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Manufacture to grow
Hooda’s Haryana |
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Teenage trauma
The Sino-Pak nexus
Getting it all wrong
Learning from the ‘Jewish Spring’
Violence ratchets up risk
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Manufacture to grow In the last decade as India focussed on services and excelled in IT outsourcing, manufacturing suffered. China, in contrast, emerged as a global leader in manufacturing. While China is now turning to develop services, India has been trying to resolve differences over manufacturing policy for the past 18 months.
The Environment Ministry wants to control project clearances. Another ministry favours an empowered authority for the job. On Thursday Prime Minister Manmohan Singh buried inter-ministerial wrangles by approving a draft manufacturing policy. He wants it to be fine-tuned and placed before the Cabinet in a month. As disputes over land acquisition have held up special economic zones — announced with fanfare to catch up with China — the new policy draft has suggested “national manufacturing and investment zones” with advice to states to set up land banks. Getting land is a hurdle. Another deterrent to manufacturers is labour. The draft policy gives companies the freedom to hire and fire, while advising them to adopt job loss policies to compensate workers. The draft policy allows firms to exit, if need be. Labour unions will fight to retain the present legal protection. This will put the government to test. The policy thrust is on creating a Western-type corporate work environment and the selling point is: 100 million jobs by 2025. Even after the policy framework is in place, India will have to compete with China, Brazil, South Korea and Russia to attract foreign investment. Some global automobile giants have set up manufacturing bases here for exporting vehicles and auto parts to other markets. But this is despite internal bottlenecks, including corruption, red tape and creaky infrastructure. China has ten times more express highways than India and its power costs 40 per cent less. India has its advantages too: political stability, democracy, a reliable judiciary, a fairly free media and a young skilled workforce. Only corruption has crippled governance. To make India a preferred destination for foreign investment the government will have to push second-generation reforms, including further opening up of retail, insurance, banks, defence and media to FDI. |
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Hooda’s Haryana Criticised frequently in the past for not taking prompt action at the first sign of trouble, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda , for once, did the right thing by calling for the resignation of his Transport Minister Om Prakash Jain and Chief Parliamentary Secretary Zile Ram Sharma. Both of them stand accused of extorting money by holding out the promise of securing employment. Both were named in a complaint sent to the Chief Minister, among others, and also in the “dying declaration” made by a former Sarpanch, who alleged that he had paid Rs 12.45 lakh to the duo for securing three different jobs for his son and nephews.
The declaration, reportedly recorded in front of a doctor and a nurse in the hospital, may not technically be accepted as a ‘dying declaration’, which is usually recorded by a magistrate. But in the given circumstances, it would be interesting to see how the police and thereafter the judiciary deal with this bit of evidence. The credibility and integrity of the much-maligned Haryana police will be on test as it goes about investigating the case. It is not clear at this point why the Chief Minister deemed it fit to hand over the investigation to the crime branch, unless he had reasons to believe that the district police would not be able to do the job; or else he may have been convinced that the two high-profile politicians could have influenced the district police. It remains to be seen though, whether the crime branch itself is able to ward off political interference. While the two politicians may only be indirectly responsible for the death of a common man, they need to prove their innocence in the ‘cash-for-jobs’ scam as well. It is a sad commentary on governance when the common man is forced to beg and bribe people in power to secure employment. While it is entirely possible that the killers of Karam Singh, the former Sarpanch, may not be brought to book, it would be even more tragic if the ‘cash-for-jobs’ scam is also overlooked.
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Teenage trauma
Each
time a young person resorts to suicide, it leaves behind not only a grieving family but also a host of uncomfortable questions. The foremost among them is why should youth, associated with verve and energy, feel desperate enough to end their lives? Thus the death of a teenage girl in Chandigarh, who recently jumped from the school roof, is not only an individual tragedy but also symptomatic of deeper societal malaise. Changing societal mores that lay great emphasis on achievement as against harmony and balance are some of the reasons that have contributed to the growing incidence of suicide among youth. Add to it the latchkey syndrome that children of working couples encounter and the loneliness of their lives often acquires a dangerous and, at times, fatalistic hue. In a competitive world often the fear of failure too becomes debilitating, pushing the young ones—at times as young as eleven — on the path of suicide. Experts say suicide is an outcome of depression that can be attributed to both genetic and biological factors. The role of environmental factors has not been truly ascertained but cannot be discounted either. Indeed, several reasons, including broken homes, may lead to trauma that the young find difficult to handle. However, the bottom line is that suicides can be prevented. While parents must realise that parenting is one job that cannot be outsourced, educational institutions too must understand that children are fragile beings with brittle egos and have to be treated with love and respect. Suicide is an extreme cry for help and the significant others would do well to pay heed to the warning signals.
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Temptation is a woman’s weapon and man’s excuse. — H. L. Mencken
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The Sino-Pak nexus It is often stated that at the strategic level, one requires a long memory and a longer foresight and vision. There are many people in India who have a tendency to overlook the Sino-Pak strategic nexus in the dialogue over India’s boundaries with these two countries. Boundaries are a manifestation of national identity. Disputed boundaries are often trip-wires of war.
It is, therefore, necessary to place this issue in its historical and futuristic perspective. Soon after its Independence in 1949, China set out consolidating its historic frontiers and placing administrative authority and military boots on the ground in Tibet and Xinjiang. India did not do so and rues till date this Himalayan blunder in strategic terms. India’s northern boundary from the Sino-India-Afghanistan tri-junction to the Sino-India-Nepal tri-junction on the maps remained marked with the legend ‘Boundary Undefined’ till 1954. No serious attempt was made to establish administrative authority or place military boots on the ground in this area. On July 1, 1954, Nehru ordered, “All old maps dealing with the frontier should be… withdrawn… new maps should not state there is any undemarcated territory… this frontier should be considered a firm and definite one which is not open to discussion with anybody.” By then, China had placed its military boots in Tibet and Aksai Chin and started the construction of a strategic road connecting Tibet to Xinjiang (China National Highway 219). Construction of this strategic road, started in 1951 but not noticed by India till 1955, was completed in 1957. It was seen in the Chinese maps published in 1958. Nehru tried to justify the loss of Aksai Chin by calling it ‘a desolate area where not a blade of grass grows’. Nevertheless, it became one of the triggers for the Sino-Indian war of 1962. Soon after the war, China began Xinjiang boundary negotiations with Pakistan. This was a period when both China and Pakistan were upset over the post 1962 war US military assistance to India. They signed the Sino-Pakistan Border Agreement in 1963 in which Pakistan ceded Shaqsgam Valley of the Northern Areas (J&K territory, under occupation of Pakistan) to China. This agreement described the eastern termination of the Sino-Pakistan boundary at Karakoram Pass. Pakistan promptly delineated NJ 9842 on the Soltoro Range towards the North East to Karakoram Pass, ignoring “thence north to the glaciers” statement of the 1948 Karachi Agreement between India and Pakistan. The result: Karakoram Pass, till then on the boundary between India and China, now had a third party access and claimant. China maintained a studied silence over the Pakistani cartographic manipulation. It continued to show the area north of Karakoram Pass as being under China. Meanwhile, Pakistan and China started building the Karakoram Highway, linking Xinjiang to Pakistan through the northern areas. Pakistan’s cartographic manipulation was followed up in international mountaineering journals and Western atlases. It started sending civil and military mountaineering expeditions to the mountain peaks and glaciers in this area. It would be noted that the Chinese were willing to negotiate and settle the boundary issue of J&K (west of Karakoram Pass) with Pakistan. But they have refused to discuss that boundary with India on the ground of its being ‘disputed’. That ‘dispute’ did not come in the way of their negotiations with Pakistan. In April 1984, India reacted to these developments and intelligence reports about Pakistan Army plans to deploy troops in the Siachen glacier area by occupying the Soltoro Ridge (now called the Actual Ground Position Line or AGPL) to secure the glacier and the territory to its east. This deployment (a) dominates Pakistani positions in the valley west of Soltoro Ridge (b) blocks infiltration possibilities across the Soltoro Ridge passes into Ladakh (c) prevents Pakistani military adventurism in Turtuk and areas to its south. Its northernmost position at Indira Col overlooks the Shaqsgam Valley, illegally ceded by Pakistan to China, and denies Pakistani access to Karakoram Pass and beyond that to Aksai Chin. In 1987, China and Pakistan signed the protocol to formalise the demarcation of their boundary. Its termination at Karakoram Pass and Pakistani recognition of Chinese sovereignty over Aksai Chin clearly indicated an understanding between them. In the late 1980s, China started assisting Pakistan on the development of nuclear weapons, long-range missiles and in large-scale sale of conventional weapons and equipment. In 1997, China agreed to send its military commander opposite Ladakh to meet his India counterpart in Leh as a confidence-building measure. Near the date, it was proposed that the meeting be held in New Delhi instead of Leh. It had to be called off. After the Kargil war, military attaches from all countries except Pakistan were invited for a conducted tour of the battle zone. The Chinese attaché declined that invitation. Three years ago, China started issuing “stapled visas” to visitors from J&K, thus bringing into question its status as part of India. It refused a visa to the GOC-in-C, Northern Command, who was to make an official visit to China as a part of ongoing military-level exchanges. It has now increased its civil and military presence in the northern areas, purportedly to improve infrastructure there. Among the infrastructure reconstruction projects to be given priority are those related to the repair and upgradation of the Karakoram Highway, which was damaged in 2009. China also plans to construct railway tracks and oil pipelines from Kashgar in Xinjiang to Gwadar port in Pakistan. In December 2010, while addressing a joint session of the Pakistan parliament, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao stated: “To cement and advance the all-weather strategic partnership of cooperation between China and Pakistan is our common strategic choice…The two neighbouring countries are brothers forever. China-Pakistan friendship is full of vigour and vitality, like a lush tree with deep roots and thick foliage. China-Pakistan relationship is strong and solid, like a rock standing firm despite the passage of time.” Recently, India and Pakistan resumed talks over the Siachen glacier issue. As in the past, Pakistan refuses to authenticate the AGPL and the existing troops’ positions and demands the Indian troops’ withdrawal to the pre-1972 position i.e. to the east of the line joining NJ 9842 and Karakoram Pass. Pakistan had formally authenticated the line of control in 1949 and 1972 but has consistently refused this position. The strategic consequences of a deal without such a formal authentication are obvious. Besides, it will re-introduce China into the end game because of its illegal control over the Shaqsgam Valley. Without formal authentication of the AGPL, how does one detect any future encroachment into this area? It must be stated categorically that no amount of existing technology can have fool-proof surveillance and capability to detect small-scale infiltration, which is sufficient to hold and defend a tactical feature in this terrain. Can India afford to forego the strategic significance of the Soltoro position due to the financial cost-benefit ratio analyses? Or because not a blade of grass grows in the area? (Then why put up the Indian flag at Gangotri in South Pole?) Can India trust Pakistan to the extent of foregoing formal authentication of the AGPL after what Gen Pervez Musharraf did across the formally delineated LoC in Kargil? Our negotiators must keep all these points in mind in their discussions with Pakistani counterparts. In his latest book On China, Henry Kissinger states that China’s strategy generally exhibits three characteristics: meticulous analysis of long-term trends, careful study of tactical options and detached exploration of operational decisions”. He describes the Chinese style of dealing with strategic decisions as “thorough analysis, careful preparations, attention to psychological and political factors, quest for surprise, and rapid conclusion.” There is much that our political leaders and officials can learn from China’s strategic
thinking. The writer is a former Chief of Army Staff
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Getting it all wrong
A
telephone subscriber in the US who dialled his laundry got connected instead to the top-secret telephone of President Obama: News report.HELLO, Snow White Laundromat? Look, this is utterly outrageous and I’m certainly not going to take it lying down. Last week, I sent you three trousers and four shirts to be drycleaned and pressed and I’ve got them back minus all the buttons and fly zippers. What kind of a laundry service are you running anyway?” “I’m sorry, sir, but you’ve got the wrong number. This is the emergency hotline scrambler telephone line to the President and used to alert him to an imminent and devastating nuclear missile attack and the total annihilation of the US and the free world. I request you most urgently to hang up immediately and try dialling the correct number of the Snow White Laundromat.” “Okay, this is the emergency hotline scrambler telephone line to the President and I’m Bill Clinton coming clean over the Monica Lewinski affair. Yesterday, I sent you my Levi’s to be stonewashed and darned and I’ve got them back minus the ‘I Love America’ and ‘God bless America’ patch on the bum. I tell you, I’ve never seen a lousier laundry service in my life.” “I repeat most urgently, sir, this is the emergency hotline scrambler telephone line to the President and blocking it causes a grave national security alert and US military forces worldwide being placed in the highest state of readiness to launch an all-out thermo-nuclear strike. I request you to hang up immediately and try again to dial the correct number of the Snow White Laundromat.” “Look, you can’t brazenly rip off my buttons and fly zippers and bum patches and then try to fob me. Off with this hotline scrambler telephone line malarky. Last month, I sent you my white dressing gown to be dyed saffron and pressed. I was thinking of giving up the senior vice-presidency of the Microsoft Corporation, relinquish the stock option and hit the road with the Hare Krishna guys. You still haven’t delivered my saffron dressing gown and my ardour for exotic eastern religions and nirvana has cooled off. I warn you, I’ve got a good mind to take my business elsewhere.” “I repeat most urgently, sir, this is the emergency hotline scrambler telephone line to the President and why, even now Russian nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles might be on their way and with you blocking the hotline, they might well zap us! “No, they won’t, not a country with a laundry service that can’t wash its customers’ clothes well. Listen, I’ve got another grouse. You advertise: ‘We wash Your Things in automatic high-speed computer-controlled machines’. Well, last week as I was driving along Lake Chicago, I swear I saw your workmen beating clothes on a rock and washing and rinsing them in a stagnant cesspool by the lake. I ask you, is your advertising fair. Another thing, your starching....” “I repeat most urgently, sir, this IS the emergency hotline scrambler telephone line to the Oval Office and to convince you, though this might cost me my job, I’ll put the President himself on the line. “Hello, this is the President. Don’t tell me that the Russians have got a drop on us? “Mmm you do sound like o1’ man Barak. For heaven’s sake, what are you doing working in the lousy Snow White Laundromat
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Learning from the ‘Jewish Spring’
It
is extraordinary that many supporters of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ have criticised and condemned the only real ‘Spring’ to have successfully brought democracy and freedom to the Middle East. The ‘Jewish Spring’ is 63 years old and showing no signs of weakening. While many take the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in Israel for granted, the details could serve as an inspiration for the region. Since the expulsion and exile from the Land of Israel by the Romans, the Jewish People have largely only known repression, persecution and massacres. Wherever many of our ancestors lived they yearned for freedom and equality with the nations of the world by returning to the land that they were expelled from two thousand years prior and rejoining the remnant who maintained the Jewish presence in Israel.
Unparalleled struggle
The Jewish struggle for full civil and national rights is unparalleled in the annals of time. No other people survived such a long exile with their language, civilization, culture and attachment to homeland intact. Perhaps even more remarkably, the re-established Jewish State created a stable liberal democracy out of a population, the vast majority of whom had never experienced representative government for even one day. While there are those who claim that the lack of democracy in Arab history negates its possibility of success, their Semitic cousins, the Jews, have proven that lack of experience should not prove a barrier. Moreover, Israel is a bastion of decency and human rights. Our Declaration of Independence is the only such document that actively invokes the universalist principles of the United Nations Charter. Furthermore, Israel’s founding document extended a hand of peace and fraternity to all of our neighbours, even while many at that moment were massing at the Jewish State’s borders in a war of attempted extermination.
Learn from Israel experience
If the ‘Arab Spring’ is to succeed it could do worse than learn from the Israel experience. While successive Arab rulers have instilled a ‘scapegoat mentality’ in parts of the population, this must be removed at the earliest opportunity. Arabs have been distracted from the real issues for too long by blaming all the ills of the Middle East on the colonial powers, Israel, the U.S. and the West in general. The broken bodies and souls that escaped the Holocaust, the excesses of Communism and suppression as dhimms in Arab lands had ample reasons for failure bar one, the determination to succeed, build and look forward. Israel began its existence as a developing nation with all of the challenges that entails, and many others, like mass immigration, and boycotts and other embargoes laid against it. Nevertheless, Israel met all these challenges and many more, and is a proven success by any measure.
Challenges for Arab world
The challenges facing the Arab world are many. The UNDP Human Development Report for Arab states report in 2009 placed the Arab world at the lowest level on the development ladder. The ever-increasing poverty, unemployment, desertification, water scarcity, rising food prices, civil wars, sectarian and ethnic conflicts make the task daunting. According to the report, the Arab countries will need to create around 51 million new jobs by 2020 just to maintain their current precarious unemployment figures. Many of these challenges were Israel’s challenges. However, regardless of the fact that Israel had to fight many bloody wars and spend an enormous amount of its budget on defence, Israelis continue excelling in many areas.
We started with fewer resources
Perhaps Israel’s key is not letting our challenges define us. While many around the world associate Israel with war and conflict, Israelis define themselves by their achievements as a society. We measure ourselves by the most developed and wealthy nations and in areas such as hi-tech, innovation, medicine and finance and others, we compare well. Perhaps our over-achieving has entitled many to criticise us more than our neighbours. However, we started with far fewer resources than any in our region, so if we have reached a high level of development it should be to our credit, not our detriment.
Yearning for freedom
Few understand the yearning for freedom and an end to repression more than the Jewish People. We commend those in the Arab world who have the courage to end their tyranny. However, we should not confuse the start of the process with the process itself. There is a long and difficult road ahead. I hope Israel can serve as a model for the region. The Jewish Spring is a remarkable story and disproves many of the geographic and historic arguments that seek to excuse failed societies in the Middle East and North Africa.
Arab world must be accountable The West has a role too, the narrative of victimisation and the allowance of moral relativism must cease. The Arab world must be deemed accountable as any other, when nations, international organizations and NGO’s hold a people to a different standard; this discourages and does not embolden those that seek change. Israel remains to this day under the largest magnifying glass of the international community and we have been held to the highest standards, some would say unfairly so. If the Arab Spring is to match the Jewish Spring, it deserves no less. The writer is the Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel.
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Violence ratchets up risk
The Arab Spring’s violent phase is ratcheting up investor risk. Hopes that further dominoes would fall with minimal violence, in the same way that regimes in Tunisia and Egypt were toppled, have been dashed. Others-notably Libya, but also Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and even Saudi Arabia-are still tottering. But none will fall easily. The prospect of bloody conflicts will push up already-heightened risk premia, including the resurgent oil price. Conflicts are bubbling up throughout the region-most obviously in Libya, where it is unclear whether the Western-led imposition of a no-fly zone will lead to the swift ousting of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi or a long drawn out civil war. Yemen could be next but it probably won’t fall in a happy manner: the al-Qaeda-infested country could split and turn into even more of a failed state. Elsewhere, sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shi’ites is rising. It’s already rampant in Bahrain. But it could spread to Syria and Saudi. Riyadh is increasingly worried. Not only has it just sent troops into Bahrain to help suppress the Shi’ite majority there; it has also promised domestic handouts worth an astonishing $93 billion in an attempt to keep its own population quiet. The cash won’t just be used to pay for homes and social programmes, it will be used to boost the morality police and security services. Shifting geopolitical relationships are also adding to instability. The previously rock-solid Saudi-U.S. axis, one of the few fixed points in a rough neighbourhood, is looking a little wobbly. The two countries still need each other. But the United States is finding it increasingly hard to maintain its traditional approach of backing friendly autocrats. Its abandonment of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and slightly critical stance on Bahrain seems to be unnerving the Saudis. Meanwhile, Israel is increasingly twitchy and Iran potentially capable of causing trouble. It is still possible to hope that the region will eventually make a transition to peace and prosperity. But the short-term risks are mounting.
— Reuters
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