Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Mizoram. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Mizoram. Sort by date Show all posts

Friday, September 09, 2011

Thoughts, Actions, Intentions, Outcomes

By Rajvir Patel

There is a Gujarati saying – Putra naa lakshan parnaa maa thi ney ne vahu naa lakshan barnaa maa thi. It translates that the future behavior and nature of a newborn can often be predicted from its first days in the cradle and that of a new daughter-in-law in a joint patriarchal Indian family, from the early moments when she steps into the home of the in-laws.

If one overlooks the nature of the patriarchal joint family Indian society, the adage is a decent predictor the future.

Another fable is that of a monkey and an alligator who become friends while dwelling on a tree on the river bank and the river. The monkey often tossed sweet berries into the river and the alligator learned to love the sweetness thereof. After some time the alligator offered the monkey a ride on his back along the river.

The initially hesitant monkey succumbed to repeated affectionate offers and accepted dependence and interoperability. When the alligator reached the middle of the wide river, he said to the monkey, “Since you eat these sweet berries all the time, your heart must be even sweeter”. The monkey being smarter than Manmohan Singh, promptly replied, “It is very sweet, but I left it back on the tree to prevent it from getting wet. Would you like to see it”? The alligator’s predatory nature triumphed over his guile and he said, “Sure, I wouldn’t mind even licking it to taste its sweetness. The monkey asked him to return to the bank and promised to show him the heart and let him lick it. As soon as the alligator reached the bank, the monkey jumped on to the bank and up the tree and sighed with relief.
The thoughts, words and actions of any agent can often be used to predict the correct outcomes of interactions between two or more parties. For what happens when idiotic puppet leaders act without thinking, and are incapable of figuring out intentions, see my article of a modified version of an old Hindu fable – Educated Fools and Illiterate Nemesis. Below are some examples in developmental embryology and international relations.

Lewis, Nusslein-Volhard and Wieschaus were given the 1995 Nobel Prize for Medicine for their work on genes controlling development. There are a set of genes called Hox genes which are arranged serially from head to neck to thorax to abdomen in an anterior to posterior order even on a chromosome. A gene named Hox-c8 determines the boundary of development between the cervical (neck) vertebrae and the thoracic vertebrae which have a rib attached on each side. A vertebral level where this gene is expressed develops as a thoracic vertebra with a rib on each side. Human beings have seven cervical (without ribs) and twelve thoracic vertebrae (with ribs). Since many Indian politicians are more mice though looking like men, it is not surprising that mice also have seven cervical vertebrae, but they have thirteen thoracic ones. Since Indian leaders sometimes are chickens, it is important to know that chickens have fourteen cervical vertebrae and seven thoracic ones (long neck, short body).

It so happens that the Hox-c8 gene is expressed exactly in the same distribution as the number of thoracic vertebrae. The gene is more or less identical in the chicken, mouse and man. All these animals have the same number of genes which are mostly similar, but their genes have different promotional and inhibition switches and are turned on at different times and sites giving a dessert (halwa or cake), salad and vegetable entree from the same carrot, with different spices added at different times. Occasionally in humans, a mistake occurs and the gene is expressed in the last or seventh cervical vertebral level and these persons have an extra cervical rib on each side. Oh incidentally, in some animals the Hox-c8 gene is expressed in all vertebrae due to a generalized mutation in the switches of all vertebrae. The result is an animal with all vertebrae having a rib on each side and the total number of vertebrae varying in number from individual to individual. If you guessed American Democrats have variable backbones, you are close. The answer is snakes and pythons. They are also venomous or crush their victims like your guess.

Knowing the thoughts, words or location of gene expression should alert a smart thinking person to intentions and outcomes. As the Latin saying goes “Premonitus premunitus”, forewarned is forearmed. In an arms race analysis, the Soviet Union was mortally scared after Truman nuked Japan. In fact one of his reasons for doing so was to warn the Soviets not to engulf more countries and extend the iron curtain. The Soviets by efforts and espionage got their own atom bomb in just a couple of years. American political hawks and scientists like Edward Teller, lobbied to get a fusion weapon (hydrogen bomb). The Soviets were aware of the effort and got their own hydrogen bomb shortly and much quicker after the Americans.

The Soviets then beat the US in the Sputnik satellite, but America’s efforts soon caught up and overtook them. It had more ICBMs than the Soviets and that is why Kruschev tried to put nuclear missiles into Cuba to counter the larger number of US missiles and those closer to Russia, based in Turkey. After that nuclear standoff, the Soviets vowed to and caught up with the US missile numbers on land. The US then led in nuclear submarines and the Soviets made a heroic effort to equal America as documented even in an American movie K-9, starring Harrison Ford.
Eventually, the two sides reached a second strike capability and achieved MAD (mutually assured destruction). Reagan with his star wars pushed the Soviets into breakup and the US on the way to the same. But madcap Bush Jr. Opted to renege on the ABM treaty and started building up a ballistic missile defense.

It is a major offensive not defensive weapon because it allows one side to neutralize and counter missiles attacking it, while leaving its own missiles intact and the other side vulnerable. No wonder Russia and China are upset. The reality is that experts have serious doubts about the effectiveness of a BMD system. This and the attack on Iraq and Libya explains why North Korea and Iran are going nuclear to counter the US and Israel (both for Iran and only US for North Korea). It also explains why India went nuclear to counter China and Pakistan went nuclear to counter India. India’s development of BMD is pushing Pakistan to develop or borrow from China, nuclear tipped cruise missiles, which are invulnerable to BMD because of their low altitude trajectory and short distance between Pakistan and India.

This is why India is more interested in Israeli BMD technology as Israel also faces hostile neighbors immediately adjacent, and needs to neutralize that threat. This also raises an important point about foreign policy and the conflict between principles and realpolitik. For decades after 1947, India under the stupid policies of Nehru tried to pander to its own Muslim minority and other Islamic states even though some of the first and most of the second constantly favored Pakistan on the basis of a common religion. As a matter of truth and justice, it supported the Palestinian cause. It took a long time before the fluorescent light in the minds of its leaders finally lit up and it played the Israeli card to improve its military strength and technology.

The problem India faces is the one that the US falsely applies to Iran by claiming that its government is fanatic and irrational and will nuke Israel or America. The real fanatic irrational and crazy ones are Pakistan, its government, armed forces and population, with its lighted nuclear missile replicas in major cities and suicide bombers and terrorists bent on dying and killing. A joke widely circulated on the internet describes a depressed suicidal American worker bankrupted by the economy and job loss, calling the suicide hot line for help. Unbeknownst to him, the local city government in the US has outsourced the service to a Pakistani call center. The depressed American tells the Pakistani psychologist that he wants to die by committing suicide. Instead of supportive sympathy, the American hears a chuckle and laughter and a query from Pakistan asking whether the American can drive a truck?

There is another US military strategy from which the world can draw worrisome conclusions. The US is buying hundreds of the newest Global Hawk reconnaissance and armed drones at 220 million dollars a piece. This is substantially more than the price of most of its current combat aircraft and almost equal to the F-22 price. These newer Northrop planes can be controlled from Nevada but need to take off near to the target zone, like the Pakistani airbase for Afghanistan and FATA, and Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for Yemen and Somalia. It is also developing a similar plane which can take off from a carrier or a ship, which could be placed in the Persian Gulf near Iran in case it is unable to get an agreement for bases in Afghanistan and Iraq. It already has long range stealth bombers at Diego Garcia in the Indian ocean. It is also spending nearly ten billion dollars a year to equip and maintain a JSOC (joint special operations command) force of over 60,000 which is currently carrying out night raids in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

These forces are of no use within the US or in Europe or in any war against a regular army of any nation. Thus it will be used to fight insurgencies and terrorists and thus mainly in the Middle East and North Africa. This explains the US strategy of a thousand foreign bases and lily pads. Any country whose neighbor has given the US such military facilities would be vulnerable to aerial assassination or assassination squads. Pakistan which has given the US such facilities is itself not immune from such attacks. India has nothing to fear from all this at present, but should be wary of a closer embrace and the risk of alienating Russia, which is helping it with the FGFA and nuclear ATV. India should be friendly with the US as the two have many common interests, but a suffocating embrace would only hurt India because the US is hell bent on world military dominance and its own caliphate, even at the cost of economic meltdown, bankruptcy and impoverishment of its own citizens.

A final example and analysis is that of China’s strategic foresight. While America was still reeling from a stalemated war in Korea following WW2, China smartly took over Tibet, betting that the US and Britain were unlikely to open another front in another war. By doing this it markedly increased its landmass, got a border next to Afghanistan and Pakistan. It made Pakistan cede a portion of Kashmir. By these actions it achieved a control over the headwaters of its own rivers and those of India and Pakistan (Indus), Bangladesh, India (Brahmaputra), Vietnam, Cambodia (Mekong), Burma (Irawaddy) and Thailand (Salween). Then when the US and the Soviet Union were involved in a nuclear standoff, it attacked India in 1962, knowing that they would be too preoccupied to help India. It then went nuclear in 1964 and got grandfathered as a nuclear state and NPT founding member, while foolish Nehru turned down the American offer to India for China’s permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

In timely fashion it abandoned and alienated the Soviet Union which was threatening it, by cuddling up to America under foolish Nixon. It used the new relation to build up a three trillion dollar reserve and convert America to a bankrupt debtor. It gave Pakistan arms and nuclear weapons to stunt India’s growth and ambition and now claims Arunachal Pradesh, gives separable visas to Indian Kashmiris, challenging India’s claim to Kashmir.

It is going to build a rail line to Gwadar from Sinkiang and may develop a string of pearls naval bases to surround India. It has begun deep ocean mining in the Indian ocean. It has built rail lines right up to the Indian border and even in Nepal. Our idiot leaders did not even build roads or rail lines in the northeast and failed to maintain airbases along the Chinese border. Their insanely idiotic strategic thinking was that such roads or rails would allow a Chinese offensive to thrust even deeper into India after a successful invasion, as they had failed to adequately provide defensive capability to our armed forces. The current UPA government delayed purchase of aircraft, ships, tanks and instead spent money on enriching the ministers. Our foolish present prime minister announced that China’s building of a dam on the Brahmaputra would not hurt India, as the fluid in his brain would more than compensate for any water loss. Furthermore the prime minister wants to concentrate on appeasing Pakistan by open borders, to ease any inconvenience to those terrorists who desire to blow up the cities of India.

In the meantime China is flush with money to rescue the sinking periphery of Europe and US economy, buy technology and hack and steal what it cannot buy (recent McAfee report) and it is time for the bamboos to flower in Mizoram (when every 48 years there is a rat proliferation induced famine).

The modified version of the eighth verse in the fourth chapter (adhyaya) of the Gita – "paritranaya pakistananam (sadhunam) vinasaya ca murkham (dushkrutam) adharma-samsthapanarthaya (no a) sambhavami yuge yuge" - Whereas the original Verse from the Gita reads as: "paritranaya sadhunam vinshaye cha dushkrtaam dharma-samsthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge".

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Will NaMo Wave 'Peak' Before RaGa Fortunes 'Sinks'?

By Percy Mistry (Guest Writer)

Here we go again! The 2004 elections surprised everyone (the BJP most) when India discovered that it wasn’t shining after all. 2009 was not as big a surprise. India’s growth in 2005-2008 was stellar, despite endemic corruption and creeping policy paralysis. 

In the midst of the worst global econo-financial meltdown in eighty years, Indians voted for safe continuity. But they got something different from 2009 to 2013 – self-inflicted economic implosion, resulting from capricious mismanagement of the Indian macroeconomy by the PMO, ministry of finance (MoF) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), accompanied by runaway, scam-after-scam, corruption! 

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

GRIM FACTS: WHAT'S BEHIND A GLASS OF MILK?

By M H Ahssan / Hyderabad

INN throws light on some grim details about the cow in India, the world’s largest producer of milk.

You know that child who throws a terrible tantrum over a glass of milk. How he kicks and screams and refuses to touch the stuff? Haven’t you wondered what the fuss is all about? After all, it’s just a glass of milk.

It turns out the child may just have the right idea. The business of producing milk — indeed, the multi-crore rupee cattle industry it’s a part of — is sustained by a process of relentless cruelty towards animals, from birth till death, with little letup. Cruelty compounded by poorly defined, poorly implemented methods and gross violations.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

'Big Gains Likely For BJP, NDA In Lok Sabha Polls; Big Drop For UPA, Congress' - Election 2013 In Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh & Mizoram

By Kajol Singh / INN Live

The wave in favour of the BJP in the coming Assembly Elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh is clear. The question is: what impact will this vote shift towards the BJP have on the General Elections next year? 

To find out, the estimates made by INN Live and CSDS Pre-Poll survey in these three states and in Delhi - where a hung Assembly is likely - for the Assembly Elections were projected across the Parliamentary constituencies in these states. And the outcome shows that the BJP's star is very much in the ascendance. 

Saturday, February 28, 2009

The Devil In The Backyard

By M H Ahssan

The Zardari Government is making peace with the Taliban which is hanging amputated bodies from electric poles. HNN analyses the dangers for Pakistan.

The one time tourist heaven of Swat looks like a ghost valley today. The people have still not recovered from the gory nightmare that was unleashed by the local Taliban. The last one-and-a-half year has seen a population of 1.5 million people being held hostage by a ragtag force of some 2,500 Taliban. They are under the leadership of Maulvi Fazalullah, popularly known as Mullah Radio for his jihad-inflected sermons, aired through his illegal FM radio. Fazalullah’s men have fought bloody battles with the army over the past two years. They virtually took control of most of Swat last year. Over 1,200 civilians have died so far and around 350,000 hapless locals forced to leave through rough mountain terrain.

The rich have left for Peshawar — 70 miles away, and the richer for more posh Islamabad — 100 miles in the south. The poor, with no place to go, suffered the trauma that makes Hollywood horrors look like a picnic. Intelligence sources dubbed as ‘spies’ and government officials — particularly from law-enforcing agencies — were specifically targeted by the Taliban. They were abducted and maimed and their killing turned into a gruesome spectacle in order to send a message to others.

The reign of terror is symbolised by what has come to be known as Khooni Chowk — the Crossing of Blood. A band of Taliban would, late at night, block the central crossing in the city centre of Mingora, the district headquarters the size of Srinagar and no less beautiful. They hung amputated bodies — some headless — on an electrical pole in the middle of the crossing, with notes giving their name and details of their ‘misdeeds’ against Islam. The bodies were not to be removed before a given date. Anybody violating this dictat could do so only at the risk of being himself put up headless.

THIS SCENE — perpetuated for days and weeks — is not from the Wild West of the cowboys. It happened in the Swat valley, which once took pride in having the most peaceful and bettereducated residents not just in the frontier province alone, but all over Pakistan. The princely state — annexed by Pakistan in 1969 — had better schools, hospitals and police stations than anybody else. It had an airport, and attractions like ski resorts and trout fishing on the meandering River Swat, which used to attract hordes of tourists every year. No more.

A majority of the police force has either run away, resigned or simply not turned up for work. Local newspapers are filled with advertisements from policemen declaring that they have left their jobs, and hence they be spared “in the name of their small children.” A new force of 600 locals was recruited for special commando training to combat what is actually an insurgency. The story goes that 450 of them disappeared during the training itself, and another 148 did not appear on the date of joining. The two men left in the force have not ventured outside their office in uniform since.

This left the entire populace at the mercy of the wolves that are masquerading as saviours of religion. People have seen throats being slit. Those who violate the Taliban code are either lashed or hanged in public jirgas (gatherings). Events where masked gunmen with the latest weaponry went on the rampage were skillfully orchestrated, and then their videos released in order to instill fear in the public. This took a severe toll on the psyche of the public, already hard pressed thanks to unemployment and hunger.

Life has come to a standstill for 80 percent of the people whose earnings came from tourism. Orchids have become rotten in the absence of labour and markets; and the fields lie barren. People go without fire, food, and electricity for days. The only cinema in Mingora was forced to down shutters, television and music has been banned, and CD shops have been closed. Even barbershops were shutdown as shaving, according to the interpretation of the Taliban, is un-Islamic.

It has been particularly hard for women, children and the handicapped because of the problems of age or sickness. Over 200 schools have been blown up as they were giving “western education.” Girls are barred from schooling. Over 100,000 Swati girls stand to lose their chance of education and, consequently, any career or professional life. This is happening in a place where the ratio of women in literacy and the job market was one of the highest in the province. The new edict may allow girls an education till the fourth grade, but with a revised curriculum. Also, they must always wear scarves on their heads. In any case, it will take awhile as most schools have been destroyed.

Women have been rendered prisoner in their own homes as they are now barred from going out in public, something that even Saudi Arabia has not tried. The central bazaar for women — with items like cosmetics and bangles, when partially open — today gives an image of a haunted place without shoppers. But then, cosmetics are a lesser priority when your children sleep hungry. Women are not allowed to work. Even women doctors are not permitted to carry on with their jobs. Stories abound where women lost babies because of the non-availability of doctors. Many others have died because of the lack of medicines and medical treatment.

The question is — how did over a million people accept the inhuman dictates of a bunch of jihadi thugs who do not fit into any Islamic school of thought? Well, they have not. They voted liberal parties to power in the last election. But these parties did not have either the political muscle, or the will, to protect them from the evil of the Taliban.

But how did the Taliban gain ascendancy? The system of justice under the princely state was more efficient than what followed. The people, therefore, wanted Sharia courts to be established as a way of achieving quick justice and dispensing with the long delays and corruption of the civil courts. But the Taliban, who had a different agenda, hijacked their demand. For ordinary people, in the absence of the writ of the state, it’s just a matter of choosing a lesser evil.

All hopes now hinge upon Maulana Sufi Mohammad, the father-in-law of Fazalullah. Sufi Mohammad is no angel himself. He is a radical cleric freed in 2008 after spending six years in jail for leading 10,000 Pashtun tribesmen to fight the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Nearly 7,000 died in the bombing and he ran back for his life. The people whose children he took with him after indoctrinating them, leading to their being killed, hate him. He has now been resurrected in order to persuade Fazalullah to accept the government’s offer of a ceasefire, which he has agreed to partially. How long this respite will last, only time will tell.

The ceasefire agreement with the Taliban has raised questions as to whether it is a victory for the Pakistan Government, capitulation before the Taliban who want to recreate a 1,500-year-old replica of Islamic rule, or a strategic retreat by the military.

IT IS ironic that Frontier Chief Minister Ameer Khan Hoti, the great grandson of the champion of nonviolence, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan — the Frontier Gandhi — has signed the agreement. He has justified it saying, “I have done this to stop violence and to fulfill my electoral promise of restoring peace.” His uncle and Awami National Party Chief Asfand Yar Wali — whose party runs the troubled province bordering Afghanistan — is under attack from the Taliban. He survived a suicide bomb attack three months ago while most of his party members are on the run because of constant threats to their life.

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Government at the Centre is playing it safe. President Asif Zardari’s position is that he will decide when the agreement will come to him for his signature. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood has tried to pacify the Americans while on a tour of Washington, saying, “it’s a local remedy to a local problem.” The PPP has neither accepted the agreement nor rejected it. Obviously, the PPP Government would like to see what the outcome will be in a couple of months, if not earlier, before taking a stand. In the meantime, PPP spinmasters are arguing that the Sharia courts are not the same as strict Islamic law. The new laws, for instance, would not ban education of women or impose other strict tenets espoused by the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

LIBERAL CIRCLES in Pakistan and abroad are fuming over what they call “the sellout.” Some, like human rights activist Iqbal Haider, have described it as a deal with the devil. “How can you sit with the very people who have maimed hundreds of people,” he protested. “It’s a matter of principle which should be supreme. These people should be tried for crimes against humanity.”

The liberals have a valid argument that the agreement will now be a model for the rest of the Taliban. They will demand similar Sharia in other parts of the province. “Now they know that militancy is the way to coerce the government into submission,” said senior analyst Saleem Khilji. They have a point, as the agreement extends the scope of their power. The government has conceded that the new Sharia will be extended beyond Swat to the other five districts of Malakand division also.

The Pakistan Army has taken refuge behind the government, saying that it is following orders to stay out till further notice. They should be the happiest lot if this agreement were to result in peace. They have taken the brunt of the fight. Media reports say army casualties number more than a hundred dead but the Taliban claims that it might be much higher.

The issue is that the Pakistan Army has been trained to fight with India, and it may not be comfortable with counterinsurgency operations. It does not have sufficient experience of that except for the Balochistan insurgency in the 1970s, unlike its Indian rival, which has consistently countered insurgencies in Kashmir, Nagaland and Mizoram.

The army will remain stationed in Swat to deal with the fallout. The underlying assumption is that either Sufi Mohammad will deliver peace or fight with his son-inlaw. This will be a tactical victory. Instead of the army fighting the Taliban, it would be the militants fighting each other.

But then there is a counter-theory — the two factions might use the time to regroup, consolidate their power and fight later with even more ferocity. There are already signs of this happening. An indicator is that the price of arms in the tribal belt has almost doubled because of the massive demand.

In any case, the agreement is simply not implementable. Each party has a different interpretation of it. The governments in the Frontier and Islamabad think that the Sharia court is old wine in a new bottle. Sufi Mohammad believes that his mandate is to provide Sharia courts where religious scholars will be independent judges and not advisers to the regular civil judges like in the earlier agreement of six years ago. “The choice of judges will be ours and they will be all-powerful,” said Maulana Izzat, spokes man of Sufi Mohammad, in a telephonic interview.

Fazalullah wants the complete domination of the Sharia, encompassing all sectors beyond the judiciary. “We shall run the entire area in accordance with the holy book, “countered Muslim Khan, another spokesman for Fazalullah. “We don’t accept any system but our own and will inshallah spread it to other parts of Pakistan very soon.”

The legal and administrative intricacies involved in merging the old system with the new are something beyond these clerics. The Taliban have simply ceased fire but not surrendered. Both sides are waiting for the next round to start with bated breath. It almost came to that when a newly-appointed senior district official was kidnapped by militants two days after the ceasefire. After a tense standoff lasting hours, the official, Kushal Khan, was freed.

Later, it was disclosed that his release had been the result of a swap: Pakistani authorities released two militants who had been picked up a day earlier in Peshawar. Next time around, it is possible that some freed militants like this might renew the fighting while both sides continue to sit in the trenches.

Swat is different from other trouble spots like Bahaur, Waziristan and Khyber. It is the only trouble spot that is not a federal (FATA) but a provincial tribal area (PATA). It is wrong to generalise about the Taliban and the Swat situation in particular.

FAZALULLAH, A barely-literate former lift operator, was an indigenous product. He does not come from the ranks of Taliban or Al-Qaeda, but was later accepted by them and adopted as the commander of the area looking after his hold in the area. It is only in Swat that schools have been closed in an organised manner, otherwise the Taliban have not done so in FATA, except for occasional episodes. The Taliban have generally refrained from killing hostages, except for spies or the recent Polish engineer in Waziristan. The Swat Talibans have slit throats of hostages and security forces with ruthless abandon.

Swat is the only place which has been completely taken over by the Taliban. This may be because of its geography — it is a bowl-shaped valley. The Swat terrain makes it strategically easier for Taliban to hold power against numerical odds. There is one major communication artery along the Swat River that could easily be blocked from anywhere. In Bajaur, Khyber and Waziristan, the Taliban are dominant, but they do not run those agencies. Swat is also the only hotspot that does not border Afghanistan. In fact, it remained aloof and generally peaceful during the war with Afghanistan.

Swat has a past of peace and culture where thousands thronged from all over Pakistan and abroad every summer. Its capital, Mingora, happens to be much bigger than any other town in any of the troubled agencies.

Also, it houses the elite of Pashtun tribes, and is the abode of the royal, sophisticated Yousafzais of Tana, whereas the other agencies have a history of warring tribes. The impact of Swat’s takeover, like in the classical Clausewitzian centre of gravity, has been immense on the psyche of Pashtuns.

If the impression goes out that it’s a victory for the Taliban, it will encourage militancy elsewhere, in the rest of Pakistan. It becomes more alarming when seen in the larger context where the Waziristan commanders, pro-Pakistan Mullah Nazir and anti-state Baitullah Mehsud, along with Haji Gul Bahadur, have patched up differences in Waziristan to become a formidable force; Bajaur Taliban now expect similar Sharia in their area, and Hamimullah is blocking NATO supplies in Khyber. The Taliban seem to be on the ascendant, which should be a source of worry for not just Pakistan, but also the entire region and the world.

If the social fabric continues to be torn apart as it has in Swat, this will lead to the rise of more non-state actors who are not under the control of anyone. Since all of these commanders are connected to each other, including the militants in Kashmir, the genie is threatening to become ever more dangerous. The question is not just about the outcome of the investigation into the Mumbai attack. A more serious question is: what will happen if there is another attack of a similar nature?

(With inputs from Syed Saleem Shehzad & Maria Zuber Khan in Pakistan)

Saturday, April 13, 2013

India Is Asia’s Dharamshala – Why Not Learn To Love It?

The benevolence of politicians and bureaucrats is sometimes no benevolence at all. For some time now, there has been a trickle of Hindus from Pakistan coming to India on short-term visas, but their real purpose has never been in doubt: to flee discrimination and violence against Hindus in Pakistan.

Earlier this week, the home ministry granted a one-month visa extension to 480 Pakistani Hindus who have been seeking permanent resident status here.  An Indian Express report quoted a ministry official thus: “They will not be deported. Since it takes time to take any decision on their appeals, we have extended their visas for a month.”

Sorry, sir, this is no longer about 480 people. For the last 65 years, India has been facing an influx of people fleeing either religious persecution or ethnic strife or economic conditions in all our neighbouring countries. But we have simply refused to evolve a policy to address all these issues. We want to do everything on a case-by-case basis, or, better still, ignore the problem till it gets resolved illegally: by people acquiring Indian residency by stealth.

Given the numbers of illegal migrants – perhaps running into millions now – we have probably become the world’s biggest dharamshala, but that is something to be proud of. It validates the idea of inclusive India. What we cannot be proud of is that we have allowed this to happen by accident and exception, rather than by a clear-sighted policy.

Our inward immigration policy is a mess. We have separate policies (or default approaches) for Tibetans, for Nepalese, for Sri Lankan Tamils, for Bangladeshis, for Pakistani Hindus and for the rest. Then there are Muslim Rohingyas from Myanmar and Afghans (a motley group comprising Sikhs, Hindus and even Muslims) and what not – and we don’t have a clue what to do with them.

For a country that was artificially partitioned in 1947, it should have been obvious that people will migrate here and there. As a secular alternative to all our less-than-secular neighbours, we have always known that immigration will be more inward and less outward. As a democratic oasis in a largely undemocratic or autocratic south Asian region, we should have had policies to accept refugees fleeing persecution.

As a rapidly globalising country, we have known since 1991 that Indian companies need to recruit foreign professionals to work here just as we expect foreign governments to allow Indians to work in their countries.

But what we have now is a patchwork and illogical system that has been adapted to exigencies of specific situations at specific times.

The Tibetans were allowed in in Nehru’s time. But do we have a policy in case it finally becomes clear that they will never get an autonomous state inside China and can’t return? What if they have to stay here permanently? Will they be given full Indian citizenship?

The Nepalese, under the 1950 India-Nepal Friendship Treaty, are allowed almost free access inside India – almost like Indian citizens. This is the most liberal policy we have with our neighbours, and has remained on the statute book even though our political relationship with Nepal has gone from good to uncertain after the Communists entered government and ended the Hindu monarchy.

When it comes to Bangladesh, we have three policies – or non-policies: one for Assam, another for some north-eastern states, and yet another for the rest.

Under the Assam Accord of 1985, anyone who came to Assam before 1 January 1966 will be allowed to stay and become Indian citizens. Those who came between this date and 24 March 1971 were to be detected but not deported. They would be deleted from electoral rolls, but could get back after 10 years. The rest were to be detected and deported.

The accord has more or less been a dead letter, since politicians in need of immigrant votes refused to implement it. As for the remaining north-eastern states, migration is either fully illegal and politically accepted, or we have restrictions that apply even to Indian citizens.

In Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, Indians need inner line permits to visit those states even as tourists. The Bangladeshis who enter India traipse around tribal Meghalaya, but have found an easy perch in Tripura. Together with pre-1947 migration, they have relegated the locals to minority status. As for Kashmir, Indians can tour the state but can’t buy property or settle there. Even if they marry Kashmiris, they can’t acquire property there.

As for potential workers and immigrants from the rest of the world, we have the most restrictive policy on board, where the intention is to debar foreigners from working here – unless they earn more than $25,000 per annum. This rules out any kind of work visa for foreigners in India beyond highly qualified technical personnel or short-term consultants – so forget about allowing for easy migration.

As a liberal, democratic country, India has an obligation to run a truly liberal and open immigration policy that does not discriminate. This is a country that took in persecuted people from ancient times to the modern era (Zoroastrians, Jews, Tibetans). We have even accepted invaders as our own.

This should be the broad backdrop against which we should frame a unified immigration and work permit policy. The policy should include the following:

First, we must have a clear policy for taking in refugees from persecution. It does not matter which religion or ethnic group the person belongs to. It is ironic that political parties are willing to plead the case of Bangladeshi Muslims, who can only be chasing economic opportunities here, but not Hindu refugees from Pakistan. At a later stage, we should be willing to take in even Muslim refugees from Pakistan – for who knows what will happen if the Taliban takes over Pakistan? Obviously, this policy needs safeguards, but if there is a will, we can put one in place.

Second, we must have a system of regularising long-term migrants who are settled here. The Assam accord specifically provided for that, but we didn’t implement it. We neither put in place an impenetrable fence to keep future immigrants out nor a system of formally recognising the Bangladeshis’ need to find work here – through a system of work permits or guest workers with no citizenship rights.

Third, India needs to work out a free-movement agreement (especially for tourism and work) with all its neighbours barring Pakistan. Setting a high salary limit of $25,000 for work permits may be all right for westerners, but not for our neighbours in South Asia. The threshold needs to be much lower.

Fourth, residency permits and citizenship norms need to be easier. Currently, it takes 12 years for a foreigner to get citizenship by naturalisation, and seven years if they are married to an Indian citizen. One wonders why this waiting period needs to be so long. Seven years is too long a wait for a marriage to be seen as legitimate enough to warrant grant of citizenship to the foreign spouse.

Isn’t it high time we opened our front doors to the world instead of winking at their entry through the back door?

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

In Manipur 'Migrants' Are Soft Targets Of Terror Groups

Manipur has been a state plagued by insurgency for decades. People here still live on razor's edge, sandwiched between the insurgent and the security forces and often become prey of violence and get hit in cross fire in counter insurgency operation.

Manipur’s capital Imphal is once again in news for violence. In the latest violence, three daily-wage labourers were killed, while four others were injured seriously when a very powerful Improvised Explosive Device (IED) went off in  a bus stand in the heart of Imphal city.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Asia faces growing rice crisis

By M Raja & M H Ahsan
An Indian government ban of rice exports has plunged neighboring Bangladesh into crisis, in a grim preview of growing global grain shortages. Leading rice-exporting nations such as India and Vietnam are reducing sales overseas to check domestic price rises. Previously healthy buffer stocks in the world's largest rice exporter, Thailand, are shrinking. The February 7 ban by India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry intensifies a worldwide rice shortage that according to the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization drove up prices by nearly 40% last year.

Large rice importers such as Myanmar, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia are worst affected. An additional 50 million tonnes of rice is needed each year up to 2015 to plug the demand-supply gap, according to the Manila-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), equivalent to a 9% annual production increase from current levels of 520 million tonnes. Intensifying price pressures, additional agricultural land for growing rice, a dietary staple for more than half the world's 6.6 billion people, is extremely limited, say analysts, while rice consumption is growing worldwide and wheat stocks are hitting record lows. The US Department of Agriculture has reported three-decade lows in wheat stocks, and India - Asia's largest wheat producer - expects lower production for 2008.

Unregulated private cross-border trading makes exact figures hard to come by, says Duncan Macintosh, director of the IRRI, told HNN from his Manila office. "Besides, Asian governments have a strategic interest in rice stocks and any declared shortage will send prices shooting up," Macintosh says. India's rice export ban seems born out of such price rice fears, and comes at a sensitive time ahead of the final annual budget to be presented by the ruling United Progressive Alliance government on February 28 before the country's general election next year. India's ban on rice exports follows a gradual limiting by the government of exports over the past few months. In October 2007, rice exports priced under $425 per tonne were banned and on December 31 the floor price rose to $505 a tonne. The February 7 ban extended to all exports of rice except government-to-government trading, but excludes exports of basmati rice, a more fragrant, long-grained and expensive variety.

The government will supply a previously committed 500,000 tonnes of non-basmati parboiled rice to Bangladesh at an average of US $399 per tonne, excluding insurance and freight. The exemption was not much consolation to Bangladesh, which desperately needs food grains after Cyclone Sidr in December destroyed $600 million worth of the country's rice crop. Rice prices soared 70%, hitting hard a population in which the majority survive on less than $1 a day. In the rare years that the country is free of climatic disasters, Bangladesh produces 28 million tonnes of food grains, meeting 95% of domestic needs.

To cope with the rice crisis, the Bangladesh government in January floated global tender notices for 300,000 tonnes of various varieties of rice. The country is also importing 180,000 tonnes of white rice from neighboring Myanmar. The Kolkata-based national daily The Statesman reported that India's export ban caused 300 rice trucks to be stranded in India-Bangladesh border zones such as Mahedipur land customs station in English Bazaar and other land ports in West Bengal. Rice traders on both sides face losses and are threatening to take to the streets if the Indian government does not reconsider the ban.

Worse, in a repeat of a disaster that last struck in 1959, a famine threatens remote areas of southeast Bangladesh after millions of rats devastated food crops as the rodents reproduced in dramatic numbers following a flowering of bamboo forests that happens every 50 years. The rat breeding out-paces the bamboo flower growth, and soon the animals turn to ravaging rice stalks and vegetables in the affected region. Northeastern India has been similarly hit after bamboo forests in Mizoram began blossoming in 2007. Local authorities declared the area a disaster zone but the Indian government has not yet announced plans to combat this bi-century rat storm. Long-term trends and short-term shocks are both putting pressure on rice prices.

Higher incomes across Asia are leading to increased consumption of grains and vegetables and of meat, which leads to more grain being diverted for use as cattle fodder. Production of biofuel further squeezes supply, while the drift off the land by workers and into industry curbs the supply of labor. "There is less land, less water and less labor available for rice growing across Asia," says Macintosh. "Agricultural labor in countries like Thailand is increasingly shifting to industrial sectors. And rice is the most labor- and water-intensive crop." In the shorter term, prices can spike as natural disasters ranging from severe drought and floods cause havoc on agriculture. The recent three-week snow storms in China caused $7.5 billion in damages, according to early government estimates, including destruction of winter crops leading to a $700 million relief package for farmers. Asian countries are making different responses to domestic and international demand.

Vietnam in the third quarter last year suspended exports to protect domestic needs amid insect epidemics, while in the other direction Thailand plans to auction an additional 500,000 tonnes of rice to cater to increasing international demand, particularly from Bangladesh and Pakistan. Thailand exported 800,000 tonnes of rice in January 2008, a 25% year-on-year increase. As a long-term measure, food scientists are developing sturdier varieties of rice that can withstand climate challenges as well as higher yielding seeds. Asia averages 3.6 tonnes of rice per hectare, according to the IRRI.

Better yielding varieties will increase average output to six tonnes per hectare, particularly in Thailand, which grows rice across 9.8 million hectares but has the lowest rate of output in Asia - 2.6 tonnes of rice yield per hectare in the planet's largest area of land made available for rice cultivation. In contrast, China's produces six tonnes of rice per hectare and Japan has the global record at 6.2 tonnes. The world's leading philanthropists are pitching in to combat the rising grain crisis, similar to supporting cancer and AIDS research. Leading the way, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates in January announced a grant of $19.9 million over three years to the IRRI.

The grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation aims to first help 400,000 small farmers in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa access improved rice varieties and better growing technology. Farmers may increase yields by 50% by 2018, but "there are no short-term solutions," says Macintosh of the IRRI.

Friday, April 11, 2014

'Of the Voter, By the Voter, For the Voter': Indian Elections

By Aalia Nazneen | INNLIVE

SPECIAL REPORT After the date 16th May 2014 is arbitrated as the judgment day, the ballots from Five Hundred Forty Three (543) parliamentary constituencies will come together to decide the contender for the Prime Ministerial seat in Lok Sabha parliament.

To clamp down on illegal or wayward action, Election Council of India has ensured that the voting is carried out in nine long phases starting from 7th April 2014 to 12th May 2014. With such a schedule, this proves to be the longest election in Indian history till date.

This year Election Commission of India (ECI) has launched a few IT centered initiatives to appeal to voters of all groups alike to cast their ballot and exercise their franchise. Last year’s Ananda Babu has been altered to Ananya this year, which is an audio-visual campaign run by the Election Commission of India.

Wednesday, May 01, 2013

LITERACY ON THE RISE AND SEX RATIO BETTER IN INDIA

By M H Ahssan / Hyderabad

This is one slump in growth rate that the nation can rejoice over. According to Census 2001- 2011, India’s population has grown at 17.7 per cent as against 21.5 per cent in the previous decade.

The country’s population at present is 1.21 billion, an increase of 181.96 million since 2001. What is even more comforting for the country’s planners is the fact that female growth rate has been better than male growth rate. The male population has gone up by 90.97 million, against a rise of 90.99 in the population of females over the last 10 years.

The rate of growth of the female population is 18.3 per cent, while the male growth rate stands at 17.1 per cent, according to the final census released by Union Home Ministry.

While there has been a 3.8 per cent drop in the overall growth rate, there is still scope for improvement as 14 states and Union Territories have registered over 20 per cent growth in population figures. Among the major states, Bihar has recorded the highest decadal growth in population ( 25.4 per cent), surpassing West Bengal, which occupied the first position in 1991- 2001.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

TERROR HAVEN: THE NASTY AND THE NORTHEAST

By M H Ahssan / Shillong

Manir Khan's 'operational area' was Assam. The sub-inspector with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence had executed two 'assignments' in the state. But he was third time unlucky, as Indian sleuths nabbed him from west Tripura in July 2010. 

Khan told interrogators that his duty was to ferry back “quality information” for better “tactical appreciation” of cross-national issues to his masters in Pakistan. In his initial visits, Khan had carried out “feasibility recces” of the Tripura corridor connecting Bangladesh-Tripura and Assam, says an interrogation report. 

Wednesday, January 02, 2013

Does Indian higher education system need an Ombudsman?


In the beginning of 2012 the former Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Kapil Sibal had initiated a debate by mooting the idea for appointment of Ombudsman for higher education institutions under the grievance redressal system. The Ministry passed executive order for the centrally funded institutions which includes central universities, IITs, IIMs and NITs, and deemed universities. As per the order every institution is required to have an ombudsman – a person with judicial or legal experience.
The Ombudsman will have the power to instruct the institution to take corrective measures on complaints of students regarding denial of admission, non-observance of declared merit in admission, with-holding of documents and non-refund of fees in case of withdrawal of admission. Few months back former Minister of state for HRD, D. Purandeswari in Rajya Sabha answering to the question of appointment of Ombudsman has stated that, “University Grants Commission, All India Council for Technical Education and National Council for Teacher Education have been requested to establish a grievance redressal mechanism for students and applicants for admission in higher educational institutions under their regulatory control. This mechanism includes appointment of Ombudsman also for redressal of students’ grievances.” 
Though, the order was passed by the Ministry it is still to get Parliament approval and thus has not been implemented on ground. India Education Review discussed the issue with some of the heads of institutions on the need for an Ombudsman and his role. 
Need for an Ombudsman: The need for an Ombudsman is being felt for the higher education system in India is because of its tremendous growth in terms of number of institutions just to increase the gross enrolment ratio. In doing this we forgot about quality, relevance and excellence and this lead to massive commercialisation of education which has lead to a scenario in which anybody with money can buy degrees while those with talent and qualification have to run from one institution to other to get admission.
Prof. PB Sharma, Vice Chancellor, Delhi Technological University talking to India Education Review said, “The purpose of education is not merely to award the degrees but to create an army of capable men and women who shall possess besides capabilities, human values for development of the society. This noble objective requires that the institutions and universities should be established and managed by people of letters and of high moral and ethical wisdom. It is expected of them to desist from any deviation from ethical and moral foundation of education, no matter how compelling the circumstances or situations may be, but we find the just opposite in most cases.”
“Institutions and universities especially under the disguise of public-private partnership or under private ownership have been allowed to be set-up by those who could muster financial and political support. This has created the present unhealthy and unfair environment in higher education in the country. We all know very well that once we allow the rot to set in, it creates an environment for mediocrity to flourish. We can have an Ombudsman provided we are able to specify the domains and duties to the Ombudsman for his exercise of controls, even preventive measures to stop the growth of mediocrity and establishment of sub-standard institutions,” added Prof. Sharma.
There are many government run institutions that are against the idea of appointment of Ombudsman over themselves as they feel that they have very transparent system and they feel that it is needed in case of private institutions. They also feel that central government of any of its agencies will not be able to frame rules and guidelines for it as different institutions have their own issues, history and serving different segment of society.
Dr. MM Salunkhe, Vice Chancellor, Central University of Rajasthan is of the view that, “the topic has not been debated properly and there is need to debate upon it in detail as it is a very wide topic. As far as government run universities are concerned, particularly the central universities we follow a very transparent system at each and every step. Ombudsman is required for private institutions as they flout and twist the norms. The other problem is who will make the rules and define the role of Ombudsman because every university is different and unique in itself and what rule will be good mine will not be good for some other universities. Thus, I am not very much in favour of this post for the universities until the role of Ombudsman is clearly defined.” 
Whom to appoint? There is also huge debate on the topic that who should appointed to this post as a section of educationist feel that the person to be appointed for the post should be from education fraternity as any outsider will not have the understanding of the huge education system that India has. While the other section feels that the person should be from judicial background as he would be less biased with least vested interest. The concern of both the section is genuine and but the ministry has chosen the second option to appoint a person with judicial or legal background. The institute would have to appoint him from a panel suggested by the affiliating university in case of technical and management institutions and the Central Government in case of deemed universities.
According to Prof. PB Sharma “The man of iron will with the highest credentials of scholarship, administrative capabilities, a vision and commitment to build quality higher education for his motherland. He should also understand that it has not mere teaching or coaching that makes higher education, rather an environment in which education, creative and innovative abilities and opportunities to recognize the value and worth of knowledge and capabilities, technology and knowledge incubation, innovations and new-product development are nurtured is that what should make higher education of today and surely of tomorrow.”
“The tenure of an Ombudsman should be of five years to give him a reasonable time frame to implement the reforms or changes as envisaged. Such an Ombudsman be invariably be appointed by a coliseum comprising of a former Chief Justice of India, an Outstanding present or former Vice Chancellor, an outstanding Civil Servant and an outstanding industrialist,” Prof. Sharma added further.
Prof. R. Lalthanluanga, Vice Chancellor, Mizoram University, is of the view that, “as far as ombudsman is concerned, I do not think that there is any need for government run higher educational institutions like central universities etc. which are self regulated through its ordinances/regulations as per the guidelines of UGC (University Grants Commission) or MHRD. It may be required for private institutions as they do not have very clearly defined regulation. UGC may appoint Ombudsman for such institutions for a period of three years.”
It seems that the Ombudsman is the need of the hour for the vast education system that India has and with arrival of foreign institutions it is even more required. It will only make the Indian institutions rise up to the occasion. The checks and balances and fine tuning can be done by the institutions at their own level along with following the guidelines of MHRD. Ombudsman is seen as a system for grievance redressal of the students while there are provisions in the already existing system it can be further strengthened to make it more transparent. People against this move also feel that one redressal system will lead to another making it a vicious cycle.

Wednesday, July 08, 2015

The World's 'Spiciest & Strong Chilli' Grows In India!

By Hemanshu Rai in Imphal
One of the many things that puzzle people about those from the Northeast is their obsession for bhut jalokia. A fiery chilli that makes them teary eyed. It's so hot that some even cry! But these are only tears of joy. To stop the tears, they quickly take a mouthful of raw sugar! All is well again and they continue eating.

A meal in some parts of the region is hardly complete unless it is laced with hot and sizzling bhut jalokia. The scary-sounding name "bhut jalokia" is a vermilion-coloured chilli pepper which is famed as the world's hottest chilli. In 2007, it was certified by the Guinness World Records as the 'hottest chilli pepper in the world'. In fact, in 2010 the Indian military decided to use this chilli in hand grenades for crowd control.

Thursday, May 08, 2014

Security Personnel: The Planning For A 'Safe' Elections

By Likha Veer | INNLIVE Bureau

Politicians are busy either lauding or criticising Mr. Narendra Modi. We, the junta, are busy clicking selfies at poll booths. And the media is busy deciding if NDA will win over 300 seats or will AAP spoil everyone’s party. Amidst the entire hullabaloo what all of us have overlooked is the contribution of the security personnel deployed across the country.

The voting for 16th Lok Sabha elections has been split into 9 phases for a reason. This is arguably the largest democratic exercise in the entire planet, and ensuring it is safe and secure is a gargantuan challenge.

Friday, January 18, 2013

For A Post-Colonial Congress

Can the century-old party reinvent itself at Jaipur and meet the challenges at its door?

The Congress’s three-day brainstorming conclave – chintan shivir – in Jaipur from today couldn’t have been better timed. The political crisis in Jharkhand presents new possibilities. Meanwhile, nine other states go to the polls in 2013: Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland and Mizoram. The outcome in Congress-ruled Rajasthan and Delhi and BJP-governed Karnataka could provide early clues to the 2014 general elections. 
    
A bruising budget session meanwhile looms. Finance minister P Chidambaram will have to defer around Rs 50,000 crore of Plan expenditure to beyond April 1, 2013 in order to keep the fiscal deficit below 5.5% of GDP. Instructions to cut or defer expenses have already gone out to every Union ministry. But the Congress’s real problem is not economics; it is politics. The precise timing of the 16th Lok Sabha elections will be decided by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati without whose support the UPA government would fall. 
    
At the Jaipur chintan shivir, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi confronts three problems but has solutions to only two. The first problem is the choice of the UPA’s prime ministerial candidate in 2014. If the Congress wins more than 170 seats, the answer is Rahul Gandhi. If it doesn’t, the answer becomes more complicated. The focus will turn to finding an interim CEO for the party to replace Manmohan Singh who will be 82 years old in September 2014. 
    
Singh was leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha between 1998 and 2004 before being elevated to the prime ministership. Sonia may have to pick one from among her senior ministers for a similar role if the Congress can’t form a government in 2014 and it is necessary to sequester Rahul from long-term electoral damage. The chintan shivir will give us a good idea who that CEO could be: the reliable if colourless defence minister A K Antony, the ambitious and controversial P Chidambaram, or a dark horse like the external affairs minister Salman Khurshid.
    
Sonia’s second problem is rebuilding the party organisation in the states from the grassroots. Of the key state assembly elections scheduled to be held in 2013, the Congress is likely to do badly in all except Karnataka where B S Yeddyurappa’s breakaway Karnataka Janata Party and the Janata Dal (S) could create a hung assembly. The BJP faces a rout and the Congress, though lacking a charismatic local leader, may be able to stitch together a coalition government. 
    
Sonia’s third problem is public perception. The UPA is widely regarded as corrupt. It is held responsible for inflation. It has presided over an economic slowdown. And it has encouraged the worst excesses of crony capitalism. The game-changer Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme will provide balm but is not the surgery the Congress needs to redeem public trust. 
    
In 1947 Mahatma Gandhi, freedom achieved, wanted to disband the Congress and form new political organisations to contest free elections. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel agreed. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru did not. Nehru’s view prevailed. In 1969, Indira Gandhi split the Congress to sideline the syndicate of regional satraps led by K Kamaraj and S Nijalingappa. The organisational and state-level decline of the Congress began in 1969 though Indira’s 1971 election victory and the euphoria over the Bangladesh war disguised it for nearly a decade. 
    
Nehru inherited a colonial administration. After Independence, it continued to serve the government in power. Colonial laws had been written to often protect British injustice, not deliver justice to Indians. Many remain cast in stone 150 years later, delaying and denying justice to ordinary Indians. Yet, Nehru did not impose chief ministers on states. The party’s local organisation was given a relatively free hand to choose regional leaders. Indira reversed that policy. She imposed state chief ministers, suspended intra-Congress elections, dismissed opposition state governments under Article 356 and undermined the judiciary. 
    
The important lesson for Sonia to absorb at the chintan shivir in Jaipur is to not follow her mother-in-law’s autocratic policies and hew instead to Nehru’s liberal, transparent leadership. Nehru made many errors: Jammu & Kashmir, China and even sowing the seeds of dynasty by appointing members of his family to high office – from Indira to sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. The last thing the battered Congress needs is to emulate Nehru’s few missteps and ignore the many excellent examples of governance he set. 
    
In 1998, Sonia took charge of a party fraying at the edges. Fifteen years later, having become the longest-serving president in Congress history, the party’s edges have frayed further. In 1999, the Congress won 114 seats in the Lok Sabha, the lowest in its history. To avoid falling below that in 2014, Sonia has to solve the leadership problem, strengthen the organisation at the grassroots in the states and restore public confidence. 
    
With its vast army of workers and an overflowing party treasury, the Congress remains a formidable force. It has been underestimated before – in 1980 and again in 2004 – when it was supposed to lose the general elections but didn’t. It can resolve its first two problems – leadership and reorganising the states – with the right strategies. The third – public perception – may prove more intractable. On that could rest its fate in 2014. 

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Asia faces growing rice crisis

By M Raja & M H Ahsan
An Indian government ban of rice exports has plunged neighboring Bangladesh into crisis, in a grim preview of growing global grain shortages. Leading rice-exporting nations such as India and Vietnam are reducing sales overseas to check domestic price rises. Previously healthy buffer stocks in the world's largest rice exporter, Thailand, are shrinking. The February 7 ban by India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry intensifies a worldwide rice shortage that according to the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization drove up prices by nearly 40% last year.

Large rice importers such as Myanmar, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia are worst affected. An additional 50 million tonnes of rice is needed each year up to 2015 to plug the demand-supply gap, according to the Manila-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), equivalent to a 9% annual production increase from current levels of 520 million tonnes. Intensifying price pressures, additional agricultural land for growing rice, a dietary staple for more than half the world's 6.6 billion people, is extremely limited, say analysts, while rice consumption is growing worldwide and wheat stocks are hitting record lows. The US Department of Agriculture has reported three-decade lows in wheat stocks, and India - Asia's largest wheat producer - expects lower production for 2008.

Unregulated private cross-border trading makes exact figures hard to come by, says Duncan Macintosh, director of the IRRI, told HNN from his Manila office. "Besides, Asian governments have a strategic interest in rice stocks and any declared shortage will send prices shooting up," Macintosh says. India's rice export ban seems born out of such price rice fears, and comes at a sensitive time ahead of the final annual budget to be presented by the ruling United Progressive Alliance government on February 28 before the country's general election next year. India's ban on rice exports follows a gradual limiting by the government of exports over the past few months. In October 2007, rice exports priced under $425 per tonne were banned and on December 31 the floor price rose to $505 a tonne. The February 7 ban extended to all exports of rice except government-to-government trading, but excludes exports of basmati rice, a more fragrant, long-grained and expensive variety.

The government will supply a previously committed 500,000 tonnes of non-basmati parboiled rice to Bangladesh at an average of US $399 per tonne, excluding insurance and freight. The exemption was not much consolation to Bangladesh, which desperately needs food grains after Cyclone Sidr in December destroyed $600 million worth of the country's rice crop. Rice prices soared 70%, hitting hard a population in which the majority survive on less than $1 a day. In the rare years that the country is free of climatic disasters, Bangladesh produces 28 million tonnes of food grains, meeting 95% of domestic needs.

To cope with the rice crisis, the Bangladesh government in January floated global tender notices for 300,000 tonnes of various varieties of rice. The country is also importing 180,000 tonnes of white rice from neighboring Myanmar. The Kolkata-based national daily The Statesman reported that India's export ban caused 300 rice trucks to be stranded in India-Bangladesh border zones such as Mahedipur land customs station in English Bazaar and other land ports in West Bengal. Rice traders on both sides face losses and are threatening to take to the streets if the Indian government does not reconsider the ban.

Worse, in a repeat of a disaster that last struck in 1959, a famine threatens remote areas of southeast Bangladesh after millions of rats devastated food crops as the rodents reproduced in dramatic numbers following a flowering of bamboo forests that happens every 50 years. The rat breeding out-paces the bamboo flower growth, and soon the animals turn to ravaging rice stalks and vegetables in the affected region. Northeastern India has been similarly hit after bamboo forests in Mizoram began blossoming in 2007. Local authorities declared the area a disaster zone but the Indian government has not yet announced plans to combat this bi-century rat storm. Long-term trends and short-term shocks are both putting pressure on rice prices.

Higher incomes across Asia are leading to increased consumption of grains and vegetables and of meat, which leads to more grain being diverted for use as cattle fodder. Production of biofuel further squeezes supply, while the drift off the land by workers and into industry curbs the supply of labor. "There is less land, less water and less labor available for rice growing across Asia," says Macintosh. "Agricultural labor in countries like Thailand is increasingly shifting to industrial sectors. And rice is the most labor- and water-intensive crop." In the shorter term, prices can spike as natural disasters ranging from severe drought and floods cause havoc on agriculture. The recent three-week snow storms in China caused $7.5 billion in damages, according to early government estimates, including destruction of winter crops leading to a $700 million relief package for farmers. Asian countries are making different responses to domestic and international demand.

Vietnam in the third quarter last year suspended exports to protect domestic needs amid insect epidemics, while in the other direction Thailand plans to auction an additional 500,000 tonnes of rice to cater to increasing international demand, particularly from Bangladesh and Pakistan. Thailand exported 800,000 tonnes of rice in January 2008, a 25% year-on-year increase. As a long-term measure, food scientists are developing sturdier varieties of rice that can withstand climate challenges as well as higher yielding seeds. Asia averages 3.6 tonnes of rice per hectare, according to the IRRI.

Better yielding varieties will increase average output to six tonnes per hectare, particularly in Thailand, which grows rice across 9.8 million hectares but has the lowest rate of output in Asia - 2.6 tonnes of rice yield per hectare in the planet's largest area of land made available for rice cultivation. In contrast, China's produces six tonnes of rice per hectare and Japan has the global record at 6.2 tonnes. The world's leading philanthropists are pitching in to combat the rising grain crisis, similar to supporting cancer and AIDS research. Leading the way, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates in January announced a grant of $19.9 million over three years to the IRRI.

The grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation aims to first help 400,000 small farmers in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa access improved rice varieties and better growing technology. Farmers may increase yields by 50% by 2018, but "there are no short-term solutions," says Macintosh of the IRRI.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

The Congress Should Act Before it’s Too Late

By Javid Hassan

The Congress Party should stop being a fence-sitter and spell out its stand clearly as the juggernaut of the Telangana movement thunders towards its goal of a separate state. By appearing as a faction-ridden party in Andhra Pradesh and as an organization that believes in a marriage of convenience at the all-India level, it has exposed its weaknesses, which the BJP and other political outfits are exploiting in the context of the snowballing movement.

Given the fact that all other parties have an equally dismal record when it comes to delivering on promise or sticking to principles, the Congress has an edge over them, as it was during its tenure that India gained an international stature and became a force to reckon with. It has also stood up for the minorities and other backward classes, besides pursuing a policy of raising India’s profile on the educational and technological fronts.

The other plus point in its favour was seen in the recent Assembly elections, where it won 3-2 by sweeping the polls in Delhi, Rajasthan and Mizoram and losing out to the BJP in Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh. These electoral victories could yield political mileage in the general elections scheduled in April next year.

Yet, its track record especially in Andhra Pradesh, has become a political liability when it went back on its promise of creating a separate Telangana state after it won the elections with the support of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS).

That the party acts according to its own agenda rather than the national agenda came to the fore much earlier in 1956 when the Centrally-appointed

States Reorganization Commission (SRC) declared that it was not in favour of merging the Telangana region with the then Andhra state. Para 382 of the SRC Report said: "..opinion in Andhra is overwhelmingly in favour of the larger unit, (while) public opinion in Telangana has still to crystallize itself".

The concerns of the Telangana people were on several grounds. The region had a less developed economy than Andhra, but a larger revenue base (mostly because it taxed rather than prohibited alcoholic beverages), which Telanganites feared might be diverted for use in Andhra.

Even so, the Centre bypassed the SRC recommendations and opted for a unified Andhra Pradesh on November 1, 1956 after a "Gentlemen's agreement" assured the Telangana people that their interests would be safeguarded. Although the Congress faced an internal revolt on this score, its leadership stood against additional linguistic states, which were regarded as "antinational."

This triggered a spate of defections from the Congress led by Dr.M. Chenna Reddy, who founded the Telangana People's Association (Telangana Praja Samithi). Despite electoral successes, however, some of the new party leaders withdrew their support to the agitation in September 1971 and rejoined the Congress for their own ends.

However, the Telangana movement received a new lease of life during the 1990s when the BJP promised a separate Telangana state if it came to power. But the BJP could not live up to its promise due to the opposition from its coalition partner, Telugu Desam Party.

This game of political charade was again in evidence when Congress party MLAs from the Telangana region constituted a Telangana Congress Legislators Forum in support of a separate Telangana state. The launch of a new party, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (or TRS), was masterminded with the same goal in view— a separate Telangana state with Hyderabad as its capital.

That the Congress has never been unified in its ranks was again in evidence earlier this year when two senior leaders, who were leading a movement for a Telanagna state for the past few months, changed their stance during a meeting of the party’s state unit, when Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy was present.

This game of political horse trading and floor crossing that the Congress has been playing for the last four decades has got to end not only in its own interest but also in the larger socio-economic interest of the region and its people. We would like to know when the party will crystallize its stand instead of changing its colors like a chameleon.

In a perceptive paper titled “Separate Telangana: Beginning of the End” published in Mainstream (September 29- October 5, 2006 ) its author Sreedhar argues emphatically that Telangana state is not going to be a reality. He cites various reasons that may compel the Congress-I to deny a separate statehood for Telangana.

The paper lists four major factors that, according to him, do not justify the demand for a separate Telangana. First, the movement lost its chance apparently because it was not spearheaded by one of the Congress leaders, “especially the one who has weight to throw around or disturb the peace of delhiwallahs.”

Secondly, the Congress started doubting the ability of TRS to govern the state because of its links with Naxalites. Thirdly, the state developed its knowledge-based-industry during the TDP regime which the YSR government is vigorously pursuing by creating employment opportunities in a big way, rendering the demand for a separate Telangana irrelevant. Fourthly, more than one million NRIs from Andhra, who went to Europe and North America during the 1980s, are willing to invest in the region as an undivided state.

However, according to Syed Zia-ur-Rahman, NRI from the Telangana region now based in Saudi Arabia, Congress-I’s interests in the current situation would be best served if it backs the Telangana movement instead of remaining non-committal. He argues that given the track record of all the parties championing its cause, the Congress is still the best bet for the region in spite of all its wrongdoing in the past.

Zia points out that even though the Muslims are an influential minority in the region, they have never been consulted by any of the political players. Moreover, their track record vis-à-vis Muslims leaves much to be desired. He doubts the credibility of the parties that claim to work with a single-minded devotion for the welfare of the Telanganites. “It’s about khissa kursi ka,” he says, referring to the political plums and cherries that the politicians would pick for themselves if Telangana becomes a separate state.

It is a fact that all parties across the political spectrum put their own interests above everything else, even though they profess to work for the downtrodden and the dispossessed. At least the Congress fares better on the political score board, since it has provided educational and employment facilities for minorities which some parties have balked at.

Since the Congress has done fairly well in the state elections, it should turn that political capital to its advantage by forging alliances with parties. A separate Telangana is set to become a reality in 2009. The Congress should not create a political vacuum for others to fill in. No one wants to jump from the frying pan into the fire, with the evil forces waiting to pounce on them.

However, the biggest challenge for the Congress this time is that it finds iself wedged between the left and the rightwing parties. On top of it, pop star Chiranjeevi could eat away Congress votes, leaving it high and dry. The political stakes are high which only its political heavyweights can counter on this new Telangana chess board.