Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 130
Palash Biswas
PM holds war room meet; reviews security, defence
CNN-IBN
New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chaired a high-level war room meeting in New Delhi on Saturday evening with senior ministers and defence chiefs to discuss the security preparedness.
The meeting lasted for over four hours and discussed the country's security preparedness and selective strikes on terror camps across the border.
Defence Minister AK Antony, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister P Chidambaram, National Security Advisor MK Narayanan, senior armed forces officials including all the three Service chiefs and intelligence chiefs attended the meeting.
The marathon meeting assumes significance as there is heightened terror threat and tension with Pakistan and the Union Government has already declared that it is keeping all options open on dealing with any external threat following the Mumbai terror attacks carried out by Pakistani terrorists.
Meanwhile, Indian Army is believed to have cancelled leave to all its personnel till April.
Military strike on Pak? US Co says India ready
India to consider all options against Pak: Pranab
Earlier in the day, the Defence Minister AK Antony presided a separate meeting with Coast Guard and Defence Ministry officials to review the security of Indian coastline where he cleared the acquisition proposals for the sea-guarding agency.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee had on Friday warned that India was keeping all options open to protect itself.
"Terrorism remains a scourge for our region. If a country cannot keep the assurances that it has given, then it obliges us to consider the entire range of options that exist to protect our interests and people from this menace," Mukherjee had said in Gangtok, referring to Pakistan.
At a previous meeting with the three Services chiefs on December 18, Antony had reviewed the armed force's preparedness to tackle the terror threat facing the country.
The three defence forces are on high alert since November 26 after 10 Pakistan-trained Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists attacked major landmarks in Mumbai killing more than 200 people including several foreign nationals and injured over 300.
Published on Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 22:01, Updated on Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 23:07 in Nation section
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/pm-holds-war-room-meet-reviews-security-defence/81016-3.html
Mumbaikars divided over Antulay's remarks
NDTV.com - 12 hours ago
Union Minister AR Antulay's remarks on ATS chief Hemant Karkare's death not only divided the political class but also the common man on the street.
Israel 'will not avoid Gaza war'
BBC News - 29 minutes ago
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has warned militants in Gaza that while his government would not rush to go to war, it would not evade such a decision.
NEVER SAY WAR AGAIN!
The suspicion of an Indian attack on Pakistan was raised by Stratfor, a US based private intelligence service provider.In its latest intelligence forecast, Stratfor said, “Indian military operations against targets in Pakistan have in fact been prepared and await the signal to go forward.”
Stratfor said, unlike the massive troop mobilisation after the Parliament attack in 2002, this time, India’s war preparations are clouded in secrecy and so are invisible.
US Designed TERRORISM Succeeds to FEED ZIONIST Money Machine with WAR in South Asia heralding Complete DESTRUCTION.! The prospect of Indo-Pak war has forced Pentagon to abandon its search for al-Qaeda leaders in Western Pakistan and focus instead on immediate evacuation of 1,100 US troops from both the countries, a media report said on Thursday,May 30, 2002 .In case of outbreak of war, Pentagon would evacuate US military personnel to bases in Afghanistan and ships in the Northern Arabian Sea. On being asked about what Pakistan was doing to find al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, a Pentagon official replied, "not much. We are very concerned."
US and British forces on the Afghan side of the border are preventing the al-Qaeda fighters from slipping back into Afghanistan and not capturing al-Qaeda fighters. There are 7,200 US soldiers in Afghanistan, but virtually all the al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding in Pakistan, the report said.
India is considering all options against Pakistan to make it act against perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said!
Is HOT PURSUIT highly demanded by NDA in Past is Possible?
Is India ready for MISSILE ATTACKS on Pakistan based Terrorist camps?
Is limited War in between two NUCLEAR POWERS in South ASIA Possible at all?
What will be the consequence of FULL FLEDGED war between Pakistan?
I hope the WAR ROOM Discussion should have answered all these questions! But the most vital question is still UNANSWERED whether TERRORISM may be wiped out with the WAR OPTION without DEALING WITH THE Foreign hand Proactive since India`s independence?Today, India’s very existence is threatened and if it goes to war on this count, it would be for the most righteous cause, the WAR MANIAC Ruling Class insists on. The bane of the Indian political leadership has been that it has failed to recognise war as an instrument of state policy, it is alleged to PROVOKE WAR at this critical juncture! Why? Who will be most benefited by INDO PAK WAR?
CJ: Dr. Brahma Singh argues in his article published in Merinews :
FOLLOWING THE terrorist attack in Mumbai on November 26, a heated debate is going on in the country whether India should exercise its option of war with Pakistan as a means for combating the menace of terrorism. A similar exercise was carried out after the terrorists attacked the Indian Parliament in New Delhi on December 13, 2001, to no avail. Let us hope that the present uproar does not also end in a whimper after sometime like the earlier one with India not even, perhaps, having the satisfaction of threatening to go to war and keeping Pakistan on tenterhooks for nearly one year, like it did following the earlier incident. It will be a pity if this happens because while last time the option of going to war was believed to have been given up under US pressure, no such obstacle seems to be in sight at present. In fact, in the present situation not only the US but the entire world opinion also appears to be on India’s side.
Knowing without a shadow of doubt that Pakistan is not only sheltering terrorists engaged in attacks in India but also encouraging its citizens in carrying out such disruptive activity, there can be no solution to the problem of terrorism against India without the cooperation of Pakistan. Pakistan’s cooperation is necessary in meeting India’s two immediate requirements. One, in apprehending and handing over to India known Indian terrorists who have found shelter in Pakistan as also some of its own citizens involved in terrorist activities in India and details of whom have already been handed over to Pakistan and two, dismantling of terrorists training camps in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. With Pakistan’s avowed policy objective of inflicting “a thousand cuts” on India to make it bleed to death, (as propounded by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto after Pakistan’s ignominious defeat in the Indo-Pak war of 1971), it should not be surprising if Pakistan is showing no inclination towards voluntary cooperation with India in this respect. Evidently, then, there would appear to be no choice for India other than using force for extracting such cooperation. The question that arises is why India is dithering from going to war with Pakistan over the issue loaded with dire consequences for our country. Some of the factors that could be preventing the UPA government from taking the plunge are discussed in succeeding paragraphs.
http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=154026
As Barack Obama prepares to assume office next month, President George W Bush has said that his successor, during his presidency, will US President, Past and Present have to face an India that is "now more confident" in its relations with Washington and "encourage" Pakistan to go after terrorists.
"Obama will face a rising China, an India that is now more confident in its relationship with the United States," Bush told in an interview to the 'Washington Times'.
"But at the same time, will have to deal with Pakistan, and encourage the Pakistan government to continue to go after the terrorists in the remote regions of their country," he said.
The US has been pressing Pakistan to crackdown on terrorists camps operating from its soil and especially on groups that India asserts were behind the deadly Mumbai terror strikes.
Bush apparently referred to the landmark Indo-US nuclear deal, initiated by him along with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in July 2005, which transformed the bilateral ties.
Speaking about the challenges Obama will face during his presidency, Bush said in the newly emerging democracy of Iraq he will find it interesting to deal with elected officials as they work through their - these issues through their Parliament.
"You know, politics is breaking out in Iraq, and sometimes their politics can be very emotional. But it is a democracy," he said.
At a time when the global financial crisis is impacting the real estate sector across the globe, NRIs are invariably in a dilemma about where to put their money in real estate. The local accommodation laws in countries like Dubai have compelled thousands of expatriate Indians to send their families back home due to soaring housing costs.
US Backed Pak MILITARY Hegemony will NEVER Give Up ANTI INDIA Agenda as survival Strategy, Neither Indian Ruling Brahaminical Hegemony would TRY to Ensure National INTEGRITY Resolving ETHNIC Problems!
The Stand OFF is in the BEST Interest of UNITED STATES of AMERICA, Corporate Imperialism, MNCs, India INCs, Politicians, Policy Makers and Religious fascists Across the BORDER! The World Bank has agreed to help India with $3 billion of increased investment as the global financial crisis undermines private financing for the country's much-needed infrastructure agenda, the bank announced on Thursday. The development institution has provisioned this additional amount as part of the total financing envelope of $14 billion proposed in the India Country Strategy over 2009-2011. India had requested an additional $5.6 billion over the next two years. Having provisioned the $3 billion, the World Bank said it would need to examine the balance $2.6 billion and work with the Indian government over the coming weeks to clarify details. The strategy, which is geared to help India propel infrastructure development, support the country's seven poorest states, and respond to the financial crisis, was discussed by the World Bank board last week in Washington DC.
Showcasing WARFARE is a DEFINITE Forcast of FAMINE INFINITE!A high-level assessment of the security scenario in the light of Indo-Pak tensions was undertaken at a marathon meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the Defence Ministry In new delhi last night.Three senior-most Ministers, Pranab Mukherjee, A K Antony and P Chidambaram, besides National Security Adviser M K Narayanan, three services chiefs and intelligence chiefs attended in the meeting, which lasted around four hours. There was no media briefing on it.Meanwhile, the army is understood to have cancelled leave to its personnel till April.Singh drove from his residence to the South Block housing the Defence Ministry for the crucial meeting.The meeting comes against the backdrop of a new low in ties with Pakistan, which is not seen as actively cooperating with India in bringing to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks trained from their soil.Meanwhile, the international intelligence community believes that India will likely attack PoK or elsewhere in Pakistan to settle scores for the multiple November 26 Mumbai attacks.Mukherjee’s statement, on Friday, at an international conference in Gangtok, Sikkim appears to have lent credence to this suspicion of the global intelligence community.
At the conference Mukherjee said, “If a country cannot keep the assurances that it has given, then it obliges us to consider the entire range of options that exist to protect our interests and people from this menace.”
Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that volatile oil prices remain a threat to the global economy. World's largest refining companies.
"It is clear that our most pressing challenge is price volatility. Wild fluctuations in prices harm nations all around the world," he said, according to IRNA.
The oil prices fell by almost three quarters from over $120 per barrel in the recent past. Brown made the remarks at a meeting of energy and oil ministers here on Friday.
The oil ministers from the Organisation of Petroleum Export Countries (OPEC), including Gholam-Hossein Nozari from Iran, participated in the discussions.
Pakistan, which is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has two nuclear reactors of 425 MW power to generate electricity.
A further 137 MW KANUPP reactor, near Karachi, has been operating commercially since 1972. Two 300 MW pressurised water reactors, CHASNUPP-1 and CHASNUPP-2, have also been operational since 2000 near Kundian.
One nuclear power plant of 1000 MW is under construction[citation needed] and two new nuclear power plants are proposed.
Indigenous Aboriginal Indians NEVER wanted WAR But Infighting Amongst Hegemonies KEPT Indian Geopolitics COLONISED by Foreign Powers and We All Share the LEGACY of History, Predestined to be KILLED!
Now United States of America, no matter who happen to be the US President, SHOEGATE fame Warmonger Junior Butcher Bush or Martin Luther King DREAM Brand black Untouchable Barack Obama, plans terror package for India. During last six decades it was the US Imperialism and its notorious agency CIA created all the Problems endangering the Unity and Integrity of India as Indira Gandhi used to poin out time to time. Indira Gandhi could not SURVIVE to resist US Corporate imperialism as she was FAULTED with Internal Imperialism supported by Socialist imperialism and its KGB! More over, the Strongest Ever Prime Minister had a MOLE working for CIA and US interests all the time! Some of Indira Ministers continued their political Adventure even after Indira`s demise and crossing the FENCE once or more. India could not either locate or sustain her legacy to maintain Indian ocean ZONE as PEACE ZONE. No body was interested to sustain her socialism after the FALL of USSR. The Russian Model of Development transformed into US CORPORATE MNC model and even the Marxists led by Bengal Brahmin Buddhadeb Bhattacharya of west Bengal adopted the SUPER Capitalist Highway of US Corporate Imperialism!
Just see, who created all the troubles in the North East?
Who supported JP Movement to topple socialist Indira Gandhi?
Who was behind Khalistani Movement ?
Which agencies are active in jammu and Kashmir to flare up Anti Indian Sentiments?
Who sent SEVENTH FLEET against India in 1971?
Who had always been supporting most PAKISTANI MILITARY Hegemony in its anti India Adventures?
Who masterminded all the COUPs in south Asia including the Murder of banga Bandhu Mujib and his family?
Who was behind the Assassination plots of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi?
Where from the Hindutva fascism gets Maximum support? Who happens to be behind the Globalisation of Manusmriti cult?
Just think, friends!
United states of America has the Colonies in South Asia ruled by PLANTED LEADERS from Washington. All these leaders do defend the US interests only. Democracy is just a Moderate cover up of Internal Imperialism and fascism and ABSOLUTE Power! In fact, all these LEADERS are nothing but agents of WAR ECONOMIES and ZIONIST Corporates and MNCs.
Be AWARE! The HUNTERS are OUT to KILL in the KILLING FIELDS spread all over the SUB Continent. It is neither Nationalism nor the People for whom they speak or act or live! It is a ZIONIST NEXUS of United States and the Governments planted in South Asia always PROMPT in Action to SACRIFICE the innocent masses, the HAVENOTs! HAVES belong to the Ruling Hegemonies. that`s why they happen to be SAFE , SECURE, AFFLUENT, GROWING AND HEALTHY! On the other hand , if we are not killed anyway, we have to STARVE!
It is SACRIFICE TIME once again in South Asia!
You have to buy FOOD dearly TEN times!
You have to use FUEL dearly, no matter how LOW happens to be the OIL SLUMP!
Every public service have to be PRIVATE and more costly!
you have to give up your LAND for the CORPORATES and MNCs. You have to loose your HOME for the Promoters and Builders!
You lose the MARKET for your Produce to ACCOMMODATE Retail Chain!
You have to be DISPLACED and DEPORTED!
Your NATURAL RESOURCES would be EXPLOITED by Foreign Hand and you may not RESIST! You have to CRY for FOOD, WATER and Shelter!
YOU HAVE TO BE EJECTED OUT OF YOUR JOB and LIVELIHOOD and would never have any ALTERNATIVE!
Provided you RESIST to defend fundamental and democratic rights, citizenship, natural resources, land, liberty, property and home, job and livelihood, privacy and civil rights, citizenship and human rights, YOU ARE PREDESTINED for a lifetime CRUSH and REPRESSION being BRANDED as EXTREMIST, TERRORIST and MILITANT! Provided the WAR , if you speak REASON and National Interest, rather you would be treated as ANTI NATIONAL and the TRAITORS would be FREE to persecute or Prosecute you at will as two new TERROR ACTS are already in the Pipeline!
As India builds up pressure on Pakistan to act in the wake of Mumbai terror attacks, New Delhi's envoys to world capitals will meet at a two-day conference on Monday to deliberate foreign policy issues.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee will inaugurate the meeting of over 120 Ambassadors and High Commissioners convened for the first time since the UPA came to power.
Though the meeting was planned much before the Mumbai terror attacks took place, terrorism and the diplomatic drive launched by India asking Pakistan to act against the perpetrators of terrorism operating from its soil is expected to dominate the proceedings.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is also expected to address the gathering on the concluding day.
Singh as also Mukherjee will tell the envoys about how they should present India in the present global scenario when terrorism and financial crisis are posing greatest challenges to the world.
Singh and Mukherjee are likely to tell the envoys to highlight how India has been facing terrorism emanating from Pakistan despite New Delhi's keen desire to improve relations with the western neighbour in all areas, the sources said.
The Prime Minister and the External Affairs Minister are expected to outline the steps that India has taken to improve ties with Pakistan and how the neighbour has failed to reciprocate the gestures in terms of ending terrorism.
The intent is that the envoys should highlight these aspects in the countries where they are posted as part of efforts to build pressure on Pakistan to end terrorism.
Like a phoenix that rises from the ashes, the Taj and Trident hotelson Sunday reopened their doors, three weeks after the November 26 terror attack.
"Thank you for your support" was the first greeting, besides loads of smiles and flowers, offered by Trident to one of its first customers in place of the usual bill as the hotel came back to life.
"We dedicate the restored hotel to those who have lost their lives," Taj Hotels group chairman Ratan Tata said shortly before the Tower wing of the iconic hotel was reopened to guestsin the evening.
Both hotels have seen a lot of activity over the past few days as they were sprucing up for the reopening. The staff at both these places were also working determinedly to restore the hotels back to their former glory.
The two hotels, which suffered extensive damage in the nearly three-day long terror siege, have been partially reopened -- The Taj Towers in case of the Taj Mahal Place and Towers and the Trident in case of the Oberoi-Trident.
International Monetary Fund Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has said the level of debt in the UK is "disturbing" but more government borrowing
is necessary to stimulate growth.
The level of debt in the UK is "disturbing," but given the severity of the economic downturn, more government borrowing was the lesser of two evils, Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in an interview to the BBC.
He warned that 2009 would be "a really bad year". "I'm specially concerned by the fact that our forecast, already very dark... will be even darker if not enough fiscal stimulus is implemented," he said in an interview.
Strauss-Kahn said: "More state spending was necessary to stimulate growth" and governments around the world had no choice but to step in and spend more.
Public debt has risen to 650 billion pound, 44.2 per cent of UK gross domestic product. Consumer debt is more than 1.4 trillion pound.
He added that a stimulus equivalent to about 2 per cent of global GDP or about USD 1.2 trillion is required to make a real difference to the crumbling economy.
"The problem is that all the whole society is going to suffer," he added.
The USA is working through a package for India on dealing with the situation arising out of the Mumbai terror strikes by way of information sharing, collaboration and cooperation, a top Pentagon official said.
Mind you, what is the GRASS Root reality:
Pak-US relations
by Abdur Raziq for Peace lovers December 06, 2007
From December 1971 onwards majority of the people in Pakistan view USA as unreliable ally, in December 1971 when Pakistan Army ninety thousand fighters had surrendered before Indian Army in East Pakistan, despite of frequent assurances from President Nixon US armed forces were unable to come for rescue of Pakistan Army, and Pakistan was dismembered new state of Bangladesh was emerged at the world map.
President Nixon in his memoirs had mentioned that due to existence of strong pro India lobby in USA he was unable to move troops to save East Pakistan. Very few people in Pakistan know that after fall of Dhaka, President Nixon had made phone call to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India, and during telephonic conversation President Nixon Had warned Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that if she had acted on her plan of capturing West Pakistan too then USA will react. Thus West Pakistan was saved by US president.
Common people in Pakistan have no idea about US political system, as Hitler rules supreme in Pakistan no matter who so ever in power philosophy and attitude of Nazism prevails and rulers can do any thing of their liking, the elected rulers behave in more dictatorial way then military rulers like President Parvez Musharaf, dictator ship of majority in absence of independent judiciary and other checks and balances present in US political system, is more harmful then an autocrat ruler from military, at least he is under some military rules and laws, civilian dictators are above the law in Pakistan.
So people of Pakistan can not understand this logic that president of USA is not an autocrat, he is always under constitutional limits, and lobbying is a feature of US political system through which innocent and sincere people of USA can be convinced to support unjust causes when lobbyists start doing their job to get favors for certain countries even if those countries are in camp hostile to USA. It had happened in 1971 that cold war ally of Soviet Union India having defense pact with Soviets was such a powerful lobby in USA that president Nixon as he had written in his memoirs during meeting with Prime Minister Indra Gandhi of India was compelled to listen to her lecture on international affairs, and during her lecture she had started with the words that Mr. President you are new comer in politics and being prime minister of a largest democracy in the world I am obliged to tell you that……….
http://www.groundreport.com/World/Pak-US-relations
“We are working through the initial parts of a package... we would offer to India to help them understand some of the lessons... that we very painfully learnt in the wake of our 11 September attacks, in information sharing, collaboration and cooperation,” Admiral Timothy Keating, head of the US Pacific Command, told in WASHINGTON.
“And I expressed our willingness to provide that to India in my conversations with Indian leaders,” he said.
“Mumbai is just the latest place where the ... innocent victims number in the hundreds. And it remains our foremost objective in the Asia-Pacific Region to deter and prevent those kinds of attacks,” Admiral Keating said.
Praising India for its “measured response” in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, Admiral Keating said that various agencies of the US government were working closely to keep tabs on developments in the region. He said Washington was satisfied that India and Pakistan have successfully avoided the danger of a military confrontation. “We’re working closely with Central Command and with Department of State, Office of the Secretary of Defence and the intelligence agencies to make sure we are as fully apprised... of developments in that particular part of the world as we can be, and I'm satisfied that we are,” he said.
The secretary of state, Miss Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile has said the steps taken by Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai attacks are “not nearly enough”, and advised it to keep on working to “really deal” with terrorism to help ease the “crisis” with India.
“If Pakistan continues to work to really deal with the terrorism problem, and if India can do the hard work of both helping to bring the perpetrators to justice and trying to prevent the next attack, then I think we can get through this crisis,” she said at a function here.
Asked if she believed the civilian government in Pakistan has control over the military and the ISI, she said civilians were very much in charge and there have been some “positive” steps “though they’re not nearly enough to this point”.
CII wants govt to help industry in land acquisition
NEW DELHI: Industry body CII on Sunday said it wants the government to reconsider the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill 2007 which if passed would
leave the private sector 'fend for itself' in land acquisition for industrial projects.
According to the Bill, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha last year, the state will step in to help acquire land after the industry has bought 70 per cent of the allotted site.
This means, the "government will no longer play a role in acquiring land for industrial development," chamber Vice- President Venu Srinivasan said.
Piecing together fragmented land from numerous owners cannot be done by the corporate sector effectively. "Rather the state should fulfill its responsibility for economic development and employment generation by developing industrial parks and make them available for in the industry," the chamber said.
It has suggested setting up state land bank corporations whose job would be to acquire non-cultivable land, develop them and pass them to the private sector.
The government had introduced the Bill in Parliament after violent protests broke out in different parts of the country, including Nandigram and Singur in West Bengal, against land acquisition. The Tatas were forced to shift to Gujarat from Singur for their prestigious Nano car project.
He said the state governments should be empowered to acquire land not only for infrastructure or defence purposes, but also for economic activity.
Another provision of the Bill that requires buyer of the land to share the capital gains with the original owners or their heirs is an "impossibly onerous task" for the private sector, he said.
He said besides developing the basic infrastructure, the government should also provide for rehabilitation of the displaced persons, CII said.
History, dissent cloud Pakistan's Mumbai attack reaction
ISLAMABAD: The black-and-white flag of Jamaat-ud-Dawa still flutters over a relief camp for survivors of an earthquake that hit a remote corner of In pics: How Kasab was caught
Pakistan in October.
But bearded medics who work with the group had vanished from the huddle of tents and mud huts when a half-dozen police showed up to close the operation following allegations the charity was linked to militants blamed for the deadly Mumbai attacks in India.
How Pakistan deals with the Islamic group — popular among many for its aid to the needy — is a key test of its pledge to help investigate the Mumbai tragedy and, more broadly, to prevent militants from using its soil to attack both India and Afghanistan.
The US and the UN say Jamaat-ud-Dawa is a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group India says trained and sent the gunmen who attacked India's commercial capital last month, killing 164 people and straining what had been improved relations between the countries.
Lashkar-e-Taiba has been an unofficial ally of the Pakistan army in Kashmir, a disputed territory claimed by both India and Pakistan.
Some believe the moment has come for Pakistan, which also backed the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, to make clear it has abandoned a shadowy policy of using militant proxies as a foreign policy tool.
The country stands before a ``moment of change in people's attitudes and thinking'' toward militants, Sen. John Kerry said on Tuesday in Islamabad.
Pakistan must see that Lashkar-e-Taiba has ``morphed into a more al-Qaida-esque and radicalized entity'' that is damaging the country's interests, said Kerry, incoming chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Growing Islamic extremism is tearing at the country's social fabric as well as deterring investment. The secular, pro-Western party that took control of the government in March lost its leader, former premier Benazir Bhutto, in a gun-and-bomb attack blamed on Pakistani militants.
In the wake of the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan has moved against both Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa, albeit under intense international pressure.
Interviews this week with officials from both groups and the government examined the extent of the crackdown. On paper, it looks considerable, but questions remain about the long-term impact.
The Interior Ministry says 53 people are in custody, including Lashkar-e-Taiba's purported leader, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, and two men accused by India of being key plotters of the Mumbai carnage.
Pressure mounts on govt for another fuel price cut
NEW DELHI: The brief adjournment of Lok Sabha on Friday afternoon, forced by Samajwadi Party MPs, was not in itself unexceptional but their demand
that government cut fuel prices in keeping with a global low in crude rates -- struck a chord with the entire House across the aisles.
The SP MPs wanted foreign minister and leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee, who pointedly busied himself with some papers, to respond. While Mukherjee wore a bemused look, the SP MPs, with the obvious support of other sections of the House, clamoured that the government make a statement.
The House met again soon after, but it is clear that political pressure is beginning to mount on the government to go in for another fuel price cut with the international price of crude down. Congress MPs said the demand for lower fuel prices was reasonable and would provide direct relief to a large section of consumers from urbanites to farmers.
Asked whether the demand for a fuel cut could gather steam as polls approached, Congress MPs said they did not feel the government should wait much longer. "We would like a reduction right away. A drop in price of diesel will help bring down transport costs and the price of vegetables. It will help farmers who run pump sets," said an MP.
The government had this month reduced prices of petrol and diesel by Rs 5 and Rs 2 respectively. Earlier, it had hiked petrol and diesel prices by Rs 5 and Rs 3. With crude prices likely to remain low despite OPEC deciding to cut production, the clamour for more price cuts is expected to increase sharply. The oil companies are glad that they are being able to recover their losses, but the political imperatives are likely to prevail.
Oil minister Murli Deora is already being told by MPs that it was time to be a little more "generous" and that he should reduce the price of LPG by Rs 100 as well. This is being seen as a surefire winner with voters as Congress gears for elections. Deora has usually kept quiet when faced with such banter, which is likely to get more serious with the overall economic situation remaining stressed.
Going by the government's own exhortation to departments and state governments to spend more to quicken the economy, a reduction of fuel rates will be seen as another step in the same direction. On the fiscal front, former finance minister P Chidambaram, who has been fielding questions on behalf of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has repeatedly told Parliament that in 2008-09, fiscal deficit will not be treated as sacrosanct.
The Taj reopens, Tata dedicates it to terror victims
The Taj Mahal hotel, ravaged during the 26/11 terror strikes, reopened this evening with its owner Ratan Tata dedicating the restored hotel
to those who had lost their lives in the carnage.
"We dedicate the restored hotel to those who have lost their lives," Tata, who is the Chairman of Indian Hotels, the company that owns the Taj, said just before the reopening of Tower Wing of the hotel.
"We cannot be knocked down--this is a memorable day and a tribute to those who saved many lives," an emotional Tata said, adding "it gives me a great sense of pride--this is the start of a new era."
The audacious terror attack of November 26 killed 163 people in the metropolis, of which 31 died in the Taj, apart from causing extensive damage to two of the city's renowned hotels-- the Taj and Oberoi-Trident.
"To us, it was a challenge to have the hotel reopen within one month from attack," he said.
The heritage wing of the hotel, badly damaged in the attack, will be opened in phases starting from February, he said, adding that the entire hotel will be opened by the end of next year.
When asked about security arrangements, Tata said that "we have our plans of security which we cannot share with you."
Among the celebrities who attended the reopening ceremony were writer Shobhaa De, actor Rahul Bose, industrialist Adi Godrej, Uday Kotak, Kishore Biyani, and theatre personality Alyque Padamsee.
ATS ready to file chargesheet against Malegaon blast accused
Mumbai (PTI): The Malegaon blasts case is likely to be concluded soon with police saying they have gathered all the evidence to prove the role of the accused in the court.
"The investigation is at a conclusion stage. We are in a position to file the chargesheet within the stipulated time," Anti-Terrorist Squad head K P Raghuvanshi told PTI. "We have gathered sufficient evidence to prove the role of the culprits. The evidence includes physical, technical and other details," he said.
Though the Malegaon blasts case investigation took a back seat after the death of the then ATS chief Hemant Karkare, officials later stepped up the probe to bring the culprits to justice.
The ATS have arrested sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Lt Col Srikant Purohit, priest Dayanand Pandey and seven others so far in the connection with the September blast. The motorcycle, which was seized, is in the name of Pragya Singh, the conversation between her and her accomplices in connection with the blasts and a number of eyewitnesses were what the they have with them as evidence, ATS officials claimed.
"It was true that investigation hampered after the death of Karkare. The efforts he had put to catch the culprits with a strong evidence have prompted us to be more active and work on the case consistently. Now we are back on track," said an ATS officials.
Shiv Sena and BJP leaders had criticised Karkare for allegedly targeting the sadhvi and other accused, who were associated with right-wing organisations.
US bankruptcies surge 30 pc; touch 10.4 lakh cases
New York (PTI): The world's largest economy, the US, has seen a spurt in bankruptcy cases, with such filings jumping as much as 30 per cent for 12 months ended September 30 compared to the year-ago period.
According to the Administrative Office of the US Courts, as much as 10.4 lakh bankruptcy cases were filed in federal courts across the country for the year ending September 30.
The figure represents a 30 per cent surge in comparison with just eight lakh filings in the same period a year ago.
For the nation's Federal Judiciary, the fiscal year ends on September 30. The latest bankruptcy data are for October 1, 2007 to September 30, 2008.
Interestingly, September was the month in which "the highest of any 12-month period" bankruptcy cases were filed after the implementation of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act in 2006.
It was September, when the Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the largest bankruptcy filing in the US history with the Wall Street company holding over 600 billion dollars in assets.
Washington Mutual having more than 300 billion dollars holdings had also filed for bankruptcy under chapter 11 in the same month after it failed to save itself from the ongoing financial downturn.
As per the statistics as much as 757 bankruptcy cases were filed in the month of September under Chapter 11 in business category filing before the US federal courts located across the country.
Antulay remarks to dominate Parliament tomorrow
New Delhi (IANS): Minority Affairs Minister A.R. Antulay's controversial remarks on the death of a top police official in the Mumbai terror attack is set to dominate Parliament proceedings pn Monday, with the opposition clamouring for his resignation while the Government planning a statement on the matter.
"Antulay is repeatedly speaking a lie on the killing of (Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief) Hemant Karkare. His irresponsible statement as a Cabinet minister has weakened India's position on the Mumbai terrorist attack internationally," Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesman Syed Shah Nawaz Hussain told IANS on Sunday.
Participating in a Lok Sabha debate on the Mumbai terror attacks, Antulay hinted that Karkare's death while combating the terrorists could be linked to the September 29 Malegaon bombing he was investigating and in which members of Hindu radical groups are the main suspects.
Urging Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to immediately sack Antulay from the Cabinet, Hussain said the issue would dominate Parliament sitting on Monday if the Government's statement on the issue, expected on Monday, was not acceptable to the "people of the country."
On the other hand, a highly-placed Government source said the ruling coalition had not taken a decision on who should and when to give a reply in Parliament on this issue.
"The Government is yet to decide whether the Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) or the Leader of the Lok Sabha (Pranab Mukherjee) should give a reply on Antulay. And a decision on when a reply should be given has also not been taken. The decisions will be taken (on Monday) morning," the source told IANS on Sunday.
He said the Government was ready to face the BJP and its ally Shiv Sena in Parliament on the issue.
"We have communicated to all our MPs to be present in Parliament in the coming two days," said the source, not wishing to be identified.
The current session of Parliament concludes on Tuesday.
Hussain said former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's statement — confirming that Mohammad Ajmal Amir alias Kasab, the only terrorist caught alive during the attacks, is a Pakistani — had nailed Pakistan's lie.
"While Pakistani leader Sharif helps us (India), Antulay is helping Pakistan. Antulay's statement divided the nation, which was united for war against terror," the BJP leader said.
Leader of the Lok Sabha Pranab Mukherjee assured the house last week that the Government would make a suitable reply before the current session ends.
The Congress core committee, which met in New Delhi on Saturday, also discussed the issue.
Highly-placed government sources have said Antulay had sent his resignation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the uproar over his remarks in the Lok Sabha — and outside — on Karkare's killing but the minister has refused to either confirm or deny whether he had put in his papers.
Investment in security technologies vital: Manmohan
P. Sunderarajan
— Photo: V.V. Krishnan
Achievers: Some of the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar awardees with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal, and CSIR Director-General S.K. Brahmachari, in New Delhi on Saturday.
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday regretted that the role of technology in supporting counter-terrorism and internal security efforts was not being adequately appreciated in the country, though it could not only act as a force multiplier but also provide solutions to problems relating to command, coordination and communication.
“We should use scientific interventions to neutralise weapons of terror and mass destruction. I believe that investment in security technologies is vital if our security systems are to keep pace with the increasing sophistication of international terrorism and crime.”
Pointing out that other nations had been using modern science and technology in their security structures with “great effect,” he said some of the areas where greater work was required were surveillance systems, cryptography, near real-time search and identification from distributed large databases and computer simulation exercise to enhance crisis tactics and response.
Dr. Singh referred to the challenges of “growing” economic recession and the “potentially devastating” climate changes faced by the world. Part of the public investments that were being made to stimulate the economies could be used to develop new technologies to meet these problems.
“We can use the ingenuity and inventiveness of science to find ways to ‘leapfrog’ to future technologies, which were affordable and also sustainable. We can use some part of the public investment, which will spend to stimulate our economies, in these new technologies that will help build sustainable pathways to development.”
Noting that China and Japan had scored over India in creating efficient systems to reach the benefits of scientific and technological benefits to their people, Dr. Singh urged scientific institutions, the industry and government agencies to work in unison to create such mechanisms. “We cannot be satisfied becoming [merely] a back office for providing research and development solutions for multinational companies.”
Presenting the prestigious Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar awards of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research for young scientists, he asked the CSIR to take the lead to define new strategies for translating cutting edge science and technology into globally competitive enterprises.
“To begin with, let CSIR work to commercially exploit its vast knowledge base, currently embodied in more than 3,000 or so patents held nationally and globally.”
He expressed the hope that the various scientific departments would make judicious use of the steps taken by the government in recent years to enhance the allocation for science and technology, based on a new vision, a new work culture and a renewed focus on scientific solutions that impacted on the lives of the common man. Public-private partnerships should be used to commercialise the technologies emerging from research and development programmes funded by them.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/12/21/stories/2008122160730900.htm
Radar cover for entire coastline
Sandeep Dikshit
Extra punch for Coast Guard
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nine more Coast Guard stations coming
Capability to include offensive operations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A.K.Antony
NEW DELHI: The government on Saturday cleared emergency purchases to add punch to the Coast Guard’s capability for surveillance and interception. A high-level meeting here, chaired by Defence Minister A.K. Antony, also approved nine more Coast Guard stations and radar coverage for the entire coastline. It identified vulnerable areas where additional ships and aircraft will be deployed.
Attended by Defence Secretary Vijay Singh, Coast Guard Director-General Vice Admiral Anil Chopra and Director-General (Acquisitions) Sashi Kant Sharma, the meeting took decisions that are the first in a series of steps to strengthen and overhaul homeland security.
This was the second meeting on reorienting the Coast Guard’s capabilities from surveillance and search and rescue to include offensive operations.
The Coast Guard will send a team abroad to evaluate purchase possibilities.
It was asked to lease or hire ships from the global market in the quickest possible time. Approval was accorded for acquisition of cutting-edge equipment and interceptor boats on a fast-track basis.
The proposal to set up additional Coast Guard Stations will be sent for Cabinet approval at the earliest.
The government is already evolving an integrated national emergency response system and looking at other measures including unmanned aerial vehicles for urban applications, a new generation of tactical weapons for the special forces such as handguns, communication systems and individual GPS systems.
Panel to be set up
PTI reports:
With the country’s 7,500-km coastline vulnerable to terrorist attacks, the Home Ministry has decided to set up a committee to go into the difficulties on account of fishing harbours within the port limits.
The panel will examine what could be done, taking into account fishermen’s livelihood issues, a Ministry official said.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/12/21/stories/2008122158000100.htm
BSF on high alert at borders
The BSF is on high alert along the border with Pakistan in the wake of the heightened security scenario following the Mumbai terror attacks, chief of the force, M L Kumawat, said today.
'Mumbai attacks deliberate assault on India'
Mrs Gandhi said response to such attacks has to be firm & effective.
No firm proof that Mumbai attackers from Pak: Zardari
Asif Ali Zardari has said there is still no "real evidence" that the terrorists were from Pakistan nor had it been established Kasab hailed from the country's Punjab province.
Congress may take action against A R Antulay
Sources have said the Congress will seek explanation from minority affairs minister Antulay for his remarks questioning the killing of ATS chief Hemant Karkare.
2 LeT operatives brought to Mumbai for attack probe
Two suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives, Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin, were brought from UP in connection with the November 26 terror attacks.
Masood Azhar not in our custody, says Pak
Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Maulana Masood Azhar is not in the custody of the Pakistan government, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
House of 'Kasab's lawyer' vandalised
Two days after lawyer K B N Lam moved an application in a session's court expressing his willingness to defend Kasab in a court, two unidentified men vandalized his Breach Candy home.
7 terrorists stayed back on ship: Kasab
Kasab said there were 17 terrorists on ship that set sail from Karachi.
Jammat starts PR campaign for a do-gooder image
As Pak struggles to ban Jamaat-ud-Dawa on UN Security Council resolution, Islamic group mounted its own defence against ban.
India, US trying to cripple ISI, says Pak media
Pak media reported that ISI had been cleared of any involvement in Mumbai terror attacks by FBI.
Kasab will not go undefended: Chief Justice
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist captured during the Mumbai attack, will not go undefended, says Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan.
Antulay raises doubts over Karkare's killing
Minister A R Antulay questioned why all three (Hemant Karakre, Vijay Salaskar and Ashok Kamte) went together to tackle terrorists.
Parliament debates anti-terror bills
Parliament on Wednesday opened debate on tougher anti-terrorism laws and a plan to set up an FBI-style agency designed to plug gaping security holes exposed by last month's Mumbai attacks.
Successful launch for ISRO-EADS Astrium built satellite
BANGALORE: The-state-of-the-art communication satellite, W2M, built by the ISRO on a commercial basis in partnership with EADS-Astrium of Europe,
was successfully launched early Sunday by the European Ariane-5 launch vehicle.
The satellite was launched at 4.05 am IST from the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou in French Guiana, the ISRO said here on Sunday.
Thirty-two minutes after its lift-off, W2M separated from Ariane-5, after reaching its intended Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO).
Radio signals transmitted by W2M were successfully received by the ISRO's Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka and the satellite's health is normal.
W2M project was undertaken in the context of an accord signed during the visit of President of France on February 20, 2006, at New Delhi between Antrix corporation Ltd., the commercial arm of the India's Department of Space and EADS Astrium to jointly build and deliver a communication satellite (W2M) to Eutelsat Communications, which is a global satellite communications provider based in Paris.
Astrium had the responsibility for overall programme management and delivery of the communications payload and Antrix/ISRO provided the satellite bus and also performed W2M's integration and testing at ISRO's facilities here.
W2M satellite, weighing 3,463 kg at lift-off, is the heaviest satellite built by the ISRO and is capable of operating for over 15 years.
The satellite's solar panels generate a maximum of about 7000 Watts of power.
Subsequent to its placement in Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit by Ariane 5, W2M is to be positioned finally at the orbital slot of 16 degree East in the Geostationary Orbit.
It carries 32 high power Ku band transponders for telecommunications and broadcasting services over Europe, Middle East and North Africa, an ISRO release said.
Antrix/ISRO is also responsible for the Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) operations of W2M, which is being conducted from Master Control Facility.
The operations include 3-axis stabilisation of the satellite, repeated firing of its Liquid Apogee Motor to reach the satellite to its final orbital slot and deployment of its appendages.
LeT financier confesses to role in Mumbai terror attacks
21 Dec 2008, 1250 hrs IST, Times Now
NEW DELHI: Alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) financier in India - Sabauddin - who along with the November 26 Mumbai terror attacks planner Fahim Ansari
has revealed how terror was sponsored from across the border.
Sabauddin's confessions, available with Times Now, give further evidence of Pakistan's role in the Mumbai terror attack.
Arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) more than ten months ago in connection with the CRPF attack in Rampur, Sabauddin is believed to have helped the LeT carry out the Mumbai terror attacks, helping Fahim Ansari to reece the terror targets.
Along with Ansari, Sabauddin was trained at the same camp as Ajmal Amir Kasab - the only terrorist caught alive post the 26/11 attacks. He also confessed to have met the Mumbai attacks mastermind - Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi during an LeT training camp.
A 12th standard dropout from the Aligarh University, Sabauddin revealed that it was the Gujarat riots that triggered the terror attacks. After training under two LeT commanders in Kashmir, Sabauddin said he went to Pakistan in March 2003, where he was introduced to the chief of LeT India operations - Yusuf Muzammil.
In 2004, Sabauddin came to India via Nepal using a fake passport and then settled in Bangalore, where he enrolled himself in a BBA course in the city's Presidency college and eventually carried out a reecee of the IISc campus in Bangalore along with another LeT man Abu Hamza for his first assignment - the attack on the Indian Institute of Science.
Sabauddin is believed to have told that it was Abu Hamza, who went to IISc on December 28, 2005 and opened fire at the conference hall and threw hand grenades. After the attack the two fled the country, only to meet again three days later in Pakistan.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/LATEST_NEWS/LeT_financier_confesses_to_role_in_Mumbai_terror_attacks/articleshow/3869382.cms
Dawood Ibrahim prepares for secret birthday party
21 Dec 2008, 0825 hrs IST, TNN
MUMBAI: Even as the Indian government continues to put pressure on Islamabad to hand over Dawood Ibrahim to it, the don gets ready to celebrate his
53rd birthday on December 26 at an undisclosed location, probably outside Pakistan.
According to a source in the underworld, the star guest to this year's extravaganza will be a high-profile international arms dealer who reportedly handles financial transactions of Dawood.
When an Indian politician had to receive a kickback worth crores in an international business deal, he sought the help of Dawood, who took the services of this arms dealer to facilitate the funds transfer, a source told TOI on Saturday.
A secret meeting was held at Geneva last year, which was attended by Dawood-who has several passports issued by the Pakistani government-the politician and the arms-dealer where the money transaction was worked out. "The Centre has report of this meeting, but it is not acting on it,'' an official said.
Also Read
Usually, an array of Indian businessmen, including some builders, are invited to Dawood's birthday bashes at Karachi, which are lavish affairs attended by senior ISI officers. In previous years, the Indian businessmen land in Dubai from where "arrangements'' are made to ferry them to Karachi.
However, this time, with all eyes on the underworld don, thanks to his probable role in the November 26 terror attack on Mumbai, Dawood has shifted his party venue to a secret place, a source said. There is increasing evidence that funds for the terror strike were sent by the D gang-which is under the thumb of the ISI- from two accounts in London, a source said.
Indian security agencies are reportedly keeping tabs on the movements of known business partners of Dawood in Mumbai, including a gutkha baron and a top builder, to find out if they are going to Dubai en route to the secret birthday bash.
"However, all these efforts add up to nothing as the government is not at all inclined to crack down on Dawood's financial empire in India despite us gathering all kinds of information about it,'' a security official said.
Dawood, who has a major benami stake in an airline operating out of Pakistan to several international destinations, is now trying to get permission to operate to India through his front men, the source added.
Top executives of bailed-out banks get $1.6 bn
NEW YORK: Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last Countries in recession
2008: Year of financial crisis
Ghosts of 1929
year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.
The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.
Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.
The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for many of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars to boost their bottom lines.
Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services committee and a long-standing critic of executive largesse, said the bonuses tallied by the AP review amount to a bribe "to get them to do the jobs for which they are well paid in the first place.
"Most of us sign on to do jobs and we do them best we can," said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. "We're told that some of the most highly paid people in executive positions are different. They need extra money to be motivated!"
The AP compiled total compensation based on annual reports that the banks file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 116 banks have so far received $188 billion in taxpayer help. Among the findings:
The average paid to each of the banks' top executives was $2.6 million in salary, bonuses and benefits.
Lloyd Blankfein, president and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, took home nearly $54 million in compensation last year. The company's top five executives received a total of $242 million.
This year, Goldman will forgo cash and stock bonuses for its seven top-paid executives. They will work for their base salaries of $600,000, the company said. Facing increasing concern by its own shareholders on executive payments, the company described its pay plan last spring as essential to retain and motivate executives "whose efforts and judgments are vital to our continued success, by setting their compensation at appropriate and competitive levels." Goldman spokesman Ed Canaday declined to comment beyond that written report.
The New York-based company on Dec. 16 reported its first quarterly loss since it went public in 1999. It received $10 billion in taxpayer money on Oct. 28.
Even where banks cut back on pay, some executives were left with seven- or eight-figure compensation that most people can only dream about. Richard D. Fairbank, the chairman of Capital One Financial Corp., took a $1 million hit in compensation after his company had a disappointing year, but still got $17 million in stock options. The McLean, Va.-based company received $3.56 billion in bailout money on Nov. 14.
John A. Thain, chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch, topped all corporate bank bosses with $83 million in earnings last year. Thain, a former chief operating officer for Goldman Sachs, took the reins of the company in December 2007, avoiding the blame for a year in which Merrill lost $7.8 billion. Since he began work late in the year, he earned $57,692 in salary, a $15 million signing bonus and an additional $68 million in stock options.
Like Goldman, Merrill got $10 billion from taxpayers on Oct. 28.
Indian real estate sector
India Pakistan Strategic Balance
India Pakistan
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Country's 10 most valued firms added a whopping Rs 1,00,000 crore to their market capitalisation in a week, which witnessed an uptrend in
the stock market, as state-run MMTC staged a comeback to the elite club.
MMTC, after nearly a month, regained its lost turf and grabbed the fifth spot in the top 10 valued club's list after adding Rs 47,639 crore to its market capitalisation.
PSU mining giant MMTC saw its valuation surging to Rs 95,838 crore, from Rs 48,198 crore in the week-ago period.
Shares of MMTC skyrocketed 98 per cent in the week to settle at Rs 19,167.50 on Friday last. Since November 28, when the firm had first slipped out of the elite club, it has gained about 92 per cent in its share price.
The total market capitalisation of the top 10 firms -- comprising six public sector and four private sector entities -- rose for second straight week gaining Rs 1,03,780 crore.
At the end of Friday's trade last week, the combined valuation of the elite club stood at Rs 11,02,154 crore, against Rs 9,98,375 crore a week ago.
Country's most valued firm Reliance Industries added Rs 6,777 crore to its valuation in a week. RIL, which regained its Rs two trillion mark in market capitalisation last week, was the numero uno in the list at the end of the Friday's trade.
Mukesh Ambani-led RIL saw its valuation rising to Rs 2,12,345 crore at the end of Friday's trade, from Rs 2,05,568.45 crore a week ago.
However, cellular giant Bharti Airtel dropped to the fourth place, after losing Rs 142.37 crore in a week. The Sunil Mittal-led company saw its market capitalisation dropping to Rs 1,36,965 crore at the end of Friday's trade.
Industry chamber Assocham has called for a legislation to make provisions for funding of elections through budgetary allocation and make
corporate donations transparent regulated by SEBI.
Assocham has suggested that election funding by corporate should be made "legal" and transparent and the whole process be regulated by Securities and Exchange Board of India.
In the paper 'Funding of the Political Parties for election Purposes,' which was submitted to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the industry body has emphasised the need for a legislation to ensure cleaner, freer and transparent elections.
"Market regulator SEBI should impose a certain ceiling on corporate's net profits for extension of such donations to political parties of their choices to prevent them exceed the prescribed limit for any motive," the chamber said in a statement.
Pointing out that listed corporations should inform the SEBI about the donations they intend to make, Assocham has said that all such funding should be approved by their respective corporate boards. In the case of unlisted companies and partnerships, the funding moves should be approved by the IT Department.
"Political parties must be compelled by law to publish week-by-week the donations they receive from corporates and the public. They should also give a consolidated list of donors within three months of the end of election process," the statement noted.
Sify 'US not worried about India's nuclear plants post Mumbai attacks' - 18 Dec 2008
"I think one can expect that in helping India build nuclear power plants that ... only passing in talks with the Chinese that primarily focused on Pakistan, ...Times of India - 544 related articles »
India's options on Pakistan still open - Asia Times Online - 135 related articles »
FREE SPEECH -- The First Amendment Center reports that more than a century after it was written, an essay by Mark Twain on the "freedom" of candid speech is published for the first time in the December 22 issue of the New Yorker. A sample from "The Privilege of the Grave":
As an active privilege, [free speech] ranks with the privilege of committing murder: We may exercise it if we are willing to take the consequences. Murder is forbidden both in form and in fact. Free speech is granted in form but forbidden in fact. By the common estimate, both are crimes and are held in deep odium by all civilized peoples. Murder is sometimes punished; free speech, always — when committed, which is seldom.
Sometimes my feelings are so hot that I have to take to the pen and pour them out on paper to keep them from setting me afire inside. Then all that ink and labor are wasted, because I can't print the results. I've just finished an article of this kind and it satisfies me entirely. It does my weather-beaten soul good to read it and admire the trouble it would make for me and the family. I will leave it behind and utter it from the grave.
Food items costlier despite cooling inflation
20 Dec 2008, 0052 hrs IST, Prabha Jagannathan, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: Although the headline inflation is now at a near-comfortable level, prices for some key food items continue to remain high as the sharp
drop in global commodity prices has not yet had an impact on local prices. The retail prices of key food items such as pulses (dal), rice and sugar have been on the upswing in recent months.
The annual rate of inflation in case of food articles has fallen to 10.19% for the week ended December 6. Being a year-on-year measure, this does not give a clear picture of the immediate trend in retail prices, which have moved up. The retail price for pulses, for instance, has risen by an average Rs 8 per kg in the span of three months. Retail prices of rice have also gone up by an average of Rs 2-3 per kg, while that of sugar reigns much higher than global prices at Rs 20 per kg.
The price of arhar, which stood at Rs 43.50 per kg in August this year, shot up to Rs 50 per kg in October-November. Moong prices, too, went up to Rs 47 per kg by November from Rs 38 per kg in August. Internationally, the prices of pulses and other commodities have been going down in the same period. The price of arhar (tur), for instance, came down in the first week of December to $480-540 per tonne compared to $600-650 per tonne six months ago.
High input costs and correspondingly high government procurement price, or minimum support price (MSP), for key staples such as wheat, rice and pulses as well as coarse cereals and oilseeds are the main reasons for high retail prices. State intervention and import restrictions have also caused domestic prices to remain high. As many as 11 states have imposed stock limits on arhar, forcing mills to procure from new arrivals, thus pushing up prices.
A similar trend has been noticed in the case of wheat, the international prices of which fell from $321.6 per tonne a year ago in the first week of December to $275.8 per tonne six months ago and then $187 per tonne a fortnight ago. In contrast, domestic wheat prices, both in wholesale and retail, have remained virtually static or even gone up slightly by Rs 1 per kg or so in the past few weeks, on the back of the government’s continued reluctance to remove restrictions, including futures trading. The MSP for wheat has gone up from Rs 640 per quintal in 2005-06 to Rs 1,000 per quintal in 2008-09. Wheat MSP is expected to go up by at least another 6% in the current season.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/Economy/Indicators/Food_items_costlier_despite_cooling_inflation/articleshow/3864713.cms
Terror finger points at Pak army
SUJAN DUTTA
New Delhi, Dec. 20: The Centre is now viewing the Mumbai attacks as the direct handiwork of Pakistan’s military that trained and armed the militants and planned the strike in detail, top government sources are saying.
This is a shift from India’s initial response when foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee led the government in drawing a distinction at two levels — first, between the government in Islamabad and rabid “elements in Pakistan” and, second, between the civilian administration led by Asif Zardari and the military led by Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
India’s security establishment has also begun a series of high-level meetings to review the state of defence preparedness. There are concerns that the military’s inventory is wanting. In one of the meetings today, defence minister A.K. Antony authorised a fast-track procurement of equipment for the coast guard.
The nuanced change in Delhi’s views follows the interrogation of gunman Mohammed Ajmal, an analysis of the attack by ballistics specialists in the military and the conclusion that the attackers were trained professionally.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081221/jsp/frontpage/story_10282329.jsp
Fuel prices hiked in Assam
A STAFF REPORTER
Guwahati, Dec. 20: Petrol and diesel prices will go up by a rupee per litre from tomorrow with the Assam government today withdrawing a relaxation given after the nationwide fuel price hike in June.
While petrol prices will go up from the existing Rs 46.63 to Rs 47.63 per litre, the price of diesel would go up to Rs 33.48 from Rs 32.48 per litre. The new prices come into effect from midnight.
A notification issued today by H.S. Das, the principal secretary of finance (taxation), said the state government had withdrawn “the partial exemption granted under sub-section (1) of Section 54 of the Assam Value Added Tax Act, 2003.”
D. Bharali, chief retail sales manager of Indian Oil Corporation, told The Telegraph that the company received the notification this evening.
The Assam government had on June 6 issued a notification to slash the price of petrol and diesel by a rupee each amid widespread protests against the hike.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081221/jsp/frontpage/story_10282002.jsp
Pak-US relations
By Ikramullah September 20, 2008
Ever since Pakistan's independence in 1947, Pak-US relations have been revolving in a familiar cycle very similar to a majority of love affairs, starting with infatuation, engagement, estrangement, reconciliation followed by marriage which is often broken and finally resulting in a divorce unless both sides are ready and willing to make some sacrifice to save the relationship. Mutual benefits are the cementing force for successful survival of such relationship between the couple and their respective families. In state relationship, the modern used is strategic partnership between two countries. The track record of the Pak-US relations spread over the past 60 years has been a cycle repeated many times over. After 9/11, a fresh start was made when Pakistan, once again, became an ally of the US in its War On Terror. More than five thousand members of Pakistan armed forces including para-military forces and a much larger number of civilians having lost their lives in the War. However, the US doesn't seem to be satisfied with the performance of its only non-NATO ally. The rest is history.
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Opinions/Columns/21-Sep-2008/PakUS-relations
'Secret' Document Reveals
Deep Pak-US Relations
Press Trust of India
9-3-2
New Delhi (PTI) -- A web newspaper run by a senior Pakistani journalist has published a "secret" document purportedly containing minutes of meetings between US and Pakistani officials and issues which, it claims, are to be raised during President Pervez Musharraf's forthcoming visit to United States.
The 'South Asia Tribune' claimed the document, a five-page 'non-paper', was "leaked to the media" apparently to embarass Musharraf as he prepared for his visit. It also printed the full document, claiming that the issues would be discussed at the Pak-US Joint Working Group (JWG) during the talks.
The document showed such a wide range of relations between the two countries that the US presence would become inevitable at every security point, the paper, edited by former editor of 'The News' Shaheen Sehbai, said.
"Releasing such sensitive papers to the media, specially involving US-Pak relations, also indicated the extent to which some officials were feeling betrayed by Musharraf's policies", it said.
The paper defined the 'non-paper', in diplomatic parlance, as "the text of language agreed between two sides in formal meetings". It also contains informal minutes which are exchanged to firm up positions and keep track of the specific issues to be discussed in specialised group sessions.
According to the document, 16 items are listed as 'Action Items for the USG' (US Government) and another 14 as 'Action Items for GOP' (Govt of Pakistan).
Interestingly, the main subjects include US seeking Pakistani assistance in the probe into the hijack of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 to Kandahar.
The subjects also include counter-terrorism methods, training and provision of sophisticated equipment to police, extradition of persons wanted by either governments, the issue of Pakistani nationals in American custody, exchange of information to probe and prosecute organisations of smugglers and a draft Pakistani legislation on money laundering.
The paper said the document showed that the range of US-Pak cooperation was "so wide that almost at every security point, US presence would become inevitable, either in the form of physical troops or machines, cameras or spying equipment relaying images and data to US officials sitting close by somewhere".
Another subject was improvement of law enforcement machinery in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where the main anti-Al Qaeda operations are currently focussed. This issue would also be part of the JWG discussion, according to the document published.
A key area of cooperation was the exchange of wanted persons by the two governments, besides Pakistani Government agreeing to take steps to speed up trial of four fugitives wanted by US for Panam plane crash in 1973, the paper added.
PTI
Pakistan–United States relations
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Pakistan–United States relations are the transatlantic relations between the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the United States of America. Pakistan has long been seen as an ally of the United States. However the relationship is an unusual one. Historically, no ally of the United States has faced as many sanctions from the US as Pakistan, primarily because the relation has always been based on strategic interests rather than genuine partnership. The United States established diplomatic relations with Pakistan in 1949; reluctantly, at first. Since the Eisenhower administration, however, Pakistan and the US began developing more cosy relations. Both the countries had their strategic interest in mind, US was able to secure its political interests through Pakistan, while Pakistan got monetary aid.
The American agreement to provide economic and military assistance to Pakistan and the latter's partnership in the Baghdad Pact, CENTO and SEATO strengthened relations between the two nations. At the time, its relationship with the U.S. was so close and friendly that it was called the United States' "most-allied ally" in Asia. Pakistan however felt deceived and ill-compensated for the risks incurred in supporting the U.S. - after the U-2 Crisis of 1960, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had threatened the nuclear annihilation of Pakistani cities. The U.S. suspension of military assistance during the 1965 Pakistan-India war generated a widespread feeling in Pakistan that the United States was not a reliable ally. Even though the United States suspended military assistance to both countries involved in the conflict, the suspension of aid affected Pakistan much more severely. Gradually, relations improved and arms sales were renewed in 1975. Then, in April 1979, the United States cut off economic assistance to Pakistan, except food assistance, as required under the Symington Amendment to the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, due to concerns about Pakistan's nuclear program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan-United_States_relations
TIME LINE: Chronology Of Pak-Us Relations
August 1947: The US welcomes the independence of India from British rule, and becomes one of the first countries to recognise Pakistan.
1950: Pakistan’s first PM Liaquat Ali Khan turns down an invitation by the former USSR for a visit to Moscow, opting to pay a state visit to the US after being invited by Washington.
1954: Amid concerns about Soviet expansion, the US and Pakistan sign a mutual defence agreement. Military aid to Pakistan between 1953 and 1961 totals $508 million.
1955: Pakistan joins two US-sponsored regional defence pacts — South East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) and the Central Treaty Organisation (CTO). As a result, Islamabad receives nearly $2 billion in US assistance from 1953 to 1961, including $508 million in military aid.
1962: The Indo-China War sees the US reaching out to India and offering it both military and economic aid. President Kennedy had assured Pakistani President Mohammed Ayub Khan that if the United States decided to give India military aid, he would talk with Khan first. His failure to do so in November 1962 deeply offended the Pakistani leader. To reassure Pakistan, Washington reaffirms its previous assurances that it will come to Pakistan’s assistance in the event of aggression from India
1965: Second war with India over Kashmir. The US cuts off aid to both nations. The Pakistanis are embittered at what they consider a friend’s betrayal
1971: The US again suspends military aid to Pakistan because of the India-Pakistan conflict.
1975: The US resumes limited financial aid to Pakistan
1979: The US suspends military aid after Pakistan constructs a uranium enrichment facility.
1980: he US pledges military assistance to Pakistan following Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. It also turns northern Pakistan into a base and conduit for US and Saudi-armed Afghan resistance fighters
1981: The US offers Pakistan a $3.2 billion, five-year economic and military aid package. Pakistan becomes a key ally of the US in the Afghan war.
1985: A section of the Foreign Assistance Act known as the Pressler Amendment requires the president to certify to Congress that Pakistan does not possess nuclear weapons.
1990: US military aid is again suspended under the provisions of the Pressler Amendment.
1992: The US relaxes sanctions on Pakistan to allow food and economic assistance to non-governmental organisations.
1998: Pakistan conducts its own nuclear tests after India explodes several devices. The US sends Pakistan $140 in economic and agricultural aid but imposes full restrictions on all non-humanitarian aid because of continuing nuclear tests.
1999: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif overthrown in military coup led by General Pervez Musharraf. The US sanctions limited aid to countries under coup governments come into effect.
September 2001: President Musharraf assures President Bush of ‘unstinted cooperation in the fight against terrorism’, as Powell asks Pakistan leaders if they were for or against the terrorists and their supporters in Afghanistan. In exchange, the US lifts some sanctions placed on Pakistan after the nuclear tests of 1998 and the coup of 1999. Large amounts of aid begin to flow to Pakistan. Congress grants the president special waivers to coup-related sanctions on Pakistan through 2003.
October 2001: US Under Secretary of State, Alan Larson, offers preferential treatment to some of the Pakistani export items, discuss generous treatment of Pakistani $3 billion debt at the Paris Club. Promises that the US will not leave Pakistan in a lurch after achieving its objectives in Afghanistan.
2002: The US cobbles together a $350 million package for Pakistan, earmarking $512 million for military financing.
2003: President Bush announces a five-year, $3 billion package for Pakistan. Legislation to both extend and to end the waiver of coup-related sanctions is presented to Congress.
2004: The US declares Pakistan ‘major non-NATO ally’
2005: Following the tragic October earthquake, the US announces a $510 million commitment for earthquake relief and reconstruction.
2006: Diplomatic ties strengthen as President Bush visits Pakistan in March.
2007: Washington tries to broker a power-sharing arrangement between President Musharraf and opposition leader in exile Benazir Bhutto.
2008: President Musharraf resigns as Washington appears to be distancing itself from him. His resignation signals the end of an important era in US-Pakistan relations.
Credits: Council on Foreign Relations (www.cfr.org) and PBS Foundation (www.pbs.org)
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/archive/080824/dmag2.htm
Geo News in trouble
LAHORE, Dec. 20: Private channel Geo TV News has been taken to court for its investigative report that exposed the Pakistani origin of Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist captured in the Mumbai attacks, and a petition seeking registration of a case has been admitted. The petition was filed by a ruling PPP leader for registering a case against employees and owners of the channel for beaming the report which had “damaged Pakistan’s image” across the world.
Pakistani human rights activist, Asma Jehangir, meanwhile said in New Delhi that Pakistan’s flip-flops over the origins of the Mumbai attackers was due to lack of leadership. PTI
Pakistan Nuclear Weapons
A Brief History of Pakistan's Nuclear Program
Pakistan's nuclear weapons program was established in 1972 by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who founded the program while he was Minister for Fuel, Power and Natural Resources, and later became President and Prime Minister. Shortly after the loss of East Pakistan in the 1971 war with India, Bhutto initiated the program with a meeting of physicists and engineers at Multan in January 1972.
India's 1974 testing of a nuclear "device" gave Pakistan's nuclear program new momentum. Through the late 1970s, Pakistan's program acquired sensitive uranium enrichment technology and expertise. The 1975 arrival of Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan considerably advanced these efforts. Dr. Khan is a German-trained metallurgist who brought with him knowledge of gas centrifuge technologies that he had acquired through his position at the classified URENCO uranium enrichment plant in the Netherlands. Dr. Khan also reportedly brought with him stolen uranium enrichment technologies from Europe. He was put in charge of building, equipping and operating Pakistan's Kahuta facility, which was established in 1976. Under Khan's direction, Pakistan employed an extensive clandestine network in order to obtain the necessary materials and technology for its developing uranium enrichment capabilities.
In 1985, Pakistan crossed the threshold of weapons-grade uranium production, and by 1986 it is thought to have produced enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon. Pakistan continued advancing its uranium enrichment program, and according to Pakistani sources, the nation acquired the ability to carry out a nuclear explosion in 1987.
Pakistan Nuclear Weapons - A Chronology
Nuclear Tests
On May 28, 1998 Pakistan announced that it had successfully conducted five nuclear tests. The Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission reported that the five nuclear tests conducted on May 28 generated a seismic signal of 5.0 on the Richter scale, with a total yield of up to 40 KT (equivalent TNT). Dr. A.Q. Khan claimed that one device was a boosted fission device and that the other four were sub-kiloton nuclear devices.
On May 30, 1998 Pakistan tested one more nuclear warhead with a reported yield of 12 kilotons. The tests were conducted at Balochistan, bringing the total number of claimed tests to six. It has also been claimed by Pakistani sources that at least one additional device, initially planned for detonation on 30 May 1998, remained emplaced underground ready for detonation.
Pakistani claims concerning the number and yields of their underground tests cannot be independently confirmed by seismic means, and several sources, such as the Southern Arizona Seismic Observatory have reported lower yields than those claimed by Pakistan. Indian sources have also suggested that as few as two weapons were actually detonated, each with yields considerably lower than claimed by Pakistan. However, seismic data showed at least two and possibly a third, much smaller, test in the initial round of tests at the Ras Koh range. The single test on 30 May provided a clear seismic signal.
DEVICE DATE YIELD
[announced] YIELD
[estimated]
[boosted device?] 28 May 1998 25-36 kiloton total 9-12 kiloton
Fission device 28 May 1998 12 kiloton
Low-yield device 28 May 1998 sub-kiloton --
Low-yield device 28 May 1998 sub-kiloton --
Low-yield device 28 May 1998 sub-kiloton --
Fission device 30 May 1998 12 kiloton 4-6 kiloton
Fission device not detonated 12 kiloton --
This table lists the nuclear tests that Pakistan claims to have carried out in May 1998 as well as the announced yields. Other sources have reported lower yields than those claimed by Pakistan. The Southern Arizona Seismic Observatory reports that the total seismic yield for the May 28th tests was 9-12 kilotons and that the yield for the May 30th tests was 4-6 kilotons.
According to a preliminary analysis conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory, material released into the atmosphere during an underground nuclear test by Pakistan in May 1998 contained low levels of weapons-grade plutonium. The significance of the Los Alamos finding was that Pakistan had either imported or produced plutonium undetected by the US intelligence community. But Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and other agencies later contested the accuracy of this finding.
These tests came slightly more than two weeks after India carried out five nuclear tests of its own on May 11 and 13 and after many warnings by Pakistani officials that they would respond to India.
Pakistan's nuclear tests were followed by the February 1999 Lahore Agreements between Prime Ministers Vajpayee and Sharif. The agreements included confidence building measures such as advance notice of ballistic missile testing and a continuation of their unilateral moratoria on nuclear testing. But diplomatic advances made that year were undermined by Pakistan's incursion into Kargil. Under US diplomatic pressure, Prime Minister Sharif withdrew his troops, but lost power in October 1999 due to a military coup in which Gen. Pervez Musharraf took over.
Satellite Imagery of Pakistan's May 28 and May 30 nuclear testing sites
Nuclear Infrastructure
Pakistan's nuclear program is based primarily on highly enriched uranium (HEU), which is produced at the A. Q. Khan research laboratory at Kahuta, a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility. The Kahuta facility has been in operation since the early 1980s. By the early 1990s, Kahuta had an estimated 3,000 centrifuges in operation, and Pakistan continued its pursuit of expanded uranium enrichment capabilities.
In the 1990s Pakistan began to pursue plutonium production capabilities. With Chinese assistance, Pakistan built the 40 MWt (megawatt thermal) Khusab research reactor at Joharabad, and in April 1998, Pakistan announced that the reactor was operational. According to public statements made by US officials, this unsafeguarded heavy water reactor generates an estimated 8-10 kilotons of weapons grade plutonium per year, which is enough for one to two nuclear weapons. The reactor could also produce tritium if it were loaded with lithium-6. According to J. Cirincione of Carnegie, Khusab's plutonium production capacity could allow Pakistan to develop lighter nuclear warheads that would be easier to deliver with a ballistic missile.
Plutonium separation reportedly takes place at the New Labs reprocessing plant next to Pakistan's Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (Pinstech) in Rawalpindi and at the larger Chasma nuclear power plant, neither of which are subject to IAEA inspection.
Nuclear Arsenal
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) estimates that Pakistan has built 24-48 HEU-based nuclear warheads, and Carnegie reports that they have produced 585-800 kg of HEU, enough for 30-55 weapons. Pakistan's nuclear warheads are based on an implosion design that uses a solid core of highly enriched uranium and requires an estimated 15-20 kg of material per warhead. According to Carnegie, Pakistan has also produced a small but unknown quantity of weapons grade plutonium, which is sufficient for an estimated 3-5 nuclear weapons.
Pakistani authorities claim that their nuclear weapons are not assembled. They maintain that the fissile cores are stored separately from the non-nuclear explosives packages, and that the warheads are stored separately from the delivery systems. In a 2001 report, the Defense Department contends that "Islamabad's nuclear weapons are probably stored in component form" and that "Pakistan probably could assemble the weapons fairly quickly." However, no one has been able to ascertain the validity of Pakistan's assurances about their nuclear weapons security.
Pakistan's reliance primarily on HEU makes its fissile materials particularly vulnerable to diversion. HEU can be used in a relatively simple gun-barrel-type design, which could be within the means of non-state actors that intend to assemble a crude nuclear weapon.
The terrorist attacks on September 11th raised concerns about the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. According to press reports, within two days of the attacks, Pakistan's military began relocating nuclear weapons components to six new secret locations. Shortly thereafter, Gen. Pervez Musharraf fired his intelligence chief and other officers and detained several suspected retired nuclear weapons scientists, in an attempt to root out extremist elements that posed a potential threat to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
Concerns have also been raised about Pakistan as a proliferant of nuclear materials and expertise. In November, 2002, shortly after North Korea admitted to pursuing a nuclear weapons program, the press reported allegations that Pakistan had provided assistance in the development of its uranium enrichment program in exchange for North Korean missile technologies.
Foreign Assistance
In the past, China played a major role in the development of Pakistan's nuclear infrastructure, especially when increasingly stringent export controls in western countries made it difficult for Pakistan to acquire materials and technology elsewhere. According to a 2001 Department of Defense report, China has supplied Pakistan with nuclear materials and expertise and has provided critical assistance in the construction of Pakistan's nuclear facilities.
In the 1990s, China designed and supplied the heavy water Khusab reactor, which plays a key role in Pakistan's production of plutonium. A subsidiary of the China National Nuclear Corporation also contributed to Pakistan's efforts to expand its uranium enrichment capabilities by providing 5,000 custom made ring magnets, which are a key component of the bearings that facilitate the high-speed rotation of centrifuges.
According to Anthony Cordesman of CSIS, China is also reported to have provided Pakistan with the design of one of its warheads, which is relatively sophisticated in design and lighter than U.S. and Soviet designed first generation warheads.
China also provided technical and material support in the completion of the Chasma nuclear power reactor and plutonium reprocessing facility, which was built in the mid 1990s. The project had been initiated as a cooperative program with France, but Pakistan's failure to sign the NPT and unwillingness to accept IAEA safeguards on its entire nuclear program caused France to terminate assistance.
According to the Defense Department report cited above, Pakistan has also acquired nuclear related and dual-use and equipment and materials from the Former Soviet Union and Western Europe.
Intermittent US Sanctions
On several occasions, under the authority of amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act, the U.S. has imposed sanctions on Pakistan, cutting off economic and military aid as a result of its pursuit of nuclear weapons. However, the U.S. suspended sanctions each time developments in Afghanistan made Pakistan a strategically important "frontline state," such as the 1981 Soviet occupation and in the war on terrorism.
Pakistan's Nuclear Doctrine
Several sources, such as Jane's Intelligence Review and Defense Department reports maintain that Pakistan's motive for pursuing a nuclear weapons program is to counter the threat posed by its principal rival, India, which has superior conventional forces and nuclear weapons.
Pakistan has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). According to the Defense Department report cited above, "Pakistan remains steadfast in its refusal to sign the NPT, stating that it would do so only after India joined the Treaty. Consequently, not all of Pakistan's nuclear facilities are under IAEA safeguards. Pakistani officials have stated that signature of the CTBT is in Pakistan's best interest, but that Pakistan will do so only after developing a domestic consensus on the issue, and have disavowed any connection with India's decision."
Pakistan does not abide by a no-first-use doctrine, as evidenced by President Pervez Musharraf's statements in May, 2002. Musharraf said that Pakistan did not want a conflict with India but that if it came to war between the nuclear-armed rivals, he would "respond with full might." These statements were interpreted to mean that if pressed by an overwhelming conventional attack from India, which has superior conventional forces, Pakistan might use its nuclear weapons.
Sources and Resources
UN Nuclear Chief Warns of Global Black Market Mohammed ElBaradei commenting on questions raised by the Khan confession, February 6, 2004.
Abdul Qadeer Khan "Apologizes" for Transferring Nuclear Secrets Abroad, broadcast on Pakistani television, February 4, 2004.
Documents Indicate A.Q. Khan Offered Nuclear Weapon Designs to Iraq in 1990: Did He Approach Other Countries? By David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, February 4, 2004
Deadly Arsenals, chapter on Paksitan - by Joseph Cirincione, John B.Wolfsthal and Miriam Rajkumar (Carnegie, June 2002). The chapter discusses Pakistan's WMD, missile and aircraft capabilities. It also presents the strategic context of the nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan and the history of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, touching on foreign assistance from China and on-and-off US economic assistance.
Proliferation: Threat and Response, Jan. 2001 - A Defense Department report on the status of nuclear proliferation in South Asia. It includes a brief historical background on the conflict between India and Pakistan as well as an assessment of their nuclear capabilities, chem/bio programs, ballistic missile programs and other means of delivery.
ENHANCING NUCLEAR SECURITY IN THE COUNTER-TERRORISM STRUGGLE: India and Pakistan as a New Region for Cooperation - by Rose Gottemoeller, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, August 2002. This working paper explores possible cooperative programs that could enhance the security of Pakistan and India's nuclear arsenals, in order to prevent the diversion of dangerous materials into the hands of terrorists or rogue state leaders.
"Pakistan's Nuclear Forces, 2001" from NRDC Nuclear Notebook, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Jan/Feb 2002. A Two-page update on the state of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. It makes rough estimates of the number of nuclear weapons and the amount of fissile material in Pakistan's possession and touches on fissile material production capabilities. Also included is a brief discussion of delivery mechanisms such as aircraft and missiles.
Monterey Institute Resource Page on India and Pakistan - last updated July 7, 2000. This page has many useful links to relevant maps, news articles and analytical pieces on India and Pakistan's nuclear programs.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - Pakistan resources
Pakistan Nuclear Weapons - A Chronology - a timeline of the Pakistan's Nuclear Development program since 1965.
"The Threat of Pakistani Nuclear Weapons" - a CSIS report by Anthony H. Cordesman (Last updated Nov. 2001). - This report tells the history of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program and discusses China role in its development. It also lists recent US intelligence reports on Pakistan's activities.
From Testing to Deploying Nuclear Forces: The Hard Choices Facing India and Pakistan - Gregory S. Jones. (Rand, 2000). "This issue paper describes the requirements for a nuclear deterrent force in general terms, discusses how the Indian-Pakistani nuclear relationship is affected by China, and then considers the specific decisions that still must be made in India and Pakistan."
Pakistan Nuclear Update, 2001 - Wisconsin Project. This three-page document provides a brief summary of Pakistan's main nuclear sites and an update on developments in Pakistan's nuclear program.
Securing Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal: Principles for Assistance - by David Albright, Kevin O'Neill and Corey Hinderstein, Oct. 4, 2001. An ISIS issue brief on the potential threats to the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
The May 1998 India and Pakistan Nuclear Tests - by Terry C. Wallace, Southern Arizona Seismic Observatory (SASO), 1998. This technical paper provides a seismic analysis of India and Pakistan's 1998 nuclear tests. It concludes that Pakistan's May 28 tests had a seismic yield of 9-12 kt, and the May 30 test had a yield of 4-6 kt. An updated web page on this report can be found here
Satellite Imagery of Pakistan's May 28 and May 30 nuclear testing sites, hosted on the Center for Monitoring Research Commercial Satellite Imagery Page
"Pakistan's Nuclear Dilemma" - September 23 2001, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Transcripts from a Carnegie panel on developments in Pakistan in the aftermath of the Septempber 11th attacks. The panel included three speakers -- Shirin Tahir-Kheli, George Perkovich and Rose Gottemoeller-- and was moderated by Joseph Cirincione.
Chapter on Pakistan, from Tracking Nuclear Proliferation: A Guide in Maps and Charts, 1998 by Rodney W. Jones, Mark G. McDonough, with Toby F. Dalton and Gregory D. Koblentz (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment, July 1998). This chapter documents the history of Pakistan's nuclear program and tracks the development of its nuclear infrastructure. It also covers in detail the sanctions the US imposed on Pakistan in light of these developments, as well Pakistan's missile program.
"U.S. Appears to be Losing Track of Pakistan's Nuclear Program" and "U.S. Now Believes Pakistan to use Khushab Plutonium in Bomb Program" By Mark Hibbs July, 1998. Two brief articles written in the aftermath of Paksistan's 1998 nuclear tests -- they discuss Pakistan's weapons grade uranium and plutonium production capacities and the implications for its nuclear arsenal.
"U.S. Labs at Odds on Whether Pakistani Blast Used Plutonium," by Dana Priest Washington Post Sunday, January 17, 1999; Page A02. This article discusses the controversy over the preliminary analysis carried out by Los Alamos National Laboratory, which found that plutonium traces had been released into the atomosphere during Pakistan's May 30th underground nuclear test. Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Labs contested the accuracy of this finding and alleged that Los Alamos had contaminated and then lost the air sample. At the time, Los Alamos' findings were highly controversial because they implied that Pakistan had obtained plutonium either though imports or indigenous production, and there was uncertainty about Pakistan's plutonium production capabilities. It is now public knowledge that Pakistan can produce and isolate plutonium at its Khusbab reactor and at the New Labs and Chasma separation facilities.
NUCLEARISATION OF SOUTH ASIA AND ITS REGIONAL AND GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS Munir Ahmed Khan REGIONAL STUDIES Autumn 1998
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/pakistan/nuke/index.html
Are The US And Pakistan At War?
Most Of The 'Foreign Fighters' Liquidated
In Afghanistan Are Actually Pakistani
The Times of India
IndiaTimes.com
11-28-1
WASHINGTON - In all but name, the United States is at war with Pakistan.
Despite all the protestations about military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf's "bold and courageous stand" and Islamabad's status as a frontline ally, there is a growing sense in Washington that Pakistan has worked against US interests in Afghanistan. There is also anger in sections of the administration over what is seen as Pakistani perfidy over issues ranging from deployment of its troops, agents and private militia in Afghanistan to its dangerous game of nuclear weapons proliferation.
As a result, the Bush administration has begun to quietly punish Pakistan even while publicly upholding a facade of goodwill, just as Islamabad is also maintaining a pretense of cooperation in the fight against terrorism while pursuing its own agenda. Several incidents bear this out, including the latest episode involving two prominent Pakistani nuclear scientists, who have now been detained again at Washington's insistence over suspicion that they were involved in planning an "Anthrax Bomb."
The US has also allowed the Northern Alliance to decimate those euphemistically known as "foreign fighters" - who it now turns out are mostly Pakistani irregulars and jehadists with some serving army personnel and agents directing them. Western journalists in the region have now exposed the smokescreen that referred to these fighters as "Arab, Chechen and Pakistani," by reporting that they are almost exclusively Pakistani. In some cases, Washington itself has joined in by using air power to bomb the Pakistani fighters. US air power has also been directed against jehadis operating in the tribal areas within the Pakistani borders.
While publicly continuing to endorse and applaud the military regime of Gen. Musharraf - to the extent of ignoring his announcement that he will continue to be Pakistan's president even after the proposed October 2002 elections - Washington has begun to ignore a growing list of Pakistani gripes. Starting with Musharraf's plea to shorten the bombing campaign to not to bomb the Taliban frontlines and not to allow the Northern Alliance to take over Kabul, it now extends to the request to allow evacuation of Pakistani fighters trapped in Afghanistan.
In each case, the US has gone ahead and done pretty much what suits its war aims, forcing Musharraf to fall in line and handle the domestic fall-out. On the issue of safe passage to Pakistani fighters though, there appears to have been a split in the administration. Reports that the US winked at Pakistani aircraft evacuating from Kunduz its armed forces personnel, agents, and jehadis with domestic connections, persist. Officially, state department mandarins insist they have no knowledge of any such evacuation but western reporters in the region have confirmed the evacuation based on first-hand accounts from locals.
However in the case of other fleeing Pakistani fighters, US officials, especially those manning the war machine and therefore less connected to diplomatic concerns that the state department is sensitive to, have made it clear they would rather see them surrender or die than head back home to Pakistan. Comments to this effect, especially one from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, has raised hackles in Pakistan where some officials termed it "callous."
In one instance at least, accounts by Northern Alliance fighters that they executed scores of Pakistani fighters "before the eyes of US military personnel," after they refused to surrender, has enraged Islamabad. Several prominent Pakistani commentators have called for an investigation into the episode. But US officials in Islamabad say the deaths occurred in a pitched battle and not in a massacre. "To try to make it appear as a massacre does not accord with the facts," spokesman Kenton Keith told reporters.
The strange dissonance between the official positions of the two sides and the private differences is the subject of much discussion in Washington diplomatic parlours and among its power brokers. "It's like a bad marriage. Or like two colleagues who mistrust each other but are forced to work together," a Congressional aide who works on regional issues said.
Pakistanis are working overtime to salvage the situation. It's energetic ambassador Maleeha Lodhi is turning on the charm and deploying its familiar supporters and lobbyists, many of them relics from the Cold War era who are tapping into their old contacts in the Republican establishment.
But they are weighing against the overwhelming reports coming in everyday from the war front showing Pakistanis fighting the US, with or without official connivance. "It's not a happy situation," one US official conceded in private. "We have to work our way through a lot of problems."
> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=2008798215
The Risk of Inadvertent Nuclear Use Between India and Pakistan
Strategic Insights, Volume II, Issue 2 (February 2003)
by Peter R. Lavoy and MAJ Stephen A. Smith
Strategic Insights is a monthly electronic journal produced by the Center for Contemporary Conflict at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The views expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of NPS, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
Click here for a PDF version of this article.
Although the Indian and Pakistani governments strongly desire to avoid a fourth war, the coercive diplomacy pursued by each side has brought them to the brink of major conflict on more than one occasion in recent years. Today tensions remain high, and war is a distinct possibility. Should hostilities break out, what are the chances that the fighting could be confined to the use of conventional military force? Although both Indian and Pakistani leaders would do everything in their power to avoid using nuclear weapons, there are three situations in which a large-scale conventional conflict between India and Pakistan could inadvertently escalate to nuclear warfare because of the nations' asymmetries in doctrine and military capabilities.[1]
Conventional Force Comparison
The conventional military balance is tilted far in India's favor. India has achieved numerical and qualitative superiority in many military categories, particularly in mechanized ground forces and in attack aircraft. It has a two-to-one advantage in tanks and a three-to-one advantage in modern tanks. India also has true infantry fighting vehicles, giving its mechanized infantry much more firepower and mobility than the Pakistani infantry. The two-to-one overall advantage in aircraft grows to almost a six-to-one advantage when one compares just the most modern and capable aircraft - a category in which Pakistan lost its earlier edge after over a decade of U.S.-led international sanctions.[2] This disadvantage is very significant because Pakistan has little strategic depth; that is, many of its strategic assets are close to its border with India.
Both India and Pakistan have offensively oriented conventional military doctrines. India has developed an offensive-defensive military doctrine that calls for aggressive offensive action to pre-empt or counter-attack the enemy. Currently, India is exploring the concept of limited conventional war based on the notion of strategic space between low-intensity conflicts and full-scale conventional war. This concept is fueled by political and public pressure within India to launch conventional military strikes against Pakistan in retaliation for Pakistan's alleged support of terrorism.[3] The Pakistani army also relies on an offensive-defensive strategy, which is characterized by retaining adequate reserves at successive force levels, surprise, and aggressive leadership. This strategy calls for the Pakistan army to detect the initial enemy thrust, take effective counter measures to limit penetration, and simultaneously attack the adversary to capture or threaten a strategic objective.[4]
Strategic Nuclear Balance
Each country possesses a stockpile of nuclear weapons components and could assemble and deploy several nuclear weapons within a few days to a week.[5] The size, composition, and operational status of each nuclear arsenal are closely guarded secrets, but sufficient public information exists to make general assumptions about the strategic balance in South Asia.[6]
Assuming that the Cirus and Dhruva research reactors produce 25-40 kg of bomb-grade plutonium annually, by the end of 2002 India could have stockpiled between 280-600 kg of weapon-grade plutonium.[7] Although India also has a program to produce highly enriched uranium (HEU), it is not known if the program has managed to produce weapon-grade HEU. Experts assess that India could require as little as 5 kg and as much as 7 kg of plutonium per weapon. Considering the worst- and best-case assumptions about Indian weapon design, it could possess enough fissile material for between 40 and 120 weapons, with 70 as the median estimate.
Unlike India, which relies on plutonium for its weapons, Pakistan's nuclear program is based on HEU. If Pakistan's Kahuta enrichment plant is able to produce 80-140 kg of weapon-grade uranium per year, Pakistan today could have 815-1230 kg available for weapons production. The amount required for a bomb is believed to be 12-25 kg, depending on the weapon design Pakistan employs. In addition, an unsafeguarded heavy-water research reactor recently constructed at Khushab produces plutonium that could be reprocessed to make a few nuclear weapons annually. Adding together its possible plutonium and HEU inventories, Pakistan could have enough fissile material to produce between 35 and 95 weapons, with 60 as the median estimate.
Each state has various aircraft and ballistic missiles that could be used to deliver nuclear weapons. In 2001, DOD assessed that India would most likely employ fighter-bomber aircraft for delivery because its ballistic missiles probably were not yet ready. The air force has several aircraft that could be employed for this mission, but the best suited would be the Jaguar, Mirage-2000, MiG-27, or Su-30. India has deployed short-range Prithvi 1 missiles that are capable of carrying a 1000 kg warhead (the presumed maximum size of a nuclear device), but because of Prithvi's restricted range, India will probably turn to its new solid-propellant Agni 1 missile, which has a 700-900 km range and was rushed into development after the 1999 Kargil conflict. The Agni 1 and the 2000-3000 km-range Agni 2 missile are likely to become India's preferred missile platforms when they become operational.
Pakistan has placed a high priority on acquiring ballistic missiles to offset India's conventional military advantages and to ensure reliable delivery of nuclear weapons. Although the Pakistan Air Force F-16 and Mirage 5 aircraft probably are capable of nuclear delivery, the liquid-fuel Ghauri 1 and 2 missiles developed with North Korean assistance, and the solid-fuel Shaheen 1 and 2 missiles developed with Chinese help, are more likely choices.[8]
India's draft nuclear doctrine, published in August 1999, is based on a retaliatory, no-first-use policy.[9] The doctrine casts Indian nuclear forces principally as a deterrent against a nuclear attack on India. Pakistan has not publicly announced an official nuclear doctrine, but it is concerned with deterring India from taking advantage of its conventional superiority. Pakistan appears to have adopted a nuclear first-use policy to deter India from using its conventional military superiority.[10]
Survivability at Risk
Large-scale conventional warfare between India and Pakistan has the potential to threaten the survival of Pakistan's strategic nuclear forces. However, limited Indian attacks, such as a retaliatory strike on the ground or through the air, would not serve as a real threat to Pakistan's strategic weapon systems.
The asymmetries of strategic depth and offensive military capability give India an operational advantage, and may create a situation in which India's conventional ground or air forces come into contact with Pakistan's strategic nuclear forces. Pakistan's shorter-range Hatf 3/M-11 ballistic missiles must be stationed fairly far forward to reach strategic targets in India, perhaps leaving them vulnerable to both air and ground attack. The same is true of Pakistan's forward airbases, which are within easy striking distance of the border. This is a very troubling scenario because Pakistan places great emphasis on its strategic nuclear forces to deter a large-scale conventional attack by India. The survival of Pakistan's strategic forces is critical to Pakistan, and a threat to them could place pressure on Pakistan to launch a nuclear attack while the strategic forces are still intact and capable of making a credible impression upon India.
India's greater strategic depth allows it to disperse its strategic nuclear forces to areas beyond the normal range of enemy ground and air operations. Longer-range platforms, such as the SU-30 aircraft and the Agni 2 missiles, further decrease Indian vulnerability. When combined with India's presumed retaliatory-only nuclear doctrine, this would seem to minimize the possibility of Pakistan degrading India's strategic deterrent capability so severely that India is pushed into a "use them or lose them" situation.
Command and Control Threatened
Large-scale conventional warfare between India and Pakistan also could threaten vital strategic command and control functions. This is particularly true for Pakistan since India has made a major investment in intelligence gathering and precision-strike capability.[11] There also may be a significant overlap between Pakistan's normal conventional operational command and control structures that would be subject to attack in a large-scale war and its strategic command and control structure. If Pakistan lost command and control of its strategic forces, would national command authorities consider ordering the use of remaining strategic nuclear forces while they could still affect some degree of deterrence?
Pakistan's presumed inability to identify and attack India's C4I probably precludes any appreciable loss of command and control over India's strategic force during a conventional war. This is reinforced by a several factors, including India's reliance on negative control features, and its greater strategic depth. A conventional attack on India's command and control structures probably would cause only a delay in retaliatory nuclear strikes, and not lead to the inadvertent use of nuclear weapons.
There are no indications that India has pre-delegated nuclear release authority. However, New Delhi might find that its strategic command and control functions are unable to cope with the effects of a full-scale conventional war. Under such circumstances India's senior leadership may have to cobble together a system while under pressure. There are no indications that Pakistan has pre-delegated nuclear release authority. However, it too may find that its strategic command and control functions are unable to cope with the effects of a full-scale war. Pakistan would be under tremendous pressure to create a workable system if its strategic command and control system is at risk. Pakistan's reliance on nuclear deterrence could force it to adopt pre-delegation of nuclear release authority if there were no other method to ensure delivery.
Fear of Pre-emption
Large-scale conventional warfare between India and Pakistan almost certainly would include air and ballistic missile attacks. Attacks by these inherently dual-use systems have the potential to be interpreted as pre-emptive attacks to destroy or neutralize the adversary's nuclear capability. This is especially true for Pakistan since India has invested heavily in improving its intelligence gathering and precision-strike capability. India also has made a major investment in defensive measures, including a limited ballistic missile defense.[12] Pakistan may believe that India is trying to gain the ability to launch a pre-emptive attack and deny Pakistan the ability to counter with an effective second-strike with a reduced force. Could this concern lead Pakistan to adopt a launch-on-warning or launch-under-attack posture where any Indian air- or ballistic missile attack could be interpreted as a pre-emptive strike and cause Pakistan to launch its nuclear weapons?
Pakistan's limited ability to identify and attack India's strategic nuclear assets probably precludes any appreciable loss of India's retaliatory capability even if Pakistan launched a pre-emptive attack. This condition is reinforced by India's greater strategic depth, and its superior air and ballistic missile defenses. An air- or ballistic missile attack on India probably would elicit a strong response, but probably not a nuclear response.
Conclusion
India and Pakistan do not want war; and they certainly do not want to fight a nuclear war. As strong as this desire is, however, New Delhi and Islamabad are caught in a spiral of tension and mistrust that could cause the next regional crisis to flair into armed conflict. If India and Pakistan do find themselves engaged in a large-scale conventional war, escalation to a nuclear exchange probably would be averted because of the strategic balance that now obtains. However, their asymmetrical conventional force capabilities and doctrines could create pressures for one side to launch nuclear weapons, even if they would prefer not to. The three scenarios of inadvertent war outlined above show how India's superior conventional military power might so seriously degrade the Pakistan national command authority's confidence in its nuclear deterrent that a nuclear war begins that nobody wants. Even if the risk of inadvertent nuclear war is judged to be low, steps should be taken to ensure that India and Pakistan do not become embroiled in even a limited war. The United States can play a constructive role in the region by taking steps to help keep the peace and reorienting its arms transfer policy to help stabilize the military balance.
http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/feb03/southAsia2.asp
I think south east asia is most dangrous region in world.Both countries alreay fought three wars and present insurgency in mubai could be starting point of fourth war .
Unfortunately both countries have majority population living under line of poverty.
http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=160477
City not beyond terror radar’
Statesman News Service
KOLKATA, Dec. 20: The police commissioner, Mr Goutam Mohan Chakrabarti, today acknowledged that the city is not “beyond the terror radar”.
Though police have not received a specific threat regarding a terror attack in the city, there is no reason to believe that Kolkata is beyond the terror radar, he said, while interacting with members of the business community at the Merchant Chamber of Commerce (MCC) this morning.
To strengthen counter-terrorism measures, the city police has sent a proposal to the state government to set up a combat battalion, he added. He informed business people that the National Security Guard (NSG) has agreed to set up a unit in the city soon. The city police is fully prepared to deal with any terror act, Mr Chakrabarti said, adding that several counter-terrorism measures have been taken and certain proposals have been moved to the state government for its approval. Police officers are being trained with the help of Indian Army jawans and BSF. Efforts have been made to set up a full-fledged training institute in the city, he said.
Another proposal to deploy 685 additional police officers in Metro Railway stations has been cleared by the state government and the same has been moved to the railway ministry for clearance, Mr Chakrabarti said. Expenditures including salaries of the additional police officers in Metro Railways would be shared by the Centre and the state government equally. He said the city police has decided to procure bulletproof jackets and other equipment. Orders of purchase have already been placed. Major hotels and clubs have been brought under strong police surveillance.
Since it is not possible for the state government to arm each constable with sophisticated arms to take on terrorists, the city police authorities have also decided to form quick response teams to ensure that police reach any spot in the city within the shortest span of time. Apart from this, the system of sharing intelligence input among sister agencies is being upgraded, Mr Chakrabarti said.
Farmers threaten to start cultivation on acquired land
BOLPUR, Dec. 20: Farmers from Bolpur's five villages, led by Sibpur Krishi Jomi Bachao Committee (SKJBC), today broke the boundary fence of a 25-acre plot acquired by the state government.
The West Bengal Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (WBIIDC) had acquired around 300 acres of land in 2001 for setting up various housing and hospitality projects. However, till date no project has come up on that land. The farmers decided that if the government fails to set up any industry on the acquired land within a month, they would start cultivation there as before. The SKJBC further alleged that 75 of the 245 farmers whose land have been acquired have not received any compensation so far. The committee today also marked out land belonging to farmers who have not received compensation so far.
“We have appealed to the district administration several times to set up industry on the acquired land or hand over the land that has not been used for the past seven years to the farmers. But our appeals have fallen to deaf ears. Hence we broke the fence and will soon start cultivation there,” said Mr Mozammel Hoque, leader, SKJBC. SNS
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=6&theme=&usrsess=1&id=237010
Farmers forgotten in state-Centre blame game
Statesman News Service
KOLKATA, Dec. 20: The Marxist government seems to have a penchant for blaming the Central government while doing nothing to solve problems at its end.
In one such incidence, the state government has blamed the Centre for not providing freight charges of chemical fertilisers at the secondary phase, while sitting tight on the proposal of giving immediate relief to the farmers.
With regular complaints of smuggling and black market for fertilisers coming from the districts for the past few months, the state agriculture department had sent a proposal to the state finance department that a special fund be created to “incur the expenditure” of transport charges as an interim measure which can be later reimbursed from the Centre. The proposal called for Rs 75 crore, to give relief to the farmers till the Centre acknowledged its demand of paying secondary transport charges, that is from railway rakes to farmers’ doorstep by means of road transport. The proposal was also included in a policy paper on fertiliser, published recently by the agriculture department.
The proposal was sent to the finance department at the end of October but the agriculture department is yet to hear anything about it. Instead, in a recent meeting with representatives of different political parties on the issue, the state government allowed the dealers to charge that “extra” from the farmers above the maximum retail price (MRP).
The finance minister, Mr Asim Dasgupta, has been demanding that with the reduction in fertiliser prices in the international market, the Centre should pay the secondary freight charges. Apart from waiting for the Centre to pay the secondary freight charges, the state government is only talking of strengthening the monitoring. Hence the poor farmers’ woes are likely to continue.
History
In the 1990s India woke up to a spate of farmers suicides. The first state where suicides were reported was Maharashtra. Soon newspapers began to report similar occurrences from Andhra Pradesh. In the beginning it was believed that most of the suicides were happening among the cotton growers, especially those from Vidarbha. A look at the figures given out by the State Crime Records Bureau, however, was sufficient to indicate that it was not just the cotton farmer but farmers as a professional category were suffering, irrespective of their holding size.[1] Moreover, it was not just the farmers from Vidarbha but all over Maharashtra who showed a significantly high suicide rate. The government appointed a number of inquiries to look into the causes of farmers suicide and farm related distress in general. Subsequently Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Vidarbha and promised a package of Rs. 11,000 crores to be spent by the government in Vidarbha. The families of farmers who had committed suicide were also offered an ex gratia grant to the tune of Rs. 1 lakh by the government. This figure kept on varying, depending on how much flak the government was facing from the media and the opposition parties for being uncaring towards the farmers' plight. Such a high figure was ironic considering that the net average income of a family of farmers in this region was approximately Rs. 2700 per acre per annum. The economic plight of the farmer might be illustrated with the fact that a farmer having as much as 15 acres (61,000 m2) of land, and hence considered a well-off farmer, had an income of just a little more than what he would have earned were he to merely get the legal minimum wage for all of the 365 days of the year. Little wonder that despite government efforts at pumping in more money into the suicide belt the suicide epidemic among farmers remained unabated through 2006-07. The problems of the farmers were quite comprehensive. There was little credit available. What was available was very costly. There was no advise on how best to conduct agriculture operations. Income through farming was not enough to meet even the minimum needs of a farming family. Support systems like free health facilities from the government were virtually non-existent. Traditionally support systems in the villages of India had been provided by the government. However, due to a variety of reasons the government had either withdrawn itself from its supportive role or plain simple misgovernance had allowed facilities in the villages to wither away.[2]
Agriculture is the mainstay of the state of Maharashtra. It is the main occupation of the people. Both food crops and cash crops are grown in the state. The main food crops of Maharashtra are mangoes, grapes, bananas, oranges, wheat, rice, jowar, bajra, and pulses. Cash crops include groundnut, cotton, sugarcane, turmeric, and tobacco.
The total irrigated area which has been used for crop cultivation is 33, 500 square kilometers. Large areas of the state have been brought under fruit cultivation. The fruits which have added to the treasury of the state are the Nagpur oranges, oranges of Bathplug, the Alphonso Mangoes and the grapes of Nashik.
The agricultural growth rate has increased to 1.97%. To make things more accessible for the farmers the interest rate for the loans has been decreased to 6%. A very important problem is the dependence on rainfall. To lessen the dependence irrigation facilities have been extended to an additional area of 1.4 lakh hectares. To provide relief to stressed farmers who have been affected by the drought conditions, Rs.5200 crore has been sanctioned by the central government. This has been done to six districts of the Vidharba region. To compensate the crop losses Rs367 crore has been granted to the poor farmers. Apart from that stringent actions have been taken on 2821 illegal money lenders.
Research on agriculture and agricultural products needs to be conducted to tackle the diverse agro – climatic differences. Apart from that the transport and communication services, infrastructure development in the rural area has helped in developing the agricultural production of the state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers'_suicides_in_India
1.5 lakh farmers committed suicide between 1997 and 2005
November 22, 2007
A recent study conducted by Professor K Nagaraj, a senior economist specialising in rural development and agrarian issues at the Madras Institute of Development Studies on farmers' suicides, has come out with startling revelations.
His study says that 1.5 lakh farmers committed suicide between 1997 and 2005, and two thirds of them are from four states -- Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh (including the present Chhattisgarh). In this interview with contributing editor Shobha Warrier, he talks in detail about the study and its findings.
Why did you do a study on farmers' suicides in India?
One of the reasons was that I have been working on rural development and agrarian issues for a very long time. In fact, that is my major area of specialisation. It was quite clear from the secondary data as well as the surveys I took that there was a deep crisis in the agricultural sector. I also felt that this crisis is related to the epidemic of farmers' suicides in the country.
It so happened that the Andhra Pradesh government set up a committee to study the farm conditions and suggest some remedial measures. They put me on the committee. When we went around the drier parts of Andhra Pradesh, we saw the depth of the crisis.
At that time, I was not contemplating working on the secondary data. Then Dr Lakshmi Vijayakumar of Sneha, an organisation that works with suicide victims, contacted me and asked me whether I could put together a study on farmers' suicide. That was because they were organising a seminar on pesticide-suicides, and pesticide suicides and framers' suicides are closely linked.
I then decided to see what the official government data said. That is how I started working on this study in March-April 2007.
What is the official data source that you based your study on?
Every year the National Crime Records Bureau comes out with a report on accidental deaths and suicides in India. This is a home ministry publication. They give reasonably detailed data on suicides for the entire country. Earlier they used to give suicide data in general but now, we get separate data from each state.
Why did you decide to make your study from 1997-2005?
It is only from 1995 that they have created a special category for farmers, what they call cultivators. Till then the category was not there. When I looked into the data of 1996 and 1997, I found that some of the states had not started reporting on the farmers' studies.
http://specials.rediff.com/news/2007/nov/22sld1.htm
Economy of Pakistan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
, agriculture and other industries. It is the 25th largest economy in the world.
The economy has suffered in the past from decades of internal political disputes, a fast growing population, mixed levels of foreign investment, and a costly, ongoing confrontation with neighboring India. However, IMF-approved government policies, bolstered by foreign investment and renewed access to global markets, have generated solid macroeconomic recovery the last decade. Substantial macroeconomic reforms since 2000, most notably at privatizing the banking sector have helped the economy. Pakistan has seen a growing middle class population since then and poverty levels have decreased by 10% since 2001.
GDP growth, spurred by gains in the industrial and service sectors, remained in the 6-8% range in 2004-06. In 2005, the World Bank named Pakistan the top reformer in its region and in the top 10 reformers globally. [4]
Islamabad has steadily raised development spending in recent years, including a 52% real increase in the budget allocation for development in FY07, a necessary step toward reversing the broad underdevelopment of its social sector. The fiscal deficit - the result of chronically low tax collection and increased spending, including reconstruction costs from the devastating Kashmir earthquake in 2005 was manageable. Development in urban areas of Pakistan has remained high but is low in rural areas.
Inflation remains the biggest threat to the economy, jumping to more than 9% in 2005 before easing to 7.9% in 2006. In 2008, following the surge in global petrol prices inflation in Pakistan has reached as high as 25.0%. The central bank is pursuing tighter monetary policy while trying to preserve growth. Foreign exchange reserves are bolstered by steady worker remittances, but a growing current account deficit - driven by a widening trade gap as import growth outstrips export expansion - could draw down reserves and dampen GDP growth in the medium term.[5]
Since the beginning of 2008, Pakistan's economic outlook has taken a dramatic downturn. Security concerns stemming from the nation's role in the War on Terror have created great instability and led to a decline in FDI from a height of approximately $8 bn to $3.5bn for the current fiscal year. Concurrently, the insurgency has forced massive capital flight from Pakistan to the Gulf. Combined with high global commodity prices, the dual impact has shocked Pakistan's economy, with gaping trade deficits, high inflation and a crash in the value of the Rupee, which has fallen from 60-1 USD to over 80-1 USD in a few months. For the first time in years, it may have to seek external funding as Balance of Payments support. Consequently, S&P lowered Pakistan’s foreign currency debt rating to CCC-plus from B, just several notches above a level that would indicate default. Pakistan’s local currency debt rating was lowered to B-minus from BB-minus. Credit agency Moody’s Investors Service cut its outlook on Pakistan’s debt to negative from stable due to political uncertainty, though it maintained the country’s rating at B2.The cost of protection against a default in Pakistan’s sovereign debt trades at 1,800 basis points, according to its five year credit default swap, a level that indicates investors believe the country is already in or will soon be in default.
The middle term however may be less turbulent, depending on the political environment. The EIU estimates that inflation should drop back to single digits in 2010, and that growth should pick up to over 5% per annum by 2011. Although less then the previous 5 year average of 7%, it would represent a overcoming of the present crisis wherein growth is a mere 3.5-4%. [6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Pakistan
comment: Reviving Pakistan’s economy —Masood Ahmed
More financing is urgently needed to strengthen Pakistan’s resilience to potential shocks, help finance the expanded social safety net, and allow for higher spending on development programmes
Pakistan’s economy is at a critical juncture. Inflation has doubled and is now running at 25 percent, the value of the rupee has fallen by a third since March, and foreign exchange reserves are down to worrying levels. All this is occurring against the backdrop of the worst international economic crisis in sixty years.
These are precisely the type of circumstances in which member countries look for support from the IMF. And so did Pakistan — resulting in the approval on November 24 by the IMF’s Board of Directors of a $7.6 billion loan in support of the authorities’ economic stabilisation programme.
The content and conditionality of the IMF’s financing is fully set out in the public eye. All the loan documentation is available on the IMF’s website. Here, let us examine how the IMF sees the economic and financial challenges facing Pakistan, and the contribution it can make to help address them.
The first point to stress is that given the difficult international economic situation and the weaknesses inherent in Pakistan’s own economy, overcoming the current economic crisis will require hard choices and sustained action over the coming year. And no doubt this will entail some economic hardship — albeit much less severe than the disruption and job losses that would have come from a full-blown economic crisis. Fortunately, the strategy set out by the Government, on which the IMF’s support is based, provides a sound basis for addressing the challenges.
The objectives are clear: first, restore overall economic stability and confidence by acting on key macroeconomic imbalances, and second, do so in a manner that ensures social stability and adequate support for the poor during the adjustment process.
Translating these objectives into concrete policy decisions will entail difficult tradeoffs within the Government’s programme. For example, it is clear that the fiscal deficit, which has risen to the unsustainable level of 7.4 percent of GDP in 2007-08, will have to be brought down to a more manageable 4.2 percent in 2008/09 — in line with what it was two years ago.
Fiscal consolidation is essential to put public finances on a sustainable path and eliminate State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) financing of the government. But achieving this will require implementation of policies to phase out energy subsidies, prioritise government spending, and strengthen revenue mobilisation through tax policy and administration measures.
Even with these changes on the fiscal side, there will be a continued need for financing the government deficit. Over the past two years, much of this financing has come from money creation by the SBP, in turn fuelling inflation and the dramatic loss of foreign exchange reserves. The Government’s programme commits to switch deficit financing from the SBP to commercial banks, but this will require an increase in interest rates, which has its own cost to the private sector. Again, there is a hard choice between controlling inflation, which hurts the poor, and raising interest rates, which affects borrowers.
A second point is that while the necessary macroeconomic tightening will clearly involve some pain, it is important that the burden of adjustment should fall least on the most vulnerable members of Pakistani society. And that is why for the IMF it was crucial that the Government’s programme includes key social protection measures. Expenditure on the social safety net will be increased to protect the poor through both cash transfers and targeted electricity subsidies. And to draw upon the best international experience in using safety nets to reach the needy, Pakistan is working with the World Bank to prepare a more comprehensive and better-targeted social safety net programme.
Third, it is important to point out that the programme — and its conditionality — is based on the targets and measures that the authorities have themselves set for the next two years. And all the conditions associated with the IMF’s loan are transparently set out in the public domain. The IMF is convinced that the best-implemented programmes are the ones that are home grown and fully owned by the country.
Fourth, the success of the programme hinges on sustained and forceful implementation. IMF financial support will help relieve Pakistan’s immediate balance-of-payments needs, but strong and determined implementation of the reforms included in the programme will allow the country to get its economy back on a sustainable path. Strengthening public sector institutions and governance will need to be a key dimension of this effort. In this respect, building domestic consensus around the measures included in the authorities’ package constitutes a key factor in the period ahead.
Finally, while the key to success lies in the hands of the Government and people of Pakistan, the international community also needs to support these efforts. To this end, the financing from the IMF will help to ease the path of adjustment and will provide a strong signal of support to the international community. Of the $7.6 billion loan, $3.1 billion has already been made available by the IMF to strengthen the reserve position. And the regular monitoring of the economy by the IMF will show how the macroeconomic objectives set by the Government are being met and whether they need to be adjusted in the light of changing circumstances.
Alongside the IMF’s financial support, other international agencies and bilateral donors are also providing support, but more financing is urgently needed to strengthen Pakistan’s resilience to potential shocks, help finance the expanded social safety net, and allow for higher spending on development programmes. The IMF stands ready to participate in any donor meeting to provide the economic and financial analysis that could underpin this expanded support. Working together, we can help Pakistan revitalise its economy and protect the poor during these difficult times.
The writer is Director, Middle East and Central Asia Department of the International Monetary Fund. This article was written exclusively for Daily Times
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C12%5C18%5Cstory_18-12-2008_pg3_5
Don't sweep 26/11 attacks under the carpet: US to Pak
Islamabad: In a tough message to Pakistan, the US has said it is not satisfied with what Islamabad has done so far for eradicating terrorism from its soil after the Mumbai attack, which was not an ordinary event which can be ‘swept under the carpet’. The message was conveyed by top American officials to Pakistani National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani, who was summoned to Washington as the US government was "getting increasingly frustrated with what it views as Islamabad's shifty and shifting position on the Mumbai attacks and their aftermath", the Daily Times newspaper reported. Durrani on Saturday concluded his unannounced three-day US visit during which he met Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, his American counterpart Stephen Hadley and Pentagon officials.
A senior diplomatic source familiar with the talks said: "The curt message that Mr Durrani and the Pakistani team received from the Americans was: this is not 2002 and you cannot do what President (Pervez) Musharraf did after 9/11...In the past, you swept everything under the carpet while the problems were allowed to fester. No more."
In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Rice said on Wednesday that what Pakistan had done so far to catch those responsible for the Mumbai attacks was not enough. She said her message to the Pakistani leadership was "...you need to deal with the terrorism problem. And it's not enough to say these are non-state actors. If they're operating from Pakistani territory, then they have to be dealt with."
A "much stronger message" was conveyed by Rice during a meeting with Durrani, US and diplomatic sources were quoted as saying by 'Dawn' newspaper.
The Pakistani team, which included Ambassador Hussain Haqqani, learnt from Rice and Hadley that the US is not satisfied with what Pakistan "had done so far for eradicating terrorism from its soil".
Enough evidence given, Islamabad must act: Pranab
Taking a tough stance, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday said that Pakistan had been given enough evidence regarding the Mumbai terror attacks and ‘Islamabad must act’.
"Pakistan has been contradicting its statements. Enough evidence has been given to Pakistan. Pakistan must cooperate and not contradict us. Mere talk is not enough. Pakistan has to act," Mukherjee told a conference at the Bengal Chamber of Commerce in Kolkata.
"Instead of contradiction and denial, they will have to take action," Mukherjee added.
"We can deal only with the government of the day. Therefore, all arguments which are coming from the other side (Pakistan) are not really convincing", Mukherjee said.
The first reaction from Islamabad was that non-state actors were involved in the attacks, he recalled. "Non-state actors do not come from heaven, nor do they operate from another planet", he said.
"But from wherever they are operating, it is the responsibility of the incumbent government to deal with them", he said, adding that "we cannot chase the so-called non-state actors in another country. They will have to take the action".
"I have never used the word Pakistan government but I have deliberately used the word that some elements in Pakistan. Evidence clearly indicate (their involvement)," he the Minister said.
"We have the evidence, including intercepts of the conversation via satellite. Yesterday I described the conversation as a chilling account. The captured living terrorist (Amir Ajmal Kasab) gave the chilling account of what transpired between him and the controller from that side. They were monitoring Indian television. We have this type of information", he said.
Pakistan must pursue these evidence and take action, he said, noting that "words must be followed up by action".
Call off composite dialogue with Pakistan, says BJP
New Delhi Accusing the ruling UPA of losing grip of the situation in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, the main Opposition BJP has suggested that the government should call off composite dialogue with Pakistan as that country has not responded adequately to India's demands.
BJP leader Yashwant Sinha said the government seemed to lack 'cohesion' of thinking as senior ministers were speaking in different voices on the issue of dealing with Pakistan.
The former External Affairs Minister said New Delhi should build pressure on Islamabad by sending high-level political emissaries to various countries, besides the US and UK, with "incontrovertible" proof of involvement of Pakistani elements in the Mumbai attacks.
"Not judging between strength and weakness, somewhere the grip seems to have loosened over the last few days. Our government seems to speaking in different voices," Sinha told Karan Thapar in the interview on 'Devil's Advocate' programme.
"We heard the External Affairs Minister (Pranab Mukherjee) say one thing, Defence minister (A K Antony) say another thing on the same day (on dealing with Pakistan). I think it will be better if there was unity and cohesion within the spokespersons of the government," he added.
He said the ministers should discuss more among themselves and "come to a clear conclusion. There is lack of cohesion in thinking."
On how to deal with Pakistan, he said if his party were in power, it would have opted to "call off the composite dialogue" rather than putting a "pause" as has been done by the UPA government.
Making it clear that his party was not satisfied with the measures taken by Islamabad to meet New Delhi's demands for curbing terrorism, Sinha said "well, Pakistan has taken some steps. But, clearly Pakistan is not doing enough. I think what Pakistan has done is most inadequate if not eye-wash".
When asked if it wasn't enough for the government to rope in the US and UK to build pressure on Pakistan, the BJP leader suggested that the government should have approached other countries too.
"It is alright to rope in US and UK but I would prefer the government to send out emissaries to all important capitals of the world. Why should we ignore Paris, Berlin and many other capitals," Sinha said.
He said India should send high level political emissaries to important capitals of the world with "incontrovertible evidence of the involvement of Pakistan and even taken them on board on our side."
When asked if he or his party leader L K Advani would have accepted to be such an emissary, he said, "I think we would have certainly taken up this national duty."
The saffron party feels that the UPA was wrong to restrict itself in fixing responsibility merely on the 'elements of Pakistan'.
He said if BJP were in power it would have held ISI as also the government of Pakistan responsible. Commenting on US President-elect Barack Obama's reported intention to mediate on Kashmir issue, Sinha said any such initiative would not be acceptable to India.
"We should discourage and strongly discourage any attempt by anyone including President-elect (Barack) Obama to dabble into the issue of Jammu and Kashmir," Sinha said.
When asked if BJP's views would remain the same if it comes to power after the general elections, he said, "I am making it crystal clear today that no mediation by any envoy is acceptable to India."
Advani laid foundation of terrorism, says Congress
Varanasi Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh charged on Saturday that BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate L K Advani had ‘laid the foundation stone of terrorism’ in the country by taking out Rath Yatras.
Returning from 'Sadbhavna rally' at Azamgarh, Singh said that ‘terrorism spread in the country because of the politics of hate by BJP and specially its Prime Ministerial candidate LK Advani's Rathyatras.’
"Politics on terrorism is not good for the country and the BJP must understand this", he added.
He accused Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati of playing with the sentiments of Dalits ‘as their exploitation crossed all the limits during the one and half year period of her government.’
"The exploitation of Dalits during the one and half year period of Mayawati's regime has crossed all limits", Singh, in charge of party affairs in UP, alleged.
Earlier, addressing the rally in Azamgarh district, Singh alleged BJP had worked to divide the country in the name of religion and was promoting hatred in the society.
He accused BSP and Samajwadi Party of doing politics in the name of caste and dividing the society along caste lines.
Singh charged the UP government with misusing the fund released by the Centre for the welfare of poor and downtrodden and said there was ‘no panchayati raj system in the state.’
Obama to name retired admiral as intelligence director
Washington US President-elect Barack Obama has chosen a retired Navy admiral Dennis C Blair to head the country' national intelligence, according to media in Washington.
Citing unnamed government officials familiar with the selection process, the Los Angeles Times reported that Blair has been selected as Director of National Intelligence (DNI).
But the daily added that Obama had yet to conclude his search for a new Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief.
If confirmed, Blair, who has a 34-year Navy career, would be the top intelligence adviser to the president and the National Security Council and would be tasked with managing intelligence activities and coordination among 16 agencies that comprise the US intelligence community.
The name of Blair has surfaced for the top intelligence job in a transition period when the country is facing ticking international time bombs inherited from the present Bush administration, including two wars, secret CIA prisons overseas and domestic wiretapping.
Obama's team has faced hurdles in finalising his intelligence picks, and the choice of Blair -- a career military man -- might fuel tensions between civilian and military intelligence officials, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Blair, who is not known to be personally close to Obama, is supposed to have ties with the Clintons and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University at the same times as former president Bill Clinton.
A former commander of US forces in the Pacific, Blair will be only the third director of the National Intelligence, created by Congress in 2004 after investigations revealed intelligence failure and lack of coordination and information sharing among country's different intelligence wings prior to the 9/11 attacks.
Bill donors dash for cover
- Indians explain contributions to foundation
OUR BUREAU
Dec. 20: The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) — the country’s premier industry forum — swung into damage-control mode after the William J. Clinton Foundation listed it as one of several fund contributors, sparking concern that it may have created a “conflict of interest” for US secretary of state-designate Hillary Clinton.
The chamber of commerce said it had contributed $75,000 to sponsor a Clinton Foundation event in September 2007 that was designed to promote India Inc.
“We paid the money for the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual event held in New York which was attended by a galaxy of international celebrities, including heads of state and governments,” said Chandrajeet Bannerjee, director-general of the CII.
“The funds were disbursed in October-November 2007,” Bannerjee added.
The chamber tried hard to shake off the embarrassment that stemmed from the Clinton Foundation’s disclosures about its contributors. Incoming US President Barrack Obama is believed to have insisted on the full list before confirming Hillary’s appointment.
The CII was at pains to emphasise that this wasn’t a political contribution that was in any way connected with Hillary’s own campaign to win a Democratic nomination to run for the presidency.
“We tried to gain branding for our own event, India@60, which we were holding in the same city. We got our money’s worth in terms of branding because of our association with the Clinton event,” Bannerjee said.
The decision to sponsor the Clinton event – which was a part of the Rs 23-crore India@60 celebration in New York – was taken by a committee that oversaw the fund. This panel included Infosys co-chairman Nandan Nilekani, Jamshed Godrej and telecom tycoon Sunil Bharti Mittal.
However, it was evident that the proposal to sponsor the Clinton Foundation event had not been cleared by the CII’s executive committee.
Veteran leaders of the CII – Rahul Bajaj and Adi Godrej – said they did not wish to comment on the issue as they did not have all the facts. “I don’t know the facts of the case,” said Rahul Bajaj.
“I don’t know anything about it,” said Adi Godrej.
The disclosures are also potentially embarrassing for the government since it partly sponsored the India@60 event – and could be accused by extension of funnelling cash to the Clinton Foundation.
The India@60 celebrations in New York, which were meant to showcase India’s development and help Indian businessmen network in the global market, was funded largely by CII members. However, the Government of India contributed Rs 5 crore that was routed through the commerce ministry.
However, commerce secretary G.K. Pillai clarified “the money we gave was never paid directly to CII... it went through the India Brand Equity Fund and was paid for specific events, hotel bookings and dinners.”
Other officials added that there was no way that government money could have been passed on to the Clinton Foundation since there were several layers of scrutiny, including by Parliament.
“If doubts are raised, we can check the vouchers again,” Pillai said.
The long list of contributors includes several Indian industrialists, companies and top executives. At the top of the list are Lakshmi Mittal, the owner of the world’s largest steelmaker ArcelorMittal, Tulsi Tanti’s Suzlon Energy and Amar Singh. Each of them has contributed between $1 million and $5 million to the Foundation which works on a wide range of issues, from HIV/AIDS to climate change and from elimination of child obesity to sustainable development in Latin America and Africa.
Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh yesterday said he didn’t have that kind of money to donate, prompting the BJP today to ask him to come clean.
Ajit Gulabchand, chairman and managing director of construction giant HCC, donated $200,000 to the Clinton Global Initiative. In a media release, the company said the money was meant for HIV/AIDS educational programmes and medical support in and around the HCC work site, especially in Jammu and Kashmir.
When it was pointed out that the list showed his wife Parameshwar Godrej as a contributor in the $10,001 to $25,000 category, Godrej bristled and said: “She is not a contributor. She attended the Clinton Foundation event where the entrance fee was paid from India.”
Besides the CII, several industrialists were also scrambling to head off suggestions of impropriety in their contributions to the Clinton Foundation.
“To my knowledge, there has been no such payment,” said Pramod Mittal over the phone from London. The Clinton Foundation’s list shows Global Steel Holdings had paid between $50,001 and $100,000. Pramod is the younger brother of Lakshmi Mittal.
Several Indian companies provide funds to political parties in India but rarely reveal these details. Under the provisions of the Companies Act, private entities that have been in existence for over three years can fund political parties directly or indirectly. They can also provide funds to a person for “any political purpose”.
Political contributions must be capped at 5 per cent of the net profits and the board of directors must pass a resolution before the contributions can be made.
Some companies scrupulously follow the rules. One such company is Ranbaxy Ltd. In its balance-sheet for the year ended December 31, 2007, the pharmaceutical giant said it had contributed Rs 40 lakh each to the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee. It had made no contributions in 2006.
In 2004 (when the previous general election was held), Ranbaxy contributed funds to four political parties: the BJP (Rs 25 lakh), All India Congress Committee (Rs 25 lakh), Telugu Desam Party (Rs 5 lakh) and the Shiromani Akali Dal (Rs 5 lakh).
Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals Inc – a group company registered in the US – has shovelled between $100,001 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
Top executives who contributed to the Clinton Foundation include Vinita Bali, MD of Britannia Industries; Raymond Bickson, MD of the Tata-owned Indian Hotels Company; and Vivek Paul, former vice chairman of Wipro and now with the Texas Pacific Group. All of them paid between $10,000 and $25,000.
BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad today asked, “Did Amar Singh give money from an account which he cannot own up?”
He said the Clinton Foundation was unlikely to lie about the donations. He also wanted to know if the Reserve Bank had cleared the donation and if the Foreign Exchange Management Act had been applied. Prasad said an RBI clearance was needed for donations in foreign exchange if the sum was above $2 million.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081221/jsp/frontpage/story_10282338.jsp
Terror finger points at Pak army
SUJAN DUTTA
Front office staff prepare to welcome journalists to a news conference at the Trident hotel, which will reopen on Sunday with a prayer service. A few guests who were at the hotel when terrorists attacked it in November will attend the service. (AFP)
New Delhi, Dec. 20: The Centre is now viewing the Mumbai attacks as the direct handiwork of Pakistan’s military that trained and armed the militants and planned the strike in detail, top government sources are saying.
This is a shift from India’s initial response when foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee led the government in drawing a distinction at two levels — first, between the government in Islamabad and rabid “elements in Pakistan” and, second, between the civilian administration led by Asif Zardari and the military led by Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
India’s security establishment has also begun a series of high-level meetings to review the state of defence preparedness. There are concerns that the military’s inventory is wanting. In one of the meetings today, defence minister A.K. Antony authorised a fast-track procurement of equipment for the coast guard.
The nuanced change in Delhi’s views follows the interrogation of gunman Mohammed Ajmal, an analysis of the attack by ballistics specialists in the military and the conclusion that the attackers were trained professionally.
Mukherjee today said the attack was planned meticulously and that Ajmal had given a “chilling account” of who his handlers and trainers were. “This was cold and calculated murder. One of the terrorists, who has been captured alive, has given us a chilling account of his handlers. A few months earlier, the Indian embassy in Kabul was the target of a terrorist attack. The impunity with which these attacks are carried out is possible only because the safety of the handlers has been assured,” he said.
Mukherjee began signalling the change in stand from Friday. “The Mumbai terrorist attack is the latest instance of how sub-regionalism, regionalism and multilateralism are threatened by non-state actors with the aid of para-state apparatus. In the face of the gravest of provocation, perhaps the time has come now to fine-tune India’s priorities,” he had said.
“Para-state apparatus” is a phrase usually adopted by military and espionage agencies to argue that non-state actors operate with the support and shelter of a state but ensure that the links are deniable.
In Delhi, the suspicion that Pakistan’s military and Kayani knew of the attack even if he did not authorise it, is being strengthened. Officials cite a New York Times report that quoted CIA analysts as saying Kayani had prior knowledge of the Kabul attack.
In India, the military has almost always argued that militants based out of Pakistan are actively supported by the Pakistan army. Most recently, it cited the ceasefire violations across the LoC this year when gunmen in civilian clothes near Pakistani army pickets fired at Indian positions.
Naval commandos and the army-staffed Special Action Group of the National Security Guard, who led the counter-terrorist operation in Mumbai, have pointed to the dexterity with which the attackers handled their weapons and used their ammunition.
The Indian Army believes such terror outfits cannot be curbed unless the Pakistani military’s war-waging potential is severely damaged. Delhi is now closer to this view than it was immediately after the attacks. But the Centre wants to convert the global sympathy for India into support.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Mukherjee are likely to meet heads of Indian missions early next week in Delhi. Already, the government has shared information on the investigations with the heads of 13 missions of countries whose nationals were killed in the attacks.
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice today said the steps taken by Pakistan were “not nearly enough” and asked it to keep on working to “really deal” with terrorism to help ease the “crisis” with India, PTI reported from Washington.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081221/jsp/frontpage/story_10282329.jsp
India won't levy admin tax on 3G spectrum
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Reuters
Posted: Dec 20, 2008 at 1550 hrs IST
New Delhi: India's telecom commission, the top decision-making government body for the sector, has rejected the regulator's proposal to levy an administrative charge on firms winning 3G spectrum in an auction due in January, a spokesman for the Union Telecom Ministry said on Saturday.
The commission has, however, stood by the higher annual spectrum fee proposed earlier by the government and also recommended by the Telecoms regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
"The telecom commission has not found it possible to accept the TRAI's recommendations for an additional 2 percent administrative charge," Akshay Rout, said, without elaborating.
On Dec. 10, the regulator approved a government proposal to increase the annual spectrum fee for "standalone" 3G operators to 3 per cent of their revenue, from 1 per cent proposed initially.
Existing Indian operators, who already offer second-generation telecoms services and win 3G spectrum, will be charged between 3 and 8 per cent of their revenue depending on the total spectrum held both for 2G and 3G services, it said.
On the top of the annual fee, the regulator had also recommended to levy an administrative charge of 2 per cent of the highest bid for the 3G spectrum from the second year of spectrum allocation.
India has set a reserve price of Rs 20.20 billion for spectrum covering all of India for the auction, but bids are expected at much higher levels as the potential for telecoms services in the world's fastest-growing telecoms market remains huge.
Any additional fee levied on firms would deter interest in participating in the auction amid a global financial meltdown and tight liquidity, analysts say.
Firms willing to participate in the 3G spectrum auction have to send applications between Dec 26 and Jan 5, while the actual auction starts on Jan 16.
Sikh radical leaders held as ‘preventive measure’
Amrita Chaudhry
Posted: Dec 20, 2008 at 0001 hrs IST
Ludhiana/Mansa/Bathinda: Former terrorist and present chairman of Akali Dal (A) presidium, Daljit Singh Bittu, was arrested near the Jalandhar bypass on Friday morning while attempting to dodge the police and sneak into Dialpura.
Bittu, along with youth wing incharge Mandhir Singh, driver Palwinder Singh Shatrana and gunman Ranbir Singh Goh, was taken into custody as a part of preventive arrests that the Punjab Police undertook today in various parts of the state to crackdown on hardliners.
Apart from these four arrests, the Punjab Police has also taken into custody around 100 party workers and various district heads of the party, mainly from Mansa and Bathinda districts.
These arrests were made following the call of the party presidium for a gathering of all Sikh hardliners at Gurdwara Zafarnama in Dialpura in Bathinda to chalk out a plan for closure of Dera Sacha Sauda premises at Salabatpura, which is about four kilometres from this gurdwara.
Bittu, along with his men, was trying to reach Dialpura today morning, where an akhand path commenced. In order to dodge the police, Bittu and his men were travelling towards the Jalandhar bypass where they were arrested. Ludhiana Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) R.K. Jaiswal said, “These arrests have been made following the call.”
Adding to this, Ashish Chaudhry, SSP, Bathinda, said, “We are fully prepared to handle any kind of situation. The security of the common man will be taken care of.”
A local court has sent Bittu and others to judicial custody till December 26.
Jaspal Singh Manjhpur, spokesperson of the party, said: “These arrests took place at 9 am today morning. However, we have been directed by the party high command to go ahead with the programme as scheduled.”
It is also learnt that a high police alert has been sounded at Dialpura Bhaika and no outsider is being allowed inside the village.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Sikh-radical-leaders-held-as-preventive-measure/400636/
America Needs a Shadow Government
By Timothy V. Gatto
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20793.htm
17/09/08 "ICH" -- - I think I can speak for many Americans when I say
that our government has been less than responsive as far as ending
militarism and holding our civil liberties sacrosanct. In fact, less
than responsive is being generous, as we have seen this nation totally
scrap the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, station troops in bases
world-wide in over 130 different nations, and wage aggressive war on
three nations, become complicit with another nation to wage war
(Georgia) and institute trade sanctions (another Act of War by
International law) on Iran.
During the past two terms of this Presidency we have learned in-depth
about signing statements, the "Unitary Presidency", numerous
Executive Orders that remain secret from the Congress, extraordinary
"rendition", and torture to include inflicting injuries on
another human being "to the point of, but not exceeding organ
failure". We know of places such as Abu Graib, and Guantanamo and
watched as our Army dropped white Phosphorus on innocent civilians in a
city called Fallujah where photographs of women and children showed
burned blackened corpses while the clothes and blankets they were
wrapped in weren't even singed. We learned about depleted uranium
and exposed our soldiers and Iraqi citizens to ionizing radiation that
causes cancers, leukemia, and birth defect among other things. Radiation
that we brought to Iraq and Afghanistan has a half-life of eight billion
years.
We watched as Congress enabled the President to commit vast sums of
money on an aggressive war in the Middle-East, taking money away from
the taxpayer that could have been used to build schools, hospitals and
to fix crumbling infrastructure in this country. We could have offered
every American student tuition free higher education instead of dumping
it into Iraq in the quest for global resources like oil. We could have
taken the trillion dollars that we spent on these wars and used it to
promote alternate energy resources. Instead of looking out for the
taxpayers, the Congress, controlled by BOTH major corporate political
parties, squandered our nation's wealth on war and weapons of war
for a global empire nobody voted on and nobody wants save those that are
now in government.
Congress voted for The Patriot Act, The Military Commissions Act, The
John Warner Defense Bill (The re-vamped Insurrection Act), the enhanced
FISA Bill that gave the telecom companies retroactive immunity for
illegally wiretapping American citizens for the Executive Branch which
was against the law. Congress ignored Articles of Impeachment against
the President and Vice-President time and time again. Congressional
subpoenas have been ignored by members of the Executive Branch and
Congress does not impose inherent contempt charges on these individual
and send Capitol Police to arrest them for willfully disobeying
Congress. The checks and balances that were built into our Constitution
are broken from neglect and disuse. Congress has allowed the Executive
Branch to supersede those powers that were expressly given to Congress
by our Constitution.
We are now facing an election in which the nominees were presented to us
by a compliant corporate led media. Before a single vote had been cast,
two of the Democratic nominees had been barred from taking part in the
Primary Debates. We saw, according to The Center for Responsive Politics
(opensecrets.org), corporate money in bundles campaign donations go to
two Democrats almost exclusively before a vote was cast in the
primaries. The two major party nominees both support more war and more
military spending, while ignoring the fact that we have lost a majority
of our civil liberties that were stated in the Bill of Rights.
Meanwhile the media is controlled by the same interests that now control
our elected officials from the two major parties, and tout only two
candidates, the Democrat and the Republican. To illustrate that there is
hardly a difference between them, they must rely on "straw man"
arguments such as gay rights, abortion, taxes and education. These are
the same issues that are brought up time after time, election after
election, yet most of these issues should be settled by the States, not
the Federal Government. They fail to bring up the loss of our
constitutional rights like freedom of speech and the press, unrestricted
search and seizures without a warrant. Non-lethal force such as tasers,
rubber bullets and riot gas being used on demonstrators in violation of
their free speech rights, as they are rounded up from "free
speech" zones. The candidates neglect to bring up the fact that the
Unites States of America spends 48% of the entire world's spending
on the military. The candidates threaten Russia as we encircle them with
nuclear –tipped missiles and American military bases. We demonize
Venezuela and Hugo Chavez while we interfere in the internal affairs of
Bolivia against the democratically elected government of Evo Morales by
giving five provinces rich in natural gas, hundreds of thousands of
dollars to succeed from Bolivia.
Our Federal government has allowed unchecked predatory capitalism to
thrive in this country, offering mortgages to people with suspect
credit, knowing full well that these people would never be able to pay
the ballooning mortgages in the future in order to make a quick buck.
Our economy is going belly-up by these "lassie faire" practices
that have raped the taxpayers while the government bails out the banks
and brokers with "corporate welfare". The top 10% of the
wealthiest people in this nation own 71% of its wealth! This gives the
remaining 90% of us 21% to share together.
I have written about all of this before. There are examples that for
sake of brevity I have not mentioned instances which are just as
egregious as those mentioned above like the Federal assistance after
Katrina and the saber-rattling towards Iran. I needed to restate all of
these things to illustrate that our federal government is totally out of
control, and is not concerned about the well-being of the American
taxpayer. The simple fact is that after this election, with the two
candidates they are running and the third parties shut out of
participating in an honest election because of impediments set up by the
two-party duopoly, we will have no change in the foreseeable future.
Others besides me have predicted that we will have more of the status
quo if McCain or Obama are elected. Unless this nation comes to an
epiphany and all at once gets behind Nader or McKinney which is very
doubtful, our votes will not win this election. This election will be
decided by the mass media's coverage of the two corporate candidates
that are both more of the same, and the general public that has been
dumbed-down by the same media and the lack of honest news.
So what can we do? I propose a "Shadow Government" that be made
up of all the third parties and the disaffected Republicans and
Democrats that are tired of the American Empire and the squandering of
our nation's wealth on wars while our civil liberties are being
taken from us. It can be formed at a conference much like the one last
week-end at Andover, Mass. We are looking at a police state that
operates outside the rule of law that we have operated on for over two
hundred years. This shadow government will be divided up much like the
Federal Government. Instead of individuals holding office however, there
will be committees that will monitor every action by every part of every
branch of this government to insure that they are following the laws,
and not operating outside the rule of law which is US code and the
Constitution.
These committees will have not power but to seek indictments against
those in the federal government that break US law. They can seek relief
in local, State and Federal Courts. Every move that this corporate
government makes will be followed closely by this shadow government to
insure that the excesses that happened in the last decade are not
allowed to continue. The shadow government can also lobby for campaign
finance reform to get corporate money out of political elections. All
other partisan issues will be left to political interests lest they take
the focus off of what the shadow government was designed to do.
Drastic times call for drastic measures. This country is rapidly coming
apart at the seams and our government continues as if this is what is
expected of them. It's time to tell them what is expected of them by
banding together, left, right, liberal, conservative the old
paradigms' no longer matter. So for now it is not between left and
right, only between right and wrong, and it's about time.
timgatto@hotmail.com
http://liberalpro.blogspot.com
Crude oil hits four-year lows
21 Dec 2008, 0205 hrs IST, Nidhi Sharma, ET Bureau
MUMBAI: Crude oil prices fell to their lowest level in past four years due to concerns about falling demand with economic slowdown and rising
inventories. Analysts, however, said that correction in oil prices may not have finished as yet — and prices could further fall in coming week. The irony is that despite the Opec announcing a significant cut in production, the pessimism among market participants continues to drive the prices down.
January contract on Nymex tumbled by over 26% against the previous week and closed at $ 33.87 per barrel. On MCX the same month, contract closed down 15% at Rs 2051 per barrel. Prices have fallen 77% from record $147 a barrel reached on July 11. In the domestic market, a similar fall in prices, as the global markets, was arrested due to currency movement. The rupee has risen 2.8% this week against the dollar to 47.25 level. A rise in Indian currency against dollar restricts the rise or fall in commodity prices.
An Angel Commodities report says that a supply cut by Opec is not likely to support oil prices in the short term, as current macroeconomic data is showing bleak economic outlook. “We believe that crude oil futures in the short term are likely to fall up to $30 per barrel levels. Oil prices can trade in the range of $32 and $48 a barrel for this week,” the report adds.
Subodh Gupta from Anand Rathi Commodities is expecting a lacklustre movement as most of the market will be in holiday mood. “Overall $30 should act as a good support for crude oil in coming days,” he said.
Earlier in the week, Opec announced to cut down the production by 2.2 million barrels per day with effect from January but this was offset by the piling inventories and low demand. Having failed to arrest the fall in prices, Opec members may meet again later in January to discuss further reductions.
Even the US Federal Reserve brought the interest rates down to 0% to turn back a deepening recession. Central banks across the globe are slashing rates and eyeing policy measures as the global financial crisis sends many rich countries into recession and slows growth in China and India.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Economy/Crude_oil_hits_four-year_lows/articleshow/3868142.cms
Core projects to be under watch
19 Dec 2008, 0101 hrs IST, Amiti Sen, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: The government is working on a mechanism to monitor implementation of infrastructure projects and ensure that the recent measures taken
to boost infrastructure spending deliver results.
With as many as 26 road projects, sanctioned in February, still awaiting financial closure, the committee of secretaries (CoS) headed by the Cabinet secretary is looking at ways which could lead to stricter monitoring of projects.
The CoS wants various ministries, including finance, road and commerce, to come together to monitor infrastructure projects, said a government official.
“If a project does not get financial closure after say, a month or two after being approved, there should be somebody to question the failure. Accountability has to be built in,” the official said. Measures which could be part of the monitoring mechanism have to be worked out, the official added.
Increasing investment in infrastructure is one of the areas the government is focusing on to help the country deal with the global demand slowdown. The move is expected to lead to a ripple effect on the economy by creating demand in other sectors like cement, steel and capital goods. It would also lead to creation of employment.
The delay in road projects has severely hit deadlines of the national highway development project—the ambitious project to build, upgrade and widen major highways in the country—being implemented over the past decade.
While many builders blame the sharp increase in interest rates in the beginning of the fiscal for the delay in financial closures, officials say all these things should have been factored in while bidding for a project.
Real estate cos hope govt help will revive demand
16 Dec 2008, 0417 hrs IST, Supriya Verma Mishra & Rajesh Unnikrishnan, ET Bureau
MUMBAI: The Union government's recently announced stimulus package, coupled with the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) move allowing banks to provide Slump: India Inc on crossroads |
US crisis & Indian realty |
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special treatment to the real estate sector are likely to change the fortunes of Indian real estate sector, which has been struggling to survive for the past six months. Monday's interest rate cut on housing loans up to Rs 20 lakh could further improve the sentiment, industry officials said.
"It's a good beginning. At last, government has recognised housing as a priority sector. They have also realised that the construction and housing sectors are the largest employment generators in the country. A lot more to be done. But, whatever measures have been announced now, is a great relief to the industry," Niranjan Hiranandani, chairman, Hiranandani Developers said.
Priority sector status to low-value loans, restructuring of loans taken for commercial property and a reduction in the excise duty on inputs like steel and cement are expected to reduce the cost burden on developers significantly.
Many developers ET spoke to said the changes are very visible now. "Number of enquires are increasing. Strong sales are being registered in some of our new project launched last month," Sandeep Runwal, director, Runwal group, said.
Till some time ago, companies were in the race to amass huge land banks. They were intent on outdoing each other by bidding for costly land parcels. The financing was done through internal accruals and large-scale bank borrowings. This had sent property prices to new highs.
Things started to change when the stock market crashed and investors were deprived of their surplus cash, which could have been used to buy property. It also caused a decline in demand so such an extent that developers were not registering any bookings. Faced with the same fate, property prices also started falling.
"The government's policy initiatives come at a time when the industry was reeling under a major liquidity crunch. This would certainly prove to be beneficial for companies that are facing working capital shortage." Ram Yadav, director finance, Orbit Corporation, said. The credit crunch has put the developers in a fix. New launches were coming down drastically. Completion of projects under construction became difficult.
"There have been no new launches in the recent times but the ongoing projects are running on schedule. Being the largest player in Mumbai, HDIL cannot be insulated from the impact of the slowdown. Since our business model does not require us to amass a huge land bank, we have been able to continue," said Hari Prakash Pandey, deputy general manager, finance, HDIL. Many companies have retrenched staff from projects due to a delay in launch. Reports hint that some of the north India-based developers like Omaxe, Parsvnath and DLF have cut their workforce.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Markets/Real_Estate/News_/Real_estate_cos_hope_govt_help_will_revive_demand/articleshow/3843568.cms
Declining political capability
20 Dec 2008, 0011 hrs IST, C P Bhambari, ET Bureau
The logic of a globally interdependent age demands that effective collective global interventions be made for finding solutions to the international
financial crisis. But leaders and managers of each and every national political system in the world must find solutions that are specific to their respective countries. For, the government of a democratic country cannot afford to blame the financial crisis, which is being experienced by its citizens, on ‘global factors’.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had stated as early as October 24 that “we cannot remain totally unaffected...our stock markets and the exchange rate of the rupee are under pressure due to capital outflow of foreign institutional investors”. He had further admitted the rate of growth in India would slow down because of the international ambience. Commerce minister Kamal Nath is on record that India’s exports have declined because of the economic crisis faced by the developed capitalist countries. However, the Indian political system, including both political parties and institutions of governance, is simply proving incapable of providing any coherent road map or blueprint for dealing with the grave challenges that our economy and society are facing.
A few facts may be mentioned to substantiate the argument that politics has proved itself not worth much in dealing with the crisis at this juncture. First, the authority of the central government to provide a coherent all-India policy perspective has been completely eroded and the Congress-led UPA government has shown that every single group within the coalition is pursuing its own agenda. Every single group is concerned with maximising its electoral gains by championing one or the other ‘local’ issue with an eye on its local constituency.
The agenda for dealing with critical national problems has become subservient to the politics and agenda of localism. It is not only the UPA constituents which are working at cross purposes, the erstwhile supporters of the coalition, the Communist parties, have never lost any opportunity to oppose and criticise economic and foreign policies pursued by a government, which they had supported from outside. Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party, too, has a similar story.
The SP is not only supporting the UPA from outside but is also engaged in keeping the Manmohan Singh government on tenterhooks by its criticisms on the Batala House encounter incident or Amar Singh’s tirades against telecom minister A Raja, whom he has accused of pursuing the telecom policy in a manner that enables him to favour a ‘chosen’ few among corporates. How can the Manmohan Singh government, in such circumstances, provide any effective political leadership during this grave crisis?
Second, a crisis situation demands an across-the-board ‘political consensus’. The UPA cannot make the BJP and the Communists, two major opposition formations in the Lok Sabha, to agree even on a minimum economic programme for dealing with the serious crisis that India faces. Opposition parties have taken their role to oppose the government too seriously and any hope of even a ‘round table’ conference between the government and the opposition groups for arriving at some minimal consensus on policy interventions is currently not at all possible.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Declining_political_capability/articleshow/3864567.cms
Tax sword looms large on cross-border acquisitions
18 Dec 2008, 0233 hrs IST, Sudhir Kapadia,
Since August last year, the world has been watching. It all began with a show cause notice issued to Vodafone BV (based in the Netherlands), holding
it to be an “assessee in default” for not withholding tax at source when it made payments to a Hutchison Group company (based in Cayman Islands) for acquiring shares of another Cayman Island company.
Such change in shareholding resulted in a change in the controlling interest of an operating Indian cellular services company. True, the tax demands raised ran into several millions, $2 billion approximately. But this is not the reason for the attention that this case has attracted.
The main reason is that the very foundation of international tax norms appeared shaken. It has been a well accepted view that while gains arising to a non-resident from transfer of shares in an Indian company are liable to tax in India (subject to tax treaty provisions as in some tax treaties, the gain is not taxable in the source country), the gain arising to a non-resident from transfer outside India of shares of a foreign company to another non-resident would normally not be chargeable to tax in India. This is the case, even if the underlying value is derived from assets belonging to an Indian subsidiary of the company, whose shares are transferred.
Vodafone BV (Vodafone NL), a Dutch subsidiary of Vodafone UK, entered into an agreement with Hutchison Telecommunications Cayman Island (HTIL) for acquiring share capital of CGP Investments (CGP), which is a company incorporated in Cayman Islands.
Through CGP, HTIL — the seller — owned 67% controlling interest in Hutch Essar (HEL, now ‘Vodafone Essar’ — a JV between the Hutch and Essar group), engaged in cellular services business in India.
When it got the show cause notice, Vodafone NL filed a writ petition before the Bombay High Court, which now stands dismissed. The HC made several observations while dismissing it. It did not accept the argument of Vodafone that the transaction was between two foreign companies, involving transfer of shares of another foreign company, and had no nexus or tax implications in India.
In the view of the high court, prima facie, the transaction attracted capital gains tax liability in India as the sole consideration and the predominant object of the transaction was transfer of business or economic interest or controlling interest in the telecom company in India.
According to the high court, post transfer, the Vodafone group acquired interest in the telecom licence, brand and goodwill, right to appoint board of directors, apart from acquiring entry into the telecom business segment in India.
The transaction was regarded as achieving effective substitution of Vodafone Group in the place of Hutch Group in the joint venture/partnership, which the Hutch Group had with Essar Group in India. The transfer of shares of a foreign company was held to be mode of achieving the transfer of valuable assets in India, attracting tax implications
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Comments__Analysis/Tax_sword_looms_large_on_cross-border_acquisitions/articleshow/3854384.cms
India, China can't compensate for lost US spending
21 Dec 2008, 0745 hrs IST, AGENCIES
MUMBAI: They were supposed to keep the good times going: Prakash Shetty, caught recently thumbing through ``Singh is King'' DVDs at a mall in Global stimulus package
India, and Zhu Xiaolin, who enjoys cute Adidas sportswear and Body Shop cosmetics in China.
But how far can Shetty and Zhu, both 26, and other Asian consumers go to save the groaning global economy? Just how many Buicks, Barbie dolls, Wrangler jeans, waffle fries, kiwi lip balms and plastic thingamajigs are they willing or able to buy?
Not enough, it turns out. Much has been made of the power and promise of Indian and Chinese consumers. Each country has a rapidly growing economy, rising incomes and more than a billion people, many of whom have yet to burn through a single credit card or experience the joys a washing machine can bring.
China will be the world's third-largest consumer market by 2025 and India will be No 5, ahead of Germany, McKinsey & Co has predicted. As US sales swooned this year, emerging markets were the sole bright spot on many balance sheets.
But such heraldry obscures a painful bit of math: US consumers still buy more than five times as much as Indian and Chinese shoppers combined. And despite rambunctious growth, revenues from India and China have barely softened the blow of declining sales in the developed world, even for companies that have chased after rupees and yuan most aggressively.
From Adidas to General Motors, companies that have plunged into India and China are finding that these markets are, by and large, still too small to make up for the slowdown in the US and other rich countries. Moreover, India and China are not immune to the global crunch. Declining exports, particularly in China, and tight credit have cooled spending growth, despite the favorable long-term trends.
Chinese consumer spending is projected to reach $1.3 trillion this year, according to Euromonitor International, a market research firm. That would approach France's $1.4 trillion but pales in comparison to America's $9.9 trillion. Indian consumers will spend $660 billion, or about half of China's.
In October, Americans spent $102.8 billion less than they did in September. That one month drop is nearly two and a half times more than Indian consumer spending is expected to grow this entire year. "In dollar terms they can't offset," said Arvind K Singhal, chairman of Technopak Advisors Pvt Ltd, a retail consulting firm based in New Delhi.
It's not that Indian and Chinese shoppers aren't eager. Take Shetty. Trim and gregarious, he just got promoted to assistant manager at the Leela Kempinski, a luxury hotel in Mumbai where rooms were going recently for $280 a night. After he got the news, he handed his mom a fistful of cash, bought a television set, two cell phones (one for his dad), a stack of DVDs, a $700 gold necklace for his fiance and a couple of new outfits for himself.
"You feel great when you buy new clothes," he said, fending off a small crowd at the DVD rack of Big Bazaar, a popular discount shop.
Crisis does not mark the end of free-market capitalism: economist
Shyam Ranganathan
Over-exploitation of financial instrument led to the market collapse: Raghuram Rajan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Need to invest heavily in infrastructure projects
Capitalism offers best possible growth model for developing economies
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHENNAI: The current global financial crisis shows the problems not of capitalism itself but those of capitalists who stretch the framework without worrying about consequences. While the current crisis is part of the cycle in capitalist economies predicted by theorists from Karl Marx downwards, it does not mark the death of free enterprise, said Raghuram Rajan, economist and former Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Speaking at a plenary session at Pan IIT 2008 at IIT-Madras, Dr. Rajan, who has been appointed Economic Adviser to the Prime Minister, said that for all the defects in the system, capitalism offered the best possible growth model for developing economies. “South Korea has faced four economic crises in the last 50 years, and North Korea has not faced even one. But the quality of life in South Korea is clearly much higher than that in North Korea.”
The current crisis was caused by over-exploitation of a financial instrument. Mortgage-backed securities were a means to leverage funds from investors with excess capital spread all over the world to provide particular services.
Higher interest rates
The fact that some of them were high-risk instruments was reflected in the higher interest rates they commanded. However, instead of making provision for the risk entailed by the issuing of these instruments, bankers had actually decapitalised their holdings by removing the surplus funds in the form of bonuses and fat pay cheques, Dr. Rajan said.
Even this would only have resulted in losses to investors like any typical crash, except that banks had themselves invested in these high-risk investments without too many safeguards.
India was affected by the recent problems in three ways: decline of U.S. imports of Indian products reducing export income, losses in the Indian financial sector due to linkages, and the effects of the monetary tightening that the government undertook in the immediate wake of the inflation that raged in the Indian economy due to various reasons.
Lack of access
While the Indian economy could rebound faster than the U.S and the European Union economies, and while India could still boast a reasonably positive growth rate when other economies were struggling with near-zero rates, this situation should encourage the government to undertake financial sector reforms and infrastructure improvement to avoid more severe crises in the future.
The Indian economy, not being as consumption-driven as that of the U.S., had a more serious problem with the lack of access to disadvantaged groups. Lack of affordable education, healthcare and opportunities to use the market to their own advantage denied whole sections of India the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of enterprise and innovation.
Politicians who provided a means for the poor to navigate the current flawed system and provided the poor with their basic necessities began to wield more clout in this situation, Dr. Rajan said.
To provide the benefits of growth to all sections of society, and to make the poor also stakeholders in the country’s growth, India should invest heavily in various infrastructure development projects.
There were strong incentives for people to ask for bailouts and sops in this situation, but taxes were already low enough in the country, and private enterprises should try and tide over the crisis by other measures, while the government used this opportunity to help the poor and the disadvantaged by building roads, schools and hospitals. If adequate measures were taken to ensure that nobody was left behind, India could become one of the top few economic superpowers in 20 years. But this would need heavy spending on public necessities, and the rolling back of frivolous subsidies on goods like fuel for cars, Dr. Rajan said.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/12/21/stories/2008122154181000.htm
They Are All Implicated
In the Grip of a Permanent War Economy
by SEYMOUR MELMAN
Now, at the start of the twenty-first century, every major aspect of American life is being shaped by our Permanent War Economy.
Civilian manufacturing industries are being swept away as a war-focused White House and a compliant Congress sponsor deindustrialization of the U.S. (1) They favor production--in Mexico and China, where government powers bar independent unions. As production of both consumer goods and capital goods is moved out of America, unions and whole communities are decimated. Ghost towns are created across the country. That process is far along in industries that once invented machine tools, radios, and even TV's. Now the decay proceeds in "new economy" industries like computers and "Palm" type devices. The U.S. firms that sell such equipment typically assemble components that are manufactured elsewhere.
Capital goods have special importance in all this, for those are the tools and machines used to produce everything else. Jon Rynn has calculated that by 2004, 50% of all the production equipment required in the United States will have to be imported, mainly from Germany and Japan. (2)
Meanwhile, government financing is lavished without stint to promote every kind of war industry, and foreign investing by U.S. firms. The war priorities have depleted medical and education staffs. U.S. medical planning now includes programs to recruit large numbers of nurses from India. (3) Shortages of housing have caused a swelling of the homeless population in every major city. State and city governments across the country have become trained to bend to the needs of the military--giving automatic approvals to its spending without limit. The same officials cannot find money for affordable housing.
The Permanent War Economy of the United States has endured since the end of World War II in 1945. Since then the U.S. has been at war--somewhere--every year, in Korea, Nicaragua, Vietnam, the Balkans, Afghanistan--all this to the accompaniment of shorter military forays in Africa, Chile, Grenada, Panama.
So it should come as no surprise that there is no public "space" for dialogue on how to improve the quality of our lives. Such topics are subordinate to "how to make war". Congress under both Republican and Democratic control has voted the same war priorities into the federal budget.
Bob Herbert, the New York Times columnist, reports on 5.5 million young Americans age 16 to 24--without work in 2003--undereducated, disconnected from society's mainstream, restless and unhappy, frustrated, angry, and sad. (4) This population, 5.5 million and growing, is the product of America's national politics that has stripped away as too costly the very things that might rescue this abandoned generation and train it for productive work. But that sort of thing is now treated as too costly. So this abandoned generation is now left to perform as fodder for well-budgeted police SWAT teams.
The mayor of New York City presides over a New York Transit Authority that is now in the midst of spending $3 to 4 billion on subway cars. If this manufacturing work were done in the U.S.--rather than by Kawasaki in Japan and Bombardier in Canada--it would generate, directly and indirectly, about 32,000 jobs. (5)
But nothing was heard from the city government when, after announcing a request for bids for the $3 billion plus contracts, not one U.S.-based firm offered a bid.
The production facilities and labor force that could deliver 6 new subway cars each week could produce 300 cars per year, and thereby provide new replacement cars for the New York Subway system in a twenty year cycle--for the 6,000 railcar fleet of the New York subway system. Such a production plan would also replace traditional rebuilding of railcars that has occupied maintenance shops of the New York Transit Authority.
Well-trained engineers are required to design the key subway transportation equipment. Therefore we must note that it is almost 25 years since the last book was published in the United States on these topics: Urban Public Transportation by Vukan Vuchic (Prentice Hall, 1981). What is true for the rail equipment industries is also true for every one of the industries targeted for deindustrialization during the second half of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century.
Do you suspect I am exaggerating this portrait of gloom and doom? See for yourself. Go to the stores that now sell great arrays of "high tech" merchandise. Pay attention to the boxes for these goods, which typically state where the contents are made. Try the largest libraries and see if you can find texts that contain instruction for production of the products that have been disappeared from U.S. manufacturing.
At this writing there is a lack of schools, teachers, and books dealing with rail transportation. Suitable textbooks will have to be translated from French, German or Japanese. In the United States, the traditional depositories of knowledge for these subjects have been wiped out. There are no workplaces that prospective workers can visit to become acquainted with the shape of a productive career devoted to making things, all of which are now imported.
We can learn something from the experience of the General Electric Company, in particular from the autobiography of Jack Welch.6 He hailed the profits brought to GE by locating their largest R&D labs in India. From a careful biography of Jack Welch's stewardship of General Electric we learn that "GE has either closed or sold 98 plants in the United States during the Welch era, 43% of the 228 it operated in 1980." (7) More recently we learn from Business Week8 that General Electric will have 20,000 workers in India alone by the year's end, and is moving towards a "big China R&D center." The type of work which is being moved by GE to the India and China facilities includes finance, information technology support, R&D for medical, lighting, and aircraft. Business Week reports, "for companies adept at managing a global workforce, the benefits can be huge.... Now, American Express, Dell Computer, Eastman Kodak, and other companies can offer round the clock customer care while keeping costs in check." For an array of major U.S. firms reviewed by Business Week, the trend of U.S. jobs being moved offshore is "a trend that's likely to grow." Here is the Business Week forecast for 2005. (9)
Life Sciences: 3,700
Legal: 14,000
Art, Design: 6,000
Management: 37,000
Business Operations: 61,000
Computer: 109,000
Architecture: 32,000
Sales: 29,000
Office Support: 295,000
Total: 588,000
By 2015, the number of white-collar jobs of U.S. firms slated for "moving offshore" is expected to be 3,300,000.
While the cost of labor has been regarded as a central issue in labor-intensive manufacturing operations, the picture is rather different with respect to the production and utilization of capital goods. On January 1, 2003, the New York Times reported, "China has awarded a potentially lucrative contract to lengthen the world's first commercial magnetic-levitation rail system to cities surrounding Shanghai." All this after the prime ministers of Germany and China took a test ride on the new high-speed train, which is propelled by magnets. The Times reported that "the train reached its designated maximum speed of 266 miles per hour over the nineteen miles between Shanghai financial district and its main international airport." The German firms that designed and produced the new Maglev train were Siemens and ThyssenKrupp. New Maglev trains covering 180 miles and costing more than $5 billion are being negotiated. The critical point here is that China, a country with one of the lowest wage rates in the world for industrial production work, is buying new railroad equipment from German firms which pay the highest production worker wage in the world. The full meaning of this situation has not registered in the United States. But the fact remains that high quality capital goods, backed by strong R&D, justify their higher prices.
There is no doubt about the main effects of a Permanent War Economy on the present and prospective production of consumer and capital goods in the United States. Myths, like a hoped-for inherent superiority for American-made goods, are simply melting away--daily. For the colossal $379 billion military budget now being organized in the United States will include funding new military bases around the world and the manufacture of a host of weapons of astonishing complexity and costliness. All these take up the available "economic space." Thus the newest major aircraft program--the Joint Strike Fighter--is expected to cost as much as $750 billion,10, a historically unmatched price. The new nuclear attack submarines, each longer than a football field, are now priced at $2.4 billion each.11 Look at the maps published in our newspapers of new foreign military bases built for American forces--each of them magnificently equipped for an unstated but long duration.
Anticipated costs of a U.S. war in Iraq reach a level of $682 billion. (12)This exceeds the combined cost for replacing severely damaged housing ($369 billion) and for electrifying the U.S. main line railroads ($250 billion).13 The next Pentagon budget for 2004 promises to checkmate the most fundamental unmet needs in the United States for medical care, housing, and the education of our children.
In President Bush's 2004 budget, the $379 billion military cost exceeds the sum of all other "discretionary" (non-mandatory) items in the Federal budget.
The publicly funded colleges and universities have been raising their fees every year toward the target level set by the Ivy League schools. None of this happens overnight, but the direction of development cannot be mistaken.
The United States is now a species of State Capitalism. The top federal government executives are a partnership of top political and corporate managers who operate a war economy to enlarge their power as their main continuing goal. The idea that the U.S. can afford guns and butter without limit is proven false every day. Unemployment levels that are the hallmark of deep depression are now visible as additional millions "leave" the labor force and are not counted as unemployed by the Federal government even though they are actually jobless. Hence, an 8% "unemployment" rate as counted by the Federal government actually refers to 16% jobless. Meanwhile, the infrastructure of American society shows decay that can no longer be concealed despite the practiced showmanship of leading public officials.
All this cannot be blamed on any particular former president or congress, for they are all implicated. Since World War II, they have all participated in furthering the Permanent War Economy.
Meanwhile, America's corporate managers have been proceeding with their very own profit-making business as usual. While millions of Americans suffered losses of savings and pension funds from the 2001-2 meltdown of corporate securities, the same events in the securities markets helped to create a new class of economic royalty. Corporate and government insiders used their positions to know when to buy and when to sell in the securities markets and thereby amass enormous personal profit. A new royalty was created, with royal outfitting: palaces (not just big houses); staffs of servants with butlers trained to oversee the underlings; lavish cars and other accoutrements as displayed in the New York Times advertising for luxury goods; and so on.
What can we expect from the new American royals? Mr. Gary Winnick, once chairman of Global Crossing, has shown the way. He gained a profit of $860 million by selling his company stock before the shares became worthless.14 He told a congressional committee that he "would write a check for $25 million to cover part of the retirement money several thousand employees lost when the stock collapsed." Said Winnick, "I call on other chairmen and CEOs of other companies to step up and write a check." (15)
Meanwhile, as demonstrated in the American Society of Civil Engineers' Report Card for America's Infrastructure, the services from roads, bridges, transit, energy supply, drinking water, etc., etc. are all in deteriorating condition, deserving a combined Report Card rating of D+. (16) All this is an important indicator of the opportunity cost, of what has been forgone, as a consequence of the Permanent War Economy.
Further evasion is out of order. We must come to grips with America's State Capitalism and its Permanent War Economy. Failing that, there is no hope for any constructive exit. We must marshal the money and human resources that are needed to restore jobs and production competence--industry by industry. That is why I called particular attention to the methods for reindustrialization as in the subway car manufacturing industry. Since all this is controlled by public money, an alert public, with energetic participation by alert unions, is strategically situated to trigger a reindustrialization process.
I am pleased to report that with initiatives from the Steelworkers and other unions, a Landmark Growth Capital Partners (LP) Fund has been formed to assemble retirement funds from trade unions and individuals to facilitate investments in worker-friendly industrial and other companies needing capital to modernize or expand. At this writing, $78 million is in hand, with near future prospects for additional funds of some $2 billion from unions and worker-friendly private capital funds. Tom Croft, who has been a director of the Heartland Labor-Capital Network informs us that the main prospective participating union pension funds include the Steelworkers, UNITE, International Union of Electrical Workers, United Mine Workers, United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 1199 of Service Employees International Union, United Brotherhood of Carpenters, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and The City of New Haven Pension Fund. (17)
Seymour Melman is emeritus proessor of Industrial Engineeering at Columbia University. His latest book is After Capitalism: From Managerialism to Workplace Democracy. Visit his website: After Capitalism.
Notes.
1. Seymour Melman, After Capitalism: From Managerialism to Workplace Democracy (Albert A. Knopf, 2001), Chapter 3. Also: Seymour Melman, What Else Is There To Do? (National Commission for Economic Conversion and Disarmament, 1996).
2. Jon Rynn, "Why Manufacturing Matters" on www.aftercapitalism.com website. Return to text after Footnote 2.
3. "Indian Nurses Sought To Staff U.S. Hospitals," New York Times, February 10, 2003.
4. Bob Herbert, "Young, Jobless, Hopeless," New York Times, February 6, 2003.
5. Special Calculation by Dr. Greg Bischak, Senior Economist, Appalachian Regional Commission.
6. Jack Welch and John A. Byrne, Jack: Straight From The Gut (Warner Business Books, 2001), pages 313-314.
7. Thomas F. O'Boyle, At Any Cost: Jack Welch, General Electric, and the Pursuit of Profit (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), page 33.
8. "Is Your Job Next?" Business Week, February 3, 2003, pages 50-60.
9. "Is Your Job Next?" page 57.
10. After Capitalism, pages 100, 137, 140, 142, 143n.
11. Department of Defense, Program Acquisition Costs By Weapon Type, p 41, at website .
12"The Price We Pay," New York Times, February 15, 2003.
13. After Capitalism, Chapter 5.
14. "Adding to Claims Against Global Crossing," New York Times, January 30, 2003.
15. "Global Crossing Head Offers Workers $25 Million," New York Times, October 2, 2002.
16. ASCE Report Card available at http://www.asce.org/reportcard/ website.
17Website: www.heartlandnetwork.org; Email: heartland.sva@att.net
he Savagely Soft Underbelly of the Anti-War Movement: Misquided Faith in the UN
Rich Procter
Rove Memo: How to Launch a War
Ritt Goldstein
Oil War: the Smoking Guns
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http://www.counterpunch.org/melman03152003.html
How the War Machine is Driving the US Economy
Military Keynsianism Might get Bush Re-elected, But it is Starting to Worry Economists
by Andrew Gumbel
What do the war in Iraq and the economic recovery in the United States have in common? More than one might expect, to judge from the last couple of rounds of US growth figures.
The war has been a large part of the justification for the Bush administration to run ever-widening budget deficits, and those deficits, predicated largely on military spending, have in turn pumped money into the economy and provided the stimulus that low interest rates and tax cuts, on their own, could never achieve.
The result, according to economists, is a variant on Keynesianism that has particular appeal for Republicans. Instead of growing the government in general - pumping resources into public works, health care and education, say, which would have an immediate knock-on effect on sorely needed job creation - the policy focuses on those areas that represent obvious conservative and business-friendly constituencies. Which is to say, the military and, even more specifically, the military contractors that tend to be big contributors to Republican Party funds.
"It may be very inefficient and obviously not fair, but it is nevertheless causing almost 5 per cent more money to be pumped into the economy than is being taken out in tax revenues," observed Robert Pollin, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "At the same time, it fits into the broader ideological goals of the administration because they can paint it as part of a national emergency, the fight against terrorism, the fight against Saddam Hussein, and so on."
During the second quarter of 2003, when the war in Iraq was in full swing, some 60 per cent of the 3.3 per cent GDP growth rate was attributable to military spending. Expenditure on manpower and weaponry was relatively flat, according to Professor Pollin's analysis, while the lion's share of the stimulus came from the multi-billion dollar contracts handed out to Halliburton, Bechtel and other private contractors.
A smaller proportion of the roaring 8.2 per cent growth recorded for the third quarter was directly attributable to the military, but Professor Pollin and others argue that it is still the military that is driving the deficit, and the deficit - budgeted at about $500 billion (£270bn) for next year - that is driving the recovery.
Just last month, the Pentagon awarded a $4 billion contract to California company Northrop Grumman to work on the Star Wars missile defense program. It is the sort of figure that can regenerate the economy of an entire region. California - the state where US economic booms have a tendency to begin and end - is also a beneficiary of the boom in security-related spending, since much modern security paraphernalia depends on Silicon Valley computer technology.
The Bush administration itself prefers to attribute the recovery to its tax cuts, targeted disproportionately towards the richest Americans. Many non-administration economists, however, say this is nonsense, and that the tax cuts are far more political than they are stimulative. A more significant role has been played by buoyant household spending, helped by low mortgage interest rates which have inspired many homeowners to borrow against the rising value of their properties. But there are signs that interest rates are now on their way back up and that the refinancing fad has ended.
"The administration is conducting a highly irresponsible fiscal policy, and there is no legitimate economist on the face of the earth who doesn't say the tax cuts are just loony," said Kent Sims, a San Francisco economic consultant and public policy expert. "The chosen weapon for dragging the economy off the floor - now that an election is coming - is the deficit. Military expenditure is usually the least effective of short-run ways of spending money, because it doesn't build infrastructure that give you returns over time. But it does create a short-term lift."
Military-fueled growth, or military Keynesianism as it is now known in academic circles, was first theorized by the Polish economist Michal Kalecki in 1943. Kalecki argued that capitalists and their political champions tended to bridle against classic Keynesianism; achieving full employment through public spending made them nervous because it risked over-empowering the working class and the unions.
The military was a much more desirable investment from their point of view, although justifying such a diversion of public funds required a certain degree of political repression, best achieved through appeals to patriotism and fear-mongering about an enemy threat - and, inexorably, an actual war.
At the time, Kalecki's best example of military Keynesianism was Nazi Germany. But the concept does not just operate under fascist dictatorships. Indeed, it has been taken up with enthusiasm by the neo-liberal right wing in the United States.
Ronald Reagan famously resorted to deficit spending, using talk of the Evil Empire and communist threats from Central America as his excuse to ratchet up the military budget. In 1984, the deficit rose to a whopping 6.2 per cent of GDP. Consequently, the economy grew by more than 7 per cent that year, and he was re-elected by a landslide.
The corollary of the Reagan military boom was a sharp cutback in social spending, something that was not reversed under Bill Clinton and is now back on the agenda with George Bush. State and local budgets are all in crisis because of the recession of the past two years. The fact that the White House is not using federal dollars to help them finance schools, hospitals and police forces hurts all the more because these things have now been underfunded for a generation.
The Bush deficit has not yet reached Reaganesque proportions (it stands at roughly 4.5 per cent of GDP). But Professor Pollin, for one, predicts that the resulting debt burden could rapidly rise to the levels seen in the 1980s, with interest repayments eating up as much as 18-19 per cent of the overall federal budget.
Professor Pollin does not share the Clinton administration view that deficits are always bad. In classic Keynesian fashion, he believes they are necessary and desirable to pull countries out of recession. But he, like the generation of economists who criticized Reagan's policies, thinks the priorities are wrong - as well as overtly bellicose - and will have repercussions for years or even decades to come.
"The long-term effects of military Keynesianism are obviously negative on public infrastructure, health, education and so on, and there are limits on how long you can keep it up," he said. "What we borrow we will eventually have to pay back, with interest."
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0106-12.htm
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/19801
Noam Chomsky On The Economy, Democracy and the American Presidential Elections
Noam Chomsky Interviewed by Assaf Kfoury
December, 01 2008
By Noam Chomsky
and Assaf Kfoury
Noam Chomsky's ZSpace Page
Join ZSpace
AK: The
economic crisis is felt acutely in the US, but has now spread to the
entire world, even to countries (in South America, for example) that
initially thought they would be spared. And the American presidential
campaign and elections cannot but concern people everywhere, given the
dominant role of the US globally. The simultaneous unfolding of the two
-- the crisis and the presidential campaign -- has naturally elicited
considerable discussion outside the US. In the Middle East, in
particular, there has been a kind of speculation, perhaps wishful
thinking, be it from the left or from the right. Some Arab commentators
have speculated that an Obama administration will follow less
aggressive policies. Some other Arab commentators want to see the
economic crisis as the sign of an imminent American global decline, and
warn pro-American governments and parties to stop doing the bidding of
a doomed North American hegemon. What is your response to this kind of
thinking? More generally, in relation to the Middle East, what
direction is US policy likely to take with the coming Obama
administration in the wake of the economic crisis?
NC: I
think that US hegemony will continue to decline as the world becomes
more diverse. That process has been underway for a long time. US power
peaked at the end of World War II, when it had literally half the
world's wealth and incomparable military power and security. By 1970,
its share of global wealth had declined by about half, and it has
remained fairly stable since then. In some important respects, US
domination has weakened. One important illustration is Latin America,
Washington's traditional "backyard." For the first time since European
colonization 500 years ago, South America is making significant
progress towards integration and independence, and is also establishing
South-South relations independent of the US, specifically with China,
but elsewhere as well. That is a serious matter for US planners. As it
was discussing the transcendent importance of destroying Chilean
democracy in 1971, Nixon's National Security Council warned that if the
US cannot control Latin America, it cannotexpect "to achieve a successful order elsewhere in the world" -- that
is, to control the rest of the world. Controlling Latin America has
become far more difficult in recent years.
It is important to recognize that these goals were explicitly and
clearly articulated during World War II. Studies of the State
Department and Council on Foreign Relations developed plans, later
implemented, to establish a "Grand Area," in which the US would "hold
unquestioned power," displacing Britain and France and ensuring the
"limitation of any exercise of sovereignty" by states that might
interfere with its global designs. Planners called for "an integrated
policy to achieve military and economic supremacy for the United
States" in the Grand Area, which was to include at least the Western
hemisphere, the former British Empire, and the Far East. As the war
progressed, and it became clear that Soviet military power was crushing
the Nazi war machine, Grand Area planning was extended to include as
much of Eurasia as possible. Since that time fundamental policies have
changed more in tactics than in substance. And there is little reason
to expect any change of goals with a new US administration, though the
possibilities of realizing them are declining in a more complex and
diverse global system.
With regard to the Middle East, policy has been quite stable since
World War II, when Washington recognized that Middle East oil supplies
are "a stupendous source of strategic power" and "one of the greatest
material prizes in world history." That remains true. It is interesting
that as the pretexts for invading Iraq become more difficult to
sustain, mainstream commentary is beginning to concede the obvious
reasons for the invasion, and the need for the US to maintain control
of Iraq, to the extent that it can. Thus when Obama called for shifting
the focus of US military operations from Iraq to Afghanistan, the
Washington Post editors instructed him that he was making a serious
mistake, since Afghanistan's "strategic importance pales beside that of
Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and
contains some of the world's largest oil reserves." Propaganda about
WMD and democracy is fine to keep the domestic public quiet, but
realities must be recognized when serious planning is at stake.
Both Democrats and Republicans accept the principle that the US is an
outlaw state, entitled to violate the UN Charter at will, whether by
threatening force against Iran (an explicit violation of the Charter)
or by carrying out aggression (the "supreme international crime," in
the words of the Nuremberg Tribunal). They also accept the principle
that the US not only has the right to invade other countries if it
chooses, but also to attack any country that it alleges is supporting
resistance to its aggression. Here the guise is "the war on terror."
Murderous attacks by US drones in Pakistan are one illustration. The
recent US cross-border raid from Iraq, on October 26, on the town of
Bukamal in Syria is another. The editors of the Lebanese Daily Star are
quite right in warning that the attack on Syria is another contribution
to the "loathsome legacy" of the Bush II administration. But it is not
just Bush II, and there is, currently, no substantial basis for
expecting any significant change under a new administration with regard
to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, or any other crucial
issue involving the Middle East.
AK: Some on the left in the US have warned that,
as American economic power wanes and with it the political influence
that follows, the US will rely more on military force to assert itself.
So, unless there is a concomitant drop in Washington's drive to remain
the dominant global power, there will be more military provocations and
a far more dangerous world. However, the US military is already
over-stretched -- in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and elsewhere -- and many
former military officers have recently gone public in expressing their
concerns about a broken army. So, is this kind of speculation unduly
alarmist?
NC: I am frankly somewhat skeptical. For one
thing, though ground forces are indeed overstretched, the US military
is awesome in scale and power. US military spending is roughly
comparable to the rest of the world combined, and the military is far
more advanced technologically. It is rather striking that a small
client state, Israel, claims to have air and armored forces that are
larger and technologically more advanced than any NATO power, apart
from the US. And the US is alone in the world in having a global basing
system and naval and air forces that allow it to carry out violent
action virtually everywhere. It is also alone in developing capacities
for space warfare, over the strong objections of the rest of the world.
In the economic sphere, for about thirty years the world has been
tripolar, with powerful centers in North America, Europe, and East
Asia. The diversification of the global economy has proceeded since,
and may be somewhat accelerated by the current financial crisis, though
that is not obvious. The US has enormous advantages in the economic
domain, though also substantial weaknesses, like severe indebtedness.
Europe could become an independent force in world affairs, but has
chosen to subordinate itself to Washington. It has readily accepted
extreme provocations, among them, Clinton's expansion of NATO to the
East in violation of firm promises by the Bush I administration to
Gorbachev, when he made the astonishing concession of allowing a united
Germany to join a hostile military alliance. Some recent consequences
in the Caucasus of this policy of expansion to the East have been on
the front pages. The Asian countries have accumulated huge financial
reserves, so much so that Japan, despite its stalling economy, is
purchasing major US assets. In principle, China and Japan could
diversify their currencies away from dollars. The effects could be
dramatic, but it is not likely, for one reason because of their
reliance on the US market, for another, because of US power, which they
do not want to confront.
It is true that Bush II has severely harmed the interests of those who
own and run the society, one reason why he has come under such intense
criticism within the mainstream. But it has hardly been a lethal blow.
There is much talk about India and China becoming the major powers of
the next century. No doubt they will continue to gain economic power,
but they have enormous internal problems, unknown in the West. One
indication is given by the UN Human Development Index, in which China
ranks 81st and India 128th (unchanged through the period of its partial
liberalization and rapid growth). And there is much more.
AK: There is a relation you have mentioned in some
of your recent writings, between neo-liberal economics and the
diminishing space for democratic participation. This is something that
is rarely discussed, even by commentators on the left, as if proponents
of financial liberalization coincidentally happen to be
anti-democratic. The connection is at best observed, but not
articulated. In fact, the neo-liberal economists have always advocated
their policies in the name of democracy and swear by their commitment
to it. Would you explain the mechanism of this connection and how it
worked in past decades?
NC: It is true that the relation is ignored,
apart from some of the professional literature. But it is
straightforward, and highly significant.
After World War II, the victors established a global economic order,
the Bretton Woods system: Britain was represented by John Maynard
Keynes, the US by Harry Dexter White. A core principle was constraints
on capital. Governments were permitted to control capital flight, a
principle that still is in the IMF rules, though ignored. And
currencies were regulated within a narrow band. The motives were
twofold. The first was economic: Keynes and White believed that these
measures would stimulate economic growth and trade. The second was
sociopolitical: both understood that unless governments are able to
regulate capital, they will not be able to carry out social democratic
(welfare state) measures. These had enormous support among populations
that had been radicalized by the Great Depression and the anti-fascist
war (World War II).
The basis for the sociopolitical motive is straightforward. Free
capital movement establishes what international economists have called
a "virtual parliament" of investors and lenders, who carry out a
"moment-by-moment referendum" on government policies. The "virtual
parliaments" can "vote" against these policies if it considers them
irrational: enacted for the benefit of people, rather than profit for
concentrated private power. They can "vote" by capital flight, attacks
on currencies, and other devices offered by financial liberalization.
Keynes considered the most important achievement of Bretton Woods to be
establishment of the right of governments to restrict capital movement.
Keynes regarded speculation as destructive. His basic insight is well
described by Indian economist Prabhat Patnaik, at the UN conference of
October 30 on the global financial crisis. Patnaik explains that Keynes
"had located the fundamental defect of the free market system in its
incapacity to distinguish between `speculation' and `enterprise.'
Hence, it had a tendency to be dominated by speculators, interested not
in the long-term yield on assets but only in the short-term
appreciation in asset values. Their whims and caprices, causing sharp
swings in asset prices, determined the magnitude of productive
investment and, therefore, the level of aggregate demand, employment
and output in the economy. The real lives of millions of people were
determined by the whims of 'a bunch of speculators' under the free
market system." The replacement of governmental "demand management" by
"bubble booms" created by speculators is a prime cause of the current
financial crisis, Patnaik argues plausibly, supporting Keynes's
analysis.
Both motives of the Bretton Woods planners -- the economic and the sociopolitical -- proved well justified. The
following years, until the system was dismantled in the 1970s, are
described by economic historians as the "golden age" of capitalism
(more accurately, state capitalism). Since financial liberalization and
the related neo-liberal programs were introduced in the 1970s, there
has been considerable deterioration where the programs have been
adopted, though there has been rapid growth where they have been mostly
ignored, notably in East Asia. The same has been true of the
sociopolitical motive. The Bretton Woods years were the era of
substantial progress in establishing basic social and democratic
rights, which have been under attack during the neo-liberal/financial
liberalization period. To take just the United States for illustration,
during the Bretton Wood years, economic growth was not only unusually
rapid but also egalitarian: the poorest quintile did as well as the
richest. And social indicators, general measures of the health of the
society, closely tracked growth. Since the late 1970s, for the majority
of the population real incomes have stagnated, work hours have
increased, benefits have declined, and social indicators not only did
not track growth, but in fact steadily declined.
It is instructive to see how the basic issues are described in the
serious literature of economic history. In his standard scholarly
history of the international monetary system, Barry Eichengreen points
out that in the 19th century, the public had
not been much of a problem. Governments had not yet been "politicized
by universal male suffrage and the rise of trade unionism and
parliamentary labor parties." Therefore the severe costs imposed by the
"virtual parliament" could be transferred to the general population,
who could do nothing but suffer in silence. But with the success of
popular struggle in achieving some level of democracy, and the
radicalization of the general public during the Great Depression and
the anti-fascist war, that luxury was no longer available to private
power and wealth. Hence in the Bretton Woods system, "limits on capital
mobility substituted for limits on democracy as a source of insulation
from market pressures."
It is only necessary to add the obvious corollary: with the dismantling
of the system from the 1970s, functioning democracy is restricted. It
has therefore become necessary to control and marginalize the public in
some fashion. These processes are particularly evident in the more
business-run societies like the United States. One illustration is the
management of electoral campaigns by the Public Relations industry, to
ensure that the public is effectively marginalized. As many studies
demonstrate, the two political parties -- essentially, two factions of
the ruling business party -- are well to the right of the public on
many major issues, so there is a good reason for party managers to keep
issues sidelined and to concentrate on personalities, "values,"
character, and so on. The nature of the electoral extravaganzas in
American presidential campaigns is well symbolized by the fact that
Sarah Palin's hairdresser is paid twice as much as John McCain's
foreign policy adviser -- and her role is twice as important, for the
party managers and the handlers of the candidates.
The population is not unaware of their marginalization, and naturally
do not like it. 80% of the American public feel that the government is
run "by a few big interests looking out for themselves," not for the
benefit of the public. And a remarkable 95% object that the government
does not respond to public opinion -- as is demonstrably the case.
AK: Looking
ahead, if a retreat from financial liberalization will open up some
space for democratic participation, in what sectors of American society
is this likely to happen? The labor movement in the US has gradually
weakened since World War II, and will probably take some time to
rebuild its base and reassert itself. This is a little speculative, but
where do you think genuine democratic participation is likely to start
from in the US?
NC: US
labor history has been very violent, by comparative standards. By the
1920s, the very lively and popular labor movement had virtually been
destroyed, by means that shocked even right-wing observers in England
and Australia. During the Depression and World War II, the labor
movement revived and became a significant force. Immediately after the
war, a corporate-led offensive was launched, with government support,
to destroy the unions. The scale was quite remarkable. There are good
scholarly studies, but the history is scarcely known. The reason why
unions are targeted is straightforward: they not only enable working
people to gain basic rights, but they are also an instrument of
democratization, providing a means for people with limited resources to
come together to formulate plans and to enter the political arena to
implement them. Naturally, democracy and worker's rights are regarded
as a serious threat by concentrated power. In the 1980s, the Reagan
administration informed the business world that the government would
not enforce the laws, dating from the New Deal (initiated by President
Roosevelt in the 1930's to counter the effects of the Great
Depression), which protected workers attempting to organize. Illegal
firing of union organizers tripled. In the Clinton years, NAFTA (North
American Free Trade Agreement) served the same function. When workers
sought to organize, management could threaten to move to Mexico. The
threat is illegal, but when the government refuses to enforce the laws,
it can be quite effective. Other devices have been developed to crush
unions. The media (press, cinema, etc.) have also been mobilized to the
cause.
It should be recognized that the leaders of the business world are
dedicated Marxists in that they are constantly fighting a bitter class
war to control their popular enemy. And since they largely control
government and media, the war is quite effective. By now, private
sector unionization is very low, though a majority of workers favor
unionization. A telling comparison is that in the public sector, where
means to destroy unions are less available, unionization remains far
higher.
Revitalization of the labor movement is not out of the question. It has
happened before, back to the 19th century, after the business classes
and their intellectual chorus had spoken confidently of the end of
history in a utopia of the masters. But there are also other forces.
The country has become much more civilized as a result of the activism
of the '60s and its aftermath -- one reason why the '60s period is so
bitterly condemned and vilified. The 2008 election is an illustration.
The top Democratic candidates were a woman and a black. The Republican
vice-presidential candidate is a woman. Independently of what one might
think about them, it is important to recall that anything like this
would have been unthinkable before the activism of the 60s had its
impact. That impact extends quite broadly: to rights of minorities and
woman and human rights generally, to concern for future generations
(the environmental movement), to recognition of some of the crimes of
history that had been suppressed or even glorified, like virtual
extermination of the native population; and to many other areas,
including opposition to aggression. Though it is not widely understood,
opposition to the Iraq invasion has been far higher than to the
invasion of Indochina, at a comparable stage. And the opposition has
limited the ability of the state to resort to violence.
Some of the most active and important popular movements are more
recent. The third-world solidarity movement, which has roots in
mainstream America, is a product of the 80s, and has expanded since; it
is worth remembering that it is a new development in the history of
Western imperialism. The global justice movement -- ludicrously called
"anti-globalization" -- developed in the North in the past decade,
though its origins in the South are much deeper and more rich. These
are potential sources for democratic participation, if they can
overcome the success of the business world in atomizing the population,
and driving people to individual concerns rather than social engagement
-- a very large and important topic that I cannot go into here.
[This interview, except for the last question and answer, first appeared in Arabic in the Beirut daily, as-Safir, of 27 November 2007.]
The Mumbai aftermath: Need for Indian restraint and a South Asian solution by Rajan Philips
Not without justification the Lashkar-e-Taiba attacks in Mumbai on 26 November have been compared to al-Qaeda’s aerial devastation of Manhattan in 2001. From the standpoint of Indian political actors and public opinion, it is difficult to resist extending the parallel and taking the fight to Pakistan just as America did after 9/11. The Indian sentiment is tired over the world media’s constant reference to Kashmir as the ultimate cause of the attacks on Mumbai and others before; instead, India wants the world to recognize that there is a whole network of terrorism in Pakistan targeting India and that India is justified in asking for its destruction to India’s satisfaction.
This is strikingly similar to the Weapons of Mass Destruction argument that the Bush Administration used to invade Iraq, with one big difference: there was no WMD in Iraq, whereas Pakistan is replete with terrorist groups some of whom have declared jihad against India. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the Head of the LeT, and Osama Bin Laden have publicly tagged Hindu India on to the axis of the infidels along with the Crusaders, Zionists and Western Christians. They not only challenge India’s position over Kashmir but also envisage restoring Islamic rule over India.
Yet, it would be a bigger mistake for India to undertake a military response targeting terrorist groups in Pakistan than the now acknowledged American blunder of invading Iraq. While India and Pakistan have had border skirmishes over Kashmir sometimes bordering on wars as in 1947 and 1965 (the 1971 war was primarily over the liberation of Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, from Pakistan), there was no jihad dimension to these clashes. The jihad dimension in Pakistan is the result of the Afghan contagion, and in India it is creating the potential for a Hindu counter-jihad. A new war between the two countries will not be limited to the two armies at the border but will ignite violence throughout the two societies. There is the even graver risk of triggering the use of the nuclear warheads that the two countries possess.
The Congress government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, unlike the Bush Administration in less provocative circumstances, has shown tremendous restraint in the face of opposition criticism and public outcry for retaliatory action. Their restraint has been vindicated, for now, by the election results from four Indian States, New Delhi, Rajasthan, Mizoram and Madhya Pradesh that were held after the Mumbai attacks. Even while the attacks were on, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political flagship of Hindu nationalism, took out front page newspaper advertisements ridiculing the secular Congress’s ineptitude against Islamic terror and asking the people to ‘vote BJP’ to rebuke the Congress. The voters did not agree.
The Congress Alliance won in three of the four States, registering its third successive victory in the capital State of New Delhi to the huge disappointment of the BJP. BJP’s only victory, in Madhya Pradesh, was a victory for the incumbent BJP Chief Minister who showed competence in governance after disastrous performances by his Hindu nationalist predecessors, one of whom was a female Hindu fanatic. The results augur well for an even broader endorsement of the policy of restraint in the national elections due in May 2009. The BJP will have to reconsider its strategy of using Hindu nationalism as its main campaign plank, and the Congress has time to regroup itself nationally and demonstrate to the Indian people that India could deal with Islamic terrorism without succumbing to Hindu nationalism.
The new Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, has declared that the Congress government will respond with "resolve and determination" to the Mumbai attacks. But in dealing with Pakistan, India cannot afford to risk alienating the Pakistani people who are helplessly fed up with the virtual takeover of their country by mostly non-national jihad forces. Simultaneously, India should spearhead a regional solution to what has become the South Asian contagion of terrorism and violence.
Jihad and non-Jihad violence in South Asia
Jihad in Arabic literally means struggle and Islam recognizes four different forms of jihad – struggle against the self, of the tongue, of the hand and of the sword. According to many Muslims and Islamic scholars, jihad of the sword has been misappropriated by Islamic fundamentalists to include acts of terrorism. Jihad violence in South Asia emerged only after the regional destabilization following the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and its withdrawal. After the Soviet departure in 1989, the vacuum was filled by the Taliban regime and thousands of young men from forty countries, all trained mujahideen (jihad soldiers) ready to spread the cause of radical Islam. The Lashker-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure), the group reportedly responsible for the Mumbai attacks, was founded in 1990 with Saudi money, under the tutelage of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
According to Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan’s US Ambassador, the group was created during General Zia-ul Haq’s military dictatorship as the instrument of Pakistan’s "state sponsorship of jihad against India" in Kashmir. It was given a sprawling 200 acre premises near Lahore and a network of Madrassa seminaries, hospitals, mobile clinics and markets throughout Pakistan. Its forays into Kashmir began in 1993, and as many as 750 estimated members, mostly foreign mercenaries, have been operating in Kashmir. LeT and other jihad groups have established links with Indian Islamists and have Islamic networks in Bangladesh and Maldives.
The emergence of Hindutva in India is less a response to Pakistan’s state-sponsored jihad against India and more a reaction to India’s state-sponsored secularism within India. Although an assertive Hindu ideology has existed for most of the 20th century, its political traction began only in the 1980s as a reaction to perceived favoured treatment of Muslim and Christian minorities by the Indian State, legislature and the judiciary. At one level, Hindutva ideologues rail against the smug secular superciliousness of the Congress Party and the Indian Left, and identify the Indian subcontinent as the homeland of the Hindus. They want India to be a Hindu Nation rather than a secular state, and support a more aggressive Hindu response to the Islamic jihad in Kashmir.
At another level, Hindutva storm troopers foment violence against Muslims and Christians. Unlike mob riots of the past, the violence against Indian Muslims is now more organized. A shocking new development is the attack against Christians, about 600 of whom have been killed in the last eight years, in retaliation against Christian conversion of lower caste Hindus. More ominous is the recent exposure of ties between Hindutva groups and sections of the Indian military in organizing attacks against Muslims. The exposure came with the arrest of Lt. Col. Srikant Purohit and retired Maj. Ramesh Upadhya for alleged involvement with Hindutva groups to carry out attacks against Muslims.
The Hindutva phenomenon, notwithstanding the international network of its organizations, is mostly confined to India in its agenda and activities. The BJP is the main political front of the movement striving for power both at the Centre and State levels based on a broad Hindu unity cutting across webs of caste and regional differences. The BJP was in power nationally from 1998 to 2004, and while pursuing a fundamentalist agenda within India, it worked to improve relations with Pakistan.
South Asia is also the site several non-religious forms of violence and terrorism. Sri Lanka is in the throes of renewed fighting between government forces and separatist Tamil Tigers. The island has seen much violence in the last thirty years. Nepal’s long experience with Maoist insurgency recently ended with the abolition of the monarchy and the assimilation of the Maoists into democratic politics. India has the largest number of incidents of political violence and terrorism. According to one estimate, 231 of India’s 608 administrative districts have active insurgent, terrorist and fundamentalist groups. The number of deaths due to political violence is second only to Iraq. In 2006, as many as 2,765 died due to political violence in India compared to 1,470 in Pakistan. Although more than 1,000 of the 2,765 deaths were in Jammu-Kashmir involving Hindu-Muslim conflicts, there are many non-religious sources of political violence in India – remnant and isolated Maoist and Agrarian insurgent groups operating in several parts of India, ethnic separatists active in the northeastern state of Assam and surrounding areas and occasionally spilling over into Bhutan and Bangladesh.
None of these groups, however, have regional implications and even their impact on India’s national stability is minimal given the isolated and spread-out nature of their activities, not to mention India’s behemothian size. However, the human dimension of the rural and agrarian problems and the impacts at the State and local levels are not insignificant. More than 16,000 Indian farmers have been committing suicide annually since 1997, and the State of Maharashtra has been registering 4,000 farmer suicides every year for the last three years. Farmer suicides have also been reported with disturbing frequency in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Despite these heartrending numbers, farmer suicides are not sensational to attract world media attention, nor do they preoccupy South Asian religious fundamentalists and nationalists.
A South Asian solution
The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and its subsequent implosion and the end of the Cold War have had two separate and contradictory consequences for South Asia. During the Cold War India and Pakistan were respectively aligned with the Soviet Union and the US with a quiet containment of South Asian differences. The main exception was the 1971 dismemberment of Pakistan (into Bangladesh and present Pakistan); with that India emerged as the dominant regional power. The onset of globalization and India’s gravitation to a market economy have brought India closer to the US in foreign policy, economic priorities and, more recently, in nuclear policy.
The inter-governmental relations between India and Pakistan have been improving after the Cold War, and were supplemented by growing cordiality at the popular and civil society levels. Cross-border televisions contributed to this cordiality and so did tourism and the increasing number of cricket encounters between the two countries. India also began to make conscious efforts to accommodate the interests of its smaller neighbours within the framework of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The Gujral Doctrine formulated by Inder Kumar Gujral, India’s Foreign Minister and Prime Minster during the late 1990s, codified the new nuances that India was trying to follow in its neighbourly relations. Countering these positive developments, as I have been discussing in this article, are the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism and the forces of jihad unleashed after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.
A third development in South Asia during the Cold War with continuing hangovers is what the late E.M.S. Namboodiripad, onetime Kerala Chief Minister and longtime General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), used to call the "internal component" of the Indian national question, but which is equally applicable to Pakistan and Sri Lanka. India has had quite a few manifestations of this internal component after independence. It successfully addressed the early eruptions in the South, in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. The more violent secessionist demand of the Sikhs of Punjab is also reasonably settled. As I noted earlier ethno-territorial violence haunts the northeast parts of India, but Kashmir is the real thorn on the sides of both and India and Pakistan. The Kashmir question has been a continuing crystallization of the vicious fallouts from colonialism and partition, the Cold War, and now the Afghan imbroglio.
Pakistan’s national question has its own internal components involving the ethno-territorial conflicts among the Punjabis, the Sindhis and Pashtuns. But their conflicts are mostly submerged by Pakistan’s overwhelming problem of Islamic fundamentalism and the related sectarian infighting between the Sunnis and Shiites. The Sri Lankan crisis has proved itself to be internally intractable although it has minimal regional or extra-regional security implications. This is notwithstanding India’s implication in the crisis on account of its past involvements and the new outcry in the southern State of Tamil Nadu that has linguistic and cultural affinities with Sri Lankan Tamils, over the plight of Tamil civilians caught in the crossfire.
Nonetheless, the three South Asian developments – post-Cold War, post-Afghanistan, and post-colonial hangovers, are interconnected although not uniformly or consistently. As I have been arguing, the post-Cold War development of somewhat improved relationship among South Asian countries is being undermined by the jihad fallout from Afghanistan, with Kashmir providing the fault line between the two. The aftermath of Mumbai is that by more jihad attacks from Pakistan targeting India will only provoke belligerent Hindu fundamentalist calls for retaliation. It should be commonplace that jihad attacks from Pakistan and military retaliations by India will feed each other in an endless vicious circle. The question is how to prevent the two countries and the rest of South Asia getting trapped in this vicious circle. The answer, it would appear, lies in a coordinated approach comprised of bilateral, multilateral as well as South Asian regional elements.
There are reasonably encouraging signals from Pakistan even though India may want Pakistan to do more and a lot sooner. Despite the official insistence on Indian proof that the Lashkar group masterminded the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan’s President in a rare op-ed article in the New York Times has acknowledged Pakistan’s predicament in dealing with the terrorist fallouts from the Afghan imbroglio. He has asked India to show patience and understanding, and for India and others to help Pakistan overpower the forces of fanaticism, install democratic infrastructure and rebuild its economy.
India would do well to take President Asif Ali Zardari at his word and hold him to it. Ordinary Pakistanis, civil society activists, professionals and many of the political actors would really like Pakistan to get rid of the jihad groups and the terrorist network. The Pakistani army itself is not monolithically hawkish, or fully identified with jihad forces. India should make its appreciation of these differences clear to the people of Pakistan and the only democratic institution they have – the Zardari government. India should leave the difficult task of pressurizing Pakistan to systematically take on the jihad groups to the US and the NATO countries. In any event, the terrorist network in Pakistan cannot be dealt with in isolation from the goings on in Afghanistan. The coming Obama administration has its work cut out in embarking on a triangulation exercise of an international kind, involving Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
On the vexed question of Kashmir, Pakistan would be well advised to avoid the ‘K’ word to provoke India in international parleys, such as it did at the UN recently. Just as Pakistan is asking for patience and help to put its house in order, so must India be given the time and space to rethink its position and explore new possibilities for Kashmir. As Tariq Ali recently remarked, a feasible solution to the Kashmiri problem as well as the Tamil question in Sri Lanka could well be a South Asian arrangement that recognizes, where necessary, ethno-territorial autonomies within the existing state boundaries.
The first of the five principles of the Gujral Doctrine is for India not to ask for reciprocity in its relations with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka, but to give and accommodate what it can in good faith and trust. By and large, India has been acting in this manner with these countries both before and after the Gujral Doctrine. Strange as it may seem, India should apply the same principle to Pakistan without seeming to be condescending. Even if the government of Pakistan is not "an innocent bystander", as Fareed Zakaria, a Mumbai born American Muslim, has called it, the people of Pakistan are innocent bystanders as jihad terrorists launch attacks on India. And the Pakistani people need every help they can get to rid of the menace in their nation’s bosom.
http://www.island.lk/2008/12/21/features1.html
US and nuclear armaments of India and Pakistan
Kashmir Watch, December 21
By Hem Raj Jain
It does not require a political genius to perceive that under consistent tremendous public and media pressure in the wake of most audacious November 26, 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack, the loud noises emanating from Indian media about Government of India being busy in serious discussions about selective strikes on Pakistan is merely not for public consumption.
This is fraught with serious implications especially given the fact that it will require not even a Mumbai type November, 26 terrorist attack against India by elements from Pakistan but merely an earlier bomb blasts of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangaluru, Ahmedabad, Jaipur etc variety (though God forbid but may happen any time given the situation in India and Pakistan) will be sufficient to constrain India to go all out for such strikes on Pakistan and which is bound to escalate in full fledged war between India and Pakistan.
Only a naivete or an imbecile will believe that a full fledged war between India and Pakistan will not lead to 'no bar hold nuclear war' between India and Pakistan (traditionally the most hated and feared countries, against each other).
War is a sovereign right of any country and martial element is an essential part of any State and which are supposed to kill and in the process even get killed in a war against 'enemy' country. But what makes a war between post 1998 India and Pakistan a grave matter for the entire mankind especially in this age of globalization is that both are nuclear power countries. In such eventual nuclear war not only the martial forces of India and Pakistan but also the millions of civilians including children women and old people will also get killed, burnt, injured and incapacitated in nuclear war between India and Pakistan therefore it is not only 'no bravery' but also an inhumane affair and which the entire mankind should urgently take the cognizance of.
One should also not delude oneself that this war (traditional as well as nuclear) will confine to merely India and Pakistan given the fact that (i)-India believes that most of the terrorists (HUJI etc.) of said bomb blast are conducting their activities from Bangladesh coupled with terrorism and other political problems being created in India by millions of Bangladeshi infiltrators in India and (ii)- Militants from Shri Lanka can hardly be expected to resist the temptation of fishing in such troubled waters.
The people who are thinking that Pakistan being constrained on economical front will not be able to sustain nuclear war are living in their make believe world given the fact that so many Islamic countries (including oil rich countries) are pining for nuclear weapons (also due to Israel - Palestine conflict) and will be ready to dump wealth in Pakistan in order to acquire nuclear arms (if not nuclear technology) from Pakistan and which will be quite easy during such communally divisive war between Islamic Pakistan and for all practical purposes Hindu India.
Therefore contemporary powerful USA and its allies should take this urgent SOS (save our soul) from distressed South Asia seriously and urgently because it may not wait for a month for this crises to erupt.
For this Obama (President elect) should help Bush (President, out going with in a month) to mobilize world leaders in order to immediately bring nuclear armaments of India and Pakistan under the control of world body (UN or otherwise) and gradually of other nuclear powers also so that India and Pakistan may agree to bring their nuclear military power under the control of such world body.
The author is Delhi based political analyst.
Email: jainhemraj1945@gmail.com
http://www.kashmirwatch.com/showexclusives.php?subaction=showfull&id=1229874847&archive=&start_from=&ucat=15&var1news=value1news
Conflict zone ticking
S Rehman
Though we may disagree with what the Indians and the world community is saying against Pakistan, they have succeeded in pitting the world against us through a mandatory resolution of the UNSC, adopted under Chapter 7 that makes its compliance mandatory, failure of which would provide the world community a pretext to launch preemptive strikes either through economic or military means.
It represents a very serious development and failure of Islamabad’s foreign and security policy. Both civilian and military bureaucracy and the government have a lot of explaining to do because their half-hearted approach in dealing with the issue of terrorism or the terrorist groups has endangered country’s integrity and security of its citizens. One is amazed that what the Foreign Office was doing all these days when the Indian’s with their strategic ally, were manipulating a diplomatic coup d’etat against Pakistan by winning over China’s support for the resolution. Some naive people believe that the government of Pakistan itself manipulated this mandatory resolution to sell it to its people as a fait accompli and the only way to escape the wrath of the world community. How brilliant. Only fools thinks that way.
While there can be no two opinions regarding the bloody mayhem in Mumbai that sent a wave of panic and terror across South Asia, initiating yet another round of dangerous blame game in a nuclearised environment, Indian media’s attempt to whip up war hysteria at the behest of some its Hindutva and hardliners in the Congress Party, which deliberately projected the tragedy as India’s 9/11, that culminated in the New Delhi’s decision to discontinue the process of composite dialogue with Pakistan further deteriorated the security situation in the region. Many things have happened since then and the Indian’s moving according to their game plan that was aimed at arraying different nationalities against Pakistan, as nationals of many western countries were killed in Mumbai attack. Indians immediately pronounced judgment against Pakistan’s ISI, Lashkare Tayeba without any investigation and thanks to intelligence proofs provided by the Americans or the British and Israeli intelligence. New Delhi’s tirade was unleashed by its very ambitious External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherji, who once aspired for Congress leadership and becoming prime minister of India, and had even developed some difference with Sonia Gandhi in this regard, which many believe was part of the Indo-US strategic plan of bringing Pakistan under pressure to submit to their policies, and in the process allow them to deprive Pakistan of its strategic assets.
Pakistan seems to be in a straight jacket with apparently no alternatives but to follow the dictates, to save its nuclear assets. It has come under immense pressure after media investigation reports in Pakistan “confirmed” that the lone surviving terrorist involved in Mumbai attacks belonged to Faridkot in Dipalpur district of Pakistan. New Delhi wants to push through this so-called evidence of Pakistani soil being used in the tragedy and that it was allegedly involved in the episode. Perhaps that is the reason New Delhi is scuttling proposal for joint investigation. Perhaps South Asia will remain in the war mongering mode until the upcoming Indian elections early next year. Whatever may be the truth in the so-called evidence about Ajmal Kasab, apparently it fitted into the line which the Indian media fed by its intelligence agencies and political leadership, taken right from the beginning of the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
But the situation took a dramatic turn when a Lahore-based lawyer claimed Ajmal was allegedly picked up the Indian agencies with the connivance of Nepalese police, along with many other Pakistanis, in 2006 and that as petition challenging the Indian agencies and Nepalese authorities was pending in Neplai court. If proved, this could be a serious blow to the Indian claims and the so-called credible intelligence provided by the US, NATO and the British intelligence sources, accusing LeT, Al Qaeda, Jamatud Dawa, and ISI etc, based on an old perception. Although some of the world leaders, including that of the US and the UK acted swiftly to stop the situation from getting out of control due to jingoistic mindset of the people in the region; it seems that the effort was tilting in favour of India. Sending US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and others to New Delhi and Islamabad was the right move for salvaging the situation by Washington and the British Prime Minister Cordon Brown’s whirl wind visit to the South Asian region. But it has not resulted in the resumption of bilateral dialogue. Rather it has enhanced pressure on Pakistan as all the world leaders are maintaining that Pakistan’s solid was used in the aMumbai attack. Remarks of the US President-elect Barack Obama that India would be within its rights if it took retaliatory action against militants hiding inside Pakistan, were counter-productive and not conducive for peace in the region. Pakistan’s top leadership seems to be more committed to safeguarding Washington’s interests, no matter how it impinges on Pakistan’s own national interests. We witnessed the massive Indian mobilization along Pakistan’s borders and in the occupied Kashmir and on the high seas. The violation of Pakistan’s air space was a deliberate prodding mission to judge Pakistan Air Forces preparedness and its reaction time to challenge the invading aircraft. Although we have settled with the explanation that it was technical violation, presumably following British and US indulgence, the fact is that it was deliberate posturing to send us message. Following Brasstacks buildup it was decided by Indian and Pakistan that their aircraft will not fly within 15 miles of their international borders.
If they did so ,they were required to inform the other country. Indians did not adhere to its and deliberately engaged us in a dangerous posturing in and environment when there is significant disparity in conventional weapons between the two countries. Whether or not it was aimed at launching a surgical attack inside Pakistan, it was certainly a calculated risk, probably in the knowledge of the so called “friends”. If the Indian’s might have committed that mistake, Gordon Brown’s mission as peace maker would have failed as the sub continent would have plunged into another bloodbath. The western countries would be more interested in gaining control of Pakistan’s strategic assets, and not stopping India.
The Indian arrogance of a regional influential was evident from Pranab Mukharji’s contention that under the circumstances it was not possible to continue composite dialogue with Pakistan and his repeated insistence on the right of his country to act in self-defence. Dr Manmohan Singh’s questionable assertion that Pakistan was epicenter of terrorism further aggravated the situation. But now after the resolution and Brown’s visit his stand has softened owing to blow-hot blow-cold diplomacy. This was despite the fact that the terrorist tragedy happened on the day the Home Secretaries of the two countries concluded their talks in Islamabad and announced several concrete steps to move forward in the peace process, such as the opening of several land routes for trade – Kargil, Wagah-Attari, Khokhropar etc, relaxation in the visa regime, a soft and liberal policy on the issue of release of prisoners and joint efforts to fight terrorism? Was it also a coincidence that on this fateful day the Foreign Minister of Pakistan was in the Indian capital holding productive talks with his Indian counterpart?
Indian government’s decision to discontinue the bilateral process was tantamount to playing on the terrorists’ turf and providing them space. Perhaps they have achieved their real objective. After the Security Council resolution banning Jamat ud Dawa , now that Pakistan is in compliance mode, if the US and the world really wanted to root out terrorism, they must insist on joint investigation and the need for resuming the bilateral dialogue between India and Pakistan no matter how critical the situation may be. One can only find the truth through dialogue, absence of which might push the region towards a disastrous scenario. Beating the war drum under the umbrella of united and firm national response to the terrorist threat will not lead to any solution. It does not lead to the much needed cooling off period for diplomacy to make headway. Both India and Pakistan have bilateral mechanism besides the SAARC framework, to deal with terrorism, and that must be invoked to deal with the situation. In this particular case Pakistan has also proposed joint commission to unearth the truth. If India is sure of its contention it should not oppose it.
But they apparently want to have one way traffic. That is not going help in this situation. One should not rule out the possibility that elements who were involved in Samjhota Express and Malegaon massacre had something to do with inflaming the situation and portraying it as India’s 9/11.
http://pakobserver.net/200812/18/Articles03.asp
The Aimless War
By Joe Klein Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2008
"Things have gotten a bit hairy," admitted British Lieut. Colonel Graeme Armour as we sat in a dusty, bunkered NATO fortress just outside the city of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, a deadly piece of turf along Afghanistan's southern border with Pakistan. A day earlier, two Danish soldiers had been killed and two Brits seriously wounded by roadside bombs. The casualties were coming almost daily now.
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And then there were the daily frustrations of Armour's job: training Afghan police officers. Almost all the recruits were illiterate. "They've had no experience at learning," Armour said. "You sit them in a room and try to teach them about police procedures — they start gabbing and knocking about. You talk to them about the rights of women, and they just laugh." A week earlier, five Afghan police officers trained by Armour were murdered in their beds while defending a nearby checkpoint — possibly by other police officers. Their weapons and ammunition were stolen. "We're not sure of the motivation," Armour said. "They may have gone to join the Taliban or sold the guns in the market." (See pictures of Afghanistan's police force in training.)
The war in Afghanistan — the war that President-elect Barack Obama pledged to fight and win — has become an aimless absurdity. It began with a specific target. Afghanistan was where Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda lived, harbored by the Islamic extremist Taliban government. But the enemy escaped into Pakistan, and for the past seven years, Afghanistan has been a slow bleed against an array of mostly indigenous narco-jihadi-tribal guerrilla forces that we continue to call the "Taliban." These ragtag bands are funded by opium profits and led by assorted religious extremists and druglords, many of whom have safe havens in Pakistan.
In some ways, Helmand province — which I visited with the German general Egon Ramms, commander of NATO's Allied Joint Force Command — is a perfect metaphor for the broader war. The soldiers from NATO's International Security Assistance Force are doing what they can against difficult odds. The language and tactics of counterinsurgency warfare are universal here: secure the population, help them build their communities. There are occasional victories: the Taliban leader of Musa Qala, in northern Helmand, switched sides and has become an effective local governor. But the incremental successes are reversible — schools are burned by the Taliban, police officers are murdered — because of a monstrous structural problem that defines the current struggle in Afghanistan.
The British troops in Helmand are fighting with both hands tied behind their backs. They cannot go after the leadership of the Taliban — still led by the reclusive Mullah Omar — which operates openly in the Pakistani city of Quetta, just across the border. They also can't go after the drug trade that funds the insurgency, in part because some of the proceeds are also skimmed by the friends, officials and perhaps family members of the stupendously corrupt government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Helmand province is mostly desert, but it produces half the world's opium supply along a narrow strip of irrigated land that straddles the Helmand River. The drug trade — Afghanistan provides more than 90% of the world's opium — permeates everything. A former governor, Sher Mohammed Akhundzada, was caught with nine tons of opium, enough to force him out of office, but not enough to put him in jail, since he enjoys — according to U.S. military sources — a close relationship with the Karzai government. Indeed, Akhundzada and Karzai's brother Ahmed Wali — who operates in Kandahar, the next province over — are considered the shadow rulers of the region (along with Mullah Omar). "You should understand," a British commander said, "the fight here isn't really about religion. It's about money."
Another thing you should understand: thousands of U.S. troops are expected to be deployed to Helmand and Kandahar provinces next spring. They will be fighting under the same limitations as the British, Canadian, Danish and Dutch forces currently holding the fort, which means they will be spinning their wheels. And that raises a long-term question crucial to the success of the Obama Administration: What are we doing in Afghanistan? What is the mission?
We know what the mission used to be — to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and destroy his al-Qaeda command. But once bin Laden slipped away, the mission morphed into a vast, messy nation-building effort to support the allegedly democratic Karzai government. There was a certain logic to that. The Taliban and al-Qaeda can't base themselves in Afghanistan if something resembling a stable, secure nation-state exists there. But the mission was also historically implausible: Afghanistan has never had a strong central government. It has been governed for thousands of years by local and regional tribal coalitions. The tribes have often been at one another's throats — a good part of the current "Taliban" uprising is nothing more than standard tribal rivalries juiced by Western arms and opium profits — except when foreigners have invaded the area, in which case the Afghans have united and slowly humiliated conquerors from Alexander the Great to the Soviets.
The current Western presence is the most benign intrusion in Afghan history, and the rationale of building stability remains a logical one — but this war has become something of a sideshow in South Asia. The far more serious problem is Pakistan, a flimsy state with illogical borders, nuclear weapons and a mortal religious enmity toward India, its neighbor to the south. Pakistan is where bin Laden now lives, if he lives. The Bush Administration chose to coddle Pakistan's military leadership, which promised to help in the fight against al-Qaeda — but it hasn't helped much, although there are signs that the fragile new government of President Asif Ali Zardari may be more cooperative. Still, the Pakistani intelligence service helped create the Taliban and other Islamic extremist groups — including the terrorists who attacked Mumbai — as a way of keeping India at bay, and Pakistan continues to protect the Afghan Taliban in Quetta. In his initial statements, Obama has seemed more sophisticated about Afghanistan than Bush. In an interview with me in late October, Obama said Afghanistan should be seen as part of a regional problem, and he suggested that he might dispatch a special envoy, perhaps Bill Clinton, to work on the Indo-Afghan-Pakistani dilemma. Clinton seems a less likely prospect since his wife was named Secretary of State. The current speculation is that Richard Holbrooke may be selected for the job, which would be a very good idea.
Holbrooke is a great negotiator, but he's also a great intimidator, and the first step toward resolving the war in Afghanistan is to lay down the law in both Islamabad and Kabul. The message should be the same in both cases: The unsupervised splurge of American aid is over. The Pakistanis will have to stop giving tacit support and protection to terrorists, especially the Afghan Taliban. The Karzai government will have to end its corruption and close down the drug trade. There are plenty of other reforms necessary — the international humanitarian effort is a shabby, self-righteous mess; some of our NATO allies aren't carrying their share of the military burden — but the war will remain a bloody stalemate at best as long as jihadis come across the border from Pakistan and the drug trade flourishes.
I flew by helicopter from Helmand to the enormous NATO base outside Kandahar to learn that three Canadian soldiers had been killed that morning in an ambush. I stood in a small, bare concrete plaza as the Canadian flag was raised, then lowered to half-staff. Next the Danish flag and finally the NATO flag were raised and left to rest at half-staff. A small group of soldiers from assorted countries stood at attention and saluted as the flags rose and fell. There were no American flags this day, but there soon will be.
Before he sends another U.S. soldier off to die or be maimed in Afghanistan, President-elect Obama needs to deliver the blunt message to the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan that we will no longer tolerate their complicity in the deaths of Americans and our allies, a slaughter that began on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and continues to this day. Obama will soon own this aimless war if he does not somehow change that dynamic.
See the members of Obama's White House.
See pictures of the front lines in the battle against the Taliban.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1865747,00.html
Terrorists provoking Indo-Pak war
Mahmood Elahi, Ottawa, Canada
Photo: AFP
Former Pakistan Foreign Secretary Najmuddin A Shaikh has written a clear and candid analysis of the Mumbai attacks in Lahore's Daily Times. He is absolutely right when he says: "Let us be clear however that we do have a problem of uncontrolled and uncontrollable forces in Pakistan that are intent on sabotaging any efforts at Indo-Pak reconciliation. Whether or not the Indians provide us with evidence, we should initiate inquiries ourselves. Regardless of the nationality of the attackers, the Indo-Pak process has been set back. Hardliners in India will be encouraged, ignoring India's own long-term interests to exploit Pakistan's many vulnerabilities. Both countries have lost."
It is clear that by choosing Mumbai as their target, the extremists are trying to achieve three things: 1) To provoke a backlash by Hindu majority against India's Muslim minority. Mumbai is the capital of the state of Maharastra, the base of Hindu-extremist BJP; 2) To threaten India's economic prospects as Mumbai is India's financial capital; 3) To provoke a war between India and Pakistan.
The first two are obvious and India alone can take care of them. But the third issue is far more challenging as it calls for cooperation between the two countries who are known for their mutual hostilities. Although the extremists elements like Laskar-e-Tayeba (LeT), al-Qaeda and the Taliban are non-state actors, their very presence in Pakistan makes the country vulnerable. By attacking India, these terrorists are hoping that India will respond in kind and strike against Pakistan, triggering an all-out war between the two countries. The extremists see their salvation in the total destruction of both countries. They think the destruction of Pakistan and India will pave their way to establish a pure Islamic state of their imagination. Moreover, a war between India and Pakistan will take all attention away from Pakistan's borders with Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to overthrow the American-backed Karzai government in Afghanistan.
Assorted Islamist groups think that they will emerge dominant after a cataclysmic war between India and Pakistan. As such, India should be careful not to put too much pressure on the Pakistan government. Wisely, the Indian government has not accused the Zardari government of any collusion with the terrorists. In their own interests, both India and Pakistan should cooperate to track down the extremists. All bets are off if terrorists could mount another attack on India. A joint anti-terrorist body should investigate the Mumbai attacks and suggest remedies for both countries.
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=66952
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