases the power from open market between Rs 7 to 8 per unit.

Punjab being agriculture dominating state has a huge biomass production in the form of crop residues. The Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA), which looks after the non-conventional energy sources, estimates the total potential of 1000 MW in the biomass sector in the state and 29 projects of 300 MW are under construction in the private sector. Recognising the merits, installation of such plants should be encouraged in the state. Instead of going for high cost, polluting and land consuming thermal plants, it will be a viable and eco-friendly solution for the power-strapped Punjab.

Obama’s public policy reforms
by Rupert Cornwell

Barack Obama may complain about the “curse of Hawaii” – the unfortunate juxtaposition of a President taking a deserved Christmas break in the sub-tropical islands where he grew up, and his countrymen struggling to cope with ice, snow and the travel inconveniences caused by the most dangerous terrorist threat to the US since 9/11. But his real curse right now is the curse of the past.

It might have been a great American writer who observed that “the past is never dead; it’s not even past,” but that’s not the way America likes to see itself. The past is for wimps and Europeans. Here in the brave new world, the future is what matters, in a country that prides itself on renewal, on its capacity to re-invent itself. Why waste time on what happened yesterday, when today is better and tomorrow is bound to be better still?

The fact however is that, as a miserable decade ends, and another of at best uncertain promise begins, America and its President are prisoners of the past: not a relatively distant past, the kind that trapped the South of William Faulkner – but the very recent past, of Obama’s immediate predecessor in office. And in its way, the argument is as fierce as the mighty wars over national history in Europe, even in Russia.

In America as everywhere else, history is not set in stone. It is a subject of unending re-interpretation and revision. Control the past, and you have a good chance of controlling the present and future as well – and thus it goes for the legacy of George W Bush, the man more responsible than any single individual for shaping the events of the last 10 years. The revisionists are already at work to prove that they weren’t that terrible after all, or at least as good as could be expected.

In the next year or so, a raft of memoirs by such pillars of the ancien regime as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and Bush himself will be published. Ostensibly, these will be accounts of the past, belonging to the category of history. But their equal purpose will be to shape the current political debate, to provide ammunition for Republicans as they head into the coming battles of November’s mid-term elections and the 2012 presidential election.

Today’s across-the-board refusal of the Republican opposition to co-operate with Obama – even if that means the hypocritical rejection of policies they embraced a year or two ago – should also be seen in this light. If American politics are more venomous than ever, the reason is simple. The only way the Bush past can be made into a success is if the Obama present fails. And of course the rules of the game, above all the 60-vote super-majority required in the Senate to pass any significant legislation, provide Republicans with opportunity aplenty.

In truth, though you might have missed it amid the partisan tracer flying in the air, Obama has got off to a quite promising start. It hasn’t been perfect, and he hasn’t been the miracle worker his most adoring supporters dreamed of. Indeed, who could have been, given the economic and foreign affairs hand he was dealt? In the circumstances though, by any reasonable accounting, he hasn’t done badly.

Last February, with the economy in free fall – and having to make do without a single Republican vote in the House, and just three in the Senate – he pushed through a record stimulus package. The package wasn’t ideal, but it signalled the government’s determination to do whatever it took to prevent the Great Recession turning into a second Great Depression. Ditto the bank bailouts, and the rescue of the car companies. If these measures hadn’t been taken, would today’s fragile recovery be taking place? Maybe, but you wouldn’t bet on it.

No less important he will in a month or two’s time, if all goes well, be signing into law desperately needed healthcare reform, again probably without a single Republican vote. This too won’t be perfect; the US healthcare system will still be the most expensive and most wasteful in the developed world, and millions of Americans will still lack coverage. But it will be a huge step in the right direction. All in all, not bad for a first year’s work. And if Congress manages to pass measures overhauling energy policy and financial market regulation, Obama will have achieved the biggest public policy reforms since Lyndon Johnson, almost half a century ago.

Abroad, he has cleaned up America’s image. Yes, critics on the left may complain that despite the beguiling rhetoric, Bush policies are continuing. Cuba remains under an absurd 50-year-old embargo, and yet again an Israeli government has called America’s bluff on Jewish settlements on the West Bank. Despite the promise to close Guantanamo Bay by the end of this month, the place remains open. Indeed, after the near-miss terrorist attack on Flight 253 on Christmas Day, it may well remain open for a long while yet.

But the right is no less unhappy, accusing Obama of being soft on China, soft on terrorism, and far too soft on Iran and its nuclear programme (although even that particular crisis is now overshadowed by the deadly struggle between reformers and hardliners for the country’s future, beyond the power of any American president to influence).

He might console himself that if he is upsetting everyone, he is doing something right. The reality is that in foreign policy, Obama is forging his version of the hard-nosed pragmatism that was the hallmark of his Democratic predecessors Harry Truman, John Kennedy and LBJ – at least until Vietnam intervened.

Which brings us back to the past. Memories of Flight 253 and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab will fade, its legacy just extra airport security hassle that we will soon take for granted. The true test for Obama lies in Afghanistan, where more than 900 Americans have already died, where seven CIA officers have just been killed by a suicide bomber, and where parallels with Vietnam multiply by the month. Britain and the Soviet Union failed in Afghanistan. Although the fate of America’s venture on that treacherous terrain is as yet unknown, the curse of the past is poised to strike again.

— By arrangement with The Independent

Chatterati
Railing against Lalu
by Devi Cherian

MAMATA and her mood swings make people wary of her. Without her tantrums, Mamata Bannerjee will not, of course, be the same. And so, with her unpredictability, she seems determined to continue treading on troubled waters.

Her “white paper” to debunk her predecessor Lalu Prasad Yadav’s claims of turning around the Indian Railway’s fortunes is really an original idea. It is the done thing for new governments to promptly rundown the previous regimes for mismanagement, but individual ministers have so far refrained from stooping so low. Maybe new-found liking for Nitish Kumar, whose happiest moment is when Lalu’s squirming, has something to do with it. Actually, there are no B-school kids from Harvard and MIT are not dropping by to see her, as they did with Lalu. Or, is she trying to divert attention from the total non-performance of the Railway Ministry?

Her main interest is to move to Kolkata, which she is impatient about. She took charge as minister not at the Rail Bhavan in New Delhi but in Kolkata. Since then, apart from presenting the Railway Budget, she has devoted hardly any time in her office. Not only has she not taken any initiatives of her own, she has put a freeze many of the schemes that Lalu had launched.

Mamata may not even want to introduce the Railway Budget this year for fear of presenting a dud. By then, the Assembly elections in her state will be exactly a year away and she may decide to move to Kolkata. This will launch one final offensive that could bring to an end the 33 years misrule of the ‘Commies’. Yes, and West Bengal’s gain will not to be Rail Bhavan’s loss.

Women power in Parliament

Is this women power for just the top posts? For the first time, three of the top slots in the Lok Sabha are now occupied by women with the elevation of Sushma Swaraj as Leader of the Opposition, Meira Kumar is the Speaker, the first woman leader to adorn the high office, while Sonia Gandhi is chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party. Incidentally, the current Lok Sabha has the highest number of women members – 59 – since Independence. Of them, 23 belong to the Congress followed by 13 of the BJP. There are four woman MPs each from the Trinamool Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the BSP. Sonia was the first woman to become Leader of the Opposition in 1999. Interestingly, she defeated Swaraj in Bellary for her maiden entry into the lower House. Hopefully, at the ground level, too, empowerment will be as welcome and encouraged. Because these top women really don’t make a difference to the aam admi. Their daily problems are still handled by men who have no respect or time for women. We still hear of rapes, satis and feoticide deaths each minute of our lives.

New fare at BJP HQ

As new young President takes over, obviously changes will take place. One change for sure after the arrival of Nitin Gadkari in the BJP headquarters may have been prompted by the RSS but not all associated developments. For instance, the food for his reception surprisingly varied from the puri-sabzi fare routine at party functions to biryani, chicken korma and other non-vegetarian items.

Gadkari’s arrival has been welcomed with non-vegetarian delicacies by the BJP office bearers; visitors expect such delights more frequently than the local oily halwai stuff at the saffron headquarters. Maybe they will now have more members attending the meetings now. But at the moment it seems this young Gadkari cannot believe his luck and is beaming non-stop. He has no idea of the thorns around him and the problems he will have to face from within his own party and outsiders too.