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Destructive politics
Educate and profit |
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Expanding the horizon
Congress plenary and after
That will be the day!
Reports of China building and strengthening its existing infrastructure in Tibet continue to flow in regularly. The latest is that China is building 24 new
projects along its side of the Brahmaputra river. While China has constructed a vast network of roads, tunnels, railways and airfields that enable mass rapid
movement of troops to the border, the picture on the Indian side continues to be dismal, which is fraught with strategic and tactical disadvantages Corrections and clarifications
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Destructive politics
Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s surprise offer of a special session of Parliament to debate whether a Joint Parliamentary Committee ought to be set up to examine all aspects of the 2G spectrum allocation scam has been spurned by the Opposition. If Mr Mukherjee was hoping that it would break the logjam between the Treasury benches and the Opposition and lead to the smooth passage of the general budget in February his conciliatory gesture has indeed failed. Both sides must bear responsibility for the recently-concluded winter session having ended without transacting any business because of the inflexible position they took, but the latest refusal of the BJP to accept the proposal for a special session is retrograde and smacks of lack of sincerity to the cause of parliamentary democracy. Let there be no mistaking the fact that Parliament is the appropriate forum for the Opposition to put the government on the mat and by shying away from it, it is belittling the sanctity of the forum. The Opposition has a point of view on the issue of the relative merits of a JPC over a Public Accounts Committee. It feels that the PAC would essentially examine the 2G issue from an auditor’s standpoint while the political aspects of a tainted A. Raja being retained in the Telecom portfolio after the UPA returned to power in the 2009 elections due to jockeying within the ruling coalition would be ignored. The sharp divergence in thinking between the UPA and the Opposition should be reason enough for the latter to tear the UPA’s stand apart through arguments in a re-convened Parliament. For the voting public, this manner of beating the Treasury benches argument for argument would enhance the Opposition’s acceptability in their eye. But leaders of the BJP and the Left parties seem to have a stake in keeping the pot boiling. There is indeed no dearth of issues for the Opposition to embarrass the government on if Parliament were to be the forum that it is intended to be. The government would have been hard put to explain the spate of corruption scandals and the mismanagement that has led to the spiralling prices of essential commodities, especially onions. It is the ill-advised destructive politics of the BJP and the Left that has let the Manmohan Singh government off the hook. |
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Educate and profit
Profit is still a dirty word for many. Therefore, the talk of “education for profit” at a Confederation of Indian Industry function in Delhi on Wednesday must have shocked some. However, pragmatic industrialists feel no prick in the conscience while asking for reasonable returns on investment in education. They will not provide education to suffer losses. Excesses and irregularities by private educators are also known. The state has a regulatory role and can dictate terms when concessions are granted like cheap land and tax relief. Otherwise, government officials should not interfere unless there is a breach of law. Private educational institutions tend to charge hefty fees, which make them inaccessible to students from families with modest means. But there are parents who do not mind buying quality education, even if expensive, for their children. Not many may like to send their children abroad if top foreign institutions are allowed to set up campuses here. The private sector can supplement the government efforts to make education access universal. Liberal government scholarships and bank loans can help students pursue courses of their choice in institutions they want to. The shortage of good educational institutions is acutely felt. Partly because of this the enrolment for higher education is just 13 per cent in India. Besides, a greater role of the private sector in education will help the government focus more on the remote and other neglected areas. Ideally, education along with health and infrastructure building should be a government’s responsibility. Universal free schooling and affordable college and university education are expected of a welfare state. However, governments often misspend or squander public money. Despite recent budgetary hikes the UPA government spending on education is still below the level of 6 per cent of the GDP suggested by the Kothari Commission way back in 1968. Even the so-called progressive states of Punjab and Haryana spend just 2.23 per cent and 2.05 per cent of their GDP on education, respectively. Hence, private investment needs encouragement. |
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Expanding the horizon
The Sikh diaspora has a sizable presence in a number of nations around the world, and the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has done well to recognise the concerns and issues that Sikhs abroad have to deal with. Among other things, they have to explain the essence of their religion and the teachings of the Sikh Gurus to a foreign audience. For this they need authoritative, explanatory literature written in contemporary idiom. The SGPC’s original role of managing Sikh gurdwaras has expanded over the years. The committee needs to address the 21st century by producing and dispensing information in English and other languages so as to provide better understanding of the Sikh scriptures and ethos. The Sikhs, both in India and abroad, seek guidance from the SGPC on various matters. This has been so for over a century and there are many instances of the committee deciding on conscientious matters brought to its attention by the foreign sangats. Even when they do not live in India, the Sikhs wear turbans and are thus visible minorities wherever they are. In the post-9/11 security scenario, this has brought them in conflict with the authorities most notably, but not exclusively in France. The French authorities have banned turban-wearing children from government-funded schools, and require Sikhs not to have their pictures taken for IDs without any turban. In the US, the request to remove a turban for security checks has created various embarrassing situations, including one instance involving the permanent Indian representative to the United Nations. The SGPC’s plan to set up a panel to address the concerns of the Sikh diaspora is indeed laudable. It would be a good forum to both understand the concerns of the community abroad, as well as address them. In the global village that the world has become, the Sikhs need an effective leadership with an international vision. The SGPC is now looking at establishing offices in various countries. It would do well to prepare well before embarking on such
endeavours. |
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Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. — George Bernard Shaw |
Congress plenary and after
CELEBRATIONS of the 125 th anniversary of the Indian National Congress at the party’s 83 rd plenary have turnedinto a slugfest between the core of the ruling United Progressive Alliance and the principal Opposition party, the BJP.While the Congress attack on the saffron party was confined to the issues of corruption and “subversion of the Constitution” by holding to ransom the entire winter session of Parliament, the head of the Sangh parivar (family), the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh (RSS), fared much worse. The Congress asked its government to probe the Sangh’s “links with terrorist groups”. Digvijay Singh, a party general secretary, who has been leading the attack, went so far as to compare the votaries of Hindutva to the Nazis. Overwhelming emphasis on corruption at the three-day session was inevitable, given the spate of scams of gargantuan dimensions that have engulfed the Congress-dominated ruling combination. According to Surendra Mohan, the upright Socialist leader who died the other day, during the nine years from 1980 to 1989, “there were 16 scams but, under the UPA’s six-year regime, the number has multiplied three times, if not more”. Nor is it a surprise that both Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, making offence the better form of defence, lambasted the BJP for adopting “double standards” — shouting against corruption in Delhi and shielding the corrupt in Karnataka. The BJP made their task easy. By assiduously protecting not only the Karnataka Chief Minister against very serious charges of land-grab but also the Bellary Reddys notorious for allegedly monumental mining loot, the party with a difference is not just adopting double standards. It is doing something disgraceful. But what the Congress president and the Prime Minister overlook is that two wrongs can never make one right. The pot and the kettle are equally black. Against this backdrop it is no wonder that the BJP has hit back at the Congress equally hard, declaring that the ruling party, mired deep in scandals, was behaving like a “party under siege” and showing signs of suffering from “BJP-phobia”. Arun Jaitley, leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, mocked that at its plenary the Congress “talked more about the BJP than about itself”. The party also taunted Digvijay Singh for failing to produce the evidence of his phone call to the Maharashtra’s chief of Anti-Terrorist Squad Hemant Karkare that he had “boasted” he possessed. When the Prime Minister, invoking Caesar’s wife, declared that he had nothing to hide and offered to appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the Congress-BJP confrontation escalated fast. BJP leaders rejected Dr Manmohan Singh’s offer out of hand. Caesar’s wife, they argued, did not choose the forum where she wanted to be judged. The PAC was unacceptable because of its limited remit, and that the Opposition would settle for nothing less than a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) that the Congress is resisting resolutely. Polarisation of Indian polity has done the country great harm already. The bare-knuckle fight in the offing would make the situation much worse. The disruption of the winter session wasn’t the first of its kind, and sadly it is unlikely to be the last. At the plenary no religious tag was attached to terrorism. But what has already been said about Hindu-versus-jihadi terrorism has dangerous potential. As for the galloping cancer of corruption, Sonia Gandhi’s five-point plan to counter it is unexceptionable. But it should have been enunciated on the day in 2004 when the Congress had returned to power after eight years in the wilderness. Anyway, it is better late than never. However, the nagging questions is: Will the “Sonia Plan” be implemented during the remaining three and a half years of the UPA’s present tenure? Fast-track trial of those charged with graft, state funding of elections, transparency in the award of hugely lucrative contracts and mining licences have been talked of for decades but to no avail. And going by experience so far, it would be easier to get a collective declaration of atheism from a conclave of Cardinals than to persuade Indian politicians, irrespective of their political affiliations, to relinquish discretionary powers, especially of land allotment. One must also say with all due respect that the Congress claim of acting and acting fast against corruption is a trifle exaggerated. It would not have been in the mess it is today if only it had acted against A. Raja at least 13 months earlier. The Radia tapes reveal a rather gloomy picture of his reappointment as Minister of Telecommunications and thus of the Congress stand against venality. The other day the Supreme Court indicted Vilasrao Deshmukh, a former chief minister of Maharashtra and now a Union Cabinet minister, for intimidating a police officer to drop the case against a loan shark, father of a Congress MLA. If the Congress president and the Prime Minister have given Deshmukh the marching orders, the country has yet to hear of them. Anniversaries are undoubtedly occasions for rhetorical flourishes and grandstanding. Even so, one would have thought that at the plenary the party would do some introspection, too, because since the heady days of May 2009, its stock has plummeted and its strength in the country eroded. In the elections in Bihar it suffered ignominiously, winning only four seats compared with nine in the last assembly. Worse, in the state of Andhra that sent the largest contingent of Congress members to the Lok Sabha, the party is in a shambles and the overdue decision on Telangana will exacerbate the rolling crisis. In Maharashtra, partnership with Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party is the problem. And of the alliance between the Congress and Mamatadi in West Bengal, the less said the better. Come to think of it, the most revealing moment at the plenary was when a large number of Bihar delegates heckled Mukul Wasnik and angrily told the leadership that he had “sold” almost all the 241 seats that the party contested and of which it had lost the deposit in 207. At the Congress centenary in Mumbai in 1985 Rajiv Gandhi had vowed to eliminate the “brokers of power and influence” who “ride on the backs of millions of ordinary Congress workers” and have converted “a mass movement into a feudal oligarchy”. Twenty-five years on, the promise remains unfulfilled. Sonia Gandhi has delegated this task to a special shivir (camp) a la Pachmarhi and Shimla. Let’s wait and
watch. |
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That will be the day!
WITH negligible exceptions, our daughter, married in Chandigarh, spends her evenings with us with her two tiny siblings as a ritual. A day before Diwali, she and her two daughters were with us. I, being free from the normal burden of going through “Katcha Peshi” due to Diwali holidays was playing with the kids. Suddenly, a younger one, about two years old, came up with a demand in her sweet toddler voice: “Balloon chahiye” (I want balloon). The demand was made with so much conviction that it was irresistible for me to ignore or avoid it. I straightaway went for my walking shoes and was off to a nearby market. My wife joined me as she had not gone out for a walk for a few days. It was late in the evening and lights had been switched on to beat the darkness. Within minutes, we had finished the purchase and were on to our return journey. While coming back, we followed the lanes, where some of the powerful babus on high assignment and some politicians are housed. There were virtual traffic jams in front of the houses. Swanky cars and SUVs were lined up with people coming out and entering various houses in turn with heavy packages in toe. Policemen guarding the gates were escorting these well-to-do guests with due respect. We had to wade through the scramble of Mercedes, Audis and Fortuners. While negotiating this newly noticed rush in the otherwise quiet lanes, my wife broke her silence murmuring: “Is it not corruption”? She continued with her tirade observing: “One can accept costly gifts on Diwali and still maintain that one has been honest”. I was searching for words to react but could not dare to contradict her. Indeed, I had no reason to differ with her. While proceeding further, we heard one group telling a sentry at the gate: “Bata dena main aya tha” (convey that I had come). As we walked towards our house, my wife still could be heard saying: “kee eh kadi khatam hoega” (will this ever stop). One could realise the real implication of the observations innocently made on reading a news item the following morning. “Corporates take luxury route,” was the headline in one of the leading newspapers. The list of gift items and their values as reflected could not be termed only as ‘pampering’ friends but would take the colour of corruption or of bribe. Those who come to give Diwali greetings perhaps even do not bother to know if one has had some tragedy in the family in the recent past and may not be in a celebration mood. Some of these people would have never come to share moments of grief with their benefactors. Diwali pampering is certainly not meant to convey greetings but is another way of bribery. I kept thinking if it would ever stop and went to sleep, hoping that “Wo Subah Kabhi to Aayegi” (that time would come
sometime). |
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Reports of China building and strengthening its existing infrastructure in Tibet continue to flow in regularly. The latest is that China is building 24 new projects along its side of the Brahmaputra river. While China has constructed a vast network of roads, tunnels, railways and airfields that enable mass rapid movement of troops to the border, the picture on the Indian side continues to be dismal, which is fraught with strategic and tactical disadvantages
Defence Minister A.K. Anthony was reportedly shocked when, in December 2007, he personally saw the terrible state of the Nathu La axis in Sikkim vis-à-vis the swish Chinese infrastructure across. The traveller today experiences a sickening feeling of déjà vu. Our border infrastructure is as somnolent as it was in 2007. The strategic 165 km long National Highway 31-A linking Siliguri through Gangtok in Sikkim to the Indo-Chinese border at Nathu La (14,300 feet) still looks bombed out, devastated and gutted. Blocked by landslides, ridden with pot-holed patches and untidily strewn road-widening activity, a one-way journey on this Border Roads Organisation (BRO) road, Sikkim's lifeline, takes over eight backbreaking hours. NH-31A truly represents the dismal state of border infrastructure in the northeastern region, reflected accurately by the state of the equally strategic NH-31 linking Siliguri to the "seven sisters". No better proof of government apathy is more evident than from the 8th report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence tabled in August 2010. Titled Construction of Roads in the Border Areas of the Country, it savagely indicts the "casual attitude" of the Ministry of Defence. One excerpt reads: "It is truly mind-boggling that the Defence Ministry has no data on the roads being made by neighbouring countries in the border areas… Then there is the BRO, which conveniently deflects the question on the slow pace of construction of roads in border areas due to "historical" reasons. Really, did the Government of India actually believe till two years ago… that we should not make roads as near to the border as possible....incomprehensible and inconceivable". Commenting on the Ministry's two Long Term Perspective Plans (LTTP-I and LTTP-II) for augmenting border roads, the Committee notes, "out of the 277 roads of the length of 13,100 km to be built till 2012, only 29 are complete and work is in progress on 168 other roads. No work has yet started in respect of 80 roads measuring 2,624 Km." The Committee has pulled up the BRO for its inexplicable "sense of complacency". It is tragic that the visionary letter that then Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, wrote to Nehru on November 7, 1950 is, 60 years later, an eloquent strategic statement which has not been acted upon. Patel had cautioned Nehru with prescience that a long-term view was needed for "improvement of our communication, road, rail, air and wireless, in border areas and frontier outposts". Nehru never responded, but left as legacy, the incomprehensible ostrich policy of not developing our border areas. Compare this with the Chinese approach. In 1950, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) entered Tibet with two slogans: "Development", and "Strengthening the Borders". These remain constant even in 2010. China has created and upgraded the entire spectrum of infrastructure in Tibet — from railways to roads, power projects, cities, airports, military and missile bases. With Lhasa connected by rail, the network is being extended to Nepal and to the Indo-Chinese border at Shigatse, north of Chumbi Valley and Tsona, north of Tawang. Pan-Asian rail links to Myanmar, Indo-China and Singapore are also proposed. This Chinese projection of national interest to revive, upgrade and promote Chinese influence, trade and commerce, stabilise unsettled areas as well as project its military muscle is neither unfair nor unwarranted. Indian strategic thinkers are driven by the fear of Chinese encirclement of India by their "string of pearls" strategy and by the Sino-Pak collusion in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. These developments could, however, also be fallouts of Chinese economic expansion and the need to develop China equitably, but with a military subtext. India in her national interest has also started looking towards East Asia. Implementation of Sardar Patel's advice has fitfully started, with accretion in military manpower, news of Agni missile sites being reconnoitered and activation and upgradation of airfields at Nyoma, Fukche and Daulat Beg Oldi, besides moving some top line aircraft to Tezpur. Serious problems however remain unaddressed. Land acquisition, bureaucratic red tape, court cases, lack of cooperation at functional and policy making levels between departments, agencies, statutory bodies, state governments and ministries hold implementation hostage. Progress is also held up by sluggish environmental and forest clearances at the centre and state levels, railway clearances for rail over/under bridges, shifting of utilities - electricity and water pipelines, sewers, telecom cables and law and order problems. Absence of a firm apex and functional leadership, the near total absence of modern processes, systems, and of performance and maintenance audit of BRO by local field Army commanders also seriously inhibits progress as the BRO is answerable only to its controlling Ministry of Surface Transport and the Ministry of Defence. Another issue is the multiplicity of other construction agencies answering to different ministries. The Government's Special Accelerated Road Development Programme in the North East (SARDP-NE) covering 9,740 kms is under the Ministry of Surface Transport and has 10 executing agencies. The Border Area Development Programme (BADP) under the Ministry of Home Affairs has five executing agencies. Thus, 15 agencies and 10 ministries are involved in border infrastructure leading to chaos and total lack of construction synergy. The BRO, once the cynosure of all eyes, today has a huge backlog. Apart from its serious road construction slippages, BRO needs 20 years to complete the 36,000 meters of already accepted bridging work. Seriously understaffed and under-equipped, it functions in a technology/management time warp. Forced to resort to "casual labour" to cut costs, devoid of dedicated airlift (the IAF simply can't cope), with only a handful of its officers trained abroad in cutting-edge construction practices, this once world class organisation is not only in serious decline but is operating with its hands tied in archaic procedures and unimaginative financial norms. Mindless bureaucratic resistance to hiring retired Sappers (officers and men) and General Reserve Engineering Force personnel, and, pitiably, undertaking construction activities in Maharashtra and Chattisgarh that have nothing to do with border infrastructure, add to its woes. What needs to be done is quite clear. An inter-ministerial Border Infrastructure Team (BIT) under the Prime Minister's Office must be urgently set up to implement the infrastructure road map with time bound and fast track sanctions. The Defence ministry should be nominated as the sole ministry dealing with the BRO's functioning, and accountability established through senior field formation commanders. Issues such as getting reputed national and international infrastructure agencies involved in construction, hiring of retired engineer personnel, training key BRO personnel abroad, dedicated airlift, induction of new technology, remote sensing, bringing in drinking water, education, health, power, telecommunications, commerce and connectivity must be part of the holistic vision that will drive the BIT's functioning and accountability. The writer has served in Sikkim
MILITARY POSTURE in the Northeast The assessed strength of the PLA in the region is 180,000 with four motorised Infantry divisions, one artillery division, two armoured brigades, one artillery brigade, and two anti-aircraft brigades. The military districts that fall within the Chengdu Military Region are:
n Chongqing Garrison Other Chinese units in Chengdu are: n
MR Combined Armed Tactical Training Base Indian Deployment n
III Corps (HQ Dimapur) n
IV Corps (HQ Tezpur) n
XXXIII Corps (HQ Siliguri) In addition to various independent brigades, two new divisions, 56 and 71, are under raising to cater to operational requirements in that region. Future plans include raising two more divisions and another corps. |
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Corrections and clarifications
n The headline “Sachin, Sehwag in ICC shortlist for greatest ODI team” (Page 1, December 23) should have been “Sachin, Sehwag on ICC shortlist….” n
In the report “Gen V. K. Singh is honorary Gen of Nepal army” (Page 13, December 23) India’s President has been erroneously mentioned as Pratibha Patel instead of Pratibha
Patil. n In the first edit “Withdraw agitation: HC rejects Gujjar’s plea for quota” (Page 8, December 23), it should have been Gujjars’ instead of Gujjar’s. n
The use of infra for infrastructure in the headline “FM to inaugurate infra conclave today” (Page 16, December 22) is inappropriate. It should have been “FM to open conclave on infrastructure today”. Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them. This column appears twice a week — every Tuesday and Friday. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error. Readers in such cases can write to Mr Kamlendra Kanwar, Senior Associate Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is kanwar@tribunemail.com. Raj Chengappa,
Editor-in-Chief |
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The Chengdu Military Region of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has territorial jurisdiction across the Himalayas opposite India. Headquartered in Chengdu, It is a military administrative command located in southwest China covering Chongqing, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and the Xizang/Tibet Autonomous Region. It comprises two Group Armies, the 13th and 14th (roughly equivalent to a corps), the Tibetan 52nd and 53d Mountain Brigades, the 149th Motorised Infantry Division at Emei, Sichuan, 2 Mobile Armed Police Divisions (38th and 41st), and the 2nd Army Aviation Regiment.