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EDITORIAL Successful maiden flight of the pretigious Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) catapults India amongst the eight countries that have such capabilities. The Technology Demonstrator remained in the skies for good twenty minutes meeting all the laid down parameters. Fitted with GE-404 engine (General Electric of USA), the much delayed flight has rejuvenated hopes of the IAF. Only some days back Parliament Committee on Defence .....more Six States are slated to go for assembly polls during the year. These are Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, W. Bengal and Pondicherry. BJP President Bangaru Laxman has given a call to his State units to get prepared for the polls and identify likely allies in their respective States. He has however excluded UP from this identification parade rather deliberately. It is here in UP that BJP has very large stakes in as much as in last Lok Sabha polls together with its allies it won as many as 59 seats out...more |
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MEN AND MATTERS From B L Kak J&K was practically By Daya Sagar God! How political these
economists are!!..... By Dr R L Bhat Unilateral cease-fire in
J&K By M L Kotru |
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EDITORIAL Successful maiden flight of the pretigious Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) catapults India amongst the eight countries that have such capabilities. The Technology Demonstrator remained in the skies for good twenty minutes meeting all the laid down parameters. Fitted with GE-404 engine (General Electric of USA), the much delayed flight has rejuvenated hopes of the IAF. Only some days back Parliament Committee on Defence had criticised entire project as waste of money due to long delays at all stages. As per their assessment the LCA could enter IAF not earlier than 2012, rendering it almost obsolete technologically. Meant to replace ageing MiG fleet on which IAF largely depends for its strategic requirements, panic purchase agreements have been entered into with France and Russia to meet its requirement for the next 10 to 20 years. Now that first test flight is a success, it would be quite apt to revisit the entire programme and schedule besides the cost factor. The programme for indigenous development and manufacture was given the go-ahead in 1983. Slated to cost just 566 crore initially, the project was reviewed in 1993 with cost factor exalated to 2300 crore and first flight scheduled for early 1996. It just did not click due to various factors. But hopes were kept alive with revised schedule for 1998. Then came the American sanctions in the wake of Pokhran-II blasts. It may be mentioned that many components besides the engine are of American origin. Ban on their exports to India as part of the sanctions put the clock back with none giving any estimate of prototype being tested. It was then manipulated that GE-404 engine would come only for test aircrafts and not for operational ones. For operational fighters indigenous engine going by the name of Kaveri is under development. That means ultimately LCA will have locally designed engine while many sophisticated avionics, instruments and weapon systems to be incorporated have to come from other friendly countries. Starting from 1983 and until the prototype test flight, Rs 3000 crore have already been spent on the prestigious project. With this flight one must go by the reaction of IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal Tipnis who was visibly jubilant to see the LCA airborne when he says, ''The pendulum of Indian emotion should not swing from acute scepticism to euphoria''. What he means is that a lot of spade work has to be done before its actual induction into IAF. There will be many more prototypes with GE-404 engine to be followed by Kaveri engine, each improving upon the other removing all the deficiencies thus noticed. Assuming that all goes well without any major mishap, the earliest calender for its induction in IAF will be six years hence i.e. by 2007 although many think that it could be as early as 2005. Even if it be 2007, it is tremendous boost for the IAF for several reasons. First, fighter/bombers of this category are very costly. A Mirage-2000 being purchased from France costs around Rs 250 crore per piece. The LCA with State of art technology and armament besides the avionics could cost around Rs 100 crore each. Second, it his hard to find such type of aircrafts. There is no ready-seller either due to strategic reasons or other terms and conditions. Those offered for sale are sans sophisticated and latest features. India hates to go for such fighters. The delivery schedule even after placing orders are not met and phased out over a long period of upto a decade. This is proof enough that India has to go for indigenous development and production to meet futuristic requirements if not the immediate ones. Third, it has been the bad experience that supply of spares is stopped at a time when needed most in war-time. It has happened during 1965 war. It again happened in 1971. And now LCA programme got delayed precisely because of sanctions. To meet immediate requirements as also for the next few years until LCA is ready for induction, 10 new Mirage-4000 have been purchased from France. Agreement for import of 10 SU-30 from Russia and indigenous manufacture of another 140 is in place. But delivery schedule is cause for worry because Russian manufacturers are deep in the red and their aircraft industry in total disarray. They are thus designing as per Indian requirements. It means nothing is ready for delivery. It may be mentioned that Russia is also committed to supply 60 SU-30 series fighters to China. In fact, cash starved Russian manufacturers are on booking spree obtaining advance payments, the latest deal being with Iran. With this money they would endeavour to honour their commitments for supply of aircrafts. In addition India has contracted for upgradation of Mig-21s. This programme is as well behind schedule by at least 2 years. So IAF shall continue to face problems for strategic acquisitions which are hard to find. It is all along a long wait. Meanwhile IAF fleet continues to deplete with Mig-21s crashing one after another in the absence of obtaining badly needed Advanced Jet Trainers. This is the price that nation has to pay for neglecting defence needs for almost two decades. It is precisely in the above context that LCA test flight is welcome both from short terms as also long term angle, more so because it would rank amongst the finest and lightest front line fighters for air to air, air to ground and air to sea operations. Six States are slated to go for assembly polls during the year. These are Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, W. Bengal and Pondicherry. BJP President Bangaru Laxman has given a call to his State units to get prepared for the polls and identify likely allies in their respective States. He has however excluded UP from this identification parade rather deliberately. It is here in UP that BJP has very large stakes in as much as in last Lok Sabha polls together with its allies it won as many as 59 seats out of total of 85. Allies are already in the State coalition Government. Perhaps, Laxman does not want to disturb the equation. Another reason for not mentioning such identification for UP is that there is hush-hush approach to Bahujan Samaj for pre-electoral, if not, then post electoral tie-up. BSP is once again being eyed because of the uncertainties of coalition partners and their dwindling fortunes, including BJP's. Thus, even before the elections, stamp of the prospective Government is being coalition one is put by the largest party. As regards W. Bengal, BJP is already tied with Trinamool Congress. There is an attempt to rope in Congress Party also to finish 23 year old leftist control of W. Bengal. This will be only secret arrangement as openly BJP cannot be partner of Congress or vice versa. Thus, BJP is ready to accommodate Mamata Banerjee to keep the alliance intact irrespective of ideological compromises. Without tie-up with Trinamool, BJP cannot make any inroads into leftist bastion. In Tamil Nadu alliance with DMK will be repeated because that is the only formidable Dravidian party. Others are miniscules. BJP is also desperate for improving its standing in Kerala a the third option. The current ones are LFD led by CPM and PDF led by Congress. This year's assembly polls are thus crucial for BJP to not only re-emerge as the largest single party in UP but also mark its presence convincingly in other States. |
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MEN
AND MATTERS From B L Kak How can one ignore him when he created history of sorts in the 20th century as well as in the beginning of the 21st century? You may differ with his behaviourial system or his scheme of things, but you have to accept the fact that he hit the headlines in the 20th century and 21st century. It is a different matter that he had to be detained by the police in the 20th century as well as in the 21st century-first in Pakistan in 1971 and 30 years after in New Delhi. And the man, under reference, is none other than Mr Hashim Qureshi. Hailing from Nawhatta locality of Srinagar, the capital city of Kashmir, Mr Hashim Qureshi suddenly shot into prominence when he hijacked a Fokker Friendship plane of the Indian Airlines to Lahore on January 30, 1971. And he, again, hit the headlines when he suddenly came out of a plane at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi and gave himself up to immigration officials on December 29, 2000. In fact, four hours after his arrival from Copenhagen by a Scandinavian Airlines flight, he was handed over to the Delhi police. Mr Qureshi had expected it to happen. He was not nervous at all when he was produced in a Patiala House court. What surprised many on the scene was the unexpected choice of operations employed by this ‘active’ Kashmiri. Inside the court premises, Mr Hashim Qureshi had a pleasant encounter with a group of media persons. And he set each one of them thinking anew when he announced: "I have come here to support Mr Vajpayee’s peace initiative. We want the end of oppression and bloodshed in Kashmir, irrespective of whoever is the victim". Did it suggest that the Vajpayee Government had manipulated Mr Hashim Qureshi’s return to India? No firm answer to this question. How could he travel to New Delhi all the way from Copenhagen without the secret consent of some Indians of consequence? Sorry, this question too has defied a solution so far. Mr Qureshi is the only person who can answer these and several other questions. When I refer to "several other questions", the main idea is to seek honest, factual words from him on the circumstances that culminated in the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane from Srinagar to Lahore in 1971. Mr Qureshi is said to have planned that he would not hesitate to reveal the ‘real hand’ behind the 1971 episode if he was denied justice in India after having been "out of my own home for nearly 30 years". He is also said to have revealed to one of his relatives that he hasn’t forgotten anything before and after the hijacking episode. Mr Qureshi, like many other Kashmiris, may not find it difficult to recall the past, or facts of history. Signs of a sharp confrontation between New Delhi and Islamabad came to the fore soon after the Indian Airlines plane was hijacked to Lahore on January 30, 1971. The plane carried 28 passengers and crew of four when it took off from the Srinagar airport. The plane was blown up at the Lahore airport, and 26 passengers and crew of four were permitted to return to India after 48 hours’ stay in Pakistan. Two passengers, Mr Mohammed Hashim Qureshi and Mr Mohammed Ashraf, were rounded up at Lahore after they were identified as the hijackers. India accused Pakistan of having planned hijacking of the plane to Lahore, whereas Pakistan and some individuals in Kashmir accused India’s Border Security Force (BSF) of having organised the incident. Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, then arrayed against Delhi, and Mr GM Sadiq, the then Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, had a reason to believe that the incident of the hijacking was manipulated by the BSF. Even important officers of the J&K Police, such as Peer Ghulam Hassan Shah and Mr Ali Mohammed Watali, had not rejected reports that accused the BSF of having played a key role in the entire episode. Those were the days when it was also alleged that Mr AK Patel, who was Assistant Director of BSF’s intelligence wing, had built friendship with Mr Hashim Qureshi and Mr Mohammed Ashraf long before the Indian plane was hijacked to Lahore. Soon after the incident of hijacking, Mr Hashim Qureshi’s father told a couple of newsmen in Srinagar that Mr Patel had visited his house several times before the plane was hijacked to Pakistan. Yet another fact of history: Troops of India and Pakistan were alerted on either side of the J&K border following the hijacking of the plane by Mr Qureshi and Mr Ashraf. And as Pakistani President Yahya Khan’s troops caused a rampaging storm in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) by the beginning of April 1971, attention of America, Russia and China came to be attracted by the developments in the subcontinent. If the January 1971 hijacking incident soured the Indo-Pak relations, the war of attrition between the two countries between April and November that year eventually resulted in the outbreak of open hostilities between India and Pakistan. The war brought about a complete change: Creation of Bangladesh after it was separated from West Pakistan with the help of Indian troops, fall of Chhamb in the Jammu province in spite of India’s ground and air superiority, ouster of President Yahya Khan of Pakistan, building of additional bridges between China and Pakistan for transportation of more military hardware to Pakistan, promotion of relations between India and Russia and emergence of a new pattern of differences between Moscow and Beijing. |
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God! How political these
economists are!!..... By Dr R L Bhat Pickering: Have you no morals, man? Doolittle: Can’t afford them, Governor. George Bernard Shaw: Pygmalion Economists can’t afford fantasies, nor would they build castles in thin air. Theirs is an earthly vocation where theoretical flights must find smooth landings to be accepted, to be credible. Indeed, economists are forced to be hard-nosed realists because their equations must translate into production and prosperity; their graphs should be reliable tents to under which men and women, peoples and nations can take refuge. They can’t sing sterile lullabies to empty stomachs but must offer solution that can become bread and butter to support life. They have to sound an idea thrice before giving it any credence. At best realists, they often tend to be pessimists knowing full well that the dreams must be stoutly anchored to be of any use. They know that too many cooks spoil the broth as there are limits to how much labour a particular activity can take before the diminishing returns make every extra ounce of investment in labour and capital redundant, if not positively harmful. They know that bad money and men drive the good ones out and the system that protects a single imitator, cheat or pretender, is inundated by baser men with alacrity. They defined development as growth in production of materials and productivity of men. Then, the dream merchants overawed? subdued? or, simply submerged? their concern in ‘equities and distributions’ and sold them to a world of fantasies. Economics became politics. It could be social economy, political economy, developmental economy … anything, but economics proper. Economists were led to believe that distribution was more important than production , that returns need not be reckoned with exactitude, that motivation did not matter. And they believed it. Development became a political definition and capital an anathema to be touched only with a long pole. But sure as shot the dreams came unstrung. Sustained rumblings in the communist half of the Europe finally erupted in the Soviet collapse. China changed tract. State after state, spokesman after spokesman came to realize that dreams unlimited are a liability unless supported by limitless production. That production could come only from motivations of private property and ownership. India was saved not by the mixed economy but the capitalist half in it. Economics left the dreamy meanderings of hazy dialectics and went to the market place. And shed its contextual beatings in socialism. The Indian brains that the socialist frustrations had forced to drain out to the capitalist west enhanced India’s stature and gave it economic status. That would have been proof enough for any hard-nosed earthly thinker. But not probably, for the economists of the Indian Economic Association who met last week in Jammu for their 83rd Annual Conference. Sitting there and listening you’d have thought that the law of diminishing returns had never visited economic theory, that the dynamics of demand and supply was not their concern nor did anybody appear to be worried over about the mechanics of production. Instead they dwelt upon distribution, bottlenecks in administration and implementation even implications of social justice. And agriculture, of course. They were busy mixing the un-mixable, capitalism and socialism without giving a thought to — or, having an eye for ? - the experiences of the past century that showed with ample proof that it is only the worst of the two systems that meet here. A film actress once approached Shaw with a marriage proposal saying that with her looks and Shaw’s brain the offspring would simply be superb. ‘But madam, what if they get my looks and your brains’ shot back the great man. That pithy realism has somehow gone out of the realists of science of Economics. And all that one got piled with there was politics couched in economic jargon. They talked of crime and corruption, one ex-president going to the extent of defining them in ‘economic terms’ saying that one was conducive to economic growth and the other detrimental to it! With those gems for inspiration the economics has grown too complex to care for common sense. Commonsense and experience say that government must pull its meddlesome fingers out of economic fiddling. That, development is the journey from agriculture and mining to industry and service sectors. That, in the final reckoning it is all about growth and production, as it always was. That, growth comes from private urge, enterprise and entrepreneurship and thrives with competition. And profit - personal and private — is the real motivation that sets people on the path to production. none of that came through in the long deliberation of these economists. The closest anyone came to it was professor Khusro telling this author that he ‘had a feeling that Nehru intended moving away from the Nehruvian model’. But isn’t that, too, politics speaking, not economics? It was left to a government functionary, Planning Commission member and former Finance Secretary Mantek Singh Ahluwalia to drum in sound economic sense. Development , said he , demands that we speak in economic idiom; that we understand the constraint the protectionism impose on it. You , for example , cannot have an inefficient handicraft sector and expect it to stand against the vastly competitive Chinese toy industry. The other alternative of imposing high tariffs on imports may allow the handicraft sector to live but it will then live only in stagnation and sloth as it has been living for the last fifty years. So it is with agriculture. The choice is clear; it is either a protected, inefficient, stagnant economy or a thriving, competitive, vibrant one. So it is with the whole economy. You can either opt for growth and competition or revel in protected sloth. The pre-liberalisation model preferred the later and put Indian economy in a cesspool. Of course, the marketplace carries it attendant risks. What the dreamy economists struggling under the haze of socialism wanted was the bet of both the worlds. Every populist, every politician, every child would go for that, in the innocent ignorance that it can have the cake and eat it too. When this author spoke to, that other pillar of Economic Association, Prof Rudder Dutt about it, he simply dismissed Ahluwalia saying that he was ‘a good orator’. But are these august men good economists? |
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Unilateral cease-fire in
J&K By M L Kotru Even at the risk of being called a bore I cannot help reverting to Atal Bihari Vajpayee's unilateral cease-fire offer in Jammu and Kashmir, now well into its sixth week. What nags me most about the thing is that we haven't had a shred of evidence from across the border to suggest that Gen. Pervez Musharraf and his military junta is even hearing. Of course, there have been the usual noises about Pakistan's commitment to meet the Indians anywhere, any time-an airy fairy commitment with nothing positive about it. On the other hand, we have continued to be lectured by the Pakistani military administration on the continuing Indian brutalities in Kashmir and the ''70,000 martyred Kashmiri freedom fighters'', the number of whose graves the Pakistanis seem to have counted to the very last. Not one word from them about the number of Kashmiri Muslims killed by the so-called Pakistani liberators. In the post Vajpayee cease-fire days alone the Pakistani jehadis have killed over two score innocent civilians. And, for all he cares, Gen Musharraf doesn't obviously seem to think much of the threats to the person of the Indian Prime Minister issued by notorious jehadis from the Pakistani soil. I can't recall a single instance, even at the height of Indo-Pak tension (including the three wars), of any Indian, yes, not even one, having threatened the life of a ruling Pakistani leader. Yet, we have heard the Lashkar-e-Toiba chief, the Jaishe Mohammad chief issuing dire threats to Prime Minister Vajpayee. The Red Fort episode a supposed to have been a precursor and a warning about the jehadi killer capabilities. Gen Musharraf and his civilian Foreign Minister, Abdul Sattar, who has had the benefit of having served as his country's High Commissioner in India, cannot give a Nelson's eye to such brazen statements issued in the name of terrorist organisations operating from Pakistan. Or, are we expected to draw our own conclusions from the fact that one of the possible reasons for the deposition of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief may well have been the orders he issued to his Interior Minister, three days before he was toppled, to ''deweaponise'' all the extremists operating in Pakistan. Is it that Gen Musharraf is unwilling to rein in the rogue elements in the jehadi ranks whom he has so carefully nurtured over the past one year and more. It's a terrible thought- to think of a ''responsible'' government allowing its citizens, particularly those sections of citizenry that are committed to the spirit of fundamentalist extremism, to hold out public threats to the life of the leaders of a neighbouring country who, in their wisdom, have chosen to proffer the peace pipe to the adversary just then. Such things were heard of in medieval times, when one king or warlord sent disguised killers to do away with someone deemed an adversary. In the context of the Vajpayee cease fire one would have expected Musharraf & Co to exercise maximum restraint. And that does not mean restraint along the Line of Control alone. The rhetoric of jehad should by now have made way for peaceable gestures. On the other hand we are told that not all the Pakistani jehadis are under Musharraf's control. If the Pakistani Government cannot control them, pray, who will. Not the people who, reports suggest, have lined up a few hundred or thousand more jehadis along the LoC to cross over whenever the opportunity arises. The US warning to Pakistan last week against the runaway terrorist activities directed against India by extremist organisations based in Pakistan has not come a day too soon, considering the levels of threats emanating from Islamabad. Bruce Riedel, Special Assistant to President Clinton and Senior Director at the US National Security Council has not minced any words, while expressing his government's condemnation in the ''strongest terms'', of the recent terrorist attacks in Srinagar, in New Delhi's Red Fort and the threats against the life of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. ''Such attacks and threats do nothing to advance the resolution of the Kashmir issue and are inconsistent with recent steps (by Vajpayee) in this direction,'' the senior Clinton administration official said. The US condemnation, coming from an official of the outgoing Clinton administration, may not seem of much consequence to the Pakistani zealots but they would be making a serious mistake if they try to overlook the element of continuity in basic policies of successor US administrations. The US official said as much when he expressed his belief that the Bush administration would certainly consider the question whether to declare Lashkar-e-Toiba a terrorist organisation. That, though, is not of immediate concern to me now, I have no doubt that Pakistan will find itself more and more isolated internationally should it continue to yield to the pressure of the fundamentalist organisations. More important to my mind is which way is the Vajpayee cease-fire going. Yes, firing across the LoC has lessened but that certainly was not the sole purpose of the exercise undertaken by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. I am not privy to Vajpayee's expectations when he made the cease-fire offer for the month of Ramzan in the first place. My first thought was that it was simply meant as a gesture of goodwill during the holy Muslim month. Its extension by another month suggested that there obviously was more to it. And if that really is the case I would like to be told what exactly we are expecting to achieve as a consequence. The first six weeks of the cease-fire have seen little forward movement except that All Jammu and Kashmir Hurriyat Conference has suddenly gained a degree of ligitimacy. The Hurriyat, for its part, appears to have convinced itself that it has been granted the status of the sole voice of all Kashmiris. And carried away by their own estimate of their strength, Hurriyat leaders are currently trying to dictate a few things to New Delhi, meaningless demands, really, like issuing of travel documents to all seven executive members of the Hurriyat, leaving them free to decide who amongst them will make the pilgrimage to Pakistan. I for one do not care how many of them go across. I only doubt their capacity to deliver upon anything. Several of them are known pro-Pakistanis and they would only be seeking a fresh brief. But others like Abdul Ghani Lone and Yaseen Malik have different agendas. In case the Hurriyat is convinced that it can ask the foreign terrorists to get out of Jammu and Kashmir they would have served the cause of peace in the State. But, then, do they have the clout to ask for that? Ghani Lone's demand to this efect went unheeded and indeed was followed up by 'fedayeen' attacks in Srinagar, at Red Fort and now threats to the life of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. And Lone, for one, has now publicly upsraided the hardliners within Hurriyat and announced his decision not to join any Pak-bound APHC delegation. In another two weeks or so the extended cease-fire would have come to an end, unless it is followed by yet another unilateral extension by Vajpayee. The first six weeks have not inspired much confidence, if the idea was to get an Indo-Pak dialogue started. We are still bogged down with Hurriyat business, as if it holds the key to resolving the Indo-Pak discord. Home Minister L K Advani did well in this regard when in a New Year's eve interview to one of the TV channels he ruled out tripartite talks with Pakistan. The Indo-Pak dispute would have to be resolved by the two countries, and by them alone. The release of Hurriyat leaders some months back, he said, was just to provide tension-free backdrop. The Home Minister was a bit unlike his usual self when he told the interviewer that the Indian approach to an Indo-Pak dialogue will be ''flexible''. This was in reply to the pointed question if freezing of the LoC as a boundary could be considered as a solution. Such an approach, should normally be grabbed by Musharraf to initiate a dialogue. But, will he? Can he defy the fundamentalist extremists? That question he alone can answer. |
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