India hits back, row with U.S. hots up
Withdraws some privileges in retaliation for arrest of Indian deputy consul
India on Tuesday set in motion an array of retaliatory steps against U.S. diplomats based across the country for the manner of arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York, signalling the escalation of an unprecedented bilateral row.
The government asked all U.S. consular officers to turn in their identity cards and the entire American diplomatic corps their airport passes while senior Congress leaders snubbed a visiting U.S. Congressional delegation for the second straight day by refusing to meet it.
The government also ordered the Delhi Police to remove concrete barricades on public land and roads that have existed for years around the U.S. embassy, sought salary details and bank accounts of all Indian staff employed at the missions and stopped all import clearances for the U.S. embassy, especially for liquor.
The government’s action was backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which urged the Centre to “match each and every step of the U.S., to take serious action in this matter to establish Indian sovereignty and prestige of its diplomatic community.’’ Talking to newspersons, BJP leader Ravishankar Prasad also took a dig at the government by saying the U.S.’ actions do “not accord to the level of friendship that the Indian government claims to have with the U.S’’.
“We will deal with them exactly the same way they are dealing with us. Not anything more, not anything less. While the U.S. doesn’t provide many courtesies to our diplomats, we go out of the way not to withhold those facilities. If they are downgrading what we are entitled to as diplomats, they will also get the same treatment. This way we will both be going strictly by the rules,’’ said an Indian diplomat encapsulating the method behind the day’s activity.
“We have put in motion what we believe is an effective way to address this issue, protect her dignity. We have communicated the essence we feel in diplomatic terms and also due to the human element,’’ said External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid.
After Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar refused to meet the five U.S. Congressmen on Monday, Congress vice- president Rahul Gandhi and Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde declined to meet them on Tuesday in protest against handcuffing and strip search of diplomat Devyani Khobragade over a contractual issue with her help.
BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi also tweeted saying he had declined to meet the Congressmen in solidarity with the diplomat .
These “reciprocal steps” would “convey a clear message that this kind of treatment of a diplomat is unacceptable,’’ said government sources handling the dispute.
The former External Affairs Minister and BJP leader, Yashwant Sinha, called on the government to expel all gay partners of U.S. diplomats.
Dr. Khobragade was arrested last Thursday. Following a complaint, the diplomat has been charged with accommodating false information about wages to be paid to her home-worker.
India, Pak DGMOs to meet on Dec. 24
The Director-General Military Operations (DGMO) of Pakistan has invited his Indian counterpart for a meeting to strengthen the mechanism to ensure ceasefire on the Line of Control. The meeting will take place on December 24, according to a statement by the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here on Tuesday.
The Inter Services Public Relations too said the Pakistan DGMO had extended an invitation to the India DGMO for a meeting on December 24. The meeting between the DGMOs was agreed to when the Prime Ministers of both countries met in New York in September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
It was suggested as a mechanism to reduce tensions on the Line of Control (LoC), which had seen repeated violations. However, while the DGMOs speak every Tuesday, a meeting was yet to take place.
According to news reports from Washington, the U.S. had asked India to accept Pakistan’s suggestion for including Indian civilian diplomats in the proposed DGMOs meeting. However, this issue had been raised in the past and India had not accepted this suggestion. Reports also quoted India’s Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh, who went to Washington, as saying the LoC was a military issue and New Delhi did not see a diplomatic role in what was essentially a military issue. On Monday, Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony told journalists that the India Pakistan DGMOs could meet when needed and they were already talking to each other.
He also said the incidents of firing on the LoC had come down though not completely, a news report said. In October, the Foreign Office spokesperson had said Pakistan was fully committed to implementing the decision of the two Prime Ministers that the DGMOs should meet to resolve the issue of ceasefire violations along the LoC and the Working Boundary.
Soon, SMS alerts for electricity bills
The Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) will soon launch an SMS facility to remind consumers about electricity bill details and payment from January 2014.
Talking about the features of the facility, which will be launched mid-January, a Tangedco official said once the assessors upload the meter reading in the servers, an SMS would be automatically sent to consumers.
The SMS would contain the service connection number, amount to be paid and due date of payment.
For those consumers who have not paid the electricity bill, a reminder SMS would be sent three days before the last date of payment to avoid penalty.
Tangedco issued a circular to all the section offices in November directing local officials to expedite collection of mobile numbers and create awareness of the facility.
The circular also instructed various local offices to maintain a register for registering mobile numbers of consumers.
But consumers charged that the register was not available in many local offices.
A Tangedco official in north Chennai said in a situation where there was a shortage of assessors and work load heavy, it would be helpful if customers who want to avail themselves of the service volunteer to register their mobile numbers at the local section offices.
The reminder will come three days before last date
Disaster management plans to be revamped
The Hazard Vulnerability and Risk Assessment (HVRA) Cell of the Institute of Land and Disaster Management is all set to kick-start a comprehensive revision of the State and district disaster management plans from next month.
It will be a comprehensive exercise lasting two years. Projects have already been formulated for the purpose and recruitments are being made to make it a meaningful exercise, Shekhar L. Kuriakose, member, State Disaster Management Authority, told The Hindu .
Each district would be assigned a person for undertaking the revision of the disaster management plans and they would work directly under the District Collector who is also the chairman of the District Disaster Management Authority.
In the initial six months, the focus would be on the comprehensive revision of the State disaster management plans before shifting to district disaster management plans.
“The idea is not just to codify the disaster management plans but to experiment and test its reliability and efficacy to remove the bottlenecks, if any,” said Mr. Kuriakose.
The objective is to go beyond mock drills, which help to assess the response of only certain agencies like the fire and rescue and ambulance service and that too in a limited way. This is inadequate in evaluating the overall impact of the revised plans. “Therefore, to get a better picture we would, for instance, convene emergency meetings during the course of the revision of disaster management plans. We will then evaluate whether the officials concerned will turn up for those meeting or depute their subordinates. The time taken by nodal departments entrusted with adopting standard operating procedures for containing disasters will also be tested. This will help assess the responsiveness of the departments and officials concerned and the seriousness of their approach towards disaster management plans,” Mr. Kuriakose said. Once the disaster management plans are revised, its static components would be revised once in two years while the dynamic factors would be revisited as and when necessary. For instance, the change in the contact numbers of agencies or officials concerned would be updated when needed. In fact, efforts are being made to formulate a software to automatically update such changes.
“On the other hand, the static aspects of disaster management plans like the disaster vulnerability of a district are unlikely to undergo drastic change all of a sudden and hence warrants a revision only every two years,” Mr. Kuriakose said.
The idea is to test the reliability and efficacy of the plan to remove the bottlenecks.
Janaspandana goes hi-tech
Chief Minster Siddaramaiah’s public grievance redress meeting, Janaspandana, went hi-tech on Tuesday with the establishment of backend call centre and text message alerts.
Under the new programme every complainant, who participated at the programme, was sent an SMS confirming the receipt of their complaint. Shinde Bhimsen Rao, additional secretary to the Chief Minister, explained that when a person registered his complaint at Janaspandana, he was sent an SMS containing his complaint number.
When the complainant dials the toll-free number and enters the complaint number, he is informed of the status of the complaint.
Tesco is first to seek multi-brand retail slot
Fifteen months after India opened up multi-brand retail to foreign direct investment, the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) received the first such proposal on Tuesday.
British company Tesco, the world’s third largest retailer, applied for permission to acquire a 50-per-cent stake for $110 million in Tata Group’s Trent, the company that operates the Star Bazaar hypermarket chain.
The applicant was willing to comply with all conditions stipulated by the FDI policy, said official sources. The development assumes significance as there were calls for easing the policy’s conditions after Walmart, the second largest corporation in the Fortune Global 500 list for 2013, announced in October that it had parted ways with Indian partner Bharti.
The U.S. retail giant wanted the local sourcing norms relaxed.
“India’s retail market has been strengthened by Indian retail chains....So why do we assume that Walmart will make a huge difference to India’s retail market?” Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said at the time.
The FDI policy permits a maximum of 51-per cent stake in an Indian multi-brand retailing company subject to government approval if the investor commits a minimum investment of $100 million, a 50-per cent investment in backend infrastructure and a 30-per cent mandatory sourcing of products from small industries.
A cheaper kit to diagnose thalassemia
India on Tuesday launched a low-cost, indigenously-manufactured Thalassemia and Sickle Cell diagnostic kit that will simplify the identification of seven common beta-thalassemia mutations and two common abnormal haemoglobins common in India. This kit, tailor-made for the Indian population, can also be used for screening.
The kit, to be made available at approximately Rs 400 in the public health facilities up to district levels, is expected to bring down the prices of the test in the open market where it costs up to Rs 15,000.
Halt Flamanville EPR work, says nuclear watchdog
Environmentalists criticised reactor as being too expensive and an impossible and dangerous dream
Work under way at the third-generationEuropean Pressurised Reactor in Flamanville, France.— File Photo: Reuters
The controversial French EPR at the Flamanville plant in France has once again run into trouble, with the French nuclear watchdog the Nuclear Safety Authority (Agence de surete nucleaire) calling for a halt in work, according to reports appearing in the French press.
EDF, the French engineer-operator of the plant, has admitted that it has received a warning from the French Ministry of Labour but rejected reports that said construction had been forcibly halted.
The gigantic reactor capable of producing 1650 megawatts of power has had teething problems ever since work first began almost eight years ago. Initially expected to go on stream in 2012, the reactor is now slated to become operational in 2016 with a corresponding rise in cost – from an initial € 3.3 billion to an estimated € 9 billion. Not a single EPR (European Pressurised Reactor) is currently operating. The plant in Olkiouoto in Finland, delayed by several years has yet to be commissioned and the Finnish operator TVO is locked in a bitter arbitration battle to the tune of € 2.7 billion with French nuclear giant Areva, the designer of the troubled reactor.
Escalating cost
India is currently negotiating the unit cost of power for two EPRs to be built at Jaitapur in Maharashtra. The cost of the reactor has jumped from an estimated € 3.3 billion in 2007 to over € 8 billion now. It is likely to cross € 9 billion next year. Environmentalists have criticised the reactor as being too expensive, too gigantic and an impossible and dangerous dream. But French authorities have pegged ahead with the controversial project, work on which has been halted several times following conformity warnings from the French nuclear watchdog and accidents including on-site deaths.
“There is real danger at the heart of the EPR in Flamanville [northern France] which EDF has chosen to ignore, failing to respond to the many summations issued by the Agency . Finally, on 13 December, the Ministry of Works and Labour officially warned the engineer operator to take all necessary steps to remedy a situation dangerous for worker safety. Which means of course that delays and costs will rise even further for this gigantic project,” the influential French website Mediapart reported.
An EDF spokesman confirmed that the Agency had pointed to over 15 cases of non-conformity in a machine at the heart of the reactor under construction.
“We have issued a provisional report and are going to issue a final report on the remedial action taken,” the spokesman said. Earlier, the ASN had halted work when cracks appeared in the reactor’s central dome because of faulty cladding and cementing.
Environmental specialists have questioned India’s decision to firstly purchase the mega reactors and secondly locate them in Jaitapur, considered to lie in a seismic zone. Areva, the reactor’s designer says the reactor has a double dome that ensures absolute safety.
India is negotiating unit cost of power for two EPR reactors to be built at Jaitapur
The work has been halted several times following conformity warnings
Leaders heap praise on Bill’s architect
Senior Congress member and Chairman of the Select Committee on the Lokpal Bill, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, came in for praise in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday when the Bill was taken up for discussion after almost two years of dilly dallying.
The government accepted almost all the recommendations of the select committee, even revising the list of amendments that it had intended to move.
Three amendments
Law Minister Kapil Sibal said the government now intended to move just three amendments, dropping most others.
Mr. Sibal underlined the need for greater independence and transparency in the functioning of the institution of the Lokpal, given the political climate blowing across the country.
The first shower of encomiums for Mr. Chaturvedi mostly came from the Opposition benches. Bahujan Samaj Party leader Satish Chandra Mishra led the way, praising him for the manner in which he conducted the proceedings and elicited opinion from across a wide spectrum.
The earlier draft was toothless and nothing but garbage, he maintained. Despite belonging to the Congress, he pointed out, he had disregarded the pressure from his party and the government.
Job well done,
says BJP
“It was a job well done. The nation appreciates good work,” Bharatiya Janata Party deputy leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said. He underscored how the Joint Parliamentary Committee report on the 2G scam was attacked for its alleged bias and lack of leadership.
Janata Dal (United) leader Shivanand Tiwari too complimented him for showing statesmanship in preparing the report.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury wondered if Mr. Chaturvedi should have had been made the chairman of the JPC on 2G scam.
States callous about ending sexual exploitation of children, says Supreme Court
‘It is the duty of States to create healthy environment in which children can bloom’
The Supreme Court has expressed concern over sexual exploitation of children and lack of preventive action by the States, and directed their Chief Secretaries to put an end to the menace.
In January this year, the court directed all States and Union Territories to implement the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 and the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005.
During the resumed hearing on Monday, a Bench of Justices S.S. Nijjar and Ibrahim Kalifulla noted that many States and Union Territories had not complied with the directions.
“Although affidavits have been filed indicating that State Commissions have been established, we find that such establishment is only on paper. In many States, the Chairman of the Commission has not been appointed and in some States even members have not been appointed. This apart, necessary rules and regulations have not been framed. This … would be sufficient justification for this court to take a serious view and initiate appropriate proceedings for contempt of court against the defaulting States and Union Territories.”
The Bench said: “Given the lackadaisical manner in which the States and Union Territories have responded to the concern shown by this court in relation to the wholly unacceptable situation prevailing and to stamp out any further exploitation of children, it has become necessary to re-emphasise that it is the bounden duty of the States under Articles 21, 21A, 23, 24, 45 and 51A (k) of the Constitution to create and maintain a protective and healthy environment in which children, who are the future of this country, can bloom and subsequently become mature and responsible citizens.
“We have been pained to notice the utterly callous attitude adopted by the States as well as Union Territories. We, therefore, have no option at this stage but to issue some further mandatory directions to ensure that the exploitation of children in all spheres of life is brought to an end with the utmost expedition. Surely, the States and Union Territories must realise that they have to operate under the Constitution.. We direct that the Chief Secretaries of all the States to which notices have been issued shall file an affidavit within eight weeks from the date of this order disclosing full details of implementation of the obligations specified under the three Acts.”
In the unlikely event of non-compliance with any part of the directions, “an officer of the rank of Principal Secretary of the State government shall remain present in person in the court to clarify the issues with respect to the failure to implement the directions. If for any reason, the affidavit is not filed by the Chief Secretary before the next date of hearing, then also the officer of the rank referred to above shall remain present in person to explain the the State’s failure to submit the affidavit.”
Bench warns Chief Secretaries of contempt action
Setting up of State commissions remains only on paper: Bench
Bangladesh Jamaat seeks engagement with Indian civil society
The Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, currently in the eye of a storm over violent protests over the execution that followed the 1971 war trials, is keen to engage with the Indian civil society, their assistant general secretary Abdur Razzaq said.
Talking to a group of visiting journalists, Mr. Razzaq, one of the few leaders of his party who is outside the jail, said: “We engage in civil society all over the world but not in India. I am not welcome in India.” The leaders were put behind bars between 2010 and 2012 on charges of committing war crimes.
Pointing out that the Indian government should have an open mind (on his party), he said that it was incorrect to say that they were involved in the prosecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh. “Let there be a judicial inquiry to find out the truth”. He alleged that the killings were being done by the supporters of the ruling party and the blame was being put on the Jamaat to malign and marginalise them.”
There have been reports of a spate of killings of religious minorities especially in the home district of Satkhira (from where Kader Mollah, the Jammat leader who was recently executed, hailed).
To a question whether the execution was a setback to the party, Mr. Razzaq said it was not a setback and the party wanted war criminals to be tried. “I wanted a trial but I need to be satisfied that it is being done as per national and international practices ... nothing applies here,” he said at a brief interaction at his house in Dhaka. “This trial has divided the nation,” he observed, adding that no one should be tried for political purposes. At least 10 Bangladesh Jamaat leaders are facing trials on charges of committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 war of liberation.
He also pointed out that the entire process is flawed and has attracted attention of the international community.
Mr. Razzaq, however, seemed to be less comfortable with the attention that the party received from Pakistan which declared the executed leader as a martyr, saying that it would have been better had the incident been condemned as a human rights violation.
As for the Jamaat’s political alliance with the main political Opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, he said that in politics there were no permanent friends or enemies and there had been alliances with both the present ruling party too. “With the BNP it is a natural alliance … we have had good relations with the Awami League and we have fought polls with the BNP.”
The meeting took place at Mr. Razzaq’s residence amid a 72-hour blockade across the country called by the BNP to press for a neutral caretaker government and postponement of elections scheduled for January 5.
The country returned to its turbulent times after a day’s let-up on Monday when everyone came out (the two main parties included to participate in the Victory Day celebrations on December 16, when the nation was born in 1971).
( This journalist was in Dhaka at the invitation of the Indo-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce. )
Ahead of polls, Centre makes major changes in MGNREGA
“Rs.10,000 for construction of individual toilets: Jairam
With an eye on the upcoming General elections, the Centre on Monday announced significant changes to its flagship MGNREGA programme seeking to ensure permanent and durable asset creation and an introduction of a penalty for delayed wage payments.
More specifically, the changes include Rs 10,000 for the construction of toilets for all job card holders and assistance for buildings for women self-help federations.
“Every (MGNREGA) job card holder will be entitled to build an individual toilet and the MGNREGA contribution goes up from the current Rs 4,500 to Rs 10,000,” said Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh while announcing changes in Schedule I and Schedule II of the scheme.
“Anybody who has a job card, you may be APL... and if you don't have a toilet at your home, you will get Rs 10,000 under MGNERGA for constructing toilet... What we are doing is we are expanding the universe of people who can build toilets,” he added.
Addressing the persistent issue of delay in distributing wage payment to MGNREGA workers, the government has announced compensation for them if it is delayed beyond 15 days and the amount would be deducted from officials responsible for it. Andhra Pradesh has already started to implement this. Additionally, wage payments will be made exclusively on the basis of measurement of work done instead of solely attendance. The Minister went on to reiterate the three objectives of NREGA. First to provide wage employment, second is to create durable community assets and third to empower gram panchayats.
Mr. Ramesh announced the contribution of MGNREGA for constructing houses for the poor in convergence with Indira Awas Yojana or any other state rural housing scheme, buildings for women self-help federations operating in village or block levels, community storage facilities at gram panchayat or women SHG levels for agriculture produce and centres for manufacturing building materials like bricks in gram panchayats. “The biggest contribution of NREGA for agriculture would be if small and marginalized farmers use the scheme to improve the quality and productivity of their farmland” he said. He added that this could lead to a potential “agricultural revolution”.
Not for court to legislate on definition of Editor, says Delhi High Court
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday dismissed a public interest litigation by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy urging it to pass a direction to rectify “a lacuna in the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867 regarding the definition of Editor.”
Dismissing the petition, a Division Bench of Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice V.K. Rao said: “It is not for the Court to legislate.”
Dr. Swamy had urged the Court to read “no person who does not ordinarily reside in India written in the Act also as ‘and is not a citizen of India’ shall not edit a newspaper.’’ He argued for “reading the current statute to include being a citizen of India as a prerequisite for being regarded as ordinarily resident in India.”
The Bench, observing that “it may be true that citizenship kindles a sense of patriotism and loyalty and thus it may be desirable that a person who is not a citizen of India should not be an editor of publication in India,” said: “The Press and Registration of Books and Publication Bill, 2011 … has suggested amendment to the Act by defining editor to mean a person who is not only an ordinary resident in India but is also a citizen of India.”
“But it is for the legislature to consider the Bill on the floor of the House and not for the Court to legislate,” the Bench added.
“Hoping that Parliament would find some time to consider the Press and Registration of Books and Publication Bill, 2011, which is pending consideration now for over two years, we dismiss the writ petition declining relief as prayed for,” the Bench said.
Dr. Swamy had sought direction for removal of the former editor of The Hindu , Siddharth Varadarajan, submitting that he was not an Indian citizen. The Bench said the issue had become infructuous “because during the pendency of the writ petition the respondent no. 3 [Mr. Varadarajan] resigned from the post of Editor of The Hindu …’’
Dismisses Subramanian Swamy’s plea to pass a direction to rectify a lacuna in the Press Act
New lease of life for rare mango species
A Rajapalayam farmer discovers some varieties of mangoes thought to have been lost
K.S. Jegannatha Raja in his mango orchard.
While most farmers grow and sell crops, only a few, out of interest, take the less travelled road to find and conserve something for the benefit of society. K.S. Jegannatha Raja, a small farmer from Rajapalayam, Tamil Nadu, has discovered some rare varieties of mangoes specific to the region, and taken upon himself the task of conserving them.
A variety called Panjavarnam is famous in Virudhu Nagar and Madurai districts. It comes to bearing from February- April. A 15-20-year old tree bears about 1,000 fruits annually. A fruit weighs 250-300 gm and tastes very sweet. About 100 years ago, people preserved the variety by soaking it in honey. The fruits were used mostly for domestic consumption rather than export. “That is perhaps the reason it has not been very popular,” says Mr. Raja.
According to P. Vivekanandan, Executive Director, Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Voluntary Action (SEVA), Virattipathu, Madurai, another variety called Puliyadi bears fruit in March-April. Its taste is superior to that of the Alphonsa variety, he claims. Mr. Raja has been able to promote 500-800 seedlings of this variety among his contacts in the last 10 years.
The Periyakulam Horticulture College under the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, has classified Puliyadi as an endangered variety. When Mr. Raja displayed it in an exhibition at a seminar in 2003 at Rajapalayam, experts were stunned. A decade ago, only 30 trees of this variety were found and today, thanks to the farmer’s tireless effort, the variety can be found in and around the Rajapalayam region like W. Pudhipatti, Maharajapuram, and Kansapuram in the Srivilliputhur taluk .
The farmer is also credited with saving another rare and extinct mango variety called Pottalma. This comes to bearing in Februray-May and a 20-year-old tree yields about 500 kg of fruits. Over the last 10 years, he has propagated 500 grafts and distributed them to local farmers. He also identifiedKaruppatti kai (Palmyrah jaggery). This variety comes to bearing in February-May and yields 800- 1,000 fruits a year. Even after ripening, the fruits remain green.
“New hybrid varieties have wiped out the native species. I have been struggling to find some export contact for these fruits. But, sadly, exporters are totally ignorant of these varieties and do not want them,” says Mr. Raja.
Mars orbiter well on its way
After the trajectory of India’s spacecraft to Mars was corrected on December 11, “everything is going well” and the orbiter “is well on course” towards the Red Planet, said K. Radhakrishnan, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
“The Mars orbiter was more than four million km away as of yesterday. The spacecraft is in good health,” he said on Tuesday from Bangalore. Every day, precision ranging of the spacecraft was being done to know where exactly it was and how far away it was. Ground controllers from the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bangalore, and the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu, near Bangalore, were communicating with the spacecraft.
Since the Mars spacecraft had travelled more than four million km away, “there is a communication delay of 12 seconds” each way, Dr. Radhakrishnan said.
Three more corrections of the orbiter’s trajectory would be done when the ground controllers would command the eight, small thrusters on board the spacecraft to fire for setting right its trajectory so that the spacecraft is properly headed towards Mars. These course corrections would take place in April, August and September 2014.
The orbiter “is in a parabolic trajectory around the sun towards Mars” said Deviprasad Karnik, ISRO spokesperson. The spacecraft had to be “seen” continuously, that is, it should be monitored all the time. So ground controllers from ISTRAC and IDSN were communicating with it.
As of now, the ground controllers at the IDSN were communicating with the spacecraft, using the dish-antenna with a diameter of 18 metres. From April 2014, they would use the 32-metre antenna to keep a tab on it, Mr. Karnik said.
So far, the orbiter had not encountered any celestial object or space debris, Mr. Karnik added. ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle had put the Mars orbiter into an earth-bound orbit on November 5. After a prolonged firing of the spacecraft’s propulsion system on December 1, the orbiter winged out of its earth-bound into a sun-centric orbit.
If everything goes well, the ISRO would give commands for firing the spacecraft’s propulsion system to erupt into life on September 24, 2014 after it has slumbered for 300 days in deep space. The ground controllers would re-orient the spacecraft, slow it down and insert it into the Martian orbit on that day. Later, they would switch on the five scientific payloads on board the spacecraft to take pictures of the Martian soil, to investigate whether it has methane, study its mineralogy and so on.
India’s Afghan muddle
Afghan President Hamid Karzai cannot get enough of Delhi. He has just concluded his third visit to the capital in the space of a year, a remarkable tally that underscores the great potential of the India-Afghanistan relationship. But India is at risk of wasting opportunities to build on what has been one of its greatest diplomatic successes in the past decade.
For over a year, India has warned that the NATO-led western coalition in Afghanistan erred in announcing a departure date; that the coalition is drawing down combat forces too quickly; and that the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) are being left ill-equipped to fight insurgent and terrorist threats that remain entrenched in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas. Today, India is in a strong position to shape each of these factors to its advantage, but its policies are marked by indecision and confusion.
Security agreement
First, consider the question of western troops. Contrary to the popular Indian understanding, western forces do not intend to “withdraw” from Afghanistan next year. Kabul and Washington have agreed on the text of a Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), which would allow a force of 8,000 to 10,000 troops to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014 for training purposes and limited counterterrorism missions, albeit under strict conditions. Mr. Karzai initially convened a largely hand-picked L oya Jirga (tribal assembly), which overwhelmingly urged the President to sign the agreement. But now, he has changed his mind. He wants new and implausible concessions from the U.S., and also insists that the BSA should be signed by his successor after the Afghan presidential elections in April 2014, perhaps hoping to maintain leverage over Washington in case the elections are as flawed and contested as those of 2009.
The U.S. has retorted that this would not give them enough time to prepare for such a large mission, and that U.S. troops might therefore have to leave altogether — the so-called “zero option.” This would also put at risk the many billions of dollars of American aid that will flow to Kabul for several years after 2014. Without this money, the survival of Afghan security forces and the Afghan state itself is in question. After all, it was not the departure of Soviet forces in 1989 that produced the collapse of the Communist government in Kabul to the Mujahideen, but the withdrawal of Soviet funds three years later. As the Afghan National Security Advisor put it, Kabul without the BSA “would be isolated again, like a lamb stuck among wolves in the desert.”
India, with its panoply of economic, political, and strategic investments in Afghanistan, therefore has a profound interest in ensuring that NATO forces stay. One might think that India would be urging Mr. Karzai to sign. Indeed, only last week the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, James Dobbins, hinted at private Indian support and said that Mr. Karzai’s trip to Delhi would be “quite influential” in persuading the President of the urgency of an agreement. Yet, New Delhi’s policy messaging over the past days and weeks has been downright masochistic.
India first indicated that it wanted the BSA to “reflect the concerns of India as well as Iran.” Yet, Iran is the one country that opposes the BSA — even Pakistan is more supportive. If New Delhi’s intention here is to reach out to Tehran in the aftermath of the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal, this is understandable. But this is a curious way to go about it.
Then, after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Mr. Karzai on Saturday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs declared that Mr. Karzai “will do whatever is best for the people of Afghanistan and … we will support it,” adding for good measure that Mr. Karzai — who has recently reached new heights of paranoia and capriciousness — was “a wise and sagacious leader.” New Delhi should be offering full-throated support for an agreement that is vital to its own regional interests. Instead, it has produced tepid and confused signals that encourage Mr. Karzai to continue his dangerous game of chicken with the U.S. India should be alarmed by this behaviour, not indulge it. Uncritically pandering to Mr. Karzai is the easy option in the short run, but it constitutes immature diplomacy that poses long-term risks to India’s national security.
Indian military support
Second, consider the question of India’s military support to Afghanistan. India certainly hasn’t been entirely passive here. It is intensifying its valuable efforts to train Afghan army officers in Indian establishments, and will soon be training over 1,000 annually. Mr. Karzai himself indicated on the weekend that India’s training was “much better than what appears in the press.” But for much of this year, and with growing volume, he has been pleading with India to supply second-hand Indian arms that he can’t obtain from western allies. With the exception of a few helicopters and some minor equipment, the government has stalled on this request, as well as others to send military trainers. Mr. Karzai’s weapons wish list has met with death by committee in South Block.
India has proffered a baffling and implausible set of excuses for this reluctance: that the equipment could end up in the wrong hands, that Moscow must give permission for the transfer of Soviet-era arms, that India lacks “surplus capacity” in arms, and that the matter is, euphemistically, “under review.” India’s policy is now nothing short of incoherence. Indian officials privately criticise western powers for failing to arm the Afghans more heavily, but India vacillates over doing so itself. India publicly insists that it has confidence in Afghan security forces, but then intimates that their potential dissolution is a reason to avoid shoring them up.
India’s real concerns have little to do with a lack of capacity or Russian permission. Many of the items on Mr. Karzai’s weapons wish list are being phased out of India’s arsenal anyway, or are built by India itself. Its reluctance has more to do with chronic risk-aversion, compounded by the next year’s looming Indian and Afghan elections. This Indian government has struggled to take bold domestic or foreign policy decisions at the best of times, let alone when national polls are within sight. New Delhi is also concerned about arming the ANSF at a time when the post-Karzai environment is so murky (will the next president be as pro-India?), and anxious that the provision of heavy weaponry might provoke Pakistan into intensifying support for anti-Indian groups in Afghanistan. It was only earlier this year that the Indian consulate in Jalalabad was struck by suicide bombers. These concerns are legitimate, but India cannot hope to “free ride” on western efforts while complaining incessantly about how western policy is leaving threats to India unaddressed.
Point of engagement
If India is serious about its concerns over rapid western withdrawal and Afghan weakness, it should get serious itself. New Delhi, Kabul, Washington, London and other governments with an important role in the security sector of post-2014 Afghanistan should form a multinational joint working group to assess the points of vulnerability for Afghan forces. A good starting point would be for India to send trainers to the British-established Afghanistan National Army Officers’ Academy (ANAOA). This would not only integrate with existing NATO efforts, but it would afford Indian trainers with much greater protection from attacks by the Haqqani network or the Lashkar-e-Taiba. In turn, trainers from NATO countries, with over a decade of combat experience in Afghanistan, could also be placed in Indian institutions that host Afghan officers. Only last week, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s adviser on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, explicitly stated that even Islamabad had no problem with New Delhi’s assistance to Afghan security forces.
India has played an important and constructive role in post-2001 Afghanistan. It will continue to do so long after the last western troops depart. But New Delhi’s current policy appears to be to seek influence without commensurate responsibility. India wants western troops to stay, but won’t expend the diplomatic capital required to push Mr. Karzai to sign the BSA. India wants Afghan forces to be better armed, but shies away from taking on the talks itself. India opposes the speed and scope of the nascent American talks with the Taliban, but is bereft of ways to shape this process.
The drawdown of western forces from Afghanistan in 2014 will be one of this decade’s most significant geopolitical shifts. If India doesn’t like the way it’s going, it must decide whether to step up to the plate, with all the attendant risks, or keep shouting from the sidelines.
(Shashank Joshi is a research fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, London.)
If New Delhi is serious about its concerns over rapid western withdrawal from Afghanistan, it should along with other governments form a multinational joint working group to assess the points of vulnerability for Afghan forces
Time for a ‘Right to Healthcare’
Amartya Sen says India ranks alongside Haiti and Sierra Leone when it comes to government spending on health as a share of the total health expenditure of the people
Any self-respecting country has to regard provision of health-care to its citizens a primary responsibility and it’s amazing that the Indian government never thought of that, says Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate and Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. Excerpts from his interview withRaghuvir Srinivasan :
After Right to Work and Right to Food, do you think that the time has come for a Right to Healthcare legislation given the poor state of public healthcare infrastructure in this country?
Absolutely! Let me just say that it is incredible that we have got to this state. If you take any country in the world with the possible exception of the United States among the richer countries, they have always regarded it as absolutely elementary for people to have a right to healthcare. The fact that you have to do it through a separate Act itself indicates how backward we have been. Consider the history of the world.
With the end of the Second World War, European countries gave the right to healthcare to all residents and other countries, including in Asia, went in that direction. Japan already had a very well established medical system but they extended that. Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan also had it. China had healthcare for all but when it marketised in 1979, they made it necessary like in the U.S., which was affecting their thinking very much at that time, for the citizens to buy their insurance cover themselves. So the coverage of health insurance which was automatic until 1979 moved from 100 per cent to 12 per cent. It took them a quarter of a century from 1979 to 2004 to admit that they made an error. And they moved to cover everyone. Now, 96 per cent of the population is covered.
Basically any self-respecting country has regarded this to be a primary responsibility of the government. Therefore it is amazing that the government of India never thought of that. The whole engine of Asian economic development has been the expansion of human capability and the recognition that there is nothing as favourable not only for development but also for economic growth. Since this country is single-mindedly concerned with growth rate, to maintain high growth rate for a long time there is no better recipe than to have a healthy, educated population. So, coming back to your question, if the government won’t do it, will it be right to force the government to do it through a Right to Healthcare Act? Yes. But why shouldn’t the government do it? Why isn’t this a big public issue? Even the Aam Aadmi Party didn’t raise it. The media has a role to play here. In general, the Indian media, print and electronic, should pay much more attention on this subject.
That brings me to the next question. More than 85 per cent of the revenue of Indian publications comes from advertisements which are aimed at the affluent and middle-class readership. Therefore, its focus is on issues that concern this segment of the population rather than on the poor and the deprived. How do you get over this handicap?
I’ll say three things on that. One, yes, it is a problem. Two, is India unusual in depending on advertisement revenue? No, it is not. How come this is not a problem in say, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Brazil or Mexico? We are not uniquely dependent on ads. It is a question of with what imagination and with what level of independent reasoning can newspapers, acting together, deal with advertisement revenue. There should be some convention on that. We have a vibrant media which has made many innovations. It can get more innovative on this. Third, the advertisers are competing with each other and they are playing one newspaper up against another. It should be possible for newspapers to have a code wherein certain types of news are covered and that code is important to seek.
This is about the two-way relationship between growth and enhancement of human capabilities. How do you break the chicken and egg situation of which comes first?
No, no, there is no chicken and egg situation at all. It is a win-win situation. Every bit of growth generates more revenue that you can spend on health and education. More spending on health and education solidifies the foundation of growth as well as development. You can start anywhere anytime and each of them will work. It’s not that you wait until one gets down and start working. Unfortunately I know that some economists talk like that but that’s a terrible way of thinking about economics. It is one of the things that Adam Smith said with absolute clarity in 1776.
Asked a question why is it that they want to go for a political economy, the answer he gives is that it makes an economy advanced. What is the advantage of that? First, it increases the people’s income. A higher income gives people the ability to do things which they value doing. And it increases public revenue which allows the government to do those things which governments alone can do such as education.
But you have this anomalous situation in India where the government is practically absent in areas such as education and health care leaving them to the private sector and is present in strength in manufacturing steel and refining oil which are better left to the private sector….
That’s just unclear thinking. You should clear out unclear thinking. Every time I come here, a lot of people tell me that the government cannot do anything at all and therefore education and healthcare should be left to the private sector. They don’t recognise, for example, that governmental share of health care in India as a percentage of total health expenditure that people make is one of the three lowest in the world. We are in the company of Haiti and Sierra Leone. We spend one quarter of what the Chinese government spends on health care. We spend 1.2 per cent of GDP while China spends close to 3 per cent. And there is no evidence for this idea that the private sector can do better.
At the level of basic health care it doesn’t work like that. Even the intervention schemes that exist don’t cover preventive medicine or preventive health care but if you become catastrophically ill then the government will pay the money, often to the private hospital, to treat you. That is no way of running public health care.
And this whole idea that the government cannot do anything, you have to look at the examples of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh. When we discussed them a long time ago that they were doing well, I was told that they cannot sustain it because Kerala, for example, is a poor economy. But now it has the highest disposable income per capita in India. The same thing that improves the quality of your life also enhances the economic development. And that story you will not hear. You will hear that [Narendra] Modi has brought such transformation that his State’s growth rate is much higher than [that of] the others. We had a hurricane recently which was expected to be in the news for a month. But it ended the first day because the government could move a million people off the coast. And this was a hurricane five times bigger than Katrina. The problem is that we have convinced ourselves that the government cannot do anything and we give it to the private sector, provide additional money and tie ourselves into a knot from which we cannot exit.
There are some interesting developments in the recent elections. We have a party formed out of a civil society movement which has captured the imagination of the electorate and we are seeing a resurgence of centre-right politics manifested by the success of the BJP. How do you see these developments?
The practice of democracy depends very much on what kinds of issues are brought into the public domain and into the debate connected with elections. The Delhi election was the more interesting one because it brought in many issues which people had neglected in the past. It didn’t bring in all the issues that we want to emphasise as much. It didn’t talk so much about the neglect of education, the lack of public health care and so on. It was concerned more about the delivery of existing services in an efficient and non-corrupt way.
That is important too but I would have liked a broader agenda discussed. However, one cannot get everything and certainly not in one go. But I’m happy that the AAP did bring in some public concerns into the politics of the election. The fact that they could get the people to focus on these issues rather than on issues of religion or caste is also a very positive thing, as also the fact that they won the election in many areas of Delhi without getting into these issues.
The rest of the elections were not unpredictable. The results were connected with traditional politics where religion and caste have played a part. The BJP has been able to project the image of a party that led powerfully even though the nature of the leadership raises deep questions in people’s mind, including mine. The Congress has looked rudderless. So, there’s nothing terribly exciting. Is that an indicator of what’s going to happen in the general election? Is it a wake-up call for Congress? Well, it’s not clear that Congress can be woken up!
raghuvir.s@thehindu.co.in
Every bit of growth generates more revenue that you can spend on health and education. More spending on health and education solidifies the foundation of growth as well as development. You can start anywhere anytime and each of them will work.
And this whole idea that the government cannot do anything, you have to look at the examples of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh. When we discussed them a long time ago that they were doing well, I was told that they cannot sustain it because Kerala, for example, is a poor economy. But now it has the highest disposable income per capita in India.
The Congress has looked rudderless. So, there’s nothing terribly exciting. Is that an indicator of what’s going to happen in the general election? Is it a wake-up call for Congress? Well, it’s not clear that Congress can be woken up!
