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Uneven growth
Sun power |
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Clean bean
The truce in Gaza
From ‘Gangnam’ to City Beautiful
The advice given by elders to the locals has been not to discuss Ajmal Kasab with anyone. A local masjid imam reportedly used the mosque's loudspeaker to tell his audience to stay away from the affair. It is this shield of silence that greeted journalists in Faridkot as they converged on the village again looking for stories to mark Ajmal Kasab's hanging in distant
Pune.
Kasab executed, at last
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Uneven growth
The
general perception that Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda pays greater attention to the development of Haryana’s Jat belt stands confirmed by the data obtained under the Right to Information Act. In the sanction and execution of development projects between 2005 and 2012 six districts – Rohtak, Jhajjar, Bhiwani, Sonepat, Hisar and Kurukshetra – have been favoured, while the three important districts of Panipat, Panchkula and Yamunanagar been neglected the most. That Hooda has a soft corner for the Jats who comprise his vote bank is well known. He has allowed them to block rail, road traffic freely whenever they resort to agitation. Khap panchayats have not been reined in despite a national outrage over their running a parallel justice system. After Bansi Lal, no Haryana chief minister has worked for the over-all development of the state. First, the districts along the G.T. Road grew faster than others. Highway tourism gave a boost to the state’s agriculture-dominated economy. Then as Delhi emerged as an attractive destination for private investment, Haryana’s areas close to the national capital also got some share of it. An improved road and rail connectivity gave a boost to real estate activity, which, in turn, contributed to the state’s rapid growth. A sharp rise in commercial, residential and agricultural property prices created a class of urban rich. A nexus of builders, bureaucrats and politicians struck land deals for mutual benefit. Uneven development is a problem not confined to Haryana. In Punjab and Himachal Pradesh too there are some pockets of growth, while large areas have remained under-developed. No wonder, as chief ministers, Om Prakash Chautala and Hooda nurtured their own constituencies. But this is a short-sighted approach even politically. The neglected districts often vote against them and throw up dissidents. The backward regions act as a drag on the state’s resources and slow down growth. Social tensions mount and at times escalate to violence. States with dynamic chief ministers like Nitish Kumar of Bihar, Sheila Dikshit of Delhi, Narendra Modi of Gujarat and Naveen Patnaik of Orissa are growing faster than others. Hooda has lessons to learn.
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Sun power
Solar
energy has now been harnessed to provide power at night at a number of places, but Sirsa has acquired the distinction of becoming the first district where all the villages have solar lights. While the technology to light up lives in areas where regular electric supply remains elusive has been around for a while, the high cost of installing solar lights has proven to be a deterrent for many individuals and institutions alike. It is, indeed, heartening that the Haryana Renewable Energy Department installed solar lights in all the 334 villages of Sirsa. Government subsidy and the interest of the local officials obviously played a big role in the successful completion of the project. India is blessed with a sunny climate and as such it makes eminent sense to use solar energy to both provide power in regions of infrastructural deficiencies, as well as use this natural and renewable source of energy to supplement power being provided by conventional means. Indeed, the government has done well to provide incentives under various schemes for solar energy, thereby making it more viable. Technological advancements that have taken place have also made solar energy panels more robust and effective. The nation needs to adopt the use of solar energy in a big way. The government has taken big strides in this area, with the total solar capacity increasing about four times — from just 270 megawatts to 1 gigawatt of power. However, this amounts to only a minuscule 0.5 per cent of the total power consumption. Solar energy is a viable option for difficult-to-reach areas, since expensive transmission lines can be bypassed and solar panels set up on or near the site. It can thus be used to provide power to lakhs of Indians in remote areas that have no access to electric power. Providing streetlights to villages is an effective demonstration of the vast potential of the power of photovoltaic cells, which can and need to be harnessed in better ways, thus channelling the vast potential of this natural resource for the nation.
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Clean bean
One
tiny Sub-Divisional Magistrate’s office tucked away in a town called Karsog in Mandi district of Himachal has rows of cabinets that bear neat little stacks of files, arranged by date. Thousands of files no more required have been disposed of, while a conveniently searchable base of relevant records has been retained. This has happened because one conscientious person in charge wanted it that way. Only if people in all other government offices hated sitting amidst a jumbled mass of crumbling yellow paper piled roof high. A typical ‘sarkari’ office looks the way it does because no official wants to do the spring cleaning, definitely not for his predecessors of decades who have left behind the mess. The consequences become apparent when you seek reference to you records in any office. ‘Come tomorrow,’ you are told. The benefits of good record-keeping are obvious (though apparently not to those responsible for it). It provides for quick reference to past precedents to help take informed decisions; better long-term planning; efficiency in terms of time; quicker and accurate rendering of service; easier dispute resolution, etc. What has been achieved in Karsog is something that is provided for in government rules. Files can be disposed of after a certain period. There are procedures laid down for that. The requirement is just for the person in charge to find some time, patience, and a bit of spunk to decide on some of the ambiguous files that may be hard to decide on. All this, however, is more relevant to the Raj period, to which we still seem to belong. It is the age of electronics, which provides for data management systems that can take care of all office document creation, movement, retrieval and filing — for perpetuity. Which means the need for disposal would never arise, and yet the staff can enjoy their tea without the musty smell! There are software designed specifically for this already being used in certain Central government organisations. The case for e-governance is strong, it’s time we found the will too.
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If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share. —W. Clement Stone
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The truce in Gaza In the end, it was the Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, with long-distance telephone calls from President Barack Obama, with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presence, that led to a ceasefire agreement on Gaza. The diplomatic victor by a long shot is the Hamas movement because it forced Israel to recognise its inhuman imprisoning of a whole population for the last six years. Assuming the ceasefire will hold, it can be only the beginning of a long and difficult process. Israel’s decision to escalate its simmering crisis with Hamas in the Gaza Strip in answering rockets with massive bombardment of the Strip by US-supplied F-16s after killing the Hamas military chief has a cost. More than 140 Palestinians have died, including many women and children, as opposed to six Israeli deaths. It caught the Arab world in an interesting time of their history. Flushed with a sense of victory as the Arab Spring toppled President Hosni Mubarak, Mr Morsi won the presidency in the first free elections in Egypt. Even as he set about tackling his country’s endemic problems, exacerbated by the turmoil of the anti-Mubarak uprising, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sprang him the nasty surprise. Hamas is a more extreme offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptians have a natural empathy for the suffering of the Palestinians locked into a strip of territory classed as the most crowded in the world. After Hamas won the election over the mainstream Fatah of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Israel virtually imprisoned its people by a total sea blockade, a land blockade with only one crossing at Fatah policed by the Egyptians subject to Cairo’s moods and compulsions. It is no secret that the ingenious Hamas supporters built a system of elaborate tunnels to bring in essential supplies as also quantities of arms. Israelis frequently bomb these tunnels but there are simply too many to bomb. Israel and its main paymaster and monetary and military supplier, the United States, have been banking on the peace treaty with Tel Aviv through its mediation by returning the Sinai Peninsula to Cairo making the Jewish state safe. The conventional wisdom has it that Arabs cannot go to war with Israel without Cairo. President Mubarak, the long-time President of Egypt, was the inevitable mediator as and when Palestinians and Israelis came to blows, with Israelis showing off their high-tech military muscle against crude rockets from the Hamas side. Egypt, of course, was keenly aware of the American largesse offered every year in the form of $ 2 billion, mostly in military supplies, in addition to Washington’s support for aid to the country through multilateral agencies. For President Morsi, it was a nightmare scenario. His country desperately needed American money and support even as his people rose as one man for Hamas, whose supporters were being killed every day by Israel’s war machine. There was a massive demonstration in Tahrir Square and a new enfranchised people of the Arab world were up in arms. Even as prospects of a ceasefire multiplied, with the US reflexively offering full support to Tel Aviv, President Morsi has had to enact a Houdini act. It was striking that President Obama, reacting to events in Bangkok, gave full support to Israel while not having a word of sympathy for the scores of Palestinians in Gaza dying from Israeli bombs. The popularly elected President of Egypt was strong in his condemnation of the Israelis. He sent his Prime Minister to the Gaza Strip to meet the territory’s Prime Minister (in offices that were to be reduced to rubble by Israeli warplanes a day later) to express his country’s solidarity. Such rhetorical support yielded no offers of material help. At another level, President Morsi was busy seeking a truce, with Israeli and Egyptian intelligence officers talking things over in an old network honed by Mr Mubarak and manipulated by the US. It is, indeed, a high-wire act which succeeded as Israel rethought its option for a land invasion, repeating its less than successful act four years ago. And President Morsi could well have done without the praise of Israeli President Shimon Peres for his efforts. Israel might have administered an old medicine, but the region has changed dramatically over the last two years as Tunisia lit the spark that spread in the Arab world like a prairie fire swallowing up long-time dictators in Tunis, Cairo and Tripoli and singeing Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad. The outrage on the Arab street grew each day even as Israel arrogantly continued to colonise occupied Palestinian land and the holy city of occupied East Jerusalem, with a US President captive to the American Jewish lobby watching on the sidelines. If Israel continues along its present path of making a two-state solution impossible by cocking a snook at all cannons of international justice, thanks to Washington’s total support, the peoples of the Arab world would make life impossible for their popularly elected leaders. There were already calls made during the first public anti-King demonstrations in Jordan for revoking the treaty with Israel, the only other Arab country that has signed a treaty with Tel Aviv. There was speculation in the capitals of the world that Prime Minister Netanyahu was showing off his military muscle with an eye on the forthcoming elections in his country because bashing Palestinians and other Arabs is a popular pastime in Israel. What is of greater significance is that the Arab world has changed and is changing and old formulations of bribing and intimidating the region will no longer work. President Morsi has succeeded in walking the fine line between expressing support for Hamas while pleasing Washington by mediating in the latest conflict, but his dilemmas will remain. Even if the blockade is partially lifted in terms of the ceasefire agreement, Israel can expect more trouble as long as it remains in possession of occupied territory and acts as the regional policeman. This presents a larger dilemma for the American political system. Since the British left the Middle East, as the world calls it, and Americans took on, the American Jewish lobby has had a hammer-lock on the US Congress and Senate. In the American political lexicon, Israel can do no wrong. It is the highest recipient of American aid followed by Egypt. And for President Morsi and others of the newly-minted democratic credentials, there will come a point when their peoples will simply rise up against the continued colonisation and suffering of the Palestinian
people.
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From ‘Gangnam’ to City Beautiful Check out the Gangnam song,’ my son advised, in one of his rare e-mails, a couple of months ago. The song must be impressive to merit a special mention by my music-loving son, So, without much ado and great anticipation, I searched YouTube and found the song. The video showed a short, tubby, not-so-young South Korean singer called Psy belting out a song in incomprehensible Korean. The beat was undoubtedly riveting, but the pony dancing (sans horse) did not fit any dance genre. I was nonplussed. My mild surprise turned to astonishment when the song became the most liked song in YouTube history and topped the Billboard charts. There is no accounting for taste, I shrugged. Then I saw Chris Gayle celebrate the T20 World Cup victory ‘Gangnam’ style with Kevin Peterson in hot pursuit. Pop singer Britney Spears and NBA star Roy Hillbert followed suit. Just a celebrity thing, I assured myself. My assurance came a cropper when I saw the very dignified UN Secretary-General shaking a leg to the song. Even Oxford students were pony-dancing. A rare, western 'viral' phenomenon, I rationalised. My belief was shaken when I saw Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan and Katrina take to the ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ floor in a commendable imitation of the 'Gangnam' dance. Just a publicity gimmick, I consoled myself. But against all odds and to my utter disbelief, the 'Gangnam' epidemic has now hit the City Beautiful as well. Music stores are selling the video. Birthday parties have little ones bouncing around happily to the song. Hotels, cafes, restaurants and discotheques are playing the 'Gangnam song' with gusto. I also found the song in one of the most unlikely places — at our very own 'Great Indian Wedding'. The ambience of the wedding was overtly traditional. The bridegroom sat astride a white 'ghori' wearing a sherwani and pagri. The baratis were similarly attired as they danced the bhangra and giddha. As we approached the wedding venue, as if on cue, the opening strains of the 'Gangnam song' started to play. To my amazement, the bridegroom hopped off the ghori, positioned himself at the head of the barat and broke out into a brawny version of the pony dance. That was not all. As we entered the venue, the bride's relatives sallied forth 'Gangnam’ style and welcomed the barat not with folded hands but in the 'rein holding' Psy style. I was in shock. Even more so when I caught myself humming the song and trying the pony dance, surreptitiously, a few days later. My disdain had turned to resigned acceptance. Now I am an unshakeable convert and openly flaunt a 'Gangnam' ring
tone.
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The advice given by elders to the locals has been not to discuss Ajmal Kasab with anyone. A local masjid imam reportedly used the mosque's loudspeaker to tell his audience to stay away from the affair. It is this shield of silence that greeted journalists in Faridkot as they converged on the village again looking for stories to mark Ajmal Kasab's hanging in distant
Pune.
LAHORE:
The criminal investigation or a lack of it apart, no serious study to understand his coming about has yet been undertaken and none is likely if the conventional and convenient methods of investigation continue to be obsessively applied. Ajmal Kasab was the lone survivor among the 10 Mumbai attackers. In late November 2008 intelligence leaks to Indian media claimed he was a Pakistani hailing from a village named Faridkot. A search was launched by media in Pakistan and many Faridkots beckoned out of their unnoticed existence on the map. Finally, after a series of blanks, a tip from Okara in central Punjab said Ajmal Kasab's family might be living in Faridkot village bang on the Kasur-Depalpur road, not far from Depalpur town. An investigation by a Dawn reporter confirmed that Amir Kasab, identified by Indian media as the father of Ajmal, had indeed settled in Faridkot many years ago after arriving from nearby Haveli Lakha, and that among his children was a son who had left home some time ago. Two Dawn journalists arrived in a neat-looking Faridkot lane in the first week of December, 2008. They were looking for the Kasab home and were met on the way by a man of medium build, clad in shalwar-kameez. "Do you know someone from the Kasab family? Are they home?," the man was asked. "I am Kasab," he replied. Then quickly and mechanically, he took out his identity card from his chest pocket, as if he had kept it handy for an impending identification. "Amir Kasab," the card read. In a few seconds, the journalists were inside Amir Kasab's house. A pale-eyed woman sat on a charpoy, introduced to the visitors as Ajmal's mother. Two younger women who stood by were identified as Ajmal's sisters. Also around and visibly intrigued by the visit was a young boy in winter school uniform. He was said to be Ajmal's younger brother. A few hours earlier, the same journalists had found the details in the Indian media's breaking stories on Ajmal Kasab a bit too difficult to stomach - an example of how intelligence agencies used media to forward their own interests, how too much information gave a story-teller away. It was a story they were desperate to disprove, ready to suffer the embarrassment that awaits pursuers at the end chasing a red herring. In these stories, the attacker was painted as a poor runaway boy who, after wandering through Lahore, had met his jihadi handlers in Rawalpindi. However, in the poor and well-kempt courtyard of the Kasab family that afternoon, the probing journalists found some striking similarities between their surroundings and the bits reported in Indian media accounts of Ajmal's confessions. The reports said Amir Kasab was a snacks-seller in Faridkot, and now a handcart stood in one corner of the yard, stacked with steel plates and glasses washed and ready to serve. Amir said he sold pakoras in the village, a collection of quite spacious brick-houses against a background of richly cultivated fields and smoke-emitting factories that had been under-projected in the media leaks. Much more devastating, the master of the house admitted the pictures flashed in the media were his son's. "Initially, I did not own up to this. But now I know that this is my son," he said. Then he sobbed and his wife's face disappeared in the chador she had on her. The younger lot of the family looked on, as did the small crowd that had gathered inside the house, probably neighbours not all of whom were comfortable with the content of the unfolding conversation. There were a few points which Amir Kasab adamantly denied. The media had implied that he had taken money against Ajmal's services to the 'handlers' of the Mumbai attack - an accusation that has been repeated after the execution now. "He had asked me to buy Eid clothes for him. When I refused he got angry and left," Amir's simple explanation said. That was apparently the only exchange between the Kasab family of Faridkot near Depalpur and the media. Over the following hours, the village was besieged by journalists faced by a local nazim and his men determined to prevent any further prying into their lives, even if it required manhandling the nosey journalists. One reporter working with a British paper located the Kasab name on an electoral roll. Yet, no clue was available to the whereabouts of Amir Kasab and his family. They had simply vanished from the scene. The first reaction in Pakistan back then was to disown Ajmal Kasab. Now, amid a debate as to who should claim his body, people in Faridkot are still reluctant to admit he belonged to their village. It needed some persuasion before a couple of them shared a few bits of information with Dawn on Wednesday. One villager said Amir Kasab and his wife had briefly been in Faridkot a few times. From among those who did acknowledge the Kasabs had once been Faridkot residents told Dawn their house had since been "rented out". The current occupants say they have been living there for three and a half years. The house looks the same as it did in December 2008, but an animal shed has since taken up some part of the courtyard. The advice given by elders to the locals has been to not discuss Ajmal Kasab with anyone. A local masjid imam reportedly used the mosque's loudspeaker to tell his audience to stay away from the affair. It is this shield of silence that greeted journalists in Faridkot as they converged on the village again looking for stories to mark Ajmal Kasab's hanging in distant Pune. In the days following the Faridkot revelation in 2008, Pakistan and India remained locked in a tense exchange over the identity and origins of the Mumbai attackers. Pakistan was initially reluctant to admit that Ajmal was its national as the Indian side demanded action against the "Pakistan-based" perpetrators of the terrorist act. Then, on December 10, 2008, Mahmood Durrani, adviser to the Prime Minister, did finally accept that Ajmal was a Pakistani citizen - a disclosure that cost Durrani his job. Around the same time, PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif told journalist Kim Barker of evidence which suggested that Ajmal did indeed belong to Faridkot. As the facts emerged, in time, Islamabad did shift from an outright denial to insisting on a distinction between the "state actors" and "non-state" actors, under pressure from India and the West to investigate and try Lashkar-e-Taiba men accused of masterminding Mumbai attacks. Away from the trials and governmental standoffs, the phenomenon called Ajmal Kasab has received but only superficial attention and that too by and large from journalists working by short deadlines. The prosperous fields, the smoke-emitting mills and Amir Kasab's own not-so-poor status have not prevented observers from looking at it from the classical poverty angle. There is a book written by an Indian journalist which "dedicates several chapters to highlighting the Pakistani paradoxes that gave birth to Ajmal the terrorist" placing Faridkot "in an imaginary terrain existing at a distance from… civilisation". Task done? No need to explore any further and find out other linkages between Ajmal Kasab and his act, reasons such as enshrined in the thesis about the clash between civilisations? It is this single-track approach that lends greater mystery to the affair, in the name of simplified reading and where discussion is stunted and an earnest probe is put on hold, denial comes easy. In the hush-hush of whispers Faridkot remains largely undiscovered beneath a pile of nationalist to administrative to faith-based excuses. — By arrangement with Dawn, Islamabad
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THE secret execution and burial of Ajmal Kasab, the sole gunman to survive the 2008 tragedy in Mumbai, revives the memory of a senseless but well-planned act of mass murder that brought Pakistan and India to the brink of war. Four years later, many questions still remain unanswered on this side of the border: who were the brains behind the slaughter of the innocent civilians? What did they propose to achieve? Where and how were the gunmen trained and armed? Who brainwashed them into undertaking that ignoble mission? Who provided the operational facilities, including the boat journey, to the Indian port? And why did these activities go unnoticed in Pakistan? Subsequently, the authorities in Islamabad acted to establish facts that distanced the state from the work of a few fanatic killers. But that doesn't serve to hide the shortcomings in the working of Pakistan's anti-terrorism apparatus and its inability to keep tabs on organisations - not necessarily banned - which manage to amass enough resources to run clandestine cells that undertake fiendish operations of such magnitude. The Pakistani part of the trial is dragging on, prompting allegations from New Delhi that Islamabad is not serious. The fact that the prosecution came up with some new information about the Pakistani handlers of the suspects and the money transfer mechanism to shed some light on the case gives hope that the case will be pursued with speed and that justice will be done so that those responsible for the massacre are exposed. Above all, Pakistanis deserve to know what the government intends to do to ensure that such a tragedy is not repeated. The issue is linked to the hydra-headed monster that terrorism has become for us. Militants are now operating throughout Pakistan and feel free to choose their targets, strike at will and plan operations abroad. The lesson to be drawn from the Mumbai events and its aftermath is that the government must make efforts to ensure that the state and citizens unite to root out what has become the biggest threat to our peace of mind as well as to our own and
regional security. — An editorial in Dawn, Islamabad
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