Media Watch (April 14)
The Kashmir valley should have been in seasonal bloom, but was, alas, in flames following multiple armed encounters between Indian security forces and jihadi terrorists in Shopian and Anantag, with 12 of the latter and three soldiers losing their lives. To this list must be included four civilians. Around 100 stone-throwing protestors were injured as the security forces replied with tear gas and gun fire. Pro-jihadi protestors appeared in force, raining stones on the police and army. Train services in the Valler were suspended and schools, colleges and shops closed.
Hurriyat strike call
Separatist Hurriyat leadership including Syed Ali Shah Geelani,Mirwaz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik were arrested. Geelani wants Kashmir to merge with Pakistan, while Yasin Malik calls for an independent Kashmir, issued a two-day strike call. Meanwhile General Officer Commanding, Lt General A.K Bhatt, briefing the media, said: ‘Among the slain terrorists, two were involved in the killing of Lt Umar Fayez in May 2017.’ The dead terrorists were named as Rayees Thokar and Ishfaq who belonged to the Hizbul Mujahideen.
Intelligence inputs rise
According to the Jammu and Kashmir police chief S.M. Vaid, most of the jihadis were post-2016 recruits. The silver lining is the active cooperation of ordinary families and the intelligence they supply which in recent times have enabled security forces from mounting coordinated strikes to devastating effect (Hindu 2, 5)
The challenge posed by Hurriyat is not simply local; it has wider ramifications, key to which is the establishment of an Islamic state, engineered by external players such as IIS, al Qaeda and Taliban. The consequences for Indian security would be dire if this were to fructify.
Dalits on rampage
Dalits across north India went on a rampage believing their rights as a disadvantaged community were being diluted by a Supreme Court order. The central government, in desperate straits, appealed to the court to revisit its ruling. However, the court turned down the appeal, arguing that no erosion or affront to Dalit sensibilities were envisaged in its judgment, which had only addressed abuses and infringement of individual rights. Dalit agitation, said the justices, was based on misperception. Be that as it may, continuing sporadic violence against Dalits and the lack of jobs may sparked the violence but provided no enduring solution.
Violence no solution
Violence is counter-productive. It makes the situation even more fraught in an endless cycle of frustration and despair. A work by a Mumbai-based author several years ago told of the careers of millionaire Dalits, who had returned to the villages of their childhood and youth to engage in philanthropic activity, one of which was to restore derelict temples from which had once between forbidden to enter because of their alleged lowly birth.Progress may have been slower than desired, but violence has nothing tangible to offer in the long or short run. (Times of India, Economic Times, Hindu April 3)
RSS appeal
Surprisingly, it was the RSS leadership who injected common sense and a measure of vision. RSS head Mohan Bhagwat said there was no place factionalism in the making of a new India, that terms like ‘Congress-free India’ or ‘Sangh-free India’ had polarized political life in the country. The opposition as much the government had a constructive role in nation building, he said, which was encouraging to hear and read (Hindu April 2)
Educational Rankings
The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore has continued its dominance in the higher education category. Among the other institutions of merit were IIT-Madras in second place, with the foremost record in engineering; IIT-Bombay came third, IIT-Delhi fourth, IIT-Kharagpur fifth, JNU-Delhi sixth, IIT-Kanpur seventh, IIT-Roorkie eighth, BHU ninth and Anna University, Chennai 10th; IIT-Guwahati dropped from the list of first ten IITs to 12th place.
Top colleges
Miranda House, Delhi, was ranked first, St Stephen’s College, Delhi second, Bishop Heber Tiruchirappali (Kerala) third, Hindu College, Delhi fourth and Presidency College, Chennai, fifth. Also on the list were Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi, and Lady Shri Ram college, Delhi.
Medical institutes
First was ,AIIMs, Delhi, second PGIMER, Chandigarh, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, fifth, King George’s Medical University, Lucknow.
Management
IIM Ahmedabad, first, IIM Bangalore, second, IIM Calcutta, third, IIM, Lucknow, fourth, IIM, Bombay, fifth L
Law
Three top places in this category are: National Law School of India, Bangalore, National Law University, Delhi, and Nalsar University of Law, Hyderabad. The categories in the above list were made by the Ministry of Human Resource Development in Delhi (Times of India April 4)
Chennai company buys top Serbian brand
Leading Chennai-based tractor manufacturer and exporter, TAFE, has bought iconic Serbian tractor and agriculture equipment brand IMT. Industrija Masina I Traktora, the Belgrade-based tractor brand was one of the largest manufacturers of agricultural machinery in the region before it slipped into bankruptcy and ceased production in 2015. Mallika Srinivasan, CEO of TAFE said she could neither confirm nor deny the rumoured price of the acquisition.
‘With the acquisition by TAFE, the production, the generation, the production of IMT tractors is expected to recommence in about 12 months’ time. We will support them with the supply of components and aggregates for the rollout of of tractors.’ (Business Line April 4)
JLR India for new models as sales surge
Tata Motors Jaguar Land Rover announced plans to bring new products in India during 2018-19 in response to the extraordinary 83 per cent surge in its sales last fiscal ending March 31. ‘Our sales were driven almost equally by the Jaguar and Land Rover brands,’ said JLR India Managing Director Rohit Suri (Business Line April 4)
Maruti’s 50 per cent market share
Maruti Suzuki has 50 per cent market share. The country’s biggest car maker sold 1.5 million units for the first time since its arrival in India three decades ago. It has been an astonishing rise rom near obscurity to luminous eminence. Maruti Suzuki Chairman R.C. Bhagarva said the company’s investment in diesel technology when the fuel was cheaper than petrol, as well as in new models and sales networks had helped it expand its market share. It has been a performance of legendary scale, a niche in India’s industrial history like no other brand (Economic Times April 4)
Setback for GSLV 6A
GSLV SAT 6A Mission designed for a geosynchronous position 36,000 km above Earth ran into difficulty in the third manoevre to raise its orbit when communications with the satellite from ISRO’s ground control station were lost. Attempts to restore communications have thus far been unsuccessful, but efforts are still being made to retrieve the situation. The mission has not been officially aborted but hopes of doing so are receding by the day.
India pips Japan in steel production
In a major shift in the tectonic plates, India has passed Japan as the world’s second largest manufacturer of raw steel. China is first in league producing 50 per cent of the world’s total. India surpassed the US in 2015. India’s current steel production stands at 933.11 million tones. Nikunj Turakhia, of the Steel Users Federation of India, said: ‘ The government has taken a host of steps to curb imports, push local demand with initiatives like “Make in India”, implementing GST and fast tracking projects, to encourage the domestic market.’ The Steel Ministry was working on a road map to increase steel production to 300 million tonnes by 2030. ‘In addition, quick resolution of various big-ticket steel mills under IInsolvency and Bankruptcy Code and the National Company Law Tribunal is expected to further hasten higher capacity.’ ( Hindu April 5)
India, Russia to bolster defence ties
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her Russian counterpart General Sergey Shoigu held a bilateral meeting in Moscow to discuss ways to reinforce cooperation between their countries. ‘The talks were aimed at reinforcing defence cooperation focusing specifically on M ilitary Technical Cooperation,’ the Defence M inister’s official Twitter handle said. Ms Sitharaman is attending the Seventh Moscow Conference on IInternational Security (Hindu April 5)
India, Japan, US naval Cooperation
Representatives of India, Japan and the United States met in New Delhi for the 9th trilateral conference on keeping sea lanes secure and functioning. The statement issued at the conclusion of their deliberations reads: ‘The officials reviewed the outcome of the Trilateral Infrastructure Working Group that met in Washington in February and agreed to continue to collaborate to promote increased connectivity in the Indo-Pacific.’ The officials explored practical steps to enhance cooperation in the areas of connectivity and infrastructure development, counter proliferation, counter-terrorism, maritime security, maritime domain awareness and human assistance and disaster relief.’ (Hindu April 5)
Monsoon forecasts Encouraging
The monsoon this year is likely to be normal with no prospect of a drought, according to private forecaster Skynet. Normal rainfall meant getting to within 4 per cent error. While June is June is likely to receive excess rainfall, there could be a deficit in July and August, the critical monsoon months and crucial for a good harvest. The official India Meteorological Department with its long-range estimate will be announced next week (HHHHHHHHHHindu, Business Line April 5)
Comment Page [April 14] Diplomatic chessboard challenges intellect, vision
Knee jerk responses to developments on the international chessboard are not what a good doctor would advise. Around a month and more ago, a retired Indian diplomat penned a column worthy of Rip van Winkle, the man who awoke from his sleep to discover that had he had slept through a century and that the surrounds once familiar to him had changed beyond recognition.
Similarly, our retired diplomat, awakening to unfamiliar reality, asked that the new world around him be reconstructed to fit the halcyon dream of a past age, now consigned to memory and dusty, discarded shelves in a disused attic. His preposterous suggestion was that India should ignore the contemporary great powers and opt for a leadership role of non-aligned states. Who might these be, one may well ask? The faded picture accompanying his piece provided his answer: a jocular Jawaharlal Nehru in the middle with Abdel Gamel Nasser to his right and Josip Broz Tito on his left, each brimming optimism of the sunshine days when life appeared worth living. The hallucinatory embrace of history in the making has long dissolved into nightmare for Egypt and for the once buoyant Yugoslavia.
Egypt today is a crippled tree: military rule, the dispossessed Muslim Brotherhood, jihadi terrorism, stagnant economy and sullen population, reflecting a state of nullity devoid of purpose. Yugoslavia has disappeared from the map, destroyed by NATO bombing and ethnic discords. The once heroic Tito, darling of Western establishments, was consigned to the bin as a tyrannical communist. Tito, like Gorbachev after him, consumed by the flattery and attention of the great and good in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin, failed to read the signs. Strutting on the stage, they were duly cast into predestined oblivion when their roles were done.
Our retired diplomat, alas, is addicted to the nostrums of Ptolomy in the age of Copernicus. Fundamental truths cannot be discarded on a whim. Nor can ground realities. Some people of diminishing importance are given to pontificating on the four poles of global power, namely the United States, the Russian Federation, China and the European Union. Here, also, physics and mathematics are seriously flawed.
The crisis between the West and Russia has less to do with the poisoning of a former Russian spy working for Britain and that of his daughter and is more a tale of geopolitical rivalry. With the credibility of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson increasingly tarnished, with the European Union exposed as an American stalking horse, we see unfolding before us a potential conflict with murderous consequences. This is no new cold war in likeness to its previous incarnation in which red lines were drawn and respected, but combustible rules of engagement prefiguring Armageddon.
President Trump’s mood swings and the craven loyalty of America’s European satraps is a cause for alarm. The American Empire’s acquisitive instincts, first revealed in the Monroe Doctrine of the early 1820s, and continuing through the westward expansion to the Pacific Ocean involved the genocide of the indigenous communities of the North American plain and entrenched black slavery the legacy starkly self-evident in the country’s oppressive inner city ghettos and overstocked prisons. ‘The pursuit of happiness’ exalted in the Constitution is reserved for the wealthy and privileged.
The accumulated riches in the early post-war years have been squandered in war without end. South East Asia was ravaged, the Korean Peninsula made desolate, the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki subjected to the world’s only nuclear assault, the Greater Middle East, from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya destroyed, with a Biblical exodus across the Mediterranean a living witness to unending horror and a society back home wracked by gun violence, low inner city education, social deprivation and much else. The search for an elusive security is manic, as is the detection of national enemies.
Such is the first of the multiple realities that foreign policy makers must ponder. India is no exception to the rule. Located in a fraught neighbourhood, requires a calibrated response to choices of policies with promising dividends. Harsh Pant, the London-based academic, went viral at what he perceived to be India’s ‘supine’ Chinapolicy. India stands by its position on Doklan, has not given way to Chinese claims to Arunachal Pradesh, or signed up to membership of China’s One Belt One Road club. Nor has India ceased to strengthen its military presence on its northern border, or opt for an exotic Hare Krishna pacifism. Quite the opposite. India designed, manufactured and recently tested its very own seeker technology to service the fearsome supersonic BrahMos cruise missile, its range extended from 290km to 400km and soon to be increased to 600km. In a topsy-turvy world, India has decided to engage with China. It is the sensible thing to do. Mindless truculence is posturing, firing a blank and captivated by the sound.
Whither Indo-Nepal relations?
Indo-Nepal relations, determined geography, culture and shared history have been close and are surely destined to remain so going forward into the 21st and beyond. Tranquility has given way occasionally to bursts of turbulence, followed by restored peace. The visit to India by the new Prime Minister of Nepal, Khadga Prasad Sharma Oily, has been awaited with interest on both sides of the border. During his first tenure in office, Nepal’s relations with India were stressful. Prime Minister Oily accused India of interfering in Nepal’s domestic politics through its perceived support for the Nepali Madhesi agitation for greater recognition of their place in the country during nationwide consultations on a new democratic constitution to replace centuries-old monarchical rule. Situated on the Nepali plains adjacent to the Indian border, the Madhesi leadership made their point be blockading the roads and highways from India to the capital Kathmandu and into the Nepali interior. So much for the troubled past, which Prime Minister Sharma Oily hoped to put behind him. That period was done and dusted. The Madhesis had joined the mainstream, a free and democratic nation election had voted him to power. His prime concern now, like that of his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, was to tackle corruption, promote development and prosperity. That was the best way forward to a workable future.
Asked about the slow progress of Indian projects in Nepal, he accepted that this a problem which would be addressing in his discussions with Prime Minister Modi. Nepal was a sovereign country and was watchful on any possible dilution of its sovereignty. Nepal had an even-handed approach to ties with India and China, each crafted with an eye to the national interest. Nobody would fault Prime Minister Oily making the priority of Nepal’s well-being the cornerstone of his foreign policy. Why ever not? India obeys similar compulsions, as do most countries, if not in deeds, certainly in words.
If there was a resemblance to discordance, it was Mr Oily’s reference to Pakistan’s view that the South Asian grouping known by the acronym SAARC should be reactivated. Under normal circumstances, yes, but conditions are far from normal. Jihadi attacks on Mumbai, India’s financial capital, have resulted in horrendous losses of life and property. Such attacks have occurred elsewhere in India. The sine qua non of a normalized Indo-Pakistan relationship is the cessation of Pakistani support of terror groups as an instrument of its foreign policy. It is not too much to ask.
No citizen is above the law
The rule of law entails obedience to the law. That was where the Bollywood megastar Salman Khan transgressed. He was accused of poaching two black bucks designated as an endangered species. The deed was committed on the night of October 12, 1998, when he, fellow actors and a crew were shooting for a film. They were acquitted for lack of evidence. Mr Khan was deemed guilty as charged and sentenced to five years in jail, and was led to the Jodhpur Central jail to serve his sentence. Chief Judicial Magistrate Dev Kumar Khatri read out his 201-page judgment upholding the law and punishing the transgressor, however eminent he might be.
The Bishnoi community, wedded to the sacredness of nature and its creatures great and small fought for justice for 19 years. Justice was eventually done and seen to be done, much to satisfaction of the humble Bishnois. The wheels of justice grind slow, they grind exceeding well. Mr Khan was released on bail, pending an appeal.
