The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Image makeover
B.C. Khanduri has a tall order

Conventional wisdom dictates that there should be no change of horses mid-stream. Yet, the BJP has had to do the switchover in Uttarakhand when Assembly elections in the state are just five months away. That only shows its utter desperation. The government of Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank was not only seen as ineffective but also corrupt. Intelligence sources had reportedly opined that under him, it would be impossible to get more than 10 seats. Hence the need to resurrect old warhorse Major-Gen B.C. Khanduri (retd). The BJP also had another dilemma. Having supported Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign boisterously, it could not afford to have scams galore in its own yard. So, Nishank had to be shown the door, as was done in the case of B.S. Yeddyurappa in Karnataka.

But it is debatable if Khanduri will be able to wipe out the past in such a short time. The code of conduct will come into operation pretty soon and it will be difficult to “woo” the public properly. To that extent, the new Chief Minister’s acid test starts from day one. Knowing full well the urgency of delivering in time, he has worn the crown running. He has already made it bold to say that he and all his Cabinet colleagues along with IAS and IPS officers will declare their assets within a month. Besides, he has also promised to bring in a strong Lokayukta Bill within two months, incorporating suggestions of the Jana Lokpal Bill of Anna Hazare, a piece of legislation to seize benami property and public service right bill.

While on the one hand he has to show efficiency and development, on the other he has to keep factionalism within the party at bay. So far, various rivals were on the same page to see the back of Nishank. They might become restive again after the main mission has been accomplished. General Khaduri had to go two years ago because former Chief Minister Bhagat Singh Koshiyari had raised a banner of revolt against his “style of functioning”. One wonders how much the style has changed in these 28 months of being out of power.

A silver lining in hockey
Still miles to go for the team

India’s 4-2 win in the inaugural edition of Asian Champions Trophy over arch-rivals Pakistan in the final in Ordos, China, on Sunday, goes beyond just a tournament win. It has been a trying phase for Indian hockey over the past several years, and the overpowering emotion of those concerned with the game would be of relief, rather than joy. Making the headlines invariably for the wrong decisions, the sport in India is threatening to implode, so the victory does give some breathing space to the office-bearers of Hockey India, who are presently holding the mantle of running the sport in India, despite vehement opposition inside India and censure from abroad.

The team, consisting of some seniors and several youngsters, was sent to China without much fanfare. Indeed, the headlines were all about how some senior players were axed from the team for pulling out of the preparatory camp ahead of the tournament. The infighting that has encompassed Hockey India and the Indian Hockey Federation, with the Sports Ministry and the Indian Olympic Association adding fuel to the fire, took its toll on the players. Some of the seniors got into the thick of things, pulling out of the camp citing family reasons. Hockey India sent then packing forthwith.

Hockey India would be much relieved at the victory since the team it sent to Ordos wasn’t the strongest Indian team, though it was the best available. Winning the tournament was definitely a great boost for At the same time, one cannot afford to get too excited about the win, since there is little information on how strong the other teams were. At the same time, India still have to work hard to qualify for the Olympics, which is definitely the biggest stage of all. If there is no Indian participation in the second consecutive Olympic, the smiles will vanish very soon. This, therefore is no time for complacency and bravado. It is a time for hard work and to put our best foot forward.

Thought for the Day

The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention. — Richard Moss

ARTICLE

India’s options in Libya
Need to quickly reassess policy
by Harsh V. Pant

Events are moving rapidly in Libya. Amidst mounting criticism that Libya is facing a power vacuum Libya’s Interim Prime Minister, Mahmoud Jibril, has finally arrived in Tripoli since Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown more than two weeks ago. Jibril’s arrival coincided with a meeting of revolutionary activists from across Libya who called on the National Transitional Council (NTC) to show leadership or face revolt. Meanwhile, Interpol has issued arrest warrants for Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi.

On the military side, the battle for Sirte still continues. Gaddafi’s home-town of Sirte, where the loyalists have gathered, lies along the coastal road that links eastern Libya to the west, and is the last battleground insofar as the final collapse of the regime is concerned. Pro-Gaddafi forces have apparently retreated from towns taken by rebel fighters and sought refuge in Sirte.

NATO has carried out bombing campaigns around Sirte over the past few days, and though rebel fighters have surrounded the city, they continue to face fierce resistance from Sirte residents. Negotiations with tribal leaders have been going on for days now, as rebels consolidated control over much of the rest of the country, but appear to be faltering. There is no trust between the rebels and the residents of Sirte. The leaders are seeking assurances that no revenge killings will be carried out and that they can have a role in the new Libya, including the formation of a local council, and so far they’ve refused to give up their weapons.

With the fall of the Gaddafi regime, Libya has become another case of regime change since the start of the popular unrest that broke out in the Arab world this past January and February. Libya’s regime had been led by the Gaddafi family. Despite the fact that Gaddafi took power via a military coup, he did not allow a robust and autonomous military institution that could pose a threat to his authority to develop. This practice, however, seems to have resulted in sizeable defections from the Libyan army, sparking a civil war.

The crisis in Libya may play itself out over a long period of time. The country’s geopolitical reality is one where the crisis within the country can continue to evolve without seriously impacting the region or beyond. Meanwhile, the de facto government of new Libya, the National Transitional Council, has been feted in Paris by more than 60 nations and international organisations. The NTC presented its plans for nation-building to the international community and the rest of the world pledged to help the new government in meeting urgent needs and begin the formation of a functioning governing authority.

Much like other states, India will have to start re-assessing its policy options in such a rapidly evolving milieu. India was also an invitee to the Friends of New Libya Conference in Paris recently despite a not-so-welcoming attitude of the NATO-backed rebels poised to form Libya’s new government. China, India, Russia and Brazil—the rise of whom is supposedly underpinning the shifting global balance of power—all abstained on the resolution for a no-fly zone over Libya and authorised “all necessary measures” for protecting civilians there from Gaddafi’s forces.

India had cautioned that “the resolution that the council has adopted authorises far-reaching measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter with relatively little credible information on the situation on the ground in Libya.” What was worse, India argued, was that there was no clarity in the resolution about who would enforce it and how, “who and with what assets will participate and how these measures will be exactly carried out.”

Responding to reports that Libya should be divided, India in its remarks insisted that the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Libya should be preserved. These reservations echoed the standard policies of these states at least since the 1990s, if not before.

India, despite being the largest democracy in the world, has largely watched the events unfold in West Asia in silence. In many ways, this reticence is understandable. The region has been witnessing a highly unpredictable situation and the government was talking its time to think through the implications. Moreover, for New Delhi to comment on events unfolding in the region would have been hypocritical given how seriously India takes the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states. Much like China, India has traditionally resisted interventionist foreign policy doctrines emanating from the West and displayed conservative attitudes on the prerogatives of sovereignty.

Yet, India claims to be a rising global power today. America’s endorsement of India’s candidacy to the UN Security Council’s permanent membership, and India’s easy victory in the election to the Council as a non-permanent member earlier this year do, indeed, represent a recognition of India’s credentials as a major global power. But India still needs to convince the world that it has a legitimate claim to a permanent seat on the Council.

Now in the spotlight, India is finding its actions on critical global issues —including its silence on the democratic turmoil in West Asia — are subjected to close and critical scrutiny. As a result, India is being forced to jettison its old foreign-policy assumptions and strike a delicate balance between the pursuit of its narrow national interest and its responsibility as a rising power to help maintain global peace and stability. India’s success in this endeavour will, to a large extent, determine its future global profile. As such, India should seize this opportunity by making a generous offer to assist the new Libyan government with its post-Gaddafi reconstruction and rehabilitation.

The writer teaches at King’s College, London.

MIDDLE

Love me, love my buffalo!
by Rajbir Deswal

Nowhere on the earth do people love – rather worship — their buffaloes like in Haryana. After the formal greeting of ‘Jai Ram ji ki’, the first topic to be mentioned is invariably either the rains or the milk supply by the buffaloes.

The buffalo is the ‘neighbour’s envy and owner’s pride’. A Haryanvi will be consumed by mosquitoes, get infected, have malarial shivers, but will protect his buffaloes with huge nets, tucked all around with no letting in of machhars.

The owner pampers his buffalo to the extent of not only listening to its heart-beats, but also receiving its emotional vibes. Watching her being bathed with tender affection can make the best loved person jealous of the Black Beauty. No exaggeration then that a hardcore Haryanavi would want to become a buffalo in his next life.

Haryanvis may make their children eat less in the lean period of their earnings, but will empty all their treasures of the best fodder and gram floor, oilseed waste and cottonseed sprouts for the buffalo, for it helps to have her udders ‘filled to the brims’ with quality milk.

Remember Udham Singh (Munish Makhija) – The bald, lanky Haryanavi sitting on a cot with a lathi in hand and a mooing buffalo in the frame of an ad? This depiction has more sense than symbolism.

Even the jokes and pithy Haryanvi idioms and sayings have enough buffalo blood flowing in them. For example, a buffalo entering the water (Bhains pani main jana ) or going up on the canal bank (Bhains patdee pe chadh jana) entail being fined for the unscrupulous but pardonable act on the part of the buffalo.

The Haryanvis sometime back stopped feeding su-babool fodder to buffaloes for they believed it had caused hairfall on the tail of their beautiful pet.

A male calf being born was not a welcome thing for Haryanavis till some time back; and only Yamraj – the death-supervising deity – was seen riding it. But now they have gainfully employed them as draft animals – fit to pull their carts.

There is a saying to the effect that you will have only male calves born to your buffaloes, for the female calves would be stolen away to be replaced by males, if you were sleeping on the care of your buffalo.

Interestingly, the buffaloes recognise their khoonta – stake or tether – in case there was a dispute over their ownership. Even the police employed khoonta-parade to settle the issue between a buffalo owner and a buffalo thief. In this case, the buffalo could without being guided, go up to her tether instinctively, to make a case for its owner.

444444444An interesting joke to end it all. A young, debonair male calf challenged a lazy, old he-buffalo to a race. The ‘infirm and inadequate’ Old Hat replied “Na bhai, baithe-baithe jugaalee karte kaan hilaate rehne ka muqabala karna ho to aaja” – No Sir, if you are willing to compete in the art of just shaking your ears while cud-chewing, then come on!n

OPED-environment

THE LUST FOR LUXURY
Forests, water and soil are the mainstay of our life. Their overuse and constant depletion have been ignored
for too long in the pursuit of higher GDP growth. Development needs to be redefined
Anil P. Joshi

Recession is receding globally but the pace is said to be slow and among many limiting factors, environment is becoming one major. This is due to the increasing realisation that it is high time to review our development approach and this thrusts on us a responsibility to re-visit our future strategy.

The issue that needs to be raised is whether we should continue to focus on the current development approach or sustainability of the ecosystem, which is threatened due to lopsided development, should also have an equal space in our plan. The past focus of planners on economic development only has largely caused the depletion of fundamental resources which made human life miserable.

The true economic processes must be learnt from the age-old rural economy. There was a striking balance between production and consumption and all economic intricacies were addressed within the community. Any surplus produce was shared with other communities for their respective products and services.

Greed causing depletion of resources

There was a balance between development and natural resources. Genuine prosperity can only be enjoyed through the primary production of forest, water, food and soil, which form the true capital of any state.

Our greed has, in fact, been a major reason for resource depletion. There are a few examples that need to be quoted here. None of us had ever thought that water will be sold in bottles. This is roughly a business of more than Rs 1,000 crore today.

Drinking water, which is a fundamental resource, has been commercialised today. Billions of bottled water lay in shops hampering the natural cycle. The currently stored water would have otherwise irrigated millions of tonnes of food. This resource was unfortunately poorly managed. A better quality of water would not have encouraged commercialisation of this resource. The days are not far when other basic commodities, considered to be essential for life, will also be commercialised. This is greed and an unscrupulous approach towards natural resources. Since it is a matter of our survival, we should not allow this to happen and should resist the tendency. We are deliberately ignoring this fact and unfortunately are becoming a victim of the same.

We have not created any mechanism to measure the status of our natural resources periodically. We have also not laid any growth rules for these resources in our economic development plan or gross domestic product. Our lopsided economic development strategy has suddenly brought us to a dilemma. We must know that there can be a control on the curse of industrialisation but we cannot escape from nature's tyranny as the recovery of resources is difficult or next to impossible. Thus, there must be some measure to check the gain/ loss of natural resources periodically for future.

Another important natural resource where we have long back crossed the limit is soil. There is no soil in the country left without being tainted by chemical fertilizers. The latter have been highly subsidised by the government to get higher productivity. The result is with us now. Many fertile lands in the country have been transformed into chemical grounds. Food hazards due to an intensive chemical use are also reported often. It is again commercialisation of soil (chemicals) that has caused this jeopardy.

The forests, which constitute the essential environment of any village and nation, are vanishing. This resource that helps the overall delivery of water, air and soil is threatening human existence. There is no serious plan to conserve or develop this resource.

Every physical effort is mechanised

The lust for luxury basically began with urbanised culture. Every physical effort was mechanised and energy for the same was exploited from nature. The unabated exploitation of natural resources has continued for a long time and no serious assessment has been done to review the depletion of resources. Forests, water and soil have been the mainstay of our life. Their constant depletion has been observed and factors for the same are also well known, but largely neglected in the lust for gaining industrial benefits.

We are at present passing through an ecologically unproductive economic phase. We should immediately focus on the productive development of reserves i.e. soil, water, air. Such capital can only ensure us an ecologically sound economy. A prudent approach will bring a balance between nature and human activities, rural and urban, and between need and comfort. This will only be possible when we also measure through some indices the growth of resources periodically. An "annual gross environmental productivity" of natural resources can only serve such a purpose.

The 80 per cent population of the nation which has a heavy dependence on water, soil, forests etc is not covered under the current GDP ambit. It is important to quote here that a majority of the population depends and survives on and draws its livelihood from the local natural resources. Agriculture, horticulture fisheries and other local community trades largely depend upon these resources. Unfortunately, due to the growing paucity of these resources, various trades have suffered major setbacks and migration has become more intense.

There are no parameters to define the status of water, soil, fodder and fuel needs of a community, whether these have been addressed adequately or neglected. A majority of villages in the country depend on natural resources for the above needs. Many villages have just been vacated mainly because of the loss of forest and water resources. There is as such no data available with any development agency to determine the current status of these resources and the health of the country's environment.

Socio-ecological disasters waiting to happen

Development needs to be redefined. Should we place industrialisation, real-estate business and infrastructure as development indicators? Such a development model cannot be enjoyed, particularly when the corresponding loss of resources is not acknowledged. There must be a parallel analysis which should measure the periodical growth of life resources i.e. water recharging, forest cover, soil enrichment and air quality. Extreme physical achievements for comfort have already hampered our ecological cycle. Constant negligence will lead to irreparable losses and other socio-ecological disasters.

It has to be commonly understood that an economy, be it local or national, cannot sustain without the ecology. The changing climate issue is the most important example today. Our agricultural productivity today cannot be forecast as climate shift makes it unpredictable. There are records available on this issue. Off-time heavy rains have jeopardised many natural productive cycles of flora. This slow change needs to be understood seriously. Constant negligence otherwise would take a large toll in future.

The nation has never thought of having ecological growth indicators that can point out our gross environmental productivity, indicators that can highlight water, soil, air conservation measures and projects that have been undertaken by the nation to recover the same. These indicators can collectively display our inclusive growth in development.

The environment of a state is the prime need as it can only enable us to check our lopsided development approach and will relieve us from growing environmental stresses. Thus planners must be forced to produce "gross environmental productivity" figures annually besides the gross domestic product data. This will also help us decide the ecological status of the country. High GEP and GDP may point out rationality in our development plan and will be an example for the developed and developing countries which are constantly engaged in unproductive debates on the economy and ecology of the globe.

The writer is the founder, Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organisation, Dehradun

India’s tough green policy softening?
Krittivas Mukherjee

India's new environment minister is seen as more flexible toward industry to help power Asia's third-largest economy, although a complete turnaround in tighter enforcement of green policies pursued by her maverick predecessor is ruled out.

Jayanthi Natarajan recently took over from Jairam Ramesh, who set new standards in compliance that often brought him into conflict with industry but put environment issues in the spotlight.

Natarajan's arrival could help hundreds of projects held up on green worries, including Tata Steel's $4.4 billion steel mill, ArcelorMittal's iron and manganese ore mine and dozens of power and oil and gas projects.

"We don't think there will be any backsliding in policy because Ramesh has spotlighted it permanently," said a senior government official on condition of anonymity. "What we can see, though, is some more flexibility because she may have come with a mandate to be sympathetic toward industry, given our imperative to grow."

Under Ramesh, India halted more than 60 big-ticket projects and held up more than 450 of them, heightening the risk for investors and underlining India's struggle to grow without damaging its environment -- a tussle crucial to shaping the future of its 1.2 billion people.

But Ramesh's success lay in putting environment issues firmly in the public imagination, a move that put him on a collision path with some of his cabinet colleagues and even the prime minister's office backing more factories, mines and power plants to pull millions of people out of poverty.

Whether or not Natarajan backs industry, she may have to pursue Ramesh's agenda of compliance, especially given the realization in India and among investors that enforcing green laws does not have to hurt growth, can boost the idea of rule of law and make government policies transparent.

"From that point of view it will be difficult for a new minister to change policy drastically because it will not go down well with the public," said Srinivas Krishnaswamy, CEO of green policy consultants Vasudha India. "But Jayanthi may not be as bold as Ramesh in standing up to pressure from industry and she could be more flexible when it comes to approving projects. Her best chance would be try to strike a balance."

In India, saving forests and mountains is more than just about protecting the environment.Years of uncontrolled mining has pushed tribal people off their forest land, alienating them and fuelling insurgencies that feed off a perceived neglect of the poor. Two-thirds of the population makes a living from farming and a growing Maoist rebellion has capitalized on farmers' resentment over the government's seizure of their land for industry.

In pursuing her environment policies, Natarajan's hand will probably be strengthened by support from her Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, a left-leaning centrist who can ill afford to antagonize millions of rural voters who are most affected by huge mining and manufacturing projects. Her party faces national elections in 2014. Given that, Natarajan will be expected to follow policy that does not upset voters in the countryside and millions of tribespeople living in the resource-rich forests and mountains of India.

Yet, the need for growth is clear in a country where about 40 percent of the population live on less than $2 a day, and the government could be trying to send a positive signal to investors with a change of guard at the ministry. —Reuters