O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Think of regional growth
Selective tax benefits don’t help
Though the purpose of Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s meeting with the chief ministers and representatives of the northern states on Friday was to assess credit flow in the region, the contentious issue of tax incentives for the hill states also cropped up. The NDA government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee had announced a package of tax incentives for Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir in view of the difficult terrain of the hill states.

Fresh calls for regime change
Now Jordan, Morocco in grip of Arab Spring
The Arab Spring that has caused the demise of the dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen and has shaken the Alawite regime in Syria from its very foundations is now showing its effect in Jordan and Morocco. Syrian ruler Bashar Al-Assad has used all the tactics he can think of to save his regime but in vain.

Insecure cyber world
Privacy is often compromised
The most common security concern of Internet users is to protect their devices from viruses. To check this many install elaborate software programmes that scan the computers and find out viruses and malware. People, however, seem to be less worried about ensuring their privacy in cyber space. Perhaps, because they simply take it for granted. They shouldn’t, as some recent high-profile cases have shown.

• Thought for the Day

ARTICLE

Turnaround in Islamabad?
Steps against jihad a must for peace
by B.G. Verghese
DAYS before Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s proposed visit to India to sign the liberalised visa agreement between the two countries, it appears that the country’s CID has told the anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi trying those charged with the 26/11 attack on Mumbai in 2008 that Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the mastermind, and his accomplices were trained by the LeT in Karachi, Muzaffarabad and other places. But there is no reference to official involvement of which India has sufficient proof.

MIDDLE

A budget has two sides
by P.R. Chari
One is truly impressed by the passion being shown in public life and the committed media exhorting the state to provide more and more amenities to the suffering poor. They should be provided free water which drops from the heavens, anyway, and only needs to be stored and distributed. They should be provided free education, which is every child’s fundamental right. Also, given access to quality public health, smooth roads, gainful employment, subsidised but preferably free, electricity round the clock, cheap fuel, affordable housing and everything else needed by the common man to live a life of dignity.

OPED Diaspora

LONDON LATITUDE
London Mayor Boris Johnson to visit India
Shyam Bhatia
London Mayor Boris Johnson is travelling to Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad later this month on a visit that many believe is an opportunity to burnish his credentials as a future UK Prime Minister. British City Hall politics does not normally evoke much interest among Indians, but Johnson is different because of his many personal connections with India.

Malala draws support from Indians, some Pakistanis
Indians from all walks of life have been vociferous in their expressing their support for Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the brain by the Pakistani Taliban. The latest to do so were London participants in the 2012 Vatayan Poetry Awards won by Shobhit Desai and Nida Fazli. They and others present, including UK Hindi Samiti President Padmesh Gupta, film historian Lalit Mohan Joshi and NRI Web Radio founder Vijay Rana, baked the tribute paid to Malala before the start of the second half of the programme held in the House of Lords.

‘Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire’
The British leaders' visits will take place against an unusual India backdrop: not just the usual stories about how we are poised to become an economic super power, but something far more subtle and thought provoking that draws attention to India's glorious past before succumbing to the colonialists.



This is the only documented photograph of Bahadur Shah (1775-1862).

EDITORIALS

Think of regional growth
Selective tax benefits don’t help

Though the purpose of Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s meeting with the chief ministers and representatives of the northern states on Friday was to assess credit flow in the region, the contentious issue of tax incentives for the hill states also cropped up. The NDA government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee had announced a package of tax incentives for Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir in view of the difficult terrain of the hill states. The incentives included 100 per cent excise duty exemption and an income tax holiday for industrial units.

The package did attract a number of manufacturing units to these states. However, this created resentment among the neighbouring states, whose chief ministers alleged a flight of industries from their areas. Their frequent protests over the tax holiday led the UPA government at the Centre to cut short the package. Selective tax benefits create needless bitterness among governments and peoples and sour good neighbourly relations. It is true the hill states need special help to create employment opportunities for youth and improve the living standards of people. However, the hill states need to encourage non-polluting units, knowledge-based industries and educational institutions.

Besides, giving industries tax sops in select areas is not a good policy. It leads to uneven growth and concentration of units at particular places, usually ill-equipped to handle the rush. More than sops, industries need cheap and quality power, good air, rail and road connectivity and a responsive administration. The Centre should help the states by strengthening infrastructure and creating a congenial environment for green industries. Industries propped up by state support would fail to face competition once the support is withdrawn. The northern states should pool their resources and strive for collective regional growth rather than fight over handouts from the Centre. The chief ministers of the northern states should sit together, resolve their inter-state disputes and work for the development of the northern region as a whole.

Fresh calls for regime change
Now Jordan, Morocco in grip of Arab Spring

The Arab Spring that has caused the demise of the dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen and has shaken the Alawite regime in Syria from its very foundations is now showing its effect in Jordan and Morocco. Syrian ruler Bashar Al-Assad has used all the tactics he can think of to save his regime but in vain. He is finding it difficult to control the surge of democratic forces despite his troops having killed thousands of people demanding an end to his autocratic rule. While Assad seems to be fighting a losing battle, the kings of Jordan and Morocco have begun to face demonstrations, asking for drastic political reforms. It seems their time, too, has come to pack up and leave the task of running the government to elected representatives of the people.

Last Friday, protesters in Jordan openly raised slogans like “Go down, Abdullah, go down”, demanding his resignation more because of his autocratic rule than his inability to control the price rise and fast-growing unemployment. He recently announced certain measures for political reforms, but the protesters, whose number is rising fast, want nothing less than his departure from the corridors of power. Demonstrations by pro-democracy forces are unlikely to end irrespective of what he has offered to retain his dictatorship owing to the Muslim Brotherhood having joined the people seeking regime change. The Brotherhood, a well-knit ideology-based organisation, should not be expected to be satisfied with cosmetic changes in the constitution introduced by King Abdullah.

The Brotherhood’s hand has so far not been seen in the demonstrations in Morocco, but the protests there are fast moving to cities from villages. Morocco’s King Mohammad VI, like his counterpart in Jordan, recently got a new constitution framed to send across the message that he was ready for some change in the system of government, but people have rejected his offer. They want the 300-year-old Alawite dynasty to be replaced by a government formed by people’s elected representatives. But the rulers of both Jordan and Morocco refuse to read the writing on the wall like Bashar Al-Assad of Syria. Assad is fighting with his back to the wall and has little chance of survival in power. The same fate awaits the rulers in Jordan and Morocco too.

Insecure cyber world
Privacy is often compromised

The most common security concern of Internet users is to protect their devices from viruses. To check this many install elaborate software programmes that scan the computers and find out viruses and malware. People, however, seem to be less worried about ensuring their privacy in cyber space. Perhaps, because they simply take it for granted. They shouldn’t, as some recent high-profile cases have shown.

E-mails are taken to be private between individuals and it is often forgotten that these exist on various servers. Given the vast amount of space that e-mail hosts make available to users, it is not unusual to have thousands of old e-mailed letters lying dormant in an account. Who would want to see his or her private communication thrown open to the public? But this is precisely what could happen if the account was hacked. Of course, investigators, under proper warrants, can peruse any account, but that is a separate issue. Social websites have become very popular, and the cyber world is abuzz with thousands of stories of intemperately posted photographs or comments that come back to haunt users when they least expect them. In any case, data aggregators take data from social websites, where billions of people interact with their friends, many of whom they may not know physically.

‘Think before you speak,’ is an old adage. It acquires more importance in a world of instant communications. The only way of ensuring your security in the cyber world is to assume that everything is public. Privacy is at best elusive, be it at the workplace or at home. This holds especially true of social websites, like Facebook and Twitter, as some political leaders have found out at their cost. As for e-mails, the operative part is mail. All mail should be written carefully; not to do so can be very damaging. Just ask those whose careers came crashing down because of inappropriate comments, or e-mails.

Thought for the Day

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. — Colin Powell

ARTICLE

Turnaround in Islamabad?
Steps against jihad a must for peace
by B.G. Verghese

DAYS before Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s proposed visit to India to sign the liberalised visa agreement between the two countries, it appears that the country’s CID has told the anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi trying those charged with the 26/11 attack on Mumbai in 2008 that Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the mastermind, and his accomplices were trained by the LeT in Karachi, Muzaffarabad and other places. But there is no reference to official involvement of which India has sufficient proof.

This information, carried by Dawn, confirms what India has been saying from the start, based on independent information and intercepts of conversations between the suspects and their handlers. This development marks a step forward in the tortuous progress of the Lakhvi trial and comes just before details of the proposed visit of the Indian National Investigation Agency to Rawalpindi to confront Lakhvi and his associates directly. Hopefully, all this is indicative of the 26/11 perpetrators being soon brought to justice four years after committing their dastardly crime.

Rehman Malik, who recently met the Indian Home Minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, on the sidelines of a Rome Interpol conference, has also promised his counterpart of acting to curb infiltration and cross-border terrorism in J&K that has brazenly gone on for decades. Action on all of these matters is important if a climate is to be created for the PM to visit Islamabad and if Pakistan desires movement towards a Kashmir settlement that eluded conclusion in 2006-08 with Musharraf running aground politically. The idea of a soft border along the LoC with freer movement, trade and exchange across it, leading to structures of joint management of this relationship and possibly even joint management of Indus waters that was formulated in talks with Dr Manmohan Singh was a practical and honourable way of leaving nobody with a sense of loss, let alone defeat. Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah had suggested this in 1964, but it was scorned by Ayub Khan then while the PPP government has yet to come to terms with it now.

Gen Kayani was shocked and shaken by the avalanche that took 168 of his soldiers’ lives below the Saltoro ridge, west of Siachen, last March and proclaimed that a settlement with India was essential as defence without development was not a credible option. Other hardliners too have echoed this view with dawning realisation that Islamabad’s Kashmir-terror-jihadi-fundamentalist crusade has not yielded dividends but has, on the contrary, almost brought Pakistan to its knees.

If reconciliation with India through trade and investments, a liberalised visa regime and a sincere conflict resolution process is to be Pakistan’s new strategic doctrine, then justice for those involved in 26/11, and an end to infiltration and cross-border terror constitute obvious elements. Certified terrorists like Hafiz Saeed keep spouting venom while Syed Salahuddin, sitting in Muzaffarabad, has threatened harm to all the panches and sarpanches recently elected in J&K unless they resign. Reports that Rehman Malik plans to meet the Hurriyat leaders in Delhi follows a long-standing pattern of cultivating hollow men and hirelings who know they will come to grief if they genuinely talk peace as it happened to Moulvi Farooq, Abdul Ghani Lone, Fazle Haq Qureshi and even Abdul Ghani Butt and Abbas Ansari.

More importantly, if Pakistan truly wishes to build a climate of peace, it must stop inculcating hatred for India and Hindus in young minds and extolling jihad through its officially produced school textbooks. The Social Policy and Development Centre brought out a study by leading educationists in 2004, titled “The Subtle Subversion”, which painted a grim picture of what was being taught in schools in the history and social study texts. Improvements were promised but few were made. A fresh report by the Jinnah Institute last April deplores what it still describes as a “curriculum of hate” with unfortunate omissions and assertions. UNESCO long years ago said, “Wars begin in the minds of men”.

India too has some horrid texts, privately produced, but these have been stoutly opposed and efforts at rewriting history have been confronted. It is time Pakistan acted more swiftly and firmly to amend its textbooks to portray as objectively as possible all sides of contentious issues and build amity and understanding. This writer has often commended the idea that a group of historians from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh be commissioned to write a non-official primer on South Asian history for children. That could mark a wonderful beginning.

Meanwhile, political parties are readying to fight all the wrong battles in Parliament with the Left leading the charge by giving notice of a motion on the FDI issue which many in the Opposition argue the government has brought in duplicitously by reneging on its earlier promise of wide consultation and seeking to operationalise it by executive order. Public debate has raged and nothing has been done clandestinely. The FDI order is an enabling measure and not coercive and it has been left to the states to go ahead or hold their hand. A debate on the issue does not require to be voted on and if any party is dissatisfied it is for them to move a vote of no-confidence.

This none has so far been willing to do. Dr Manmohan Singh is in a stronger position than before with none in the Congress prepared or able to challenge him before the polls, when he will retire. The Opposition parties and UPA partners are not ready for elections, being divided and unwilling to be held responsible for the possible fall of the government, though this is not on the cards. All the talk about the UPA being in a “minority” after the Trinamool’s withdrawal is mistaken. The Constitution does not require a government to have a majority but to demonstrate that it enjoys “the confidence of the (Lower) House”. India has experienced powerful and long-lasting “minority” governments which won issue-based support from various quarters as the occasion demanded. The same could happen again, with some abstaining or choosing not to vote against the government on a particular motion. The Akalis are with the BJP but Punjab favours FDI which could work well for it.

Hence all the clever prognostications of voting patterns with innumerable permutations and combinations in pretty charts are irrelevant. Some of the hype too is beginning to wear. The re-auction of cancelled 2G “Scam” licences has turned out to be a fiasco with gross overpricing of rates yielding few bidders and paltry receipts. This knocks the bottom out of all the pious theorems on the basis of which the CAG made its extraordinary calculations, disregarding simple economic and social principles.

Those who said there was “zero loss” came nearer the truth than those who forgot to balance assumed, notional losses against actual, realised social gains that empowered tens of millions and networked India. Screaming politicians and sections of the media must realise that they are preaching and aiding non-governance and anarchy. These are dangerous tendencies. Stalling Parliament again could only aggravate disaster.

MIDDLE

A budget has two sides
by P.R. Chari

One is truly impressed by the passion being shown in public life and the committed media exhorting the state to provide more and more amenities to the suffering poor. They should be provided free water which drops from the heavens, anyway, and only needs to be stored and distributed. They should be provided free education, which is every child’s fundamental right. Also, given access to quality public health, smooth roads, gainful employment, subsidised but preferably free, electricity round the clock, cheap fuel, affordable housing and everything else needed by the common man to live a life of dignity.

Why? Because these are the inalienable rights of citizens, which naturally become the inalienable duties of the state. Especially in a democracy, and, more especially, one committed to the principles that guided the French Revolution — liberty, equality and egalitarianism. Grafted to these noble ends we have, of course, socialism. Nothing wrong in reiterating these principles that are incorporated in universal and national declarations of the rights of citizens.

But this is only half the story that appears on the right hand side of the budget pertaining to expenditure. What about the left hand side of the budget that relates to revenue? And represents the state’s efforts to find the moneys for maintaining itself and achieving its socio-economic objectives? A strange reluctance afflicts the human rights activists, the jhola-wala/candlelight-wala community and the committed media to suggest how these laudable freebies are to be funded. This problem becomes more acute because these communities are averse to imposing fresh taxes or cutting subsidies or reducing employment by the state.

And the community that wishes to distribute give-aways is different from the one that has to find the means to fund the largesse. How then can the circle be squared? How should the two sides of the budget be balanced? Foreign loans from some benevolent Santa Claus that would ultimately get written off? Devaluation of the currency, ostensibly to promote exports, but also enhance the value of foreign exchange reserves? Or, by boldly living beyond one’s means in the expectation that some miraculous event will occur sometime to retrieve the situation?

In brief, the salubrious Micawber Principle could be safely ignored, which states, “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

But the God principle could be usefully invoked here, whereby hangs a tale. There was this kindly Minister for Irrigation in Uttar Pradesh who had a violent desire to do good to the people. Hence, he would tour extensively and sanction irrigation projects wherever they were asked for. Sans budget. His principle was, “Ask, and it shall be given.” This drove the bureaucracy to distraction. But whenever they asked, “Where is the money to come from, minister? We have no budget,” he would smile indulgently, cup his hands, look upwards, and exclaim, “Khuda dega.”

OPED Diaspora

LONDON LATITUDE
London Mayor Boris Johnson to visit India
Shyam Bhatia

London Mayor Boris Johnson is travelling to Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad later this month on a visit that many believe is an opportunity to burnish his credentials as a future UK Prime Minister.

British City Hall politics does not normally evoke much interest among Indians, but Johnson is different because of his many personal connections with India.

A son-in-law of the late BBC India correspondent, Sir Charles Wheeler, and his Sikh wife, Dip, Johnson is also popular with NRI voters who helped tip the election earlier this year when Johnson was re-elected Mayor for the second time.

The other reason for Indian interest in Johnson is his potential to succeed David Cameron as the leader of the Conservative Party and UK Prime Minister. He has impeccable credentials for both jobs, having served both as an MP and now as a popular London Mayor.

He is by any reckoning an astute politician with impressive additional credentials as a journalist, having served as Editor of the illustrious Spectator magazine, albeit one who attracts critics and supporters in almost equal measure.

Opponents deride his image as a "posh toff", another way of alluding to his privileged background that includes his education at Britain's top private boarding school, Eton, and Oxford. Cameron was his contemporary at both institutions.

Critics have also taken him to task for what they describe as his warped sense of humour and comments about a whole range of controversial isues. Back in 2001 he wrote about gay marriage, saying, "if gay marriage was OK - and I was uncertain on the issue - then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men, or indeed three men and a dog."

In 2005 he expressed extreme views on Islam, which he subsequently moderated to say that he believed Islam was actually a religion of peace. In an interview with a London newspaper, he added, "I urge people, particularly during Ramadan, to find out more about Islam, increase your understanding and learning, even fast for a day with your Muslim neighbour and break your fast at the local mosque. I would be very surprised if you didn't find that you share more in common than you thought."

Supporters say he is warm-hearted, funny, devoted to boosting London as a major world city and extremely clever. They say his principled views about key issues like racism ("I'm absolutely 100 per cent anti-racist, I despise and loathe racism") speak for themselves.

Many Londoners still remember how Johnson risked his personal safety back in 2009 when he was bicycling to work and saw a young woman, Franny Armstrong, being attacked by a group of girls armed with an iron bar. Johnson stopped to help Armstrong, who later described him as her "knight on a shining bicycle".

Johnson's visit is especially significant because it re-confirms the conviction of Britain's political and economic establishment that India is a lucrative and growing market from which the UK can only benefit. British Foeign Secretary William Hague was recently in Delhi, Prime Minister David Cameron was there just over a year ago and plans to return early in the New Year and; more VIP trips to India are on the cards in the next 12 months.

Malala draws support from Indians, some Pakistanis

Indians from all walks of life have been vociferous in their expressing their support for Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the brain by the Pakistani Taliban. The latest to do so were London participants in the 2012 Vatayan Poetry Awards won by Shobhit Desai and Nida Fazli. They and others present, including UK Hindi Samiti President Padmesh Gupta, film historian Lalit Mohan Joshi and NRI Web Radio founder Vijay Rana, baked the tribute paid to Malala before the start of the second half of the programme held in the House of Lords.

By contrast some, but not all, Pakistanis have done the same, taking their lives in their hands by openly denouncing the Taliban for trying to kill an innocent teenager who tried to stand up for her rights.

Those who have done so include Pakistani President Asif Zardari, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and the Army Chief, General Asfaq Kayani, who stood shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the world community in condemning the attack. One Pakistani politician reluctant to take on the Taliban for what they did is cricket superstar-turned politician Imran Khan. Although Khan visited Malala at her hospital bed in Peshawar before she was flown to the UK for treatment, he refused to blame the Taliban. When pressed on the issue at a press conference last month, he said the people fighting Afghanistan (including the Taliban) are fighting against foreign occupation.

Khan is a frequent visitor to London, home to his ex-wife, Jemima, and their two sons. The media have predicted he will be the next Prime Minister of Pakistan. Before that, if he hopes to win American backing for his political ambitions, he will have to make an effort to get away from his nickname 'Taliban Khan'. The US has reacted badly in particular to Khan's protests against US drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Recently, when he tried to fly from New York to Canada, it was revealed he was taken off the plane by US immigration officials and interrogated for two hours before being allowed to continue.

A State Department has since declared that there is no objection to Khan entering the US.

‘Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire’

A painting depicting the marriage of Bahadur Shah (64) with Zinat Mahal (19). She remained his favourite wife and accompanied him in exile in 1859.

The British leaders' visits will take place against an unusual India backdrop: not just the usual stories about how we are poised to become an economic super power, but something far more subtle and thought provoking that draws attention to India's glorious past before succumbing to the colonialists.

All this is contained in an exhibition at the British Library in London, 'Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire', which in the words of its curators 'examines one of the most powerful and opulent empires the world has ever known.'

Some of the highlights include the Book of Pigeons or 'Kabutarama', containing two treatises on pigeons and their care and breeding. Another book, the Notebook of Fragrance, is an insight into Mughal lifestyles where some 17 chapters discuss recipes for perfumes and soaps, meals and drinks - as well as arranging a house and a garden and fitting out a library.

One unusual mid-18th century portrait is of the then emperor, Muhammad Shah, commonly known as 'Rangila'. The British Library painting depicts him explicitly engaged in a sexual encounter, which experts say could only have been commissioned by himself. Also available to see is the only documented portrait of the last emperor, Bahadur Shah, who was arrested after the 1857 uprising and sent into exile in Rangoon.

It was a Major Hodson who decapitated his two sons' heads before presenting them to the Emperor as Nowruz gifts. Grief-stricken Bahadur Shah is famously quoted as defiantly responding, 'Praise be to Allah that descendants of Timur always come in front of their fathers in this way.'