You went to a Catholic college but most Indians must be Naxals, dear
Sri Sri, because they went to government schools?

By JOHN DAYAL

Mukund Murari Singh of Haridwar and Ravi Shankar Ratnam of Bengaluru
do not know each other, but Singh does not like what Ratnam says. In
a rejoinder on the internet to well publicised speech of Ratnam,
Mukund Murari Singh rubbished his claim that students who go to
government schools end up as Naxalites. “Dear Mr Sri Sri, I did my
schooling from Government Schools (Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan)
across the length and breadth of India. I also completed my
engineering from a Government College (IIT). I assure you, none of my
classmates or me have ended up as Naxals. Ignorant statements like
these reek of upper-class ignorance and indifference. Sincerely, Proud
Indian and a Patriot.”

Ravi Shankar Ratnam, as everyone knows, is the name Sri Sri Ravi
Shankar was born with before he heeded a complaint from Pandit Ravi
Shankar, the Sitar maestro, not to copy his name. In 1990, the former
student of Maharishi Yogi shed the Ratnam, added two Shris and
founded the Art of Living movement, going on to open an ashram and an
NGO in Geneva, the city of the United Nations offices. His official
website, and his hagiographers, will of course not tell you such
interesting titbits. They are busy rewriting a nice persona for him.
His official bio notes he was a child prodigy, reciting the classics
at age four, and graduating in Physics at age seventeen. A little
research unearths the fact that he studied at St Joseph’s college in
Bangalore, as it was then, and graduated at the more normal age of
twenty-one.

Sri Sri, to use the name h gave himself rather than the one his
parents did, is not unknown to controversy. He has drawn much flack
for his absolute support to Hindutva and to the “sants” of the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad, the same ones who so strongly supported the demolition
of the Babri Masjid and the hate campaign against Christians. Sri Sri
will not be remembered for any major campaign in support of the Muslim
victims of the 2002 Gujarat violence or the 2008 pogrom against
Christians. He also has a controversial position on Kashmir, taking a
hyper nationalist and religious line that entirely ignores the
suffering of the Muslim population of the valley at the hands of not
just the terrorists, but the Army and paramilitary forces garrisoned
there for their protection. When the chips are down, Sri Sri has the
exact same position as any other Hindu religious persona in the corral
of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh.

It is not surprising that with his ideological mooring, Sri Sri takes
a “nationalist” position on political dissenters and those who rebel
against administrative and political situations that lead to large
scale internal displacement, cast violence, usury in farm loans and
the alienation of forests and tribal lands to Indian and national
monopolies. This is the conclusion I reached after a solitary
interaction with him at Vellankani during an annual general meeting of
the Conference of Catholic Priests of India not too long ago. It is a
moot question if the god man understand the factors that have led as
many as nine states of the Indian union, as an effective ground for
the Maoists, the contemporary inheritors of the Naxalite image. One
is tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt in statements he
makes. Specially since he has backtracked, as explained in his
statement made in the holy city of Haridwar on 24 March., when he
clarified that not “all” students of government schools were becoming
Naxalites. “Children who have joined the Naxal movement, most of them
have come out of the government schools. This same statement has also
been said by Mr. Jairam Ramesh, Union Rural Development Minister, on
January 22, that the Maoists have recruited these children from tribal
and government schools. But I never said that all students coming out
of government school are becoming Naxalites, there have been some
really talented students who have come out of these schools as well.
The lack of spiritual and moral education in government schools has
made the students of these schools more vulnerable to join the
Maoists. The truth is that I never said that all such students are of
violent tendency, but those children who have shown such tendency have
not come out of mission schools where moral and spiritual education is
imparted without generalizing it.” he added.

This certainly was an improvement on his original reported statement
which, simplified further by news agency reporters and headline
writers, had said that state-run schools are turning into a breeding
ground for Maoists. “I feel that all state-run schools and colleges
should be privatised and that the government should not run any
school. Often it is seen that students from government schools end up
as Maoists or militants,” news agencies had reported him saying at
Jaipur. The threat of spreading extreme ideologies stemmed from a lack
of quality education. “All regions, which are inflicted with Maoists
and militancy do not have good schools. If students are able to get
education instilled with Indian values, they will never deviate onto
the path of violence and corruption,” he had said at the silver
jubilee celebration of Adarsh Vidya Mandir Jaipur in Ambabari.

The Adarsh Vidya Mandir school is run by the RSS. The RSS, through its
Ekal Vidyalaya programme, has promised to set up a school each in the
country’s 500,000 villages in India. It already has several thousand
of such schools. It is another point that at the village level
schools, the RSS has kept its academic programme out of official
scrutiny. The educational standards, teachers qualifications – in many
schools, there is just one teacher – and the curricula and pedagogy
have never been examined by the state and central governments and
their agencies. Religious minorities have charged these schools with
the teaching of a warped Indian history and a focus on hate for
minorities and against those who do not fit the Sangh definition of
nationalism and patriotism.
The guru could not go unchallenged. Teachers present at the function
protested,, as did others. The Art of Living volunteers present at the
main gate got into a heated argument with the protesting teachers who
demanded a public apology for the remark. Police present in the
auditorium swung to action and disperse the teachers outside the
venue. A criminal complaint was later filed by local lawyers -
Surendra Dhaka, Jai Prakash Sharma and Manu Pancholi – in a lower
court charging Sri Sri with the offence of spreading hatred in society
and defaming people passing out of government schools. “We also feel
that his statement is anti-Constitution as it goes against Article 21-
A where the government is bound to provide free and compulsory
education to children of the age group six to 14 years,” one of the
petitioners said. “Ravi Shankar is reproducing the ideology of hate as
presented by Golwalkar and Savarkar which schools like Adarsh Vidya
Mandir teach in the country when he said that Adarsh schools should be
set up everywhere in the name of Bharatiya Sanskriti,” said Kavita
Srivastava, general secretary of PUCL

Sri Sri has however still not clarified that when he talks of private
schools full of culture and tradition and values, he is referring to
just Christian, or Muslim and, more plausible, Hindu missionary
schools including such as run by the RSS, the RK Misison and the Anlgo
Vaidic societies, or is he talking of private schools run by
mercenaries, fly by night operators, and big corporations who run high
income chains, branding their schools as so much merchandise. Of the
last, the Delhi Public School society is one example, with schools in
every state, practically, an several abroad. One school in Delhi
offers its rich clientele – there is no other word to describe the
families who send their wards here – not just education with a
laptop for everyone in the totally air conditioned building, but
also such extra curricular as golf, horse riding and polo and,
indoors, billiards. The fees is perhaps Rs 50,000. A school in
Bengaluru, I was authoritatively told, charges Rs 10,00,000. Even a
school run by the society named after the philosopher Jiddu
Krishnamurthy charges Rs 100,000.

The Sage of Bengaluru – his ashram is in the countryside outside the
IT city – could more fruitfully have called for a learned and
constructive debate on how to reach quality education to every child
in the age group of 6 years onwards covered in the Right to Education
Act, in effect to every young citizen of India, be he or she be born
in a hut in a hamlet or in a hospital in a metropolis.

As the data goes, less than 20 per cent of children go to private
schools. Researchers Geeta Kingdom and colleagues say “In India,
human capital formation has traditionally occurred in government
funded schools but since liberalisation in 1991, private schools
increasingly offer an alternative. According to household survey
data, private schooling participation in rural India has grown from
10% in 1993 to 23 percent of the student population in 2007; this is
much higher than in most developed countries. Private school
participation is considerably higher in urban India. The high demand
hints at dissatisfaction with government schooling and the superior
results of private schools suggest that these schools may do a better
job, on average, than government schools.

They however record that private schools in India have generally less
qualified teachers than government schools and operate using much
lower levels of capital. However, private schools operate within the
market and as a result have strong incentives to be competitive.
Private schools hire teachers who often do not have a teaching
certificate and pay them a fraction of the salaries of government
schools, but they hire more teachers to reduce class sizes. The heads
have far greater control over hiring and firing of teachers and thus
are able to exhibit tighter control, have higher attendance and only
retain effective teachers.

Observers note that the “opportunity for the business of education in
India” is huge. India has the world’s largest population of school
going children at over 200 million. There are only about 75,000
private schools in India. While some of the ultra rich schools have
found avenues to bend the law by sharp auditing practices, schools
have to, by law, remain non profit. Human Resource Development
Minister Kapil Sibal is on record saying those seeking to make profits
out of schools “can take a hike”. According to a research report
published in January 2009 by IDFC SSKI, only $180 million of private
equity investment has taken place in the formal education sector –
from playschools, to coaching classes, online tutoring and digital
content for schools.

According to research studies, of the total schools, about 87.30
percent schools are located in the rural areas. The number of primary
schools has increased 8,09,108, influenced by the impact of Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan under which a large number of schools have been
opened. As of 30th September 2008, as many as 1,26,335 primary and
48,994 upper primary schools/sections have been opened under
Government management since the inception of SSA.

The condition of schools run by the government is improving from its
dark ages in the 1970s and 1980s before Operation Blackboard and other
Missions were launched. There still remain many schools without
blackboards About 88 percent of the 1.29 million schools that impart
elementary education in the country now have drinking water facility
in school. And 67 percent schools in the country now have access to
common toilets in 2008-09 compared to only 62.67 percent in the
previous year, government data shows. More than 50 percent of total
1.29 million schools now have girl’s toilet compared to 50.55 percent
in the previous year. 14 percent schools have computer in schools
with percentage of such schools as high as 85.88 percent in
Chandigarh, 85.84 percent in Delhi, 79.93 percent in Kerala and 89.74
percent in Lakshadweep compared to only 0.68 percent in Bihar and 3.59
percent such schools in Uttar Pradesh.

Researchers say enrolment both at the primary and upper primary level
of education has also increased significantly. The enrolment increased
from 101.16 million in 2002-03 to 131.85 million in 2006-07 and
further to 134.38 million in 2008-09. Over a period of time, enrolment
in upper primary classes has also shown consistent increase. From a
low of 37.72 million in 2004-05, it has increased to 53.35 million in
2008-09.

A very significant research finding is that at the primary level, the
share of Scheduled caste and Scheduled Tribe enrolment with respect to
total enrolment works out to 19.94 and 11.68 percent respectively.
Notably, at all levels, government schools are the main providers of
educational needs of both SC and ST children. The share of OBC
enrolment in the elementary classes is 42.26 percent. The apparent
survival rate (to Grade V) improved to 76 percent in 2008-09. This is
also reflected in retention rate at primary level which is estimated
to be 75 percent.
The national government educational data is staggering in all
segments. The total number of teachers in 2008-09 suggests that about
5.79 million teachers are engaged in teaching in schools imparting
elementary education in the country. The data also shows appointment
of a large number of teachers across the country consequent to the
Sarva Siksha Abhiyan.

The curricula – much of it approved and formulated by the National
Centre for Educational Research and Training, NCERT, brings a certain
uniformity is the standard of education. It is no one’s point that the
government’s – both state and central – educational programme can be
at par with the best in the private sector. But many government
schools, especially those run by the centre, compete effectively with
their private counterparts in the results for the Class Tenth and
Twelfth board examinations. Much remains to be done to make education
a reality for every single child, and even more remains in the areas
of higher education, vocational studies and brining technological
courses to rural India, but the progress has been significant.

And there is no data available from the Bureau of Police Research and
Development has no data that would go to show that students of
government schools, and colleges, join the Maoists any more than
anyone else.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar will, perhaps, next time not take on the very,
very large alumni of government schools, or the collective might of
the teaching faculty.
- The writer is a prominent human rights activist & former Editor of Mid Day (New Delhi).

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By Pervez Hoodbhoy

Islamabad: Many Pakistanis living and working in Kabul say they feel a palpable hostility towards them once their nationality becomes known. Some occasionally pretend to be Indians, which brings more acceptability. If this anecdotal evidence indicates an actual truth, then it is worrisome. In principle Afghans should like Pakistanis better; they share a common religion and the Pakhtun populations on either side of the border have strong kinship links. Indians have much less in common with Afghans and so should be liked less. So what explains the present situation, and what can Pakistan do to change things?

Relations between neighbouring states everywhere, and their people, tend to be complicated: countries sharing a common border often secretly meddle in each other’s affairs. Pakistan and Afghanistan have also played games with each other. Much before the 1979 Soviet invasion, Afghanistan had been an irritating but innocuous adversary with its territorial claims on NWFP. When General Mohammed Daud Khan supported the Pakhtunistan movement, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto proceeded to sponsor Islamic militancy in Afghanistan. After this was launched in the Panjsheer Valley under Ahmad Shah Massoud, Daud got the message and backed off.

Pakistan might have resisted the urge to interfere again but for the Soviet invasion. Thereafter it became a willing pawn for new American ambitions in the region. Under General Ziaul Haq, Pakistan soon joined up with the United States and Saudi Arabia to launch the first truly global jihad of history. This was to turn into the CIA’s largest ever covert operation — a successful one.

The Soviets would soon be defeated and Zia had plans for Afghanistan. In an interview to American journalist, Selig Harrison, he said: “All right, you Americans wanted us to be a front-line state. By helping you, we have earned the right to have a regime in Afghanistan to our liking. We took risks as a front-line state, and we won’t permit it to be like it was before, with Indian and Russian influence there and claims on our territory. It will be a real Islamic state, a real Islamic confederation. We won’t have passports between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It will be part of a pan-Islamic revival that will one day win over the Muslims in the Soviet Union, you will see.”

This dream temporarily soured after General Musharraf’s post-9/11 double-dealing with the ISI’s progeny, the Taliban. But it never went away. If the present series of Difah-e-Pakistan rallies across the country are indeed sponsored by the Pakistan Army, then it has sprung back to life.

The eagerness to put ‘our boys’ back into the driving seat in Kabul is driven by the impending 2014 US withdrawal. The GHQ’s strategic planners see India and Iran manipulating events in an effort to secure undue influence in the Afghan government. The conclusion they draw is that proxy forces should once again be fielded for gaining positional advantage in the fight to come.

But such earlier manipulations have had catastrophic consequences for the people of Afghanistan, which explains why so many Afghans are unhappy with us. In a prescient essay written in 1995, the late Eqbal Ahmad had seen disaster coming: “the quest of a mirage misnamed ‘strategic depth’ — has deeply alienated trusty old allies while closing the door to new friendships. Its national security managers have in fact squandered historic opportunities and produced a new set of problems for Pakistan’s security.”

The Taliban, who had then just emerged, turned out to be the most retrograde political movement in the history of Islam. These lords of war did to the people of Afghanistan what the people of Swat were to see many years later. They proscribed music and sports in Afghanistan, inflicted harsh punishments upon men for trimming their beards, flogged taxi drivers for carrying women passengers, prevented sick women from being treated by male physicians, and banished girls from schools and women from the work place. Iran denounced the new Pakistan-supported victors as “fanatical, medieval Taliban” after they slaughtered 5,000 Shias in Bamiyan province.

Today some local commentators, with an eye towards pleasing GHQ, are arguing that the ‘new Taliban’ are different from the ‘old Taliban’. But these are facile claims, unsupported by evidence. Afghanistan is now a war-devastated country and Pakistan, like the Soviet Union and the United States, shares responsibility for this. Rather than ‘gift’ Afghans a second round of Taliban rule using the ‘strategic assets’ based in Quetta and North Waziristan, we must make amends.

There is much that Pakistan can offer in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Surely we can build roads just as well as the Indians, or perhaps better. Afghanistan has just built its first railroad with assistance from China and Iran. Pakistan, which inherited an extensive railroad network from the British, should have been there to help. Like India, Pakistan can help train Afghan police officers, diplomats and civil servants, as well provide support in the areas of health, education, transportation, power, and telecommunications.

If Pakistan has to compete with India on various internationally funded reconstruction projects, then so be it. That is a choice for Afghans to make, not us. It is time that our TV defence analysts stopped trotting out the simplistic argument that India’s two billion dollars aid to Afghanistan since 9/11, and thousands of Indian construction workers, somehow endanger Pakistan. Are these workers actually commandos poised for raids against Pakistan? There is nothing to stop us from giving Afghanistan an even larger amount, and sending more of our skilled manpower across the border for help in construction projects.

If Pakistanis are to be welcomed in Kabul someday, we must change the way we are perceived across the border. This will require our military planners to give up their false and deadly dreams of strategic depth and regime change. They must not be allowed to forget the awful price Pakistan and Afghanistan have had to pay because of their proxy wars, and the damage inflicted by a cynical manipulation of politics inside and outside our borders. Suicide bombings have ravaged Pakistan, threatened minorities are fleeing, the rule of law has been badly damaged, and social peace has been replaced with strife. These are squarely the result of a foreign policy gone awry.

Source: Express Tribune, Viewpoint Online

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By Carol Mann

Blood minerals, hitherto associated mainly with African countries and especially with the Democratic Republic of Congo are about to spread eastwards in the direction of Afghanistan.

The UN has just revealed staggering figures. Despite promises to the contrary, in one year, the production of Afghan heroin has increased by 61 %. Before the US and NATO intervention which began in 2001, the official figures were 185 tons a year (a symbolic figure as everyone knows that illicit production fuelled both Taliban and assorted warlords, included the much glorified Massoud). Today, it is estimated at 5 800 tons (not accounting for the unofficial quantities) ! Hardly a success story for the coalition or the Afghan government. This is not to say that Mullah Omar’s reign were the good old days and that his hand chopping technique was supremely effective. All the more that the present-day Taliban and their presently close-shaven look-alikes are savvy, I-Phone totting businessmen, with their (male) offspring) as rumour has it, going to top business schools in order to develop family fortunes.

Naturally, you don’t become the world’s leading narco-state without establishing the right kind of contacts with banks, mafias, professional money launderers etc. Opacity is the name of the game

None of this can be considered a scoop of any kind. However, it begs the following question : is this nightmarish situation about to provide the business model for the burgeoning mining ventures that are emerging all over Afghanistan. All-precious lithium (used for batteries in computers and cell phones) in the first place, gold, copper, iron ore, copper, cobalt, lead, petroleum, natural gas are all there in abundance ; not to mention previous and semi-precious stones. The Chinese got the rights to the huge Aynak copper deposits in 2007- a bonanza year for Peking as they also signed a similarly mind-boggling contract with the Democratic Republic of Congo, bagging its main resources in exchange of building an increasingly unlikely infrastructure in the war-torn country.

Now a lot of sinister parallels can be drawn between both countries: the overpowering presence of mineral resources essential to modern life, especially IT, the lack of a strong government, powerful warlords, corruption of mythological proportion (DRC n° 168, Afghanistan n° 180 out of 182 countries), a badly paid army, an underpaid/unpaid civil servants, no labour laws, child labour, indifference to pollution, dwindling human rights, especially those concerning women. In both cases maternal and child mortality amongst the highest in the world- surely the strongest indicator of the state of any country.

Think of what opium and heroin has done to increase poverty in Afghanistan, undermine women’s condition (with younger and younger infant brides given away in debt payment), increasing corruption and despair. Multiply this by the amount of mines and resources you have in the country. Blood minerals, hitherto associated mainly with African countries and especially with the Democratic Republic of Congo are about to spread eastwards in the direction of Afghanistan. Unless measures are taken now and immediately by what is left of a thinking international community and the young generation of Afghans whose future is doomed to be gambled away on Stock Exchanges all over the capitalist world.

Carol Mann is a Franco-British social anthropologist and art historian writer and novelist. She specialize on Gender and Armed Conflict, from a historical point of view, but especially on Bosnia and more than anything Afghanistan. A PhD in Sociology, she has been involved with aid projects in war zones since 1993. She has been involved with aid projects in Bosnia, Pakistan and Afghanistan. She blogs at: http://carolmann.net/wordpress/

Source: VIEWPOINT ONLINE

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By Kanya D’Almeida

WASHINGTON, Apr 11 (IPS) – With over 1.5 billion people living in countries blighted by
incessant or recurring violence, the World Bank’s annual World
Development Report (WDR), with this year’s focus on how
conflict derails development, was anxiously received Monday by
scores of development agencies, governments and NGOs all over
the world.

But many progressive economists say the document does not
stray far from the neoliberal policies that have maintained
a global status quo of inequality.

“Though the World Bank stresses the need for stronger
institutions, this rhetoric is not always in line with
actual policy,” Mark Weisbrot, economist and co-director of
the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research
(CEPR) told IPS.

“In South America, for example, a lot of governments are
trying to do the right thing but don’t have the
administrative capacity and that’s something the World Bank
could actually contribute to,” he said. “The problem is that
the World Bank is part of a consortium with the
International Monetary Fund and so they end up generally
supporting policies that reduce the capacity of governments
by focusing on aid from the outside.”

“Though I agree with the World Bank’s priority to engage
with civil society, this needs to be combined with broader
economic reforms. For example, of the 51 countries
classified as Least Developing Countries 40 years ago, only
three have graduated. So this shows you what a structural
problem we are dealing with,” Weisbrot added.

The WDR 2011, entitled “Conflict, Security and Development”,
is essentially the brain-child of World Bank president
Robert Zoellick.

Addressing the International Institute of Strategic Studies
in 2008, he first highlighted the grave impacts of what he
calls “fragile states”, institutionally, politically and
economically weak nations that are an international
impediment to the Bank’s twin goals of sustainable growth
and poverty-alleviation.

According to the WDR, children living in fragile states are
twice as likely to be undernourished and three times as
likely to be out of school; no low-income ‘fragile’ or
conflict-ridden country has yet achieved a single Millennium
Development Goal (MDG); and poverty rates are 20 percentage
points higher in countries affected by cycles of violence
than other countries.

Civil conflicts cost the average developing country roughly
30 years of GDP growth – all undeniable indicators that
exhaustive changes in the global system are required in
order to overcome downward-spiraling conditions for over 17
percent of the world’s population.

In a positive step forward, the WDR this year adopted a
unique compilation methodology, prioritising pre-existing
local research and national data while generating its own
broad conclusions and recommendations.

“We realised that the international community has to do
things differently,” Nigel Roberts, co-director of the WDR,
told a press conference here Friday.

“Violence in the 21st century is fractured, intense,
complex, entrenched and hard to remove, so national efforts
are required over and above solutions imported from the
outside; knowledge of how to deal with violence lies with
local practitioners, not with Western agencies and
international academic institutions,” he said.

The report enumerates four basic tenets that must be
urgently addressed if cycles of violence are to be halted
and lasting progress brought into states that have endured
several generations of terror, political repression and
economic injustice: improving institutional legitimacy;
investing in citizen security, justice and jobs; adopting a
multi-tiered national-cum-regional approach to change; and
being mindful of a changing global landscape where emerging
middle-income countries and regional institutions must be
empowered to play a much greater role in defining the 21st
century agenda.

Poignantly, Justin Lin, the chief economist of the World
Bank, proclaimed, “Bread and freedom is not a question of
either/or. Each is a prerequisite for the other and we must
strive simultaneously for both.”

Various economists and policy heads note that such grandiose
plans, re-packaged for a new year, do not stray from the old
neoliberal agenda, whose methods have been tried and failed,
largely to the detriment of the very populations they
supposedly seek to fortify.

“In the last decade the World Bank has been trying to
reverse its disastrous neoliberal stance of the 1980s and
early 1990s by focusing more on human development,” Omar
Dahi, a professor of development economics at Hampshire
College, told IPS. “However, it is still an open question
whether they have abandoned the neoliberal model at the
macro level with its focus on trade liberalisation and
reliance on foreign investment.”

“This model is no longer tenable,” he stressed.

“The current focus on institutions is a welcome departure
from mere focus on integration (i.e. trade and financial
liberalisation) but institution building is a difficult
process,” he added. “Take Egypt, where the elite capture of
the state prevented any meaningful attempt to reform or
produce independent institutions, for example – this is
where supporting grassroots organisations can be helpful
since they act as both an alternative development model that
does not rely on the paradigm of growth as well as acting as
checks and balances on the performance of the state.”

“I stress the need to empower labour and peasant
organisations – cooperatives rather than NGOs,” Dahi said.
“The former are ones that are truly representative of the
working and poor class whereas many NGOs usually reflect the
opinions of a very few people, no matter how well
intentioned those people are.”

While espousing support for strong democratic institutions,
the WDR also fails to acknowledge that the World Bank’s
executive board – its most powerful decision-making body –
is dominated by the five richest donors, currently the
United States, Japan, Germany, France and the Britain United
Kingdom.

“This is a moment for the World Bank itself to be
democratised so that developing countries can have a larger
say in the way it operates. They cannot push for good
governance when they are an example of authoritarian
governance,” Dahi told IPS.

In response to the report’s discussion of terrorism, Daniel
Gorevan, a spokesperson for Oxfam International, said, “One
issue that the report fails to address is the impact
international assistance focused on short-term military or
security objectives may have on exacerbating violence.”

“We’re seeing a worrying increase in the level of
militarised or politicised aid. That’s problematic,
especially if this assistance doesn’t address the root
causes of conflict and puts communities or aid workers’
lives at risk,” Gorevan added.

“Since 2001, there has been a growing trend of aid being
used to win ‘hearts and minds’ in conflict but it is often
poorly conceived, ineffective, and in some cases has turned
beneficiaries and aid workers into targets for attack. Aid
directed to short-term political and military objectives
fails to reach the poorest people. It also fails to build
long-term security either in fragile states or, ultimately,
for donors themselves,” he concluded.

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By Prabhat Shunglu

New Delhi: “I come from a poor family. The only asset I possess is integrity.” This was the Chief Justice of India (CJI) S H Kapadia in his reply to congratulatory letter sent by former well-known judge V R Krishna Iyer on his appointment as CJI. So, when the legality of the appointment of former Central Vigilance Commissioner P J Thomas came up before the Supreme Court bench of CJI Kapadia the pundits and the skeptics were equally sure Thomas’s stay as CVC was going to be short-lived. A corruption case going back to the 90s was pending against Thomas in the trial court. The Supreme Court stressed Mr Thomas cannot be in charge of anti-corruption Commission when his own integrity is being questioned. “The touchstone for the appointment of the CVC is the institutional integrity as well as the personal integrity of the candidate,” the court observed.

Amidst a heap of corruption charges piling up at the UPA governments door the Supreme Court’soverruling of the executive decision not only multiplied government’s woes, boxed in by an unforgiving opposition, it has left the executive red in the face for what it considers a clear caseof Supreme Court ‘over-stepping’ its jurisdiction. In fact the first murmur of executive protest wasrecording during the hearing of the case itself when the government argued that since the post of the CVC was a constitutional one the court is not entitled to review the appointment. The court turned the argument aside saying the government may not be accountable to the court for its policy decisions it sure is accountable for the legality of those decisions.

Outside the court, even as the CVC case was on, the government did not spare any opportunity to hold out veiled warning to the judiciary against transgressing its limits. At the Commonwealth Law Conference in Hyderabad the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said: While the power of judicial review must be used to enforce accountability, it must never be used to erode the legitimate growth assigned to other branches of the government.

There is a healthy respect by the executive towards the judiciary and vice versa until such times or cases when judiciary seeks or has sought to question or review the government’s intent or policy decisions as was cogently displayed in the case of CVC legal battle. It is in such times the government recoils in fear accusing judiciary of usurping the executive space. This gives space for sabre-rattling by both sides. The government through its omni-potent propaganda machinery is almost always the winner telling whoever could listen that judicial ‘activism’ needed to be curbed.

The government, at such times, point out to the judiciary to look inwards and clear its own mess of corruption and judicial impropriety. The impeachment motion being brought against Justice Ramaswamy in 1993 is a case in point. And now the impending impeachment against Kolkata High Court judge Soumitra Sen has served enough grist to the government machinery to discreetly but surely take on the judiciary.

That the judiciary has not been able to avoid the taint of corruption shall remain as much a point of concern as corruption in the executive. Cases of impropriety in higher judiciary shakes the confidence of the common man for whom courts are still the last post of justice in the face of an inept administration which fails to deliver on crucial counts of governance. But one can always draw comfort in the fact that cases of judicial impropriety have been few and far between at least in the higher judiciary. Going by the unprecedented wave of litigations in public interest past two decades it can also be safely deduced people’s faith in judiciary remains undiminished. From delivering

criminal justice as in the case of Jessica Lal and Nitish Katara murder cases to reinterpreting Right to Life as envisaged under Article 21 of the Constitution or filling the legal void for patients in vegetative state making a plea for passive euthanasia or underlining environmental concerns in the face of growing awareness of global climate change or red-flagging executive or bureaucratic corruption, the judiciary by and large has delivered on the count of inclusive growth.

Interestingly, the government that melodramatically harps on the maxim of ‘inclusive growth’ and treading that extra mile for that last man in the row, the very idea of being over-ruled by the judiciary on the legitimate question of integrity gives them cramps. The message for the common man is clear: don’t expect executive to set precedent of top-down integrity and scruples.

Therefore the government can afford ignore the voice of civil society when it raises concerns over the draft of the anti-corruption Lokpal Bill. ( The Indian Lokpal shall be synonymous to the institution of Ombudsman in Scandinavian countries ) The Lokpal Bill, 2010, which awaits a select parliamentary committee’s nod, provides for filing complaints of corruption against the prime minister, minister, ministers and MPs with the Lokpal or the Ombudsman. The Lokpal Bill as drafted by the government places the appointment of the Lokpal in the hands of the executive. “How can those who have corrupted the system be entrusted to draft anti-corruption laws,” asks eminent social activist and Gandhian Anna Hazare. He has threatened to go on a fast-unto-death from April 5 should the government failed to rope in members of the civil society in re-drafting the bill by march-end.

Anna and like-minded people from the civil society including Magsasay Award winners, RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal and the first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi, and a few legal luminaries and social activists have in consultation with a wide swath of public drafted a separate bill which they have termed the Jan Lokpal Bill or the Public Ombudsman Bill. Among the many suggestions the Jan Lokpal Bill envisages folding up the investigation in a year’s time. The trial shall be completed in the next 12 months so that the guilty gets punished within two years.

“Even if I have to give up my life to see that the Bill is passed I will not hesitate,” proclaims Anna. A 72-year-old can dare take recourse to Gandhian ways to achieve his objective in national interest just as the Mahatma undertook Satyagraha ( Truth with Firmness – Gandhi’s chief home-spun and non-violent piece de resistance against the British might ) in the course of his life spent in the cause of India’s independence. It shall be an interesting study whether the legacy of Gandhi lives on to temper the ‘compulsions’ of governance by coalition, where the flock is integrated by corruption but integrity is the primary casualty.
Source: SAT, March 2011

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By Prabhat Shunglu

New Delhi: Forty days before anti-Mubarak slogans rented the air at Cairo’s Tahrir Square on January 25, India’s
Supreme Court passed a stricture against a Cabinet Minister in the ruling UPA government. The
court slammed Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh for abusing his power as Maharashtra Chief Minister by
shielding a party MLA, doubling as dubious money lender and accused of squeezing debt-ridden
Vidarbha farmers dry, against criminal action.

Six days before the Cairo uprising the Indian government rewarded Mr Deshmukh’s loyalty for the
Congress party by shifting him from Heavy Industries ministry to Rural Development Ministry, seen
as an upgrade because the ministry is close to the heart of mother Sonia Gandhi and son Rahul
both. During his tenure as chief minister ( 2004 -08 ) Mr Deshmukh logged a dubious distinction of
straddling over maximum suicide deaths of farmers in the Vidarbha region.

Autocratic regimes of Hosni Mubarak and his erstwhile Tunisian counterpart Zine El Abidine were
accused of squandering the nation’s wealth for personal gains and holding public welfare to ransom.
The public in both countries were fed up with escalating inflation and spiraling corruption. A
vegetable vendor suicide by self-immolation was the trigger for uprising against Abdeen in Tunisia,
it was the social networking sites like the facebook that mobilized people against Hosni Mubarak on
the streets of Egypt. Jasmine revolution provoked immediate results back in Tunisia as Abidine fled
the country even as Tahrir square holds hope for a spectacular change in that land of the pharaohs
and wondrous pyramids.

In an era where social networking sites are becoming platforms for cataclysmic change brought in
not by the incumbent administrative regimes but by the might and ingenuity of a people wronged by
the system, it is hard to imagine that in India a near lull ( or is it the proverbial lull before the storm
) has enveloped those upon whom the idea of a colour revolution is most desired. Not even the
students who mobilized against corruption in 1974 against the then Congress regime before allowing
themselves to be led by septuagenarian Gandhian Jai Prakash Narayan to participate in his call for
total revolution.

Consider this: The per capita gross domestic product in Egypt is 6,200 dollars compared to 3,400
dollars in India. Egypt’s per capita income is naturally higher at 130 dollars. According to the latest
report in CIA fact book, Egypt’s unemployment rate is 9.7 per cent whereas India’s stands at 10.8 per
cent despite those clutch of Nehru-Gandhi development schemes and the much-touted NAREGA. No
wonder then that 25 per cent of Indians are still poor – now considered a low-grade euphemism for
economically correct ‘those living below poverty line’ – ( That line again is an imaginary median of
economic yo-yo (ic ) fudging of unimaginable proportion. ) compared to 20 per cent poor in Egypt.

The country’s main opposition party, the Bhartiya Janata Party, has launched a crusade against
the corrupt UPA regime when its own house is leaking heavily through chinks of corruption. The
Karnatata chief minister B S Yedurappa is the BJP’s mascot in southern states where it has captured

power the first time. Everyone watched the graphic changeover of Yedurappa from chief minister of
Karnataka to a minister –in-chief of land and mine mafias. If A Raja, former telecom minister in UPA,
has been accused of under-pricing 2G airwaves sold to telecom operators and causing loss to the
tune of 1.75 lakh crore, the Reddy brothers of Karnataka have duped the exchequer of more than Rs
60,000 crores.

Yedurappa himself has a soft corner for nepotism. He bent every rule in the book to get over 500
crore rupees worth of land allotted to his two sons the eldest of whom, Raghvendra, is a member of
Parliament. The opposition estimates his personal worth at more than 1000 crores. For an elected
representative and a chief minister Yedurappa’s ill-gotten gains and his ability to straddle a corrupt
regime puts to shame Hosni Mubarak family’s loot. Since Yedurappa belongs to a party ‘with a
difference,’ president Nitin Gadkari terms his misdemeanours as purely ‘legal’ though ‘immoral.’ In
BJP’s vision immorality seems to be a perfect foil for democracy.

Just as loyalty to the dynasty serves as the veritable kick to the Congress’s vision of sustaining intra-
party democracy. Therefore a Deshmukh is put on an even higher pedestal despite Supreme Court’s
rap on his knuckles. “It is sad and shocking to see how the government allows and appreciates such
ministers. Not only that, it also gives them a cabinet post. It is not a dignified act and I would call
it a shameless act.” These were the words of Supreme Court Justice A.K. Ganguly at a seminar in
Mumbai recently.

These are but different colours of a wave of corrupt (r)evolution sweeping India. The Indian urban
streets are filled with vulgar display of life borrowed on plastic money. Everyone seems to be
outstripping the other in the race for pretending to be happy in an otherwise lo(a)nely life. Every
alternate fortnight a new sedan or a 4×4 SUV teases readers from super front page advertorials and
tempts TV viewers with smart promotionals. There is an average of five short messages delivered
on mobiles by real estate agents luring prospective buyers with apartments and villas on ‘easy
instalments.’ All this lopsided economic collage is not without its ‘most-visited’ page. The national
capital, Delhi, for instance, has to come face to face with shame, with such conscience churning tags
like crime\rape\scam capital of India. A poor woman delivers a child by the roadside along the most
happening square in Delhi because the five-star hospitals in the vicinity only deliver life in lieu of
money. And from Delhi to Mumbai not a brick is laid without the ‘ideal ( adarsh in Hindustani ) mix
of gamesmanship cementing corruption.

The picture across the countryside is even more abysmal. The farmers are either in debt or
committing suicides because they cannot afford to pay off those debts, their lands increasingly
under threat from the evil eyes of land\real estate mafias and now, often, by a kind of mafiaso that
operates in the garb of Special Economic Zones ( SEZ ) where the government itself takes the ‘supari’
on behalf of moneyed class.

Like that proverbial Indian bridegroom who presents himself as a commodity in the sick, old dowry
bazaar before he ties the nuptial knot, everything is up for sale – from kidney to morality – waiting
for its right bidder. This is corruption a la India in its throbbing, naked glory removed only in texture
from Cairo style corruption which vertically split the society into haves ( all the Mubarak’s family,
friends and pliable men in his fiefdom ) and have-nots ( those who converged at Tahrir Square).

A common Egyptian waged a non-violent war against the well-entrenched despotic rule of Mubarak

and succeeded in his objective in less than three weeks. Wrote David Michael Green, a political
science professor at New York’s Hofstra University, after the Egyption uprising: Cowardice is talking

about democracy for others while actually undermining it when you don’t like the results. Courage
is walking like an Egyptian.

Will the average Indian, the ubiquitous aam aadmi, continue to wallow in the pool of doubtful
priapismic ecstasy. Or can he ever dare to walk stiff, like an Egyptian.
Source: South Asia Times (SAT) February 2011 issue.

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By Farhad Arian

Summary

This paper aims to critically evaluate a newly signed agreement between the Australian government and the government of Afghanistan on returning those Afghan asylum seekers who do not pass the refugee test in Australia. The paper particularly analyzes the failure of both the Australian and the Afghan governments in respecting their international human rights obligations due to signing such an unrealistic agreement for the intention of the sustainable return of those Afghan asylum seekers not considered genuine refugees.

On Monday, 17 January 2011, the Australian Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen signed an agreement with the Afghan Refugee and Repatriation Minister, Jamaher Anwary, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Richard Towel. Signing this agreement is part of Australia’s broader attempts for the intention of decreasing illegal immigrants to Australia. This agreement particularly provides the Australian government with an exceptional opportunity to successfully respond to the challenge of Afghan asylum seekers to further send those back home who fail to pass the refugee test.

Despite the promises given by the Australian government in terms of helping the Afghan government to improve passport system, funding a housing project outside Kabul, and providing skills training to Afghans, the government of Afghanistan, with signing this agreement, has ignored the fact that it is no longer capable of protecting Afghan returnees. However, neither the government of Australia nor the Afghan government has paid attention to this issue that the sustainable return of those Afghans not considered genuine refugees to Afghanistan is not a realistic approach to deal with the challenge of Afghan asylum seekers.

First of all, singing such an agreement, that allows for the forced return of those Afghans who do not pass the refugee test, is in contrary to the international human rights obligations of the Australian government. As a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, Australia is obliged to ensure that people who meet the definition of refugee under the Convention are not sent back to a country where their life or freedom is threatened. As well, Australia has signed the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the 1984 Convention Against Torture (CAT), and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), obliging Australia to not return people who face a real risk of violation of human rights even if they do not meet the definition of refugee under the 1951 Refugee Convention. As such, signing to further the implementation of this agreement indicates that the Australian government has neither paid attention to its international human rights obligations nor taken serious the life and freedom of the returned Afghan asylum seekers.

In addition to the failure of the Australian government in respecting its international human rights obligations, the government of Afghanistan, with signing such an agreement for returning Afghan asylum seekers, has entirely ignored the fact that the returnees neither in the southern and eastern regions of Afghanistan nor in other parts of the country are safe due to the Taliban-led insurgency. In particular, the government of Afghanistan has denied the fact that all people who leave Afghanistan and seek for overseas asylum are those who cannot return due to serious security concerns to further because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, and political opinion. For example, Professor William Maley from the Australian National University and an expert on Afghanistan and immigration issues points out that the life and freedom of ethnic Hazaras are mostly at risk if they are forced to go back Afghanistan. Thus, regardless of incapability of protecting the returnees, the government of Afghanistan has signed the agreement with the Australian government, demonstrating the carelessness of the Afghan government in protecting the lives and freedoms of its citizens.

Furthermore, regardless of few achievements in improving human rights institutions in the post-2001 era, the Afghan government has failed to systematically protect human rights of the people of Afghanistan. In other words, in spite of signing the major international human rights treaties, the Afghan government has paid less attention in protecting human rights of its citizens. As such, the Afghan Immigration Minister has signed the agreement for returning Afghan asylum seekers with no intention of caring about the protection and improvement of the basic rights of the returnees. Therefore, signing such an agreement is another step towards violating human rights of Afghan citizens rather than guaranteeing their rights and freedoms because the government of Afghanistan no longer believes in human rights. More specifically, signing such a deal obviously indicates that respect for human rights is not a policy-priority for the Afghan government; unless it did not agree with the Australian government for returning Afghan asylum seekers to a country where respect for the dignity and rights of the people is like a dream that have never come true.

Finally, there is no guarantee that the agreement on deportation of failed Afghan asylum seekers is based on reliable and balanced security assessments of the situation in Afghanistan. As Professor William Maley points out, the security expertise of Australian officials for the purpose of returning failed Afghan asylum seekers is partly doubtful. Likewise, Paul Power, the Chief Executive of the Refugee Council of Australia, points out that even if the returned asylum seekers in Afghanistan are not so much under the threats caused by the government, they will be facing serious threats from the people or groups who are not under the control of the government. Meanwhile, The Afghan government has signed the agreement without undertaking any security expertise assessments; otherwise the deteriorated security situation in Afghanistan does not allow the Afghan government to agree with the Australian government for returning Afghan asylum seekers. As a result, this agreement is neither prepared based on reliable security assessments in Afghanistan nor pays attention to the security risks that might threaten the Afghan returnees.

To conclude, the 17 January agreement on returning Afghan asylum seekers between the Australian Immigration Minister and the Afghan Refugee Minister is an agreement that is in contrary to the principles of human rights to further violates Australian as well as Afghanistan international human rights obligations. While the agreement ignores the deteriorated security situation in Afghanistan, it is a deal that is not prepared based on reliable and balanced security expertise assessments. In particular, while the agreement is technically an achievement for the Australian government, it does not pay attention to the security concerns of Afghan asylum seekers who do not pass the refugee test in Australia. By signing such a violating human rights agreement, the government of Afghanistan once again proves that it does not value the lives and freedoms of its citizens whether they are at risk or under uncertain security threats.

Tuesday, January 20, 2011

Farhad Arian is a former Deputy Director of the Office of Human Rights and Women’s International Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan. Prior to joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was a Legal Consultant to the General-Directorate of the National Radio & Television of Afghanistan. Farhad Arian is currently undertaking a Master of Arts in International Affairs at the Australian National University (ANU).

References

Australian Human Rights Commission, (2011), “Asylum Seekers and Refugees”, Australian Human Rights Commission. Retrieved January 18, 2011 from www.hreoc.gov.au.

Cronin, D. (2011), “Afghan Deal May Send People Back to Danger”, The Canberra Times. Retrieved January 18, 2011 from www.canberratimes.com.au.

Cronin, D. (2011), “Deal to Return Afghan Asylum Seekers”, The Canberra Times. Retrieved January 17, 2011 from www.canberratimes.com.au.

Cullen, S. (2011), “Australia and Afghanistan Sign Asylum Seeker Agreement “, Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved January 17, 2011 from www.abc.net.au.

Massola, J. (2011), “Deal with Afghanistan on Return of Asylum Seekers”, The Australian. Retrieved December 17, 2011 from www.theaustralian.com.au.

Morgan, T. (2011), “Failed Afghan Asylum Seekers to Go Home”, The Age. Retrieved January 17, 2011 from www.theage.com.au.

Narushima, Y. (2011), “Thousands of Afghan Asylum Seekers Face Deportation”, The Canberra Times. Retrieved January 18, 2011 from www.canberratimes.com.au.

Rehn, A. (2011), “Time to Go Home, Afghan Refugees”, The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved January 18, 2010 from www.dailytelegraph.com.au.

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Leonardo Boff

Daniela Pastrana interviews LEONARDO BOFF, Brazilian writer and theologian* – Tierramérica

MEXICO CITY, Dec 28 (IPS) – “The market is not going to resolve the environmental crisis,” says theologian
and environmentalist Leonardo Boff, professor at Brazil’s State University of Rio
de Janeiro. The solution, he says, lies in ethics and in changing our relationship
with nature.

Boff, who teaches ethics, philosophy of religion and ecology, is one of the
leading figures of Liberation Theology, a progressive current in the Latin
American Catholic Church. He has written more than 60 books and has
dedicated the last 20 years to promoting the green movement.

“If we don’t change, we are headed for the worst… Either we save ourselves or
we all perish,” said Boff in an interview with Tierramérica in the Mexican
capital, after he participated as an observer in the recent 16th Conference of
Parties (COP 16) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change, held in Cancún.

Q: What is your assessment of the COP 16?

A: What predominated, save for the last two days, was an atmosphere of
disappointment, of failure. But surprisingly there were three convergences of
opinion: the commitment to fight against reaching (a global temperature
increase of) two degrees Celsius; the creation of the Green Climate Fund of 30
billion dollars (for 2012) to help the most vulnerable countries, in an
interesting sign of solidarity; and the creation of a large fund for the
reduction of deforestation and degradation of forests, because that is where
the principal cause of global warming lies.

Q: How should we interpret the stance of Bolivia, the only country that did not
agree to those commitments?

A: Bolivia supports the thesis that the Earth is “Pachamama,” a living
organism that must be respected and cared for, not just exploited. It stands
in opposition to the dominant position, which is set in the framework of the
market: selling carbon credits, for example, means granting the right to
pollute.

The dominant societies see the Earth as a treasure chest of resources that can
be used indefinitely, although now they have to be utilised in a sustainable
way, because they are scarce. They don’t recognise the dignity and rights of
natural beings, they see them as means of production and their relation is
based on utility. These are issues that did not enter into the discussions at
Cancún or any other COP.

Q: Why should they be included?

A: Because the system that has created the problem is not going to save us. If
each country has to grow a little each year, and to do so means degrading
nature and increasing global warming, then that system itself is hostile to life.

Q: The argument is that it is necessary for development…

A: Growth means what? Exploiting nature? It is precisely that type of growth
and development that could lead us to the abyss, because we humans are
consuming 30 percent more than what the Earth can replace.

That is the vicious circle. China can’t go on emitting 30 percent (of global
greenhouse emissions), because the pollution does not stay in China, it enters
the global system.

The problem is the relation of the human being with the Earth, because it is a
violent relationship, a closed fist… As long as we fail to change this, we are
headed for the worst. And this time there is no Noah’s Ark. Either we save
ourselves or we all perish.

Q: Is it really that serious?

A: There are regions in the world that have changed so much that they’ve
become uninhabitable. That is why there are 60 million displaced persons in
Africa and Southeast Asia, which are the most affected by climate change and
which emit less carbon. If we don’t stop it, in the next five to seven years
there will be as many as 100 million climate refugees, and that is going to
create political problems.

Q: What is the role of Latin America in all this?

A: It is the continent with greatest possibilities for making a positive
contribution to the ecological crisis: it has the largest rainforests and water
reserves, the greatest biodiversity, and perhaps the biggest areas for crops.

But there is still insufficient environmental awareness in a large portion of the
population. And, in any case, there is a very dangerous invasion of big
corporations that are appropriating vast regions. It is an appropriation of
common goods in function of individual benefits.

In Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, gradually they are realising how the
new game of capital works: a great concentration of livelihoods to ensure the
future of the system.

Q: What options are there?

A: We have funds and technology, but we lack political will and sensitivity to
nature and human suffering. That has to be recovered. And along with ethics
of caring go the ethics of cooperation. Now it has become necessary for
everyone to cooperate with everyone.

Q: Is that possible? What needs to be done?

A: There are movements, especially among groups who see that there lands
are being divided, like Vía Campesina (international peasant movement) and
Brazil’s MST landless movement. And there are the indigenous peoples, who
don’t see the Earth simply as an instrument of production, but rather as an
extension of their body, and they need it to uphold their identity.

We are seeking a balance, and that is the collective duty of humanity, which
the market and the economy are not going to resolve. Everyone needs to do
his or her part, to be more with less, to have a sense of proportion. The
problem isn’t money.

(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are
part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service
produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development
Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)

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By Julio Godoy

PARIS, Aug 6, 2010 (IPS) – Subsidies for agriculture in the industrialised countries of the world grew again in 2009, benefiting the largest companies and land owners, such as Prince Albert of Monaco and Queen Elizabeth of Britain.

The latest increase came despite repeated and consistent evidence that such subsidies contribute to the destruction of the livelihoods of poor farmers in developing countries, especially in Africa, and that they distort international trade.

According to a new study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), subsidies for agriculture in industrialised countries rose to around 252.5 billion dollars, or 22 percent of total farmers’ receipts in 2009 — up from 21 percent in 2008.

The study, “Agricultural Policies in OECD Countries at a Glance 2010″, found that the European Union’s subsidies for farmers rose from 22 to 24 percent. In the period between 2007 and 2009, EU farmers received an average of 23 percent of their gross receipts in form of direct financial support from the state.

The OECD represents the 30 most industrialised countries of the world, including the U.S. and most members of the EU.

The subsidies for farmers in OECD countries have been at the centre of a heated dispute for years, both at the level of the EU and U.S. and within the larger framework of the World Trade Organisation and its deadlocked Doha Development Round.

The EU spends about 75 billion dollars on subsidies for agriculture, even though the sector represents only about two percent of the total gross domestic product of the union. This subsidies regime will only change in 2014.

The new OECD data inflamed these complaints, the more so since it has been shown that the largest agro-businesses and even some royal houses in European monarchies benefit the most from the subsidies.

“EU subsidies for agriculture are a shame,” Marita Wiggerthale from the German office of the humanitarian organisation Oxfam told IPS. She cited the example of subsidies for milk, which form part of the EU agricultural policy.

Due mostly to over-production, the European milk prices for farmers were in early 2009 extremely low at less than 0.20 euro per litre. Instead of reducing the production to stabilise prices, the EU reintroduced subsidies for milk in 2009 to support producers.

“As consequence, the EU is again exporting milk to the whole developing world, especially towards Africa, at ‘dumping’ prices,” Wiggerthale said. “By so doing, the EU is destroying the livelihoods of farmers in the poorest countries of the world while artificially maintaining a too high level of production.”

To add insult to injury, the EU is simultaneously forcing developing countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific to further open their markets through the trade deals called economic partnership agreements.

Rainer Falk, a leading German critic of neoliberal globalisation and publisher of “World Economy and Development”, a specialised newsletter on international cooperation and trade, told IPS that the OECD subsidies for agriculture only benefit the largest companies in the sector.

“The data for 2008 illustrates this point,” Falk said. “The main beneficiary of the EU subsidies in Germany was Suedzucker, a large sugar producer, which that year received more than 50 million U.S. dollars in subsidies,” Falk pointed out.

Data from other countries confirms Falk’s complaints.

In France, one of the main beneficiaries of the EU subsidies for agriculture in the recent past has been Prince Albert of Monaco. Queen Elizabeth of Britain has also received large subsidies from the EU.

Carmel Cahill, head of the policies, trade and adjustment division of the OECD’s directorate for agriculture, food and fisheries, subscribed to this criticism. “European subsidies for agriculture continue to benefit the largest land owners,” Cahill told IPS.

According to the most recent data, 11 percent of farms get 75 percent of the payments. “Take care though,” Cahill warned, “it is the share of the payments, not of the entire budget, some of which goes to programmes and purposes that are not payments.”

Cahill also called attention to positive changes in the agricultural subsidy policies, especially in the EU.

“Despite still spending a large chunk of its budget on supporting a relatively small sector of its economy, the EU has reformed its subsidies criteria to move away from supporting exports and towards supporting producers, thus decoupling aid from production,” Cahill said.

“Such subsidies,” Cahill argued, “are far less distorting in terms of trade than the aid directly linked to production volumes.”

However, Cahill lamented that the EU and the member countries do not link the subsidies to specific targets. “The EU could connect its aid to better environmental protection measures of agriculture, or to an increased concern for biodiversity,” Cahill told IPS.

She explained that the increase in agricultural subsidies was mainly provoked by fluctuations in international commodity prices during the last four years. “Higher commodity prices in 2007 and 2008 were behind drops in the measured support in those years and the return to 2007 level prices reversed this trend for 2009″, automatically leading to relatively higher subsidies.

The OECD report also says that lower or negative economic growth in OECD countries, caused by the recent global recession, moderated demand pressures in particularly higher value-added products, such as dairy and meats. A positive supply response to higher prices in 2008 came at the same time as growth for food demand was easing.

These factors all contributed to the rise in subsidies.

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By Praful Bidwai

New Delhi: The election of Barack Hussein Obama as the President of the United States has electrified the world community and ignited hope. It is a matter of epochal significance that a Black man will live as the master of the White House, which was built by Black slaves and staffed by them until 1850, but where African-Americans would rarely be invited until almost a century later. This marks spectacular progress in a society where Blacks were sold as slaves until 143 years ago and couldn’t even vote just 40 years ago.

The magnitude of this tectonic shift in the world’s most influential nation has kindled hope everywhere in the possibility of transformative, even revolutionary, change towards inclusion, equality, and respect for diversity and pluralism. Everybody wants “a piece of Obama”, including diehard conservatives like former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and one-time Neoconservative philosopher Francis Fukuyama. Even President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, one of Europe’s most Right-wing leaders, is exuberant over Mr. Obama’s victory.

A striking exception to this overwhelming trend is Indian policymakers, who view the victory with nervousness and foreboding. Like the hopelessly US-dependent ruling elites of Israel and Georgia, they too had hoped Senator John McCain would win. They see Mr. Obama’s presidency as a threat. As we see below, they are totally, comprehensively, wrong.

The true domestic significance of Mr. Obama’s victory lies in its breaking of the conservative stranglehold over US society and politics. Crucial to this was his campaign strategy of grassroots mobilisation based on the promise of healing social divides This couldn’t have been achieved by another potential Democrat victor like John Kerry or Joseph Biden.

The significance of Mr. Obama’s election stands greatly magnified by the current US financial meltdown and economic recession. These have highlighted the bankruptcy of President George W. Bush’s disastrous Right-wing policies and reminded the American people of the relevance of issues like entitlement to healthcare and social security, labour rights, progressive taxation, and above all, egalitarian programmes like President Roosevelt’s New Deal. Mr. Obama’s call to put an end to “unforgiving capitalism” was wholly in keeping with this sentiment.

Mr. Obama takes over a nation exhausted with its past and despondent about its future. Almost nine out of 10 Americans believe their country has been on the wrong track. Mr. Obama will face difficult choices in fulfilling his promises. But we must hope he’ll succeed.

Globally, Mr. Obama bids fair to make an impact at a fateful moment in history, when multiple crises have converged—a global financial meltdown and growing economic crisis, discrediting of the neoliberal economic model, decline of US hegemony amidst major geopolitical shifts, and a worsening climate crisis. These cast a shadow over the notion of development as market-led accumulation of material goods to which human needs must be subordinated.

Domestically, Mr. Obama has a historic chance to launch a New Deal, by re-regulating the economy, engineering pro-people state intervention through bold healthcare and social security programmes, and initiating large-scale public works. He will come under pressure from the establishment, including some of his own advisers from the Chicago free-market economics school, to tinker at the margins without breaking with the neoliberal paradigm. This would only perpetuate Casino Capitalism and human misery through recurrent crises.

Yet, the logic of Mr. Obama’s promises on healthcare, education, taxation and social security, and his $200 billion plan for roads, ports, bridges, etc, should prompt him to discard that paradigm—if he remains true to his word. He will probably adopt a far more progressive policy than the Republicans on energy and climate change. He has promised an investment of $150 billion over 10 years on renewable sources. Under him, the US is likely to take a less hostile approach to the Kyoto Protocol—although his original proposal to put an economy-wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions might be diluted.

Mr. Obama is likely to be more respectful of civil liberties, outlaw torture and shut down Guantánamo Bay. He will probably also relax immigration and citizenship policies in favour of America’s 12 million illegal migrants. However, whether he dismantles intrusive surveillance and the Patriot Act remains unclear.

Much of Mr. Obama’s economic agenda will depend upon his Cabinet appointments. The two top candidates reportedly in the running for the Treasury Secretary’s post are former World Bank chief economist Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner, chairman of the New York Federal Reserve. Neither is likely to break with deregulation and other neoliberal policies. The test of Mr. Obama’s leadership will lie in overruling them to push a non-market-driven agenda.

His very first appointment of Rahm Emmanuel as the White House chief of staff, who’ll control access to him, is a letdown. Mr. Emanuel is a hard-driving Washington “insider” and former investment banker, close to the family of Chicago mayor Richard Daley, a controversial operator. Sadly, Mr. Obama also wants to induct Republicans into his team.

On foreign policy and security issues, Mr. Obama promises a less arrogant, aggressive and unilateralist US—a welcome departure from the Bush-McCain approach. Mr. Obama has promised to withdraw troops from Iraq over 16 months. This is a major and worthy step—although one must hope that the US won’t maintain a substantial military presence in Iraq, including bases and “advisers”.

Mr. Obama wants to induct thousands of additional troops into Afghanistan and intensify the war. Unless this is done in cooperation with Pakistan, and under its leadership, this could turn out extremely unpopular. Mr. Obama’s remarks favouring unilateral strikes in Pakistan against al-Qaeda-Taliban militants were a big mistake. He must move away from that approach.

Mr. Obama’s positions on Iran, Russia, and Son-of-Star-Wars-style ballistic missile defence can bring about a major change in global geopolitics. If he begins a dialogue with Iran, stops NATO expansion, builds friendly relations with Russia, delays BMD deployment, and renews the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty due to expire next year, while de-alerting and disarming a substantial number of nuclear weapons, he will have made a major contribution to defusing rivalries started or aggravated by the Republicans. Mr. Obama holds that unless the US and Russia radically reduce their nuclear arsenals, they won’t be able to persuade smaller nations like Iran and North Korea to forgo their nuclear programmes. This is a big step forward.

Mr. Obama is unlikely to take an early initiative on the Palestine crisis. His call for an undivided Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is outlandish and doesn’t speak of a high level of familiarity with that issue. But a settlement with Iran could transform West Asian geopolitics.

How Mr. Obama acts on global issues will largely depend on whether he recognises that the Neocon project has failed and that US power is set to decline inexorably. In the absence of clarity on this, Mr. Obama’s agenda may fall short of the necessary transformative content.

Yet, Mr Obama’s positions are indisputably progressive, favour a more balanced and peaceful world, and deserve to be welcomed. Indian policy-makers have been lukewarm and even cynical towards them. They view them through the narrow prism of India-Pakistan relations, his remarks about mediating on the Kashmir issue and on outsourcing, and his intention to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and negotiate a Fissile Materials Cut-off agreement.

In practice, Mr. Obama is unlikely to want to undermine the competitiveness of US industry by halting outsourcing. His campaign statements on the Kashmir question are unlikely to translate into actual policy, which will have to take into account India’s reservations on the issue. As his transition team has recently clarified, the US remains committed to supporting the bilateral India-Pakistan dialogue process to resolve Kashmir and other contentious issues.

As for the CTBT, even Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee was all prepared to sign it in 1999, after declaring a unilateral moratorium on nuclear test explosions, based on a careful strategic assessment that further testing isn’t necessary for an adequate minimum nuclear deterrent. If India is truly committed to global, universal nuclear disarmament, it must recognise that the CTBT and FMCT are indispensable steps in that process. India must stop being defensive about these treaties and actively help bring them into force.

It’s unlikely that Mr. Obama will risk damaging Washington’s relations with India by aggressively pushing agendas, especially regional ones, which New Delhi is uncomfortable with. It’s a sign of our policymakers’ diffidence and their lack of appreciation of India’s high and growing economic, political and strategic weight in today’s world, that they think otherwise.

India can positively engage Mr. Obama by seeking his cooperation in an initiative for a reform of the global governance system, including a more democratic United Nations, restructuring of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation (through a Bretton Woods-II), by promoting a new financial architecture and a more equitable international economic order, and by demanding a non-confrontational cooperative security system. This means moving away from parochial, short-term preoccupations and thinking big. Can our policymakers muster the will to do this?
- IPA

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