The Wall Street Journal - July 22

Outgunning India's Maoists Isn't Enough

But neither is more development aid on its own. Delhi needs to adopt both approaches together.

By VIKAS KUMAR

After Maoist insurgents, or Naxalites, killed about 100 policemen and 180 civilians over the last few weeks, India is overflowing with counterinsurgency proposals ranging from police reforms to development schemes for the Naxal-affected areas. History suggests those plans might work, to an extent, over the short term. But a long-term solution is set to remain elusive.

Since independence, other parts of the country have developed at the expense of these areas, which contain almost the entire mineral wealth of India and a large share of other natural resources. Mining and hydropower projects have displaced millions, who have lost their habitat, livelihoods and cultural identity. The state has failed to reconcile the conflicting interests of the people in these areas, whose constitutional rights to things like adequate means of livelihood have been systematically violated, and the growing urban middle class elsewhere. This failure lies at the root of the insurgency, which the extreme left is trying to recast as a war against democracy and free markets.

Among the suggestions to tackle the problem, police reforms are the most unobjectionable. Everyone agrees we need a better equipped and more humane police force. But concerns regarding whether Delhi can effect such changes at the local level under India's federalist system have stalled progress in this regard. Chief ministers of some Naxal-affected provinces are not even accepting a unified command to integrate the operations of central and provincial police forces.

The issue of development is more contentious. On one extreme are those who want the harnessing of natural resources to go on as before as the opposite would slow down economic growth and adversely affect the pursuit of development goals. Those on the other extreme demand an immediate moratorium on all capital-intensive economic activities, and greater environmental restoration in Naxal-affected areas. They want the state to preserve the remaining Gardens of Eden, something the locals are presumed to want. They also presume that locals prefer a handicraft- and nature-tourism-based economy and that the state can develop infrastructure for the tourism industry in these areas without the participation of the private sector.

The extremism of the two sides is compounded by their naïveté. They expect the state to provide schools, hospitals and other civic amenities in the Naxal-affected areas. But the lack of development in these areas is being discussed precisely because, in the last two months, the state has been violently ousted from a few densely forested districts. Will the heavily armed Naxals, who thrive on lack of development, allow state-led development in and around their strongholds? It is naïve to assume that ordinary people in these areas can freely choose between the state and the Naxals without fear of intimidation.

For their part, the Naxals blame capitalists for people's plight but exclusively target police, schools and public transport. The Naxals are, in fact, running a hugely profitable extortion business, with estimated annual revenue between $300 million and $500 million. Similarly, they blame capitalists for destruction of forests but are themselves involved in massive smuggling of forest products. Will the Naxal leadership abandon their business empire just because the state agrees to open naturopathic hospitals and vernacular schools, in which children will be taught how to weave eco-friendly baskets out of natural fibers?

So, what is the solution? The Naxals are not open to talks and also will not allow direct dialogue with people in their strongholds. In the past they have used the pauses in fighting during talks to regroup. Unfortunately, nothing other than force appears likely to alter the ground situation in their impregnable strongholds, which constitute about 1% of India's area but enable them to operate in as much as 25% of India. Defeating the Naxals is not all that difficult but the collateral damage could alienate local people.

The state has, therefore, decided against using the army or launching an all-out police assault on Naxal strongholds. It is instead going to launch a massive development plan and improve local governance and involve the civil society in implementing its "new" policy. Most of these policy measures have been on the agenda of the ruling Congress party since 2004, when it returned to power after a decade. The state is also trying to selectively neutralize the Naxal leadership, largely middle-class and Telugu-speaking. Without that leadership the insurgency spread across varied language and climatic zones is likely to split into a number of smaller "problems."

But there is no guarantee that the central government in Delhi will manage to conclusively resolve these smaller problems. One challenge today is that insurgencies help provincial governments to extract aid and other concessions from the center. Moreover, some political parties depend on Naxal support in elections. So local officials face mixed incentives in dealing with the insurgency and may be less than enthusiastic about fixing it for good. Compounding matters, the Congress party that heads the coalition government in New Delhi is in power in just one of the six most affected provinces..

This raises the prospect of a worrying scenario: A decapitated Naxalite movement splinters into smaller, highly localized groups that degenerate into ideologically neutral, parochial criminalism. While not specifically targeting the state themselves, they could create safe havens for future insurgencies. In the 1970s, the state managed to stamp out Naxalism through half-hearted land reforms and police repression. But the subsequent apathy toward the core economic complaints regarding ownership of land and its resources in the region ultimately rejuvenated the insurgency. Even though the state will once again manage to out-spend and out-gun the insurgents, there's a real danger that history will repeat itself.

Mr. Kumar is an independent researcher based in Bangalore.

Source : http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703467304575382542351115362.html#printMode

News From Bangladesh - July 24

The Challenge with Bangladesh Democracy

By Professor Mahfuz R. Chowdhury

The history of democracy in Bangladesh has been very tumultuous to say the least. This is primarily because the country’s politicians and military leaders only talk of supporting democracy or the democratic process when they see a chance to grab state power through elections. But after ascending to power they seem to bury democracy. The key objective of Bangladesh’s politicians and some of its military leaders has been to seize state power essentially to promote their self-interest. And once in power, either democratically or through military might, they ignore the promises they had made, embrace autocracy, practice all kinds of intimidation to suppress the opposition, and engage in systematic looting of the state’s treasure. When knocked out of power, the opposition party routinely resorts to hartals (or general strikes) and violence. It’s actually quite ironic how the leaders of Bangladesh’s two dominant parties either champion democracy or bury it depending on whether they are out of power or in power! The democratic process is seen not as a way for the people of Bangladesh to pick the policies they prefer but as a way of deciding which party would be in power.

The above would sum up the history of Bangladesh democracy, except for one important fact. The actual power within a party rests almost entirely with the party leader, whether the party is in power or in opposition. And the leader tends to stay in that position until death, at which time the leadership mantle usually passes on to the biological heir of the leader. Political power and position has become a hereditary matter for Bangladesh. At least this is what has happened in the case of the two largest political parties that are presently controlling politics, and this trend can be expected to continue unless there is of course a drastic change. 

The two political parties that dominate Bangladesh’s politics today are the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Here’s how these two parties have come to assume their current positions. 

Awami League came into existence in the early days of Pakistan when Bangladesh was a part of Pakistan. Later under the leadership of its dominant leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman the country went to war and won its liberation from Pakistan. Following liberation, the whole country submitted to Sheikh Mujib for his leadership on governance and future direction. People were even prepared to take his words to be the law of the land. But the way he misused such a strong mandate of the people just about sealed his fate and the fates of many other members of his family. 

After assuming state power, Sheikh Mujib having initially flip-flopped on what title to take – President or Prime Minister – began to consolidate his power over the government and the country. His commitment to democracy soon withered as he abandoned democracy in favor of autocracy. He created his own personal armed force and used it to brutally suppress the opposition, he banned newspapers that criticized his rule, and more significantly he declared Bangladesh a one-party state. Thus, by virtue of his authority, he killed the very democracy that brought him to power. Well, the freedom fighters who had fought in the liberation war and the people in general couldn’t stomach such actions by Sheikh Mujib even though he was the paramount leader of the country. So, after about three and half years of his dictatorial rule, he was brutally assassinated by army personnel in his own house along with all family members who were present. He was survived by his two daughters, who were outside the country at the time. It was by all means a great tragedy.

Immediately after his assassination, the country briefly experienced serious political turmoil. In the mayhem that followed, civilian and military leaders emerged who were either deposed or murdered. In the end, General Ziaur Rahman, a prominent freedom fighter backed by the army, emerged to assume state power. His rule, however, was supposed to be a temporary one and he was expected to arrange a national election and hand over power to the newly elected government. But the election that followed was not for others, it was a “yes or no” vote on him. 

Having tasted supreme power, General Zia quickly proceeded to institutionalize his rule. By successfully luring many of the disgruntled political leaders of the country to his camp he formed the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. He even gave amnesty to people who had opposed the creation of Bangladesh (including the assassinators of Sheikh Mujib) and installed them in key positions in the party and government. He felt so confident of himself that he once boasted that he would make politics difficult for the politicians. He was true to his promise! He made a real mockery of every democratic value by systematically dismantling the vital democratic institutions in the country. By openly rigging the people’s vote he created his own parliament, which he used to rubber stamp his policies. He ruled autocratically, and murdered many army mutineers including some of those who helped him to gain power. Legend has it that a person who lives by the sword dies by the sword. So General Zia too eventually had to sacrifice his life for his autocratic actions; he was assassinated by the army after about six years in power.

Following him it was General H M Ershad’s turn to grab state power. By using the experiences of his immediate predecessor and applying his personal wit, he succeeded in perpetrating his autocratic rule. He too proceeded to establish his own political party and ran sham elections. He proved to be a skillful master and was able to keep his opponents at bay for many years. He was also rumored to fake his own fatherhood to gain acceptance by the people. During his time, the democratic institutions in the country were further dismantled. In the end, after the country’s democratic forces finally regrouped and the two dominant parties joined hands and went on to mobilize a national movement, Ershad’s regime was forced to hand over power after a long nine years of dictatorial rule. 

Finally, after a national election, democracy was supposedly restored in the country in 1990. In this election Bangladesh Nationalist Party captured power. But since then power has been alternating between Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Awami League, though the former has been in power longer. The many other political parties that operate in the country were relegated to a supporting position. Nevertheless, the fundamentalist Jamaat e Islami party has emerged to be the king maker. It has in the past tilted elections for both major parties by throwing its support behind them. 

Prior to the 1990 election, both Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the two emerging dominant parties, underwent serious transformations. The assassinations of their dominant leaders had put them in a clear shambles. The party elders distrusted each other and couldn’t agree on who would succeed the assassinated leaders. When there is no intra-party democracy, no leader can emerge from within the party as the popular choice of rank-and-file party members. And in that vacuum, a relative unknown such as a family member of the assassinated leader becomes the only viable alternative. So as a compromise, Awami League inducted Sheik Hasina to take her father’s position and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party followed suit by inducting Khaleda Zia to fill her husband’s position, even though both ladies were considered to be politically inept. But what followed after their induction to the leadership positions has dramatically changed the political landscape in Bangladesh. 

As expected, the unscrupulous politicians in each party raced to line up behind the two ladies in order to achieve personal gains. This inevitably gave the ladies a chance to gradually consolidate their power within their respective parties. By utilizing their newly found authority, they then started to put loyalists in key party positions. Obviously, it didn’t take too long for them to assume dictatorial power within their parties, whether in power or in opposition. At the same time, their tolerance for the democratic process also waned. Few party members dared to question their authority. Those who did faced the sack almost immediately. 

Here’s how the two ladies have come to exercise their authority. Prior to an election they would allocate parliament seats usually to those who had money and muscle, and when victorious in the election they would distribute ministerial posts to their loyalists. Before an election they might routinely promise to decentralize government administration or make the judiciary independent, which are indeed vital for proper functioning of a democracy. But once in power they would ignore those promises. In fact, both ladies appear to be grooming their young sons to replace them when the time comes. 

When Khaleda Zia came to power, she spearheaded legislation to officially recognize her late husband as the architect of the liberation of Bangladesh (which literally infuriated her opponents), wrote the country’s history in a biased form, intimidated the opposition in parliament and harassed them outside parliament in every possible way. She effectively put her young son in charge of key governmental decisions, especially the lucrative ones. The opposition led by Sheikh Hasina, on the other hand, responded by promoting strikes, disruption and violence in the country with the ultimate aim of bringing down the government. 

When Sheikh Hasina regained state power, her first order of business was to eliminate General Zia’s name from every important place in Bangladesh, such as the national airport, university and park. She quickly rewrote the history books in her way, proceeded to intimidate the opposition in the parliament and harass them outside, and even closed a newspaper that was critical of her administration. She initiated legislation to return to the 1972 constitution, to repossess the house that Khaleda Zia resides in and was bestowed on her by a rival government, and to persecute the people who had opposed Bangladesh’s liberation movement but had been pardoned. The latter may turn out to be a difficult move since Saudi Arabia, which provides employment and financial support to Bangladesh also backs those who opposed the movement. In any case, the opposition party of Khaleda Zia has duly reciprocated by calling a national strike, promoting agitation and promising massive violence with the same idea of bringing down the government. While these kinds of tit for tat fights between the two parties go on, the country and the people suffer. 

The moral fibers of both parties are fundamentally same, but for personal and selfish reasons they continue to treat each other as arch enemies. They do not see eye to eye, and cannot agree on anything, not even on how to run an election. Earlier they had both agreed to an unprecedented procedure of appointing a care taker government to run elections, but later they got locked in a deadly fight over the formation and functioning of the proposed caretaker government. 

Thus, the evolution of democracy or the democratic process has remained an elusive matter for Bangladesh even after 38 years of independence. At the center of all these controversies are currently the two ladies who are running the two dominant parties. They are bent on destroying each other at any cost with the sole purpose of grabbing state power. As could be imagined, the economic and human cost of their infighting has been tremendous. For example, while other developing countries like Malaysia leap forward with huge economic success, Bangladesh with its abundant resources still remains a poverty stricken country while corruption and crime continue to rise. However, neither leader cares to understand the repercussions of their actions. It seems they just don’t care. 

Arguably, Bengalis as a nation are considered to be intelligent enough to produce several Nobel laureates, but when it comes to governing themselves, they have failed, and failed miserably. This was as true when the land first came under foreign domination many years ago as it is true today. It’s indeed very unfortunate. To paraphrase the great poet, philosopher and Nobel laureate of the land – Bengalis (Bangalees) don’t learn! 

The quality of democracy of a country depends on the checks and balances among its executive, legislative and judicial branches. And the press plays a very unique role in keeping these branches on their toes. Bangladesh’s democracy has failed to properly develop because of the lack of independence of the legislative and judicial branches and the press. But even under such constraints there may be some hope that democracy in Bangladesh would slowly improve. One good sign is that the military seems to be unwilling or unprepared to grab power. Although the present system promotes autocracy, it’s no longer absolute. The two dominant parties are putting some kind of checks and balances on each other, and the people are becoming more conscious of their rights and obligations because of the rise of the satellite TV and the Internet. 

The international community has a great obligation to help Bangladesh to strengthen its democracy. If Bangladesh, the seventh largest country in population, turns into a failed state as a result of a collapse of its democracy, it would only bolster fundamentalism. The rise of fundamentalism in Bangladesh would create a bigger mess than the world would care to handle. Also, expatriate Bangladeshis could play an important role. The expatriates by unequivocally rising above Bangladesh’s party politics and by taking a firm and united stand to promote democracy in their homeland could expedite the process. 

(The author taught Economics at CW Post Campus of Long Island University and State College at Farmingdale, New York. He has published numerous articles on issues concerning Bangladesh and developing economies, which are posted on various web sites) E Mail : Mahfuz.Chowdhury@liu.edu

Source : http://newsfrombangladesh.net/view.php?hidRecord=327866

Jerusalem - July 23

Opening Lines: Jerusalem 2111

 

By AMIR MIZROCH

An international sci-fi film competition has challenged contestants to lay out their vision for Jerusalem 100 years from now.

On July 15 an international sci-fi competition for a “Vision of Jerusalem 100 Years from Now” was launched and organized by the Association of Planning and Conservation- Jerusalem (Beit Hamodel), in association with the History Channel, 3D World magazine, the Jerusalem Municipality and the Jerusalem Cinematheque.

The competition, aimed at animators and short-film makers, asks competitors to create their vision of Jerusalem 100 years from now. Following a public online vote on YouTube, an international jury will choose the top video clip, taking into account professional artistic considerations as well as subjective and immeasurable ones. The jury includes star producers such as Wim Wenders (Until the End of the World) and John Landau (Avatar, Titanic). The winners will be announced on December 31.

While similar competitions for other cities worldwide have focused on disasters, alien invasions and other staple sci-fi fare, my vision for Jerusalem 2111 assumes the IDF has contingency plans against alien invasions, and thus focuses on other issues.

BY 2111 the Old City of Jerusalem is encased by a dome, a massive, transparent enclosure covering the Holy Basin and adjacent neighborhoods. The Dome is two million square feet in area, making it the largest domed structure in the world after the Houston Dome, built to save that city from searing heat, devastating hurricanes and unsustainable levels of toxic emissions.

Each of the 200,000 panels making up the dome is 10 meters wide, and at just 1 percent the weight of glass is an incredibly strong yet lightweight material. The dome’s chemical composition was discovered by haredi scientists at the worldfamous Halachatronics Department in the city’s revered Applied Faith College.

The polymer, a mixture of glass, plastic and anti-matter, is a miracle of holy science and won its creators a combined Nobel Prize in Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology and Peace. The dome, named Kippa, was designed by a team of ultra-unOrthodox scientist/preachers in their laboratory. They discovered the polymer quite by chance while searching for ways to create food particles from mathematical equations in the Kabbala.

The dome’s material does not shatter, cannot be burned, is bullet and laserproof and is impenetrable to rockets, including ones carrying nuclear warheads (this was tested in the last war). The dome never needs repair or maintenance; and it will never be removed until the Messiah comes (a political decision reached between the Elad Municipal Corporation and the construction company, Holyland Engineering) – an eternal dome for part of the eternal capital for some of the world’s Jews and Muslims.

THE TERM ‘HAREDI’ has come to represent an elite group of spiritual scientists who work exclusively on the practical applications of the tiniest particles known to man, called bosons, and who constantly seek these “God particles” inside the deepest recesses of inner space using religious scripture as a guide. In its explanation for bestowing such an unprecedented honor on the team of Jewish spiritual-scientists, the Nobel Prize committee wrote: “As the haredim get closer and closer to God, they find more practical applications for His wonders. They, more than any other scientific-spiritual group in the world, create miracles from God’s particles for the benefit of all humanity.”

The combination of deep religion and advanced science, and the early investment of government funding into the pursuit of faith-based astrophysics, proved a savior for humanity’s escalating struggles against environmental and political threats. Thus their Nobel Peace Prize.

The dome’s entrance is at the Mamilla Financial District GateTM. Ventilation, temperature, precipitation and ambience inside the dome are regulated according to the religious festivals and prayer times. The triple-layered surface of the dome lets in the sun’s rays, which are then filtered by the dome’s polymers, transforming the light that enters In-Dome Jerusalem into a soft, suffuse hue, like the light that a coated bulb shines into a small room. This gives In- Dome Jerusalem a sweet, spiritual ambience which may account for the calm, happy and self-effacing demeanor of its populace. At night, the dome’s polymers enhance the light of the stars, making them twinkle just a little brighter.

The only vent in the dome is at its apex, and is used by the municipal corporation for the occasional airborne arrival and departure of VIPs, including visiting heads of municipal corporations, religious figures, celebrated foreign rabbi-scientists and celebrities. Suspended directly in line above the Dome of the Rock is the magnificent Third Temple, held in the air by a feat of anti-gravitational engineering, another product of the wizards at the Halachatronics Department. Rabbis, Rabbinas, pilgrims and tourists are transported to the Temple by a light-tube reaching from the Mamilla Western WallPlazaTM all the way up hundreds of meters to the Temple’s gates.

At the Mamilla Western Wall PlazaTM itself, gender separation has long been replaced by a more scientific and equitable solution that has allowed complete unity at the holy site. Visitors to the Mamilla Western Wall PlazaTM first have to pass through a “de-genderfier” (another engineering feat), a genderequalizing device that temporarily removes all intrinsic gender identification from a person’s brain, storing it at an on-site, secure database for later retrieval when he/she walks through the “re-genderfier” on his/her way out of the plaza. Thus, while outwardly maintaining the features of a man or woman, the pilgrim can devote all of his/her energy on focused prayer throughout the Plaza without offending anyone of the opposite sex.

The second terminal a visitor to the Wall Plaza has to enter through is the “de-denominizer,” a walk-through device that temporarily removes a person’s religious denomination, storing it at an on-site, secure database for later retrieval when he/she walks through the “re-denominizer” machine. That way pilgrims can communicate their thoughts to God in any words, physical actions or garb they choose without offending those praying next to them.

Rumor has it that the haredi wizards at the Applied Faith Department are working on a new device called the “un-affiliator,” which would remove and reinstall ethnic, denominational and gender affiliation, all in one machine. But this device is still undergoing trials as some test subjects have complained of residue effects (one Ashkenazi Reform man found himself one morning in a mikve strictly for Orthodox women and couldn’t explain what he was doing there).

Inside the Dome, life, like the weather, is regulated according to prayer. Time runs on a spiritual clock. The “lightrail,” which transports beings, or those parts of beings that need to be at certain places at certain times, moves along subjective routes of consciousness. The closer a person’s soul is to “the light,” the faster he or she gets to his or her destination. The purer the intention is, the less congested and crowded is the ride. While this science is hard to explain, it is largely taken on faith, and it works. The “lightrail” and “lightbuses” are always on time and never late, depending on who you are and where you want to go.

UNFORTUNATELY, NOT much is known about life in Off-Dome Jerusalem East and Off-Dome Jerusalem West as both of their municipal corporations were unable to emulate In-Dome Jerusalem’s good governance.

Every infrastructure project planned Off-Dome was derailed by corruption and neglect and was always over budget. No progress was ever made on integrating and fusing science and Halacha into their schools, and so their students were left light years behind, literally.

Religious, ethnic, socioeconomic and political conflicts within and between Off-Dome Jerusalem West and East eventually plunged those areas into perpetual darkness, where only occasional fires and police lights hint at the goings-on there. Not much news travels out of these areas, as ancient electronic communication signals could no longer be received or understood by intelligent new devices inside the Dome. Newspapers are long dead and the only news one can read in those areas are highly subjective diatribes plastered on walls or insensible recordings of loud harangues by Off- Domers with In-Dome Jerusalem Syndrome.

Source :  http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=182214

Telegragh - July 23

Can Cameron reignite India's love affair with Britain?

 

As David Cameron heads to New Delhi to foster improved relations, will he succeed in making India our partner in trade?

David Cameron’s decision to take three of his four most senior Cabinet colleagues with him to New Delhi next week, along with his higher education minister, marks a historic moment in almost 400 years of British engagement with India. It gives ceremony to a state of affairs that has been the case for some time but not, until now, acknowledged: we need India more than it needs us.

For those of you whose most recent glimpse of India was the brutal poverty shown in Slumdog Millionaire, or believed you had just elected a government committed to clamping down on south Asian immigration, think again and steel yourselves: Mr Cameron’s visit with the largest senior Cabinet delegation in recent memory heralds the arrival of an Indian century.

His aim is not just to win contracts for British firms, but to establish a strategic relationship in which our scientists, engineers, designers and entrepreneurs will work with their Indian counterparts and combine British innovation and Indian costs to sell to the rest of the world.

It is a challenge to the more familiar view of India, as home to 456 million people living in poverty – just under half its population – and one third of the world’s poor. This grim statistic remains accurate but not as urgent as other developments: India is the world’s second fastest-growing economy. It is expected to overtake China as the fastest-growing within 40 years, and also replace it as the world’s greatest population with more than two billion people by 2050. As its population rises, so too will its number of highly educated graduates and skilled engineers – already qualifying at the rate of 160,000 per year.

The pressing need to “partner” India was explained to me two years ago by a professor heading a series of collaborations between British and Indian university research departments and technology companies. They were hoping to develop revolutionary communications systems which could run on minimal electricity and store sensitive data securely in disaster-proof circumstances. “It is better to help them develop now than be overtaken and alone later,” he said.

Mr Cameron appears to have decided, wisely, that the project needs an injection of urgency: Britain’s snail-like recovery has not eased fears of a double-dip recession, while Indian growth is expected to push on from nine per cent.

If you’re still not persuaded that the Indians are coming, consider another random collection of persuasive facts: Singapore will become an Indian city if its Tamil population continues doubling at the current rate, Britain’s largest manufacturer (Tata, owner of Jaguar Land Rover and Corus steel) is Indian, India’s 700 companies in the UK are our largest job creators, UK businesses owned by British Indians generate £10 billion in turnover, and our richest man, Lakshmi Mittal is an Indian.

All of which explain why David Cameron will arrive in India on Tuesday with William Hague, George Osborne, Vince Cable and David Willetts to genuflect before the “emperors” of the new Raj and try to persuade them we may be of some use.

The scale and symbolism of the gesture hasn’t gone unnoticed. “It’s not a question of perception. David Cameron is on record that he would like an enhanced partnership with India, to deepen and diversify the economic engagement and this has registered with us, it came across clearly and it’s fully reciprocated,” India’s Commerce Minister Anand Sharma told The Daily Telegraph earlier this week.

Politically it marks a sea-change after the last government, which will be appreciated by India, according to Mark Runacres, head of the British Business Group in New Delhi. “We shouldn’t underestimate the political stuff here. The Indians will have come away from the Labour administration feeling that they prefer dealing with the Right than the Left. This manifests itself on issues like Kashmir. There’s a rumbling sense that the more liberal people focus on more sensitive political issues and less on hard business. There was a feeling that with Gordon Brown, China was more front of mind than India. The political message of an enormous delegation is taken as going the extra mile,” he said.

The most memorable contrast is with the visit of the boyish then foreign secretary David Milliband, who lectured ministers about the need to find a solution with Pakistan to their dispute over Kashmir while India was still in shock from the devastating terrorist attack on Mumbai. He made matters worse by appearing to patronise India’s then foreign minister rather than show the traditional respect due to elders.

The question of whether we should be worrying about India’s daunting social problems or licking our lips at the prospect of a piece of its business action divides commentators and diplomats: Should we be salivating over its growth, its successful lunar mission and ranks of new millionaires when hundreds of millions are living on less than a dollar a day, thousands are dying of malnutrition-related illnesses, AIDS, malaria and from drinking water contaminated with sewage?

India’s rapid growth is partly explained by the relationship between its increasingly wealthy middle class and its rising numbers of poor. It has both an inexhaustible supply of cruelly cheap labour in the service of a vast, English-speaking, college-educated middle class with access to large amounts of capital. The greatest fortunes in India are being made selling dirt cheap mobile phones to rickshaw pullers earning less than £3 per day, water-purifyers to those earning slightly more, and motorbikes to those described as middle-class yet earn less than £200 per month (household servants and drivers).

While the country’s breakneck “development” is enjoyed by many, it is also the cause of great unhappiness and rebellion in tribal, rural areas and its Hindi-speaking conservative “cow-belt”.

The pressure on India to better exploit its mineral resources has fuelled a Maoist insurgency which now affects more than 200 of its 600-plus districts. Tribal families have been forced from their land by mining companies such as Vedanta, owned by London-based Indian billionaire Anil Agrawal. In Punjab, West Bengal, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh there has been a growing number of “honour killings” by families whose daughters joined the sexual revolution that has accompanied the new jobs for women in India’s call-centre industry.

India’s caste system, with its strict hierarchy and rules on who can love whom, is starting to fray, as bright, educated dalit or “untouchable” boys mingle with higher-caste girls in meritocratic call centres or newspaper offices. Forbidden romances have blossomed out of the sight of conservative families. In Haryana, leaders of the traditionalist Jat clan are demanding state support for the execution of young lovers.

Until May Britain has hedged by pitching for business while giving millions of pounds in aid to some of India’s poorest states. Under the new government, our Indian aid programme is likely to be drastically cut back or even axed while all focus switches to the pursuit of trade.

Besides next week’s show of intense respect with Mr Cameron’s Cabinet delegation, ministers have been stressing our “shared history” in the British Empire and the links continued by Britain’s 1.5 million people of Indian origin. Some in India believe he is wrong to dwell on a colonial past in which Britain dominated India and treated it as a child in need of guidance.

But according to Pavan K Varma, India’s leading cultural analyst and its ambassador to Bhutan, Britain is still regarded with warmth despite conquering the subcontinent. “One of its legacies is that there is in the Indian psyche more goodwill than [between] India and France or India and Germany, and that contributes to a closer relationship with Britain in terms of emotional bondage.

“There is goodwill, nostalgia, and comprehension through language which needs to be capitalised upon with dynamism,” he said. “The problem is that the UK is now longer a super-power and it must deal with that.”

Source :  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/david-cameron/7907293/Can-Cameron-reignite-Indias-love-affair-with-Britain.html

The News - July 23

 Men of steel

The three-member Supreme Court bench which had taken suo motu notice of alleged corruption of Rs22 billion in the Pakistan Steel Mills has had its hands full. The court has heard suggestions that the DG FIA is not interested in getting to the bottom of the matter, the deputy attorney general stated their hands were tied and then backed away from the comment when questioned by Justice Ramday, refusing to say who had tied the knots and the court noted a general lack of willingness on the part of government departments to act morally. This of course is a huge handicap. While the courts continue valiant efforts to root out corruption, and the chief justice has emphasized that those who loot public money will not be spared, the fact also is that goodwill is needed on the part of the government. Without this there can only be limited success in the bid to tackle a problem that is eating away the very soul of our state and destroying public institutions within it. The Pakistan Steel Mills, a giant entity, is reported to have already been left almost hollow by a process of plunder.

All this exposes a great deal about what has gone amiss; at every level we see nepotism, flagrant violations of law, merit and ethics and a readiness to abandon even a pretence of honesty. There is another dimension to this. Unless key investigative agencies are ready and able to perform the duties entrusted to them, we cannot get very far in tackling corruption. As things stand at present, they seem keener to keep the truth hidden. This makes the task of the court a distinctly harder one, given that it can act only on the basis of the evidence laid before it. We must however be grateful that our judges have persevered and that from one institution at least we have a commitment to weed out corruption. The actions taken by courts have revealed a great deal about how corruption takes place and the bonds that link it together. The matter of meting out justice to those wronged by such acts has obviously been taken up as a priority and this is something that offers a ray of hope to lighten up an otherwise formidably dark horizon.

Source : http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=252254

The News - July 23

The NACTA Shame

The chairman of the National Counter-terrorism Authority (NACTA) resigned on Tuesday and the reasons for his departure are gradually leaking into a wider world. It is a shabby story of political preferment trumping the national interest, of powerful ministers seeking to put their placemen inside this key agency rather than having staff appointed on merit. Most tellingly, it is a tale of how the agency tasked with the formulation and implementation of our national strategy to counter terrorism was to be hobbled from its inception. It seems there are many in positions of influence without the slightest interest in the formulation of such a policy as it would cut across their own vested interests, and they sense threat in the establishment of an agency such as NACTA. Losing Tariq Pervez, who was respected in his field and turned down the chance of a job at the UN is not going to play well with the foreign donors keen to see NACTA up and running.

It is a matter of astonishment and dismay to foreign missions in our country that they cannot link to a specific national counter-terrorism authority and that no national plan or policy to counter terrorism is yet in place. We face terrorism every day of every week of every year. Terrorists are mounting a sustained and determined assault on the very fabric of our society and yet we are unable to formulate a policy to combat them at a national level that will be led from the top and enjoy the support of every province. Thousands of our people die every year as a result of terrorist violence, and tens of thousands are wounded, often severely disabled. The outgoing chairman of NACTA had sought to have the agency under the control of the prime minister's secretariat, and its finances independent and ringfenced from the Interior Ministry. The mandarins of the Interior Ministry liked this not, nor did the interior minister himself who had a list of people he wanted to appoint contrary to the wishes of the chairman who was committed to merit appointments. In the end Tariq Pervez resigned, a disillusioned man who had put his country first only to find that his country had no use for such men. He will be hard to replace and our interior minister may now be swift to move into the vacuum left by his passing.

Source : http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=252252

Daily Times - July 23

HUM HINDUSTANI: 

Words and deeds 

J Sri Raman

We have come a long way from the days when one could wonder whether the BJP was for more work or words. Under Gadkari and his revered RSS gurus, the deeds of the BJP and the parivar have now begun to match words, and vice versa. It is time for India's far-right watchers to fasten their seat belts

As a young reporter decades ago, I covered elections in Delhi and around, when rallies of the parent of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) resounded with the slogan: “Jan Sangh ke badhte kadam, kaam zyada baat kam (Jan Sangh marches forward, with more work and less talk).” India’s far right and its political front have, finally, achieved a fine balance between words and deeds.

The recent spate of words from Nitin Gadkari, into his seventh month as the BJP’s supposedly new-style president, supplies a wonderful example. The latest of his verbal salvos to attract wide attention was directed at the leadership of the ruling Congress for its refusal to listen to a BJP-led lynch mob crying hoarse for a hanging. Mohammad Afzal of Kashmir, better known as Afzal Guru, on death row following conviction in the case of an attack on India’s parliament in December 2001, has been awaiting a long-delayed decision on his wife’s petition for a ‘presidential pardon’ to be given on the government’s advice.

Decrying the delay and demanding an immediate hanging at a rally earlier this month, Gadkari asked: “...Afzal inka daamaad hai (Is Afzal their son-in-law)?” Amplifying on the point, he added: “Isko ladki di hai kyaa (Have they given their daughter to him)?” The supplementary raised much more of a storm than the main question. The Congress thought it had cause for serious offence. Sonia Gandhi’s daughter Priyanka Vadra was happily married, after all, and so were the three daughters of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The party leaders’ families did not have to go for unbecoming matrimonial alliances, far less for dangerous liaisons of the kind Gadkari mentioned derisively.

The hail of brickbats from the Congress and the rest of the country hardly made the BJP chief budge. He did not stop with persisting with the posers. He proceeded to pose a similar question to Congress veteran and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh. Was Singh, asked Gadkari, “Aurangzeb ki aulad (the son of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb)?” or “Shivaji ya Rana Pratap ki aulad (the offspring of anti-Mughal Shivaji or Rana Pratap)?” “Mein to Virbhadra ki aulad hun (I am the son of Virbhadra)”, said Singh in answer to the communalism-loaded question, but the answer did not leave Gadkari abashed.

This, of course, is not the first time the party used a pejorative aulad in its political discourse. Sadhvi Ritambara, one of the saffron-clad women leaders of the Sangh Parivar (the far-right ‘family’), made liberal use of the word in the campaign leading to the Babri Masjid demolition of December 1992. Her taped speeches, in which she assailed the ‘Babar ki aulad (the offspring of Babar)’ who defended the mosque in danger, were played everywhere in the run-up to the general election of 1991. No party leader of his level, however, had ever got so personal as Gadkari in questioning the opponents’ parentage.

The BJP helmsman was quick to apologise, however, after his earlier exhibition of verbal vulgarity. The targets then were the two Yadavs — Lalu Prasad (of Bihar and the Rashtriyta Janata Dal) and Mulayam Singh (of Uttar Pradesh and the Samajwadi Party). They had enraged Gadkari by promising to back the BJP in a move to vote out the government in parliament and going back on their word subsequently. Condemning their betrayal, the BJP president compared them to “dogs licking Sonia Gandhi’s feet”.

The parivar’s prominent dog-lover and Sonia-hater, Maneka Gandhi, chose not to demur, no doubt putting the country above the canines. Other party colleagues, however, would appear to have persuaded Gadkari to proffer an apology. The BJP, in their view, could not afford to burn all bridges with the Yadavs, especially Mulayam, with whom it had done profitable business before.

Meanwhile, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), patriarch of the parivar, which had put Gadkari in his elevated place, was not very happy with all the verbals. It stood for action — as its documented role in so many communal riots demonstrates. So it set an example by going for some action, with the BJP hastening to back it.

The occasion was provided by a ‘sting operation’ on a television channel, which purportedly showed some known RSS and BJP personalities plotting big-scale communal violence, the top billing going to a plan to assassinate India’s scholarly Vice-President Mohammad Hamid Ansari. The parivar struck on the morrow of the programme. On July 16, around 600 of its men and women stormed the offices of the channel in New Delhi and ransacked it as the local police, by most accounts, looked on. The BJP rushed to the mob’s defence, stating in a circuitous language that the attack was a befitting answer to the channel’s anti-RSS blasphemy.

The same day saw a second attack on a television channel. A battalion of Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena invaded the Kolhapur station of another channel, airing a live programme on a border dispute between the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka. Viewers were later to watch shocking footage of a fierce assault on an unarmed participant in the programme from Karnataka under the BJP’s rule. The party has still not condemned the musclemen of the Sena, its staunch ally in Maharashtra.

We have come a long way from the days when one could wonder whether the party was for more work or words. Under Gadkari and his revered RSS gurus, the deeds of the BJP and the parivar have now begun to match words, and vice versa. It is time for India’s far-right watchers to fasten their seat belts.

The writer is a journalist based in Chennai, India. A peace activist, he is also the author of a sheaf of poems titled At Gunpoint

Source : http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\07\23\story_23-7-2010_pg3_5

The Asian Age - July 23

There’s No Excuse For Such Behaviour

Even as we can understand that actions of ordained political actors will be guided by the urge to derive the maximum perceived advantage months before a major election, it is hard to see how the shenanigans of Opposition legislators in Bihar can be justified on any count. The wholly blameworthy acts of disruption and violence indulged in by the Opposition parties in the state Assembly on Wednesday can hardly be said to inaugurate a soiled chapter. In recent years unacceptable behaviour of the same type has been witnessed in several state legislatures. Indeed, the way MPs — who could have set an example — have conducted themselves in the Lok Sabha in recent years can hardly be deemed worthy of emulation. Even so, it is no exaggeration to suggest that Bihar’s legislators have shown the way to a new low in unbecoming conduct by public servants — all in the name of safeguarding the values enshrined in the idea of representative government of course. Before long, in order to shame our legislators, a public-spirited body that cares for democracy might see it fit to invite MLAs and MPs to a tongue-lashing by those who elect them. Or are we expecting too much from those we vote in, considering that a fair proportion — across the political spectrum — have serious criminal cases instituted against them?

The Comptroller and Auditor-General of India has indicted the Bihar government of malfeasance to the tune of several thousand crores of rupees in the last seven years. The matter is out in the open with the Patna high court ordering a CBI probe following a public interest litigation case. In the event, any Opposition worth its timbre would be up in arms. However, this gives the parties outside the government no licence to smash furniture and seek to hurl missiles at the Speaker. It is debatable whether the Speaker should have suspended the entire Opposition for the remainder of the Assembly’s term, set to expire in four months, or if he should have asked the marshals to bundle out the MLAs forcefully. But there is no question that the Opposition parties behaved without a modicum of dignity even when they were within their rights to lodge their protest emphatically. The ruling side too has taken a needlessly confrontationist stand in relation to the judiciary. The Speaker has held that the high court was out of order in ordering a CBI probe before the Assembly had disposed of the matter. This appears an extreme view. The judiciary is an independent branch of the government and is not obliged to take its cue from the legislature. Besides, in this case the high court gave its order in the context of a PIL. The Nitish Kumar-led NDA government has appealed to the court to stay its order directing a CBI probe. It might have been a lot better if the chief minister had himself decided to ask for a CBI inquiry. The Opposition has demanded the resignations of the chief minister and his deputy so that they may not influence the proposed investigation. Since state elections are due in four months, the chief minister may consider exercising his prerogative to dissolve the House.

Source : http://www.asianage.com/editorial/there’s-no-excuse-such-behaviour-682

 

Dawn - July 23

Iran’s Role

US SECRETARY of State Hillary Clinton was not off the mark on Wednesday when she stated in clear terms that Iran has a role to play in the stabilisation of Afghanistan. Iran’s differences with America, be they over nuclear power or the regime’s overall ideology, have a long and tortuous history. ‘Death to America’ is a popular refrain in pro-government rallies in Tehran while the demonisation of Iran is rampant even today in the most respectable of US media outlets. America, apparently, has never come to terms with the fact that its staunchest ally in Iran, the Shah, was ousted through a popular uprising that, many believed, was hijacked by the Islamist followers of Ayatollah Khomeini. And Iran, for its part, has been following an equally antagonistic approach towards the West that makes no pragmatic sense. Both sides need to find some middle ground which allows all regional stakeholders to put their heads together and find a balm for the festering wound that is Afghanistan.

The question here is:


What’s in it for Iran? It shares a huge border with Afghanistan and is a major regional player whose decisions, particularly on the economic front, even affect Pakistan. But can Iran be brought to the negotiating table in the current atmosphere of hostility? America believes that Iran has “a role” to play in Afghanistan’s stabilisation and at the same time is pushing for ever-stricter sanctions against Tehran. The two goals are not compatible and the US must reassess its relationship with Iran on a holistic level if it hopes to find cooperation from so key a regional player. An alliance with Pakistan alone may not solve the Afghan mess that is becoming more unmanageable by the day. Other neighbours, such as Iran, must be taken into confidence so that the vision shared by the US, the Karzai government and Pakistan can be realised sooner than later. It is now clear that Nato is desperately in search of an exit strategy vis-à-vis Afghanistan. Given Afghanistan’s complex ethnic and tribal divisions, it is imperative that Pakistan and Iran are on the same page as America.


Source : http://epaper.dawn.com/ArticleText.aspx?article=23_07_2010_007_002

The Express Tribune - July 24

Democracy and the Generals

The themes of democracy and dictatorship run through the history of Pakistan. The tradition of military dominance that has shaded most aspects of political life in the state means that the decision to extend the tenure of General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani cannot be seen as a decision not tied in to other developments on the national scene. The announcement in a brief late-night address to the nation by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani means General Kayani will now serve till November 2013, three years longer than the period assigned to him. There had for many months been speculation as to whether the COAS would step down on schedule. The fact that the government has decided he will not means General Kayani will now stay in office beyond the tenures of both the prime minister and the president, who bow out earlier in 2013. Interestingly enough the chief justice of Pakistan, too, is scheduled to retire that same year.

Not many will need persuasion that the move, which follows meetings of the COAS, corps commanders and the top civilian leadership, is intended to ensure that any potential friction between the latter and the military establishment stays at a minimum. Other than that, there is bound to be a perception among some in the country – and it may not be entirely unjustified – that the move will surely have the endorsement of the Americans. According to several media reports, the head of the US military, Admiral Mike Mullen, as well as the head of US forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, and his predecessor General Stanley McChrystal have had a good working relation with General Kayani. Having said that, the threat of military intervention has lingered somewhere in the background since the dramatic restoration of the judiciary in March 2009 — an event the army is said to have played some part in. The grounds offered by the prime minister, that General Kayani has been retained in the interests of national security, raise more questions than they answer. Are we to assume that military strategy follows from the persuasions of individual generals rather than a policy devised by the government? Is there any reason to believe the next COAS would have pursued a different course of action? And how convincing is the claim that we are triumphing over the militants anyway? There are many doubts as to the degree and stability of success within the conflict zone where local residents speak of continued unrest.

There is also the small matter of principle and precedent. General Kayani has been called a soldier’s soldier, under whose reins there has been considerable focus on the welfare of the soldier as opposed to the officer. That said, the failure to follow rules in many ways dooms us to a future of still more speculation and doubt. It also leaves it plain that the elected government is largely powerless against a military that remains assertive — even if this role is more subtle than in the past. There can be no doubt that as yet the balance of power between the military and the civilian set-up has not been righted. Until this happens we can expect only further bumps on the road that leads to democracy. That goal cannot be achieved by the process of balloting alone.

There is also the question of the role of international players. General Kayani has been able to persuade key allies that he is central to the effort against militancy. While they speak frequently of bolstering democracy in Pakistan and of their commitment to keeping it afloat, these players have little hesitation in doing business with military chiefs. We do not know what events took place behind the scenes leading to the late-night address to the nation. But we do know that the first-ever extension to an army chief granted by a civilian government will add to the difficulties Pakistan faces in establishing control over its military and ending the long era through which the men in uniform have scripted the plot of the story of political life.

Source : http://tribune.com.pk/story/30456/democracy-and-the-generals/