The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

CPM at sea
It’s time to rethink its line

Eric Hobsbawm, the British Marxist historian, has stirred a hornet’s nest by claiming that Prakash Karat believes the CPM would do very badly in the Assembly election in West Bengal next year. Karat has been quick to disown the statement, explaining that while he did speak to Hobsbawm, the statement attributed to him in the New Left Review was the historian’s own. It does not really matter whether the forecast of a bleak future was made by Karat or the noted Marxist intellectual , because it is a perception shared widely by a large number of people in West Bengal and outside. That the CPM has lost ground in the state cannot be denied by Karat. But he tries to gloss over the party’s many omissions and commissions by often blaming the pro-industry policies of the Left Front government in the state.

The party, after all, has lost the confidence of not just the peasants but also of the state’s minorities, the middle class and the intellectuals. It’s true that the CPM lost the plot in West Bengal when it tried to forcibly take away land at Singur for an automobile plant and unleashed the police to break a peaceful resistance against land-acquisition in Nandigram. But the party has much more to answer for. The CPM once took support of the minorities, the tribals and the middle class for granted but during its long, uninterrupted tenure in office, the party managed to alienate all of them.

At the national level, too, the party has cut a sorry figure. Following its failure to form a Third Front against the Congress, the CPM and other Left parties are increasingly seen making common cause with the BJP in and outside Parliament. After enjoying power without responsibility during much of the tenure of the previous UPA government, the Left, specially the CPM, appears a little too desperate to make its presence felt. But while the Left needs to reinvent itself, the CPM, to remain relevant, needs to climb down from their high horse and evolve a more practical economic and political position on issues confronting the country.

Enabling special children
HC direction on dyslexics is laudable

The Punjab and Haryana High Court’s direction that a scribe appointed for a dyslexic child should be allowed to perform calculations for the afflicted child is commendable. In a nation where a significant percentage of children are believed to suffer from dyslexia, a learning disorder that also may affect mathematical ability, the direction given by Justice Permod Kohli will provide relief to many. In another part of the country, the Calcutta High Court not only directed the school to let a dyslexic student appear for Class XII examination but also asked the CBSE “to instruct schools to take care of mentally and physically challenged students”.

The CBSE does give concessions to physically challenged students. Both dyslexic students and those with audio-visual impairment are given extra time in examination. Differently abled children are also given the option of studying only one compulsory language as against two for normal students. For the visually impaired this year the board decided to provide Class X question papers for Maths and Science in Braille. Besides the CBSE reminded schools to reserve three per cent seats for the disabled. It also warned schools of stringent action for denying admission to special children. The Union Cabinet’s decision which has widened the definition of disabled children in the Right to Education Act too can go a long way in providing education to special children.

Still as a nation we remain apathetic towards the needs and rights of the disabled who form nearly 2.13 per cent of the population. While society must learn to be more sensitive, schools too should wake up to their social responsibility. It should not take court judgements or CBSE warnings to make them realise the pivotal role they can play in enabling such children. A proper learning environment and constant reiteration of faith in their abilities can make such children self- reliant and productive. History is replete with examples where people with special needs have done wonders.

Thought for the Day

Even death is unreliable: instead of zero it may be some ghastly hallucination, such as the square root of minus one. — Samuel Beckett

ARTICLE

Defence needs modernisation
Delay in decision making is the bane
by Inder Malhotra

THERE is not much to be said for the Rs 1,47,000-crore defence allocation in Mr Pranab Mukherjee's budget. Except that his claim of having increased the defence outlay by 4 per cent is meaningless in the face of the 8 per cent rate of inflation. To make matters worse, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) habitually returns considerable sums to the national exchequer every year. The amount surrendered in 2009 was close to Rs 7,000 crore. The figure for the preceding eight years was no less than Rs 32,000 crore. Sadly, the unspent money is from the capital budget of the MoD meant for fresh acquisitions, not from the revenue budget meant for pay, rations and maintenance of the existing systems.

Against this backdrop to draw any comfort from President Pratibha Patil's declaration in her address to the joint sitting of Parliament to the effect that her government was “committed to modernisation of Indian defence” would be a classic case of triumph of hope over experience. Modernisation may be the mantra, but between the government's words and deeds falls the proverbial shadow. Chronic delay in decision-making, indeed utter indecision, sadly aggravated since Mr A.K. Antony became Defence Minister, is the bane. But nobody seems interested in doing anything about it.

No wonder, therefore, that, despite the lip service to the imperative of coping with the threats from Pakistan and China, especially from the power that the Chinese can bring to bear on our land borders, the state of our armed forces remains far from satisfactory. All because the MoD takes an unconscionable time to decide on the procurement of weapons systems and the Cabinet Committee on Security adds to the tardiness. The unending hiatus between the MoD's civilian bureaucracy and the leadership of the armed forces, to say nothing of the defence services' penchant to go on changing their requirements, complicate the problem further. But the ultimate responsibility for the mess is that of the political leadership.

Is it any surprise, therefore, that this country hasn't acquired any artillery since the mid-eighties of the last century though a small number of old artillery guns have been upgraded for us by Israel? The nation's armour is partially, if not largely, night blind. For various reasons the military's communications are also deficient. All this, combined with the alarming and sustained shortage of officers, especially in the Army, adds up to a dangerous situation.

Another telling instance of mishandling the modernisation process may also be cited. Some years ago, this country belatedly woke up to the shocking fact that compared with the state-of-the-art Chinese infrastructure along the Himalayan border, that of India was appalling. The Defence Ministry announced a number of projects to build border roads, improve airstrips and send Sukhoi-30 fighters to the area. But the other day it transpired that several projects were held up because the proposed border roads would pass through forests and the MoD had not been able to secure the requisite concurrence of the Ministry of Environment and Forests! It would take India at least 15 years to catch up with the current state of Chinese infrastructure. What China would have built up by then should not be hard to imagine.

The obvious way to counterbalance any advantage that the Chinese are likely to have along the land border is to use this country's enviable geographical position in the Indian Ocean through which pass the bulk of China's oil supplies and other vital imports. But is there any guarantee that the Navy will get the submarines and surface ships it needs and when it needs them?

It should be obvious to even the meanest intelligence that the plight of the Indian Air Force is worse than that of the other two Services. Shortly after the disastrous border war with China in 1962, we had settled for an air force of 45 squadrons of which 39 were combat squadrons. Today there are only 30 combat squadrons left and their number will be down to 28 in another two years. Since at least 10 of these squadrons would have to be deployed in the east, there will be a “window of vulnerability” on the western front. For, a decision on the acquisition of 126 multi-role combat aircraft — for which two US, three European and one Russian models are competing — has been delayed long enough. When it might be taken is anybody's guess.

There are two reasons for this extremely costly delay. First, the decision makers seem wary of displeasing either the US or Russia, the two leading sources of sophisticated armaments, though Russia has so far been and remains the largest source of this country. Indeed, India is a partner of Russia in designing and developing the fifth generation aircraft. At a discussion on this subject presided over by Mr Antony, prominent security analyst K. Subrahmanyam argued that choosing the most advanced aircraft was not a matter of “nitpicking” about costs, etc, but of wider geo-strategic considerations.

The second reason for the virtual paralysis of decision-making on defence procurement is rather dialectical. On the one hand, complaints of corruption within the armed forces have been growing. Retired and serving military leaders resent this. But they ought to know that not only civilians but also officers of the three Services at various levels share this view. On the other hand, this has driven the Defence Minister to putting any decision on equipment acquisition on hold at the slightest suspicion of wrongdoing or lack of transparency. The latest to meet this fate was the decision to purchase from Europe the transport helicopters for which the Army has been crying hoarse for long.

The issue of much-needed modernisation of Indian defence is a vast and complex one, and cannot, therefore, be addressed in a single article. Several other ramifications of the problem will, therefore, have to be discussed some other time. However, two points have to be made tersely. First, modernisation does not mean merely upgrading the equipment, relying more on imports than on domestic development and production. There also has to be modernisation of the mind so that there is a wider strategic approach that covers the military's control and command structure. Secondly, Mr Antony has been good enough to describe as “shameful and dangerous” the fact that India imports 70 per cent of the military hardware it needs. Is he doing anything about this shame?

MIDDLE

Another Swadeshi! Why not?
by Sunit Dhawan

My six-year-old daughter wanted a pichkaari and water-balloons for Holi. So, I took her to a neighbourhood kiryana shop, where Holi-special playthings like gulal, pichkaari and water-balloons were displayed.

As I picked up a pack of water-balloons, the words “Made in China” on it caught my eye. I enquired the shopkeeper about it, and pat came the reply: “Sirji, aajkal sab China ka chalta hai”.

Though we have become pretty used to seeing (and using) Chinese CFLs, toys, showpieces, decorative lights, utensils and other such knick-knacks, I guess the China-made water-balloons proved to be the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back.

Questions like “When we have natural resources and manpower in abundance, why can’t we get indigenous quality products at reasonable rates?” kept on drumming in my mind, but who to put these to was the biggest question.

Eventually, I found myself face-to-face with the person who was most likely to have the answers to my questions.

The Mahatma - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi - was working on his charkha and humming “Vaishnav Jan to Teine Kahiye…” when I approached him.

Hearing my footsteps, he looked up and said “Aao, beta”, a wry smile playing on his face. I just bowed my head and stood there with folded hands.

He offered me a seat and I settled down, still not knowing what to say and how to begin. The Father of the Nation came to my rescue as he asked: “What brings you here, son?”

Er…Bapu…you know…things in India today are not as what you had dreamt…” I mumbled.

“I know…this is not the India of our dreams…but in our times, who could have imagined things would turn out this way?” he observed.

Encouraged by his assent, I went ahead: “Thanks to our government’s liberal policies, multi-national companies are dominating our markets…It’s so ironical that country’s own artisans are workless while the government is encouraging global trade…”

The Mahatma was nodding his head, and so I continued: “The fad for anything western - or foreign - is on the rise in our youth. While the affluent society is smitten by the American-European bug, the cattle class — this is what they call the lower and middle class these days - is being targeted by Chinese manufacturers…”

The Mahatma interrupted “That’s sad, but true; what exactly do you want to do?”

At this, I came to the point: “Bapu, can’t we have another Swadeshi movement?”

His eyes lit up. “Why not, son? Go ahead, and the Almighty will help you…”

“But, Bapu, who would lead the movement?” This infuriated him. “Why do you always want to be led? Why don’t you take the initiative yourself?”

“But…I mean…how can I…”

“If I could do it, why can’t you? Today’s youth needs to understand this. I, too, didn’t have any supernatural powers. I just followed my conscience, started alone and grew from strength to strength. What is needed to be done today is to rekindle the flame of Swadeshi in the hearts of our countrymen.”

I don’t know whether it was a dream or I was daydreaming, but to quote a Chinese proverb, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step - which would be towards Swadeshi, right?

OPED

Bangalore’s road rush hinders fire-fighting
by Shubhadeep Choudhury

Traffic gridlocks on a busy road blocking the entry of fire engines, fire escapes inside the building blocked with none of the people trapped inside not even aware of these emergency exits – the result, nine dead and over 50 injured.

The story of what happened in Carlton Towers in Bangalore on February 23 could have been a story of any city of India. Which big city in the country does not have unscrupulous landlords and streets overflowing with traffic?

One day after the fire broke out in Carlton Towers, the building on Bangalore’s Airport Road, was still attracting crowds. The top floors of the building had many broken windows – smashed by people trapped inside to let in fresh air.

Through the broken windows one can get a glimpse of the interiors – turned black by fumes emitted from the burning PVC cables used for electrification of the building.

Having seven floors, Carlton Towers does not really qualify for being called a high-rise. It seems incongruous that nine people could die in a matter of a few minutes when a short circuit led to a fire in the building.

The deaths possibly could have been averted, at least the number could have been less, if the fire engines could have reached the spot on time or the fire escapes routes inside the building were not blocked.

After reports of the fire reached the local police, they stopped the traffic movement in that area. The traffic, though, was not diverted through other roads.

This led to a massive congestion on the roads approaching the Carlton Towers building. As a result, fire engines rushing to the building had a tough time reaching the spot.

According to a Fire Department official, initially only four cops were engaged in managing the movement of vehicles and pedestrians in the affected area. There was lack of coordination among the cops.

It is noteworthy that while the first four fire engines took 25 minutes to reach the spot from a fire station located only three km away from Carlton Towers, the Chief Minister and other ministers who came to the building afterwards took only seven minutes to reach there having travelled a distance of 13 km.

Roads were cleared for the movement of the VIPs but in the case of fire engines it was not done.

According to the Fire Department official, six out of the nine people killed in the incident died from fatal injuries sustained by them after they jumped out of the sixth or seventh floor of the building.

The three remaining persons got choked to death as thick smoke had engulfed the area where these unfortunate people had found themselves.

The jumping took place before the Fire Department personnel could arrive at the spot. The crowd assembled near the building had spread bed sheets for safe landing of the panic-struck victims of the fire. Sadly, most of those who jumped from the upper floors of the building lost their lives.

The good Samaritans waiting for them at the ground failed to catch them. The Fire Department here do have collapsible ladders for rescuing people in such cases and the ladder was brought into the scene too. The only problem was that it arrived a trifle late.

One of the most important lessons learnt by the Fire Department and the police from this incident is, to keep the roads clear for bringing in equipment in case of a fire.

Mr P.S. Sandhu, IG, Fire Department, said the Carlton Towers building had 74 owners. While two of them own around 60 per cent of the building, the remaining 40 per cent is owned by 72 others!

Offices have been set up in the building in complete disregard of the building bylaws such as keeping the emergency exits accessible and open for vacating the building in case of a fire or some other disaster.

Mr K.U. Ramesh, Chief Fire Officer, was himself injured in the incident. He inhaled fumes and was gasping for breath when he was shifted to hospital and treated.

Sharing his experience with this reporter, Ramesh said people were eventually rescued from the building by using the fire escape routes only. But these had to be forced open by Fire Department personnel.

All the exits, except the final exit at the ground floor, had wooden doors. The exit at the ground floor had a door made of iron grills.

All the doors were locked and the approach to the doors blocked with furniture of the offices existing on every floor of the building.

Fire Department personnel cut open the ground floor door with giant cutters they have for using in such situations. The wooden doors were forced open with crowbars.

“At the ground floor door, it was written in a board that in case of fire the key to the door could be obtained from the security after securing permission from the manager of the building”, Ramesh said to underscore the total lack of understanding of the building management about emergencies.

Preparedness of the occupiers of the building for a fire could be checked out and ensured by conducting routine fire audits.

The Fire Department here does not have the authority to carry out such an exercise. In fact, it is unclear who has the authority to conduct such an audit because the city corporation has also clarified, in the wake of the tragedy, that it does not have the power to conduct fire audits.

Fire audits seldom take place in most Indian cities. All such cities are vulnerable to the tragedy like the one that took place in Bangalore.

Budget denies defence its due
by Col (retd) P.K. Vasudeva

After the huge 34 per cent jump in the allocation in 2009-2010 to plug operational gaps in the wake of the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai as well as implementation of 6th Pay Commission packages, the defence outlay got a measly 3.98 per cent this fiscal 2010-2011, higher than the previous year but the lowest in seven years.

While the operating expenditure of the forces has been rising, capital expenditure declined last year. This does not bode well for defence modernisation.

It becomes a slightly healthier 8.13 per cent hike if the revised estimates of last year are taken into account.

For the record, the 2010-2011-defence outlay stands at Rs. 1,44,344 crore compared to last year’s allocation of Rs. 1,41,703 crore.

The threat perception from both China and Pakistan is looming. India has to evolve an Israeli model if it desires to obviate threat perception from our adversaries for which the defence outlay needs to be trebled.

The capital outlay, largely meant for acquiring new weapon systems and platforms, is pegged at Rs 60,000 crore this fiscal, which represents a 9.4 per cent jump over last year’s allocation of Rs 54,824 crore.

It becomes a robust 25.4 per cent if compared to revised estimates at Rs 47,824 crore of 2009-10. Out of Rs 60,000 crore of capital outlay, the Indian Air Force has got the biggest chunk of Rs 24,954 crore. The Army got Rs 16,969 crore, the Navy Rs 2,972 crore, Naval Fleet Rs 6,950 crore and Naval Dockyard Rs 417 crore.

Officials said the IAF is set to purchase some 126 multi-role fighters, it has floated a tender for attack helicopters and also transport helicopters, besides new training aircraft for its fighter pilots. It is also set to purchase critical equipment for air defence.

Besides major equipment that could come up for the purchase includes the sea-borne aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov and large lending ships.

The Army will be buying heavy vehicles worth Rs 1,074 crore while Rs 4,722 crore has been allocated for the Army’s construction activity.

The Defence Ministry has failed to spend Rs 7,000 crore from the 2009-2010 capital outlay. That is a sign that the armed forces, worrying more on operating costs than long-term investments, are not being pushed to improve their teeth-to-tail ratios.

Of the three services, the Indian Navy is the only service acting against this trend. In the absence of any strategic guidance, modernisation plans will continue to lag behind.

The entire planning process, of course, needs a complete overhaul. From the lack of adequate number of submarines, obsolete radars and outdated air defence weapons to the failure to induct new 155 mm artillery howitzers since the Bofors case of mid-1990s, the forces have several gaps in operational capabilities despite India spending over $50 billion on arms acquisitions since the 1990 Kargil conflict.

There is a need for India to strengthen its diplomatic and military capabilities in consonance with its rise as an economic power.

Contrary to what those who argue in favour of spending on development instead of defence say, the “guns-versus-butter” debate is spurious: Unless adequate provisions are made for defence, no state will be able to pursue its development agenda.

This is even truer in India, which faces a unique security environment with two of its “adversaries” straddling it on two sides of its borders and problems on all sides of its periphery.

Compared with China’s 7% and Pakistan’s 5% of GDP defence expenditure, India’s defence budget continues to be very low.

The Defence Minister has indicated that the government is examining all pros and cons before it sets a time frame for defence production policy in which the provisions would be incorporated to seek indulgence of the private sector for defence exports with minimum government approvals.

In the absence of the policy, exports of defence articles, equipment, component and finished products are cumbersome but something would have to be done on this front for it.

Defence experts feel that a clear-cut road map for corporatisation of ordnance factories should be seriously considered. Without it Indian defence production will remain import-oriented and the factories would not be competitive enough.

Keeping in view the threat perception there is a dire need for building roads, railway lines and airports for the jet fighters operations right up to the borders as has been done by China.

Pakistan is trying to settle its ex-servicemen near the borders and arming them for better security alerts. India must be strong enough like Israel to counter any attack of offensive from our adversaries.

Fury as EU approves GM potato
by Martin Hickman

The introduction of a genetically modified potato in Europe risks the development of human diseases that fail to respond to antibiotics, it is claimed.

German chemical giant BASF this week won approval from the European Commission for commercial growing of a starchy potato with a gene that could resist antibiotics – useful in the fight against illnesses such as tuberculosis.

Farms in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic may plant the potato for industrial use, with part of the tuber fed to cattle, according to BASF, which fought a 13-year battle to win approval for Amflora. But other EU member states, including Italy and Austria and anti-GM campaigners angrily attacked the move, claiming it could result in a health disaster.

During the regulatory tussle over the potato, the EU's pharmaceutical regulator had expressed concern about its potential to interfere with the efficacy of antibiotics on infections that develop multiple resistance to other antibiotics, a growing problem in human and veterinary medicine. Amflora contains a gene that produces an enzyme which generally confers resistance to several antibiotics, including kanamycin, neomycin, butirosin, and gentamicin.

The antibiotics could become "extremely important" to treat otherwise multi-resistant infections and tuberculosis, the European Medicines Authority (EMA) warned. Drug resistance is part of the explanation for the resurgence of TB, which infects eight million people worldwide every year.

"In the absence of an effective therapy, infectious Multiple Drug Resistant TB patients will continue to spread the disease, producing new infections with MDR-TB strains," an EMA spokesman said. "Until we introduce a new drug with demonstrated activity against MDR strains, this aspect of the TB epidemic could explode at an exponential level."

After member states become deadlocked on the potato's approval, the European Commission approved it for use in industries such as paper production, saying it would save energy, water and chemicals. Once the starch has been removed, the skins can be fed to animals, whose meat would not have to be labelled as GM.

The EC, whose decision was backed by the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa), said there was no good reason for withholding approval. Health and consumer policy commissioner John Dalli said: "Responsible innovation will be my guiding principle when dealing with innovative technologies."

"Stringent" controls would ensure none of the tubers were left in the ground, ensuring altered genes did not escape into the environment. Opponents fear bacteria inside the guts of animals fed the GM potato – which can cause human diseases – may develop resistance to antibiotics.

Some member states were furious. "Not only are we against this decision, but we want to underscore that we will not allow the questioning of member states' sovereignty on this matter," said Italy's Agriculture Minister, Luca Zaia. Austria said it would ban cultivation of the potato within its borders, while France said it would ask an expert panel for further research.

— By arrangement with The Independent

Corrections and clarifications

n The headline “Jalandhar edge Allahabad” (Page 19, March 4) is faulty. An apt headline would have been “Jalandhar edge out Allahabad”.

n The headline “Pbi denied second-language status” in Chandigarh (Page 3, March 1) sounds as though a decision is being reported in the paper. The report, however, is on expression of resentment over denial of such status to Punjabi. The headline should have reflected that unhappiness.

n The abbreviation ‘Eng’ for England in the headline “Eng spray goals on SA” (Page 16, March 3) is not acceptable.

n In the headline on the Australian Foreign Minister’s visit to New Delhi, the minister is abbreviated as FM (Page 2, March 4). Since we use FM often for Finance Minister, a better course would have been to say Oz minister, rather than Oz FM.

Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them.

This column appears twice a week — every Tuesday and Friday. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error.

Readers in such cases can write to Mr Kamlendra Kanwar, Senior Associate Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is kanwar@tribunemail.com.

H.K. Dua
Editor-in-Chief