Ultra ‘Secularism’ in Uttar Pradesh

There was an interesting news on Wednesday. It said that Uttar Pradesh Government, headed by a young Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, has given a Minister of State post to a Muslim cleric two days ago. Giving this post basically means that he was not democratically elected, but was specially appointed at the discretion of the Chief Minister.

Then we heard that there were protests by BJP against this move. Most casual observers would then move on to the next news item. What’s so special in a seemingly pro-Hindu BJP protesting against a secular Government giving Minister status to a Muslim Maulana? That’s probably the thought process of a typical Left liberal person in India. Hey, wait, there’s a lot more to this. Spare a few minutes.

This particular case involves a prominent Muslim cleric of Barelvi Sect, Mohammed Tauqeer Raza Khan. He’s now an adviser in Handloom Department – a Minister of State. Khan is the Itihaad-e-Millat Council president and belongs to Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh.

Why is this particular case so important to look deeper into?

It’s because, this is not just a simple vote bank political move, of giving Minister status to a Muslim cleric. For understanding this, you need to go a few steps back via flashbacks, in a typical Bollywood masala movie style.

Flashback 1: Mar 12, 2010
Hindu Muslim riots flare up again in Bareilly, after Tauqeer’s release.

A relatively peaceful city, for Uttar Pradesh’s communal tension standard, Bareilly, witnessed yet another round of riots after this Tauqeer Raza Khan was released by Mayawati Government. Khan was ordered to be released soon after all the charges, except a milder one under Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code, were removed by the Uttar Pradesh administration and he was allowed to walk free following immense pressure from the members of his community.

The important question here is, what was this ‘immense’ pressure from his community on Mayawati of BSP? Why did she yield? More importantly, why was he arrested in the first place?

Flashback 2: Mar 9, 2010
A Muslim cleric arrested for communal clash in Bareilly

Security was intensified in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district following the arrest of a leading cleric for his alleged role in last week’s communal clash. Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, president of the Ittehad-e-Millat Council, was arrested. It was his “rabble rousing speech” that had led to communal tension in the district last week, officials said.

“Fearing a backlash from his supporters, a heavy security cover has come up in parts of the district,” Superintendent of Police (city) Rakesh Jolly had told reporters.

Now it gets interesting. So, this Muslim cleric, actually caused or intensified a communal riot in Bareilly, giving hate speeches against Hindus? Sounds like a serious problematic person for communal harmony.

But wait, there’s more colourful history of this Maulana.

Flashback 3: Apr 2, 2009
Congress President Sonia Gandhi lays down line as UP unit ropes in ‘Bush-haters’

Congress Party sources said that day that their President Sonia Gandhi was upset about the embarrassing episode of the party providing platform to Ittehad-e-Millat Council (IMC) president Tauqeer Raza Khan at party headquarters without checking his antecedents and credentials. AICC General Secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Digvijaya Singh and State PCC chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi had roped in Khan for the election’s Muslim votes.

Interesting.. so, what was this controversial Khan doing at Congress headquarters?

Flashback 4: Mar 26, 2009
AIIMC to support Congress in UP

On this day, Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, president of the All-India Ittehad-e-Millat Council (AIIMC), extended the support of his group, a part of the Barelvi sect to the Congress. The Congress planned to have seat adjustments with the AIIMC in the next Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, said Digvijaya Singh, General Secretary of the Congress in-charge of the State, to whom the Maulana was introduced at a press conference on this day.

So far, it is clear now that this cleric was arrested and released under pressure by BSP’s Mayawati in 2010, was roped in by Congress for seat adjustments an year earlier. But it still does not help why Sonia Gandhi was ‘upset’?

For which you have to revert back to the period beyond the last two years.

Flashback 5: Mar 15, 2007
A Muslim body announces Rs 5 lakh for Taslima’s head

On his date, President of All India Muslim Personal Board (Jadeed) Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan announced a reward of Rs 5 lakh on Bangladeshi writer Tasleema Nasreen’s head, if New Delhi does not restrict her entry into the country. “We demand that the Government should ban her entry into the country. If it is not done, anyone who beheads her will be given a reward of Rs five lakh,” he announced.

Wow! So, a person, now a Minister in 2013 in UP, under the world’s largest democracy’s much valued system, had publicly talked about medieval desert justice like beheading?

Wait, there’s more.

Flashback 6: Date Unknown, Feb 2006
A bounty of Rs.25 crore announced, to anyone who beheads US President George W Bush

By his own admission at a later date Press conference at the Congress headquarters on 26 March 2009, Tauqeer Raza Khan had offered a bounty of Rs 25 crore to anyone who beheads Bush, just before George Bush’s Presidential visit to India in March 2006.

End of Flashbacks:
Now our movie has run its full course.. ending is near.

Here’s a firebrand hate spewing Muslim cleric, who does not believe in any democracy as he had offered bounty to behead high profile guests, and has been picked by Akhilesh Yadav to be a Minister of State. And as a coincidence, look at his organisation’s name, which is similar to a South Indian communal political party, i.e., All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, of the recent infamous Akbaruddin Owaisi hate speech episode. Both are Ittehads. Both have leaders who believe in hate speech against Hindus. Both have incidents of extreme violence threat against writer Taslima Nasreen and there could be more.

So, someone who openly called for the assassination of your nation’s Presidential guest (Bush) and your female asylum seeker (Taslima), someone who was arrested for giving inflammatory hate speech against your nation’s majority population (Hindus) that resulted in bloody riots, is now a Minister of State in your largest State! And more importantly, BSP, SP and Congress, all the three self-claimed secular parties, have bowed in front of this medieval firebrand cleric.

Wah India.. wah! We have to bow to your ultra ‘secular’ standards!

The ancient Universities Of India

Most Indians today are well aware of the two famous ancient universities of India which also are one of the oldest universities in the world – Takshashila University (Taxila) and Nalanda. But are these the only knowledge centers that existed in ancient India? Education has always been given great prominence in Indian society since the times of the vedic civilization, with gurukul and ashrams being the centers of learning. And with evolving times, a large number of centers of learning were established across ancient India of which Takshashila and Nalanda are the most famous ones known today. Below is a list of major ancient universities that flourished across ancient India.

Nalanda University
Nalanda University was established by Shakraditya of Gupta dynasty in modern Bihar during early 5th century and flourished for 600 years till 12th century. Nalanda was the world’s first university to have residential quarters for both students and teachers. It also had large public lecture halls. Students from countries like Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey came to study in this university.

Nalanda University Library

The library of this university was the largest library of the ancient world and had thousands of volumes of manuscripts on various subjects like grammar, logic, literature, astrology, astronomy, and medicine. The library complex was called Dharmaganja, and had three large buildings: the Ratnasagara, the Ratnadadhi, and the Ratnaranjaka. Ratnadadhi was nine stories tall and stored the most sacred manuscripts including the Prajnaparamita Sutra and the Samajguhya.

In 2010, the parliament of India passed a bill approving the plans to restore the ancient Nalanda University as a modern Nalanda International University dedicated for post-graduate research. Many east asian countries including China, Singapore and Japan have come forward to fund the construction of this revived Nalanda University.

An artist’s view of the proposed Nalanda University Campus in Bihar. An international jury chose the design drawn by Vastushilpa Consultants, Ahmedabad.

Takshashila University
Taxila as it is called today, Takshashila University established around 2700 years ago was home to over 10500 students where the students from all across the world used to come to attain specialization in over 64 different fields of study like vedas, grammar, philosophy, ayurveda, agriculture, surgery, politics, archery, warfare, astronomy, commerce, futurology, music, dance, etc. Famous graduates of this University include the ones like Chanakya, Panini, Charaka, Vishnu Sharma, Jivaka etc. This is the world’s oldest university.

Ancient Takshashila University

Vikramashila University
Vikramashila University was established by Dharmapala of Pala dynasty during late 8th century and flourished for 400 years till 12th century. It was located in the Bhagalpur district of modern day Bihar. It gave direct competition to Nalanda University with over 100 teachers and over 1000 students listed in this University. This university was well known for its specialized training on the subject of Tantra (Tantrism). One of the most popular graduates from this University was Atiśa Dipankara, a founder of the Sharma traditions of Tibetan Buddhism who also revived the Buddhism in Tibet.

Vikramshila University

Valabhi University
Valabhi University was established in Saurashtra of modern Gujarat at around 6th century and it flourished for 600 years till 12th century. Chinese traveler Itsing who visited this university during the 7th century describes it as a great center of learning. Gunamati and Sthiramati, the two famous Buddhist scholars are said to have graduated from this University. This University was popular for its training in secular subjects and students from all over the country came to study in this University. Because of its high quality of education, graduates of this University were given higher executive posts.

Pushpagiri University
Pushpagiri University was established in ancient Kalinga kingdom (modern day Odisha) and was spread across Cuttack and Jajpur districts. It was established in 3rd century and flourished for the next 800 years till 11th century. The university campus was spread across three adjoining hills – Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Udayagiri. This was one of the most prominent centers of higher education in ancient India along with the universities of Takshashila, Nalanda and Vikramashila. The Chinese traveler Xuanzang (Huien Tsang) visited this university in 639 CE. Lalitgiri is said to have been commissioned by early 2nd century BCE itself and is the oldest Buddhist establishments in the world. Recently a few images of Emperor Ashoka have been discovered here, and it has been suggested that the Pushpagiri University was established by Emperor Ashoka himself.

Odantapuri University
Odantapuri University was established by Dharmapala of Pala dynasty during late 8th century in Magadha (which is in modern day Bihar) and flourished for 400 years till 12th century. The famous Acharya Sri Ganga who was a professor at the Vikramashila University was a graduate of this Odantapuri University. According to the ancient Tibetan records there were about 12,000 students studying at this University. Ancient Tibetan texts mention this as one among the five great Universities of its time, the other four being Vikramashila, Nalanda, Somapura and Jagaddala Universities – all located in ancient India.

Ancient Odantapuri University

Somapura University
Somapura Mahavihara was established by Dharmapala of Pala dynasty during late 8th century in Bengal and flourished for 400 years till 12th century. The University spread over 27 acres of land of which the main complex was 21 acres was one of the largest of its kind. It was a major center of learning for Bauddha Dharma (Buddhism), Jina Dharma (Jainism) and Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism). Even today one can find ornamental terracotta on its outer walls depicting the influence of these three traditions.
Other Ancient Universities

The above mentioned list is not a complete list of ancient Indian universities either. Dharmapala of Pala dynasty alone is said to have established 50 mega learning centers across his kingdom, and they have been as huge and as popular as the ones mentioned above. For instance, the Munshiganj Vihara discovered as recently as Marh 23, 2013 in Bengal is said to have been established in 9th century and was home to 8000 students who came from faraway places like China, Tibet, Nepal and Thailand.
Destruction of Ancient Indian Universities

As you can see, many of the universities mentioned above came to an end around 12th century. The universities like Nalanda, Vikramashila etc were destroyed around this period during the Muslim invasion of India by the fanatic Bakhtiyar Khilji from Turkey in 1193 CE. The great library of Nalanda University was destroyed, ransacked and burnt by the soldiers of Khilji’s army and it is said that it was so vast that the manuscripts kept burning for three months. In-numerous number of ancient Indian manuscripts carefully preserved for thousands of years were destroyed in this fire. Thousands of monks in the University were burnt alive and beheaded by Khilji’s army. According to DC Ahir, the destruction of these centres of learning at Nalanda and other places across northern India was responsible for the demise of ancient Indian scientific thought in mathematics, astronomy, alchemy, and anatomy.

An Assessment Of Daulat Beg Oldie Standoff Between India And China

The logic of Chinese encroachment

Legally speaking China has no business to be in areas beyond its borders. Its border ends at Xinjiang, which was incorporated into the Chinese empire when it was conquered by the Mongol leader Genghis Khan in the 13th century. Known to the Chinese as Xiyu (“Western Regions”) for centuries, the area became Xinjiang (“New Borders”) upon its annexation under the Qing (Manchu) dynasty in the 18th century.1 The then borders did not include areas of present Chinese claims.

The facts that the China failed to sign the McCartney-Macdonald line proposed by the British in 1899 or even contest the proposed alignment amounts to accepting the alignment. By and large the Chinese have been claiming areas up to this line which also corresponds to the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Even assuming that there are some disputes in the alignment of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) which came into being after the 1962 war, the 19 km thick border line is inexplicable and sounds mischievous. China and India have signed two critical agreements on “Maintaining of Peace and Tranquility along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China Border Areas” in 1993 and “Confidence Building Measures in the Military Field along the Line of Actual Control in India-China Border Areas” in 1996. These would not have been possible if there were such major perceptional differences.

In this context, Pakistan’s role in enticing China to extend its claim line South of Xinjiang cannot be ignored. It ceded a large chunk of real estate in the Shaksgam Valley, a part of J&K to China illegally. China on its part, has replicated the ‘Delhi illegal colony model’ to regularize her claim by slowly encroaching into the entire area of its interest without firing a bullet and developing infrastructure right from Baltistan in Pakistan in the West to Aksai Chin in the East.

The encroachment in the Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) sector was to test India’s response. Having intruded 19 km inside Indian Territory, the Chinese questioned the validity of the LAC and went on to state, “The Chinese side has confined activities to within the Chinese border and never trespassed across the line”.2 This is nothing but deliberate assertion of its right over Indian territory.

Coming at a politically sensitive moment, India desperately wanted to end the standoff, restore status quo and prevent any escalation. India’s meekness – studied response for some – provides the Chinese the freedom to consolidate its position in the DBO area. The situation can be compared to the Chinese construction of the road connecting Tibet to Sinkiang across the Aksai Chin in early 1950s. India was ignorant about the development for several years. Having managed to construct the road, the Chinese claimed ownership of the area.

A pattern can be deciphered: Gradually trespass into an area of interest over a period of time and set a routine that evades notice and serious attention thus avoiding any significant protest or challenge. Down play protests or apprehensions if any. Exploit unchallenged border encroachments as an opportunity to consolidate position and stake a claim to the area at an appropriate moment through precipitous military coercion and intimidation. On close evaluation this pattern can be discerned in the construction of dams across Brahmaputra.

Territorial interest and positioning

Indications are that China and Pakistan have reached an agreement to lease the Gilgit-Baltistan area to China for 50 years. China, it appears has already positioned 7000 to 110005 PLA soldiers in the Baltistan area who are working to construct the railway line from Gwadar to Xinjiang which runs parallel to the Karakoram Highway. The highway it is believed is being frantically upgraded. Reports of construction of 22 tunnels. 6 along the route to establish a gas pipeline from Iran to China are abound.7 These tunnels can act as a storehouse for missiles. Information relating to construction of huge housing complex in the area and a cemetery at Danyor 10 km across Gilgit river8 has also surfaced indicating that the Chinese are planning to stay in the area permanently – a clear indication that de facto control of the area has surreptitiously been ceded to China by Pakistan.

With its physical presence in all the four cardinal directions and India being in the South, China’s interest clearly is in closing the gaps in the areas bounded by Gilgit – Baltistan in the west, Xinjiang in the North, Aksai Chin in the East and India to its South. That will facilitate free movement within the area. Securing the Karakoram heights along with this action will thwart any threat from India. There lies the Chinese interest in the Saltoro ridge in Siachen.

Strategic interest

What are the strategic interests of China in securing the areas under discussion?
Besides providing freedom of movement, logistics and security, the area also provides the much needed buffer between India and the Chinese mainland. The Karakoram Highway which passes through this area connects China and Pakistan. The highway that connects Pakistan to Tibet and Xinjiang is also significant in that it opens up the strategic possibility of an alternative shorter route for uninterrupted energy supplies from the Gulf through Gwadar Port avoiding Afghanistan and the Chinese Muslim majority Uyghur dominated Kashgar area. Importantly, it also guarantees access to Afghanistan and Central Asia where China has invested heavily in energy and copper. In nutshell, with Gwadar port under their control, this area has become the key to China’s access to the Arabian sea through Karakoram Highway and their investment opportunities in Afghanistan.

The Indian confusion
The missing strategic culture

The Indian leadership has for long been lulled into complacency over deterrence capability of nuclear weapons. Nuclear deterrence was viewed as the sole savior of the country against external aggression. No one would ever dare a nuclear power was the perception. Two nuclear power nations getting engaged in a military conflict too was inconceivable. Resultantly conventional military capability was overlooked and currently a state of helplessness exists which has taken the country back to 1962. While China continuously upgraded its military and built military infrastructure in Tibet and elsewhere, India continued to put all its eggs in the nuclear deterrence basket.

Border management

The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), a Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) mans the LAC. The ITBP does not come under the Indian Army or its operational control. When an incident of this nature occurs, whom does the ITBP report to? What is the Army supposed to do? Who will issue the orders, the MHA or the MOD? Who will coordinate the situation on the ground? Dual control of critical forces deployed right at the border is a great folly. The ambiguity and the consequences of such vague command and control set up are clearly visible. These are areas where turf wars are unacceptable.

Lack of road communication

The Sub Sector North (SSN) is connected to the rest of Ladakh by two axes. The one along Nubra valley to Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) traverses through Saser La Pass at a height of approximately 5200 meters. It is a foot track and would require 3 to 4 days to cover. The second route runs along the Shyok River to Depsang Plains passing through Depsang La Pass at a height of about 5450 meters. It would take anything from 15 to 20 days to negotiate the distance.

Given the strategic criticality, very little has been done to improve the communication in these areas in the last 50 years. The very fact that soldiers were deployed at such locations without proper road communication amounts to abandoning them with scant regard for their safety and well-being. How are these troops expected to survive in the event of an enemy attack? How quickly will they be reinforced or withdrawn? Incidentally, these are not positions with any worthwhile tactical significance to fight a defensive battle from. Ladakh is too far and events in these areas do not directly affect the rest of the country or the vote bank. Loss of territory, deplorable infrastructure or the pitiable quality of life which the people of this area are forced to suffer are invisible to public eye and thus get ignored. The situation along the LAC in other sectors is equally bad.

Operational fitness of the Army

Two mountain divisions were raised for operations in the mountains. The government, however, decided that there was no need for a Corps HQ. The state of weapons and equipment in these two newly raised mountain divisions and their state of operational preparedness is not up to mark.

The terrain configuration in our northern borders adjoining China lacks the space for manoeuver and the lateral communication needed for diversion or redeployment of troops. Considering the fact that penetration by a determined enemy into any defensive position is a possibility, India needs to keep its options open to limit penetration at certain level and take the battle into vulnerable areas of the offender. This alone will provide deterrence and a bargaining advantage in the event of an intrusion.

A cursory assessment of troop requirement indicate a minimum of two divisions with a Corps HQ as contingency reaction force and an additional two divisions with a Corps HQ to handle the counter offensive if and when required. The formations could be switched to take each other’s role if necessary. These formations need to be equipped appropriately and most urgently without any delay.

Terms for withdrawal
What were the terms of withdrawal?

The Government has not come out with the terms of the agreement which culminated in the Chinese agreeing to withdraw from the area of its occupation. Having said that the Chinese were 19 km inside India’s territory it is not clear as to why India had to withdraw from its own territory. Media reports during the crisis indicate that Chinese had made similar probes in three other areas. Further reports point to India demolishing its bunkers in the Chumer area which would ipso facto incapacitate Indian troops patrolling areas up to our claim line9 . The country needs to know the terms of agreement and the truth. The Chinese message is clear – notwithstanding India’s nuclear power capability, Beijing will take the offensive to secure its interests, as, when and where it chooses.

Did India succumb to Chinese pressure?

Even if a proper agreement had not been reached in the matter yet, knowing the Chinese, such withdrawals would not have been settled without an undertaking or at least an understanding to accept China’s interests in the area. The question is, having invested huge capital in developing infrastructure in and around the area; the Chinese are unlikely to give it away – they are there to stay.

Turning a blind eye to the Chinese encroachment and activities in the area will allow the Chinese to develop infrastructure in this area and keep the option open to rekindle the issue again at a future date. The Chinese are likely to use their ground position as leverage and a bargaining chip.

What would constitute an equitable ceasefire agreement?

The agreement between India and China in this dispute needs very careful study. It is imperative that both sides have access to areas up to their respective claim lines. India cannot afford to give away areas, which are of strategic importance. India also cannot provide an avenue for future intrusion by China or Pakistan. India needs to retain its freedom for developing infrastructure in its chosen areas. If China could develop infrastructure in disputed territory, it is time India did so too.

Siachen – an inconvenience to the Chinese

The domination and the location of the Saltoro ridge is a threat to the security and Strategic interests of China in this area. Apparently, Pakistan’s efforts to negotiate with India to vacate Siachen in the recent past and their effort to influence the track two dialogues in that direction were at the Chinese call. It may also be of interest to know that during the Siachen talks in India between India and Pakistan on 30 and 31 May 2011, the Pakistani delegation had demanded that the Chinese be invited for the talks as the Shaksgam area is with them10 . The Chinese interest in this area is clear.

Lessons
Diplomacy and Friendship

Diplomacy especially with China does not work without military power, economic robustness and a strong leadership. The effect of DBO like incidents and the lack of firm response will have very adverse effects on India’s influence on its smaller neighbours.

Considering the Chinese military strength, economic prowess and the investments made by them towards the development of infrastructure in the disputed areas, it would not be very easy to recover territory illegally occupied by them. Soft options are therefore unlikely to work.

As a matter of rule, India has adopted a policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign countries. However, if the burden of a country’s human rights violations falls at its own doorstep as had happened in 1971 in erstwhile Pakistan, India may have no option but to provide moral, material and financial support besides highlighting and promoting the cause of the affected in various international bodies and institutions.

India has sheltered over 120,000 Tibetan refugees. These refugees are in India because their political aspirations and demands have remained unanswered even after 60 years. It may be recalled that China invaded the de facto independent Tibet in 1950 resulting in the incorporation of Tibet as a part of Republic of China. Since then, human rights violations have been perpetrated against the Tibetans to suppress their claims for independence. The number of Tibetan Buddhist self-immolation cases in the recent past stands testimony to the fact. It is time China learns to respect the sensibilities of people.

The unrest in the Uyghur dominated Xinjiang Autonomous region and in the Gilgit-Baltistan areas too open up a number of options for India. Chinese calculations of economic prosperity through Gwadar Port in Baluchistan can be nullified by providing moral, material and financial support to Baluchistan independence movement.

China is India’s second-largest trading partner and their combined trade was $50.9 billion in the April-December period, according to Indian government figures,11 India may have to provide incentives to countries like Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, and other western countries to promote their trade interests in India while restricting entry of Chinese goods and services through various measures.

DBO like incidents will prompt the Indian people to demand that India align with countries which are subjected to similar provocation. India may also have to weigh its options of supporting the US and other countries to limit Chinese influence and hegemony in the region. The US Asia pivot too may need a relook.

While accusing the US of trying to forge anti-China alliances, China should take a close look at its own aggressive show of strength which are forcing countries to go in for countervailing alliances. If indeed such alliances are formed, China cannot blame anyone but itself.

Exchange of maps indicating the perception of LAC on both sides should be expedited. India needs to work out its strategy to force Chinese to accept an equitable and a reasonable solution to the border dispute at an early date, failing which India should not hesitate to work on hard options suggested.

White Paper on illegal occupation of Indian Territory

It is time the entire issue of illegal occupation of Indian territory by Pakistan and India is investigated by a Committee consisting of a panel of judges, military professionals and a White Paper prepared for placing the facts before the Parliament.

Border Management

Effective border management entails unified command with integrated surveillance, intelligence, and communication network. Rules of engagement should be spelt out while the border management agency needs to lay down its Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for dealing with border violations and skirmishes.

Operational preparedness

There is an urgent need to go into the state of operational readiness of the Defence Services. The Government needs to spell out its National Security Strategy and the Defence Strategy to enable the services to lay down their respective strategies. The aspect of collusion between China and Pakistan and the assessment of force structure requirements to face up to such challenges will emerge out the exercise.

Restructuring MOD

Ministry of Defence (MOD) in consultation with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is meant to handle situations of the kind as witnessed in DBO recently. In contrast, based on some media reports, the China Study Group (CSG) consisting of the NSA, and bureaucrats from other ministries including heads of Central Security Agencies took control of the situation. 30-odd Chinese soldiers are too insignificant a number to derail the normal processes of Government functioning. The need for restructuring the Integrated Headquarters of the MOD with a professional bureaucracy consisting of experts from strategic, military and diplomatic community rather than the present generalist should be given traction.

The Wrong Way Of Urbanization

The model of urban development that has been adopted recently in China takes little from the preserving and conserving approaches found in Europe that provide aesthetic value, pleasant public spaces for residents and varying and mixed use of urban locations.

Xi’an is a central China city with long historical roots, dating at least three millennia. For much of its history the city has also been of exceptional contemporary importance, as 13 different (and significant) dynasties made it their capital. The current site is close to the city of the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, in the first century B.C., whose awe-inspiring (and mostly still buried) mausoleum with thousands of terracotta figures of humans and animals remains one of the most remarkable wonders of the world. In the 7th century A.D. it was (as Changan) the capital of the extensive and prosperous empire created by the Tang dynasty. One of the largest metropolises of that time, it was home to at least a million people and the vibrant end point of the famous Silk Route.

In China, Xi’an is known as the eternal city, and it has indeed recorded the great changes that have swept the country for thousands of years. Visitors are inevitably attracted to the site of the terracotta warriors, as they are known, but they also come to see some of the remaining famous relics of the Tang era: the Changan city walls, the Bell Tower and Drum Tower, the Wild Goose Pagoda built to house the Sanskrit and Prakrit manuscripts brought from India back to China by the Buddhist traveller Xuanzang.

With such a long and variegated history, visitors can be forgiven for expecting to see at least some of the various historical phases reflected in the architecture of the city, with perhaps an “old town” that preserves some of the flavour of the past and certainly monuments and buildings of varied vintages dotting the city. But they will be disappointed, even in a place so full of potential heritage locations. Other than a few individual monuments randomly surrounded by the usual urban confusion and one charming “Muslim street” full of traditional street food and craft, Xi’an bears little trace of its once glorious past.

Instead, the city is typical of most of urban China today: endless skylines of high-rise buildings of almost unrelenting sameness and persistent ugliness. The greyness of the concrete structures is matched by the greyness of the polluted air, as huge but congested avenues of concentric ring roads intersecting radial grids mark out separated areas for different districts that all still look just the same. The only colour comes from neon signs, as green spaces are few and far between, and the very vastness of the proliferating monotony of the buildings creates a sense of constriction.

The model of urban development that has been adopted recently in China takes little from the preserving and conserving approaches found in Europe that provide aesthetic value, pleasant public spaces for residents and varying and mixed use of urban locations. Instead, it copies the model of the United States where entire cities of segregated segments were created out of dusty plains where there was little to preserve in the first place. In contemporary China, the modern and the urban are seen as necessarily “new”, which typically implies the destruction of older buildings without much regard for their individuality and little desire to create variegated and heterogeneous urban settlements.

Because of this orientation, the drabness and uniformity of the greater number of spanking new cities and towns in China today are startling. But this may reflect the sheer scale and rapidity of the entire project of urbanisation. It coincides with one of the most rapid and extensive processes of urbanisation in human history. Since 1980, more than 500 million people in China have moved to cities and towns. By 2011, more than half of China’s population lived in urban areas, a transition that occurred much more quickly than anyone expected. At current rates, it is projected that more than a billion people will live in urban China by 2030.

This reflects a major policy change, from the state strictly controlling migration to gradually loosening the internal controls that have prevented people from moving from their place of birth. For much of its post-revolution history, the Chinese government (unlike in India where people were always free to move across States and urban and rural areas) used the household registration system or hukou as residence permits that served to define people’s rights, including the right to reside in particular localities and their abilities to access their entitlements as citizens. From the 1980s, some controls on movement of people to live and work in other areas were progressively lifted, although rural migrants still typically lack many of the rights and public entitlements that those with urban hukou take for granted.

In the 1980s and 1990s, urbanisation was allowed rather than encouraged. It was only in the 2000s that the massive public investments that generated the newer expansion of cities and towns really flourished. The current regime is explicitly pro-urbanisation, and has taken it as both a goal and a challenge.

It is hard to separate the processes of urbanisation and industrialisation in China: the two have definitely fed off each other, making demand and supply variables also hard to distinguish as the urban construction boom led to more migrant jobs. The cities of the southeastern coast were the first to experience the great waves of rural-urban migration associated with industrialisation. The architecture reflected this, mimicking what was seen as the most “modern” in the developed Western world in the form of a concentration of upward thrusting buildings, often so similar in imitative design as to seem like optical illusions.

The past decade has seen a significant geographical spread across the country of this relatively unimaginative design of urban spaces. Whether it is Harbin in the cold north-east of China or Chongqing in the west-central region or Tianjin near the capital Beijing, all new urban development is similar, based on the proliferation of repetitive concrete structures (with the occasional glass building) so that it is really hard to distinguish one city from another. In the process, the past has been unceremoniously trashed, except for a few iconic buildings here and there, and the less regimented and more colourful neighbourhoods that characterised the residential patterns of the working class have been bulldozed and turned into a series of new Lego-lookalikes.

A new book by Tom Miller (China’s Urban Billion: The story behind the biggest migration in human history, Zed Books 2012) captures this extraordinary process that is simultaneously impressive and depressing. Miller notes that in terms of both speed and extent, the urbanisation of land has far outpaced the urbanisation of people: since 1980, the urban population has increased by 120 per cent, but the amount of land that can be classified as urban because its built-up space has increased by more than 300 per cent.

A lot of this is occurring at breakneck speed. For example, Pudong—the megacity across the river from older Shanghai—emerged into a full-fledged and densely populated urban conglomeration modelled physically on Manhattan in less than a decade. Some cities are expanding so rapidly that they are doubling their population in a decade and their land area in even less time. This has definitely been associated with declining poverty and improved economic conditions for millions of people. But there is a downside as well.

Urban ugliness and unremitting architectural monotony are only some of the negative fallouts of this speedy transition. While the rural-urban migration has lifted many boats, it has done so unevenly, and involved deteriorating or more fragile conditions for many, both older residents and newer (typically younger) migrants. The economic model generates problems of pollution, congestion and over-extraction of natural resources that are making this process unsustainable. And this boom is also closely associated with rapidly increasing inequalities and a growing urban underclass.

To the casual visitor to China, this may seem surprising. Chinese cities do not seem to have the festering slums and destitute urban underclass that are so openly evident in countries such as Brazil or Nigeria, and do not show the obvious contrasts between glittering opulence and degraded squalor that characterise Indian cities. But, in fact, China’s urbanisation has also generated slums, albeit those that are more effectively hidden from public view and more confined to a shifting migrant category. Some are shanty areas, others are crowded and hastily built apartment blocks, but the control over movement and social mobility render them more amenable to repression and easier to keep out of public sight. This may be another reason why Miller argues that “China’s cities will continue to shock and awe —but they will struggle to inspire hearts and minds.”

Clearly, a more inclusive, less polluting and congested, and more healthy and pleasant model of urban development is required. Otherwise, China risks becoming a country where the inequality gets solidified in its urban structures: with “pockets of extreme wealth and an educated middle class, but whose cities teem with enormous slums and suppurate with entrenched social divisions”. In turn, what happens in China matters not only for that country, since China is currently seen as a model worthy of emulation by so many developing countries. For a really sustainable and attractive urban future, we all need a very different model.

Investigation of Ponzi schemes and Role of SEBI

SEBI was investigating Saradha for more than 3 years before the deposit schemes of the company collapsed. Saradha seems to have used two methods to delay the investigation:

When SEBI asserted its authority to stop Saradha group from collecting money, Saradha challenged the jurisdiction of SEBI in district courts. It quickly got orders to prevent SEBI interfering in its businesses. These orders were eventually overturned by the High Court.
When SEBI requested information from Saradha about their schemes and investors, Saradha responded by providing large volumes of documentation without specifically answering SEBI’s questions. This slowed down the entire investigation.

What is the problem?

In those three years Saradha took on new depositors and collected money from existing ones. All this money is now lost. Two years of investigation were required to stop what seems to be a run of the mill ponzi scheme. The tactics employed by Saradha are not new. They are similar to those employed by Sahara in delaying investigations in the OFCD schemes and in many other white collar crime investigations. The disturbing fact is that they seem to succeed time and again. While SEBI has wide powers of entities registered with it, if someone does not register with SEBI, the system of enforcement of laws changes completely. The current system requires SEBI to approach the local courts for prosecuting violations of the SEBI Act which constitute an offence. Moreover, SEBI cannot directly appoint lawyers for prosecuting the offences and must rely on the state government prosecution machinery to get criminal prosecution started.

The source of these difficulties

The present system suffers from a number of weaknesses, two of the most important are:
The normal court systems do not have the time or expertise to enforce violations of investment and securities laws. This leads to confusing orders which sometimes exceed the jurisdiction of the courts. Even in the case of Saradha, the High Court set aside the orders preventing SEBI from exercising its powers over Saradha, noting that the courts were out of jurisdiction when they prohibited SEBI. However, High Court orders take time, and in this time period the operator of the ponzi scheme can continue to collect money or misappropriate the money already deposited. Expertise in deciding jurisdiction and applicability of SEBI laws is also not available in most normal district courts. It will be extremely expensive and wasteful to train all district judges in securities laws for the once-in-a-decade case in financial laws.
The use of state public prosecutors for violations of financial laws is problematic for two reasons. First, the normal public prosecutors office is flooded with normal criminal cases like theft, murder, etc. A complex financial law case will never be the priority of the normal public prosecutors office. Second, the average public prosecutor who is extremely busy with the daily load of run of the mill criminal cases is not trained investment and securities laws. Just like district judges, it is not cost effective to train all public prosecutors in securities laws.

How would this work under the IFC?

The Indian Financial Code, drafted by the Financial Sector Legislative Commission, addresses these issues in the following ways:
The whole system of investigation is formalised under an investigator appointed by the regulator. The terms of reference for the investigator, the system of investigation and the time for investigation has to be written down at the onset. Since all incomplete investigations will require extensions, there will be system of raising alarms for an unusually long investigation. See draft clause 394 of the IFC.
The code allows the investigator to apply for a warrant for the search and seizure of documents. The investigator does not have to go to the area where the scheme is operating. He can apply for a warrant with the magistrate where the head office of the regulator is situated. This allows the government to create a special magistrate’s office. This magistrate can be trained in issues of finance and fraud and be a proper judicial check for warrants. See draft clause 396 of the IFC.
The code also allows the financial agency to make an order preventing transfer of any money or assets pending an investigation if there is a reasonable fear that the assets of clients are at risk. Any violation of such orders is also punishable by imprisonment up to five years. See draft clause 398 of the IFC.
The code empowers the central government to set up special courts to try cases involving the violation of investment laws. This allows for far quicker and more efficient disposal of cases. These courts will be district courts and follow all due process of law required under the Evidence Act and the Criminal Procedure Code. However, unlike general criminal courts, judges in these courts can be experts in securities and investment laws. See draft clause 417 of the IFC.
Finally the code envisages that the financial sector regulator appoints its own lawyers to prosecute cases of criminal offences. These lawyers will have the same powers as a prosecuting lawyer under the criminal procedure law. Since most financial regulators have legal officers on staff today, this allows specialised expertise to head the prosecution of these crimes rather than a generalist public prosecutor.

The strategy used in the IFC is similar to that used in securities laws in the U.S., where dedicated federal court benches are used to prosecute securities frauds. Even in India, special courts and prosecutors have been created for the CBI and for prosecution of offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The longer a ponzi scheme lingers the more victims it accumulates. The Indian Financial Code provides a system to effectively shut down schemes like these and a specialised criminal law system to prosecute violators.

The loss of critical savings by many have raised demands for retribution. A hurried response to such demands can bring in laws which dilutes the principle of `innocent until proved guilty’ or reduce the procedural and evidentiary standards. The Code scrupulously avoids this by placing the power of issuing warrants and convicting offences on the same standards as envisaged in the laws of evidence and criminal procedure. However, it addresses the problems of a slow judicial system and dedicated expertise in resolving financial crimes.

What if India had followed Masani’s and Rajaji’s vision rather than Nehru’s?

27th May is the death anniversary of two noteworthy Indians. They started off as ideological comrades but later became antagonists, each representing two opposing economic worldviews.

Their anniversaries too were observed in contrasting ways – one with pomp and publicity, the other in obscurity. There’s a certain irony in that.

Jawaharlal Nehru was feted at various functions and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government pledged itself to his ideals, never mind that the country has turned its back on his eponymous model of development, which was heavily biased towards state intervention in the economy. This shift away from socialism — half-hearted though it is — would not have pleased Nehru had he been alive, even though his name has been constantly invoked by the Congress to show continuity with his policies.

There were no public functions to mark the 15th death anniversary of Minoo Masani, co-founder of the erstwhile Swatantra Party, even though since 1991 the country has been travelling the road he tirelessly championed for 40 years along with another political stalwart, C Rajagopalachari or Rajaji – that of a liberal, market-oriented economy. But Masani, too, would shudder to have his name linked with all that is happening today, in the name of the model he advocated.

Nehru and Masani forged a deep friendship when they were both in the Congress, strengthened by their common love for socialism and admiration for the Soviet Union. Masani was one of the founders of the Congress Socialist Party within the Indian National Congress, in the early 1930s. Soon, disillusioned by Stalinist excesses in the Soviet Union, he became one of India’s foremost and forceful critics of communism.

In 1947, he articulated the idea of a mixed economy, with three sectors – a small sector of nationalised industries (which would be decided by an independent commission), a larger sector of new public enterprises in areas where what he called ‘free enterprise’ was unable to venture into, and a third, largest sector of free enterprises. “Such a programme of state plus free enterprise is, in fact, the only practicable programme that the government in India can possibly adopt in the coming years…it is important that it is done, not sullenly for lack of anything better, but with enthusiasm and drive,” he wrote in a paper detailing the idea.

After Independence, his nuanced approach would bring him in direct conflict with Nehru and what he called the latter’s zeal to foist the Soviet pattern of state capitalism. Since the only non-socialist alternative to the Congress in the 1950s was the Jan Sangh, with a strong Hindu bias, Masani teamed up with Rajaji and farmers’ leader, NG Ranga, to form India’s first conservative-liberal Swatantra Party in 1959. Through the party’s short life and after its demise, Masani never tired of pointing out that state involvement in industry, trade and commerce would result in the neglect of its primary responsibilities of maintaining law and order and the provision of drinking water facilities, primary healthcare, primary education and physical infrastructure.

He also relentlessly pointed to the lurking dangers of the licence-permit-quota raj that Nehru and later Indira Gandhi promoted. Nehru apologists argue that his model was vilified because of the distortions that his daughter introduced in the 1970s. But Masani and Rajaji always warned that the model was susceptible to such distortion.

So when, in 1991, India took its first steps towards a freer economy, Masani should have felt vindicated. Though he was glad, he also had a sense of foreboding. The government, he noted, took the path of liberalisation out of compulsion and not conviction and he fretted that this would not be sustained. He was clearly quite prescient.

State meddling in the economy continues; in the name of helping the poor, the government continues to artificially suppress prices and distort markets rather than working seriously for a shift towards targeted subsidies; inefficient public sector undertakings continue to be cosseted; inspector raj continues to throttle small and medium enterprises. Despite what the critics of liberalisation might say, India is not a market economy in the true sense of the word.

While Masani, were he alive, would have been pained by this, what would have horrified him is the prevailing rampant corruption – the result of a pernicious cronyism that marks the relationship between government and private business. What would devastate him is that this is happening in the name of liberalisation.

Crony capitalism is not the post-1991 phenomenon that those railing against what they dub ‘neo-liberal economic policies’ make it out to be. Though a strong supporter of private capital, Masani took a dim view of most Indian entrepreneurs of his time who, he believed, took the easy way out by bribing ministers and bureaucrats instead of facing up to competition. Naturally, he blamed the controls-driven system for fostering this. Masani would have been the first to speak up against the shenanigans in the telecom, coal and airlines sectors.

As economic liberalisation increasingly comes under attack for fostering oligopolies and sowing the seeds of plutocracy, there are not enough voices pointing out that the mess the country is in is a direct result of the state continuing to have the power to make or mar fortunes of entrepreneurs, that the country needs more economic and governance reforms to strike at the root of corruption. Masani would have been that voice.

Minoo Masani, the country misses you.

The Future Of Khan Academy

Even though Sal Khan is now running a platform that serves 6 million students and people a month, he’s still churning out a couple videos a week.

What’s been most recently on deck? World War I.

To make a video, Khan says he’ll front-load several books worth of reading on everything from the Armistice Day to the sinking of the Lusitania. Then he’ll start to make videos once he feels he has a decent grasp on the subject material.

“If I’m hanging out waiting for the dentist, I’ll just start reading something about World War I,” he said in a recent interview.

From the original tutoring calls he’d arrange to help out relatives, to the initial YouTube channel he started, Khan Academy has grown to reach 75 million users to date, with 230 million lessons delivered and 1 billion problems answered in 30,000 classrooms throughout the world.

Naturally, there’s been quite a bit of hype (with both its good and bad consequences). Khan Academy has the reach but it’s still proving out the data to show that its lessons measurably affect learning outcomes beyond the handful of pilots the non-profit has tried.

“Teachers are rightfully skeptical, I think. They’re overworked. They have a million things to do,” Khan said. “It’s an incredibly tiring job and you’re throwing a new thing at them, even if they intellectually recognize the benefit of it.”

Two of the top things on Khan’s priority list for the next fall are internationalization and diagnostics. The Khan Academy has pioneered ways of measuring progress, to help ensure that students don’t develop a “Swiss Cheese”-like base of knowledge with different weak areas.

But he acknowledged the site isn’t as good at telling students where they should begin. What if they’re competent at certain things like logarithms but terribly behind in trigonometry?

“One of the biggest complaints we get is that people don’t know where to start. By this August, we should have good diagnostics where people can figure out where they stand,” he said.

He’s personally interested in Carol Dweck’s theories around fostering a growth-centered mentality in children and students. Her research is the basis for a series of media stories and discussions around how much you should praise children and whether you should attribute their success to persistence or innate capabilities. She’s found that children who internalize not innate talent, but rather diligence, tend to do better one the longer-run. He also said that the Khan Academy will be re-architecting some of the game mechanics and rewards to help with retention.

While he thinks that more traditional forms of diagnostics like standardized tests aren’t all bad, they’re limited.

“Standardized testing by itself isn’t a horrible thing. They’re not going to be testing every dimension though,” he said.

He envisions a future where an admissions officer might not only look at grades and SAT tests, but also whether students have a record of trying over and over again even when they don’t get it right away.

“If I was an admissions officer in the not too far off future, you’d look at the narrative of data: Who showed a strong degree of perseverance?” he said.

He also said that it’s going to be increasingly important to have a body of creative work beyond demonstrating raw academic performance. The Academy’s platform for teaching computer science lets students create a body of programs they’ve written. (So far, students have made about 100,000 programs.)

Likewise, if they were going to expand to other things like writing or music composition, they’d also encourage students to create their own portfolios.

As for the growing wave of for-profit and venture-backed companies like Coursera, Khan says he’s still believes his academy should attack education problems with a non-profit-based approach. His only hesitation about going the non-profit route had to do with attracting technical talent, but the big-name hires they’ve been able to get like Google’s first employee Craig Silverstein, have tempered his original worries.

“My gut tells me that education — it has to be done with the best of both worlds. When I talk to investors, I ask them, where do your kids go? How many of them are willing to send their kids to a for-profit school? It’s not that for-profit schools can’t be good and I don’t want to be self-righteous about it, but considering the sensitive stuff like the students’ data and the credentialing, my guess is that’s going to have to be in the not-for-profit realm.”

Where Do The Missing Children Of Delhi Go?

DEEPAK KUMAR was on his way back from a playground near the Tughlaqabad railway station in Delhi when he was abducted. It was the evening of 8 March 2011. He was 15 then.

“It was already dark. I was feeling cold and realised I should go back home. Just then I saw four people coming towards my direction on a bike. Before I could understand anything, they forced me on the pillion, sandwiching me between them. They covered my mouth with a thick cloth when I started crying. All I can remember is that I was on the bike. When I woke up, it was morning. The men took me to a Ram Kumar’s house in Khindaria village, Muzaffarnagar district,” Deepak recounts.

Khindaria village lies north east of Muzaffarnagar district in the sugar belt region of Uttar Pradesh. The region is covered with sugarcane plantations that flourish all year round.

The next morning, Deepak was briefed about his job at Ram Kumar’s place. He was to look after the buffaloes, clean their sheds, and peel and clean sugarcane. Meanwhile, back home in Badarpur, his parents had frantically started looking for him. His father Bhajan Sahu went to the nearest police station in Sarga Khwaja to register an FIR. “They refused to file a case saying that my son was a drug addict. Finally, after a lot of requests a case was registered but they did nothing,” says Sahu.

“Ram Kumar was a rich sugarcane farmer in the village. He put me under the watch of his caretaker, Ranjeet. It was Ranjeet who told me that there are many children like me who are brought from Delhi and Bihar and are sold by agents to these farmers for Rs 3,000-4,000. Two children used to work in the house next to Pandit Ram Kumar’s, but they would never talk to us. Whenever I tried to speak to them I was scolded,” Deepak says.

Deepak was one of the 5,111 children who went missing from the capital in 2011. Data released by the Ministry of Home Affairs suggest that an average of 14 children go missing from the capital every day, the highest in the country. Besides being forced into prostitution, begging and used for organ trade, there is a new trafficking racket that is making its way; children between the age of 14-17 are being trafficked to the agricultural fields of neighbouring states to meet labour shortage. Trafficking is more rampant in the sugar bowl of India – the districts of Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Baghpath and Meerut, in western Uttar Pradesh.

The following year, for Deepak, was filled with despair and backbreaking work in the fields. “I used to wake up at four in the morning and clean the buffalo shed. Then I had to go work in the fields,” he says. He lost the middle finger on his left hand while cutting sugarcane. “They were dangerous people,” he says, “I sliced my finger but I was still forced to work. They scolded me whenever I asked them to let me go home.”

Deepak had nearly given up on his fate. He had tried calling his parents using Ranjeet’s phone, but in vain. Then one day his owner asked him to drop Ranjeet to the railway station. After dropping Ranjeet, Deepak took the next bus to Muzaffarnagar. And then he called home, finally. “He called us from Muzaffarnagar, and told us that he was coming. After he came back, I went to the police station and requested them to investigate the matter. My son was abducted and was sold as a bonded labourer. He lost his finger too. The police hasn’t done anything until now,” Deepak’s father Bhajan Sahu says. Deepak reached home a year after he was abducted, on 26 February 2012.

A story that started as an enquiry into the reasons behind Delhi’s notoriety as the abduction capital of the country crisscrossed its way to the sugarcane fields of Uttar Pradesh. We visited the fields of Muzafarnagar and nearby villages, and documented the trafficking of children in the region. The conversations and the investigations that followed exposed a scattered but well networked ring of child-trafficking agents, who abduct children from poor settlements in Delhi and sell them off to sugarcane farmers in western UP and Punjab. While narrating their stories, every documented child mentions the name of their owners and villages where they were held.

Unlike Deepak, Mahendra Singh of Jahangirpuri spent three-and-a-half-years in captivity before he gathered the courage to run from his tormentors. Mahendra was fourteen when he was abducted from near his house, on 7 August 2008. He woke up as usual, at seven in the morning, and went to the nearby open ground to perform his morning ablutions.

“While I was walking towards the ground, I saw five boys approaching me. They were sniffing correction fluid. They forced me to smell some and soon I was dizzy. I remember waking up at the Old Delhi railway station,” Mahendra says.

MAHENDRA WAS taken to Karnal, in Punjab, by a Sikh man. “From Karnal we were taken to Sandgaon, where he lived. At Sandgaon, he took us first to his sugarcane fields, and then later to the buffalo shed and told me that I have to wake up at four in the morning, clean the shed and prepare fodder for the buffaloes before sunrise. I was then supposed to work in the fields all day,” he recounts.

“It was only after the morning chores that I was given the morning chai and two rotis for the day. I then had to work in the fields.” Mahendra worked in the fields with Shehnewaz, another abducted boy. “He was the one who told me that the sardar had bought me for Rs 4,000 from a local agent.”

When pressed for the sardar’s name, Mahendra mumbles, “His name was Gijja Singh, and his sister was called Preeti. His son’s name was Dilbagh Singh. They have a big house in Sandgaon surrounded by high walls on all sides, so I could never run away. They abused and beat me whenever I talked about going home. We weren’t even given enough food to eat. The sardar used to say that food would make us lazy.”

Trafficking is more rampant in the sugar bowl of India – the districts of Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Saharanpur, and Meerut

In the meantime, Mahendra’s parents left no stone unturned in their efforts to trace their son. They travelled from Delhi to Haridwar pasting ‘missing child’ posters in every nook and corner along the way, as the police in Delhi refused to register and FIR. “I ran to Jahangirpuri police station the same day my son was abducted. But the lady-in-charge asked me for mithai in return for registering the FIR. I gave her the Rs 200 I had in my pocket then, but she only made a diary entry. I was asked to look for my child myself. After making numerous rounds of the station, an FIR was finally registered, but I wasn’t given a copy,” says Ram Ratan, Mahendra’s father, who works as a daily wage labourer in a tobacco factory.

MAHENDRA AND Shehnewaz, ran from Gijja Singh’s fields on 12 May 2012. “The sardar had given us money to buy seeds for the farm. We sensed the opportunity and ran to the nearest bus stop. From there we travelled to Karnal, and then we took another bus to Delhi. I bought a basket of mangoes and kept it on my head to avoid getting spotted,” Mahendra says, “The sardar had already bought another boy, between the age of 13-14. That’s how it works in there. Rich farmers buy orphans and abducted children, and then make them work like animals in the fields.”

Like Deepak’s father, Ram Ratan too visited the police station after his son returned home. “I went and asked them to investigate my son’s case. He was abducted and made to work like a bull for four years. I even managed to put an application in writing. They told me that they would investigate the case only if I provided them with a vehicle to go to Karnal,” Ratan rues.

Mahendra and Deepak’s parents had to make numerous rounds of police stations in their respective areas before FIRs were registered. They faced police apathy even after their children returned. No investigation has been initiated into the cases. Remarkably, both the Delhi High Court and the Ministry of Home Affairs have repeatedly issued guidelines seeking detailed investigations into missing-child cases. Issuing strict investigation guidelines in the missing-child cases, the court, on 16 September 2009, observed:

1. It is mandatory for the local police to immediately register an FIR in case a child goes missing

2. Family of the child should be given legal aid by the Delhi Legal Services Authority (DLSA)

3. Whenever a missing child is traced/comes back on his/her own, the investigating officer should investigate the case

In 2010, the DLSA submitted a hard-hitting report to the high court against the Delhi Police for laxity in missing-child cases. The court came down heavily on the Delhi Police and repeated its observations made in 2009. The single bench of Justice Manmohan added, “By merely adhering to guidelines, the Delhi Police is not discharging their obligations, as fixed by the court, in terms of orders dated 16.09.2009.”

Of all the examples of abduction racket involving picking up of children and selling them off to sugarcane farmers, the story of 17- year-old Pawan Kumar is the most shocking. He was sold twice during the year-and-a-half that he was kept captive.

He was abducted on the morning of 2 February 2011 from Badarpur, and held captive by Preetam Singh Sharma and Sanjay Singh Sharma, who used him as a farm hand in their sugarcane plantation in Meerut. “I had to peel and clean sugarcane in their house for eight months,” Pawan says.

Although Pawan managed to escape from the Sharmas, a group of traffickers at the Meerut railway station caught him, while he was on his way back to Delhi. “There were two other boys with the men at the station,” he says, “We were taken to Fatehpur Chak, where we worked in the fields of Vikram Singh Daroga. His house is near the yellow water tank in the village.”

Pawan worked in Fatehpur Chak for five months. He claims that, like Deepak, he too saw many other children in and around neighbouring villages of Boodhpur and Ibrahimpur Manjra. “If a child tries to run away, they set the dogs on him. There is no escape. Everyone’s looking for boys in these villages,” he says.

Pawan got the opportunity to call his father from a local telephone booth a year after his ordeal began. “He asked us to come near the government school in Ibrahimpur Manjra village. I wanted to confront Daroga, but Pawan told us they are dangerous people. So we quietly went to the school and waited for him there. I informed the local police about Daroga and what my son had to endure, but till date nothing has been done,” says Hanuman Kumar, Pawan’s father who drives an autorickshaw for a living.

‘If a child tries to run away, they set the dogs on him. Everyone’s looking for boys in these villages,’ says Pawan Kumar

ACCORDING TO Kailash Satyarthi, head of Bachpan Bachao Andolan “such events are examples of the shortsightedness of schemes like the MNREGA, which led a big chunk of agricultural labour to shift towards welfare schemes, resulting in acute shortage. Keeping local children is always riskier as their parents can come searching so sugarcane farmers have started bringing children from Delhi.”

Ashok Chand, the Commissioner of Police (Crime) and the anti-trafficking unit head of Delhi Police, says the law will take its course. On telling him Mahendra, Deepak and Pawan’s stories, he adds, “your investigation is important. The higher police officials of the related police stations would have looked into the cases. If not, they will be given orders to do so.”

Despite strict directions from the Delhi High Court and the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Delhi Police remains lax. As a result, poor children are picked up from New Delhi’s urban slums and sold to distant sugarcane farmers. What lies ahead are years of darkness, violence and bonded labour.

European Research Project to Develop Super Wind Turbines

Breakthrough wind energy projects are not as common as breakthrough solar energy projects. This is perhaps because our method of harnessing wind energy is relatively efficient, at least compared to what current commercial solar PV energy has to offer.

But then again though, its efficiency is not really that high (about 40% max). We still need to tweak current wind turbines to help them combat the inherent problems posed by any intermittent energy source, and this new breakthrough might just help us break their current limits.
SUPRAPOWER is the name for a European-based project that aims to develop a highly efficient, powerful, and lightweight wind turbine that uses the principle of superconductivity. Headed by Spanish technology research organization Tecnalia, the project combines the knowledge and capability of nine European partners in an effort to forge a breakthrough in current wind energy technology. The project would last for at least four years, hopefully obtaining the objective of introducing a compact wind turbine with the power and efficiency of several units combined.

Inspiration for the project spurred from the perceived need for wind turbines to be more scalable, and able to perform adequately even when weight is significantly reduced. As stated by the report, it is the relatively large size and weight of current turbines that drives operational and maintenance costs. If a method for developing more lightweight turbines is developed, then it is possible to further drive down the cost of wind energy, making it more available to everyone.
The idea for introducing superconductivity to wind turbine design is quite revolutionary. As it is currently known, superconductivity provides wonders in electrical energy under the near absolute zero threshold (at around -253° C). At its temperature range, electrical resistance simply grinds to a halt, and electric current transfer efficiency tops near 100%.
This means that a superconductor generator that is integrated into a wind turbine could theoretically transfer all of the energy the turbine generates without a single watt lost due to heat. Researchers of the project claims that a superconducting generator could be kept at its optimal operational efficiency by using a rotating cryostat that would cool the superconducting coils at the temperature required. A statement by Tecnalia in the report claims that a single, compact wind power plant with a superconducting generator could potentially produce 10 megawatts of energy.
If a working wind turbine using their concept is successfully developed, it is expected that manufacturing costs for new wind turbines adapting the technology could be reduced by up to 30%.
Researchers involved in the project plan on first proving the working efficiency of all individual concepts that make up the project. They would then move forward to actually create a scaled down test version of the superconducting generator. Though there are no clear announcements for the completion for the project itself, the completion of the initial test phase (design, development, construction, and testing of the prototype generator) is expected to be completed by 2014.

WWF on How Not to Build a Dam

There’s no stopping the flow of energy demands in today’s energy-hungry world. But this is no excuse to either neglect or outright violate fundamental sustainability criteria when building facilities like power plants, nuclear reactors, or dams.

In terms of decision making, focusing on short-term interests to the disadvantage of other interests is a grave error, implies the WWF Report “Seven Sins of Dam Building“. The report looks at nine dams around the world that has violated one or more sustainability criteria such as biodiversity, social factors, and project location.
Hydroelectric power continues to be one of the cheapest and most widely used form of electricity generation today, supplying 16% of the world’s electricity. While hydroelectric power represents an overwhelming 86% of all electricity generated by renewable energy, it remains associated with several environmental issues. These include environmental damage, contribution to declines in freshwater biodiversity, and disruption of freshwater ecosystem services that affect local livelihoods among others.
The dams that are being built to meet energy demands may supply a significant portion to meet energy demands, but may exact high costs in return. WWF lists seven ways dam project developers and proponents commit sins of dam building.
The first sin of dam building doesn’t get any simpler than building on the wrong river. A wrong choice of dam location can affect everything from downstream flows to fostering cumulative impacts on communities and the environment. Proper assessment using appropriate tools like the RSAT help in identifying sites which should be off-limits for hydropower development.
While dams visibly turn upstream rivers into stagnant reservoirs, neglected downstream flows also suffer and are often overlooked. Water quality, sedimentation, and loss of ecosystem services are affected by neglected downstream flows due to poorly constructed dams. WWF advises implementing effective environmental flow regimes to achieve sustainable dam operations.
Neglecting biodiversity will always be a mistake not only in dam buildings but also in other infrastructure projects. Dams that neglect biodiversity can cause loss of habitat and fragmentation of both terrestrial and aquatic connectivity. If a dam project will contribute to possible extinction of endangered species, it is better for the project not to proceed.
Falling for bad economics underlines the WWF campaign in 2003: “The true cost of a dam never shows up on a balance sheet.” Many large dam projects play up economic benefits and profits while neglecting social and environmental costs. WWF advocates thorough assessments that include market uncertainties under climate change scenarios.
The welfare of communities affected by dam projects should be included in decision making, or developers will commit the sin of failing to acquire the social license to operate. Conflict arise when resettlement and downstream livelihood issues are set aside due to poor consultation and communication between parties. Project developers should maintain and improve relations with social groups who will be affected by their project in order to secure a “social license” to operate and gain community acceptance.
Cutting corners and taking shortcuts in large projects like dam building almost always result in mishandling risks and impacts. More often that not, skipping thorough assessment and preparations cost more time, effort, and resources than they seem to save as project developers jump from one emergency to another. “Open-eyed” approach to obvious risks and potential negative impacts can help developers avoid this ‘sin’.
Engineering “can-do” mindsets in water resource managements can lead to possible overdevelopments of water resources, simply because developers blindly follow a bias to build. As with other mistakes in dam building, planners might favor playing up benefits and downplaying risks to proper project assessment. An atmosphere of self-interest, incentivicing, and exclusive collusion of project proponents make it easy for developers to commit the seventh sin of dam building.

The seven sins of dam building are not only harmful in the long run, but also unnecessary. Less expensive, less damaging, and better alternatives to detrimental dam building exist today. Simple improvements such as turbine replacements and increasing storage capacities can go a long way toward reversing existing damages to the environment. Dr. Jian-hua Meng, Water Security Specialist for WWF, says that dams can contribute to food and energy security – but only when they are properly planned, built, and operated. Knowing how not to build a dam in respect to communities and the environment matters as much as knowing how to technically and efficiently build one.