The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Upgrading the artillery
Modernising this arm is imperative

The Indian Army’s proposal to upgrade the Russian supplied vintage 130 mm artillery guns to a 155 mm calibre is aimed at part modernising the Army’s Artillery. But it also seems to be a measure in desperation since the Artillery is one of the Army’s lesser modernised arm with no new artillery gun having been purchased since the induction of the Swede supplied Bofors Howitzer over a quarter of a century ago in the second half of the 1980s.

The Artillery plays an important role in softening enemy targets in a land battle and in facilitating attacks by the Infantry to overrun and capture ground targets. The artillery assumes greater importance in mountains and hilly terrains where tanks cannot manoeuvre and where aircraft may find it difficult to do precision bombing. In recent military history, the 1999 Kargil War is a classic example of how the artillery, more specifically the 155 mm Bofors Howitzers, played a critical role in softening Pakistani positions and in providing cover to enable Indian infantry soldiers wrest control of captured territory. Recent efforts to purchase replacements for the Army’s vintage artillery have made little progress with allegations of kickbacks derailing all attempts. As a result, the Army’s current artillery comprises guns purchased three to four decades ago in the 1970s and 1980s, making it one of the most vintage arms.

Although the Army has of late inducted the Pinaka Rocket System, the Smerch Rocket System and the BrahMos missile, these serve as long-range artillery weapon systems and do not serve the purpose of close support as does the 155 mm gun which has been designated to be the future mainstay of the Artillery. The Artillery has identified five configurations for its future guns for all the 230 odd regiments. These are the towed, track and wheeled artillery guns plus a truck-mounted howitzer, also called the Mounted Gun System, and the ultra-light howitzer. None of these have, however, been inducted. It is imperative that the government upgrades and modernises the Army’s artillery so that it is not found wanting in a future war.

Education not luxury
Punjab cut a setback to girls

Don’t give a man a fish, they say, teach him how to fish. The Punjab Government, however, has thought it wise to continue with subsidies on power and atta-dal, but discontinue free education it was giving to girls from class 9 to 12, a scheme launched in 2010. The state’s finances are in a mess, and it is yet four years to the next state election. It thus made sense for the government to exhibit prudence with public money. But its choice of where to apply the scissors has demonstrated short-sightedness as well as an abiding love for votes. Education is an investment in people as well as the country’s future; and in the context of girls, it is the entire families they will anchor in future that stand to gain.

The quality of education in government schools in Punjab is nothing to write home about. One consequence of that is that children from only the poorest families, which could in no way afford private education, study in them. Given the low awareness level among the poor, and that even small amounts can prove big for them, there could be girls dropping out from senior classes if they are required to pay around Rs 1,000 a year, which is what the total is expected to be. The decision has been taken because the schools were unable to pay for even basic facilities like electricity. That is the irony of governance: the government is paying lakhs in teachers’ salary every month in each school, but the schools are unable to function for want of a few thousand rupees.

A cut in the allocation for education in the budget for 2013-14 was the first sign of the government’s changing priorities. Provisions for the police and power subsidy were increased. Free services and subsidies are, per se, bad in economics; but if there is any sector that deserves it, it is education. Health is the other sector. The reason being the private sector will invest no money in these for the poor. Public spending on education is the only hope to make three-fourths of the future population capable of catching their own fish. Let no girl be denied school because her family could not pay the small fee.

Thought for the Day

Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something. —Plato

ARTICLE

Dealing with Pak N-weapons
Better to remain involved in dialogue
by PR Chari

The non-BJP views that had argued against India conducting its nuclear tests in May 1998 are worth recalling now when Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is causing so much anxiety. They had held that if India went nuclear Pakistan would follow suit, as it had established the ability to explode nuclear devices despite some reservations existing in the Indian nuclear establishment. It was also argued that Pakistan’s display of nuclear prowess would establish a state of nuclear deterrence that would neutralise India’s conventional superiority against Pakistan. In other words, Pakistan, with the nuclear deterrent, would become the strategic equal of India. The BJP government, however, equated power with military strength and military strength with nuclear weapons; it was, therefore, anxious that India should reveal its military nuclear capabilities by testing its devices. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

A rule of wisdom prescribes that nuclear adversaries must maintain a continuous dialogue between themselves to ensure that their tensions and instabilities do not lead to conflict that could escalate and cross the nuclear threshold. But in an interview to The Tribune, Salman Khurshid, India’s Foreign Minister, admitted that India’s dialogue with Pakistan was not “ dead or in a coma,” but “ has gone very sleepy”. Such insouciance should alarm citizens in India and Pakistan. Why? Several reasons are obtaining here.

First, it is naïve to believe that either country will give up its nuclear weapons or place them under international control. The Nuclear Five have ignored UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon’s calls to prioritise nuclear disarmament and arms control. Instead, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which embodies these high ideals, is collapsing due to break-outs by North Korea and Iran that could inspire an exodus from the Treaty. Besides, the Nuclear Five have not kept their NPT commitment to eliminate their nuclear stockpiles within a specified time-frame. Instead, President Obama and other NATO leaders have declared they will retain their nuclear arsenals. Why, then, should India and Pakistan give up their nuclear weapons? But if they are here to stay, India and Pakistan need to manage their nuclear relations through greater dialogue rather than by a brooding silence.

Second, the need for talking is accentuated by the reality that India and Pakistan had fought each other after their nuclear tests in Kargil (May-July 1999), had a serious border confrontation crisis (December 2001-October 2002) and were about to begin a conflict after the Mumbai attacks (November 2008). An edict of the nuclear age is that nuclear adversaries must not provoke conventional conflicts since they could escalate unpredictably. India and Pakistan are not exceptions to this rule, but this edict should inform them of the need for dialogue to defuse crises before they occur.

Third, the bilateral India-Pakistan nuclear standoff has drawn China into an unstable triangular relationship for which there are no precedents. A nuclear trialogue between India, Pakistan and China would be of obvious utility, but it has not been possible to achieve this modality at the official level. The reason is that China objects to discussions with India on nuclear issues, arguing that India is not a nuclear weapon state recognised by the NPT. Besides China shuns discussions on its nuclear relations with Pakistan with other nations on the grounds that these are strictly bilateral issues. But China’s cooperation with Pakistan on its nuclear and missile programme by direct transfers and through North Korea is well documented. Abandoning the nuclear dialogue with Pakistan also would assuredly create a dangerous void.

Therefore, the dialogue with Pakistan, especially on nuclear issues, cannot be relegated to the back-burner despite the obtaining difficulties. Apart from China’s obtuseness, however, there is the further conundrum of who could be the credible interlocutor in Pakistan. The Pakistan Army is the sole custodian of the country’s nuclear weapons; it guides their further development, and is responsible for evolving the strategy and tactics for their usage. On the other hand, India’s nuclear weapons are held by the scientific establishment in its Atomic Energy Department, with the armed forces being concerned with their actual use. Fortunately, the nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles in both India and Pakistan are being stored separately and would only be “mated” in emergency situations. This “de-alerted” deployment posture is commendable, since increasing the time interval between preparing nuclear weapons for delivery and their actual use provides more time for national leaderships to reflect and reconsider.

Institutionalising this “de-alerted” posture and negotiating similar confidence building measures provides a fruitful agenda for a bilateral India-Pakistan dialogue. Additionally, Pakistan keeps harping on the need for establishing “strategic stability” with India. Now, “strategic stability” has two aspects — “crisis stability” and “arms race stability”. The latter highlights how strategic stability is understood in South Asia. Pakistan’s desire to achieve parity with India in conventional forces conflicts with India’s need to deploy separate and additional forces against China. How confidence might be engendered in India and Pakistan to deal with this unique situation is a challenge for their arms control and confidence building communities.

But the more urgent problem affecting “crisis stability” arises from Pakistan’s recent plans to deploy short-range nuclear missiles along the India-Pakistan border, ostensibly to thwart invading Indian forces. Apparently, Pakistan’s proposed deployment of these short-range missiles is intended to counter India’s Cold Start strategy that envisages “shallow offensives” across the border with Pakistan. The danger arises from the real possibility that these missile batteries could be overrun, and lead to a larger India-Pakistan conflict with escalatory and nuclear overtones. “Crisis stability” would thereby be compromised. Quite evidently, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are intended to deter India from launching conventional military operations. But India is developing nuclear weapon systems to bolster its strategic deterrent against China.

The need for dialogue, therefore, to defuse the dormant tensions that lurk below the surface of India-Pakistan relations can hardly be over-emphasised. It is time for their leaders to arouse themselves from slumber to engage with each other in the interests of peace.

MIDDLE

Vacation for pets!
by Manika Ahuja

No bones about it. I read with interest a news item that a new breed of 24-hour channel, “DogTV”, has been launched in San Diego offering programmes and serials designed to keep your dog relaxed, stimulated and entertained.

Back home, after the concept of paying guest accommodation for boys and girls gaining popularity among house owners in Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula, it is the turn of PG accommodation for pets to catch the fancy of enterprising people here. A number of pet hostels have sprung up in Tricity after the Haryana government opened a dog hostel in Panchkula. That aptly proves the truth in the oft-quoted phrase, “love me love my dog”. Residents going out on summer vacation book the government-run dog hostel in advance.

“Every dog has his day and every cat her two afternoons,” said Louis Wain, a popular English artist. I find it true at least when it comes to the pet-centres in Chandigarh and the surrounding cities as services like shampoo, morning and evening walk, health check-ups and pedicure are available at the centres. These centres also provide services like 24-hour OPD, surgery, ultrasound and radiography. Besides, pets are given nutritious meals, including vegetarian and non-vegetarian food along with the regular one-and-a-half hour walk and dry grooming. Basically, it’s like getting them a companion when they are left alone during vacation.

I found on numerous occasions that my pet cats come in my lap and sit before the computer when I work on the terminal with music on. Pets have a natural inclination towards soft music. They snort, grunt and mew their approval when watching audio visuals on the computer. It is nothing short of a tedious task to drive my kittens out of home, once they find something intriguing on the computer screen.

Surely one feels guilty leaving pets alone on some days when one is out of home, and miserable when leaving pets at the mercy of others when going out on vacation because pets are like a family. Anything that makes them happy makes us happy.

Pets may or may not really understand what they watch but I find that cats recognise other cats on the computer and even respond differently to their own breed. They definitely recognize sounds. Cats, when exposed to video images of other cats, mew their approval finding it as an act of socialisation. My kitten, Fergie, once nearly went in a swoon on witnessing a terrible cat-fight video on YouTube. She ran amuck all around the house and hid herself under a pillow, refusing to come out!

Summer vacation is round the corner and when you go out, you can leave your pets in a PG hostel. Still better, at a place that has a TV set for pets because television is going to the dogs and pets literally!

OPED Diaspora

Royal Mail investigates a racist message
Royal Mail and detectives from Scotland Yard are investigating after a letter sent to an Asian nanny was opened, graffitied with a racist message, before being resealed and delivered in the post.
london latitude/ Shyam Bhatia

The British postal service, Royal Mail, is investigating a letter that was opened and resealed with a racist taunt before it was sent on to an NRI working as a nanny in the Southall area of West London.

The police suspects the letter was opened by someone working for Royal Mail

“Get out of my country you smelly PakiB…..” was the provocative message scrawled inside the letter before it was sent on and delivered in the post.

Royal Mail is investigating after a letter sent to an Asian nanny was opened, graffitied with a racist message, before being resealed and delivered in the post. A Swastika and the symbol of the National Front symbol were added below in the letter addressed to 33-year-old Gurinder Kaur.

Police detectives from Scotland Yard, who are dusting the letter for finger prints, suspect the letter was probably handled and opened by someone working for the postal service. This is also the theory of the employment agency that sent the letter.

A spokesman for the agency commented to the British media, “The racist comments were handwritten and we believe they were added to the letter after it had been mailed by our staff since the letter appears to have been opened and resealed prior to final delivery.”

For her part Ms Gurinder explained, “I noticed straight away that the letter had been opened before it got to me as the sticky part had come away.

“When I opened it I was taken aback by the message. It has caused a lot of shock to my family and friends but I am not so worried about it. I have to try to think that it was a one-off and completely random.

“Hopefully it was someone just having a bad day and that's the end of it. They probably saw my name is Asian and just did it.”

She went on, “I know there have been cases where envelopes are opened and cash is taken from inside but I've never heard of anything like this. I would like to know if it has happened to others.

“ I've not had any problems with racism in the past, I have even lived in areas where I was in the minority and there was nothing like this.”

The London police and the Royal Mail have each confirmed they are investigating reports of racial harassment.

Punjabis try for FM radio licence

A Punjabi language radio station has submitted an application for a coveted FM radio licence to broadcast in the Coventry area of the UK. Headquartered in Hayes, London, Panjab Radio targets audiences in currently broadcasts on DAB Digital Radio across the West Midlands as well as London, the North East and West Yorkshire. It describes itself as “an energetic business offering entertaining radio programmes to listeners throughout the UK, Europe and worldwide on different platforms.”

This is the first time Panjab Radio has bid for an FM licence, or proposed a purely local version of its successful Punjabi-formatted radio station.

Backers say its mission is to “provide a high quality broadcast service that informs, entertains and actively represents and promotes the Punjabi language, heritage, culture, traditions, music and artistes, acting as an agent of cohesion through which all Punjabis can unite and flourish.”

Currently, Sikh religious programmes are broadcast everyday between 3am and 12 noon as well as from 6pm to 8pm. In keeping with Sikh principles the radio station does not endorse products – like alcohol and tobacco – that go against the community beliefs.

“With nearly 50,000 Asians in the Coventry area we’ve been asked time and again why there isn’t a radio station for this community”, says Managing Director Surjit Singh Ghuman, MBE.

“FM licences rarely become available, so we’ve spent the last six months working with the community to devise plans for a perfect radio station. We’ve also commissioned independent research into the tastes and interests of Coventry residents and analysed the output of the existing local radio stations. If there was ever the time for a Punjabi radio station, this is it!”

The 96.2 FM frequency is currently occupied by Touch FM which has just 18,000 listeners each week compared to Free Radio Coventry (previously Mercia FM)’s 101,000 and BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire’s 73,000.

Panjab Radio’s research shows that 90% of the artistes and 82% of the songs played on Touch FM were also played on either Free, Free 80s, Heart, Smooth or Kerrang!

Mr Ghuman adds, “The 96.2 licence whether as Kix 96 or Radio Harmony has historically been occupied by specialist radio stations, its current incarnation as a mainstream station offers nothing new to Coventry and clearly their current listening figures bear that out.

“Panjab Radio Coventry is led by an impressive local team of Directors who bring with them a proven track record and extensive knowledge in business, marketing, accountancy and the Coventry community, together with experience with local radio broadcasting and advertising, which will provide excellent support as we build the radio station with integrity and commitment in delivering a high quality, consumer-led service to our proposed FM listeners.”

A support letter received from local Coventry Councillor Philip David, Townshend Cabinet Member, Community Safety and Equalities, says, “as the Cabinet Member responsible for Equalities in Coventry, there is quite clearly a demand from the city’s 50,000-strong and vibrant Asian communities for a Punjabi music radio station. Panjab Radio Coventry will broaden the media mix in Coventry so that certain communities are no longer disenfranchised from local radio. It will be good news for the city of Coventry should the Panjab Radio bid be successful, and I wish to lend my unequivocal support to their application for a licence”.

Explaining Islam to the West

fortunately, some NRIs in the UK also have good news stories to share with the wider community. One of them is Dr Farhan Nizami, Director of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, which is due to welcome its first intake of graduate students later this year.

Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, which is due to welcome its first intake of graduate students later this year.

The £80 million Centre, which raised funds from across the Muslim world and is open to all Islamic schools, sects and traditions, has the backing of Prince Charles, who said he supported an institution “which can remind the Islamic world and the West of those universal principles of harmony enshrined within Islam that the world needs so urgently to rediscover in the battle to preserve the world for our descendants.”

Although not due to formally open until next year, the highly regarded Centre in the City of the Dreaming Spires is active and functioning. It publishes the journal of Islamic Studies and has hosted all manner of big name lecturers, including Sonia Gandhi, Kofi Annan and Nelson Mandela.

Dr Nizami is the son of the late KhaliqNizami, a fomer Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, and is himself a first class graduate of Aligarh Muslim University from where he obtained his degree in 1977 before winning an Oxford Overseas Scholarship. He obtained his doctorate from Wadham College, Oxford, in 1983 and was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2006.

A few years ago he charged British Muslims with not doing enough to make sure their children learn to speak English or providing enough support for their education.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph newspaper, he commented, “Muslim families have to realise the importance of education for their children and make an effort to push them into achieving more.

“They need to make them aspire to things higher rather than just being self-employed and looking for small-jobs."

Commenting on the security threat to UK society said to be posed by some foreign-born imams, he was quoted as saying, “The assumption that foreign imams equal something undesirable is not always true. In fact, some of the more radical elements of British society are British-born. This is not an issue that needs to be seen in terms of religion, but in issues of alienation and deprivation.”

A tolerant society?

social analysts like to argue that the UK today is a more tolerant society than it has ever been, but, sadly, as Ms Gurinder’s experience demonstrates, that is not always the case.

North of London, in Nottingham, a 35-year-old NRI teacher is claiming damages from a school where he claims he was subjected to racist abuse from pupils and staff.

He claims that two offensive notes -- one reading “Farewell Bollywog” , and another that saying “Goodbye turbanator” -- were left in his staff pigeonhole shortly before he was dismissed from his job in 2008. Sood is claiming damages for lost earnings and damages to his feelings.

Sadder still is the story of a 56-year-old NRI from Manchester who was racially abused and beaten up in a tram while fellow passengers just stood by doing nothing.

Prakash Patel had been to a football match with his daughter Devyani and both were on a tram returning home when half a dozen men started making “indecent racist comments.”

After Mr Patel told then to behave, they started punching him on the face and the back of his head. In his published testimony Patel says, “There was one in front of me and one behind me both punching me in my face and on the back of the head. They were hitting me in the face, the eyes, the head. After two punches I think I blacked out but the carriage was so full that I was unconscious while standing up. Nobody did anything or said anything, they all just stood and watched us.

“Nobody did anything to stop them or help me afterwards. My daughter was the only one who helped me. She managed to push one of the men off and then the other stopped. It seemed like the other passengers just wanted the drama.

“I had concussion and I needed a CT scan and was off work for two weeks. My wife had to stay off too to look after me. Now I can’t walk outside on my own and I will never go on public transport again and I will only ever watch Manchester United in a box, never again will I sit in the stands. I lost 3kg in the two weeks after the attack.”

Since the attack the Manchester police has appealed for witnesses to come forward. They say policing on public transport will be reviewed.

A spokesman for Transport for Greater Manchester said, “Our thoughts go out to Mr Patel and his daughter after their truly harrowing experience. Any criminal act, attempted or otherwise, on a Metrolink tram is for GMP (Greater Manchester Police) to consider and investigate.”