By M H Ahssan & Peter Lee
For the past decade or more, China has been engaged in a game of whack-a-mole to control the burgeoning channels of digital communication between Tibetan dissidents inside Tibet and in the Tibetan diaspora. Despite Beijing's resolve to define the Tibetan issue as a solely internal matter for the People's Republic of China, Tibetan Internet issues have been quietly internationalized, thanks to the efforts of Western activists to provide cyber-security services for Tibetan dissidents and emigres.
In March 2008, Canadian investigators achieved a cyber-security triumph: the exposure of a malicious data-gathering botnet, a large number of compromised computers used to create and send spam or viruses, targeting the Tibetan international community. The botnet's exposure could almost - but not quite - be construed as a counter-intelligence operation against a hacker network apparently operating out of China.
Domestically, China routinely monitors and blocks websites, chat rooms and plain-text e-mail nationwide on a host of sensitive subjects, including Tibet, using thousands of real and virtual cybercops and its US$700 million Golden Shield infrastructure - derisively called "The Great Firewall of China" (GFW). It also employs the technical assistance of local service providers (including the in-China operations of multi-nationals like Yahoo!) to gather information on domestic dissidents.
Efforts in the sensitive Tibetan regions of China are more direct and draconian, especially in the context of heightened tensions following the unrest in March 2008.
Landline, cell and Internet services in Tibetan areas were interrupted during the period of unrest. When the Chinese government became aware that Tibetan dissidents were using the video-sharing website YouTube as a text-free method to communicate, it shut it down. When image-sharing website Flickr emerged as a potential source of visual information, it was blocked. Tibetan radio broadcasts by Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Voice of Tibet were jammed. A campaign against satellite dishes was intensified to limit the audience of VOA's direct-to-dish Tibet TV service. In order to cut off cell-phone based talk, text, and images, China reportedly limited service and tore down cell phone towers.
When confronting in cyberspace supporters of Tibetan dissidents located outside of China, the Chinese government is apparently abetted by a group of hackers, acting either pro bono or with government encouragement. The hackers disrupt websites, harass activists and, it transpires, organize extensive espionage operations against targeted computers around the world.
China's efforts against the Tibetan independence movement and Tibetan government-in-exile have been countered by a variety of overseas "hacktivists" - computer hackers with an activist bent. Some of these derive a measure of support, including some financial backing, from Western governments.
The hacktivist organization with the highest profile and level of capability and professionalism is probably Citizen Lab, run by Professor Ron Deibert in the University of Toronto's Munk Center for International Studies.
Citizen Lab was in the news recently when it midwived a report [1] by Information Warfare Monitor announcing the existence of a cyberspying operation targeting computers belonging to the Tibetan government-in-exile, Tibetan non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and a host of other governments and organizations around the world.
In 2008, at the request of the Office of the Dalai Lama, Citizen Lab checked the computers of the Tibetan government in exile offices in Dharmsala in India and in various European cities to determine if they were infected with malware.
Citizen Lab investigator Greg Walton collected reams of suspicious code. By plugging a likely bit into Google, he was able to locate the server that the malware was communicating with. He lured the server into establishing communication with a "honeypot" - a computer set up to document and trace cyber-intrusions - and finally penetrated it.
Walton discovered three other servers supporting the malware, and obtained a list of almost 1,300 computers - many located in the offices of emigre Tibetan government and NGOs around the world, but also in numerous Taiwanese, European and Asian governmental offices - from which they were collecting information.
The operation, which the investigators named "GhostNet", used a Trojan hidden in e-mail attachments to compromise a computer's security and download a piece of malware called gh0st RAT (RAT standing for Remote Access Tool). Gh0st RAT allowed a remote operator both to examine files on the computer and to upload them to a gh0st RAT server. Keystrokes could also be logged - a key hacking tool for acquiring passwords - and, purportedly, the computer's microphones and webcam could be activated and the audio and video sent to the gh0st RAT server.
This was not Citizen Lab's first foray into the world of China-related cyber-security. In fact, Citizen Lab finds itself at the center of many issues pertaining to China, Tibet and the Internet.
In October 2008, Citizen Lab issued a report revealing that TOM-Skype, a joint venture by Skype and an arm of Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing's empire offering encrypted voice and text messaging services inside of China, saved copies of text messages on a network of eight servers.
This was a big deal for three reasons.
First, though TOM-Skype admitted that Chinese-mandated filtering software would knock out messages with forbidden keywords, it had previously claimed that the filtered messages were discarded. Not true. The filtered messages were stored on the eight servers.
Secondly, TOM-Skype is supposed to be a private, encrypted service with encryption keys that were the secret property of the service's users. Nevertheless, it was revealed that, presumably at the behest of the Chinese government, TOM-Skype saved both the traffic and the keys needed to decrypt it.
Third, the servers were also apparently storing traffic that did not contain banned keywords - an indication that the Chinese government was selecting individuals and accounts to monitor, and dumping all their traffic on the servers for examination.
The TOM-Skype affair highlights the central role played in the battle between the Chinese state and those who wish to navigate the Internet beyond its control by a unique technical feature of Internet communication: 128-bit encryption.
In the 1990s, Phil Zimmerman, an American political activist, developed an unbreakable open source 128-bit encryption program employing private and public keys that he called, tongue-in-cheek, "Pretty Good Privacy" or PGP. The US government, realizing that propagation of PGP would put an end to the era in which the National Security Agency (NSA) possessed the technical means to monitor every form of electronic communication from telegrams and faxes to computer traffic, bitterly fought Zimmerman's efforts to publicize the code.
The government placed 128-bit encryption on a list of munitions proscribed for export. Zimmerman countered by printing the PGP source code in book form and claimed his right to protection under the First Amendment of the US constitution. In 1996, realizing that mathematicians and programmers overseas were capable of developing equivalent programs, the US government dropped its investigation of Zimmerman and permitted the export of PGP.
Probably, if the Federal Bureau of Investigation and NSA had succeeded in their efforts to keep the 128-bit genie in the bottle until September 11, 2001, changing the security vs freedom equation, we would be living in a world where every government demanded a copy of everybody's encryption key.
As it is, today the open, distributed international architecture of the Internet demands encryption in order to protect both the sensitive data that travels along it and the network itself. All efforts to impose - and evade - monitoring and control of digital information take place in the shadow of 128-bit encryption.
Governments around the world, "free" as well as totalitarian, have responded with a variety of strategies to ensure that encrypted communications yield up their secrets.
Rights of privacy are extremely limited, if not non-existent, when it comes to encryption. Companies and individuals are expected to produce keys at government demand in response to informal requests, pointed demands, subpoenas, or something called "rubber hose cryptoanalysis", a euphemism for the extraction of cryptographic secrets (eg the password to an encrypted file) from a person by coercion.
Governments, especially the United States, are rumored to routinely seed computers, software and even mathematical elements of the decryption algorithm itself with backdoors that enable the surreptitious acquisition of passwords and the precious keys.
Commercial providers of encrypted e-mail worldwide are apparently eager to cooperate with the government and avoid being identified as a provider of genuinely secure communications to terrorists, criminals and any other suspect entity.
In the course of a criminal investigation of steroid smuggling, one provider, Hushmail, revealed [2] that it was able to turn over decrypted traffic to the Canadian government because it had a Java applet that could penetrate its customers' computers to extract the supposedly sacrosanct private key.
And if a key really can't be provided, but plain and encrypted versions of the same message are available and can be attacked with adequate time, skill and resources, the underlying code may be broken.
China has made the somewhat counterintuitive but perhaps inevitable decision to join the family of nations that tolerates but controls encrypted communication - and engages in the never-ending, no-holds-barred struggle to track and crack it.
China, after all, is anxious to reap the economic rewards of being at the forefront of the digital networking revolution. Since China is already near the forefront of the hacking, cracking, phishing (the use of a fake websites or e-mails to obtain to gather confidential data), and cybercrime revolution, it must also accept the need of businesses and individuals to encrypt sensitive data.
China, like governments around the world, insists that businesses offering encrypted communications within their borders provide the means to generate decrypted traffic at the demand of law enforcement.
As the TOM-Skype case shows, any commercial participant in encrypted communication activities will be expected to provide a backdoor and/or a helping hand to Chinese security organizations.
The attention of dissidents - and the security personnel who track them - must turn elsewhere for more private communications.
Secure, non-commercial e-mail encryption is still available to those who have the ability and desire to forego the commercial services and are willing and able to engage in the rather laborious process of maintaining their own collection of encryption keys and coding and decoding their traffic without relying on the web-based public key servers.
However, encryption does not encode the e-mail header, which exposes information on the sender and receiver, thereby providing security forces with a point of entry to generate a social-web map of senders and recipients that is, in itself, a source of dangerous intelligence. Furthermore, the very act of sending and receiving encrypted e-mail possibly attracts unwelcome scrutiny, both in China and around the world,
Beyond e-mail encryption, there are other options for those inside China desiring untrammeled access to the global Internet. They involve exploiting https - the encrypted hypertext transfer protocol designed for secure financial transactions - to establish contact with computers outside China that can be used as proxies.
Detailed online manuals provide instructions to Tibetan dissidents, Falungong adherents, and anybody else hoping to evade the prying eyes of the Chinese security forces and safely surf the web, communicate or blog internationally.
The most widely-used facilities are Dynaweb, Garden and Ultra Surf. These services coordinate their offerings through the Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIFC), a group that receives some US government funding and is apparently run by friends of Falungong, the outlawed and extremely tech-savvy Chinese religious group-cum-political movement.
The three services gleefully run a never-ending Spy vs Spy war with the Chinese cybercops, continually flooding the zone with new Internet Protocol (IP) addresses - a computer's identification number on a network - that their users (and the Chinese security organizations that inevitably participate in the service) link to with a "tunnel discovery agent" in order to connect to proxy servers - a computer system or application program that acts as a go-between - before the Chinese government shuts them down.
They count VOA and RFA as their clients and proudly state that the service has never been interrupted.
But, in the case of gh0st RAT, maybe score this round to China. In its own analysis of the computer security travails of the Tibetan emigre community, "Snooping Dragon", the University of Cambridge reported [3] that the China hackers availed themselves of Dynaweb's facilities: However, after a while, we saw a number of accesses through Dynaweb - a set of anonymization proxy servers associated with the Falungong religious movement, which is also detested by the government of China. We are at a loss how to explain this. Perhaps the Chinese detected the start of our clean-up operation and decided to hint that they had compromised Dynaweb - whether to deter people from using it, or to deter the US government from funding it? We just have no idea.
As a public service that aggressively markets its product in a strategy to overwhelm China's security apparatus, the GIFC's partners are vulnerable in turn to the most diabolical weapon in China's arsenal - porn.
Porn is the bugbear of censorship circumvention service providers.
Ironically, it has pushed the service providers themselves to assume the role of censors. In a white paper [4] entitled Defeat Internet Censorship, The GIFC interrupted its triumphalist recitation of its omnipotent software capabilities to note: With limited resource and bandwidth, an anti-censorship system with unrestricted access will soon be consumed by pornography, gambling and drug-related information and become useless to users in the most-needed regions. Therefore, it is critical and beneficial for an anti-censorship system to have some built-in mechanisms to control content access. At least, it should have the ability to block some high-profile pornography portals in order to save the bandwidth for better uses. It should also provide tools for law enforcing authorities in the free world to monitor the information flow when needed to avoid the encryption channels being exploited for terrorist communications.
In a demonstration that irony is, if not dead, on hiatus at GIFC, the writers of the white paper also proposed that, once China's surfers emerge from the Great Firewall rabbit hole, they be directed toward more wholesome browsing courtesy of GIFC in its role as portal manager and content provider: To better protect and serve users who have overcome the blocking and reached the other side of [the] GFW, it is highly beneficial to provide them with an uncensored, trustworthy portal site in their own native languages, which provides services such as search engines, directories, bulletin boards, e-mails and chat rooms. These services are better protected when they are tightly integrated with the anti-censorship tools they use. More importantly, such a portal site can shield users from those overseas websites set up by the Chinese regime or communist regime-backed entities. Their websites serve as a trap to collect users' information as well as serve their exported propaganda machinery.
But legitimate porn-surfing by frustrated citizens, dedicated freedom activists and fanatical cultists to whom GIFC caters is probably just the tip of the iceberg.
Beneath the high-minded concern for the morals, safety and education of Chinese web surfers is perhaps the concern that the service could not survive a concerted attack by malicious Chinese government users logging on simultaneously to download a lifetime's supply of porn and bootlegged Jackie Chan movies - and the GIFC might need a Great Firewall of its own to protect itself.
An alternative to a high-profile, high-intensity professional circumvention service under continual attack by the Chinese government is an "anonymizer" program called TOR (The Onion Router).
TOR performs a multiple-layer encryption of requests for web pages and relies on a network of computers supplied by volunteers to strip the address layers (like an onion) until the last server - the TOR exit node - connects to the destination using its own IP address. Each computer only knows the previous link; if the message is intercepted, it cannot be traced back to the originator.
Traffic analysis can reportedly compromise the anonymity of the TOR network, but its true vulnerability is highlighted by a post from the UK entitled "Why You Need Balls of Steel to Operate a TOR Exit Node" [5]: [After providing service as a TOR exit node for about one year] I was visited by the police in November 2008 because my IP address had turned up in the server logs of a site offering, or perhaps trading in (I was not told the details of the offence) indecent images of children … It was what is known as a "dawn raid" and, amazingly enough, my children were still asleep when it occurred. Thank God … I was overwhelmed by horror to be implicated in such a thing. I was desperately worried about my family. One of the officers had told my wife that Social Services would be informed as a matter of course and there was a possibility that my children would be taken into care … After an agonizing four-month investigation, the police dropped the case. But the writer concludes: "I think, in retrospect, I was desperately naive to run a TOR exit server on a home computer."
So, it doesn't take much to degrade the TOR system. Just a collection of malicious hackers going on the system masquerading as legitimate users, hogging bandwidth, downloading child porn, or visiting sites flagged by the police as terrorist/criminal-related. If a genuine cyberwar erupts, one would expect that the TOR network will grind to a halt in a matter of minutes.
The latest iteration in the struggle between the Chinese government and dissidents over Internet communication is brought to us by none other than Citizen Lab.
In 2007, Citizen Lab developed and spun off a "censorship circumvention software" it called Psiphon, which establishes an encrypted link from inside a country that limits Internet browsing to a computer in another country that allows free browsing.
Citizen Lab's Ron Deibert undoubtedly did not endear himself to the Chinese government by publicizing the Psiphon service in the aftermath of the unrest in Tibet last year as a way for activists inside China to get the word out to the West. Psiphon also advertised its commercial service to foreigners as a safeguard against Chinese cybersnooping during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games; apparently the BBC and the US State Department signed up for the service as a way to secure their communications from Beijing.
Psiphon uses the "small is beautiful" strategy, but avoids the problems of TOR by eschewing the "anonymizer" route. Instead, the network's integrity is protected because the owners of the computers in the free-browsing countries - called "psiphonodes" in the company jargon - only invite users of the service, "psiphonsites", that they personally know and trust.
The owners provide a distinct URL or web address (generated by Psiphon) pointing to their computer, and a unique password for each user, that enables the user to connect to the page using the https protocol; once logged in the owner's computer, the user can surf to his or her heart's content.
Well over 150,000 owners have signed up to become Psiphonodes. It is unclear how many users link to these nodes.
User traffic can be monitored by the psiphonodes and apparently some of the operators have been knocked out of their Birkenstocks by the insatiable demand for porn of some of their trusted users - and the legal risk that serving as the connecting node to the offending site exposes them.
Psiphon, as a diffuse set of mini-networks each closely controlled by its own node, is proof against a massive, malicious use attack that threatens the GIFC and TOR services.
Its vulnerability seems to exist not in the world of cyberspace, but in the realm of the system's human users and operators.
A Psiphon system can apparently be compromised if the node or site computer is penetrated through operator carelessness in response to something called "social engineering": the deployment of phishing e-mail that exploits the human target's natural curiosity and desire to engage and communicate, and enables the installation of malware - like the gh0st RAT program that bedeviled the Tibetan government in exile.
For the record, Citizen Lab denied that its investigation of gh0st RAT was related to any vulnerabilities in Psiphon and did not confirm that any of the targeted computers were running as Psiphon nodes serving inside China.
Indeed, the penetration of computers in Dharmsala - one monk reported watching Outlook Express open by itself and send an e-mail off with a document attached - was a pressing issue in itself, and enough to justify the extensive investigation.
However, what happened to the Tibetan computers brings to mind weaknesses that might be exploited at Psiphon node or site on a PC platform: non-professional operators with an uncertain grasp of security working on vulnerable machines, unwittingly downloading malware that enables remote observers to read files, keylog passwords and extract keys.
On a psiphonsite, malware could extract details of the log-in and disable and/or imperil its psiphonode by logging in for a malicious, bandwidth-hogging session. If a psiphonode is identified and penetrated, apparently details of the psiphonsite(s) it is serving - and the pages they have visited - can be extracted.
Balancing Psiphon's reliance on a "network of trust" versus the willingness of the Chinese government (or their bespoke hackers) to pour resources in the cyber struggle with the Tibetan emigre movement, this skirmish in cyberspace might turn out to be a draw.
Interestingly, Citizen Lab seems to be interested in dialing down the rhetoric in the wake of its cybersecurity coup against "GhostNet".
Despite a preponderance of circumstantial evidence - such as the nature of the targets and the existence of three out of four of the gh0st RAT control servers inside China - its report went out of its way to caveat assumptions of Chinese government involvement in the attack and stress that Citizen Lab researchers had not broken any laws in the investigation.
Certainly, Citizen Lab did not wish to find itself - or the Canadian government - characterized as a provider of counter-intelligence services to the Tibetan government in exile in its battle with incessant Chinese cyber-intrusions.
Citizen Lab's restraint may have also reflected Professor Deibert's publicized dismay at the West's growing interest in militarizing the Internet - illustrated by a bipartisan proposal that the Barack Obama administration appoint a "Cybersecurity National Adviser" with the power to disconnect the government and "critical" civilian networks from the Internet in case of national emergency - largely in response to China's perceived intentions and capabilities in cyberwarfare.
On a more strategic level, Deibert's caution may also reflect an awareness that the censorship-circumvention infrastructure may be adequate for low-level skirmishing with malicious Chinese hacker-patriots and the drudges running day-to-day Internet interdiction for China, but perhaps would not be able to withstand a concerted assault by China's cyberwarfare specialists - or cope with an Internet fragmented into Chinese and Western cybersecurity fortresses.
The Internet seems destined to frustrate both hopes of China for national security, and those of dissidents for an irresistible truth weapon.
One of the most famous observations concerning the Internet is by John Gilmore, founder of the Electronic Freedom Foundation: "The Internet treats censorship as a defect and routes around it."
Perhaps the Internet has the same response to censorship's doppelgangers - secrecy, encryption and the user's desire for privacy: it rejects them and finds a way around.
Those bits and bytes just want to be free. And we have to find a way to live with that.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Well done, India
By Raja Murthy
Guru Asia stepped forward at the Group of 20 summit in London as tutor in the art of preventing scams and recessions. "Change" was the theme of the moment. Yet given their track records, little credence and less optimism can be given to the greater role accorded to Asia, notably India, and the G-20 proclamations of reform.
In a significant shift of global economic leadership from unfettered free-market Western markets to the more government-regulated Asian versions, China, Japan and India got their way in demanding stronger regulatory practices and reform of financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund.
The word "regulatory" appeared 11 times in the six-page London Communique compared with, for instance, it being mentioned merely twice in the five-page communique after the November 8-9 meeting of G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors at Sao Paulo, Brazil, last year.
Adding more decibels to its pro-regulatory tune, India became at the end of the London summit a full-fledged member of two key bodies - the Financial Stability Forum (FSF) and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.
The Basel Committee, which aims to improve banking supervision worldwide, is a member of the FSF along with other international standard-setting bodies - the committee on the global financial system, the committee on payment and settlement systems, the International Association of Insurance Supervisors, the International Accounting Standards Board and the International Organization of Securities Commissions.
The Switzerland-based FSF in turn coordinates with senior representatives of national financial authorities - such as central banks, regulatory bodies and treasury departments - as well as global financial institutions, international regulatory and supervisory groupings, the European Central Bank and committees of central bank experts. India joins current Asian members of the FSF - Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore.
"Broadening representation in these bodies is an important improvement," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the media at the end of the London summit. "The directions of the reform of financial regulation and supervision that have been agreed are in line with our own thinking in India."
India was entrusted with the regulatory homework for the London G-20 summit. India's Rakesh Mohan, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, co-chaired with Tiff Macklem, Canada's deputy finance minister, Working Group 1, one of four preparatory working groups ahead of the summit and which was entrusted with finding ways to increase regulation and transparency of markets.
Amid the newfound love for sober economics in the face of the worst global recession since 1945, Manmohan was a surprise sachet, if not package, at the London summit.
Singh could speak with confidence, being a professional economist and former Reserve Bank of India governor. He is also due to face general elections this year. "The present [global economic] crisis does not originate in Asia or in Latin America. It originates at the heart of capitalism," he said, pointing to "the laxity of regulation" as an important cause.
India's pro-regulatory views commanded attention at the G-20 summit, unlike at earlier such gatherings when Indian prime ministers merely made up the numbers. India became the world's 12th trillion-dollar economy in June 2007, while its 9% economic growth was the world's second-fastest expansion.
Even amid the global recession, the Indian government estimates a continuing robust 7.4% gross domestic product growth rate, compared with the 1.1% for the US, the world's largest economy.
That Asia's voice should be given more credence was acknowledged in London by the summit host, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who agreed that India, China and Japan had a right to ask for a change in the way the International Monetary Fund and similar institutions worked.
Asian economies now account for nearly 25% of world's exports and have foreign reserves running into trillions of dollars. Japan and China together agreed to contribute $140 billion of the record $1.1 trillion funds that the G-20 pledged as loans and guarantees to developing economies.
Yet, despite the London G-20 plans to "reshape" the world's money markets, member governments continue to flunk the test of the proof of the pudding being in the eating. "Guru" Manmohan and his government, for instance, have shown little willingness to practice at home what they globally preach.
The US$1.5 billion Satyam financial scam in January 2009 (see Satyam fraud check switches to PwC, Asia Times Online, January 10, 2009) became a test case on the efficacy of the country's regulatory bodies. But the New Delhi-based Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, India's six-decade-old main regulatory accounting body, continues to dawdle over the role of Satyam auditor Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC).
In its investigation of the Satyam scam, in which company founder and chairman Ramalinga Raju confessed to fudging the company's books over a prolonged period, the 145,000 member-ICAI, the world's second-largest accounting association, defies logic in quoting senior Satyam officials who have denied that PwC was complicit in the fraud that involved faking profits in annual audits. In other words, the accountant watchdog was being portrayed as having no responsibility for the Satyam house being looted for seven years.
Likewise, Indian governments have a woeful track record to back the London G-20 declaration to crack down on tax havens. About $1.7 trillion to $11.7 trillion worth of assets are stashed away in such havens, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Indeed, not much has changed since previous such G-20 commitments. In 2004, in Berlin, they similarly committed to new higher standards of transparency and exchange of information on tax matters.
India had a chance to crack down on powerful tax evaders in February 2008. The German government had offered to reveal names of slush-money account holders in Liechtenstein, a tax haven in Western Europe, after the Bundes Nachrichten Dienst, or BND, Germany's overseas intelligence agency, stumbled on names of 800 secret account holders in Liechtenstein bank LTG.
Countries such as the US, the UK, Canada, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Ireland used the German government offer. But not Manmohan and his government. Critics said subsequently the inaction was due to senior Indian politicians, corporate chieftains and leading stockbrokers being among the secret account holders.
The current global financial crisis itself challenges G-20 credibility. The group [1] came together as a response to the financial crises of the late 1990s. Germany hosted the first meeting in Berlin in December 1999, but 15 G-20 communiques later, the world seems to have changed for the worst as it struggles to confront its worst financial crisis in six decades. The London communique, which US President Barack Obama declared as "historic", sounds non-historically familiar.
"Recent experience has demonstrated the need to strengthen our capacity to prevent financial crisis and to develop efficient, expeditious, and socially and economically effective responses to a financial crisis when it occurs," said the Delhi communique in November 23, 2002.
Recession appears to be a guaranteed global recurrence, certainly as long as G-20 gurus forget their own lessons.
Note: The G-20 is composed of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, UK, the US and the European Union.
Guru Asia stepped forward at the Group of 20 summit in London as tutor in the art of preventing scams and recessions. "Change" was the theme of the moment. Yet given their track records, little credence and less optimism can be given to the greater role accorded to Asia, notably India, and the G-20 proclamations of reform.
In a significant shift of global economic leadership from unfettered free-market Western markets to the more government-regulated Asian versions, China, Japan and India got their way in demanding stronger regulatory practices and reform of financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund.
The word "regulatory" appeared 11 times in the six-page London Communique compared with, for instance, it being mentioned merely twice in the five-page communique after the November 8-9 meeting of G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors at Sao Paulo, Brazil, last year.
Adding more decibels to its pro-regulatory tune, India became at the end of the London summit a full-fledged member of two key bodies - the Financial Stability Forum (FSF) and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.
The Basel Committee, which aims to improve banking supervision worldwide, is a member of the FSF along with other international standard-setting bodies - the committee on the global financial system, the committee on payment and settlement systems, the International Association of Insurance Supervisors, the International Accounting Standards Board and the International Organization of Securities Commissions.
The Switzerland-based FSF in turn coordinates with senior representatives of national financial authorities - such as central banks, regulatory bodies and treasury departments - as well as global financial institutions, international regulatory and supervisory groupings, the European Central Bank and committees of central bank experts. India joins current Asian members of the FSF - Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore.
"Broadening representation in these bodies is an important improvement," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the media at the end of the London summit. "The directions of the reform of financial regulation and supervision that have been agreed are in line with our own thinking in India."
India was entrusted with the regulatory homework for the London G-20 summit. India's Rakesh Mohan, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, co-chaired with Tiff Macklem, Canada's deputy finance minister, Working Group 1, one of four preparatory working groups ahead of the summit and which was entrusted with finding ways to increase regulation and transparency of markets.
Amid the newfound love for sober economics in the face of the worst global recession since 1945, Manmohan was a surprise sachet, if not package, at the London summit.
Singh could speak with confidence, being a professional economist and former Reserve Bank of India governor. He is also due to face general elections this year. "The present [global economic] crisis does not originate in Asia or in Latin America. It originates at the heart of capitalism," he said, pointing to "the laxity of regulation" as an important cause.
India's pro-regulatory views commanded attention at the G-20 summit, unlike at earlier such gatherings when Indian prime ministers merely made up the numbers. India became the world's 12th trillion-dollar economy in June 2007, while its 9% economic growth was the world's second-fastest expansion.
Even amid the global recession, the Indian government estimates a continuing robust 7.4% gross domestic product growth rate, compared with the 1.1% for the US, the world's largest economy.
That Asia's voice should be given more credence was acknowledged in London by the summit host, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who agreed that India, China and Japan had a right to ask for a change in the way the International Monetary Fund and similar institutions worked.
Asian economies now account for nearly 25% of world's exports and have foreign reserves running into trillions of dollars. Japan and China together agreed to contribute $140 billion of the record $1.1 trillion funds that the G-20 pledged as loans and guarantees to developing economies.
Yet, despite the London G-20 plans to "reshape" the world's money markets, member governments continue to flunk the test of the proof of the pudding being in the eating. "Guru" Manmohan and his government, for instance, have shown little willingness to practice at home what they globally preach.
The US$1.5 billion Satyam financial scam in January 2009 (see Satyam fraud check switches to PwC, Asia Times Online, January 10, 2009) became a test case on the efficacy of the country's regulatory bodies. But the New Delhi-based Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, India's six-decade-old main regulatory accounting body, continues to dawdle over the role of Satyam auditor Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC).
In its investigation of the Satyam scam, in which company founder and chairman Ramalinga Raju confessed to fudging the company's books over a prolonged period, the 145,000 member-ICAI, the world's second-largest accounting association, defies logic in quoting senior Satyam officials who have denied that PwC was complicit in the fraud that involved faking profits in annual audits. In other words, the accountant watchdog was being portrayed as having no responsibility for the Satyam house being looted for seven years.
Likewise, Indian governments have a woeful track record to back the London G-20 declaration to crack down on tax havens. About $1.7 trillion to $11.7 trillion worth of assets are stashed away in such havens, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Indeed, not much has changed since previous such G-20 commitments. In 2004, in Berlin, they similarly committed to new higher standards of transparency and exchange of information on tax matters.
India had a chance to crack down on powerful tax evaders in February 2008. The German government had offered to reveal names of slush-money account holders in Liechtenstein, a tax haven in Western Europe, after the Bundes Nachrichten Dienst, or BND, Germany's overseas intelligence agency, stumbled on names of 800 secret account holders in Liechtenstein bank LTG.
Countries such as the US, the UK, Canada, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Ireland used the German government offer. But not Manmohan and his government. Critics said subsequently the inaction was due to senior Indian politicians, corporate chieftains and leading stockbrokers being among the secret account holders.
The current global financial crisis itself challenges G-20 credibility. The group [1] came together as a response to the financial crises of the late 1990s. Germany hosted the first meeting in Berlin in December 1999, but 15 G-20 communiques later, the world seems to have changed for the worst as it struggles to confront its worst financial crisis in six decades. The London communique, which US President Barack Obama declared as "historic", sounds non-historically familiar.
"Recent experience has demonstrated the need to strengthen our capacity to prevent financial crisis and to develop efficient, expeditious, and socially and economically effective responses to a financial crisis when it occurs," said the Delhi communique in November 23, 2002.
Recession appears to be a guaranteed global recurrence, certainly as long as G-20 gurus forget their own lessons.
Note: The G-20 is composed of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, UK, the US and the European Union.
Pebble-pelting Muslims a rocky issue in India
By Sudha Ramachandran
Stone-pelting, a popular form of protest across South Asia and in the Middle East, is at the center of heated debate in the Kashmir Valley.
A statement by the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) police and a fatwa against stone-throwing issued by Maulana Shaukat Ahmed Shah, the head of an influential religious organization in the valley, have triggered fierce debate over whether stone-throwing has the sanction of Islam or not.
The controversy comes at a time when militancy is on the decline in the valley. Over the past 10 months or so, mass demonstrations marked by stone throwing against the Indian security forces has become the norm, especially in J&K’s summer capital, Srinagar.
These protests usually erupt after Friday prayers, when youths - mainly teenagers - chant anti-India and pro-azadi (independence) slogans and march through the streets hurling stones at the security personnel deployed en route. The main battleground between youths and police is the volatile Nowhatta Chowk, where Srinagar’s main mosque, the Jamia Masjid, is located. This area alone is reported to have witnessed over 65 instances of stone-pelting by mobs in 2008 alone.
It might have been the Palestinians who made stone-pelting famous during their intifada, but it is Kashmiris who claim to have "perfected the skill", having used this form of protest for many decades. It is said that in the 1930s, when Kashmiris were fighting the autocratic rule of Maharaja Hari Singh, they expressed their anger by hurling stones.
Stone-pelting gained popularity again in the 1960s when supporters of the National Conference and those of the Awami Action Committee engaged in violent clashes that involved pelting stones at each other. The parties paid people to throw stones at their rivals.
A senior officer of the J&K police told Asia Times Online that some of those engaged in the stone-throwing today are "professional stone-throwers", ie they are paid to hurl stones at the security forces. While there is some truth in this, most of the stone-throwing seems to be "genuine".
Not surprisingly, the stone-pelting has the security forces in a bind. Used to dealing with Kalashnikov-carrying militants - J&K has been convulsed in violence and terrorism since the start of the uprising in 1989 - police and paramilitary personnel have been grappling with how to respond to teenagers hurling pebbles at them.
"The stones may be small but their impact is deadly. And these are not peaceful protests as they are made out to be," the J&K police officer said, drawing attention to the dilemma his personnel face. Cops have been firing bullets and tear gas shells at the stone-throwing mobs. It has earned them public condemnation.
This year, the police hit on an idea. They would draw on Islam, on Prophet Mohammed’s sayings to stop the stone-pelting.
Stone-pelting is "not only illegal and immoral, it is against the teachings of Islam as well", Senior Superintendent of Police, Srinagar, Ahfad-ul-Mujtaba said. "The Prophet has prohibited the throwing of stones," he added, citing Book 21, Number 4808 of the hadith - the Prophet’s sayings.
Indeed, according to the hadith, the Prophet "disliked and prohibited throwing of pebbles" as "it does not catch the game nor does it inflict defeat on the enemy but breaks a tooth or gouges out an eye".
However, "the Koran says nothing about pelting stones as a form of protest", A Faizur Rahman, a Chennai-based peace activist and student of comparative study of religions, told Asia Times Online. At the same time, it "does not encourage people to take the law in their hands. As such any violent protest is un-Islamic. However, any democratic protest which does not inconvenience the public is allowed."
Not surprisingly, the reference to the Koran to de-legitimize stone-throwing has triggered a flurry of statements supporting or criticizing the interpretation. Interestingly, a section of the Hurriyat Conference, a conglomerate of pro-Pakistan and pro-independence organizations, have come out in support of the police.
Among them is Shah, the head of the Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadees, who issued the fatwa. "Stone-pelting cannot be justified," he said. "It is un-Islamic."
A senior leader of the Hurriyat Conference and president of Anjuman-e-Sharie Shian, Agha Syed Hassan al-Mosavi, has said that stone-pelting "defiles the spirit of Islam". "There are other ways to show anger - through chanting slogans and peaceful protests," he said. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the chief priest of Kashmir and chairman of the Hurriyat’s moderate faction too has called on the public to refrain from stone-pelting.
But there are powerful sections that are in favor of the stone-throwing. Among them is Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a leader of the Hurriyat’s hardline faction who has justified it on the grounds that the Kashmiris are fighting "Indian occupation" and that they "throw stones [on security forces] when they are showered with bullets".
His views have been echoed by the Hizbul Mujahideen, Kashmir’s largest militant group. "Stone-pelting is forbidden in Islam when stones are hurled on a powerless or innocent person," said Ahsan Illahi, the Hizbul spokesman.
"When police and paramilitary personnel resort to [firing bullets and tear gas shells] on peaceful protestors, the latter are justified in pelting stones at the cops."
So, has the tactic of putting stone-pelting to the test of religious legitimacy worked for the Srinagar police? The stone-pelting continues and the streets of downtown Srinagar remain strewn with stones.
However, the police are not giving up. "We are fed up with these stone pelters," the police officer said, stressing that the police force is determined to root out the problem from Srinagar.
According to a report in Rising Kashmir, an English daily from Srinagar, the police are trying a carrot and stick approach. After identifying the stone-throwers by examining video footage of the protests, "professional stone-pelters" are taken into custody while the "new faces" are let off. And efforts are on to draw the "new faces" away from the stone-pelting activity. These include giving them preference for job opportunities in the police force.
The government is also considering providing the police with special training in mob control. It hopes this will reduce the inclination of the police to use bullets and tear gas to stop the stone-pelting.
While Kashmiris debate whether stone-pelting has religious sanction in blogs and at seminars and public meetings, the impact of this strategy is beginning to severely pinch ordinary people. The stone-pelting forces them to shut down their shops, affecting their livelihood.
At the same time, they recognize the political roots of the pelting. As one Srinagar-based lawyer put it, "It has its roots in frustration - frustration with unemployment, violence, the heavy presence of India troops. It has to do with anger with Indian reluctance to deal with the grievances of the Kashmiris." The stone-throwing will stop, he says, when the Kashmiris are free of India and Pakistan.
As Rahman points out, the "only way of stopping the protests is to ensure that justice is done to all".
Stone-pelting, a popular form of protest across South Asia and in the Middle East, is at the center of heated debate in the Kashmir Valley.
A statement by the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) police and a fatwa against stone-throwing issued by Maulana Shaukat Ahmed Shah, the head of an influential religious organization in the valley, have triggered fierce debate over whether stone-throwing has the sanction of Islam or not.
The controversy comes at a time when militancy is on the decline in the valley. Over the past 10 months or so, mass demonstrations marked by stone throwing against the Indian security forces has become the norm, especially in J&K’s summer capital, Srinagar.
These protests usually erupt after Friday prayers, when youths - mainly teenagers - chant anti-India and pro-azadi (independence) slogans and march through the streets hurling stones at the security personnel deployed en route. The main battleground between youths and police is the volatile Nowhatta Chowk, where Srinagar’s main mosque, the Jamia Masjid, is located. This area alone is reported to have witnessed over 65 instances of stone-pelting by mobs in 2008 alone.
It might have been the Palestinians who made stone-pelting famous during their intifada, but it is Kashmiris who claim to have "perfected the skill", having used this form of protest for many decades. It is said that in the 1930s, when Kashmiris were fighting the autocratic rule of Maharaja Hari Singh, they expressed their anger by hurling stones.
Stone-pelting gained popularity again in the 1960s when supporters of the National Conference and those of the Awami Action Committee engaged in violent clashes that involved pelting stones at each other. The parties paid people to throw stones at their rivals.
A senior officer of the J&K police told Asia Times Online that some of those engaged in the stone-throwing today are "professional stone-throwers", ie they are paid to hurl stones at the security forces. While there is some truth in this, most of the stone-throwing seems to be "genuine".
Not surprisingly, the stone-pelting has the security forces in a bind. Used to dealing with Kalashnikov-carrying militants - J&K has been convulsed in violence and terrorism since the start of the uprising in 1989 - police and paramilitary personnel have been grappling with how to respond to teenagers hurling pebbles at them.
"The stones may be small but their impact is deadly. And these are not peaceful protests as they are made out to be," the J&K police officer said, drawing attention to the dilemma his personnel face. Cops have been firing bullets and tear gas shells at the stone-throwing mobs. It has earned them public condemnation.
This year, the police hit on an idea. They would draw on Islam, on Prophet Mohammed’s sayings to stop the stone-pelting.
Stone-pelting is "not only illegal and immoral, it is against the teachings of Islam as well", Senior Superintendent of Police, Srinagar, Ahfad-ul-Mujtaba said. "The Prophet has prohibited the throwing of stones," he added, citing Book 21, Number 4808 of the hadith - the Prophet’s sayings.
Indeed, according to the hadith, the Prophet "disliked and prohibited throwing of pebbles" as "it does not catch the game nor does it inflict defeat on the enemy but breaks a tooth or gouges out an eye".
However, "the Koran says nothing about pelting stones as a form of protest", A Faizur Rahman, a Chennai-based peace activist and student of comparative study of religions, told Asia Times Online. At the same time, it "does not encourage people to take the law in their hands. As such any violent protest is un-Islamic. However, any democratic protest which does not inconvenience the public is allowed."
Not surprisingly, the reference to the Koran to de-legitimize stone-throwing has triggered a flurry of statements supporting or criticizing the interpretation. Interestingly, a section of the Hurriyat Conference, a conglomerate of pro-Pakistan and pro-independence organizations, have come out in support of the police.
Among them is Shah, the head of the Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadees, who issued the fatwa. "Stone-pelting cannot be justified," he said. "It is un-Islamic."
A senior leader of the Hurriyat Conference and president of Anjuman-e-Sharie Shian, Agha Syed Hassan al-Mosavi, has said that stone-pelting "defiles the spirit of Islam". "There are other ways to show anger - through chanting slogans and peaceful protests," he said. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the chief priest of Kashmir and chairman of the Hurriyat’s moderate faction too has called on the public to refrain from stone-pelting.
But there are powerful sections that are in favor of the stone-throwing. Among them is Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a leader of the Hurriyat’s hardline faction who has justified it on the grounds that the Kashmiris are fighting "Indian occupation" and that they "throw stones [on security forces] when they are showered with bullets".
His views have been echoed by the Hizbul Mujahideen, Kashmir’s largest militant group. "Stone-pelting is forbidden in Islam when stones are hurled on a powerless or innocent person," said Ahsan Illahi, the Hizbul spokesman.
"When police and paramilitary personnel resort to [firing bullets and tear gas shells] on peaceful protestors, the latter are justified in pelting stones at the cops."
So, has the tactic of putting stone-pelting to the test of religious legitimacy worked for the Srinagar police? The stone-pelting continues and the streets of downtown Srinagar remain strewn with stones.
However, the police are not giving up. "We are fed up with these stone pelters," the police officer said, stressing that the police force is determined to root out the problem from Srinagar.
According to a report in Rising Kashmir, an English daily from Srinagar, the police are trying a carrot and stick approach. After identifying the stone-throwers by examining video footage of the protests, "professional stone-pelters" are taken into custody while the "new faces" are let off. And efforts are on to draw the "new faces" away from the stone-pelting activity. These include giving them preference for job opportunities in the police force.
The government is also considering providing the police with special training in mob control. It hopes this will reduce the inclination of the police to use bullets and tear gas to stop the stone-pelting.
While Kashmiris debate whether stone-pelting has religious sanction in blogs and at seminars and public meetings, the impact of this strategy is beginning to severely pinch ordinary people. The stone-pelting forces them to shut down their shops, affecting their livelihood.
At the same time, they recognize the political roots of the pelting. As one Srinagar-based lawyer put it, "It has its roots in frustration - frustration with unemployment, violence, the heavy presence of India troops. It has to do with anger with Indian reluctance to deal with the grievances of the Kashmiris." The stone-throwing will stop, he says, when the Kashmiris are free of India and Pakistan.
As Rahman points out, the "only way of stopping the protests is to ensure that justice is done to all".
Youngsters go gaga over money, thrill in elections
By Sheena Shafia
Some are driven by cash, some just relish the sheer thrill of being out there and some for the ideology they believe in. Youth have stepped into the political arena, campaigning for different political parties in the city.
Youngsters, most of them pursuing professional courses and juggling with tight schedules, are actively canvassing for political parties. While some are doing it for monetary reasons, some are sympathising with the party keeping in mind the work done and while some are doing it after getting impressed by the party ideology, others are doing it just for ‘time pass’.
As most of students have holidays, hundreds of them have enrolled with party offices set up in different areas. They participate in rallies, accompany the candidates during padayatras and public meetings, put up party banners, wallposters, go for door to door campaigning and this way youngsters make handsome pocket money during the two-week period.
On an average, a youngster ends up earning Rs 200 to Rs 300 per day for carrying out party work. While others, who do not take money, get their expenses paid along with food, besides earning goodwill from the party.
Take the case of 18-year-old Mohammed Irfan, student of a vocational junior college in Kanchan Bagh. “In the mornings, I go door to door covering an area in Kanchan Bagh and propagate the ideals of the political party and attend public meetings in the night. It’s great earning your own money. It definitely gives you a high,” Irfan, who intends to get into politics eventually, said.
Hundreds of party offices which have sprung up in every nook and cranny have facilities for recreation. The youth play caroms, dominoes, etc in the evenings before heading for public meetings. For Dr Murtuza Hussaini, 27, a PG student of Deccan Medical College, it is sympathy that has dragged him away from his books to the campaigning work.
Though a busy medical practitioner, he is sparing four hours daily to campaign for a party. He is going door to door propagating the party’s ideology among people.
Some are driven by cash, some just relish the sheer thrill of being out there and some for the ideology they believe in. Youth have stepped into the political arena, campaigning for different political parties in the city.
Youngsters, most of them pursuing professional courses and juggling with tight schedules, are actively canvassing for political parties. While some are doing it for monetary reasons, some are sympathising with the party keeping in mind the work done and while some are doing it after getting impressed by the party ideology, others are doing it just for ‘time pass’.
As most of students have holidays, hundreds of them have enrolled with party offices set up in different areas. They participate in rallies, accompany the candidates during padayatras and public meetings, put up party banners, wallposters, go for door to door campaigning and this way youngsters make handsome pocket money during the two-week period.
On an average, a youngster ends up earning Rs 200 to Rs 300 per day for carrying out party work. While others, who do not take money, get their expenses paid along with food, besides earning goodwill from the party.
Take the case of 18-year-old Mohammed Irfan, student of a vocational junior college in Kanchan Bagh. “In the mornings, I go door to door covering an area in Kanchan Bagh and propagate the ideals of the political party and attend public meetings in the night. It’s great earning your own money. It definitely gives you a high,” Irfan, who intends to get into politics eventually, said.
Hundreds of party offices which have sprung up in every nook and cranny have facilities for recreation. The youth play caroms, dominoes, etc in the evenings before heading for public meetings. For Dr Murtuza Hussaini, 27, a PG student of Deccan Medical College, it is sympathy that has dragged him away from his books to the campaigning work.
Though a busy medical practitioner, he is sparing four hours daily to campaign for a party. He is going door to door propagating the party’s ideology among people.
Voters at sea over constituencies in Hyderabad
By M H Ahssan
With just 10 days left for polling, there is still confusion among voters in the city about their Assembly and Parliament constituencies.
For instance, a voter residing in Chaitanyapuri area will have to vote for candidates in the fray for the L B Nagar assembly constituency, but residents in the colonies beyond Dilsukhnagar like NTR Nagar, Alkapuri, RK Puram and Vasavi Colony come under the Maheshwaram assembly constituency.
LB Nagar voter has to elect the Malkajgiri parliament candidate and Maheshwaram constituency voter has to cast his vote for Chevella Parliament candidate.
Until delimitation, all the areas were under the Nalgonda Lok Sabha constituency. As there is no clarity on the constituencies, helpline numbers of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) are being flooded with enquiries on the Assembly and Parliament constituencies and polling booths.
Though the delimitation of constituencies was completed an year ago, neither the GHMC nor political parties tried to clear confusion among the voters.
Voters of Malakpet constituency will have to vote for Hyderabad parliament candidate and L B Nagar voters for the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha candidate.
There is more confusion in Secunderabad area where some parts of Secunderabad are merged with the Sanathnagar constituency. Padmaraonagar, Bansilalpet and Bholakpur are now in Sanathnagar. Earlier they were part of the Secunderabad constituency.
Now, West Marredpally comes under the Secunderabad Cantonment and East Marredpally voters are in Secunderabad assembly constituency. The areas nearby Secunderabad railway station like Rezimental Bazar are in Secunderabad Cantonment assembly segment.
Secunderabad and Sanathnagar assembly voters elect Secunderabad parliament candidate, Secunderabad Cantonment voters cast their vote for the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha candidate.
Ambedkarngar behind Rail Nilayam in Secunderabad falls under Cantonment constituency but the surrounding colonies of Ambedkarnagar are part of Secunderabad constituency.
“I do not know what is the basis for delimitation of assembly segments,” P Gopal a resident of Ambedkarnagar said.
Similarly part of Kukatpally area comes under the Kukatpally and the rest under the Serilingampally assembly constituency.
“Election authorities should have conducted awareness programmes among the voters. I do not know Pragatinagar of Kukatpally is in Kukatpally constituency or Serilingampally segment,” C V Bhaskar, a software employee said. When contacted district election officer M T Krishnababu said people could get the information from ceoandhra.com website, toll free numbers of GHMC and election commission helpline numbers.
With just 10 days left for polling, there is still confusion among voters in the city about their Assembly and Parliament constituencies.
For instance, a voter residing in Chaitanyapuri area will have to vote for candidates in the fray for the L B Nagar assembly constituency, but residents in the colonies beyond Dilsukhnagar like NTR Nagar, Alkapuri, RK Puram and Vasavi Colony come under the Maheshwaram assembly constituency.
LB Nagar voter has to elect the Malkajgiri parliament candidate and Maheshwaram constituency voter has to cast his vote for Chevella Parliament candidate.
Until delimitation, all the areas were under the Nalgonda Lok Sabha constituency. As there is no clarity on the constituencies, helpline numbers of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) are being flooded with enquiries on the Assembly and Parliament constituencies and polling booths.
Though the delimitation of constituencies was completed an year ago, neither the GHMC nor political parties tried to clear confusion among the voters.
Voters of Malakpet constituency will have to vote for Hyderabad parliament candidate and L B Nagar voters for the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha candidate.
There is more confusion in Secunderabad area where some parts of Secunderabad are merged with the Sanathnagar constituency. Padmaraonagar, Bansilalpet and Bholakpur are now in Sanathnagar. Earlier they were part of the Secunderabad constituency.
Now, West Marredpally comes under the Secunderabad Cantonment and East Marredpally voters are in Secunderabad assembly constituency. The areas nearby Secunderabad railway station like Rezimental Bazar are in Secunderabad Cantonment assembly segment.
Secunderabad and Sanathnagar assembly voters elect Secunderabad parliament candidate, Secunderabad Cantonment voters cast their vote for the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha candidate.
Ambedkarngar behind Rail Nilayam in Secunderabad falls under Cantonment constituency but the surrounding colonies of Ambedkarnagar are part of Secunderabad constituency.
“I do not know what is the basis for delimitation of assembly segments,” P Gopal a resident of Ambedkarnagar said.
Similarly part of Kukatpally area comes under the Kukatpally and the rest under the Serilingampally assembly constituency.
“Election authorities should have conducted awareness programmes among the voters. I do not know Pragatinagar of Kukatpally is in Kukatpally constituency or Serilingampally segment,” C V Bhaskar, a software employee said. When contacted district election officer M T Krishnababu said people could get the information from ceoandhra.com website, toll free numbers of GHMC and election commission helpline numbers.
Fresh faces liven up Malkajgiri contest
By M H Ahssan
A new constituency. Fresh faces. A keen contest. The poll scene in Malkajgiri assembly constituency is interestingly poised with a triangular contest.
All the parties have fielded new faces and each of them is battling it out for victory. Former Malkajgiri municipal chairperson and TDP candidate V Sharada Mahesh is being challenged by former Malkajgiri councillor and Congress nominee Akula Rajender.
To brighten the prospects of his party candidate, Y S Rajasekara Reddy himself campaigned with a road show recently. On the other hand, TDP candidate Sharada drew great strength from her husband Mahesh. Both of them, accompanied by around 200 TDP activists clad in party colours, were seen knocking on every door in the constituency, literally pleading for votes. Nearly 50 burqa-clad Muslim women too joined the padayatra holding TDP flags, to woo Muslim voters. Sharada said her work as municipal chairperson would fetch her votes.
But she is not resting on just those laurels. Attacking the Congress at every opportunity, she said, “If the Congress is elected, whatever government land that is left will be sold in the name of development.”
Both Congress and TDP have fielded BC candidates of the ‘Mudiraj’ community. However, Sharada hopes BC voters would solidly stand by her as she is a woman. But then Congress’ A Rajender is also equally confident of securing BC votes.
The locals, however, have a lot of grievances. “Neither the ruling Congress nor the sitting MLA G Sayanna of TDP bothered about our problems,” they said. According to them, the eight railway gates in Malkajgiri and four in Alwal are causing severe traffic jams. “I go to Osmania University Arts College by a bus and it’s an unpleasant experience as traffic gets stranded whenever a gate is closed to allow a train to go by. And there are eight gates! Nobody coming to Malkajgiri can escape these hurdles,” said B Sharat from P V N Colony.
Residents also complained that drinking water that is supplied only once in three days is hardly sufficient. “I will solve all these problems,” Congress candidate Rajender promised.
While the main fight appears to be between the TDP and the Congress candidates, the Prajarajyam Party (PRP) and BJP meetings are also getting a decent response. Most of the residents in the Malkajgiri are settlers. “The PRP has a good chance of victory as there are many Chiranjeevi fans in the constituency especially among youth and women. So we will give tough fight to both TDP and Congress,” PRP candidate C Kanaka Reddy claimed.
PRP has found a good response in some pockets like Adarsh Bagh, PVN Colony, Indra Nehru Nagar, etc. “Both the TDP and the Congress are corrupt. The PRP is new and has declared that it will fight corruption. I would like to give it a chance,” said R Durgaiah, 40, a tent house owner.
Much as the Congress candidate is optimistic, the party’s vote bank is set to split as local senior Congressman G Suryanarayana Reddy is standing as an independent candidate as he was denied ticket by the party from Malkajgiri. The BJP has fielded M Balalingam, a former vice-chairman of Malkajgiri municipality.
CONSTITUENCY PROFILE
Total no. of voters: 350,227 Male voters: 1,78,557 Female voters: 1,71,670
The main areas: Malkajgiri, Mirjalguda, Moula Ali, Old Safilguda, Neredmet, Vinayaknagar, Ramakrishnapuram, Ammuguda, B J R Nagar, Vasanthipuri, Premvijayanagar Colony, Venkateshwara nagar, Prashant Nagar, Durga Nagar, Sardar Patel Nagar, Balasaraswathi Nagar, Narasimha Reddy Nagar, Maruthi Nagar, Kakatiya nagar, Defence Colony, Devi Nagar, Balram Nagar, Bharani Colony, Vivekananda Colony, Shakti Nagar, JJ Nagar
A new constituency. Fresh faces. A keen contest. The poll scene in Malkajgiri assembly constituency is interestingly poised with a triangular contest.
All the parties have fielded new faces and each of them is battling it out for victory. Former Malkajgiri municipal chairperson and TDP candidate V Sharada Mahesh is being challenged by former Malkajgiri councillor and Congress nominee Akula Rajender.
To brighten the prospects of his party candidate, Y S Rajasekara Reddy himself campaigned with a road show recently. On the other hand, TDP candidate Sharada drew great strength from her husband Mahesh. Both of them, accompanied by around 200 TDP activists clad in party colours, were seen knocking on every door in the constituency, literally pleading for votes. Nearly 50 burqa-clad Muslim women too joined the padayatra holding TDP flags, to woo Muslim voters. Sharada said her work as municipal chairperson would fetch her votes.
But she is not resting on just those laurels. Attacking the Congress at every opportunity, she said, “If the Congress is elected, whatever government land that is left will be sold in the name of development.”
Both Congress and TDP have fielded BC candidates of the ‘Mudiraj’ community. However, Sharada hopes BC voters would solidly stand by her as she is a woman. But then Congress’ A Rajender is also equally confident of securing BC votes.
The locals, however, have a lot of grievances. “Neither the ruling Congress nor the sitting MLA G Sayanna of TDP bothered about our problems,” they said. According to them, the eight railway gates in Malkajgiri and four in Alwal are causing severe traffic jams. “I go to Osmania University Arts College by a bus and it’s an unpleasant experience as traffic gets stranded whenever a gate is closed to allow a train to go by. And there are eight gates! Nobody coming to Malkajgiri can escape these hurdles,” said B Sharat from P V N Colony.
Residents also complained that drinking water that is supplied only once in three days is hardly sufficient. “I will solve all these problems,” Congress candidate Rajender promised.
While the main fight appears to be between the TDP and the Congress candidates, the Prajarajyam Party (PRP) and BJP meetings are also getting a decent response. Most of the residents in the Malkajgiri are settlers. “The PRP has a good chance of victory as there are many Chiranjeevi fans in the constituency especially among youth and women. So we will give tough fight to both TDP and Congress,” PRP candidate C Kanaka Reddy claimed.
PRP has found a good response in some pockets like Adarsh Bagh, PVN Colony, Indra Nehru Nagar, etc. “Both the TDP and the Congress are corrupt. The PRP is new and has declared that it will fight corruption. I would like to give it a chance,” said R Durgaiah, 40, a tent house owner.
Much as the Congress candidate is optimistic, the party’s vote bank is set to split as local senior Congressman G Suryanarayana Reddy is standing as an independent candidate as he was denied ticket by the party from Malkajgiri. The BJP has fielded M Balalingam, a former vice-chairman of Malkajgiri municipality.
CONSTITUENCY PROFILE
Total no. of voters: 350,227 Male voters: 1,78,557 Female voters: 1,71,670
The main areas: Malkajgiri, Mirjalguda, Moula Ali, Old Safilguda, Neredmet, Vinayaknagar, Ramakrishnapuram, Ammuguda, B J R Nagar, Vasanthipuri, Premvijayanagar Colony, Venkateshwara nagar, Prashant Nagar, Durga Nagar, Sardar Patel Nagar, Balasaraswathi Nagar, Narasimha Reddy Nagar, Maruthi Nagar, Kakatiya nagar, Defence Colony, Devi Nagar, Balram Nagar, Bharani Colony, Vivekananda Colony, Shakti Nagar, JJ Nagar
Who will Old City Hindu voters choose?
By M H Ahssan
The Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency is witnessing a battle for the sizable Muslim vote, estimated at about 70 per cent of the 13.3 lakh voter strength. But who would the Hindu voter - accounting for the remaining 30 per cent - exercise his franchise for? While “educated Hindus” say they would go for Mahakutami’s Zahid Ali Khan, who promises to ring in an era of change, there are others who point out that they would have voted for Khan had BJP not fielded a candidate here.
While political observers note that BJP’s Satish Agarwal is an obvious weak candidate compared to his contenders, Asaduddin Owaisi and Zahid Ali Khan, they note that Agarwal might just eat into some crucial Hindu votes, estimated at around 4 lakh. Despite Agarwal being a “complete stranger,” political observers note that he could turn out to be Zahid Ali Khan’s killjoy.
Given the sizable number of Agarwals settled in the Hyderabad parliamentary constituency, the BJP candidate might stake claim on at least 10 per cent of the votes. “There are quite a few north Indians settled in areas such as Charminar and Begum Bazar; we are expecting them to vote for Agarwal,” said a senior BJP leader hoping that the party would be able to cash in on the support of the Agarwal community in favour of their fellow community members.
Some political analysts wonder if Agarwal’s candidature is a result of a tacit, unspoken understanding between BJP and MIM to eat into Khan’s votes, who would have otherwise enjoyed the support of a chunk of Hindu voters. They are of the opinion that Khan would have garnered more votes had he contested the election as an independent.
Nevertheless, many Hindu votes seem to be swinging firmly in favour of Zahid Ali Khan. “I would vote for Zahid Ali Khan and that would be the choice of most educated people, Hindu or Muslim,” says industrialist Anil Kedia, a voter from this constituency. He says that BJP too should have supported Zahid Khan instead of fielding its own candidate, in order to consolidate the Hindu vote.
Agreeing with Kedia, Vijay Rao Jadhav, residing in the Charminar area of the constituency says that he would vote for Khan “only to end MIM’s reign over the area” as the party has done almost nothing during its term. He says, “In this constituency malpractices start right from the polling booths. I have lived here for decades and every year I see several voters return without casting their votes, because someone else has already voted on their names. Yet, nothing has been done about it so far.”
“The TDP angle would (adversely) affect him,” said one voter here. But some residents such as Puneetha Pushyaragam of Dilsukhnagar point out that if her vote goes to Khan that’s largely because he is a TDP-supported candidate. “Urban voters like me want Naidu back because in the decade during which he was the CM, things looked up. Now, having learnt from his past experience, he will strike a balance between rural and urban development,’’ she said. Like Puneetha, several others also feel that Khan is the “ideal” candidate as he carries a “clean image” .
Nevertheless, many voters observe that people appeared supportive of the MIM during its campaign more out of fear and may not openly favour Zahid Ali Khan. “But when they go to vote, they will vote against the MIM,” an Old City resident said, adding that this was the prevailing mood in most of the areas in this constituency.
The Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency is witnessing a battle for the sizable Muslim vote, estimated at about 70 per cent of the 13.3 lakh voter strength. But who would the Hindu voter - accounting for the remaining 30 per cent - exercise his franchise for? While “educated Hindus” say they would go for Mahakutami’s Zahid Ali Khan, who promises to ring in an era of change, there are others who point out that they would have voted for Khan had BJP not fielded a candidate here.
While political observers note that BJP’s Satish Agarwal is an obvious weak candidate compared to his contenders, Asaduddin Owaisi and Zahid Ali Khan, they note that Agarwal might just eat into some crucial Hindu votes, estimated at around 4 lakh. Despite Agarwal being a “complete stranger,” political observers note that he could turn out to be Zahid Ali Khan’s killjoy.
Given the sizable number of Agarwals settled in the Hyderabad parliamentary constituency, the BJP candidate might stake claim on at least 10 per cent of the votes. “There are quite a few north Indians settled in areas such as Charminar and Begum Bazar; we are expecting them to vote for Agarwal,” said a senior BJP leader hoping that the party would be able to cash in on the support of the Agarwal community in favour of their fellow community members.
Some political analysts wonder if Agarwal’s candidature is a result of a tacit, unspoken understanding between BJP and MIM to eat into Khan’s votes, who would have otherwise enjoyed the support of a chunk of Hindu voters. They are of the opinion that Khan would have garnered more votes had he contested the election as an independent.
Nevertheless, many Hindu votes seem to be swinging firmly in favour of Zahid Ali Khan. “I would vote for Zahid Ali Khan and that would be the choice of most educated people, Hindu or Muslim,” says industrialist Anil Kedia, a voter from this constituency. He says that BJP too should have supported Zahid Khan instead of fielding its own candidate, in order to consolidate the Hindu vote.
Agreeing with Kedia, Vijay Rao Jadhav, residing in the Charminar area of the constituency says that he would vote for Khan “only to end MIM’s reign over the area” as the party has done almost nothing during its term. He says, “In this constituency malpractices start right from the polling booths. I have lived here for decades and every year I see several voters return without casting their votes, because someone else has already voted on their names. Yet, nothing has been done about it so far.”
“The TDP angle would (adversely) affect him,” said one voter here. But some residents such as Puneetha Pushyaragam of Dilsukhnagar point out that if her vote goes to Khan that’s largely because he is a TDP-supported candidate. “Urban voters like me want Naidu back because in the decade during which he was the CM, things looked up. Now, having learnt from his past experience, he will strike a balance between rural and urban development,’’ she said. Like Puneetha, several others also feel that Khan is the “ideal” candidate as he carries a “clean image” .
Nevertheless, many voters observe that people appeared supportive of the MIM during its campaign more out of fear and may not openly favour Zahid Ali Khan. “But when they go to vote, they will vote against the MIM,” an Old City resident said, adding that this was the prevailing mood in most of the areas in this constituency.
Devender Goud gets pre-poll jitters
By M H Ahssan
Fifty six-year-old T Devender Goud, the Telangana face of the Prajyarajyam Party (PRP) has a task on hand. He must win from the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha constituency and the Ibrahimpatnam assembly constituency. More importantlym, he must save his face.
Ten days to go for the polls and Devender Goud is nervous. Why would someone who won three consecutive times from the Medchal assembly constituency with a convincing margin have to worry? The cause of concern this time is the new symbol on which he is fighting the polls.
Everywhere that the former TDP minister Devender Goud goes for his campaigning, the one thing that he is driving into the minds of the voters is that they have to vote for the rail engine symbol - the symbol of PRP.
The former no. 2 of the Telugu Desam Party had quit N Chandrababu Naidu’s company to form his own Nava Telangana Party (NTP) which he subsequently merged with filmstar Chiranjeevi’s PRP.
Did he not actually thrust himself on the PRP? Did he not send his partymen to cheer Chiranjeevi at his road shows even before his party had anything to do with the PRP?
“By that time the PRP had made its stance on Telangana. So we decided to sail with it. But no, I did not force myself on the party,” Devender Goud told HNN.
Devender Goud was considered no. 2 in the TDP and then no. 1 in his own NTP. However, after his party’s merger with the PRP, one does not know where he stands. In so far as his role as vice-president in the party, Devender Goud can hardly explain that.
“Firstly, I do not believe in the numbers game. My role in the party would be to conduct myself as the situation demands. Through discussions, I could help formulate a clear stance on the Telangana issue,” Devender Goud said.
The stance could be clear now but there is one more thing staring glaringly at the PRP. There seem to be crowds for Chiranjeevi’s public meetings and road shows but some surveys have indicated that the PRP may not sweep the polls, leave alone getting a considerable number of seats.
From his reading of the situation, the experienced politician that he is, Devender Goud is cautious in his prediction of the outcome. “Let us wait and see. Morever, the surveys are not taking into consideration the silent revolution that is taking place for change. We should reach the magic figure,” he said.
Devender Goud also remains unperturbed by either the exodus from PRP, allegations that the PRP is a ‘family party’ and that tickets have been sold. “Which party is not a family party?” he countered. He also prefers to downplay the desertion by some PRP leaders as mere hiccups in a new party.
“It is in the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) that tickets are sold. So long as the TRS is there, a separate Telangana state cannot be achieved, because it does not want it. Its leaders simply want the issue to be kept alive so that they can benefit from it,” Devender Goud charged.
Is it the uncertainty about victory that makes him contest from two seats - one for the Lok Sabha and one for the Assembly? “It is part of a strategy. I will retain whichever seat my party wants me to,” he said.
Devender Goud is pitted against the Sarve Satyanarayana of the Congress, Bhim Sen of the Mahakutami (TDP) and N Indrasena Reddy of the BJP. In Ibrahimpatnam, he is fighting Malreddy Ranga Reddy of the Congress and Manchireddy Kishan Reddy of TDP.
The PRP slogan of ‘change’ is what Devender Goud is heavily banking on to fetch him victory in the elections. But what is the change that is being dished out to the people when it is people like the same old Devender Goud in the new party? Goud is not annoyed at the question. “The policies are new,” he clarified.
Fifty six-year-old T Devender Goud, the Telangana face of the Prajyarajyam Party (PRP) has a task on hand. He must win from the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha constituency and the Ibrahimpatnam assembly constituency. More importantlym, he must save his face.
Ten days to go for the polls and Devender Goud is nervous. Why would someone who won three consecutive times from the Medchal assembly constituency with a convincing margin have to worry? The cause of concern this time is the new symbol on which he is fighting the polls.
Everywhere that the former TDP minister Devender Goud goes for his campaigning, the one thing that he is driving into the minds of the voters is that they have to vote for the rail engine symbol - the symbol of PRP.
The former no. 2 of the Telugu Desam Party had quit N Chandrababu Naidu’s company to form his own Nava Telangana Party (NTP) which he subsequently merged with filmstar Chiranjeevi’s PRP.
Did he not actually thrust himself on the PRP? Did he not send his partymen to cheer Chiranjeevi at his road shows even before his party had anything to do with the PRP?
“By that time the PRP had made its stance on Telangana. So we decided to sail with it. But no, I did not force myself on the party,” Devender Goud told HNN.
Devender Goud was considered no. 2 in the TDP and then no. 1 in his own NTP. However, after his party’s merger with the PRP, one does not know where he stands. In so far as his role as vice-president in the party, Devender Goud can hardly explain that.
“Firstly, I do not believe in the numbers game. My role in the party would be to conduct myself as the situation demands. Through discussions, I could help formulate a clear stance on the Telangana issue,” Devender Goud said.
The stance could be clear now but there is one more thing staring glaringly at the PRP. There seem to be crowds for Chiranjeevi’s public meetings and road shows but some surveys have indicated that the PRP may not sweep the polls, leave alone getting a considerable number of seats.
From his reading of the situation, the experienced politician that he is, Devender Goud is cautious in his prediction of the outcome. “Let us wait and see. Morever, the surveys are not taking into consideration the silent revolution that is taking place for change. We should reach the magic figure,” he said.
Devender Goud also remains unperturbed by either the exodus from PRP, allegations that the PRP is a ‘family party’ and that tickets have been sold. “Which party is not a family party?” he countered. He also prefers to downplay the desertion by some PRP leaders as mere hiccups in a new party.
“It is in the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) that tickets are sold. So long as the TRS is there, a separate Telangana state cannot be achieved, because it does not want it. Its leaders simply want the issue to be kept alive so that they can benefit from it,” Devender Goud charged.
Is it the uncertainty about victory that makes him contest from two seats - one for the Lok Sabha and one for the Assembly? “It is part of a strategy. I will retain whichever seat my party wants me to,” he said.
Devender Goud is pitted against the Sarve Satyanarayana of the Congress, Bhim Sen of the Mahakutami (TDP) and N Indrasena Reddy of the BJP. In Ibrahimpatnam, he is fighting Malreddy Ranga Reddy of the Congress and Manchireddy Kishan Reddy of TDP.
The PRP slogan of ‘change’ is what Devender Goud is heavily banking on to fetch him victory in the elections. But what is the change that is being dished out to the people when it is people like the same old Devender Goud in the new party? Goud is not annoyed at the question. “The policies are new,” he clarified.
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