Has India lost its ‘cartoon’ humour?
The Indian government’s decision to withdraw a controversial cartoon from a political science textbook this week couldn’t have been more ironic. Just a day earlier, India had observed the 60th anniversary of the first sitting of its parliament, seen as one of the pillars of the world’s largest democracy.
While it is best left to our imagination as to why the cartoon, roughly as old as the Indian republic itself, created the controversy now, the government’s reaction to the row is alarming and sets a dangerous precedent. The cartoon shows India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, holding a whip as the father of the Indian constitution, B R Ambedkar, is seated on a snail. It was first published in 1949, and was reprinted in a textbook a few years ago – without anyone batting an eyelid. The cartoonist’s intent was to caricature the slow pace at which the constitution was being finalised.
The government’s decision now to withdraw the cartoon and subsequently review all textbooks could be perceived as an attempt to pacify a certain section of society. Ambedkar is an icon for the cause of the Dalits — India’s former “untouchables” – and is deeply revered by millions in the country today.
But has the Indian state gone too far to regulate the freedom of expression?
A few instances in the past are a case in point. In 2011, the government passed a law to regulate content on the Internet.
In June, New Delhi police sparked an outcry with a heavy-handed crackdown on anti-corruption protesters camped out overnight.
Last August, Gandhian activist Anna Hazare was arrested ahead of his fast against corruption — drawing thousands of protesters onto the streets of the capital. And most recently, the government asked a TV network to move the premiere of the National Award winning ‘The Dirty Picture’ to the late night slot.
As the economy and markets struggle, India needs tough actions
Slowing growth, a falling rupee, sliding stock markets, a rising current account deficit, drying foreign inflows and policy paralysis at the centre. Things certainly don’t look rosy for India.
With the rupee down 22 percent in the last 10 months and a 6 percent drop in stock markets so far in May (as of Friday’s close), is it time for the government to seriously rethink its strategy ahead of the 2014 general elections?
From Mark Mobius, who said the Indian government has been making many big policy mistakes, to Lakshmi Mittal, who told The Times of India on Friday that decision-making is too slow and India needs to move the way the rest of the world does — there is no dearth of criticism.
As the global economic environment continues to be weak, what is the government doing to address these issues? Right now, India badly needs reforms, foreign inflows, and most importantly, clarity and stability.
It took Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee nearly two months to clarify his controversial set of General Anti-Avoidance Rule (GAAR) proposals, and also defer it by a year, after an investor backlash.
One wonders what took the government so long to issue clarifications, which could have helped revive much-needed inflows and improve sentiment. And even when it did, it failed to pacify investors.
As a Scotiabank executive summed it up – India changes rules too quickly. They don’t realise it hurts them in debt capital markets and hurts flows on a long-term basis.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
In optimism over India-Pakistan trade, a warning flag
In 1997, the business-friendly Nawaz Sharif was prime minister, relations between Pakistan and India were thawing and the two countries were trying to use improved trade to put decades of animosity behind them. Or as the Indian journalist Salil Tripathi wrote at the time, "this sorry state of affairs may be about to improve - through commerce." Then came the nuclear tests in 1998, the Kargil war and a coup in 1999, mass military mobilisation in 2001-2002, the Mumbai attacks in 2008, and now, finally, we are here again.
Trade is the new/old panacea of India-Pakistan relations, moving ahead rapidly after Islamabad said last year it was ready to match India's offer of Most Favoured Nation (MFN) trading status. The Economist called it "a profound and welcome shift" that could eventually open up for India trade through Pakistan to Afghanistan and the markets of Central Asia and beyond. As trade increases, so the argument goes, India and Pakistan will build the trust needed to tackle their territorial disputes, while economic inter-dependence will reduce the risk of conflict.
The problem with this scenario is a dangerous mismatch in expectations between India and Pakistan. India sees improved trade ties as a useful end in themselves; Pakistan, in contrast, is looking for rapid progress on territorial disputes. That could be an academic argument, were it not for the fact that this mismatch echoes problems that have bedevilled relations since 1947. Even since their first war over Jammu and Kashmir left India with the more important parts of the former kingdom - the heartland Kashmir valley and control of the rivers on which Pakistan depends - India has been a status quo power. Pakistan, in contrast, has been fighting to change that status quo, nurturing Islamist militants to fight asymmetric warfare against its bigger neighbour, with lethal consequences for the region, and increasingly, for itself. With little or no progress on territorial disputes, the approach of improving trade ties while leaving the rest to a better day risks falling foul of the same cycle of violence.
So far, an agreement on Kashmir appears as elusive as ever. There has been no progress in resolving a boundary dispute in Sir Creek, which lies in the marshlands between Gujarat in India and Sind in Pakistan. And of most immediate importance, there is no change in attitudes to the Siachen region, a wasteland of mountains and glaciers high in the Karakoram beyond Kashmir, which since 1984 has been turned by India and Pakistan into the world's highest battlefield. After losing 139 soldiers and their civilian staff last month to an avalanche, the Pakistan Army has appealed for talks on the demilitarisation of Siachen. India has rebuffed that call, officially reiterating its stand that Pakistan must first authenticate India's higher and more advantageous positions before any military withdrawal. The Indian media narrative has taken an even harder line, with some suggesting that the Indian positions be permanently agreed as the boundary between Indian and Pakistani territory - thereby not only reinforcing the status quo, but also negating any possibility of a territorial compromise further down the road.
From an Indian point of view, focusing on trade first appears to make sense. With Pakistan's economy struggling and relations chilling with the United States, it too stands to gain from better trade. As Sadanand Dhume at the American Enterprise Institute argued in a discussion on Twitter, Pakistan should stop seeing better trade ties as a concession to India.
"Pakistan hurts itself by seeing trade as a concession to India. Pakistan's economy needs the boost much more than India's," he argued. "Robust economic ties will create constituencies for peace on both sides. In short, both sides would benefit from more trade even if neither budged an inch on Siachen, Sir Creek or Kashmir."
With its growing political and economic clout, India sees little reason to make early territorial concessions to Pakistan, especially with the wounds of the 2008 Mumbai attacks still raw, and the man it believes masterminded those attacks, Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafez Saeed, continuing to play an active public role. And increasingly, it has the United States on its side - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a visit to India this month to renew pressure on Pakistan to tackle Islamist militants - a choice of location that irked many Pakistanis. In short, according to the Indian view, Pakistan should take what is on offer for its own benefit, and what is on offer right now is better trade.
Wish Rex Mionor had offered a solution to the return of those 40,000 and odd Hindu pandits too into the Pak-occupied Kashmir region. Just in case his formula finds takers (without much of a complaint) from both the sides.
“Good that the jerk died”: When Web links go bad
The Indian Express published a story, filed from Lucknow, about the son of a local BJP bigwig who died after a security guard at a hospital shot him. The gunfight began after another guard told him and his flunkies to move his car from an illegal parking spot. The situation escalated, the goons beat the first guard, somebody drew his gun and that was that.
The Express told a straight story, but when the Web link (or “URL”) circulated on Twitter, someone made a change that made it look like the Express was expressing an opinion.
Here is the link: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/acha-hua-margaya-saala/947200/
Look at the second half of it:
“Acha hua mar gaya saala.”
More or less: “It’s good that the jerk died.”
That’s a comment best reserved for the opinion pages, and it’s not a particularly sophisticated or kind comment. My initial questions when I saw this on Thursday were: is there any way that someone outside the Express could have changed the URL? Or is this something that happened inside the newsroom?
I fail to understand why Obama and Romney example was given. Nevertheless, Indian Express is the last trustworthy thing in India to lose after Rajiv Gandhi.
Does India need ‘Bollywood activism’ to bring social change?
For India, it took a Bollywood actor’s weekend TV show to openly debate female foeticide, a rampant practice in parts of the country that has struggled with a lopsided sex ratio for decades.
The impact of the show Satyamev Jayate (Truth Alone Prevails) was evident when its host, actor Aamir Khan, convinced the chief minister of Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot, to help bring justice to women who have had to forcibly abort their foetuses.
Media reports say the Maharashtra state administration has also sought Khan’s help to prevent female foeticide.
Khan, one of the most popular Bollywood actors, has associated himself with various social causes in the past. But critics question his activism and say it is more to do with promoting an upcoming film.
Khan is perhaps the most outspoken Bollywood actor when it comes to social issues. But, when state governments like Rajasthan and Maharashtra wake up to issues as old as the pre-independence era merely through a TV show, it speaks volumes about the disconnect the administration has with its own people.
So how far will Aamir Khan’s activism go? And should actors endorse more social issues for more awareness? Share your views.
THE WAY IST SERIAL WAS TELECASTED SAME STEPS SHOULD BE KEPT IN MIND AAMIR CAN CHANGE UPTO SOME EXTENT.
from The Human Impact:
Climate change means doing Asian development differently
In the face of climate change, is it time to re-examine the way we do development in Asia?
For years, many developing countries have believed it can be only one or the other - economic growth or reducing carbon emissions.
But a new report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says it’s possible for countries in the Asia-Pacific region to do both.
"High human development usually means high emissions, but there are ways to do things differently," says Anuradha Rajivan, lead author of the report.
Everyone agrees that Asia-Pacific - which accounts for one-third of the world's greenhouse gases and is home to two-thirds of the world's poor - needs more economic growth if it is to lift millions of its people out of poverty.
But Asia must also do its part to address climate change, not only by adapting and preparing for extreme weather events, but also by reducing its carbon footprint, experts say.
PETA offers Kingfisher a vegan lift
One of the many benefits of vegetarianism, so animal rights activists say, is that it cures impotence. To that end, the global rights group PETA is offering a way to give flagging Kingfisher Airlines a lift.
The airline, once the flashiest in the Indian aviation industry with well-groomed hostesses and gourmet food, is struggling to stay upright after running up a debt of about $1.3 billion. It has been wooing investors, pleading with banks and sounding out anyone who could help.
Now, help is being offered from an unlikely quarter.
PETA has made a “tempting offer to help keep Kingfisher Airlines out of its financial crisis and flying sky-high”, the group said in a statement. Condition: The airline — whose advertisements once featured tastefully served lobsters and baked chicken — covers its planes with anti-non-vegetarianism slogans.
“Want Good Times? Go Vegan. Meat Consumption Leads to Impotence,” the slogans would say if Kingfisher accepts the proposal.
Impotence affects more than half of India’s males aged over 40, and this condition can be “prevented or even reversed” with a pure vegetarian diet, PETA says.
It’s certainly an innovative form of promoting PETA’s case, which “operates under the simple principle that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on or use for entertainment.”
Assam ferry tragedy not newsy enough?
On Monday, India’s remote northeastern state of Assam saw probably its biggest tragedy in recent memory, when an overloaded ferry carrying about 300 people sank in the Brahmaputra river, killing at least 103 people.
However, the bigger tragedy perhaps was the minimal coverage it got in the national media. Apart from The Hindu, which had the accident as its top story, none of the leading dailies in the country gave it much coverage beyond a mention on the front page.
Considering that the news first surfaced at around 6 p.m. on Monday, newspapers had ample time to give it more space if they so wished before they went to print, again putting the spotlight on the much-discussed question of whether the northeast is ignored by the national media.
“Has #Assam ferry tragedy been ignored on Twitter/ television? We’ll be RTing all responses,” the New York Times tweeted on Tuesday to a massive response.
What was even more interesting was to see prominent journalists posting tweets even as news channels kept speculating on a bail plea for a dentist accused of killing her daughter in New Delhi, and even more far-fetched speculations on India’s next president.
“Assam n northeast doesn’t mean anything to us! We r a nation obsessed with big cities n their celebs!” Twitter user Ambreen Zaidi wrote.
The recent tragedy is not an isolated instance. The same debate creeps up every time a major event happens in the remote northeast region, and the Indian media is accused of not giving it enough coverage.
Thanks for throwing the spotlights on this issue Anurag. Sad,but the truth is the majority of the Indian dailies and the media did not cover this tragedy but were too busy covering some trivial issues.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
India, Pakistan detente: don’t trust, verify every step
It's clear for some time now that India and Pakistan are on the cusp of the kind of open trade relationship they had until the 1965 war when all business links were snapped, border trading posts shut and overland Indian access to Afghanistan blocked. It was never to be the same again, despite fitful progress over the years.
On Saturday, the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has invested a great deal of personal credibility in a rapprochement with Pakistan, inaugurates a $4 billion refinery in the northern state of Punjab , not far from the border with Pakistan. While the bulk of the refinery, which is a joint venture between billionaire Lakshmi Mittal and an Indian state oil company will feed the hungry energy markets of India's booming northern triangle, it stands to reason that some of the fuel sales will flow westwards, to Pakistan. The distance from Bhatinda where the 9 million tonne refinery is located to Pakistan's heartland city of Lahore is about 100 miles. If you don't sell it to the market next door where else would you begin from ? Pakistan's refining capacity is half the domestic demand and last year it opened up diesel imports from India, although petrol and other petroleum products are still on a rapidly dwindling negative list.
If they begin piping fuel from the plant in Bhatinda to the Pakistani part of Punjab, and down the coast in Gujarat, if Reliance Industries' huge refining complex in Jamnagar ships products to Karachi, you can imagine the game-changing effects of such interlocking economic stakes. Next up will be the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline which has been hobbled not just by security fears in Afghanistan, but the deep distrust between India and Pakistan, the two big markets at the far end of the pipe. If Pakistan can buy refined fuel products from India, then perhaps New Delhi will have less fears about being held to ransom by Pakistani shutting off its natural gas supplies traversing through Pakistan soil.
Are the two over the hump then, ready to bury 65 years of hostility ? Not quite, going by an opposing series of actions. India fired off its longest range missile this month which scientists said gives it the capability to launch inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and within days Pakistan tested its own long range nuclear capable missile. While India can argue that the 5,000 km range Agni V was aimed at closing the deterrence gap with China, Pakistan's Shaheen missile which defence experts say is capable of hitting targets 2,500 km away brings virtually all of India in its range. You could ask why does Pakistan need long range missiles when it can target Delhi which is barely 700 kms from Islamabad. Presumably the idea is to negate India's strategic depth that Pakistan does not have. Then there is a steady Indian conventional arms buildup in line with its growing economy, and again, to find some level of parity with China. But some of that armour including state-of-the-art Rafale fighter planes, an aircraft carrier and nuclear-powered submarines could just as well be deployed on the west.
There is similarly little forward movement on the hot-button territorial disputes that have kept the two countries apart . Last month's tragic accident in Siachen in northern Kashmir where 138 Pakistani soldiers and civilians were buried in rock and ice brought the focus back on a remote high altitude battlefield that many believe is best left untouched, given its questionable strategic value. Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, responding to calls from anguished countrymen, said the civilian and military leaders of the two countries should hold talks to resolve the brutal standoff in the icy mountains. But the general's call has met with a measured response from New Delhi which wants the positions of the two armies to be authenticated before considering a withdrawal from the remote area. This along with the row over Sir Creek off the Arabian Sea was considered a low-hanging fruit which the two sides could pluck before tackling the dispute over Kashmir, really at the core of the decades of hostility.
But distrust has only deepened over the years, and as Vikram Sood former head of India's external intelligence agency wrote recently, Pakistan's refusal to accept the actual positions of the troops - in which India holds the advantage - only sows suspicion in the Indian mind that should there be a withdrawal from the Saltoro heights, Pakistan would "want to alter the position at first dawn." It would be another folly on the lines of returning 90,000 prisoners and territory sezied from Pakistan after the 1971 war without permanently resolving disputes with the country, he says.
Watch the visit of USA foreign minister to China? The treasury man accompanied the visit; China has served the notice, either the USA reduce its spending in line with its earning or China is going to unload its dollar reserves and USA teasury bonds in the open market and let the market deal with the worthless paper dollars! Nor very roasy days for the remaining period of the current USA admin. The voters are not going to reward the incumbet President for causing the death of an old man in Abbotabad! So stop praising your heroic act?
Rex Minor
India needs a tough hostage policy
The abductions of two Italians and two government officials by Maoist guerrillas in just over a month must have left Indian authorities with a sense of déjà vu as they search for ways to end the cycle of negotiations and eventual accession to demands made by the rebels.
For the Maoists, who say they are fighting for people left out of India’s economic boom, the tactic of taking hostages instead of engaging soldiers brings huge dividends — obtaining freedom for jailed comrades and suspension of military ‘combing’ operations in areas controlled by them.
The method is not new, with government records showing hundreds of kidnappings since 2008 by Maoists, who have fought for decades in a wide swathe of central and eastern India including many resource-rich regions. Authorities stumble along on a case-by-case basis because there is no set procedure on how to handle such situations.
But the recent pattern of high-profile abductions which have grabbed national headlines have worried the central government enough to consider drafting a long overdue policy on dealing with hostage situations.
Countries like the U.S., with its “no negotiation” policy and Israel’s deadly responses to militant attacks have all been contrasted to India’s handling of hostage crises, which most agree is not tough enough to stop or discourage future cases.
No details are known of the policy draft, but for any policy to be effective, India must shed its ‘soft’ image and include the politically risky option of rescue operations, without which the only option of hostage release in most cases is agreeing to the abductors’ demands.
And there are quite a few precedents to learn from – starting from the famous 1999 ‘Kandahar Hijacking’ where three Kashmiri militants were released, to the recent events in Orissa where authorities freed a Maoist leader’s imprisoned wife and promised to facilitate the release of several other rebels.
//Many recent editorials in the media have called on the government to get tough on anti-state elements, with some even advocating a ‘no negotiation’ policy.//
Well said. But India being federal in nature things almost always need to go through a definitive set of meetings with whoever involved in tackling the Maoists menace at the state level. The recent meeting on NCTC (a Center- formulated bill prescribing a stricter control of terrorism) has exposed many shortcomings as far as allocating powers to the states are concerned. The very states (notably Tamil Nadu and Gujarat) who raised a ‘hue and cry’ at the meet for they believed the bill might infringe upon the constitutionally drawn state rights, have often resorted to extra-judicial killings in dealing with crime inside their territories.
Our culture has a great phrase for this “vinash kale vipreet buddhi”. Just about sums up everything the Govt is doing.