BBC, Global Business
All That Jazz ... not
Not about this programme by Peter Day
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Before I start, apologies; we have a problem this week: a programme that we cannot put out as a podcast. DOWNLOAD
It’s a goodie, too. But the BBC has no rights to put out much of its broadcast music here on the Internet, and this week’s programme is full of music. Here is what you are missing, unless you catch the broadcast version.
John Kao is American-born Chinese, and multitalented. He’s a Harvard MBA, a Master of Business Administration, and he’s also got a medical degree from Yale; he’s been an academic, an entrepreneur, a consultant and a best-selling author, with a worrying book on the future of the USA as his last publication: Innovation Nation.
The magazine The Economist calls him “a serial innovator”.
His father was a musician and John Kao is a talented jazz pianist. So I wanted him to show me how to use jazz improvisation to gain insights into the tricky business of corporate (and country) innovation.
So a few months ago we sat down at his grand piano in his lofty studio in the former military buildings of the huge Presidio park close to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
And John Kao talked about innovation … illustrating some his ideas on the keyboard.
But we can’t play the music on this podcast, so there seems little point in putting out a programme thus emasculated. I promise it won’t happen very often
PS : Among the John Kao's insights into company innovation as he shows me how to improvise at the piano are these :
INNOVATION is Engine of Progress
• Innovation defined: "It’ s the capabilities by which we get the future we want as opposed to getting the future that we receive by default."
• The immortal jazz trumpeter Miles Davis was asked what's the most important part of managing a band? It's four words, man, he said: "Don't say too much".
• Great managers of great innovation know how to get out of the way of the progress of the work.
• Being born global is a reality for many entrepreneurs now
• There's a mistaken tendency to equate innovations simply with high tech or whizz band new technology. Innovation is now what organisation do at the level of strategy, process, at the level of business model, at the level of customers. It’s a rare company that is showing real sophistication not only in framing innovation but in having plans to make it become real.
• Innovating countries : there’s a kind of left brain issues of articulating the narrative, establishing the strategy, figuring out the action plan. Then there’s the right brain agenda : how does that society learn how to jam, to improvise in the right way by balancing several contradictory imperatives … to make the music sound good.
Those are the words of the "serial innovator" John Kao. Unfortunately, we can't play the music.
CONTRIBUTOR:
John Kao, Chairman and CEO, Kao and Company
http://www.johnkao.com/
December 27, 2008
A crash course in grasping a crisis
Jessica Bachman, The Moscow Times
In the past three months, "financial crisis" has become a ubiquitous phrase for Russians: it glosses newspaper headlines daily and is more and more frequently appearing on billboard, print, TV and radio advertisements for banks and other private companies
But does the average Russian citizen understand the "financial" in "financial crisis?" The answer, according to global financial literacy specialists, is no. But officials at the Finance Ministry, Central Bank and State Duma say they're working on a program -- together with banks and nonprofit organizations -- to improve the situation.
"We are taking concrete steps toward the creation of a state program in 2009 that will raise the level of financial literacy in different segments of society, from school children to retirees," said Andrei Bokaryov, deputy director of the Finance Ministry's department of international financial relations.
"The program is mainly aimed at minimizing the effects of this type of crisis, at raising the population's level of trust in the banking system, at understanding credit risks and at promoting family budgets," said Bokaryov, who is working on the project.
He said the Finance Ministry was seeking $100 million from the federal budget for the program, the country's first at the national level, and that it would be voted on in the Duma early next year.
The World Bank is already carrying out preliminary research and setting up pilot programs in schools around the country.
At a recent conference on financial literacy, Andrei Markov, the World Bank's senior human development specialist, stressed that the dangers of financial illiteracy grow considerably during a financial crisis.
"People with less financial knowledge and knowledge of the banking system are more inclined to panic in a crisis, to withdraw all their money from the bank and put it under their mattress," Markov said.
According to a survey conducted in July by the National Agency of Financial Research, 50 percent of Russians over the age of 18 rated themselves as having no or insufficient financial knowledge and skills. On the other hand, 90 percent of 10th graders said their financial knowledge and skills were either satisfactory or good, compared with 44 percent of adults.
In an October survey of 1,600 people in 42 regions, the agency found that only 2 percent of the population trusted private banks, while 17 percent had faith in state-controlled Sberbank, Russia's largest bank.
"Such a low level of trust in private banks is surprising because as of 2004, state deposit insurance guaranteeing deposits in the case of bankruptcy has been in force in Russia," the agency said in the report.
But the survey also found that 44 percent of those with savings or debit accounts were not aware of the existence of state deposit insurance. In October, the government increased federal deposit insurance to 700,000 rubles (now about $25,500) per depositor from 400,000 rubles, but 57 percent of all respondents were not aware of the change.
Amid incremental devaluations of the ruble, Russians in October pulled 6 percent of their deposits, or 355 billion rubles ($13 billion), from banks, the largest monthly withdrawal in at least two years. Deposits in foreign currencies, however, were up 11 percent.
To reverse such trends, the program that will focus heavily on educating students by setting up finance classes in schools and universities. Retirees, too, will be targeted, with information available at places they frequent, including medical clinics and Sberbank, said Bokaryov, the Finance Ministry official.
Brook Horowitz, the executive director of the International Business Leaders Forum in Russia, said that increasing the population's financial literacy was key to bringing about greater personal fiscal responsibility in the country.
"Such a huge task of increasing the awareness of the people about their financial responsibility can be resolved only by joining efforts of all stakeholders: government, business and the media to get that message across to all groups of the population," said Horowitz, who with the forum and other partners has established a financial literacy program and educational web portal called Azbukafinansov.ru.
A financially responsible person plans a household budget; is aware of the risks and consequences of using financial products such as credit cards and auto and home loans; puts money away in the bank, saves for a rainy day and plans for financial needs in different stages of life, such as retirement, she said.
By that standard, Russians have a long way to go in terms of financial planning and responsibility.
According to the October survey results, only 32 percent of Russians have either savings or debit accounts. Twenty-four percent plan a monthly household budget and account for all receipts and expenditures, and only 7 percent of the population makes financial plans a year in advance. Less than 11 percent have a pension strategy.
For Vladimir Kreindel, an analyst at the Institute of Financial Studies, the most "striking example" of the country's low level of financial literacy is the still "widespread" use of financial pyramids. The schemes promise extraordinarily high returns —from 30 to thousands of percent, annually — to naive, get-rich-quick investors who "get in early."
In the 1990s, Sergei Mavrodi's now notorious MMM pyramid defrauded millions of Russians, who were still new to capitalism and the concept of a stock market. Mavrodi was found guilty in April 2007 of cheating 10,000 investors out of 110 million rubles, although millions claim losses from his and similar scams.
In May, investors in the St. Petersburg-based pyramid Rubin Business Club lost more than billions of rubles after the unlicensed company's owners stopped all payments and fled with the money.
"It couldn't be more surprising that the Russian public is once again being lured by MMM-like structures. In the case of pensioners, sometimes it turns into a tragedy," Kreindel said.
But risky and outright fraudulent investment options may begin to decline as people sober up to the realities of the economic crisis.
"Over the last 10 years, Russia has experienced a period of extraordinary growth. A period of recession will make people more aware that markets and the economy can go down as well as up," Horowitz said.
"And this doesn't just apply to your average citizen; it applies in particular to the super-rich who have done very well in the last 10 years. They didn't necessarily appreciate the full burden of financial responsibility and have put themselves and others at tremendous risk by taking on bigger debts than they could manage."
Since August, when Russia and Georgia went to war and foreign investors began pulling their investments out of the country, the Forbes-listed 25 wealthiest Russians together lost more than $230 billion, according to Bloomberg data as of mid-October.
The crisis has already prompted Lyudmila Bodilovskaya, a student at the Moscow Aviation Institute, to learn more about responsible financial behavior.
"I was a blank slate when it comes to finance," said Bodilovskaya, who attended two seminars this fall — one dedicated to the financial crisis — hosted by the Institute for the Development of Financial Markets.
"I hear about the financial crisis everywhere, but it was not clear how it affects us. I wanted to learn how to deal with financial problems if they come up in the future."
Bodilovskaya said she became more confident and assured after learning from economists and finance specialists at the seminar.
"Before, all I heard was how bad everything is, but no details. After hearing concrete advice and forecasts from professionals, such as how to choose a good bank, I calmed down a little bit."
In the past three months, "financial crisis" has become a ubiquitous phrase for Russians: it glosses newspaper headlines daily and is more and more frequently appearing on billboard, print, TV and radio advertisements for banks and other private companies
But does the average Russian citizen understand the "financial" in "financial crisis?" The answer, according to global financial literacy specialists, is no. But officials at the Finance Ministry, Central Bank and State Duma say they're working on a program -- together with banks and nonprofit organizations -- to improve the situation.
"We are taking concrete steps toward the creation of a state program in 2009 that will raise the level of financial literacy in different segments of society, from school children to retirees," said Andrei Bokaryov, deputy director of the Finance Ministry's department of international financial relations.
"The program is mainly aimed at minimizing the effects of this type of crisis, at raising the population's level of trust in the banking system, at understanding credit risks and at promoting family budgets," said Bokaryov, who is working on the project.
He said the Finance Ministry was seeking $100 million from the federal budget for the program, the country's first at the national level, and that it would be voted on in the Duma early next year.
The World Bank is already carrying out preliminary research and setting up pilot programs in schools around the country.
At a recent conference on financial literacy, Andrei Markov, the World Bank's senior human development specialist, stressed that the dangers of financial illiteracy grow considerably during a financial crisis.
"People with less financial knowledge and knowledge of the banking system are more inclined to panic in a crisis, to withdraw all their money from the bank and put it under their mattress," Markov said.
According to a survey conducted in July by the National Agency of Financial Research, 50 percent of Russians over the age of 18 rated themselves as having no or insufficient financial knowledge and skills. On the other hand, 90 percent of 10th graders said their financial knowledge and skills were either satisfactory or good, compared with 44 percent of adults.
In an October survey of 1,600 people in 42 regions, the agency found that only 2 percent of the population trusted private banks, while 17 percent had faith in state-controlled Sberbank, Russia's largest bank.
"Such a low level of trust in private banks is surprising because as of 2004, state deposit insurance guaranteeing deposits in the case of bankruptcy has been in force in Russia," the agency said in the report.
But the survey also found that 44 percent of those with savings or debit accounts were not aware of the existence of state deposit insurance. In October, the government increased federal deposit insurance to 700,000 rubles (now about $25,500) per depositor from 400,000 rubles, but 57 percent of all respondents were not aware of the change.
Amid incremental devaluations of the ruble, Russians in October pulled 6 percent of their deposits, or 355 billion rubles ($13 billion), from banks, the largest monthly withdrawal in at least two years. Deposits in foreign currencies, however, were up 11 percent.
To reverse such trends, the program that will focus heavily on educating students by setting up finance classes in schools and universities. Retirees, too, will be targeted, with information available at places they frequent, including medical clinics and Sberbank, said Bokaryov, the Finance Ministry official.
Brook Horowitz, the executive director of the International Business Leaders Forum in Russia, said that increasing the population's financial literacy was key to bringing about greater personal fiscal responsibility in the country.
"Such a huge task of increasing the awareness of the people about their financial responsibility can be resolved only by joining efforts of all stakeholders: government, business and the media to get that message across to all groups of the population," said Horowitz, who with the forum and other partners has established a financial literacy program and educational web portal called Azbukafinansov.ru.
A financially responsible person plans a household budget; is aware of the risks and consequences of using financial products such as credit cards and auto and home loans; puts money away in the bank, saves for a rainy day and plans for financial needs in different stages of life, such as retirement, she said.
By that standard, Russians have a long way to go in terms of financial planning and responsibility.
According to the October survey results, only 32 percent of Russians have either savings or debit accounts. Twenty-four percent plan a monthly household budget and account for all receipts and expenditures, and only 7 percent of the population makes financial plans a year in advance. Less than 11 percent have a pension strategy.
For Vladimir Kreindel, an analyst at the Institute of Financial Studies, the most "striking example" of the country's low level of financial literacy is the still "widespread" use of financial pyramids. The schemes promise extraordinarily high returns —from 30 to thousands of percent, annually — to naive, get-rich-quick investors who "get in early."
In the 1990s, Sergei Mavrodi's now notorious MMM pyramid defrauded millions of Russians, who were still new to capitalism and the concept of a stock market. Mavrodi was found guilty in April 2007 of cheating 10,000 investors out of 110 million rubles, although millions claim losses from his and similar scams.
In May, investors in the St. Petersburg-based pyramid Rubin Business Club lost more than billions of rubles after the unlicensed company's owners stopped all payments and fled with the money.
"It couldn't be more surprising that the Russian public is once again being lured by MMM-like structures. In the case of pensioners, sometimes it turns into a tragedy," Kreindel said.
But risky and outright fraudulent investment options may begin to decline as people sober up to the realities of the economic crisis.
"Over the last 10 years, Russia has experienced a period of extraordinary growth. A period of recession will make people more aware that markets and the economy can go down as well as up," Horowitz said.
"And this doesn't just apply to your average citizen; it applies in particular to the super-rich who have done very well in the last 10 years. They didn't necessarily appreciate the full burden of financial responsibility and have put themselves and others at tremendous risk by taking on bigger debts than they could manage."
Since August, when Russia and Georgia went to war and foreign investors began pulling their investments out of the country, the Forbes-listed 25 wealthiest Russians together lost more than $230 billion, according to Bloomberg data as of mid-October.
The crisis has already prompted Lyudmila Bodilovskaya, a student at the Moscow Aviation Institute, to learn more about responsible financial behavior.
"I was a blank slate when it comes to finance," said Bodilovskaya, who attended two seminars this fall — one dedicated to the financial crisis — hosted by the Institute for the Development of Financial Markets.
"I hear about the financial crisis everywhere, but it was not clear how it affects us. I wanted to learn how to deal with financial problems if they come up in the future."
Bodilovskaya said she became more confident and assured after learning from economists and finance specialists at the seminar.
"Before, all I heard was how bad everything is, but no details. After hearing concrete advice and forecasts from professionals, such as how to choose a good bank, I calmed down a little bit."
Coercive Religious Conversion: A Crime Against Humanity
Dr. Babu Suseelan
Religious conversion of Hindus is threatening individuals, families, communities and the nation. Coercive religious conversion of Hindus contains a threat to spiritual tradition and the freedom of choice. If carried unchecked, coercive religious conversion would threaten the very existence of India as a nation.
Armed with a rigid dogma, and millions of foreign money, missionaries are on a warpath to forcefully convert hundreds and thousands of innocent Hindus. If unchecked, coercive religious conversion will have a cataclysmic impact on our freedom.
"Freedom to convert" is counterproductive as a generalized doctrine.
It fails to come to terms with the complex interrelationships between self and society that make the concept of individual choice meaningful. Hence, religious conversion undermines, and in extremes would dissolve, that individual autonomy and human freedom.
Missionaries are trying to deconstruct Hindu society by waging a psychological war. The purpose of the war is to create personal, social and political disorganization. Their dogmatic notion of truth is inappropriate, even dangerous to a pluralistic society. Christian dogmas, by nature are non-deductible, non-negotiable and in fact non-verifiable, whereas an open exchange of ideas, a readiness to give and take, is vital to the survival of a pluralistic society.
Christian preaching tends to be a process of indoctrination in unshakable beliefs. Religion as indoctrination is suited to a totalitarian regime intent on not having people think independently.
By contrast, Hinduism helps in liberating, not closing of minds of individuals. All Hindus, by their very nature, stand for and accept free expression, spiritual progression, and freedom of choice. But once converted to Christianity, the church is not eager to cultivate habits of intellectual freedom among its followers.
Missionary propaganda is deceptive and can be described as the state of mind of a salesman who habitually believes in his own propaganda and the superiority/supremacy of his 'only' product which he wants to push in the market, by hook or crook, at the cost of all existing alternatives. The church's ideological pretensions are smokescreens to destroy Hindus and the all inclusive, liberating Hindu value system.
When a church group takes a position on a political or social issue, it typically does so by claiming divine inspiration. Not only does this inhibit debate, but also it replaces rational discourse. Citing "God's Will"/ "God's Word" in a discussion is meant to silence, not convince, an opponent. Public discussion, so intrinsic to a democratic society, requires public debate. A democracy is degraded when its members, seduced by the desire to play God, get in the habit of pontificating infallible truths on subjects of public policy. Such a practice must culminate, if unchecked, either in theocracy, or in chaos.
One does not find in the Christian theology a conception of human beings as having both the right and the ability through Sadhana to control one's destiny. Concepts such as individual freedom, civil rights, human initiative, and secular programs are basically foreign to holy writ.
It is wrong to draw ideological parallels between Christianity and Hinduism. It is pointless to contrast dogmas as original sin, eternal damnation, and the absolutism of the Kingdom of God with that of the experiential reality of the Hindu Darshanaas which proclaim: "Each soul is potentially Divine", and teach the authentic way and means to discover, realize and manifest in day to day life the inherent divinity equally present in all. Hinduism and Christianity represent incompatible modes of thought and irreconcilable value systems.
Hinduism is dedicated to individual freedoms and rights. The philosophy of Hinduism and Christianity does not mix. Equating Hinduism (or, indeed, any religion of the book) would be doubly regrettable. A strict ban on religious conversion is in the best interest of all Indians because, to quote the wisdom of a common sense poet, "Good fences make good neighbors".
Evangelism is an irrational impulse, a form of tyranny over the mind.
Freedom of religion is equivalent to freedom from someone's religion.
Hindus have every right to expect that they will not be proselytized away from their own faith and into an all-exclusive, rigid dogma.
Every citizen should be free from foreign sponsored missionary groups.
An individual converting under psychological duress is loosing his very freewill and freedom of choice and conscience.
From a moral standpoint, Hindus respect all religions. But that respect is limited by our own mutual obligation to observe boundaries that have a reasonable relationship to the needs of the society and of the individuals in it. Once a person is converted by devious means, he or she is reduced to creatures of the church in which conformity to generalized mediocrity becomes the rule.
Freedom to propagate hatred, dogma and hostility must be restricted because the ideas expressed in such rigid dogma have led to murder and suffering of millions of people throughout history. Terrorism, social upheaval, community conflict, and hostility towards non-believers are caused in part by the philosophy that underlies the concept of freedom to forcefully convert non-believers. Even the capability to conceive of direct harm to others will be seriously diminished if we restrict coercive religious conversion.
Government should ban religious conversion and the free flow of foreign money for missionary activities. Ban on religious conversion will reinforce our values and identification and that protects our freedom. These are values that would be threatened if religious conversion were carried out extensively. Not everything that can be labeled "free expression" is worth protecting or immune from legal regulation for the general good. Given the gravity of the danger and destruction of missionary activities, anti-conversion alarm is sensible.
Hindus must initiate a much more wide-ranging debate about religious conversion, missionary activities and the free flow of foreign money for conversion activities. Hindus must go on the offensive and stop being baited by those who call our defense of Hindu society as communal. Hindus must stop allowing them to set the agenda for what is and what is not religious freedom.
Our survival as a nation is in crisis. But realistic solutions are within our reach, if we all work together. So I urge you, become activists on behalf our Hindus who have no one else to speak on their behalf, for yourselves, and for the nation.
- - - - - -
Coercive religious conversion of Hindus is one of the most important issues of the day. Religious conversion of Hindus is threatening individuals, families, communities and the nation. Coercive religious conversion of Hindus contains a greater threat to spiritual tradition and the freedom of choice than European colonialism ever posed. If carried unchecked, coercive religious conversion would threaten the very existence of India as a nation.
A dark future
Today as we look down the road toward the future, we see the warning
sign: "Danger Ahead". The danger is not limited to our freedom to practice our Dharma; we see threats to our progress as a democratic, pluralistic society. Christian tyrannical missionary groups are determined to destroy our society, our spiritual way of life and the nation. Armed with a rigid dogma, and millions of foreign money, missionaries are on a warpath to forcefully convert hundreds and thousands of innocent Hindus. If unchecked, coercive religious conversion will have a cataclysmic impact on our freedom.
"Freedom to convert" is counterproductive as a generalized doctrine.
It fails to come to terms with the complex interrelationships between self and society that make the concept of individual choice meaningful. Hence, religious conversion, rather than supporting, it undermines, and in extremes would dissolve, that individual autonomy and human freedom. In effect, it would serve no one, neither the subject, nor the nation. As a rule, missionaries attack cultural symbols, rituals, and samskaraas of Hindus. Hindu symbols and rituals are real and powerful and they influence behavior. Symbols, rituals, festivals and religious practices have the power to unite and motivate people. These are the élan vital of a nation. Individual and society are symbiotic. When an individual is forced out of his/her role into a strange, dogmatic belief system, he/she would have to readjust to the new realities. Forced out of the system of meaningful social bonds, they would begin to lose the sense of identity and symbiotic relationship with the larger society. They would become rudderless ships adjusting to momentary pressures without a sense of direction.
It is this most terrible condition, even worse than death that the missionaries impose on Hindus.
Christianity promotes their sectarian values and symbols over the interests of the society as a whole. Missionaries are trying to deconstruct Hindu society by waging a psychological war. The purpose of the war is to create personal, social and political disorganization. As the war continues, individuals, families, groups and society find it difficult to maintain proper reality orientation.
As the battle progresses, only parts of the problems are seen by the victim, and a collective cognitive disorder sets in. The social and political reality is distorted. As a result, family and community are disorganized. Individuals find it difficult to find the right concepts, ideas, words and thinking will become fragmented. The person and society lose a sense of identity and direction. A sense of cultural continuity and connection disappears almost entirely. This results in distorted thinking and dysfunctional behavior. Individuals act impulsively and blame the culture and religion that provide psychological equilibrium. They act irrationally and join with the oppressor. Eventually, they act as enemy within. Clearly, if the missionaries win finally in their psychological warfare, India as a nation is crushed.
History of repression
Let us turn to a logical examination of several key features of Christian thinking. The religion was founded and its theology elaborated under the dual influence of theocracy and imperialism. Its very conception of truth reflects political environment in which it evolved. It has crystallized orthodoxy, or a core of inalterable dogmas that its followers are expected to steadfastly profess.
Now, it is precisely, such a notion of truth is inappropriate, even dangerous to a pluralistic society. Christian dogmas, by nature are non-deductible and non-negotiable. Where as an open exchange of ideas, a readiness to give and take, is vital to the survival of a pluralistic society.
Christian preaching tends to be a process of indoctrination in unshakable beliefs. Religion as indoctrination is suited to a totalitarian regime intent on not having people think independently.
By contrast, Hinduism helps in liberating, not closing of minds.
Hindus accept free expression, spiritual progression, and freedom of choice. But once converted to Christianity, the church is not eager to cultivate habits of intellectual freedom among its followers.
Missionaries use Biblical quotations to rationalize vested interests of the Church. Very frequently such views systematically distort social reality in much the same way that a neurotic deny, deform or reinterpret aspects of life that are inconsistent to him. Missionary propaganda is deceptive and can be described as the state of mind of a salesman who habitually believes his own propaganda. The church's ideological pretensions are smokescreens to destroy Hindus and the all inclusive, liberating Hindu value system.
When a church group takes a position on a political or social issue, it typically does so by claiming divine inspiration. Not only does this inhibit debate, but also it replaces rational discourse. Citing "God's Will" in a discussion is meant to silence, not convince, an opponent.
The entire history of biblical exegesis shows that almost any personal or collective conviction can find support in divine revelation. Thus, the bible always obliges a true believer by miraculously saying whatever he or she wants it to say. When the true believer quotes "God's Word" to confirm an opinion, what he or she expresses is the wish to raise personal opinion to the level of absolute truth. Put more bluntly, the true believer pretends to speak with godlike authority as if he or she was God. Public discussion, so intrinsic to a democratic society, requires public debate. A democracy is degraded when its members, seduced by the desire to play God, get in the habit of pontificating infallible truths on subjects of public policy. Such a practice must culminate, if unchecked, either in theocracy, or in chaos.
The shackles of Christianity
It is an awkward fact that neither personal liberty nor civil rights have biblical sanction. On the contrary, scripture is at pains to tell us just the reverse: that we must submit all things to the will of a Supreme ruler against whom we have no acerbate rights. The bible is an undemocratic and anti-libertarian text. The Ten Commandments, like the parables of Jesus, say nothing about individual freedoms and rights but a great deal obedience and surrender, and "law" that all must obey. The essence of the bible is thus constraint, not freedom, oppression not liberation.
One does not find in the Christian theology a conception of human beings as having both the right and the ability through Sadhana to control one's destiny. What the bible gives us, in contrast, is a picture of human nature caught powerlessly between two factors--God and Satan--along with the caveat that no "salvation" is possible without total surrender to God's wishes. Concepts such as individual freedom, civil rights, human initiative, and secular programs are basically foreign to holy writ. The believers are docile vassals of the "Lord".
It is wrong to draw ideological parallels between Christianity and Hinduism. It is pointless to contrast dogmas as original sin, eternal damnation, and the absolutism of the Kingdom of God with that of the experiential reality of the Hindu Darshanaas which proclaim: "Each soul is potentially Divine", and teach the authentic way and means to discover, realize and manifest in day to day life the inherent divinity equally present in all.
Hinduism and Christianity represent incompatible modes of thought and irreconcilable value systems. Hinduism is dedicated to individual freedoms and rights. The philosophy of Hinduism and Christianity does not mix. Equating Hinduism (or, indeed, any religion of the book) would be doubly regrettable. A strict ban on religious conversion is in the best interest of all Indians because, to quote the wisdom of a common sense poet, "Good fences make good neighbors".
The value of Religious Freedom
Evangelism is an irrational impulse, a form of tyranny over the mind.
Freedom of religion is equivalent to freedom from someone's religion.
Hindus have every right to expect that they will not be proselytized away from their own faith and into an all-exclusive, rigid dogma.
Every citizen should be free from foreign sponsored missionary groups.
An individual converting under psychological duress is loosing his freewill and freedom of choice and conscience. From a moral standpoint, Hindus respect all religions. But that respect is limited by our own mutual obligation to observe boundaries that have a reasonable relationship to the needs of the society and of the individuals in it. Once a person is converted by devious means, he or she is reduced to creatures of the church in which conformity to generalized mediocrity becomes the rule.
Freedom to propagate hatred, dogma and hostility must be restricted because the ideas expressed in such rigid dogma have led to murder and suffering of millions of people throughout history. The genocidal usurpation of the western hemisphere, the genocidal enslavement of Africans, Hindus, Buddhists, worldwide colonialism, holocaust against Jews and Gypsies, dropping of the atom bomb on Japan, the Vietnam war, colonialism, slavery and apartheid-these are the bitter fruits of Christian propaganda. Christianity is arguably, history's greatest crime against humanity. The solid evidence of history in the long and short term gives proof beyond a reasonable doubt, nay any doubt, that there is no greater social evil than biblical movements. Their dogmatic ideas are like small pox. It is not worth preserving it.
Time for activism
Terrorism, social upheaval, community conflict, and hostility towards non-believers are caused in part by the philosophy that underlies the concept of freedom to forcefully convert non-believers. Even the capability to conceive of direct harm to others will be seriously diminished if we restrict coercive religious conversion.
It is painfully obvious that political leaders, westernized media pundits, and the bureaucrats in India lack the requisite social and political knowledge, and philosophical skills to understand the devious activities of the church. They lack a firm national, religious, cultural commitment. They are driven to extreme and idiosyncratic decision by the lack of historical context of their judgments.
Government should ban religious conversion and the free flow of foreign money for missionary activities. Almost invariably, ban on religious conversion will drive missionaries out of business. For the politicians it is a dilemma. But life is filled with dilemmas that we can attempt to ameliorate but we cannot entirely avoid. Ban on religious conversion will reinforce our values and identification and that protects our freedom. These are values that would be threatened if religious conversion were carried out extensively.
Not everything that can be labeled "free expression" is worth protecting or immune from legal regulation for the general good. Given the gravity of the danger and destruction of missionary activities, anti-conversion alarm is sensible. We should not wait until Christianity takes over India. On the individual level as well as the genocidal level the effects of dogmatic missionary preaching justify its prohibition.
Hindus must initiate a much more wide-ranging debate about religious conversion, missionary activities and the free flow of foreign money for conversion activities. Hindus must go on the offensive and stop being baited by those who call our defense of Hindu society as communal. Hindus must stop allowing them to set the agenda for what is and what is not religious freedom.
Hindus must wage a battle against violence, intolerance, rigidity, and thought control. Hindus must put an end to the imperialistic, missionary culture, and end to religious conversion. It's time to name our real enemies. Our enemies arise in part from our silence, but also from passivity. Our survival as a nation is in crisis. But realistic solutions are within our reach, if we all work together. So I urge you, become activists on behalf our Hindus who have no one else to speak on their behalf, for yourselves, and for the nation
Religious conversion of Hindus is threatening individuals, families, communities and the nation. Coercive religious conversion of Hindus contains a threat to spiritual tradition and the freedom of choice. If carried unchecked, coercive religious conversion would threaten the very existence of India as a nation.
Armed with a rigid dogma, and millions of foreign money, missionaries are on a warpath to forcefully convert hundreds and thousands of innocent Hindus. If unchecked, coercive religious conversion will have a cataclysmic impact on our freedom.
"Freedom to convert" is counterproductive as a generalized doctrine.
It fails to come to terms with the complex interrelationships between self and society that make the concept of individual choice meaningful. Hence, religious conversion undermines, and in extremes would dissolve, that individual autonomy and human freedom.
Missionaries are trying to deconstruct Hindu society by waging a psychological war. The purpose of the war is to create personal, social and political disorganization. Their dogmatic notion of truth is inappropriate, even dangerous to a pluralistic society. Christian dogmas, by nature are non-deductible, non-negotiable and in fact non-verifiable, whereas an open exchange of ideas, a readiness to give and take, is vital to the survival of a pluralistic society.
Christian preaching tends to be a process of indoctrination in unshakable beliefs. Religion as indoctrination is suited to a totalitarian regime intent on not having people think independently.
By contrast, Hinduism helps in liberating, not closing of minds of individuals. All Hindus, by their very nature, stand for and accept free expression, spiritual progression, and freedom of choice. But once converted to Christianity, the church is not eager to cultivate habits of intellectual freedom among its followers.
Missionary propaganda is deceptive and can be described as the state of mind of a salesman who habitually believes in his own propaganda and the superiority/supremacy of his 'only' product which he wants to push in the market, by hook or crook, at the cost of all existing alternatives. The church's ideological pretensions are smokescreens to destroy Hindus and the all inclusive, liberating Hindu value system.
When a church group takes a position on a political or social issue, it typically does so by claiming divine inspiration. Not only does this inhibit debate, but also it replaces rational discourse. Citing "God's Will"/ "God's Word" in a discussion is meant to silence, not convince, an opponent. Public discussion, so intrinsic to a democratic society, requires public debate. A democracy is degraded when its members, seduced by the desire to play God, get in the habit of pontificating infallible truths on subjects of public policy. Such a practice must culminate, if unchecked, either in theocracy, or in chaos.
One does not find in the Christian theology a conception of human beings as having both the right and the ability through Sadhana to control one's destiny. Concepts such as individual freedom, civil rights, human initiative, and secular programs are basically foreign to holy writ.
It is wrong to draw ideological parallels between Christianity and Hinduism. It is pointless to contrast dogmas as original sin, eternal damnation, and the absolutism of the Kingdom of God with that of the experiential reality of the Hindu Darshanaas which proclaim: "Each soul is potentially Divine", and teach the authentic way and means to discover, realize and manifest in day to day life the inherent divinity equally present in all. Hinduism and Christianity represent incompatible modes of thought and irreconcilable value systems.
Hinduism is dedicated to individual freedoms and rights. The philosophy of Hinduism and Christianity does not mix. Equating Hinduism (or, indeed, any religion of the book) would be doubly regrettable. A strict ban on religious conversion is in the best interest of all Indians because, to quote the wisdom of a common sense poet, "Good fences make good neighbors".
Evangelism is an irrational impulse, a form of tyranny over the mind.
Freedom of religion is equivalent to freedom from someone's religion.
Hindus have every right to expect that they will not be proselytized away from their own faith and into an all-exclusive, rigid dogma.
Every citizen should be free from foreign sponsored missionary groups.
An individual converting under psychological duress is loosing his very freewill and freedom of choice and conscience.
From a moral standpoint, Hindus respect all religions. But that respect is limited by our own mutual obligation to observe boundaries that have a reasonable relationship to the needs of the society and of the individuals in it. Once a person is converted by devious means, he or she is reduced to creatures of the church in which conformity to generalized mediocrity becomes the rule.
Freedom to propagate hatred, dogma and hostility must be restricted because the ideas expressed in such rigid dogma have led to murder and suffering of millions of people throughout history. Terrorism, social upheaval, community conflict, and hostility towards non-believers are caused in part by the philosophy that underlies the concept of freedom to forcefully convert non-believers. Even the capability to conceive of direct harm to others will be seriously diminished if we restrict coercive religious conversion.
Government should ban religious conversion and the free flow of foreign money for missionary activities. Ban on religious conversion will reinforce our values and identification and that protects our freedom. These are values that would be threatened if religious conversion were carried out extensively. Not everything that can be labeled "free expression" is worth protecting or immune from legal regulation for the general good. Given the gravity of the danger and destruction of missionary activities, anti-conversion alarm is sensible.
Hindus must initiate a much more wide-ranging debate about religious conversion, missionary activities and the free flow of foreign money for conversion activities. Hindus must go on the offensive and stop being baited by those who call our defense of Hindu society as communal. Hindus must stop allowing them to set the agenda for what is and what is not religious freedom.
Our survival as a nation is in crisis. But realistic solutions are within our reach, if we all work together. So I urge you, become activists on behalf our Hindus who have no one else to speak on their behalf, for yourselves, and for the nation.
- - - - - -
Coercive religious conversion of Hindus is one of the most important issues of the day. Religious conversion of Hindus is threatening individuals, families, communities and the nation. Coercive religious conversion of Hindus contains a greater threat to spiritual tradition and the freedom of choice than European colonialism ever posed. If carried unchecked, coercive religious conversion would threaten the very existence of India as a nation.
A dark future
Today as we look down the road toward the future, we see the warning
sign: "Danger Ahead". The danger is not limited to our freedom to practice our Dharma; we see threats to our progress as a democratic, pluralistic society. Christian tyrannical missionary groups are determined to destroy our society, our spiritual way of life and the nation. Armed with a rigid dogma, and millions of foreign money, missionaries are on a warpath to forcefully convert hundreds and thousands of innocent Hindus. If unchecked, coercive religious conversion will have a cataclysmic impact on our freedom.
"Freedom to convert" is counterproductive as a generalized doctrine.
It fails to come to terms with the complex interrelationships between self and society that make the concept of individual choice meaningful. Hence, religious conversion, rather than supporting, it undermines, and in extremes would dissolve, that individual autonomy and human freedom. In effect, it would serve no one, neither the subject, nor the nation. As a rule, missionaries attack cultural symbols, rituals, and samskaraas of Hindus. Hindu symbols and rituals are real and powerful and they influence behavior. Symbols, rituals, festivals and religious practices have the power to unite and motivate people. These are the élan vital of a nation. Individual and society are symbiotic. When an individual is forced out of his/her role into a strange, dogmatic belief system, he/she would have to readjust to the new realities. Forced out of the system of meaningful social bonds, they would begin to lose the sense of identity and symbiotic relationship with the larger society. They would become rudderless ships adjusting to momentary pressures without a sense of direction.
It is this most terrible condition, even worse than death that the missionaries impose on Hindus.
Christianity promotes their sectarian values and symbols over the interests of the society as a whole. Missionaries are trying to deconstruct Hindu society by waging a psychological war. The purpose of the war is to create personal, social and political disorganization. As the war continues, individuals, families, groups and society find it difficult to maintain proper reality orientation.
As the battle progresses, only parts of the problems are seen by the victim, and a collective cognitive disorder sets in. The social and political reality is distorted. As a result, family and community are disorganized. Individuals find it difficult to find the right concepts, ideas, words and thinking will become fragmented. The person and society lose a sense of identity and direction. A sense of cultural continuity and connection disappears almost entirely. This results in distorted thinking and dysfunctional behavior. Individuals act impulsively and blame the culture and religion that provide psychological equilibrium. They act irrationally and join with the oppressor. Eventually, they act as enemy within. Clearly, if the missionaries win finally in their psychological warfare, India as a nation is crushed.
History of repression
Let us turn to a logical examination of several key features of Christian thinking. The religion was founded and its theology elaborated under the dual influence of theocracy and imperialism. Its very conception of truth reflects political environment in which it evolved. It has crystallized orthodoxy, or a core of inalterable dogmas that its followers are expected to steadfastly profess.
Now, it is precisely, such a notion of truth is inappropriate, even dangerous to a pluralistic society. Christian dogmas, by nature are non-deductible and non-negotiable. Where as an open exchange of ideas, a readiness to give and take, is vital to the survival of a pluralistic society.
Christian preaching tends to be a process of indoctrination in unshakable beliefs. Religion as indoctrination is suited to a totalitarian regime intent on not having people think independently.
By contrast, Hinduism helps in liberating, not closing of minds.
Hindus accept free expression, spiritual progression, and freedom of choice. But once converted to Christianity, the church is not eager to cultivate habits of intellectual freedom among its followers.
Missionaries use Biblical quotations to rationalize vested interests of the Church. Very frequently such views systematically distort social reality in much the same way that a neurotic deny, deform or reinterpret aspects of life that are inconsistent to him. Missionary propaganda is deceptive and can be described as the state of mind of a salesman who habitually believes his own propaganda. The church's ideological pretensions are smokescreens to destroy Hindus and the all inclusive, liberating Hindu value system.
When a church group takes a position on a political or social issue, it typically does so by claiming divine inspiration. Not only does this inhibit debate, but also it replaces rational discourse. Citing "God's Will" in a discussion is meant to silence, not convince, an opponent.
The entire history of biblical exegesis shows that almost any personal or collective conviction can find support in divine revelation. Thus, the bible always obliges a true believer by miraculously saying whatever he or she wants it to say. When the true believer quotes "God's Word" to confirm an opinion, what he or she expresses is the wish to raise personal opinion to the level of absolute truth. Put more bluntly, the true believer pretends to speak with godlike authority as if he or she was God. Public discussion, so intrinsic to a democratic society, requires public debate. A democracy is degraded when its members, seduced by the desire to play God, get in the habit of pontificating infallible truths on subjects of public policy. Such a practice must culminate, if unchecked, either in theocracy, or in chaos.
The shackles of Christianity
It is an awkward fact that neither personal liberty nor civil rights have biblical sanction. On the contrary, scripture is at pains to tell us just the reverse: that we must submit all things to the will of a Supreme ruler against whom we have no acerbate rights. The bible is an undemocratic and anti-libertarian text. The Ten Commandments, like the parables of Jesus, say nothing about individual freedoms and rights but a great deal obedience and surrender, and "law" that all must obey. The essence of the bible is thus constraint, not freedom, oppression not liberation.
One does not find in the Christian theology a conception of human beings as having both the right and the ability through Sadhana to control one's destiny. What the bible gives us, in contrast, is a picture of human nature caught powerlessly between two factors--God and Satan--along with the caveat that no "salvation" is possible without total surrender to God's wishes. Concepts such as individual freedom, civil rights, human initiative, and secular programs are basically foreign to holy writ. The believers are docile vassals of the "Lord".
It is wrong to draw ideological parallels between Christianity and Hinduism. It is pointless to contrast dogmas as original sin, eternal damnation, and the absolutism of the Kingdom of God with that of the experiential reality of the Hindu Darshanaas which proclaim: "Each soul is potentially Divine", and teach the authentic way and means to discover, realize and manifest in day to day life the inherent divinity equally present in all.
Hinduism and Christianity represent incompatible modes of thought and irreconcilable value systems. Hinduism is dedicated to individual freedoms and rights. The philosophy of Hinduism and Christianity does not mix. Equating Hinduism (or, indeed, any religion of the book) would be doubly regrettable. A strict ban on religious conversion is in the best interest of all Indians because, to quote the wisdom of a common sense poet, "Good fences make good neighbors".
The value of Religious Freedom
Evangelism is an irrational impulse, a form of tyranny over the mind.
Freedom of religion is equivalent to freedom from someone's religion.
Hindus have every right to expect that they will not be proselytized away from their own faith and into an all-exclusive, rigid dogma.
Every citizen should be free from foreign sponsored missionary groups.
An individual converting under psychological duress is loosing his freewill and freedom of choice and conscience. From a moral standpoint, Hindus respect all religions. But that respect is limited by our own mutual obligation to observe boundaries that have a reasonable relationship to the needs of the society and of the individuals in it. Once a person is converted by devious means, he or she is reduced to creatures of the church in which conformity to generalized mediocrity becomes the rule.
Freedom to propagate hatred, dogma and hostility must be restricted because the ideas expressed in such rigid dogma have led to murder and suffering of millions of people throughout history. The genocidal usurpation of the western hemisphere, the genocidal enslavement of Africans, Hindus, Buddhists, worldwide colonialism, holocaust against Jews and Gypsies, dropping of the atom bomb on Japan, the Vietnam war, colonialism, slavery and apartheid-these are the bitter fruits of Christian propaganda. Christianity is arguably, history's greatest crime against humanity. The solid evidence of history in the long and short term gives proof beyond a reasonable doubt, nay any doubt, that there is no greater social evil than biblical movements. Their dogmatic ideas are like small pox. It is not worth preserving it.
Time for activism
Terrorism, social upheaval, community conflict, and hostility towards non-believers are caused in part by the philosophy that underlies the concept of freedom to forcefully convert non-believers. Even the capability to conceive of direct harm to others will be seriously diminished if we restrict coercive religious conversion.
It is painfully obvious that political leaders, westernized media pundits, and the bureaucrats in India lack the requisite social and political knowledge, and philosophical skills to understand the devious activities of the church. They lack a firm national, religious, cultural commitment. They are driven to extreme and idiosyncratic decision by the lack of historical context of their judgments.
Government should ban religious conversion and the free flow of foreign money for missionary activities. Almost invariably, ban on religious conversion will drive missionaries out of business. For the politicians it is a dilemma. But life is filled with dilemmas that we can attempt to ameliorate but we cannot entirely avoid. Ban on religious conversion will reinforce our values and identification and that protects our freedom. These are values that would be threatened if religious conversion were carried out extensively.
Not everything that can be labeled "free expression" is worth protecting or immune from legal regulation for the general good. Given the gravity of the danger and destruction of missionary activities, anti-conversion alarm is sensible. We should not wait until Christianity takes over India. On the individual level as well as the genocidal level the effects of dogmatic missionary preaching justify its prohibition.
Hindus must initiate a much more wide-ranging debate about religious conversion, missionary activities and the free flow of foreign money for conversion activities. Hindus must go on the offensive and stop being baited by those who call our defense of Hindu society as communal. Hindus must stop allowing them to set the agenda for what is and what is not religious freedom.
Hindus must wage a battle against violence, intolerance, rigidity, and thought control. Hindus must put an end to the imperialistic, missionary culture, and end to religious conversion. It's time to name our real enemies. Our enemies arise in part from our silence, but also from passivity. Our survival as a nation is in crisis. But realistic solutions are within our reach, if we all work together. So I urge you, become activists on behalf our Hindus who have no one else to speak on their behalf, for yourselves, and for the nation
CHINA'S ANTI-PIRACY PATROL --- STRATEGIC DIMENSIONS
B.RAMAN
Three ships of the Chinese Navy------ the missile-armed destroyers "DDG-171 Haikou" and "DDG-169 Wuhan" and the suply ship "Weishanhu"--- are reported to have sailed from the Yalong Bay naval base on the Hainan Island on January 26,2008, on a three-month mission to undertake anti-piracy patrol for the protection of Chinese ships and crew from attacks by Somali pirates. This will be the first time ships of the Chinese Navy will be operating in far-away waters outside the Pacific on defensive missions----though only against non-State actors. The three-ship task force will have a Chinese special forces unit (strength not known) and two helicopters.
2.The Chinese announcement came shortly after nine pirates attacked "Zhenhua 4", a Chinese cargo ship with 30 crewmen, in Somali waters on December 17,2008. The Chinese ship, owned by the China Communications Construction Co, was rescued by two warships and a helicopter of Malaysia.Twenty per cent of the 1,265 Chinese ships that have passed through the Somali waters in the first 11 months of this year, have faced pirate attacks, according to a spokesman of the company. Seven of these ships were hijacked, and the pirates were still holding a Chinese fishing ship and 18 sailors.China's decision came after the UN Security Council, in an unanimous vote on December 16,2008, gave nations fighting against pirates in the Gulf of Aden a one-year mandate to act inside and off Somalia.
3.The State-owned Xinhua news agency quoted Wu Shengli, the Commander of the Chinese Navy, as telling the 1000 sailors of the three ships at a function before the Task Force set sail as follows: "It's the first time we go abroad to protect our strategic interests armed with military force.It's the first time for us to organise a naval force on an international humanitarian mission and the first time for our navy to protect important shipping lanes far from our shores."
4. The Chinese task force will be joining more than a dozen warships from Italy, Greece, Turkey, India, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, France, Russia, Britain, Malaysia and the US, who have already undertaken an anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden. With China sending its ships, the Navies of all the five permanent members of the UN Security Council will now be co-operating in the fight against piracy. Japan has already announced its intention of sending one of its ships too.
5.Even though Admiral Timothy Keating, the Commander of the US Pacific Command in Hawaii, has welcomed the Chinese decision and expressed the hope that the operations of the US and Chinese naval ships side by side in the Somali waters might lead to a resumption of the military-military contacts between the two countries, which are in a state of suspension since October, 2008, due to Chinese unhappiness over the supply of US military equipment to Taiwan, the US cannot but be concerned over the long-term implications of the Chinese naval presence in an area of strategic importance to the US.
6.Admiral Keating was quoted by the media as saying immedaitely after the Chinese announcement of its decision to send the ships on anti-piracy patrol: "China's plans to join the fight against piracy off the coast of Somalia could lead to a renewal of military exchanges between Beijing and Washington. I think this could be a springboard for a resumption of dialogue between PLA forces and US Pacific Command forces."
7.Commenting on the US Admiral's statement, Peng Guangqian, a Chinese strategic expert working in the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, was quoted as saying on Decemmber 22,2008, that the armed forces of China and the US would be cooperating for the first time in a real security environment off Somalia's coast. He added: "The military cooperation between the two sides should be based on international laws and codes, mutual respect and equal consultation. Only this way can bilateral military cooperation proceed steadily."
8. The Chinese decision has been widely welcomed by Chinese Internet chatters and bloggers as a moment of great pride for China. It has also been welcomed by the community of Chinese strategic experts;. Typical among the comments are:
Li Wei, Director of the Anti-terrorism Research Centre of the China Institute of Contemporary Relations: "It is a huge breakthrough in China's concepts about security.It sends a strong political message to the international community that China with its improved economic and military strength is willing to play a larger role in maintaining world peace and security."
Prof. Li Jie, a naval researcher: "Joining other countries to fight Somali pirates would be a very good opportunity for the Chinese Navy to get into the thick of the action. Apart from fighting pirates, another key goal is to register the presence of the Chinese Navy.If the navy's special forces join in, that will be in order to counter the pirates' attempt to board other ships. In general, the mission is to deter pirates, because that is the basic objective."
Prof Pang Zhongying at Renmin University of China: "Joining other fleets in the Somali waters will contribute to international security.
Earlier, Chinese army personnel joining UN peacekeeping missions were engineering and medical staff, police, or peacekeepers. But now, dispatching naval ships would not be a problem as the menace of Somali piracy has become a common threat to the whole international community.China's image as a responsible sovereign nation will improve by participating in such missions.The number of troops in any such mission would not be high. It would be on a limited scale initially." .
9. It is not yet clear which port the Chinese ships will be using for refuelling and re-stocking purposes during the three months they will be away from China, but reports from Pakistani sources say that the Pakistan Navy has already offered the use of the Karachi port for this purpose. The Gwadar port is not presently under consideration for this purpose since part of the construction has not yet been completed. Even though Part I has been completed and a small number of foreign commercial ships has started using it, the refuelling and re-stocking facilities in Gwadar are not yet satisfactory.
10. The Pakistani offer of the use of Karachi was reported to have been discussed with Chinese officials during the recent visit to China by the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) General Tariq Majid for the sixth round of the Pakistan-China Defence and Security Talks. On December 15,2008, Gen.Majid and General Chen Bingde, Chief of the General Staff, People's Liberation Army, signed an agreement on military co-operation. Though details of this agreement were not disclosed, it is believed that Pakistan has offered the use of the Karachi port to the Chinese ships under this agreement. This visit was fixed long before the Chinese decision to undertake anti-piracy patrols.
11.India, which has sent a ship of its own navy to the Gulf of Aden on anti-piracy patrol, cannot object to the Chinese ships joining the patrol, but it would be justified in keeping a wary eye on the Chinese ships. What is now projected by the Chinese as a temporary measure of self-defence and peace-keeping against pirates, could develop into a permanent presence of strategic value to the Chinese Navy in terms of power projection in the waters to the West of India. It could develop as a Chinese counter to India's power projection in the seas to the East of India.
12. Pakistan's immediate interest in the Chinese using Karachi as a possible base for their operations in the Somali waters arises from the hope that it could act as a deterrent to any Indian threat to Karachi in the event of the current tensions between India and Pakistan after the terrorist attack in Mumbai on November 26,2008, leading to a military confrontation between the two countries. (27-12-08)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Three ships of the Chinese Navy------ the missile-armed destroyers "DDG-171 Haikou" and "DDG-169 Wuhan" and the suply ship "Weishanhu"--- are reported to have sailed from the Yalong Bay naval base on the Hainan Island on January 26,2008, on a three-month mission to undertake anti-piracy patrol for the protection of Chinese ships and crew from attacks by Somali pirates. This will be the first time ships of the Chinese Navy will be operating in far-away waters outside the Pacific on defensive missions----though only against non-State actors. The three-ship task force will have a Chinese special forces unit (strength not known) and two helicopters.
2.The Chinese announcement came shortly after nine pirates attacked "Zhenhua 4", a Chinese cargo ship with 30 crewmen, in Somali waters on December 17,2008. The Chinese ship, owned by the China Communications Construction Co, was rescued by two warships and a helicopter of Malaysia.Twenty per cent of the 1,265 Chinese ships that have passed through the Somali waters in the first 11 months of this year, have faced pirate attacks, according to a spokesman of the company. Seven of these ships were hijacked, and the pirates were still holding a Chinese fishing ship and 18 sailors.China's decision came after the UN Security Council, in an unanimous vote on December 16,2008, gave nations fighting against pirates in the Gulf of Aden a one-year mandate to act inside and off Somalia.
3.The State-owned Xinhua news agency quoted Wu Shengli, the Commander of the Chinese Navy, as telling the 1000 sailors of the three ships at a function before the Task Force set sail as follows: "It's the first time we go abroad to protect our strategic interests armed with military force.It's the first time for us to organise a naval force on an international humanitarian mission and the first time for our navy to protect important shipping lanes far from our shores."
4. The Chinese task force will be joining more than a dozen warships from Italy, Greece, Turkey, India, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, France, Russia, Britain, Malaysia and the US, who have already undertaken an anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden. With China sending its ships, the Navies of all the five permanent members of the UN Security Council will now be co-operating in the fight against piracy. Japan has already announced its intention of sending one of its ships too.
5.Even though Admiral Timothy Keating, the Commander of the US Pacific Command in Hawaii, has welcomed the Chinese decision and expressed the hope that the operations of the US and Chinese naval ships side by side in the Somali waters might lead to a resumption of the military-military contacts between the two countries, which are in a state of suspension since October, 2008, due to Chinese unhappiness over the supply of US military equipment to Taiwan, the US cannot but be concerned over the long-term implications of the Chinese naval presence in an area of strategic importance to the US.
6.Admiral Keating was quoted by the media as saying immedaitely after the Chinese announcement of its decision to send the ships on anti-piracy patrol: "China's plans to join the fight against piracy off the coast of Somalia could lead to a renewal of military exchanges between Beijing and Washington. I think this could be a springboard for a resumption of dialogue between PLA forces and US Pacific Command forces."
7.Commenting on the US Admiral's statement, Peng Guangqian, a Chinese strategic expert working in the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, was quoted as saying on Decemmber 22,2008, that the armed forces of China and the US would be cooperating for the first time in a real security environment off Somalia's coast. He added: "The military cooperation between the two sides should be based on international laws and codes, mutual respect and equal consultation. Only this way can bilateral military cooperation proceed steadily."
8. The Chinese decision has been widely welcomed by Chinese Internet chatters and bloggers as a moment of great pride for China. It has also been welcomed by the community of Chinese strategic experts;. Typical among the comments are:
Li Wei, Director of the Anti-terrorism Research Centre of the China Institute of Contemporary Relations: "It is a huge breakthrough in China's concepts about security.It sends a strong political message to the international community that China with its improved economic and military strength is willing to play a larger role in maintaining world peace and security."
Prof. Li Jie, a naval researcher: "Joining other countries to fight Somali pirates would be a very good opportunity for the Chinese Navy to get into the thick of the action. Apart from fighting pirates, another key goal is to register the presence of the Chinese Navy.If the navy's special forces join in, that will be in order to counter the pirates' attempt to board other ships. In general, the mission is to deter pirates, because that is the basic objective."
Prof Pang Zhongying at Renmin University of China: "Joining other fleets in the Somali waters will contribute to international security.
Earlier, Chinese army personnel joining UN peacekeeping missions were engineering and medical staff, police, or peacekeepers. But now, dispatching naval ships would not be a problem as the menace of Somali piracy has become a common threat to the whole international community.China's image as a responsible sovereign nation will improve by participating in such missions.The number of troops in any such mission would not be high. It would be on a limited scale initially." .
9. It is not yet clear which port the Chinese ships will be using for refuelling and re-stocking purposes during the three months they will be away from China, but reports from Pakistani sources say that the Pakistan Navy has already offered the use of the Karachi port for this purpose. The Gwadar port is not presently under consideration for this purpose since part of the construction has not yet been completed. Even though Part I has been completed and a small number of foreign commercial ships has started using it, the refuelling and re-stocking facilities in Gwadar are not yet satisfactory.
10. The Pakistani offer of the use of Karachi was reported to have been discussed with Chinese officials during the recent visit to China by the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) General Tariq Majid for the sixth round of the Pakistan-China Defence and Security Talks. On December 15,2008, Gen.Majid and General Chen Bingde, Chief of the General Staff, People's Liberation Army, signed an agreement on military co-operation. Though details of this agreement were not disclosed, it is believed that Pakistan has offered the use of the Karachi port to the Chinese ships under this agreement. This visit was fixed long before the Chinese decision to undertake anti-piracy patrols.
11.India, which has sent a ship of its own navy to the Gulf of Aden on anti-piracy patrol, cannot object to the Chinese ships joining the patrol, but it would be justified in keeping a wary eye on the Chinese ships. What is now projected by the Chinese as a temporary measure of self-defence and peace-keeping against pirates, could develop into a permanent presence of strategic value to the Chinese Navy in terms of power projection in the waters to the West of India. It could develop as a Chinese counter to India's power projection in the seas to the East of India.
12. Pakistan's immediate interest in the Chinese using Karachi as a possible base for their operations in the Somali waters arises from the hope that it could act as a deterrent to any Indian threat to Karachi in the event of the current tensions between India and Pakistan after the terrorist attack in Mumbai on November 26,2008, leading to a military confrontation between the two countries. (27-12-08)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
December 26, 2008
A Renaissance of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)
by Kalyan Singhal, University of Baltimore, Ksinghal@ubalt.edu
SOURCE: http://www.hindu.com/nic/renaissance_iit.htm
Fifty eight years after the first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) was founded in Kharagpur, the IITs at Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Mumbai, and Roorkee have a lot to be proud of. The IITs are known for dedication of their faculties and for the strong motivation and work ethic of their graduates. Many IIT graduates hold important positions in academia and industry in India and abroad. 60 Minutes, an American TV newsmagazine, focused on undergraduate education at the IITs and hyperbolically described them as "Harvard, MIT, and Princeton" put together, and Business Week ran a cover story on undergraduate education at the IITs. The 50th anniversary of IIT Bombay at Mumbai prompts us to see how well they have met their goals and to discuss the opportunities ahead.
1. THE PROMISE OF THE IITs: SHAPED BY HISTORY
1.1 The Legacy and the Curse of the British Raj: A Descent into Poverty
In 1757, just before the beginning of the British military occupation, India’s shareof world manufacturing was 24.5 percent while the share of Europe and the United States combined was 21.4 percent. India was the world’s largest exporter of manufactured goods, and it had developed advanced crucible steel (wootz), shipping, and textile industries that were developed after decades of experimentation. Half of India’s agriculture output was surplus. Although this prosperous India was not egalitarian with its feudal polity, caste system, and apartheid against the Dalits, there is no evidence of large-scale extreme poverty.
The ecosystem and productivity of India’s land deteriorated because the British did not maintain India’s irrigation networks and imposed land taxes of about 50 percent of the agriculture output, which they collected by force. The popularity of Indian cotton fabrics in Britain, which did not have a textile industry, motivated several simple British inventions – the fly shuttle, the spinning jenny, the water frame, and the mule – that constituted the foundations of Britain’s textile industry and it’s Industrial Revolution. The British exported textiles to India but imposed heavy duties on imported Indian textiles. The decrease in India’s agriculture output and Britain’s protectionist policies caused India’s manufacturing output to fall by 72 percent between 1750 and 1880. The resulting massive poverty was accompanied by intense and pervasive inequalities, poor health, loss of land, unemployment, and labor bondage as people became unable to pay off loans borrowed at high interest rates. In the mid-1800s, when the British started building new infrastructure in India, it was focused on goods the British were exporting. Although some indigenous capitalism developed in India, the resulting economic growth benefited only a small fraction of the population. (See endnote 1.)
This history provides clues to approaches to India’s development. India should pursue a reversal of many of the things that happened during the British Raj. Science and technology have a central role in making this process more effective and in expediting it.
1.2 A New Dawn: The IITs and India’s Destiny
Jawaharlal Nehru, the architect of modern India and the creator of the IITs, outlined his vision for India in Discovery of India (1945) and sharpened it further in his “tryst-with-destiny” speech minutes before India became free on August 15, 1947 [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1947nehru1.html]:
“We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers itself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. … The ambition of the greatest man of our generation (Mahatma Gandhi) has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over…. The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.”
In leading India into uncharted waters where mistakes would be inevitable, Nehru focused on the long-term economic and spiritual well-being of all Indians. Creation of the IITs, which the Indian parliament declared to be the “Institutes of National Importance,” was a necessary element in this long-term strategy because India needed knowledge in science and technology to build up a “prosperous” nation and to “wipe every tear from every eye”. Nehru made clear the importance of the IITs in his observations at the first convocation of IIT Kharagpur, "Here in the place of that Hijli Detention Camp stands the fine monument of India, representing India's urges, India's future in the making. This picture seems to me symbolical of the changes that are coming to India."
The IITs were created after a committee headed by Nalini Ranjan Sarkar recommended establishing “higher technical institutions” in various parts of India along the lines of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The IITs were to focus on research and postgraduate education that would keep India on the leading edge of knowledge in science and technology for building a prosperous India. Since over 80 percent of India’s population was poor or nearly poor, the only way to build a prosperous India was to raise people’s incomes by using science and technology to improve the products, processes, and infrastructure they used as producers and consumers and to improve their skills and expertise. Building a prosperous India meant raising the incomes of the poor and near poor.
2. THE YET TO BE FULFILLED PROMISE AND THE OPPORTUNITIES AHEAD
President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, while addressing the first convocation of the second IIT, IIT Bombay at Mumbai, on December 22, 1962, warned both India and the IITs against drifting from their original promise, “The strength of a country is judged not by the number of millionaires it has created, but by the poverty it has eliminated.” And yet, both India and the IITs have drifted away from their original goals.
2.1 Today’s Troubling National Priorities
India’s household-savings rate is 22 percent, its economy has been growing at the annual rate of nine percent, India created billionaires faster than any country in the world in 2007, and the Indian government pays more than 80 percent of the cost of IIT education for the students, who came largely from the top 10 percent income group in India. Furthermore, India can afford to pay oil consumers subsidies of 2,000 billion rupees this year (Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyer, Times of India, 25 May 2008). Yet, the government is spending only 160 billion rupees on its flagship employment guarantee scheme, and according to India’s National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector, 77 per cent of the population lives below or near the poverty line on a meager 20 rupees per day.
2.2 Today’s IITs
The IITs were supposed to lead the nation in R&D by focusing on ways to build a prosperous India by raising the incomes of the poor. And they were supposed to educate PhD students who would lead R&D in India’s industries and serve on the faculties of India’s other technical institutions. The IITs would thus have created a multiplier effect and a culture of innovation throughout the country. Despite the kudos showered on the IITs’ undergraduate education and the ensuing euphoria, none of the IITs rank in the top 100 institutions in the world in research based on any measure, and IIT professors and graduates hold few significant patents in India. MIT’s annual research output dwarfs that of all the IITs combined. Most of India’s public- and private-sector organizations continue to rely on off-the-shelf technologies.
Nor are the IITs graduating enough PhD students to meet the faculty needs of their sister IITs and other engineering colleges and technical institutions, let alone create a national culture of innovation. About 25 percent of the faculty positions in the IITs and 50 percent of the faculty positions in other engineering colleges remain vacant. Several IIT professors reported that they were unable to attract students with high academic credentials for postgraduate work and that those who get their undergraduate degrees from the IITs almost never pursue postgraduate engineering degrees in India.
Had the IITs followed their original mission and had their work raised the productivity of the adults in the 77 percent of the population that are unorganized laborers to even half of the level of the leading industrialized countries with improvements in products, processes, and infrastructure, supported by education and training, India’s gross national product would have increased over ten times. This goal was central to the IITs’ mission of creating a prosperous nation.
Although IIT professors and graduates have improved the economic well-being of the richest 10 percent of Indians and the economy in the United States and Canada, they have had little impact on the rest of India. The exceptions are a few professors and graduates who have pursued individual initiatives and about 200 IIT graduates who have been working with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). (See endnote 2.)
One could argue that the IITs have not realized their promise because the external environment, which continues to serve the elite, did not support the IITs’ goal of focusing on research and building a prosperous India by improving conditions of the poor.
2.3 A Comparison with China’s Elite Universities
Most Indians understandably like to compare China and India because they have almost the same size populations, they were both prosperous around 1750, they both had their economies destroyed during 200 years of dominance of Europe’s military power, and they had the same level of economic development in 1950. Although Nehru started building elite institutions of research and higher education in 1950, China made a similar move only in the 1990s and the Chinese institutions have been moving full speed. In April 2008, Li et al.[http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/1066] observed,
“Elite universities are the top ten universities in China, which receive the largest education funds from central and local governments. They have priority in selecting students through national entrance exams and have the best faculty and research resources in China. …. High priority is placed on international rankings, taken as publications in international journals, citations, and international cooperation.”
While India’s IITs, in spite of the recognized value of their undergraduate education, have yet to meet their original goals of conducting research and building a prosperous India by raising the incomes of the poor, the Chinese elite universities are racing ahead to match the records of schools like CalTech and MIT in research and to pursue R&D on all fronts to build a strong and prosperous China. China’s poverty rate and infant mortality rate are now less than half of India’s. The two rates are directly correlated, and the infant mortality rate is now universally regarded as the fundamental measure of a nation’s economic well-being.
2.4 A Plan to Pursue the Continuing Promise of the IITs
I argue that the IITs could still become a force to lead India’s social, economic, and technological transformation. I humbly suggest a plan the IITs could follow to pursue this original goal mainly to provide a starting point for debate. First, the IITs should support themselves financially and have full autonomy in selecting directors and making financial and operational decisions. They could then control their own destinies and play major roles in shaping India’s.
Second, the IITs could focus on research and development (R&D) in three interdependent domains: sustainability, partnerships with public and private organizations, and rural areas and slums to improve the economy of the unorganized sector. R&D in rural areas and slums could be pursued in partnership with IIT alumni. The research on sustainability would be valuable to the organized sector and in improvements in villages and slums. The partnerships with companies in the organized sector could lead to innovations in rural areas and slums, and the companies could undertake large-scale commercialization of successful prototypes developed and tested in the field labs in villages and slums.
Third, the IITs could expand postgraduate education, include field training and community engagement in undergraduate education, provide leadership to other technical institutions, and collaborate with other external entities. I respectfully invite you to imagine the possibilities and join the debate.
3. SELF-SUPPORT, AUTONOMY, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
The IITs might establish a system in which (a) undergraduate students would eventually pay the costs of their education and (b) the government, public and private organizations, and the alumni would support targeted research and postgraduate education. The IITs would treat the costs for IIT undergraduate students as loans and the students would pay a percentage of their incomes until they paid off the loans or until they reached a certain age. The IITs would provide additional loans to students from low-income families who could not afford incidental expenses. The Government of India should willingly approve such an arrangement, grant administrative autonomy to the IITs, and institute a system for their long-term accountability. The autonomy should allow each IIT’s board of governors to select its director and make financial and operational decisions, including replacement of current salary scales with market- and performance-based criteria. The approach I propose could also become a model for higher education in India.
4. RESEARCH: AN INTEGRATED THREE-PRONGED STRATEGY
The Western model of economic development has served Western countries well until recently because the Western European countries militarily occupied more than two thirds of the world for about 200 years and consumed the occupied countries’ natural resources and because their citizens emigrated to the Americas and Australia with their unexploited land and abundant resources. Now the Western model of development has become obsolete and threatens the survival of the planet for three reasons:
• With Western Europe’s military occupation ended, the European countries have less control over the rest of the world’s resources;
• With the first mover’s advantage, Western economies have developed rapidly during the last 60 years and are expanding their need for natural resources; and
• 60 years after military occupation ended, the rapidly industrializing countries also need more of the same natural resources.
Clearly, human beings and their economies depend on sustainable supplies of six basic environmental components: air, energy, forest cover, materials, soil, and water, and the supply of all six is threatened. Long before the current debate on sustainability and global warming began, Arnold J. Toynbee in his 12-volume treatise on the rise and fall of civilizations (A Study of History, 1934-1961) concluded that most of the vanished civilizations succumbed to environmental disasters.
Sustainability is far more important for low-income countries than for high-income countries because the later can more readily pay for at least some of the six components. The IITs could conduct research in three interdependent areas: Sustainable supplies of the six basic components, basic and applied research on topics of interest to private and public organizations, and R&D in rural areas and slums to be conducted in collaboration with the IIT alumni. The IITs could also work to integrate the economies of the organized and unorganized sectors so that both could develop sustainably.
4.1 Research on Sustainability
The IITs can become world leaders in research on sustainability. Their work can reduce costs and improve the quality of products, reduce air and water pollution, and give India an economic advantage in the global market for sustainable technologies. The IITs could help India to carve out a more effective path to economic development than that followed by Western countries.
Because of the potential benefits, the Indian government should welcome a national quota on emission instead of opposing it (Times of India, 9 July 2008). The direct benefits to the nation alone justify the quota without considering its impact on global warming.
Air: In spite of its low level of economic development, India has a very high level of air pollution. The IITs could conduct research on ways to simultaneously reduce pollution, recycle wasted by-products, decrease the use of scarce or toxic resources, cut costs, and improve quality. In addition to the direct economic benefits, achieving these goals would also reduce disease, suffering, and health care costs. India is world’s third largest producer of coal, and India’s coal is of poor quality with high ash content. Coal-based power plants pollute air, water, and soil because they emit carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides and generate ash. The result is that tens of millions of people suffer from a variety of ailments, tens to hundreds of thousands of people die prematurely each year, and there are staggering health care and other economic costs.
Energy: India has shortage of commercial energy. About 75 million of its 120 million rural households lack electricity. The amount of energy needed by the rural population for basic needs is small, and appropriate technologies are available but require further R&D to make them operationally and economically viable for rural use. India could leapfrog over the high-income countries by developing new and renewable sources of energy. The alternatives it develops would be useful anywhere.
Materials: The IITs could conduct research on all aspects of material science: creation of new materials and composites, use of new materials, and improvements and new uses for existing materials. Although materials, much like energy, computer chips, and the Internet, are basic drivers of innovation, India continues to depend on other countries for many materials. Admirably, the IITs have initiated work on nanotechnology, but they have yet to fully explore and develop the material resources that are unique to India, are abundant in India, or are renewable. For housing in villages, the IITs could improve such local materials as wood, straw, locally made bricks, and chunam (lime stone) and the technologies for using them. With improvement, some of these materials might become useful in urban building.
Soil, water, and forest cover: Water is necessary in urban and rural areas to meet industrial needs, to support agriculture, and to conserve soil. The IITs could conduct research on rainwater harvesting, collection, storage, and use. With climate change and indiscriminate use, water tables in India are dropping rapidly and are dangerously low in many places. The IITs could improve technologies for building water tanks, storage ponds, reservoirs, and gully plugs to raise the groundwater table. Such technologies would help India to address such calamities as the melting mountain Himalayan glaciers that supply water to major rivers in China and India. Improved water management would also help in planting trees and in better management of forests, and thus facilitating soil conservation. Rainwater harvesting and resulting water percolation in designated forest areas would help in increasing tree density and protect against uneven growth caused by year-to-year variations in rainfall. The resulting increase in the forest cover would reduce occurrences of droughts and floods, and reverse the process of environment degradation that has became progressively worse after 1757. They would also mitigate the effects of global warming.
While India’s entire population must pay the opportunity costs of ignoring sustainable development, low-income families face the greatest risks because they cannot afford to pay for items that become expensive because of scarcity or for items needed to mitigate the effects of poor sustainability, such as air conditioning, health care, and automobiles.
4.2 Partnerships with the Organized Private and Public Sectors
India’s private and public sector organizations can help the IITs’ to create scientific innovations and thus increase the benefits they receive from the IITs. The IITs could develop long-term strategic alliances with organizations that have R&D facilities, for example multinational corporations, Indian companies, the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), nuclear energy plants, and the space program. The IITs can act on many interesting opportunities and needs. For example, India is planning to spend $75 billion dollars in defense acquisitions in the next five years, and DRDO has lost 1,500 scientists to the greener pastures of the corporate world since 2002 (Times of India 13 May 2008).
Most organizations in the private and public sectors, including public works, thermal power generators, railways, and road transportation, which have budgets of trillions of rupees, rely on off-the-shelf technologies, some of which are obsolete. They could recruit a large number of IIT PhD students each year to conduct research and thus modernize these organizations and increase their productivity and value.
Alliances with outside organizations would give professors and postgraduate students opportunities to pursue research on potential applications and provide financial resources for the IITs and their faculties through research grants and consulting opportunities. The IITs could develop clean technologies for plants that currently emit harmful gaseous, liquid or solid waste.
4.3. R&D-Driven Integrated Solutions for the Problems of Rural Areas and Slums: The Rationale
Building a prosperous India by raising the incomes of the poor requires the use of science and technology to improve the products, processes, and infrastructure they use as producers and consumers and increasing their skills and expertise. Almost all of the poor and near poor belong to the unorganized sector, and they work and live in villages or live in slums. India’s villages provide ideal settings in which to create a sustainable model of economic development that can also be replicated throughout the world.
The rural areas and slums need R&D-driven integrated solutions to their problems that would require the entire spectrum of managerial tasks: basic research; commercialization of goods and services; and pursuit of the learning curve for improving processes, products, and the infrastructure. Such integrated solutions would require a zeal for entrepreneurship and a wide range of managerial skills. They should be a shared responsibility of the IITs and IIT alumni. The IIT community is uniquely qualified to work in this area because IIT graduates are among the world’s leading entrepreneurs and have demonstrable managerial skills.
The creation of MIT in 1861 was a landmark in the history of higher education that included such landmarks as ancient Indian universities of Takhashila (6th century BC to 5th century AD) and Nalanda (427 AD – 1197 AD), Oxford (since 1167) and Cambridge (since 1209), and Harvard (since 1636). These landmark institutions were created to meet administrative, economic, and social needs of great economic powers of their time. MIT was created to meet the needs of rapidly industrializing United States in the later part of the 19th century.
MIT’s website [http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2000/alliance.html] includes the following statement: “MIT has a long tradition of working on practical problems affecting the society and the economy, and in recent years has become a leader in developing collaborative partnerships with industry. These partnerships and the research activities of our faculty have resulted in the creation of jobs, companies and even new industries, based on new technologies. They are part of this country's innovation system – a loosely coupled alliance of industry, universities, government and labor – that develops new knowledge and technologies, educates a highly skilled work force to apply these new technologies, and produces the next generation of researchers to carry on the process of discovery and development. This system turns out a continuous stream of new products and services, which in turn advance our economy and improve our quality of life.”
Several of the universities such as John Hopkins University, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University are also conducting large-scale collaborative research and entrepreneurship. Even Cambridge, Harvard, and Oxford, MIT’s venerable predecessors and historic leaders in “curiosity-driven research,” are now following MIT’s lead. Harvard has built a multibillion-dollar campus for making itself “a powerhouse in collaborative research and a hotbed of entrepreneurship” (Science, 11 July 2008). The need for field-based research is far greater in India than in the U.S. or Britain because R&D in Indian companies is still in its infancy, the unorganized sector is almost untouched by R&D, and no other Indian university conducts much field research.
The IITs could extend MIT’s “long tradition of working on practical problems affecting the society and the economy”. What the IITs need to do is to include India’s poor and near poor and their economy in defining the society and the economy. Making up nearly 80 percent of the country’s population, the poor and near poor are India’s society and their economy is India’s economy. By including R&D-driven integrated solutions for villages and slums in their mission, the 21st century IITs would make a landmark innovation in the mission of higher education. If the IITs succeed in this mission, they could become models for higher educational institutions everywhere in the world.
Some in the IIT community believe that the villages and slums require only low-level technologies that any company can easily develop. Had the issue been that simple, the free-market economy would have addressed it long ago. The unorganized sector has the greatest potential for growth and for the highest economic returns on the time and money invested. For the people in the unorganized sector, the opportunity echoes Nehru’s observation, “The future beckons to us.” Yet, for the last 60 years, the economy of the organized sector, which is rapidly becoming part of the global economy, has been structurally unable to integrate with the unorganized sector, the economy of 77 percent of the population of the country, beyond treating it as a value-generating appendage necessary for the organized sector’s survival and growth. And the “social, economic and political institutions,” which had a tryst with destiny to “ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman,” are complacent as they neglect 77 percent of the population, 870 million Indian people. We, the IIT community, have the power and the historic opportunity to pursue this initiative and help build a strong India by improving the incomes of the poor. If we do not do it, who will?
4.4 R&D-Driven Integrated Solutions for the Problems of Rural Areas and Slums: A Shared Responsibility of the IIT Community (the IITs and Their Alumni)
Solving the problems of rural areas and urban slums would require a combination of institute labs (home labs) and field labs in villages and slums. The field labs in villages would be similar to the rural extension programs of agriculture universities. The IIT community may want to enlist the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and their alumni to collaborate on this initiative. Once these communities develop a few successful prototypes, the government and the private sector could replicate them throughout the country and persuade other engineering colleges and diploma-granting institutions to help in adapting the prototypes to individual local settings. India’s villages are ideal settings in which to create sustainable models of economic development that can be replicated in the rest of the world.
Home labs: Each IIT could set up a laboratory dedicated to research into improving the infrastructure, products, and services that are used primarily by people near or below the poverty line. The lab would extend the work of the existing labs and draw support from them. It could start by identifying, say, 100 products or infrastructure components widely used by the poor and redesign them to lower their costs and improve their performance. Preferably the workers producing the existing products would produce the redesigned products. The IITs could create entrepreneurship programs to help commercialize the products.
Field labs as extensions of the IITs: Each IIT community could adopt one or more slums and a cluster of villages whose level of economic development is below the national average to use as development laboratories. The IIT community could focus on the following areas in the villages: developing water resources and conserving soil, improving housing and sanitary conditions, improving the tools and processes local workers use and the products local craftsmen make, building community cold storage facilities for small-scale farmers, creating home-based businesses for seasonally employed agriculture workers, building roads, and providing electricity. In urban slums, the IIT community could focus on the following areas: sanitary conditions, housing, water, electricity, and tools and processes used in the slum-based industries. The appendix covers further details on operational issues, student summer projects, the role of the government, and institutional parameters.
Each IIT would choose a few faculty members to direct this initiative, supervising the application of the R&D work done in the IIT labs. These faculty members and the IIT alumni working on the projects would visit the field labs for short periods to work with the fulltime staff, technicians, and students. Each cluster of villages would need facilities to house visiting faculty and alumni, staff members, technicians, and students working on projects.
Guru dakshina and a phenomenal opportunity for the alumni: The alumni would contribute their talents and financial support to the field labs. On several occasions, leaders of the IITs have encouraged IIT alumni to pay guru dakshina (paying the teacher back) to the IITs, and the IIT alumni have responded enthusiastically. In ancient India, the student lived in the gurukul (teacher’s home), the guru provided all of the student’s expenses, and the student later paid dakshina to the guru to compensate him for his opportunity costs. Clearly, the alumni owe most of their guru dakshina to the poor because the money spent on the IITs could have been spent on improving their incomes. This opportunity to improve the lives of the Indian poor should appeal most to those alumni who live far away from India and cannot directly help in improving India’s economic conditions. In supporting this initiative, they can accomplish three goals: maximizing India’s economic growth, paying guru dakshina to the right recipients, and contributing to a noble cause.
4.5 The Relationship among the Three Areas of Research
The research on sustainability would lead to partnerships with companies and integrated solutions to problems in villages and slums. Similarly, partnerships with companies could open opportunities for innovations in rural areas and slums. For example, partnerships with thermal power corporations could lead to new initiatives on electricity for rural areas, and partnerships with public works and state road-transport organizations could facilitate research on infrastructure needs in rural areas and infrastructure development. Furthermore, companies could commercialize successful prototypes developed and tested in the field labs. Or companies’ work in villages could lead to important research on sustainability. In many cases, IITs might seek alliances with companies to collaborate on solving village or slum problems. For example, an IIT might collaborate with a refrigeration company to build prototype cold storage facilities.
The combined annual “overall research expenditures” of six U.S. universities that lead in collaborative research is about five and a half billion dollars (Science, 11 July 2008). However, the potential for the IITs is much greater because in the unorganized sector, which has remained untouched by R&D, they can easily and quickly succeed in innovations on their own or in collaboration with the organized sector.
5. POSTGRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
5.1 Postgraduate Education
As self-supporting institutes with strategic partnerships with private and public organizations and a renewed commitment to provide PhD graduates for India’s industrial and technical institutions, the IITs could pursue their original goal of expanding both masters’ and PhD programs. They would also attract students with good academic credentials and could fully or partially waive loan repayments for those IIT undergraduates who went on to earn PhD or masters’ degrees at an IIT. The IIT’s extensive alliances with entities in private and public sectors could provide support for postgraduate students’ research, and the pursuit of integrated solutions to the problems of villages and slums could provide ideas for new areas of research.
5.2 Admission Criteria for IIT Undergraduate Programs
The IITs have three de facto systems that ensure that they give preference to students from high-income families:
• In spite of scholarships and huge subsidies from the central government, low-income families cannot afford IIT educations.
• In the 1960s, more than 97 percent of the students at the secondary-education level went to public schools, the quality of public-school education was high, and a majority of IIT students came from there. Now most high- and middle-income families send their children to private schools, and as a consequence, the quality of public education, which now serves mainly children from low-income families, has deteriorated. This deterioration has further reduced the chances that low-income students will gain get admission to the IITs.
• Currently the sole criterion for admission to the IITs is the score on a nationally administered test. India has a thriving multibillion-rupee tutorial industry that trains prospective students for the test (Times of India, 3 July 2008) because their training substantially increases students’ chances of admission. The tutorial industry’s annual revenue is greater than the IITs’ combined annual budget of 10 billion rupees. The tutoring is so expensive that most middle income families cannot afford it. As a result, the IITs are increasingly admitting students only from high-income families.
The fact that IIT graduates are succeeding in the job market and in their careers does not prove that those left out because of the three income-based factors would not have performed as well or better. The IITs should examine these issues and try to draw students from all economic backgrounds.
5.3 Engagement with the Society and a Vibrant Learning Environment
The IITs could send their students out into society and the industrial community. The students could gain rich economic, political, social, and technological perspectives on Indian society. They could see firsthand opportunities for innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth and learn to be effective engineers, entrepreneurs, managers, public administrators, and researchers. The interaction with the society and the industry would also create a vibrant intellectual environment in the IITs, prompting debate on the issues that are critical to building a modern sustainable India.
As part of the curriculum, each student could conduct in-depth interviews with members of two low-income families about their economic and social well-being; those interviewed would be paid for their time by the IIT. Most of the revenue of the central and state governments comes from indirect taxes for which low-income families pay a higher share of their incomes than high-income families. Students interviewing members of low-income families might come to understand their economies. They constitute about 70 percent of India’s population and, the taxes they pay contribute to the IIT education. Between 1974 and 1976, such an exercise at IIM Bangalore was effective in broadening students’ perspectives on Indian society.
The IITs could then encourage students to speculate about how much less they would pay in income taxes during their lives and how much their eventual employers would benefit from an increase in the low-income group’s income, and thus its tax-paying capacity and buying power. The IITs could encourage them further to imagine how to raise such incomes. They could require students to make presentations in the classroom about these interviews so that they could learn from their fellow students’ experiences. The IITs might even open some of these presentations to the campus community and to the general public.
The IITs’ excellent education is clearly useful in any career, particularly in Western countries. The IITs can now expand their horizons. They could jointly conduct a survey of technologies the unorganized sector uses, familiarize students with these technologies, and improve those that are outdated. The IITs could require year-long internships in industry, government, villages, or slums, giving some financial support to students working in villages and slums. (See endnote 3.)
6. THE FACULTY AND THE EXTERNAL CONSTITUENCIES
Rewarding research and attracting new faculty: By raising their own money, the IITs would have the resources they need to attract new faculty and to reward performance in research. With India’s diverse needs, the most effective way to promote research would be to reward all types of excellence in research: publications in reputable international journals, partnerships with the outside organizations, breakthroughs in technology useful in slums or villages, and improvements in technologies used in the unorganized sector to reduce physical effort and improve productivity and wages. (See endnote 4 for more details.)
Other technical institutions and the IIMs: The IITs can lead other engineering colleges and technical institutions in curriculum development, research, partnerships with industrial and other organizations, and pursuit of some of our suggestions. When IIT graduates join the faculties of other engineering and polytechnic colleges, they would take with them a focus on work useful to the Indian economy. They would help to create a national culture of innovation. The IIM graduates are also greatly prized in India and abroad, and many of our proposals could equally apply to the IIMs.
Creating value and strengthening the brand: The IITs could also use their alumni network to contribute to the Indian and global technical communities. For example, they could disseminate knowledge through publications to facilitate the lifelong learning of scientists, engineers, and technologists and thus enhance the IIT brand.
7. CONCLUDING COMMENTS
Arnold J. Toynbee in his 12-volume treatise on the rise and fall of civilizations (A Study of History, 1934-1961) concluded that civilizations rose when "creative minorities” devised solutions to reorient an entire society in response to extreme physical or social challenges. India faces extreme physical and social challenges in shaping its future and destiny because, while a small part of India is as developed as any place in the world, the rest of India is years to centuries behind. We, the IIT community, have an opportunity – perhaps an obligation – to become the creative minority that can serve as a catalyst in transforming India.
In this greeting on the 50th anniversary of IIT Bombay at Mumbai, I call on the IITs to pursue leading-edge research in sustainability, to develop partnerships with public and private organizations, to expand their constituency to include the entire Indian economy, to pursue initiatives to speed up the social and economic transformation of India, and to lead the world in sustainable development. The IITs can capture the imaginations of the Indian people and take themselves to new heights.
Once the IITs pursue these initiatives, Nehru’s “social, economic and political institutions” will be motivated to address a number of interrelated areas to “ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman”: agriculture and farm insurance, animal energy, child labor, communication infrastructure, cooking gas and electricity, education and the impact of women’s education on family planning and family welfare, employment, finance, healthcare, local governance, nutrition, population growth (reproductive health, maternal mortality, and child mortality), poverty, and transportation. I plan to discuss these issues in a follow-up work.
In this article, I have humbly proposed just one possible plan that can serve as a starting point for debate. I respectfully invite you to participate.
Acknowledgement: Yash Gupta and Prem Vrat reviewed several versions of this article and helped me to improve the contents and the exposition. Victor Menezes shared his thoughts on autonomy. Rekha Nadkarni pointed out that India must address other important issues such as those listed in the preceding paragraph in conjunction with the IITs’ efforts. Her insights also helped me to improve the section on sustainability. Dinesh Mohan and Suresh Nair offered insights on IIT collaboration with India’s private and public sector. Others who contributed include Pushpa Agrawal, Vijay Agrawal, Uday Apte, Subash Babu, Jitendra Bhatia, Amar Bhide, Srinagesh Gavirneni, Sushil Gupta, Haresh Gurnani, Uday Karmarkar, Dunu Roy, Prahald Das Singhal, Tapan Singhal, Vinod Singhal, Sushil, Vinod Vyasulu, and a number of members of the IIT community who want to remain anonymous.
Kalyan Singhal is a 1967 mechanical engineering graduate of IIT Bombay at Mumbai. He worked as an industrial engineer at Union Carbide in India and served on the faculty of the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore where he founded the area of production and operations management. He is currently the McCurdy Professor of Technology, Operations, and Supply-Chain Management in the Merrick School of Business, University of Baltimore, and he serves as editor-in-chief of the journal Production and Operations Management, one of the 20 premier business and economics journals Business Week uses to rank full time MBA programs. Ksinghal@ubalt.edu
APPENDIX: MORE ON THE FIELD LABS
A1. Some Ideas on the Action Plan
Development of water resources and soil conservation: In the village field labs, the IIT community could build – and develop improved technologies for building – water tanks, storage ponds, reservoirs, and gully plugs so as to raise the groundwater table. Villagers could then plant trees, increase per-acre yields, and thus increase family incomes. The development of water resources and their impact on soil conservation were the key to the rapid and extraordinary transformation of Sukhomajri, a village in the Ambala district of Haryana, and of Ralegan Siddhi, a village in the Ahmed Nagar district of Maharashtra. These two villages had unusually strong leaders: Parasu Ram Mishra, a soil conservationist, in Sukhomajri and Kisan Baburao (Anna) Hazare, a former army jeep driver turned social activist, in Ralegan Siddhi. Mr. Hazare has, on more than one occasion, taken on the mightiest in the land.
Sanitation, water, and electricity in the slum labs: The IIT community would develop cost-effective solutions to sanitation problems in slums and villages. The Orangi Pilot Project in Karachi dramatically transformed sanitation facilities in a slum of 800,000 people covering 3,240 hectares. The IIT community might have to work municipal administrations and electricity suppliers for adequate supply of water and electricity.
Student projects: Undergraduate students could work for a summer in a village or slum on technical projects to improve the infrastructure or a product. The IITs could then allow the students to spend 10 percent or more of their time in the final year to complete their projects. The IITs could also require postgraduate students to work on such projects. Such projects could lead to masters’ and doctoral theses.
Effective learning via projects: In terms of defining, analyzing, and solving problems, work on a technical project in a slum or a village is no different from work on a computer chip, a jet aircraft, or a complex information system. The projects, however, would broaden the students’ economic and social perspectives. No summer training project in a factory could provide such rich real-world settings where students would have access to all relevant data, be able to explore all the issues related to the project, and be able to pursue a multidisciplinary approach to analysis. Between 1974 and 1976, students at the IIM Bangalore worked on several projects in the city. One team, for example, redesigned the layout of Bangalore’s city market, a large cluster of shops. The students improved the design substantially and in the process, they learned so much about layout design that they could address almost any layout problem in any setting.
Continuous improvements and expansion of the field labs: Once the full set of economic and technological prototypes start functioning in a slum or village cluster, the sponsoring IIT could move on to a project in new slum or cluster of villages while maintaining a presence in the previous community and making continuous improvements based on changes in technology and learning experiences at sites sponsored by other IIT communities. As the IIT moves from one sight to another, it should be able to develop new prototypes with less money and time.
Sharing mechanisms: First, the IIT project participants could create mechanisms for sharing their ongoing experiences. Second, the IIT project participants could record information about life in the village or slum, institutional issues related to the IIT work, details on economic and technological prototypes, and their efforts to create home-based entrepreneurships. They could make these records public. After the IIT participants complete work on the first set of labs, they could help other engineering colleges and technical institutions to conduct similar projects. This would multiply the impact of their work.
A2. Resources and Accountability
Financial incentives: The IITs should expect to pay members of the faculty and staff for the time they devote to projects in the villages and the slums. They would also have to give students stipends according to the time they spend in the villages or slums.
Where to welcome and seek support from the government and the private sector: I suggest the following sources of support: First, where possible the IITs should seek alliances with private sector entities in developing or improving a particular technology. Second, the IITs should take advantage of the Government of India’s 100-day guaranteed employment scheme for the workforce needed for the IIT projects. The central government has extended this scheme to all 596 districts and has budgeted 160 billion rupees for 2008-09. Third, the IITs should welcome any in-kind support from the government or the private sector where donors spend money directly on the field lab without donating money to the IIT. For example, the government or private entities could provide raw materials and pay workers directly for building a prototype road connecting the village to a city.
Where to keep the government out: History suggests that this initiative’s chances of success would drop rapidly if any monetary support came from the central or state governments because the government culture would replace the IIT community’s missionary zeal and professionalism with mercenary and political behavior. In the past, the central government has invested about two trillion rupees on rural development: training rural youth for self-employment, supplying improved tool kits to rural artisans, improving the lives of women and children in rural areas by upgrading skills, training, providing credit, and so forth. These programs have helped a few million people, but these few million constitute a small fraction of those who live near or below the poverty line. N. S. Ramaswamy, India’s National Professor of Management and a former director of IIM Bangalore, concluded that only 15 percent of the two trillion rupees reached the intended beneficiaries. In 2002, B.K Pradhan, P.K. Roy, and M.R. Saluja reported that, in spite of some successes, these programs suffered from leakage, bribery, and corruption at various levels; exclusion of the poor from decision making and from the benefits of programs; and inadequate creation of employment (11 days per year). Most of the money ended up in the pockets of people in the top 10 or 20 percent income group.
Accountability: The IIT community could set up a system of governance that would include a mechanism for audit and accountability.
A3. Institutional Parameters
Those establishing the field lab must understand the formal and informal power structures in slums and villages. The IIT project participants should consult experts on villages and slums before embarking on the initiative.
Many villages have gram sabha (village assembly) and panchayat (village government) created with the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution in 1992. If the villages in the chosen cluster have these institutions, the IIT participants should form benefits from long-term alliances with them to facilitate their work. Recently the central government decided that one man and one woman from each Gram Sabha would be designated climate managers and trained in the "science and art of managing climate change and to enhance their capacity to cope with natural calamities."
THE ENDNOTES
Endnote 1
In a working paper, “A Brief Economic History of British India,” K. Singhal and J. Singhal give more details.
Endnote 2
They include such pioneers as the late Anil Agarwal (IIT Kanpur 1968), who founded the Centre for Science and Environment in 1980 and reshaped the national debate on environment-related issues, Vinod Khosla (IIT Delhi 1976), who has helped to raise tens of crores of rupees for microfinance, and Dunu Roy (Anuvrata K. Roy, IIT Mumbai 1967), who founded an NGO, Vidushak Karkhana, at Annupur in the backward Shahdol district of Madhya Pradesh four decades ago to promote social activism and rural development and who now heads a New Delhi NGO, Hazard Centre, that serves the urban disadvantaged.
Endnote 3
For example, the IITs could waive, say, a fourth of the student’s loan for those who work in villages and slums. Such incentives might not be required after a few years as students realized that the rich and multidimensional experience they obtained in villages and slums would be far more useful in their future employment in industry than internship experience in industry itself.
Endnote 4
The IITs could base incentives for the faculty on predetermined criteria and make the administration of those criteria transparent. Initially, one central committee for all IITs could administer them to ensure uniformity, refining the criteria over time in preparation for eventual transition to decentralized administration by the individual IITs.
Initially, the incentives could be in the form of annual cash awards that could amount to as much as the annual salary of the recipient. This would bring the participating faculty members’ total income close to the international level in terms of purchasing power. Once a majority of IIT professors are receiving substantial awards, their salaries could be increased and the awards given in the form of annual salary increases. The opportunities for greater income and participation in challenging initiatives should attract diverse professors with good credentials.
The committee could use different sets of criteria and mechanisms depending on the type of contribution. For publications in leading journals and patents, the committee could follow international norms.
The IITs could create a premier research journal that would cover topics the existing leading journals generally do not cover, such as sustainability and science and technology in slums and villages. Such a journal would quickly becoming a leading journal in science and engineering because it would cover issues crucial to about one third of the world economy and useful to the remaining two third.
The IITs could motivate professors and staff members who work in the villages and slums by obtaining government funding for time-based additional salaries and alumni funding for performance-based financial rewards.
SOURCE: http://www.hindu.com/nic/renaissance_iit.htm
Fifty eight years after the first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) was founded in Kharagpur, the IITs at Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Mumbai, and Roorkee have a lot to be proud of. The IITs are known for dedication of their faculties and for the strong motivation and work ethic of their graduates. Many IIT graduates hold important positions in academia and industry in India and abroad. 60 Minutes, an American TV newsmagazine, focused on undergraduate education at the IITs and hyperbolically described them as "Harvard, MIT, and Princeton" put together, and Business Week ran a cover story on undergraduate education at the IITs. The 50th anniversary of IIT Bombay at Mumbai prompts us to see how well they have met their goals and to discuss the opportunities ahead.
1. THE PROMISE OF THE IITs: SHAPED BY HISTORY
1.1 The Legacy and the Curse of the British Raj: A Descent into Poverty
In 1757, just before the beginning of the British military occupation, India’s shareof world manufacturing was 24.5 percent while the share of Europe and the United States combined was 21.4 percent. India was the world’s largest exporter of manufactured goods, and it had developed advanced crucible steel (wootz), shipping, and textile industries that were developed after decades of experimentation. Half of India’s agriculture output was surplus. Although this prosperous India was not egalitarian with its feudal polity, caste system, and apartheid against the Dalits, there is no evidence of large-scale extreme poverty.
The ecosystem and productivity of India’s land deteriorated because the British did not maintain India’s irrigation networks and imposed land taxes of about 50 percent of the agriculture output, which they collected by force. The popularity of Indian cotton fabrics in Britain, which did not have a textile industry, motivated several simple British inventions – the fly shuttle, the spinning jenny, the water frame, and the mule – that constituted the foundations of Britain’s textile industry and it’s Industrial Revolution. The British exported textiles to India but imposed heavy duties on imported Indian textiles. The decrease in India’s agriculture output and Britain’s protectionist policies caused India’s manufacturing output to fall by 72 percent between 1750 and 1880. The resulting massive poverty was accompanied by intense and pervasive inequalities, poor health, loss of land, unemployment, and labor bondage as people became unable to pay off loans borrowed at high interest rates. In the mid-1800s, when the British started building new infrastructure in India, it was focused on goods the British were exporting. Although some indigenous capitalism developed in India, the resulting economic growth benefited only a small fraction of the population. (See endnote 1.)
This history provides clues to approaches to India’s development. India should pursue a reversal of many of the things that happened during the British Raj. Science and technology have a central role in making this process more effective and in expediting it.
1.2 A New Dawn: The IITs and India’s Destiny
Jawaharlal Nehru, the architect of modern India and the creator of the IITs, outlined his vision for India in Discovery of India (1945) and sharpened it further in his “tryst-with-destiny” speech minutes before India became free on August 15, 1947 [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1947nehru1.html]:
“We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers itself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. … The ambition of the greatest man of our generation (Mahatma Gandhi) has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over…. The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.”
In leading India into uncharted waters where mistakes would be inevitable, Nehru focused on the long-term economic and spiritual well-being of all Indians. Creation of the IITs, which the Indian parliament declared to be the “Institutes of National Importance,” was a necessary element in this long-term strategy because India needed knowledge in science and technology to build up a “prosperous” nation and to “wipe every tear from every eye”. Nehru made clear the importance of the IITs in his observations at the first convocation of IIT Kharagpur, "Here in the place of that Hijli Detention Camp stands the fine monument of India, representing India's urges, India's future in the making. This picture seems to me symbolical of the changes that are coming to India."
The IITs were created after a committee headed by Nalini Ranjan Sarkar recommended establishing “higher technical institutions” in various parts of India along the lines of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The IITs were to focus on research and postgraduate education that would keep India on the leading edge of knowledge in science and technology for building a prosperous India. Since over 80 percent of India’s population was poor or nearly poor, the only way to build a prosperous India was to raise people’s incomes by using science and technology to improve the products, processes, and infrastructure they used as producers and consumers and to improve their skills and expertise. Building a prosperous India meant raising the incomes of the poor and near poor.
2. THE YET TO BE FULFILLED PROMISE AND THE OPPORTUNITIES AHEAD
President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, while addressing the first convocation of the second IIT, IIT Bombay at Mumbai, on December 22, 1962, warned both India and the IITs against drifting from their original promise, “The strength of a country is judged not by the number of millionaires it has created, but by the poverty it has eliminated.” And yet, both India and the IITs have drifted away from their original goals.
2.1 Today’s Troubling National Priorities
India’s household-savings rate is 22 percent, its economy has been growing at the annual rate of nine percent, India created billionaires faster than any country in the world in 2007, and the Indian government pays more than 80 percent of the cost of IIT education for the students, who came largely from the top 10 percent income group in India. Furthermore, India can afford to pay oil consumers subsidies of 2,000 billion rupees this year (Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyer, Times of India, 25 May 2008). Yet, the government is spending only 160 billion rupees on its flagship employment guarantee scheme, and according to India’s National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector, 77 per cent of the population lives below or near the poverty line on a meager 20 rupees per day.
2.2 Today’s IITs
The IITs were supposed to lead the nation in R&D by focusing on ways to build a prosperous India by raising the incomes of the poor. And they were supposed to educate PhD students who would lead R&D in India’s industries and serve on the faculties of India’s other technical institutions. The IITs would thus have created a multiplier effect and a culture of innovation throughout the country. Despite the kudos showered on the IITs’ undergraduate education and the ensuing euphoria, none of the IITs rank in the top 100 institutions in the world in research based on any measure, and IIT professors and graduates hold few significant patents in India. MIT’s annual research output dwarfs that of all the IITs combined. Most of India’s public- and private-sector organizations continue to rely on off-the-shelf technologies.
Nor are the IITs graduating enough PhD students to meet the faculty needs of their sister IITs and other engineering colleges and technical institutions, let alone create a national culture of innovation. About 25 percent of the faculty positions in the IITs and 50 percent of the faculty positions in other engineering colleges remain vacant. Several IIT professors reported that they were unable to attract students with high academic credentials for postgraduate work and that those who get their undergraduate degrees from the IITs almost never pursue postgraduate engineering degrees in India.
Had the IITs followed their original mission and had their work raised the productivity of the adults in the 77 percent of the population that are unorganized laborers to even half of the level of the leading industrialized countries with improvements in products, processes, and infrastructure, supported by education and training, India’s gross national product would have increased over ten times. This goal was central to the IITs’ mission of creating a prosperous nation.
Although IIT professors and graduates have improved the economic well-being of the richest 10 percent of Indians and the economy in the United States and Canada, they have had little impact on the rest of India. The exceptions are a few professors and graduates who have pursued individual initiatives and about 200 IIT graduates who have been working with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). (See endnote 2.)
One could argue that the IITs have not realized their promise because the external environment, which continues to serve the elite, did not support the IITs’ goal of focusing on research and building a prosperous India by improving conditions of the poor.
2.3 A Comparison with China’s Elite Universities
Most Indians understandably like to compare China and India because they have almost the same size populations, they were both prosperous around 1750, they both had their economies destroyed during 200 years of dominance of Europe’s military power, and they had the same level of economic development in 1950. Although Nehru started building elite institutions of research and higher education in 1950, China made a similar move only in the 1990s and the Chinese institutions have been moving full speed. In April 2008, Li et al.[http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/1066] observed,
“Elite universities are the top ten universities in China, which receive the largest education funds from central and local governments. They have priority in selecting students through national entrance exams and have the best faculty and research resources in China. …. High priority is placed on international rankings, taken as publications in international journals, citations, and international cooperation.”
While India’s IITs, in spite of the recognized value of their undergraduate education, have yet to meet their original goals of conducting research and building a prosperous India by raising the incomes of the poor, the Chinese elite universities are racing ahead to match the records of schools like CalTech and MIT in research and to pursue R&D on all fronts to build a strong and prosperous China. China’s poverty rate and infant mortality rate are now less than half of India’s. The two rates are directly correlated, and the infant mortality rate is now universally regarded as the fundamental measure of a nation’s economic well-being.
2.4 A Plan to Pursue the Continuing Promise of the IITs
I argue that the IITs could still become a force to lead India’s social, economic, and technological transformation. I humbly suggest a plan the IITs could follow to pursue this original goal mainly to provide a starting point for debate. First, the IITs should support themselves financially and have full autonomy in selecting directors and making financial and operational decisions. They could then control their own destinies and play major roles in shaping India’s.
Second, the IITs could focus on research and development (R&D) in three interdependent domains: sustainability, partnerships with public and private organizations, and rural areas and slums to improve the economy of the unorganized sector. R&D in rural areas and slums could be pursued in partnership with IIT alumni. The research on sustainability would be valuable to the organized sector and in improvements in villages and slums. The partnerships with companies in the organized sector could lead to innovations in rural areas and slums, and the companies could undertake large-scale commercialization of successful prototypes developed and tested in the field labs in villages and slums.
Third, the IITs could expand postgraduate education, include field training and community engagement in undergraduate education, provide leadership to other technical institutions, and collaborate with other external entities. I respectfully invite you to imagine the possibilities and join the debate.
3. SELF-SUPPORT, AUTONOMY, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
The IITs might establish a system in which (a) undergraduate students would eventually pay the costs of their education and (b) the government, public and private organizations, and the alumni would support targeted research and postgraduate education. The IITs would treat the costs for IIT undergraduate students as loans and the students would pay a percentage of their incomes until they paid off the loans or until they reached a certain age. The IITs would provide additional loans to students from low-income families who could not afford incidental expenses. The Government of India should willingly approve such an arrangement, grant administrative autonomy to the IITs, and institute a system for their long-term accountability. The autonomy should allow each IIT’s board of governors to select its director and make financial and operational decisions, including replacement of current salary scales with market- and performance-based criteria. The approach I propose could also become a model for higher education in India.
4. RESEARCH: AN INTEGRATED THREE-PRONGED STRATEGY
The Western model of economic development has served Western countries well until recently because the Western European countries militarily occupied more than two thirds of the world for about 200 years and consumed the occupied countries’ natural resources and because their citizens emigrated to the Americas and Australia with their unexploited land and abundant resources. Now the Western model of development has become obsolete and threatens the survival of the planet for three reasons:
• With Western Europe’s military occupation ended, the European countries have less control over the rest of the world’s resources;
• With the first mover’s advantage, Western economies have developed rapidly during the last 60 years and are expanding their need for natural resources; and
• 60 years after military occupation ended, the rapidly industrializing countries also need more of the same natural resources.
Clearly, human beings and their economies depend on sustainable supplies of six basic environmental components: air, energy, forest cover, materials, soil, and water, and the supply of all six is threatened. Long before the current debate on sustainability and global warming began, Arnold J. Toynbee in his 12-volume treatise on the rise and fall of civilizations (A Study of History, 1934-1961) concluded that most of the vanished civilizations succumbed to environmental disasters.
Sustainability is far more important for low-income countries than for high-income countries because the later can more readily pay for at least some of the six components. The IITs could conduct research in three interdependent areas: Sustainable supplies of the six basic components, basic and applied research on topics of interest to private and public organizations, and R&D in rural areas and slums to be conducted in collaboration with the IIT alumni. The IITs could also work to integrate the economies of the organized and unorganized sectors so that both could develop sustainably.
4.1 Research on Sustainability
The IITs can become world leaders in research on sustainability. Their work can reduce costs and improve the quality of products, reduce air and water pollution, and give India an economic advantage in the global market for sustainable technologies. The IITs could help India to carve out a more effective path to economic development than that followed by Western countries.
Because of the potential benefits, the Indian government should welcome a national quota on emission instead of opposing it (Times of India, 9 July 2008). The direct benefits to the nation alone justify the quota without considering its impact on global warming.
Air: In spite of its low level of economic development, India has a very high level of air pollution. The IITs could conduct research on ways to simultaneously reduce pollution, recycle wasted by-products, decrease the use of scarce or toxic resources, cut costs, and improve quality. In addition to the direct economic benefits, achieving these goals would also reduce disease, suffering, and health care costs. India is world’s third largest producer of coal, and India’s coal is of poor quality with high ash content. Coal-based power plants pollute air, water, and soil because they emit carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides and generate ash. The result is that tens of millions of people suffer from a variety of ailments, tens to hundreds of thousands of people die prematurely each year, and there are staggering health care and other economic costs.
Energy: India has shortage of commercial energy. About 75 million of its 120 million rural households lack electricity. The amount of energy needed by the rural population for basic needs is small, and appropriate technologies are available but require further R&D to make them operationally and economically viable for rural use. India could leapfrog over the high-income countries by developing new and renewable sources of energy. The alternatives it develops would be useful anywhere.
Materials: The IITs could conduct research on all aspects of material science: creation of new materials and composites, use of new materials, and improvements and new uses for existing materials. Although materials, much like energy, computer chips, and the Internet, are basic drivers of innovation, India continues to depend on other countries for many materials. Admirably, the IITs have initiated work on nanotechnology, but they have yet to fully explore and develop the material resources that are unique to India, are abundant in India, or are renewable. For housing in villages, the IITs could improve such local materials as wood, straw, locally made bricks, and chunam (lime stone) and the technologies for using them. With improvement, some of these materials might become useful in urban building.
Soil, water, and forest cover: Water is necessary in urban and rural areas to meet industrial needs, to support agriculture, and to conserve soil. The IITs could conduct research on rainwater harvesting, collection, storage, and use. With climate change and indiscriminate use, water tables in India are dropping rapidly and are dangerously low in many places. The IITs could improve technologies for building water tanks, storage ponds, reservoirs, and gully plugs to raise the groundwater table. Such technologies would help India to address such calamities as the melting mountain Himalayan glaciers that supply water to major rivers in China and India. Improved water management would also help in planting trees and in better management of forests, and thus facilitating soil conservation. Rainwater harvesting and resulting water percolation in designated forest areas would help in increasing tree density and protect against uneven growth caused by year-to-year variations in rainfall. The resulting increase in the forest cover would reduce occurrences of droughts and floods, and reverse the process of environment degradation that has became progressively worse after 1757. They would also mitigate the effects of global warming.
While India’s entire population must pay the opportunity costs of ignoring sustainable development, low-income families face the greatest risks because they cannot afford to pay for items that become expensive because of scarcity or for items needed to mitigate the effects of poor sustainability, such as air conditioning, health care, and automobiles.
4.2 Partnerships with the Organized Private and Public Sectors
India’s private and public sector organizations can help the IITs’ to create scientific innovations and thus increase the benefits they receive from the IITs. The IITs could develop long-term strategic alliances with organizations that have R&D facilities, for example multinational corporations, Indian companies, the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), nuclear energy plants, and the space program. The IITs can act on many interesting opportunities and needs. For example, India is planning to spend $75 billion dollars in defense acquisitions in the next five years, and DRDO has lost 1,500 scientists to the greener pastures of the corporate world since 2002 (Times of India 13 May 2008).
Most organizations in the private and public sectors, including public works, thermal power generators, railways, and road transportation, which have budgets of trillions of rupees, rely on off-the-shelf technologies, some of which are obsolete. They could recruit a large number of IIT PhD students each year to conduct research and thus modernize these organizations and increase their productivity and value.
Alliances with outside organizations would give professors and postgraduate students opportunities to pursue research on potential applications and provide financial resources for the IITs and their faculties through research grants and consulting opportunities. The IITs could develop clean technologies for plants that currently emit harmful gaseous, liquid or solid waste.
4.3. R&D-Driven Integrated Solutions for the Problems of Rural Areas and Slums: The Rationale
Building a prosperous India by raising the incomes of the poor requires the use of science and technology to improve the products, processes, and infrastructure they use as producers and consumers and increasing their skills and expertise. Almost all of the poor and near poor belong to the unorganized sector, and they work and live in villages or live in slums. India’s villages provide ideal settings in which to create a sustainable model of economic development that can also be replicated throughout the world.
The rural areas and slums need R&D-driven integrated solutions to their problems that would require the entire spectrum of managerial tasks: basic research; commercialization of goods and services; and pursuit of the learning curve for improving processes, products, and the infrastructure. Such integrated solutions would require a zeal for entrepreneurship and a wide range of managerial skills. They should be a shared responsibility of the IITs and IIT alumni. The IIT community is uniquely qualified to work in this area because IIT graduates are among the world’s leading entrepreneurs and have demonstrable managerial skills.
The creation of MIT in 1861 was a landmark in the history of higher education that included such landmarks as ancient Indian universities of Takhashila (6th century BC to 5th century AD) and Nalanda (427 AD – 1197 AD), Oxford (since 1167) and Cambridge (since 1209), and Harvard (since 1636). These landmark institutions were created to meet administrative, economic, and social needs of great economic powers of their time. MIT was created to meet the needs of rapidly industrializing United States in the later part of the 19th century.
MIT’s website [http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2000/alliance.html] includes the following statement: “MIT has a long tradition of working on practical problems affecting the society and the economy, and in recent years has become a leader in developing collaborative partnerships with industry. These partnerships and the research activities of our faculty have resulted in the creation of jobs, companies and even new industries, based on new technologies. They are part of this country's innovation system – a loosely coupled alliance of industry, universities, government and labor – that develops new knowledge and technologies, educates a highly skilled work force to apply these new technologies, and produces the next generation of researchers to carry on the process of discovery and development. This system turns out a continuous stream of new products and services, which in turn advance our economy and improve our quality of life.”
Several of the universities such as John Hopkins University, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University are also conducting large-scale collaborative research and entrepreneurship. Even Cambridge, Harvard, and Oxford, MIT’s venerable predecessors and historic leaders in “curiosity-driven research,” are now following MIT’s lead. Harvard has built a multibillion-dollar campus for making itself “a powerhouse in collaborative research and a hotbed of entrepreneurship” (Science, 11 July 2008). The need for field-based research is far greater in India than in the U.S. or Britain because R&D in Indian companies is still in its infancy, the unorganized sector is almost untouched by R&D, and no other Indian university conducts much field research.
The IITs could extend MIT’s “long tradition of working on practical problems affecting the society and the economy”. What the IITs need to do is to include India’s poor and near poor and their economy in defining the society and the economy. Making up nearly 80 percent of the country’s population, the poor and near poor are India’s society and their economy is India’s economy. By including R&D-driven integrated solutions for villages and slums in their mission, the 21st century IITs would make a landmark innovation in the mission of higher education. If the IITs succeed in this mission, they could become models for higher educational institutions everywhere in the world.
Some in the IIT community believe that the villages and slums require only low-level technologies that any company can easily develop. Had the issue been that simple, the free-market economy would have addressed it long ago. The unorganized sector has the greatest potential for growth and for the highest economic returns on the time and money invested. For the people in the unorganized sector, the opportunity echoes Nehru’s observation, “The future beckons to us.” Yet, for the last 60 years, the economy of the organized sector, which is rapidly becoming part of the global economy, has been structurally unable to integrate with the unorganized sector, the economy of 77 percent of the population of the country, beyond treating it as a value-generating appendage necessary for the organized sector’s survival and growth. And the “social, economic and political institutions,” which had a tryst with destiny to “ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman,” are complacent as they neglect 77 percent of the population, 870 million Indian people. We, the IIT community, have the power and the historic opportunity to pursue this initiative and help build a strong India by improving the incomes of the poor. If we do not do it, who will?
4.4 R&D-Driven Integrated Solutions for the Problems of Rural Areas and Slums: A Shared Responsibility of the IIT Community (the IITs and Their Alumni)
Solving the problems of rural areas and urban slums would require a combination of institute labs (home labs) and field labs in villages and slums. The field labs in villages would be similar to the rural extension programs of agriculture universities. The IIT community may want to enlist the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and their alumni to collaborate on this initiative. Once these communities develop a few successful prototypes, the government and the private sector could replicate them throughout the country and persuade other engineering colleges and diploma-granting institutions to help in adapting the prototypes to individual local settings. India’s villages are ideal settings in which to create sustainable models of economic development that can be replicated in the rest of the world.
Home labs: Each IIT could set up a laboratory dedicated to research into improving the infrastructure, products, and services that are used primarily by people near or below the poverty line. The lab would extend the work of the existing labs and draw support from them. It could start by identifying, say, 100 products or infrastructure components widely used by the poor and redesign them to lower their costs and improve their performance. Preferably the workers producing the existing products would produce the redesigned products. The IITs could create entrepreneurship programs to help commercialize the products.
Field labs as extensions of the IITs: Each IIT community could adopt one or more slums and a cluster of villages whose level of economic development is below the national average to use as development laboratories. The IIT community could focus on the following areas in the villages: developing water resources and conserving soil, improving housing and sanitary conditions, improving the tools and processes local workers use and the products local craftsmen make, building community cold storage facilities for small-scale farmers, creating home-based businesses for seasonally employed agriculture workers, building roads, and providing electricity. In urban slums, the IIT community could focus on the following areas: sanitary conditions, housing, water, electricity, and tools and processes used in the slum-based industries. The appendix covers further details on operational issues, student summer projects, the role of the government, and institutional parameters.
Each IIT would choose a few faculty members to direct this initiative, supervising the application of the R&D work done in the IIT labs. These faculty members and the IIT alumni working on the projects would visit the field labs for short periods to work with the fulltime staff, technicians, and students. Each cluster of villages would need facilities to house visiting faculty and alumni, staff members, technicians, and students working on projects.
Guru dakshina and a phenomenal opportunity for the alumni: The alumni would contribute their talents and financial support to the field labs. On several occasions, leaders of the IITs have encouraged IIT alumni to pay guru dakshina (paying the teacher back) to the IITs, and the IIT alumni have responded enthusiastically. In ancient India, the student lived in the gurukul (teacher’s home), the guru provided all of the student’s expenses, and the student later paid dakshina to the guru to compensate him for his opportunity costs. Clearly, the alumni owe most of their guru dakshina to the poor because the money spent on the IITs could have been spent on improving their incomes. This opportunity to improve the lives of the Indian poor should appeal most to those alumni who live far away from India and cannot directly help in improving India’s economic conditions. In supporting this initiative, they can accomplish three goals: maximizing India’s economic growth, paying guru dakshina to the right recipients, and contributing to a noble cause.
4.5 The Relationship among the Three Areas of Research
The research on sustainability would lead to partnerships with companies and integrated solutions to problems in villages and slums. Similarly, partnerships with companies could open opportunities for innovations in rural areas and slums. For example, partnerships with thermal power corporations could lead to new initiatives on electricity for rural areas, and partnerships with public works and state road-transport organizations could facilitate research on infrastructure needs in rural areas and infrastructure development. Furthermore, companies could commercialize successful prototypes developed and tested in the field labs. Or companies’ work in villages could lead to important research on sustainability. In many cases, IITs might seek alliances with companies to collaborate on solving village or slum problems. For example, an IIT might collaborate with a refrigeration company to build prototype cold storage facilities.
The combined annual “overall research expenditures” of six U.S. universities that lead in collaborative research is about five and a half billion dollars (Science, 11 July 2008). However, the potential for the IITs is much greater because in the unorganized sector, which has remained untouched by R&D, they can easily and quickly succeed in innovations on their own or in collaboration with the organized sector.
5. POSTGRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
5.1 Postgraduate Education
As self-supporting institutes with strategic partnerships with private and public organizations and a renewed commitment to provide PhD graduates for India’s industrial and technical institutions, the IITs could pursue their original goal of expanding both masters’ and PhD programs. They would also attract students with good academic credentials and could fully or partially waive loan repayments for those IIT undergraduates who went on to earn PhD or masters’ degrees at an IIT. The IIT’s extensive alliances with entities in private and public sectors could provide support for postgraduate students’ research, and the pursuit of integrated solutions to the problems of villages and slums could provide ideas for new areas of research.
5.2 Admission Criteria for IIT Undergraduate Programs
The IITs have three de facto systems that ensure that they give preference to students from high-income families:
• In spite of scholarships and huge subsidies from the central government, low-income families cannot afford IIT educations.
• In the 1960s, more than 97 percent of the students at the secondary-education level went to public schools, the quality of public-school education was high, and a majority of IIT students came from there. Now most high- and middle-income families send their children to private schools, and as a consequence, the quality of public education, which now serves mainly children from low-income families, has deteriorated. This deterioration has further reduced the chances that low-income students will gain get admission to the IITs.
• Currently the sole criterion for admission to the IITs is the score on a nationally administered test. India has a thriving multibillion-rupee tutorial industry that trains prospective students for the test (Times of India, 3 July 2008) because their training substantially increases students’ chances of admission. The tutorial industry’s annual revenue is greater than the IITs’ combined annual budget of 10 billion rupees. The tutoring is so expensive that most middle income families cannot afford it. As a result, the IITs are increasingly admitting students only from high-income families.
The fact that IIT graduates are succeeding in the job market and in their careers does not prove that those left out because of the three income-based factors would not have performed as well or better. The IITs should examine these issues and try to draw students from all economic backgrounds.
5.3 Engagement with the Society and a Vibrant Learning Environment
The IITs could send their students out into society and the industrial community. The students could gain rich economic, political, social, and technological perspectives on Indian society. They could see firsthand opportunities for innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth and learn to be effective engineers, entrepreneurs, managers, public administrators, and researchers. The interaction with the society and the industry would also create a vibrant intellectual environment in the IITs, prompting debate on the issues that are critical to building a modern sustainable India.
As part of the curriculum, each student could conduct in-depth interviews with members of two low-income families about their economic and social well-being; those interviewed would be paid for their time by the IIT. Most of the revenue of the central and state governments comes from indirect taxes for which low-income families pay a higher share of their incomes than high-income families. Students interviewing members of low-income families might come to understand their economies. They constitute about 70 percent of India’s population and, the taxes they pay contribute to the IIT education. Between 1974 and 1976, such an exercise at IIM Bangalore was effective in broadening students’ perspectives on Indian society.
The IITs could then encourage students to speculate about how much less they would pay in income taxes during their lives and how much their eventual employers would benefit from an increase in the low-income group’s income, and thus its tax-paying capacity and buying power. The IITs could encourage them further to imagine how to raise such incomes. They could require students to make presentations in the classroom about these interviews so that they could learn from their fellow students’ experiences. The IITs might even open some of these presentations to the campus community and to the general public.
The IITs’ excellent education is clearly useful in any career, particularly in Western countries. The IITs can now expand their horizons. They could jointly conduct a survey of technologies the unorganized sector uses, familiarize students with these technologies, and improve those that are outdated. The IITs could require year-long internships in industry, government, villages, or slums, giving some financial support to students working in villages and slums. (See endnote 3.)
6. THE FACULTY AND THE EXTERNAL CONSTITUENCIES
Rewarding research and attracting new faculty: By raising their own money, the IITs would have the resources they need to attract new faculty and to reward performance in research. With India’s diverse needs, the most effective way to promote research would be to reward all types of excellence in research: publications in reputable international journals, partnerships with the outside organizations, breakthroughs in technology useful in slums or villages, and improvements in technologies used in the unorganized sector to reduce physical effort and improve productivity and wages. (See endnote 4 for more details.)
Other technical institutions and the IIMs: The IITs can lead other engineering colleges and technical institutions in curriculum development, research, partnerships with industrial and other organizations, and pursuit of some of our suggestions. When IIT graduates join the faculties of other engineering and polytechnic colleges, they would take with them a focus on work useful to the Indian economy. They would help to create a national culture of innovation. The IIM graduates are also greatly prized in India and abroad, and many of our proposals could equally apply to the IIMs.
Creating value and strengthening the brand: The IITs could also use their alumni network to contribute to the Indian and global technical communities. For example, they could disseminate knowledge through publications to facilitate the lifelong learning of scientists, engineers, and technologists and thus enhance the IIT brand.
7. CONCLUDING COMMENTS
Arnold J. Toynbee in his 12-volume treatise on the rise and fall of civilizations (A Study of History, 1934-1961) concluded that civilizations rose when "creative minorities” devised solutions to reorient an entire society in response to extreme physical or social challenges. India faces extreme physical and social challenges in shaping its future and destiny because, while a small part of India is as developed as any place in the world, the rest of India is years to centuries behind. We, the IIT community, have an opportunity – perhaps an obligation – to become the creative minority that can serve as a catalyst in transforming India.
In this greeting on the 50th anniversary of IIT Bombay at Mumbai, I call on the IITs to pursue leading-edge research in sustainability, to develop partnerships with public and private organizations, to expand their constituency to include the entire Indian economy, to pursue initiatives to speed up the social and economic transformation of India, and to lead the world in sustainable development. The IITs can capture the imaginations of the Indian people and take themselves to new heights.
Once the IITs pursue these initiatives, Nehru’s “social, economic and political institutions” will be motivated to address a number of interrelated areas to “ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman”: agriculture and farm insurance, animal energy, child labor, communication infrastructure, cooking gas and electricity, education and the impact of women’s education on family planning and family welfare, employment, finance, healthcare, local governance, nutrition, population growth (reproductive health, maternal mortality, and child mortality), poverty, and transportation. I plan to discuss these issues in a follow-up work.
In this article, I have humbly proposed just one possible plan that can serve as a starting point for debate. I respectfully invite you to participate.
Acknowledgement: Yash Gupta and Prem Vrat reviewed several versions of this article and helped me to improve the contents and the exposition. Victor Menezes shared his thoughts on autonomy. Rekha Nadkarni pointed out that India must address other important issues such as those listed in the preceding paragraph in conjunction with the IITs’ efforts. Her insights also helped me to improve the section on sustainability. Dinesh Mohan and Suresh Nair offered insights on IIT collaboration with India’s private and public sector. Others who contributed include Pushpa Agrawal, Vijay Agrawal, Uday Apte, Subash Babu, Jitendra Bhatia, Amar Bhide, Srinagesh Gavirneni, Sushil Gupta, Haresh Gurnani, Uday Karmarkar, Dunu Roy, Prahald Das Singhal, Tapan Singhal, Vinod Singhal, Sushil, Vinod Vyasulu, and a number of members of the IIT community who want to remain anonymous.
Kalyan Singhal is a 1967 mechanical engineering graduate of IIT Bombay at Mumbai. He worked as an industrial engineer at Union Carbide in India and served on the faculty of the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore where he founded the area of production and operations management. He is currently the McCurdy Professor of Technology, Operations, and Supply-Chain Management in the Merrick School of Business, University of Baltimore, and he serves as editor-in-chief of the journal Production and Operations Management, one of the 20 premier business and economics journals Business Week uses to rank full time MBA programs. Ksinghal@ubalt.edu
APPENDIX: MORE ON THE FIELD LABS
A1. Some Ideas on the Action Plan
Development of water resources and soil conservation: In the village field labs, the IIT community could build – and develop improved technologies for building – water tanks, storage ponds, reservoirs, and gully plugs so as to raise the groundwater table. Villagers could then plant trees, increase per-acre yields, and thus increase family incomes. The development of water resources and their impact on soil conservation were the key to the rapid and extraordinary transformation of Sukhomajri, a village in the Ambala district of Haryana, and of Ralegan Siddhi, a village in the Ahmed Nagar district of Maharashtra. These two villages had unusually strong leaders: Parasu Ram Mishra, a soil conservationist, in Sukhomajri and Kisan Baburao (Anna) Hazare, a former army jeep driver turned social activist, in Ralegan Siddhi. Mr. Hazare has, on more than one occasion, taken on the mightiest in the land.
Sanitation, water, and electricity in the slum labs: The IIT community would develop cost-effective solutions to sanitation problems in slums and villages. The Orangi Pilot Project in Karachi dramatically transformed sanitation facilities in a slum of 800,000 people covering 3,240 hectares. The IIT community might have to work municipal administrations and electricity suppliers for adequate supply of water and electricity.
Student projects: Undergraduate students could work for a summer in a village or slum on technical projects to improve the infrastructure or a product. The IITs could then allow the students to spend 10 percent or more of their time in the final year to complete their projects. The IITs could also require postgraduate students to work on such projects. Such projects could lead to masters’ and doctoral theses.
Effective learning via projects: In terms of defining, analyzing, and solving problems, work on a technical project in a slum or a village is no different from work on a computer chip, a jet aircraft, or a complex information system. The projects, however, would broaden the students’ economic and social perspectives. No summer training project in a factory could provide such rich real-world settings where students would have access to all relevant data, be able to explore all the issues related to the project, and be able to pursue a multidisciplinary approach to analysis. Between 1974 and 1976, students at the IIM Bangalore worked on several projects in the city. One team, for example, redesigned the layout of Bangalore’s city market, a large cluster of shops. The students improved the design substantially and in the process, they learned so much about layout design that they could address almost any layout problem in any setting.
Continuous improvements and expansion of the field labs: Once the full set of economic and technological prototypes start functioning in a slum or village cluster, the sponsoring IIT could move on to a project in new slum or cluster of villages while maintaining a presence in the previous community and making continuous improvements based on changes in technology and learning experiences at sites sponsored by other IIT communities. As the IIT moves from one sight to another, it should be able to develop new prototypes with less money and time.
Sharing mechanisms: First, the IIT project participants could create mechanisms for sharing their ongoing experiences. Second, the IIT project participants could record information about life in the village or slum, institutional issues related to the IIT work, details on economic and technological prototypes, and their efforts to create home-based entrepreneurships. They could make these records public. After the IIT participants complete work on the first set of labs, they could help other engineering colleges and technical institutions to conduct similar projects. This would multiply the impact of their work.
A2. Resources and Accountability
Financial incentives: The IITs should expect to pay members of the faculty and staff for the time they devote to projects in the villages and the slums. They would also have to give students stipends according to the time they spend in the villages or slums.
Where to welcome and seek support from the government and the private sector: I suggest the following sources of support: First, where possible the IITs should seek alliances with private sector entities in developing or improving a particular technology. Second, the IITs should take advantage of the Government of India’s 100-day guaranteed employment scheme for the workforce needed for the IIT projects. The central government has extended this scheme to all 596 districts and has budgeted 160 billion rupees for 2008-09. Third, the IITs should welcome any in-kind support from the government or the private sector where donors spend money directly on the field lab without donating money to the IIT. For example, the government or private entities could provide raw materials and pay workers directly for building a prototype road connecting the village to a city.
Where to keep the government out: History suggests that this initiative’s chances of success would drop rapidly if any monetary support came from the central or state governments because the government culture would replace the IIT community’s missionary zeal and professionalism with mercenary and political behavior. In the past, the central government has invested about two trillion rupees on rural development: training rural youth for self-employment, supplying improved tool kits to rural artisans, improving the lives of women and children in rural areas by upgrading skills, training, providing credit, and so forth. These programs have helped a few million people, but these few million constitute a small fraction of those who live near or below the poverty line. N. S. Ramaswamy, India’s National Professor of Management and a former director of IIM Bangalore, concluded that only 15 percent of the two trillion rupees reached the intended beneficiaries. In 2002, B.K Pradhan, P.K. Roy, and M.R. Saluja reported that, in spite of some successes, these programs suffered from leakage, bribery, and corruption at various levels; exclusion of the poor from decision making and from the benefits of programs; and inadequate creation of employment (11 days per year). Most of the money ended up in the pockets of people in the top 10 or 20 percent income group.
Accountability: The IIT community could set up a system of governance that would include a mechanism for audit and accountability.
A3. Institutional Parameters
Those establishing the field lab must understand the formal and informal power structures in slums and villages. The IIT project participants should consult experts on villages and slums before embarking on the initiative.
Many villages have gram sabha (village assembly) and panchayat (village government) created with the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution in 1992. If the villages in the chosen cluster have these institutions, the IIT participants should form benefits from long-term alliances with them to facilitate their work. Recently the central government decided that one man and one woman from each Gram Sabha would be designated climate managers and trained in the "science and art of managing climate change and to enhance their capacity to cope with natural calamities."
THE ENDNOTES
Endnote 1
In a working paper, “A Brief Economic History of British India,” K. Singhal and J. Singhal give more details.
Endnote 2
They include such pioneers as the late Anil Agarwal (IIT Kanpur 1968), who founded the Centre for Science and Environment in 1980 and reshaped the national debate on environment-related issues, Vinod Khosla (IIT Delhi 1976), who has helped to raise tens of crores of rupees for microfinance, and Dunu Roy (Anuvrata K. Roy, IIT Mumbai 1967), who founded an NGO, Vidushak Karkhana, at Annupur in the backward Shahdol district of Madhya Pradesh four decades ago to promote social activism and rural development and who now heads a New Delhi NGO, Hazard Centre, that serves the urban disadvantaged.
Endnote 3
For example, the IITs could waive, say, a fourth of the student’s loan for those who work in villages and slums. Such incentives might not be required after a few years as students realized that the rich and multidimensional experience they obtained in villages and slums would be far more useful in their future employment in industry than internship experience in industry itself.
Endnote 4
The IITs could base incentives for the faculty on predetermined criteria and make the administration of those criteria transparent. Initially, one central committee for all IITs could administer them to ensure uniformity, refining the criteria over time in preparation for eventual transition to decentralized administration by the individual IITs.
Initially, the incentives could be in the form of annual cash awards that could amount to as much as the annual salary of the recipient. This would bring the participating faculty members’ total income close to the international level in terms of purchasing power. Once a majority of IIT professors are receiving substantial awards, their salaries could be increased and the awards given in the form of annual salary increases. The opportunities for greater income and participation in challenging initiatives should attract diverse professors with good credentials.
The committee could use different sets of criteria and mechanisms depending on the type of contribution. For publications in leading journals and patents, the committee could follow international norms.
The IITs could create a premier research journal that would cover topics the existing leading journals generally do not cover, such as sustainability and science and technology in slums and villages. Such a journal would quickly becoming a leading journal in science and engineering because it would cover issues crucial to about one third of the world economy and useful to the remaining two third.
The IITs could motivate professors and staff members who work in the villages and slums by obtaining government funding for time-based additional salaries and alumni funding for performance-based financial rewards.
Editorial: Gwadar’s strategic aspects are still relevant
The Daily Times , PAKISTAN
The inauguration of Gwadar as a fully functioning sea port at a time when the national economy is in the process of contraction has dampened its importance as proved by the fact that the prime minister didn’t turn up for the opening ceremony on Sunday “because he had more important work to do”. But two ships from Qatar carrying fertiliser are almost docked and 21 more are expected in the coming quarter. And no one can deny its future significance as a part of Pakistan’s geopolitical strategy.
The chief minister of Balochistan, Nawab Aslam Raisani, put on notice the first “objection” to the port’s management in his speech and reminded us of the past decades of bickering over the project. He said Gwadar was on the land of Balochistan and its economic aspects must benefit the Baloch above everyone else. This was in answer to the federal ports minister, Mr Nabil Gabol, who said the new port will “generate massive economic activities in the region”. The chief minister didn’t like the fact that labour in Gwadar was being “imported” from other provinces. He swore he would not allow the Baloch “majority” of Gwadar to be converted into a “minority”. And he referred to the Lahore Resolution of 1940 which had envisaged the provinces as “sovereign” entities.
When the construction of Gwadar began in 2002, objections to it were galore: that it was redundant because the existing ports had enough handling capacity for the next 20 years; that Gwadar was next to nowhere and without water and electricity and would need the construction of a coastal highway 600 km long. More “strategic” trouble came Pakistan’s way when China agreed to provide only $198 million of the $298 million needed for Phase One. Phase Two was estimated at $600 million.
The world, and the not too-happy neighbours, began to concentrate on other details: Gwadar would provide a stable and proximate point of access to the other Gulf ports and it would be just 250 miles from the Straits of Hormuz, through which nearly 40 percent of the world’s oil supplies flow; the port would be strategically located to serve as a key shipping point in the region; it would also provide the landlocked Central Asian republics, Afghanistan, and the Chinese Xinjiang region, with access to the Arabian Sea’s warm waters, etc.
The port was delayed for a number of reasons. It was supposed to open in 2005 and has come on line after three years of glitches and after the Baloch rebels had killed engineers there and generally rejected it. India, still posturing aggressively in the aftermath of the 2001 military face-off with Pakistan, said it was “carefully monitoring” the port and Chinese activity on the Makran coast together with Chinese activity on the Myanmar coast. Iran and America were also supposed to be “offended” by the idea of Gwadar serving as a Chinese “foot in the door” in a region they considered their strategic backyard. The Iran-Indian partnership had taken off and India was helping build Iran’s Chabahar port which they thought might be rivalled and eclipsed by Gwadar. But regional alignments have changed significantly since 2002 when the port aroused the hostile imagination of strategists around the world. Today the world is in a downward economic spiral and neighbours are busy tackling other problems of greater importance.
The Iran-India relationship has cooled as India has decided to move closer to America with a nuclear deal — the US Hyde Act requires “India’s cooperation against Iran” — and Iran has retaliated by revising upwards the price of its LNG exports to India after having signed on a price agreement. (Iran has since gone back on the price of the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline gas too.) Gwadar had once also jeopardised the Iran-China equation that was motivated by a desire to oppose US “hegemony” at the global level, giving an opportunity to China to “forward buy” Iranian gasfields. But today that scenario too has changed as China moves to the centre of America’s attention as an important “indirect” supporter of the Iraq war. The Chinese-Indian equation too is no longer hostile, thanks to the growing volume of bilateral trade and China’s decision not to veto sanctions against Pakistan after the Mumbai attack last month.
Gwadar is not any more “strategy-neutral” than it was in 2002. Indeed, it can be everybody’s point of access to Central Asia and China’s western provinces. As a part of SAARC, Afghanistan needs a better trade outreach inside South Asia and Gwadar could be become an important conduit after Pakistan removes its mental cobwebs and decides to allow the trade routes that will bestow on it the geopolitical importance it doesn’t have now. That requires Pakistan to shift from the geo-”military” to the geo-”economic” way of thinking about itself. It is only after that that the world will come to its help in getting rid of its “non-state actors” and in becoming a great trading nation ordained by its physical positioning in the region. *
The inauguration of Gwadar as a fully functioning sea port at a time when the national economy is in the process of contraction has dampened its importance as proved by the fact that the prime minister didn’t turn up for the opening ceremony on Sunday “because he had more important work to do”. But two ships from Qatar carrying fertiliser are almost docked and 21 more are expected in the coming quarter. And no one can deny its future significance as a part of Pakistan’s geopolitical strategy.
The chief minister of Balochistan, Nawab Aslam Raisani, put on notice the first “objection” to the port’s management in his speech and reminded us of the past decades of bickering over the project. He said Gwadar was on the land of Balochistan and its economic aspects must benefit the Baloch above everyone else. This was in answer to the federal ports minister, Mr Nabil Gabol, who said the new port will “generate massive economic activities in the region”. The chief minister didn’t like the fact that labour in Gwadar was being “imported” from other provinces. He swore he would not allow the Baloch “majority” of Gwadar to be converted into a “minority”. And he referred to the Lahore Resolution of 1940 which had envisaged the provinces as “sovereign” entities.
When the construction of Gwadar began in 2002, objections to it were galore: that it was redundant because the existing ports had enough handling capacity for the next 20 years; that Gwadar was next to nowhere and without water and electricity and would need the construction of a coastal highway 600 km long. More “strategic” trouble came Pakistan’s way when China agreed to provide only $198 million of the $298 million needed for Phase One. Phase Two was estimated at $600 million.
The world, and the not too-happy neighbours, began to concentrate on other details: Gwadar would provide a stable and proximate point of access to the other Gulf ports and it would be just 250 miles from the Straits of Hormuz, through which nearly 40 percent of the world’s oil supplies flow; the port would be strategically located to serve as a key shipping point in the region; it would also provide the landlocked Central Asian republics, Afghanistan, and the Chinese Xinjiang region, with access to the Arabian Sea’s warm waters, etc.
The port was delayed for a number of reasons. It was supposed to open in 2005 and has come on line after three years of glitches and after the Baloch rebels had killed engineers there and generally rejected it. India, still posturing aggressively in the aftermath of the 2001 military face-off with Pakistan, said it was “carefully monitoring” the port and Chinese activity on the Makran coast together with Chinese activity on the Myanmar coast. Iran and America were also supposed to be “offended” by the idea of Gwadar serving as a Chinese “foot in the door” in a region they considered their strategic backyard. The Iran-Indian partnership had taken off and India was helping build Iran’s Chabahar port which they thought might be rivalled and eclipsed by Gwadar. But regional alignments have changed significantly since 2002 when the port aroused the hostile imagination of strategists around the world. Today the world is in a downward economic spiral and neighbours are busy tackling other problems of greater importance.
The Iran-India relationship has cooled as India has decided to move closer to America with a nuclear deal — the US Hyde Act requires “India’s cooperation against Iran” — and Iran has retaliated by revising upwards the price of its LNG exports to India after having signed on a price agreement. (Iran has since gone back on the price of the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline gas too.) Gwadar had once also jeopardised the Iran-China equation that was motivated by a desire to oppose US “hegemony” at the global level, giving an opportunity to China to “forward buy” Iranian gasfields. But today that scenario too has changed as China moves to the centre of America’s attention as an important “indirect” supporter of the Iraq war. The Chinese-Indian equation too is no longer hostile, thanks to the growing volume of bilateral trade and China’s decision not to veto sanctions against Pakistan after the Mumbai attack last month.
Gwadar is not any more “strategy-neutral” than it was in 2002. Indeed, it can be everybody’s point of access to Central Asia and China’s western provinces. As a part of SAARC, Afghanistan needs a better trade outreach inside South Asia and Gwadar could be become an important conduit after Pakistan removes its mental cobwebs and decides to allow the trade routes that will bestow on it the geopolitical importance it doesn’t have now. That requires Pakistan to shift from the geo-”military” to the geo-”economic” way of thinking about itself. It is only after that that the world will come to its help in getting rid of its “non-state actors” and in becoming a great trading nation ordained by its physical positioning in the region. *
No one would be allowed to seize Balochistan’s resources: Raisani
http://www.onlinenews.com.pk/details.php?id=137906
GWADAR: Chief Minister Balochistan Nawab Muhammad Aslam Raisani has made it clear that the agreement inked by former ruler with regard to handover Gawadar Port to Singapore Port Authority would not only be harmful for Pakistan but also for Balochistan.
There is a dire need to review the agreement; he said this while addressing the inauguration ceremony of Gawadar Port and arrival of first ship from Qatar at Gawadar Port on Sunday.
Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping Nabeel Gabol, Chairman Singapore Authority Khurram Abbas, Chairman Singapore Authority Rear Admiral Ahsan Saeed also addressed the ceremony.
No one would be allowed to take control of Balochistan’s resources, Chief Minister Balochistan said, adding that, unfortunately Balochi people were not allowed to enter in Port zone. Singapore Authority has full control of Gawadar Port, he lamented.
He said that former government ignored the Bloch people when it signed the agreement. He said that incumbent government has committed for the social and economic welfare of the people of Balochistan and all their worries would be addressed as soon as possible.
He said that they will review all legal complexities of the compact inked with Singapore Authority and ready to knock the court’s door. While expressing his surprise over the appointment of two chairman of a single Port he said that there is need to review all aspects on decisions.
Nawab Muhammad Aslam Raisani further said that such kind of decision in future too might create complexities.
He also lauded the efforts of President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani and Federal Minister for Port and Shipping Nabeel Gabol and said that Gawadar port would prove a milestone in the trade activities of Pakistan.
He also accused the Musharraf era and said that Balochistan was treated as stepmother as compared to rest of the provinces of Pakistan. Karachi Port Trust was given due attention.
He also demanded from the government to regularized all the daily wages employees who are utilizing their services at Gawadar Port while only local people must be kept for the Port Labour because it is their right.
Chairman Singapore Authority Khurram Abbas has said that Singapore Authority was still abide by its agreement, which was signed by the government of Pakistan. At a time Singapore Authority was handling 28 different ports throughout the globe, he added.
He assured that Port Authority was committed to provide employment to the local as more as possible. The authority will also organize training program for the locals in order to trained them so that they can effectively utilized their services.
Similarly, he said that it is responsibility of the government to provide basic infrastructure such as railway and road network.
DAWN
Gwadar port becomes fully functional
By Saleem Shahid
QUETTA, Dec 21: The Gwadar port became fully functional on Sunday after a ship carrying fertiliser from Qatar anchored at the port.
Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping Nabil Ahmed Gabol and Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani attended the ceremony held at the port to mark its opening.
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani had been invited to the ceremony but he could not attend because of other engagements.
Another ship from Qatar, also carrying fertiliser, will anchor at the port on Monday. Over the next four months over 21 more ships are expected to anchor at the country’s third port after Karachi and Port Qasim.
Mr Nabil Gabol said at the ceremony that Gwadar would generate massive economic activities in the region.
He said the port would play an important role for development of the country and create thousands of jobs for local people and change the socio-economic conditions of the area.
Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani said that Gwadar port was the asset of the Baloch people and “we would never let the Baloch majority converted into a minority in Gwadar”.
He said the agreement signed with a Singapore company for operating the port would be reviewed and amended if necessary.
“The agreement must be to the benefit of Balochistan and its people.”
He said that all federating units must get their rights in the light of the Lahore Resolution of 1940.
Paying tribute to PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto, the chief minister said Ms Bhutto could keep the country united, but since she was no more there it was the responsibility of the federal government to protect the federation by giving rights to the provinces.
He directed the Gwadar Port Authority to provide jobs to unemployed locals because it was their right and they must be given priority.
He took serious notice of labourers having been brought from Karachi for offloading ship and directed the officials concerned to engage local people for the job.
He said his government had worked for making the port functional in order to provide jobs to the local people and directed the MPA from Gwadar to ensure that local people got jobs in the port city.
“If local people did not benefit from the port, the mega project would be useless for our people,” the chief minister said.
Nawab Raisani said that his government was taking initiatives to give control to local people over their resources and ensure their rights.
The chief minister thanked President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Mr Nabil Gabbol for taking personal interests in making the port functional.
He said the port was important not only for the region but it had international significance because of its location.
GPA chairman Admiral (retd) Ehsan Saeed and representative of the Singapore company Khurram Abbas also spoke on the occasion.
Balochistan Ministers Younas Mullazai, Asim Kurd Gailu and Hammal Kalmati, Gawadar district nazim Abdul Ghafoor Kalmati and other senior officials attended the ceremony.
APP adds: The Gwadar port is expected to generate billions of rupees in revenue and create thousands of jobs.
According to a report, Gwadar will serve as an energy corridor for Central Asia, Middle East, South Asia and parts of west Asia. The port is also important for China. Pakistan will get a strategic depth southwest from its naval base in Karachi. The expected future business hub will provide the cheapest trade route to ships. It is located on the southwestern coast of Pakistan, close to the Straits of Hormuz, through which more than 13 million barrels of oil passes each day.
GWADAR: Chief Minister Balochistan Nawab Muhammad Aslam Raisani has made it clear that the agreement inked by former ruler with regard to handover Gawadar Port to Singapore Port Authority would not only be harmful for Pakistan but also for Balochistan.
There is a dire need to review the agreement; he said this while addressing the inauguration ceremony of Gawadar Port and arrival of first ship from Qatar at Gawadar Port on Sunday.
Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping Nabeel Gabol, Chairman Singapore Authority Khurram Abbas, Chairman Singapore Authority Rear Admiral Ahsan Saeed also addressed the ceremony.
No one would be allowed to take control of Balochistan’s resources, Chief Minister Balochistan said, adding that, unfortunately Balochi people were not allowed to enter in Port zone. Singapore Authority has full control of Gawadar Port, he lamented.
He said that former government ignored the Bloch people when it signed the agreement. He said that incumbent government has committed for the social and economic welfare of the people of Balochistan and all their worries would be addressed as soon as possible.
He said that they will review all legal complexities of the compact inked with Singapore Authority and ready to knock the court’s door. While expressing his surprise over the appointment of two chairman of a single Port he said that there is need to review all aspects on decisions.
Nawab Muhammad Aslam Raisani further said that such kind of decision in future too might create complexities.
He also lauded the efforts of President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani and Federal Minister for Port and Shipping Nabeel Gabol and said that Gawadar port would prove a milestone in the trade activities of Pakistan.
He also accused the Musharraf era and said that Balochistan was treated as stepmother as compared to rest of the provinces of Pakistan. Karachi Port Trust was given due attention.
He also demanded from the government to regularized all the daily wages employees who are utilizing their services at Gawadar Port while only local people must be kept for the Port Labour because it is their right.
Chairman Singapore Authority Khurram Abbas has said that Singapore Authority was still abide by its agreement, which was signed by the government of Pakistan. At a time Singapore Authority was handling 28 different ports throughout the globe, he added.
He assured that Port Authority was committed to provide employment to the local as more as possible. The authority will also organize training program for the locals in order to trained them so that they can effectively utilized their services.
Similarly, he said that it is responsibility of the government to provide basic infrastructure such as railway and road network.
DAWN
Gwadar port becomes fully functional
By Saleem Shahid
QUETTA, Dec 21: The Gwadar port became fully functional on Sunday after a ship carrying fertiliser from Qatar anchored at the port.
Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping Nabil Ahmed Gabol and Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani attended the ceremony held at the port to mark its opening.
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani had been invited to the ceremony but he could not attend because of other engagements.
Another ship from Qatar, also carrying fertiliser, will anchor at the port on Monday. Over the next four months over 21 more ships are expected to anchor at the country’s third port after Karachi and Port Qasim.
Mr Nabil Gabol said at the ceremony that Gwadar would generate massive economic activities in the region.
He said the port would play an important role for development of the country and create thousands of jobs for local people and change the socio-economic conditions of the area.
Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani said that Gwadar port was the asset of the Baloch people and “we would never let the Baloch majority converted into a minority in Gwadar”.
He said the agreement signed with a Singapore company for operating the port would be reviewed and amended if necessary.
“The agreement must be to the benefit of Balochistan and its people.”
He said that all federating units must get their rights in the light of the Lahore Resolution of 1940.
Paying tribute to PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto, the chief minister said Ms Bhutto could keep the country united, but since she was no more there it was the responsibility of the federal government to protect the federation by giving rights to the provinces.
He directed the Gwadar Port Authority to provide jobs to unemployed locals because it was their right and they must be given priority.
He took serious notice of labourers having been brought from Karachi for offloading ship and directed the officials concerned to engage local people for the job.
He said his government had worked for making the port functional in order to provide jobs to the local people and directed the MPA from Gwadar to ensure that local people got jobs in the port city.
“If local people did not benefit from the port, the mega project would be useless for our people,” the chief minister said.
Nawab Raisani said that his government was taking initiatives to give control to local people over their resources and ensure their rights.
The chief minister thanked President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Mr Nabil Gabbol for taking personal interests in making the port functional.
He said the port was important not only for the region but it had international significance because of its location.
GPA chairman Admiral (retd) Ehsan Saeed and representative of the Singapore company Khurram Abbas also spoke on the occasion.
Balochistan Ministers Younas Mullazai, Asim Kurd Gailu and Hammal Kalmati, Gawadar district nazim Abdul Ghafoor Kalmati and other senior officials attended the ceremony.
APP adds: The Gwadar port is expected to generate billions of rupees in revenue and create thousands of jobs.
According to a report, Gwadar will serve as an energy corridor for Central Asia, Middle East, South Asia and parts of west Asia. The port is also important for China. Pakistan will get a strategic depth southwest from its naval base in Karachi. The expected future business hub will provide the cheapest trade route to ships. It is located on the southwestern coast of Pakistan, close to the Straits of Hormuz, through which more than 13 million barrels of oil passes each day.
Behind the Mumbai Bombings: Tracking the British Role
by Ramtanu Maitra
The seven synchronized serial bombs that tore through suburban trains in Mumbai, India on July 11, taking at least 207 lives, and injuring more than 600 others, is an indication that the international Islamic jihadis have found a soft target in the country. So far, New Delhi's investigation has little to show, beyond indicating a Pakistani involvement in this dastardly act. No group has claimed responsibility, and the initial arrests carried out by the Mumbai police have revealed virtually nothing.
As of now, the Indian authorities have named the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and India's banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) as being behind the bombings. Reports indicate that several teams from LeT and SIMI were arrested, and that huge amounts of explosive materials, including RDX, were recovered during raids at various places in Aurangabad, Nasik, and Nagpur in the last two months. It is evident that if the Indian authorities do not succeed in widening the investigation to get a glimpse of the broader picture, the cut-outs arrested so far will not be able to reveal anything, and the country will continue to be vulnerable to such massive attacks.
In the aftermath of the incident, India postponed foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan scheduled for July 20-21. The negotiations were a part of the third annual round of dialogue between the two countries, in their attempt to build confidence, while working towards agreement on a variety of disputes.
While there is no question of far-reaching Pakistani involvement in the attack, the investigation must seek to find out how exactly the network functions. Behind the cut-outs that have been put behind bars, there remains, hidden from public sight, a vast and sophisticated killing machine. In this context, the Indian authorities have pointed out that Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has strengthened its base in Nepal and northern Bihar. Investigators have also reportedly questioned several Islamic clerics in India's northeastern state of Tripura in connection with the July 11 bombings.
India has also urged Pakistan to hand over the self-exiled Mumbai mafia-don Dawood Ibrahim, who shuttles between Dubai and Karachi. Dawood, an underworld hood, had long been a Pakistani ISI asset. Long before he fled to Dubai in the 1990s, Dawood, who dealt in opium, heroin, and smuggled goods, had built up a strong underground network in Mumbai, Nepal, northern Bihar, and possibly within the Muslim community of West Bengal. Subsequently, these networks carried out terrorist acts within India. Although the planners of these terrorists' acts have realized that violent acts have little effect on the daily life of the Indian people, their objective is to trigger wide Hindu-Muslim rioting. If they succeed in achieving this goal, by carrying out such acts from time to time, then India can be brought to its knees, the masterminds believe.
'Londonistan'
Credit belongs to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, for the only serious effort that Indian authorities have made so far. According to the London Times, during a discussion between Prime Minister Singh and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, at the G-8 summit in Russia, after the Mumbai bombings, the Indian leader reminded Blair of a detailed dossier that had been handed over, three years ago, which identified 14 men suspected of involvement in the Mumbai bombings, as living in Britain. Blair is said to have assured Singh that the suspects would be investigated.
Another British paper, the Birmingham Mail, reported that a jailed taxi driver, of Pakistani origin, and now from the British Midlands, is also being questioned in connection with the Mumbai blasts. The man is currently serving a nine-year sentence for raising funds and buying weapons for the Lashkar-e-Toiba.
It is widely acknowledged that the origin of most of the international Islamic jihads, lies in London. To those who are aware of the huge number of Islamic militants harbored by British authorities, London is known as "Londonistan." Camille Tawil, a terrorism expert at the Arabic daily Al-Hayat, told the New Statesman: "The Islamists use Britain as a propaganda base, but wouldn't do anything to a country that harbors them and gives them freedom of speech." What Ms. Tawil did not mention is that these Islamists, perhaps to maintain their bases and prosper, carry out murderous activities against other nations when they are ordered to do so.
For instance, more than 600 Islamists from Britain had gone to join the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s, to fight the erstwhile Soviet Army. Most of them remained there to join the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Even today, when Anglo-American troops battle insurgents in Iraq, Islamists from Britain are showing up in Iraq.
To get a glimpse of the hidden picture which may clarify why London is such an Islamic headquarters, one has to take a look at the British mosques, and their role in various geopolitical activities. In the 1950s, Muslims from the Indian subcontinent's disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir began to arrive in Britain. They came mostly from Mirpur, a part of Jammu and Kashmir, to work in the textile industries in Britain. Mirpuris came in droves, because part of their land was submerged by the dams built by the Pakistani authorities. Using their compensation money, the Mirpuris came to Britain to work.
Within a few years, it became evident that these Kashmiri immigrants, who were not only anti-India, but were also seeking an independent Kashmir, somehow got control of the British mosques, from which anti-India Kashmir policies were proclaimed.
Today, Britain has about 2 million Muslims. Of these, about 1 million are of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin. The most prevalent sect that controls the mosques is Sunni, and its adherents belong to the subcontinent's Islamic school of Deoband. Others are Wahabis. It must be noted that the Deobandis are considered close to the Wahabis in their orthodox religious outlook. At the time of the migration, the Pakistani ISI was in the process of finding its feet, and these political immigrants were largely under the wings of British intelligence.
Bastard Child of a Brit
The Directorate for ISI was founded in 1948 by an Australia-born British army officer, Maj. Gen. R. Cawthorne, who was then Deputy Chief of Staff in the Pakistan Army. Field Marshal Ayub Khan, the President of Pakistan in the 1950s, expanded the role of ISI in safeguarding Pakistan's interests, monitoring opposition politicians, and sustaining military rule in Pakistan. It is evident that the British MI6 and MI5 had then begun working with Pakistani intelligence to bring about this control. This was primarily done by London to maintain British leverage in the Kashmir quagmire, and encourage the emergence of a "Third Force"in the Kashmir milieu that would not want to be part of either Pakistan or India, but India, in particular.
One of the least understood themes of the partition of India in 1947 by the departing British Raj, is what led the British to do it. Run-of-the-mill analysts point out that the British did not want a unified India which could be strong and anti-British. Some others say the British saw that the minority Muslims were in danger in the hands of the majority Hindus, and that that is why they moved in to form Pakistan. While the British did not want the emergence of a strong India, the formation of Pakistan hardly helped the Muslims, who felt that they were a threatened minority. To begin with, those provinces that became a part of Pakistan were those provinces where the Muslims were in majority. Hence, the Muslims there were not in danger. The provinces where Muslims were a minority, and ostensibly "in danger," became a part of the Hindu-majority India.
But the British objective in breaking up India was simply not to divvy up the country. The British wanted two things out of it: They wanted a weak nation (Pakistan, that is), which would depend on Britain for its defense. And they wanted that newly-formed weak nation to border the oil wells of Central Asia (part of the Soviet Union, then) and to be close to the Muslim-majority, oil-rich nations of the Middle East.
Corollary to the objective was that India, the larger of the two nations then in the subcontinent (now, with the emergence of Bangladesh in 1972, the subcontinent has three nations) must not have any common border with either Afghanistan (the buffer state) or the Soviet Union.
The British objective to control the oil wells was part of the Great Game to prevent the mighty Russian empire from having access to the oil fields. Former British Governor of the NorthWest Frontier Province during the British Raj days, Olaf Caroe used to say the shadow of the north must not extend over the wells of power. Britain realized during World War II that the one who controls the oil fields controls the destiny of many nations. As a result, beginning 1940, south Asia was important to imperial Britain, for the protection of oil fields of Arabia. Nothing more, nothing less.
The Replay
The 1947 partition pretty much allowed the British to pursue the Great Game. But there remained a small hitch: the disputed state of Kashmir, which borders Afghanistan. Once Britain, with the help of a willing and weak Pakistan, and aided by a vacillating Indian leadership, managed to create a major conflict between the two fledgling nations of India and Pakistan, British intelligence moved in to house and finance the Kashmiris in the mosques in Britain. The advantages of controlling the mosques are manifold. Mosques provide a religious color to a secessionist movement. Mosques also direct the faithful to vote en-bloc for particular politicians, and in the process, virtually own them. This created a number of Members of Parliament in Britain demanding independent Kashmir.
But the scene changed in the 1980s, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Jihadis and Mujahideens were organized from far and near to battle the Godless communists. It was at that time that the CIA and the British MI6 became extremely dependent on the Pakistani ISI. Although the CIA and the MI6 helped the Mujahideen with cash and arms, all the ground operations were done under the aegis of the Pakistani ISI. At the time, the Pakistani ISI had a very capable director, Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul. Later, in the 1990s, Washington sought and received assistance from Gul to cobble together a Punjab-based political party, the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad [IJI], to defeat the Benazir Bhutto-led Pakistan People's Party (PPP). The party, led by Mian Nawaz Sharif, was an alliance formed by the ISI out of nine mainly rightist parties under Gul. Gul denies this, claiming that the ISI's political cell created by Bhutto only "monitored" the elections.
With Gul at the helm of the Pakistani ISI, a closely-knit network between these intelligence agencies, CIA, MI6, and ISI, with some involvement of the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, was set up. Subsequently, when Washington chose to walk away from Afghanistan in 1989, it was British intelligence and the Pakistani ISI that later oversaw the Afghan civil war (1989-1995) and the emergence of the Taliban (1996). It was also the time when the MI6 and the ISI were sending "committed" Muslim youths from Britain to fight standing next to the al-Qaeda militia, who were seeking no territory, but the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East.
With the Soviet Union decimated and Washington showing scant interest in Afghanistan, the Great Game was back in the hands of the British. They were helped by the Pakistani ISI and the al-Qaeda/Taliban militia. But this phase changed again following 9/11. With the United States moving into Afghanistan, and building bridges with India to counter al-Qaeda and the Taliban, new players emerged on the Great Game canvas.
The emergence of India as an ally of the United States has brought India right into the line of attack of those Islamic zealots who would not allow foreign shadows to fall on the oil wells of Arabia and Central Asia. These zealots, however powerful or committed they are, need organizational support to function and operate in a foreign land which is hostile to Islamic jihadis. That is where the MI6 and the ISI provide the jihadis the organizational and intelligence support. The Mumbai massacre was the outcome of such an organizational "success."
The seven synchronized serial bombs that tore through suburban trains in Mumbai, India on July 11, taking at least 207 lives, and injuring more than 600 others, is an indication that the international Islamic jihadis have found a soft target in the country. So far, New Delhi's investigation has little to show, beyond indicating a Pakistani involvement in this dastardly act. No group has claimed responsibility, and the initial arrests carried out by the Mumbai police have revealed virtually nothing.
As of now, the Indian authorities have named the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and India's banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) as being behind the bombings. Reports indicate that several teams from LeT and SIMI were arrested, and that huge amounts of explosive materials, including RDX, were recovered during raids at various places in Aurangabad, Nasik, and Nagpur in the last two months. It is evident that if the Indian authorities do not succeed in widening the investigation to get a glimpse of the broader picture, the cut-outs arrested so far will not be able to reveal anything, and the country will continue to be vulnerable to such massive attacks.
In the aftermath of the incident, India postponed foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan scheduled for July 20-21. The negotiations were a part of the third annual round of dialogue between the two countries, in their attempt to build confidence, while working towards agreement on a variety of disputes.
While there is no question of far-reaching Pakistani involvement in the attack, the investigation must seek to find out how exactly the network functions. Behind the cut-outs that have been put behind bars, there remains, hidden from public sight, a vast and sophisticated killing machine. In this context, the Indian authorities have pointed out that Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has strengthened its base in Nepal and northern Bihar. Investigators have also reportedly questioned several Islamic clerics in India's northeastern state of Tripura in connection with the July 11 bombings.
India has also urged Pakistan to hand over the self-exiled Mumbai mafia-don Dawood Ibrahim, who shuttles between Dubai and Karachi. Dawood, an underworld hood, had long been a Pakistani ISI asset. Long before he fled to Dubai in the 1990s, Dawood, who dealt in opium, heroin, and smuggled goods, had built up a strong underground network in Mumbai, Nepal, northern Bihar, and possibly within the Muslim community of West Bengal. Subsequently, these networks carried out terrorist acts within India. Although the planners of these terrorists' acts have realized that violent acts have little effect on the daily life of the Indian people, their objective is to trigger wide Hindu-Muslim rioting. If they succeed in achieving this goal, by carrying out such acts from time to time, then India can be brought to its knees, the masterminds believe.
'Londonistan'
Credit belongs to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, for the only serious effort that Indian authorities have made so far. According to the London Times, during a discussion between Prime Minister Singh and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, at the G-8 summit in Russia, after the Mumbai bombings, the Indian leader reminded Blair of a detailed dossier that had been handed over, three years ago, which identified 14 men suspected of involvement in the Mumbai bombings, as living in Britain. Blair is said to have assured Singh that the suspects would be investigated.
Another British paper, the Birmingham Mail, reported that a jailed taxi driver, of Pakistani origin, and now from the British Midlands, is also being questioned in connection with the Mumbai blasts. The man is currently serving a nine-year sentence for raising funds and buying weapons for the Lashkar-e-Toiba.
It is widely acknowledged that the origin of most of the international Islamic jihads, lies in London. To those who are aware of the huge number of Islamic militants harbored by British authorities, London is known as "Londonistan." Camille Tawil, a terrorism expert at the Arabic daily Al-Hayat, told the New Statesman: "The Islamists use Britain as a propaganda base, but wouldn't do anything to a country that harbors them and gives them freedom of speech." What Ms. Tawil did not mention is that these Islamists, perhaps to maintain their bases and prosper, carry out murderous activities against other nations when they are ordered to do so.
For instance, more than 600 Islamists from Britain had gone to join the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s, to fight the erstwhile Soviet Army. Most of them remained there to join the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Even today, when Anglo-American troops battle insurgents in Iraq, Islamists from Britain are showing up in Iraq.
To get a glimpse of the hidden picture which may clarify why London is such an Islamic headquarters, one has to take a look at the British mosques, and their role in various geopolitical activities. In the 1950s, Muslims from the Indian subcontinent's disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir began to arrive in Britain. They came mostly from Mirpur, a part of Jammu and Kashmir, to work in the textile industries in Britain. Mirpuris came in droves, because part of their land was submerged by the dams built by the Pakistani authorities. Using their compensation money, the Mirpuris came to Britain to work.
Within a few years, it became evident that these Kashmiri immigrants, who were not only anti-India, but were also seeking an independent Kashmir, somehow got control of the British mosques, from which anti-India Kashmir policies were proclaimed.
Today, Britain has about 2 million Muslims. Of these, about 1 million are of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin. The most prevalent sect that controls the mosques is Sunni, and its adherents belong to the subcontinent's Islamic school of Deoband. Others are Wahabis. It must be noted that the Deobandis are considered close to the Wahabis in their orthodox religious outlook. At the time of the migration, the Pakistani ISI was in the process of finding its feet, and these political immigrants were largely under the wings of British intelligence.
Bastard Child of a Brit
The Directorate for ISI was founded in 1948 by an Australia-born British army officer, Maj. Gen. R. Cawthorne, who was then Deputy Chief of Staff in the Pakistan Army. Field Marshal Ayub Khan, the President of Pakistan in the 1950s, expanded the role of ISI in safeguarding Pakistan's interests, monitoring opposition politicians, and sustaining military rule in Pakistan. It is evident that the British MI6 and MI5 had then begun working with Pakistani intelligence to bring about this control. This was primarily done by London to maintain British leverage in the Kashmir quagmire, and encourage the emergence of a "Third Force"in the Kashmir milieu that would not want to be part of either Pakistan or India, but India, in particular.
One of the least understood themes of the partition of India in 1947 by the departing British Raj, is what led the British to do it. Run-of-the-mill analysts point out that the British did not want a unified India which could be strong and anti-British. Some others say the British saw that the minority Muslims were in danger in the hands of the majority Hindus, and that that is why they moved in to form Pakistan. While the British did not want the emergence of a strong India, the formation of Pakistan hardly helped the Muslims, who felt that they were a threatened minority. To begin with, those provinces that became a part of Pakistan were those provinces where the Muslims were in majority. Hence, the Muslims there were not in danger. The provinces where Muslims were a minority, and ostensibly "in danger," became a part of the Hindu-majority India.
But the British objective in breaking up India was simply not to divvy up the country. The British wanted two things out of it: They wanted a weak nation (Pakistan, that is), which would depend on Britain for its defense. And they wanted that newly-formed weak nation to border the oil wells of Central Asia (part of the Soviet Union, then) and to be close to the Muslim-majority, oil-rich nations of the Middle East.
Corollary to the objective was that India, the larger of the two nations then in the subcontinent (now, with the emergence of Bangladesh in 1972, the subcontinent has three nations) must not have any common border with either Afghanistan (the buffer state) or the Soviet Union.
The British objective to control the oil wells was part of the Great Game to prevent the mighty Russian empire from having access to the oil fields. Former British Governor of the NorthWest Frontier Province during the British Raj days, Olaf Caroe used to say the shadow of the north must not extend over the wells of power. Britain realized during World War II that the one who controls the oil fields controls the destiny of many nations. As a result, beginning 1940, south Asia was important to imperial Britain, for the protection of oil fields of Arabia. Nothing more, nothing less.
The Replay
The 1947 partition pretty much allowed the British to pursue the Great Game. But there remained a small hitch: the disputed state of Kashmir, which borders Afghanistan. Once Britain, with the help of a willing and weak Pakistan, and aided by a vacillating Indian leadership, managed to create a major conflict between the two fledgling nations of India and Pakistan, British intelligence moved in to house and finance the Kashmiris in the mosques in Britain. The advantages of controlling the mosques are manifold. Mosques provide a religious color to a secessionist movement. Mosques also direct the faithful to vote en-bloc for particular politicians, and in the process, virtually own them. This created a number of Members of Parliament in Britain demanding independent Kashmir.
But the scene changed in the 1980s, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Jihadis and Mujahideens were organized from far and near to battle the Godless communists. It was at that time that the CIA and the British MI6 became extremely dependent on the Pakistani ISI. Although the CIA and the MI6 helped the Mujahideen with cash and arms, all the ground operations were done under the aegis of the Pakistani ISI. At the time, the Pakistani ISI had a very capable director, Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul. Later, in the 1990s, Washington sought and received assistance from Gul to cobble together a Punjab-based political party, the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad [IJI], to defeat the Benazir Bhutto-led Pakistan People's Party (PPP). The party, led by Mian Nawaz Sharif, was an alliance formed by the ISI out of nine mainly rightist parties under Gul. Gul denies this, claiming that the ISI's political cell created by Bhutto only "monitored" the elections.
With Gul at the helm of the Pakistani ISI, a closely-knit network between these intelligence agencies, CIA, MI6, and ISI, with some involvement of the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, was set up. Subsequently, when Washington chose to walk away from Afghanistan in 1989, it was British intelligence and the Pakistani ISI that later oversaw the Afghan civil war (1989-1995) and the emergence of the Taliban (1996). It was also the time when the MI6 and the ISI were sending "committed" Muslim youths from Britain to fight standing next to the al-Qaeda militia, who were seeking no territory, but the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East.
With the Soviet Union decimated and Washington showing scant interest in Afghanistan, the Great Game was back in the hands of the British. They were helped by the Pakistani ISI and the al-Qaeda/Taliban militia. But this phase changed again following 9/11. With the United States moving into Afghanistan, and building bridges with India to counter al-Qaeda and the Taliban, new players emerged on the Great Game canvas.
The emergence of India as an ally of the United States has brought India right into the line of attack of those Islamic zealots who would not allow foreign shadows to fall on the oil wells of Arabia and Central Asia. These zealots, however powerful or committed they are, need organizational support to function and operate in a foreign land which is hostile to Islamic jihadis. That is where the MI6 and the ISI provide the jihadis the organizational and intelligence support. The Mumbai massacre was the outcome of such an organizational "success."
Modeling the Great Game in Asia
The Great Game provided an analytical framework that organized successful efforts by
imperial Britain to build a stable and secure Asian rimland long before automated machines allowed the rapid accumulation and processing of information. The Great Game framework provided structured forms of argumentation for the production of intelligence that resulted in improved monitoring and analytical capability. However, these insights do not translate readily into current analytical frameworks and cannot work with automated reasoning tools. The authors combine historical knowledge with UML, model-based transformations, and computational analysis to configure the Great Game framework to a more formal and modern assessment. This first part focuses on the Viceroy’s Study Group and their assessment of Afghanistan, with a model to illustrate the British approach to Indian stability.
-- Peter John Brobst
DOWNLOAD : Part 1 , Part 2
Great Game After Partition
The authors combine historical knowledge with UML, model-based transformations, and
computational analysis to configure the Great Game framework to a more formal and modern assessment. The models will generate structured information about the system as input to computational tools, using in this instance ORA from CMU. The resulting information analysis offers the opportunity for a feedback loop that can improve the model and structure useful discussion about the framework.
--David H. Fado, Ph.D.
Advanced Systems & Concepts, SAIC
imperial Britain to build a stable and secure Asian rimland long before automated machines allowed the rapid accumulation and processing of information. The Great Game framework provided structured forms of argumentation for the production of intelligence that resulted in improved monitoring and analytical capability. However, these insights do not translate readily into current analytical frameworks and cannot work with automated reasoning tools. The authors combine historical knowledge with UML, model-based transformations, and computational analysis to configure the Great Game framework to a more formal and modern assessment. This first part focuses on the Viceroy’s Study Group and their assessment of Afghanistan, with a model to illustrate the British approach to Indian stability.
-- Peter John Brobst
DOWNLOAD : Part 1 , Part 2
Great Game After Partition
The authors combine historical knowledge with UML, model-based transformations, and
computational analysis to configure the Great Game framework to a more formal and modern assessment. The models will generate structured information about the system as input to computational tools, using in this instance ORA from CMU. The resulting information analysis offers the opportunity for a feedback loop that can improve the model and structure useful discussion about the framework.
--David H. Fado, Ph.D.
Advanced Systems & Concepts, SAIC
Pakistan could sink into chaos and anarchy
Source: REDIFF.com
Richard M Bennett
December 24, 2008
Pakistan is a martial nation with an outstanding reputation for its military prowess and a well deserved pride in its armed forces. However the Pakistan military and intelligence service have played a disproportionately influential role in mainstream politics over the last 60 years.
Democracy does not appear to flourish in this militaristic state and this has played a significant part in Pakistan's appalling human rights record. However it is Pakistan's long standing support for Islamic militants that has rightly seen the regime in Islamabad [Images] condemned by many observers as a home of terrorism.
Infamous intelligence service
Pakistan's infamous Inter-Service Intelligence agency has not only armed and trained generations of Islamic extremists in Kashmir and Afghanistan, it is also believed to have directed many of their terrorist attacks in both territories, and in the crowded streets of India's major cities.
The ISI is a protege of the Central Intelligence Agency and a child of an even larger worldwide political conflict; the Cold War. Created in the US agency's image, it has been regularly used to great effect by Washington in this troubled region.
At one time or another India, Iran, Afghanistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka [Images] have all reportedly been the victims of aggressive intelligence operations on behalf of the CIA and the support shown for terrorist groups by the ISI for reasons of their own..
After the Soviet invasion of 1979, Afghanistan became a major theatre of operation for Pakistan intelligence. Both al Qaeda, and the Taliban [Images] were to benefit hugely from ISI's comprehensive level of support.
Throughout the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the war on terrorism, the Iraq occupation and the growing confrontation with Iran, relations between the US and the Pakistani intelligence communities have apparently remained close.
However, the forces within the ISI who sided with Islamic extremism, supplied them with weapons, training and intelligence remain highly influential and despite repeated denials by former President Pervez Musharraf [Images] and the current weak civilian administration, the Taliban's military revival has much to do with the ISI's continued clandestine support.
It is a bitter irony that Pakistan has achieved this position of importance in the US-led coalition by providing bases and support for the campaign in Afghanistan, while on the other hand the ISI is still offering aid to those same terrorists.
Pakistan's perceived long-term self-interest is more than sufficient for it to covertly sanction actions that directly result in the deaths of US, UK and NATO soldiers serving in Afghanistan. Whether this is with the full approval of the government in Islamabad or simply that the ISI remains a law unto themselves is a matter that remains open to question.
This despite repeated claims by ministers that the ISI and the military has been cleansed of its more extreme officers and no longer provides support for terrorist or insurgent movements.
There is a widely held belief that Pakistani intelligence remains a virtual state within a state. Its actions either ignored or even secretly condoned by the military regime.
The al Qaeda connection
It must remain highly questionable whether Pakistan has any real commitment to the War on Terrorism and there are many observers who believe that the government in Islamabad is clandestinely providing cover for leading al Qaeda terrorists.
Indeed if the highly respected journalist Dan Rather of the US CBS network is to be believed, Pakistan's Army [Images] was actively sheltering Osama bin Laden [Images] on September 11, 2001.
At the very time Al Qaeda [Images] crashed loaded passenger jets into the WTC twin towers and the Pentagon [Images], America's 'Enemy Number One' was reportedly receiving life-saving kidney dialysis treatment at a military-controlled hospital in Rawalpindi.
Yet bin Laden was allowed to walk free, to disappear apparently without trace in the tribal border lands between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is this same troubled area that has seen the recent truce signed between the Pakistan security forces and the militant Islamic tribes.
This alone may have effectively secured bin Laden's continuing freedom of action as well as that of al Qaeda itself and a resurgent Taliban.
It is significant that the ISI, Special Operations Forces and other elements within the army, paramilitary units and police are believed to still provide logistic support and training for militants.
Pakistan undoubtedly deserves to be placed high on the American government's list of those countries guilty of state sponsorship of terrorism along with Syria and Iran. Indeed, Pakistan makes use of the Kashmir militants in much the same way as Iran uses Hezbollah; as a powerful political bargaining chip and to fight a proxy-war against a more powerful neighbour.
Pakistan stares into the abyss
Pakistan can rightly be described as a failing state. Its internal unity has dissolved into open warfare in significant parts of the country and its relations with India, its heavily armed and nuclear capable neighbour, are in tatters.
Even the patience of its long suffering ally, the United States is now wearing decidedly thin.
Pakistan has a militaristic society that has grown tired of its generals playing politics and instead placed in charge a civilian government that soon appeared to be virtually incapable of tackling head-on the main issues threatening to tear apart the fabric of the nation:
The growing influence of Islamic extremists in the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas), Pakistan-administered Kashmir and many of the northern cities in particular.
The devious role played by the ISI as highlighted by what appears to be solid evidence that it is still supporting terrorist activity in Afghanistan, Kashmir and most significantly within India itself.
The degree to which extreme Islamic beliefs have been wholeheartedly accepted within large parts of the regular army and the junior ranks of the officer corps in particular.
There can be little doubt that besides shoring up the world's shattered economy and dealing with a potentially nuclear armed Iran, high on the list of priorities for the incoming Barack Obama [Images] administration will be the fear of a meltdown in Pakistan some time in 2009.
Obama's choice of Hillary Clinton [Images] as his secretary of state is a highly significant move in relation to South Asia and has been broadly welcomed by many observers in New Delhi [Images].
Clinton developed a close working relationship with both India and the Indian-American community back home during the eight years her husband Bill Clinton [Images] served as US President.
It is unlikely that the new US administration will or would want to continue to excuse Pakistan's wanton unwillingness to at least attempt to deal with the rising tide of Islamic extremism threatening both the integrity of the nation and the stability of an already troubled region.
Pakistan's options
In response to the growing chorus of international criticism Pakistan has hinted at a variety of responses, but looked at carefully these would appear to be largely empty gestures made by an increasingly panicked and confused government in Islamabad.
The Pakistan Army presently deploys at least four regular infantry divisions (including the 7th, 9th, 14th and 23rd) in the FATA, the vital region that borders Afghanistan. Islamabad quickly made it known that in response to any sabre-rattling by New Delhi, it would be forced to move these units back to their old defensive positions on the border with India.
This in theory would expose the Western forces inside Afghanistan and their long supply route which sees some 350 trucks carrying over 7,000 tons through Pakistan every day to even greater danger from Islamic insurgents. The recent attack that destroyed over 100 US and NATO supply vehicles on Peshawar's outer ring road merely served to highlight this threat.
However, as many seasoned observers quickly pointed out, the Pakistan Army with a severely restricted logistic capability would not be able to achieve this massive redeployment quickly or effectively.
Indeed, as many of the army units currently deployed in the FATA have shown little or no interest in actually combating the local insurgency, the withdrawal of one or all of these divisions would probably not have a significant effect on the overall border security situation.
Recently some Pakistan officials have felt it necessary to quietly remind New Delhi -- and the world in general -- that it is a nuclear power. However, there must still be some doubt as to how many usable nuclear devices Pakistan actually has. Some estimates have been as low as just two 20 kiloton warheads.
Whatever the correct figure may be, Washington's studied indifference to Islamabad's implied nuclear warning goes some considerable way to confirming reports that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is very closely monitored, if not actually controlled in some way by the United States.
It is quite possible that any attempt to move these weapons, let alone deploy them would result in a swift US response and their total destruction.
No change yet
Pakistan is also once again going through the pantomime performance of publicly arresting a few leading members of the Islamic extremist groups that proliferate inside their borders.
Short of these prisoners now being handed over to the Indian authorities along with many others listed as terrorists, New Delhi and an increasingly impatient Washington are likely to remain largely unimpressed.
There has still been no serious attempt by the Pakistan authorities to disarm the militants, close down their training camps or dismantle the organizational structure that provides both new recruits and financial support.
The Lashkar-e-Tayiba [Images] and other such militant groups with a long track record of carrying out attacks in both Kashmir and India remain very largely untouched and free to continue planning the next terrorist outrage.
The ISI apparently continues to covertly arm, support and train Islamic militants, and some observers have claimed that they may even play a significant role in planning and directing attacks such as those on Mumbai [Images].
Despite the replacement of Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj as head of the ISI on October 1 by the reportedly more moderate Lieutenant General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, seen by some as an attempt to placate Washington, little of substance has altered and the ISI seems as firmly wedded to its pro-Taliban, pro-Kashmir, anti-Indian stance as before.
The Pakistan Army also appears content to remain on its path toward radicalization, providing yet more training and -- according to some sources -- playing a large role in protecting and maintaining the militant infrastructure.
However, this level of semi-official Pakistan involvement with national and international terrorism may finally bring significant problems for the government in Islamabad.
India's options.
Despite Indian Premier Manmohan Singh [Images] once stating that "Unless Pakistan takes concrete steps to implement the assurances it has given to prevent cross-border terrorism against India from any territory within its control, public opinion in India, which has supported the peace process, will be undermined", India has remained hamstrung by governments that appear to suffer from some form of strange rictus that prevents anything more than studied inaction and an overwhelming willingness to compromise.
Only may now following the outrage in Mumbai may it be forced to at least consider a positive and if left with no other alternative, a military response.
However if the present Congress party government is removed in the upcoming elections, its replacement by the more nationalistic Bharatiya Janata Party would probably be far more likely to launch a serious military strike at Pakistan.
The BJP has long accused Congress of being insufficiently aggressive in combating terrorism and now argues that the Mumbai attack was in part a result of this failure.
If the killing of over 170 civilians, police and military in Mumbai proves to be India's September 11, 2001, then it will not be long before New Delhi now finally accepts that one of the most important ways to protect its citizens is to be viewed as willing to retaliate against those who openly sponsor, house, arm and train terrorists.
This could be by way of limited air strikes and commando raids on the scores of Islamic terrorist camps and arms dumps most likely within Pakistan-administered Kashmir, initially.
Some sources have even suggested that the outline of a suitable plan was shown to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice [Images] recently. Rice is reported to have quietly commented that while the United States was strongly opposed to a full-scale war between India and Pakistan, it might not be totally averse to some form of limited counter-terror operations.
Risk of greater confrontation
However, a lack of serious and successful crackdowns on Islamic extremist groups within Pakistan by the government of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, or the repetition of major terrorist acts against Indian targets, could lead to a far wider and more significant confrontation.
Under those circumstances New Delhi may have no alternative but to launch major punitive military operations across the border into Pakistan itself.
It is possible that a clearly exasperated United States may even sanction this as a much-needed salutary lesson for Islamabad that it must take responsibility for the actions of its citizens and for any extremist groups based safely within its national borders.
A military assault is not, of course, the only means of applying pressure on Pakistan. Other punitive measures have been aired ranging from an Indian naval blockade of Karachi and the coast to the withdrawal of large amounts of vital financial aid used to shore up Pakistan's crumbling economy.
Pakistan's uncertain future
Pakistan is rightfully a proud country, but has little to be genuinely proud about in its current situation. It is a nation that has been constantly let down by a succession of weak civilian governments and heavy-handed military dictatorships.
It now faces economic meltdown, a chaotic political situation, widespread extremism and the growing disaffection of significant numbers of the middle class, civil service and the military.
Some experienced observers have openly suggested that tanks and armoured vehicles may once again be seen on the streets of Pakistan's cities as the military takes back power from yet another failed civilian administration.
Normally this might have been greeted by a resigned and cautious welcome in Washington. However, this time it might just be that militant Islamic elements within the officer corps are staging a coup.
The real fear then is of an unstable Pakistan sinking into chaos and anarchy and vast amounts of territory, weapons and perhaps nuclear materials falling under the control of Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaeda.
This would without a doubt be the United States and India's worst nightmare. Indeed it might turn out to be the last act before decisive foreign military operations to neutralise Pakistan began in earnest.
Pakistan is potentially a powerful ally in the "war on terror" and a firm friend of the West. Sadly it has chosen to play the devious game of running with the fox and hunting with the hounds for far too long.
Islamabad's continued deceptions are having a caustic effect on its international relations and dangerously increasing tension with India.
Having lived by the sword for so long, Pakistan now risks dying by it as well.
Richard Bennett is an intelligence analyst
Richard M Bennett
December 24, 2008
Pakistan is a martial nation with an outstanding reputation for its military prowess and a well deserved pride in its armed forces. However the Pakistan military and intelligence service have played a disproportionately influential role in mainstream politics over the last 60 years.
Democracy does not appear to flourish in this militaristic state and this has played a significant part in Pakistan's appalling human rights record. However it is Pakistan's long standing support for Islamic militants that has rightly seen the regime in Islamabad [Images] condemned by many observers as a home of terrorism.
Infamous intelligence service
Pakistan's infamous Inter-Service Intelligence agency has not only armed and trained generations of Islamic extremists in Kashmir and Afghanistan, it is also believed to have directed many of their terrorist attacks in both territories, and in the crowded streets of India's major cities.
The ISI is a protege of the Central Intelligence Agency and a child of an even larger worldwide political conflict; the Cold War. Created in the US agency's image, it has been regularly used to great effect by Washington in this troubled region.
At one time or another India, Iran, Afghanistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka [Images] have all reportedly been the victims of aggressive intelligence operations on behalf of the CIA and the support shown for terrorist groups by the ISI for reasons of their own..
After the Soviet invasion of 1979, Afghanistan became a major theatre of operation for Pakistan intelligence. Both al Qaeda, and the Taliban [Images] were to benefit hugely from ISI's comprehensive level of support.
Throughout the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the war on terrorism, the Iraq occupation and the growing confrontation with Iran, relations between the US and the Pakistani intelligence communities have apparently remained close.
However, the forces within the ISI who sided with Islamic extremism, supplied them with weapons, training and intelligence remain highly influential and despite repeated denials by former President Pervez Musharraf [Images] and the current weak civilian administration, the Taliban's military revival has much to do with the ISI's continued clandestine support.
It is a bitter irony that Pakistan has achieved this position of importance in the US-led coalition by providing bases and support for the campaign in Afghanistan, while on the other hand the ISI is still offering aid to those same terrorists.
Pakistan's perceived long-term self-interest is more than sufficient for it to covertly sanction actions that directly result in the deaths of US, UK and NATO soldiers serving in Afghanistan. Whether this is with the full approval of the government in Islamabad or simply that the ISI remains a law unto themselves is a matter that remains open to question.
This despite repeated claims by ministers that the ISI and the military has been cleansed of its more extreme officers and no longer provides support for terrorist or insurgent movements.
There is a widely held belief that Pakistani intelligence remains a virtual state within a state. Its actions either ignored or even secretly condoned by the military regime.
The al Qaeda connection
It must remain highly questionable whether Pakistan has any real commitment to the War on Terrorism and there are many observers who believe that the government in Islamabad is clandestinely providing cover for leading al Qaeda terrorists.
Indeed if the highly respected journalist Dan Rather of the US CBS network is to be believed, Pakistan's Army [Images] was actively sheltering Osama bin Laden [Images] on September 11, 2001.
At the very time Al Qaeda [Images] crashed loaded passenger jets into the WTC twin towers and the Pentagon [Images], America's 'Enemy Number One' was reportedly receiving life-saving kidney dialysis treatment at a military-controlled hospital in Rawalpindi.
Yet bin Laden was allowed to walk free, to disappear apparently without trace in the tribal border lands between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is this same troubled area that has seen the recent truce signed between the Pakistan security forces and the militant Islamic tribes.
This alone may have effectively secured bin Laden's continuing freedom of action as well as that of al Qaeda itself and a resurgent Taliban.
It is significant that the ISI, Special Operations Forces and other elements within the army, paramilitary units and police are believed to still provide logistic support and training for militants.
Pakistan undoubtedly deserves to be placed high on the American government's list of those countries guilty of state sponsorship of terrorism along with Syria and Iran. Indeed, Pakistan makes use of the Kashmir militants in much the same way as Iran uses Hezbollah; as a powerful political bargaining chip and to fight a proxy-war against a more powerful neighbour.
Pakistan stares into the abyss
Pakistan can rightly be described as a failing state. Its internal unity has dissolved into open warfare in significant parts of the country and its relations with India, its heavily armed and nuclear capable neighbour, are in tatters.
Even the patience of its long suffering ally, the United States is now wearing decidedly thin.
Pakistan has a militaristic society that has grown tired of its generals playing politics and instead placed in charge a civilian government that soon appeared to be virtually incapable of tackling head-on the main issues threatening to tear apart the fabric of the nation:
The growing influence of Islamic extremists in the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas), Pakistan-administered Kashmir and many of the northern cities in particular.
The devious role played by the ISI as highlighted by what appears to be solid evidence that it is still supporting terrorist activity in Afghanistan, Kashmir and most significantly within India itself.
The degree to which extreme Islamic beliefs have been wholeheartedly accepted within large parts of the regular army and the junior ranks of the officer corps in particular.
There can be little doubt that besides shoring up the world's shattered economy and dealing with a potentially nuclear armed Iran, high on the list of priorities for the incoming Barack Obama [Images] administration will be the fear of a meltdown in Pakistan some time in 2009.
Obama's choice of Hillary Clinton [Images] as his secretary of state is a highly significant move in relation to South Asia and has been broadly welcomed by many observers in New Delhi [Images].
Clinton developed a close working relationship with both India and the Indian-American community back home during the eight years her husband Bill Clinton [Images] served as US President.
It is unlikely that the new US administration will or would want to continue to excuse Pakistan's wanton unwillingness to at least attempt to deal with the rising tide of Islamic extremism threatening both the integrity of the nation and the stability of an already troubled region.
Pakistan's options
In response to the growing chorus of international criticism Pakistan has hinted at a variety of responses, but looked at carefully these would appear to be largely empty gestures made by an increasingly panicked and confused government in Islamabad.
The Pakistan Army presently deploys at least four regular infantry divisions (including the 7th, 9th, 14th and 23rd) in the FATA, the vital region that borders Afghanistan. Islamabad quickly made it known that in response to any sabre-rattling by New Delhi, it would be forced to move these units back to their old defensive positions on the border with India.
This in theory would expose the Western forces inside Afghanistan and their long supply route which sees some 350 trucks carrying over 7,000 tons through Pakistan every day to even greater danger from Islamic insurgents. The recent attack that destroyed over 100 US and NATO supply vehicles on Peshawar's outer ring road merely served to highlight this threat.
However, as many seasoned observers quickly pointed out, the Pakistan Army with a severely restricted logistic capability would not be able to achieve this massive redeployment quickly or effectively.
Indeed, as many of the army units currently deployed in the FATA have shown little or no interest in actually combating the local insurgency, the withdrawal of one or all of these divisions would probably not have a significant effect on the overall border security situation.
Recently some Pakistan officials have felt it necessary to quietly remind New Delhi -- and the world in general -- that it is a nuclear power. However, there must still be some doubt as to how many usable nuclear devices Pakistan actually has. Some estimates have been as low as just two 20 kiloton warheads.
Whatever the correct figure may be, Washington's studied indifference to Islamabad's implied nuclear warning goes some considerable way to confirming reports that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is very closely monitored, if not actually controlled in some way by the United States.
It is quite possible that any attempt to move these weapons, let alone deploy them would result in a swift US response and their total destruction.
No change yet
Pakistan is also once again going through the pantomime performance of publicly arresting a few leading members of the Islamic extremist groups that proliferate inside their borders.
Short of these prisoners now being handed over to the Indian authorities along with many others listed as terrorists, New Delhi and an increasingly impatient Washington are likely to remain largely unimpressed.
There has still been no serious attempt by the Pakistan authorities to disarm the militants, close down their training camps or dismantle the organizational structure that provides both new recruits and financial support.
The Lashkar-e-Tayiba [Images] and other such militant groups with a long track record of carrying out attacks in both Kashmir and India remain very largely untouched and free to continue planning the next terrorist outrage.
The ISI apparently continues to covertly arm, support and train Islamic militants, and some observers have claimed that they may even play a significant role in planning and directing attacks such as those on Mumbai [Images].
Despite the replacement of Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj as head of the ISI on October 1 by the reportedly more moderate Lieutenant General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, seen by some as an attempt to placate Washington, little of substance has altered and the ISI seems as firmly wedded to its pro-Taliban, pro-Kashmir, anti-Indian stance as before.
The Pakistan Army also appears content to remain on its path toward radicalization, providing yet more training and -- according to some sources -- playing a large role in protecting and maintaining the militant infrastructure.
However, this level of semi-official Pakistan involvement with national and international terrorism may finally bring significant problems for the government in Islamabad.
India's options.
Despite Indian Premier Manmohan Singh [Images] once stating that "Unless Pakistan takes concrete steps to implement the assurances it has given to prevent cross-border terrorism against India from any territory within its control, public opinion in India, which has supported the peace process, will be undermined", India has remained hamstrung by governments that appear to suffer from some form of strange rictus that prevents anything more than studied inaction and an overwhelming willingness to compromise.
Only may now following the outrage in Mumbai may it be forced to at least consider a positive and if left with no other alternative, a military response.
However if the present Congress party government is removed in the upcoming elections, its replacement by the more nationalistic Bharatiya Janata Party would probably be far more likely to launch a serious military strike at Pakistan.
The BJP has long accused Congress of being insufficiently aggressive in combating terrorism and now argues that the Mumbai attack was in part a result of this failure.
If the killing of over 170 civilians, police and military in Mumbai proves to be India's September 11, 2001, then it will not be long before New Delhi now finally accepts that one of the most important ways to protect its citizens is to be viewed as willing to retaliate against those who openly sponsor, house, arm and train terrorists.
This could be by way of limited air strikes and commando raids on the scores of Islamic terrorist camps and arms dumps most likely within Pakistan-administered Kashmir, initially.
Some sources have even suggested that the outline of a suitable plan was shown to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice [Images] recently. Rice is reported to have quietly commented that while the United States was strongly opposed to a full-scale war between India and Pakistan, it might not be totally averse to some form of limited counter-terror operations.
Risk of greater confrontation
However, a lack of serious and successful crackdowns on Islamic extremist groups within Pakistan by the government of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, or the repetition of major terrorist acts against Indian targets, could lead to a far wider and more significant confrontation.
Under those circumstances New Delhi may have no alternative but to launch major punitive military operations across the border into Pakistan itself.
It is possible that a clearly exasperated United States may even sanction this as a much-needed salutary lesson for Islamabad that it must take responsibility for the actions of its citizens and for any extremist groups based safely within its national borders.
A military assault is not, of course, the only means of applying pressure on Pakistan. Other punitive measures have been aired ranging from an Indian naval blockade of Karachi and the coast to the withdrawal of large amounts of vital financial aid used to shore up Pakistan's crumbling economy.
Pakistan's uncertain future
Pakistan is rightfully a proud country, but has little to be genuinely proud about in its current situation. It is a nation that has been constantly let down by a succession of weak civilian governments and heavy-handed military dictatorships.
It now faces economic meltdown, a chaotic political situation, widespread extremism and the growing disaffection of significant numbers of the middle class, civil service and the military.
Some experienced observers have openly suggested that tanks and armoured vehicles may once again be seen on the streets of Pakistan's cities as the military takes back power from yet another failed civilian administration.
Normally this might have been greeted by a resigned and cautious welcome in Washington. However, this time it might just be that militant Islamic elements within the officer corps are staging a coup.
The real fear then is of an unstable Pakistan sinking into chaos and anarchy and vast amounts of territory, weapons and perhaps nuclear materials falling under the control of Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaeda.
This would without a doubt be the United States and India's worst nightmare. Indeed it might turn out to be the last act before decisive foreign military operations to neutralise Pakistan began in earnest.
Pakistan is potentially a powerful ally in the "war on terror" and a firm friend of the West. Sadly it has chosen to play the devious game of running with the fox and hunting with the hounds for far too long.
Islamabad's continued deceptions are having a caustic effect on its international relations and dangerously increasing tension with India.
Having lived by the sword for so long, Pakistan now risks dying by it as well.
Richard Bennett is an intelligence analyst
December 25, 2008
UPA’s Betrayal - Mr. Advani’s speech
OFFSTUMPED
This is the last meeting of our Parliamentary Party in what is surely the last effective session of Parliament before the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
I take this opportunity to convey to all Honourable Members a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in advance.
May the New Year bring better tidings for India than 2008 did.
In some respects, though, it will most probably be a difficult year for our country. The economic situation has worsened, and will continue to worsen.
Recession has hit the Indian economy. Bad management of the economy has created a credit drought. Thus, banks are not lending money. Businesses are slowing down or closing down. Jobs are being cut. Incomes are shrinking. And this is happening at a time when prices of essential commodities are still high, defying the relative dip in the rate of inflation.
Under the UPA government, infrastructure development has taken a big hit. The ambitious highway project has been crawling. Power sector continues to be in crisis. Housing and construction have ground to a near halt due to high interest rates.
As a result of all this, employment generation in the economy has stalled.
In agriculture, in spite of relatively good rains, the basic problems facing the Indian kisans have continued to beg for answers.
In short, the UPA government is going to complete its term on a dismal performance on the economic front. It is a performance of
BETRAYAL OF THE AAM AADMIBETRAYAL OF THE KISANBETRAYAL OF THE NAU JAWAN.
This can be summed up as GROWING ECONOMIC AND LIVELIHOOD INSECURITY FOR ALL BUT THE SMALL SECTION OF THE RICH.
The BJP must widely and powerfully convey this message of the UPA government’s betrayals and failures leading to economic and livelihood INSECURITY.
* * *
Friends, as regards the Government’s failure in the area of INTERNAL SECURITY, an attempt is being made to cover it all up in the new situation that has developed in the country in the wake of the 26/11 terror attacks on Mumbai.
There is anger and outrage all across Indian society over what took place in Mumbai.
Thanks to the pressure of public opinion, the Congress-led government was finally forced to wake up from its slumber. It did a U-turn on the need for an anti-terror law, after having repealed POTA and after having doggedly maintained that existing laws were enough to deal with terror.
The BJP and the NDA supported the two new anti-terror legislations because we believe that India cannot present the picture of being a Soft State in the war against terror.
I would like the countrymen to contrast the BJP’s support to the two new legislations with the Congress party’s votebank-inspired opposition to enacting POTA in 2002.
This shows the difference between a truly nationalist party that acts out of conviction and another party that acts of compulsion.
* * *
The BJP is keenly watching how the leadership of the UPA government and the Congress party will deal with the situation that has arisen after the Mumbai terror attacks.
The BJP will adopt a two-pronged strategy that is both PRINCIPLED and THE NEED OF THE HOUR.As I have said, the BJP will lend full support to the Government in whatever stern action it plans against Pakistan, which is caught red-handed in the Mumbai terror attacks.
However, the BJP will continue to expose the Congress party’s shocking record in fighting the menace of terror in the five years since 2004. It knew what needed to be done, but didn’t do because of votebank considerations.
Even on the issue of action against Pakistan, the Government must first prove its credentials by taking stern and immediate action against one of its ministers who is singing the tune of Pakistan as far as the death of Hemant Karkare, the martyred ATS chief of Maharashtra, is concerned.
What the minister is dividing the unity of the people of India at a very critical moment in our war against terror.
The UPA government cannot talk tough with Pakistan on the one hand and, on the other, allow its ministers to talk the language of Pakistan, which is claiming innocence in the terror attacks in Mumbai.
The Congress party cannot take an anti-Pakistan stand externally and persist with the pro-votebank stand domestically.
Therefore, this is the test: SACK ANTULAY TODAY OR WE WILL COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT YOUR ANTI-PAKISTAN STAND IS SUSPECT and driven by electoral considerations.
Oil cheaper than packaged water
Believe it or not: Oil cheaper than packaged water
26 Dec 2008, 0618 hrs IST, Sanjay Dutta, TNN
Black Gold has lost its sheen, and how! Today, the cost of a litre of petrol or diesel for Indian oil majors is less than the price of the bottle
of packaged water that you buy.
Back-of-the-envelope calculations show that a litre of petrol costs about Rs 11 and diesel about Rs 13, excluding transportation and sundry other charges etc. In contrast, you pay Rs 12-15 for a one-litre bottle of water.
Here's how the arithmetic goes: A barrel of crude oil contains about 190 litres. At $38 a barrel, the current price in the international market, each litre of crude works out to Rs 10, taking the exchange rate at Rs 50 to a dollar.
On an average, approximately 28-29 litres of petrol and 85 litres of diesel are refined from each barrel of crude.
Admittedly, this figure can vary according to the type of crude being processed and the technology deployed in a refinery. So how much would the price of a litre of motor fuel be after incurring the cost of refining, if there were no other charges?
The calculation is so mind-boggling that sometimes even executives of oil marketing companies get confused by the myriad central and state taxes - levied at incremental rates - and complex charges such as "freight equalisation levy'' and dealer margins, etc. Such levies taken together constitute 45-55% of the sale price of petrol or diesel.
So if petrol costs a little over Rs 45 a litre in Delhi pumps, taxes and levies make up about Rs 22 and another Rs 12 constitutes the oil-marketing firm's profit. That leaves a basic cost of about Rs 11 per litre. Similarly, at Rs 32 a litre - the Delhi price of diesel - the actual cost can be taken as Rs 13 as the companies are making a profit of almost Rs 3 a litre.
These calculations are admittedly simplistic and do not take into account other products such as kerosene, jet fuel, cooking gas, naphtha, etc., that are produced along with petrol and diesel and have a bearing on the final cost of each product. However, there won't be big difference between these figures and the figures worked out by the industry.
With crude projected to slide further in the coming days as the global slowdown gets a firmer grip on industry and pushes demand further down, the obvious question is: When will our pump prices go down further?
ToI has repeatedly said this will happen just before the elections are announced, possibly around February. In the meantime, the government is looking to rejig the petro-tax regime to make way for lower prices without hurting oil marketing companies that have accumulated huge losses during the extended run of high crude prices
26 Dec 2008, 0618 hrs IST, Sanjay Dutta, TNN
Black Gold has lost its sheen, and how! Today, the cost of a litre of petrol or diesel for Indian oil majors is less than the price of the bottle
of packaged water that you buy.
Back-of-the-envelope calculations show that a litre of petrol costs about Rs 11 and diesel about Rs 13, excluding transportation and sundry other charges etc. In contrast, you pay Rs 12-15 for a one-litre bottle of water.
Here's how the arithmetic goes: A barrel of crude oil contains about 190 litres. At $38 a barrel, the current price in the international market, each litre of crude works out to Rs 10, taking the exchange rate at Rs 50 to a dollar.
On an average, approximately 28-29 litres of petrol and 85 litres of diesel are refined from each barrel of crude.
Admittedly, this figure can vary according to the type of crude being processed and the technology deployed in a refinery. So how much would the price of a litre of motor fuel be after incurring the cost of refining, if there were no other charges?
The calculation is so mind-boggling that sometimes even executives of oil marketing companies get confused by the myriad central and state taxes - levied at incremental rates - and complex charges such as "freight equalisation levy'' and dealer margins, etc. Such levies taken together constitute 45-55% of the sale price of petrol or diesel.
So if petrol costs a little over Rs 45 a litre in Delhi pumps, taxes and levies make up about Rs 22 and another Rs 12 constitutes the oil-marketing firm's profit. That leaves a basic cost of about Rs 11 per litre. Similarly, at Rs 32 a litre - the Delhi price of diesel - the actual cost can be taken as Rs 13 as the companies are making a profit of almost Rs 3 a litre.
These calculations are admittedly simplistic and do not take into account other products such as kerosene, jet fuel, cooking gas, naphtha, etc., that are produced along with petrol and diesel and have a bearing on the final cost of each product. However, there won't be big difference between these figures and the figures worked out by the industry.
With crude projected to slide further in the coming days as the global slowdown gets a firmer grip on industry and pushes demand further down, the obvious question is: When will our pump prices go down further?
ToI has repeatedly said this will happen just before the elections are announced, possibly around February. In the meantime, the government is looking to rejig the petro-tax regime to make way for lower prices without hurting oil marketing companies that have accumulated huge losses during the extended run of high crude prices
India should prevail upon Saudi Arabia
OUT OF THE BOX
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081223/jsp/opinion/story_10287405.jsp
Indian diplomacy has very clearly mounted a pincer attack on Pakistan in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on Mumbai. On the one hand, it is mounting pressure through evidence and rhetoric on the democratically elected government of Pakistan to take action against terrorists and against those outfits that train and harbour them in Pakistan. On the other hand, it has got the United States of America to exert a similar pressure on Islamabad. India and the US are working on the same intelligence raw material to tell the Pakistan government that the involvement of some of its citizens, of some Islamist organizations based in that country, and even of the ISI, is irrefutable and action needs to be taken. The Pakistan government is not easily persuaded on the matter. One reason for this may be the fact that all the evidence and all the pressure come from either India or the US — two countries that are treated with suspicion, if not loathing, by the fundamentalist forces in Pakistan. No government in Islamabad can quite afford to ignore these forces. India cannot and should not reduce the diplomatic offensive that it has begun, but keeping in mind the Pakistan government’s own internal compulsions, India could perhaps open up another diplomatic front.
This front could bring into its fold countries that are well disposed towards Pakistan but have reasonably good relations with India. The country that comes immediately to mind is Saudi Arabia. India should prevail upon Saudi Arabia to speak to Pakistan to act against terrorists. A wealthy country like Saudi Arabia, with global investment interests, will readily realize the damage that terrorist violence can bring about. India should play on this aspect and try to win the active support of the Saudi government in the battle against terrorism. Similarly, India cannot ignore the muted response of its long-term ally and friend, Russia. The time has come now for Moscow to come out more categorically against the role Pakistan plays in sponsoring and nurturing terrorists. Even China, not known to be India’s friend, can be brought in to play. Indian diplomats should explain to these countries that terrorism represents a threat that transcends all other tactical interests. Pressure needs to build up from quarters that have some chance of being heard within Pakistan without the raising of fundamentalist hackles. This is a new challenge before Indian diplomacy.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081223/jsp/opinion/story_10287405.jsp
Indian diplomacy has very clearly mounted a pincer attack on Pakistan in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on Mumbai. On the one hand, it is mounting pressure through evidence and rhetoric on the democratically elected government of Pakistan to take action against terrorists and against those outfits that train and harbour them in Pakistan. On the other hand, it has got the United States of America to exert a similar pressure on Islamabad. India and the US are working on the same intelligence raw material to tell the Pakistan government that the involvement of some of its citizens, of some Islamist organizations based in that country, and even of the ISI, is irrefutable and action needs to be taken. The Pakistan government is not easily persuaded on the matter. One reason for this may be the fact that all the evidence and all the pressure come from either India or the US — two countries that are treated with suspicion, if not loathing, by the fundamentalist forces in Pakistan. No government in Islamabad can quite afford to ignore these forces. India cannot and should not reduce the diplomatic offensive that it has begun, but keeping in mind the Pakistan government’s own internal compulsions, India could perhaps open up another diplomatic front.
This front could bring into its fold countries that are well disposed towards Pakistan but have reasonably good relations with India. The country that comes immediately to mind is Saudi Arabia. India should prevail upon Saudi Arabia to speak to Pakistan to act against terrorists. A wealthy country like Saudi Arabia, with global investment interests, will readily realize the damage that terrorist violence can bring about. India should play on this aspect and try to win the active support of the Saudi government in the battle against terrorism. Similarly, India cannot ignore the muted response of its long-term ally and friend, Russia. The time has come now for Moscow to come out more categorically against the role Pakistan plays in sponsoring and nurturing terrorists. Even China, not known to be India’s friend, can be brought in to play. Indian diplomats should explain to these countries that terrorism represents a threat that transcends all other tactical interests. Pressure needs to build up from quarters that have some chance of being heard within Pakistan without the raising of fundamentalist hackles. This is a new challenge before Indian diplomacy.
Mumbai Terror Outfit's Teachings Exposed
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/mumbai-terror-outfits-teachings-exposed
by Ahmar Mustikhan | December 25, 2008 at 03:45 am
A leading member of the Pakistan civil society has exposed the war-mongering ideology of the Jamaat ud Daawa, or JuD, the umbrella organization of the Lashkar-i-Toiba or Army of Pure—the terror outfit responsible for the Mumbai mayhem in November that left 200 people dead and over 300 injured.
Dr. Rubina Saigol of Action Aid Pakistan has expressed her disgust at the teachings of the jihadist outfit that had tried to show a softer face to the world immediately after the Mumbai attacks by inviting journalists to its headquarters in Muridke, Punjab.
The United Nations Security Council on December 11 imposed sanctions on the Pakistan-based terror outfit and declared four of its top leaders Dawaa chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, suspected Mumbai terror mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Haji Muhammad Ashraf and Zaki-ur-Bahaziq as global terrorists.
Saigol posted her views on a progressive Pakistani public yahoogroups emailing list called SPN, with nearly 5,000 members. She was responding to the views of another liberal Pakistani editor, Omar R. Quraishi, editorial page editor of largest circulation English newspaper The News International.
In his article, Quraishi wrote: "Regrettably, this tendency to act superior than the rest of the world, ignore one's own warts and what not and to blame the rest of the world for all that ills the Islamic world is something that is found in many ordinary Pakistanis as well. Whether they have been influenced by organisations such as the JuD or whether the organisations have been influenced by the society that they have grown up in is not the issue but rather that the value system and worldview of the JuD and the LeT is in fact something that a lot of Pakistanis share -- particularly the view that a Hindu/Zionist/ American conspiracy of sorts has been put in motion to annihilate the Muslim world."
India still has plans to bomb the Muridke headquarters of the terror outfit and many people in the renegade province of Baluchistan believe New Delhi would be fully justified in doing so.
Even Indian Muslims were calling for tit-for-tat against Pakistan's rogue spy service Inter Services Intelligence and elements within the country's omnipotent army--the fourth largest in the world and armed with nuclear weapons. "The attacks were India's 911. The terror infrastructure has to be brought down. If the Congress Party will not act, it will lose the elections," the scion of a leading Muslim family from Mumbai said on a request of anonymity.
Saigol concurring with Quraishi's view on Jamaat ud Daawa gave some glaring examples from textbooks "that they distribute to their students and which are not available openly in the market." She added the books are published by Jamaat ud Daawa press and are given to students free of charge.
"The Mullahs [Islamic cleric] say that the books are meant to 'inspire' and to inculcate a truly Islamic spirit among students and to enable them to view Islam as a complete way of life, rather than as a set of rituals," Saigol said. "Through these textbooks children are given inspirational ideas and introduced to the objectives of Islam as seen by the Mullah. They are thus introduced the glorious Muslim past to inspire them to violence to re-create the past."
She said Jamaat ud Daawa argues that Muslims alone have right to rule the world and are allowed to kill infidels that stand in the way of Islam and this is being taught in textbooks used by the Jamaat ud Daawa.
Saigol said Daawa glorifies violence and hate and teaches the new version of alphabets in which children learn Bandook for Bai, Talwar for Tai, Tank for Ttai, jehaz for jeem and khanjar for khai, rocket for rai and tayyara for To-ay. [In English, all this will translate into G for gun, S for sword, T for tank, J for jet, K for knife, R for rocket and A for airplane.]
"In the Urdu textbook, children are told that infidels are cowards by nature and when a holy warrior attacks them, they scream with terror and fear," she said. "Mujahideen are glorified as being on a mission from Allah and they are superheroes that kill Hindus and make infidels cower in fear," she said, referring from the pages of the textbook.
She deplored games are organized around violence and killing and the children play with guns and learn to shoot at balloons, adding they play guerilla games of ambushing infidels, and in one story, a ten year old boy kills hundreds of Russians in Afghanistan .
She said poems and stories are taught about young boys that wage jihad and children read fictitious letters from jihadis killed in battle. “If I am killed in battle, celebrate”, reads one letter to a mother and sister in the seventh grade textbook, and then admonishes, “Make sure you conceal your body and never wear perfume.” Obscurantists among Muslims call this decadent and sexist practice hijab.
"India is presented as an enemy and Saudi Arabia as a best friend. Kashmir appears as Pakistani territory forcibly snatched by Hindus and Pakistan as a country created only for Muslims."
Saigol said children are instructed to mercilessly beat up non-Muslims and are told in the second grade textbook that every student should become a holy warrior and that they should be willing to lay down their lives for the great nuclear power that is Pakistan.
Quraishi notes: "Another (JuD) post is devoted to Mother's Day, or rather to equating it more or less with paganism. In fact, another post is on how Muslims should beware of doing actions that make them equal to kaafirs [infidels] -- such as celebrating their holy days and festivals. Also, it is clearly mentioned that non-Muslims are kaafirs and should not be even befriended."
Even after passage of a month, Pakistan is still in self-denial about the identity of the Mumbai terrorists. Though Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari initially admitted his country's non-state actors were involved in the Mumbai attacks, under the rogue army's instructions he has made a U-turn since then and said recently there were no solid proofs the lone surviving terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab is a Pakistani national.
Pakistan's leading English newspaper DAWN--owned by a cousin of Hussain Haroon, Pakistan's permanent representative to the United Nations-- recently carried an interview of Kasab's father from the Punjab town of Faridkot, confirming his son's identity. Baring one, all the 10 Mumbai terrorists were from Punjab, stronghold of the Pakistan army.
by Ahmar Mustikhan | December 25, 2008 at 03:45 am
A leading member of the Pakistan civil society has exposed the war-mongering ideology of the Jamaat ud Daawa, or JuD, the umbrella organization of the Lashkar-i-Toiba or Army of Pure—the terror outfit responsible for the Mumbai mayhem in November that left 200 people dead and over 300 injured.
Dr. Rubina Saigol of Action Aid Pakistan has expressed her disgust at the teachings of the jihadist outfit that had tried to show a softer face to the world immediately after the Mumbai attacks by inviting journalists to its headquarters in Muridke, Punjab.
The United Nations Security Council on December 11 imposed sanctions on the Pakistan-based terror outfit and declared four of its top leaders Dawaa chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, suspected Mumbai terror mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Haji Muhammad Ashraf and Zaki-ur-Bahaziq as global terrorists.
Saigol posted her views on a progressive Pakistani public yahoogroups emailing list called SPN, with nearly 5,000 members. She was responding to the views of another liberal Pakistani editor, Omar R. Quraishi, editorial page editor of largest circulation English newspaper The News International.
In his article, Quraishi wrote: "Regrettably, this tendency to act superior than the rest of the world, ignore one's own warts and what not and to blame the rest of the world for all that ills the Islamic world is something that is found in many ordinary Pakistanis as well. Whether they have been influenced by organisations such as the JuD or whether the organisations have been influenced by the society that they have grown up in is not the issue but rather that the value system and worldview of the JuD and the LeT is in fact something that a lot of Pakistanis share -- particularly the view that a Hindu/Zionist/ American conspiracy of sorts has been put in motion to annihilate the Muslim world."
India still has plans to bomb the Muridke headquarters of the terror outfit and many people in the renegade province of Baluchistan believe New Delhi would be fully justified in doing so.
Even Indian Muslims were calling for tit-for-tat against Pakistan's rogue spy service Inter Services Intelligence and elements within the country's omnipotent army--the fourth largest in the world and armed with nuclear weapons. "The attacks were India's 911. The terror infrastructure has to be brought down. If the Congress Party will not act, it will lose the elections," the scion of a leading Muslim family from Mumbai said on a request of anonymity.
Saigol concurring with Quraishi's view on Jamaat ud Daawa gave some glaring examples from textbooks "that they distribute to their students and which are not available openly in the market." She added the books are published by Jamaat ud Daawa press and are given to students free of charge.
"The Mullahs [Islamic cleric] say that the books are meant to 'inspire' and to inculcate a truly Islamic spirit among students and to enable them to view Islam as a complete way of life, rather than as a set of rituals," Saigol said. "Through these textbooks children are given inspirational ideas and introduced to the objectives of Islam as seen by the Mullah. They are thus introduced the glorious Muslim past to inspire them to violence to re-create the past."
She said Jamaat ud Daawa argues that Muslims alone have right to rule the world and are allowed to kill infidels that stand in the way of Islam and this is being taught in textbooks used by the Jamaat ud Daawa.
Saigol said Daawa glorifies violence and hate and teaches the new version of alphabets in which children learn Bandook for Bai, Talwar for Tai, Tank for Ttai, jehaz for jeem and khanjar for khai, rocket for rai and tayyara for To-ay. [In English, all this will translate into G for gun, S for sword, T for tank, J for jet, K for knife, R for rocket and A for airplane.]
"In the Urdu textbook, children are told that infidels are cowards by nature and when a holy warrior attacks them, they scream with terror and fear," she said. "Mujahideen are glorified as being on a mission from Allah and they are superheroes that kill Hindus and make infidels cower in fear," she said, referring from the pages of the textbook.
She deplored games are organized around violence and killing and the children play with guns and learn to shoot at balloons, adding they play guerilla games of ambushing infidels, and in one story, a ten year old boy kills hundreds of Russians in Afghanistan .
She said poems and stories are taught about young boys that wage jihad and children read fictitious letters from jihadis killed in battle. “If I am killed in battle, celebrate”, reads one letter to a mother and sister in the seventh grade textbook, and then admonishes, “Make sure you conceal your body and never wear perfume.” Obscurantists among Muslims call this decadent and sexist practice hijab.
"India is presented as an enemy and Saudi Arabia as a best friend. Kashmir appears as Pakistani territory forcibly snatched by Hindus and Pakistan as a country created only for Muslims."
Saigol said children are instructed to mercilessly beat up non-Muslims and are told in the second grade textbook that every student should become a holy warrior and that they should be willing to lay down their lives for the great nuclear power that is Pakistan.
Quraishi notes: "Another (JuD) post is devoted to Mother's Day, or rather to equating it more or less with paganism. In fact, another post is on how Muslims should beware of doing actions that make them equal to kaafirs [infidels] -- such as celebrating their holy days and festivals. Also, it is clearly mentioned that non-Muslims are kaafirs and should not be even befriended."
Even after passage of a month, Pakistan is still in self-denial about the identity of the Mumbai terrorists. Though Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari initially admitted his country's non-state actors were involved in the Mumbai attacks, under the rogue army's instructions he has made a U-turn since then and said recently there were no solid proofs the lone surviving terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab is a Pakistani national.
Pakistan's leading English newspaper DAWN--owned by a cousin of Hussain Haroon, Pakistan's permanent representative to the United Nations-- recently carried an interview of Kasab's father from the Punjab town of Faridkot, confirming his son's identity. Baring one, all the 10 Mumbai terrorists were from Punjab, stronghold of the Pakistan army.
Evolving Cybersecurity Faces a New Dawn
Commentary by Gen. Stephen R. Lorenz
Air Education and Training Command commander
12/23/2008 - RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFNS) -- "The stark reality is that the bad guys are winning and our nation is at risk."
That's what retired Air Force Lieutenant General Harry Raduege, Jr., writes in an insightful article about cyberspace titled, "Evolving Cybersecurity Faces a New Dawn." As he describes our many challenges in cyberspace, General Raduege observes that "the list of concerns is growing and endless: rampant cybercrime, increasing identity theft, sophisticated social engineering techniques, relentless intrusions into government networks, and widespread vulnerabilities continuously exploited by a variety of entities ranging from criminal organizations and entrepreneurial hackers to well-resourced espionage actors."
Over the last few weeks, we have focused on the security of our computer networks, and we have found that we have big challenges.
The bottom line is that we are at war in cyberspace...today...all the time.
Our enemies are attacking our network -- the same network you use to send e-mails, share documents and access the internet. They are using stealth and surprise to insert malicious code into our network in order to gain intelligence. What is our enemy's intention? We don't know, but it's not friendly.
Chief Master Sergeant Rob Tappana, our command chief, said something that caught my attention. He observed that if our front gate was under attack, we would do something about it. We would reinforce the guards with our security forces, convene the battle staff, increase patrols and raise awareness levels throughout the base. Chief Tappana then pointed at the computer on a nearby desk and said, "We must realize that that's our front gate too."
He is right. We need to think and act like warriors in cyberspace. That's where leadership is essential.
General Raduege describes four stages in our journey to secure cyberspace. The first stage is ignorance. We don't know what we don't know about cyberspace attacks. We are past that stage now. If you didn't know about our vulnerability in cyberspace, you do now.
The second stage is awareness. We now realize that we are at war in cyberspace, and we are vulnerable. We no longer take access to the network for granted -- we realize that it can be taken away unless we take steps to defend it.
The third stage is actualization. We share a sense of urgency that we need to do something about the attacks on our network. We will learn more and more about cybersecurity. We will all work together to reduce our vulnerability and defend the network from attack.
The final stage is the "cyber mindset," where we think and act as warriors in cyberspace just as we do in air and space. We will train to protect ourselves and our networks from attack. We will all be "on patrol" as we look for new threats. Leaders at all levels will measure our vulnerability and direct defensive actions to counter the enemy.
To get to the fourth stage, we are going to have to work through a paradigm shift about security in cyberspace. Many of us, including me in the past, have taken the network for granted. We can't do that anymore. Every computer connected to the network is part of the battlespace. Every person that has access to the network is operating in a combat environment. Everyone must act responsibly, or it opens a hole in our defense.
As I've written before, I believe you are all leaders, because you all have influence over other people in your workplaces, your families and your communities. It's going to take your leadership to help us make this paradigm shift. How do you lead others through change? You work through the stages of change faster than the people around you.
So, as leaders, I ask that you move from awareness to actualization as quickly as possible. Talk to our experts, beginning with our communication professionals. Set the right example by following the procedures and not taking shortcuts. Learn about and use the tools we have today. I promise that more tools are on the way.
I am working through the stages as fast as I can. We are improving the security of our computers at our headquarters, and I have directed that no one is exempt from security measures, including me. If my computer has to restart while I'm in the middle of something, so be it. We must be willing to accept a moderate amount of mission degradation to secure ourselves against the enemy "at the gate."
General Raduege writes that, despite the challenges facing us in cyberspace, he is optimistic that we are "on the verge of a new dawn for cybersecurity." I am optimistic as well, because we are fortunate to have you to help lead us through this change in our mindset. We are at war in cyberspace and we will all need to apply our warrior skills to prevail. Fight's on!
Evolving Cybersecurity Faces a New Dawn
By Lt. Gen. Harry D. Raduege Jr., USAF (Ret.)
December 2008
Over the last two years, we have been inundated with bad news about the state of cybersecurity. The list of concerns is growing and endless: rampant cybercrime, increasing identity theft, sophisticated social engineering techniques, relentless intrusions into government networks, and widespread vulnerabilities continuously exploited by a variety of entities ranging from criminal organizations and entrepreneurial hackers to well-resourced espionage actors. We also are facing the implications of cyberwarfare in light of last year’s cyber attacks against Estonia. In a recent speech on cybersecurity, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff warned, “We’ve entered an era of new threats and vulnerabilities,” and the consequences of failure are exponentially greater.
The stark reality is that the bad guys are winning and our nation is at risk. Given these difficult times, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and believe the situation is hopeless. However, I believe we are on the verge of a new dawn for cybersecurity, and in the coming months we will achieve significant progress in securing our critical networks. We have been on a four-stage journey that began in the late 1990s.
The first stage was ignorance. For the most part, up until 1998 we were clueless as to the vulnerable nature of our networks and the implications of interconnected systems. With the growth of the Internet and increasing dependence of military forces on networked systems as early as the 1991 Gulf War, we have rapidly leveraged the promise of net-centric capabilities. However, our understanding of the need for robust security mechanisms in this new environment was slow to catch up. As information technology boomed in the past two decades, the best young minds flocked to developing the latest and greatest systems—not to protecting data and corporate networks. But then, we entered stage two of the journey.
That second stage constituted awareness. It is no secret now that the Defense Department and other intelligence community members first became dramatically aware of our collective network vulnerabilities based on a series of exercises and actual events that occurred in the late 1990s. These events highlighted significant shortfalls in our cybersecurity posture that ultimately resulted in forerunners of today’s Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations (JTF-GNO), under the authority of U.S. Strategic Command. There is no doubt that JTF-GNO’s experiences in dealing with rampant cyber intrusions over the past three to four years have contributed greatly to focusing senior leadership attention throughout the federal government on this serious issue.
We now are entering phase three of the journey, which is actualization. We understand the nature of the threat and the implications for our nation, and there is a growing sense of urgency. Resources are being mobilized and focused on tackling a problem of global proportions. The President’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI) is on the table. It is not perfect, but it is a good package of efforts that will bear fruit over time. Also, the president just signed new cybercrime legislation—the Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act—that makes it easier for prosecutors to go after cybercriminals. There’s also the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency, which soon will publish sweeping recommendations including the need for a comprehensive National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace.
Congress actively is involved in cybersecurity as well. Representatives Jim Langevin (D-RI) and Michael McCaul (R-TX) recently announced the creation of the first House Cybersecurity Caucus, which will seek to raise awareness and provide a forum to discuss cybersecurity challenges. Legislation making its way through Congress would overhaul the original Federal Information Security Management Act, making information technology security more operationally relevant. Also, a House subcommittee recently began working on legislation that would expand the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s authority to deal with cyberthreats against the nation’s electric power grid. Finally, research and development efforts are being focused to seek leap-ahead cybersecurity technologies. While actions are slowly moving in the right direction, we still are a long way from the last stage.
This fourth stage is the cyber mindset. In this stage, we reach a level of transformation where government, business and individuals are keenly aware of information security mechanisms. Cybersecurity becomes institutionalized and paramount in a rapidly changing information technology environment. In this new cyberculture, the concept of “service-oriented enterprise architectures” will help organizations understand their business environments better while supporting improved information sharing between the public and private sectors. Also, we will have sufficient, but not overburdening, legislation to improve the security of the global networked environment and enable operational resilience to cyberthreats. Strong identity management and authentication capabilities will become more tightly integrated into online transactions involving banking, collaboration and sharing of personal information.
Yet, while all this progress is occurring, cybercriminals, terrorist organizations and espionage forces will continue to focus on countering our best efforts. Obviously, the fourth stage never will reach steady state, but we will achieve a much higher state of effectiveness than today. Good efforts already are underway, and our collective sense of urgency is increasing daily. We certainly are on the verge of a new dawn for cybersecurity as a national priority.
Lt. Gen. Harry D. Raduege Jr., USAF (Ret.), is chairman of the Deloitte Center for Network Innovation.
Air Education and Training Command commander
12/23/2008 - RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFNS) -- "The stark reality is that the bad guys are winning and our nation is at risk."
That's what retired Air Force Lieutenant General Harry Raduege, Jr., writes in an insightful article about cyberspace titled, "Evolving Cybersecurity Faces a New Dawn." As he describes our many challenges in cyberspace, General Raduege observes that "the list of concerns is growing and endless: rampant cybercrime, increasing identity theft, sophisticated social engineering techniques, relentless intrusions into government networks, and widespread vulnerabilities continuously exploited by a variety of entities ranging from criminal organizations and entrepreneurial hackers to well-resourced espionage actors."
Over the last few weeks, we have focused on the security of our computer networks, and we have found that we have big challenges.
The bottom line is that we are at war in cyberspace...today...all the time.
Our enemies are attacking our network -- the same network you use to send e-mails, share documents and access the internet. They are using stealth and surprise to insert malicious code into our network in order to gain intelligence. What is our enemy's intention? We don't know, but it's not friendly.
Chief Master Sergeant Rob Tappana, our command chief, said something that caught my attention. He observed that if our front gate was under attack, we would do something about it. We would reinforce the guards with our security forces, convene the battle staff, increase patrols and raise awareness levels throughout the base. Chief Tappana then pointed at the computer on a nearby desk and said, "We must realize that that's our front gate too."
He is right. We need to think and act like warriors in cyberspace. That's where leadership is essential.
General Raduege describes four stages in our journey to secure cyberspace. The first stage is ignorance. We don't know what we don't know about cyberspace attacks. We are past that stage now. If you didn't know about our vulnerability in cyberspace, you do now.
The second stage is awareness. We now realize that we are at war in cyberspace, and we are vulnerable. We no longer take access to the network for granted -- we realize that it can be taken away unless we take steps to defend it.
The third stage is actualization. We share a sense of urgency that we need to do something about the attacks on our network. We will learn more and more about cybersecurity. We will all work together to reduce our vulnerability and defend the network from attack.
The final stage is the "cyber mindset," where we think and act as warriors in cyberspace just as we do in air and space. We will train to protect ourselves and our networks from attack. We will all be "on patrol" as we look for new threats. Leaders at all levels will measure our vulnerability and direct defensive actions to counter the enemy.
To get to the fourth stage, we are going to have to work through a paradigm shift about security in cyberspace. Many of us, including me in the past, have taken the network for granted. We can't do that anymore. Every computer connected to the network is part of the battlespace. Every person that has access to the network is operating in a combat environment. Everyone must act responsibly, or it opens a hole in our defense.
As I've written before, I believe you are all leaders, because you all have influence over other people in your workplaces, your families and your communities. It's going to take your leadership to help us make this paradigm shift. How do you lead others through change? You work through the stages of change faster than the people around you.
So, as leaders, I ask that you move from awareness to actualization as quickly as possible. Talk to our experts, beginning with our communication professionals. Set the right example by following the procedures and not taking shortcuts. Learn about and use the tools we have today. I promise that more tools are on the way.
I am working through the stages as fast as I can. We are improving the security of our computers at our headquarters, and I have directed that no one is exempt from security measures, including me. If my computer has to restart while I'm in the middle of something, so be it. We must be willing to accept a moderate amount of mission degradation to secure ourselves against the enemy "at the gate."
General Raduege writes that, despite the challenges facing us in cyberspace, he is optimistic that we are "on the verge of a new dawn for cybersecurity." I am optimistic as well, because we are fortunate to have you to help lead us through this change in our mindset. We are at war in cyberspace and we will all need to apply our warrior skills to prevail. Fight's on!
Evolving Cybersecurity Faces a New Dawn
By Lt. Gen. Harry D. Raduege Jr., USAF (Ret.)
December 2008
Over the last two years, we have been inundated with bad news about the state of cybersecurity. The list of concerns is growing and endless: rampant cybercrime, increasing identity theft, sophisticated social engineering techniques, relentless intrusions into government networks, and widespread vulnerabilities continuously exploited by a variety of entities ranging from criminal organizations and entrepreneurial hackers to well-resourced espionage actors. We also are facing the implications of cyberwarfare in light of last year’s cyber attacks against Estonia. In a recent speech on cybersecurity, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff warned, “We’ve entered an era of new threats and vulnerabilities,” and the consequences of failure are exponentially greater.
The stark reality is that the bad guys are winning and our nation is at risk. Given these difficult times, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and believe the situation is hopeless. However, I believe we are on the verge of a new dawn for cybersecurity, and in the coming months we will achieve significant progress in securing our critical networks. We have been on a four-stage journey that began in the late 1990s.
The first stage was ignorance. For the most part, up until 1998 we were clueless as to the vulnerable nature of our networks and the implications of interconnected systems. With the growth of the Internet and increasing dependence of military forces on networked systems as early as the 1991 Gulf War, we have rapidly leveraged the promise of net-centric capabilities. However, our understanding of the need for robust security mechanisms in this new environment was slow to catch up. As information technology boomed in the past two decades, the best young minds flocked to developing the latest and greatest systems—not to protecting data and corporate networks. But then, we entered stage two of the journey.
That second stage constituted awareness. It is no secret now that the Defense Department and other intelligence community members first became dramatically aware of our collective network vulnerabilities based on a series of exercises and actual events that occurred in the late 1990s. These events highlighted significant shortfalls in our cybersecurity posture that ultimately resulted in forerunners of today’s Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations (JTF-GNO), under the authority of U.S. Strategic Command. There is no doubt that JTF-GNO’s experiences in dealing with rampant cyber intrusions over the past three to four years have contributed greatly to focusing senior leadership attention throughout the federal government on this serious issue.
We now are entering phase three of the journey, which is actualization. We understand the nature of the threat and the implications for our nation, and there is a growing sense of urgency. Resources are being mobilized and focused on tackling a problem of global proportions. The President’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI) is on the table. It is not perfect, but it is a good package of efforts that will bear fruit over time. Also, the president just signed new cybercrime legislation—the Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act—that makes it easier for prosecutors to go after cybercriminals. There’s also the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency, which soon will publish sweeping recommendations including the need for a comprehensive National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace.
Congress actively is involved in cybersecurity as well. Representatives Jim Langevin (D-RI) and Michael McCaul (R-TX) recently announced the creation of the first House Cybersecurity Caucus, which will seek to raise awareness and provide a forum to discuss cybersecurity challenges. Legislation making its way through Congress would overhaul the original Federal Information Security Management Act, making information technology security more operationally relevant. Also, a House subcommittee recently began working on legislation that would expand the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s authority to deal with cyberthreats against the nation’s electric power grid. Finally, research and development efforts are being focused to seek leap-ahead cybersecurity technologies. While actions are slowly moving in the right direction, we still are a long way from the last stage.
This fourth stage is the cyber mindset. In this stage, we reach a level of transformation where government, business and individuals are keenly aware of information security mechanisms. Cybersecurity becomes institutionalized and paramount in a rapidly changing information technology environment. In this new cyberculture, the concept of “service-oriented enterprise architectures” will help organizations understand their business environments better while supporting improved information sharing between the public and private sectors. Also, we will have sufficient, but not overburdening, legislation to improve the security of the global networked environment and enable operational resilience to cyberthreats. Strong identity management and authentication capabilities will become more tightly integrated into online transactions involving banking, collaboration and sharing of personal information.
Yet, while all this progress is occurring, cybercriminals, terrorist organizations and espionage forces will continue to focus on countering our best efforts. Obviously, the fourth stage never will reach steady state, but we will achieve a much higher state of effectiveness than today. Good efforts already are underway, and our collective sense of urgency is increasing daily. We certainly are on the verge of a new dawn for cybersecurity as a national priority.
Lt. Gen. Harry D. Raduege Jr., USAF (Ret.), is chairman of the Deloitte Center for Network Innovation.
U.S. draws India into the Afghan war
The Hindu
M.K. Bhadrakumar
The time has come to carefully assess the U.S. motivations in widening the gyre of the Afghan war, which commenced seven years ago.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States armed forces, Admiral Mike Mullen, has lent his voice to the incipient idea of a “regional” approach to the Afghanistan problem. He said the over-arching strategy for success in Afghanistan must be regional in focus and include not just Afghanistan but also Pakistan and India. The three South Asian countries, he stressed, must figure a way to reduce tensions among them, which involves addressing &# 8220;long-standing problems that increase instability in the region.”
Adm. Mullen then referred to Kashmir as one such problem to underline that if India-Pakistan tensions decreased, it “allowed the Pakistani leadership to focus on the west [border with Afghanistan].” He regretted that the terror attack in Mumbai raised India-Pakistan tensions, and “in the near term, that might force the Pakistani leadership to lose interest in the west,” apart from the likelihood of a nuclear flashpoint. Interestingly, he gave credit to the Pakistani top brass for its recent cooperation in the tribal areas which, he said, has had a “positive impact” on the anti-Taliban operations.
The Pentagon’s number one soldier has legitimised an idea that was straining to be born — U.S. mediatory mission in South Asia. Adm. Mullen announced that the U.S. was doubling its force level in Afghanistan from the present strength of 32,000 troops. The Afghan war is about to intensify. All this comes in the wake of the recent hint by Senator John Kerry that the appointment of a U.S. special envoy for South Asia by the Obama administration is on the cards.
The time has indeed come to carefully assess the U.S. motivations in widening the gyre of the Afghan war, which commenced seven years ago as a vengeful hunt for Osama bin Laden and metamorphosed into a “war on terror.” What is in it for India? It is very obvious that the U.S. thought process on a “regional approach” to the Afghan problem and the appointment of a South Asia envoy go hand in hand. The U.S. design confronts India with a three-fold challenge: it insists that India is a protagonist in the U.S.-led war; India-Pakistan relationship is a crucial factor of regional security and stability which directly affects the U.S. interests and, therefore, necessitates an institutionalised American mediatory role; and, it asserts a U.S. obligation to be involved in “nation-building” in South Asia on a long-term footing.
Vulnerable to U.S. pressure
Islamabad will be chuckling with pleasure. The parameters of its foreign policy, which Indian diplomacy rubbished for decades, are finally gaining habitation and name. The heart of the matter is that India has made itself vulnerable to U.S. pressure. Of all Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries that are exposed to the danger of militancy, India is the only “non-combatant” threatened with a spill-over. The Central Asian countries bordering Amu Darya, though much weaker than India, have marvellously insulated themselves from the pernicious fallout from the Hindu Kush. So has China’s Xinjiang. So indeed has Iran despite robust efforts by the U.S.-British intelligence to inject the virus of terrorism into its eastern provinces. Certainly, Moscow managed to insulate Chechnya too.
Alas, India stands out as the solitary exception. If diplomacy is the first line of national defence, there have been shortfalls. The slide began, in retrospect, when the Indian foreign policy seriously erred in 2001 while assessing the implications of the U.S.’ march into Afghanistan. Except India, the regional powers that took part in the Bonn conference in December 2001 seem to have had a Plan B. Our diplomats blithely travelled in the U.S. bandwagon as one-dimensional men fixated over Pakistan, comfortable in their assumption that the underpinning of a strong “partnership” with the U.S. elevated India from the morass of its regional milieu, opening up in front of it a brave new world as the pre-eminent power in the Indian Ocean region. They remained sure that Pakistan would be a passing aberration in the U.S. regional policy, whereas India would be a life-long blissful partner. And all that was needed was for us to keep an obscure back channel to Pakistan from time to time.
The cold blast of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai scatters these facile assumptions. After all, the accumulated debris of India-Pakistan tensions did not go away and the past four years have been a chronicle of wasted time, as the relationship is in ground zero. The Mumbai attacks underscore that the Afghan war has crossed the Khyber and is stealthily reaching the fertile Indo-Gangetic plains. Our opinion still underestimates the gravity of the unfolding crisis by visualising it as merely an India-Pakistan dogfight, which it certainly is but is far from everything. Adm. Mullen has done a signal service by starkly placing the crisis in its setting.
Fortunately, we stopped in the nick of time from plunging into the Afghan cauldron via a military intervention from which there would have been no turning back. This fortuitous happenstance leaves us some options to incrementally step back from becoming part of the lethal brew that the witches are concocting in the Hindu Kush.
Way ahead
What is to be done? First, we need to realise that the Afghan war is a classic Clausewitzean affair politics by other means. The U.S. has ensured a permanent presence in the strategic highlands of the Pamir mountains. Even the current highly simulated disruption of transit routes for NATO supplies via the Pakistani territory is providing a pretext for the establishment of fresh U.S. military presence in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and in the Caucasus for the first time ever. While the U.S.’ close partnership with the Pakistani military continues intact, the search for new supply routes becomes the perfect backdrop for ruthlessly expanding American influence in the Russian and Chinese (and Iranian) backyards in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
This signifies a great leap forward for NATO, which is poised to wade ashore from the Black Sea into the Caucasus and Central Asia. Also, the U.S. is effectively undercutting the raison d’etre of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. In short, the “war on terror” is providing a convenient rubric under which the U.S. is incrementally securing for itself a permanent abode in the highlands of the Pamirs, the Central Asian steppes and the Caucasus that form the strategic hub overlooking Russia, China, India and Iran.
We must, therefore, be vigilant about the veiled U.S. threat of reopening the “Kashmir file,” which Admiral Mullen held out. It aims at keeping India off balance. Plainly put, the U.S. faces a real geopolitical challenge in the region only in the eventuality of a coalition of like-minded regional powers like Russia, China, Iran and India taking shape and these powers seriously beginning to exchange notes on what the Afghan war has so far been about and where it is heading and what the U.S. strategy aims at. So far, the U.S. has succeeded in stalling such a process by “sorting out” these regional powers individually. Indeed, Washington has been a net beneficiary of the contradictions in the mutual relations between these regional powers.
If Barack Obama genuinely wants to end the bloodshed and the suffering in Afghanistan, tackle terrorism effectively and enduringly, as well as stabilise Afghanistan and secure South Asia as a stable region, all he needs to do is to turn away from the great game, and instead seek an inclusive inter-Afghan settlement facilitated by a genuine regional peace process. The existential choice is whether he will break with the past U.S. policies out of principle. Surely, as Adm. Mullen’s statements underscore, Mr. Obama will run into the vested interests of the U.S. security establishment, the military-industrial complex, Big Oil and the influential corpus of cold warriors who are bent on pressing ahead. India must, therefore, take note that the war in the Hindu Kush enters a decisive phase for the New American Century project.
Independent policy
The need arises for India to revive close consultations with Russia and Iran with which we have profound shared concerns over the Afghan problem and regional security. We must steer an independent policy towards Iran as a factor of regional stability. It is not in the interests of Russia, Iran and India to abandon Afghanistan to the U.S.-U.K.-Pakistan-Saudi condominium. They must use their influence on Afghan groups to chisel a regional peace initiative. In a helpful departure, China also took a differentiated approach to the recent U.N. Security Council move regarding Pakistani militant outfits, which we must take note of and build on. Finally, of course, while there is a time for everything, India must eventually resume the arduous search to make Pakistan a stakeholder in good neighbourly relations. The U.S. factor complicates this search, which is best undertaken bilaterally.
The wheel has come full circle. Those who sold us the dream of a U.S.-India strategic partnership are nowhere to be seen.
(The writer is a former ambassador and Indian Foreign Service officer.)
M.K. Bhadrakumar
The time has come to carefully assess the U.S. motivations in widening the gyre of the Afghan war, which commenced seven years ago.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States armed forces, Admiral Mike Mullen, has lent his voice to the incipient idea of a “regional” approach to the Afghanistan problem. He said the over-arching strategy for success in Afghanistan must be regional in focus and include not just Afghanistan but also Pakistan and India. The three South Asian countries, he stressed, must figure a way to reduce tensions among them, which involves addressing &# 8220;long-standing problems that increase instability in the region.”
Adm. Mullen then referred to Kashmir as one such problem to underline that if India-Pakistan tensions decreased, it “allowed the Pakistani leadership to focus on the west [border with Afghanistan].” He regretted that the terror attack in Mumbai raised India-Pakistan tensions, and “in the near term, that might force the Pakistani leadership to lose interest in the west,” apart from the likelihood of a nuclear flashpoint. Interestingly, he gave credit to the Pakistani top brass for its recent cooperation in the tribal areas which, he said, has had a “positive impact” on the anti-Taliban operations.
The Pentagon’s number one soldier has legitimised an idea that was straining to be born — U.S. mediatory mission in South Asia. Adm. Mullen announced that the U.S. was doubling its force level in Afghanistan from the present strength of 32,000 troops. The Afghan war is about to intensify. All this comes in the wake of the recent hint by Senator John Kerry that the appointment of a U.S. special envoy for South Asia by the Obama administration is on the cards.
The time has indeed come to carefully assess the U.S. motivations in widening the gyre of the Afghan war, which commenced seven years ago as a vengeful hunt for Osama bin Laden and metamorphosed into a “war on terror.” What is in it for India? It is very obvious that the U.S. thought process on a “regional approach” to the Afghan problem and the appointment of a South Asia envoy go hand in hand. The U.S. design confronts India with a three-fold challenge: it insists that India is a protagonist in the U.S.-led war; India-Pakistan relationship is a crucial factor of regional security and stability which directly affects the U.S. interests and, therefore, necessitates an institutionalised American mediatory role; and, it asserts a U.S. obligation to be involved in “nation-building” in South Asia on a long-term footing.
Vulnerable to U.S. pressure
Islamabad will be chuckling with pleasure. The parameters of its foreign policy, which Indian diplomacy rubbished for decades, are finally gaining habitation and name. The heart of the matter is that India has made itself vulnerable to U.S. pressure. Of all Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries that are exposed to the danger of militancy, India is the only “non-combatant” threatened with a spill-over. The Central Asian countries bordering Amu Darya, though much weaker than India, have marvellously insulated themselves from the pernicious fallout from the Hindu Kush. So has China’s Xinjiang. So indeed has Iran despite robust efforts by the U.S.-British intelligence to inject the virus of terrorism into its eastern provinces. Certainly, Moscow managed to insulate Chechnya too.
Alas, India stands out as the solitary exception. If diplomacy is the first line of national defence, there have been shortfalls. The slide began, in retrospect, when the Indian foreign policy seriously erred in 2001 while assessing the implications of the U.S.’ march into Afghanistan. Except India, the regional powers that took part in the Bonn conference in December 2001 seem to have had a Plan B. Our diplomats blithely travelled in the U.S. bandwagon as one-dimensional men fixated over Pakistan, comfortable in their assumption that the underpinning of a strong “partnership” with the U.S. elevated India from the morass of its regional milieu, opening up in front of it a brave new world as the pre-eminent power in the Indian Ocean region. They remained sure that Pakistan would be a passing aberration in the U.S. regional policy, whereas India would be a life-long blissful partner. And all that was needed was for us to keep an obscure back channel to Pakistan from time to time.
The cold blast of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai scatters these facile assumptions. After all, the accumulated debris of India-Pakistan tensions did not go away and the past four years have been a chronicle of wasted time, as the relationship is in ground zero. The Mumbai attacks underscore that the Afghan war has crossed the Khyber and is stealthily reaching the fertile Indo-Gangetic plains. Our opinion still underestimates the gravity of the unfolding crisis by visualising it as merely an India-Pakistan dogfight, which it certainly is but is far from everything. Adm. Mullen has done a signal service by starkly placing the crisis in its setting.
Fortunately, we stopped in the nick of time from plunging into the Afghan cauldron via a military intervention from which there would have been no turning back. This fortuitous happenstance leaves us some options to incrementally step back from becoming part of the lethal brew that the witches are concocting in the Hindu Kush.
Way ahead
What is to be done? First, we need to realise that the Afghan war is a classic Clausewitzean affair politics by other means. The U.S. has ensured a permanent presence in the strategic highlands of the Pamir mountains. Even the current highly simulated disruption of transit routes for NATO supplies via the Pakistani territory is providing a pretext for the establishment of fresh U.S. military presence in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and in the Caucasus for the first time ever. While the U.S.’ close partnership with the Pakistani military continues intact, the search for new supply routes becomes the perfect backdrop for ruthlessly expanding American influence in the Russian and Chinese (and Iranian) backyards in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
This signifies a great leap forward for NATO, which is poised to wade ashore from the Black Sea into the Caucasus and Central Asia. Also, the U.S. is effectively undercutting the raison d’etre of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. In short, the “war on terror” is providing a convenient rubric under which the U.S. is incrementally securing for itself a permanent abode in the highlands of the Pamirs, the Central Asian steppes and the Caucasus that form the strategic hub overlooking Russia, China, India and Iran.
We must, therefore, be vigilant about the veiled U.S. threat of reopening the “Kashmir file,” which Admiral Mullen held out. It aims at keeping India off balance. Plainly put, the U.S. faces a real geopolitical challenge in the region only in the eventuality of a coalition of like-minded regional powers like Russia, China, Iran and India taking shape and these powers seriously beginning to exchange notes on what the Afghan war has so far been about and where it is heading and what the U.S. strategy aims at. So far, the U.S. has succeeded in stalling such a process by “sorting out” these regional powers individually. Indeed, Washington has been a net beneficiary of the contradictions in the mutual relations between these regional powers.
If Barack Obama genuinely wants to end the bloodshed and the suffering in Afghanistan, tackle terrorism effectively and enduringly, as well as stabilise Afghanistan and secure South Asia as a stable region, all he needs to do is to turn away from the great game, and instead seek an inclusive inter-Afghan settlement facilitated by a genuine regional peace process. The existential choice is whether he will break with the past U.S. policies out of principle. Surely, as Adm. Mullen’s statements underscore, Mr. Obama will run into the vested interests of the U.S. security establishment, the military-industrial complex, Big Oil and the influential corpus of cold warriors who are bent on pressing ahead. India must, therefore, take note that the war in the Hindu Kush enters a decisive phase for the New American Century project.
Independent policy
The need arises for India to revive close consultations with Russia and Iran with which we have profound shared concerns over the Afghan problem and regional security. We must steer an independent policy towards Iran as a factor of regional stability. It is not in the interests of Russia, Iran and India to abandon Afghanistan to the U.S.-U.K.-Pakistan-Saudi condominium. They must use their influence on Afghan groups to chisel a regional peace initiative. In a helpful departure, China also took a differentiated approach to the recent U.N. Security Council move regarding Pakistani militant outfits, which we must take note of and build on. Finally, of course, while there is a time for everything, India must eventually resume the arduous search to make Pakistan a stakeholder in good neighbourly relations. The U.S. factor complicates this search, which is best undertaken bilaterally.
The wheel has come full circle. Those who sold us the dream of a U.S.-India strategic partnership are nowhere to be seen.
(The writer is a former ambassador and Indian Foreign Service officer.)
Barbarism in Swat
DAWN, Pakistan
By Khurshid Khan
SWAT’S Sangota Public School was blown to smithereens on Oct 7, 2008 — a dark day in the history of the area.
This convent school was established in 1964 by Miangul Jahanzeb, popularly known as Wali sahib, the last ruler of Swat who not only donated land for the school but also provided generous financial aid for its construction and operations. It was renowned for its quality of education in the entire Malakand region.
This epitome of architectural perfection was situated in a beautiful and enchanting location on the left bank of the meandering and bounteous Swat river, spreading the light of education. Most of the teachers were Irish nuns who had devoted their lives to educating Swat’s children. They arrived in the bloom of their youth and returned in the autumn of their lives. They also educated the young girls in neighbouring villages and hamlets, without any thought of financial gains, teaching them the same courses as were being taught in the school in the morning.
A co-education system was in place until the 1990s but after the establishment of Excelsior College, the boys were shifted there and from then onwards only girls were admitted to this prestigious school. The school was closed on the DCO Swat’s orders because of the turbulence and volatile atmosphere in Swat much against the wishes of the students’ parents. The school administration decided to vacate the premises and as soon as it was vacated, it was razed to the ground by militants the next day, as was the premises of Excelsior College.
The first school in Swat was established in 1922 by Miangul Abdul Wadood. Both boys and girls were educated here until the primary level. It was not until 1926 when a separate school was established for girls. His successor Miangul Jehanzeb established a network of schools and colleges in the whole of Swat, Buner, Shanglapar and Indus-Kohistan which were then a part of the Swat state.
Education was not only encouraged but free. Scholarships were awarded and students were sent to western countries for higher education. Those who completed their education were given attractive employment. Thanks to these incentives, people swarmed to Swat for education. Students from Dir, Chitral, Malakand, Charsadda, Mardan, Swabi and other parts of the country turned to Swat for education.
After the merger of Swat state in 1969, several other schools and colleges in the public sector were opened, especially girls’ schools and colleges. Private schools also emerged. Gradually, Swat came to be regarded as a centre of learning by adjoining districts. But this evolution of education was strangulated by the militants in 2007 and 2008. Swat is now being pushed back to the pre-1922 period. Even then there were no militants who destroyed their own people.
Adjoining districts Shangla, Buner and Dir have suffered equally adverse effects. The people of these areas sent their children to Swat for education but now they are compelled to send their children to Peshawar, even to Punjab, where expenses are comparatively high.
Meanwhile, back to the Sangota Public School. The religious extremists and rival private schools generated negative propaganda against it but parents were not taken in by these rumours and continued to send their children to school there. They knew that not a single student had been converted to Christianity.
The people of the nearby villages looted the furniture, libraries, computers and other precious accessories of Sangota Public School and Excelsior College after their destruction declaring it war booty. The vandalism and looting continued all day. Security forces stationed in the overlooking mountains watched this humiliating process but still remained silent and unmoved. Eyewitnesses say that even if the forces had fired in the air, the looting would have stopped.
Taliban spokesperson Muslim Khan in a BBC interview alleged that the school had been following a co-educational system and was also preaching Christianity. Therefore, its signs had to be obliterated. But what about the scores of other schools where there was no linkage whatsoever with co-education or Christianity? Why were these demolished?
There may be two hidden motives, i.e. to discourage education and increase poverty in Swat. Ignorance and poverty breed extremism and this is actually happening in Swat. Unemployment is on the rise. People are drawn towards militancy because they are given a handsome remuneration for becoming one of the Taliban. State-of-the-art weapons, handsome salaries and the assurance of paradise in the hereafter are some of the temptations that lure the youth.
These young men are the major source of strength and power for militant leaders. Through them militants have succeeded in banishing the influential people of Swat and have compelled political leaders to kneel before them. Police do not dare to patrol the areas and the army is very cautious in its movements and operations here.
The barbaric Huns destroyed the Gandhara civilisation in the 5th century AD and burnt to ashes educational institutions including the university at Taxila. Today, all the laboriously constructed educational institutions are once again the victims of vandalism. Precious cultural antiquities are being destroyed. These barbaric activities are certainly the handiwork of a strange and peculiar mindset.
It is shocking and surprising that as schools and colleges in Swat are being levelled to the ground one after the other, the people do not protest and the government is averse to taking serious action. Parliamentarians are also silent spectators. Their tongues are tied and their hands fastened.
The process of Talibanisation is progressing in Swat. There are many simple-headed people there who either openly or secretly support the movement, all in ignorance and clearing the ground for it. The valley is fertile and all the ingredients of building and maintaining a civilisation are there in abundance. In spite of possessing all these valuable resources, if we still keep silent, then barbarism will certainly replace civilisation in the valley.
One hopes that the demolition of educational institutions, especially of girls’ schools, does not mean that the people of Swat will stop educating their children. After all, the wheel of time is not meant to reverse its direction; it must move forward.
Three Innovative elements of "French White Paper on Defense and National Security"
The French White Paper on Defense and National Security
This analysis examines the French white paper published in June 2008, and argues that France has embarked on an in-depth overhaul of its security and defense strategy. The author identifies three innovative elements in the white paper.
First, France is shifting its focus from spheres of influence to a 'strategic arc' of instability that stretches from the Atlantic via the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf and Horn of Africa and on to South Asia.
Second, the white paper puts greater emphasis on intelligence.
Third, it approves France's reintegration into NATO's integrated military command structure.
© 2008 Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich
Download: English (PDF · 3 pages · 450 KB)
Author: Claudia Major
Series: CSS Analyses in Security Policy
Volume: 3
Issue: 46
Publisher: Center for Security Studies (CSS), Zurich, Switzerland
"Gas OPEC" will not fiddle with prices
20:32 | 24/ 12/ 2008
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti economic commentator Vlad Grinkevich) - Speaking at the opening of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said: "The era of cheap gas is coming to an end." However, his forecast is not likely to come true in the near future.
Now that the GECF has adopted a charter, it has become an official institution, but the charter does not provide for regulating gas production volumes like OPEC does with oil, and therefore the GECF will not be able to modulate prices like OPEC.
Organized in 2001, the 16-member GECF existed as a discussion club until yesterday. Its members were not restricted by written commitments, and met merely to discuss the urgent problems of the gas industry. Talk of establishing a cartel to modulate global gas prices was common for some time, but while these prices were steadily climbing, gas exporters preferred not to adopt formal commitments. They limited themselves to non-committal consultations once a year. The economic crisis has now compelled them to agree on common actions.
A sensational report came from Tehran in late October. Thee countries - Russia, Iran, and Qatar, which account for more than 60% of the world's natural gas reserves, ostensibly agreed to create a gas OPEC. It transpired that they were merely toying with the idea of the Big Three, and that the GECF charter was expected to be signed in Moscow in November.
Now the charter has been signed but its text has yet to be published. Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said that the charter does not say a word about regulating gas production. It deals with rules for supplying gas consumers, cooperative work on liquefied natural gas (LNG), introduction of new technologies in the gas industry, and exchange of information on investment projects.
Formation of the Big Three was not removed from the agenda, although it hardly seems likely today because of strong contradictions between the three countries. Iran, for example, wants the cartel to be modeled after OPEC that regulates production to push up prices. This is a very difficult task because, as distinct from oil, there is no global gas market. Also, Tehran's position runs counter to Moscow's.
Russia would like the would-be cartel to engage in joint projects to build gas pipelines. This is only natural since Gazprom has contracts to supply gas to Europe for the next 30 years. Russia is looking for ways to transport Central Asian gas to Europe via Russia instead of the Caspian Sea bottom or via Iran.
The third potential member of the gas OPEC, Qatar, has its own gas projects, all of which focus on supplying Europe with LNG. If it limits these exports to raise prices, it will be quickly replaced as a supplier by rivals.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti economic commentator Vlad Grinkevich) - Speaking at the opening of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said: "The era of cheap gas is coming to an end." However, his forecast is not likely to come true in the near future.
Now that the GECF has adopted a charter, it has become an official institution, but the charter does not provide for regulating gas production volumes like OPEC does with oil, and therefore the GECF will not be able to modulate prices like OPEC.
Organized in 2001, the 16-member GECF existed as a discussion club until yesterday. Its members were not restricted by written commitments, and met merely to discuss the urgent problems of the gas industry. Talk of establishing a cartel to modulate global gas prices was common for some time, but while these prices were steadily climbing, gas exporters preferred not to adopt formal commitments. They limited themselves to non-committal consultations once a year. The economic crisis has now compelled them to agree on common actions.
A sensational report came from Tehran in late October. Thee countries - Russia, Iran, and Qatar, which account for more than 60% of the world's natural gas reserves, ostensibly agreed to create a gas OPEC. It transpired that they were merely toying with the idea of the Big Three, and that the GECF charter was expected to be signed in Moscow in November.
Now the charter has been signed but its text has yet to be published. Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said that the charter does not say a word about regulating gas production. It deals with rules for supplying gas consumers, cooperative work on liquefied natural gas (LNG), introduction of new technologies in the gas industry, and exchange of information on investment projects.
Formation of the Big Three was not removed from the agenda, although it hardly seems likely today because of strong contradictions between the three countries. Iran, for example, wants the cartel to be modeled after OPEC that regulates production to push up prices. This is a very difficult task because, as distinct from oil, there is no global gas market. Also, Tehran's position runs counter to Moscow's.
Russia would like the would-be cartel to engage in joint projects to build gas pipelines. This is only natural since Gazprom has contracts to supply gas to Europe for the next 30 years. Russia is looking for ways to transport Central Asian gas to Europe via Russia instead of the Caspian Sea bottom or via Iran.
The third potential member of the gas OPEC, Qatar, has its own gas projects, all of which focus on supplying Europe with LNG. If it limits these exports to raise prices, it will be quickly replaced as a supplier by rivals.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
Class is a dirty word
25.12.2008
Source: Pravda.Ru
URL: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/106869-class_dirty_word-0
“Class is a dirty word in that it gets close to the truth about who governs and for whose benefit.” -Michael Parenti
In the land of those who think they’re free and the home of savage capitalism, class is indeed a dirty word. Remember, we’re a nation of Joe the Plumbers. If we just work hard enough and fend off those socialist vampires who want to suck us dry by redistributing our hard-earned wealth, we can all be financial successes. And if you’re a faux-progressive presidential candidate—like Obama, you’re doomed to political perdition unless you sign a blood oath disavowing your ties to socialism.
Yet there are a few political analysts and academics who dare to blaspheme against capitalism, which is the “God” this benighted land truly worships—despite the disgustingly hypocritical veneer of faux Christianity. Remember that Michael Parenti has one of the filthiest mouths you’ll ever hear. He dares to repeatedly spew profane diatribes against capitalism, the sacrosanct basis for our precious American Way of Life. Parenti has the chutzpah to derisively attack our system, which we all know is the best that’s ever been (or will be), by asserting that there are divisions amongst US Americans based on socioeconomic standing. And worst of all? He uses the “C” word! Somebody needs to give his mouth a good cleansing with a bar of Dial!
Parenti recently answered a few questions Jason Miller threw his way. Let’s see how much further he traveled on the road to perdition…..
Jason Miller: You’re one of the best kept secrets of the “American Left” (ridiculously marginalized and small in number as we are). Why is it that despite your brilliant critiques, particularly of bourgeois revisionist history, you remain relatively obscure even amongst the more radical segment of the US population?
Michael Parenti: It’s really not all that bad. People do describe me as “widely acclaimed” and “internationally known” etc. and I do reach varied audiences in North America and abroad with my writings, lectures, and interviews. But it is true that there are sectarian or small minded elements on the left– including some very prominent figures–who are quiet practitioners of McCarthyism in that they exclude or try to isolate anyone who (a) places a strong emphasis on the realities of class power (b) occasionally uses a Marxist analysis or (c) finds some things of value in existing socialist societies that are worthy of being preserved, such as human services, guaranteed right to a job, free education, free medical care, affordable housing for all, etc. These societies, now mostly defunct, have been deemed by most of the left as worthy of nothing but a constant unremitting denunciation.
JM: Do you think the bourgeoisie has begun demonizing environmentalists and animal rights advocates because they perceive us to be a legitimate threat to the system, is the Green Scare simply another aspect of the divide and conquer tactic, do animal and Earth exploiters wield that much power within the system, is it a combination of these, or something more?
MP: The purveyors of free-market global capitalism believe that they have a right to plunder the remaining natural resources of this planet as they choose. Anyone who challenges their agenda is to be subjected to whatever misrepresentation and calumny that serves the free market corporate agenda.
JM: How has the capitalist class in the US been so successful at convincing the masses that we live in a “classless society” and etching a cultural standard in granite that it is taboo to discuss class issues?
MP: Through control of the universe of discourse, including the media, the professions, the universities, the publishing industry, many of the churches, the consumer society, the job market, and even the very socialization of our children and the prefiguring of our own perceptions, the ruling interests are able to exercise a prevailing ideological control that excludes any reasoned critique of the dominant paradigm. Class is a dirty word in that it gets close to the truth about who governs and for whose benefit.
JM: What are your thoughts on Obama and what change we may see under his presidency?
MP: I greeted Obama’s electoral victory with very little enthusiasm but much relief that the lying slime- bag right-wing John McCain was defeated. I think Obama will be another Bill Clinton, perhaps not as bad. Some people see his accession to the White House as a great historic victory for African Americans and for democracy. But I am not all that impressed. When the victory is extended into social democratic policies that have a salutary effect on millions of struggling impoverished African-Americans and other working poor, then I’ll start dancing in the streets.
JM: Prior to Obama’s election, a number of radical thinkers posited that the US was in a pre-revolutionary stage. What impact do you think the Obama administration will have on the potential of consciousness, anger, and social unrest reaching critical mass amongst the working class in the US in the near future? Or better yet, are you even optimistic that the American people will catch fire and revolt against our wretchedly rapacious and imperialistic system?
MP: I do not think we are entering a pre-revolutionary stage. However political struggle can be a surprising phenomenon emerging with great democratic force and sudden movement in the most unexpected ways. We are approaching an economic crisis of momentous scope. The radical reactions may not be all that progressive and rational. The unfortunate thing about corporate capitalism is that it is often advantaged by the very wretched conditions it itself creates. I am hoping that the social groups that have been activated by Obama’s campaign will not go to sleep and will not let up the pressure for progressive change.
JM: What do you say to critics who assert that socialism is a utopian dream in the abstract and a nightmare in reality?
MP: Your question is a paraphrase of the one I posed in my book, Democracy for the Few. “Is socialism not just a dream in theory and a nightmare in practice?” In response I pointed out that the features which make life livable in capitalist society are mostly socialistic in practice, including human services, infrastructure development, environmental protections, and even many technological advances that are funded or even created by government sources.
JM: With Castro hanging in there and now Chavez, Morales, Correa, and Ortega in place, to what extent do you think socialism will continue to expand and flourish in Latin America ?
MP: It is not likely that the reforms in Latin America will really lead to socialism but at least to some gains for the most desperately oppressed.
JM: Some argue that there is a “third way” that represents a better alternative to capitalism than socialism. Your thoughts?
MP: Maybe they are referring to the social democracy that is found in some Western European countries that provide decent human services and better regulation of corporate doings. But even these social democracies are under attack and face rollback Look at what has happened to Britain .
Michael Parenti interviewed by Jason Miller
Michael Parenti is an internationally known award-winning author and lecturer. He is one of the nation’s leading progressive political analysts. His highly informative and entertaining books and talks have reached a wide range of audiences in North America and abroad. For more on Michael, visit his website at http://www.michaelparenti.org/ .
Jason Miller is a tenacious anti-capitalist and vegan animal liberationist. He is also the founder and editor of Thomas Paine’s Corner, associate editor for Cyrano’s Journal Online, blog director for The Transformative Studies Institute and associate editor for the Journal for Critical Animal Studies.
To further your sociopolitical education, strengthen your connection with the radical community, and deepen your participation in forming an egalitarian, just, ecological, non-speciesist and democratic society, visit the Transformative Studies Institute at http://transformativestudies.org/ and the Institute for Critical Animal Studies at http://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/
Source: Pravda.Ru
URL: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/106869-class_dirty_word-0
“Class is a dirty word in that it gets close to the truth about who governs and for whose benefit.” -Michael Parenti
In the land of those who think they’re free and the home of savage capitalism, class is indeed a dirty word. Remember, we’re a nation of Joe the Plumbers. If we just work hard enough and fend off those socialist vampires who want to suck us dry by redistributing our hard-earned wealth, we can all be financial successes. And if you’re a faux-progressive presidential candidate—like Obama, you’re doomed to political perdition unless you sign a blood oath disavowing your ties to socialism.
Yet there are a few political analysts and academics who dare to blaspheme against capitalism, which is the “God” this benighted land truly worships—despite the disgustingly hypocritical veneer of faux Christianity. Remember that Michael Parenti has one of the filthiest mouths you’ll ever hear. He dares to repeatedly spew profane diatribes against capitalism, the sacrosanct basis for our precious American Way of Life. Parenti has the chutzpah to derisively attack our system, which we all know is the best that’s ever been (or will be), by asserting that there are divisions amongst US Americans based on socioeconomic standing. And worst of all? He uses the “C” word! Somebody needs to give his mouth a good cleansing with a bar of Dial!
Parenti recently answered a few questions Jason Miller threw his way. Let’s see how much further he traveled on the road to perdition…..
Jason Miller: You’re one of the best kept secrets of the “American Left” (ridiculously marginalized and small in number as we are). Why is it that despite your brilliant critiques, particularly of bourgeois revisionist history, you remain relatively obscure even amongst the more radical segment of the US population?
Michael Parenti: It’s really not all that bad. People do describe me as “widely acclaimed” and “internationally known” etc. and I do reach varied audiences in North America and abroad with my writings, lectures, and interviews. But it is true that there are sectarian or small minded elements on the left– including some very prominent figures–who are quiet practitioners of McCarthyism in that they exclude or try to isolate anyone who (a) places a strong emphasis on the realities of class power (b) occasionally uses a Marxist analysis or (c) finds some things of value in existing socialist societies that are worthy of being preserved, such as human services, guaranteed right to a job, free education, free medical care, affordable housing for all, etc. These societies, now mostly defunct, have been deemed by most of the left as worthy of nothing but a constant unremitting denunciation.
JM: Do you think the bourgeoisie has begun demonizing environmentalists and animal rights advocates because they perceive us to be a legitimate threat to the system, is the Green Scare simply another aspect of the divide and conquer tactic, do animal and Earth exploiters wield that much power within the system, is it a combination of these, or something more?
MP: The purveyors of free-market global capitalism believe that they have a right to plunder the remaining natural resources of this planet as they choose. Anyone who challenges their agenda is to be subjected to whatever misrepresentation and calumny that serves the free market corporate agenda.
JM: How has the capitalist class in the US been so successful at convincing the masses that we live in a “classless society” and etching a cultural standard in granite that it is taboo to discuss class issues?
MP: Through control of the universe of discourse, including the media, the professions, the universities, the publishing industry, many of the churches, the consumer society, the job market, and even the very socialization of our children and the prefiguring of our own perceptions, the ruling interests are able to exercise a prevailing ideological control that excludes any reasoned critique of the dominant paradigm. Class is a dirty word in that it gets close to the truth about who governs and for whose benefit.
JM: What are your thoughts on Obama and what change we may see under his presidency?
MP: I greeted Obama’s electoral victory with very little enthusiasm but much relief that the lying slime- bag right-wing John McCain was defeated. I think Obama will be another Bill Clinton, perhaps not as bad. Some people see his accession to the White House as a great historic victory for African Americans and for democracy. But I am not all that impressed. When the victory is extended into social democratic policies that have a salutary effect on millions of struggling impoverished African-Americans and other working poor, then I’ll start dancing in the streets.
JM: Prior to Obama’s election, a number of radical thinkers posited that the US was in a pre-revolutionary stage. What impact do you think the Obama administration will have on the potential of consciousness, anger, and social unrest reaching critical mass amongst the working class in the US in the near future? Or better yet, are you even optimistic that the American people will catch fire and revolt against our wretchedly rapacious and imperialistic system?
MP: I do not think we are entering a pre-revolutionary stage. However political struggle can be a surprising phenomenon emerging with great democratic force and sudden movement in the most unexpected ways. We are approaching an economic crisis of momentous scope. The radical reactions may not be all that progressive and rational. The unfortunate thing about corporate capitalism is that it is often advantaged by the very wretched conditions it itself creates. I am hoping that the social groups that have been activated by Obama’s campaign will not go to sleep and will not let up the pressure for progressive change.
JM: What do you say to critics who assert that socialism is a utopian dream in the abstract and a nightmare in reality?
MP: Your question is a paraphrase of the one I posed in my book, Democracy for the Few. “Is socialism not just a dream in theory and a nightmare in practice?” In response I pointed out that the features which make life livable in capitalist society are mostly socialistic in practice, including human services, infrastructure development, environmental protections, and even many technological advances that are funded or even created by government sources.
JM: With Castro hanging in there and now Chavez, Morales, Correa, and Ortega in place, to what extent do you think socialism will continue to expand and flourish in Latin America ?
MP: It is not likely that the reforms in Latin America will really lead to socialism but at least to some gains for the most desperately oppressed.
JM: Some argue that there is a “third way” that represents a better alternative to capitalism than socialism. Your thoughts?
MP: Maybe they are referring to the social democracy that is found in some Western European countries that provide decent human services and better regulation of corporate doings. But even these social democracies are under attack and face rollback Look at what has happened to Britain .
Michael Parenti interviewed by Jason Miller
Michael Parenti is an internationally known award-winning author and lecturer. He is one of the nation’s leading progressive political analysts. His highly informative and entertaining books and talks have reached a wide range of audiences in North America and abroad. For more on Michael, visit his website at http://www.michaelparenti.org/ .
Jason Miller is a tenacious anti-capitalist and vegan animal liberationist. He is also the founder and editor of Thomas Paine’s Corner, associate editor for Cyrano’s Journal Online, blog director for The Transformative Studies Institute and associate editor for the Journal for Critical Animal Studies.
To further your sociopolitical education, strengthen your connection with the radical community, and deepen your participation in forming an egalitarian, just, ecological, non-speciesist and democratic society, visit the Transformative Studies Institute at http://transformativestudies.org/ and the Institute for Critical Animal Studies at http://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/
First Minerva Awards Issued; Three Political Scientists Make List
Source: ZERO INTELLIGENCE AGENTS
The Defense Department has announced the first awardees for its Minerva research initiative. Among the winners are three political scientist, giving the discipline a decisive majority within Minerva (full list of winners here).
Susan Shirk, at UC San Diego, will be investigating, "The Evolving Relationship Between Technology and National Security in China: Innovation, Defense Transformation, and China’s Place in the Global Technology Order." This is a natural fit for Shirk and her supporting cast at UCSD, as it has become the preeminent department on Asian IR/conflict analysis. Shirk has been writing on China since the 1970's, and served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, with responsibility for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia in the Clinton administration. In her most recent book on China, China: Fragile Superpower, Shirk highlights the dangerous dichotomy underscoring China's economic boom. She asserts that while the country continues to grow economically, its leadership will increasingly threatened by a financially and politically independent population.
Jacob Shapiro is the resident terrorism and insurgency scholar at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson school, and will be investigating, "Terrorism Governance and Development." The bulk of Shaprio's publications have examined the political economy and financial routes of terrorism. In a 2007 article for International Studies Quarterly, Shapiro uses a hierarchical model of a terrorist organization to examine the distribution of funds He concludes, "When middlemen are sufficiently greedy and organizations suffer from sufficiently strong budget constraints, leaders will not fund attacks because the costs of skimming are too great". Shapiro also previously served as a Reserve Naval officer and worked at the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Naval Warfare Development Command, making him the only principle investigator among the winners with any formal military experience.
Finally, Nazli Choucri is a prominent IR scholar at MIT, and will be investigating, "ECIR - Explorations in Cyber International Relations." Choucri's research has consistently been focused at the intersection of technology and politics, with some of her most recent publications examining the impacts of networked communication and knowledge sharing on international relations. Choucri wrote the introduction to July 2000 special issue of the International Political Science Review on "CyberPolitics in International Relations," which provides valuable insights into where she may take her Minerva research. The author states, "In the absence of a clear precedent [for understanding the impact of cyber-politics]---and established methods for dealing with such uncertainties---the most reasonable course is to sample the nature of these developments, establish baselines to the extent possible, and record some key milestones in both the scholarly and the policy communities as they manage adjustments to these convergent trends."
It should be noted that thus far there has been no response to this announcement from the usual group of Minerva detractors at the Network of Concerned Anthropologist, the Minerva Controversy at the Social Science Research Council, or the AAA blog. This may, however, simply be a result of the announcement coming during the busy holiday season. I will continue to follow reaction, as well as any further descriptions of the research.
The Defense Department has announced the first awardees for its Minerva research initiative. Among the winners are three political scientist, giving the discipline a decisive majority within Minerva (full list of winners here).
Susan Shirk, at UC San Diego, will be investigating, "The Evolving Relationship Between Technology and National Security in China: Innovation, Defense Transformation, and China’s Place in the Global Technology Order." This is a natural fit for Shirk and her supporting cast at UCSD, as it has become the preeminent department on Asian IR/conflict analysis. Shirk has been writing on China since the 1970's, and served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, with responsibility for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia in the Clinton administration. In her most recent book on China, China: Fragile Superpower, Shirk highlights the dangerous dichotomy underscoring China's economic boom. She asserts that while the country continues to grow economically, its leadership will increasingly threatened by a financially and politically independent population.
Jacob Shapiro is the resident terrorism and insurgency scholar at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson school, and will be investigating, "Terrorism Governance and Development." The bulk of Shaprio's publications have examined the political economy and financial routes of terrorism. In a 2007 article for International Studies Quarterly, Shapiro uses a hierarchical model of a terrorist organization to examine the distribution of funds He concludes, "When middlemen are sufficiently greedy and organizations suffer from sufficiently strong budget constraints, leaders will not fund attacks because the costs of skimming are too great". Shapiro also previously served as a Reserve Naval officer and worked at the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Naval Warfare Development Command, making him the only principle investigator among the winners with any formal military experience.
Finally, Nazli Choucri is a prominent IR scholar at MIT, and will be investigating, "ECIR - Explorations in Cyber International Relations." Choucri's research has consistently been focused at the intersection of technology and politics, with some of her most recent publications examining the impacts of networked communication and knowledge sharing on international relations. Choucri wrote the introduction to July 2000 special issue of the International Political Science Review on "CyberPolitics in International Relations," which provides valuable insights into where she may take her Minerva research. The author states, "In the absence of a clear precedent [for understanding the impact of cyber-politics]---and established methods for dealing with such uncertainties---the most reasonable course is to sample the nature of these developments, establish baselines to the extent possible, and record some key milestones in both the scholarly and the policy communities as they manage adjustments to these convergent trends."
It should be noted that thus far there has been no response to this announcement from the usual group of Minerva detractors at the Network of Concerned Anthropologist, the Minerva Controversy at the Social Science Research Council, or the AAA blog. This may, however, simply be a result of the announcement coming during the busy holiday season. I will continue to follow reaction, as well as any further descriptions of the research.
The World`s 10 Most Famous Uncracked Codes
[ SourcesAndMethods ]
INTELST, the US Army's listserve for intelligence professionals, pointed me this morning towards a Funnbee.info post that catalogs the 10 most famous uncracked codes (in case you are bored over the holidays...).The list includes:
Kryptos
Linear A
The Phaistos Disk
The Shugborough Hall Inscription
The Chinese Gold Bar Cipher
The Beale Ciphers
The Voynich Manuscript
The Dorabella Cipher
The Chaocipher
The D'agapeyeff Cipher
For more info on any of these, click on the link above!
The Political and Business Dealings of Top Copper Stevens
Source: IntelligenceOnline.com
Since he stepped down as head of Scotland Yard in 2005, John Stevens has invested in a raft of private investigative and security firms while continuing to advise the government.
The former chief of London’s Metropolitan Police, John Stevens (now Lord Stevens), who heads the London-based investigative firm Quest and the forensic laboratory LGC Forensics, has just taken over the electronic security concern Protector Group. Stevens invested in Protector alongside the former owner of the Newcastle United football team, Freddie Fletcher. The two are determined to build up the business of the firm that markets video surveillance gear as well as access control and intrusion detection equipment. Based in the suburbs of Newcastle, Protector has already landed a major contract to design a new security headquarters for the Victoria line in the London underground. Along with his acquisition of private investigative and security concerns, Stevens is much in demand as an adviser. Hedging his bets, he advises Labour prime minister Gordon Brown and the leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron. Stevens has also chaired a semi-public concern that trains security personnel, Skills for Security, since 2006. The organization dispenses training to would-be investigators who will have to obtain a license to operate in the U.K. as of next year. (IOL 577).
Since he stepped down as head of Scotland Yard in 2005, John Stevens has invested in a raft of private investigative and security firms while continuing to advise the government.
The former chief of London’s Metropolitan Police, John Stevens (now Lord Stevens), who heads the London-based investigative firm Quest and the forensic laboratory LGC Forensics, has just taken over the electronic security concern Protector Group. Stevens invested in Protector alongside the former owner of the Newcastle United football team, Freddie Fletcher. The two are determined to build up the business of the firm that markets video surveillance gear as well as access control and intrusion detection equipment. Based in the suburbs of Newcastle, Protector has already landed a major contract to design a new security headquarters for the Victoria line in the London underground. Along with his acquisition of private investigative and security concerns, Stevens is much in demand as an adviser. Hedging his bets, he advises Labour prime minister Gordon Brown and the leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron. Stevens has also chaired a semi-public concern that trains security personnel, Skills for Security, since 2006. The organization dispenses training to would-be investigators who will have to obtain a license to operate in the U.K. as of next year. (IOL 577).
How India should hit back at Pakistan
http://www.expressbuzz.com/
Pankaj RaiFirst Published : 24 Dec 2008 10:13:00 AM ISTLast Updated : 25 Dec 2008 02:06:57 AM IST
Imagine a situation where you have to fight with your opponent in your drawing room only. Your enemy can choose to break away when he gets out of your door. He can resume the fight anytime he wants by entering your house. You make the rules of the game whereby you will not either chase your enemy or fight with him when he exits your door. Is this not the way India has been fighting Pakistan for the past fifteen years when Pakistan has sponsored twenty five attacks on India? The political leadership in India has to act decisively lest it is inflicted another wound that could be even more grievous.
It would be naive to ever expect Pakistan to extradite terrorists to India or stop abetting terrorism.
It should be recognized that democracy cannot succeed in Pakistan. The Army generals who collude with Imams to perpetrate their hold believe that power flows from the barrel of a rifle. The Pakistan of future is likely to be a country torn by civil wars and the economic burden of fleeing refugees will deal a crippling blow to the economy of India. So what should India do? India should continue to build world opinion against Pakistan. In terms of economic prosperity, Pakistan is at least one decade behind India. However, so long that Pakistan continues to receive foreign aid, funds will continue to be diverted by ISI and state sponsored Islamic fundamentalists to the detriment of India. Having said that, it should be realized that the US whose support India wants, will support only up to a point. The American focus will shift from Iraq to Afghanistan and US interests will be hurt if the one lakh Pakistani troop deployment in NWFP is diverted to the LOC with India. The US will not hesitate to apply pressure on India should Pakistan redeploy away from NWFP and Afghanistan. Aligning with US is good, but India should not outsource its national interests and foreign affairs policy to Washington.
At the same time India should review and reassess its foreign policy with its neighbours especially Bangladesh. Is the time ripe for India to progressively distance itself from the Arab countries where the oil prices are declining and tilt towards Israel which has always wanted to improve relations with India? Canceling cricket matches with Pakistan is a welcome step. India should deliberate whether it is worthwhile to have any trade or diplomatic links with a rogue nation at least for the next four to five years.
Revamping internal security and intelligence and isolating it from political interference should be a high priority action item. How soon can India have Homeland Security similar to what US has? The right of hot pursuit is a recognized military principle that is considered equivalent to self defence. India should consider limited punitive air strikes based on accurate information of terrorist camps which are moved at frequent intervals to avoid detection. Naval blockade of Karachi is yet another option.
If procrastination gets the better of the decision makers innocent lives will be lost again. The Indian soldier will continue to combat terrorists but he will continue to pay the price in the only currency that he has – his life which is unfortunately non convertible. Let us hope that history does not repeat itself.
Pankaj RaiFirst Published : 24 Dec 2008 10:13:00 AM ISTLast Updated : 25 Dec 2008 02:06:57 AM IST
Imagine a situation where you have to fight with your opponent in your drawing room only. Your enemy can choose to break away when he gets out of your door. He can resume the fight anytime he wants by entering your house. You make the rules of the game whereby you will not either chase your enemy or fight with him when he exits your door. Is this not the way India has been fighting Pakistan for the past fifteen years when Pakistan has sponsored twenty five attacks on India? The political leadership in India has to act decisively lest it is inflicted another wound that could be even more grievous.
It would be naive to ever expect Pakistan to extradite terrorists to India or stop abetting terrorism.
It should be recognized that democracy cannot succeed in Pakistan. The Army generals who collude with Imams to perpetrate their hold believe that power flows from the barrel of a rifle. The Pakistan of future is likely to be a country torn by civil wars and the economic burden of fleeing refugees will deal a crippling blow to the economy of India. So what should India do? India should continue to build world opinion against Pakistan. In terms of economic prosperity, Pakistan is at least one decade behind India. However, so long that Pakistan continues to receive foreign aid, funds will continue to be diverted by ISI and state sponsored Islamic fundamentalists to the detriment of India. Having said that, it should be realized that the US whose support India wants, will support only up to a point. The American focus will shift from Iraq to Afghanistan and US interests will be hurt if the one lakh Pakistani troop deployment in NWFP is diverted to the LOC with India. The US will not hesitate to apply pressure on India should Pakistan redeploy away from NWFP and Afghanistan. Aligning with US is good, but India should not outsource its national interests and foreign affairs policy to Washington.
At the same time India should review and reassess its foreign policy with its neighbours especially Bangladesh. Is the time ripe for India to progressively distance itself from the Arab countries where the oil prices are declining and tilt towards Israel which has always wanted to improve relations with India? Canceling cricket matches with Pakistan is a welcome step. India should deliberate whether it is worthwhile to have any trade or diplomatic links with a rogue nation at least for the next four to five years.
Revamping internal security and intelligence and isolating it from political interference should be a high priority action item. How soon can India have Homeland Security similar to what US has? The right of hot pursuit is a recognized military principle that is considered equivalent to self defence. India should consider limited punitive air strikes based on accurate information of terrorist camps which are moved at frequent intervals to avoid detection. Naval blockade of Karachi is yet another option.
If procrastination gets the better of the decision makers innocent lives will be lost again. The Indian soldier will continue to combat terrorists but he will continue to pay the price in the only currency that he has – his life which is unfortunately non convertible. Let us hope that history does not repeat itself.
INDIA : Inaugural Address by EAM at Heads of Missions Conference
22/12/2008
22nd December 2008, 1000 Hrs, DRDO Bhavan
Dear Ambassadors,
It is my pleasure to inaugurate this first conference of all our Heads of Missions. The timing of this conference is most opportune. The world is in the midst of transition covering both political and economic spheres. Political transitions are underway in countries of our neighbourhood as also in the world’s leading power. The global economic crisis shows no sign of an ending soon. Issues of energy, environment, food security, and water, to name a few, are becoming more complex. Above all, the effects of the processes of globalization are throwing up new challenges; but, they also provide opportunities for our national endeavours. We have to ensure that our interests and security are safeguarded and promoted. As a stakeholder in the international system, we need to manage the strategic shifts that are underway to maintain our stability and security and bring prosperity to our people.
Before I share my thoughts with you on how we should play a role in shaping these outcomes, I would like to use this opportunity to mention some of our achievements in the past four and a half years. In this period not only we have had significant diplomatic successes but we have also been able to make good progress in transforming our systems and way of functioning so that we are able to respond better to the global developments. If I were to list out the main achievements these would include:
(i) Relations with neighbours: We live in a difficult neighbourhood. Each of our neighbours is undergoing a domestic transition. It is heartening to note that most of these transitions are proceeding smoothly and have led to the spread of democracy. Our relations with each of our neighbours, apart from Pakistan are better than before. Both Nepal and Bhutan have new democratically elected governments and Bangladesh is soon going to hold its national elections. It is also a matter of some satisfaction that we have been a factor for stability and peace in the region and our economic growth is having an impact beyond our borders. There is a realization among most of our neighbours, of the increased opportunities and the benefits of partnering with us.
(ii) Energisation of SAARC: During our chairmanship we have been able to move SAARC from a declaratory phase to an implementation phase and launch several initiatives including the SAARC Food Bank, SDF and the South Asia University.
(iii) Relationship with major powers: Today our relations with all the world’s major powers are much deeper and stronger than before. We are engaged in establishing strategic partnerships and expanding the scope and depth of our economic and strategic interaction with different countries, groupings and regions – whether it is the US, Russia, China, Japan, EU, South East Asia, Central Asia, IBSA or many others with whom we are developing a fruitful and active dialogue. Our relations with Africa got a major fillip with the first India-Africa Summit this year. The successful completion of the Civil Nuclear Initiative is a major diplomatic achievement. It is the first time that we have been able to move the international system to change long established rules in our favour. From being a target of the technology denial regimes we are now regarded as a partner.
(iv) Passport/Visa services: The Passport Sewa project should result in better and efficient passport services to our fellow citizens in a comfortable environment. By the end of 2009 we should be able to issue new passports in 3 days and do all other miscellaneous services in a day. We have also been able to outsource visa work in 29 missions which has resulted in better use of available manpower and also better service to people.
(v)As regards the functioning of the Ministry also there have been several new initiatives and milestones. Cabinet has approved 514 new posts which will be created in a phased manner over the next 10 years. This additional manpower should help us in dealing with our ever increasing responsibilities arising from greater engagement with the world. The work on a new state of the art building for the Ministry ‘Jawahar Lal Nehru Bhawan’ is progressing smoothly. When we next meet for such a conference it will be in that building. The new housing complex in Chankyapuri is almost complete and this should help to relieve the housing problem for our officers when they return to Headquarters. We are undertaking major construction projects in Beijing, Tokyo, Kathmandu and Singapore. We are also working to improve and strengthen the security of our missions abroad so that we can avoid incidents like the terrorist bombing of our mission in Kabul. The Ministry is processing a proposal to classify our missions in different categories depending upon threat perception and to provide them with requisite number of professionally trained security guards and security equipment.
This is just a brief listing of some of what we have done. The real indicator of our success and achievement in diplomacy is the fact India is being called upon to assume an increasingly demanding role on the global stage.
Dear Ambassadors,
I had mentioned in the beginning that the world today is in transition. This is evident in our immediate neighbourhood as well as in the larger global arena.
In our neighbourhood we have continued with our efforts to deepen engagement, either bilaterally or multilaterally and even by assuming a built-in asymmetry in responsibilities. An objective assessment shows that this policy has yielded results except with Pakistan. The recent terrorist attack on Mumbai was unprecedented both in terms of its scale and audacity. This and the series terrorist incidents preceding it including the attack on our embassy in Kabul, where we lost our colleagues indicate that terrorism emanating out of Pakistan is acquiring an increasingly dangerous dimension and continues to threaten peace and stability in this region and beyond.
We have so far worked at several levels. At the international level we have sought the support of the international community to put pressure on Pakistan to deal effectively with the terrorism. We have highlighted that the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan has to be dismantled permanently. We are not saying this just because we are affected but because we believe that it will be good for the entire world and also for Pakistani people and society. This terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan is the greatest terrorist danger to peace and security of the entire civilized world. There has been some effort so far by the international community but this is not enough. Much more needs to be done and the actions should be pursued to their logical conclusion. We need effective steps not only to bring those responsible for the Mumbai attacks to justice, but also to ensure that such acts of terrorism do not recur. Unfortunately Pakistan’s response so far has demonstrated their earlier tendency to resort to a policy of denial and to seek to deflect and shift the blame and responsibility. We expect civilian Government of Pakistan to take effective steps to deal with elements within Pakistan who still continue the use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy. We have so far acted with utmost restraint and are hopeful that international community will use its influence to urge Pakistani Government to take effective action. While we continue to persuade the international community and Pakistan we are also clear that ultimately it is we who have to deal with this problem. We will take all measures necessary as we deem fit to deal with the situation.
The international financial and economic crisis presents another set of transitional challenges for us. From our perspective, we need to see how we can manage the crisis and also place ourselves in a position so that we can play a role in any future global financial or political structure. The challenge for us is to shape a set of policies encompassing both the security and foreign dimension such that we can ensure an external environment conducive to India’s transformation and continued development.
Dear Ambassadors,
You have the experience and are well versed in the craft of diplomacy. However I wish to point out some facets which will require particular attention, given the transitional global political and economic environment that we now find ourselves in.
We have today a multiplicity of actors on the global firmament, including think-tanks, NGOs and the media. These actors are exercising a significant level of influence. During the civil nuclear cooperation discussions, we saw how a concerted effort was made to unsettle negotiations, by portraying a narrow and distorted view of the negotiations. Therefore, even though these actors may exercise varying degrees of influence and hold views which may be antithetical, there is no alternative but to take cognizance and engage with them. This engagement can be at various levels in its intensity and range. In the coming years, the crafting of sound policies will also depend on the influence we are able to bring to bear and the way in which we manage these processes and actors.
In this context, our soft-power is an asset we need to utilize with a greater degree of cohesiveness and with an outcome oriented approach. We have scholarships and mid-career training programmes, we offer defence cooperation and related technical programmes. A vast amount of money is spent on these programmes. Unlike some other countries, we have till date eschewed monetizing these programmes. Perhaps, we may now need to conduct a more realistic assessment and undertake an audit of the utility of these programmes, of these tools of soft-power at our disposal. The database of participants can be augmented not only by annual ITEC days but perhaps by promoting an alumni of graduates of Indian institutes in your countries. We should capitalize on the existing goodwill, in creative ways, and I expect our Missions to assist in this task.
Our chanceries and facilities for those seeking passport, visa and other consular services represent our public face and need a special mention. The maintenance and upkeep of these facilities should be a priority. At the same time we should endeavour to provide services comparable to best international standards. As I noted earlier we have made some progress in this regard. I hope that this will continue.
The Indian Diaspora is an asset. They are not only affluent in many countries and are also influential, being well integrated into their local communities. The efforts of previous years to engage them, has proven to be beneficial and they can be a source of strength. We need to continue to nurture them.
On the economic dimension, India’s economy has proven to be both outward looking, competitive and resilient. Our companies are no longer shy in exploring new opportunities and our manufacturing is setting new standards and earning a healthy reputation. This can be utilized to enhance our reach and effectiveness in other countries.
The larger process of globalization has unintended consequences. There is the accelerated interaction, due to the speed and spread of the electronic media. This has severely compressed the time available for decision-making. We have to be aware of this in our work both in Headquarters and in Missions. We must be clear in our analysis and in our presentation of options. The transitions underway globally also makes it harder for us to arrive at assessments but we should gear ourselves to discerning the different strands, particularly the underlying currents which are influencing policy making. The fluidity of the situation provides us an opportunity, to fashion new frameworks to enhance our interest.
To conclude, it is not merely the structure of the international system that is changing at a rapid pace. The challenges themselves are rapidly evolving. Traditional approaches must make way to more forward looking approaches of cooperative solutions. We should prepare to play a leading role in shaping the emerging world, by preparing long term strategies as an influential and respected member of the international community.
You will over the next three days consider many aspects of our global interaction. I wish you success in your deliberations and look forward to your conclusions which I will discuss in the concluding session on the 24th.
Thank you.
22nd December 2008, 1000 Hrs, DRDO Bhavan
Dear Ambassadors,
It is my pleasure to inaugurate this first conference of all our Heads of Missions. The timing of this conference is most opportune. The world is in the midst of transition covering both political and economic spheres. Political transitions are underway in countries of our neighbourhood as also in the world’s leading power. The global economic crisis shows no sign of an ending soon. Issues of energy, environment, food security, and water, to name a few, are becoming more complex. Above all, the effects of the processes of globalization are throwing up new challenges; but, they also provide opportunities for our national endeavours. We have to ensure that our interests and security are safeguarded and promoted. As a stakeholder in the international system, we need to manage the strategic shifts that are underway to maintain our stability and security and bring prosperity to our people.
Before I share my thoughts with you on how we should play a role in shaping these outcomes, I would like to use this opportunity to mention some of our achievements in the past four and a half years. In this period not only we have had significant diplomatic successes but we have also been able to make good progress in transforming our systems and way of functioning so that we are able to respond better to the global developments. If I were to list out the main achievements these would include:
(i) Relations with neighbours: We live in a difficult neighbourhood. Each of our neighbours is undergoing a domestic transition. It is heartening to note that most of these transitions are proceeding smoothly and have led to the spread of democracy. Our relations with each of our neighbours, apart from Pakistan are better than before. Both Nepal and Bhutan have new democratically elected governments and Bangladesh is soon going to hold its national elections. It is also a matter of some satisfaction that we have been a factor for stability and peace in the region and our economic growth is having an impact beyond our borders. There is a realization among most of our neighbours, of the increased opportunities and the benefits of partnering with us.
(ii) Energisation of SAARC: During our chairmanship we have been able to move SAARC from a declaratory phase to an implementation phase and launch several initiatives including the SAARC Food Bank, SDF and the South Asia University.
(iii) Relationship with major powers: Today our relations with all the world’s major powers are much deeper and stronger than before. We are engaged in establishing strategic partnerships and expanding the scope and depth of our economic and strategic interaction with different countries, groupings and regions – whether it is the US, Russia, China, Japan, EU, South East Asia, Central Asia, IBSA or many others with whom we are developing a fruitful and active dialogue. Our relations with Africa got a major fillip with the first India-Africa Summit this year. The successful completion of the Civil Nuclear Initiative is a major diplomatic achievement. It is the first time that we have been able to move the international system to change long established rules in our favour. From being a target of the technology denial regimes we are now regarded as a partner.
(iv) Passport/Visa services: The Passport Sewa project should result in better and efficient passport services to our fellow citizens in a comfortable environment. By the end of 2009 we should be able to issue new passports in 3 days and do all other miscellaneous services in a day. We have also been able to outsource visa work in 29 missions which has resulted in better use of available manpower and also better service to people.
(v)As regards the functioning of the Ministry also there have been several new initiatives and milestones. Cabinet has approved 514 new posts which will be created in a phased manner over the next 10 years. This additional manpower should help us in dealing with our ever increasing responsibilities arising from greater engagement with the world. The work on a new state of the art building for the Ministry ‘Jawahar Lal Nehru Bhawan’ is progressing smoothly. When we next meet for such a conference it will be in that building. The new housing complex in Chankyapuri is almost complete and this should help to relieve the housing problem for our officers when they return to Headquarters. We are undertaking major construction projects in Beijing, Tokyo, Kathmandu and Singapore. We are also working to improve and strengthen the security of our missions abroad so that we can avoid incidents like the terrorist bombing of our mission in Kabul. The Ministry is processing a proposal to classify our missions in different categories depending upon threat perception and to provide them with requisite number of professionally trained security guards and security equipment.
This is just a brief listing of some of what we have done. The real indicator of our success and achievement in diplomacy is the fact India is being called upon to assume an increasingly demanding role on the global stage.
Dear Ambassadors,
I had mentioned in the beginning that the world today is in transition. This is evident in our immediate neighbourhood as well as in the larger global arena.
In our neighbourhood we have continued with our efforts to deepen engagement, either bilaterally or multilaterally and even by assuming a built-in asymmetry in responsibilities. An objective assessment shows that this policy has yielded results except with Pakistan. The recent terrorist attack on Mumbai was unprecedented both in terms of its scale and audacity. This and the series terrorist incidents preceding it including the attack on our embassy in Kabul, where we lost our colleagues indicate that terrorism emanating out of Pakistan is acquiring an increasingly dangerous dimension and continues to threaten peace and stability in this region and beyond.
We have so far worked at several levels. At the international level we have sought the support of the international community to put pressure on Pakistan to deal effectively with the terrorism. We have highlighted that the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan has to be dismantled permanently. We are not saying this just because we are affected but because we believe that it will be good for the entire world and also for Pakistani people and society. This terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan is the greatest terrorist danger to peace and security of the entire civilized world. There has been some effort so far by the international community but this is not enough. Much more needs to be done and the actions should be pursued to their logical conclusion. We need effective steps not only to bring those responsible for the Mumbai attacks to justice, but also to ensure that such acts of terrorism do not recur. Unfortunately Pakistan’s response so far has demonstrated their earlier tendency to resort to a policy of denial and to seek to deflect and shift the blame and responsibility. We expect civilian Government of Pakistan to take effective steps to deal with elements within Pakistan who still continue the use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy. We have so far acted with utmost restraint and are hopeful that international community will use its influence to urge Pakistani Government to take effective action. While we continue to persuade the international community and Pakistan we are also clear that ultimately it is we who have to deal with this problem. We will take all measures necessary as we deem fit to deal with the situation.
The international financial and economic crisis presents another set of transitional challenges for us. From our perspective, we need to see how we can manage the crisis and also place ourselves in a position so that we can play a role in any future global financial or political structure. The challenge for us is to shape a set of policies encompassing both the security and foreign dimension such that we can ensure an external environment conducive to India’s transformation and continued development.
Dear Ambassadors,
You have the experience and are well versed in the craft of diplomacy. However I wish to point out some facets which will require particular attention, given the transitional global political and economic environment that we now find ourselves in.
We have today a multiplicity of actors on the global firmament, including think-tanks, NGOs and the media. These actors are exercising a significant level of influence. During the civil nuclear cooperation discussions, we saw how a concerted effort was made to unsettle negotiations, by portraying a narrow and distorted view of the negotiations. Therefore, even though these actors may exercise varying degrees of influence and hold views which may be antithetical, there is no alternative but to take cognizance and engage with them. This engagement can be at various levels in its intensity and range. In the coming years, the crafting of sound policies will also depend on the influence we are able to bring to bear and the way in which we manage these processes and actors.
In this context, our soft-power is an asset we need to utilize with a greater degree of cohesiveness and with an outcome oriented approach. We have scholarships and mid-career training programmes, we offer defence cooperation and related technical programmes. A vast amount of money is spent on these programmes. Unlike some other countries, we have till date eschewed monetizing these programmes. Perhaps, we may now need to conduct a more realistic assessment and undertake an audit of the utility of these programmes, of these tools of soft-power at our disposal. The database of participants can be augmented not only by annual ITEC days but perhaps by promoting an alumni of graduates of Indian institutes in your countries. We should capitalize on the existing goodwill, in creative ways, and I expect our Missions to assist in this task.
Our chanceries and facilities for those seeking passport, visa and other consular services represent our public face and need a special mention. The maintenance and upkeep of these facilities should be a priority. At the same time we should endeavour to provide services comparable to best international standards. As I noted earlier we have made some progress in this regard. I hope that this will continue.
The Indian Diaspora is an asset. They are not only affluent in many countries and are also influential, being well integrated into their local communities. The efforts of previous years to engage them, has proven to be beneficial and they can be a source of strength. We need to continue to nurture them.
On the economic dimension, India’s economy has proven to be both outward looking, competitive and resilient. Our companies are no longer shy in exploring new opportunities and our manufacturing is setting new standards and earning a healthy reputation. This can be utilized to enhance our reach and effectiveness in other countries.
The larger process of globalization has unintended consequences. There is the accelerated interaction, due to the speed and spread of the electronic media. This has severely compressed the time available for decision-making. We have to be aware of this in our work both in Headquarters and in Missions. We must be clear in our analysis and in our presentation of options. The transitions underway globally also makes it harder for us to arrive at assessments but we should gear ourselves to discerning the different strands, particularly the underlying currents which are influencing policy making. The fluidity of the situation provides us an opportunity, to fashion new frameworks to enhance our interest.
To conclude, it is not merely the structure of the international system that is changing at a rapid pace. The challenges themselves are rapidly evolving. Traditional approaches must make way to more forward looking approaches of cooperative solutions. We should prepare to play a leading role in shaping the emerging world, by preparing long term strategies as an influential and respected member of the international community.
You will over the next three days consider many aspects of our global interaction. I wish you success in your deliberations and look forward to your conclusions which I will discuss in the concluding session on the 24th.
Thank you.
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