The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Defending the nation
Building strength is the answer

India’s armed forces need enormous funds for modernisation with a view to enhancing their deterrent capability. Defence Minister A. K. Antony’s statement on Monday that India’s defence expenditure was going to increase in proportion to the rise in the GDP should be seen against this backdrop. India currently spends only 2.5 per cent of its GDP on defence, which may go up in accordance with the growth in the GDP, as Mr Antony says. But this pales into insignificance if we compare India’s proposed defence spending — $30 billion — for the next five years with China’s $70 billion. The exact Chinese figure is bound to be more because it has a history of not disclosing the real amount. India has to take care of the Pakistan factor, too. In 2006, Pakistan’s bill for the import of arms and armament was of the order of $5.1 billion against India’s $3.5 billion.

This means that India will have to allocate for defence more than what it did in the last budget. There is no scope for being stingy in taking care of the country’s defence requirements. With India emerging as a major player at the world stage, it will have to allocate as much funds for the defence forces as possible. The three wings of the defence forces need to be equipped with the latest weapon systems and all that is required for a world class military. After all, India is the only country with long disputed borders and with two nuclear powers in its immediate neighbourhood.

The Indian Air Force and the Navy particularly need greater attention. The decision to acquire Admiral Gorshkov (now INS Vikramaditya) for the Navy and the launch of the first indigenously developed nuclear-powered submarine — INS Vikrant — are not enough. The real problem is that India today depends on imports for nearly 70 per cent of its defence requirements. So far, Russia has been the leading arms supplier followed by Israel. In the coming few years, the US may be on top of the countries exporting arms and armaments to India. This is, however, not a happy scenario. India may find it difficult to achieve its geopolitical objectives without becoming a strong nation and reducing its dependence on other nations.

Policing Punjab
State set against essential reforms

A major advantage of introducing the police commissionerate system in Punjab is that it will ensure better crowd control. The police will not have to wait for an Executive Magistrate, who is usually busy with civil matters, to order firing when faced with a violent mob. The Police Commissioners posted in the three districts of Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana will have the magisterial powers and accountability. Police helplessness was evident in the recent incidents of mob violence in Ludhiana and Jalandhar.

The police in Punjab is highly politicised and used by ruling politicians to further their partisan ends. Postings and transfers are dictated not as much by professional competence and administrative needs as by political expediency. The Supreme Court had initiated the much-needed police reforms in the country but Punjab has yet to implement them. A fixed tenure for police officers is a necessity if they are to work efficiently and show results. However, in Punjab officers who do not kowtow ruling politicians are shifted and even humiliated. They are kicked around like a football as Home Minister P. Chidambaram observed recently while addressing the DGPs.

The crime rate is very high and law and order is a very serious problem in the state. The police attitude towards the people, by and large, in Punjab remains high-handed. Even FIRs are not registered despite the courts’ repeated reminders. The criminal justice system, which is dependent on the capability and conduct of the police, is in a bad shape. Often the aggrieved citizen does not get the help he or she has the right to accept from the police. Most states, including Punjab, are not pushing through essential police reforms stressed even by the Supreme Court. Merely the appointment of Police Commissioners is not enough.

Thought for the Day

An anthology is like all the plums and orange peel picked out of a cake.

— Walter Raleigh

ARTICLE

Electoral reforms
Election Commission has to do a lot more
by V. Eshwar Anand

THE Election Commission of India’s completion of 60 years of service to the nation is an important landmark in the annals of the world’s largest democracy. This reinforces people’s abiding faith in the electoral process and institutions of governance and provides an opportunity for stocktaking and formulating a roadmap for electoral reforms so that the democratic system gets strengthened.

Since the first general election in 1952, when the nascent democracy was trying to move forward after Independence, the Election Commission has come of age. The reduction of the voting age from 21 to 18 years in March 1989, through the Constitution 61st (Amendment) Act, 1989, amending the Representation of the People Act, 1950, has helped broaden the base of democracy.

When Mr Sukumar Sen took over as the first Chief Election Commissioner, he had to face innumerable problems in holding the Lok Sabha election in 1952. Tasks like drafting electoral rolls, arranging ballot boxes, transporting them to different nooks and corners of the country and manual counting of ballot papers were all done with alacrity and no one questioned their fairness. Undoubtedly, the commission has been learning lessons from every election and trying to improve upon in the next election.

After the commission became a multi-member body on October 1, 1993, with three commissioners, including the Chief Election Commissioner, the commission is able to work as a cohesive unit, taking decisions collectively. Of course, it has not been free from some unsavoury episodes. Mr T.N. Seshan, for instance, ruled like a dictator but he did enforce discipline and order in the poll process.

Mr Narendra Modi’s criticism of Mr J.M. Lyngdoh for his inspection of some riot-hit areas in Gujarat was in bad taste. The ugly spat between Mr N. Gopalaswami and Mr Navin Chawla was unavoidable. The latter took over as the CEC after the former retired midway during the last Lok Sabha elections. The transition was smooth and it did not disturb the ongoing polls. However, it would be worthwhile if a collegium selects the election commissioners.

Technology and e-governance have certainly come to the commission’s rescue. The electronic voting machines (EVMs), first introduced on a pilot basis in three states in 1989-90 and then extended to the entire country in 2004, have speeded up the electoral process and people get the trends and final results faster. Moreover, EVMs are foolproof and cannot be tampered with. Objections to the contrary in some quarters are unconvincing and motivated.

The electoral photo identity cards for voters, introduced in 1994-95, have helped check impersonation and bogus voting. The deployment of paramilitary personnel and the Special Operations Group, especially in the troubled states, have demonstrated the neutrality and independence of the poll process and helped people vote without fear or favour. However, an offshoot of this is a staggered election, making people wait for four-five weeks for results. Surely, there is scope for improvement on this front.

The code of conduct, evolved by the political parties and enforced scrupulously by the commission, is a unique mechanism to ensure a level-playing field in elections. Whenever the commission was prima facie satisfied with any breach of the code or was brought to its notice by the people, it promptly took measures like transferring the Director-General of Police, the District Collector or the Superintendent of Police.

Of late, the commission has introduced several measures for making elections foolproof. These include the booth-level officer system, polling agents from the same polling area/stations, deployment of micro-observers, rationalisation of polling stations, online communications network (COMET) to monitor events at every single polling station spread over the state, vulnerability mapping, SMS-based query about electoral rolls, web-based search facility and making sector officers and mobile police booths co-terminus.

While these measures are all laudable, not much headway has been made by the commission to check the criminalisation of politics. It is a major cause for concern because this menace only hardens and gets institutionalised if history-sheeters are elected. One cannot comprehend the serious repercussions on the polity and the system if criminals get elected as MPs and MLAs and then become ministers owing to their money and muscle power. They will wreak havoc on the system.

The N.N. Vohra Committee report (1993) exposed the nexus between politicians and criminals. However, the Narasimha Rao government sat on the report for months, having realised that it would embarrass ministers and MPs. Under immense pressure from the Opposition, it finally tabled it in Parliament leading to a nationwide debate on the subject.

The unholy relationship has grown deeper and more complex after each election. Successive governments have not acted upon the Vohra report. An ideal solution would be to tackle it at the entry level itself. Political parties themselves should refuse to give tickets to criminals to contest elections. An all-party consensus on banning tickets for criminals should not be a problem in the light of Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s and Mrs Sushma Swaraj’s call for the purpose at the Election Commission’s diamond jubilee function recently.

Creditably, the Supreme Court has played an important role in tackling the menace. Its historic judgement and directive to the commission on making it mandatory on candidates to provide a statement on their assets, liabilities and criminal antecedents along with their nomination papers had given a big boost to the people’s right to know. Though political parties criticised the ruling and tried to subvert it initially, they had to fall in line. In many cases, the court had given a free hand to the commission and did not interfere with its constitutional functions.

The Centre needs to follow up the Election Commission’s recommendations on banning criminals. At present, a person convicted in a case with a sentence up to two years can contest elections, pending an appeal. Criminals should not be given this relief. Voters, too, should unequivocally raise their voice against criminals and reject them at the hustings. NGOs like the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Janagraha have been spreading awareness among voters. In the last elections, the ADR’s National Election Watch played a notable role.

Despite the commission’s initiatives on voter awareness, a poor voter turnout even in metros like Mumbai and New Delhi is disturbing. Political scientists attribute it to apathy, anomie and alienation. Yet, efforts like the Delhi government’s Pappu experiment must be replicated to improve the turnout in cities and towns.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has lamented that our politics is unable to attract “the best and brightest people”. Political parties should be squarely blamed for this. The late Nani A. Palkhivala exhorted people to vote for the “right person” even in the “wrong party” rather than the “wrong person” in the “right party”. According to him, this would help enlightened MPs and MLAs enter Parliament and state legislatures and improve their working as also the quality of governance.

The increasing role of money power in elections is alarming. The statutory expenditure ceiling for every candidate — Rs 25 lakh for a Lok Sabha seat and Rs 10 lakh for an Assembly seat — is observed more in breach than in practice. As a result, elections have become a costly affair and poor candidates are unable to match their rich rivals. In the last elections in Andhra Pradesh, officials seized unaccounted cash to the tune of Rs 38.14 crore while it was being transported to various places for distribution among voters.

True, candidates need to spend on pamphlets, meetings, support staff, food and transport, but there are limits to such expenditure and they cannot be allowed to violate the ceiling for the purpose. Mere seizure of unaccounted cash won’t do. Exemplary punishment must be given to those found guilty of violating the ceiling. Political parties generally file false returns of expenses. Thus, the election expenditure observers should plug loopholes and tighten the regulatory mechanism.

The Centre needs to focus attention on the recommendations of the Law Commission (170th report), the Dinesh Goswami Bill and the Indrajit Gupta Report. This problem can be tackled effectively if the political parties maintain proper accounts, including their sources of income and details of expenditure for due auditing and scrutiny by the Election Commission.

Union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily’s proposal for a national consultation on electoral reforms in June is welcome. He should use his good offices in implementing the commission’s recommendations.

MIDDLE

Neigh-sayers
by Justice Mahesh Grover

ZULFI the “mule” munched contentedly at his meal, a mixture of green leaves and gram flour. He was tired and his back ached from ferrying construction material the day long.

Suddenly, he stopped munching and his ears froze as he heard a voice bellow from a transistor hung loosely from the yoke of the cart. “Horse carts to go off the roads in the city”, it said.

A deep frown crossed Zulfi’s face, and a lump came to his throat, as the prospect of unemployment and hunger became a seeming reality. He wanted to neigh his heart out, but had no one. A song blared from the transistor: “Yeh To Pathron Ka Shehar Hai, Yahan Kisko Apna Banaiye.”

“How apt”, thought Zulfi and a tremor ran through his spine, as he pictured himself roaming the streets with other stray beasts, desperate for food and shelter.

His thoughts veered around to his ancestors. Stallions, steeds, with their long manes flowing, every inch, a picture of elegance, power and beauty – they were the fabled gems of the royal stables.

Then, as machines took over, they lost their empirical status and found themselves to be objects of pleasures of the well heeled – running in race-courses with perfumed air wafting all over and then slowly degenerated into clowning in circus arenas to provide delirious pleasures to the masses, but ridiculed by their pedigreed fraternity.

“Guess, they had to survive”, thought Zulfi. The last stroke was when they were totally domesticated and did chores, like ploughing fields and pulling tongas.

Finally, all rules of “pedigreeism” were broken when some of the ancestors crossed the forbidden line to marry mares of no known lineage, falling prey to the charms of the ill-bred.

Must have fallen head over hooves (heels) in love with them, explained Zulfi to himself and mules like him were born, to become the beasts of burden for humans.

Zulfi complimented himself on his sense of history and thought philosophically that no matter what the lineage, they had all served mankind, but he also knew that if a beast lost his usefulness to man, he would be left to fend for itself.

He shook his head partly out of sadness and partly because a fly was irritating him and swished his tail in anxiety.

Sadness engulfed him as he looked at his master lying with an empty bottle by his side and pictured him also struggling for survival. He wondered, whether the master had any such thoughts for him and concluded in the negative as he remembered the whip lashes he received everyday.

He wished men had some compassion for the beasts and thought of neighing his views to force a legislation for protection of the abandoned beasts, but instantly, realised its futility, for he knew that his neighs were likely to be lost in the “Nays” and “Ayes” of a human’s debate. Resignedly, he lowered his neck and stared vacantly at his empty sack of food, with his hind leg tilted slightly as if resting.

OPED

Under pressure
Pachauri’s detractors active in the US
by Ashish Kumar Sen

Washington: Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman of the United Nations’ panel tasked with monitoring global warming, is experiencing firsthand the effects of climate change. The warm praise he received in 2007 when his panel shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore has swiftly turned to icy criticism amid revelations of inaccurate data in the panel’s prediction on melting Himalayan glaciers.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had predicted that Himalayan glaciers were likely to disappear by 2035. This section of the report created an uproar and was followed by a rare admission from the panel that its prediction was “poorly substantiated.” But the damage has been done. The erroneous document has provided ammunition to climate change skeptics.

Sen. John Barrasso, Republican Wyoming, has called on Pachauri to resign from the post of chairman of the IPCC. “Every day, new scandals emerge about the so called ‘facts’ in the U.N. reports. The integrity of the data and the integrity of the science have been compromised,” Barrasso told colleagues in the U.S. Senate. He said government delegations at the U.N. General Assembly and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon must ask Pachauri to step down.

In Britain, too, Pachauri is under pressure to quit. Writing on the Telegraph’s website, environmental correspondent Geoffrey Lean observed: “his position is becoming more and more untenable by the day, and the official climate science body will continue to leach credibility while he remains in charge.” Others have accused him of profiting from his work as an advisor to businesses, a charge Pachauri denies. Eric Roston, writer of ClimatePost.net and author of The Carbon Age, says British reporters have been writing “well-informed but activist articles” on the subject.

Kert Davies, research director at Greenpeace’s Washington office, calls the pressure on Pachauri preposterous. He says the criticism is an example of the harassment of the scientific community by “the rightwing denial machine.”

Pachauri has himself dismissed his critics’ charges as fabrications. His own accusations that energy company lobbyists are gunning for him may have some foundation in truth. His successor, Robert Watson, an internationally-acclaimed atmospheric chemist, was unceremoniously turfed out of the job in 2002 purportedly at the behest of a large oil company – ExxonMobil.

An article in the journal Nature at the time noted, “Climate researchers appreciated the way in which Watson defended their findings from politically motivated attacks during his tenure. Many will now be wary of Pachauri, who appears to have tarnished his reputation by collaborating with those whose objective was to ditch Watson.” Pachauri’s appointment did not bother IPCC critics because his work at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), based in New Delhi, was not perceived as a threat to their interests.

Frank Maisano, an energy specialist at Bracewell & Giuliani in Washington, doesn’t think those who complain about the IPCC would be happy with anyone picked to head the committee, let alone Pachauri. “The reality is that when you have someone speaking as loudly for the developing countries as Pachauri does, that is going to draw out what is the biggest flaw in this whole road that we have been going down over the last 10 to 15 years and that is there is no bridge between north and south, there is no bridge between developed and developing countries.”

Critics have seized on the Himalayan glacier melt error to discredit Pachauri and the science of climate change. Davies of Greenpeace complains that skeptics treat the science like a house of cards: “you remove one faulty card and it comes crashing down.” He believes a more accurate representation would be comparing the science to a jigsaw puzzle: “there are missing pieces and as we find those pieces the picture becomes more grim.”

Having watched the climate change debate for 14 years, Maisano thinks that technology transfer is the only way to engage developing countries. “That’s what Pachauri is advocating – that’s a good approach that has to be undertaken,” he says, adding, “The point from Day One has been can you address this issue in a politically practical way that engages developing countries who are major emitters and engages developed countries that are major emitters and helps address the challenge without bankrupting their economies or telling them then they can’t help people develop.” Large polluting countries such as India and China take their cue from Washington – where there is a push and pull between lawmakers and the White House on the subject of climate change. Roston believes this is a “recipe for stasis.”

President Barack Obama’s professed interest in tackling the problem of global warming spawned a significant increase in money spent on lobbying lawmakers and administration officials in Washington. A Centre for Responsive Politics study found that in 2009, ExxonMobil spent $27.4 million on federal lobbying, Chevron increased its spending by 60 percent to $20.8 million, ConocoPhillips spent $18 million, and BP spent about $16 million.

But energy analysts say these big oil companies are not the only ones spending on lobbyists. Renewable energy manufacturers and the environmental community are equally invested. Maisano says these lobbies spent a record amount during the 2008 election season. But, he says, it’s hard to compare money being spent by competing interests since unlike the Chamber of Commerce, other groups do not fully report their expenditure. “You can’t say there is a monolithic lobby that is keeping this off the agenda. What is keeping this off the agenda is that people don’t want to buy the cost of it,” says Maisano of climate change legislation being debated in Washington.

Davies of Greenpeace disagrees. He contends big oil lobbyists are to blame for delaying legislation and creating doubt. The Centre for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found in 2009 that both developed and developing countries are under heavy pressure by fossil fuel industries and other carbon-intensive businesses to slow progress on negotiations and weaken government commitments. “The spending is lopsided. We are being overrun,” Davies says. “They have thousands of lobbyists. We are outgunned, but we are not easily defeated.”

Wider lessons of what happened in Mumbai
by Balraj Puri

THE overwhelming response of Mumbaikars to My Name Is Khan, in defiance of the Shiv Sena's call of its boycott, will have deeper lesson and for longer period than any other contemporary event. Though multiplexes were reluctant to open the show in the morning due to the Sena's threat, soon the cinemas were full as the police arrived to provide protection.

So far, the Sena used to be handled with kid gloves and its threats used to work. However, this time, its bluff was called. Though the police was deployed in large number, no action was taken against the leaders of Sena.

The RSS took the first initiative in exposing the Sena's parochial regionalism as a threat to its concept of extremist nationalism. The BJP dutifully followed suit and its spokesperson in Mumbai is said to have arranged two private shows for the glitterati of the town to convince them that there was nothing objectionable in it. Later, the party reiterated that despite differences with the Sena, the alliance with it would continue.

This development emboldened the Congress party also. Its General Secretary, Rahul Gandhi, in his novel style had a one-day round on local trains. The Sena could not do any thing to prevent it.

This further emboldened Shahrukh Khan also, who refused to apologise and asserted his right as an Indian for free expression of his views. After all what was his crime? He regretted non-inclusion of Pakistan cricketers in IPL, which many other Indians had done too. Why was SRK the only target of the Sena’s ire? Was it because he is a Muslim? The success of Rahul Gandhi’s tour had somewhat lowered the morale of the Sena and it withdrew the call for boycott of SRK’s film.

Sena Chief Bal Thackery recovered when Sharad Pawar visited him. Whatever transpired between them, the visit was untimely and unwise. Pawar is an important member of the Union Cabinet and his party is an ally of the Congress in the Maharashtra government. It was after his visit that Thackery revived his call for boycott of the SRK’s film.

The Sena has discounted the extent of popular response to the film. But even it would not deny that SRK’s popularity rating at the national level is far higher than the Shiv Sena, if at all it has any.

Even in the BJP-ruled Gujarat, the film was shown to packed hours despite the protest of other members of the Sangh Privar like the Bajrang Dal and the VHP, besides the Sena.

The Shiv Sena had survived on its hate campaigns and the lack of courage of its opponents. Sometimes South Indians were its target. At other time it whipped up hatred against Muslims. In 1984, Sikhs were attacked.

It we go back in time, at one time the leftists were champions of regional nationalism and apart from Maharashtra, championed it elsewhere also, when they believed that it had a progressive potential. It did serve a progressive and also acted as a check on chauvinistic nationalism. The Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti for the formation of a Maharashtra state was led by the leftists who became a formidable force.

Bengali and Kashmiri patriotism have also shown its positive and negative potentials. Jyoti Basu could set up a record of three decade rule of CPI(M)-led government as a champion of Bengali patriotism and could introduce radical land reforms. But the failure of the West Bengal government to reconcile aspirations of Bengali patriotism with those of sub-regional identities was the main cause of its collapse.

Similarly it was due to strength of the sentiments of Kashmiri regionalism that it could maintain remarkable communal harmony in 1947 when the entire subcontinent was engulfed in communal conflagration. Land reforms in Kashmir were also unparalleled for their radical content. However, Kashmir’s failure to come to terms with the regional urges of the other regions and non-Kashmiri speaking communities led to many complications in what is called Kashmir problem. If handled properly, even smaller identities play a positive role. After all it was caste politics that stemmed the Hindutva wave in the UP and Bihar. The advantage of India’s rich diversity is that excesses to one often check those of the other.

The lesson of what has happened in Maharashtra is of wider significance, far beyond the border of the state all aspects of which deserve more thorough debate than has so far taken place.

Twitter ‘is a weapon in cyber warfare’
by Kim Sengupta

Britain needs to learn from the actions of the Israeli military in the Gaza in using YouTube and tweets to engage in 21st-century cyber-warfare, the Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton highlighted how the Israeli Air Force used the internet in the battle over international public opinion during last year’s conflict as an example of harnessing new technology.

“Accurate and timely information has always been critical to the military but its importance is increasing as societies become more networked,” he stated. “This is intimately linked to developments in space and cyber-space; as we saw in the conflict in Gaza in early 2009, operations on the ground were paralleled by operations in cyber-space and an ‘info ops’ campaign that was fought across the internet: the Israeli Air Force downloaded sensor imagery onto YouTube, tweets warned of rocket attacks and the ‘help-us-win.com’ blog was used to mobilise public support.”

The Israeli attack on Gaza, with its large number of civilian casualties, led to widespread international criticism. However, the use of the internet by the Israeli forces attempting to show Hamas fighters employing local people as cover and the supposedly “surgical” nature of some of the bombing is thought to have countered some of the adverse publicity.

The emotive impact of civilian casualties has been graphically shown during the current offensive in Afghanistan to capture the Marjah region from Taliban forces. Twelve civilians, 10 of them from one family, were killed when two Nato missiles overshot their targets and hit a family home.

As well as the propaganda campaign, cyber-warfare can be used to target vital strategic communications and defence systems. Both Russia and China have been accused of using the new technology as offensive weapons to hack into targeted computer systems.

In a keynote speech at the International Institute for Strategic Defences, Sir Stephen urged military planners to focus on the “operational environment that is increasingly becoming the ‘vital ground’ in 21st-century conflict”.

The Air Chief Marshal’s address was one of a series by the heads of the three services as they make their pitch for resources before the impending Strategic Defence Review. It follows the case for the Army made by General Sir David Richards and the Navy by Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope. General Richards had stressed that the land-based counter-insurgency in Afghanistan is the shape of wars to come, while Admiral Stanhope argued that the UK must look “beyond Afghanistan” in his bid to keep naval assets, including two new aircraft carriers. Instead of fighting the battles of the past, the British military should be looking to the high-tech defences of the future, he said.

He said: “The exponential growth in the availability of information means that we must understand how to deliver and protect our national interests in the cyber domain and, although this is clearly a cross-government issue, defence has a legitimate interest in the development of offensive and defensive cyber-capabilities.”

“In the future our adversaries may use cyber-attack against our networked systems; indeed our national computer systems are under constant and intensifying attacks today. But our current enemies are already using effective information operations and propaganda (via the internet) about civilian casualties to try and influence our public’s opinion and thus constrain our activities. In short, they’ll use every possible means at their disposal to try to deny our freedom to use air-and space-power as we choose, because they understand that, if and when it is used effectively, it’s our comparative advantage.”

— By arrangement with The Independent