The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Need to stem the rot
Revamp medical education fast

As more and more skeletons spill out of the scam-hit Medical Council of India, the wrongdoings of its tainted chief Dr Ketan Desai continue to shock. However, while both the MCI and Dr Desai might be the visible faces of what is wrong with medical education in India, clearly this is not where the rot ends and their exit alone will not ensure that ills plaguing medical colleges will come to pass.

Overcoming the shortages of staff and deficiencies in private colleges would require much effort. There is an urgent need to reform medical education and increase public spending in the sector that has been crying for government attention since long.

In the last 15 years the number of medical colleges may have increased substantially but this has been mostly in the private sector. So much so that in the last decade the government has not bothered to create even a single government medical college leaving the field open to private operators who have beaten the system of monitoring by ways like “faculty retention”. Malpractices both in the admission process and the functioning of medical colleges have became a norm and without an iron will it would not be possible to set the house in order.

Whether the answer lies in taking medical education out of the ambit of the Health Ministry and placing it under the proposed all-encompassing regulatory body, the National Commission for Higher Education and Research, or not there is a clear case for curbing unregulated privatisation of medical education. Undeniably medical education cannot be completely taken out of the scope of the private sector but the yawing gaps between the standards of medical colleges have to be bridged on a priority basis. A nation that is already short of doctors can ill-afford to produce ones that don’t meet the grade. Health and consequently health education is too vital an area to be left at the mercy of unscrupulous wheelers-dealers al la Desai. Those who have been hand in glove with him and made medical education suffer cannot be allowed an encore.

Tremors in Europe
Cracks appear in EU unity

On May 10 when the European Union and the IMF stitched together a $1 trillion rescue package for Greece, the world felt relieved. Stock markets gave a big thumbs-up to it. The BSE Sensex zoomed by 560 points. However, by the weekend Europe was back in turmoil. President Sarkozy of France threatened to pull out of the euro if Germany backed out of the bailout. Adding fuel to the fire, Deutsche Bank chief executive Josef Ackermann said in an interview that Greece might not ever pay back its debts. This sent alarm bells ringing beyond Europe. Asian stock markets were shaken on Monday.

What began as a sub-prime crisis in the US in 2008, resulting in bank defaults and the collapse of Lehman Brothers, has reached a stage where heavily indebted countries are crying for bailouts. The trouble is not just limited to Greece. Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain too face the heat. In anger, they blaming “a wolf pack of currency speculators” who have brought down the euro. Equally hated are the credit rating agencies, which are re-rating national debts to junk levels and drying up borrowing sources and raising costs of capital. Even the fate of the EU as a single political and economic entity is threatened. Bickering is out in the open. No one wants to pay for another nation’s follies.

The eurozone citizens will have to bear the burden of their leaders’ blunders. The global recovery stands jeopardised. India’s exports to Europe, particularly by IT companies, will be hit. Global capital is shifting to safer havens like India and other emerging markets. In the turbulent times gold stands out as a safe investment. Hence, a steep rise in its prices. Europe will have to stand as one in this hour of crisis and help the European Central Bank and the IMF to sort outs its debt issues. This will take time and require patience and cooperation of the EU members.

Thought for the Day

He that dies pays all debts. — William Shakespeare

ARTICLE

Dialogue with Pakistan
Will it really reduce trust deficit?
by Gen V. P. Malik (retd)

The Thimpu talks and the death sentence pronounced on Ajmal Kasab have once again brought India-Pakistan relations back into focus. It is apparent that the establishments in the two countries have decided to look beyond the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack and resume the stalled dialogue, primarily to reduce the trust deficit. Its pace and priorities will become evident when the Foreign Ministers of both countries meet on July 15.

After the Mumbai incident and the sharp increase in terrorist violence in Pakistan, most people in India, even more in Pakistan, seem to have realised that India-Pakistan relations need to improve. Nothing would improve India’s security at home, or enhance its ability to play a more constructive regional role as much as reconciliation with Pakistan. And nothing could be worse for India than the continued descent of Pakistan into the abyss of terrorism. For Pakistan, good relations with India are a must if it has to prevent its frequent bouts of political instability, rejuvenate its economy, progress with its sociology (a Pakistani friend put it as roti, kapra, makan, bijlee, pani aur dawa) and, most importantly, tackle its homegrown terrorism and civil strife successfully.

It is also being realised that the strategic conditions in the subcontinent have become a lot more stringent. India and Pakistan can no longer afford to fight an all-out high-intensity war. The old days of military victories and defeats, and forcible major changes of the border or the LoC are over. The concepts of continental or maritime strategy and strategic depth in that context have no relevance in the case of the nuclearised subcontinent.

Most people have also realised that the J & K imbroglio cannot be resolved by military means or with cross-border terrorism. Any attempt to resolve our complex problems with force and violence will lead to greater instability in both countries with serious manifestations for the region.

Such a strategic reality notwithstanding, it would be wrong to expect that people on both sides will forget their recent history of conflicts completely when their lives continue to be affected by violence. We have had three wars, a limited war and several near-war border deployments. In India, the proxy war in J & K is continuing. In Pakistan, the terrorist mad dogs are not only biting the hands that fed them in the past but also those of innocent people everywhere, thus weakening the state. Only fools would fail to draw lessons from them. At the strategic level, we need a long memory and a longer foresight and vision.

Cross-border terrorism remains India’s major security problem with Pakistan. In recent years, whenever we have taken one step forward in the dialogue with Pakistan, a major terrorist act like 26/11 has taken us two steps backward. India and Pakistan seem to be playing a game of snakes and ladder. Unfortunately, it is not the dice but human beings who are swallowed by deadly snakes. Whenever, a positive step is taken to resume the dialogue, most Indians wonder if that will last beyond the next terror incident.

In a recent India-Pakistan track-II level dialogue, Pakistani delegates, while not quite ignoring the terrorism issue, argued that (a) Pakistan was now a larger victim of terrorism than India, and (b) terrorism is a global phenomenon and a “common threat” which requires regional and global cooperation. They also cited statements by the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan that “terrorism is a common threat for both our countries”. Their argument is partly true. But how does one ignore the difference that terrorism in Pakistan is homegrown like our Maoist insurgency, but jihadi terrorism in J&K and the rest of India is encouraged, even sponsored, by Pakistan’s state agencies. It is for this reason that all attempts to work together through a joint anti-terrorist mechanism have failed.

Intelligence officials in India have no doubt that the Mumbai attack, like many such incidents in the past, was encouraged and supported by the ISI which works under the Pakistan Army. Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said, “There is enough evidence to show that, given the sophistication and military precision of the attack, it must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan.” A few months ago, General Musharraf, who called the ISI as Pakistan’s strategic arm and its first line of defence, admitted that the ISI maintained representation in all militant outfits to promote the Pakistan Army’s strategic interests.

The slow progress in Pakistan on punishing the perpetrators of 26/11 and its provocative handling of Lashkar-e-Taoiba chief Hafiz Saeed have demonstrated the limits of what India can expect from Pakistan in return for political engagement. The permission given to the terrorist groups in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir to stage a massive rally on February 5, in which Hafiz Saeed and Jihad Council chief Salahuddin openly threatened to carry the terror war to Pune, Delhi and Kanpur, has reconfirmed the view that Pakistan rejects any linkage between bilateral talks and curbs on its terror groups. So far, it has not taken any measure to stop India-oriented jihadis’ activities despite several assurances given by General Musharraf and his successors. Banned terrorist organisations continue to gather funds, recruit people, run radio networks and maintain small-size camps openly under their original or changed names.

Terrorists’ infrastructure remains intact. As per Intelligence assessment, 42 terrorists’ training camps directed against India are operating in Pakistan. Of these, 34 are “active” and eight are “holding” camps. About 300 militants are waiting for an opportunity to infiltrate into India.

A few days back, Mr Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, former Foreign Minister of Pakistan, revealed that India and Pakistan had almost managed to negotiate their way to a settlement on Kashmir before General Musharraf was ousted. He said that the Pakistan Army had supported this proposal. If that was so, then why has there been a substantial increase in cross-LoC infiltration and encounters recently? This is being seen as an evidence of Pakistan’s unchanged intent and strategy despite a tactical downward calibration noticed earlier.

The conclusions being drawn from this ground situation are: (a) Pakistan hopes to continue the dialogue along with supported or unsupported cross-border terrorism, and (b) the Pakistan Army and the government have rejected the dialogue that Mr Kasuri mentioned.

A war, Clausewitz stated, is an extension of politics and policy by other means. The world has now come to believe that if politics and policy remain in the hands of civilians, there are lesser chances of nations going to war. In Pakistan, issues related to India (particularly Kashmir), Afghanistan and its own nuclear capability are areas of special concern to its military. It is well known that the political leadership finds it difficult to assert on such matters.

In this context, the recent passing of the 18th Constitution Amendment under which the elected Prime Minister and political institutions in Pakistan acquired greater sustenance and authority has become a new factor (apart from the water issue). In the aforesaid track-II dialogue, Pakistani delegates, citing this amendment, were vocal about the return of true democracy and political supremacy in their country. Some also argued that progress in the India-Pakistan dialogue would strengthen their democratic institutions.

While this is indeed a healthy development in our neighborhood, there are serious doubts about its impact in the foreseeable future. No one can overlook the fact that in almost all issues affecting the US and Pakistan, the US leaders depend more on the Pakistan military than its civilian counterparts. The prominence given to General Kayani in the last US-Pakistan strategic dialogue in Washington DC made it quite obvious. The real test of the 18th Amendment in Pakistan would be if and when the Prime Minister is able to place the ISI under civilian control in letter and spirit, and establish a tenure-based military leadership at the highest level.

My central premise is that the peace process with Pakistan can progress only when there is a violence-free atmosphere. Every terror incident adds to domestic political risks in India. With every incident, suspicions tend to increase and trust tends to fray. If such a premise turns out to be unsustainable, any government in India would lose popular support for talks with Pakistan. People can get the impression that Islamabad is leveraging terrorist violence to extract political concessions from New Delhi. The government can thus undermine its ability and credibility to negotiate.

Despite that risk, the Prime Minister has taken the courage to resume the dialogue. But neither the government nor the public has much expectations from it till there is a change in the Pakistani mindset and policy on cross-border terrorism. The trust deficit will get reduced not because of political rhetoric but when the results on the ground prove that.n

The writer is a former Chief of Army Staff.

MIDDLE

The other ‘Indians’
by Syed Nooruzzaman

Had Shakespeare been there in our midst today he might have thought of revising the opinion he expressed: “What is there in a name? That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet.” In many countries the word “Pakistani” has become a subject of derision. People start suspecting the credentials of a person the moment he or she introduces himself/ herself as a Pakistani. Obviously, this is because of Pakistan having acquired the image of being a terrorist-breeding land.

The situation is, perhaps, the worst in the US where people begin to feel uneasy when they come across a Pakistani. As one newspaper reported recently, US citizens having Pakistani origin find it difficult to get a job these days. That is why many of such Americans want to be known as people of “Indian” origin. Gone are the days when anyone disclosing his Indian identity in the US faced the question: “Are you a red Indian?”

One can find many businessmen in London calling themselves “Indians” though they are actually from Sylhet in Bangladesh. I came across such “Indians” during a recent visit to Brussels, the Belgian capital. Brussels, the nerve-centre of European politics because of housing most of the European Union offices and the NATO headquarters, has become a major trade centre over the years. Many Indians and Pakistanis are engaged in different fields of activity there.

When we, a group of Indian journalists, entered a shop in Brussels for buying mementos, etc, we were told by the EU representatives accompanying us that the establishment was owned by an Indian. However, when I enquired from the owner where he actually came from, he told me with some hesitation that he was from a place in Pakistan. He then also revealed that doing business with an Indian identity brought him more respect and credibility than as a Pakistani.

One day we decided to have dinner at a place where Indian dishes were served. Some Brussels-based journalists told us that there was an Indian-run restaurant closest to our hotel. When we reached there we were delighted to see the menu listing Indian dishes. We got curious about finding out who the owner was. Soon we were face to face with the person who introduced himself as the owner. He said that he came from “India” a long time ago and was leading a happy life in Europe. He spoke Hindi with great difficulty.

During the course of our conversation he revealed that he was actually from the Sylhet area in Bangladesh, but he preferred to be known as an Indian. After all, Bangladesh was once part of undivided India. An interesting explanation, no doubt. But what was more interesting was his argument that his “Indian” identity was helpful in his emergence as a successful businessman. An “Indian” running a restaurant providing Indian food was his strong point. And the food he served us was really delicious with truly Indian flavour.

OPED

Fighting insurgency
CRPF can use Army manpower
by Col Pritam Bhullar (retd)

WHILE speaking on Naxalism at Jawaharlal Nehru University on May 5, Home Minister P. Chidambaram blamed the senior officers of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) for getting 76 security personnel killed at Dantewada in Chhattisgarh on April 6. After the Dantewada tragedy, many writers had brought out the weaknesses in the leadership and training of the CRPF.

One of the oft-repeated suggestions for the last four decades is that rather than retiring Army manpower in the prime of their youth (a jawan is sent home in his 30s and a bulk of the officers in their 40s and early 50s), they should be shifted on the completion of their tenures in the Army to the CRPF.

Two distinct advantages will accrue from this move. First, the CRPF will get well-trained and more disciplined rank and file. Second, the government will get this manpower on half of their earlier salary because the other half would have been paid to them as pension, if they had retired from the Army.

Notwithstanding the obvious advantages of this proposal, the government has always looked askance at it for the reasons, which flow from our history.

When Sir Robert Lockhart, first Commander-in-Chief of Independent India presented a paper to Jawaharlal Nehru on the proposed size and shape of the Army in the light of perceived threats, his response was: "Rubbish, total rubbish. We don't need a defence plan. Our policy is non-violence. We foresee no military threats. Scrap the Army. The police is good enough to meet our security needs."

The tribal invasion of Kashmir organised by Pakistan a few days later in October 1947, fortunately kept the Army intact. Fifteen years later, after the shattering Chinese debacle, Nehru had still not shed his aversion to the Army.

In the quantum of our forces reflected in the Karachi agreement, 14 J and K Militia battalions were shown in Jammu and Kashmir. But on ground, we had only seven. To raise the remaining seven, whenever the Army top brass took up a case with the government, pat came a reply that instead of these battalions, seven battalions of the CRPF should be raised. This tussle continued till 1969, when the Army gave in on this issue.

The necessity of raising a force like the Rashtriya Rifles (RR) battalions was felt in the early nineties when militancy in Punjab was at its peak and the Army in large numbers, about nine divisions, was deployed to quell insurgency in the state. To release pressure of counter-insurgency duties from the Army, it was decided that 18 battalions of RR would be raised by taking manpower from the Army units.

After raising six battalions in 1991, the government called a halt and said that instead of RR battalions, more CRPF battalions should be raised. In the meantime, the RR units deployed in Punjab in the thick of militancy gave a shining account of themselves. This turned the opinion in favour of having more RR units. Subsequently, the proxy war in J and K forced the government to enlarge the RR to 36 battalions. Later some more RR battalions had to be raised to meet the operational requirements.

Not only have the RR battalions and their sector headquarters, having officers and men from the Army (who are rotated after two years), proved their mettle in tackling insurgency in J and K but they have also helped in supplementing the Army strength and easing the situation to a large extent in the state.

What has been irking our bureaucrats for the past several years is that the Army has increased its strength in the name of RR battalions. Efforts, therefore, have been continuously made by adopting different stances by them to either get the RR out of the way or at least delink them from the Army by placing them under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). This would automatically necessitate changing their manpower with the paramilitary forces' manpower.

To get the RR battalions out of the way, the Fifth Pay Commission had made a laughable recommendation that the RR should be disbanded. The Pay Commission had further said that since the internal security was the responsibility of the MHA, it should be given to the CRPF. One can imagine what would have happened in J and K, if the Pay Commission's recommendations were implemented.

The Kargil Review Committee had said in 2000 that over the years the quality of paramilitary and central police forces had not been upgraded effectively to deal with the challenges of times; and this had led to an increased dependence on the Army to fight insurgency. The committee had recommended that to enable these forces to accomplish their task, the Army's manpower should be released after seven years of service (as it used to happen in the seventies) and after their release, they should be transferred to these forces. Anyone who understands the psyche of our politicians and bureaucrats knew it fully well when this recommendation was made that it would be thrown out of the window.

Coming back to Chhattisgarh, the Dantewada ambush on April 6 seems to have demolished the morale of the police and the CRPF. This is evident from the state Home Minister's suggestion on May 9 that the Army should take over the anti-Maoists operations in the state. The DGP has also said that the forest in Chhattisgarh is so extensively mined by the Maoists that it is not possible to go after them.

From a few battalions in the seventies, the CRPF has grown to a huge force of 216 battalions, yet the Army has to be summoned on the drop of a hat.

Missing child: A parents’ nightmare
by Swati Sharma

Sonia Singh of Ambala went missing on March 20, 2008. Two years have gone by but her parents are still waiting to have a look at their child, to hear her voice desperately and helplessly. All they can do is pray and wait for her return. For parents a missing child is an endless and agonising wait. The problem of missing children has been there for the last 60 years. However, nothing much has been done about it.

Consider this: the tricity of Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula, which has a population of 1.16 million, reported 193 children missing in 2009 while in the Capital of the country, New Delhi, with a larger population, 1,876 persons sent missing last year.

The state of Uttar Pradesh had 1,847 missing persons last year while the Haryana police has maintained the data of missing persons from November 6, 2009, to May 6, 2010, on its official website which totals to 686.

Four years back the inhuman killings of innocent children in Nithari in Noida sent shockwaves across the country. After a hue and cry was raised by the media, reports to keep a check on such incidents were prepared by the authorities.

The National Human Rights Commission did its bit by taking a suo motto notice of the ghastly Nithari killings and tabled a report.

The report observed: "The brutal killings of several children in Nithari sparked off nationwide indignation on the abuse to which the victims were subjected and gross violation of human rights."

The report zeroed in on the possible fate of the missing children as "the revelations at Nithari exemplify that missing children may end up in a variety of places and situations like killed, buried in neighbours’ backyard, used as cheap forced labour in illegal factories, homes, exploited as sex slaves or forced into child porn industry, as victims of illegal adoptions or forced marriage, organ trade even grotesque cannibalism."

The human rights in its report finally concluded: "The report on the missing children bears testimony to the fact that not much has been achieved to protect the rights of children for the last 60 years. Undoubtedly, there has been a plethora of documents in the form of plans, policies, programmes, schemes."

Anuj Bhargava and his wife, Nidhi Bhargava, in Madhya Pradesh have been running an NGO -- the National Centre for Missing Children -- for the last ten years. Commenting on the issue, he said, "A missing child is a parents’ worst nightmare and I hope no one has to go through it. It is painful and is worse than death as there is no closure to it."

He asserts, "There is no FIR registered. The first reaction of the police usually is that the child will come back in three to four days. We have been working on this, contacting the police of different states but I feel nothing much has been achieved."

Sharing one of the cases, he said, "We once traced a boy after years he went missing. He was kidnapped from South India then through an orphanage sold to a couple for several pounds and was finally traced in Belgium."

The issue is serious and calls for immediate corrective measures. According to experts, the problem of missing children should be made a priority issue by all stakeholders, especially the law enforcement agencies. The DGPs of all states should take appropriate steps to issue police orders, circulars and sensitise the police in this regard.

A missing persons’ squad is a must in police stations. The squad should have an officer who should register all complaints.

As per the directions of the Delhi High Court, a cell relating to missing persons or children was set up in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The cell has been working ever since but due to lack of adequate resources, desired results have not been achieved.

Officials in charge of the district administration in the country should go to places where children are employed and inspect their working conditions periodically.

The state police headquarters should evolve a system whereby all incidents of missing children are reported to the newly constituted National Commission for Protection of Child Rights within 24 hours of the occurrence of an incident.

In places where vulnerable groups of children are found in large numbers, there is need for the law enforcement agencies to evolve some kind of a mechanism in partnership with non-governmental organisations and social workers to offer regular counselling and undertake exercises to create awareness among children and parents. There is a need to establish a child helpline at the district level through NGOs with support from the government.

The local administration should persuade and help schools to keep watch on children, especially when they become untraceable. Schools should introduce photo identity cards for children. Newspapers can help by publishing details of missing children on a regular basis.

Delhi Durbar
BJP MP’s feats

Saroj Pandey, the first-time BJP MP from Durg in Chhattisgarh, is the first Indian woman to have ever held three elected posts at the same time — Mayor, member, legislative assembly, and member, Parliament. Interestingly, she held these posts simultaneously for 15 days – from May 16, 2009 to May 30, 2009. Saroj was elected Mayor of Durg in 1999 and again in 2004, won the assembly elections from Vaishali Nagar on December 8, 2008 and was elected to the Lok Sabha from Durg on May 16, 2009.

She was also in the news recently for bringing a group of school students from the Naxal-infested districts of Chhattisgarh on a tour of Parliament. She took them to the Lok Sabha Speaker's chamber, where one of the students asked the Speaker what the solution to Naxalism was.

Speaker Meira Kumar was naturally touched. She even issued certificates (of having visited Parliament) to the students, courtesy Saroj whose idea is all set to be institutionalised by the Lok Sabha Secretariat. The Speaker is now planning to ask all MPs to bring school students from their constituencies on a virtual tour of Parliament.

Where is Venkaiah?

M Venkaiah Naidu

In all the Jharkhand drama being played out in the BJP, there is one element seriously missing and that is former president M Venkaiah Naidu. On all earlier occasions whenever anything big or important was happening in the party, Venkaiah was always seen sharing the centre-stage with other top leaders. Be it the UP elections, the Uttarakahnd crisis or any organisational matter, Venkaiah was seen hovering all over as the lone South Indian face of the BJP.

But one notable characteristic of the new order under Nitin Gadkari and marginalisation of Advani is the virtual absence of Venkaiah from the scene. In the series of meetings that Gadkari held about Jharkhand, former president Rajnath Singh has been playing a key role, no doubt. Even long forgotten Murli Manohar Joshi was invited to some of the meetings but poor Venkaiah got no opportunity to go to Ranchi or even address the issue in Delhi. So the poor man is going to Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad, finding ready takers among newsmen to speak about Jharkhand.

Diplomats embarrassed

S M Krishna

The Pakistanis have this great knack for scoring brownie points over Indians when it comes to diplomacy. They again succeeded in doing so after talks between External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, last week.

Soon after the telephonic conversation, Qureshi held a packed press conference in Islamabad to announce that Home Minister P Chidambaram would visit Pakistan for the SAARC Interior Ministers’ meeting on June 26 prior to Krishna’s July 15 visit. He also went on to add that Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao would accompany Chidambaram. This was contrary to the protocol since the announcement about Chidambaram should have been made by New Delhi.

Embarrassed senior officials immediately swung into action to control the damage by briefing the media off the record about Chidambaram’s impending visit to Islamabad. But by then, Qureshi had already hogged the limelight on most television channels.

Contributed by Aditi Tandon, Faraz Ahmad and Ashok Tuteja

Corrections and clarifications

l The headline “Serena Williams lose” in the Briefly column (Page 20, May 14), the word “loses” should have been used in place of “lose”.

l Instead of the headline “England book final ticket” (Page 20, May 14) “England book berth in final” would have been appropriate.

l The headlines (Page 2, May 14, Chandigarh Tribune) “PU orders probe into fire incident” and “DEO issues notices to 3 teachers” appearing side by side have erroneously been interchanged.

l The headline “Bihar’s Super 30 in Time magazine best list” (Page 10, May 15) is not precise as the copy talks about the coaching centre figuring in the list of the Best in Asia 2010.

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.

Raj Chengappa

Editor-in-Chief