the hindu imp. news feb. 15th 2012

8/3/2019 The Hindu Imp. News Feb. 15th 2012

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A goal is a dream with a deadline.

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THE HINDU

Imp. News

Feb.15th

2012

Page 1

Hunt gathers pace for motorcyclist:

Even as the hunt is on for a motorcyclist who attached an improvised explosive magnetic device

to an Israeli diplomat's car on Aurangazeb Road here on Monday, the Delhi Police have sought

footage of the closed-circuit television cameras in nearby buildings, the Israeli Embassy and the

Canadian High Commission. We have sought the footage of the past seven-eight days. As the

Canadian High Commission is located close to the spot, we have approached them for footage,

Police Commissioner B.K. Gupta said. Police have identified 16 CCTVs installed at bungalows

along the road and in nearby areas and their footage are being sought. Police suspect that theterrorist must have conducted a reconnaissance of the area and tailed Tal Yehoshua Koren

embassy official and wife of Israel's defence attach, who was seriously injured in the blast

to ascertain her daily routine.

Khurshid backtracks, regrets remarks:

Union Law and Justice Minister and Congress leader Salman Khurshid, who challenged the

Election Commission's authority to censure him for his remarks on a sub-quota for the

minorities, has backtracked and regretted his statement. Sources said the Election Commission

was yet to take a decision on his letter. I treat this matter as unfortunate and regret thestatement. I bow to the wisdom of the Election Commission and remain personally committed

to ensuring that such situations do not arise, he said in the letter sent to Chief Election

Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi on Monday night.

Chauhan says he planted Samjhauta bombs:

Kamal Chauhan, a disgruntled former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker arrested by the

National Investigation Agency, on Tuesday claimed that he had planted bombs on board the

Samjhauta Express in 2007. The blast left 68 people, mostly Pakistanis, dead. Yes, I have done

it on my will, Chauhan told journalists as he was being taken out after in-camera proceedings

in the Panchkula court, which granted the NIA his custody till February 24 for questioning himon his role in the blast on the Delhi-Lahore train.


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EDITORIAL

The litmus test in Sri Lanka:

The year after the country gained Independence in 1948, the exploited Up-Country Tamils

indentured labour brought from India to work in the colonial plantations weredisenfranchised, beginning a painful process of repatriation. Sinhala Only language policies,

repeated ethnic pogroms culminating in the horrendous July 1983 riots and real and perceived

discrimination in employment and education, have constituted the historic grievances of the

Tamil community. The ensuing civil war saw mass violence unleashed by both the Liberation

Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the state against all communities; the Muslim community suffered

ruthless attacks and ethnic cleansing by the LTTE and Sinhala border villages became a buffer

for the military and fodder for the LTTE.

During the 1990s, solid work by committed intellectuals and politicians contributed to

identifying the limitations of the 13th Amendment and approaches to go beyond it, constituting

what became a vibrant devolution debate led by visionary Tamil intellectuals such as Neelan

Tiruchelvam and Kethesh Loganathan. Tragically, although not surprisingly, given the suicidal

and fascist politics of the LTTE, such great Tamil thinkers and leaders were assassinated by the

outfit, resulting in decimated Tamil politics facing the post-war era.

1995 and 1997 Proposals

Nevertheless, the debate and the political process produced exceptional work on devolution as

evident from the 1995 and 1997 Proposals, the Draft Constitution of 2000, the Majority Report

of the Experts Committee of 2006 and the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) Report of

2009. Thus viable solutions towards restructuring the state and power-sharing with allcommunities have already been conceived by Sri Lankan intellectuals. The issue is not the

absence of solutions, rather the short-sightedness of the political leadership. The centre stage

given to Sinhala nationalism by the Rajapaksa government led to the de-merger of the North-

East through a Supreme Court ruling in 2006, as opposed to resolving the issue through

negotiations. Though the APRC process was initiated by the President himself, he has now

buried the painfully dialogued and crafted APRC Report and its recommendations.

Excuses and dithering characterise the President's approach to the issue of devolution with

increasing refusal to concede land and police powers already mentioned in the 13th

Amendment. Meaningful devolution must include the following: land powers as the historic

grievance included alienation of state lands; local police powers to address the security and

fears of minorities; and financial powers, necessary to independently develop the local region.

Such powers to the war-affected Provinces will give confidence to the Tamil and Muslim

minorities that the government intends to empower them and engage them politically.

In the months ahead, if the President is serious, he should propose his vision and timeline for

constitutional change. Calling on the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to work with a new


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Parliamentary Select Committee, while the President is wavering, will only drag the process

indefinitely. If inclusivity is the issue, there are already the APRC recommendations agreed to

by most of the political parties. The TNA is not bereft of problems. It needs to go through a

process of self-criticism for its past relationship with the LTTE, and rethink its Tamil nationalism.

It should chart a realistic strategy, given the political weakness of the Tamil community, and

neutralise the pro-LTTE sections of the Tamil Diaspora, shifting the political terrain to a viablesettlement within a united Sri Lanka. It must work towards a minorities' consensus and engage

progressive forces in the Sinhalese community. A welcome recent move is the TNA's dialogue

with the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), with the latter also insisting on land and police

powers.

Painting fangs on a lamb:

Ever since Monday's near-successful assassination of an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi, India's

media have opened a 24x7 barrage of speculation about who carried out the attack. The

question is important, but Indians ought to apply their minds to a more important issue nearer

home: the dysfunction that continues to characterise the country's counter-terrorism

infrastructure. Even though the attack took place less than 500 metres from the Prime

Minister's official residence, there was no system in place to cordon off the area. Closed-circuit

television images are reportedly inadequate to establish details of the licence-plate on the

motorcycle used by the perpetrator. For more than an hour after the bombing, Delhi Police

officials continued to tell journalists the fire was caused by the explosion of the car's

compressed-gas cylinder even though, it turned out, the diesel-burning vehicle had none.

Terrorist groups targeting India, rather than Israel, will be paying close attention to this

depressing litany of failures.

India does not have a single world-class institution for teaching investigation, forensics,intelligence or tactical skills. Recent expansion of manpower has sharpened the strains; the

Intelligence Bureau, for example, has slashed training time from six months to three, while the

Central Reserve Police Force's academies are choked. Language experts and skilled intelligence

officers are conspicuous by their absence.

Sen, the moral universalist:

The United States National Medal of Arts and Humanities awarded Monday to Nobel Laureate

Amartya Sen the first non-American to be conferred the rare honour speaks to the

universalism of his contributions in economics and philosophy over the past five decades. This

has been in evidence, most recently, in the interventions of Sen, Lamont Professor of

Philosophy at Harvard University, on the global financial crisis and the consequent economic

meltdown. In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 housing and banking collapse, a policy

consensus quickly built up in Europe and the U.S. around the adoption of more or less

Keynesian stimulus policies to generate employment and productivity. But at the first,

premature sign of the global crisis abating, many countries embraced fiscal austerity as the

answer to balance their budgets. Citing verse and passage to show that the father of modern


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economics, Adam Smith, was in fact no champion of unbridled free markets , his point was to

emphasise the interdependency among a multitude of institutions as key to well-functioning

markets.

Prof. Sen's widely celebrated capabilities approach to human empowerment influenced in no

small measure the formulation of the United Nations Development Programme's HumanDevelopment Index. He has emphasised liberal, plural democracy as the pre-eminent and

universal value of the 20th century. Popular struggles such as the Arab Spring are perhaps

pointers to the widening reach of democracy into areas hitherto under the grip of authoritarian

regimes.

OP ED

The curious case ofVinay Rai:

On December 23, 2011, in a criminal case filed by Vinay Rai, editor of a Delhi-based Urdu daily

called Akbari , the Metropolitan Magistrate, Patiala House, directed the Ministry of External

Affairs to have summons served on over 21 websites based abroad on the grounds that

offences of sale of obscene books and obscene objects to young persons and criminal

conspiracy could be made out against these sites under sections 109, 120-B, 153(A), 153(B),

292, 293, 295(A), 298 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Government of India, after being

satisfied that such content are (sic) violative of the provisions of the Information Technology

(Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011, found it appropriate to grant sanction under section

196 of the Criminal Procedure Code to proceed against the accused persons in the aforesaid

complaint in national harmony, integration and national interest.

What are the categories? Rule 3(2)(b) expressly includes obscene content. It further includescontent that is hateful or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable. Rule 3(2)(e) includes

content that violates any law for the time being in force. Rule 3(2)(i) applies to content that

threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with

foreign states, or public order or causes incitement to the commission of any cognizable

offence or prevents investigation of any offence or is insulting any other nation.

A hearing on Balochistan that stirs up new tensions between U.S. and Pakistan:

An extraordinary hearing of the U.S. Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs on February 8

exclusively focusing on Pakistan's restive Balochistan province has triggered new diplomatic

tensions between Washington D.C. and Islamabad. At least five members of the U.S. Congress

belonging to both the Democratic and the Republican parties and a retired colonel of the

military directly or indirectly called for supporting the Baloch right to self-determination. During

the same hearing, a panel of five witnesses, including representatives of the Human Rights

Watch and the Amnesty International, spoke of how the Pakistan government was using

American weapons against the secular Baloch rebellion instead of using them against al-Qaeda


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and the Taliban. They told the hearing that Islamabad had manipulated the war on terror to

commit widespread human rights violations against its Baloch political opponents.

Located in the southwest, Balochistan is almost half of Pakistan's territory, but is its most

backward province despite vast reservoirs of gas, gold, copper and a port in Gwadar. The Baloch

have faced at least five deadly military operations by the Pakistani Army since what theydescribe as Balochistan's illegal and forceful occupation by Pakistan in 1948.

INTERNATIONAL

Bomber with Iranian ID held in Bangkok:

A man believed to be Iranian was seriously wounded when a device he was carrying exploded in

one of a series of blasts in Bangkok on Tuesday, police said. An Iranian ID was found with the

injured man so it's likely that he's an Iranian national, Major General Pisit Pisuthisak, deputy

commander of Bangkok Metropolitan Police, told AFP by telephone from the scene. A police

forensics team is examining the house.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra urged people not to jump to conclusions about the

circumstances. Let the police and intelligence agencies do their work and the public must not

panic because the perpetrator was detained, she told reporters during a visit to northeast

Thailand.

Authorities alleged the Lebanese man had links to Hezbollah, an Iranian and Syrian-backed Shia

group that is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by U.S. Israeli officials believe Iran, and its

Lebanese ally Hezbollah, are aggressively targeting Israelis to avenge years of setbacks that they

blame on Israel.

Violence in Bahrain ahead of revolt anniversary:

Thousands of opposition supporters marched through Manama's streets in the largest attempt

in months to retake Pearl Square, the central roundabout that served as the epicentre of weeks

of protests last year by Bahrain's Shia majority against the ruling Sunni dynasty.

Thousands of riot police and other security forces have staked out positions around the square

and across the Gulf island nation to prevent the opposition from staging a mass rally in or near

the plaza to mark Tuesday's one-year anniversary of the revolt. After the government imposed

martial law last March in response to the demonstrations, security forces stormed the

protesters' encampment at the landmark square in a bid to crush the uprising. The authorities

then razed the towering white monument that stood in the centre of the plaza. Emergency rule

was lifted in June, but street battles between security forces and protesters still flare up almost

every day in the predominantly Shia villages around the capital.


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Amartya Sen receives U.S. award:

India-born Nobel laureate Amartya Sen was on Tuesday felicitated with the prestigious National

Medals of Arts and Humanities award by U.S. President Barack Obama for his efforts to increase

the understanding of fighting hunger and poverty. Mr. Sen, who won Nobel Prize in economics

in 1998, was given the award at a glittering White House function here.

Sen is being awarded the 2011 National Humanities Medal for his insights into the causes of

poverty, famine, and injustice. By applying philosophical thinking to questions of policy, he has

changed how standards of living are measured and increased our understanding of how to fight

hunger, said the citation, read by a military aide of the U.S. President.

BUSINESS

Talks today on border trading point in Rajasthan:

With the Pakistan Cabinet deferring the decision to announce the shorterned negative list',

India and Pakistan will hold talks on Wednesday to open another border trading point at Mona

Bao-Khorapar in Rajasthan, which opens up into Sindh province in Pakistan.

We are ready to put in place a multiple liberal visa regime for businessmen from across the

border if Pakistan reciprocates in the same manner,'' he told a gathering of Indian and Pakistan

CEOs here. The event was organised by the Ministry of Commerce and Trade, Pakistan, the

Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry and FICCI.

RBI realigns Bank Rate with MSF:

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided on Monday to increase the Bank Rate by 350 basis

points from 6 per cent to 9.50 per cent per annum with immediate effect. The RBI said that it

realigned the Bank Rate with Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) rate, which, in turn, is linked to

the policy repo rate. This should be viewed and understood as one-time technical adjustment

to align the Bank Rate with the MSF rate rather than a change in the monetary policy stance,

RBI said.

At present, the repo rate is 8.50 per cent, reserve repo 7.50 per cent and MSF 9.50 per cent.

Repo rate is the rate at which banks borrow funds from the central bank and reverse repo rate

is the rate at which banks park their funds with the central bank. Under the MSF, banks are

permitted to avail themselves of funds from the RBI on overnight basis.

China ready to play the saviour for debt-hit Europe:

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told visiting European Union leaders on Tuesday that China was

ready to play a bigger role in supporting debt-hit Europe, but stopped short of revealing either

the scale of likely investment or how Beijing would back the proposed bailout funds. Mr. Wen


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told reporters following meetings that China wanted the EU to maintain stability and

prosperity' and was ready to increase its participation in resolving the EU debt problems.

Chinese leaders have, in recent weeks, increasingly argued the case for supporting Europe in

press briefings and through the State media. China has no appetite or ability to buy up

Europe' or control Europe' as some European commentators have said, he said. China has

from the beginning strongly supported the EU and the euro, in clear contrast to the talkingdown' of Europe in the international community.

SPORT

Maiden Duleep Trophy for East Zone:

East Zone wanted to win it. And Central Zone was too considerate. The final of the premier

cricket tournament of the country reflected the poor cricketing acumen and priorities prevalent

in domestic cricket as Central Zone lost the Duleep Trophy contest by an innings and 20 runs

with two-and-a-half days to spare.

It was East's maiden Duleep Trophy title and nothing exemplified it better than the spirit and

camaraderie that marked the celebrations at the Holkar Stadium here on Tuesday. Clicking

pictures for each other, letting out joyous cheers and acknowledging the victory as a team

effort portrayed East as a perfect cohesive unit.

the hindu imp. news feb. 15th 2012

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