14th June
Counter to the spirit of counter-insurgency
The article talks about the issue of AFSPA and in turn of the larger issue of ailments of India's counter-insurgency program.
AFSPA (Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958)
1. It confers special powers upon the armed forces in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura and Nagaland.
2. Extended to J&K in 1990
3. Provisions in the ‘disturbed’ area;
o AF can use force, even to the causing of death, against any person acting in the contravention of the law, against any assembly of five or more persons, or possession of deadly weapons
o Arrest without warrant only on the basis of suspicion
o Enter any premises and conduct search
4. Gives the armed forces immunity for their actions. Proceedings against personnels under this act can be made only after the permission of the central government.
5. Central and state governments have the power to declare an area as disturbed. Their decision cannot be challenged in the court of law.
6. Irom Sharmila has been fasting for last 10 years for the repeal of AFSPA from Manipur.
7. Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee had recommended the repeal of AFSPA from the North-East
2. Extended to J&K in 1990
3. Provisions in the ‘disturbed’ area;
o AF can use force, even to the causing of death, against any person acting in the contravention of the law, against any assembly of five or more persons, or possession of deadly weapons
o Arrest without warrant only on the basis of suspicion
o Enter any premises and conduct search
4. Gives the armed forces immunity for their actions. Proceedings against personnels under this act can be made only after the permission of the central government.
5. Central and state governments have the power to declare an area as disturbed. Their decision cannot be challenged in the court of law.
6. Irom Sharmila has been fasting for last 10 years for the repeal of AFSPA from Manipur.
7. Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee had recommended the repeal of AFSPA from the North-East
Retired military officers : repeal the law as it is of no use
Active military personnel : are against repealing
Some arguments against the repealing:
1. Without the AFSPA, the Army will not be able to
stage counter insurgency operations.
2. Some argue that AFSPA free enclaves will be
magnets for insurgents
Why the law should be repealed
- Human rights issue
- To improve and refocus India’s internal security regime
- AFSPA is inconsistent with the structure and spirit of our democracy and brings down India’s image at the global high table at a time when it is looking to be a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.
- It also encourages lazy, inefficient soldiering in counter-insurgency situations and actually proves to be counterproductive because it makes the security forces look like occupation armies and not people-friendly, which is what is required in counter-insurgency.
- Primary focus of a counter-insurgency operation should be WHAM (winning hearts and minds), and not liquidation or elimination. AFSPA lets troops get away with murder and its frequent use encourages a culture of impunity which is counterproductive to WHAM; it actually increases the disconnect between the forces and the local population.
- With AFSPA around, military or paramilitary units do not feel the need for restraint or fire control. That leads to a sharp drop in professionalism and actually dehumanises and corrupts the Army and paramilitary forces.
- AFSPA provides for lazy, non-professional soldiering, characterised by an absolute lack of focus and a conspicuous lack of a consistent doctrine of counter-insurgency. Operational action is rarely linked to clearly defined objectives — more kills rather than more surrenders from guerrilla ranks are likely to fetch better decorations and rewards, encouraging gung-ho commanders who can never gain the confidence of the people in areas of operation.
The reason for the failure of Indian military units to effectively root out insurgent groups in Kashmir or the Northeast stems from its failure to evolve an appropriate doctrine for counter-insurgency even after fighting insurgents for 60 years. This not only reveals the “learning failures” of an unimaginative military leadership but actually ends up alienating populations. It is time the new government realises the dangers of unleashing a force with a redeeming conventional war bias on its own people.
How can counter isnurgency operations be improved in India:
1. Repeal of AFSPA should be seen as the first step in an effort to create a smarter and more effective counter-insurgency capability that draws more on
- information technology,
- psychological operations,
- political persuasion and
- conflict resolution
2. The government will have to evolve a counter-insurgency doctrine which will not only seek to keep the Army out of the “internal security” matrix to the extent possible and deploy other specifically trained and highly skilled forces that observe the principle of “minimum force,” but also not insist on an AFSPA-type legislation as a prerequisite for their deployment and demonstrate a respect for human rights and accountability in keeping with the letter and spirit of the Constitution.
Standing tall in a concrete jungle
Article talks about the issue of falling of trees in the name of beautification of urban areas. Case considered here is of Delhi where on May 30 a thunderstorm occurred causing wide spread damage which could have been less severe if the trees would not have been fell or their roots concretised.
Understanding the issue:
In several parts of the city, trees have been concretised up to the roots, in a frantic bid to grab land for parking or as a way to justify expensive urbanisation budgets.
With concretisation and built-up areas, water is not being allowed to seep into the earth. It follows that the roots of such trees (classified as “trees outside forests” by the Forest Survey of India) have been found to be starved of water. A study of trees in Delhi’s (rather quiet) NDMC area found that the trees there are “stressed” by water scarcity and noise pollution. Areas with more concretisation and noise would have trees in a much worse condition.
In 2007, the Delhi High Court : concretisation around trees on pavements in urban areas was “unnecessary and excessive,” and ordered the removal of tiles around trees in Delhi’s sidewalks. When the order was not followed, last year, the National Green Tribunal issued notices to municipal authorities to abide by the High Court order. Tragically, municipal agencies have hacked away at both the concrete and the intertwined tree roots with such carelessness that trees are falling now because of these exercises.
Solutions:
1. better pavements that would help sequester high water tables and feed the needs of a large tree. Pavement tiles with perforations and intermittent mud patches have been laid for this reason in places like the stunningly green Delhi University and should be replicated in other localities and campuses. These pavements allow water to seep into the earth rather than evaporate; they also nurture small patches of urban biodiversity.
2. A sensitive (not hacking or slashing) removal of concrete around the base of trees is needed across our cities, and horticulturalists need to attend to the needs of grown trees, not just growing saplings.
Issue: Row over fares of newly inaugurated Mumbai Metro between the State government and Reliance Infrastructure, the latter holding the majority share in this public-private partnership project.
Some details : Just before the service was launched, Reliance Infrastructure steeply revised the fares and increased the range of fares, originally fixed at Rs.9 to Rs.13, to Rs.10 to Rs.40. The government has opposed this since it is higher than the pre-agreed fare and decided without any consultation. Reliance Infrastructure has defended the action, stating that under the Metro Railways Act it has the authority to fix fares. The increase in the project cost from Rs.2,356 crore to Rs.4,321 crore and higher operational costs had warranted the change, it asserted.
Root cause: Almost every metro rail project in the country has overshot the projected cost. Companies often tend to underestimate the cost and inflate user-figures to convince funding agencies that travel by metro rail would be relatively inexpensive. Later, they complain of cost overruns and demand higher allocations. Ticket prices are then raised and the travelling public bears the burden of such poor planning.
underestimation of project cost and inflated user-figures ---> project approved ---> cost overruns ---> ticket prices raised ---> ultimately public bears the burden of poor planning
Why the issue is important?
1. Fares should be affordable, particularly to the large number of lower-income group users, and should factor in the less visible benefits that accrue from the service.
2. Increasing the use of public transport relieves road congestion, reduces pollution and cuts fuel consumption.
Some solutions:
1. periodical review of fares, the process should be transparent and fair — more so when the private sector operates public transport.
2. Alternative financing options must be explored. Many countries have mobilised funds by imposing additional charges for using private cars, which pollute more and occupy road space disproportionately.
13th June
Lokpal is no magic bullet
In a recent poll, 96 per cent of Indians said corruption was holding their country back; 92 per cent thought it had worsened in the past five years. Most Indians have come to believe that the law for the common man does not apply to politicians and the influential.
In this context, all political parties seem to have coalesced around the appointment of a Lokpal, as if it were the single magic bullet to conquer corruption.
Author argues that Lokpal initiative will by itself not conquer corruption.
India already has a number of institutions of governance that have the mandate and the ability to deal with corruption. This list includes the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Central Vigilance Commission, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, courts, information commissions, and Lokayuktas at the State level. These established institutions have not been able to make a dent in corruption.
All these institutions attack those visibly corrupt, but not the three root drivers of corruption.
1. Complex rules and regulations
How it causes corruption?
They burden citizens and are difficult or even impossible to comply with. These provide fertile ground for corruption and also encourage the use of nefarious means to fix problems — contacts, bribes, etc.
What needs to be done?
- Simplifying these rules,
- making decision-making processes transparent
- giving the government a limited role will minimise opportunities for the corrupt.
This can be done using information technology. The Narendra Modi-led government must accelerate the use of e-services.
2. Enormous power to public officials at different levels
How it causes corruption:
This, in their minds, reinforces their role as rulers rather than public servants. These powers combined with the insatiable demands of corrupt political leaders and complex laws and regulations provide them ample opportunities to make personal gains in return for unethical favours.
What has been done:
- Modi government has selected public servants with a relatively clean past to occupy several top positions.
- The Prime Minister has also galvanised officials into taking quick decisions without fear or favour. Such an ethos will trickle down to lower levels where most interactions with citizens take place.
- However, the government must also protect honest officials from the risk of harassment by overzealous investigative agencies. The Lokpal should not become such an agency.Ensuring accountability
3. Highly centralised form of government
The more distant the government is from citizens, the more difficult it is to hold the former accountable. Contrary to the intent of our founding fathers, India continues to have a highly centralised form of government. Local governments and institutions enjoy virtually no autonomy of action. Neither the election process nor the grievance system has successfully addressed this problem.
Solutions:
- Bringing decision-making closer to citizens (electronically or physically) and balancing it with adequate empowerment of individuals and community groups to hold decision-makers accountable
- limited and focussed government, decentralisation of powers to local governments and communities, greater transparency, more right to information and empowerment of citizens and citizen groups.
- Good leadership that is willing to subject itself to public scrutiny will set a good example.
It is not enough if the Modi government establishes the Lokpal. It should address the issues based on which people are demanding a Lokpal. Merely adding to the strength of investigative agencies will increase the size of the government but not necessarily improve governance. The slogan adopted by the Prime Minister and his party, “less government and more governance”, is on the mark.
Banking on governance
Nayak committee already covered in a separate article here.
12th June
Cleaning the Ganga, step by step
Issues affecting the river are myriad and complex.
- Untreated sewage and industrial waste are dumped into the waters without remorse.
- Reduced flow and rampant underground water withdrawals affect millions of people who depend on the river’s water.
- Further, floods and droughts, which endanger lives and cause serious damage to crops, livestock and infrastructure, are a common phenomenon in the river basin.
- A changing climate will pose more challenges. The combination of glacial retreat, decreasing ice mass, early snowmelt and increased winter stream flow will add to the pressure.
Recent initiatives by the Indian government
- including ‘River Development’ and ‘Ganga Rejuvenation’ to the portfolio of the Minister of Water Resources
- establishment of the National Ganga River Basin Authority and the National Mission for Clean Ganga
What all needs to be done?
1. A Basin-scale management of Ganges is required because
Ganges is a complex transboundary basin which flows across different jurisdictions. Therefore, a basin-scale approach would help manage the water resources better.
This would require close coordination with all the countries sharing the Ganga, such as Nepal and Bangladesh, so that the interests of both upstream and downstream users are taken into consideration. The existing treaties on “sharing water resources” could be renegotiated as “
shared management of water resources.
”
2. Making waste water treatment feasible for agricultural purposes
Ganga is highly polluted. Yet, of the 400 million people living along the banks of the river, many still rely on its natural systems for their livelihoods. According to a World Bank report, a number of government efforts (Ganga Action Plan: Phases I and II) have attempted to address the pollution problem, but the results have been disappointing so far. It is estimated that sewage constitutes the largest portion (80 per cent) of the pollution load followed by pollution caused by industrial discharge agricultural activities. With agricultural activities intensifying in areas near the river, particularly in urban and peri-urban areas, farmers frequently rely on waste water for irrigation. This poses a serious public health risk.
However, this adversity can be turned into an opportunity as urban waste offers a significant nutrient resource for farming, if safely treated and applied. Low cost, simple ecological sanitation and reuse systems will be keys to making waste water treatment feasible for agricultural purposes.
3. Maintaining Environmental Flows
Environmental flows are essentially the water requirements of aquatic ecosystems and of basic human, social and spiritual needs. However, the concept of environmental flow only refers to the the quantity of water required to maintain river ecology under different environmental conditions. Innovative methods for maintaining environmental flows and the quality of water during environmentally critical periods, along with procedures for implementing these methods, need to be investigated.
4. M
ajor investments are required to address climate variability
Existing flood forecasts are often too technical and not easy for the public to understand. Application of remote sensing and hydrological modelling has helped in developing high-quality flood maps, which are useful for developing plans for river conservation, maintaining the quality of water in different stretches and, more importantly, reducing the vulnerabilities of the affected communities.
Innovative approaches such as underground taming of floods for irrigation and aquifer management could offer solutions to the flood problem. These approaches essentially involve storing floodwaters in underground structures in upstream areas. This will help prevent floods and help maintain water availability even during dry seasons.
5. Partnerships with various stakeholders
Successful implementation of this task would require partnerships with various stakeholders. Multiple agencies working to address the problem could be brought on board. The private sector has also shown its willingness to be a partner in cleaning the river, especially at critical points such as Varanasi. Similarly, the public at large, along with civil society groups, also need to be actively engaged in these efforts.
Focus on diamond quadrilateral
President’s address has outlined a ‘diamond quadrilateral project of high speed trains.’ Perhaps modelled on the golden quadrilateral national highways programme, this project could provide special high-speed corridors to link the four main metros.
High-speed trains could be the answer to the congestion along the highways and slowing road speeds. But it calls for huge investments and consequently high fares. Other concepts mentioned in the address relate to ‘agri-rail networks’ for the quick movement of perishable commodities, and the expansion of the rail network in the northeast.
Article talks about foreign policy under Modi as inferred from President's address.
Power is the ability to influence the behaviour of others.
In international relations, as the Harvard academic, Joseph Nye, reminds us, power can be exercised in three ways:
1. by threatening or actually using military force
2. by offering economic incentives or imposing economic sanctions
3. by building what Nye famously dubbed “soft power.” That is, the “soft power” of nations to persuade others based on the attractiveness of their technology, politics, culture, ideas or ideals.
If President Pranab Mukherjee’s opening address to Parliament is anything to go by, the foreign policy of the new government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi will likely employ a nuanced combination of all three of Nye’s instruments of international influence.
There will be a renewed emphasis on using the carrots of economic levers and soft power. This suggests a thoughtful understanding of the importance of what Nye terms “smart power”: a clever combination of the tools of conventional hard, or military and economic, power and soft power. It is this integrated approach that will best serve India in a complex, interdependent world, which is defined as much by conflict and competition as it is by cooperation and the need for greater coordination in confronting common global threats.
Modi's doctrine has five key elements
1. Pursuing a Foreign Policy of "enlightened national interest"
What is this enlightened national interest?
- National interest is often defined as raison d'état, or “reason of state,” and can be viewed as the selfish pursuit of national ambitions, mostly as defined by the government of the day. Enlightened national interest adds a moral prism to the policy.
- In international diplomacy, enlightened national interest is arguably the recognition that the narrow pursuit of self-interest in an interdependent world can lead to suboptimal policy outcomes. In Asia, Japan — a nation Mr. Modi clearly admires — has used the term enlightened national-interest to define many of its policies, including those steering its overseas development assistance. Through supporting other nations via giving and via attractive development funding and loans, Japan has greatly increased its regional influence. The concept opens up the possibilities of creating cooperative outcomes for many issues, even those traditionally seen as difficult, zero-sum conflicts by realists in the establishment.
- Within the Indian tradition, this sense of enlightened national-interest is captured in this verse from the Mahopanishad, “... Ayam˙ bandhurayam˙ ne¯ti ganana¯ laghuce¯tasa¯m uda¯racharita¯nam˙ tu vasudhaiva kutumbakam ” or “Only small men discriminate by saying ‘one is a relative, the other is a stranger. For those who live magnanimously the entire world constitutes but a family’.”
2. India will help to build and strengthen a democratic, peaceful, stable and economically interlinked neighbourhood.
- Gujral Doctrine was perhaps the strongest articulation of a policy of reaching out to the neighbourhood, even through gestures that did not demand reciprocity.
- Strengthening of democracy in the region is the first step toward building what the political scientist, Karl Deutsch, described as a security community. That is, a region in which the large-scale use of violence has become unthinkable!
That said, it must be recognised that only a strong and economically resurgent India can lead the process of South Asia integration and so much will now depend on how quickly India’s economy can be revived. Meanwhile, enlightened national interest will demand that India considers making unilateral gestures to serve longer-term self-interest. For instance, arriving at an accord on the sharing of the Teesta river with a stridently India-friendly regime in Bangladesh would clearly be an important step that should not be undermined by the capricious behaviour of one leader from West Bengal.
3. Emphasis on soft power explained though yet another Modi alliteration of 5Ts: trade, tourism, talent, technology and tradition.
- the Ministry of External Affairs will need to be restructured and every major mission abroad would need to include a trade, scientific and cultural counsellor knowledgeable in the relevant domains.
- In addition, the role of the diaspora in the future development of India has been emphasised. One clear step that would ensure deeper engagement between India and the diaspora would be to allow non-resident Indians (NRI) to carry dual passports. For many Indians, continuing to hold an Indian passport is a badge of honour which they will not give up for any convenience, glory or money. Allowing dual citizenship for NRIs carries virtually no additional risk; and indeed most countries in the world allow their citizens this privilege.
4. A ‘multi-alignment’ policy
Incipient Modi doctrine moves beyond the former delineation between “non-alignment,” “non-alignment 2.0,” and “alignment” to suggest that India could follow a policy of what Mr. Shashi Tharoor may describe as “multi-alignment” with all the great powers.
This was emphasised in the President’s address that explicitly stated that the government will work with China to develop a strategic and cooperative partnership, work with Japan to build modern infrastructure, build on the firm foundations of the relations with Russia, pursue the relationship with the United States with renewed vigour and make concerted efforts to achieve progress in key areas with the European Union.
5. Willingness to raise issues of concern at a bilateral level (read Pakistan) and the uncontroversial claim that stability can be built in the region only if there is an end to the export of terrorism.
Clearly, concerns about Pakistan have deliberately not been emphasised as this may still be a work in progress. Or perhaps the Modi government recognises that there is much merit in the adage: carry a big stick, but speak with a soft voice. For, in the past, as my colleague Ashok Guha once remarked, “India has carried a toothpick, and shouted from the roof top and from television studios.”
Malaria kills more than 1 million people each year — most of whom are African children.
The new technique by a team at Imperial College London involves injecting mosquitoes with a gene that causes the vast majority of their offspring to be male, leading to an eventual dramatic decline in population within six generations as females disappear.
Males don’t bite humans [and transmit malaria]
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