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Some heads
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Time for
change
The
Army’s new role in Kashmir
All izz
Will
Rule of
law must prevail Power projects in
peril Bangalore Diary
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Cyber secrecy
The
world is so interconnected today that it seems unimaginable that in the past all secrets were locked up in safes and behind guarded doors. Today, computers have become repositories of many such secrets. Unfortunately, cyber safety standards often fall well below the necessary security levels and thus we have reports of secrets being stolen from computers. The recent report by the Canada-based Information Warfare Monitor and the Shadowserver Foundation, has given details of a cyber espionage network that targeted systems belonging to the Government of India, and also Tibetan organisations, including Dalai Lama’s office. The report, titled “Shadows in the Cloud,” is based on an eight-month study of Chinese hacking operations, and the researchers recovered documents classified as secret, restricted and confidential. It is worrying that among the compromised networks were those of the National Security Council Secretariat and some Indian embassies. The infiltrators were based in Chengdu, China. Predictably, the Chinese government has denied any involvement in the attempt, although it is widely accepted that many attempts to compromise vulnerable government, military, infrastructure and business networks in various countries originate from China. Recently, the search engine giant Google pulled out of China, citing cyber attacks that targeted it as one of the reasons. Ironically, the nation which gives the world armies of skilled software engineers has an abysmal cyber security record. A May 2009 report by this very organisation had also pointed out to a similar security breach in both Indian networks and the Dalai Lama’s office by a spy ring called Ghostnet. Evidently, security has not improved since then. The government and the military can ill-afford to be complacent, the threat is persistent and pervasive. India urgently needs to focus on guarding its cyber frontier. Computer users should be educated about security issues and the latest firewalls should be installed. The report reminds us that thieves are always active and we need to constantly maintain our guard so that we are protected against them.
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Time for change
With
the 10th Central extension to unbundling the Punjab State Electricity Board expiring on April 15 and the Punjab government not seeking more time for implementing the Electricity Act of 2003, the stage is finally set for splitting the board and spinning of separate entities to take up the jobs of power generation, transmission and distribution. This time the employees’ threats and protests may not work. The structural dismantling is necessary to save the power board from assured bankruptcy and ensure regular power to the people, industry and agriculture, even if at a higher price. What has pushed the board to the edge is widely known – free power to farmers, delayed or non-payment of the subsidy by the government, political opposition to tariff hikes, power theft in connivance with board employees, heavy transmission losses because of the worn-out network, no additional capacity building, non-payment of electricity bills by government departments, diversion of funds like building guest houses for politicians and non-professional managements headed by political appointees. The regulator, appointed as part of the power reforms, has often pulled up the board management for fudging accounts. The government has no money to pay the Rs 3,142-crore annual subsidy and is forcing the board to adjust it against the loans. With the accumulated losses touching Rs 10,000 crore, the board has no money to buy enough power in the peak season. Most would like to pay extra for uninterrupted quality power supply provided the cost of operational inefficiency, power pilferage and managerial incompetence is not passed on to them. The board is in a no-win situation from which it can be retrieved only by a drastic overhaul. The employees fighting for the status quo have misplaced fears about privatisation. The talented have nothing to fear about job losses, if any, and no one needs to protect the disruptive, dishonest elements or work shirkers if Punjab is to get regular power to grow industrially and agriculturally.
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Our senses show us the mortal world. Love helps to make it immortal. — The Upanishads
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The Army’s new role in Kashmir Last
week, Defence Minister A.K. Antony warned the Army to expect a hot summer in Jammu and Kashmir not due to climate change but Pakistan’s resolve to escalate violence. Recent calls for jihad in Kashmir by the United Jihad Council and the threat of water wars against India by Lashkar chief Hafiz Saeed are part of the new game plan. Of the 42 terrorist training camps, 32 are known to be operational with 2,500 militants, some equipped with GPS and sophisticated Thuraya sets ready to breach the fencing on the LoC to reinforce the dwindling strength of militants declined from a high of 3000 to 3500 in 2001-02 to just 600 today. The calls for withdrawal of the Army are, therefore, insane and claims on deinduction of 35,000 troops not entirely correct. The two Divisions withdrawn are part of theatre reserves and were deployed during Operation Parakram. These were later relocated along the fencing and have been redeployed in their original locations on restoration of normalcy. With militancy brought down in 2008-09 to the lowest levels in two decades, Jammu and Kashmir is ripe for a political solution which could lead to demilitarisation of forces. The Army was rushed into Srinagar in October 1947 to save it from the onslaught of Pakistani raiders. It has not ceased battling infiltrators since that day but over time has created conditions for the political process which has lagged behind to take over. The strategy followed by New Delhi has been to keep insurgencies under control, the military employing minimal force in good faith. The government has shown neither any urgency for conflict resolution nor concern for civilian and combatant casualties which have exceeded the collective fatalities of all the wars. India has missed at least two opportunities in 1971 and 2007 to resolve the Kashmir dispute on its terms or ones favourable to it. The Army is deployed in Jammu and Kashmir both in its war locations on LoC as well as in the counterinsurgency grid, the latter in aid to civil authority. This is unique: the Army performing its primary and secondary roles in one geographical entity. The intention has been to free the Army from its counter-militancy role, with Central and state police forces gradually taking charge. That began to happen in the late 1980s just before crossborder infiltration and militancy rocketed in August 1989. Srinagar garrison duties were taken over from the Army’s fighting formation by the Sub Area headquarters which handed over to the BSF. While Srinagar is under the CRPF charge today, the idea is for state police forces to eventually take over CIS duties. The CRPF in Anantnag and the BSF in Sopore are just the preliminary steps towards demilitarisation. In 2007, a committee under Defence Secretary Shekhar Dutt had evolved a relocation plan for troops to vacate orchards, hotels, schools and other civilian premises affecting business and livelihood. Not only has the Army relocated but also paid a modest compensation. Political initiatives were launched by the NDA government to defuse tension on the LoC and minimise violence in the state. NSA Brajesh Mishra and his Pakistani equivalent, Tariq Aziz working back channel produced the first ceasefire in November 2003. It has held with some violations but over all, provided immense relief to both sides and in financial terms, amounting to Rs 500 crore annually. The big lacuna of the case fire was that cross-border infiltration was excluded as the ceasefire was between the two armies. The other ceasefire that materialised all too briefly during 2000-01 was internal between the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and the government. At least twice, UJC chief Salauddin offered conditional ceasefires but these never took off. Operationally, the internal ceasefire had limited utility as foreign militants who constitute 60 per cent of the armed militants were not part of it. Some conversations did take place between intelligence agencies and the Hizb. The scaling down by the Army of the militant population from a high of 3000 fighters to the current 600 has taken over a decade of hard work. The balance of advantage shifted in the Army’s favour only after it ensured that the attrition of militants outstripped their rate of reinforcement. Fencing along the LoC and a more proactive CIS strategy backed by high-tech equipment blunted militancy that in 2004 it was near-zero infiltration. The Army’s elaborate Sadbhavna programmes and sensitivity to human rights helped to wean away the people from the militants, especially in the rural areas. The challenge for the Army and security forces is not just to “keep the cap on 600” but to reduce this figure further. The call for troop withdrawal for reasons of political expediency does not factor in the threat dynamics and the imperative to preserve the hard-earned gains. What is politically correct is operationally fatal. The other demand for repealing the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is intimately linked to providing legal safeguards for troops fighting militancy. AFSPA was notified in 1989 by declaring three districts of Jammu and Kashmir as disturbed areas — the Kashmir Valley and Doda. The ministries of Home and Defence are engaged in making AFSPA more people-friendly and humane but as long as cross-border activities continue, its repeal will undermine the operational effectiveness of troops. Reducing the stress and strain on security forces is the moral responsibility of the military and political leadership. It is the failure of governance that leads to the political mess which the administration expects the Army to clean up. There is no Sri Lanka-type solution in Jammu and Kashmir and what had been achieved represents the best feasible for transition to the political process. In 1971, the government frittered away the political and diplomatic gains of the historic military victory in East Pakistan. For more than two decades after that missed opportunity, the government took no substantive action towards a political solution. In 2006-07, back channel talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s envoy on Pakistan, Satinder Lambah and the Musharraf-confidant Tariq Aziz produced the four-point Kashmir formula. India could not have expected a better agreement. Unfortunately, the front channel was unable to capitalise on it.
Srinagar lies in the flight path of the Taliban suicide bomber who arrived in Muzaffarabad across the LoC earlier this year. The last and only human bomber to strike in India was LTTE’s Dhanu who took out Rajiv Gandhi. Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed only fidayeen attacks which is kid stuff compared with multiple suicide bombings, now routine in Pakistan. The Army should be prepared to deter this challenge as the growing turbulence in Af-Pak is bound to rock Kashmir soon. Sixty-two years after it launched its first post-independence, expeditionary forces in Jammu and Kashmir the Army must be ready and willing to stick it out for at least a half century and more, with a fair likelihood of it getting sucked into the Maoist cauldron too. That’s the price the country has to pay for political shortsightedness and preference for conflict management rather than its
resolution.
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All izz Will Where
there is an e-Will, there is a way. To make Net gains by inheriting assets amassed in cyber space. And with passwords now being passed on, there’s virtual secrecy to be enjoyed, too. The recent bequeathing of e-mail accounts and digital assets by a denizen of the Capital to his sons is a fine example of thinking out of the box. Or, thinking outbox. What better than to forward your inbox to posterity through a digital Will? This will at least ensure that your email existence outlives your bodily one. When you’re in the outbox of mortality, you can draw solace from the fact that you had the foresight to “pass word” around. We’ve heard of testaments that spell a fetish for space. For instance, Gene Rodenberry, the maker of the Star Trek TV phenomenon, loved space and sci-fi so much that he requested that his body be sent into space. So, even in death, space he did get, as “he was carried away from Earth on a Spanish satellite and his ashes were shot into the atmosphere”. But to bequeath your chunk of cyberspace? Inheritance ideology has now clearly departed from capital gains to cyber gains. Imagine, here your kith and kin are assembled, post the transmigration of your soul into stratospheric sublimity, waiting with bated breath to hear about the material gains accruing from your exit. And there, comes the grand announcement from the trustee of your testament, who, in keeping with the non-material spirit of your inheritance, clicks not his tongue but a mouse to deliver the digi-document: “You’ve got e-Mail! “Piece to the soul.” That’s the curse likely to be spewed on your navigating soul by disappointed kin, who inherit your junk-mails instead of jewels, spam in place of souvenir. That may just be a sample of the ill-Will it can generate, but digital Wills are likely to enjoy an edge over more tangible testaments. Particularly, if e-Wills get more sociable in nature. And legacy-leaving logs on to social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, etc. So, you could leave a Twitter testament that says it all: the favoured progeny getting a Twitter account with the most fan following and the ones in disfavour getting passed over as nominees of your passwords. Tweet revenge! E-inheritance should certainly raise the worth of parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor’s tweets in the succession sweepstakes, or tweet-takes. And spur more of our film frat to create plots in blogosphere instead of B-town. Talking of tinsel town, blessed would be the successor to the log-on legacy of the Big B of Bollywood as well as blogosphere. For, this cyber custodian would be able to proudly proclaim: “Mere paas password hai!” Bequeathing of brick-and-mortar mansions becomes the root cause of many a family feud. And, more often than not, such disputes spill beyond the four walls of the home. Ah, but now you can bestow structures that needn’t create bad blood between progeny: walls on Facebook et al. For, these walls can be apportioned irrespective of divides in ties or territory. A son sitting in the US could get one wall, a daughter in India could be the successor to another wall….and so on. You could cyber-construct as many walls as your successors or, conversely, have as many inheritors as the number of your walls. As actor-turned-avid blogger-cum-wall writer Aamir Khan would say: All izz well that ends (in)
wall.
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Rule of law must prevail
Following
Tuesday’s deadly ambush in Chhattisgarh there is a greater urgency to review Operation Green Hunt, which appears half-baked at best. For the past several years New Delhi has acknowledged that the Maoists pose the biggest challenge to the state. The primary responsibility for meeting this challenge lies on the Union Home Ministry and the responsibility to formulate policies in this regard specifically lies with the Home Minister. He has indeed publicly outlined the essence of such a policy. This comprises strong police action to restore some degree of confidence in the administration and to secure some space for the administration to undertake developmental activity. It is expected that as development-promoting activities start bearing fruit, they would weaken the appeal of the Maoists politically and also reduce their ability to wage war against the state; such islands of development will gradually increase and expand, and it will become more and more difficult for the Maoists to recruit fresh cadre and the war will be won. However, even if one accepts the basic logic of the strategy, and it is by no means self-evident, the underlying assumption that non-development of the affected areas is the outcome of actual or threatened Maoist violence is suspect. Such an assumption fails to explain the non-/slow development in the first four or five decades after Independence when such threats did not exist. Lack of budgetary provisions, faulty plans or failure to create an effective administrative structure to implement them cannot provide the answer because these were more or less in the same state of disrepair throughout the country. Corruption and inefficiency allowed to run unchecked by the absence of a vocal civil society, indifference of the middle class and the media must also be held to be one of the prime reasons for the virtual non-development of the backward regions of the country. Confusion at the conceptual level as to what is the best way to bring about an improvement in the lot of the Adivasis has also contributed to this non-development. Even today some people argue that the traditional way of life of the Adivasis must not be disturbed and they should continue to remain the children of jungle. A third factor is, what may be described as the “Sagina Mahto” effect. The perhaps inevitable corrupting influence of the political culture on the native leaders, accentuated by the simplicity or naiveté of the followers and the consequent distancing of the leaders from their followers. In any case, Operation Green Hunt is doomed to fail unless a credible developmental plan is already in place and is ready to be rolled immediately. The plan must involve the beneficiaries and be led by people with proven credentials and demonstrable integrity. The plan must deliver within a year some visible results, enough to silence the professional critics and generate hope amongst the general public. Elements of such plans are already in place, like the Gramin Rojgar Yojana, the Gramin Sadak Yojana, the Navoday schools etc. What is needed to be done is to integrate them, have a scheme to increase the income of the people through better methods of agriculture, horticulture etc; make arrangements for imparting training to youth and their absorption in local industries and also in industries located elsewhere. The overall strategy to tackle the Maoists must include some efforts to persuade and rehabilitate such people in the mainstream which will have a demonstration effect on the rank and file. The strategy of putting heat will work primarily against the rank and file, the bottom rung of the hierarchy. However, it is also necessary to recognise that poverty does not create rebels, injustice does. Poverty may make one a beggar, a petty criminal, may partially extinguish the finer human feelings or higher human values, but it is extremely unlikely that it will provoke one to pick up a gun and declare war against the state. Establishing the rule of law is the only way to keep peoples’ faith in democracy. While mourning the death of the police personnel at the hands of the Maoists, one can only be saddened to reflect that it is the failure of some of their colleagues to do their normal, ordinary duty that has created the situation where some of them are called upon to make extraordinary sacrifices. Perhaps the real challenge of the Home Minister lies in setting the administration, especially the police administration, right so that the rule of law can be established. The writer is a former CMD of MSTC Ltd. The views expressed are personal
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Power projects in peril At
the time of formation of Uttarakhand in November 2000, it was billed as the future “power” state of India. However, ten years down the line, environmental and religious concerns, economic recession and “power politics” have cast a long shadow over the future of various hydro-electric projects. The state has not made much headway in power generation and could complete only 304 MW Maneri Bhali phase-11. Earlier, the 1,000 MW Tehri project, the 400 MW Vishnu Prayag and the 280 MW Dhauliganga project were completed in the past decade by public and private sector companies. The state government only gets a royalty of 12 per cent power from these projects. With the growing demand, Uttarakhand has been reeling under a power crisis. The entire state has been under power cuts ranging from three to five hours daily as the cost of purchasing power from outside are mounting. With a generation of nearly 9 million units from its’ own sources per day, the state has a demand for 24 million units per day. While the state proposes to exploit at least 20,000 MW of hydro-electric potential in the coming decades, recent developments concerning big and small hydro-electric projects have led to uncertainty in the sector. The recent recommendation of the group of ministers formed by the Prime Minister as the head of the Ganga River Basin authority to stop construction of two state-owned proposed projects, namely 480 MW Pala Maneri and 381 MW Bhairion Ghati, and the under-construction 600 MW Lohari Nagpala project being built by National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) on the Bhagirathi river has given a jolt to the state. The construction of hydro-power projects on the Bhagirathi is opposed by saints and the right-wing political parties. Even during the NDA regime, a committee was formed to suggest uninterrupted flow of water from the Ganga to Rishikesh and to Haridwar from the Tehri dam. The situation was under control during the tenure of Chief Minister N.D.Tewari as several big power projects either got underway or neared completion. While the Tehri, Vishnu Prayag and Dhauli Ganga projects got completed, Tewari revived the 304 MW Maneri Bhali phase-11 which got completed in Februray, 2008. The recommendations of the group of ministers to stall the projects between Gaumukh and Uttarkashi has pleased the saints and if the recommendations are accepted by the Gaga River basin authority, the Congress, besides pacifying the environmentalists, would gain politically in the Hindi heartland as a saviour of the Ganga. The recommendations have perturbed the state BJP government. Now the state government has launched a tirade against the central government and even is threatening to knock on the doors of the Supreme Court. Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank complains that the Centre cannot take a decision on these two projects without consulting the state government. Politics apart, the construction of a large number of hydro-electric projects on the rivers and rivulets in the state has united the environmentalists against the dangers of such large-scale construction in the ecologically fragile and seismically active zone of the mid-Himalayas. "The existence of the rivers, including the Ganga, is threatened as 330 big, medium and small dams will be built throughout the state in the coming years. Not only the rivers and their ecosystems are in peril but the lives, livelihoods and culture of hundreds of villages are doomed to perish," says Dr Ravi Chopra of the People’s Science Institute here. “The state and central governments have turned a blind eye to the plight of the snow-fed rivers and the continuous decrease in the discharge levels in these rivers has become a matter of grave concern for the common man,” says Chandi Parsad Bhatt, a noted environmentalist. A recent report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has also raised questions about the feasibility of having so many projects on the Ganga and putting the rivers in under ground tunnels.
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Bangalore Diary Punjabi beauty Kriti Kharbanda will make her debut in a Kannada movie soon. The actress has signed a movie which will be directed by Mahesh Babu. Kriti had done a Telugu flick named “Boni” last year. Kriti will follow the footsteps of Pooja Gandhi, another Punjabi, who tried her luck in Kannada movies and is now an established name in the industry here. Recently, Pooja’s sister Radhika also made her debut in a Kannada movie. Pooja’s repertoire includes 16 Kannada releases. Doesn’t she want to work in a Punjabi movie? An email sent to her asking this question has not elicited any response.
Dhabas galore
Dhabas, as the Punjabis call eating joints, are proliferating in Bangalore. A tourism brochure released recently has listed 28 popular dhabas in the city. One by the name of “Sardarji Ka Dhaba” is said to be quite a favourite with people having a taste for Punjabi food. “Minmini ka Dhaba” located in the Koramongola area is also reputed for serving decent Punjabi cuisine.
Civic elections
Stories are doing the rounds here about the astronomical sums spent by the candidates in the recently held urban bodies’ elections (Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagar Palike or BBMP) in the city. According to a survey done by an NGO, the average spending per candidate was Rs 2.5 crore – 50 times more than the prescribed limit of Rs 5 lakh. In some areas, candidates allegedly paid the electricity bills of voters to ensure their support. The counting of the votes (polling was on March 28) will take place on April 5. If the ruling BJP fails to win majority in the elections, it will be a big setback for the saffron party.
IIM(B) offer
The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) here has offered to refund the students’ entire fee if they work in a not-for- profit organisation for a period of three years. No student showed interest in the scheme when placements took place last month. IIM(B) Director Pankaj Chandra, however, is far from dejected. “We announced the scheme in February. The students probably had too little time to gear up to embrace the offer”, he said. He added that the scheme would attract good response at the next placement session.
Students’ satellite
Students of seven engineering colleges in Bangalore and Hyderabad have done something commendable in the arena of space science. Studsat, a collaborative student satellite project involving undergraduate engineering students from Bangalore and Hyderabad, is all set to be launched by ISRO’s PSLV rocket in May. The satellite, weighing just 1 kg, will carry a camera that can capture images with a ground resolution of 90
metres.
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