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Abroad alone
Punjab's canals drying up |
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Fighting the enemy within
Policemen are not ‘mamas’
Information, the new force multiplier
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Abroad alone THE plight of Indian workers in Iraq has exposed certain shortcomings in the emigration process. India has a long history of emigrants contributing to various parts of the world, and according to some estimates, Indians account for the second-largest group of emigrants in the world. It is natural, therefore to expect the country to have a robust system in place to protect innocent persons from being exploited. At the same time, there has to be documented information on Indians who have emigrated. The former has been taken care of, to a varying degree, since 1922 when an emigration check was first required for Indian passports. The Emigration Act, 1983, came in response to the large number of Indians who took up blue-collar jobs in oil-rich nations in the 1970s. Even as the Act endeavours to safeguard the emigrants' interests and ensure their welfare, it has not been able to provide fool-proof information about them when needed. To a certain extent this is due to the inaccurate documentation provided by potential emigrants relying on unscrupulous agents who not only misguide them but also fleece them. As the Iraq crisis deepens, more and more news is filtering out about such people and their activities. The police should investigate these cases and take stern action against the agents. The Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs has shown skill in hosting various NRI-centred events. It, however, comes across as woefully inadequate when a crisis occurs and immediate information is needed about Indian emigrants. As for the local embassies and consulates, generally speaking, these venerable bureaucratic outposts are known more for their blue tape than for extending a helping hand to those in need. An estimated one crore Indians emigrate very year. They send back significant remittances to their families in India. They are Indian citizens and the government should be proactive in assisting them at the time they need help. The first step towards this would be to have a more accurate picture of their whereabouts, shared widely with the states to which these emigrants belong.
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Punjab's canals drying up IF more evidence of Punjab's looming water crisis is required, it is available in the decreasing water level in Punjab's canals. Some canal distributaries have dried up and farmers have started growing crops on their beds. The situation is particularly grim in Amritsar and Tarn Taran districts. Earlier, villages on the tail-end of canals used to go without water. Now farmers in more and more areas are forced to shift from canals to tubewells to meet their irrigation requirements. Since the water table has kept dropping at an alarming rate of 65 cm annually for years now, farmers are forced to instal submersible pumps, each costing Rs 1.5 lakh. This not only strains their meager resources, but the increased dependence on ground water also has long-term risks, to which the government appears blissfully unaware. Where canal water is available, influential farmers resort to theft. Canal embankments are breached, causing huge water loss and aggravating the challenge of canal repairs. Farmers in the border belt and elsewhere periodically resort to protests but these fail to move an apathetic state government. Not just is the water flow in the state's rivers and canals decreasing, the rising pollution level due to the discharge of untreated industrial and municipal waste is becoming a serious health hazard to those living close to the canals and rivers. It is not that the Punjab government has no funds to repair the canal system, established by the British. Its priorities are distorted and political will to fix the agrarian crisis is missing. Who can understand agricultural issues better than Parkash Singh Badal? Only his efforts are geared towards the next election. The Chief Minister actually contributes to the water problem by giving free power to farmers, who are encouraged to grow paddy and nurture it with groundwater, rain or no rain. For years now experts have suggested rainwater harvest and cleanup and maintenance of water resources, but Punjab's ruling politicians have other issues to fight for.
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One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time. — Robert Kennedy
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Punjab at the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos THE double honour of producing a Wrangler and an Optime in one and the same year at the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos has seldom fallen to the lot of another province. The Punjab has therefore good reasons to rejoice over this year's results when one of her young hopefuls becomes a Wrangler and another an Optime. Mr. Mahomed Hussain Qazi, who is a Wrangler, passed his M.A. examination in 1912 from the Government College, Lahore, and he was placed in the third division. Few of his Professors could perhaps have expected his brilliant success at the Tripos examination. The young man we understand was of a quiet and retiring disposition and had seldom endeavoured to show that he was very far above the average. But he was doubtless conscious of his own abilities or he would not have proceeded to Cambridge. Mr. Ali, the junior Optime, is a student of the Municipal Board School, Kasur. The Punjab land policy THE Statist devotes a leading article to an examination of the issues lately raised in these columns on the "sale" of proprietary rights. It dismisses the question of morality on the ground that the purchaser enters into a contract out of his own free will, and concludes: "We must not allow our strong desire for improving India to rush that country into worse evils than she is suffering from. Suppose that the view here taken proves true; that there is a demand for the reclaimed lands; that native capitalists come forward and buy immense tracts; and, then, there grows up a rack rented tenantry such as Ireland suffered from a century ago, shall we be justified in such a course because we have laid out the money received for the same in improving education?
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Fighting the enemy within ON June 15, 2014, the Pakistan army finally launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb (sharp and cutting), its much delayed ground offensive against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in North Waziristan. The army claimed to have killed approximately 180 TTP and Uzbek terrorists on the first two days, including the mastermind of the twin terrorist attacks on Karachi airport on June 9 and 10.
According to the Karachi Airport Security Force, 29 people had died in the suicide attack, including all 10 terrorists, while 24 had been injured. On the same day in the latest manifestation of continuing sectarian violence, Sunni extremists killed 23 Shia pilgrims travelling by bus in Balochistan. These two and other recent attacks are clearly indicative of the ability of Pakistan’s terrorist organisations to strike at will and underline the helplessness of the security forces in taking effective preventive action. Despite facing the grave danger of a possible collapse of the state, the Pakistan government’s counter-insurgency policy had until now lacked cohesion. The commencement of a peace dialogue with the TTP in February 2014, despite the abject failure of several such efforts in the past, allowed the terrorist organisation to re-arm, recruit and train fresh fighters. In March 2014, the TTP had offered a month-long cease-fire. The army honoured the cease-fire and refrained from active operations, but TTP factions fought on. On April 16 the TTP withdrew its pledge and blamed the government for failing to make any new offers. In the face of mounting public and army pressure, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif reluctantly agreed to approve military strikes. He was apprehensive that Gen Raheel Sharif, COAS, may unilaterally decide to launch an all-out offensive. The army had been recommending to the government for quite some time that firm military action was necessary to deal with the menace of home-grown terrorism. The PM is now backing the army fully and has said that he will not allow Pakistan to become a “sanctuary of terrorists” and that the military operation will continue till all the militants are eliminated. The deteriorating internal security environment has gradually morphed into Pakistan's foremost national security threat. Karachi remains a tinderbox that is ready to explode. The al-Qaida is quietly making inroads into Pakistani terrorist organisations like Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Harkat-ul-Jihad Al-Islami (HuJI), Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has consolidated its position in North Waziristan and could have broken out of its stronghold into neighbouring areas. Fissiparous tendencies in Balochistan and the restive Gilgit-Baltistan Northern Areas are a perpetual security nightmare. Realisation about the gravity of the internal security situation has dawned on the Pakistan army as well. Two successive army Chiefs have declared publicly that internal instability is the number one national security threat. However, unlike the Indian army that has been embroiled in low-intensity conflicts since the 1950s, the Pakistan army is relatively inexperienced in counter-insurgency operations. General Kayani had declared 2009 as ‘Military Training Year’ to re-orientate the army to internal security duties. Before becoming COAS, General Sharif had developed the training manuals for counter-insurgency. Over the last decade, the Pakistan army has deployed more than 1,50,000 soldiers in the Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa and FATA areas. It has suffered over 15,700 casualties, including about 5,000 dead since 2008. The total casualties, including civilian, number almost 50,000 since 2001. Hurt by a series of Taliban successes in “liberating” tribal areas and under pressure from the Americans to deliver in the “war on terror”, the Pakistan army employed massive firepower to stem the rot - as was visible on television screens worldwide when operations were launched to liberate the Swat Valley (Operation Rah-e-Rast, May-Jun 2009) and South Waziristan (Operation Rah-e-Nijat, Oct-Nov 2009). Fighter aircraft, helicopter gunships and heavy artillery were freely used to destroy suspected terrorist hideouts, irrespective of civilian casualties. This heavy-handed, firepower-based approach without simultaneous infantry operations on the ground failed to dislodge the militants, but caused large-scale collateral damage and alienated the tribal population even further. Counter-insurgency operations against the TTP in South Waziristan drove most of the fighters to North Waziristan, but till now the army had been reluctant to extend its operations to this province. North Waziristan has a rugged mountainous terrain that enables TTP militants to operate like guerrillas and launch hit-and-run raids against the security forces. When cornered, the militants find it easy to slip across the Durand Line and find safe sanctuaries in the Khost and Paktika provinces of Afghanistan. Ahmed Rashid, author of “Taliban and Descent into Chaos”, has written: “Not only does North Waziristan house Pakistani and Afghan Taliban; it is also a training ground for al-Qaida, which attracts Central Asians, Uighurs from China, Chechens from the Caucasus and a flow of militant Muslim converts from Europe.” Quite clearly, the Pakistan army is in for the long haul and will undoubtedly suffer a large number of casualties. What do these developments portend for India? Regional instability always has a negative impact on economic development and trade. Creeping Talibanisation and radical extremism are threatening Pakistan's sovereignty. If the Pakistan army fails to conclusively eliminate the scourge in the north-west, it will soon reach Punjab, which has been relatively free of major incidents of violence. After that, it will only be a matter of time before the terrorist organisations manage to push the extremists across the Radcliffe Line into India. It is in India's interest that the Pakistan government succeeds in its fight against radical extremism. Political turmoil, internal instability, a floundering economy and weak institutions make for an explosive mix. Pakistan is not yet a failed state, but the situation that it is confronted with could rapidly degenerate into an unfettered disaster. All institutions of the state must stand together for the nation to survive its gravest challenge. The Pakistan army and the ISI must concentrate on fighting the enemy within, rather than frittering away energy and resources on destabilising neighbouring countries. The writer is a Delhi-based strategic analyst
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Policemen are not ‘mamas’ I was driving with my daughter as the co-driver. There was a ring on my cell phone which I instinctively picked up to take the call. My daughter said, “Papa be careful there's a ‘mama’ standing ahead”. I put away the cell not because of the presence of any “mama” or “chacha” but because the law says so. I chided my daughter for the language. “It’s cool, papa. Eeverybody calls them that”.
I decided to play the devil's advocate. “They are not smart, I am smart. I make it a point to stay on the right side of the law and thereby give them no chance to bother me”. “Papa, they are not that bad also. Preet jumped a red light yesterday and the ‘mama’, sorry, the cop stopped her. He asked Preet for her driving licence, which she doesn’t have. Bas then he said pay up or I’ll impound your scooter. The poor girl was carrying no money and getting late for an exam. She started crying, they took pity on her and let her go with the promise that she would pay them the next day”. “First, Preet drives a scooter without a valid licence. She then disregards a traffic signal and you call the police names when they try and discipline you. Is that fair?” Sensing a moral victory, I decided to utilize the time to sensitize my daughter about the terrible image the policeman carries. I said all the usual things like long duty hours, poor pay and allowances, no relief on Sundays and festivals like Holi and Diwali. “The 'nakas' on the Valentine’s Day are because of the nuisance and ruckus you youngsters create. They get frustrated and sometimes let out their ire on the public which they should not, but then the system too must give them a fair deal”. “I have served in many states. You don’t know how bad some of the police in India are”. “You mean, papa, the Chandigarh Police is good?” “Well, not exactly knights in shining armour, but a lot better than many. They are well turned out, omnipresent, no bulging tummies like mine. The law and order situation is under control and the city is orderly. Some credit for that must go to them”. On the lighter side, I narrated the story of baby Musa Khan in Pakistan. The Lahore police recently booked baby Musa Khan, all of nine months, on charges of attempt to murder and rioting. He is at present out on bail. We must thank the good Lord that Chandigarh has neither precocious children like Musa nor brilliant “mamas” like Lahore’s.
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Information, the new force multiplier
When Karachi airport came under attack from the Taliban on June 8, the Pakistani Army took the unusual measure of keeping the media in Pakistan pro-actively informed about its anti-terrorist operations through Twitter. During such sensational incidents in today's age when rumours appear to travel faster than the speed of light, often with disastrous consequences, the Pakistani Army resorted to this innovative measure considering that much was at stake. The outcome of its use that night should make a subject of study for any student of Communication Studies. But in the meantime it has marked an interesting innovation from which the Indian security establishment could learn.
Curiously, 10 days later on June 18, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued an advisory to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) asking them to enhance its presence on social media such as Twitter and Facebook. It is not known whether the decision was influenced by the Pakistani Army's recent resort to using Twitter or whether it stems from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s penchant for using social media for dissemination of information and perception management. As of now, the Indian Army is making limited use of Twitter and Facebook, which again is confined to being used by the Army's Additional Director-General (Public Interface) or ADG (PI). Its limited utilisation is mostly confined to “safe” subjects. Otherwise the three services make use of their respective public relations officers (PROs) posted in the Ministry of Defence and their various respective formations around the country. Overall, the structure and functioning of the MoD's public relations establishment has remained largely the same. Service officers posted as PROs around the country technically come under the directorate of public relations in the MoD, headed by an Additional Principal Information Officer who in turn belongs to the Indian Information Service. PROs posted in news active formations such as in either or both the Srinagar and Nagrota-based corps headquarters (both located in Jammu and Kashmir) are functionally under their respective commands. On occasions this has led to difference in views, if not friction, between the MoD's directorate of public relations and the PROs who are under direct instructions from the ground formations. Dissemination of information Beginning in the first half of the 1990s, the “civilian control” on information dissemination led to the Army resorting to some innovative measures. On taking over as the Chief of Army Staff in July 1993, General Bipin Chandra Joshi issued a list of 10 commandments which, most significantly, had included the point about needing to make use of the “media as a force multiplier”. These commandments listed on small laminated cards were issued to all officers, especially those posted in insurgency-afflicted areas of Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East. The Army had then gone on to further activate a section each in the military intelligence (MI) and military operations (MO directorate – section 24 in the MI directorate (earlier known as MI-24) which dealt with psychological warfare and section 11 in the MO directorate (earlier known as MO-11. Both engaged in disseminating information off the record and without attribution. Not surprisingly, a turf war begun between these two sections which led to their being merged into what is now known as the Army Liaison Cell or ALC which is headed by the ADG (PI) in the rank of a major general who in turn reports to the Director General of Military Intelligence (DGMI). The ADG (PI), who meets and briefs journalists only off the record, is the only other point of “official” contact for the media. The Indian Navy has established a Foreign Cooperation and Intelligence department headed by a rear admiral who, again, meets and briefs only off the record. The Indian Air Force has a Director Operations, Media and Public Relations, a post held by a group captain who again is known to rarely meet the media. Social media revolution Social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube is causing its own revolutions. An unimaginative and insensitively produced video clip posted on Youtube in the faraway United States province of California resulted in attacks on Americans in Libya and Egypt during which the US Ambassador to Tripoli was assassinated. Provocative MMSes on mobile phones sparked fear among the youth from India's North-Eastern states in cosmopolitan Bengaluru that led to a temporary exodus from the country's key IT hub. These new forms of media have contributed immensely to information warfare. Like the ongoing revolution in military affairs or RMA, the ongoing revolution in Information and Communication Technologies or ICTs is posing considerable challenges to the armed forces and security agencies. Technology has empowered everyone. Information can today be transmitted instantly by anyone anywhere everywhere. The ongoing revolution in ICTs has been as benevolently unifying as it has demonstrated its ability at the same time to be mercilessly divisive. It has transcended all humanly created barriers and even nature itself. It has rendered irrelevant geographical and sovereign boundaries. It does not recognise the diverse and divisive forms of classification of human beings such as ideology, religion, ethnicity, nationality, sects, communities, race, colour etc. Yet, like all good things it also comes with a curse. It has had an equally polarising effect along the lines of these social classifications. Social media, in particular, is about here and now and often borders on the sensational. Yet, it has on many occasions been setting the agenda. The time between events and their reportage has shrunk to there now often being a zero gap between these two. Simply put, it is instant. This requires near instantaneous responses and sometimes proactive measures such as what was used by the Pakistani Army earlier this month. This involves imagination and innovation. More importantly, it requires a realisation and a will to change. Live coverage The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAVs, until recently the preserve of the armed forces the world over, is now being taught in journalism departments of a few universities in the United States. It is currently in limited use by media organisations. But it may only be a matter of time before these remotely controlled aerial ‘reporters’ will both video record and accord live aerial coverage to wars, conflicts, encounters, riots and almost every other form of human violence. Imagine the challenge it could pose to the armed forces and other security agencies deployed in Jammu and Kashmir or any part of India under terror attack or political violence. The Indian armed forces and security agencies have been slow to change. Instances of innovations and proactive measures in disseminating information have been few. Among the more recent event was the mystery encounter in J&K's Karen sector, where the Army was reportedly engaged in a fortnight-long encounter starting from September 23 to October 8, 2013 during which 10 to 12 terrorists were reportedly killed. No dead bodies of the reportedly slain terrorists were recovered and the last shot was fired by the Army on October 2, six days before the encounter officially ended. The encounter had begun as mysteriously as it had ended, raising more questions than answers which had subsequently led to former defence minister Arackaparambil Kurien Antony to order an inquiry into the Army's claims. The inquiry report remains classified. The Army can ill-afford such mishandling considering the sensitivities involved in a strife-torn state such as Jammu and Kashmir. But then such mishandling is not new. In May 1995, after the media was first allowed to meet Pakistani terrorist Mast Gul and his gang inside the holy Sufi shrine in Charar-e-Sharief located in the Kashmir Valley's Badgam district, the Army subsequently clamped down on the media preventing them from coming within a 10-km radius of the township in order to prevent any ‘oxygen of publicity’ to the gathered terrorists. On the night of May 11, the mosque and adjoining buildings were reportedly set on fire by Mast Gul who managed to escape to Pakistan. The incident created an uproar across the politically sensitive state. Yet, the following day, the Army's XV Corps headquarters in Srinagar was forbidden by the government from permitting the media to visit Charar-e-Sharief thereby fuelling more rumours. By the time the MoD conducted a media trip to the spot, the damage had been done. The local populace was by then convinced that it was the Army which had set fire to the shrine after first spraying gun powder from its helicopters during the night. The Army did not even care to explain that Army helicopters then not only did not have night flying capabilities but also maintained a safe distance from the ground while flying in order to avoid being shot down by terrorists. Then four years later on August 10, 1999, a Pakistani Navy Atlantique maritime patrol-cum-reconnaissance aircraft was shot down by an air-to-air missile fired from a MiG-21 fighter aircraft that had been scrambled following the Pakistani aircraft's intrusion in the Rann of Kutch area of Gujarat. Yet the information of the aircraft being shot down came not from India but from Islamabad which was quick to issue a condemnatory statement. It sent journalists scrambling telephones and scurrying to South Block for information that took time coming. This put on defensive the IAF which took time explaining the facts. Apparently, the IAF took time because they had to get a series of clearances from higher levels of the government before coming out with details. The resultant loss of time led to round one going to Pakistan. With considerable effort and diplomacy India was subsequently able to establish that the Pakistan Navy's French-made aircraft had violated Indian airspace. Defence Attaches of all countries were extensively briefed by the IAF, which subsequently also took a media party to the area in Mi-8 helicopters that had to abort its flight after it came under ground fire from Pakistan. Interestingly, the Pakistani government had done what the US Navy had done 11 years earlier. On July 3, 1988, a US warship, the USS Vincennes, had shot down an Iran Air Airbus A300 passenger aircraft over the Persian Gulf flying from Tehran to Dubai killing all 290 on board after reportedly mistaking it to be an Iranian air force fighter aircraft. The US Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William J Crow had then taken the proactive measure of briefing the media within a few hours of the incident thereby wresting the initiative from the genuinely aggrieved Iranians who had been slower to react. The armed forces and other security forces will need to work towards quickly adapting to the ongoing revolution in ICTs and factoring the fast-paced changes in information dissemination. Handling this is undoubtedly only getting more complicated and unwieldy as is perception management in today's age of information overload, which many times is not necessarily authentic. What is needed is timely and proactive dissemination of information in today's highly challenging information-packed environment which is often marked by fog and questions rather than clarity and authentic information. The new weapon * The Indian armed forces and security agencies have been slow to change. Instances of innovations and pro-active measures in disseminating information have been few * The information flow is often instantaneousness. The live coverage of spectacular events such as the 9/11 terror attacks on the Twin Towers in New York (2001) and the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai (2008) have demonstrated how there is now a zero time gap between the event and its reportage. * What is needed is timely and sometimes pro-active dissemination of information in today's highly challenging information-packed environment. When info is power In recent years,
however, the pace of information itself has changed. * The radio took 40 years to reach an audience of 50 million. * The TV took 15 years to reach an audience of 50 million. * The landline took 130 years to reach one billion subscribers. Now consider this for some mind-boggling rapidity and incomparable growth * The World Wide Web (www) took just three years to reach its first 50 million users on the Internet. Internet subscribers today are in excess of 2.75 billion. * From just a solitary website in 1990, the number of websites had crossed 700 million by the end of 2013, with projections of touching 1 billion by this year end. * Mobile phones subscribers increased from 11 million worldwide in 1990 to over 6 billion in 2013 with projections of touching 7 billion by the end of 2014. The staggering
growth in such a short span of these new vehicles of communication
does not even compare.
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“Why do you youngsters call them that?” (I hid a smile because when in college we too called cops ‘mamas’.) “Papa they are smart they won’t take a ‘panga’ with you, but we youngsters are low-hanging fruit for them. Easy pickings. They extort merrily and mercilessly unmindful of the limited resources of a student”.
