E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

PERSPECTIVE

GUEST COLUMN
Emerging trends in university administration
Prithipal Singh Kapur
University education before the advent of independence was the privilege of the elite or the children of such employees of the government who happened to occupy a few high places that were being progressively offered to Indians under the pressure of popular movements. However, a few of the talented young men who did not belong to well-off section of society, also managed to enter the portals of universities due to the perseverance of their parents and with the support of some social and religious organisations.

Terrorism dividing world community on communal lines
P. C. Dogra
After the Black Tuesday holocaust in New York and Washington, terrorism has come in sharp focus and is threatening to divide the world community on the communal lines. The terrorists of earlier times had a clear cut political agenda. They fought for a nationalistic cause. Now they are driven by a vaguely religious and wholly irrational objectives. Their goals are amorphous and clearly impossible to attain.

Indo-Pak wars & the Kashmir tragedy
K. F. Rustamji
Many military writers have written about our conflicts with Pakistan. The 1965 infiltration was an important halt in my police journey as I was appointed DG, BSF — a month before the infiltration and the war, and had to go there almost on joining.

Combating an unseen enemy
David Devadas
Soldiers are ubiquitous in the valley, patrolling highways, manning bunkers in the city or searching villages in which militants might lurk. Watching them stride orderly along, one normally gets no hint of the harrowing challenge it must be to combat an unseen enemy who constantly wields the weapon of surprise. The militants too have sophisticated weapons, more so in the past couple of years, and can attack the soldiers at relatively close range almost any time.

Harihar Swarup
Bringing unity among Afghans, Karzai’s goal
Mysterious are the ways of destiny. Fortysix-year-old, Hamid Karzai, who was falsely reported killed by Taliban only two months back will head the six-month interim government in Afghanistan. He had narrowly escaped in an attack by the Taliban but three of his supporters were captured and summarily hanged. The Taliban fighters had almost apprehended Karzai but later, as he himself disclosed, he managed to escape after several hours of fighting. “We walked for three days from village to village… and we reached a safe position with the help of villagers and nomads”.

Ambika aiming at Punjab CM’s gaddi?
Call it political humility or expediency, Congress general secretary Ambika Soni has chosen to be a member of the state election committee of Punjab which is headed by state PCC chief Capt Amarinder Singh. Constituted recently by the AICC treasurer Motilal Vora, who is incharge of Punjab, the committee has 16 members including the party MPs from Punjab.

Humra Quraishi
Politicians of all hues keep busy with Iftaar parties
Two Iftaars, hosted on Dec 5 — one by Samajwadi duo Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh and the other by Dr Farooq Abdullah — apparently affected the turn out at the ICCR programme on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people. Like all UN days, this one too was a formality, but politicians usually turn up to show their faces. Union Minister of State for External Affairs Omar Abdullah read out a detailed speech, but he did not attend the reception.

PERSPECTIVE

GUEST COLUMN
Emerging trends in university administration
Prithipal Singh Kapur

University education before the advent of independence was the privilege of the elite or the children of such employees of the government who happened to occupy a few high places that were being progressively offered to Indians under the pressure of popular movements. However, a few of the talented young men who did not belong to well-off section of society, also managed to enter the portals of universities due to the perseverance of their parents and with the support of some social and religious organisations.

After 1947, university education sector witnessed phenomenal growth as well as change. The process started sometime around 1950. Soon, it was discovered that expansion in this sector was touching the growth rate of 14 per cent per year — highest anywhere in the world. But it could not go beyond that. For two decades thereafter; the growth rate remained at 7 per cent to 8 per cent. After 1967 and upto the seventies it came down to 5 per cent and since then it has remained static. During this very period, we witnessed the surfacing of enthusiasm for spread of higher education on the part of emerging class of district-level politicians. They wanted to spread out higher education to the rural areas. The idea was to create levers of power and patronage in order to lure the voter with the slogan of higher education to the youth at a lower cost. This was the beginning of the intrusion of political vested interests in university as well as college education. Nothing could be done to ward off its ill-effects due to the provisions enshrined in the Constitution. Consequently, a large number of sub-standard institutions came into being which tended to become a drain on the state finances because of the grant-in-aid system.

A natural consequence of expansion of higher education in the college sector was the establishment of new universities. It was at this stage that academics and intellectuals like Mr C.D. Deshmukh (former Union Finance Minister and UGC Chairman) started serious thinking on the need to maintain standards and affect reforms wherever necessary. It was chiefly the result of his efforts that brought NCERT into being and reforms in school examinations were initiated. His contribution to higher education is too well-known and need not detain us here. In those days (even now), the universities were sought to be established mainly on regional or political considerations by the powers that be. But in the process some centres of excellence like JNU also came into existence. The idea of having Central Universities initially aimed at providing models of excellence and transfer of rapidly growing knowledge to the seats of higher learning functioning in far-flung areas. But in some cases this concept was used to blunt the sharp edges of communalism and to provide a secular base to higher education and research (as in the case of AMU and BHU). Needless to say that Central Universities have since got reduced to a privileged class of “Brahmin seats of learning” due to the arrogance and class consciousness of their faculty members and other staff who happen to have entrenched themselves into such universities. Many of these Central Universities were established because of extraneous considerations and are eating up a major portion of UGC funds and the scheme now deems to have gone completely haywire.

The expansion of higher education, the dilution of standards and institutional changes necessitated in the wake of above developments, brought into focus the need to revamp the supporting infrastructure (which we often call the non-teaching sector).

The UGC at times sought to define the position of the Registrar and the objectives of the supporting non-teaching establishments. It was thought advisable to place the Registrar at par with the Professor. Of late, a tendency has developed among the senior Professors of the universities to aspire to saddle themselves in the Registrar’s chair. In the changed circumstances and a loud cry for the examination reforms, posts of Controller of Exams were created in most of the universities. However, the examination system in our universities has not moved from where it was in 1947.

Similarly, to effectively manage the expanding college education and to provide it with a meaningful thrust and discourage the establishment of sub-standard colleges, a post of Dean of Colleges was conceived for the universities, with a College Development Council to ensure effective liaision between the colleges and the universities. These important developments un-nerved the Registrars. The importance of a Dean for the colleges was over-looked and was used for re-employment of such retired persons who were hardly capable of providing leadership or guidance to the colleges.

I am happy that the Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar showed the way where a dynamic Dean in the person of Dr S.P. Singh (since elevated as Vice-Chancellor) has transformed the face of colleges affiliated to the university by inspiring them to re-construct the courses and introduce some new and modern courses in the emerging disciplines in a big way.

The structural changes in the university administration, though well-intentioned, have not brought forth the desired results. On the other hand, clerical and the other supporting staff expanded manifold. Their distinct character could not be maintained because their associations insisted upon the linkage of their pay-structure and promotion avenues with the State Government employees.

Over the years, the universities have had their share of deterioration of administrative structure due to the anxiety of the politicians to mould and use the entire system of governance to further their interests. Under these circumstances, it will be unfair to expect that the universities would remain immune from this degeneration. Every institution worth the name has got politicised. The ministers incharge of higher education are inclined to treat the universities as boards/corporations and make encroachments on the powers of the Vice-Chancellor and the university bodies in the matters of appointments and promotions. Of late, a tendency has developed among the politicians to expect that with the change in the govt in the state, the Vice-Chancellor shall also be given marching orders. Unfortunately, the University Teachers’ Associations have also contributed in this malady in a big way. This started with Bihar and the virus has since spread to other states.

The state governments appoint Pro-Vice-Chancellors not to strengthen the university administration but to create an additional centre of power to the embarrassment of the Vice-Chancellor. On the other hand, the VCs never take kindly to the appointment of Pro-VCs. They look upon them with suspicion and an encroachment on their absolute powers.

The UGC and the Association of Indian Universities have occasionally stepped in to set the matters right in matters of university administration. They expressed their viewpoint about the appointment of VCs and made suggestions to ensure appointment of competent and outstanding persons as VC by the state governments. The UGC came forth with a Search Committee plan. This could hardly take off. Some states ignored it, others did not find it workable. Most of the VCs appointed through the Search Committees system could not elicit requisite support from the state governments. In the eighties, the AIU appointed a committee with Dr R.C. Paul and Dr Rais Ahmad as its members, to look into the tendency of replacing the VCs before the expiry of their terms on political consideration. Such abrasive actions affect the university administration adversely.

Having acted as a member of the last Pay Review Committee, I have had an opportunity to have a feel of the prevalent administrative situation in the universities across the country. While it is absolutely necessary to ensure the unstinted support as well as confidence of the state government to run a university, with some measure of efficiency, the university should in no way be allowed to be treated at par with a department of the government. The political interests should not be allowed to be advanced in the name of accountability to the political executive or to make education responsive to social needs. This will result in total politicisation of the university system which is the root cause of all the ills rampant in university administration.

The Karamchari Sanghs from JNU to Guwahati and Teachers’ Associations from Delhi to Chennai and Madurai all have their political affiliations. Similar is the case with the student bodies. Again, the case of Bihar in this regard is typical. All these are disturbing trends.

If we have to keep pace with the expanding world of knowledge and have to work for the dissemination of knowledge and uphold this ideal for our universities, then, we must treat the universities as holy monasteries. This will enable our institutions to stand erect before any other enviable university in the world.

The university administration has to be treated as a class by itself. The bureaucratic techniques of delays and appending needless objections to push the meritorious to the back have no place in the university administrative framework. But alas! the discernible trends have a different story to tell.

The writer is former Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar.

Terrorism dividing world community on communal lines
P. C. Dogra

After the Black Tuesday holocaust in New York and Washington, terrorism has come in sharp focus and is threatening to divide the world community on the communal lines. The terrorists of earlier times had a clear cut political agenda. They fought for a nationalistic cause. Now they are driven by a vaguely religious and wholly irrational objectives. Their goals are amorphous and clearly impossible to attain.

The concept of internal security is now multifaceted. It is not only a police surveillance of the possible terrorists but encompasses the monitoring of the various other institutions of the country especially the banking and other financial services. Reports say, Osama bin Laden is believed to have made massive profits in oil, shares and gold on the eve of suicidal raids in New York and Washington and that “the leaders who plotted the carnage invested in oil and gold, fully knowing that their prices would rise sharply afterwards”. The tools of manslaughter are becoming rather weird from a dirty bomb to a biochemical substance like anthrax.

White House office estimated in 1993 that an Anthrax release in the nation’s capital could kill as many as three million people. As per the report of International Atomic Energy Agency, “the world’s plutonium reprocessing inventories annually include or exclude scores of kilos of material unaccounted for.” One can now visualise a future terrorist carrying a nuclear bomb in the suitcase or a hijacked plane being used to throw anthrax at the inhabited areas.

The internal security situation of our country is much more vulnerable than ever before. The country is facing the onslaught of jehadis in Kashmir, secessionist movement in North East and the violent class struggle in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. Pakistan’s ISI has spread its tentacles and established its strongholds all over the country and works in tendem with all the disruptive forces. It is my considered view that in case of war with Pakistan, there will be a large-scale internal sabotage in the country.

It is a fact that Al-Qaida had been supporting the jihadi outfits in Kashmir. After his release in the swapping of Indian passengers aboard IC-814, Masood Azhar declared jihad against America and India. He has been receiving massive financial support from bin Laden. Omar Sheikh who was also released in this case could be responsible for the transfer of $ 100,000 from Pakistan to either Germany or the Netherlands where the plot to attack the USA installations were hatched. Ex-ISI chief Lt-Gen Mahmoud Ahmed had been linked to Omar Sheikh.

Similar is the case of the Students Islamic Movement of India. In Patna, Lucknow and Kanpur, SIMI activists eulogise Laden as God’s lion. Laden is fast becoming the rallying point for Islamic militants in India. Since its inception in 1977, its chief mission has been to infuse the spirit of jihad in the war between Islam and Kufr (the unIslamic) which is claimed to be at the decisive stage. It has been openly espousing the cause of liberation of Kashmir from India. Jaish-e-Mohamad has established its foothold in UP through SIMI. Hyderabad city police arrested one Pak national Junaid Salim in July 1998. He was the recruiting agent of Lashkar-e-Toiba and had successfully recruited 15 youth for jihad. In June 2001, Delhi Police had unearthed a plot to blow up the visa section of the USA embassy, said to have been masterminded by Abdul Rehman Al Safani, a Yemini national, a close confidant of Osama and a member of Al-Qaida who was already on the wanted list of the FBI for explosion on the American warship USS Cole. However, Safani could not be nabbed. He escaped. Police arrested Rauf, a Sudanese national and a member of the Sudanese Islamic movement. Deendar Anjuman, which had engineered bomb blasts in churches in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Goa in May and July last year, has links with ISI.

“The Daily Telegraph” and the “Independent” of London carried a news item on May 27 and 28, 1999, sourcing it to Western intelligence contacts, having said that a loose international network coordinated by Pak ISI embracing a wide range of terrorist organisations from Algeria to Egypt to central Asia and Afghanistan, was behind the Pakistani incursion into Kargil. According to Rohen Gunaratna, an expert on Asian terrorist groups at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, “It is only a matter of time before Al-Qaida fully targets India. Right now, a few of their operations in India have been disrupted”. It is worth examining whether the six major fires in the ammunition depots of the Indian Army since April 2000 are all due to the acts of providence i.e. excessive heat and other climatic conditions as maintained by the top brass of the Army or sabotage. Gen Shankar Roy Chaudhry, retired Chief of Army Staff has observed “Such fires gravely compromise the operational preparedness of the frontline formations”. One Manoj Srivastava, a Pak spy arrested in Calcutta by the security agencies, confessed about the involvement of ISI in these fires.

With money from Saudi Arabia and under the long-term strategy of ISI, madrassas have sprung up in J&K and all over the country specifically along the Indo-Pak border of Punjab, Rajasthan and the Indo-Nepal border with a design to wean Indian Muslims from their traditional Indo-Islamic roots and inculcate in them the philosophy of pan-Islamic fundamentalism. To fund various subserve activities in India, Pak ISI has set up a fullfledged facility in Peshawar to print counterfeit Indian currency notes. Nepal is being used in a big way for the smuggling of this currency as was apparent with the arrest of a Pakistani embassy official in Kathmandu on charge of circulating counterfeit currency. Again Indo-Nepal border is being used for the infiltration of Pak saboteurs. On an average 150 ISI-trained extremists and the mercenaries are pushed in to India via Nepal every month.

In West Bengal, three Al-Qaida men, the followers of Osama were arrested on October 6, 2001. Only last month 17 Dhaka-trained ISI agents who had been tasked to indulge in a large-scale subversive activities, were arrested in Assam. In Nepal, the Maoist fighters rule over one third of Nepal. Maoist forces in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh are in league with the Maoists of Nepal. It will spell a grave risk to the security and integrity of India. The People’s War Group after establishing itself in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Orissa is expanding its network to Delhi. The ongoing bloody feuds between the Maoist Communist Centre activists and the upper caste Ranbir Sena is well known. Nagaland is relatively quiet because of the ongoing talks between the emissaries of the Centre and NSCN (IM). But the Nagas say, they have always been independent.

Insurgency has been in existence in Tripura for the past two decades. Tribal people who were in majority prior to Tripura’s merger with the Indian Union in 1949, have been reduced to 30 per cent due to influx of Bengalis whether from West Bengal or Bangladesh. The United Liberation Front of Assam, the most deadly and well organised secessionist outfit in Assam, has been operating in tendem with ISI.

Pakistan is carrying out its strategic war of inflicting thousand cuts on India. It was launched on a very big scale first in Punjab where it failed. Now it has been unleashed in the Kashmir valley. According to the report of the Group of Ministers on National Security, “Pakistan would continue to pose threat to India’s security with a singlemindedness of destabilising India, not just focused on Kashmir but on a search of parity”. Pakistan will continue to sponsor and support terrorism in India and other parts of the world as their state policy was made amply clear by the then President of Pakistan General Zia-ul-Haq when he said “Merging of the concept of jehad, war and terrorism has been the basis of all the strategies of the Pak Army”.

Then there is a spillover effect of the situation in Pakistan. “The risk for the world is the civil war in Pakistan”. With 83 per cent of the population in Pakistan opposed to the policies of Gen Musharraf, according to latest Gallop poll and with the presence of religious parties, Tablighi Corps commanders in the Army and an estimated 100,000 of battle hardened Taliban fighters returning to Pakistan and thirsting for blood as a revenge for their betrayal would possibly put an end to the Musharraf regime and usher in jehadi military combine which can create a very serious situation for India.

It is time all communities joined together to safeguard the hard-earned freedom and maintain the cohesion and the solidarity of India. Lunatic acts of the members of a particular community cannot be used to condemn that community. Some people irrespective of their religion can be purchased.

Sikhs in Punjab valiantly fought against the Sikh militants at a grave risk to their lives. How can we forget gunner Abdul Hamid who single-handedly brought down so many Pakistani fighter planes or Brigadier Usman who was martyred defending the strategic locations of Naushara and Jhangar of J&K against the invading Pakistani tribals in 1947?The Indian National ethos from which all communities, castes and creeds draw their inspiration has come into being. Let us nurture it with our sweat and blood.

The writer is a former Director General of Police, Punjab.

Indo-Pak wars & the Kashmir tragedy
K. F. Rustamji

Many military writers have written about our conflicts with Pakistan. The 1965 infiltration was an important halt in my police journey as I was appointed DG, BSF — a month before the infiltration and the war, and had to go there almost on joining.

Accounts of the first Kashmir war in 1948 are more difficult to find, and the third in ‘71s still fresh in people’s minds because of the surrender at Dhaka. Many have written on military aspects — the strategy, the gains and losses in military terms, the chances we missed, and the victories we won, like Shalantang, Asalutar, Khemkaran and the breakthrough on the river in Bangladesh, due to Gen Sagat Singh. What has not been given adequate coverage is the civilian angle, the manner in which the J&K government rallied each time to help the national effort, the support of the citizens, the courage of the volunteers and their endurance in that bitter winter of ‘65. At the end, each time India was generous, Pakistan feigned repentance, and all the trappings were laid out for another round by civil and military leaders. It almost seems to me that both sides want to keep the conflict going, and have not yet realised that it has impoverished us both completely.

Our finest hour was 1947-48 when we rushed to the defence of J&K, and our young army and air force officers justified our faith in them. A hundred Dakota sorties on a grass-field in Srinagar, ferried the first elements of the army. On October 22, 1947, men from the border areas invaded Kashmir and would have lorried straight into Srinagar to celebrate Idd if Brig Ranjit Singh had not held them, and blown up the bridge at Uri. He was killed in the engagement. Four days later they stormed into Baramulla and literally reduced it to ashes, but spent time in looting the place and raping nuns at the convent. In this desperate hour, the real strength of the Kashmiri people came to the fore. Centuries of a secular tradition — a base of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam — and that socialistic objective developed by the National Conference could bring the people together in a united effort. All the civil and military leaders lived in the same complex in Srinagar — Sheikh Abdullah, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, Sadiq, Karra and Beg, and the incredibly genial and perceptive D.P. Dhar.

On the military side, there was General Kulwant (known as bull-terrier), Thimayya and Atma, Minoo Engineer (IAF) and Col Jhungoo Satarwalla, and watching over them all was the brave batman Baz Gul who looked after them with the care and affection that only a Pathan can muster.

In the ‘65 infiltration in Kashmir, the understanding between L.P. Singh (then Home Secretary) and Gen J.N. Choudhari (COAS) proved decisive. When they found that the guerrillas had slipped through the border defences, they lifted 10 battalions of armed police from Punjab, MP, UP and Bihar to Srinagar. They were used by Gen Kalhan to encircle the city, and they fired so much on friend and foe, including the General and me, that from that day the infiltrators began their retreat.

In the ‘71 war, Yahya tried the same gambit as in the ‘65 war of intruding into Chhamb, but, could not make any headway. All over Kashmir there was a total calm as people knew that the war was being decided on the Bangladesh side. While Pakistan made broadcasts of rebellions in Kashmir, not one man rose to support them.

In three wars, the Kashmiri people with the help of the army, beat back the Pakistan invaders. There was no doubt in their minds, that they would resist Pakistan’s efforts to gain control. Then what happened that turned several Kashmiris in the valley against us? We have to see this very candidly and clearly because our future depends on it. How did we turn all the faith and trust of the valley people away from us? When the present phase of Pakistani infiltration began round about 1985 or so, there were some people, who had been indoctrinated by religious leaders, some won over by foreign money, but, on the whole the people in J&K were indifferent to Pakistan’s overtures.

True there was some discontent about unemployment. There were stories of petty corruption and rigging which seemed to be true, but, most of the damage was done by the indifference of Delhi to the problems of Kashmir. The first aim of the insurgency was to disrupt the tourist trade. Just a couple of bomb attacks and a lot of propaganda was enough to do that. All the houseboats and hotels became empty. Strike after strike disrupted the economy. Then came the blunder of removing the popular government of Farooq Abdullah, followed by mistake after mistake on the security side.

It was the Red Cross, Amnesty, and some journalists and local politicians who opened our eyes to the travesty of law and order that we had imposed on J&K. The army command was soon able to see what had happened. What a price has been paid by us due to some badly officered units. It has almost washed away all the good work done by scores of brave men in the security forces to protect Jammu and Kashmir. The real tragedy is that the people who taught us secularism have had to pay that price.

Is it possible to make amends? Suddenly Pakistan has realised the tragic folly of helping the Taliban and others in violent activities. From Pakistan, 8000 young men are reported to be killed or missing in Afghanistan. Gen Musharraf seems willing to stop infiltration in Jammu and Kashmir, even promises to take action against the terrorists. Perhaps he needs time to stamp them out, or he wants to put up a hostile attitude to India because it pleases the clerics and supports his dictatorship. Gen Musharraf may have to pay a bitter price for such support.

On the other hand, he may be working for peace in the area, in his own way, and will be able to convince the Indian Prime Minister when he meets him. The future for Pakistan will be brighter if we keep together in building a new South Asia. I am sure that will be in the interest of the people of India and Pakistan, particularly the Muslims of India.

KASHMIR DIARY

Combating an unseen enemy
David Devadas

Soldiers are ubiquitous in the valley, patrolling highways, manning bunkers in the city or searching villages in which militants might lurk. Watching them stride orderly along, one normally gets no hint of the harrowing challenge it must be to combat an unseen enemy who constantly wields the weapon of surprise. The militants too have sophisticated weapons, more so in the past couple of years, and can attack the soldiers at relatively close range almost any time.

Many of the soldiers wear about 30 kg of protective gear as part of their uniforms — and that is before they pick up their rifles and other equipment. With this, they must stride along for hours on end with little sustenance.

On his chest and back, each poor soldier lugs lead sheets, which together weigh something between 14 and 22 kg, depending on the thickness of the sheets. These lead sheets are far less effective than the lightweight G-8 vests that Pakistani soldiers wear — which each cost just Rs 1,500 more. Those even have an additional conical guard for the lower abdomen. The lead sheets Indian soldiers wear can, according to those in the know, be pierced by an AK-47 bullet fired from six yards away, and by an LMG bullet fired even 30 yards away. The mine sweepers these men use to clear the highways every morning are also not the best and cannot detect a mine buried two metres below the surface.

Even more disastrous, according to some officers and soldiers, is the Indian Small Arms System rifle which was issued to soldiers during the Kargil war. Its ebonite magazine is too brittle for intense cold and its cocking rod tends to bend over time, leading to jamming. It is supposed to allow a three-bullet burst but users say that, more often than not, a single bullet fires and the other two jam.

It’s not as if the Ministry of Defence only makes mistakes, though, when inducting indigenous weapons. One of the most striking sights in Kashmir is the gargantuan Mine-Proof Vehicle, called Casper. It was developed in South Africa to transport troops safely in anti-insurgency operations in high altitudes but was soon decommissioned there for the simple reason that its driver is perched in a position from which he cannot see the ground. That is a particularly treacherous situation in rough high altitude terrain. The driver just cannot steer unless there is a proper road under the vehicle. The result is that another vehicle, typically a Gypsy jeep, has to drive ahead of it to show its driver the way. That only means that the escort vehicle hits the mines that the Casper is supposed to withstand. Each Casper, costing Rs 58 lakh, is air-conditioned within but that’s hardly the prime requirement in Kashmir’s climate. It is designed to withstand pressure mines, even the lethal Claymore mine use or remote-detonated IED that Kashmiri militants use. An IED opened a gaping hole in a Casper, with casualties, on the highway near Udhampur last year.

Not everything the Ministry of Defence does goes so far wrong, however. On the roads, the new Ashok Leyland trucks look very smart and, according to officers, work efficiently. The Gypsy has worked well too and the Mahindra Commander that is now being inducted is getting good reviews too. Officers say they’re also very happy with the night vision devices they’ve been issued. They’re far more effective than what the militants have.

However, the militants’ wireless transmitters, Motorola and Kenwood sets equipped with 13 channels, automatic scanning and auto-programming (which makes intercepting their conversations almost impossible) are the envy of the Army’s Signals Corps. They themselves must strain to hear the poor voice quality on their sets, often of Second World War vintage. Worse, each set has to be re-tuned manually for the next hour or more if it happens to hit the body of a vehicle on a bumpy ride. It invariably loses the frequency.

PROFILE

Bringing unity among Afghans, Karzai’s goal
Harihar Swarup

Mysterious are the ways of destiny. Fortysix-year-old, Hamid Karzai, who was falsely reported killed by Taliban only two months back will head the six-month interim government in Afghanistan. He had narrowly escaped in an attack by the Taliban but three of his supporters were captured and summarily hanged. The Taliban fighters had almost apprehended Karzai but later, as he himself disclosed, he managed to escape after several hours of fighting. “We walked for three days from village to village… and we reached a safe position with the help of villagers and nomads”.

He says the days of Pakistan-backed Taliban are over and that they cannot reemerge as a strong force. The Taliban were, after all, a foreign backed force and they do not have any standing in Afghanistan. “They have criminalised Pakistan; they have brutalised Afghanistan”. Soon after his name was finalised to head the provisional government in Afghanistan, he talked to the BBC on the satellite phone from Kandahar in the midst of fierce battle with the Taliban forces. His main aim, he said, would be to restore absolute peace and security in his country and to bring unity among the Afghan people”.

DELHI DURBAR

Ambika aiming at Punjab CM’s gaddi?

Call it political humility or expediency, Congress general secretary Ambika Soni has chosen to be a member of the state election committee of Punjab which is headed by state PCC chief Capt Amarinder Singh. Constituted recently by the AICC treasurer Motilal Vora, who is incharge of Punjab, the committee has 16 members including the party MPs from Punjab.

With Soni out of race after having been made a member of the state election committee, speculation is rife about the name of the other person. Some in the AICC are reading deeper meanings into Soni having decided to actively involve herself in the choice of party candidates from the first stage itself. Could she be the surprise choice for CM if the party is voted to power?

Party time for Cong

It is party time for the Congress and the party bigwigs are making sure that they remain in the happening place, the capital, for the celebrations. The occasion is the birthday of party president Sonia Gandhi on December 9. The party does not end here. On December 11, Sonia Gandhi is holding an Iftar get together. Party sources say that the big bosses are rescheduling their appointments and making sure that their meetings are confined to the capital during the next week. It is too big an occasion to miss after all.

Miffed Minister

Vijay Goel is miffed. The man who not too long back was inducted into Vajpayee’s Council of Ministers and was given the much-hyped portfolio of Minister of State in the PMO, today is a minister without any substantial work as no files are being put to him. Just a couple of weeks back, he was divested of the charge of Planning and Maneka Gandhi was given the job. When the Prime Minister went on a five-nation tour in October, he was not on board the PM’s special aircraft and it was reasoned that he was too new to go with the PM abroad. But much to his chagrin, he was treated as an unwanted baggage when the PM left for Japan on December 7.

His only job today seems to be to keep shuttling between 20, Tughlaq Road (residence of BJP chief K Jana Krishnamurthy), 11, Ashoka Road (BJP headquarters), 7, Race Course Road (PM’s residence) and South Block (PM’s office). But the young turk keeps on devising newer ways to keep himself busy. Now he aims at leading the brigade of the young MPs of the BJP. He threw a dinner exclusively for the BJP young MPs earlier this week at his Mahadev Road bungalow. Sahib Singh Verma was definitely not there.

Censuring George

The combined onslaught by the opposition to embarass the Government over the reinduction of George Fernandes as Defence Minister seems to have paid dividends. The Vajpayee Government which had said that it was the Prime Minister’s discretion to choose his ministers has finally yielded to a discussion on the issue and that too under Rule 184 in the Lok Sabha which entails voting. While the opposition is jubilant that they have had their way in moving a censure motion, ruling party members are pointing out that the wording of the resolution has not been decided yet. It has been agreed that George’s name would not figure in the resolution. Who is the opposition trying to censure then?

News instincts

Scribes have a different way of approaching things — at least the SEBI Chairman D R Mehta would think. More so after the recently concluded India Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum where he addressed a special session on capital markets which was mostly attended by journos than professional capital market practitioners. Hungry for news and information, the question-answer session following Mehta’s remarks characterised a press conference prompting a journalist to quip that questions are story based and not issue based as should have been the case ideally in such discussions. Needless to say, Mehta’s session received the widest publicity even if several other parallel sessions focussed more on fundamental subjects like poverty and population.

Return to nature

In this age of stress and food habits-related diseases, a young medico is treating the most common diseases like diabetes and blood pressure through a unique blend of naturopathy and Ayurveda. Dr Kalpana Shree exhorts people not to take expensive Allopathic medicines which often produce side effects, especially when taken for longer duration. Her alternative remedy is simple, costs nothing and can be summed up in three words: return to nature.

Dr Kalpana Shree’s treatment is based on the ancient Indian thought that a correction in how you breathe can cure you of certain diseases automatically. Very few people would be knowing that human beings do not breathe from both the nostrils simultaneously all the time. It is only for some time in the day when one breathes from both the nostrils, called “Brahmi nari”. Breathing from the left nostril is known as “chandra swar” while inhaling/exhaling from the right is known as “surya swar”. The two swars as the names indicate, have opposite impact on the body. “Chandra swar” has cool impact while that of the “surya swar” is warm. The modus operandi of Dr Kalpana Shree is to regulate the two “swars” which cures the patient over a period of time.

College days

For the alumni of Shri Ram College of Commerce, which is celebrating its platinum jubilee this year, it was time for reminiscence. More so for Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Vijay Goel who was a student of the college during 1971 to 1974.

Narrating the days of yore, Goel said that he was overcome by a sense of deja vu during the recent visit to the college campus. “The same gate, the same class rooms, same library, the same canteen. It was so nostalgic. I entered the hostel and stepped into one of the rooms of the boys wing where I found that a girl was sitting in the room. Before I could ask anything, the student said, “Sir, she’s my cousin. It seems even the excuses have not changed since the time I had studied in the college”, he said.

Contributed by Prashant Sood, Satish Misra, Rajeev Sharma, T.V. Lakshminarayan and Gaurav Choudhury.

DIVERSITIES — DELHI LETTER

Politicians of all hues keep busy with Iftaar parties
Humra Quraishi

Two Iftaars, hosted on Dec 5 — one by Samajwadi duo Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh and the other by Dr Farooq Abdullah — apparently affected the turn out at the ICCR programme on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people. Like all UN days, this one too was a formality, but politicians usually turn up to show their faces. Union Minister of State for External Affairs Omar Abdullah read out a detailed speech, but he did not attend the reception.

I really wish these writers voice their sentiments more effectively in these troubled times, when this entire region seems to be in the midst of being used and misused by vested powers.