Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

By Pallab Bhattacharya

When India hosts the 14th SAARC Summit next year, it will see not only the entry of Afghanistan as a full member but also the participation of East Asian neighbours China and Japan, as observers. Next in line as observers are the United States and South Korea which have also applied for that status. . ...more

Hazardous task of
monsoon forecasting

By Jyotsna Pandit

After a nine-year spell, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted that there is a 22 per cent chance that the coming monsoon (2006) would be some 7 per cent below normal. The last time such a prediction was made was in 1997, when the IMD predicted a fall of 8 per cent below normal, but we got an above normal monsoon. In 2002 it . . .......more

Prioritising civil
service reforms

By Srinivasan K. Rangachary

EDITORIAL

Silver lining

There is a silver lining in the blood-splattered atmosphere prevailing today. It is to be welcomed that both New Delhi and Islamabad have reiterated their resolve to go ahead with the peace process. In their well-intentioned mission the two neighbouring countries are undeterred by twin massacres in Doda and Udhampur districts. For its part Pakistan has done well to describe carnages as acts of terrorism. In fact, the continuance of the dialogue between India and Pakistan holds the key to the possibility that people in all places see a clearer picture in due course. So far as inhabitants of this country are concerned they have no doubt about the identity of their tormentors. They also know full well the original location of the source of mischief. Likewise in Pakistan the situation is changing dramatically. There has emerged an influential section of politicians and intelligentsia that are prepared to call a spade a spade. It has hit hard against the country's establishment for allowing the revival of militant apparatus under its very nose. It has no sympathy for sectarian and religious extremists and does not fight shy of unambiguously expressing its opinion. Of course, it is equally vocal in its criticism of the farce of democracy being enacted in their land in the garb of military uniform. On the other hand, the ruling class in Pakistan despite its limitations is largely lenient towards its opponents on the home turf. At the same time it is keenly matching India's urge for building mutual respect and goodwill. Undoubtedly such approach has helped in the creation of an open environment. Thousands of citizens of the two countries have been able to travel across the Wagah border in the recent years. As a result the post-1947 generations have struck a rapport that would not have been possible otherwise. Hostility created by the ghost of Partition may not have disappeared altogether but has declined significantly. One can say this without fear of contradiction. We in this State are direct beneficiaries. More than one road link has been reopened on the Line of Control. This has facilitated the State subjects to undertake a trip on both sides without having to acquire formal passports and visas.

It is easily noticeable that leaders of Pakistan and "Azad" Kashmir (as the occupied territory is locally known) are giving vent to their feelings on this soil. They don't look beyond their shoulders while doing so. Similarly, their counterparts from our side have felt free to speak their mind in Pakistan and Muzaffarabad. The latest example is that of Indian envoy in Islamabad who has recently echoed the nation's sentiments that borders between India and Pakistan can't be redrawn but the two sides can work towards making them irrelevant like "just lines on a map". He also told Pakistan lawyers that more needed to be done to curb cross-border terrorism. Was it possible for an Indian representative to say all this in Pakistan in the past?

Pakistan's half-hearted approach towards terrorism is evident from its refusal to follow the United States' action in designating Jamaat-ul-Dawa (JuD) as a foreign terrorist organization. Everybody knows that JuD is reincarnation of banned Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). The Musharraf administration's ambivalence may not be without motive. But its commitment to peace process raises hope that it may see reason sooner than later.

Justified protest

Villagers of Sungal and adjoining areas in Akhnoor tehsil are angry for right reasons. Indeed it is a matter of shame and regret that a minor girl should have her modesty outraged by her teachers. According to a report in this newspaper the student community and local inhabitants have joined hands to lodge a forceful protest. They have turned violent too besides staging massive demonstrations. They have compelled all teachers including headmaster in charge to leave the village. Of course, they have locked the school (a government institution) and declared that they will not allow it to function till their demand for new staff is met. They have demanded termination of the accused teachers from service. Apart from doing all this and shouting slogans they have beaten up two teachers. Who in their situation will not be provoked to strike in the manner in which they have done? How else do they vent their anguish coupled with a state of virtual helplessness? A gullible minor who must have looked up to her teachers as guides, parents and philosophers as is normally done in our traditional society has been brutally exploited by them. It is sickening to say the least. There are studies in a couple of universities which show that higher the stakes the greater the abuse of women students in particular. At the advanced level almost every good college and university in the country has by now developed an in-house mechanism for effectively dealing with cases of sexual harassment. Apparently there is necessity that such measures should percolate down to schools as well. Boys and girls are supposed to grow up in a care-free healthy but disciplined surroundings. What impression will they carry during the rest of their lives if they are so awfully let down by their mentors, of all persons, right in the beginning?

Having noted all this it needs to be said that temptation to paint every teacher with the same black brush must be resisted. A bad fish can spoil the entire pond but that does not mean that all other fishes have to be eliminated or the pond itself has to be totally dispossessed of all its possessions. Similarly the purpose can be best achieved in human society by simply isolating those vitiating it with their criminal activities. Utmost care should be taken that honest men of integrity don't come to grief in any way. In the present case it is not clear why the villagers have shut their doors on each and every teacher. Unless they have a valid reason they should review their action in this behalf. The contemptible incident has nearly coincided with a sex scandal in Srinagar. If reports from the Summer Capital are to be believed the disgraceful drama there is again based on miseries of minor girls who were blackmailed into prostitution. Many big-wigs are alleged to be involved in the reprehensible affair. In view of the din it has created it is a wise decision to ask the Central Bureau of Investigation to conduct a thorough probe. Put together both the events raise an extremely serious question. How safe and secure is the girl child? All sections must exercise the greatest possible vigilance to book beasts in human form.

Globalisation of SAARC

By Pallab Bhattacharya

One may call it globalisation of SAARC, or is it symptomatic of big power politics?

The way was paved for participation of China and Japan as observers when Foreign Secretaries approved of this at their meeting in Dhaka in the middle of April. The applications of the US and South Korea have been cleared by the top diplomats of the SAARC countries and await the goahead from the Council of Foreign Ministers and heads of States and Governments of the regional bloc.

The inevitable questions that arise are; why countries as far removed from south Asia as the US, Japan or South Korea are keen to associate themselves with the SAARC whose achievements have remained very limited largely due to bickerings among them? What is it that interests countries and like these and China in a region considered one of the most impoverished?

Strategists believe this is part of an evolving game of power politics in Asia as much for political as for economic reasons in a region that is heading to becoming an economic power house.

The desire to go beyond immediate neighbourhood is not confined to a few countries. India itself has over the years come out with its Look East policy and is currently also focussing on the Africa, Persian Gulf and Latin America from the point of trade. These are clearly strategic moves, politically and economically and a recognition that in an increasingly globalized world, inter-dependence among regions was inevitable.

A recent WTO report assessed the weakest spots in global economy to be in Europe where countries like Germany, Britain and France recorded growth ranging from almost zero to less than two percent whereas the growth was the highest in China, India and other developing countries in Asia and Latin America. But beyond this economic growth story of Asia lies the unfolding game of international power politics in the continent and particularly Indian subcontinent, according to analysts.

This politics had played out the 13th SAARC summit in Dhaka in November last year when Nepal King Gyanendra had linked Afghanistan's membership to China's proposal of securing on observer status. Questions were raised if Nepal had been put up by Islamabad, a "time-tested" friend of Beijing, to root for China's observer status along with Afghanistan's membership and if the King had been playing the China card to leverage his none-too-happy relations with New Delhi which did not approve of his seizing powers in the Himalayan Kingdom. Now that the United States has also applied for observer status in SAARC, India could now balance out the presence of China by letting the US into the grouping. In any case, analysts have not failed to note that an entente between India and the US is aimed at counter balancing China.

India's quest for greater integration with ASEAN and East Asia has something more than economic benefits. This is an area which China considers as its strategic backyard and make its presence much stronger and earlier than India relying of burgeoning trade with countries of the region. When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attended the two back-to-back summits - fourth India ASEAN Summit and the first ever East Summit in the Malaysian capital, India clearly signalled its willingness to engage deeply the strategic region.

China, on the other hand feels that the presence of India, Australia and New Zealand in East Asia could undermine its own ambition to expand its influence in the region. There is no denying the fact that the US is worried over the rise of China as an economic and military power and would like to see any other country or group of countries in Asia to balance that out. This, analysts believe, is the main reason for the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue set up in March this year in Sydney involving the US, Australia and Japan. China is as sceptical of the long term US interests in Asia as US is about China's in the continent.

East Asia is the stage where the future of international power politics will be played out. China represents a big opportunity as well as a challenge for the US and its allies Japan and South Korea as also India. Japan's occupation of China and South Korea have clouded Tokyo's ties with Beijing and Seoul. But that has not prevented China from becoming Japan's largest trading partner. South Korea too is an important trade partner of China. But economics is not the only factor at work and more forces are at work. A fast resurgent China, economically and militarily, is set to dislodge Japan as the lynchpin in Eas Asia.

Analysts believe China is trying to get round its strategically poor location by forging closer links with ASEAN and East Asian countries to access the crucial sea lanes of the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean.

India is also keen to join the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) which has in it United States. When India had wanted to join the grouping in the 1990s, a number of countries had refused to let New Delhi in and its membership had remained frozen for a decade. With the freeze period nearing the end, it remains to be seen if India could use its booming ties with the US to sign up in the APEC.

There are many ASEAN counties which want strong presence of India in the region as a balancing factor to China. The US too wants to help build India as a countervailing power in Asia against China. But there are also some, including a few influencing ASEAN members, who would like to accept India's growing clout in the region only grudgingly. It is a different matter that the Indian economic growth story over the past five years and changing global security scenario have driven home that India cannot be just kept away from ASEAN or EAS.

India has officially stated time and again that it is not competing with China for sphere of influence. Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, in a speech at the India Economic Forum in Delhi in December 2005, said that "there is the emergence of China as a global economic powerhouse. There will be increased capabilities that China will be able to bring to bear in the region and even beyond. India also is going to be a major player in Asia.... I think India and the United States can contribute to a much better balance in the Asian region."

India has already envisioned an Asian Economic Community spanning from the Himalayas to the Pacific Ocean. What remains to be seen is how the objectives of economics entwine with internation power politics without one supplanting the other. PTI Feature

Hazardous task of monsoon forecasting

By Jyotsna Pandit

The IMD admitted that its predictions are still premature and the correct forecast will emerge only in June.

On June 4, 1886, the IMD issued its first operational seasonal forecast for the monsoon. Since then, each year the IMD has been forecasting how good or bad the summer monsoon was likely to be over the country as a whole. It undertook this task after the failure of the 1877 monsoon, the worst on record, led to severe famine. The primary purposes of the IMD forecasts were, therefore, to forewarn the government so that it could be prepared in case of a bad monsoon.

Although the spectre of famines has been abolished, the large year-to-year variability in the monsoon rainfall still causes concern. After all, irrigated area forms only about 40 per cent of the area under foodgrain output of which in a monsoon deficient year (1987-88) can be almost 20 per cent lower than in a normal year (2004-05).

Despite all the advances in science, the advent of powerful computers and availability of satellite-based sensors, the mechanisms which cause the year-to-year variations in the monsoon are still poorly understood. Understanding the physics of the vagaries of the Indian monsoon is one of the most challenging problems in atmospheric science today.

In the absence of such knowledge, the IMD has depended on statistical methods to predict the all-India rainfall during the summer monsoon (June to September). Its early forecasts depended on just one predictor, the Himalayan snow cover. More snow in the Himalayas was bad for the monsoon while less snow presaged a good monsoon. But this soon proved unsatisfactory. A major breakthrough came in 1907 when Sir Gilbert Walker, then IMD director general, scientifically established the correlation of various meteorological parameters with the rainfall. The subjectivity of the earlier method was replaced with mathematical multiple regression models to compute the rainfall from these predictors. Since 1988, the IMD has relied on its power regression model for forecasting the monsoon for the country as a whole. This statistical model uses 16 parameters to compute the rainfall. But on nine occasions the actual all-India rainfall has fallen outside the specified error margin of plus or minus four per cent, giving an error rate of close to 65 per cent. Unfortunately for the IMD, India is currently going through a period of normal or deficient monsoons. A normal monsoon is defined as one where the rainfall is within 10 per cent of the long period average of 88 cm. The last deficient monsoon was in 1987. Even if the actual rainfall was outside the error margin, IMD was able to correctly predict that the rainfall would be normal or excessive (as happened in 1988).

Any statistical model depends on the past correlation between predictor and rainfall continuing. Unfortunately, the strength of this correlation can vary and even reverse itself. Consequently, after 1930, the IMD had to periodically update its multiple regression models. Analysis of more than 20 known predictors has revealed that many of them had lost their significant relationship with the monsoon during recent years, says M. Rajeevan, IMD's Director of Long Range Forecasting, in a paper published last year. As a result, the IMD's power regression model has performed particularly badly in the last few years. Since 1994, the actual rainfall has been within the error margin only in one year. In 2000, the IMD replaced four of the original 16 parameters, saying this was necessary to contain the model error to within four per cent. Despite this, the actual rainfall during both the 2000 and 2001 monsoons remained outside the forecasted margin of error. Even more interesting is Dr. Rajeevan's finding that periods of normal rainfall coincide with those of weaker correlation between predictors and the monsoon. As a result, these were also periods when the statistical models showed poor predictive skills. If that is so, then perhaps no model need be used for forecasting during such periods of normal monsoon!

Moreover, as D.R. Sikka, former director of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, observes, "spatial averages of a highly variable parameter like rainfall are meaningful only if there is homogeneity within the area being averaged". Instead, the all-India rainfall figure hides considerable regional disparity. Although the 12-years from 1989 to 2000 are all categorised as having had "normal" monsoons, between 12 and 35 per cent of the districts in the country suffered deficient rainfall.

The obvious solution is to predict rainfall for smaller and more homogenous regions. Since 1999, the IMD has reintroduced separate monsoon forecasts for north-west India separately. The year-to-year variations in rainfall are greater for these regions than for India as a whole.

Consequently, the IMD gives its forecasts a greater error margin of plus or minus 8 per cent. Moreover, north-west and peninsular India are still quite large and disparate regions, the first forms about 30 per cent of the Indian land area and the latter close to half. So even if the monsoon forecasts are tolerably accurate, the issue could still arise as to whether the aggregated rainfall is truly representative of the region.

Ideally, rainfall recorded in all stations in a region should be strongly correlated with one another. One scheme which divided the country into coherent rainfall zones resulted in over 30 divisions. This poses another set of problems. Some regions have good predictability, typically those with high rainfall variability. But the rainfall in other areas, such as the north-east and coastal regions, is not easily predicted. On a sensitive issue such as the outcome of the monsoon, issuing predictions only for some regions and not others, however sound the scientific justification, is not an option open to a national body such as the IMD.

Even if such factors limit how much in advance the monsoon can be predicted, shorter range forecasts too can be valuable. Already, computer weather simulation models show promise in predicting rainfall a few days in advance. Farmers, however, would like to have forecasts 10 days or more in advance to plan their activities accordingly.

Ultimately, improving prediction is going to depend on understanding the complex processes which determine the progress of the monsoon. There are still major gaps in the availability of data needed for this purpose, says Prof. Srinivasan.

More meteorological information is needed from Afghanistan and Central Asia. Vertical profiles of temperature and water vapour over the oceans surrounding India, which cannot be got from satellites, are also required. Predicting the monsoon remains the challenging and important problem it was when the first efforts began in India more than a century back. INAV

Prioritising civil service reforms

By Srinivasan K. Rangachary

The Government proposes to introduce a bill in Parliament to amend civil services rules whereby merit and integrity will get preponderance over seniority. This move has ruffled the bureaucracy. The cabinet secretary B.K. Chaturvedi has been directed by the PMO to seek legal opinion as the Government fears legal hurdle as the Act will turn topsy-turvy the career prospects of hundreds of senior IAS and IPS officers. The proposed bill will also have a provision whereby any civil servant can be removed without assigning any reason. Thus, the permanent tag associated with a government job will disappear. The Indian bureaucracy is well known for its lethargy, incompetence, corrupt practices and is allergic to radical reforms.

Even in America, a country which runs on the so-called "spoils system", politicians promise to get "Government off the backs of people". Even the democrats, traditionally the party of big Government, sought under Bill Clinton to push through massive civil service reforms with the aim of cutting red tape and creating "a government that works more and costs less". While their efforts managed to reduce 15.4 per cent of the federal payroll and save government money, it did not help to reinvent the civil services. In Indonesia, the vice president is recently reported to have identified an "unreformed bureaucracy" as one among two most important causes of high levels of corruption. Academics have attributed South Korea's failure to fight corruption to a lack of internal consciousness among civil servants - "the main perpetrators of corruption".

The suspicion of bureaucratic sabotage has long been a common lament in UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Ministers complain about officials and the advice they give. Officers complain that ministers, far from heeding their advice, do not even listen to them. Ministers announce decisions which are later found impracticable.

Relationships between ministers and civil servants are marred by suspicion and distrust. Ministers often suspect civil servants of continued loyalty to a previous regime, while civil servants see ministers as motivated by short-term political interests and na‹ve about the process of governance. Each suspects the other of corruption.

The wide intra-district diversity of India, projected by social indices like access to safe drinking water, school retention rates, unemployment data, nutrition levels among women and children are enormous. There is need to establish a Management Information System (MIS) which can constantly exhibit the status and periodic performance levels related to factors which most affect the lives of people. Schools without teachers, health centres without doctors, non-functional drinking water schemes and the status of employment generating schemes.

Also, when critical gaps are found, they have to be tackled by people who have the freedom and authority to innovate, to rearrange schemes to suit local needs, to network between and across sectors, to harness the local Government machinery to full advantage. Managerial inputs and supervision are required from those who have the experience and exposure and can at least be expected to think out of the box. It requires leadership and devolution of authority.

The District Collector, by whatever name he may be called, is usually a resourceful man. But he is preoccupied with juggling the implementation of more than a 100 schemes and responding to rapid-fire instructions which fly in by the hour. The tools and skills to resolve sub-district level micro problems are just not available to him. There is every need therefore to either recruit or relocate civil servant mangers so as to coordinate and tackle problems at the sub-district level. To get an MIS to function on key indices; to get variance analysis done on the computer by collecting the data through SMS, e-mail, mobile telephones, fax machines, hand delivery, whatever.

This needs to be done for every village and every tehsil in identified blocks where things are abysmal. It is only then that the micro level lacunae will come into focus - making it possible to find solutions, make interventions and hold the "line" functionaries to account. That is when MLAs and Panchayats, the local media and the affected public will start taking note. Questions will begin to get asked. This is where we need reform.

So first, we need to get hold of micro level danger signals continuously. Second, the all India services and the provincial civil services need to be restructured, relocated and managed differently. Instead of doing largely repetitive work in state secretariats, the IAS and provincial service officers need to be relocated to work in phases at the district and sub-district levels to manage and coordinate the things that really matter.

For new recruits, assignments at the sub-district level should also last at least twice as long. The present two-year stint is highly insufficient, considering that they are the best civil service material we have before cynicism and domestic priorities take over.

All this will need consultation with the state governments and immense cajoling and persuasion. It may even need constitutional amendment. But that is where civil service reform would make a difference which can change the face of rural India, and indeed, usher the country into the front ranks of nations in the coming decades of the 21st century. INAV