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Shorter the better
Brutes in khaki |
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Medieval mindset Honour as an excuse for murder YET another girl has been sacrificed at the altar of family honour. In Maherna Kalan village in Ludhiana district, 17-year-old Inderjot Kaur has been shot dead by her father for daring to have a relationship with a boy of the village. The gruesome case comes barely 10 days after a couple was killed by the girl’s family at Tarn Taran ostensibly for “protecting the family’s honour”.
New US strategy on Afghanistan
A modern grand old man
When did we stop caring about civilian deaths?
North-South Korea tensions mount
Saving one million children a year
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Shorter the better IT is heartening that despite the discord, the Election Commission has got down to the task of conducting the Lok Sabha elections smoothly. Extensive discussions were held with representatives of national and regional parties by Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami and his colleagues Navin Chawla and S.Y. Qureshi on Tuesday. Quite understandably, political parties appealed to the Commission and its officers that they must stand united and not give an impression that there was a division among the three Election Commissioners. Another significant point that was made rather strongly during the review process before the Election Commission announces the final poll schedule was that the whole election process should be completed in the shortest possible duration. The extended conduct of elections not only puts smaller parties at a disadvantage, it also disrupts the normal governance schedule. Once the election machinery is set in motion and the model code of conduct comes into operation, even normal developmental activities are affected. This problem gets further aggravated when the elections are held in multiple phases stretching over several weeks. It strains resources and security requirements beyond reasonable limits. Not only that, election fatigue also sets in among the public. That is why it is necessary to hold elections at one go in smaller states like Punjab, Haryana and Kerala and in as few phases as possible in other states. At least the practice of extending it to seven phases as has happened in the past must be dispensed with. Ideally speaking, the polling should be concluded within a week and the results declared within a day or two thereafter. Now that there are electronic voting machines and the procedure for deploying election staff is well oiled, there should be no difficulty whatsoever in managing such a smooth and brief operation. Needless to add, the Election Commission has also to ensure a level-playing field for all; free and fair voting and zero tolerance towards the use of money and muscle power.
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Brutes in khaki
THE police in Uttar Pradesh can go to any extent when it comes to dealing with Dalits even during the rule of a “Dalit ki beti”, Ms Mayawati. The latest incident exposing these brutes in khaki is the torture of seven-year-old Komal in Etawah district on Tuesday. The pretext for mercilessly thrashing the girl by policemen was a theft charge against the teenager levelled by a village woman. Komal was beaten up in full public view before being pulled up by her ears by one of the six policemen who surrounded her as if she was a dreaded dacoit. He pulled out her hair to make her confess that she did steal a purse carrying Rs 280 belonging to the woman complainant. Her cries for mercy had little effect on the criminals in uniform. The UP government has terminated the services of one of the guilty policemen and suspended two others. This is no punishment for the cops who dared to play with the life of a little one, who happened to belong to a Dalit family. First of all, the tormentors of the girl, including those policemen who watched the scene gleefully, should be dismissed from service forthwith. Then they should be proceeded against under the law and prosecuted for multiple offences. Efforts should be made to ensure that they are punished in a severe and exemplary manner. UP is not the only state where policemen have been behaving as beasts. Such cases have been reported from Punjab, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and other states, too. But UP and Bihar have become notorious for such ill treatment of people belonging to the deprived classes. In October, a 13-year-old Dalit boy was chained to a tractor and dragged around his village in Mahoba district with the police not taking action against the culprits. Obviously, the Scheduled Castes/Tribes Act that was enacted in UP to prevent atrocities against the Dalits has failed to serve as a deterrent. The reason, perhaps, is that dismissal or suspension from service is not considered as adequate punishment. In that case, the law must be made more stringent.
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Medieval mindset
YET another girl has been sacrificed at the altar of family honour. In Maherna Kalan village in Ludhiana district, 17-year-old Inderjot Kaur has been shot dead by her father for daring to have a relationship with a boy of the village. The gruesome case comes barely 10 days after a couple was killed by the girl’s family at Tarn Taran ostensibly for “protecting the family’s honour”. “Honour killings” have been taking place in India, particularly in the northwestern part of the country, with alarming frequency. According to the Indian Population Statistics Survey (IPSS) in mid-2007, almost 655 homicidal cases were registered as “honour killings”. In Haryana, 10 per cent of murders of women are “honour killings”. With shocking recurrence, girls and couples are being shot dead in cold blood, axed or strangled to death or thrown into canals by enraged parents and family members. They scream murder each time their daughter chooses life partners against their wishes. Most “honour killings” are provoked by convoluted notions of honour, targeting couples marrying out of caste or religion. But in a Haryana village, a couple was mercilessly done to death, for they belonged to the same gotra. What is more shocking is that none of these murders has led to any repentance on the part of the perpetrators. Instead, there have been boastful proclamations justifying the crime, open rejoicing and nauseating display of dead bodies as badges of honour. Worse still, as many such murders are instigated by caste panchayats, often the entire village is lulled into a conspiracy of silence. While the Supreme Court may have condemned “honour killings” as “barbaric and shameful acts of murder”, the incidents are on the rise. The court protection orders granted to couples, too, have often proved futile. Even the formation of a committee by the Punjab and Haryana High Court to prevent honour killings has had no deterrent effect. Of course, speedy trials as conducted by Chandigarh District and Sessions Judge Raj Rahul Garg are appreciable. Judicial activism and police action can play a major role in saving innocent lives. However, what really must change is the medieval mindset that continues to sanction violence against women in the name of
honour.
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The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;/And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. — John Keats
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New US strategy on Afghanistan EVER since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 led to the forging of a US-led coalition to oust the Taliban, Pakistan has provided shelter to Taliban political leaders in Balochistan and allowed its military leadership and cadres to regroup and rearm in the tribal areas of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The duplicity of General Musharraf and his army buddies has led to the Pakistan-Afghanistan region becoming the epicentre of global terrorism. The entire NWFP is now under Pashtun Taliban control, with the Pakistan Army unwilling and unable to assert the writ of the Pakistan state in this troubled region. For almost six years the Americans have overlooked Pakistani duplicity. But by 2008 American casualties in Afghanistan reached such high levels that a new strategy of carrot and stick became imperative to deal with Pakistan. President Bush authorised raids by CIA “drones” on terrorist targets within Pakistan, but appeared to lack a comprehensive strategy to deal with a resurgent Taliban operating from across the border in Pakistan. Not so the new Obama Administration, which has recognised that the most serious threat to global security arises from the entire Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. The contours of this new strategy are emerging. The US forces in Afghanistan are being doubled. Under the command of Gen Bismillah Khan, the strength of the Afghan National Army is going to be raised to around 1,36,000 personnel and its soldiers are going to be better equipped. Within Afghanistan, issues of domestic governance are going to receive enhanced attention, with far greater focus on making international aid more effective. This could well mean that President Karzai would face strong opposition during the presidential elections scheduled for September 2009 from leaders like provincial Governor Gul Agha Sherzai. The Americans are preparing for a long stay in Afghanistan — something the Generals in Islamabad had believed would not happen. Pakistan has already started feeling the heat. President Obama has averred that while he is prepared to triple economic assistance, such aid would be directly linked to Pakistani cooperation in dealing with the Taliban. Moreover, the Americans will not hesitate to strike at “high value” terrorist targets within Pakistan should they get “actionable intelligence”. Recognising that civilian leaders like President Zardari have no control over ISI support for the Taliban and other jihadi groups, high-level visiting dignitaries from the US and its NATO allies now meet General Kiyani and General Tariq Majid rather than waste time meeting Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar. Whether this strategy will succeed in enhancing civilian authority in Pakistan is questionable, but it is recognition of the reality that within Pakistan the Army is a “State within a State”. Diplomatically, the Obama Administration is working on a new regional strategy to deal with developments in Pakistan. A crucial reason for this change is that American military supplies moving through Pakistan are being subjected increasingly to attacks or theft. There are suspicions that the Pakistan Army establishment deliberately colludes in these attacks. Plans are underway to route supplies to Afghanistan through Central Asian countries like Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Following discussions with NATO members, Russia’s Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin recently stated: “In the event of NATO’s defeat in Afghanistan, fundamentalists who are inspired by the victory will set their eyes towards the North”. Mr Rogozin indicated that Taliban-backed fundamentalists would destabilise Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan — countries whose stability is crucial for the Russians. While Russia has indicated its readiness to permit transit through its territory of American and NATO non-military supplies to Afghanistan, there are hints that it would be prepared to consider wider cooperation if the Americans are forthcoming in addressing its concerns on issues like missile defences in Poland and the Czech Republic. It appears that President Obama will be prepared to address these concerns. India has to encourage moves in this direction and persuade the US and its NATO allies that Iranian participation is essential in any effort to bring stability to Afghanistan. These developments are going to have far reaching consequences for Pakistan itself. The Taliban already control the entire NWFP, where for years the Army has backed radical Islamic elements to counter Pashtun nationalism. This should be evident from the fact that Taliban commanders like Jalaluddin Haqqani continue to operate from Pakistani soil. Significantly, ISI chief Lt-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha has labelled Baitullah Mehsud, who has been accused of involvement in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and Maulana Fazlullah, the Taliban cleric who now controls the entire Swat district, as “true patriots.” He even justified the ideological leanings of the Taliban. In virtually the entire NWFP, women can no longer go shopping and girls are prohibited from going to school. In Swat, 8000 women teachers have been rendered unemployed and 80,000 girls forbidden from going to school. Opponents of Sharia rule have been hanged by Taliban leaders within a hundred yards of Army posts and an entire Army division sits by idly near an Army Corps Headquarters, as the Taliban surround the capital, Peshawar. In these circumstances, can the Americans persuade the Pakistan army to forsake its affection for its Taliban buddies and take them on? This appears highly unlikely. The Durand Line, the disputed border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which has not been recognised by any government in Afghanistan, has ceased to exist. For the Pakistan Army to, therefore, claim that by attacking across the border the Americans are violating their territorial integrity defies logic, as the Taliban have a free run the across the Durand Line, which for all practical purposes has ceased to exist for Pashtuns in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Can any attempt to stabilise the tribal areas within Pakistan succeed without the international community addressing the aspirations of Pashtuns on both sides in an integrated manner, realistically recognising that the Durand Line is no longer an acceptable international border? These are issues that President Obama’s Special Representative Richard Holbrooke needs to carefully consider as the US prepares for a long stay in Afghanistan. India has to prepare itself for growing volatility on its western land and maritime borders. Over seven years ago the US National Intelligence Council noted: “Pakistan will become more fractious, isolated and dependent on international financial institutions. In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the Central government’s control will probably be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi”. With the entire Pakistan-Afghanistan border destabilised, would it not become imperative for Pakistan to shift its nuclear weapons into its “Punjabi heartland”? Recent developments along Pakistan’s western borders make it imperative for India and the international community to ponder on how to deal with this emerging
scenario.
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A modern grand old man Simplicity
could not have been simpler. That was my first impression at the only meeting with Chaudhary Ranbir Singh Hooda at his Delhi home. It was over three years back that I got a chance to interview this veteran freedom fighter closely associated with leaders and statesmen my generation of middle-aged men and women have only read about in books. I was doubly excited because there is a streak in me that ignites the moment words like India, independence and freedom are even obliquely referred to. Any song with the slightest hint of nationalism swells me with pride and I can’t help joining in, my unmelodious voice notwithstanding. When it comes to nationalism, my gusto becomes my melody, often leaving me wondering how people can “stand out” the national anthem without so much as opening their mouths. Coming back to the interview, I was elated with the idea of meeting a man who had seen the freedom struggle unfold before his eyes and had been a part of it. As always, I decided to go without any backgrounders for reference. This helps me interview the person concerned without a myopic vision and without any pre-conceived notions. So, this was to be no exception. All I knew was that Hooda was the only surviving member of the Constituent Assembly and that he was a ripe ninety plus. I must admit here that I had never been a keen history student but that was no deterrent for me. So, there we were, a photographer and me, at 9, Pandit Pant Marg, to meet Hooda, not knowing what to expect. Ushered into a room, we awaited his arrival. Helped by an attendant, he emerged in a cotton Pagri, Kurta and Dhoti. I wondered how to make conversation with a man who had more wrinkles on his face than the years I had behind me. Soon, I realised it took very little to have the man going. He recalled vividly his contemporaries, the independence struggle, challenges then and now. He pointed out that we had achieved far less than what was envisioned by the founders of independent India, that leaders of the stature had become an extinct species, replaced by modern-day power-driven politicians. He particularly mentioned the degeneration of Uttar Pradesh, once a nursery of great leaders, and the goings-on in the Bihar of those days. Despite being unable to read on account of poor eyesight, he was surprisingly up-to-date with the happenings around the country. After over an hour of listening to his stories, as I readied to wind up the interview, I realised the best was yet to come. The last few words of the interview with this bespectacled man from the so-called old stream of thought, spanned the yawning generation gap between us in one giant leap as he said, “The one best thing about freedom has been women empowerment, that girls like you can be independent and can work.” More modern than modern, he bowled me over with this one-liner. His recent passing away ended an era of such selfless leaders who lived and died for their country, had their ears close to the ground and their hands on the pulse of a progressive India. If anything, our politicians are on an altogether different tangent — scams, horse-trading allegations, coalitions of convenience, politics of money and power dominate a system where self is important and where winning an election is the only agenda. Statesmen are now resigned to books alone. They are a close chapter and, for once, history seems unlikely to repeat itself. They certainly don’t make leaders anymore, only politicians our democracy has learnt to survive
on.
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When did we stop caring about civilian deaths?
I
wonder if we are "normalising" war. It's not just that Israel has yet again got away with the killing of hundreds of children in Gaza. And after its own foreign minister said that Israel's army had been allowed to "go wild" there, it seems to bear out my own contention that the Israeli "Defence Force" is as much a rabble as all the other armies in the region. But we seem to have lost the sense of immorality that should accompany conflict and violence. The BBC's refusal to handle an advertisement for Palestinian aid was highly instructive. It was the BBC's "impartiality" that might be called into question. In other words, the protection of an institution was more important than the lives of children. War was a spectator sport whose careful monitoring – rather like a football match, even though the Middle East is a bloody tragedy – assumed precedence over human suffering. I'm not sure where all this started. No one doubts that the Second World War was a bloodbath of titanic proportions, but after that conflict we put in place all kinds of laws to protect human beings. The International Red Cross protocols, the United Nations – along with the all-powerful Security Council and the much ridiculed General Assembly – and the European Union were created to end large-scale conflict. And yes, I know there was Korea (under a UN flag!) and then there was Vietnam, but after the US withdrawal from Saigon, there was a sense that "we" didn't do wars any more. Foreigners could commit atrocities en masse – Cambodia comes to mind – but we superior Westerners were exempt. We didn't behave like that. Low-intensity warfare in Northern Ireland, perhaps. And the Israeli-Arab conflict would grind away. But there was a feeling that My Lai had been put behind us. Civilians were once again sacred in the West. I'm not sure when the change came. Was it Israel's disastrous invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the Sabra and Chatila massacre by Israel's allies of 1,700 Palestinian civilians? (Gaza just missed that record.) Israel claimed (as usual) to be fighting "our" "war against terror" but the Israeli army is not what it's cracked up to be and massacres (Qana comes to mind in 1996 and the children of Marwahine in 2006) seem to come attached to it. And of course, there's the little matter of the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1988 which we enthusiastically supported with weapons to both sides, and the Syrian slaughter of thousands of civilians at Hama and... No, I rather think it was the 1991 Gulf War. Our television lads and lasses played it for all it was worth – it was the first war that had "theme" music to go with the pictures – and when US troops simply smothered alive thousands of Iraqi troops in their trenches, we learned about it later and didn't care much, and even when the Americans ignored Red Cross rules to mark mass graves, they got away with it. There were women in some of these graves – I saw British soldiers burying them. And I remember driving up to Mutla ridge to show a Red Cross delegate where I had seen a mass grave dug by the Americans, and he looked at the plastic poppy an American had presumably left there and said: "Something has happened." He meant that something had happened to international law, to the rules of war. They had been flouted. Then came Kosovo – where our dear Lord Blair first exercised his talents for warmaking – and another ream of slaughter. Of course, Milosevic was the bad guy (even though most of the Kosovars were still in their homes when the war began – their return home after their brutal expulsion by the Serbs then became the war aim). But here again, we broke some extra rules and got away with it. Remember the passenger train we bombed on the Surdulica bridge – and the famous speeding up of the film by Jamie Shea to show that the bomber had no time to hold his fire? (Actually, the pilot came back for another bombing run on the train when it was already burning, but that was excluded from the film.) Then the attack on the Belgrade radio station. And the civilian roads. Then the attack on a large country hospital. "Military target," said Jamie. And he was right. There were soldiers hiding in the hospital along with the patients. The soldiers all survived. The patients all died. Then there was Afghanistan and all that "collateral damage" and whole villages wiped out and then there was Iraq in 2003 and the tens of thousands – or half a million or a million – Iraqi civilians killed. Once more, at the very start, we were back to our old tricks, bombing bridges and radio stations and at least one civilian estate in Baghdad where "we" believed Saddam was hiding. We knew it was packed with civilians (Christians, by chance) but the Americans called it a "high risk" operation – meaning that they risked not hitting Saddam – and 22 civilians were killed. I saw the last body, that of a baby, dug from the rubble. And we don't seem to care. We fight in Iraq and now we're going back to fight in Afghanistan again and all the human rights and protections appear to have vanished once more. We will destroy villages and we will find that the Afghans hate us and we will form more criminal militias – as we did in Iraq – to fight for us. The Israelis organised a similar militia in their occupation zone in southern Lebanon, run by a crackpot Lebanese army major. But now their own troops "go wild". And the BBC is worried about its "impartiality"? — By arrangement with
The Independent
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North-South Korea tensions mount Stinging
insults, sudden cancellations of military agreements and dark warnings of "unavoidable" war are spilling out of North Korea almost daily. On Tuesday, media reports here and in Japan said North Korea is preparing to test-launch a long-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The target for much of this bluster and saber-rattling is the government of South Korea, which has stopped giving its heavily armed communist neighbor unconditional aid. Last year, the new South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, ended his predecessors' "Sunshine Policy" toward the isolated North. For nearly a decade, that policy had soothed nerves on the Korean Peninsula by giving the truculent-but-poor government of Kim Jong Il large amounts of food, fertilizer and trade concessions, all without conditions and without asking questions about nuclear weapons, missile proliferation or human-rights abuses. Chronically hungry North Korea has received virtually no food or fertilizer from Lee's government — and nerves now seem to be rubbed raw, at least inside the North Korean leadership. It has called Lee a "traitor," a "sycophant of the United States" and the leader of a "fascist" state. It declared last week that it was junking all military and political agreements with the South. It warned Sunday, in the North's Rodong Sinmun newspaper, that tension might lead to an "unavoidable military conflict and a war." North Korea has a history of diplomacy by means of noisy, over-the-top brinkmanship. It exploded a small nuclear device in the fall of 2006 and the next year began to disable its main nuclear plant in return for food, fuel and a reduction in diplomatic sanctions. The current round of foot-stomping in Pyongyang might be a similar kind of performance art, analysts here say. "This is quite consistent with North Korea's past track record of creating crisis to attract attention," said Koh Yu-whan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul. So far, South Korea seems to be taking it that way. In recent days, Lee has played down the North's rhetoric, calling it "not unusual." South Korea's navy has been on alert along the country's western sea, where North Korea has said it would no longer recognize a maritime border. But Seoul has not detected unusual movements by the North Korean military. The real audience for the North's heightened belligerence may be the Obama administration. A senior official at North Korea's de facto embassy in Japan suggested in an interview that Pyongyang wants to grab the attention of the new leadership in Washington and pressure it, with threats of regional war, to lean on Lee. "Ignoring North Korea is very dangerous," said So Chung-on, director of the international affairs bureau for Chosen Soren, a Japan-based North Korean group that has close ties to Pyongyang and has often spoken for the government there. "If Obama ignores North Korea, maybe the Korean Peninsula will be tense." He said North Korea wants the Obama administration to instruct South Korea that it should honor commitments — on trade and food aid — made by Lee's predecessors, Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung. Both Roh and Kim attended summits with Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, where they signed far-reaching economic and political agreements with the North. "Our military is very angry that South Korea is not abiding by the agreements made at those summits," said So. "Neglect of this is not so wise. The United States should send a message to Lee." North Korea has signaled in recent weeks that it sees the Obama presidency as an opportunity for much-improved relations with the United States. But the North also announced, on the eve of Obama's inauguration, that it had turned its entire plutonium stockpile into weapons and that it is determined to remain a nuclear-armed nation until Washington abandons its "hostile policy" and the two countries can "normalize" their relations. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said that the Obama administration is interested in direct negotiations with North Korea, but she emphasized that the United States will not normalize relations until the North gives up its nuclear weapons. North Korea has built a new launch center for long-range missiles, according to several reports that cite satellite images. On Tuesday, an intelligence source told Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, that a North Korean train carrying a long tube-shaped object has recently been seen by U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies and it is thought to be a Taepondong-2 missile. A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense declined to comment on the matter. Taepondong-2 missiles are believed to be able to reach as far as Alaska. North Korea test-fired one in 2006, but it reportedly failed 40 seconds after launch. Citing intelligence officials, Japanese and South Korean media said the North's preparations for another long-range missile test are likely to be completed within two months. Here in Seoul, some analysts say that if North Korea's threats against Lee's government continue, they are likely to result in a real, if limited, military clash. North Korea will have to act at some point "because otherwise threats just become bluffing," said Cha Doo-hyun, director of North Korean research at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis. In 2002, a naval skirmish near a disputed sea border killed six South Korean sailors and an undisclosed number of North Koreans. The North was outgunned then by the South's superior hardware. Others scholars here are not convinced that the North wants a fight. "The North Koreans believe they can do with less South Korean aid for a couple of years, due to their hopes in regard to the Obama administration," said Andrei Lankov, a professor who specializes in North Korean studies at Kookmin University in Seoul. "I think they are trying to teach a lesson," Lankov added. "I think they want to demonstrate that Seoul's unwillingness to engage or its attempts to attach some conditions on aid will lead to serious tensions." Last year, the Bush administration helped fill the food vacuum in North Korea. It pledged a half-million tons of food, most of which has not been delivered because of unresolved disputes about monitoring the delivery of aid. Prospects for large-scale, no-questions-asked aid this year from South Korea seem nonexistent. Because of an unusually good harvest last year, the North escaped a potentially catastrophic food shortage last year, according to relief experts. They worry that malnutrition may become severe in coming months. — By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post
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Saving one million children a year IN the middle of prolonged and escalating tension between India and Pakistan, one important fact that unfortunately gets ignored is that if only relations of peace and goodwill can be created between these two countries, it is possible to save the lives of one million children every year in this region. Similarly, lives of lakhs of mothers at the time of child-birth can be saved. Saving lives of lakhs of children and mothers is such a sacred objective that it is bound to get tremendous support from all the great religions and cultural traditions of this region. So can this become our peace-call to replace the war-cries that have already done so much damage? In the entire world 9 to 10 million children die in a year largely due to causes related to poverty and deprivation. The largest number of these unfortunate deaths take place in India and Pakistan. If child mortality levels can be reduced to about half the existing levels, then we would be saving about a million children per year compared to the existing mortality levels. To appreciate the big potential that exists in this region for reducing child mortality, we should compare the statistics of child and maternal mortality in India and Pakistan with those developing countries which have a good record in reducing mortality. Cuba is an obvious example. The example of Cuba is often given to show to what extent the health and survival situation can be improved without reaching the very high income levels of developed countries. The infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births) in Cuba is 6 while this rate is 56 in India and as high as 79 in Pakistan. The mortality rate for children under five years of age is 7 in Cuba while in India it is 74 and in Pakistan it is 99. The adjusted maternal mortality rate (per 100,000 live births) is 45 in Cuba while it is 320 in Pakistan and (even higher) 450 in India. One reason for the high maternal mortality in India and Pakistan is that whereas 100 per cent of child births are attended by skilled health personnel in Cuba, only 43 per cent of births in India and only 31 per cent of births in Pakistan are attended by skilled health personnel. One of the reasons for a high child mortality in India and Pakistan is the high level of malnutrition as indicated by the high percentage of under-weight children. While the percentage of under weight children is 4 in Cuba, this percentage is 38 in Pakistan and as high as 47 in India. Public health expenditure as a percentage of GDP is considered a good indicator of the importance given to public health by any government. In Cuba 5.5 per cent of the GDP is devoted to public health expenditure. Unfortunately, in India this percentage is only 0.9 and in Pakistan it is even less at 0.4 (one of the lowest in the world). So clearly there is a tremendous potential for saving human lives in this region and particularly for saving the lives of children and mothers.
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