Drop charges against diplomat: India
We don’t share Bharara’s view, says State Department official
Daniel Arshack, lawyer of Devyani Khobragade, speaks to the media in front of the Indian Consulate in New York on Wednesday.— PHOTO: REUTERS
As the Indo-US row on the arrest of diplomat Devyani Khobragade intensified, American diplomats and their families in India were set to lose their special treatment at airports from tonight when the deadline for surrendering their special passes would expire.
Withdrawal of the privilege was among the retaliatory actions announced by India in the wake of the arrest of the diplomat in New York.
On the US side, the Under Secretary of State, Wendy Sherman spoke to Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh for about 20 minutes, affirming that the administration did not subscribe to the views of US Attorney Preet Bharara, who defended the way Ms. Khobragade was treated.
Although a conversation between External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and his US counterpart John Kerry was expected to take place sometime on Thursday, it did not happen till late in the night. India would demand the unconditional dropping of charges of visa fraud against Ms. Khobragade to Mr. Kerry. On Wednesday, Mr. Kerry had spoken to National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon after Mr. Khurshid was “unavailable,’’ but there was no reassurance on India's main demand of dropping of charges against the diplomat. Mr. Kerry empathised with India’s
sensitivities about the events that unfolded after Ms. Khobragade’s arrest but expected that laws would be followed by “everyone in the US’’.
“I was not available when John Kerry called. We are trying to lock a time for a call. [Mr.] Kerry is in the Philippines and there is a huge time difference,” Mr. Khurshid explained while sounding a note of caution about the consequences of letting the dispute linger on for too long. “Our relationship has a lot of investment, it is an irreversible matter and we have to deal with it sensibly,’’ the Minister said. Mr. Khurshid refused to comment on US Attorney Preet Bharara’s statement defending the arrest and strip-search of Dr. Khobragade.
However Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin provided a detailed rebuttal. There were no courtesies in the treatment meted out to the diplomat, “under the normal definition of that word in the English language’’ and Mr. Bharara's remarks about equality before the law of both the rich and the poor was not conducive to resolving “inaccuracies’’.
EC recognises AAP as State party
The Election Commission recognised the Aam Aadmi Party as a state party on Thursday after the party fulfilled the eligibility conditions set by the EC for granting the status.
The party, which made its electoral debut in the Delhi Assembly elections, won 28 of the 70 seats and secured about 30 per cent votes.
Arvind Kejriwal, a former Indian Revenue Service officer-turned-politician, launched the AAP on November 26 last year.
According to EC rules, to get the EC’s recognition as a “State party”, all the candidates set up by the party together should get a minimum of eight per cent of the valid votes polled in the entire State or secure a minimum of six per cent of the total votes polled. The party should also win one Assembly seat for every 25 seats in that State.
The AAP, which was allotted “broom” as the election symbol by the Commission, will now have the choice of retaining the “broom” as its permanent election symbol or it can design its own poll symbol provided it fits within the rules and regulations of the Commission.
Among the privileges of being a “state party” are participation in all-party meetings convened by the EC/the State/Central governments, a permanent common symbol for all their contestants, and licence to address voters through All India Radio and Doordarshan during elections.
State’s second drug testing lab opened
There is no restriction in creating government posts or making appointments, said Chief Minister Oommen Chandy here on Thursday.
Speaking after inaugurating the State’s second Regional Drug Testing Laboratory in Kakkanad, Mr. Chandy said that the government in the past two and a half years, had appointed 82,000 people through the Public Service Commission. The government had also created 47,000 new posts.
The government policy is not to keep even a single post vacant, said Mr. Chandy. He said that the Drug Control department has asked for 72 employees at the new laboratory that will be striving to ensure quality drugs in the market. In the first phase, 30 employees will be joining the laboratory. More staff will join after the work done by the laboratory is reviewed, he said. Most of the posts have been created in education, police and health departments, said Mr. Chandy.
As far as development of Kochi and the nearby areas is concerned, the government is giving top priority, especially to the Metro Rail project that is moving on the fast track. The second phase of development of Kochi Metro is also going on, he said.
Thrikkakara will be connected on the Metro route in the second phase.
Minister for Health, V. S. Sivakumar, who presided over the function, said that certain lobbies are working to keep drugs away from the drug control list. But the government has now brought 422 drugs under the list. It is to ensure the quality of drugs that the State had decided to open four regional drug testing laboratories. The State will be the first State in the country to have as many laboratories.
The next laboratory would be in Thrissur for which the government and the National Rural Health Mission would contribute Rs. 2.5 crore each. It will come up adjacent to the Thrissur Medical College. Kozhikode and Konni in Pathanamthitta are the other areas where a drug testing laboratory will be set up, he said. Both the Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi laboratories together would be able to test 8,000 batches of drugs a year.
Mr. Sivakumar said that the primary health centre at Kakkanad would be raised to Community Health Centre in the first phase and later on upgraded as taluk hospital.
The key of the laboratory was handed over by K. Babu, Minister for Excise, Ports and Fisheries to Mr. Sivakumar. MLAs Benny Behnan, Dominic Presentation, V.P. Sajeendran, Hibi Eden, Anwar Sadat, Ludy Luiz, District Panchayat President Eldose Kunnappillil; District Collector P. I. Sheikh Pareeth; Thrikkakara Municipal Chairman P. I. Muhammed Ali; and State Drug Controller P. Hariprasad, were among those who were present on the occasion.
The foundation stone for the laboratory was laid in 2010 by the then Health Minister P. K. Sreemathi. The 25,000 sqft building with hi-tech facilities was built at a cost of Rs. 10 crore.
Union Cabinet nod for takeover of CESS
The Union Cabinet, on Thursday, approved a proposal for the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences to take over the Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS), Thiruvananthapuram.
CESS will considerably augment the Ministry’s research programmes in the field of earth system sciences as the various units and centres of the centre are focussed on R&D on the ocean and atmosphere components of the earth system, and there is no unit that is actively pursuing research with specific aspects of solid earth.
Announcing the decision, an official press release said the total estimated budget requirements of CESS will be Rs.128.67 crore for the remaining period of the 12th Five Year Plan. “Research activities of CESS will cover the whole country with particular focus on South India,” it said. The Kerala government had come up with the proposal for the takeover. The Ministry had then constituted an expert committee to examine the request. “The main objective of the proposal is to conduct and promote basic and applied advanced research in the frontier areas of earth sciences with particular emphasis on solid earth,” the statement said.
The centre will carry out multidisciplinary research in the frontier areas of solid earth science and provide services on a nationwide scale by applying this knowledge for sustainable development of natural resources.
Cabinet approval for loan to sugar industry
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Thursday approved a Rs.6,600-crore interest-free loan to the cash-strapped sugar industry for payment of cane arrears to farmers.
The loan can be paid back in five years with a moratorium of two years. The interest subsidy, of Rs.2,750 crore, will come from the Sugar Development Fund under the Ministry of Food.
Higher gas price for RIL
The meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, also permitted Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) to sell natural gas at the revised higher price from April, 2014, provided the company gave a bank guarantee.
The issue had held up notification of the new gas pricing formula that would be applicable to all producers and all forms of gas, including coal-bed methane and shale gas.
Sushma Singh takes oath as CIC
The President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday administered the oath of office to former IAS officer Sushma Singh as Chief Information Commissioner at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.
A panel comprising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, and Law Minister Kapil Sibal appointed Ms. Singh.
Ms. Singh, who is the fifth Chief Information Commissioner of CIC, is the second woman to be appointed to the post after Deepak Sandhu, whose term ended on Wednesday.
She had joined the CIC as Information Commissioner on September 23, 2009.
Prior to joining the CIC, Ms. Singh served as Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministries of Information & Broadcasting, Panchyati Raj and the Development of the North East Region (DONER).
Besides her, there are eight Information Commissioners — Rajiv Mathur, Vijai Sharma, Basant Seth, Yashovardhan Azad, Sharat Sabharwal, Manjula Prasher, M A Khan Yusufi and Prof Madabhushanam Sridhar Acharyulu.
The CIC is mandated to resolve appeals and complaints filed by information seekers, under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, against government departments or public authorities.
Positive signals in Indian research on HIV vaccine
Indian researchers claim that they have got some positive early leads for developing a vaccine that will prevent people contracting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Blood samples of 128 HIV-infected individuals collected for a preliminary screening showed four “neutralising antibodies” that can block HIV. Studies are on to ascertain whether any one of these or a combination of these can be used as a vaccine to protect against the Indian HIV subtype, Clade-C.
“These are good signals, but we are not sure. More research needs to be done,” said Bimal Chakraborty, head of the research group at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) laboratory at the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI). These individuals were rare and samples needed to be screened further for sensitivity to a panel of viruses.
“At least two laboratories have identified the outer protein of the virus and made its crystal structure,” said Wayne C. Koff, IAVI chief scientific officer. “We will examine if the Indian proteins are acting against these four vulnerable sites on the outer shell of the virus.”
The developments have taken place in the past three months, raising hopes of developing at least a therapeutic, if not preventive, vaccine. A world without AIDS now looks a possibility, researchers believe.
The isolation of the antibodies led to establishment of a global project ‘Protocol G,’ and in India it was taken up by the THSTI. Researchers received 200 blood samples from the Chennai-based non-governmental organisation, YRG Care, which was founded by Dr. Suniti Solomon, who first detected HIV in India in the 1980s.
Vaccines prevent nearly three million deaths every year from infectious diseases, avert disease morbidity and enable more rapid economic and social development. Tuberculosis, HIV and malaria are the major diseases for which preventive vaccines are not available.
Despite global efforts, the scientific community is nowhere close to developing a vaccine to prevent HIV infection because HIV isolates are highly variable. There is lack of an ideal animal model for HIV to screen vaccines. HIV infects, suppresses and destroys key cells of the immune system. Importantly, natural immunity to HIV fails to completely control infection.
Jairam writes to Shinde to reconsider Jharkhand Assembly strength
Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh has written to Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to reconsider the strength in Jharkhand Assembly based on the State population and so that it is in line with the strength of legislative in other States with comparable population.
Jharkhand has a population of 33 million according to the 2001 census and the Assembly has 81 seats with one additional member who is nominated.
In his letter dated December 18, Mr. Ramesh compared the situation in Jharkhand to Kerala which has a population of 33.4 million, and Assam, which has a population of 31.2 million. Both States have a much higher number of seats in the Vidhan Sabha, 141 and 126 respectively. The letter includes the data for States such as Punjab, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, which have population between 27.7 and 25.5 million, lower than that of Jharkhand, but still have larger Assembly strengths at 117 and 90 each seats.
“Even when you take the 1971 census there appears to be under-representation for Jharkhand. I would request you to have this issue examined and ensure the people of Jharkhand have a Vidhan Sabha strength reflective of population and that will enhance political stability,” writes Mr. Ramesh, referring to data from the 1971 census, which shows that States such as Assam have had 126 Assembly seats even with a population of 14.6 million — similar to Jharkhand’s then population.
Mr. Ramesh was named the head of the State coordination committee for Jharkhand by Congress President Sonia Gandhi earlier this week.
The committee meant to improve coordination between the Congress, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Rashtriya Janta Dal that are in coalition in the government headed by Hemant Soren of JMM has been opposed by seven Independent MLAs who were special invitees in the committee.
‘Vidhan Sabha strength lower compared to States with comparable population’
India in a tough neighbourhood
India’s approach in crafting a good neighbour policy with its South Asian sisters comes from the strategic calculation that our security does not exist in a vacuum
Bonhomie:The rising tide of democracy in Pakistan could alter the trajectory of mayhem and violence that emanates from its soil. Here, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is seen with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in New York.— Photo: Shahbaz Khan
As in economic affairs, the tide in global strategic affairs has definitely “pivoted” to the East, to the Indian and Pacific Oceans. This shift, coupled with the web of challenges that populate the environment in India’s immediate neighbourhood in South Asia, and in the Gulf region, makes policymaking complex. For India, the perils of proximity have only grown. This does not mean we turn our back on the world or our neighbours. Rather, we must grow our comprehensive national strength in the economic, scientific, technological, military and communication fields, in order to craft astute responses to the challenges.
By virtue of geography, territorial size, economic heft, extent of development, military capability and, the size of our population, India has a preponderant and central presence in South Asia. Each of our neighbours needs to understand, as the late Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka, Lakshman Kadirgamar noted, where they stand in relation to India, in terms of geographical location, historical experience and national aspirations; how the region also needs to collectively understand India’s “unique centrality” to the region.
Hub for South Asia
None of our neighbours (except Afghanistan vis-a-vis Pakistan and vice versa) can interact with the other without traversing Indian territory, land, sea or airspace. India and its neighbours in South Asia are integrally bound by ties of ethnicity, language, culture, kinship and common historical experience. The Himalayas and the Indian Ocean are the physical boundaries for India, and equally for South Asia, as a region. India exists as the hub for South Asia. There is merit in the reasoning that India should concern itself with the nature of any external influence or presence within the confines of South Asia since threats to its national security can emanate from the working of such influences.
India’s approach in crafting a good neighbour policy with its South Asian sisters is no afterthought. It comes from the strategic calculation and grasp of the core idea that our security does not exist in a vacuum. Our neighbourhood will remain tough as long as our neighbours harbour tendencies and foster elements that see the targeting of India as adding incrementally to their (false) sense of security and well-being. This is a calculus that is self-destructive as the growing tide of domestic terrorism and insurgency in Pakistan created out of a sustained fostering of terror groups by some sections of the establishment would indicate. The incursions and military provocations from across the Line of Control are another manifestation of this calculus. We are yet to see any realisation in Pakistan that pointing the gun at India in Afghanistan through terror groups and their affiliates who wage a proxy war can never bring peace to the Afghan people. Neither will treating Afghanistan as an instrument to build strategic depth against India help Pakistan. India has always stated its intention to continue to invest and to endure in Afghanistan because the Afghans need us and we will not abandon them. The rising tide of democracy in Pakistan, we hope, can alter the trajectory of mayhem and violence that emanates from its soil. While bilateral issues that create conflict and contestation between India and Pakistan need to be resolved by the two themselves, in the larger international arena India must step up its campaign. It makes sense for India to substantively develop its partnership with the U.S. and demonstrate strategic foresight to plan and provide for this relationship.
As 2014 approaches, and the U.S. and its allied forces prepare to draw down (and possibly withdraw totally) from Afghanistan, strategic planners have to assess the options available to India. Taliban extremism in Afghanistan has shown no sign of muting itself, and any loss of the Afghanistan we have known since 2001 will have grave implications for our security. We must assume a scenario in which the Taliban will seek to destabilise the legitimate government in Kabul. India must not hesitate to work to strengthen the international and regional coalition for Afghanistan, and ensure that a democratically elected government is not left to fight the forces of medieval extremism and radicalism on its own.
Balance of interests
India’s northeastern States would be benefited by smoother access through Bangladesh to the rest of India. This will be a significant development “enabler” for the northeast. While traditionally, foreign policy is the sole purview of the Centre, we are now entering an era where the word of the State governments and the parties that run them is increasingly weighing in on the moves that New Delhi can make. In the case of Bangladesh we need to develop a “whole of government” approach that enables a concerted approach of consultation involving all the States that border that country so that a critical balance of interests is evolved without sacrificing national interest.
The welfare of Nepalis should be at the core of India’s relationship with Nepal and the strengthening of mutual trust and strategic reassurance that Nepal can always count on Indian support and friendship is essential. Any use of Nepali territory by alien, adversarial forces to threaten and weaken India’s security concerns us. I believe we can well afford to be more generous with meeting the needs of neighbours like Nepal and Bangladesh in order to cement trust and confidence and also to safeguard our national security.
Myanmar is our land gateway to Southeast Asia. Its northern part defines the landscape of the India-China-Myanmar triangle. Security cooperation with Myanmar to counter insurgencies in our northeast is vital as also the fast-tracking of road and multimodal transportation projects to build connectivity. Anti Rohingya violence in Myanmar has had its reverberations in India, and bears close monitoring.
For Sri Lanka, India is the only near neighbour. Our memory drive on Sri Lanka must encompass the last 30 years of our relationship with that nation, in particular. The unfolding scenario of ethnic conflict and civil war spelt disaster for all communities in Sri Lanka, with nobody more affected than the Tamil population of the North and East. The repercussions for India in terms of the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi were tragic. The end of the civil war is a historic opportunity for reconciliation and the healing of wounds of a bitter divide that pitted one Sri Lankan against another. While the final word is yet to be written, it is in the interest of both of us neighbours, that the pride and self-esteem, the self-respect of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka is not eroded, that they are treated with magnanimity and that they are able to contribute their talents, their knowledge, and their effort for the progress of Sri Lanka.
India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives have institutionalised their cooperation on maritime security issues. This is a constructive development that creates a progressive template for security in our region. China is our largest neighbour. The challenge is to manage our relationship with China despite inherent complexities and embed it in the matrix of dialogue and diplomacy. The China factor has understandably influenced our security calculus. It subsumes bilateral issues and China’s regional profile and military capabilities. The dispute over territory, in our language the boundary question, has existed for over 50 years. The tried and tested way across the world is to manage these differences so that they do not escalate, to promote and sustain mechanisms to maintain peace and tranquillity. Much responsibility devolves on us, as governments in India and China, to help chart an enlightened way through what some scholars call “the cartographies of national humiliation” which confine us to a sense of what we should feel about boundaries rather than how we handle the geopolitics that surround them in a mature manner.
West Asia is vital for India, from the point of view of fighting terrorism, the welfare of the 6.5 million Indians who live there, energy security and fighting piracy. We have been active in supporting dialogue processes in the region, whether it is on the Palestinian question, or seeking a way out of the nuclear conundrum surrounding Iran.
New contours
Where does all this leave India? Differing challenges require a mix of approaches to address them – a firm and clear strategic calculation that ensures the uncompromising defence of our security interests, as well as the pursuit of foreign policy goals that stress dialogue and negotiation to achieve solutions to long-standing problems, and do not forego the people-centred dimension that is an essential ingredient of all viable diplomatic relationships. The situation is not frozen; it acquires new contours and shapes year to year, and we must calibrate our responses with firmness and where required, flexibility. The future has promise, but to embrace it, we must ensure an objective, clear headed understanding of the present and its possibilities.
(The writer is a former Foreign Secretary. These are edited excerpts from the 22nd Sree Chithira Thirunal Memorial Lecture in Thiruvananthapuram on December 14 )
As the U.S. and its allied forces prepare to draw down in Afghanistan, planners must assess India's options
International law only for weaker states?
On the face of it, there is nothing in common between China’s declaration on November 23 this year of an air defence identification zone (ADIZ) extending to territories it does not control and America’s arrest, strip search and handcuffing of a New York-based Indian woman diplomat on December 12 for allegedly underpaying a domestic help she had brought with her from India. In truth, these actions epitomise the unilateralist approach of these powers.
A just, rules-based international order has long been touted by powerful states as essential for international peace and security. But there is a long history of major powers using international law against other states but not complying with it themselves, and even reinterpreting or making new multilateral rules to further their geopolitical and economic interests. The League of Nations failed because it could not punish or deter some powers from flouting international law.
Today, the United States and China serve as prime examples of a unilateralist approach to international relations, even as they aver support for strengthening international rules and institutions.
Disregarding global treaties
Take the U.S. Its refusal to join a host of critical international treaties — from the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the 1997 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, to the 1998 International Criminal Court Statute — has set a bad precedent. Add to this its international “invasions” in various forms, including cyber warfare and mass surveillance, drone attacks and regime change.
Unilateralism has remained the leitmotif of U.S. foreign policy, regardless of whether a Democrat or a Republican is in the White House. Forget international law, President Barack Obama bypassed even Congress when the U.S. militarily intervened in Libya and effected a regime change in 2011 — an action that has boomeranged, sowing chaos and turning that country into a breeding ground for al-Qaeda-linked, transnational militants, some of whom assassinated the American ambassador there.
Carrying out foreign military interventions by cobbling coalitions together under the watchword “you’re either with us or against us” has exacted — as Iraq and Afghanistan show — a staggering cost in blood and treasure without advancing U.S. interests in a tangible or sustainable manner.
Meanwhile, China’s growing geopolitical heft has emboldened its muscle-flexing and territorial nibbling in Asia in disregard of international norms. China rejects some of the very treaties that the U.S. has declined to join, including the International Criminal Court Statute and the Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses — the first ever law that lays down rules on the shared resources of transnational rivers, lakes and aquifers.
America’s appeal to China to act as a “responsible stakeholder” in the global system undergirds the need for the two to address their geopolitical dissonance and the issues arising from it. Yet, the world’s most powerful democracy and autocracy have much in common on how they approach international law.
Might remains right
For example, the precedent the U.S. set in an International Court of Justice (ICJ) case filed by Nicaragua in the 1980s still resonates, underscoring that might remains right in international relations, instead of the rule of law.
The ICJ held that Washington violated international law both by supporting the contras in their insurrection against the Nicaraguan government and by mining Nicaragua’s harbours. The U.S. — which refused to participate in the proceedings after the court rejected its argument that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the case — blocked the judgment’s enforcement by the U.N. Security Council, preventing Nicaragua from obtaining any compensation.
The only major country that has still not ratified UNCLOS is the U.S., preferring to reserve the right to act unilaterally. Nonetheless, it seeks to draw benefits from this convention, including freedom of navigation of the seas.
For its part, China still appears to hew to Mao Zedong’s belief that “power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” So, it will not consider international adjudication to resolve its territorial claims in, say, the South China Sea, more than 80 per cent of which it now claims arbitrarily.
Indeed, it ratified UNCLOS only to reinterpret its provisions and unveil a nine-dashed claim line in the South China Sea and draw enclosing baselines around the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Worse still, China has refused to accept the UNCLOS dispute-settlement mechanism so as to remain unfettered in altering facts on the ground.
The Philippines, which has since 2012 lost effective control to a creeping China, of first the Scarborough Shoal and then the Second Thomas Shoal, has filed a complaint against Beijing with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). Beijing, however, has simply refused to participate in the proceedings, as if it were above international law.
Whatever the tribunal’s decision, Beijing will shrug it off. Only the Security Council can enforce any international tribunal’s judgment on a non-compliant state. But China wields a veto there and will block enforcement of an adverse ruling, just as the U.S. did in the Nicaraguan case.
Even so, Beijing has mounted punitive pressure on Manila to withdraw its case, which seeks to invalidate China’s nine-dashed line. Beijing’s precondition that the Philippines abandon its case forced President Benigno Aquino to cancel his visit to the China-ASEAN Expo in Nanning three months ago.
Beijing’s new air defence zone, while aimed at solidifying its claims to territories held by Japan and South Korea, is provocative because it extends to areas China does not control, setting a dangerous precedent in international relations. China and Japan, and China and South Korea, now have “duelling” ADIZs, increasing the risks of armed conflict, especially between Japan and China, in an atmosphere of nationalist grandstanding over conflicting claims.
Japan has asked its airlines to ignore China’s demand for advance notification of flights even if they are merely transiting the new zone and not heading towards Chinese territorial airspace. By contrast, the Obama administration has advised U.S. carriers to obey the prior-notification demand.
There is a reason why Washington has taken a different stance on this issue than its ally Japan. Although the prior-notification rule in American policy applies only to aircraft headed for U.S. national airspace, the U.S., in actual practice, demands advance notification of all civilian and military flights through its ADIZ, irrespective of their intended destination.
If other countries emulated the example set by China and the U.S. to establish unilateral claims to international airspace, a dangerous situation would emerge. Before every country asserts the right to establish an ADIZ with its own standards, binding multilateral rules must be created to ensure the safety of commercial air traffic. But who will take the lead — the two countries that have pursued a unilateralist approach on this issue, the U.S. and China?
Convention and interpretations
Now consider the case of the Indian diplomat, whose treatment India’s National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon called “despicable and barbaric.” She was arrested as she dropped off her daughter at a Manhattan school, then strip-searched and cavity-searched and kept in a cell with drug addicts and prostitutes for several hours before posting $250,000 bail.
True, this consulate-based diplomat enjoyed only limited diplomatic immunity under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. But this convention guarantees freedom from detention until trial and conviction, except for “grave offences.” Can a wage dispute between a diplomat and her domestic help qualify as a “grave offence” warranting arrest and humiliation? Would the U.S. tolerate similar treatment of one of its consular officers?
The harsh truth is that the U.S. interprets the convention restrictively at home but liberally overseas so as to shield even the spies and contractors it sends. A classic case is the one that involved the CIA contractor, Raymond Davis, who fatally shot two men in 2011 in Lahore. Claiming Davis to be a bona fide diplomat with its Lahore consulate who enjoyed immunity from prosecution, Washington accused Pakistan of “illegally detaining” him, with Mr. Obama defending him as “our diplomat.” The U.S. ultimately secured his release by paying “blood money” of about $2.4 million to the relatives of the men.
Despite a widely held belief that the present international system is pivoted on rules, the fact is that major powers — as in history — are rule makers and rule imposers, not rule takers. They have a propensity to violate or manipulate international law when it is in their interest to do so. Universal conformity to a rules-based international order still seems distant.
( Brahma Chellaney, a geostrategist, is the author, most recently, of Water, Peace, and War, Oxford University Press .)
The harsh truth is that the U.S. interprets the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations restrictively at home but liberally overseas so as to shield even the spies and contractors it sends
An army in search of artillery
Despite the efficacy of artillery firepower unleashed by the Bofors howitzers during Kargil, the Army’s longstanding Field Artillery Rationalisation Plan stands stymied
God, Napoleon said, fights on the side with the best artillery. The legendary French general’s foot and horse artillery repeatedly demonstrated its lethal capacity against his European adversaries by degrading their formidable formations before his cavalry and infantry moved in to victoriously conclude the fighting.
But applying Napoleon’s adage to the Indian Army’s prevailing dismal artillery profile is absurd.
It would preclude God’s cooperation to the Artillery Directorate, whose 180-odd field regiments employ six different gun calibres, a majority of them obsolete.
And if that were not enough cause for worry in an increasingly turbulent region, the Army’s catastrophic artillery woes just got progressively worse.
Lack of communication
Unsurprisingly, these have been triggered yet again by the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) extended stoic silence on acquiring 145 desperately-needed M777 155mm/39-calibre BAE Systems light-weight howitzers (LWH) and Laser Inertial Artillery Pointing Systems via the U.S.’s government-to-government Foreign Military Sales (FMS) route.
Due to the inexplicable lack of communication by the MoD regarding the LWHs and the absence of any other orders in the pipeline, BAE Systems was forced in October to shut down its M777 facility at Barrow-in-Furness, northern England, where around 30 per cent of the 4,200-kg gun is fabricated.
The remaining 70 per cent — including its notable titanium barrel and other aluminium alloys which make it lighter are made at the BAE Systems plant in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, which also undertakes the final assembly of howitzers. The Hattiesburg plant too is expected to close by March 2014 following the lack of communication from the MoD.
But more crucially, nearly half of around 200 technical experts — including engineers — laid off at the BAE’s Barrow facility have been absorbed into the company’s submarine-building operations in the same town. Industry officials said they were unlikely to return to the M777 line, which is almost certain to be revived at some point to execute the Indian order.
Consequently, recruiting and training new technicians to build the M777s will not only add to the already-inflated cost of re-opening and re-certifying the terminated LWH line for India, but further delay the much-postponed procurement.
Cost escalation
Acquiring the LWH howitzers is a priority for the Army, according to the Artillery Directorate, which is highly displeased by the MoD’s delay in furnishing the M777 contract. The acquisition will equip the Army’s proposed Mountain Strike Corps and fourth artillery division for deployment along the unresolved northeastern Chinese frontier. However, acquiring the M777s will now cost India $885 million, 37 per cent more than the earlier offer of $647 million valid for nearly three years till August 2013.
The extra charge is tacked on to cover the expenses BAE Systems undertook in having kept production lines open for over 12 months in anticipation of the Indian order, having resurrected extended component supply chains since terminated and, now, having trained over 100 and possibly more technicians for the LWHs Barrow plant.
The MoD’s recent conduct is odd considering that it had, in January this year, dispatched a team (comprising officials from the Ministry and the Army’s Corps of Electronic and Mechanical Engineers and the Directorate General of Qualitative Assurance) to the U.S. to conduct Maintainability Evaluation trials on the M777s. These efforts constitute the final round of the trials, conducted by the services for all materiel procurement, to confirm that the equipment parameters conform to the stipulated Qualitative Requirements (QR). A final round of price negotiations and spares and maintenance support will be held before the deal is inked.
The M777 contract, beset from the outset, had earlier faced a lawsuit from a rival vendor. The issue was eventually resolved two years later and negotiations with the U.S. to acquire the howitzers resumed.
Further, the M777s ‘confirmatory’ firing trials conducted, in mid-2010 in the Rajasthan desert and Sikkim were compromised after their classified outcome was posted anonymously to Army Headquarters in February 2012. An inquiry into the leaked report revealed nothing.
At the behest of the MoD, BAE Systems has, since 2010, extended its commercial bid for guns five times in addition to conducting eight rounds of negotiations on investing its mandatory 30-per-cent offset obligation of $209 million in the country’s private and public sector.
However, the MoD has now retreated, observing, since February this year, strict radio silence. “Slippages in the Army’s artillery procurement programme, delayed by over a decade, are liable to slip, further raising serious operational implications,” a senior artillery officer has said. He warned that if acquisitions like the M777 were not decided upon imminently, the Army could face a situation where it simply had no long-range firepower in a neighbourhood where its enemies were better equipped.
Despite the widely-accepted efficacy of decisive artillery firepower unleashed by the FH-77B Bofors howitzers during the 1999 Kargil conflict, the Army’s longstanding Field Artillery Rationalisation Plan stands stymied.
Under this Plan, the Army proposes to acquire, by 2025-27, a mix of around 3,000-3,600 155mm/39-cal light-weight howitzers and 155mm/52-cal towed, mounted, self-propelled (tracked and wheeled) howitzers through imports and local, licensed manufacture for an estimated $5-7 billion.
But all these acquisitions continue to be deferred due to bureaucratic delays and a bewildering string of issuing, withdrawing and re-issuing of tenders by the MoD, inconclusive trials and QR overreach by the Artillery Directorate thwarting howitzer upgrades.
The programme to locally build FH-77B howitzers to make up artillery shortages, suffered a setback in August after the barrel of one of the prototype guns burst during firing trials in Rajasthan. An inquiry is underway into the accident, which involved howitzers built by the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) based on technology transferred to it in 1987 alongside the purchase of the 410 Bofors guns that have never been operationalised.
Shortfalls and obsolescence
All this has been further complicated by the MoD having blacklisted at least four overseas howitzer vendors without providing any clarity on their respective statuses. This has further impeded artillery acquisitions where shortfalls are alarmingly high and proliferating.
The Army employs Soviet D-30 122mm guns, the locally-designed and OFB-built 105mm Indian Field Guns (IFG) and its Light Field Gun (LFG) derivative, the FH-77B 155mm/39-cal Bofors howitzers (presently reduced to half their original number of 410 due to non-availability of spares and cannibalisation), Soviet 130mm M46 towed field guns and 180 M46s unsatisfactorily retrofitted by Israel’s Soltam to 155mm/45-cal.
However, the limited 17-km strike range of the IFG, which has been the mainstay of the Army’s artillery regiments for over three decades, is, in today’s battlefield environment, largely irrelevant as the envelope of battle contact at the tactical level has almost doubled to over 30 km.
Besides, many armies had inducted mortars with enhanced ranges of 12-14 km, virtually neutralising at minimal cost the IFG’s marginally-longer-reach, urgently necessitating the induction of more capable artillery.
(Rahul Bedi is the India Correspondent of Jane's Defence Weekly )
Acquisitions are continually deferred due to bureaucratic delays and inconclusive trials
Early retirement is in retreat
We may be witnessing the last gasp of early retirement — not just in the United States but in many industrialised countries. Considering the high unemployment since the 2008 financial crisis, you might expect the opposite. Early retirement would flourish. It would strike many unemployed older workers as the path of least resistance. Can’t get a job? Retire instead. Surely this has happened, but it’s being diluted by a determination to work longer.
Early retirement is in retreat.
So finds a new study of 20 advanced countries done by economists Gary Burtless and Barry Bosworth of the Brookings Institution think tank. Excluding countries with depression-like unemployment — Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland — all these nations have witnessed higher labour-force participation by older workers since 2007. Some gains are startling. In Germany, the share of the 60-to-64 population with jobs went from 33 per cent in 2007 to 47 per cent in 2012; in the Netherlands, from 30 per cent to 44 per cent.
This continues a trend of working longer that started in the 1980s and 1990s. In the United States, 52 per cent of the 60-to-64 population held jobs in 2012, the same as in 2007. But the share of older people with work or searching for a job — the broad definition of “labour-force-participation rate” — has continued to rise. Translation: A shrinking share of older Americans are dropping out of the labour force and relying exclusively on retirement benefits and savings.
What’s occurring is a massive shift in private behaviour. For most of the 20th century, the number of working years decreased among industrial countries. People stayed in school longer and retired earlier. In 1910, reports Burtless, more than half of American men aged 73 were still working; by 1994, half of men aged 62 had retired. This is now shifting: In 2011, only at 64 had half of men retired. At 65, men’s labour-force-participation rate was 46 per cent, up from the historical low of 31 per cent in 1982. Trends for women are similar.
The causes lie in a messy mix of public policy, improved health and changes in lifestyles and economic conditions. For the United States, Burtless cites an increase in Social Security’s eligibility age for full benefits from 65 to 66; a shift among employers from “defined benefit” pensions (which provide payments until a recipient’s death) to “defined contribution” pensions (which provide support only until pension savings are exhausted); and higher education levels among baby boomers. “Better educated people retire later in life,” he says, “and baby boomers are much better educated than previous generations.”
Similar factors are probably at work abroad: cuts in public programs — or fear of cuts; more economic uncertainty; longer lives and jobs that are less physically demanding. Still, a few advanced countries retain low retirement ages: prominently, France, Italy and Belgium. In 2012, only about 20 per cent of their populations aged 60 to 64 had jobs.
On the whole, the lengthening of working lives is a good thing, with one big caveat. First, the benefit: As populations age, countries can no longer afford to have growing numbers of the elderly supported by declining numbers of young and middle-aged individuals.
Welfare states are often strained predominantly due to the costs of caring for the elderly. People need to remain productive for longer. Now, the caveat: This transition is happening at an awful time. Without stronger economic recoveries, jobs taken by older workers contribute to the high unemployment of the young. — © 2013. The Washington Post
The lengthening of working lives is a good thing. But it's happening at an awful time
War leaders must be held to account
Of all the mendacious nonsense that pours out of politicians’ mouths, David Cameron’s claim that British combat troops will be coming home from Afghanistan with their “mission accomplished” is in a class all of its own. It’s almost as if, by echoing George Bush’s infamous claim of victory in Iraq in May 2003 just as the real war was beginning, the British prime minister is deliberately courting ridicule.
But British, American and other NATO troops have been so long in Afghanistan — twice as long as the second World War — that perhaps their leaders have forgotten what the original mission actually was. In fact, it began as a war to destroy al-Qaeda, crush the Taliban and capture or kill their leaders, Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar.
That quickly morphed into a supposed campaign for democracy and women’s rights, a war to protect our cities from terror attacks, to eradicate opium production and bring security and good governance from Helmand to Kandahar. With the exception of the assassination of Bin Laden — it was carried out 10 years later in another country — not one of those goals has been achieved.
Instead, al-Qaeda has mushroomed and spread throughout the Arab and Muslim world, engulfing first Iraq and now Syria. Far from protecting our streets from attacks, the war has repeatedly been cited as a justification for those carrying them out — most recently by Michael Adebolajo, who killed the Afghan war veteran Lee Rigby on the streets of London in May.
The Taliban is long resurgent, having mounted 6,600 attacks between May and October this year and negotiating for a return to power. Mullah Omar remains at liberty. Afghan opium production is at a record high and now accounts for 90% of the world’s supply. Less than half the country is now “safe for reconstruction”, compared with 68% in 2009.
Meanwhile, women’s rights are going into reverse, and violence against women is escalating under NATO occupation: 4,000 assaults were documented by Afghan human rights monitors in the first six months of this year, from rape and acid attacks to beatings and mutilation. Elections have been rigged, as a corrupt regime of warlords and torturers is kept in power by foreign troops, and violence has spilled over into a dangerously destabilised Pakistan.
All this has been at a cost of tens of thousands of Afghan civilian lives, along with those of thousands U.S., British and other occupation troops. But it’s not as if it wasn’t foreseen from the start. When the media were hailing victory in Afghanistan 12 years ago, and Tony Blair’s triumphalism was echoed across the political establishment, opponents of the invasion who predicted it would lead to long-term guerrilla warfare, large-scale Afghan suffering and military failure and were dismissed by the politicians as “wrong” and “fanciful”.
But that is exactly what happened. One study after another has confirmed that British troops massively increased the level of violence after their arrival in Helmand in 2006, and are estimated to have killed 500 civilians in a campaign that has cost between £25-37 billion. After four years they had to be rescued by U.S. forces. But none of the political leaders who sent them there has been held accountable for this grim record.
It was the same, but even worse, in Iraq. The occupation was going to be a cakewalk, and British troops were supposed to be past masters at counter-insurgency. Opponents of the invasion again predicted that it would lead to unrelenting resistance until foreign troops were driven out. When it came to it, defeated British troops were forced to leave Basra city under cover of darkness.
But six years later, who has paid the price? One British corporal has been convicted of war crimes and the political elite has shuffled off responsibility for the Iraq catastrophe on to the Chilcot official inquiry. This has yet to report nearly three years after it last took evidence. Given the dire lack of coverage and debate about what actually took place, maybe it’s not surprising that most British people think fewer than 10,000 died in a war now estimated to have killed 500,000. But Iraq wasn’t the last of the disastrous interventions by the U.S. and Britain. The Libyan war was supposed to be different and acclaimed as a humanitarian triumph. NATO’s campaign in support of the Libyan uprising did not merely hike the death toll by a factor of perhaps 10. It left behind a maelstrom of warring militias and separatist rebels threatening to tear the country apart.
Rather than boasting of calamitous missions, the politicians responsible for them must be held to account. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2013
Waking up to human problems
Amid the furore caused by the arrest of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade in the United States, the release on Thursday of Indian sailors Sunil James and Vijayan by the authorities in Togo could easily have gone unnoticed. Both sailors were arrested in July this year — by all accounts, they had simply disembarked in Togo to report a pirate attack on their oil tanker. In an apparent instance of confusion, the Togo police charged them with the grave offence of aiding piracy. Criminal proceedings were initiated against both, and their families reliably informed that the trial would go on for an extended period of time. They were released after the Indian High Commissioner in neighbouring Ghana met the President of Togo to present their case. Given that the health of Mr. James and Mr. Vijayan had deteriorated, this diplomatic intervention by Indian and Togolese officials came not a moment too soon. Meanwhile, Mr. James’s son, all of 11 months old, died of illness earlier this month. By securing his release, the Indian government has ensured that the sailor gets to attend his son’s funeral. But it needs mention that the plight of the jailed men was taken up in earnest only after the death of Mr. James’s son came to the attention of the media and public.
In this respect, a common thread runs through the arrests of Ms. Khobragade and the two sailors. Both cases indicate that Indian diplomacy has been too slow to respond to crises that were long in the making. Ms. Khobragade’s harsh treatment at the hands of U.S. authorities is a by-product of India’s inability to tackle a serious legal and humanitarian issue through diplomatic channels. If there was a chance to negotiate a mutually accepted understanding of how U.S. visa rules and minimum wage laws would apply to domestic help employed by Indian diplomats in the country, New Delhi did not exercise it. Similarly, Mr. James and Mr. Vijayan were languishing in a Togo jail for six months before South Block took up their cases. The alacrity with which the Ministry of External Affairs has intervened in Ms. Khobragade’s case sits uncomfortably with its lax attempts to resolve the open-and-shut case involving the sailors. India’s diplomatic establishment needs to formulate a policy that deals with the concerns of Indians abroad — not just of diplomats but of sailors, businesspersons, fishermen and others. As the global and business profile of India increases, it is only natural that more Indians find themselves in legal and diplomatic crosshairs around the world. Resolving their concerns effectively while deferring to the national laws of other states should be accorded a higher priority than has been in evidence.
Drowning out reason
That the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill, 2013, to create a new state of Telangana would force a sharp regional divide in the Assembly and the Legislative Council was predictable and understandable. But nothing could reasonably have explained the din and disturbance in the two Houses after the Bill to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh was introduced on the recommendation of the President. The very purpose of the section under Article 3 of the Constitution that mandates a reference to the State is to allow the legislature of the State whose boundaries are being redrawn to express its views on the issue. But instead of a debate, the Houses have only witnessed uproar, with some members tearing up copies of the Bill and some others burning copies. By not allowing a discussion, members belonging to the Seemandhra region who are votaries of a united Andhra Pradesh did their own case no favour. The surest way of making their views heard would be to participate in the discussion on the Bill, and to vote against it — not to prevent any discussion on it. If anti-Telangana members are convinced that they have the numbers to prevent the passage of a resolution approving the Bill, as they claim, then they should not shy away from a debate. Other than making a political point, nothing is to be gained by turning the Assembly and the Council into forums for protest. The place for agitations and protest rallies are outside, on the streets; the legislature is the place for reasoned arguments and purposive voting.
Of course, one reason why the members who are against the Bill want to make just noise without debating and voting against it is that they see a vote against the Bill as having no more than symbolic value. While a Bill on the formation of new states has to necessarily be referred to the legislature of the State whose area or boundary is affected by the Bill, the vote of the legislature is not binding on Parliament. Even so, a vote against the Bill would give those opposed to the creation of Telangana greater moral authority and confidence to carry forward their agitation. Surely, a decisive vote against the Bill after a reasoned debate would better serve the cause of those who stand for a united Andhra Pradesh than a prolonged and unproductive session without any decision on the Bill. The Centre too would be informed of the sense of the House before pushing through a constitutional amendment to facilitate the creation of Telangana. The introduction of the Bill should be an opportunity for pause and reflection, and reasoned and frank debate. Both those who are for the Bill and those who are against it should not allow reason to be drowned out by the din.
New global solar power capacity to touch 43,000 MW
The solar power capacity addition is projected to be around 43,000 MW worldwide in 2014 with China likely to lead the pack with a planned capacity of around 10,000 MW, according to a report by global consulting firm Mercom Capital Group.
India is expected to add about 1,800 MW of solar energy capacity next year.
The capacity additions are expected to be driven by many countries looking to increase their solar energy generation.
With China revising its solar installation goals, Mercom expects it to be around 10,500 MW in 2014. Solar energy installations in the U.S. are projected to touch 6,000 MW.
