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Tuesday,
December 25, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Foreign builders are coming Elusive peace in W. Asia A disappointing series |
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Changing profile of terrorism
Power play after terror strike
Australian scientists warn of new car illness
1959, Physics: SEGRE & CHAMBERLAIN
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Foreign builders are coming THE housing scene in the country is set to undergo a sea change following the government's decision to allow 100 per cent foreign direct investment in real estate. Construction activity, which has been sluggish for long, should get a major fillip. Many more houses will be available and there will be feverish activity in several related sectors also. These include commercial premises and infrastructure facilities like roads, bridges and mass rapid transport system. With the pumping in of money, not only the quantity but also the quality of buildings should improve. The prices of houses should also come down because of the economy of scale and increased competition, as is happening in the telecom sector. It will be wrong to perceive that the foreigners will be competing with the local contractors or builders. Actually, they have been allowed to come in only as developers of large townships. Stringent conditions have been put on them in this regard. The foreign companies will have to develop a minimum area of 100 acres in keeping with the local bylaws or rules. At places where such large chunks of land are not available, they will have to develop at least 2,000 dwelling units for 10,000 people. That is not all. They will also have to develop infrastructure facilities like parks, dispensaries, hospitals, shopping complexes and schools. Peripheral services such as police stations, playgrounds and milk booths too will have to be developed by the investors and handed over free of cost to the government or local authorities. Allowing FDI in real estate constitutes a major policy shift for the government. The next big question is whether foreign investors will find the offer attractive enough. The industrial atmosphere is hardly conducive. In the past one year, as many as 74 foreign institutional investors have packed their bags and left. Such exodus brings in a lot of negative publicity. War clouds may further dampen the enthusiasm of the investors. Moreover, the permission for investment will not be automatic. Companies will have to apply to the Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation, which in turn will refer these to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board. The bureaucratic red tape will be, as usual, hyperactive throughout the procedural maze. Even if the scheme somehow unfolds in the copybook fashion, the foreign effort will be targeted only towards the upper middle class, that too in the urban areas. Rural masses, who are in dire need of affordable houses, are not likely to figure in the FDI radar. The only hope is that the increased availability of houses will ease the pressure on small houses which are today cornered by moneybags, either for the purpose of occupation or as an investment avenue. However, hopes have a history of coming unstuck. |
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Elusive peace in W. Asia Everybody yearns for peace, and so do the Palestinians and the Israelis. Yet peace is nowhere in sight in that sensitive region. The reason is that both sides find it difficult to make compromises. They have to find a way to let peace prevail. By now the realisation should have dawned on them that the USA, on whom they have been depending so much, cannot buy them stability unless they show an urge for it. Agreed that the Palestinians and the Israelis do not trust each other. The truth is that they cannot. They can only hate
each other. Yet they have to live together. Over half a century has passed since the creation of Israel, yet the Palestinians have not been able to eliminate it from the face of the earth as they had vowed. The Israelis too have not succeeded in dampening the spirit of sacrifice among the Palestinians for an independent homeland. Then why this unending belligerence? Reports suggest that clandestine negotiations are being held between the two sides so that a sovereign state of Palestine can come into being and the Palestinian jehadis shun violence. But a peace proposal tailored by Israel's softline Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, has been rejected outright by the Palestinian Authority as well as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Both have their own reasons. The Palestinians say that the Sharon formula does not guarantee "full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories that were conquered in (the) 1967 (West Asian war)" and hence unacceptable to them. It wants Israel to recognise an independent Palestinian state in those areas of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip which are currently under partial or full Palestinian control. The Israeli Prime Minister's stand is that there can be no such negotiations with the Palestinian leadership (which means Mr Yasser Arafat) so long as militant organisations ----the Islamic Jihad and Hamas----are not disbanded and their leaders arrested. Mr Arafat has his limitations as the Palestinian Authority chief. Under international pressure, however, he acted against the two militant groups and the world saw what happened. There were pitched battles between militants and the police leading to six people losing their lives. And in return he got only rebuke from the USA and Israel. Today he is a under virtual house arrest at Ramallah. Even his right to participate in the Christmas eve mass at Bethlehem has been questioned by Israel. That too when the Islamic Jihad and Hamas have suspended their suicide bombings in Israel. This is what Mr Sharon earlier wanted for holding any talks with the Palestinian leadership. Now he says this is not enough, and Mr Arafat will continue to be punished for his failure to arrest the killers of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi. One can ask how the assassins are surviving when Israel has demonstrated its capability to eliminate its targets. This is certainly not the way that leads to peace, so essential for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. |
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A disappointing series The English cricketers were described as a bunch of "B" grade county players when they landed in Mumbai. After the emphatic 10-wicket victory in the first Test at Mohali, it appeared that the pundits' forecast of a 3-0 whitewash in favour of India may indeed come true. After all, the Indian team's claim to being invincible at home had gained a lot of credibility after the drubbing the current Test and one-day world champions, Australia, were handed out on spinner-friendly tracks. The magnificent efforts of V. V. S. Laxman with the bat and Harbhajan Singh with the ball made India look like the best team in the world. With these two in the playing XI in all the three Tests, the
English team led by Nasser Hussain should have returned home looking like wounded soldiers. But they returned hom for the Christmas and New Year break, before the commencement of the one-day series, with their heads held high. Look at the composition of the English team. Some of the star players, including Darren Gough and Andy Caddick, had opted out of the tour. Graham Thorpe had to return home because of domestic problems. What were the factors that made the most beatable English team ever to visit India into a reasonably good outfit? Much of the credit should go to Nasser Hussain. Under his astute leadership England beat Pakistan in Pakistan and Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka after being one Test down against both of them. The "B" grade team under him very nearly repeated the performance in India. Had the Bangalore Test not been washed out due to unseasonal rain, the English team stood a good chance of at least squaring the series. Technically, India won the rain-marred series. But there should be no doubt at all, at least among those who understand cricket, that the under-rated team from Blighty walked away with most of the honours. It may not be wrong to say that the victory at Mohali was well-deserved, but the series win was not convincing. It was a disappointing series for the countless Indian fans who worship the ground the Indian players walk on. On paper India has the best batting line-up in Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Laxman. Javagal Srinath, Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh are streets ahead of the English bowlers. Yet the English batsmen, after the Mohali fiasco, played the superior bowling of India better and India's superior batting line-up made the club class English bowling look intimidating. Why? This question can only be answered by the selectors who have the singular knack of keeping the Indian team in a perpetual state of flux through meaningless changes. Take for instance the strange case of Deep Dass Gupta. He was selected for keeping wickets, not open the batting. Not even a "B" grade English county team would give him a chance on current form as a keeper. Yet he continues to keep wickets for India! Why? |
Changing profile of terrorism Terrorism is death and destruction by design when victims are totally unrelated to the cause espoused. Attacks on New York’s World Trade Center on September 11 and India’s Parliament on December 13 point to a sharp change in the profile of terrorism. The menace has acquired a high visibility index and has cast a shadow over the unstable dynamism of the security environment. Terrorists choose their timings and targets. They plan with clinical precision and execute with surgical firmness. Osama bin Laden is the new face of terrorism, ruthless, relentless and remorseless. Suicide attacks and human bombs are going to be the new signatures of terrorists. Their attacks may come one after another like a pounding surf. Publicity is crucial for terrorists. It seeks psychological results. More changes may take place in the next few years than have been noticed in the past few decades. A changing world demands redefining of old concepts, and we have to unfreeze our thinking. We all have a need to reinvent what we are up to. The game of life does not permit replays, second chances or substitution. The shift is needed from the concept that we are fundamentally in a stable world in which things need adjustment, now and then, to the concept that we are in a fast changing world. The ideas and actions should be appropriate. Tools have to be usable. Certain values are perfectly adequate in a stable world where the future is the same as the past, but totally inadequate in a changing world. There are changes in power, speed and magnitude. We have to cope more quickly than ever before and with problems that are much bigger and with an order of complexity much greater. The world is getting wired, networked and global. It is also getting integrated by technology and communication. In an era of informatics, we deal with the unemotional network of computers, sensors and signals. Terrorism will continue to be a serious threat in the next decade at the strategic and tactical levels. The continuous and growing instability in the international environment on the economic, social and political levels; the impossibility of attaining a new balance of power in the international system; the ethnic conflicts, as those in the former Soviet Union (especially the Caucasus), Yugoslavia and various parts of Africa seem to be increasing in spite of positive developments like the peace agreement in Northern Ireland or the ceasefire announced by the ETA in Spain and the PPK in Turkey. The appearance of what researchers call “the gray zones” like Somalia and certain regions in Central Africa, where there is no real representation of democratic countries or international agencies, turns these regions into a kind of intelligence vacuum, where terrorist organisations can find a safe haven and a basis for future activity. Osama bin Laden’s boasts about his role in ousting the western forces from Somalia were not without meaning. The strategic assassination of important leaders during key political moments may continue, as has occurred in the past with Sadat and the attempts on the life of President Mubarak of Egypt, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi in India, the plan to kill the Pope, or the killing of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Israel. For the moment it would seem that the various security services have not found the correct response to suicide attacks. The Internet will become a place where much of the virtual but also conspiratorial activity will take place. One of the problems the security agencies will have to deal with will be the uncodification of the communications among militants and their groups. The challenge in this case is double: on the one hand there is the necessity of penetrating and monitoring the activities in this sensitive field, and on the other spotting, monitoring and neutralising the providers of raw materials, technology and knowhow used in making deadly weapons. This is connected with the overall task of preventing the proliferation of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) to rogue states. Religion and ethnicity-based terrorist groups will become more active. Their terrorism is not motivated by ideology. It is more an expression of anger over perceived injustices to minority religious and ethnic groups by majority communities and of the feeling of separateness among aggrieved sections. In the case of transnational Islamic terrorist groups, one could cite the following: the feeling of continued injustice to the Palestinians, the outrage over the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and the large-scale induction of western troops, mainly projected as Christian forces, into the Gulf in the 1991war, particularly in Saudi Arabia where the holiest of the holy places of Islam are located. A new phenomenon of the 1980s and the 1990s was the appearance and aggravation of terrorism (Sunni majority vs the Shia minority) in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Denominational terrorism within the same religious group (the Catholics vs the Protestants) was previously confined to Christianity in Northern Ireland. It has now afflicted Islam too, mainly in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Another phenomenon of the late 1990s was the private sponsorship of terrorist groups by rich individuals (Osama bin Laden) and private organisations in order to implement their own agenda and the use of such private organisations by one country to promote terrorism in another country without getting directly involved. A typical example is Pakistani using the Markaz Dawa Al-Irshad (The Centre for Preaching) and its armed wing, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (The Army of the Pure), for spreading terrorism in Kashmir and other parts of India. Another example would be the Aum Shinrikyo sect of Japan, which killed a number of innocent civilians through the use of the Sarin gas in March, 1995. The networking of financial, economic, military, scientific and technological infrastructure of the world through computers has placed at the hands of computer-literate terrorists the means of causing considerable economic damage without having to penetrate the physical security infrastructure of establishments. This is called cyber terrorism. The threat of large-scale acts of terrorism and the potential of non-conventional terrorism will enhance the need to prevent and foil such schemes. In the case of chemical or nuclear terrorism, without warning even the first-responder teams can be destroyed before they act. In the case of biological threats, an early warning may at least permit the immunisation of the population endangered. Secondly, the existence of small groups and cells of highly motivated religious extremists and right-wing fanatics means that the work of penetration of these groups is very difficult. The case of the assassin of Israeli Prime Minister Rabin is an example of the threat posed by these groups. This shows that the use of human resources, professionally known as Humint, should be expanded and perfected. Counter-terrorism expertise, cultural knowledge and language aptitudes of Humint officers should be improved. Narcotics can be used or abused by terrorists for raising funds as well as for creating chaos in the targeted country. Drug-trafficking generates illicit income running into billions of dollars. Terrorist groups, either themselves or through known smugglers, may indulge in drug smuggling to raise funds for operations in the targeted countries as also in the home country. Terrorists may secure radio-active materials capable of being fabricated into a nuclear explosive device. The elements which can resort to this dangerous game can be divided into three categories: (i) those with political motivation; (ii) those with criminal motivation; and (iii) the psychopaths. Ironically, groups with political motivation are the easiest to deal with. The PLO is an example of such a group. Defensive measures should be taken to deprive the terrorists of a tactical advantage in any situation. Given an option, it is always better to deny terrorists access to the potential target rather than resort to armed interventions in defusing an ugly situation created by them. Countering terrorism has two dimensions — strategic and tactical. Strategic responses include political, social and economic measures to alienate the terrorists from the masses as also to draw the misguided elements into the mainstream. Tactical responses have two angles—detective and preventive actions concerning mainly security measures to safeguard potential targets. Combating terrorism effectively requires a multilateral and integrated approach. It warrants active cooperation among the police, the intelligence agencies and the judiciary. No argument can justify complacency. Attacks have been made on power grids, government and private computer networks, rail and road facilities, high-tech industrial units and other installations. About 8,000 attacks on energy grids around the world have been recorded in the past 10 years. The fight against terrorism in the 21st century will be a complicated task, necessitating a close look at the new social and technological developments, and an objective analysis of the latest trends and threats. Intelligence is essential in countering the menace, in diminishing its tactical effects and strategic importance. Yet, without a comprehensive, intelligent and firm policy, terrorism will continue to pose a real threat to future generations. The writer is Additional DGP, Haryana. |
Power play after terror strike The suicide attack by the ISI-sponsored terrorists on Parliament House and its aftershocks have left behind many significant anecdotes. This time we had a different kind of crisis management with certain subtle shifts in the centre of decision-making and the much desired finesse in political responses. Also, this time we experienced a more pronounced effect of a changed global power balance. Handling of the present anti-terrorist action has to be compared with the old hijack episode. That was badly mismanaged by the once powerful PMO and Jaswant Singh, then a rising star. Many like L.K. Advani were totally kept out. On a holiday, he was not even consulted. Now Jaswant Singh and George Fernandes were forced to lie low. Both are viewed with scepticism within and outside the BJP. This time it has been an Advani show all the way. He dominated the meetings with defence and security chiefs and spoke on behalf of the government with full authority — at times more than the Prime Minister himself. This has a background. It began with Jaswant Singh messing up the proposal for a sweeping defence agreement with the USA. The RSS parivar has been very touchy about the move and it was left to Advani to question its wisdom. Thus for the first time, the ‘international community’ — synonym for the USA — realised that no decision could get through in the NDA government without L.K. Advani’s endorsement. Since the 1960s, no home minister at the Centre in his own right has assumed so much importance. At least in the past two months, not to speak of the post-December 13 crisis period, it was Advani who virtually coordinated between foreign, home and defence ministries. This has not been lost sight of by the media when the Home Minister and the Prime Minister gave different emphasis on issues like ‘hot chase’. Outsiders have been quick to take the cue by opening direct channels to the Home Minister to put through issues not technically under him. May be this is another version of the coalition era practice of the visiting dignitaries making it a point to meet Sonia Gandhi. Some say US ambassador Robert D Blackwill has had as many as 18 meetings with Advani. He has now been invited for a visit to the USA. It is pointed out that the issues that will come up during the visit will centre more on political, than on the technical aspects of the cooperation. The post-attack developments have conclusively established India’s US-centred diplomacy. True, the USA had played a significant role in forcing Pakistan to withdraw during the Kargil operation. However, this time the dependence is total. For the present political establishment, the USA alone is the reality. So much so, the government did not even find it necessary to seek the support of other countries. All others, including Russia, EU countries and our neighbours, remained in the sidelines and made only feeble appeals to Pakistan. Finally, the opposition had to plead with the government to launch a diplomatic drive to convince the other countries. This single-channel foreign policy is catching up so fast that India has already dove-tailed its defence and security policies with the USA. Robert Blackwill this week stated that the two countries have been exchanging intelligence on a daily basis. Informed sources say the flow is simply one-sided because much of what is passed on to us is known material. Moreover, there is little political supervision of the intelligence flow as bureaucrats do the whole work. The US embassy’s FBI unit (44th outside USA has two senior staff under its legal attache. Another significant trend relates to direct US dealings with political groups. The envoy’s dinner to a group of BJP MPs, who were critical of the lukewarm US response on Pakistani terrorism, is a case in point. On defence, a series of mutual visits by the defence staff and ministers have been taking place and joint exercises planned. There is also a General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) in the pipeline. This week, Blackwill revealed that US arms manufacturers have begun negotiating with the Indian side for large scale supply of equipment. It was in this background that India, the worst victim of terrorism, had placed great hopes of a global action after the September 11 attacks in the USA. Now the harsh truth has dawn on us that despite all our support to the USA, we will have to fight our own battle against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. This is another painful lesson the BJP itself has learnt from the post-attack developments. This is because the USA is primarily guided by its own super power calculations, something which our strategic commentators feel shy of mentioning. A few weeks back, there were talks in the USA of extending the anti-terrorist operations to such targets as Iraq. Syria and Yemen and Sudan. However, Pakistan, the biggest exporter of Islamic terrorism, does not figure in the USA list just because it finds that its old friend continues to play a crucial role in the region. This is another startling fact we have realised after the December 13 attack. A rather salutary outcome of the sudden attack on Parliament has been the expression of national solidarity by the entire spectrum of political parties. The opposition, which had strong reservations about the way the government handled the issue, later found it necessary to stand by it. This marks a welcome shift from the normal practice of scoring political points when the country faced challenges. Even if one dismisses such a show of solidarity by the two sides as farcical, it speaks volumes for the increasingly delicate political power balance in states. For, with assembly elections in four states round the corner, no political party can afford to be seen as going against the national sentiments. This was what political parties have learnt after the Bangladesh war victory in 1971 and now Kargil. In the normal course, it is the final victory or setback that dominates the public sentiment. Not the blunders, even if they prove to be disastrous, committed by the government in the process. This has made even those like Mulayam Singh Yadav conciliatory and reasonable. This has admittedly put the BJP in a dilemma as to whether it should make terrorism a campaign plank in the ensuing assembly polls. Unlike a war with Pakistan, the outcome of a fight against terrorism is highly uncertain. Ugly incidents could take place any time even with maximum alert and this could damage the ruling party’s prospects in the impending polls. Thus, both the opposition and the ruling group have reasons to adopt a highly reasonable public posture. No commentary on the recent incidents can be complete without mentioning the Hindu exclusivists’ own disastrous contribution. Paradoxical as it may seem, it has been the latter’s mindless, hatred campaign that has helped breed ISI recruits from among the Islamic fanatics at home. The ISI has used it to the hilt. Before coming to power, it was routine for the BJP to lament over the increasing ISI penetration in India. A look at the apprehended agents reveals that unlike before, the new recruits have an exclusively fanatical identity. This is another sad side of the terrorist story. |
Australian scientists warn of new car illness Australian scientists have warned that the reassuring smell of a new car actually contains high levels of toxic air emissions which can make drivers ill. A study by Australia’s main scientific body, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
(CSIRO), found high levels of toxic emissions in cars for up to six months and longer after they leave the showroom. “Just as air inside our homes and workplaces is often much more polluted than the air outside, so sitting in a new car can expose you to levels of toxic emissions many times beyond (health guideline) goals, said Steve Brown, head of the CSIRO’s air quality control research unit. The toxic emissions include Benzene, a cancer-causing toxin; Acetone, mucosal irritant;
Ethylbenzene, a systemic toxic agent and Xylene isomers, a foetal development toxic agent. “To avoid some exposure to this toxic cocktail people who buy new cars should make sure there is plenty of outside air entering the vehicle while they drive for at least six months”, Brown said in a
statement. The two-year study of three new cars found anecdotal evidence that drivers were becoming ill when they drove their new cars. A lawyer reported being ill with headaches, lung irritation and swellings for several days after collecting a new car and driving it for only 10 minutes. When he swapped his new car for an 18-month-old car, he no longer felt ill. A public servant felt ill when driving a new government car for the first six months, a chemically sensitised person felt “spaced out” when driving any new car and a salesman who regularly updated his car became lethargic on long trips.
Reuters North Americans have drug-resistant HIV virus Around 78 per cent of those with the AIDS virus in the USA and Canada have a strain that is resistant to at least one drug, according to a study presented at a medical conference in Chicago. Fifty-one per cent of those infected with HIV have a strain that is resistant to more than one drug, and 20 per cent of all new infections are drug-resistant “even before we start antiviral therapy,” said Douglas Richman, who led the study. “The high proportion is surprising,” Richman told the 41st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in Chicago recently. “There needs to be more use of drug resistance testing to manage patients who have failed treatment” to help select drugs that are more likely to work, he added.
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If am as an oriental, am to worship Jesus of Nazareth, there is only one way left to me; that is, to worship him as God and nothing else. *** Suppose Jesus of Nazareth was teaching, and a man came and told him: “What you teach is
beautiful. I believe that it is the way to perfection and I am ready to follow it; but I do not care to worship you as the only begotten son of God.” What would be the answer of Jesus of Nazareth? “Very well brother, follow the ideal and advance in your own way. I do not care whether you give me the credit for the teaching or not. I am not a shopkeeper; I do not trade in religion. I only teach Truth and Truth is nobody’s property. Nobody can patent Truth. Truth is God himself. Go forward.” — From What Religion is in the words of Swami Vivekananda *** In Christ’s birth as an Asiatic, and his acceptance by western peoples as their guru, is a divine implication that East and West should unite by exchanging their finest distinctive features. *** In order to love Christ you must live what he taught, you must follow the example of his life. Jesus said: “... whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”..... Anyone who retaliates is not a true Christian, or lover of Christ, for that is not the spirit of the all-forgiving Jesus. Everytime you see the symbol of the Cross, it should remind you of what it stands for — that you must bear your crosses with right attitude, even as Jesus did. When you mean well and still you are misunderstood or mistreated, instead of being angry you should say as did Christ: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” —From Paramhansa Yogananda’s discourses at First Reali- sation Fellowship Temple
at Encinitas and San Diego, California, September 18, 1938, February 4, 1945. |
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