Flat-footed response to a deep crisis

The Congress party’s response to the ongoing corruption tsunami is, to quote Alice, getting “curiouser and curiouser”. It began with a flourish over the New Year, promising an ordinance to deal with the issue. Then it transpired that the measure was nothing but old wine in new bottles — a dusted up version of the Lok Pal Bill thats been around for a while. Now, according to some reports, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) plans, believe it or not, to constitute a Group of Ministers (GoM), headed by the indispensable Pranab Mukherjee.
 Its two shining lights are, M K Alagiri whose anti-corruption credentials are mysterious, to say the least, and Sharad Pawar, whose presence in the body seems to be a brilliant stroke of black humour. For the record it also has St Antony, no doubt, to give it a veneer of probity, along with a motley crew of Mamata Banerjee, P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Veerappa Moily. 
The party has also let it be known that  it is ready to include the Prime Minister in the  ambit of a new Lok Pal Bill, as if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were being accused of any personal wrong-doing. This is such a transparent — if futile — gesture to deflect popular anger, that we can only term it pathetic. It is not going to win any converts among the masses, leave alone moderate the rate of erosion of its popularity.
 
Politics
Clearly, besieged by allegations of corruption, the Congress party leadership is losing whatever little touch it had retained with the habit of mass politics. Here we don’t count staged durbars, contact programmes à la Rahul Gandhi and election rallies. Mass politics is where ideas and issues flow up from the grassroots with the same felicity they come top-down.
In place of a political system that draws its energy and self-esteem from the people, as it were, we have a system where fixers, not only of the corporate variety, but also those who claim to speak on behalf of 10 Janpath or various coalition leaders, decide issues. Legislation is vetted by them, as are key political and bureaucratic appointments. Orders and instructions flow from the top to the bottom, with little understanding of the context.
One of the more revealing actualities that the Radia tapes have provided is an understanding of the role that corporate  lobbyists play in positioning politicians to become members of the Union Council of Ministers. The role of political fixers, however, still remains to be unveiled.




 In our system, selecting the Cabinet  is supposed to be the PM’s call, no doubt worked out through consultation with party bigwigs and coalition partners. But the final choice  is the undisputed prerogative of the PM. Now, with hindsight, we can explain the dissonance that has affected the UPA-II government — it arises because the PM is working with colleagues who he may not have selected, or even wanted, in his team.
There is, of course, a more profound problem. This has to do with the nature of the Congress party. Having neutered the politicians, it functions through the agency of bureaucratised politicians, or bureaucrats themselves. Instead of depending on inputs from the orthodox political grassroots, it is used to handling things top-down. That is the reason, the party has begun to put so much store by  the agency of legislation as a means of fixing social and political problems. So we have had in quick succession, the Right to Information Act, the Right to Education Act, the National Rural Guarantee Employment Act, and the yet to be passed Right to Food Act.
It is still early days with the RTI, but we can already see the system’s backlash. The killing of RTI activists is one indicator of this. Another is the effort being made  to strangle the act by restricting its ambit post facto and packing it with former bureaucrats — the equivalent of having a committee of foxes to organise the security of a chicken coop. The extent of corruption with NREGA is only now becoming manifest. As to RTE, it is simply not working.
 
Legislation
The Right to Food Act, besides being virtually impossible to implement, is likely to become a major source of revenue for corrupt babus. Last year, in what is being called the mother of all scams, it was revealed that `2 lakh crore of food grain meant for Below Poverty Line card holders covered under various schemes  had been  smuggled not only outside the state, but outside the country in the 2001-2010 period.
Legislation has its place in a democratic country. But it is usually the culmination of a political process that comes from below, or a codification of a set of policy measures needed to make the government work better. Top-down legislation can work if you happen to be Otto von Bismarck.
The problem of hunger, illiteracy and maternal and neonatal health plaguing the country are not because money is lacking or that there is any lack of a specific legislation. You do not need laws to feed the hungry or eradicate illiteracy. The problem is that money appropriated for doing the needful ends up in the wrong hands.
More important is the structural problem. More than 60 years after independence, sections of the people — Dalits, women and tribals — are systematically excluded from development schemes because of social prejudice.
The political class can play a positive role here by mobilising and educating mass opinion. Unfortunately they’re more focused on enriching themselves and their families.
We need a political class  that understands that the state is distinct from the government. When there is an act of corruption by a minister or a public servant, it is the state, on behalf of the citizen that must act against him. This is not an issue that lies within the discretion of this or that party because it happens to be running the government.
 
State
State institutions have been undermined by our political class. What is needed now is to empower them and this can, indeed, come through legislation. Given our parliamentary system, we cannot have any system which is not answerable to Parliament. And that can only be done through a ministry and a minister. But that does not mean that the department of the ministry — say an autonomous prosecutor’s office under the Ministry of Law and Justice — cannot be guaranteed real autonomy.
Legislation is indeed needed to make the  Central Bureau of Investigation, which today functions as an attack dog of the government, into a body that uses its investigative and prosecutorial arms on behalf of the state, not the party in power. Likewise, the country needs a strong Central Vigilance Commission, given real autonomy by the laws of the state.
Individuals can play an important role here. After all, it was people like T N Sheshan, a pliant civil servant if there was one, who liberated the Election Commission from its political servitude. Subsequently Commissioners like J M Lyngdoh have burnished the body’s credentials, despite the effort by the Congress to undermine the commission by putting a Gandhi-family friend in-charge of the body. The Comptroller and Auditor General, too, has emerged as an important state entity who is playing the constitutionally mandated role as a watchdog of the people.
Sadly, independence and integrity seems to have been bred out of many of our senior bureaucrats, and the problem is worsening by the year. The public mood is one of cynicism and anger. The Congress will have to do much better to deflect public anger than by pulling some faux legislation and GoMs out of the hat.
Mail Today January 7, 2011

Thinking ahead in Kashmir

Back in August 2010 at the height of the stone pelting in Srinagar I had written ( for the whole article see http://mjoshi.blogspot.com/2010/08/there-are-options-on-jammu-kashmir-but.html :

"The key short- term policy that needs to be put in place is the creation of a special police force for the Valley which is trained and mentally conditioned to deal with crowds, rather than militants. A word of caution here; it took the Union government several decades of communal riots to establish a special force to deal with it— the Rapid Action Force.
But the crowd control force that Kashmir needs requires an entirely different laundry list of equipment, training and personnel. It is not a matter of equipment alone. After all Tufail Mattoo whose June 11 death reportedly triggered off the current unrest died after being hit by a spent tear- gas shell, a non- lethal munition as such. People can die of pepper gun shots, if hit at close range, and it is a fact that many young boys may have drowned while trying to escape a police charge."

Here is a report from Greater Kashmir on the DGP's annual press meet. It seems that people have been thinking on those lines. 
Back in August 2010 at the height of the stone pelting in Srinagar I had written ( for the whole article see http://mjoshi.blogspot.com/2010/08/there-are-options-on-jammu-kashmir-but.html :

Separatists fund, fuel unrest: DGP

‘Everyone Knows Harsh Reality Behind Political Killings’

SYED AMJAD SHAH

Jammu, Jan 3: Blaming the separatists for funding and fuelling stone-pelting in the Valley, the state police chief Kuldeep Khoda Monday said that 207 persons were detained for stone-pelting during the summer unrest out of whom 55 were booked under Public Safety Act (PSA).
Khoda said that everyone in Kashmir knows the harsh realities of political killings and it was the right time for the ‘right thinking’ and ‘truth speaking’ people to come forward and tell the ‘reality’ to the people, which will be helpful for restoring peace in trouble hit-state.
“A senior Hurriyat leader spoke the truth and has vindicated our stand. The right thinking and truth speaking people should come forward so that people get to know about the reality. They should tell people about the truth and it could prove helpful in restoring peace and normalcy in Kashmir,” the police chief said at a press conference here today.
He was reacting to a question on the statement of senior Hurriyat leader Prof Abdul Ghani Bhat that top separatist leaders were killed by “our own people”.
“Everyone knew the harsh realities of political killings in Kashmir. He (Prof Bhat) revealed what everybody knows. I do not know what is the reason for him to say this at this moment? But this is the truth,” he remarked.
DGP said the Hurriyat leader had vindicated the police stand. “He has said what we had been saying all along.
The person involved in the killing of Mirwaiz Farooq is also buried in the same ‘martyrs’ graveyard’ where the senior Mirwaiz was laid to rest. Both killers and the killed are martyrs for them,” he maintained.
During a seminar, Prof Bhat had said that Mirwaiz Moulvi Muhammad Farooq, father of moderate Hurriyat chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and Peoples Conference chairman Abdul Gani Lone were killed “by our own people”.
DGP remarked, “We had always maintained that militants were killing leaders of rival factions. When a separatist leader himself makes this disclosure, all I can say is that our stand has been vindicated.”

500 MILITANTS ACTIVE IN JK
Khoda maintained that 450-500 militants are active in the state where militancy has been lowest in past two decades but infiltration bids had increased.
“There are 450-500 militants actively operating in the state and 45-50% of them are foreign militants,” he said.
Referring to militancy in the state, he said the situation is under control and incidents are lowest in over two decades.
There are 488 militancy-related incidents in 2010 against 499 in 2009, 20 militants have surrendered in 2010 compared to 15 in 2009, he said adding lowest 47 civilians were killed in militancy related incidents in 2010 compared to 71 in 2009. Not only this, 69 security forces and police personnel were killed last year as against 79 in 2009.

SPECIAL IRP BATTALIONS
Blaming the separatists for fuelling and funding the summer unrest, the DGP said that five battalions of Indian Reserve Police (IRP), recruited recently, are being provided special training, body gears and weaponry to deal with the “abnormal situation” in Kashmir valley.
Describing year gone as the “highly challenging” for the J&K Police, the DPG said 2828 cops, and 1351 CRPF personnel were injured while dealing with the unrest in Kashmir valley, adding that 59 police personnel had been rendered disable for police department due to critical injuries. “91 civilians were killed while 545 others had received injuries in the summer unrest,” he added.
Khoda, who was reviewing the ‘performance and deficiencies and also to introspect’ the department’s functioning in 2010, remarked, “To counter such a violent situation and to maintain law and order, five IRP battalions are undergoing training in different police training schools so that the department could deal with the abnormal situation effectively.”
“The recruits of upcoming 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 IRP Battalions would be given special body gears to wear as it would reduce injuries while dealing with the abnormal situation,” he added, while saying that these recruits would be equipped with less or non-lethal weapons.
He said that the cops would be provided body protectors, poly carbonate shields, poly carbonate lathies, helmets and visors. Referring to the non-lethal weapons, Khoda said the police personnel would also be equipped with stun grenades, laser guns, teaser guns, gas guns, anti-riot rifles, and pump action guns to reduce civilian killings.
The DGP maintained that the Police are focused to reduce the “unnecessary civilian causalities” and also to safeguard the security personnel involved in dealing with the law and order situation.
He disclosed that a total of 207 persons were detained for pelting incidents and out of them, 55 had been booked under Public Safety Act (PSA).

http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2011/Jan/4/separatists-fund-fuel-unrest-dgp-52.asp

The ISI feared leaders wanted deal with New Delhi

My comment on the news item relating to a seminar in Srinagar where Prof Abdul Ghani Bhat acknowledged that some key leaders of the separatist movement were killed "by our own people." 
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/125374/top-stories/separatists-kashmir-hurriyat.html

The truth, they say, will out. Sometimes it takes time. The admission by Professor Abdul Gani Bhat, a key member of the original Hurriyat, that the gunmen who had assassinated top leaders such as Mirwaiz Muhammad Farooq,  People’s Conference and Hurriyat leader Abdul Ghani Lone and Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) ideologue Abdul Ahad Wani, had been killed “by our own people” and not the Indian security forces is part of the painful process through which Kashmiri separatist leaders are coming to terms with the turbulent history of their own movement.
He did not say it, but the subtext of his statement was clear.
All these leaders had sought to move on a course that was different from the one that was being set by the puppet masters in Islamabad, who thought they were running the Kashmir movement.
There has never been much doubt in the minds of the Indian security establishment that they had been assassinated  on the orders of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate of the Pakistan Army, notoriously known as the ISI.
It is significant that Professor Bhat made his remarks at a JKLF-organised seminar. Notwithstanding its initial role in triggering the Kashmiri militancy, the JKLF represented the secular edge of the separatist aspirations of the Valley Kashmiris.
Not only was it targeted by the Indian security forces, it was also hounded by the ISI. There are good reasons to believe that many JKLF leaders were betrayed to the Indian security forces by the ISI and in Pakistan. Leaders such as Amanullah Khan and Javed Ahmed Mir recorded the ill-treatment they suffered on account of their insistence that they were for an independent Kashmir, rather than one which merged with Pakistan.
The reason why each of these figures were assassinated was that the ISI feared that they would strike a deal with New Delhi. This has been a pattern that has not altered.
Even people like the current Mirwaiz, Umar Farooq, who knows that the ISI was involved in his father’s killing, exercise  abundant caution in keeping their bridges with Islamabad open.
In fact, between 2004 and 2007, when India and Pakistan were close to settling the Kashmir issue, the Mirwaiz developed a close relationship with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. Indeed, so cruel are the compulsions that Abdul Ghani Lone’s funeral procession was accompanied with pro-Pakistan slogans.
The ability of the ISI to eliminate separatist leaders remains unchecked. Though Indian security forces guard even people such as Syed Ali Shah Geelani, an assassination can be arranged almost at will. Lone, for example, was gunned down at a memorial function for Mirwaiz Muhammad Farooq when the police believed that no one would be heartless enough to strike.

Kashmir’s tragedy is not that Pakistan alone is responsible for all the assassinations. The many groups there have been involved in killing each other — Qazi Nisar, the Mirwaiz of South Kashmir was killed by the Hizbul Mujahideen in 1994.
They may have also been responsible for the killing of Dr Abdul Ahad Guru in 1992. Dr Guru was a leading physician in Srinagar and a JKLF leader, who was talking to Indian officials and ministers like Rajesh Pilot at the time of his assassination.
No doubt, the Indian security establishment has also used the instrument of assassination in the Valley.
In the main, they have used the instrumentality of former militants, or Ikhwanis. In great measure such killings belong to the past. In recent years there have been no significant assassination of a top-ranking leader.
Nevertheless, there should not be any doubt that all sides retain the capacity of eliminating anyone they choose to target.

Mail Today January 3, 2011

Six things that ought to be done in 2011 but (will probably) not

The economy grew at a fast clip, leaders of the permanent five of the UN Security Council visited India, despite the German Bakery and Varanasi attack, terrorism, by and large stayed its hand, and though it took a new twist, violence in Kashmir flared, and then died down. Even so it is difficult not to believe that 2010 was an annus horribilis for the country. Inflation steadily eroded the income of the common man, and for six months we have been deluged by a tsunami of corruption-related charges.
It began with the Indian Premier League, moved on to the Commonwealth Games, and finally culminated in what promises to be the mother of all scams—the loss of over one hundred thousand crore rupees in auctioning the 2G spectrum. The result has been that even the image of the incorruptible Prime Minister has been sullied. Even today no one believes any ill of Dr Singh. But it is increasingly difficult to separate his personal probity and integrity from the record of his government.
Clearly 2011 is a make or break year for the Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance. What can it do to recover the momentum of governance that it lost in 2009? How does it respond to the insidiously growing perception that it is  rotten and corrupt to the core?
There are six things it can do to revitalise itself in the coming year. But my cynical heart says it will probably not move on any of them.

First Announce the creation of a truly autonomous prosecution agency for the country, in the pattern of the Crown Prosecutor’s Office in Great Britain. Given the urgency of the situation—the Congress party has till the budget session to get back on track—the government may consider issuing an ordinance with the promise of passing a comprehensive legislation thereafter.
The idea is not new. In 1998, the Chief Justice of India J S Verma had called for “an impartial agency comprising persons of unimpeachable integrity to perform functions akin to those of the Director of Prosecutions in the UK.” This was in the context of the Jain hawala diary, a scam which the system— babus and politicians of all ilk—were able to bury effectively.
In 2009, the same CBI opposed measures to separate its prosecution and investigation departments on specious grounds, even while the Union Law Ministry suggested that it be done.
Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrashekhar convened a meeting to resolve the issue, but little came of it. This proposal has the backing of the Prime Minister, the National Law Commission and the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law, Justice and Personnel. It is clearly an idea whose time has come.

Second Announce the termination of the Single Point directive through which mandatory permission is required before prosecution can be launched against a public servant, above the rank of a joint secretary. In some ways this is merely a corollary of the first issue. The Single Point directive was instituted because it was felt that people would pressure public servants by launching fraudulent cases against them.
But the best custodian of everyone’s interests will be the autonomous prosecution agency, and, it alone ought to decide whether or not a public servant can be prosecuted. At present the decision is taken by another babu or a minister, and that has been the nub of the problem.

Third Drop a number of top ministers who are known to be blatantly corrupt. Some of them belong to alliance parties, but at least one of them is a Sanjay Gandhi era Congressman. These ministers have openly looted the country and their activities are spoken of quite openly. No doubt the government has a solid dossier on them. But by its failure to act, it has allowed their activities to tarnish its own image.

Fourth Begin implementation  of a deep reform programme to overhaul our policing system based on the eight reports of the police commissions. The reform should stress the need for accountability, independence and protection against political interference. Reforming the police may be a tall order considering the numerous uses that the political class makes of pliant policemen.
But it is also the cornerstone of any dramatic change in the quality of governance in the country. Just how reluctant politicians are to reform the police is borne out by the fact that a letter calling on states to show political will and institute police reforms written in April 1997 by the then Union Home Minister Indrajit Gupta, failed to get a single response.

Fifth Appoint a Chief of Defence Staff. The failure of the NDA, and then the UPA government to appoint a CDS, who would be a single point military adviser to the government, as well as the core around which a modern and integrated military force can be created, remains a seriously unaddressed gap in our national security management system. The recommendations for the appointment of the position are already in from the NDA period. All that the UPA government needs is to accord it Cabinet approval.

Sixth  Do something, besides forming committees and issuing declarations, to transform agriculture and food logistics. Stagnant productivity, rapacious middle-men and government apathy pose a clear present danger to our polity. Besides food inflation that is stealing incomes across the country, is the issue of worsening conditions of the tens of millions who live in the countryside.
Obviously the most important decision is to decide to actually do something. You may have to work at multiple levels—change some laws at the Centre and States, alter some governmental structures, provide finance and so on. The government needs to urgently consolidate the various “missions” — horticulture, oilseeds, pulses and so on—and then energise them.
It also requires a dramatic transformation of our antiquated system of agricultural marketing which is characterised by waste and the rapacious practices of middle-men. Mandis need to be modernised and provided electronic displays and modern communications, some states must be persuaded to change their outdated Product Marketing Committee laws.
In February 2010 the Prime Minister set up a core group along with some ten  Chief Ministers, the finance minister,  agriculture minister and the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission. Their recommendations could form the core of the steps that can be taken in 2011.

The country, of course, has a much vaster agenda. But there are three other areas where the country needs to get cracking in 2011—physical infrastructure, health and education. As for physical infrastructure, no one who lives in contemporary India can be blind to the obvious challenge that our shoddy cities, roads and railway system pose. Yet almost every project is beset with delays and shoddy execution and the consequences of bad roads, electricity grids and antiquated railway systems are paid for by every citizen in manifold ways. 
Though it disavowed him, the Congress has more of Narasimha Rao’s stamp than they would care to acknowledge. They, too, believe that no action is also a form of action, that if you do nothing, things sort themselves out one way or the other. But the time for such mystical approaches is over, the Opposition has smelt blood and is on the prowl and the people increasingly angry at their situation.
The Congress is a master of triangulation and over-subtle calculation. But this will only lead to continuing policy paralysis. The UPA ship captained by Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi is listing, and 2011 could actually compel them to do something—swim. The alternative is to do nothing, and sink.
This appeared in Mail Today December 31, 2010

New Chinese fifth generation fighter J 20

 
I don't normally post articles written by others in my archival blog. But I thought the Chinese fifth generation fighter would be interesting. But I am also posting a Wall Street Journal article of April 21,2009 with it. 


Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jet Project by Siobhan Gorman, August Cole and Yochi Dreazen

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027491029837401.html#ixzz19bB9QnoC

WASHINGTON -- Computer spies have broken into the Pentagon's $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project -- the Defense Department's costliest weapons program ever -- according to current and former government officials familiar with the attacks.
Similar incidents have also breached the Air Force's air-traffic-control system in recent months, these people say. In the case of the fighter-jet program, the intruders were able to copy and siphon off several terabytes of data related to design and electronics systems, officials say, potentially making it easier to defend against the craft.
The latest intrusions provide new evidence that a battle is heating up between the U.S. and potential adversaries over the data networks that tie the world together. The revelations follow a recent Wall Street Journal report that computers used to control the U.S. electrical-distribution system, as well as other infrastructure have also been infiltrated by spies abroad.

India will foot the bill to develop the Russian fifth generation fighter and then buy it at market price

Condemned to another cycle of fighter jet imports

SO FOR yet another generation, India is going to end up paying for the development of fighters built to someone else’s design. The $35 billion deal to “jointly develop” the fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) is a misnomer:
India will merely be associated in developing the Indian variant of a Russian fighter, and probably end up paying most of its development costs.
In fact, three prototypes of that fighter already exist and the first flight took place in January this year. It is called the T-50 or PAKFA (no relation to Pakistan).
India was not associated in that design work. But it will now cut into the programme by providing the much needed funds and be able to shape the fighter to its requirements. That process will give the Indian Air Force a good fighting machine. But it is unlikely to provide India with what it needs — the ability to design and develop its own topnotch fighters.



Diagrammatic representation of the Sukhoi T-50 or PAKFA on which the fifth generation fighter will be based.

The contrast with China is obvious. In 1999, China acquired the designs of the Soviet-era Su-27SK fighter which was then manufactured in China as a joint venture between Knaapo, the Russian manufacturer, and the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation. This was then jointly developed and became the Su30-MKK. The contract was terminated well before all 200 fighters were supplied and thereafter the Chinese have come up with their own reverse engineered aircraft, the J-11 which is also the basis of a new naval variant the J-15. Out of this is also likely to emerge the J-XX or the Chinese fifth generation fighter.
The Chinese have considerable experience in reverse engineering Russian designs. But India has been unable to do that though it has paid for licence manufacturing capabilities, first for the Mig-21 series of aircraft, then the Jaguar strike aircraft and finally the Sukhoi 30MKI.
Neither has it developed a significant design and development capability despite funding the Light Combat Aircraft project. India has actually ended up paying the development costs for someone else’s fighters. In this way, we subsidised the development of the Mirage 2000 aircraft, then of the Sukhoi 30MKI and now we will do it with the FGFA. And then we will pay market prices of the final product for the privilege.
ACCORDING to the HAL, a number of Indian design engineers are to be associated with the FGFA. It remains to be seen as to just how many do end up participating in the programme and what use is made of them thereafter. Whether or not this extends to engine development remains to be seen, though this is unlikely.
The Chinese have been relentless in ensuring that they acquire strategic capabilities in key areas. Military aviation is just one such area. The other is high-speed trains in which China has emerged a world leader in the short space of two decades. The systematic manner in which China imported technology and then insisted on transfer of technology and its dissemination into Chinese research and development institutions is to be admired.
On the other hand, Indian processes are opaque and it is the taxpayer who is eventually landed up with a massive bill. Take the Su-30 MKI, from $32 million per piece in 2000, we are now paying $90 million per copy even though they are allegedly being made from raw materials in India. But it is no secret that India imports all key assemblies and the engine (40 per cent by value of the aircraft).
Indian defence PSUs repeatedly make claims about indigenising products, while they actually cheat the exchequer and the public by buying subassemblies and passing of the final product as their own. The 2010-2011 CAG report for the air force and navy gives one instance when a PSU claimed it would make 22 of a kind of surveillance radars indigenously. As soon as it got the approval for the `870 crore project, it placed an order for the import of 13 of the 22 in completely knocked down (CKD) form. To top this, the socalled indigenous product cost `78 lakh more than the original imported radar.