U.S. considers re-merger of India, Pakistan desks

Seven years after the State Department was restructured to ‘de-hyphenate’ U.S. relations with India and with Pakistan, it is considering a reversal of the move.

De-hyphenating refers to a policy started by the U.S. government under President Bush, but sealed by the Obama administration, of dealing with India and Pakistan in different silos, without referring to their bilateral relations. It enabled the U.S. to build closer military and strategic ties with India without factoring in the reaction from Pakistan, and to continue its own strategy in Afghanistan with the help of the Pakistan military without referring back to India.

‘Active’ consideration

A proposal to re-merge the office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (SRAP) back with the Bureau of South and Central Asia (SCA) that handles India, the rest of the subcontinent and Central Asian republics is under “active” consideration, senior-level sources told The Hindu.

The re-merger proposal is ostensibly timed with the international troops pullout from Afghanistan.

Ministry of External Affairs officials would not confirm whether they had been informed of the move they described as an “internal” matter of the U.S. government. However, asked about the possible impact of bringing India and Pakistan under one bureau again, the former National Security Adviser, Shiv Shankar Menon, said: “It looks like a re-hyphenation of the India-Pakistan equation that is not in our interest. Our relationship has grown because it stood on its own, as it is important that bilateral relations with India won’t be overshadowed by its relations with the region.”

The de-hyphenation policy of the U.S. was crystallised when the SRAP was set up in 2009 soon after President Barack Obama had taken over, with the appointment of Richard Holbrooke.

At the time, Mr. Holbrooke had hoped to include India in his mandate, and even to discuss the resolution of Kashmir as a means to extract greater cooperation from Pakistan. India had strongly opposed the move.

According to a diplomatic cable published by the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks which was accessed by The Hindu, the then External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, had objected to this when U.S. Ambassador David Mulford paid a farewell call on him.

“He expressed his deep concern about a special envoy with a broad regional mandate that could be interpreted to include Kashmir, and shared his hope that the U.S.-India relationship not be viewed through the lens of regional crises,” Mr. Mulford recorded of Mr. Mukherjee’s message. (http://bit.ly/1QAu279).

Subsequently, Mr. Holbrooke remained only engaged with NATO and Af-Pak affairs until his death some years later, and was followed by subsequent SRAPs. “Even when U.S. officials wanted to discuss the situation in Afghanistan or Pakistan with us, we would insist they didn’t travel to us via Islamabad,” a senior MEA official working on the Americas desk in those years told The Hindu.

Mr. Menon, who was Foreign Secretary at the time, had also repeated the message of de-hyphenating the ties in his talks with the then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, other cables from WikiLeaks record. “We didn’t want to be party to U.S. actions in Afghanistan at the time,” explained Mr. Menon.

“We don’t believe in talking to the Taliban, for example, so how would we manage that conversation.”

Third party

Other officials objected to U.S. involvement as a “third party” in talks with Pakistan, which would become the case if special representatives would travel between Delhi and Islamabad regularly.

“We also saw that many of the officials including Mr. Holbrooke saw regional solutions through the ‘Pakistan prism’, which is why our relations really improved only after the two desks were separated,” a former official said.

There are indications, however, that even as the U.S. is planning to bring the desks back together, India may not object as strenuously as it did in 2009.

To begin with, India has dropped its objections to talks with the Taliban in the past few months, instead asking to be “kept in the loop” on developments in the U.S. talks on Af-Pak.

In a major shift in December, India decided to supply 4 Mi35 attack helicopters to Afghan security forces, the first such transfer of lethal military hardware, and a move that would have required U.S. approval.

Indian officials also point out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government are being consulted more often by the U.S. government on matters relating to Afghanistan, and 2015 saw the first visits by two U.S. Generals in combat to India, as well as a visit by Cameron Munter to Delhi, shortly after he demitted office as U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan.

In December 2015, the visit of SRAP Richard Olson to Delhi, just before his visit to Islamabad was another key indicator of the shift in New Delhi’s position on the ‘re-hyphenation’ of U.S. visits to India and Pakistan. Asked about the State Department’s possible move to bring together the officials and desks handling both, a senior official told The Hindu: “It would be good for us,” adding that the merger “would introduce a balance between the two” when it came to advocating India’s point of view.

When contacted by The Hindu, the U.S. embassy in Delhi, and the State Department refused to comment on the possible move, calling the reports “rumours” at present.

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AAP brooms sweep Delhi garbage

Delhi Ministers and Aam Aadmi Party MLAs along with party men armed with brooms cleaned the streets on Sunday even as the Municipal Corporation sanitation workers’ strike entered day five. A sanitation drive was launched in all the AAP constituencies and garbage was removed.

The sanitation workers on their part continued with their strike and the vociferous protestors has warned the AAP government that if their demands, which includes clearing their dues and regularisation, aren’t looked into, the garbage situation in the city is likely to ‘deteriorate’ in the coming days.

Deputy Chief Minister, Manish Sisodia, who also carried out the cleaning drive in his constituency, Patparganj, said “we have already disbursed all the funds to municipal corporations for pay the salaries of their staff. We cannot let people live amid garbage. Hence, we have undertaken the cleanliness drive.”

More than 2,000 Delhi Jal Board workers have teamed up with the PWD workers for the cleanliness drive and 123 machines including auto tippers, maintenance vans and JCB, were deployed on Sunday. The protesting safai karamcharis clashed with the Public Works Department teams, who had been pressed into cleaning the roads. The PWD officials said at on some places, like Laxmi Nagar, Uttam Nagar, attempts were made to stall the cleaning work. “But after reporting these incidents to the police, cleaning work started,” said a government spokesperson.

The Delhi government last week had announced auditing of the corporations’ accounts but the BJP-led civic agencies turned down. “They don’t want Delhi government to audit the accounts. They have clearly said that only the Home Ministry can audit their accounts. But they aren’t asking for grant from the Centre,” said Mr. Sisodia.

But this isn’t the first time that the AAP MLAs took up the cleaning work after sanitation workers went on strike. Last year in March, June and October, the safai karamcharis dumped garbage on the roads as a mark of protest. Then also the AAP MLAs cleaned the streets.

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British broadcaster Terry Wogan dies of cancer: BBC

British television and radio personality Terry Wogan died of cancer aged 77 on Sunday, his family said.

Irish-born Wogan, one of the BBC's most recognizable faces and voices, was granted a British knighthood in 2005.

“Sir Terry Wogan died today after a short but brave battle with cancer. He passed away surrounded by his family,” a statement on behalf of his family said.

Wogan began his broadcasting career with Irish state broadcaster RTE before joining the BBC in 1966. He went on to become a national institution as a disc jockey, chat show host and presenter, known for his gently mocking wit and Irish brogue.

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More than 2,100 Colombian women infected with Zika virus

More than 2,100 pregnant Colombian women are infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus, the country’s national health institute said on Saturday, as the disease continues its spread across the Americas.

The virus has been linked to the devastating birth defect microcephaly, which prevents foetus’ brains from developing properly. There is no vaccine.

There are 20,297 confirmed cases of the disease in Colombia, the national health institute said in a epidemiology bulletin, among them 2,116 pregnant women. There are so far no reported cases of microcephaly or deaths from the virus in Colombia.

The institute said 37.2 per cent of pregnant women with Zika live in Norte de Santander province, along the eastern border with Venezuela.

Zika cases have been confirmed in 23 countries and territories in the Americas and scientists are racing to develop a vaccine for the virus.

The health ministry has said Zika infection falls within the health requirements women must meet to get abortions in the country, which restricts the procedure unless patients are victims of rape, have significant medical problems or the foetus is fatally deformed.

Many women, especially those living far from large cities, struggle to find abortion providers even when they meet the legal requirements and illegal abortions are widespread.

The government has urged women to delay pregnancy for six to eight months to avoid potential infection. Officials expect up to 700,000 cases.

Brazil is the country hit hardest by the disease. It has reported around 3,700 cases of microcephaly strongly suspected to be related to Zika.

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2.8 million cancer deaths in China in 2015: study

Some 2.8 million Chinese may have died of cancer in 2015 or over 7,500 deaths daily, according to a new study.

“With increasing incidence and mortality, cancer is the leading cause in China and is a major public health problem,” the study in the world’s most populous nation says.

It also estimated that nearly 4.3 million were diagnosed in 2015, with 12,000 new cases daily.

The figures marked a sharp rise in new diagnoses. Figures released in 2013 estimated that there were 3.12 million new diagnoses and over two million deaths in 2012.

The figures in the study are not actual numbers, but are estimates based on data trends from 72 local, population-based cancer registries between 2009 and 2011, which is now available through the NCCRC and represents 6.5 per cent of the total population.

It said lung, stomach, esophageal, liver and colorectal cancers were the most common ones in men, accounting for about two-thirds of all cases.

Breast, lung, stomach, colorectal and esophageal cancers were the most commonly seen cancers among women, the official Xinhua news agency reported, quoting the study.

Chen Wanqing, leading author of the study and director of the NCCRC told China National Radio that though air pollution is an important cause of lung cancer deaths, their accurate correlation must be decided by 10 to 20 years of data analysis.

Noting that smoking accounted for about one quarter of all cancer deaths in China, he said China’s emphasis on smoking control is a good sign to prevent such deaths.

A good trend shown in the report is that mortality rates of cancers have decreased by about 21 per cent for both men and women since 2006.

China should be prepared as the number of cancers deaths will still climb with the arrival of aging population, he said, adding the most important measure would still be on prevention.

The study has been published by the US medical journal ‘CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.’

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Trump leads; Clinton, Sanders neck-and-neck in Iowa

The final poll ahead of the first nominating contests in the U.S. presidential race on Monday gave Donald Trump a five-point lead over Ted Cruz while Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were neck-and-neck.

Mr. Trump, the Republican real estate mogul, had the support of 28 per cent of likely caucus-goers in Iowa, with Texas Senator Ted Cruz at 23 per cent and Florida Senator Marco Rubio at 15 per cent, according to The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics poll.

On the Democratic side, the poll which is said to have a history of accuracy, found former Secretary of State Ms. Clinton with 45 per cent support to Vermont Senator Mr. Sanders’ 42 per cent within the poll’s margin of error.

The poll took place between January 26 and 29, three days before Mr. Trump skipped the Republican Iowa debate and held his own rival event to raise funds for veterans.

The candidates crisscrossed Iowa on Saturday in a frenzied weekend prelude to the first presidential contest of the 2016 race.

Mr. Trump, according to CBS News, made a dramatic entrance to a Dubuque rally as his jet flew low over a hangar half-filled by the waiting crowd and music played from the movie “Air Force One”.

There was more drama inside, as a small group of protesters interrupted him and Mr. Trump joined the crowd in chanting “USA” to drown out the discord. He asked security to “get them out” but “don’t hurt them”.

In the Democratic race, Mr. Sanders called the contest against Ms. Clinton a likely tossup depending on the turnout.

“It’s virtually tied,” Mr. Sanders said at a Manchester rally. “We will win the caucus on Monday night if there is a large voter turnout. We will lose the caucus on Monday night if there is a low voter turnout.”

“The eyes of America, in fact much of the world” would be on Iowa, and the State could be a model for the future of American democracy, he said.

Meanwhile, Ms. Clinton’s campaign received a boost with the New York Times endorsing her in the Democratic presidential primary describing her as “one of the most broadly and deeply qualified presidential candidates in modern history”.

The Times said “some of the campaign attacks (against Ms. Clinton) are outrageous, like Donald Trump’s efforts to bring up Bill Clinton’s marital infidelity”.

But it acknowledged “Some, like those about Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server, are legitimate and deserve forthright answers”.

Describing “the battle to be the Republican choice for president” as “nasty, brutish and anything but short” the Times came out against two current front runners — Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz.

Both “are equally objectionable for different reasons”, it said. “Trump has neither experience in nor interest in learning about national security, defence or global trade.”

And “Cruz’s campaign isn’t about constitutional principles; it’s about ambition”, the Times said.

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Manipur cut off again

Brushing aside appeals from several civil society organisations, the Kuki Students' Organisation (KSO) and the All Naga Students' Association Manipur (ANSAM) went ahead with the indefinite blockade of the three national highways — the lifelines of Manipur — from Monday midnight.

Seiboi Haokip, the general secretary of the KSO and James Inka, the assistant general secretary of the ANSAM told reporters on Sunday night that the blockade would go ahead as announced.

The organisations are demanding the regularization of 772 contractual teachers in the hill districts. However the government has been going slow on the issue as there is no rule to regularise contractual workers. If special favors are shown to these teachers, all other such engaged workers in the rest of the State might clamor for service regularization.

On the other hand, the United Naga Council is calling a 48-hour blockade of the national highways from February 4 midnight. The UNC is calling the blockade in protest against the passing of the three "anti tribal bills" in the Manipur Assembly on August 31 last year and killings of nine activists, whose bodies are still in the hospital.

These blockades would affect the people's march planned on February 6. Supported by almost all civil society organisations and most of the political parties, the march is to reaffirm the people's determination to safeguard unity in the State.

Concerned by the blockade calls, Elangbam Johnson, convener of the Joint Organisation Committee of the Associations, organizing the march told reporters on Sunday night that people have been appealing to call off this "unfortunate" call for blockades. However, the appeal has obviously fallen on deaf ears.

Within minutes of the announcement by the two students' groups, prices had been hiked and there was panic around the availability of fuel. On Monday morning, most of the oil pumps displayed "No petrol stock" signs. However, the roadside vendors are doing brisk business under the nose of the police.

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Deepening the French connection

President François Hollande’s visit is the fifth such by a French leader to have been honored as the chief guest at the Republic Day, more so than any other country. Equally significant, this was his second state visit (the first was in 2013), a trend that was started by his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, who was chief guest at the 2008 Republic Day and returned for another state visit in 2010. With corresponding visits by Indian Prime Ministers, this annual summitry highlights the expanding areas of cooperation and convergence between the two countries.

In recent years, India has entered into more than three dozen “strategic partnerships”, but France remains the original one. President Jacques Chirac had a long-standing interest in India and undertook three visits to India, in 1976, 1998 and 2006, the only leader to have been chief guest at the Republic Day twice, first as Prime Minister in 1976 and then as President in 1998. The second visit saw the establishment of the “strategic partnership” which was tested months later in May when India conducted a series of nuclear weapon tests. France was the first major power to open a dialogue with India. Within weeks, Brajesh Mishra (accompanied by the writer) was in Paris as Special Envoy of Prime Minister Atal Bihar Vajpayee. We were received by Mr. Chirac, who not only gave us a patient hearing, but also responded with a keen appreciation of India’s security predicament arising from the unbridled nuclear proliferation that had taken place in our neighbourhood. He designated Ambassador Gérard Errera as the interlocutor and the dialogue grew in scope as the French focussed on developing an understanding about our perceptions while they shared their thinking about the Balkan conflict, the risks of U.S. triumphalism and the worries about a resurgent nationalism in Russia.

Robust strategic partnership

This is the strategic dialogue that became institutionalized at the level of the National Security Advisers. The agenda has also expanded to include counter-terrorism, intelligence sharing and cyber-security issues, in addition to the original nuclear, space and defence related matters. The 57-paragraph-long Joint Statement covers these and also a wide range of other areas of cooperation — climate change and sustainable development, economic cooperation, urban development, human resource development, heritage preservation and cultural cooperation.

The terrorist attacks last year, on the Charlie Hebdo office in January and at multiple locations in Paris in November, have changed the way France looks at global terrorism. There is a realisation of vulnerability on account of the alienation in the French Muslim community. Radicalisation and the growing appeal of the ideology of global jihad is a real threat. This resulted in a standalone Joint Statement on counter-terrorism which seeks to do away with the caste system in terror strikes. If New York, London and Paris were horrific, so must Mumbai, Beirut and Nairobi be, and the statement makes that point effectively. It underlines the need for a comprehensive approach, removes any distinction between al-Qaeda and the terrorist groups targeting India like Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Hizbul Mujahideen, calls on Pakistan to bring to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks and calls for a dismantling of sanctuaries and safe havens in Pakistan’s border areas that can destabilise Afghanistan.
A push has been given to the Jaitapur nuclear plant negotiations by seeking to conclude these by the end of 2016, coupled with the affirmation that there will be six European pressurised reactors which should help in bringing the cost to below $5 billion for each reactor. To mark 50 years of India-France space cooperation, new projects for cooperation between the Indian Space Research Organisation and the French government space agency, Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES) have been announced, dealing with environment and weather monitoring, mapping of water resources and a joint Thermal Infrared Earth observation mission.

The implementation of the announcement made during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Paris last April about the decision to purchase 36 Rafale combat aircraft in a flyaway condition, has been taken forward by signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) which freezes the technical parameters, weapon payloads and lifetime servicing and spares needed. It is expected that the negotiations of the financial terms will be concluded in coming months. More significant are the joint ventures (JV) proposed to be set up between private sector entities in both countries that can provide a much needed boost to “Make in India” in defence. This should give greater content to the Agreement on Defence Cooperation, originally signed in 2006 and now extended till 2026, providing a framework for cooperation in defence production, research and development and procurement of defence materials.

Among the emerging areas of cooperation are homeland security, cyber security, special forces like the National Security Guard and its French counterpart GIGN, and intelligence sharing to tackle the common threats of terrorism and global criminal networks. Closely linked are concerns about Internet governance, surveillance by external powers and the dominance of U.S. companies in this field. Maritime security in the Indian Ocean region is another sector ripe for greater cooperation, given French presence by virtue of its territories (the Reunion Islands) for maintaining safety of sea lanes, tackling piracy and enhancing maritime domain awareness.

Business and educational ties

Cooperation in “strategic” areas is growing and the government-to-government relationship is the principal driver for this. Two areas that have been lagging are economic and trade relations as well as the people-to-people exchanges. The Hollande visit has sought to fix these by announcing a range of new measures. Bilateral trade between the two countries has been languishing at $8 billion, well below potential. French foreign direct investment has picked up and there are more than 800 French enterprises operating in India. These include industry leaders like Alstom, Airbus, Schneider, Alcatel, Total, BNP Paribas, L’Oréal, Renault, Sanofi Aventis, Veolia, Engie (GDF Suez), Thales, Vinci, etc. Capgemini, an IT major has a large workforce in India. With a large number of MoUs signed in sectors like urban development, solar energy, sewage and sanitation, urban transport including railways, water supply and entertainment, there appears to be a determined effort to make the business-to-business link more robust. Dovetailing the Smart Cities initiative is a good move in this regard. Nagpur, Chandigarh and Puducherry have been identified as three cities where French technical assistance and funding has also been promised. However, the challenge will be to develop viable public-private partnerships that can generate long-term funding and also make the projects self-sustaining in the long run.

An attempt has also been made to energise the people-to-people relationship by focussing on educational exchanges and skill development which creates a resource pool as Indo-French JVs generate greater employment opportunities. The number of Indian students going to France annually is 2,500 while the number of Chinese students is 10 times larger. Allowing larger number of French youth to intern in enterprises in India and easing visa norms for Indian students to work for two years after completing their education in France are steps in the right direction. Linkages between educational institutions need to be built up as more and more French institutions begin to offer bilingual courses.

Traditionally, the people-to-people relationship has been driven at the elite level of artists, musicians, dancers, writers and film-makers as eminent Indians in these fields have engaged with their French counterparts, but at a popular level, it lacks a buzz. Out of seven million foreign tourists visiting India annually, the number of French tourists is less than 3,00,000! Direct air links between India and France are a fourth of those between India and Germany. An Indo-French Centre for the Promotion of Advanced Research has been in existence for nearly three decades but limited budgetary resources hamper its activities. It needs to be restructured to permit it to raise resources from Indian and French industry; for this, the scope of projects needs to be broadened. Cultural festivals have been a regular feature but events need to be planned outside the metropolises, taking local calendars into account.
The strategic relationship between the two countries has developed over the years generating a sense of comfort between the relevant government agencies. What are needed are initiatives that can strengthen business-to-business linkages and people-to-people contacts which can, in turn, provide a broader underpinning to the overall bilateral relationship. The Hollande visit has rightly sought to focus on these sectors. If these can be effectively implemented, it will help establish a more balanced relationship between the two countries, with overlapping networks of stakeholders from all sections in both societies.

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The gale called Bernie Sanders

When a breath of fresh air shows signs of acquiring gale-force proportions, a nation sits up and pays attention. Thus it is with the U.S.’s only Democratic Socialist contender in this year’s race to the Oval Office, Bernard ‘Bernie’ Sanders.

Mr. Sanders, who has risen sharply in the pre-primary polling to pull up alongside arch-rival Hillary Clinton in Iowa and outstrip her in New Hampshire, has always been something of an enigma, both for his politics and his origins.

The U.S. Senator hails from Vermont, home to numerous frosty delights including the world-famous Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, heavenly ski slopes, and also the least religious population of any American state.

Though his antecedents may be cool, his energetic campaign to take on the runaway machines of rugged American capitalism and fight for the welfare of the middle class has fired up his supporters across the nation and put Ms. Clinton, the Washington insider, on notice.

It is evident from the Democratic debates held so far that Mr. Sanders easily combines a folksy appeal — the likes of what George W. Bush had — with his socialist vision for a more equitable American economy, whether in terms of free tuition at public universities, campaign finance reform, or single-payer health insurance.

An undefined “socialism”
However, it would be wise to not get carried away by what “socialism” means in Mr. Sanders’ paradigm, for if it ever became a reality, it would be a far cry from Vladimir Lenin’s Russia, or even Jyoti Basu’s West Bengal.

Yes, unchecked income inequality has consistently been a target of Mr. Sanders; yet he is hardly what one would describe as a radical leftist, certainly not compared to the Western European notion of that concept.

Mr. Sanders has almost deliberately shied away from offering a clear definition of his socialism, and his remarks so far reflect that he is aware of his audience’s general discomfiture with the term.

“When I use the world socialist — and I know some people aren’t comfortable about it — I’m saying that it is imperative [that we] create a government that works for all and not just the few,” Mr. Sanders said in November 2015.

Yet, earlier this month, the depth of his “socialism” was critiqued in an article by The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates, who condemned Mr. Sanders’s dismissal of the idea that reparations should be paid to the descendants of historic racial injustice in the U.S.

Mr. Coates wrote, “What candidates name themselves is generally believed to be important... Is shy incrementalism really the lesson of this fortuitous outburst of Vermont radicalism?”

Indeed, it is quite possible that when Mr. Sanders announced his candidacy for the presidential nomination, he embraced socialism out of sheer pragmatism, as a label that would emphasis that he was cut from a different cloth of liberalism, and that would thus help him evade the inevitable comparison to Ms. Clinton.

However, this has left him vulnerable to penetrating questions from liberals regarding a range of issues on which his progressive credentials remain unproven.

Take gun control reform, an issue that has seared the conscience of the U.S. in recent years in the wake of a series of devastating shooting rampages at schools, houses of worship and other public spaces. Mr. Sanders came under a volley of criticism from Ms. Clinton early on in the debate season for his decidedly illiberal decision to vote in favor of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which was passed in 2005 and gave broad legal immunity to gunmakers and dealers from demands that they make their products safer or their sales better monitored.

In late January 2016, he backtracked and agreed to co-sponsor a bill that would repeal this very law he voted for, one that the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre described as “the most significant piece of pro-gun legislation in 20 years.” As a footnote, Ms. Clinton voted against the law.

On another hard-fought liberal issue, women’s reproductive rights, Mr. Sanders stood on firmer ground for always voting pro-choice in the U.S. Congress, but found himself tested last week when Planned Parenthood, a large, national federation of healthcare agencies catering primarily to women, issued a presidential endorsement of Ms. Clinton.

Mr. Sanders responded to the endorsement by calling non-profit organisations such as Planned Parenthood a “part of the establishment” that he was seeking to challenge, a war cry that puts a premium on being an Obama-esque outsider to the stilted politics of Washington’s Beltway.

Succeeding Obama
Is Mr. Sanders the true inheritor of U.S. President Barack Obama’s mantle of “hope and change?”

While the answer would depend on whom you asked, Mr. Obama appeared to teeter on the brink of revealing his preferred candidate when he met Mr. Sanders at the White House on January 27.

He said in an interview just before that meeting, “Bernie came in with the luxury of being a complete long shot and just letting loose. I think Hillary came in with the both privilege — and burden — of being perceived as the front runner… You’re always looking at the bright, shiny object that people haven’t seen before — that’s a disadvantage to her.”

In some ways, going by his campaign promises, Mr. Sanders is the better man to take the agenda of the Obama years forward, especially if that means filling some gaping holes that emerged during Mr. Obama’s reign.

One example would be going after what Mr. Sanders called the “casino capitalism” of Wall Street banks that resulted in the Great Recession of 2008; another, fulfilling that heretofore unrealized Obama promise to shut down Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba; a third maybe his call to let regional powers play a greater role in the fight against the Islamic State.

Contrarily, Ms. Clinton is the leader who would hold the nation firm to the Democratic Party’s broader agenda of supporting the middle class during tough economic times, protecting the American labour force from foreign competition, strengthening the government’s backing of women’s reproductive rights, and much more.

Face-off with Trump
A critical factor influencing Mr. Sanders’ surging popularity on the eve of the primary elections this week is the rise of Republican renegade and surprise front- runner Donald Trump.

Even as Mr. Trump has systematically denigrated Muslims, Mexicans and women, among others, Democrats close to the political middle, who fear a broader American swing to the right, may seek safe haven in the arms of the Vermont socialist.

However, if we step back from philosophical and policy issues, tactical voting logic favours Ms. Clinton as long as she and Mr. Trump continue to be the overall front runners.

Wavering Democrats may have no choice but to back her when they realise that for their party to mount a credible challenge to Mr. Trump’s far-right track, they must coalesce around the candidate closest to the political centre.

Only a candidate with the broadest appeal across the political spectrum could win over undecided and independent voters when they go toe-to-toe against Mr. Trump.

But even the canniest observers of the U.S. elections will concede that no outcomes, howsoever strongly suggested by opinion polls, can be assumed until the final votes have been tallied.

Mr. Sanders may or may not blaze a path to the White House but in winning even as much support as he has so far, he has tilted the political firmament in this election towards a more humane, less bigoted idiom, and that is welcome.

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Writing the Roger Federer story

What all does the Age of Roger Federer encompass? Is it about him alone? In a career that has gone past his incredible rivalry with Rafael Nadal and, as we saw this week in the Australian Open, that now adds a distinct shine to Novak Djokovic’s current dominance, Federer has lifted the profile of his sport in ways we are yet to fully articulate. He is the greatest, and a significant measure of his greatness lies in pulling into a higher orbit tennis players who’d defeat him. Would Federer have been considered as exceptional had he been playing in another time? Definitely. Would Nadal’s failure to get his career back to its earlier trajectory been as heartbreaking if he had not been the other half, the Rafa-Roger world number one-two ranking for so long? Or would Djokovic be held in as much awe if he had the same winning record without having pulled past Federer and Nadal? Both unlikely.

Writing about Fed

However, writing about Federer can easily become a self-indulgent exercise, and perhaps we must await a memoir from him of the order of Andre Agassi’s Open to truly understand him. Till then, we have inadequate attempts like William Skidelsky’s Federer and Me: A Story of Obsession, a book so self-indulgently obsessive that it’s mesmerizing till you soon snap out of it, as you inevitably will.

It takes a writer of the calibre of Simon Barnes to put our collective obsessiveness about Federer, even in this latter part of his playing life, in perspective. He writes in A Book of Heroes: Or a Sporting Half-Century: “Even if someone were to come along and beat his record in terms of numbers, it is unlikely that they would do so by means of such beauty and artistry, such style. Federer really is the greatest of all time. It is not necessary to worship him as a god: but a certain amount of deference is — well, therapeutic.”

Perhaps the easier, make-do way to get a measure of him is, in fact, by examining him along with the competition — as the journalist L. Jon Wertheim did in his book, Strokes of Genius: Federer, Nadal, and the Greatest Match Ever Played. The match was, of course, the Wimbledon final of 2008, remembered as much for the tennis as for the way it changed the course of both careers. Nadal would go on that summer to displace Federer as world number one, and take the tennis singles gold at the Beijing Olympics.

But the book I find myself returning to after binge-watching sport is Here and Now. Paul Auster and J.M. Coetzee had written letters to each other between 2008 and 2011, clearly for eventual publication, discussing whatever was top of the mind for them at the particular moment. For readers of literary fiction, the book is obviously special. But it’s one that should be recommended to all sports fans, particularly those like me afflicted with low-grade guilt at spending all that time in front of the television set. Writes Coetzee: “Like you, I think that watching sport on television is mostly a waste of time. But there are moments that are not a waste of time, as would for example crop up now and again in the glory days of Roger Federer… I scrutinise such moments, revisiting them in memory — Federer playing a cross-court backhand volley, for instance. Is it truly, or only, the aesthetic, I ask myself, that brings such moments alive for me?… I have just seen something like the human ideal made visible.”
In response, Auster, ever ready to be persuaded by Coetzee on anything, writes: “As for the exaltation you talk about when watching Federer in his glory days, I am in total accord with you.”

But Auster had been encouraged down that sport-is-a-waste-of-time line earlier. Coetzee had spent most of a Sunday watching the third day of an Australia-South Africa Test match, “emotionally involved” in the game. And: “In order to watch the game I put aside the two or three books I am in the middle of reading.” Cricket, he explains to his American friend, has been played for centuries, and in all those matches over the years it was likely that the contest that particular day had been approximated in another match some time, somewhere. Whereas each good book is something new. So he asks Auster: “Does any of this sound familiar to you? Does it strike a chord you recognise? Is sport simply like sin: one disapproves of it but one yields because the flesh is weak?”

Of course it is not. But it a good standard to hold the great sportspersons against — that their exploits amount to something more than entertainment. Call it the Federer Standard.

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Masculinity is in a crisis. Here’s ‘Y’

Manhood may have received its nastiest blow yet. Biology textbooks have long informed us that the ‘Y ‘chromosome, present only in males, is critical for reproduction. But a study by researchers at the University of Hawaii (UoH) has shown that healthy mice can be made, using assisted reproduction techniques, without any of the all-important ‘Y’ chromosome genes. Normally a person gets 23 chromosomes —the repository of our DNA — from each parent; 22 of the pairs are called autosomes and the ‘X’ and ‘Y’ are called sex chromosomes. The ‘Y’ chromosome is present in males, who have one ‘X’ and one ‘Y’ chromosome, while females have two ‘X’ chromosomes.

The diminution of man started two years ago after the research team, led by Monika A. Ward, UoH, showed that of the many genes of the ‘Y’ chromosome, only two — ‘Sry’ and ‘Eif2s3y’ — were needed for male mice to sire offspring with assisted fertilisation. Now, the same team, with a collaborating researcher from France, Michael Mitchell [French National Institute of Health and Medical Research] (INSERM, Marseille), upped that and produced males completely devoid of the entire ‘Y’ chromosome.

In last Friday’s edition of the journal Science, Ms. Ward and her colleagues describe the production of these gender-bending mice by detailing how they first replaced the first gene ‘Sry’ with one from the autosome and the other with a gene from the ‘X’ chromosome. While one may quibble that the ‘X’ chromosome used was from the male, there’s been related research showing that the days of the ‘Y’ chromosome are numbered. Both the ‘X’ and ‘Y’ chromosomes are known to lose genes over time and due to the frenetic shuffling of evolution. However, women — by virtue of having two ‘X’s — were somehow able to swap and maintain their genes among themselves. The ‘Y’ — unpaired and solitary in the male — does not get a chance to replenish its genes as much. Also, there are far fewer genes on the ‘Y’ chromosome than on the ‘X’. Jennifer Graves at the Australian National University caused consternation earlier this decade when she estimated that within five million years, the ‘Y’ chromosome, and the men it produces, would disappear. More ominous was genetics professor Bryan Sykes who predicted the demise of the ‘Y’ chromosome, and of men, in as little as 1,00,000 years in his 2003 book Adam’s Curse: A Future without Men.

Not so grave

A flurry of studies that have since looked at the proclamations of Prof. Sykes and Prof. Graves more closely have now found that the future isn’t as dire. The loss of genes, apparently, isn’t a steady loss and there are long periods of stability followed by bursts of attrition.

Jennifer Hughes and her colleagues at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, compared the human ‘Y’ chromosome with that of the ‘Y’ from the chimpanzee — supposed to have diverged at least 4 million years ago from the line that begat humans — and also with that of the rhesus monkey which diverged from humans 25 million years ago. They reported in the journal Nature in 2012 that human chromosomes had lost no further genes in the last six million years, and only one in the last 25 million years. “The ‘Y’ is not going anywhere and gene loss has probably come to a halt,” Dr. Hughes told the BBC.

While masculinity can breathe easy, Dr. Ward’s studies may provide new lines of investigation for male infertility. Though these results only hold for mice and there are formidable ethical barriers to be negotiated, one thing is incontrovertible by now: it simply isn’t raining men anymore.

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Wi-Fi deployment gains momentum

free high-speed public Wi-Fi service was unveiled at Mumbai Central Station by RailTel in partnership with Google in January. In Karnataka, BSNL set up a high-speed Wi-Fi service at 20 popular spots last week. In November last year, Facebook said it was partnering with BSNL to create 100 Wi-Fi hotspots in rural India.

Not surprising, considering the increasing number of connected devices and clogging of airwaves.

In September 2014, 3G data consumption surpassed 2G in India. Between January and December 2014, there was a 114 per cent increase in 3G data traffic, says Nokia Networks’ MBit Index study 2015. According to the Internet and Mobile Association of India, the number of mobile internet users in India is expected to be 314 million by next year, up from 173 million in December 2014.

Among the players in this emerging domain is an 11-year-old Sunnyvale, California-headquartered company, Ruckus Wireless. Riding on cutting-edge technologies and burgeoning business opportunities, the company has seen rapid growth. In the most recent quarter, its operating income grew 46 per cent Q/Q and revenue by 16.4 per cent Y/Y.

An enabling medium
“Wi-Fi is the story. Already it’s the indoor data technology,” says CEO of Ruckus Wireless Selina Lo, who was recently in Bengaluru, where it has an R&D Centre. “LTE and Wi-Fi will converge. We also have VoLTE. Many operators, especially in the US, are adopting Wi-Fi calling,” she says. Long-Term Evolution, marketed as 4G, is a standard for wireless communication of high speed data for mobile phones and data terminals.

Ruckus Wireless, besides ramping up operations, also plans to manufacture in India. “In villages, capacity is not as important as coverage. We are designing something on those lines for India,” said Ms. Lo, who is known for innovation, identifying new markets and building products for them.

Mini Vasudevan, who was formerly with Nortel and Ericsson and has played an active role in development of wireless standards, says the rapid growth of Wi-Fi is inevitable since providing wireless to a growing number of people is a challenge. “In the emerging Internet of Things scenario, anything that can be connected is connected, and Wi-Fi is enabling that,” she says. While 3G and 4G aren’t able to handle mass volume of bandwidth, Wi-Fi provides it, says Ajay Srivastava, Head, Information Technology, Spice Retail Ltd (Devices). “It’s a solution not only for mobile devices but also for multiple services in smart city projects.”

Interference and security
One of the challenges networks face is ‘interference', caused by radio frequency signals from devices nearby. A way to get around it is BeamFlex, says Selina Lo. “It’s a first of its kind adaptive antenna technology that fights interference and maximises signal coverage throughput and network capacity. It can steer every packet to a path that has the least interference in real time.”

Security is another issue. Ms. Lo says Cloudpath is more secure as it is encrypted and not password-based.

“When a device signs on, we do a one-time authentication. After that, the network will push a certificate on to the device. It can be managed by the company that runs the Wi-Fi. They can revoke it or specify the duration of the contract.”

Ms. Lo is confident of being in a space that has players like Cisco, HP, Aruba, Ericsson and Motorola. “When we moved from residential to enterprise segment in 2008, we were aware of the big challenges. We selected the mid-tier market as our focus. Everyone was focusing on Fortune 500 so we said we are going to address the unfortunate 50,000.” The company has over 70 per cent market share among four and five star hotels, besides a number of clients in the educational and medical care segments, she says.

A rapidly growing market like India is wide open for adoption, says Mini Vasudevan. “What is important is product differentiation and effective solutions.” Ajay Srivastava says Ruckus, one among the top Wi-Fi companies, has made investments in India and is a key partner in large projects initiated by telecom firms.

Karthik Ayyar, who has experience in setting up Wi-Fi networks, says public hotspots is in early stages in India. “We will see more people getting involved, especially the mobile service providers, since our population density is high and everyone wants to stay connected.” He says pure play companies like Ruckus have a role in the emerging scenario. “Ruckus has been in this industry for a long time, they have experience, and they have developed some tools to deal with issues that affect connectivity.

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Government may ask central bank to consider roads as a priority sector

He government will soon approach the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan with a proposal to include road projects under the priority sector list for lending purposes and review the non-performing assets norms to revive Rs. 40,000-crore worth of highway projects that have not taken off due to bureaucratic delays and cost overruns.

The Road Transport and Highways Ministry has decided to take up the priority sector route with the central bank,following a consultation with the Indian Banks’ Association earlier this month.

The Ministry has agreed to support bankers’ suggestions on the issue and “is willing to take it up with RBI,” according to a document of the meeting reviewed by The Hindu. A government official had said last week that it will hold a meeting with the RBI soon.

The banks provide a certain portion of ‘priority sector’ lending in the form of small value loans to farmers for agriculture, micro and small enterprises, poor people for housing, students for education and low income groups and weaker sections.

At present, 40 per cent of loans given by banks should go to priority sectors defined by the RBI. Out of this, 18 per cent should go toward agriculture lending.

“Considering the importance of road sector in supporting the economic growth and nation building, it should be classified as ‘priority sector,’” Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), the industry body of banks, suggested in a meeting held with Road Ministry officials on January 4 this year.

In a separate move, the Union government may ask the RBI to ease non-performing asset norms for bank loans to revive projects. It may ask the RBI to not classify bank loans as NPAs if the project has failed to take off beyond two years from its original date of commencement.

At present, bank loans, extended for infrastructure projects, become NPAs if the project has been delayed for two years from its original schedule even for reasons beyond the control of promoters such as land acquisition approvals. This will, however, be done for road projects which are found viable after assessment.

The government may also ask the RBI to allow banks to infuse more funds into projects facing cost overruns due to delays. At present, the RBI guidelines allow banks to fund additional interest during construction of projects and other cost overruns up to 10 per cent of the original project cost. The IBA has requested the government to increase the limit of 10 per cent to support stalled projects.

The government is finding it hard to revive the 19 highway projects worth Rs. 40,000 crore and it recently met road developers and bankers to address the issues.

“There are 19 projects where no solution could be found out…It is too early to make a commitment,” Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari had said after the meeting.

One of the main reasons behind the delay in highway projects is shortage of funds. While the road contractors said banks were reluctant to fund projects due to mounting non-performing assets, the government officials said the ‘managerial inefficiencies’ of developers have stalled these projects.

Last year, the government had taken several decisions to revive the stalled road projects. The Cabinet had approved a policy to allow National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to infuse one-time funds for completing public-private partnership (PPP) projects where 50 per cent work is done.

However, the scheme has not found many takers as banks have not agreed to NHAI getting the first charge on the toll revenues from these projects.

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‘Not paying bribes in India is a competitive disadvantage’

India’s investment climate has worsened compared with last year and corruption is one of the main deterrents for doing business, a survey of 141 Swedish companies based in the country revealed.

“One out of three companies state that ‘not paying bribes’ is a competitive disadvantage,” according to the 8th annual Business Climate Survey conducted by the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in India.

A slow roll out of reforms including the Goods and Services Tax, import restrictions, high customs duties and red-tape at the lower levels of bureaucracy and restrictive labour laws, were the other main hurdles.

On the business outlook, the survey said 52 per cent of the companies consider the current business climate to be ‘very favorable' (lower than the last year’s 60 per cent), while 76 per cent view it as 'favorably' (lower than 80 per cent last year).

Despite a dampening of the sentiment, companies will continue to invest, according to the survey.

Eight out of 10 companies, the same as last year, are looking to increase their investments in the coming three years.

High inflation, increased labour costs, delay in receiving payments, and long and complex sales processes are among the main factors impacting cost-advantage negatively.

Swedish companies wanted an early conclusion of the India-European Union free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations, saying the pact was crucial for boosting Swedish investments to India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, official sources said, could travel to Brussels next month for the India-EU Summit that could see a resumption of the FTA talks.

“Sweden would like the FTA negotiations to be concluded as soon as possible. A lot of work has been done on the FTA.

Though the devil is in the details, it should not take much time to reach a consensus,” Harald Sandberg, Ambassador of Sweden to India, said.

A successful conclusion of the FTA was important to widen trade ties between Sweden and India.

India, during the FTA negotiations, demanded greater market access to the services sector in the EU, including easier temporary movement of Indian skilled professionals to the EU.

Sweden has one of the most liberal policies on temporary movement of natural persons and on migration as it believes that such movement will result in a healthy exchange of knowledge, Sandberg said after releasing the findings of the survey.

Amitabh Kant, secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, said the challenge for India was to grow at 9-10 per cent annually for three decades or more to lift millions out of poverty.

Swedish companies must “invest in India ahead of the curve” to reap the benefits of the initiatives undertaken by the government including the Make in India, Skill India, Start-up Mission, the Smart City policy and easing of foreign investment norms in sectors such as defense, railways, construction, insurance and medical devices.

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IISc’s invention powers up nanoelectronics industry

An invention by Bengaluru-based scientists at IISc is all set to make inroads into the billion-dollar nano electronics industry.

This is disruptive because the technology can drastically reduce the cost of the existing state-of-the-art e-beam lithography and optical lithography. This invention is a new way to etch thin lines on a substrate using electrodes, termed electrolithography.

This will come in very useful in inscribing, for instance, nanometer-scale circuits which make up IC chips, minute transistors among others. Once developed into prototypes, this technique could in principle reduce the cost of the equipment used presently from about five crore rupees per piece to merely Rs.15-20 lakhs. This would come in useful not just in the industry but in academia, too, with more colleges being able to afford research in nanotechnology.

The people behind this are Dr Praveen Kumar of Department of Materials Engineering, Professor Rudra Pratap, Chairperson of Centre of Nanoscience and Engineering, and Santanu Talukder, their PhD student. Once this technology is developed into a prototype for commercial use, it can vie with, and, as the researchers claim, even surpass, the existing state-of-the-art technology and break into the billion-dollar, nanoelectronics industry.

Since it does not require high currents or vacuum atmosphere it is a relatively more environment-friendly method than existing ones. The group has filed for the patent in December 2014.

In the process of taking their invention from the lab to the industry, the scientists will have to recruit mechanical engineers and electrical engineers to help them develop the prototype.

Technically the main steps they have to take will be in putting the whole assemblage into a black box which can be easily operated using the proverbial “push-button.”

The usual challenges of getting people to adopt it may not be difficult, as IISc organises various workshops, attended by academicians as well as people from industry, where the product may be showcased. Not just that, the Centre for Nano-Science and Engineering, at IISc, has several industry affiliates who can understand the power of the invention and communicate its worth to others.

The process of lithography is straightforward. You take a transparent glass plate, coat it with a layer of a suitable polymer.

On top of this, add a layer of chromium, then you dig a trench of the desired pattern on the chromium layer so that parts of the polymer layer are exposed. Using acetone, dissolve the exposed polymer and remove those parts of it. This caused a gap to be formed in the polymer-chromium sandwich.

This whole assemblage functions like the negative of a developed photo film. Now, if the metal of choice is “sputtered” on to this sandwich, it will go and occupy the gap that’s been created and directly fall on the glass plate. In this way, the desired pattern using a metal of choice can be formed. This pattern will have a width equal to the width of the trench and thickness equal to the polymer layer.

The crucial difference between existing processes and this one is in the manner of digging the trench.

Here, the researchers use electrodes that are widely separated from each other. The very thin cathode, when it moves like a nib over the chromium layer, causes the metal to heat up, dissolve and flow out. This makes a trench whose width is nearly that of the electrode tip. Other techniques, the e-beam lithography which is very popular, or the optical lithography using ultraviolet light, involve machines that cost a few crores of rupees whereas this set up could be assembled at a cost price of some Rs20 lakhs.

Dr. Kumar says it was serendipitous!

“We were working on a method to enhance the sensing property of a piezo-resistive material. We had developed a method to create controlled damage in a metallic structure… [While doing this] we got interested in understanding this liquefaction of the chromium layer and the flow of the liquefied chromium away from the cathode. We performed a series of experiments to understand its fundamentals.

“Once we got the science behind the phenomenon we started working on the invention of electrolithography,” he says.

It can work well in making trenches that are microns thick as well as those that measure only nanometers in thickness.

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Yuvraj, Ishant among 8 marquee players for IPL auction

Yuvraj Singh, Ishant Sharma and Kevin Pietersen will be among the eight marquee players up for grabs at the IPL 2016 Player Auction schduled to take place in Bengaluru on February 6.

As many as 351 cricketers will go under the hammer, out of which 230 will be Indians and 131 foreigners.

Interestingly, there are 29 Australians amongst 130 capped players in the auction list, three more than the number of capped Indians.

The capped players from other countries taking part in the auction come from South Africa (18 players), West Indies (20), Sri Lanka (16), England (7), New Zealand (9) and Bangladesh (5), besides the associate nations of Canada (2) and Ireland (2).

A total of 219 uncapped players will feature in the auction, with 204 of them being Indians playing on the domestic circuit.

Yuvraj and Ishant are the two Indian marquee players and it remains to be seen how they fare in the auction after being released by their respective teams.

Yuvraj has been released by his franchise, Delhi Daredevils and Royal Challengers Bangalore, for the last two seasons after attracting the highest bid in the previous auctions, while Sunrisers Hyderabad let go of Ishant after he had a forgettable last edition where he picked up one wicket in four games.

The remaining six marquee players are Shane Watson, Aaron Finch, Dale Steyn, Dwayne Smith, Martin Guptill and Pietersen.

“The player auction will kick-start the countdown to the ninth season of one of the most popular sporting events in the world. The franchises have returned to the drawing board, reworked plans and devised new strategies, over the last few months. They will have the opportunity to bid for some of the biggest names in the game,” IPL Chairman Rajeev Shukla said.

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'Airlift' spreads misinformation

I saw the film Airlift on Thursday evening, but despite the entertaining narrative, the film left me slightly bewildered because the director says in the beginning that Ranjit Katyal [played by Akshay Kumar] is a fictional character but the movie is based on a real event. The problem is that the only two real events referred to in the film are the invasion of Iraq and the airlifting of Indians from Kuwait and Iraq.

What intrigued me is that Katyal, the protagonist, telephones a Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, who introduces himself right in the beginning of the telephone call that he was not dealing with the Gulf issues and he would help Katyal speak to the relevant Joint Secretary. Yet, throughout the film, Katyal keeps on interacting with the same person. If Katyal was a quick-witted crisis-solver, then why was he not in touch with the correct Joint Secretary dealing with the Gulf-India ties?

Obviously, the director did it deliberately to portray the MEA in a poor light. I agree that, the director had the freedom to portray Katyal, but the diplomats in the MEA were not fictional characters. They were real people who did an incredible job. I think fictionalisation of characters of the MEA, and deny them the right of credit for their work, is unethical.

A lot of the viewers of the film were born after the incident in Kuwait. They need to be educated on their genuine inheritance and history from the First Gulf War. For example, the Ambassador of India in Kuwait, Kamal Bakshi, was portrayed in a very poor light. In reality, Ambassador Bakshi accommodated hundreds of Indians in the embassy and in several other available buildings. The film trivialises the issues. This appears like a deliberate attempt to spread misinformation.

In a sequence, the film shows Air India pilots also in a demeaning manner. The Air India did a great job during the war. Appears like the filmmaker deliberately dealt with Air India dismissively.

Excellent coordination

In fact, the evacuation was organised by a Cabinet Subcommittee which was chaired by then External Affairs Minister I.K. Gujral. There was excellent coordination among the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Ministry of External Affairs and Air India. We were careful about the developments and we did not condemn Iraq as we had 1,76,000 Indians in Kuwait and Iraq and Kuwait was under Saddam Hussein. We were under American pressure, but we resisted them and avoided condemning the Iraqi action. Mr. Gujral met James Baker Jr, his American counterpart, and conveyed our point of view. In the middle of that crisis, a major issue erupted when during our trip to the region, I.K. Gujral “hugged” Saddam Hussein. The fact is that Gujral did not hug Saddam, instead it was Saddam who hugged Gujral. We were of course reaching out to all sides to get out our people from a very dangerous conflict zone.

We also activated the Non-aligned network involving Yugoslavia, Algeria and other friends of India. Americans were treating Saddam Hussein contemptuously and there was no chance of a compromise between the Americans and the Iraqis.

We organised the evacuation in as best a way as possible. We contacted the associations of various Indian communities in Kuwait so that every community could be represented even at the stage of evacuation. The film portrays Mr. Gujral as extremely reluctant. The director made the film without any idea of how the Ministry of External Affairs works.

During Mr. Gujral’s trip to Kuwait, he was informed by the Indian diplomats that he should not step out as there was a big crowd of 3,000 people. But Mr. Gujral got on the bonnet of the car and delivered a speech to the same agitated crowd and within four minutes the crowd started saying “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”. Young people who are watching this film are getting a wrong impression of their history.

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We will soon complete Pathankot probe: Sharif

“Pakistan will soon complete its investigation into the Pathankot terror attack which had a negative impact on talks with India,” Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Saturday.

Talks with India were “going in the right direction” after the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, he said but regretted that the attack disturbed the negotiation process.

Mr. Sharif vowed that Pakistan would go to any length to uncover the alleged use of its soil in the January 2 attack on the air base in Pathankot by suspected Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists.

It is our responsibility

“It is our responsibility to uncover if our soil was used in the attack. We will do this and the ongoing investigations will soon be completed,” Mr. Sharif told reporters here.

The terrorists were being defeated and in desperation, they were carrying out isolated acts to make their presence felt, he said, adding that the remaining ones would also be eliminated.

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Five sent to jail in 33-year-old Robin Mayne case

More than three decades after the infamous ‘Robin Mayne’ scam was exposed, a special court for Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) cases here on Friday convicted and sentenced five persons to various terms of imprisonment and slapped a total fine of Rs. 1.65 crore.

The case relates to Robin Mayne, who claimed to be a close associate of former AIADMK Agriculture Minister Kalimuthu, and his accomplices conspiring to cheat nationalised banks by securing vehicle loans after producing fictitious persons and fake documents.

The accused cheated eight banks to the tune of Rs. 56 lakh in 1983.

Pronouncing the judgment XI Additional Special Judge for CBI cases K. Venkatasamy described the offence as a mega scam and said the accused were not ordinary people.

He said the former Minister (since dead) had abetted the crime by placing resources of his department at the disposal of the accused persons.

“Those entrusted with the task of apprehending thieves had themselves conspired to cheat banks and steal public money,” the judge said in his order.

According to the prosecution, Robin Mayne had approached the Chennai branches of eight banks in 1983 and offered to invest funds of the State Agriculture Department as fixed deposits. He used to travel in cars with State emblem, national flag and beacon light.

After arranging fixed deposits from the Tamil Nadu Agricultural Marketing Board, he used the then Minister’s name to persuade bank managers to lend vehicle loans to some people who, he claimed, were awarded contracts and needed to buy cars, motorcycles and lorries.

Since the fixed deposits were made, the bank officials, some of whom claimed that the then Minister himself spoke to them, agreed to sanction loans.

Robin Mayne and his associates furnished fake documents of vehicles as if they were registered in other States and obtained loans to purchase used vehicles in the names of fictitious persons. Neither the vehicles nor the applicants actually existed. They even managed to open bank accounts in those fictitious names. Some Motor Vehicle Inspectors connived with the suspects.

Soon after withdrawing the loan amount, Robin Mayne closed the fixed deposits in all the banks.

Since the equated monthly instalments were not paid, the bank official conducted an inquiry and realised that the accused had cheated them. They lodged individual complaints and the case was registered by the CBI.

Reading out the judgment, Mr. Venkatasamy said the punishment should just not be customary but instead compensate the loss of public money incurred by the nationalised banks.

11 acquitted

Eleven accused were acquitted since the prosecution could not prove the charges against them beyond reasonable doubt. A few others accused in the case either retired from service or passed away during the course of trial that lasted more than 30 years.

Robin Mayne was convicted and sentenced to seven years Rigorous Imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs. 1.08 crore.

R.D Surya Kumar was sentenced to four years in prison with a fine of Rs. 29.5 lakh. Three others Sahul Hameed, Fazil Sam and Somasundaram were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment and slapped with penalty.

Though the accused were found guilty on various counts, the judge, considering their age and health condition, said that the sentences would run concurrently.

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A case that rattled MGR and fuelled dissent

The Robin Mayne case will be remembered not just for the number of decades the accused managed to escape being punished, but also the political dissent it fuelled within the AIADMK, rattling the then Chief Minister and party founder M G Ramachandran (MGR).

In October 1985, soon after the CBI arrested Robin Mayne, who was an associate of then Agriculture Minister K Kalimuthu, some senior leaders in the AIADMK who did not take kindly to MGR re-appointing Jayalalithaa as the party’s propaganda secretary used Kalimuthu to launch an open attack against her. For the first time, MGR, who miraculously recovered from the death bed a year earlier, faced open dissent with Kalimuthu questioning her appointment.

Kalimuthu went on to accuse Jayalalithaa of conspiring to end the Dravidian rule in Tamil Nadu, and towards this end he claimed that she was instrumental in colluding with the Centre to get the CBI to “falsely implicate” him in the Robin Mayne case.

“A CBI officer who interrogated my personal assistant Manickam told him that the Congress (I) would capture power (in Tamil Nadu) within three months, and Jayalalithaa would become the Chief Minister,” he had charged.

Jayalalithaa countered it saying the charge was the product of Kalimuthu’s “fertile imagination”. Kalimuthu had responded saying Jayalalithaa was keen on fixing him as she found him an obstruction to her political ambitions. To this, Jayalalithaa had said, “I cannot be made a scapegoat for a fraud committed by someone else.”

As the war of words escalated, MGR at a Cabinet meeting held on October 28, 1985, dramatically announced that he was resigning as Chief Minister.

It had the desired effect, with all Ministers not just falling in line but also submitting their resignations to MGR giving him the choice of dropping anyone from the Cabinet.

Curiously, at one stage when Kalimuthu complained to MGR that the CBI was seeking to extract a confession from Robin Mayne (then in the agency’s custody) implicating him, MGR and then Law Minister C Ponnaiyan visited a few police stations “to inspect the conditions in police lock-ups”.

One of the stations they visited was Egmore, where Mayne was reportedly being interrogated by the CBI.

The war between Kalimuthu and Jayalalithaa did not last long. Soon after MGR’s death in December 1987, when the party split, he joined the Jayalalithaa faction and became the party’s deputy general secretary and later MP. But in 1990, he rejoined his parent party, the DMK only to return to the AIADMK fold some years later.

Significantly in 2001, Jayalalithaa got him elected as the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. Not just that in April 2005 a few days after the Supreme Court directed Kalimuthu to face trial in the Robin Mayne case, Jayalalithaa defended him strongly in the Assembly saying there was no need for him to resign.

A year later in November 2006, Kalimuthu died of heart attack following which the charges against him abated.

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Of Bollywood dreams in technicolour

Within the first 10 seconds of Coldplay’s latest video, ‘Hymn for the Weekend’, there are several stereotypes of India: majestic ruins overgrown with weeds, peacocks spreading their tail-feathers and sadhus in saffron robes with ash-smeared foreheads. No wonder the band was trending on social media, and not necessarily for the right reasons.

Since the release of the video on January 29 — which also features Beyoncé as a Bollywood star — they have received both flak and praise for the way they have represented India. They’ve been accused of cultural misrepresentation and appropriation, and applauded for choosing to showcase the beauty of our country. And while my Facebook timeline is flooded with angry rants about how there is more to India than Holi and that we do have malls and skyscrapers and not just slums and villages, I can’t quite agree with the consensus.

Sure, the video has its faults: we don’t walk around throwing colours at everyone all year round, we hardly have mystics floating in the air at every street corner, and we most certainly do not run in slow motion wearing lehengas (or is it a saree?), like Sonam Kapoor does in her blink-and-you-miss-it eight-second cameo. It might have been totally problematic if this was all they showed, with some elephants and snake-charmers thrown into the mix.

In the midst of these clichés, they do showcase the India that is: the bright colours that we love to paint our buildings with, youngsters illegally travelling ‘triples’ on a two-wheeler, the enterprising nature of street artists and vendors, right down to people peering out of windows when there’s a commotion outside and uncles in the background waving at any camera in the vicinity. Bharatanatyam and Kathakali dancers make an appearance, giving a glimpse of South Indian culture as well. The balcony with a charpoy that Chris Martin sits on, in the beginning of the video, is not an unfamiliar sight: anyone who has travelled even to the outskirts of a city would have seen them. The idea of India as an exotic destination isn’t so bad: after all, we do advertise ourselves as ‘Incredible India’.

Yes, Beyoncé is wearing mehendi and stars in a movie called Rani, but there’s nothing disrespectful about it. If the complaint is that she’s supposed to be an Indian, well, what about Amy Jackson,Sunny Leone, Katrina Kaif or Nargis Fakhri playing roles with decidedly Indian names. At the same time, young Indian boys are shown breakdancing, which is clearly adapted from Black/African-American culture. So where does cultural appropriation cross the line from being imitation as a form of flattery and become mockery?

In Coldplay’s case, it shows healthy appreciation for Indian culture, peppered with the idea of India as seen in the Western world. They didn’t get it totally right, but it’s a chance to create conversations and alter people’s perception of the country, one music video at a time.

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Rajan warns against straying from fiscal consolidation path

Ahead of the Budget, Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan on Friday cautioned against deviation from the fiscal consolidation path, which, he said, could hurt macroeconomic stability.

During the global turmoil, macroeconomic stability should not be risked, and both the government and the central bank should continue to bring down inflation, Dr. Rajan said.

The growth multipliers on government spending at this juncture are likely to be much smaller, so more spending will probably hurt debt dynamics.

“Put differently, it is worth asking if there really are very high- return investments that we are foregoing by staying on the consolidation path?”

“As Brazil’s experience suggests, the enormous costs of becoming an unstable country far outweigh any small growth benefits that can be obtained through aggressive policies… We should be very careful about jeopardising our single most important strength during this period of global turmoil – macroeconomic stability.”

Taking the fiscal deficits of the Centre and states, the consolidated fiscal deficit for the country rose last year to 7.2 per cent from 7 per cent. “So we actually expanded the aggregate deficit in the last calendar year.”

Originally, the target was to bring down fiscal deficit to 3.6 per cent of the GDP in 2015-16 but it has been postponed by a year. Now, government is targeting 3.9 per cent in the current fiscal. Deviation from the fiscal consolidation path could push up government bond yields, both because of the greater volume of bonds to be financed and potential loss of government credibility on future consolidation, Dr. Rajan said while delivering the CD Deshmukh Memorial lecture.

A slowing in inflation has been on account of the “joint work” of the government and the RBI, aided to some extent by the fall in international commodity prices, he said. “This is no mean achievement given two successive droughts that would have, in the past, pushed inflation into double digits.”

Dr. Rajan said that it was unfortunate that despite the success on the inflation front there are voices suggesting weakening the fight against inflation.

Inflation framework

“Let me therefore reiterate that we have absolutely no intent of departing from the inflation framework that has been agreed with the government. We look forward to the government amending the RBI Act to usher in the monetary policy committee, further strengthening the framework.”

With the government’s UDAY scheme to revive state power distribution companies set to become operational in the next fiscal it is unlikely that states will be shrinking their deficits, he said..

This will put pressure on the Centre to adjust more, Dr. Rajan said. The NDA government had last year put a pause on the fiscal consolidation path, postponing reduction in fiscal deficit target by a year.

He stressed that macroeconomic stability relies immensely on policy credibility, which is the public belief that policy will depart from the charted course only under extreme necessity, and not because of convenience. “If every time there is any minor difficulty, we change the goal posts, we signal to the markets that we have no staying power,” Dr. Rajan said.

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Three get death for Kamduni gangrape and murder

Three convicts of the sensational Kamduni gangrape and murder of a 21—year—old college student over two years back were today sentenced to death by a city court while three others got life imprisonment.

Additional Sessions Judge Sanchita Sarkar handed out capital sentence to Aminul Ali, Saiful Ali and Ansar Ali, while Imanul Islam, Aminul Islam and Bhola Naskar were sentenced to life imprisonment for the gangrape and brutal murder of the woman on June 7, 2013.

Rejecting arguments for not giving death sentence to the three, who were found guilty of gangrape and murder, by their lawyers claiming it could not be termed as the rarest of rare crime, the judge pronounced the sentences at 3.40 pm.

The judge called out the names of each of the convicts, who were produced in the packed court room, before pronouncing the sentences.

Saiful Ali, Ansar Ali and Aminul Ali were found guilty under sections 376(d) (gangrape), 302 (murder), 376A (inflicting injury which causes death of a woman) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC.

The judge found the other three guilty under sections 376(d) (gangrape), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of IPC.

Two accused — Rafiqul Islam and Nur Ali were acquitted on Thursday owing to lack of evidence against them. Another accused Gopal Naskar died during trial in August last year.

The gangrape and murder of the girl took place when she was returning home at Kamduni, about 50 km from Kolkata, in North 24—Parganas district after appearing for an examination at her college on June 7, 2013.

The second year BA student was pulled into a farm when she was walking back home along a deserted road after alighting from a bus. She was subsequently gangraped and murdered.

Her mutilated body was found the next morning in a corner of the farm.

The incident had sparked widespread outrage in the state amidst serious concerns over women’s safety.

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Angelique Kerber stuns Serena Williams to win Australian Open

Angelique Kerber became the first German to win a Grand Slam title since her childhood idol Steffi Graf in 1999 when she upset world number one Serena Williams 6-4 3-6 6-4 to clinch the Australian Open on Saturday.

The 34-year-old American had been seeking her seventh Melbourne Park title and 22nd overall, which would have moved her into a tie with Graf for the most Grand Slam singles titles in the Open era.

The seventh-seeded Kerber, however, was not overawed by the occasion of her first Grand Slam final, breaking twice in the first set to take it in 39 minutes as Williams made 23 unforced errors.

Williams cut down on the errors to send it into a third, which Kerber, who had the opportunity to serve it out while leading 5-3 only for the American to battle back, clinched when Williams hit a volley long in the following game.

The opening salvo had looked ominous as Williams raced through the first game to love and then put pressure on the German, who was down 15-30 after a double fault but managed to suppress any demons she may have had and held on.

The 28-year-old German then played superb defensive tennis against the powerful Williams, scrambling to force her to play an extra shot that ultimately contributed to 23 unforced errors from the American in the first set.

Those errors and a lack of timing on several potential winners enabled the German to break again in the seventh game and then seal the first set in 39 minutes when Williams made another unforced error.

The pair held serve in the opening two games of the second set before Williams began to get her timing back and made less errors as she raced out to a 4-1 lead, though the concerned look she shot her supporters in the players' box suggested she had been battling to work the German out.

Williams sent the match into a decider when Kerber hit an easy forehand into the net to clinch the second set.

Both players suffered early breaks in the third set but the championship appeared to have tipped in the German's favour in a marathon sixth game when she finally converted her fifth break point to take a 4-2 lead.

She extended that to 5-2 and was serving for the title at 5-3 before Williams fought back, though the inspired German was able to clinch her first Grand Slam and then collapse onto the court in jubilation.

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More than a numbers game: moving beyond the floor test

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar believed that Article 356 of the Constitution, which provides for imposition of President’s rule in the States and dissolution of State Assemblies, would, in reality, be only a ‘dead letter’. However, by the time a Constitution Bench ruled in the S.R. Bommai v. Union of India case (1994) that a presidential proclamation under Article 356 is subject to judicial review, that it is not an absolute but a conditional power, and that no Assembly can be dissolved before both Houses of Parliament ratify the proclamation, the provision originally meant to be used sparingly had been invoked over 90 times. After the verdict, however, one would have thought that the provision has been somewhat neutralised. That the casual resort to imposition of President’s rule or dissolution of State Assemblies at the whim of the ruling party at the Centre has ended and the potential for further misuse removed. Arunachal Pradesh has now demonstrated that the ‘dead letter’ is quite alive and kicking Chief Ministers out of power.

Many grounds have been cited in support of bringing the sensitive border State under Central rule: from “breakdown of the constitutional machinery” to “collapse of law and order” to other sinister charges such as a threat to the life and security of the Governor and alleged links between the Chief Minister and an extremist group. The context, of course, is something that the Congress is familiar with, as it had used similar circumstances to topple many a regime in the past: dissidence within the ruling party and the Opposition colluding with the rebels to bring down the regime. In Arunachal Pradesh, the party is at the receiving end. It had 47 MLAs in a 60-member House, and the BJP 11, and yet its Chief Minister has been deposed by dissidents acting in concert with the Opposition and helped by the Governor.

Spotlight on the Governor

The manner in which Arunachal Pradesh was brought under President’s rule highlights a significant strand of political behaviour in the country. Even constitutional authorities believe less in law and propriety than in their ability to work around them to achieve their desired results. And one is not merely talking about Governor J.P. Rajkhowa while saying this. It is equally applicable to the deposed Chief Minister, Nabam Tuki. It is quite obvious that the Governor was more concerned about removing the Speaker and installing a rival faction leader as Chief Minister than giving an opportunity to Mr. Tuki to demonstrate his majority on the floor of the House. As for Mr. Tuki, he appears to have done nothing to ascertain his support within the Congress legislature party in the face of brewing dissidence within its ranks. Nor did he convene the Assembly until it became a constitutional necessity as it was nearly six months since the House had last met.

The Gauhati High Court has categorically ruled in favour of the Governor’s decisions in the present crisis. It has upheld his power to summon or prorogue the Assembly under Article 174(1) and his power to send messages, even fixing a specific item on the agenda of the legislature, under Article 175(2). The court saw nothing wrong in the Governor advancing a sitting of the House from January 14, 2016 to December 16, 2015. Nor did it find anything illegal in his specifying that a motion to remove the Speaker should be taken up immediately after the House convenes. In effect, a controversial ‘sitting’ of 33 members of the Assembly in a makeshift venue has been upheld by the high court. It is somewhat ironical that at a time when even a presidential proclamation is subject to judicial review, case law on the role of the Governor still favours gubernatorial privilege and discretion.

A crucial question before the Supreme Court is whether the Governor can, in his discretion and without the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers, summon the legislature or advance a scheduled sitting; and whether he can fix the agenda for such a session on his own. Interestingly, the Gauhati High Court extensively quotes from a Madras High Court Full Bench verdict of 1973 favouring the Governor’s action in somewhat similar circumstances in the Tamil Nadu Assembly. There, too, the ruling party had split, the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker were in different factions, and the dissidents wanted to remove the Chief Minister through a censure motion. However, in the Tamil Nadu precedent — where also there was a parallel ‘Assembly session’ — the Governor was acting on the advice of the ministry of M. Karunanidhi while sending a message to the House that it should first take up a motion to remove the Speaker, whose loyalty lay with the dissidents. On the crucial question of the Governor’s discretion, the high courts have gone by the principle in Article 163: that the question whether any advice, and if so what advice, had been given to the Governor shall not be gone into by any court; and when a question arises whether the matter on which the Governor had acted was actually one on which he can use his discretion, the decision made by the Governor in his discretion will be final.

Options ahead of the floor test

The validity of President’s rule in Arunachal Pradesh will be decided on established constitutional principles, but the time may have come to go beyond even the floor test requirement in ascertaining whether a particular regime commands a majority. Just as unscrupulous defections are legally discouraged, opportunistic cooperation between ruling party dissidents and Opposition legislators just to bring down a Chief Minister may also have to be prevented. This can be achieved if the Governor asks the Chief Minister to submit proof of his support within his own legislature party or alliance partners before ordering a floor test. In the event of some factions withdrawing their support to the government, the Governor can always turn them away and ask them to move a no-confidence motion instead of coming to him. If there is any attempt by the Speaker or the Chief Minister to block such a motion, or if the Assembly is not convened, the Governor should not hesitate to write to the party’s leadership seeking proof of its legislature party still having only one leader. This may force the hand of parties that seek to avoid convening legislature party meetings and hoping that in the Assembly, a floor test can be managed by a partisan Speaker and by selective expulsions to change the composition of the House. In other words, those arguing for the primacy of the floor test will need to have their house in order before the matter is decided in the legislature.

An incumbent government’s reluctance to follow this process may lead to the Governor recommending that the Centre give a suitable direction to the State. For, under Article 365, it shall be lawful for the President to then hold that because of any non-compliance with the direction, the State can no more be run in accordance with the Constitution. This sequence — proof of subsisting support within the ruling party, a floor test, and in the event of these efforts being blocked, a formal direction from the Union, followed by a determination on the constitutionality of the continuance of the regime — may address concerns of partisan behaviour.

Even in times when the incumbent regime swears by “co-operative federalism”, Raj Bhavans are seen as sinecures for friends of the ruling party and its formerly active members and associates. New norms will have to guide both the appointment of Governors and their functioning. The recommendations of the Sarkaria Commission on Centre-State relations are readily available with regard to choosing the occupants of Raj Bhavan.

It had said a Governor should be someone eminent in some walk of life, and should not be one “who has taken too great a part in politics generally, and particularly in the recent past”. Only a few eminent personalities outside the domain of politics and civil or military service have been made Governors. As long as parties pursue their own political interests rather than abide by the Constitution, it will be left to the courts to uphold federal norms.

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