Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

Politics in sport

Prospects of non-lethal
weapons

By Brig. (Retd) S.N. Sachadeva

Climate unchanged

By Allabaksh

Why is Indian Army
losing its cool?
TALES OF TRAVESTY

By Dr. Jitendra Singh

Quality research in
Indian universities

By Abdul Rashid Choudhary

EDITORIAL

Politics in sport

Why is this hue and cry? One can't really understand it. So what if politicians have expressed anger and anguish over the Indian cricket team's disastrous performance in the second one-dayer against South Africa at Durban. After all, they are entitled to their opinions. It is another thing that they may not pay the same attention to their jobs. That is their problem. That in any case does not mean that they can't say that the others are also bad. Some may well call such approach as a sort of vicarious pleasure. Why should not they get it when the others lampoon them often? A worthy critic has gone to the extent of visualising a scenario in which politicians would be playing cricket. He has forecast a team selected on the basis of reservations. It is hitting below the belt. Even the strongest votaries of caste-based employment have not gone to that extent. They don't mind if the government apparatus crumbles for want of meritorious persons. Indeed, they will be happy if the progress of flourishing private sector suffers for the same reason. But they have not yet included sports persons and stadiums in their scheme of things. It is one area in which the talent and performance will show immediately. They will not risk that. They have tremendous love for all games. It is evident from the fact that they are in charge of most of them. They control the Olympic bodies. Football and hockey run in their blood. A hard-boiled politician sits on top of cricket in the country. His tribe runs the sport in several states. In Jammu and Kashmir at one time cricket had mirrored the bitterness between two political parties fighting for the same turf across the Pir Panjal. Politicians' argument can be that all that they do is off the field. They have no role for all that happens on the wicket. Coaches are there. Selectors are there. The skipper is there. It is for them to deal with cricket as it is actually played. So what if they merely bask in their glory. It is the least that they deserve for their role as managers. Some times if they intervene as they have done in the instance of a former Indian captain it is in the overall interest of everyone. For their efforts they are not amply rewarded. Rightly perhaps they can say this. Instead, they are pushed around on the stage in full television glare. Even the chief of the Board of Control for Cricket in India has not been spared. He has got an apology much later from an offending team. That has become possible not because of his expertise with the willow. He could not have wielded the bat as a stick with which to beat naughty boys. He could not have bowled them out. It was his muscle as a politician that clinched the matter eventually in his favour. This is not to say that he has been at fault. It is one instance in which a particular bunch of players has to admit the mistake. It has taken them long to do so is more a reflection on them than anybody else. In their hour of glory they appear to forget manners for a while.

Cricket is a gentleman's game. A one-time powerful nation has perpetuated this myth because of its obsession with the sport. The fact is that every game inculcates the virtues of fair play, hard work and perfect discipline. Why should politicians be denied the opportunity to pick up these healthy traits?

Prospects of non-lethal weapons

By Brig. (Retd) S.N. Sachadeva

More than 2,000- years ago, Sun Tzu said in The Art of War that armed force should be applied to gain victory in battle in the shortest possible time, at the least possible cost in terms of lives and effort, and by inflicting the fewest possible casualties on the enemy. However, enormous bloodshed in the two World Wars, the immense damage caused by weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and wanton terrorism has made the 20th century the bloodiest in history. It is only in the last decade, mainly since the end of the Cold War, that a paradigm shift in the concepts of fighting is spurring new efforts to evolve non-lethal weapons (NLWs).

The prospect of new 'wonder' weapons which minimise death and injuries, strikes a sympathetic chord in people who have grown increasingly reluctant to countenance deaths and serious casualties through military action, particularly in peacekeeping and peace-support operations. NLWs are specially designed to enable personnel or material to gain military objective while minimising fatalities and undesired damage to property and the environment. The intention is to non-lethally overwhelm an enemy's lethal force, by destroying the aggressive capability of his weapons and temporarily neutralizing his soldiers.

Though most analysts consider NLWs as an adjunct to conventional force, there is speculation that non-lethal defence has applicability across the entire continuum of conflict, up to, and including, strategic paralysis of the adversary. NLWs are being called by various names. Some of these are: 'reduced lethality weapons,' 'limited lethality weapons', 'less than lethal weapons' and 'low lethality weapons'. Some analysts have questioned their being called weapons at all. NLWs are being defined as: "Weapons that do not give rise to long-term after-effects and are not fatal for 99 per cent of combatants and civilians under normal physical conditions."

Another widely accepted definition is, "Weapons that disrupt, destroy or otherwise degrade functioning of threat material or personnel without crossing the death barrier." Also prevalent are: "Instruments used in combat which are designed to achieve the same tactical and strategic ends as lethal weapons but which are not intended to kill personnel or inflict catastrophic damage to equipment" and "discriminate weapons that are explicitly designed and employed so as to incapacitate personnel or material, while minimising fatalities and undesired damage to property and the environment."

Over 1,000 technologies with the potential to be developed into NLWs have been identified so far and there are endless possibilities, limited only by the imagination of the scientists working in great secrecy in this new and challenging field. However, even as non-lethal technologies are mushrooming rapidly, adequate debate and discussions regarding the ethical and legal ramifications of the use of NLWs are lacking. In 1996, human rights organizations and NGOs led a widespread international campaign against the use of Laser-based dazzle devices. The use of biological agents may violate international treaties such as the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BWC). The use of chemical-based incapacitating agents is permitted for domestic law enforcement by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) but not for military purposes.

While the operational utility of NLWs in conventional high intensity warfare is still to be satisfactorily established, there is no doubt that NLWs have immense potential and provide a range of options in peacekeeping, peace-enforcement and peace support operations. The applicability of NLWs in some recent and current conflicts highlights their potential in different parts of the world, the early use of NLWs could have rendered power grids, air traffic control facilities, bridges and roads and tanks and heavy artillery inoperable, offering obvious advantages to the peacekeepers.

This lesson was learnt by NATO and thin carbon strips were dropped over power plants and stations in Yugoslavia to disrupt power supplies. Whether it was ethical to do so is altogether a different question. In Somalia, street and point control through the employment of sticky foams and obnoxious smells would have been preferable to the large number of civilian casualties caused by deadly fire from US helicopter gunships. In Rwanda, communications interdiction, to neutralize dangerous radio broadcasts urging revenge on opposing tribes, would have saved thousands of lives. The concept of NLWs is also found attractive by politicians and civilian law enforcement agencies seeking alternative and more humane methods to manage internal security problems such as crowd control and riots, terrorist attacks, communal stand-offs, the arrest of violent criminals and recalcitrant politicians, and the rescue of hostages. In fact, the use of NLWs may soon become mandatory in all internal security situations involving the employment of police forces, including state armed police. Only if the situation does not come under control with NLWs, lethal alternatives may be permitted and that too with the prior permission of the authorities concerned.

However, should the situation warrant the employment of the Army to render aid to the civil authority, it needs to be considered whether such a precondition for graduated response from NLWs to lethal weapons should be imposed. The deterrence value and salutary effect of calling in the Army will definitely be eroded if the Army is forced to first use rubber bullets or sticky foams when the situation has already deteriorated considerably and is beyond the capacity of police forces to handle.

The salient advantages of NLWs include the reinforcement of deterrence and credibility by providing commanders with options for a graduated response over a wider range of military activities. News reduces risk of rapid escalation by offering a progressive increase in lethality. These are publicly and politically attractive alternatives and can buy time at a low casualty rate for a diplomatic solution. NLWs have utility across the entire spectrum of conflict at all levels of command and can reduce the cost of rebuilding infrastructure and economy after a conflict is over. Quite obviously, NLWs also have some disadvantages. The foremost among these is that their ability to restrict damage makes the use of force more attractive. Use of NLWs could be seen as lacking decisive action and may be perceived as failing to punish the aggressor, as NLWs do not destroy the enemy. The use of NLWs may heighten the resolve of the enemy to respond with lethal force. Hence, NLWs must always be backed up with threat of lethal force.

The advent of NEWs in a world sickened by the horrors of war is a welcome and attractive development. Though still at a nascent stage, the employment of NLWs is bound to find favour in peacekeeping and peace-enforcement operations, as also in internal security situations and the maintenance of law and order. It is imperative that the development of doctrinal precepts for the use of NLWs and the resolution of various ethical and legal complications also take place simultaneously with the advances in NLW technologies. Lethal and non-lethal weapons are not mutually exclusive alternatives. Hence, the availability of NLWs in conventional military conflict will provide a new range of options to a commander in the field to achieve his tactical objectives with the minimum causalities and collateral damage. NLWs are unlikely to ever substitute lethal weapons completely; they will only serve to supplement lethal weapons. This distinction needs to be clearly understood. Otherwise, there will always be a danger of creating unrealistic expectations of bloodless battles. INAV

Climate unchanged

By Allabaksh

Delegates from over 180 countries ended on November 18 their nearly two-week long ‘climate safari’, an expression used to describe derisively the ‘Climate Change’ conference at Nairobi by some environmental campaigners, without achieving any major breakthrough. The delegates agreed to review the decade old Kyoto Protocol, which requires developed countries to limit greenhouse emissions of a total of six gases by 2008. The Kyoto protocol is valid for another six years.

What causes worry is that even if the world shows a rare ‘political will’ and determination to control greenhouse gas emissions by 5 per cent by 2008 or so, the effort may not mean much because of corresponding rise in gas emissions by then. Estimates show that by 2050, the global CO2 emissions would go up by as much as 137 per cent. The odds against avoiding the dangers from climate change would then be something like 1000 to 1.

Sadly, the world is yet to decide what is more important—development or greenhouse gas reduction. Most developed nations as well as some developing countries, India included, are not very keen to interrupt their onward march by taking immediate measures to reduce gas emissions substantially.

The Nairobi conference, which heard the UN secretary general, Kofi Anan’s anguish over the lack of leadership to arrest global warming, failed to get any assurance from the world’s two major climate polluters, US and Australia, that they would sign the Kyoto Protocol or its successor regime. Their commitment to support greenhouse gas reduction efforts must remain suspect. The environmentalists are disappointed because no mandate was given to China and India, the two most rapidly growing economies, to cut down their greenhouse gas emissions.

Clearly, the dangers from climate change loom larger than before. But, some, their number is not insignificant, feel the green house effect is exaggerated. Environmentalists tend to look at such people as lunatics. All the evidence so far points to a perilous future with increasing levels of emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide which entrap heat from the sun.

In 2005, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 rose by half a percentage, to 379.1 parts per million from 377.1 parts per million in 2004, according to the world meteorological office. Nitrous oxide level went up by 0.2 per cent to 319.2 parts per billion, though methane levels have remained stable.

The greenhouse gas emissions result largely from burning of fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas. The upward trends in emissions will continue because of increasing needs of industry, transport and power generation.

‘Clean’ energy still accounts for only a small percentage of the energy sources in the world. People on the planet can literally breathe easier if governments opt for the use of clean energy, ban coal-fired electricity generation, prohibit plying of gas-emitting cars in city centres and impose all-round stringent energy efficient standards.

Kofi Anan linked the hazards of greenhouse gas emissions to the threat that comes from conflict, poverty and the spread of weapons. Both he and the International Energy Agency (IEA) agree that it would cost far less to cut gas emissions now than to deal with its consequences later. Much can be achieved with existing technology to contain emissions, though it would require bigger investments. But Anan warned that climate change was also a threat to international peace and security. For instance, changes in rainfall pattern affected crops adversely, which heightens competition for resources and this in turn gives rise to tensions and migration. Actually this phenomenon has already begun, Anan said.

The refusal of the US and Australia to stay out of Kyoto Protocol worries environmentalists and many poor nations. But listen to delegates at any international conference on environment and you might hear that in this context China and India are being painted as the two emerging villains. That India would ignore gas emissions warning at its own peril cannot be doubted. But to club it with China seems a little uncharitable, if not unreasonable.

When it comes to climate pollution, China is already among the biggest culprits. An Australian delegate at the Nairobi conference raised the hackles of the Chinese. According to a mandated report supplied by the China’s Initial National Communication on Climate Change to the UN in 2004, China stands next to the US as the biggest producer of greenhouse gases in the world. The only saving grace was that per person emission is low in China, thanks to its population of one billion plus. Half of world’s CO2 emission comes from China, a country that alone accounts for 7 per cent of all the greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Its emission of CO2 is 2.6 billion tonnes, methane 34.3 million tonnes and nitrous oxide 850,000 tonnes.

China is the world’s largest coal producer. Nearly 70 per cent of its electricity comes from coal-based generation. It is also one of the largest consumers of oil. Within five years from 1996, for instance, China’s oil import multiplied almost five times. By 2015, China will be importing the same amount of oil as the US, i.e. 8 million barrels a day. China can thus be seen as the world’s largest climate polluter in a few years time.

Gas emissions from India too would increase a great deal if steps are not taken to stop that now. But comparison with China at this stage looks unfair. The CO2 emissions from China are two and a half times more than that of India. China is growing at a much faster rate than India and it is also a little more impatient than India in catching up with the developed world. So, it is China that has to show the way in curbing atmospheric pollution.

(Syndicate Features)

Why is Indian Army losing its cool?
TALES OF TRAVESTY

By Dr. Jitendra Singh

One of the surest ways to ruin an Army is to assign it civilian operations and expect the results which it was never trained for. One of the surest ways to spoil an Army soldier is to ask him to share assignment with a state policeman and then expect him to remain unaffected by the menace of expecting bribes, playing truant and all other ills that plague a civil cop.

Over 15 years of deployment in anti-militancy operations in Kashmir has been a great learning experience for the Indian Army but what both the Army personnel as well as their political bosses overlook is that in the process the Army soldier has inadvertantly unlearnt much of what was once a part of the rich Army tridition subtly passed down from one generation of Army personnel to the next. Reoccurring incidents of suicide among Army. persons including women officers or a cop going beserk and turning his rifle on the CO before killing himself bear testmony to a deep malaise eating into our security forces. Instead of being an organisation of proud, contented, committed men of self-esteem, the Indian Army is at the risk of turning into a breeding centre of uncontrolled discontent and psychological disorder. This is a matter of extreme worry.

The Army and paramilitary forces today are already overstretched and overworked as a result of being constantly engaged in anti-militancy operations. For months and years, they live away from the comfort of home in bunkers or makeshift tenements under constant fear of being sniped at or blown up by landmines or grenades. This is quite in contrast to the kind of job they were initially trained for to fight a foreign aggressor on the borders. Upon this, the Government has given a long rope to the socalled human rights leaders who find army a convenient tool to forward their perverted activism as a consequence of which many a brilliant army officer are subject to senseless inquiry about why they returned fire or killed a certain terrorist who would have otherwise killed them. The mushrooming of private TV channels has further worsened the situation with media turning insensitive to an army person's hurt pride and instead preferring to sensationalise the "grief" or "loss" of a slain militant.

Over the years, the Army soldier has been gradually deprived of his esteem and exclusiveness while too much of exposure to civilian life has simultaneously made him vulnerable to the ills that afflict civilian culture. No less harm is done by the former or retired Army officers themselves. In recent years, while several of the Army officers have quit the forces on one or the other false pretext to launch a trade or business venture, many of the retired Generals have chosen to join active politics or set up semi-political organisations thus taking to a work ethic marred by hypocrisy and falsehood which are in total contradiction to the ethics that they professed to follow and also teach their juniors as long as they were members of the Army force.

Sooner than later, the nation will have to clearly define its priorities as well the bottomline of its role for the Army. Or else, the worst is still to come. Most of the youngsters have already begun refusing the option of joining the Army and are instead preferring newer avenues of vocation offered by rapidly expanding corporate sector. To preserve the aura, glory and esteem of the Indian Army is the stake of the nation itself. Nothing can be more tragic than the sight of an Army soldier who escapes unhurt from the war front and then chooses to kill himself with a suicide bullet. The irony is summed up in the poetic refrain "Main Bach Bhi Jaun to Tanhai Maar Daalegi ...." The common man is safe only as long as his armed guardians are in a sound state of mental and physical health. For the well-being of Umapathy ---- please spare the Army!

Quality research in Indian universities

By Abdul Rashid Choudhary

A ripple is taking the shape of a vigorous wave, the academicians, the intellectuals and the Governments have ignored it for long and allowed it to grow and were not careful enough about the power of its irreparable damage. I am talking about the declining phase of quality research in our universities. The number of universities and deemed universities in India has doubled in period 1980 to 2002. Today the number of institutions of higher education, which award doctoral degrees, exceeds 260. Statistics for the year 2003-2004 shows that as many as 13776 Ph.D. degrees were awarded by the institutions of higher education in India (S Sacher, 2004). Although definitive statistics are not available for the year 2005-2006, its clear that number must have risen.

However, we might ask: Are we producing Ph.Ds of an acceptable quality or have falling academic standards permeated the highest levels of our university system. A recent survey conducted by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) reveals a dismal state of affairs in scientific research in India at the global level. During 1980s, India occupied the 8th position among the top 20 nations of the worlds in scientific research and publications. During 1990s India came down in rank to the 12th position, after Italy, Holland, Spain and Australia, with only one tenth of the scientific manpower compared to that of India (H.S Virik, 2004).

With decline in scientific research India is not out of the top 20 nations of the world, inspite of the fact that she is the second most populous and 7th largest country of the world. Chinese publications get 15 percent references internationally and we get only 2.8 percent and what to talk about USA Japan, France and UK (Prof. Syed Iqbal, 2006). After a detailed analysis of the subject it is crystal clear that with few exceptions the research carried out in our universities is not internationally competitive. This is also evident from the list of top 500 universities of the world prepared by Prof. Nian Chai Liu of Shangai Jio Tong University of China. He prepared this list after studying and analyzing the academic and research performance of 2000 institutes world wide, and surprisingly none of the Indian Universities figured in this list (J.S Dev, 2006). This clearly speaks of the consistent decline of quality research in our universities. Another noteworthy point is that in terms of international standard publications Bangladesh, our neighbouring country is outplaying us.

Let us first see what could be the possible reasons for this situation. The present policy of merit promotion in the universities is a major factor, where quality is not the regulatory factor. A university teacher has to wait for a specific time period and her/his potentiality is then judged by the number of papers published and the number of Ph.Ds produced. Except for a few universities, in the most of the universities the number of publications is one of the major criteria, not the quality of publications. This has resulted in the mushrooming of private journals (published by a person), where peer review system does not operate and money is the prime objective. If one pays the publication charges, a paper will be immediately published. Such an easy way of increasing the number of publications and then claiming the promotion, has two pronged injurious effect on the academic environment; (i) it substantially reduces the desire for quality research among the teachers and (ii) it dampens the spirit of a young incumbent in the university.

The system of selection sometimes includes allocation of marks for the number of publications and not for the quality of publications. A person who may have two high-quality publications in well-reputed international journals may not be selected against a person who has ten publications in un-referred low quality journals. Another harmful trend is the yield to local pressure by the university authorities where the presence of political milieu worsens the situation. In such atmosphere it is difficult to select a genuinely strong academic person with good research background; consequently, many a times the best person desiring to start a career in the university suffers from frustration. The cumulative result of all this is leading the universities towards a bad to worse situation. However, after entering the university as a lecturer or an assistant professor, a person finds that for promotion quality is not the criterion, quantity is the major thrust and therefore her/his attempt is to produce more papers in un-referred, below the standard journals and low grade Ph.Ds. She or he will probably get more persons in support from the faculty than a person with the will of producing quality research. Thus, when more faculty members are on the other side, a real potential creative research does not find a congenial environment and of the two options, i.e submitting to the other side or facing the odd environment throughout life, the former appears to be easier.

The Ph.D has become yet another academic degree that can often to obtain with little effort by many, who have almost no pretence to scholarly instinct. In large measures, the Ph.Ds is the result of collaboration between the academic supervisors or guide and the student. Invariably, it is the supervisor who decides when the thesis can be submitted. In most of our institutions the academic faculty of a department have an extreme limited collective role in monitoring a student's progress and play no part in any formal process that assures that doctoral thesis conform to a minimum standard. In many Institutions, there are no checks ensuring that the students have at least a minimal knowledge of the fields in which they propose to specialize. The thesis examination system in some institutions does not pose a significant academic hurdle; friendly examiners can be found for almost any dissertation. It is therefore unsurprising to find that a large fraction of doctoral thesis do not result in any significant research publication in journals of consequences. Indeed, as the number of papers from India in SCI indexed journals has remained stagnant.

Now the question arises what can be done to improve the situation ? Following suggestions if well taken could be instrumental in reversing the scenario ::

* The selection of university teachers can be made more rigorous, at national level then relying on local selection committees and for this UGC or UPSC should hold recruitment examinations at national level and it should be a multitier system of examination.

* The UGC/UGC CSIR NET/JRF can be modified with more emphasis on research aptitude which they have done by accepting Professor Munjakar's Committee report but NET/JRF+MSc should not be the basic minimum qualification for the recruitment of university teacher. The M. Phil+NET/JRF+ minimum two research publication should be the basic minimum qualification for the post of a university teacher.

* UGC and CSIR should introduced a National Research Aptitude Entrance Test bi-annually for those who have not passed NET/JRE/GATE/GRE etc. for registering for a PhD in different streams at national level.

* Even as we create more universities, deemed and otherwise it might be worth while to consider raising the bar for the award of Ph.D degrees. Quality control is as necessary in academia as it is in Industry.

* Our science managers and planners should encourage and fund open ended research also. The Indian scientific establishment is bogged down by too much bureaucratization which hinders the growth of science and research and universities have been ignored in comparison with the target oriented research institutes. Our R&D expenditure per capita is one hundredth of South Korea and much lower compared to others scientific criteria giants, we have to increase it for the sake of quality research.

* The scope of Ph.D registration by a part time candidates (without any research fellowship) should be very limited as this category is now a major source in increasing the number of Ph.Ds. They are not usually inclined to do quality research, their objective being just to get a degree.

* Steps should be taken to provide infrastructural facilities in universities at par with CSIR, DST, DBT, ICMR, ICAR, DRDO, ISRO etc.

There may be other suggestions, the supreme duty to all of us being not to stand as passive onlookers to the deterioration of research activity in our universities. It is already affecting the teaching adversely and will soon take the shape of an incurable chronic disease which will destroy the future of our higher education and quality research, the worst suffers being our future generations. A day will come when a Master's degree holder in science will speak in different language which will not be communicable to the advanced arena of science, and higher degree will lose its credibility. Still there is time and hope, and steps to resuscitate the universities should be initiated immediately. In the last I have to say that, what Rudyard Kipling (b. 1865-Bombay; Nobel for Literature-1907) sung is true for a researcher and should be a guiding force.

‘‘I keep six honest serving men,

They taught me all I knew;

They names are what and why and when.

And where and how and who’’.

(The author is a Ph.D Research Scholar University of Jammu)