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Al-Qaida loses Kashmiri
Bumpy ride with oil |
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Nadal equals Borg
India-Afghan engagement
‘Chak de India’
Hardly had the military recovered from the humiliation suffered at the hands of the Abbottabad debacle, when the Pakistan Navy found itself in the dock for being unable to defend an airbase for over 15 hours from the devastating attack by some half-a-dozen insurgents
Queries about Abbottabad
Window on pakistan
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Al-Qaida loses Kashmiri
US drone attacks on Pakistan’s tribal areas led to the death of a dreaded terrorist, Iliyas Kashmiri, on Friday. Kashmiri, whose name figures prominently on the list of those wanted by India from Pakistan for their role in the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack, was one of the top Al-Qaida operatives. His name was being mentioned as a possible successor to Osama bin Laden, killed by US forces at Abbottabad, near Islamabad. There is no confirmation directly from Al-Qaida, but one of its associates, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, has denied Kashmiri’s demise. However, Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik has stated that Kashmiri was one of the persons killed by US drones in the compound of a building owned by a tribesman linked to the Mullah Nazir group of militants, sympathetic to Islamabad. His body was charred beyond recognition, yet the Pakistan government seems to have gathered authentic information from the Nazir group. The US and other Western countries have not contradicted the claim made by the Pakistan Interior Minister. Had Kashmiri been alive and had he taken over as the Al-Qaida chief, India would have been one of the principal targets of the men under his command. He came from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and had an India-centric approach. Otherwise Al-Qaida’s operations have been focussed on Pakistan, Afghanistan, West Asia, the US and Europe. Al-Qaida seems to have been exploiting the anti-US sentiment to find new recruits. Despite the US-led international campaign to wipe out the global terrorist outfit, it continues to maintain its presence in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and certain West Asian countries. Al-Qaida has had a major role to play in the insurgency in post-Saddam Iraq and the unrest in Yemen, where anti-government protests have led to its dictator, President Abdullah Saleh, having taken shelter in Saudi Arabia on the pretext of getting treatment for the injuries he has suffered in rebel attacks. Despite all this, India has to maintain the strongest vigil possible to prevent any terrorist strike in the country from Al-Qaida associates like the Lashkar-e-Toiba, which have their strong bases in Pakistan. Terrorists of any kind are known for springing a surprise. India also has to ensure that the international pressure on Pakistan for destroying the terrorist outfits’ bases in that country remains undiminished. |
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Bumpy ride with oil
Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh raised a pertinent issue while releasing a UN report on World Environment Day in Delhi. He wondered why the government should subsidise diesel for mobile firms. There are some 4,50,000 mobile towers in the country. Telecom companies use subsidised diesel to provide power at these towers, causing a loss of Rs 2,600 crore annually to the government. The minister caused a sensation the other day when he observed that it was “criminal” to use diesel-guzzling sport utility vehicles (SUVs) in India. He had asked, again very validly: Why should luxury cars get subsidised diesel? Instead of subsidising the telecom firms and luxury car makers, suggests the minister, the money should be used to provide cheap cooking gas to the poor living in the forest areas so that they are not forced to cut trees for fuel. Few would dispute the argument. While petrol has been decontrolled – at least on paper – the diesel prices are fixed by the government since much of the economy runs on diesel. After the recent price hikes, the gap between the petrol and diesel pricing has widened, spurring demand for diesel cars. To better target the diesel subsidy, the government can levy green taxes on commercial diesel users. The Kirit Parikh committee suggests that the government should set minimum fuel efficiency standards and rate all vehicles as well as charge the diesel car and SUV owners higher taxes. Experts also favour market-linked diesel prices, which would, after initial hiccups, stabilise and ease the government’s subsidy burden. |
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Nadal equals Borg
When two of the greatest tennis players that the world has ever seen engage in a title clash, and give off their very best, the match ends up being an all-time classic. That is what the French Open final on Sunday proved to be, spellbinding the viewers completely. Rafael Nadal of Spain pipped his great rival Roger Federer in four sets, coming level with Swede Bjorn Borg for Rolland Garros men’s singles triumphs. Borg had done the “impossible” of claiming the title six times from 1974 to 1981 and now Nadal seems set to go even further, given that he has a lot of top-class tennis in him yet. What exhilarating rallies and winners the duo came up with! It was an edge of the seat final all the way where Federer prevailed in the beginning but Nadal gained as the match progressed. The way reigning champion Nadal was outplayed for seven games in the first set as he fell 2-5 behind, only to reel off five games in a row, including a set point, was an object lesson for any budding player that one should never ever give up. He won even more hearts by being effusive in praising Federer, whom he described as “certainly the best in the world, the best in history….” What is heartening is that such intense rivalry is raising the standard of tennis day by day. This triumph ensures that Nadal would stay as world’s number one ahead of Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, whom Federer had despatched earlier, but the Serb is coming up fast as the next best thing. Father Time catches up with even the greatest players but fortunately, the baton is passed on to highly deserving successors. Borg would have been very pleased to see Nadal come level with his outstanding record. So what is next? |
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Education is the best provision for old age. — Aristotle |
India-Afghan engagement
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent visit to Kabul and India’s initiative to develop long-term strategic partnership will redefine New Delhi’s relations with Afghanistan by giving it leverage in Kabul that it had not enjoyed in the past years. The announcement of a fresh commitment of $ 500 million worth aid along with the acceptance of the political reconciliation programme will take India’s relations with Afghanistan to an altogether new level. Given the changing equations in the so-called Af-Pak region, India is using its political and diplomatic resources to reinforce its importance in Afghanistan. Interestingly, the timing has also been perfect — the US is looking for an end to the Afghan quagmire and planning to reduce its troop presence by 2014, Osama bin Laden got killed recently, US-Pakistan relations are undergoing a fresh low, the Pakistan Army has been bidding for more leverage in the post-settlement scenario and pushing for China’s increased involvement in the reconstruction process (by sidelining the US), and there is a pressing need for regional actors to show the initiative for a stable Afghanistan. India has enjoyed close cultural and political ties with Afghanistan historically. Having signed the Treaty of Friendship with the Royal Government of Afghanistan in 1950, India went on to becoming the first democratic country in the world to recognise the communist government that was installed in Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in 1979. India supported successive governments in Kabul till the rise of the Afghan Taliban in 1996, during whose rule it cut diplomatic relations with Afghanistan. Relations between the two countries improved tremendously after the US-led NATO invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Since then, although India has intensively supported Afghanistan’s reconstruction efforts and provided millions of dollars in aid, it remained politically aloof. Whereas India won the hearts and minds of the local Afghan people on the one hand, it lost out on the political front and could never utilise the clout that it once had in Kabul. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Kabul provides India an opportunity to regain political ground in Afghanistan that New Delhi allowed to erode all these years. Firstly, the announcement of the strategic framework indicates India’s “political intent” to depart from the narrow engagement with Afghanistan, often shaped by India-Pakistan rivalry. Regardless of an admirable beginning during the post-2001 period when it enjoyed tremendous goodwill among the Afghans and the Northern Alliance, India failed to capitalise on its leverage. It decided to further lower its profile in the war-torn country after the deadly attacks on the Indian Embassy in Kabul in 2008. Although a prudent decision, given the security concerns of the Indians in Afghanistan, it did little to consolidate India’s political clout. Moreover, India’s silence on the High Peace Council that has been given the responsibility to push the reconciliation process and the Peace Jirga has raised concerns among the Afghans. Framing a strategic initiative will provide a possibility to make up for past failures and allow India to fill the political vacuum that is emerging due to a limited political engagement by regional actors. Secondly, New Delhi has shown commendable diplomatic maturity by taking a definite stand on the issue of reconciliation with the Afghan Taliban. By making it very clear that if reconciliation is what the people of Afghanistan want, then it shall support it, and that this should be an “Afghan-led” process, India has aligned its stance with the Afghan thought process. This is a departure from India’s strong stance against the return of the Afghan Taliban to power in any shape or form. Also, the strategic framework does not require Afghanistan to undermine its relations with any other country. This gives a signal that India understands that President Hamid Karzai cannot do without the support of the Pakistani establishment to successfully carry out the reconciliation process. This decision is important not only because it will help India build strong ties with Afghanistan but also because it will help New Delhi in improving its relations with Pakistan. By endorsing the reconciliation programme devised by President Karzai, India will help in dispelling suspicions in Pakistan’s power corridors about India’s intent in Afghanistan. It is fairly well known that Pakistan Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani wants to call the shots in Kabul. He wants to gain “strategic depth” against India by treating Afghanistan as exclusive Pakistani backwoods free of Indian or outside presence. If the Taliban ends up getting small zones of influence in Afghanistan in a power-sharing set-up, Pakistan does intend to hone its relations with it for such objectives. In such a scenario, supporting the reconciliation programme without political qualms will ease the Pakistani establishment’s understanding of the role India is hoping to play in Afghanistan in the long run. This is a major psychological barrier that India has successfully overcome. Though it will not completely pacify India’s security concerns and Pakistan’s mistrust of India, it reflects that India does not view the two neighbours as being caught in a competition in Afghanistan. Thirdly, Dr Manmohan Singh has said very categorically that the Indian military will not get involved in Afghanistan at all. Not only does this symbolises respect for sovereignty of the fledgling democracy but also strengthens the benign image of India among the Afghans. India can further intensify its aid and economic engagement with Afghanistan and help Kabul in capacity-building measures. It has already promised to train the Afghan police that is expected to play a very important role in the post-settlement scenario. Furthermore, as mentioned in the Joint Declaration, the two sides have decided to enter into a strategic economic partnership for greater cooperation in sectors such as mining, metallurgy, fuel and energy, information technology, communications and transport. The two countries have also agreed on the importance of regional projects such as TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan- Pakistan-India oil pipeline) in promoting regional integration. Therefore, with the joint declaration of strategic partnership, India has built the base to consolidate its engagement with Afghanistan and has signalled towards changing its political attitude in its neighbourhood. What still needs to be seen is whether it actually capitalises on this opportunity and keeps up to its promise of playing the role of a major partner — something that was long sought of
it. The writer is a Research Scholar with the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. |
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‘Chak de India’
Every human act, we all understand, is actuated, inspired and provoked by some circumstance. Love begets love. Hate invites a similar sentiment. ‘Ignited’ by the alleged brutalities committed by the policing quarters (with due regards to the larger, competent and conscientious segment of the force), the inimitable Gulzar presented “Maachis”. Likewise, possibly uncomfortable at the state of women hockey receding into the background (repetitive expression used to achieve stress effect), Chopra scion Yash produced and directed “Chak de India”. Its effect is for all to see. Hope it persists and percolates to other games too. The “chivalrous” men have already acted and conquered the World Cup. Lest the prompting event gets subsided in the mass of ‘inspirational’ tales, I come to the topic. There was a newspaper report the other day that a female car driver gave a teeth bite to a same-sex traffic police official when the latter tried to book the former for a traffic offence. The report said the situation reached the ‘biting’ point when the alleged traffic offender declined to part with the required documentation and also resisted the endeavour made by the official to get her out of the vehicle. As the act of biting is (usually and universally too) attributed to the kennel club, I am not very clear about who should we turn to: Maneka Gandhi – the eternal obsessive protagonist of the prevention of cruelty to animals – or the Indian Penal Code which is executed by the law-enforcement agency. If the parties to the episode were from different genders, the situation could be explosively chaotic. The various commissions (did we ever hear of a dispensation to protect the male too?), charged with the ‘pious’ responsibility of protecting the race of a particular hue, would have surfaced to announce their presence on the scene. Luckily (for whom?), it was a case of intra-race controversy. The episode provides a meaningful cause to the establishment concerned to apply for enlargement of the budgetary allocation to enable the purchase of ‘protective’ gloves. Further, media mughals could be appeased to restrain the published ‘reiteration’ of the episode and its after-effects to avoid the multiplication of the ‘infectious’
exercise. |
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Hardly had the military recovered from the humiliation suffered at the hands of the Abbottabad debacle, when the Pakistan Navy found itself in the dock for being unable to defend an airbase for over 15 hours from the devastating attack by some half-a-dozen insurgents
To be upstaged by US Navy SEALs and stealth helicopters in Abbottabad was one thing, perhaps even pardonable, but to be outsmarted by a small group of terrorists who held out for almost a day against the much more superior combat capability and equipment of an elite force was stunning and far more mortifying. Similar attacks have proved that no branch of the military is out of the terrorists’ reach. While the minutiae of the event — and of countless other previous ambushes on strategic targets — continue to unravel, highlighted by the mysterious death of a prominent journalist investigating the possible infiltration of the base by Al-Qaida, it is becoming clear that such incidents cannot be treated in isolation. We need to look for systemic factors that give rise to the recurrence of such disasters that erode the state’s capacity and the public’s morale. The recent (in camera) debate in parliament and the remarkably candid confessional statements of the military and intelligence representatives made therein, have brought home the somberness of the issues facing the nation. Unfortunately, the discourse so far has remained confined to blame games and turf wars and there has been little introspective effort to understand the Pakistani predicament or an attempt to work towards a pragmatic and sustainable solution. It is indeed puzzling that despite the clear and present existentialist threat to the state from strident terrorist elements, its leading institutions and guardians are at best in denial and at worst in deep somnolence showing a cavalier indifference. Business as usual is the pervading norm in all institutions at all levels from the President and Prime Minister to the SHO, in the hope that the storm will die down, as in the past. The Pakistani state and its institutions have acquired the reputation — if exaggeratedly — of serial negligence, culpability, complicity and incompetence through the inculcation of a ‘culture of impunity’, attributed by the US State Department to its record on human rights, which in American parlance is restricted to women’s and minorities’ rights. The notion has applicability to a much wider range of state responsibilities, including the alleviation of poverty, access to education and provision of other basic entitlements of the population through the mobilisation of domestic resources — and reduction of foreign dependence — in an equitable and efficient manner. The US has now suddenly become aware of the duplicitous behaviour of state elements, while having failed to bat an eyelid so long as such egregious behaviour served its own ends, e.g. during the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad and in the more recent Raymond Davis affair. By supporting anti-democratic military regimes in the past and by becoming an accessory in the progressive withdrawal of the state from its social and economic responsibilities, the US has undermined the Pakistani state’s capability to rise up to the political and economic challenges of a modern emerging nation. This culture of impunity is now so deeply rooted that no institution is subject to an independent accountability mechanism. The entire state structure, and to an extent other allied institutions, including the media and civil society organisations, as well as ordinary citizens, have become infected with greed, corruption and illegality. Those culpable have become too big to fail or be held accountable. Calls for independent inquiry commissions are heeded with reluctance and even when constituted their reports are often consigned to the dustbin of history. Hoping that the present series of security lapses will lead to better investigative and punitive results is unrealistic. As a result, mutual back-scratching and political quid pro quos help to bandage a creaky state structure and prevent it from collapsing, with the US and other allies, including China, providing a helping hand in pursuit of their own national interests. However, if serious efforts are to be made to avoid the impending doom predicted by many, the present status quo will have to be changed in many ways. The public’s impatience about the continued deterioration in the economic situation is likely to reach a climax after the announcement of the budget, which is unlikely to provide any relief to the poor and will bring harsher economic policies. The events in Abbottabad and Karachi last month, like those in Dhaka four decades ago, beckon us to search for a new strategy for a radical adjustment between our civilian and military imperatives, especially in the fields of economics and foreign policy — which are crucially interlinked through our unexamined dependence on the US. They also highlight the need for a serious dialogue with India to normalise our relations on a fast-track basis. Ties had gained momentum just before Abbottabad. We have shied away too long from addressing these fundamental issues and must pull out our heads from the sand.. In the wake of its recent twin debacles, the military is increasingly being perceived as a white elephant that grazes well beyond the boundaries it is supposed to protect and is the most obvious candidate for institutional reforms. However, it is obvious that our political class is more likely to be trampled by rather than to rein in the roaming elephant. — By arrangement with Dawn,
Islamabad |
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WHILE the setting up of a commission to investigate the presence and killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan has been a welcome move, the government has run into hurdles of its own making. It is another instance of the government projecting itself as a disorganised unit. Well before the commission convenes, a committee is needed to find out just how the President-Prime Minister combine went about creating the latest controversy that surrounds it. To begin with, the proposed commission goes contrary to the argument that warned the government against involving sitting members of the judiciary in the affair. The opposition parties complain they were not consulted on the matter. The judge who has been asked to head the commission says he can only do so with the approval, that has yet to be obtained, of the chief justice. And a very respectable lawyer, Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, maintains he was not informed before his nomination to the commission. A few unidentified official sources have been heard telling the media that the opposition was consulted and it was the opposition leader in the National Assembly who had proposed Mr Ebrahim`s name. These explanations are, however, drowned in a chorus of protests and allegations at a time when, in the wake of the Osama bin Laden episode, people are sensing an opportunity to discover territory they have long been denied a view of. There are accusations the Gilani set-up has deliberately made the commission controversial to delay the probe. If this is the problem, experience tells us the present government can be brought round to accepting a popular demand. While the opposition should be careful not to let it degenerate into a point-scoring match, what the government should realise for its own good is that it doesn`t quite have the time to indulge in a game of hide-and-seek. It may deride the opposition for its `blackmailing` tactics but the government should be careful not to isolate itself by appearing to block a genuine thrust by the people. The only course for it is to quickly reconstitute the Abbottabad commission and move ahead. — An editorial in Dawn |
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Window on pakistan
The killing of well-known Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad is a great loss not only to journalism, but also to the cause of fighting terrorism. He was a storehouse of information about terrorist networks and how Pakistan’s dreaded intelligence agency, the ISI, used them for achieving Islamabad’s geopolitical objectives. He found his survival threatened more from the ISI than the terrorist outfits, about whom he wrote extensively for Asia Times Online, the Hong Kong-based web newspaper, for which he worked. The ISI obviously has more resources to handle an inconvenient journalist than the terrorists. He brought this to the notice of certain key figures he knew. He had plans to shift to Britain, but that was not in his fate. Death was waiting to devour him and in a very cruel manner. Despite the ISI’s denial, the Human Rights Watch (HRW), Pakistan, is sure that the ISI was behind the 40-year-old scribe’s daylight abduction and murder. The All-Pakistan Newspapers Society chairman and CEO of Dawn, Mr Hameed Haroon, has come out openly in support of the stand taken by the HRW. He has taken the ISI to task for questioning what it called the “baseless allegation” levelled by Mr Ali Dayan, the Lahore-based monitor of the HRW. According to Mr Haroon, the late journalist confided in him and several others that he had “received death threats from various officers of the ISI on at least three occasions in the past five years….” The last threat was issued to him during his meetings at ISI headquarters in Islamabad with the Director-General of the Media Wing (ISI), Rear-Admiral Adnan Nazir, when Deputy Director-General of the Media Wing, Commodore Khalid Pervaiz, was also present, as Mr Haroon says. Shahzad was asked to officially deny his well-received story, carried in Asia Times Online, about the release of senior Afghan Taliban commander Mullah Baradar, now in American custody. The journalist has paid with his life for his refusal to listen to the ISI’s diktats. Shahzad was a fearless journalist every inch. He brought before the reading public all that he knew through his reliable sources without fearing for his life. In his book, “Inside Al-Qaida and the Taliban --- Beyond bin Laden and 9/11”, he nailed the ISI for its role in the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack. The book says, as given in a Dawn report by Abbas, “He (Iliyas Kashmiri) presented the suggestion of conducting such a massive operation in India as would bring India and Pakistan to war and with that all the proposed operations against Al-Qaida would be brought to a grinding halt. Al-Qaida excitedly approved the attack-India proposal.” As the book says, the ISI already had such a plan for several months. When Iliyas Kashmiri “handed over the plan to a very able former army major, Haroon Ashik, who was also a former LeT commander”, the latter “accepted” it happily. Shahzad’s last story that he wrote for his web newspaper had exposed how Al-Qaida had penetrated the Pakistan Navy. He revealed that the militant attack on PNS Mehran in Karachi occurred “after talks had failed between the navy and Al-Qaida over the release of naval officers arrested on suspicion of Al-Qaida links.” Dawn carried another report quoting Zohra Yusuf, head of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, saying that Shahzad had expressed concern about his safety after receiving threatening telephone calls from the ISI. According to Zohra, Shahzad’s death came at a time when he was investigating “the alleged ties between militant groups and Pakistan’s powerful security establishment”. Daily Times made a very apt comment in one of its editorials: “Syed Saleem Shahzad’s brutal murder seems like a warning to Pakistan’s journalist community that if they continue to report honestly, they can be killed. If the people of Pakistan, especially (those associated with) the media … , do not wake up and speak out against such brutalities, every sane voice in the country will die a silent death.” |
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