T.P.Sreenivasan-The Blog

2012-01-31T05:20:00.000-08:00

Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple

NYT India Ink January 30, 2012

A committee appointed by the Supreme Court of India will return to the vaults of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram on the southern tip of India in the second week of February. Their task: try to put a value on what is believed to be the largest temple treasure in the world.

Last July, the world’s attention turned to the temple when the committee unearthed what one of its members said was gold, diamonds and precious antiques worth up to $40 billion. The Supreme Court had appointed the committee while hearing a case filed by a former police officer who had alleged that the temple’s immense wealth was being embezzled and poorly managed. The committee has recruited experts and marshaled equipment from around the world to resolve the mystery.

But it has not been an easy riddle to solve. Searchers, for instance, have been unable to budge the door of one of the vaults, which is believed to contain a large collection of treasures. The police officer who filed the original case died in July after being ill for several days, fanning fears among some believers that anybody who tried to open the vault would be cursed.

Sree Padmanabha, an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu who is worshiped at the temple, has a habit of springing surprises. Until a few years ago, most people in the city believed that his image, located in the middle of the temple in a dimly-lit room, was made of soluble material and that water should not touch it. But when an artist tried to set right an ornament on its hand, it was accidentally revealed that it was made of solid gold and the dark material over it was soot that had accumulated over centuries. Some experts suggested that former rulers had allowed the soot to accumulate to deceive invaders into thinking that the image was not of value. The gold was visible for a few years, but it soon disappeared under fresh soot from the oil lamps.

Sree Padmanabha is greatly revered in this city, which is named after his serpent bed, Anantha. The former royal rulers of Travancore had long maintained that Padmanabha was the true ruler of their kingdom and the rulers were merely his slaves. The deity resides in a sanctum at the center of the temple and is visible only through three narrow doors, one near the head, the second in the middle and the third at his feet. The sanctum is lit by oil lamps, which makes it hard to see him.

The discovery of the treasures has sparked two parallel discussions in the city: what should be done to secure it? And what should be done with it?

Believers are confident no one will dare rob the temple, but the federal and state governments have expressed concern that the discovery of the treasure has made it vulnerable to ordinary thieves and terrorist groups. Uniformed and plain-clothes officers now stand near temple gates that previously were guarded by priests and temple workers. Some secret service agents are dressed in the traditional Kerala waist clothes, or dhotis, with bare upper torsos. Cameras and metal detectors dot the periphery.

There has been a wide-ranging debate about what should be done with the treasure since it was discovered. Some people, including liberals and some leaders of the Communist Party of India, which was voted out in last year's elections in favor of the Congress Party, have suggested that the treasures found in the vaults should be sold and the money should be used for the development of the state of Kerala, of which Thiruvananthapuram is the capital. State officials, including Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, have said that the wealth belonged to the temple and should remain there. Some local leaders, including the city’s representative in Parliament, Shashi Tharoor, have suggested that rare pieces from the treasure that have artistic and historic significance should be exhibited at the temple under tight security.

Some temple officials have told me privately that they believe that the treasure is not as valuable as it has been made out to be. Historians who have studied Travancore say that the temple’s wealth traditionally served as an insurance policy against famine. The head of the former royal family, Padmanabhadasa Uthradam Thirunal, who is the custodian of the temple and its treasure, has said little about the value of the treasure or what should be done with it. Before he died, the former police officer T.P. Sundararajan, who brought the case against the royal family, suggested that the treasure be handed over to the state government.

But for now, the debate about what should be done with the treasure have subsided as residents of Thiruvananthapuram await the results of committee’s work.

2012-01-24T15:29:00.000-08:00

Musharraf brings hope | Pakistan | | The New Indian Express

2011-12-31T06:00:00.000-08:00

New Year Wishes and Thoughts 2012

Friends,

I have always tried to write a personal message to family and friends on the eve of the New Year even in the old days when it was fashionable to send printed cards. Now that it is all electronic, greetings have become even more impersonal as, at the touch of a button, you can greet all contacts. I think it will be a bit more meaningful to share some news and thoughts with friends and relatives, particularly with whom one is not in regular touch.

Many of you have sent greetings and good wishes to Lekha and me on the occasion of Christmas and New Year. Please accept this note as personal acknowledgement of your kind thoughts. We also wish you the very best for 2012. We look forward to hearing good news from you and your family all through next year.

The year 2011 was fairly peaceful and pleasant for us. Sree, Roopa, Durga and Krishna in New York reported personal successes. Shree and Sharu moved from Delhi to Dubai and began enjoying their new home. I continued with my reading, writing and speaking in India and abroad. A second term on the National Security Advisory Board turned out to be rewarding throughout the year. I was also invited to the India-UK Round Table and I enjoyed the first meeting in Surajkund.

A totally unexpected offer to serve as the Executive Vice-Chairman of the Kerala Higher Education Council came in October, marking a change in routine. Working for the Kerala Government for the first time has its own challenges. I was pleasantly surprised that political parties on both sides in Kerala supported my appointment. Life has become hectic with numerous meetings with a multitude of stake holders and many invitations to speak at conferences and seminars. I am also trying to maintain my reading and writing on foreign affairs. The Kerala International Centre and my weekly television programme on foreign affairs continue as before.

The year began with a happy note as Lekha's brother's daughter, Prarthana got married. The year ended with an addition to the family when Radhika, Lekha's sister's daughter and Hari decided to bring home a baby, Rukmini, to be their daughter.

We had a major loss this year when our close friend since 1980, Dr Mathew Illickal, passed away in New York. He and his wife, Lilykutty took care of us each time we went to New York, having been friends with us during our postings to the US. I happened to be in the US when Dr.Illickal died after a short illness and I was able to attend his funeral and pay my tribute to him.

My book on the Shashi Tharoor campaign was published this year and it was released in Thiruvananthapuram by the Kerala Chief Minister. The book was well received and sold throughout the country and it also received good reviews.

Another project that started this year was the NSS Institute for Civil Services in Thiruvananthapuram. The NSS leadership gave me a free hand to plan and execute the project and it is going well.

Lekha has been busy running a Karuna Short Stay Home for cancer patients and their care givers near the Medical College Hospital. She and her associates have manged to run it and also feed the hungry every week in the Medical College during the year 2011 and expect to do so in the new year also.

In Kerala, the major event was the change of Government. Though the new Government has only a narrow majority, the Government under the immensely popular Shri. Oommen Chandy has been working with vigour. The opposition is also very active. The treasure found at the Padmanabhaswamy Temple and the dispute over the Mullaperiyar dam attracted world attention. Both the issues need to be tackled with utmost care.

Corruption issues and the Anna Hazare movement engaged national attention throughout the year. The setback to the Hazare movement at the end of the year showed that the general public has reached another level of tolerance of corruption.

In foreign policy, India developed the art of hedging to such an extent that it is difficult to see the direction it is taking. But skilful management of day to day issues is quite visible.

The world is gearing itself for another recession in the wake of the Euro crisis, but Barack Obama seems to be recovering from his loss of approval at the end of the year. Protesters have replaced the terrorists as the news makers this year, but we do not know yet what the protesters will accomplish. The Egyptian and Libyan springs are turning into nightmares already and this may slow down democracy movements elsewhere. Stability may appear more desirable than a chaotic quest for democracy.

2011 was a horrible year for nuclear power. I was personally alarmed by the Fukushima accident as I watched the developments with bated breath. Any such accident can set the clock back on nuclear power for years. It is no point saying that nobody died in Fukushima of radiation or swearing that all other plants are safe. Such arguments carry no conviction. The world must think how it can move away from dependence on nuclear power one day, however distant that day may be.

All said and done, 2011 was not only a year of fear, but also of hope. Let us sustain the hope in the New Year and build a beautiful 2012.

Warmly,

Sreeni

2011-12-23T09:52:00.000-08:00

Inaugural Address at the Colloquium on China at the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam. Dec 23, 2011

Iam grateful that the Mahatma Gandhi University has invited me to inauguratethis colloquium on China. I welcome this opportunity to return to foreignaffairs in the midst of my preoccupations with the issues of higher educationin Kerala since the last two months.

I am glad that this colloquium is under the auspices of the KPS Menon Chair. Though Shri. KPS Menon was identified with Indo-Soviet ties by the time I came to know him in Moscow, he had a pioneering role in Sino-Indian relations. We know his contribution through his books and the legends about him, but I know personally how charming and gracious he was. I congratulate Prof. TV Paul on assuming the Chair established in the name of one of our greatest diplomats.

I am no expert on China, but I have followed Sino-Indian relations and I have occasionally expressed my views on them. Thelast time I wrote about China in December 2010 soon after the visit of theChinese Prime Minister to India provoked a response from the Global Times, thevoice of China. I said then: “ We have assurances from those who know Chinawell that that 1962 will not happen again. They contend that China is no morean isolated dragon… As it has grown large and powerful, it has becomedomesticated and would like to tango with the elephant. The elephant can relaxin the thought that the dragon will not step on its toes or its fiery breathwill not incinerate it.”

Iwent on to say, however, that there was clear evidence to show that there weremore contentious issues between the two countries in 2010 than in 1962. I madea list of the issues that provoked a war in 1962 and a list of issues thatplagued the relationship in 2010 and drew the obvious conclusion that thesecond list was longer. In addition to the land occupied by China in Ladakh andKashmir, their claim of Arunachal Pradesh, the stapled visa, more nuclearstations for Pakistan, and the disappearance of 1600 km of the border betweenIndia and China in Chinese maps. The only silver lining was that India andChina were cooperating at the international fora. “Otherwise, those who knowChina would not be complacent enough to think that the Chinese threat is anillusion”, I concluded.

Ina sharp reaction to my article, The Global Times, the official voice of Chinasaid, “Some people in India continue to make provocative statements with regardto China-India relations. A few days ago, former Indian Ambassador,Mr.T.P.Sreenivasan made an irresponsible assertion that the future ofChina-India relations is bound to result in conflict. He also said that “thecurrent state of China-India relations is even worse than 1962.” The GlobalTimes did not deny the points raised by me, but quoted the then ForeignSecretary Nirupama Rao and our President to the effect that the friendlyrelations between the two peoples would last for generations.

Inmy article, I had commented positively on India-China cooperation in themultilateral arena. I would like to examine today whether this cooperation isentirely benign or dictated by selfish considerations on the part of China.

Themost recent occasion when India and China worked together was at the Durbinconference on climate change. The Chinese delegate was the first to support ourEnvironment Minister when she said that India would not surrender the principleof burden sharing between rich and poor. “We should maintain the principle ofcommon, but differentiated responsibility”, said the Chinese delegate. But aclose examination of the Chinese position since the Rio summit of 1992 willshow that China has been hiding behind India in the climate talks, while increasingits CO2 emissions, reaching a higher level of emissions than the US. China’sshare in emissions is 23%, while the US has 18.11% and India’s share is only5.78%. Our argument of per capita emissions suited China and it argued forequity, but it worked closely with the developed countries before and duringthe Copenhagen conference for a new consensus on climate, which eventuallyresulted in the virtual rejection of the Kyoto Protocol. Faced with thepossibility of being subjected to mandatory cuts in emissions, China decided tolet the US off the hook. It was the shift in the Chinese position that resultedin a Copenhagen package, which was rejected by most developing countries. Chinahides behind India in the environment debate, but works with the developed worldto protect its own interests.

Thesituation is not very dissimilar in the case of trade, another area in whichIndia and China cooperate in the multilateral system. Both India and China arecommitted to an open, fair, equitable, transparent and rule based multilateraltrading system, in cooperation with other developing countries. We demandmeasures to eliminate trade distortions and to open their markets. At the sametime, China has itself imposed trade restrictions on certain items in India andbuilt up a trade imbalance with us. Even while professing solidarity with thedeveloping countries, China has been making deals with the developed countriesto develop its own trade.

Infact, the fundamental posture that China adopts in the UN is that it isuncompromisingly on the side of the developing countries. The joke is that aChinese representative said that “China is a developing country and it shallalways remain one.” China sees itself as a developing country and identifiesitself with the G-77 without becoming a member. Even when it is vying for the positionof world number one with the US and hobnobbing with the other permanentmembers, it finds it convenient to have the developing country image. Thecelebrated Chinese veto against Waldheim over and over again when he sought athird term as the UN Secretary General endeared China to the developing world.There are other examples of this kind. But China rarely confronts the westernP-3 and has developed the practice of abstention, which, in effect, is apositive vote. The Charter prescribes that the concurring votes of the fivepermanent members are necessary to adopt a resolution, but many crucialresolutions, including the last one on Libya, which were adopted with Chineseabstentions. The double face of china in the UN needs no further elaboration.

Asmembers of the Asian Group, India and China often come face to face for postsin which both are interested and in the name of cooperation, we makeadjustments and let China retain positions for years together. This year,however, India decided to challenge China’s effort to retain a position on theJoint Inspection Unit after serving on it for ten years continuously. India hadnot served on it since 1977 and was fully entitled to it on the basis ofrotation. Even though the Chinese candidate happened to be the ChineseAmbassador to India, we decided to contest and won it with a clear majority. Iam sure that China must have played its solidarity card to persuade India towithdraw. Our victory in the first ever direct contest between India and Chinawas indeed a landmark for us in the UN. The presumption that a permanent membercan win any election was proved wrong several times in the case of the USbecause the US often took positions against developing countries, but this isthe first time that another developing country confronts China and defeats it.This shows that the world at large has begun to question China’s profession ofbeing a champion of the developing world.

China’sposition on the expansion of the Security Council is a classic case of doubletalk. China professes that it supports the interests of the developingcountries, most of whom wish to see an expansion. In the case of India, Chinamaintains that it wants India to play a bigger role in the Security Council.But China has not even gone as far as the US in support of the Indianaspiration. China hides behind the US in its opposition to the expansion of theSecurity Council and it will not hesitate to use the veto if the situationwarrants it. China is firm in its position as a permanent member and acts inthat spirit even when giving lip service to G-77 solidarity.

India-Chinacooperation is the first casualty when India-Pakistan differences come tosurface. We are aware as to how China argued in favour of a nuclear deal forPakistan. When it failed to block the US-India deal, China supplied tworeactors to Pakistan in open violation of the NSG guidelines. Pakistan’s objectionto the expansion of the Security Council is also a factor in the Chineseposition.

Inconclusion, I would suggest that we should be cautious about China not only onour border, but also at the UN and other multilateral fora. China will nothesitate to be adversarial even there if it feels challenged by us.

Thankyou.

2011-12-17T18:18:00.001-08:00

Quality in Higher Education and Research: Par with International Standards

By T.P.Sreenivasan.

(Remarks at the Conference of Vice-Chancellors, Kochi. Dec 16, 2012)

I am grateful to the Vice Chancellor of Cochin University and the AIU for inviting me to participate in this conference of the top educationists of India. I was delighted also to hear an inspiring address by the Chairman of the University Grants Commission.

Diplomacy, they say, is so important that it cannot be left to the diplomats alone. Similarly, education too is too important to be left to educationists alone. Perhaps, it is for this reason that I have been asked to head the Kerala State Higher education Council, which I represent at this conference.What encourages me is the fact that some good educationists have become good ambassadors and some good ambassadors have become good educationists in the past.

The theme of today's discussion on quality of higher education in India with reference to international standards will itself raise controversies. World class education and international standards have been rejected by some sections of the Indian intelligentsia. When I said at the Kannur University the other day that I was sad to know that none of our universities or IITs had figured in a list of world class universities, I was told by an economist that he was not bothered about such lists, which made odious comparisons.He would prefer to have our own system of education, focusing on our culture and traditions. My observation that my endeavour is to make our graduates competitive nationally and internationally, he said that the purpose of education was to create " organic intellectuals". I would not go into that debate now. I would merely examine whether some of the methods used in other countries can be helpful to us in improving our own standards.

If the objective of giving world class education to our students is accepted, international standards and systems of education must be studied and an effort should be made adopt the best practices, wherever they are found. I would bring some of these to your attention and discuss how we can adopt them for our own needs.

We claim that we have succeeded in enhancing quantity, if not quality, in education. but the fact of the matter is that our gross enrollment ratio is only 15% and we are planning to increase it to 30% by 2020.This would mean 30 million students more, 1000 universities more, 50,000 colleges more and one million teachers more, as pointed out by our HRD Minister at the recent Washington summit. The Foreign Education Bill, when enacted, will facilitate entry of foreign universities, but such universities will not be able to repatriate profits. They would, however, benefit from their exposure to Indian academic life, it was stated. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointed out that there was a wide gap between India's needs and what the US can do. But we can certainly benefit from some of the reforms introduced in other countries.

Developing countries are generally resistant to western concepts for fear that they will impose cultural, political and economic priorities of imperialism. Ideological crystallization has led to reaffirmation of the sovereignty of states and the belief that quality has been colonised by consumerism and commoditisation of education.

Quality evaluation and assessment are fairly new features of education in Europe and the United States.Till 1990, it was believed that quality was implicit in university education, but gradually, the concept of external evaluation came to be accepted. As a result, external examination system was introduced in the UK, the US adopted a system of accreditation and Ministerial control of education became fashionable in much of Europe. With massification, internationalisation and marketisation of education, it became necessary to evaluate higher education despite calls for autonomy of universities. India adopted the assessment and accreditation system in recent years and NAAC has been a success in aiming at excellence and equity driven growth in higher education. Following this example, the Kerala State Higher education Council has decided to explore the possibility of setting up a state assessment machinery to continuously assess institutions and teachers, with a view to providing them incentives for better performance.

Professionalization of education is another feature that we can emulate from the western world. Students are diverted to professions early in life. The community colleges in the US provide models for training and retraining the work force and creating employment opportunities.

Academic freedom, autonomy and accountability are well defined in western education. Academic freedom is universal and absolute, while autonomy is parochial and relative. Universities are accountable to a variety of clients, in addition to the Governments. They are accountable to the students, the parents and the business community. We must remove intellectual fetters from the universities, but hold them accountable to the society. Autonomy should not be used to undermine accountability.

Emphasis on research even at the undergraduate level is another feature of western education we should emulate. Research can play a central role in promoting informed deliberations. Research remains abysmally low in India even at the graduate level and this needs to be changed in accordance with international standards.

Frequent changes in curriculum to reflect the changes in society is a feature of western education. In fact, changes in curriculum become forces for social change in certain circumstances. In the US, the curriculum swings from tradition and conservatism to experimentation and growth as social movements become the key motivator for curricular change. In our system, curricular changes are few and far between. A dynamic curriculum should be the hallmark of any vibrant education system.

Education in many countries need to cope with increasing diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, class, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability. Higher education has a role in achieving the promise of democracy and a pluralistic society. In India, diversity is a reality that has been taken into account in educational reform. Some of the experiments in other countries to cope with diversity by prescribing different methodologies may be relevant to our own higher education.

My point is not that our quest for quality in higher education should be guided only by international practices and standards. We should suit our own genius and circumstances in fashioning a system of our own. My effort was just to point out certain features of external experiences, which may be relevant to our reform efforts.

Thank you.

--

2011-12-11T19:58:00.001-08:00

Kanthari, the chilli that makes a difference By T.P.Sreenivasan I was at an unusual convocation at what was till recently called the International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs on the Vellayani lake in the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram. As the graduates walked up to me to receive a sash and a diploma each, it became evident that each one was physically challenged in one way or another. Each one needed help, either of another person or a cane. They were all of different complexions and different sizes and ages, ranging from 18 to 60. But each one was smiling and each one had a plan for the future. One wanted to open an internet cafe in Palestine, another wanted to open a school in Kenya, yet another one wanted to set up a home for AIDS patients in Zimbwabwe. They were brimming with hope and confidence and determined to make a difference to the world. Sensing the mood of the graduates and knowing each one of them closely, the promoters of the institution on behalf of the "Braille without Borders Foundation", Sabriye and Paul announced a change of name, "Kanthari". The Malayali audience was surprised and amused that an institution is named after the smallest and the most potent chilli in the world. Sabriye and her team had indeed studied the Kanthari well. She said it grew wild in the backyards of homes with no tender care, it produced colourful and potent chillies that would make a big difference to the palate, when eaten cooked or uncooked and no one will forget the Kanthari once it has been tasted. These graduates, she said. were like Kanthari in every respect. Sabriye, blind herself and determined, is indeed a Kanthari, which has already made a difference to many people in different parts of the world.The name 'Kanthari' also resonated, by chance, with Gandhari, the legendary wife of Dhritarashtra, who voluntarily blindfolded herself in empathy with her blind husband. Sabriye and Paul, two Germans, who spent twelve years in Tibet, helping the blind there, won the approbation not only of Tibetans, but also the Beijing authorities, who awarded them an honour given earlier to Marx and Engels. They found their way to Kerala in 2009 to find a beautiful spot, which, ironically, Sabriye herself and most participants would not see. They had immense success with volunteers, donors and bewildered well- wishers who helped them set up a home for about forty participants from around the globe. Social projects that improve the quality of blind, visually impaired people and marginalized target groups were devised and invitations went around the world. It made no segregation between the able and disabled, educated and uneducated, young and old. Those who were admitted in the last three years were people who had overcome significant life challenges ranging from vision impairment, dsability, poverty, war, discrimination and exploitation. Having experienced or witnessed atrocities of various kinds. they had a passion to make the world a better place and the strength to be forces of good rather than victims of circumstance.The graduates will return to their homes with the necessary skills to succeed as social entrepreneurs such as management, public speaking, communication, leadership, fund raising, budgeting, book keeping and others. The course has been curtailed from eleven months to seven to have two groups per year. Some are self supporting, while others have scholarships.The graduation this year celebrated "One World, Many Flavours" and I shared my experience of living in different cultures. The flavours differed so much in different countries in food, drinks and manners, but human beings were the same, I said. To take just one example, the national drink in different countries differed so much that it alone would pose a challenge to outsiders.The participants appeared to have lost all barriers during their stay at the Kanthari. They seemed fully equipped to face the challenges of their life ahead with no inhibition about their disabilities. They had turned themselves into kantharis, with enough spice in them to change the world-

2011-12-02T04:43:00.000-08:00

Prof .K.A.Isaac Commemoration Lecture 2011
Education for a Changing World
Dec 2, 2011

I am delighted to be back in the precincts of the Kerala University Library, where I spent the best part of my best years as a student of the UniversityCollege. I was invited here on an earlier occasion in connection with the acquisition of UN documentation by the Library, but today I am here as the Executive Vice-Chairman of the Kerala Higher Education Council to pay my tribute to the legendary librarian of Kerala, Prof.K.A.Isaac, by delivering his Commemoration Lecture, 2011. Even during my days here as a young student between 1961 and 1966, Prof.Isaac was well known for his scholarship and administrative skill. If I remember right, the University Library moved here at that time and I was among the first batch of students who benefited from the change of venue. In my view, Prof.Isaac was not just a great librarian and a great teacher; he transformed library science and the profession of librarians into a noble and sought after vocation. Till his time, nobody had thought that there was not only science, but also art in taking care of books and making knowledge available to those who seek it. Long before the advent of the computers, he made it possible for students like us to find the right books at the right time. The librarian was as important as the teacher. His contribution will be remembered for long by those of us who were fortunate enough to use this library.

If you had asked me to deliver this lecture two months ago, I would have chosen a different topic, but still connected to the dramatic changes in the world.. I would have spoken of, say, Indian diplomacy in the new world context. Today, my thoughts are focused on higher education in Kerala in the context of the changing world. Like diplomacy, education must also change to suit the needs of the new world, which is changing at a bewildering pace. No other time in history has mankind been subjected to so many changes in a single lifetime. If we look back at the world of just twenty years ago, we would realize the speed and extent of the changes that have overtaken us. Today, we have begun to look upon a person without a cell phone or an email address as though he came from the Neolithic age. But none of us had even heard about such things even twenty years ago. We have no clue what we will be writing with or what we will be speaking into in the next ten, or even five years.

In such a situation, our education today is aimed at a generation which will run this state, this country and this world in the next thirty, forty or fifty years. The question to be asked is whether the education we provide to our children will be beneficial to them in the years 2030 or 2050, about which we know very little. Unless we can comprehend the changes in the offing and try to devise a dynamic education system, we shall be doing a disservice to the future generations. The case for critically examining the curriculum, overhauling, updating and injecting life into it needs no further elaboration.

We have to assess the content of our curricula to identify what to keep, what to cut, and what to create, and where portfolios and other new kinds of assessment fit into the picture. We have to examine programme structures to see how to improve our use of time and space and grouping of teachers and students. We have to see how technology is transforming teaching and how to take advantage of the natural facility of students with technology. We have to identify the best resources for helping students become informed users of multiple forms of media. The challenges of globalization are no less important. At the same time, we have to instill in them enduring values and beliefs that will lead to healthier local, national and global communities. Above all, we have to find the thinking habits that students, teachers, and administrators need to develop and practice to succeed in school, work and life. In other words, our educational institutions should be transformed into learning organizations that match the times we live in and the world in which our children and grandchildren are likely to face.

This bewildering catalogue of reforms required in education have been identified by educationists in other countries too, but the challenges are more acute in India and particularly Kerala, where our graduates have to seek employment in countries, where life is changing even at a faster pace. If we cannot cope with the changes in our own backyard, it is even harder to anticipate the needs of other parts of the world. Needless to say, the changing world has made changes imperative in our education system. Changes have been made in the past and sometimes parents and students have lamented frequent changes with no apparent purpose. There has been no dearth of Commissions and Committees, recommendations or exhortations. Education remains like a patient, whose illness has been diagnosed and medicines prescribed, but no treatment administered.

One can also argue against major changes, as some do even today. Our graduates have done reasonably well in different countries and have competed successfully against the graduates of the best universities in the world. We have even instances of self made men, with little or formal education, rising to become millionaires. When we have to educate the masses with scarce resources, we have to focus on quantity rather than quality. Huge investments are not necessary for Kerala model development, which has registered indicators that can match those in the developed world. If the system has largely met our needs, do we need to make massive investments on innovation and reform?

None of us has ready answers to the need for educational reform, but from the diagnosis made by experts, one can at least identify the direction in which we should go. Since increasing educated unemployment is a pressing issue, the obvious answer is to set up courses that will increase the employability of our graduates. We need to anticipate new avenues of employment and design courses that will equip our graduates for these jobs. Weakening of student motivation can be dealt with only by incentives and disincentives. Increasing unrest and indiscipline in campuses should be handled with tact and firmness. Deterioration of standards demands better teachers and better methods of teaching.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh identified politicization of university education as a curse. This is not to be confused with student politics. University campuses have thrown up some competent politicians and more people with talents and skills will enter politics only if they have early training and experience in politics. What ails the system is the tendency to politicize appointments in education at all levels.

Our university system is particularly resistant to change. When experiments and innovations are attempted, they are resisted and if they are enforced, they are implemented half-heartedly. Such innovations as the merit promotion scheme, faculty improvement programme, vocationalisation of courses, and semesterization of courses, annual self appraisal report, college development council, academic staff colleges and refresher and orientation courses have faced different degrees of resistance.

Privatization of higher education has helped in many ways to fill the gap between our needs and the paucity of state resources. The globalization and liberalization have demanded such infusion of private initiative, innovation and entrepreneurship. But private institutions sometimes find it difficult to resist profiteering and further, they accentuate the social divide. Kerala can be legitimately proud of several private institutions, which constantly strive to reach excellence. In fact, some of them have the potential to become world class institutions. Combined with greater participation of the industry at the planning level and increased investment, the private institutions should be able to make a major contribution to educational reform in the state.
The need for reform in education for a changing world is beyond question. The magnitude of the problem and its complexity are such that changes can become only gradually and slowly. But an important and immediate need is to give all institutions a level playing field and give them an equal opportunity to achieve excellence. The world had committed itself to expend nine percent of its GDP to education and health at the dawn of the millennium. Many countries, including India, have not reached that target as yet and a movement has started, in which children demanded, "Nine is Mine". Additional resources and imaginative and innovative changes are needed to have an educational system for the changing world.

Against the backdrop of the need for reform and innovation, the role of the Kerala Higher Education Council is modest. It is less than five years old and its impact on higher education is yet to be felt. But it has already made a beginning and the new Council, less than two months old, has formed its Agenda 2012, consisting of implementation of some of the decisions of the previous Council and some new proposals. The Agenda 2012 is neither comprehensive, nor exclusive. We are open to suggestions and proposals from the academic community and experts. A consultative process has already begun and our doors remain open. As it stands today, Agenda 2012 reads as follows:

Existing Agenda

1. Programme of Scholarships
2. Restructuring Undergraduate Education
3. Erudite Programme
4. Journal
5. Review of University Acts
6. Restructuring of Postgraduate education
7. State policy on Higher Education
8. Anti-ragging Campaign

New Agenda
1. SAAC
2. Institutions -Industry Linkages
3. Building of Institutions of Excellence
4. Training Programmes for Teachers
5. Students and Teachers Exchange Programmes
6. Seminars and conferences
7. Assist the Government in setting up an IIT and Malayalam University
8. Vision 2030 (Education)
9. Right to Education Act- Special Course for Teachers

An additional thought that the Council has is to seek collaboration with some of the world class universities. A Kerala delegation was in London last week to attend an important meeting of the UK-Kerala Forum organized by a British Member of Parliament, Mr.Virendra Sharma, who has developed extraordinary interest in British investments in Kerala after a recent visit to Kerala. He is being characterized as Kerala's Member in the British Parliament. He not only chaired the meeting, but also involved his friends in the British Parliament and major British agencies and companies in the consultations. Our Minister, Mr. Shibu Baby John, our MP, Mr. Anto Antony, our MLAs, Mr.Mons Joseph, Mr. T.U.Kuruvilla and Mr. Randathani participated in the consultations. An enthusiastic group of private entrepreneurs in the UK and in Kerala facilitated this important event, which was held in the British Parliament building itself. I have had detailed consultations with universities and other institutions in the meeting itself and outside. Similar consultations will be held with institutions in other countries. I have no doubt that fruitful collaboration can be established within the guidelines for such cooperation established by the Government.

India has a long tradition of running world class institutions, which have attracted scholars from other countries of the world. Some aspects of the ancient system of Gurukulam education are being rediscovered today. But the influence of the colonial system and the educational system devised to meet its needs have been largely responsible for the deterioration of our standards and distortion of our objectives. Today, even our best universities do not figure on the list of the best world class universities. The time has come for us to build institutions of excellence once again, rooted in our traditions, but capable to meet the challenges of change.

Thank you.

2011-11-24T23:34:00.000-08:00

Kerala's Voice Heard in a British Parliament chamber for the first time

Anto Antony, a young Congress MP from Kerala became the first to speak about Kerala in the hallowed precincts of the British Parliament building. The occasion was an unprecedented meeting of the UK-Kerala Business Forum in a chamber named after William Pitt, chaired by Virendra Sharma, MP of the House of Commons. The honour was shared by Kerala Minister Shibu Baby John and former ambassador T.P.Sreenivasan, VC, KSHEC, who answered questions from the British MPs gathered there for the occasion. In attendance was a large contingent of Kerala businessmen in the UK

Antony spoke of the cultural links between India and the UK and the features that make Kerala an ideal destination for British tourists and investors. He laid out a number of avenues for cooperation between the UK and Kerala. He made a convincing case for investments in education, infrastructure, IT, health care, waste management, renewable energy and others.

In the discussion that followed, the British M.Ps raised a number of questions, including Communism in Kerala, the caste system and tourism potential. The Kerala delegation gave convincing answers and the gathering agreed that collaboration projects should be initiated immediately, given the potential of Kerala and the keenness of the British industry to diversify its presence in India.

In a separate session with the concerned British agencies and industrial houses, supplemented by leading Kerala businessmen, again chaired by Virendra Sharma, Antony and Sreenivasan made specific proposals for collaboration. These were analyzed by the concerned agencies in a preliminary manner and it was agreed that as many British businessmen as possible should attend the Investment Forum being planned in Kochi in 2012.

The following areas were identified for preparation of detailed studies by the two sides:
Education
ICT
Infrastructure
Waste Management
Health
Power and Energy

As for modalities, it was suggested that the Kerala side would submit to the UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) detailed proposals for a dozen projects. Kerala would work initially with Middlesex University and the Commonwealth Business School to explore possibilities in education and that the UK-Kerala Forum would receive British proposals and forward them to the Kerala Government.

Some members of the Kerala delegation, notably MLAs Mons Joseph and TUKuruvilla, who arrived late, participated in the informal discussions after the meeting.

Full credit should be given to the UK-Kerala Forum led by Virendra Sharma MP, Philip Abraham, George and Pius, who not only made perfect arrangements in London, but also made every effort to ensure adequate representation from Kerala.

Anto Antony MP was extremely enthusiastic and gave strong leadership to the Kerala delegation. His interaction at all levels helped the deliberations.

The only snag was that several members could not get their visas on time.The visa issue was noted as detrimental to the growth of business relations.

As the first meeting of a new initiative by Virendra Sharma and a group of Keralites in the UK, it was a great success But efficient follow up action is essential to move forward.

T.P.Sreenivasan
Vice-Chairman, KSHEC

2011-11-19T09:02:00.001-08:00

Inaugural Address of Kalpatha 2011 by

Former Ambassador T.P.Sreenivasan

Vice-Chairman, KSHEC at Technopark on Nov 19, 2011

Thank you for inviting me to inaugurate Kalpatha 2011, a two day national conference on the topic of "Business Innovation The New Age Survival Mantra". You have invited me at a time when I am in the process of reinventing myself. To put it in computer terminology, I am struggling to put new software into the hardware that is accustomed to a different set of circumstances and demands. After being an evangelist of foreign policy and strategic thinking, I have now moved to the academic world, with a mandate to help the Kerala Government formulate its policy on higher education. My only consolation is that there have been several diplomats before me, who made the switch and done as well in academics as in diplomacy. In a way, my own appointment as the Executive Head of the KSHEC is an innovation on the part of the Government of Kerala.

I have agreed to speak here today not because I have much to say about innovation, which is now a vast subject for discussion in the business world. I am fascinated by your commitment to uphold the recent trends and issues in management and bridge the gap between the corporate world and academia. In fact, the first new topic that my Council adopted for implementation was the Institution-Industry interface, a programme of close interaction between educational institutions and the industry.

The nature of interaction between educational institutions and industry has changed significantly over the years in India. In the colonial era, there was little interaction between the two, as the University system essentially supplied human capital to staff the civil service and judiciary. It was not purported to cater to the industrial workforce. Post independence, graduates of Indian university system found employment in a much wider range of careers, including in industry. Other forms of university industry linkages such as industry sponsored research projects, joint publications, business incubators in universities, have started to flourish recently in certain institutions such as IITs and IISC. These institutions have witnessed higher intensity university industry linkages. For instance, all the business incubators started in academia in India can be traced to IITs and IISC. When IIT Kanpur was ranked as number one among engineering colleges, the reason was that it had received a high amount of alumni money in the form of university-industry linkages. This benefits the industry because they get young brains to work in their research and development programs and the University students get great exposure to the industry. For this very reason, these institutions are considered institutions of excellence and enjoy greater autonomy. My ambition is to create such institutions in Kerala.

It goes without saying that there is a strong connection between autonomy enjoyed by institutions like the IITs and the intensity with which it participates in the nation's innovative system. The government funding for research, which is channeled through public research institutes has not been fully utilized for the purpose intended. For this reason, the Government now proposes to create Innovation Universities with greater autonomy in matters of academics, faculty, personnel, finance, administration and in the development of a vision for the future. These universities will make our universities more active participants in the country's innovative system.

India's economic success story is based on growth in business services, including information technology services that are mainly non-patentable and do not require formal Rand D spending. This may appear comfortable in the short term, but to compete at the global level, research at the university level has to be essential part of our strategy. Absence of research will make our graduates mere labour in the world markets. New streams of technology can be invented only when education endeavors to meet demand.

A UNESCO Policy Forum concluded in 2000 that one of the most important challenges for institutional policy-makers is defining a legal framework and incentive systems which stimulate innovation at the institutional, departmental and individual levels. A balance has to be achieved between the culture and traditions of a university with existing outside opportunities for collaboration. Bringing these opportunities to the campuses is the objective of the Institutions-Industry Interface that the Executive Council is planning to accomplish.

Increasingly, industries are becoming the beneficiaries of the products of our universities and, therefore, they have a responsibility to invest in education, particularly research. We do not have major manufacturing industries in Kerala, but our graduates do work in other parts of India and abroad. Partnership with major industrial houses will benefit both the universities and the industries. Needless to say, the knowledge industry, which is growing in Kerala has even a greater stake in education and research.

Coming back to innovation in its present sense of invention and renovation, interestingly, the most innovative companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter etc do not claim to be innovative, while those who are still trying to be innovative speak of the importance of innovation. Those who have acquired game changing technologies go beyond innovation, they create revolutions. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are not innovators, but visionaries, to borrow a word from an earlier era. Innovation may well be for lesser mortals, but innovation is essential for business and it is the survival mantra of today.

Innovation is traditionally measured by the number of patents a company files, but more recently there is a tendency to measure it in terms of influence and global reach. The result is a list of 100 most innovative companies in the world and the surprise is that not a single Chinese company is on the list. Yet, China has become the most prolific patent filer in the world, pursuing a national plan to become an economy based on innovation rather than imitation. The Chinese plan calls for its corporations and individual investors to file two million patents by 2015, which would dwarf the current filing in the US. The absence of Chinese firms on the list of innovators has been attributed to focusing on the domestic market first. But it will not be long before the Chinese secure global reach and become one of the most innovative countries. Like in other areas of business, China is ahead of us in patents and it is poised to compete with the US.

In education, however, vision is more important than innovation. but in the short term, innovative ideas are as important in education as in business. The search for answers is the essence of education, just as business today cannot prosper without constant search for new applications of old inventions, if not new inventions and discoveries. In the laboratories, failures are not uncommon and success comes only after repeated failures, while in education, failures can do lasting damage. But in education as well as in business, tireless efforts are essential for new concepts, new applications, in other words, innovation.

I would like to conclude with what Leonardo da Vinci had to say about the vital importance of inquisitiveness in life. "I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand. Why shells existed in the top of mountains along with imprints of coral and plant and seaweed usually found in the sea. Why the thunder lasts a longer time than that which causes it and why immediately on its creation the lightning becomes visible to the eye, while thunder takes time to travel. How the the various circles of water form around the spot which has been struck by a stone and why a bird sustains itself in the air. These questions and other strange phenomena engaged my thought throughout my life." Some of the phenomena that bewildered Leonardo have been explained by science, but others remain. Both business and education must be constantly in search for answers to these questions, leading to innovation and vision.
Thank you.

2011-11-02T17:06:00.000-07:00

Inaugural address by Former Ambassador T.P.Sreenivasan, Vice-Chairman of the Kerala State Higher Education Council at the first session of the Executive Council. November 2, 2011.
Distinguished Member Secretary and Members of the Executive Council,
I am delighted to congratulate you on your appointment as the members of the Executive Council of the Kerala State Higher Education Council. I look forward to working with you to enhance the value and prestige of higher education in Kerala.
You have brought to the Council a wealth of experience in the field of education. Each one of you has been chosen for your eminence and wisdom. I have myself spent much of my working life in diplomacy, but my heart has been in education. With both my parents as school teachers, I have grown up in the midst of the joys and tears of educating young minds. I began my career as a teacher and even after I returned to India after 37 years abroad, I found immense satisfaction in teaching in several universities in India and outside. I was pleasantly surprised when I was offered this position, previously occupied by a veteran educationist.
Education and diplomacy have much in common. Unlike the other civil services, the Foreign Service has very few files and it demands constant education as we change countries and continents every three years. The challenge to cope with a new country, a new civilization, a new language and a new system can be met only by remaining a student throughout. Reading, research and writing are as essential for diplomats as for academics. Perhaps, this is the reason why several distinguished diplomats, among them Sardar K.M.Panikkar, Shri.G.Parthasarathy, Shri. K.R.Narayanan and Shri. Hamid Ansari, were appointed as Vice-Chancellors. Shri.K.P.S.Menon (Sr) has recorded that he was offered the Vice-Chancellorships of several universities when he returned from Moscow. I welcome this opportunity to bring to this position my exposure to the world and my zest for igniting the young minds,in the words of former President Abdul Kalam.
Allow me to pay a tribute to my predecessor, Dr.K.N.Panikkar, and his team for building up this Council from its very beginning and for laying the foundations for making higher education in Kerala purposeful and relevant to the demands of modern times. They have introduced several reforms and suggested many more, with the help of other experts. Our first task is to give attention to these reforms and promote their implementation after critically examining them in the light of past experience and applying the correctives as necessary. The scholarships scheme, the clustering of colleges, the Erudite Scheme, combating of ragging in the campuses, the Teacher Exchange Programme, the publication of a journal etc have broad acceptance and must be pursued vigorously. The reforms on which there may be difference of opinion in the academic community should be examined with the realization that the pursuit of perfection should not endanger the existing good. The advice we give to the Government on policy formulation should be well considered, they should reflect the consensus in the academic community and they should be practical and beneficial. Effective monitoring of the programmes and utilization of funds must be one of our important functions.
The general approach I would recommend is one of continuity and change. As a student in Kerala, I was often bewildered by frequent changes in the education system. We should not subject our student community to needless experimentation and change. Our purpose should be to fashion an education system that will meet the challenges of the future. Swami Vivekananda used to say that the end of all education is “man making.” Education is “the manifestation of the perfection already in man,” he observed. Education, for him, means that process by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased and intellect is sharpened, as a result of which one can stand on one’s feet.
The lofty ideals of a broad education that will elevate the society must be upheld, but after everything is said and done, our education system will be judged by the extent to which it equips our youth to compete nationally and globally for careers. We have had a long tradition of seeking fortunes abroad and the fact that many have succeeded in building successful careers abroad is a compliment to our education system, however inadequate it is perceived to be. We should, therefore, keep an eye on the opportunities worldwide and fashion courses that will suit the needs in different countries. The system should be flexible enough to introduce courses at short notice to cater to urgent demands. Even while stressing the importance of the study of Indian languages, proficiency in the English language must be given high priority to make our graduates able to compete in the international markets. Study of international relations should also be expanded with the same objective. Needless to say, education should inculcate not only our values and culture, but also the civic sense of our citizens to make them valuable members of the society.
I hope the reconstituted Council will be thoughtful, innovative and fast in devising new schemes to bring about the necessary changes in higher education. There is no dearth of studies, reports and recommendations to choose from. But more important is the implementation of decisions in a highly complex system. We should be conscious that there is no level playing field for our academic community. While the variety of different managing and financing systems will remain, it should be possible for every institution to give equal opportunities to the academic community. The role of the Council should be to create a level playing field for higher education in Kerala. We can secure the cooperation of the multitude of agencies and administrations, whether in the Government or the private sector, only if we demonstrate professionalism, transparency and care, the very principles that the present Government of Kerala espouses.
Ideally, we should strive to elevate every institution to a level of excellence, but given the history, the availability of resources and the existing variations in standards, it is inevitable that this should be accomplished in stages. I am happy to know that the centre has already agreed, in principle, to establish an IIT in Kerala in the 12th plan. We, as the Council, should advise the Government of Kerala to take the necessary steps to establish an IIT in Kerala at the earliest. Similarly, the proposed Malayalam University and Open University should be established as soon as possible. We already have institutions of repute in Kerala. I would suggest that we devise a scheme by which a number of these institutions are selected for intensive efforts to turn them into institutions of excellence. We might begin with a rating mechanism for colleges so that improvement can be noted and incentives given to deserving institutions. The selection can be made from the Colleges that volunteer to join the scheme. One element of the scheme will be the linking up of these entities with national and international institutions of excellence. If the Council accepts this scheme, it should be submitted to the Government before the end of the year.
We are required to prepare our programme for the 12th Plan in a matter of days. This requires urgent thinking on what we can accomplish in higher education in the next five years. Nationally, this is a time for introspection and self appraisal to see whether we can usher in an era of high quality teaching and research. We read with consternation recently that a country which attracted knowledge seekers from around the globe to Nalanda and Takshila does not have a single university to find a place in international ranking. Shri. JAK Tareen, the Vice-Chancellor of the Pondicherry University has identified three major differences between Indian universities and well known world class universities, which prevent us from attaining excellence. “First, Indian universities and colleges totally lack in critical mass of students, secondly , the undergraduate programmes are fragmented from the university campuses, and, thirdly, the existing affiliation system of colleges to universities is the bottleneck of their autonomy and freedom to grow with innovations. These issues need to be addressed for our universities to attain global parity, though other issues of faculty, infrastructure, laboratories, library and a conducive ambience are as important,” he states. We shall have to meet again shortly to suggest measures to be included in the 12th plan to meet our aspiration to create a knowledge society.
I would emphasise the need for the broadest possible consultations with the stakeholders on a continuing basis. In this, I would solicit the participation of all members of the Council. I shall begin consultations on a regular basis with groups and individuals from next week and I would urge you also to do so in designated constituencies. We should visit as many institutions as possible within a short time to get new ideas and thoughts. We should increase our interaction with the universities in the rest of India and abroad. We do not claim monopoly over wisdom and we hope to gain our insights from the continuous interaction with the academic community.
The message that should go from this first meeting of the Council is that KSHEC will work with the clear purpose of making a difference to higher education in Kerala to enable our youth to meet the challenges of the present and future. We shall do this without fear or favour, affection or ill will and we expect, in turn, the full cooperation, support and goodwill from the entire academic community and the public at large. The doors of the Council will remain open for ideas, suggestions and recommendations and I invite the public to interact freely with me and the members of the Council.
I wish you the very best as we embark on a journey together. I have great pleasure and honour to inaugurate the first meeting of the Executive Council.

Thank you.

2011-10-31T18:23:00.000-07:00

Consequences of fear
[Print]
T P Sreenivasan
Last Updated : 31 Oct 2011 11:07:39 PM IST

Terrorism won its ultimate victory when fear gripped the world forever. We see the consequences of it everywhere. Nobody can envisage a world without elaborate security checks at airports, hotels and other public places. The effort, the inconvenience and the expenses incurred on security checks at airports flow out of fear. One of the symbols of a changed world after 9/11 is the security check, which makes people stand in line in different stages of undress to prove their innocence. Someone said that the worst punishment for Osama was not death, but a decree that he should go through security checks again and again at a US airport for the rest of his life. He would know only then the horrible heritage he had bequeathed.

The US changed more than the rest of the world after 9/11. It felt most vulnerable even with a nuclear arsenal, which could destroy the world many times over. It was stunned into the reality of the power of the future. The re-election of President Bush was itself a direct consequence of the fear America felt. The people of the US were convinced that no one else could ensure homeland security, which had become the new buzz word. No wonder he went after Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden in his war against terror. But the US strategy of dealing with enemies too changed out of the same fear. It does not assassinate its enemies or invade countries any more. It has found it necessary to use an uprising, if it exists, or invent one if it does not. ‘Do not meddle with the US; if you do, we will bring democracy to you’, seems to be the warning. In an earlier era, justice was swifter and action was more direct. Today, it is social networking that is used to ignite the fire of democracy that engulfs the once powerful dictators. Stealth rather than military strength plays the crucial role in bringing them to justice.

Those who may have watched the final moments of Saddam, Osama and Gaddafi may have noticed some common features. All of them lasted much longer than expected; the news of their death having been flashed across the globe long before they were found and executed. When their killings came, it looked as though it was a mere formality. We had come to expect the killings as they were seen by many as the enemy of the people. The Americans and NATO, as the case may be, were mere executioners. Questions even remained as to who pulled the trigger. The possibility of their own people having dealt the final blow was left open.

The new dispensation of regime change is catching on, but the question to be asked is whether it would have made any difference to the United States if the three had lived on. Did the movements that the West create to brand them as enemies go out of control? Was the final decision to eliminate them taken by the West or by the people who were ruled by them? Perhaps, the United States transferred their fear to the people of the world, particularly to the people of Iraq and Libya in the case of Saddam and Gaddafi. With short memories, the general public began to see them as dangerous and rejoiced in their elimination. The crowds in Benghazi did not look as though they were ruled for 42 years by the man who lay dead in a public mortuary.

The three men, who became villains in the eyes of the world, were not suddenly discovered as the causes or consequences of 9/11. The US had seen them as enemies even before. Saddam and Osama started off as benefactors of the US and beneficiaries of Western largesse. Gaddafi had challenged the US and the Western world in many ways on different occasions. But they were dealt with differently in the past. Senior Bush defanged him with the mother of all UN resolutions, which crippled Saddam’s government, but left him intact with minor doses of humanitarian injections. Osama and Al-Qaeda had inflicted wounds on the US in many parts of the globe, but he and his lethal outfit were not pursued with the same vigour as was done after 9/11. Gaddafi was allowed to survive even after Lockerbie. The sudden decision to eliminate him did not arise from a new threat, but from a new opportunity and the underlying reason to pull the trigger must have been the new fear that has gripped the West after 9/11.

The grim scenes of the death of the three men seemed to convey a message. They were found, after a long search and major sacrifices in men and material, as helpless humans with no power to defend themselves. Certainly, the message is that the US and the West will pursue their enemies to the last hideout, whether it is a drain, a secret cave or a fortified bungalow. The images of the three men at the mercy of American soldiers or their protégées will be a lesson to others who may inflict losses to the US or the Western world. It will not be long before local revolutions spring up in those countries, leading to humanitarian interventions and elimination of leaders who are out of step.

Fear is perhaps the most lethal of emotions and it can easily be transferred to countries and peoples by linking up even isolated incidents to certain individuals. The thought of a nuclear-armed Saddam had the whole world trembling and no one knew where Osama would strike the next. Who does not fear a ‘mad dog’ with a record of unpredictable behaviour? The protests were, therefore, drowned out by the jubilation over the advent of revolutions. Even the UN secretary general sounded jubilant over the killing of a man, whom his predecessors had escorted into the General Assembly several times in the past. No one saw any contradiction in a humanitarian intervention leading to the inhuman treatment of a man. Humanity seemed to heave a collective sigh that they did not have to fear one more source of danger to mankind.

The point to ponder is only whether the fear that engendered these killings was genuine or faked in order to eliminate enemies. The answer lies in the personalities of the leaders of the Western world today. Obama, Sarkozy, Cameron and Merkel are not Machiavellian enough to eliminate enemies brutally under a false pretext. They are gripped by genuine fear of harm to their people. But, in the ultimate analysis, fearful democratic leaders may do as much damage as fearsome dictators.

T P Sreenivasan is a former ambassador of India and governor for India of the IAEA. E-mail: tpsreenivasan@gmail.com

2011-10-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

Friends,

Below is the text of a lecture I delivered at the famed Vienna Diplomatic Academy just a while ago. The audience was more international than Austrian and at least three Indian students identified themselves. The rather prosaic title was given by the Academy as it is the title of a course the students have to cover for their degree. The moderator told me that it was a full house despite the fact that all lectures were not compulsory. The discussion was rich, spirited and informed.

If you find in my lecture echoes of some recent speeches of Mani Shankar Aiyer, Shyam Saran, Shivshankar Menon or Shashi Tharoor, it was not accidental. I did not do a cut and paste job, nor did I plagiarise them. But I found that some of the ideas articulated by them recently fitted into my narrative and they occurred to me as I wrote. Being original was not my priority, but making my presentation effective and comprehensive. As they say, copying from one is plagiarism, but copying from many is research. I wish to thank them for being my Dronacharyas, who, hopefully, will not demand a costly gurudakshina.

Sincerely,

TPS

The current geopolitical and economic importance of India

By T.P.Sreenivasan

I am delighted to be back at the Vienna Diplomatic Academy, where I have listened to erudite scholars and brilliant diplomats in the past. The Vienna Diplomatic Academy occupies a special place as a nursery of diplomats in a city, which is considered the cradle of diplomacy. I consider it an honour to be invited here to speak about my country, its current geopolitical and economic importance. I am grateful to the Academy and the Public Diplomacy Division of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs for making this possible. Vienna brings back fond memories of my tenure here when my good friend, Ambassador Sucharipa headed the Academy. I am sorry to hear that he passed away recently.

India has been important to the world over centuries of its civilisational history. From zero to complex philosophical concepts, India has contributed immensely to the evolution of mankind. Indian treatises on such varied subjects as rule of law, statecraft, astrology, diplomacy and even love have determined human behaviour for centuries. India is a young country, but an ancient civilization. It has played its part in the past, it plays its part today. Its image may have changed from time to time, but its importance has been beyond question throughout recorded history. A country that has given the world the Vedas and the Upanishads, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita, Kathakali and Kathak, the Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi will remain significant even if it does nothing more for a century. But India continues to be a dynamic power, playing its role in a changing world.

India has never been a homogeneous entity. Its diversity is its strength. It has also never been a conquering nation. Its charms and wealth have attracted a multitude of cultures to its vast expanses. Emperors and conquerors subjugated it, but it outlasted all of them. It absorbed the best in alien cultures, but never lost its identity. The India of today derives its strength from its rich heritage and its innovative spirit. Its political and economic importance today is part of a continuum, enriched by experience, innovation and triumph of the human spirit.

Today, the world hails the emergence of India. President Barack Obama declared in the Indian Parliament last year that India is not an emerging nation, it has already emerged. But India’s emergence has been celebrated before. President George Bush and President Bill Clinton before him, came to India to declare that India is indispensable in building a new world order. When India won its independence in1947 after a non-violent freedom struggle, it was hailed as a model and a hope for millions under colonial subjugation. Mahatma Gandhi, like the Buddha two thousand years earlier, became a hero to the world. “Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked this earth in flesh and blood”, said Albert Einstein. The excavations of Mohanjodaro and Harappa had already revealed that the civilization that existed in the Indus Valley was more advanced than anything that existed at that time. For India, therefore, being considered important in the world is not a new experience.

But it is true that India has assumed a new importance and a new stature politically and economically since the end of the cold war. It has been compared to a slumbering elephant, slowly waking up and making its presence felt in the international arena. More has been written about India than ever before. Power, they say, is shifting from the west to the east. India, as Indira Gandhi declared some years ago, has been recognized as a “different power”, different in ambitions, different in development strategy, different in political profile and different in ethos. What makes India important today is not just its phenomenal economic growth and its growing political influence, but the way it conducts itself as a responsible nation, seeing itself as an essential component of an evolving world order. It does not seek domination, but harmony, it seeks equity, not exploitation. It has not sought economic growth without care for the environment, it has not surrendered to unbridled market forces without restraint and regulation. This explains how India has escaped the worst consequences of global recession, it also explains why India has not yet attained its legitimate place in the global power structure.

India’s greatest challenge politically and economically has been in its neighbourhood. But in dealing with its neighbours, most of them smaller and weaker, India has sought cooperation rather than confrontation, peaceful settlement of disputes rather than armed conflicts or other forms of coercion. Wars have been imposed on us, but we did not escalate them. We have not held on to an inch of territory, which came into our hands as a result of war. India has been patient with boundary disputes, resorting to persuasion and logic rather than use or threat of use of force. China’s rise and assertiveness brings back memories of the disillusionment of the early sixties, when India’s vision of Asian unity was rudely shattered. But provocations are met with patience. India seeks areas of cooperation and mutual benefit even when it is encircled and threatened. Managing an adversarial relationship with China is the biggest challenge for Indian foreign policy in the next decades. The key to the future may lie in economic complementarities creating a political environment that fosters normalization. With both the countries seeking equations with others, it may take a long time for the two countries to engage with each other without external involvement.

Pakistan, “born of the same womb” as India, sees an existential threat in friendly relations with India as the question, “Why Pakistan?” may come up if they have no serious differences with India. Neither religion nor language justifies the partition and justifications are invented and reinvented again and again. But India has persisted with its peace offensive without compromising on the non-negotiables like the status of Jammu and Kashmir. India has walked the extra mile to peace despite provocations like the Mumbai terrorist attack. If only Pakistan had abandoned terrorism as an instrument of policy, there could be a breakthrough in bilateral relations. Even as it is, there are hopeful signs as Pakistan begins to recognize the imperatives of economic cooperation. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has begun to make a difference in the region.

With all the problems it may have with its neighbours, which entail a mix of hard pursuit of its own national interests and sympathetic understanding of the needs of others, India remains the key to stability and progress in South Asia. Its importance as a regional power is long acknowledged. More recently, India’s importance in the outer periphery of our neighbourhood has also been recognized. Secretary State Hillary Clinton travelled to Chennai recently to stress the importance of India’s benign influence in South East Asia and beyond. As against Chinese economic and military assertiveness, the countries in the region look up to India for cooperation with a friendly face.

In the international arena, especially at the United Nations, India has always worked for the common good, for the global commons, not to use it as an instrument of Indian foreign policy. India has given to the UN much more than what it has ever sought. Indian diplomacy has been responsible for seminal agreements and resolutions, which have resolved global problems and established frameworks for lasting peace. Austria has not forgotten the role the Indian Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, played in liberating Austria from foreign occupation. Improvement of relations with the United States has not diluted India’s basic position on sovereignty, non-interference, non-violence and independence of judgment. India’s record as a non-permanent member of the Security Council since the beginning of this year has raised eye brows and questions have been asked about a return to the old nonaligned vocabulary. But the truth is that the fundamental tenets of the Indian position were not altered even when new strategic partnerships were established. New strategic partnerships are, for India, a tool for enhancing international cooperation, not to seek opportunistic advantages. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke at the UN General Assembly this year not just for India, but for the entire disadvantaged world.

India’s quest for a permanent seat on the Security Council is still unsuccessful and may remain so for some more time precisely because India is not willing to become a tool in the hands of those, who are still taking no action to pursue the assurances of support they have given. Those assurances were linked to certain responsibilities, which, in their view, entail accepting the western world view and its pursuit of regime changes to suit their political and economic interests. Rightly, the Prime Minister of India moved away this year from seeking support for India to be a permanent member to asserting the need for UN reform as an essential prerequisite for the world body to become credible and effective in its mission. He has realized from the experience of a few months in the Security Council that membership of the Security Council will impose undue strain on our policies. India has not been less important in the world since it left the Security Council in 1992. If anything, it was during that period that the shift of global power from the west to the east began.

India has always been an important player in nuclear disarmament despite its refusal to join the NPT. By declaring itself a nuclear weapon state in 1998, it challenged the whole edifice of non-proliferation, which enabled the recognized nuclear weapon states to make their arsenals larger and more sophisticated. But in a short span of seven years, the US initiated the nuclear deal in recognition of India’s strength and its vast market. Today, India is no more a nuclear pariah, but a partner in non-proliferation and nuclear security.

Geopolitically, India is literally at the crossroads of the world today. It belongs to a number of political and economic groupings, which enable it to traverse geographical and political borders and benefit from multiple partnerships. India has strategic partnerships with most major powers. As a member of BRICS, India works with Russia and China, as a member of IBSA, it coordinate efforts with the two other large developing countries. It plays its traditional role in the Nonaligned and G-77. It has close links with ASEAN and several other groupings, old and new. As a non-permanent member of the Security Council, India has stood firm on principles, even as it cooperates with the permanent five. In the G-4, with Germany, Japan and Brazil, India strives to bring about reform of the Security Council. Good relations with the Arabs and Israel at the same time and the massive presence of Indians in the Gulf countries give it a unique position in the Middle East. More than anything else, G-20 has given India a forum to shape the contours of global economic policy. In all these multiple forums, India’s voice is heard with respect as it is the voice of wisdom, moderation and reconciliation.

On India’s growing economic importance, there is complete agreement around the globe. The phenomenal economic growth even in the years of recession has given India a leading role in G-20, the emergence of which democratized decision making in the economic arena. In a dramatic reversal of roles, Indian direct investment in the US has increased and assumed importance. Western leaders went to India not only to find markets, but also to find jobs for their citizens. They vie with each other to bag huge defence and nuclear contracts with offers of political concessions. When India decided not to buy fighter aircraft from the US, it openly stated that friendship would have come with it if India had bought the aircraft. If India had placed orders for the envisaged nuclear reactors and the fighter aircraft from the US, it would have saved President Barack Obama the embarrassment of rising unemployment and helped his reelection. Such is the level of economic importance that India has assumed in the world today. In the old days, American mothers told their children not to waste food because many Indian children went to bed without any food. Today they tell their children to eat well because they would have to compete with Indian children to succeed in this world. President Barack Obama once advised his people to remember that India and China were striving for the number one position in the world and the US should work harder to meet that challenge.

I have given you enough evidence of the importance India has assumed politically and economically in today’s world. Statistically, India has the second largest population, and poised to be the first shortly, it has the fourth largest army in the world, it is the fifth largest economy in the world in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) terms and soon to become the third, after the US and China in 2012. A Japanese writer had predicted long ago that Japan would never become a super power as it did not have a large territory, a huge population and plenty of natural resources. Since India has all these with nearly ten percent growth rate, India has been described variously as a potential super power, though a reluctant one and a future world leader, even though India has several millions below the poverty line.

But what makes India a particularly significant nation today is what is called its soft power or smart power. Basically, it is the perception about a country, either deliberately projected by a Government or the sum total of its image and activities or its attractiveness. As Dr. Shashi Tharoor, the Member of Parliament from my constituency in India puts it, “hard power is exercised, while soft power is evoked.” There are many aspects of Indian history and culture that have attracted people around the globe and this soft power could be evoked in order to enhance India’s importance. India’s diversity, its tolerance, its religious freedom, its literature, its cinema and its music may have such a cumulative impact on the world that the political and economic importance is enhanced by soft power. Its manifestations can be seen in the extraordinary popularity of Bollywood in many parts of the globe, the influence of Indian soap operas in Afghanistan and Brazil, Indian restaurants in the UK, Bollywood music in Indonesia and the bindi the dot, bidi the hand rolled cigarettes and bhangra, the Punjabi dance in the US. Combined with economic strength, political clout and military strength, including nuclear weapons, smart power may well give India an edge over the others. Soft power may not be sustainable in certain cases, where the attractiveness is dulled by actual performance in domestic and foreign policies, but India has power of both the varieties to make it a significant power on the world stage.

As for the strategy India is likely to adopt on the international stage, a clear indication was given by the National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon in an address in August this year. “For a considerable time to come, India will be a major power with several poor people. We must always, therefore, be conscious of the difference between weight, influence and power. Power is the ability to create and sustain outcomes. Weight we have, our influence is growing, but our power remains to grow and should first be used for our domestic transformation. History is replete with examples of rising powers, who prematurely thought their time had come, who mistook influence and weight for real power”, he said. He suggested that India would, therefore, walk its own path in the world.

If power means the capacity to hurt or help, India is developing both, but it is not about to project them. It will bide its time as a different power till it is called upon to play a more prominent role on the world stage.

Thank you.

2011-10-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

IFS DAY THOUGHTS

By T.P.Sreenivasan

My brief presence at the IFS Day event was providential. The day just happened to coincide with a packed Sunday in Delhi and I could not have missed it. After all, "there is a special providence (even) in the fall of a sparrow." I could hardly greet all I did recognize, not to speak of getting to know younger colleagues. I left with a whetted appetite for more, a rare feeling when I normally leave a party.

I once wrote that the IFS was a service without a soul, not the people, the service. A bureaucracy can be heartless, but it should not be soulless. I explained then that the reason for the state of affairs was that we operated literally as islands and,therefore, we had no qualms about helping ourselves without any concern about hurting others.I saw today and in the last few months an effort to give it a soul, not from the top, but the bottom. Rightly so, because it is the younger members who will benefit from a service whose members relate to each other, talk to each other and understand each other. As Shyam said rightly, the platform we now have as a gift of technology is being put to good use. I would say, however, that lack of technology was not the sole reason for lack of communication. Mahatma Gandhi would have created several springs with facebook and twitter, but he was able to create a revolution in a squeaky voice and a newspaper not bigger than a four page tabloid. The younger generation should be credited with more than technology, it is blessed with imagination.

The IFS Day, for example, should have been like motherhood, to be celebrated with no questions asked. IFS must have been the only service without a day to remember its humble origins and its impressive accomplishments. The celebration this year and the plan to do it every year without any organisational support or official blessings are the signs of change of times. It has taken a whole meaning that such celebrations are not normally endowed with.

I reminisced a bit with old colleagues just enough to reconnect, but I was not overwhelmed with nostalgia at this event. It was not the occasion to gloat over old glories or to weep over lost opportunities.What struck me was the hope for the future, the extraordinary optimism that characterised the gathering, the spirit of adventure writ large on young faces. I felt confident that the IFS was ready to take up the new challenges. India does not need to be a reluctant super power any more.

I heard only some of the remarks, but I felt the most poignant words came from Venkat's wife. She did not mourn Venkat, she bristled with pride over having been married to a member of the service, as though she felt that it was the service that made Venkat a great human being and a great husband. Her faith in the service remained unshaken even in the face of the worst tragedy in her life. The service did not leave her lonely and uncared for. I know cases in which young widows were left high and dry in an earlier era.

Today was a happy day for the service as even people like me who have no more stakes in the service, having moved away to other pastures, felt that the service was in the process of securing a soul for itself. I congratulate everyone who contributed to it.

2011-10-04T01:08:00.000-07:00

UN Peacekeeping Operations

(A talk on Akashavani, Thiruvananthapuram on the occasion of the UN Day 2011)

By T.P.Sreenivasan

As an international organization created at the end of a

devastating world war to rid the world of the scourge of

war, the United Nations gives the highest priority to peace.

While the UN has not been able to prevent wars altogether,

its peace operations--peacemaking, peace building and

peacekeeping have played a role in ending wars, keeping

the peace, alleviating the sufferings inflicted by war and

in rebuilding nations after external and internal conflicts.

Peacekeeping has emerged as a major activity of the UN

for which the UN was awarded the Noble Prize for Peace

In 1998. “The forces represent the manifest will of the

community of nations and have made a decisive contribution

to the resolution of conflict around the world”, it was stated

in a press release on the occasion.

The phrase, “peacekeeping operations” does not appear

in the UN Charter. But it envisages situations where

the UN Security Council can authorize military action to

restore international peace and security if sanctions and

other measures do not succeed. Members of the UN have

undertaken to make available to the Security Council armed

forces and other support services to take enforcement

action. Over the years, the UN has resorted to the use

of force, but it is in peacekeeping that the UN has made

an immense contribution. It has gained considerable

experience in this area and it has evolved a set of principles

and practices, which have come to be universally accepted.

Peacekeeping has been defined as the activity that aims

to create the conditions for lasting peace after a conflict.

Peacekeepers monitor and observe peace processes in post

conflict areas and assist ex-combatants in implementing the

peace agreements they may have signed. Such assistance

comes in many forms, including confidence-building

measures, power sharing arrangements, electoral support,

strengthening the role of law and economic and social

development. Accordingly, UN peacekeepers can include

soldiers, police officers and civilian personnel. Although

civilian personnel can perform many of these functions,

peacekeeping operations are invariably commanded by

military officers and conducted as military operations.

The training and experience of the armed forces and their

discipline are of immense value in conflict situations.

The Security Council alone can authorize peacekeeping

missions and most of the operations are established and

implemented by the UN itself, with troops serving under UN

operational control. The peacekeepers remain members of

their respective armed forces as the UN does not have a

standing army. In cases where direct UN involvement is not

considered appropriate or feasible, the Council authorizes

regional organizations such as NATO, the Economic

Community of West Africa or coalitions of willing states to

undertake peacekeeping tasks.

UN peacekeepers are not expected to fight as they are

generally deployed when the ceasefire is already in place,

with the consent of the parties concerned. But they are

provided with light weapons to deal with provocations or

law and order situations. There have been cases where

the peacekeepers had to use considerable force, with

the help of reinforcements; to end flare ups in volatile

situations. Casualties are also not uncommon among

peacekeepers. The differences between peacekeeping and

peace enforcement fade in these situations.

The procedure for establishing a peacekeeping force

has been clearly established. Once the peace treaty is

negotiated, the parties involved ask the UN Security Council

for a peacekeeping force to oversee the various elements

of the peace plan. After the Security Council approves the

creation of a mission, the Department of Peacekeeping

Operations begins planning to assemble, equip and deploy

the peacekeepers. Since a number of countries are involved

in each operation, setting up a mission is time consuming.

The exact size and strength of the force are agreed to

by the states concerned and the rules of engagement

have to be developed with the consent of all parties,

including the Security Council. Farther, the soldiers or

police officers come from diverse countries with diverse

training systems and it takes time for them to work under

a single commander. For the sake of a uniform doctrine,

NATO military doctrine is followed in most cases. The

peacekeepers find the practices in UN missions different

from national practices and become impatient. But, on the

whole, the UN peacekeeping missions have functioned

effectively in many different situations.

The cost of peacekeeping operations is shared among

member states on the basis of “capacity to pay”, a complex

formula agreed to by all members. The permanent members

bear a higher proportion of the cost. In 1993, peacekeeping

costs had peaked at some USD 3.6 billion. It dropped by

1998, but went up again by 2004. The troop contributing

countries are reimbursed the cost not only of travel and

equipment, but also salaries and other expenses. But

since many member states are not prompt in paying their

contributions, the troop contributing countries, which are

mostly developing countries, end up having huge arrears in

payments.

The first peacekeeping mission, launched in 1948 to enforce

a ceasefire reached between Israel and the Arab states,

remains in operation even today and the conflict has not yet

abated. The second mission, the United Nations Observer

Group on India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), which was

established to monitor the situation in Jammu and Kashmir

is also still in existence. Following the Simla Agreement in

1972, which converted the ceasefire line into the Line of

Control, India has ceased to provide access to UNMOGIP to

the Indian side of Kashmir, but has not sought the removal

of the small UN force. Pakistan continues to insist on

maintaining this mission for political reasons and it remains

an anachronism. But many other missions have been wound

up after fulfilling their mandates.

The UN has so far completed 52 missions in different parts

of the globe, and now has 17 current missions, most of them

in Africa. The missions in Sudan, Darfur, Libya, Afghanistan

and Haiti are very active today, while those in Kashmir,

Cyprus and East Timor remain relics of the past.

Un peacekeeping operations have had spectacular

successes as well as abject failures. Complex missions

in Cambodia and Mozambique fulfilled their missions and

brought about lasting peace, while the missions failed in

Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia. These missions were launched

without the consent of the parties concerned and without

sufficient manpower or equipment. The Rwandan genocide

of 1994 and the massacre in Serbrenica in 1995 remain blots

on the reputation of UN peacekeeping.

Developing countries contribute more troops to UN

peacekeeping operations than developed countries. The

United States has launched operations on behalf of the

UN, but they do not send troops to the forces commanded

by other nationals. NATO also prefers to operate on its

own, with or without a UN mandate. Other countries

claim operational commitments to decline invitations to

contribute troops to the UN. Some small countries like Fiji

use the opportunities of participating in UN peacekeeping

operations to train their forces in battle conditions. The

general public in Fiji complained to the UN when the Fiji

armed forces used their experience in peacekeeping to put

down protests by its own people, following a military coup in

that country.

UN peacekeeping operations are fraught with dangers

and they have suffered many casualties in the course of

their functioning. India alone has lost more than a hundred

soldiers in peacekeeping operations. Even while acting

within its mandate, peacekeepers become a target for

attacks by some of the parties in a conflict. At the same

time, UN peacekeepers have been charged with prostitution,

child abuse and other crimes against the very people they

protect. Certain studies have shown that the arrival of

UN peacekeepers has been associated with the rise of

such crimes. “The issue with the UN is that peacekeeping

operations unfortunately seem to be doing the same thing

that other militaries do. Even the guardians have to be

guarded”, observed a writer in 2004. But the UN has taken

strong action against the guilty and brought in reform to

prevent such crimes.

India is solidly committed to UN peacekeeping operations,

in which India has participated since the 1950s. We have

contributed nearly 100,000 troops and participated in more

than 40 missions. India has also provided eminent force

commanders to peacekeeping missions. Indian casualties

numbering 118 are one of the highest in the world, but there

have been no domestic criticism on this account. India’s

expertise in peacekeeping activities, such as demining,

has been put to good use in many situations. Indian forces

earned much praise in Somalia for their humanitarian

activities, while the operations themselves incurred the

wrath of the local public.

India has also been advocating reform of the peacekeeping

machinery to meet the challenges of the times and to

improve the image of UN peacekeepers. We are of the view

that the mandates given by the Security Council to the

missions are too broad and have very little correlation with

the ability of the organization to deliver. We have proposed

that the Security Council should invite non-Council

members, particularly troop contributing countries, to

participate in the decisions of the Security Council

concerning the deployment of the forces and related

matters. The field support provided to the forces needs to

be further expanded and strengthened. India fully supports

implementation of a policy of zero tolerance with regard to

conduct and discipline of troops, including sexual

exploitation and abuse. UN peacekeeping must be in

accordance with Chapter VIII and should not be

regionalized. India is also in favour of the induction of more

female peacekeepers. We also support identifying “sunset

missions”, which have fulfilled their mandates and

proceeding to wind them up. Some questions have been

asked whether India should participate in the UN missions,

which are of no particular relevance to India, in the context

of some allegations against Indian troops in the Congo. But

India remains one of the largest troop contributors, next

only to Bangladesh and Pakistan. India has also established

a centre for training of peacekeepers in New Delhi, which

attracts military officers from around the globe.

UN peacekeeping operations have been a major contribution

to the maintenance of international peace and security.

It has evolved over the years from a military exercise to

a composite operation involving not only enforcement

of peace agreements, but humanitarian assistance and

reconstruction to provide basic needs to the affected

people. It has become the human face of the United Nations

for millions of people who have become embroiled in war for

no fault of theirs. Humanity owes a debt of gratitude to the

UN as we celebrate another UN Day on October 24.

Thank you.

2011-09-26T01:19:00.001-07:00

UNGA Applauds PM’s Statesmanship

By T.P.Sreenivasan

Diplomats at the UN, burdened by the weight of their national
positions, do not applaud statements by leaders of other countries
except at the end of their speeches as dictated by tradition. They
rarely burst into applause over an idea or a declaration as nothing is
taken at face value. Speeches are for analysis in depth for new
nuances in policy. But they applauded Dr. Manmohan Singh when he read
out a short paragraph on UN reform.

“We must address the issue of the deficit in global governance. We
need a stronger and more effective United Nations that is sensitive to
the aspirations of everyone- rich or poor, big or small. For this, the
United Nations and its principal organs, the General Assembly and the
Security Council, must be revitalized and reformed. The reform and
expansion of the Security Council are essential if it is to reflect
contemporary reality. Such an outcome will enhance the Council’s
credibility and effectiveness in dealing with global issues. Early
reform of the Security Council must be pursued with renewed vigour and
urgently enacted,” Dr. Manmohan Singh said.

What attracted attention was the clear and forthright statement on
reform, which can be endorsed by 193 member states, including the
permanent members. All of them acknowledge that the Security Council
needs reform to reflect contemporary reality and to enhance its
credibility and effectiveness. But if the Prime Minister had gone
beyond this even to say that both the permanent and non- permanent
categories should be expanded, the applause would have been less. If
he pleaded for G-4 or went into the merits of India’s claim, he would
have been greeted with stony silence. By speaking for all nations
without going into details, India expressed its confidence that it
cannot be excluded if the Council is expanded. This was more effective
than the usual assertion of the Indian claim on every occasion.
Statesmanship and restraint have paid off instantly. Whatever he may
have discussed with his counterparts in the corridors, the position he
articulated in the speech was dignified and it helped to remove the
impression that securing permanent membership was India’s highest
priority in the UN.

In fact, the whole speech of the Prime Minister at the General
Assembly this year was statesmanlike. He spoke not just for India, but
for the world and sought solutions for the economic and political ills
of the world. He plunged straight into the economic scene without much
of an introduction and identified the adverse impact of globalization.
Coming as it did from Dr.Manmohan Singh, the assessment seemed
surprising. Though he did not go into remedies, the diagnosis clearly
indicated that the globalization did not yield the kind of results
expected of it.
Given the atmospherics in New York, which focused on the Middle East
in general and Palestine in particular, Dr.Manmohan Singh could not
have skirted the problems of the region. Though the Arab Spring was
inspired by a welcome demand by the people for the right to shape
their own future, the consequence was spiraling price rise and
instability. The steadfast support for a Palestine state was balanced
by asserting the need for the region to live in peace with Israel. The
strongest political message he delivered to the west was, “The
observance of the rule of law is as important in international affairs
as it is within countries. Societies cannot be reordered from outside
through military force.” But he did not spare authoritarian regimes.
“Governments are duty bound to their citizens to create conditions
that enable them to freely determine their pathways to development.
This is the essence of democracy and fundamental freedoms”, he said.
In other words, the Prime Minister categorically stated the rationale
behind the positions adopted by India in the Security Council in the
last nine months. Together with his meeting with the President of Iran
and the announcement made in New York that he would visit Iran, the
Prime Minister’s statement may well be taken as a signal that India
was expanding its options all around.

The Prime Minister spoke of terrorism, encouraging signs of
cooperation in South Asia, need for reconciliation in Afghanistan,
piracy, disarmament and safety of nuclear plants, the international
issues that have been engaging his attention. He also gave
considerable attention to the old and traditional links with Africa
and the Least Developed Countries. The only references he made to
domestic issues, which were dogging him to New York was about poverty
alleviation and the importance of a democratic, plural and secular
India.

UN speeches are not occasions to change policy, but to elaborate
national positions in a manner that will influence friends and
adversaries alike. Dr. Manmohan Singh clearly gave the impression that
he was resorting to some of the old ideological strains and old
constituencies to signal his disappointment with the west. But he did
it in a language which nobody would take exception to. As the adage
goes, a diplomat is a person, who can make someone look forward to the
trip if he is asked to go to hell.

Having been a ghost writer of UN speeches for prime ministers and
foreign ministers, I know the processes and procedures that go into
the exercise of preparing speeches. Inputs come from various sources
and it is a challenge to create a cohesive and comprehensive speech
from a multitude of drafts. One foreign minister had the habit of
asking various officials and academics for ideas for the speech and it
was hard to wade through the flood of material that came in. Often,
the speech became a tour d’ horizon, stretching into several pages and
covering much of the agenda of the General Assembly. The speech this
time had the merit of being elegant, precise and brief. It provided
the backdrop for Indian positions in the General Assembly and the
Security Council.

Foreign visits and UN accolades give some relief to Prime Ministers
when they are under siege by intractable domestic issues. The case of
Dr. Manmohan Singh was no different, with one of the scams exploding
at the very time he was meeting his counterparts and giving thought to
the global economic and political challenges “at a time of great
uncertainty and profound change.” The applause in the General Assembly
was not drowned out by the opposition in India and the PM’s world view
appeared to enjoy consensus back home, not a mean achievement in these
turbulent times.

2011-09-24T06:47:00.000-07:00

Clouds over nuclear power

T.P.Sreenivasan

Fukushima has dropped off the radar screens around the world even as the affected people and the Japanese government are still trying to cope with the devastation caused by the nuclear meltdown. The situation is still so sensitive that the Japanese minister of trade and industry was forced to resign after making thoughtless remarks on what he saw in the affected areas. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has stopped issuing daily updates, but with a dire statement on June 2: “Overall, the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant remains very serious”, nuclear power enthusiasts around the globe cannot but remember the words of the IAEA evaluation group: “Nuclear designers and operators should appropriately evaluate measures for protection against the risks of all natural hazards and should periodically update these assessments”. Fukushima continues to cast its long shadow on nuclear power everywhere.

The renewed protests and fasts at Koodankulam have received little attention in India, but questions are being asked in nuclear circles about the safety standards of the reactors there. Russian technology, tainted by Chernobyl, has always been of concern, but Koodankulam is vital for India’s nuclear power development. Even before the India-US nuclear deal, it was possible for Russia to supply reactors and fuel as the contract dated back to the pre-NSG days.

No doubt, Koodankulam has to go forward for our immediate needs and any setback will be costly. The only option for the government is to take necessary and immediate action to convince the people about safety and to rehabilitate the displaced people. A disaster relief programme should also be put in place. We should take Sri Lanka into confidence about the safety standards at Koodankulam because of its proximity to the nuclear station. Issues raised by clustering of nuclear stations raised after Fukushima should also be examined. The call by the Tamil Nadu chief minister, followed by a resolution of the Tamil Nadu Cabinet, to halt the project till the settlement of the issues raised by the protesters is realistic and timely. The concerned central minister has assured the protesters that safety will take priority over power production. This is the principle that should apply in general to every power project that is constructed. No amount of declarations by scientists will allay the fears, because they are presumed to have vested interests. What will reassure the public more is an assurance that India will develop alternative sources of energy to reduce its dependence on nuclear power.

At the very time that the Koodankulam protests were gathering momentum, the chairman of our Atomic Energy Commission announced at the general conference of the IAEA that the first unit was set to begin operation and that the second unit was also on course. This is not the first time that the disconnect between science and politics has been on display in India.

A report by a number of Russian government agencies submitted to President Dmitry Medvedev has revealed that Russian atomic reactors are grievously under-prepared for both natural and man-made disasters. In an annex to the report, 31 serious flaws that make Russia’s nuclear industry extremely vulnerable are catalogued. This contradicts Russia’s claim that its reactors can withstand any natural calamity. The authorities have responded by saying that heavy investments can rectify the flaws. The question is whether our authorities have taken note of the report and taken follow-up action with the Russians.

An explosion in a French furnace dedicated to melting of low level radioactive waste on September 12 has been treated as an industrial rather than a nuclear accident on the ground that there was no radiation outside the plant. But it is still not clear what set off the explosion. Considering that every part of the nuclear industry raises safety issues, are we in touch with the French to learn more about the accident? The IAEA appears silent on this as it was only an industrial accident. Our involvement with France is deep already and it is likely to be the expanded further. Any development in the nuclear industry in France should be a matter of anxiety to us.

The latest report from Vienna is that India intends to delay the import of French reactors till we get new test results. According to the French energy minister, India wants a ‘post-Fukushima’ certification before finalising the multimillion dollar contract. This is welcome news for those in Jaitapur and elsewhere.

The recent earthquake of 5.8 magnitude, followed by cyclone Irene, on the east coast of the US also had its impact on the public perception of nuclear power. The earthquake caused the shutdown of two reactors in Central Virginia. Fortunately, the safety measures kicked in promptly and nothing untoward happened. At least 18 reactors at different locations in the US declared unusual events and six reactors scaled down production during the cyclone period and these are still being investigated and analysed.

A new country to disavow nuclear power is Taiwan. In Germany, Siemens has just declared that it will keep out of the nuclear industry. As for Japan itself, it is now well known that its nuclear industry is poised to shrink dramatically over the next decade. If the Daiichi plant was decommissioned in February this year, when it completed its life span, a major tragedy could have been averted.

India can no longer ignore the clouds gathering on the nuclear firmament and proceed with business as usual. Fukushima has caused reactor orders around the world to be scrapped, frozen or delayed. India’s own ambition to export our small reactors may have become unrealistic. The argument that the movement against nuclear power has arisen out of vested interests cannot be sustained any longer. The development argument can be accepted in the short term till we develop alternatives. But India can no longer stick to its position that it will pursue the path of developing nuclear power for all time to come. There is force in the argument that the seven per cent nuclear component we want to achieve in our energy mix can be replaced with other forms of energy if we have the will to do it. We should be able to envision a nuclear power free world in the long term so that the people will accept development of nuclear power in the short term. The concern is basically more about the hazards for future generations than about immediate danger.

2011-09-20T06:19:00.001-07:00

PM steps on to the shifting sands at the UN

By T.P.Sreenivasan

The belated decision of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to attend the UN General Assembly after a break is wise, though a more timely decision would have made the visit more fruitful. More than anything else, the trip will ease the impression both at home and abroad that he is bogged down in corruption scandals and is in no position to interact with the world, not to speak of taking international initiatives. The argument that prevailed in the decision must have been that as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, India is in the limelight and the positions our Permanent Representative has taken in the Security Council need to be backed by the political leadership. The Prime Minister may not have any initiative to announce in his speech, but his view of the world will be of some significance at this time of "unbridled consequences". India cannot but be seen to be capable and willing to play a role in the unfolding drama on the world stage.

A mistake that can be made, however, is to give the impression that the Prime Minister is on a hunt for what has come to be known as the "Holy Grail" of Indian foreign policy, namely, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai rightly emphasised other issues of importance to India, such as finding solutions for global economic and financial problems, counter terrorism, peacekeeping operations etc together with securing a robust and all inclusive role for all members of the UN. He, of course, mentioned the G-4 initiative and our decision to pursue reforms.

The buzz that a decision on the Security Council expansion is close at hand is misleading. Our goal of being a permanent member with the same rights and privileges as the other permanent members cannot be achieved under the laid down procedure for amendment to the UN Charter. It will be too revolutionary a change for the permanent members and others to accept at this time. The best that can be accomplished is the creation of a new category of members, who may serve longer terms on the Council. Such an expansion will not be in the spirit of the argument that the Security Council should reflect the realities of the present. The latest proposal for an "interim solution", which seems to gain momentum in Europe is even more dubious, because the idea of longer terms for some non-permanent members, if adopted as an "interim solution", may close the door for a comprehensive expansion. India's claim has been established and generally accepted and we should express confidence rather than appear anxious to accept a "quick fix".

Qatar, which has assumed an international profile beyond its size because of its wealth and imaginative initiatives, happens to be the President of the 66th UN General Assembly. Coincidentally, the present session of the General Assembly is preoccupied with Arab issues, with the perennial Palestine issue demanding immediate attention on account of the declared intention of Palestine to seek full membership of the UN. Palestine's options range from going to the Security Council and getting a veto from the United States to seeking an enhanced observer status through a majority vote in the General Assembly. Whichever option that Mahmoud Abbas chooses, the most he can achieve is to convince Israel and the US that they have to face the issue of statehood sooner rather than later. Frantic efforts are on to avoid a showdown and thus Palestine has already succeeded in emphasising that the US and Israel should engage in more equitable negotiations. But Palestine faces accusations of unilateralism and efforts to illelegitimize Israel. At the same time, as Ambassador Gharekhan has ponted out, Israel and the US have a stake in the continuation of Abbbas as the leader of Palestine. "Neither Israel nor the US will find any one as reasonable as Abbas, who may feel obliged to take some drastic step in case his initiative fails, such as resigning his post, thereby leaving the field to extremist elements among his people", he observes. Ideally, the Security Council should move for a two-nation solution with borders of 1967 in place with Jerusalem divided into two capitals. But the time has not come for such a solution as yet.

India has no dilemma on Palestine as we recognise Palestine as a state and we can vote for any Palestine move even though our relations with Israel has become crucial. Israel has shown understanding of the Indian compulsions in supporting Palestine and any effort on our side to moderate Palestine will not be of benefit to us. As a consistent supporter of Palaestine, we have no role to play as an intermediary.

We have to tread cautiously on the "Arab Spring" issues, particularly on Libya and Syria. We have already made amendments for our abstention on Libya in the Security Council by joining the Friends of Libya group and by recognising the National Transitional Council. On Syria, we have moderated the condemnation of human rights violations and moves for drastic sanctions so far. But these efforts by the west will gain momentum during the session with more countries expressing opinions on Syria, though the action will remain in the Security Council. The US has already expressed disappointment that India has demonstrated its old "nonaligned mindset" in dealing with the Arab Spring. A more realistic approach in facing the inevitable should be attempted even though we cannot go along with regime changing intervention. We should be able to support some kind of humanitarian intervention, if necessary, in some situations.

Since the Prime Minister is not meeting either President Obama or a Pakistani leader, much of the hype about a visit to the UN will be absent this time. President Obama has other preoccupations and India -US relations are in such a state that a meeting cannot lead to any spectacular results. But the US goals and priorities, outlined by the State Department augur well for multilateralism. In a departure from the attitude of the Bush Administration, Washington now believes in constructive engagement of the UN system and avoids threats of disengagement and non-payment of dues as pressure tactics. By working with the UN system, they have been able to get results on Libya, North Korea, Iran. Syria etc and even recognition of gay rights as human rights. We have an opportunity to work with the US also on development issues by supporting initiatives on non-communicable diseases, nutrition etc for which high level meetings have been held.

Bilateral meetings are the staple of General Assembly sessions. A visit to the UN during the General Debate is like visiting a hundred nations and a head of state or government, who is agile and not too concerned with protocol can get business done by "running into" their counterparts in the halls or the corridors. Indian leaders generally prefer more formal meetings, but even these can be valuable. It may appear ironical that our Prime Minister should travel all the way to New York to meet the leaders of Nepal or Sri Lanka, but the ambiance of the UN is more congenial to interact even with close neighbours. The leaders of South Sudan, the newest member of the UN, can also be cultivated during the visit. Turkey's emergence as a key player during the current session should also receive our attention.

The President of the General Assembly, the veteran Qatari diplomat, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, has identified four priority areas for action during his term. The role of mediation in peaceful settlement of disputes, his highest priority, may cause us some headaches because we do not accept mediation in our own problems with Pakistan, but as long as the countries involved in the disputes want mediation, we do not need to object. UN reform, his second priority, improving disaster prevention, his third and sustainable development and global prosperity, his fourth priority match our own thinking and open out possibilities for us to work with him.

Al-Nasser said on assumption of office that the General assembly is an "opportunity to define our place in this decisive moment in history and to prove that we have the courage, wisdom and tenacity to seek creative and visionary solutions". He said, even more significantly, "the sands are shifting." Our Prime Minister is not new to shifting sands either domestically or internationally and he is sure to tread the sands with sure feet.

2011-09-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

The case for an IIT in Kerala- A Letter to the Chief Minister

Shri Oommen Chandy September 15, 2011
Hon'ble Chief Minister, Government of Kerala
Thiruvananthapuram
Dear Sir,
We, the undersigned, are a group of intellectuals who have been associated with one or more of the Indian Institutes of Technologies in India as students, administrators, faculty or governing board members.
We are all keen to ensure that an IIT is established in Kerala too. We are aware that the Government of India is considering establishment of 5 more IITs in India. We are concerned that Kerala’s legitimate demand for an IIT will be overlooked this time also for political or other considerations.
We believe that the claim of Kerala for an IIT is more legitimate than even before and the clout of Kerala in Delhi is the highest ever. We have the same alliance as ruling party in both Center and State and we have representatives of the same party in the Education and Human Resources Ministries in Kerala and India respectively. We, therefore, believe that the time is NOW to make a determined effort to bring an IIT to Kerala.
We are, therefore, writing to you to seek your personal attention in doing the appropriate political and administrative groundwork to make a case for an IIT in Kerala. We know you need not be convinced about the legitimacy of Kerala’s claim, but in order to illustrate the need to bring IIT to Kerala and the strength of our case, we have put together some facts and figures. This concept note is attached for your kind perusal.
We, the members of a voluntary group, stand ready to assist you in any way possible, in making IIT Kerala a reality. We have been encouraged by hundreds of other intellectuals who have been associated with IITs and see the importance and legitimacy of our demand.
Thanking you,
Yours sincerely
(A.E. Muthunayagam) (T.P. Sreenivasan) (Nivedita P. Haran)
(M.P. Rajan) (Muralee Thummarukudy) (K.V. Jayakumar)
(Job Kurien) (P.S. Robi ) (Narayanan Komerath)
(V.K. Mathews) (Ramesh Chandra) (C.M. Abraham)
IIT Kerala - A Concept Paper
Establishing an IIT in Kerala is a long standing demand and dream of highly literate Kerala for many years. Various Governments have taken the initiative to bring an IIT to Kerala, but somehow nothing has materialized yet. In support of the Government of Kerala's steps to bring an IIT to Kerala, a group of well-wishers has come together and prepared a concept paper. We trust that this will help the Government to look into the problem more seriously and make all the efforts needed to bring an IIT to our state. The committee listed below was formed by the group to prepare this concept paper, and acknowledges the support and input from other members and stake holders of the intellectual group of IITians from Kerala. Our concept paper addresses the following points:
Executive Summary
• Does Kerala need an IIT?
• Does Kerala deserve an IIT?
• Does an IIT help the state in its future development?
• Steps to be taken by Kerala Government to get an IIT and finally
• Conclusion
Members of the Committee
1. Dr. A.E. Muthunayagam, Former Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Madras
2. Mr. T.P. Sreenivasan, IFS, Ambassador (Rtd)
3. Dr. Nivedita P. Haran, IAS, IIT-Alumni
4. Prof. M.P. Rajan, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram
5. Dr. Muralee Thummarukudy, Chief, Disaster Risk Reduction, UN Enviourn. Programme, Geneva
6. Prof. K.V. Jayakumar, Executive Director, CWRDM, Kerala
7. Prof. Job Kurien, Indian Institute of Technology Madras
8. Prof. P.S. Robi, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
9. Prof. Narayanan Komerath, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
10. Mr. V.K. Mathews, Executive Chairman, The IBS Group, Thiruvananthapuram
11. Mr. Ramesh Chandra, Managing Director, Ranal Ltd. Bangalore
12. Mr. C.M. Abraham, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram
1. INTRODUCTION
There have been sporadic requests in the past thirty years for an IIT in Kerala. However, of late we do not hear that. This is not because we have an IIT or a comparable technical institution in Kerala now. This is partly because we have been tired of asking for one during every expansion and being rejected. We were promised an IIT in the previous expansion but unfortunately we lost the battle to get this premier institution to our state.
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) were established as the premier institutes of our country with the focus of training talented minds in becoming creative, top quality engineers and scientists . The intention was to generate high calibre human capital to help the nation in its socio-economic development. The IITs are governed by the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 which has declared them as “institutions of national importance” with autonomous status. There are 15 IITs at present in India. A committee headed by Dr. Anil Kakodkar was constituted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India to suggest the road map to develop the IITs as world-class institutes for research and higher learning. They recommended another five IITs to be created within a decade. Now many states have an IIT, as per the data given below in Table I.
Sl.No.
Name of the IIT
Year Established
Place
State
1
IIT Kharagpur
1951
Kharagpur
West Bengal
2
IIT Bombay
1958
Mumbai
Maharashtra
3
IIT Madras
1959
Chennai
Tamilnadu
4
IIT Kanpur
1959
Kanpur
Uttar Pradesh
5
IIT Delhi
1963
Delhi
Delhi
6
IIT Guwahati
1994
Guwahati
Assam
7
IIT Roorkee
2001
Roorkee
Uttarakhand
8
IIT Hyderabad
2008
Hyderabad
Andhra Pradesh
9
IIT Gandhinagar
2008
Gandhinagar
Gujarat
10
IIT Patna
2008
Patna
Bihar
11
IIT Rajasthan
2008
Jodhpur
Rajasthan
12
IIT Bhubaneswar
2008
Bhubaneswar
Orissa
13
IIT Ropar
2008
Rupnagar
Punjab
14
IIT Indore
2009
Indore
Madhya Pradesh
15
IIT Mandi
2009
Mandi
Himachal Pradesh
Table I: List of IITs in India
IT-BHU is in the process of being named as the 16-th IIT resulting in UP getting two IITs in the same state. But Kerala's dream of getting an IIT is still a distant dream. Should we not get one among the 4 being considered for establishment? If our state government does not pursue this matter urgently, we will once again lose a golden opportunity to get an IIT. The neighbouring state of Karnataka has also been asking for an IIT in their state for many years.
2. DOES KERALA NEED AN IIT?
Examples around the world show how a state gains economic advancement from having an institute that imparts and performs top quality education and research. Kerala now has around 120 engineering colleges, including many private colleges which are set up Capitation Fee business plans, one State University of science and technology, one National Institute of Technology, one Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, one Space Institute and one Indian Institute of Management. However, competing with the best in the world, requires a merit-based, autonomous technological institution with world-class infrastructure. We lack that. The recenly-established IISER is promising, but is mainly set up for education in basic sciences.
IITs are known worldwide for their quality in technical education. The fact is that an IIT is not just a big engineering college, better NIT or a fully residential technological University. IITs are a group of autonomous engineering and technology-oriented institutes of higher education. As mentioned earlier, the IITs are governed by the Indian Institute of Technology Act, 1961 which has declared them as “institutions of national importance”, and lays down their powers, duties, and framework for governance. This Act provides IITs with substantial administrative freedom and total academic autonomy. This freedom has been zealously guarded by all the IITs for past 60 years. Most importantly, IITs have the faculty and administrators needed to enforce a proud tradition of purely merit-based admission and grading systems. This is crucial to providing opportunities and nurturing the best of India, regardless of non-merit considerations. Selection of students and faculty in IITs is done transparently leading to some of our best brains entering IIT as students and faculty. It is the combination of these factors which makes IITs one of the most prestigious and the only globally recognised academic institutions in India.
Each IIT has autonomous status, where admission for undergraduate and post graduate programs is decided through common admission tests. In addition to these each IIT also offers Ph.D programs. Since the IITs are Central Government institutions, the Government of India has deployed considerable resources to these institutes to give them the required physical infrastructure. The faculty-to-student ratio in the IITs is envisaged to be around 1:9. In order to encourage students from all economic strata to undertake higher studies, IITs provide scholarships to students to pursue M.Tech. and Ph.D programs, where research is an integral part of their education. The combination of the resources and branding ensured that the best students in the country were attracted to IITs. Academic freedom, availability of physical resources to undertake research and presence of quality students in turn attracted good quality faculty to join the IITs. IITs are also different from other engineering colleges or Universities primarily in the degree of autonomy that the individual faculty members have in framing the syllabus considering the latest technological trends, teaching approaches and evaluation methods. These features enabled IIT alumni and faculty, within a few short decades, to build the international brand recognition that the IITs enjoy today, on par with top institutions worldwide that have existed for hundreds of years. Below we review some of the features of the IIT experience.
Each IIT has an Academic Senate consisting of all Professors and student representatives with the Director as the ex-officio Chairman. The Senate controls and approves the curriculum, courses, examinations and results, and appoints committees to look into specific academic matters. The Senate also periodically reviews the teaching, training and research activities of the institute to maintain educational standards.
All the IITs follow the continuous evaluation system. The B.Tech course is based on 4-year program. In all IITs, the first year courses are marked by a common course structure for all the students. These include the basics from most of the departments such as physics, chemistry, mathematics, mechanical engineering, mechanics, electronics, biology, etc. All the students also have to choose between NCC, NSS, NSO to instil a sense of team effort and national pride.
From the second year onwards, the students study subjects exclusively from their respective departments in addition to some compulsory advanced courses from other departments in order to broaden their education. At the end of the third year, undergraduate students have to undertake a summer project in industry or at a reputed academic research institute as part of the curriculum. Most of the students are placed into industrial and research organizations during the last year of their studies through the placement cell. Each IIT has a central library holding a large collection of high quality books, journals, periodicals, multimedia facilities and electronic libraries. They also provide access to on-line journals and periodicals for use by students, and stay open late into the night.
The striking feature of all the IITs is the on-campus residential facilities for the students, research scholars and faculty. This feature facilitates all the students to concentrate on academic activities round the clock. The students can approach faculty members at any time to discuss academics and research. During their project period, the students can also work in the laboratories even during night hours. In addition, the gymkhana and sports facilities are an integral part of the IIT system, where the students get a chance for extra curricular activities and personality development.
The focus of the national institutes of importance such as IISER and IIM are scientific education and research and, management respectively. IIST, a supporting institute of ISRO, is focused on training personnel for ISRO, rather than on a broad technological education. The NIT has neither the infrastructure nor the other unique features of an IIT that would enable growth towards world-class recognition.
Science is the foundation of technology; however, technological innovation is what drives further scientific development as well as economic growth. The growth in scientific and technological development is an indication of the growth and development of a state or nation. Our state needs an IIT to help Kerala rise to our true potential.
3. DOES KERALA DESERVE AN IIT?
Out of 28 states and 7 union territories, 14 states and one union territory have IITs (see Table I). We analyse the question of Kerala's claim to have an IIT in the state using a few objective criteria:
• Population Size
• Literacy
• Economy
• Geography
3.1 Population Size of the State
With 14 of the states and one Union Territory already being awarded an IIT, and UP possibly getting second IIT shortly, let us look at the states which have not yet been awarded an IIT. It is also useful to compare Kerala's position with other states already having an IIT with respect to population size. Kerala accounts for 2.76% of India’s 1.2 billion population.
Population Rank
State
Population(2011 Census)
% in Total Population
1
Karnataka
61,130,704
5.05
2
Kerala
33,387,677
2.76
3
Jharkhand
32,966,238
2.72
4
Chhattisgarh
25,540,196
2.11
5
Haryana
25,353,081
2.09
6
Jammu & Kashmir
12,548,926
1.04
7
Tripura
3,671,032
0.30
8
Meghalaya
2,964,007
0.24
9
Manipur
2,721,756
0.22
10
Nagaland
1,980,602
0.16
11
Goa
1,457,723
0.12
12
Arunachal Pradesh
1,382,611
0.11
13
Mizoram
1,091,014
0.09
14
Sikkim
607,688
0.05
Table II - Population of states not having IIT
Population Rank
State
Population(2011 Census)
% in Total Population
1
Assam
31,169,272
2.58
2
Punjab
27,704,236
2.29
3
Uttarakhand
10,166,752
0.84
4
Himachal Pradesh
6,856,509
0.57
Table III - Population of states having IIT but less than the population of Kerala
From Table-II and Table-III we see that four states with population less than Kerala already have IITs. Karnataka is the only state having population 5.96% , above Kerala in population; however, we note that Bangalore already has the world-renowned Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Management. We wish Karnataka well, and point to the economic and technological development that these institutions have already brought to our neighboring state. The rest of the states have population less than Kerala. Hence, in terms of size of the population, Kerala certainly is overdue for an IIT.
3.2 Literacy
Malayalees have always led India in our thirst for knowledge. Kerala has for a long time been the most literate state of India, even in the 1960s when our state was desperately poor. As per the 2011 census, Kerala still holds the first position with 93.91% compared to the national rate of 74.04%. Kerala thus will naturally lead the table of the states which do not have an IIT. Ironically, Kerala even tops the states which do have an IIT. With so much emphasis placed on education, it is only natural that Kerala should get due consideration for the establishment of the next IIT.
3.3 Economy
In order for a state to make full advantage of an IIT, it is important that it has an economy which is able to at least partly make use of the intellectual capital present and generated in the IITs. The new strategy for IIT expansion places an increased emphasis on academy-economy linkages. It is, therefore, useful to check how Kerala ranks among those states which do not have an IIT.
Rank
State
Size of Economy in Indian Rupee(10 Million)
%of Total GDP
Per Capita Income
1
Karnataka
335,747
5.39
50,676
2
Kerala
230,316
3.70
59,179
3
Haryana
216,287
3.47
78,781
4
Chhattisgarh
109,823
1.76
38,059
5
Jharkhand
106,358
1.71
30,719
6
Jammu & Kashmir
43,236
0.69
30,582
7
Goa
25,882
0.42
132,719
8
Tripura
14,604
0.23
35,799
9
Meghalaya
12,502
0.20
42,601
10
Manipur
8,687
0.14
28,531
11
Nagaland
7,508
0.12
21,434
12
Arunachal Pradesh
7,241
0.12
51,644
13
Mizoram
5,633
0.09
45,982
14
Sikkim
3,475
0.06
48,937
Table IV - Economy of states not having an IIT
Similar to population, it is also useful to check how Kerala ranks with those states which do have IITs.
Rank
State
Size of Economy in Indian Rupee(10 Million)
%of Total GDP
Per Capita Income
1
Kerala
230,316
3.70%
59,179
2
Delhi (UT)
217,860
3.49%
78,690
3
Madhya Pradesh
216,958
3.48%
27,250
4
Punjab
199,459
3.20%
62,153
5
Bihar
168,603
2.71%
16,119
6
Orissa
162,327
2.61%
33,226
7
Assam
92,472
1.48%
27,197
8
Uttarakhand
62,214
1.00%
55,877
9
Himachal Pradesh
43,281
0.69%
50,365
Table V - Economy of states below that of Kerala but having an IIT
The domestic GDP rate of Kerala is 3.7% holding 9-th position at the national level with average per capital income of Rs. 59,179. From Tables IV and V, it is clear that at least 8 states who had their economy smaller than Kerala have been granted an IIT. Moreover, Kerala holds second position in GDP among states that do not have IITs. A summary of the above discussion comparing Kerala's position with states having an IIT in terms of population, literacy and economy is presented in Chart I and a respective criterion comparison with states that do not have an IIT is presented in Chart II.
Chart I: Comparison with states having an IIT
Chart II: Comparison with states that do not have an IIT
3.4 Geographical Proximity
Government of India has sanctioned IIT in other states by taking in to account various factors. Regional balance is one of the important criteria that any Government may consider while making such an allotment. Since the most prestigious programme in IITs are its undergraduate programme, the geographical proximity to an IIT is critical in terms of parents feeling comfortable to sent their wards to IITs. Map I shows the location of various IITs in India.
Map I: Location of IITs in India
It also shows that the densely-populated, highly literate southwest part of India is devoid of IITs. Let us compare the geographical clustering of location of IITs. Kerala is the southern-most state of India. The closest IIT to Kerala is in Chennai, which is around 800 km from Trivandrum and on an average 600 km from anywhere in Kerala. The next closest one is in Mumbai followed by Hyderabad. If we look at Chennai as a hub of southern part of India, IIT Chennai is far away from Kerala. If we take Delhi as the centre of northern part of India, within 6 to 7 hours journey, there are at least 4 IITs. That is, within 300 to 400 KM circle there are 4 IITs. Within 500 km of Kolkata or Mumbai, there is more than one IIT making the IIT more accessible to students of those states.
Apart from all these objective criterion, Kerala holds the first position in the human development index. Kerala has achieved significant improvements in conditions of living, infant mortality rate and social development that are comparable to those of many developed countries, even though the state's per capita income is low in comparison. We also note again that although Karnataka does not have an IIT, it has a national institute of importance, Indian Institute of Science ( IISc ) which has undergraduate and post-graduate level degree programs in both Science and Engineering. That institute is at par with an IIT. Therefore, Kerala can be considered as the frontrunner of getting an IIT. Hence, Kerala's claim to have an IIT in the state is more than fair, it is urgent and undeniable.
4. DOES AN IIT HELP THE STATE IN ITS FUTURE DEVELOPMENT?
One of the major criticisms raised against IITs is that IITs are nothing but a processing centre for facilitating brain drain. The IITs have been successful in preparing students to compete with the best anywhere in the world. This is proven by the fact that many, in fact a good proportion, of IIT graduates have gone abroad or taken careers which are not related to engineering. Some argue, albeit without merit, that these alumni do not contribute to the original objectives of IIT or of the state. The concept of “brain drain” and the narrow vision of what an IIT graduate can do in life, are both outdated and discredited. It is worthy to note that IIT graduates are sought out as students for masters and Ph.D programs by the top institutions worldwide. Many have earned their higher education and returned back to India with that experience. IIT graduates who stayed back in India have chosen a range of career paths from Engineering to Management to Civil Service to Entrepreneurship. It is now well established that regardless of the path they chose, they have excelled in their career field and contributed to the confidence of emerging India. A few names noteworthy are: Shri N.R. Narayana Murthy of Infosys, Dr. Subba Rao, Governor of Reserve bank, Shri Anil Agarwal, Shri Nandan Nilekani, etc. In the following, we would address the key benefits of having an IIT in the state. Events in the past 20 years have completely debunked the “brain drain” superstition. The contribution of IIT alumni to the revolution in computer and information technology is well-known. The rise of India as a superpower in that field is directly attributable to the excellent preparation imparted by the IITs and IISc, as well as the contributions of their alumni who first showed that Indians could compete worldwide, then opened the doors for Indian workers and exports all over the world, and today they are building the most innovative industries in India. Today the revolution in manufacturing is spreading rapidly to all fields. It is hard to see how any of this could have happened so quickly, if Indians were unwilling, unable or too lazy and backward to venture out, perform and compete with the best in the world.
There is no system of state or regional reservation in the IITs. Having an IIT in Kerala does not guarantee any more seats for Malayalees than establishing a new IIT in the Andaman or in Jammu and Kashmir. Some might therefore ask "Is there any benefit to the State?". At the undergraduate level, the mere presence of an IIT would boost the motivation of the school students of Kerala to try for admission in IIT. For instance, it is a fact that IIT Chennai has many students who got admission from local Chennai colleges. The same is true of IIT Mumbai, Delhi and Kharagpur. The statistics of IIT Guwahati would reveal that there was a continuous increase in the number of students getting admitted to IITs from the north eastern regions since its inception in the year 1994. However, the benefit to a state from having a top post-graduate technological institution, can be easily seen from the growth stories of California and Massachussetts in the USA, and from Japan. There is no substitute for the advantage gained from having world-class research facilities and researchers located within easy access. Thirty years ago, Kerala may not have had the business capital and transportation access in the state to justify having such an institution. But today the story is very different. Kerala has excellent international airports, as well as world-class businessmen and the capital to put the best ideas developed here, to the best use.
Improvement in Higher Education System: Establishing an IIT in Kerala will give a big boost to the higher education scene in Kerala. The first change is in seriousness and professionalism. IIT students and faculty take education very seriously, and consider themselves to be competing or at least benchmarking not against the best in their home town but the best in the entire world. The first and most stunning impact that an IIT has on a new student from a small town or village is the experience of being surrounded by the best in India (and the world), and realizing that one has to perform at a level that is far different from what was sufficient in one’s previous school. In the old days, telephones, transportation and money were more difficult to access, so that there was no way to turn around and call for help or run back home, and merit was the only way to get good grades from IIT professors. Even today it remains true that one has no one to turn to except oneself to make the necessary changes to one’s discipline and level of effort. This basic difference in mindset brings several positive changes. To begin with we will have an institution with a global brand to which we can look up with pride. The flexibility for frequent course restructuring depending upon the current needs is the most advantages point in the IIT system. As IITs are networked with engineering colleges under a Quality Improvement Programme, they will boost the quality of teachers in engineering colleges all over the state. The engineering college teachers in Kerala will get a chance to carry out research in their institution in collaboration with IIT even while carrying out their normal teaching at their parent institute. The qualifications and quality of these teachers can thus be improved. With a few exceptions, at present there is a lack of qualified teachers in almost all the engineering colleges in Kerala. In addition, the presence of an IIT would help engineering colleges of the state to get better higher education by enrolling their teachers in the masters and Ph.D programs under various categories such as part-time, self financed, and sponsored candidates.
The Government of India is promoting the creation of increased collaboration between IITs and local industries as well as supporting the creation of industrial innovation units. Both of these give a boost to the industrial scene in Kerala in the Information Technology (IT) and manufacturing arenas. Most IITs also run specialized programmes for state services, such as pollution control boards, which also will result in capacity building in the state.
Socio-Economic Development: The above development in higher education will in turn strengthen Kerala's plan for creating a good industrial climate in the state. The higher education system especially plays a major role in economic growth and it is an indicator of the prosperity of a nation. Scientific and technical education is critical to India’s aspirations as a leader in the global knowledge economy and in social development. Having an IIT in Kerala helps the state to play an active role in national development. Kerala will definitely emerge as a preferred destination for quality education and research in the global map due to its natural beauty and geographical location.
An IIT in Kerala will naturally increase the number of young Keralites who will get into the IITs. This is so because the presence of an IIT in Kerala, and possibly having an opportunity to visit it or hear more about it will prompt more youngsters to work harder to get into the
IITs. Some students, especially from economically backward families, will find it more financially manageable if the IIT is in Kerala than in a distant place. Finally, women students, who are at least equally represented among the top rankers in mathematics and science in Kerala’s high schools, will find more opportunities to get the unique advantages of an IIT education because parents will find it much easier if they are attending an IIT inside Kerala.
IIT is currently a global brand in academic excellence and presence of an IIT in Kerala will act as a magnet to attract investment in high-tech industry to Kerala in the long run. It is well known around the world that when there is a critical mass of research activities, bright young people and atmosphere conducive to entrepreneurial activity, high tech industry will prosper in that area. While NIT, CUSAT and IISER all can contribute to forming that critical mass, only IIT can bring the global brand in terms of technology. So, if Kerala aspire to move into the big league in being the preferred destination for new generation of industries, we must have an IIT. The best technological institutions in the world today, all have highly successful “industry incubators” located on campus, to develop their ideas into competitive, well-paying enterprises.
General Impacts: Looking at a wider perspective, one has to accept that IIT is not just an educational institution imparting education. It also provides service to the society. Apart from teaching, the faculty members are continuously involved in research. University research is critically important because it
• is of strategic importance for the nation,
• contributes to the growth of the Indian industries,
• helps the local society by finding solutions to their needs,
• disseminates technology for the upliftment of the rural sector,
• provides consultancy services to industries and finally
• leads directly to the creation of innovative, leading-edge enterprises.
In India today, research projects train and employ a large number of technically qualified personnel. Working in these projects, qualified students from the local area get admission to M.Tech and Ph.D programs thereby they are able to pursue their higher education. Though there is no regional reservation for the candidates to take part in these activities, simple statistical data analysis would reveal that the candidates from the particular state hosting a particular IIT is benefited maximum due to the geographical location. The above features are true of any research, but the critical advantages of a world-class research program are yet to be realized in most of India, where research projects appear to make improvements to what is already being done elsewhere. One only has to wonder why the strongest and most innovative military and the most lucrative early years of new industries, always seem to come from places that invest in leading edge research.
3. STEPS TO BE TAKEN BY KERALA GOVERNMENT TO BRING AN IIT
There are few key things the state Government should consider while making an effort to bring an IIT in Kerala. In fact, a planned strategy is required. The key points to be emphasised are:
i. Availability of Land
ii. Location of the Institute
iii. Future of the Institute
Dr. Anil Kakodkar’s Committee has given certain guidelines to MHRD to start new IITs. The Committee clearly specified in recommendations that the objective should be "to add more quality IIT" rather than just another IIT. The objective should not be to duplicate an existing IIT but to establish institutions that will bring to the table something new that the established IITs could not do. More care and attention in planning is emphasised in the recommendations.
The first and foremost recommendation is identifying the site. The Committee mentioned that "The site should be near to an industrial area and or complementary educational institutions with good access including an airport." This Committee reemphasis this point.
Generally, an IIT requires about 500 acres of land in a single location as specified in the above para. It is not a difficult task for any state to acquire this much land for establishing an IIT. Location is most important in many aspects such as
i. Fast development of the institute
ii. Industry-academy interaction
iii. Collaboration between like-minded institutions
iv. Attracting the best faculty to the institute.
An institute starting in the outskirts of a city with good infrastructure, connectivity and industrial presence would give a boost to the development of the institute. The state Government will have to take a proactive stand in acquiring land without giving any preferences which are of a political, regional or personal nature. The goal should be to bring an IIT to Kerala. Hence we suggest the name as "IIT Kerala" like IIT Rajasthan. It should be an IIT for every Keralite. A new IIT should not be under the clutches of an existing IIT, but rather under a visionary Director with a team of dedicated task force that can make a difference. The best example is IIT Guwahati which came to existence in the midst of political unrest in one of the most remote and industrially undeveloped region of India. Looking in to its contribution in terms of development of the region, rural sector, educating the teachers of the region, industrial growth, human resource development, technology incubation centre, etc., IIT Guwahati within 15 years, has emerged as an institute which is on
par with the older IITs that were established around 40 years ago. Probably we should explore this aspect to make IIT Kerala as a world-class institute.
5. CONCLUSION
The time is ripe for the intelligentsia and politicians to make a determined push to get an IIT in Kerala. Almost all major states have one and there is no more serious competition. Secondly, there has been no time in Independent India’s history when Kerala had so much clout in Delhi in both political and administrative circles. Finally, the political constellations between the Centre, the State and the HRD ministries in both, are most favourably aligned. The Committee recommends that the state government should act quickly but with a determined and pragmatic approach keeping in mind that the state should receive the maximum benefit from this opportunity.

2011-09-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

Narayanan More Credible than Roemer
By T.P.Sreenivasan
Former National Security Adviser and present Governor of West Bengal, M.K.Narayanan had barely taken off from Thiruvananthapuram after honouring Ambassador Nirupama Menon Rao with the Sree Chithira Thirunal award for outstanding achievements, when the news broke out about the latest Wikileaks revelations. The report was that Narayanan had indicated to the then US Ambassador, Timothy Roemer, that India was not serious about the demand for extradition of David Headley. In a cable to the State Department in December 2009, Roemer said that Narayanan had suggested to him that the Government was not actually keen on the extradition issue, but wanted to be seen to be insisting on it. According to Roemer, Narayanan told him that “it was difficult not to be making the effort” but the Government was not seeking extradition “at this time”.
Roemer was apparently trying to convince Delhi that the threat of extradition to India could cause Headley’s cooperation to dry up, but that by allowing the judicial process to continue, more information could be obtained and passed on to India. He claimed that Narayanan showed understanding of the American position. Certain sections of the press and the opposition rushed to the conclusion that the Government was guilty of doubletalk and that it was never serious about bringing Headley to book.
Narayanan told the press in unequivocal terms that India had always been serious about Headley’s extradition and he did not convey anything contrary to Roemer. As for the correspondence between Roemer and the State Department, the questions should be addressed to the Americans, he said. This should have ended the speculation, but the talking heads on national and regional television channels continued to speculate over the conversation, seeking to find motives of both sides. Asked about the wording of the leaked cable and Narayanan’s response, I said on television that it was a matter of Narayanan’s words against Roemer’s and that we should give greater credence to Narayanan than to Roemer. My reasoning was simply that Narayanan had nothing to gain by misrepresenting the Indian position to Roemer, while the latter had to impress upon his Government that his demarche on the phone was very effective. Ambassadors are known to write their cables in a way that pleases their masters back home. These are not recorded conversations, but first person accounts from memory, which could lead to wrong interpretations in cold print. As long as there is no change in policy and the Americans are as keen on finding the truth as we are, there is no cause for concern.
Apart from the embarrassment that this cable has caused, Wikileaks have caused considerable damage to diplomacy as a profession not only in the US, but also worldwide. Diplomats should have the facility to convey information and opinions to their Governments without any fear of their getting into unauthorized hands. Much of international diplomacy is conducted in unofficial conversations over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine or a meal. There will be no note takers or pieces of paper so that diplomats can explore different ideas without being held to any specific positions. But even informal conversations have to be reported home as policy inputs. The fear that these communications will come out in the open will inhibit diplomats from engaging in these conversations, which are the life blood of diplomacy.
As for the US diplomats, the damage is even more as people around the world will be reluctant to confide in them. Surprisingly, very few American ambassadors have lost their jobs on account of the embarrassment of Wikileaks, but many careers may have been affected by the indiscretions that these cables have revealed. If Jyoti Basu or Pinarayi Vijayan, the hard core communists and US baiters felt confident about sharing their thoughts with US diplomats, that was because the feeling that their conversations would remain confidential. Wikileaks must have closed those windows of opportunity forever.
The furor that a meeting that some of the communist leaders had with the US Consul General in Chennai and his Political Counsellor was amazing as it is no secret that at least three Ministers of the former LDF Government in Kerala had taken missions to the US with the specific purpose of seeking investment and other kinds of cooperation at the very time when their leaders were opposing the nuclear deal and soon thereafter. Perhaps, the factional fights within the Communist Party in Kerala may have fuelled the fire because the ideologue, V.S.Achuthanandan was clearly hostile to the US officials while the Party boss, Pinarayi Vijayan not only solicited direct investment, but also played down the agitation against Coca Cola as a local problem in the area it was held. The Party had even opposed the appointment of someone, who was on the Board of Coca Cola as a member of the State Planning Board. The Wikileaks cable noted this divide in the Party.
Even more importantly, the Kerala Wikileaks revealed that two Ministers confided in the Americans that there was a Muslim fundamentalist menace in Kerala and that foreign funding was available to them. A Minister in the current Government was accused of having been supportive of such groups for political reasons. The Americans must have been very attentive to such allegations as they were looking for clues around the globe about the spread of terrorism. All concerned have denied that they had said such things to the Americans, but, as it happens, the Americans seemed to have greater credibility with the public than our politicians. Funnily enough, the very politicians, who were dismissing Wikileaks as American lies, had no qualms about quoting the same Wikileaks to score points over their opponents.
With all the problems that Wikileaks unleashed, the silver lining was that no Indian diplomat or senior official was caught saying anything improper to the Americans. Narayanan was no exception. Many of them, who were quoted in the cables, said nothing out of line with policy. Some of them were even frank and forthright with the Americans about US policy. But the politicians did not come out so well as some of them appeared to show off their influence or knowledge even to junior US diplomats.
Wikileaks came like the sun rising at midnight or someone peeping into the makeup room of a play behind the stage. They revealed some of the raw material which goes into diplomacy, which is rarely seen during the day or on the stage. But such raw material too is an essential ingredient of international intercourse and it should be seen as such. But what matters is what the nations do in the daylight and the actors do on the stage. Modern technology has affected all professions and diplomacy cannot escape it, however conservative that profession may like to remain. But it will be a pity if Wikileaks rob diplomats of their ability to engage in informal discussions and to convey their assessments to their Governments without fear of being exposed.

2011-08-24T21:27:00.000-07:00

India-US Defence Co-operation.

T.P.Sreenivasan

(Lecture at the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam. Aug 24, 2011)

I have seen the days, not long ago, even after the cold war, when India and the United States virtually had no defence co-operation at all. I had spent a year in Washington as a senior Indian diplomat without ever entering the portals of the Pentagon. I remember spending the first few weeks in Washington to rescue a nominal Defence Policy Group, which had got embroiled in some protocol problems. The first time I stepped into the Pentagon was after our nuclear tests of 1998 when we were invited for a briefing on nuclear weapons command and control. The purpose of the briefing appeared to be to show how complex, complicated and hazardous the upkeep of nuclear weapons could be.

Needless to say, India’s dependence on the Soviet Union for most of its military hardware and the perceived Indian tilt towards Eastern Europe was the reason for the lack of any defence cooperation during the cold war days. More than any ideological obsessions, what drove India into a Soviet arms embrace were the rupee payment arrangements, lower prices and manufacturing licenses. That legacy, further complicated by the US entanglement with Pakistan, continued well into the early twenty-first century.

India has, however, been a user of US defence equipment since the 1960s. The massive shipment of US arms following the Chinese aggression of 1962 cannot be forgotten. Subsequently, the US made several proposals in 1984, 1987, 1991 and 1995 and India was not unresponsive to them. These were mainly of commercial in nature and they had no strategic underpinnings. Differences over the NPT and CTBT and the nuclear tests of 1998 complicated matters. It was only when the Bush Administration recognized India’s potential as an emerging power in Asia and engaged in a genuine dialogue on cooperative security issues that defence cooperation, in the strategic sense, was ever considered.

We have come a long way since then. Today, it makes world headlines when India decides not to purchase a particular aircraft from the United States. It is no news at all when India and the United States stage joint exercises in the Indian Ocean. Indian defence officials, including the Defence Minister himself, make working visits to Washington and the top brass of the US army are seen in the corridors of the South Block round the year.

The changes in strategic thinking in the US and India culminated in the signing in June 2005 of a bilateral Framework Defence Agreement just before the announcement of the nuclear deal. The commotion in the two countries over the nuclear deal eclipsed the Defence Agreement, which looked like a purely commercial deal, but today the Defence Agreement has assumed greater significance than the nuclear deal in terms of mutually beneficial cooperation between the US and India. It also has great implications for India’s standing in its tough neighbourhood and in the world.
We should recognize that there is a fundamental disconnect between the aspirations of the US and India in fostering defence cooperation. The US envisages India as a partner in their own scheme of things in Asia, friendly to US interests and balancing China in the long term. The US would like India to be its partner in the Indian Ocean region to address regional contingencies. The US is seeking collaboration in “multinational operations of common interest”, ranging from humanitarian and disaster relief activities to interdictions and even a “coalition of the willing” in the absence of a UN mandate. India, on the other hand, is seeking to have high technology to equip itself to strengthen its defences, without mortgaging itself to another power. We are looking for commercial deals with no strings attached. We would also like to have licenses to manufacture these weapons in India to avoid the vagaries of supplies at crucial moments. In other words, India wants arms length cooperation as opposed to integrated defence links.

The divergent views of the two countries on the ultimate objective of defence cooperation have led to India holding back from some of the links necessary for smooth defence dealings between the two countries. For instance, even after ten years of consideration, India has not posted a mid level officer on a permanent basis to the US Pacific Command. We do not allow unsupervised contacts between the armed forces. Even after joint exercises, India has not signed a Memorandum of Agreement for Tactical Communications System Interoperability. Though a navy to navy fuel arrangement was in place during the Malabar series of exercises, India has stepped back from a Mutual Logistic Support Agreement.

Though the US arms sales to India and joint military exercises have proceeded, India has been reluctant to sign some of these agreements that the US considers necessary to safeguard the technology transferred through these sales and to ensure that the arms are not used against the interests of the United States. But in July 2009, the two countries announced in New Delhi that they had agreed on an “end-use monitoring” arrangement that would provide safeguards for the sale of sophisticated US weaponry to India. The arrangement was for a provision to be written into future defence contracts, guaranteeing that sensitive equipment will be used for its intended purpose and not transferred to a third party.

The list of defence equipment India has imported since 2002, which is available in the public domain, is really impressive, given the reservation that India has about a strategic involvement with the US. These include counter battery radars, an amphibious transport dock along with 6 helicopters, C130 transport planes, 24 Harpoon Block II missiles, C17 Heavy transport planes, P-8 maritime reconnaissance aircraft, VVIP planes equipped with advanced electronic warfare suites and others. Other orders for attack helicopters and light howitzers are on the anvil.

India’s decision in April 2011 to eliminate the top two US contenders from its short list of suppliers for the Indian Air Force’s fourth generation of advanced combat aircraft came as a rude shock to the United States. American officials and many analysts had given the impression that this was a done deal for the US, not only because of the suitability of the aircraft for Indian conditions, but also because it was seen as a reward for the nuclear deal. With the adoption of the nuclear liability law, it became clear that the nuclear trade that was envisaged in the nuclear deal would not materialize in the near future. In fact, there is a school of thought in Washington that the US should not sell nuclear reactors or material to India as long as India stood outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Instead, Washington should press for more defence deals from India. The US leadership, including President Obama himself, lobbied for the aircraft order at all levels and made it clear that the order would be a demonstration of India’s readiness to give substance to its strategic partnership with the US. The US sought the contract at the technical as well as at the political level.

The disappointment over India’s decision to exclude the US aircraft from consideration received disproportionate attention in the US and the Indian action was portrayed as a negative signal on the strategic relationship. The sudden resignation of the US Ambassador Timothy Roemer was also linked to the failure of the US to bag the contract, for which he himself had staked his personal prestige and influence. “India has bought a plane, not a relationship”, screamed the headlines, as though this deal alone would have ensured perpetual friendship, while the other defence deals were ignored as insignificant. India has taken the position that the decision was purely technical in nature, though it was known that, among other things, India was hesitant to put all our aircraft eggs into the US basket. Pakistan had already obtained fighter aircraft from the US and it was considered imprudent to acquire the same aircraft for our fleet. At the same time, India signaled its disinclination to upgrade the strategic dialogue to a joint 2+2 (foreign and defence ministers) format, as the US has with Japan, in turn, leading to postponement of the Strategic Dialogue.

The matter of the aircraft deal was set aside by the time Secretary Hillary Clinton visited India for the second Strategic dialogue, but the shadow of the aircraft deal and the nuclear liability law cast a shadow on the conversations she had with the Indian Minister of External affairs. The decision of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to strengthen the guidelines on transfer of reprocessing and enrichment technology also led to a war of words.

After a period of extraordinary warmth during the days of the nuclear deal, India-US relations have moved to a more realistic level, with suspicions on the Indian side and disappointments on the US side showing up. Those who have witnessed the roller-coaster nature of the history of India-US relations will not be surprised by these developments. A stable strategic relationship can be built only on mutual trust and identification of a common strategic agenda. The time for it has not yet come and both the countries need to strive for it.
Thank you.

2011-08-17T03:49:00.000-07:00

Distinguished Lecture Series on Indian Foreign Policy by the Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs. Goa University, August 17, 2011
India’s Quest for a Permanent Seat on the UN Security Council
By T.P.Sreenivasan
I am grateful to the Goa University and the Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs for inviting me to deliver a lecture in the Distinguished Lecture Series on India’s Quest for a Permanent Seat on the UN Security Council. Public Diplomacy is fairly new to India, but it has spread its wings far and wide and has made a tremendous impact. I am delighted to be part of its effort to bring the intricate aspects of diplomacy to a wide audience and to attract talent to diplomacy as a profession. I must state, however, that the views contained in my lecture are my own and I have had no official briefing. I shall rely on my own experience of either dealing with the issue or following it in the last 32 years.
The UN reform we are seeking, particularly the expansion of the permanent membership of the Security Council, is nothing short of a revolution. We are challenging the very foundation of an institution, born out of a world war, the winners of which gave themselves the responsibility of maintaining world peace and security by assuming extraordinary powers. The UN Charter, which was crafted by them, has been embraced voluntarily by 192 nations. That there has not been a world war since and that the UN has served as a stabilizing factor in the world is the strongest argument for continuing the status quo. But the contrary argument is stronger, because the global equations have changed so much in the last 66 years that it is imperative that the UN must reflect those changes to maintain its representative character and moral strength. The struggle is on between those who wish to perpetuate their privileged positions and the forces of change that cannot but win. But no one can predict the time and nature of revolutions. They have their own logic and time.
The question today is not whether change is needed, but whether a real change can be brought about by the provisions of the very Charter that established the institution. If history is any guide, major changes take place when the time is ripe, in unexpected ways, regardless of the strength of those who seek change and those who resist. The provisions of the law that seek to protect the establishment will be thrown to the winds and the old system will yield place to the new. A Malayalam poet declared many years ago: “Change your out dated laws, if not, they will change you yourselves.” We have many examples in history to show that those who have conceded changes have lasted longer than those who have resisted the forces of change.
India was among those who lit the first spark of inevitable change, back in 1979, at the height of the cold war, when an item entitled “Equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council” was inscribed on the agenda of the General Assembly. The demand was to add a few more non-permanent members, on the simple logic that the ratio between the strength of the General Assembly and that of the Security Council should be maintained. The exponential increase in the membership of the UN should be reflected in the size of the Security Council. This principle was, in fact, followed in 1965 when the number of non-permanent members was raised from 6 to 10.
The reaction from the permanent members was instant and shocking. In an unprecedented show of solidarity, they opposed the move tooth and nail. They argued that any expansion of the Security Council would undermine its efficiency, integrity and credibility and ensured that the agenda item was postponed year after year, with a nominal and sterile debate. The idea remained alive, but no action was taken till the end of the cold war.
The game changed in the early nineties, when the idea of adding new permanent members was brought up by Brazil and we initiated the exercise of ascertaining the views of the members and setting up a mechanism to study the proposals and to reach consensus. The permanent members led by the US offered a “quick fix” after initial hesitation and proposed the addition of Japan and Germany as permanent members on the ground of their being the highest contributors to the UN budget after the US and a marginal increase in the non-permanent membership. If India had not stopped the “quick fix” and insisted on comprehensive reform with the support of the nonaligned group, the door for expansion would have been closed after inducting Japan and Germany at that time. We demolished the payment argument by stating that permanent membership should not be up for sale. If I may be permitted to quote from my own speech at the Working Group in February 1995, “Contribution to the UN should not be measured in terms of money. We do not agree with the view expressed by a delegation that permanent membership is a privilege that can be purchased. Financial contributions are determined on the basis of “capacity to pay” and those who pay their assessments, however small, are no whit less qualified for privilege than the major contributors.”
As a lethargic debate went on in the Working Group for years, national positions evolved and loyalties changed, but it became clear that the expansion of the Security Council could not be easily accomplished. The formation of an interest group called the “Coffee Club” and later “Uniting for Consensus” which opposed any expansion of the permanent membership made the situation more chaotic. We ourselves advanced our position from seeking to establish criteria, such as population, seminal contribution to the UN, participation in peacekeeping operations etc to staking a claim and began campaigning bilaterally in capitals. Over the years, our claim became strong and it became universally recognized that if a single developing country were to become a permanent member, that would be India. One adverse consequence of the debate, however, was that the discussions highlighted that a vast majority of member states had not served even once on the Security Council, while countries like India, Japan, Pakistan and Egypt had served on the Council several times. This led to our long absence from the Council from 1993 to 2010 after having been elected as a non-permanent member 7 times in the earlier period.
Efforts made outside the Working Group were also fruitless. After the deliberations of a High Level Group, Secretary General Kofi Annan proposed two Plans; Plan A, proposing creation of 6 permanent and 3 non-permanent seats and Plan B, proposing 8 new seats for 4 years subject to renewal and 1 non-permanent seat. The Plan B had greater acceptability in the Group and it was at the insistence of General Satish Nambiar, the Indian member of the Group that Plan A was included. Another exercise undertaken by India, Brazil, Germany and Japan (G-4) to get the General Assembly to adopt a resolution on expansion failed to take off because of differences with the African Group. It, however, resulted in the G-4 conceding for the first time that they would not insist on the veto at least for 15 years. The General Assembly recently entered intergovernmental negotiations to suggest a “timeline perspective” to agree on reform in two stages on the basis of a draft text, but no progress has been reported as yet. A move is afoot by the G-4 to introduce a resolution to decide that both permanent and non-permanent membership will be expanded, but its fate is uncertain.
The story so far of our quest for a permanent seat on the Security Council is “Kabhi Khushi, Kabhie Ghum” (Joy sometimes, despair at other times), as Ambassador Hardeep Puri described it, drawing inspiration from a Bollywood movie of that name. In fact, there is more despair than joy in that saga. The only reason for joy is that the need for expansion has been recognized by the entire membership and that there is also recognition that if the permanent membership is ever expanded, India will be the first developing country to find a place in it. For the rest, there are almost as many views as there are members of the UN about the size, composition and rights and responsibilities of the members of the Security Council. As of now, there is no formula for expansion which can command consensus or even secure two thirds majority of the General Assembly, including the support of the 5 permanent members.
The framers of the UN Charter did not intend that it should be amended easily. But that has not prevented the UN from transforming itself to deal with new issues and new circumstances. Today’s preoccupations of the UN like peacekeeping, human rights, environment, climate change etc were not anticipated in the Charter. The flexibility and resilience of the Charter have been tested again and again and nothing in the Charter has prevented the UN from taking on new responsibilities and obligations. Charter amendments have not been initiated even to remove anachronisms like the enemy countries clause and the name of one of the permanent members. The most crucial article of the Charter on the veto itself has been changed in practice as abstention by a permanent member is considered a concurring vote. The proposals for reform like the working methods of the Council introduced in the Working Group from time to time are mere diversionary tactics as these can be adopted without any amendment to the Charter. But when it comes to an expansion of the Security Council, the only way is to bring a Charter amendment. This explains why the only amendment of the Charter was made in 1965 to raise the number of non-permanent members from 6 to 10 when the strength of the General Assembly increased. The different groups of countries and entrenched interests are in no mood to repeat the exercise, particularly if the permanent membership should be touched.
The permanent members, for instance, consider that they only stand to lose by adding new permanent members with veto. They have made it clear that there is no question of veto being extended to the new permanent members, even though some of them tactically accept the African demand for veto. Even the UK, France and Russia, who have extended support to India and others, have not taken any action to bring about changes. One thing that France and the UK dread is the suggestion that the EU should have only one representative, while they already have two inside and another at the door. They are not willing to float a formula for expansion even to set the ball rolling. The same is the case with many others, who have pledged support to India and other candidates. In many cases, such support is an easy gesture to win goodwill. No group, outside the G-4, is actively campaigning for a formula. The African Group differs significantly from G-4 because of their insistence on the veto and an additional non-permanent member. Moreover, the idea of the African Group is to rotate two permanent memberships within the Group, itself a contradiction. The Uniting for Consensus group wants to add only 10 new non-permanent members. This is an attractive proposition for a large number of small states, whose chances of serving on the Council will increase, while they have nothing to gain by adding new permanent members. In other words, the G-4 proposal for 6 new permanent members and 4 non-permanent members cannot as yet win a two thirds majority in the General Assembly, not to speak of the support of the P-5.
The US, which had supported Japan and Germany in the early nineties, now favours “two or so” new permanent members, including Japan and “2 or 3” non-permanent members making an addition of only 5 more to the Security Council. Such a formula is a non-starter. The support extended to India by President Obama during his visit to India is in the form of a wish without a commitment to bring it about. His words were: “In the years ahead, I look forward to a reformed Security Council that includes India as a permanent member.” Though this is a significant departure from the previous US position, it is not enough for the US to extend support to India; it should shape a formula, which is acceptable to the membership. Its reservation over Germany and Brazil will itself deprive it of being decisive on the issue of expansion.
We did not need Wikileaks to find the reasons for the reluctance of the US to bring about expansion of the Council. But we now have it in black and white what we knew from the beginning. “We believe expansion of the Council along the lines of the models currently discussed will dilute US influence in the body…..On most important issues of the day—Sanctions, Human Rights, Middle East etc---Brazil, India and most African states are currently far less sympathetic to our views than our European allies”, said the US Ambassador in a cable in December 2007. The US delegation at the UN seems to have only a watching brief till intervention becomes necessary to prevent an expansion that will not serve US interests. There is expectation, however, that President Obama might declare openness to a modest expansion of the Security Council at the next session of the General Assembly. But a special report of the Council on Foreign Relations which has urged the President to do so makes the expansion contingent on demonstration of the qualifications of permanent membership. The position of the aspirants on non-proliferation, climate change and human rights will be subject to scrutiny. A few days ago, our Minister of State for External Affairs indicated that both India and the US were actively involved in the ongoing negotiations.
China is opposed explicitly to Japan and implicitly to India, though it pays lip service to developing countries’ representation on the Council. Its position could be decisive as the permanent members will coordinate their positions before any advance is made.
If I may go back to where I began, it will be difficult to accomplish the fundamental change we are seeking by way of the procedure laid down for change. Like it happened in the case of the formation of G-20 when G-8 could not resolve the unprecedented economic crisis, a situation may arise when the P-5 find it difficult to maintain international peace and security without additional permanent members and thus force their hands to accept change. Such an ominous future was predicted by the President of the General Assembly, when he said on May 16, 2011, “Unless we find the determination to advance on the issue, the UN will lose its credibility. Our organization will be marginalized and important issues will be discussed in other forums and groupings, which are perceived to be more efficient and more representative of the new realities of the day.” Such a situation may arise sooner than later and that gives us reason for joy even in the midst of despair.
India and the other aspirants for permanent membership, in the meantime, must maintain pressure for expansion. But to give the impression that permanent membership is the holy grail of Indian foreign policy does not enhance our prestige. Legend has it that India spurned an offer to take over China’s permanent seat on the Security Council, saying that we would win it in our own right one day. That position has won us more glory than what we have gained by our constant knocking at all doors. Making support for our permanent membership the litmus test of bilateral relations is untenable. We should appear more confident and secure even as we demand our rightful place in keeping with our status as the largest democracy with a dynamic, fast growing economy, an impressive record in UN peacekeeping, ability to protect the global commons and to combat transnational terrorism and strong record against proliferation.
May I also say, without appearing to spurn the proverbial “sour grapes”, that permanent membership without veto is not such an attractive trophy that we should expend unlimited resources and energy on it. As a member of the Council, India will be called upon to take sides on every issue in the world, sometimes losing friends in the process as we are fiercely independent and do not play second fiddle to anyone. The lack of the veto may make us vulnerable as a result, if issues of crucial importance to us come up in the Council. India has been playing a significant role even without being on the Security Council for many years. A posture of our willingness to serve when required to do so rather than being desperate about securing a seat here and now may be a good strategy to adopt. The UN needs reform not to make one country or the other happy, but to make itself more relevant, credible and effective in the world and it will be ready for a revolution sooner rather than later.
Thank you.

2011-08-09T03:59:00.000-07:00

From Hiroshima to Fukushima-
Nuclear Lessons Learned and Unlearned
(Nagasaki Peace Day Lecture, 2011. Indian Pugwash Society at IDSA, New Delhi Aug 9, 2011)
I feel greatly honoured that I have been invited to deliver the Nagasaki Peace Day Lecture, 2011. I have been a member of the Indian Pugwash Society for some years, but this is the first time that I am participating in its activities other than using its excellent publications and website resources.
I am delighted that this session is being chaired by my senior colleague, Ambassador Arundhati Ghose, whom I admire and respect.
The long journey of the nuclear genie from Hiroshima to Fukushima and beyond has kept humanity on the edge of a precipice for more than half a century. We have been through many twists and turns, with fear of total annihilation looming large even while rays of hope emerged in the distant horizon from time to time. Sincere efforts were made to put the genie back in the bottle or to put it to productive use, but the nuclear danger has remained with us till today in different manifestations. Sadly, nuclear policies of various countries were determined by their ambition to acquire destructive power in their search for security. But security has eluded the planet, initially by the threat of use of nuclear weapons by design or accident, then by nuclear terrorism by non-state actors and now by the possibility of accidents in civil nuclear stations. The devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was caused by an act of war, but it set in motion a chain of events that led to the atoms for peace initiative, the creation of the IAEA, the advent of the NPT and related Treaties and the dream of a nuclear weapon free world and global zero.
Just as Hiroshima marked the beginning of a rethink on the possession of nuclear weapons, Fukushima should mark the beginning of a relook at civilian nuclear power as we know it today. It is not enough that we audit the facilities and satisfy ourselves that we are safe against the known risks like earthquakes and tsunamis. Needless to say, we should strengthen safety features and open our facilities for peer review to ensure that we are in tune with the best standards in the world. There should be transparency in the operations of our reactors and the results of studies done in the past on risks should be shared with the civil society. But above and beyond these measures, we have to rethink the whole question of civilian nuclear power generated by the same processes that are employed in the making of weapons. We should not be lulled into the belief that physical protection will save us from the vagaries of nature or simple human errors. We owe it to the future generations to start thinking of alternatives, whether it is fusion, sun, wind or waves. Fukushima must set us thinking on the use of nuclear power as much as Hiroshima prodded us to start thinking of the elimination of nuclear weapons.
The lessons we learnt from the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are valuable even if a world without nuclear weapons is nowhere near realization. Nations still consider nuclear weapons indispensable for their security, though 9/11 demonstrated that the power to destroy the world many times over provides no guarantee of security. The world tends to huddle under their nuclear installations and nuclear umbrellas in a futile quest for security. Those outside these false comfort zones find ways and means to acquire dubious nuclear capability from death merchants like A.Q.Khan. The grand bargain of the NPT has not prevented proliferation even among the signatories. The IAEA, which was designed as a mother cow to bestow the benefits of peaceful nuclear energy on developing countries was transformed into a watchdog, without keeping the concomitant promise of nuclear disarmament by nuclear weapon states. The CTBT and the FMCT are still in limbo. The India-US nuclear deal is embroiled in the liability act and the ENR guidelines.
In the distant horizon, however, there is hope because of the lessons we have learned and unlearned after Hiroshima. Today, there is no serious fear that any sovereign nation will use nuclear weapons against another. Four cold war veterans began trudging along a difficult path of disarmament, which goes beyond arms control and non-proliferation, to reach the top of a mountain from which a new vista of a nuclear weapons free world might come to view. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had visualized that vista long ago and drawn up an action plan to reach there. President Barack Obama started a journey from Prague in the same direction, though he is not sure whether he can complete that journey in his own lifetime. The global zero has inched away from the proverbial square one. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had their impact on mankind.
Today, a major challenge is to protect nuclear material from terrorists, whether state- sponsored or non-state. They obviously have no conscience to be touched by Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Much of the nuclear material, which has been reported lost, has not been recovered, but some material has been recovered, which was never reported lost. Sufficient knowledge and material are out there to put together a dirty bomb or even a clean one. A failed nuclear state may even place a sophisticated arsenal in the hands of terrorists. The war on nuclear terrorism is an urgent necessity, a lesson we have learned after 9/11 and other terrorist attacks in different parts of the globe.
A nuclear renaissance emerged out of a sense of security as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were caused by human error rather than by systemic deficiencies or natural disasters. The increased awareness of climate change and the role of nuclear power in mitigation of global warming gave nuclear power a new halo. In 2009, the IAEA reported that 65 countries lined up at the IAEA to seek technology to either start or expand nuclear power programmes. While the growth of nuclear power slowed down in the US and European Union, it began to grow exponentially in Asia, notably China and India. The India-US nuclear deal removed most of the restrictions on import of nuclear fuel and equipment imposed by a technology denial regime and India signed new contracts for supply of reactors and fuel.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of March 11, 2011, involving a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns and release of radioactive materials, following a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami could not have come at a more inopportune time for the nuclear renaissance. It was the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind. The severity of the nuclear accident was rated 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, indicating an accident causing widespread contamination with serious health and environmental effects. Fukushima had an instant impact on the use of nuclear power everywhere in the world, ranging from evaluation of the safety situation everywhere to announcement by Germany and Switzerland of complete withdrawal from nuclear power by 2022 and 2034 respectively.
Although many countries, notably India, declared business as usual, the nuclear power scene around the world changed beyond recognition. In any event, it was clear that by 2050, nuclear power would be absent from the US and the EU. Whether any announcement is made or not, every country has begun to plan quietly for finding viable alternatives to nuclear power. The lesson we learned from Fukushima is that the prospect of dotting our coastline with nuclear reactors is perilous even if it guarantees much needed electricity as an engine of growth. Human survival should have a higher priority than human development.
Fukushima has clearly accentuated the divide between those who believe in nuclear power as the panacea for our power shortage and those who believe that nuclear power is fraught with dangers, ranging from accidents to proliferation risks and long term damage from waste disposal. The former group would have us believe that the risks far outweigh the benefits of nuclear power, while the latter would have us close down reactors instantly and switch to solar, wind and wave energy. Having been a champion of nuclear energy and its benefits, I would advocate a third way. First and foremost, let us not minimize or hide the impact of Fukushima on mankind by arguing that nobody has died in the Daiichi plant while thousands perished in the tsunami. We do not know how and when the radiation leaks will manifest in disease and death. The most recent reports on the aftermath are alarming. The Wall Street Journal reported on July 20, 2011 that Japan has banned all beef exports from the affected areas and introduced a health review of human beings for thirty years.
Business as usual is not an option for nuclear power after Fukushima, just as we learned after Hiroshima that nuclear weapon should not be a legitimate weapon of war. We should begin visualizing a world without nuclear power in 30, 40 or 50 years and begin developing alternate sources with the same vigour with which we developed nuclear reactors. Once that vision is recognized, human ingenuity will be channelized into innovation. We do not need to halt production or stop imports of nuclear material and reactors, but let there be a sunset clause for nuclear power in our planning for the future. I am painfully aware that there are no takers for this approach yet and the established camps on both sides of the divide have dismissed it as utopian, foolish and worse, devious. I am no scientist, but someone who argues that the imported reactors are bad, while the indigenous reactors are benign, cannot be credited with much scientific wisdom. If the processes are the same and safety features are similar, how can “swadeshi” be better than “videshi”? Nuclear disarmament was also dismissed in the same manner before, but at least the vision of a nuclear weapon free world is now shared by the haves and the have-nots. The lessons of Hiroshima have been learned, but the lessons of Fukushima are wished away.
The nuclear dilemma persists, despite the process of learning and unlearning ever since the atom was unleashed, but some truths must be recognized from experience, regardless as to whether one country or the other incorporates them in its policy framework.
First, the devastation from the use of nuclear weapons is so great for the present and future generations of mankind that use of such weapons should not even be contemplated. Nuclear weapons must be declared illegitimate and eliminated. Second, non-proliferation efforts on discriminatory basis will not eliminate the threat. As Dr. Mohamed Elbaradei says in his book, “The Age of Deception”, “the threat will persist as long as the international community continues to address only the symptoms of each nuclear proliferation challenge, waging war against one country, making a deal with a second, issuing sanctions in a third, seeking regime change in still another. So long as nuclear weapons remain a security strategy for a limited few possessor countries, with umbrella arrangements that extend that security to a secondary circle of allied countries, so long as others are left out in the cold, the proliferation risk will be with us.” The need for total elimination of nuclear weapons is a lesson that Hiroshima taught, but it took us 66 years just to acknowledge it. No one knows how long it will take to eliminate nuclear weapons.
Fukushima, preceded by Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, has also had its lessons. First, nuclear power carries with it a safety risk, which cannot be ignored, whatever be its benefits. As Prof. Amarjeet Singh said at this very forum last year, “safety makes all plants mutual hostages…. A nuclear accident anywhere in the world affects the prospects of nuclear power everywhere.” He was prophetic when he said, “Nuclear energy is more brittle than other strategies to mitigate climate change as one major future accident could overnight nullify the resources and time invested in nuclear power up to that point.” Fukushima came just eight months after those words were uttered in this very hall. No amount of action by the international community can eliminate this danger, unless we have the courage to visualize a world without nuclear power and work for finding alternatives for energy production.
We have seen political, economic and environmental colonialism and should be aware of “nuclear power colonialism” in the making. We appear to be eyeing the “buyer’s market” in reactors and fuel as their supply increases as major countries move away from nuclear power. We should not forget that President Bush had defended his nuclear deal with India by saying that India’s use of nuclear power will reduce pressure on oil. A Japanese Minister has just declared that Japan might terminate its fast breeder reactors to eliminate the rationale for reprocessing. When developed countries move away from such technologies, export incentives for such material to developing countries will increase. The reduced demand in some countries makes the market move to other regions. In fact, fear has been expressed that the ironic consequence of Fukushima may be a more dangerous global nuclear landscape. India and China may well be the victims of this trend unless we exercise caution.

Hiroshima and Fukushima have brought to light two facets of the danger from the nuclear genie. Man developed nuclear weapons in his quest for security and realized the folly of mutually assured destruction. The quest for energy security has driven him to develop nuclear power, the more benign manifestation of the atom. The time has come for him to pause and ensure that the second quest does not prove as dangerous as the first.
Thank you.

2011-08-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

Pakistan's Charm Offensive Works

By T.P.Sreenivasan

Pakistan's foreign ministers do not have to be young, attractive, fashionable or of the weaker sex to attract attention in India. Even at multilateral conferences in India, filled with fashionable young women, the television cameras stay focused on Pakistan's representatives, regardless of their sex appeal. The interest becomes ecstatic if a visiting Pakistan Minister happens to have the attributes of Bollywood stars. Rightly did Seema Goswami call Foreign Minister Hira Rabbani Khar "Pakistan's new weapon of mass distraction." More sensational, but poorer in taste was the headline, "Pakistani bomb lands in New Delhi." India is still reeling under the imagined value of her pearl and diamond necklaces, Cavalli sunglasses and Birkin bag.

No doubt, Pakistan was on a charm offensive this time, demonstrated not just by the charm of the brand new Foreign Minister on her first ever foray into diplomacy, but also by the Foreign Secretary having a new and friendly mask this time, in contrast with his previous postures. Consequently, the admonition administered by our Foreign Secretary for the meeting with the Hurriyat appeared harsh in the media. But more significantly, India seems to have been charmed into conceding ground on many of its established positions.

The fundamentals of the Pakistan position remained intact through the hype about "new engagement" and "new beginning." HRK, as the Pak Foreign Minister was affectionately called, began with an assertion that India should not dominate South Asia. Then she walked into a meeting with Kashmiri separatists even before meeting her host. She also made sure that the right phrases about outstanding issues were included in the Joint Statement.

India's main agenda, the punishment of the perpetrators of 26/11 was quickly sidelined when HRK dished out the wisdom that the judicial process took time and much groundwork had to be done. If it is still in the stage of groundwork, she has no responsibility to deliver on this issue. India naturally insisted on speeding up the judicial process, but without making it conditional for advancing the peace process.

The Joint Statement appears to be a wish list of Pakistan.For instance, two sides expressed satisfaction on the holding of meetings on the issues of Counter-Terrorism (including progress on Mumbai trial) and Narcotics Control; Humanitarian issues; Commercial & Economic cooperation; Wullar Barrage/Tulbul Navigation Project; Sir Creek; Siachen; Peace & Security including CBMs; Jammu & Kashmir; and promotion of friendly exchanges.

Though the composite dialogue is not mentioned, the assertion of the dialogue process is with a view to resolving peacefully all outstanding issues through constructive and result oriented engagement, and to establish friendly, cooperative and good neighbourly relations between the two counties.

The trust issue is dealt with simply by agreeing to build a relationship of trust and mutually beneficial cooperation in conformity with the determination of the people of both countries to see an end to terrorism and violence and to realise their aspirations for peace and development.

Terrorism is no more a threat from Pakistan to India, but terrorism poses a continuing threat to peace and security and the two have reiterated the firm and undiluted commitment to fight and eliminate this scourge in all its forms and manifestations. Both sides agreed on the need to strengthen cooperation on counter-terrorism including among relevant departments as well as agencies to bring those responsible for terror crimes to justice.

Although we know that Pakistan is building up its nuclear arsenal at break neck speed and holding up the negotiations on a fissile material treaty, India had no problem in promoting "Confidence Building Measures, between India and Pakistan and to agree to convene separate meetings of the Expert Groups on Nuclear and Conventional CBMs, in Islamabad in September 2011."

The press went to town on the absence of the K word in the discussions but the Joint Statement loudly proclaims that the two sides held discussions on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir and agreed to the need for continued discussions, in a purposeful and forward looking manner, with a view to finding a peaceful solution by narrowing divergences and building convergences. Our position that the only matter to be discusses is terrorism in Kashmir has been totally forgotten in the formulation. Mani Shankar Aiyer's formula of "uninterrupted and uninterruptable" dialogue has been embraced bu HRK, but it, mercifully, does not find a place in the statement. How can there be uninterruptable dialogue with Pakistan? Even if there is another 26/11, will we continue the dialogue process?

The provisions made for border trade are elaborate and specific, glossing over the problems of the past. On trade itself, the tone is unduly optimistic, considering the hesitation Pakistan has always had in normalising trade relations with India. By reaffirming the commitment to the Indus Water Treaty, we seem to have sacrificed one of our bargaining points on the water issue.The resumption of the Joint Commission also masks the problems in bilateral relations.The schedule of meetings envisaged gives a false impression of progress.

The extent and depth of the agreements reached at the talks has given Pakistan reason to convince the world that the bilateral relations are back to normal despite lack of satisfaction over 26/11 and continuation of terrorism as its state policy. HRK has established her credentials. The US will be particularly impressed. Has India been swept off its feet by the charm offensive of Pakistan? Or is there a change of heart in Pakistan to prompt concessions by India? Only time will tell.

2011-07-18T20:32:00.000-07:00

India-US: The Limits of Engagement

By T.P.Sreenivasan

Unsavoury incidents involving diplomats and their families are not rare in friendly countries at the best of times. The issues are dealt with in terms of diplomatic protocol and reciprocity, without even the press getting wind of it. When reciprocal expulsions become necessary occasionally, care is taken to order home those diplomats, who have completed their terms so that breaches of diplomatic civility do not cloud bilateral relations. But the US and India have been showing increasing irritability in dealing with such issues. Some harsh US actions have elicited uncharacteristically sharp responses from the South Block. The US is even holding up clearance for a new Indian Consulate in Seattle, Washington, according to press reports.

India-US relations are far too important, diverse and complex to be affected by thoughtless actions of law enforcement agencies or even diplomats. But the oversensitivity, demonstrated of late, appears symptomatic of a deeper malady. The creeping disillusionment in major areas seems to spill over to the diplomatic level. As Hillary Clinton packs her bags to come to Delhi and Chennai next week, she needs to think of ways and means to convince her hosts that the strategic partnership is alive and well. Hers is indeed a rescue mission. Many areas in the strategic partnership require immediate and focussed attention.

Of course, both sides will vehemently deny this proposition, as they did to me in Washington and New Delhi a couple of weeks ago. Both will point to the umpteen working groups, quietly working away to fulfil the promises of the Obama visit and the last round of the strategic dialogue, not to speak of high level visits from both sides. They will quote trade figures and speak of the intensity of the economic dialogue to demonstrate the robustness of the relationship. They will even attribute any gloomy assessments to ignorance. But ask them about civil nuclear cooperation, balance of trade, India’s candidature to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the record of cooperation in the Security Council on West Asia and non-proliferation and then you will hear from both sides the tales of unfulfilled promises and unchanging mindsets. The grievances on both sides are so well balanced that it is difficult to determine who should or can make the first move.

Since the nuclear deal had raised the highest hopes for a sea change in the relationship and had accomplished most, the disillusionment is also most acute in that area. Our perception is that President Bush signed the deal for his own selfish reasons, but the official line and popular thinking in America is that it was a price paid to win India as an ally. A senior American official recently repeated the question we had heard from 2005 as to what India had done in return for the nuclear deal, which dramatically changed India’s profile. The give and take within the deal itself is not at issue here, but the transformation of the relationship from a friend to an ally. India is willing to comply with the letter of the deal and expects the same from the US, but the US wishes to see fundamental changes in Indian policy. The US feels that while India has derived immense benefits from the deal, it has made no readjustments in policy, worthy of a natural ally of the United States. The unchanged voting pattern of India and echoes of cold war rhetoric continue to make them uneasy.

To make matters worse, the promise of nuclear trade worth billions of dollars has remained unfulfilled on account of the Liability Law and we have done little to help President Obama reduce his unemployment burden, which has reached unbearable proportions. No American President has won a re-election if the unemployment rate is 7% or above. There is no sign that President Obama can bring the unemployment down to safe levels by 2012. The “fighter aircraft shock” has worsened the situation. In the American view, India opted for the purchase of an aircraft from Europe, while the US was offering a friendship package. India, on the other hand, believes that we adopted the Liability Law in our own interests and chose the fighter that suited our functional requirements. These are done deals, which have little scope for changes at this stage.

India maintains that the US should find ways to accept the suppliers’ responsibility and also fulfil the promise of full civilian nuclear cooperation, including transfer of ENR technology, in accordance with the “clean” NSG waiver for India. India would also like the US to push harder for India to be admitted to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), a promise held out by President Obama during his visit. More than the practicality of these measures, the truth of the matter is that the Obama Administration would rather have no nuclear trade with India than dilute its non-proliferation commitments. I was told two years ago that the US would not be unduly concerned if there was no nuclear trade at all, provided it was compensated in other ways. ( “The US may have no nuclear trade with India” Rediff column dated April 21, 2009). Moreover, the increasing scepticism regarding nuclear power after Fukushima has also become a factor in nuclear cooperation. Steering around the nuclear irritant is still a major challenge.

On the Indian side, the lack of any forward movement on the reform of the Security Council after the promise held out by President Obama in the Indian Parliament is another instance of disillusionment. India continues its heroic efforts at the UN to move the proposal forward, but without any tangible support from the US. The latest G-4 move, masterminded by India, to seek an endorsement of the principle of expansion in both categories has elicited no US response. The US stakes in the expansion puzzle go beyond bilateral considerations.

If anything, India’s performance as a non-permanent member of the Security Council has only enhanced concerns in the US over revival of Indian “nonalignment”. On Iran, Libya and Syria, congruence of policies is hard to accomplish even with the best of intentions. The latest US moves in Afghanistan and Pakistan are hardly conducive to increase confidence either. The emerging contours of policy on both sides cause concern.

When Strobe Talbott, recently chosen by “India Abroad” for the Friend of India award, said bluntly that “India and the US are not now and may never be allies”, he was pointing to the fundamental contradiction in expecting a fiercely independent India to serve US interests in the region and the world. The public opinion in India is such that the assertion of a certain distance from the US policies is essential for any Government in New Delhi. The limits of engagement with the US, breached during the first term of the Manmohan Singh Government, have come into play once again. The Prime Minister does not have either the leisure or the energy to go beyond those limits as he had done during his first term. The US too has learnt its lessons on the extent of the strategic relationship possible with India.

The Hillary visit will certainly make progress on a number of vital issues of cooperation, the logic of which is beyond question. But an alliance of minds, which is essential to elevate the strategic partnership to a higher level, appears hard to accomplish. A new sense of realism, rather than undue optimism, will prevail in India-US relations in the future. As long as expectations are curtailed and mutuality is established, there will be neither recrimination nor disillusionment. In the end, it may not be a defining relationship of the new century, but a mutually beneficial partnership.

2011-07-01T06:18:00.000-07:00

MATTERING TO INDIA The Shashi Tharoor Campaign By T P Sreenivasan

THE TRIUMPH AND AFTER

P.Ravindran Nayar

T.P.Sreenivasan's book, "Mattering to India: The Shashi Tharoor Campaign" takes a critical look at the phenomenal sway the glamorous diplomat had over the ballots and his image as a politician which got mired in controversies.

The New Indian Express June 28, 2011

When Shashi Tharoor moved into a hill top house up a narrow by-lane in a quiet residential area in Thiruvananthapuram, prior to his contesting the parliament elections in 2009, the excitement among the people was palpable. The local residents were pleased that an internationally renowned UN diplomat and brilliant author, who had the additional qualification of being suave and handsome and genuinely articulate, had come into their midst, elevating the pot-holed by-lanes of Palace Garden to instant stardom. Taking up residence in Thiruvananthapuram was a precursor to, or rather a pre-requisite for, Tharoor’s seeking a ticket to contest the elections. And such was his charm that long before he quietly vanquished his detractors in the Congress Party, who were many, and made himself the favoured nominee of the party High Command for the Thiruvananthapuram seat, there were considerable sections of people, especially youngsters, who had made up their mind to vote for him in case he contested.
But winning the party ticket did not mean that it would be a cake walk for him in the election. Much needed to be done and his credible victory with an impressive margin was the result of really hard work put in by Tharoor, says former Ambassador T P Sreenivasan in his book Mattering to India:The Shashi Tharoor Campaign.
Sreenivasan has based his title on a flamboyant quote from Tharoor himself. ’India has always mattered to me. Now I want to matter to India,’ Tharoor had once said.
Being a close, long-time friend of Tharoor, what Sreenivasan has attempted is an intensely personal narrative on the runup to the elections and the many factors that led to Tharoor’s impressive victory with a huge margin. Sreenivasan was both an observer of and participant in many of the events recounted in this book.
Born in London, brought up mostly outside the state and working for long outside the country, Tharoor was in every way a rank outsider as far as Malayalees were concerned. His link to Kerala was mainly through his ancestral family in his native village of Kollengode, Palakkad district. But he had a far better link to educated Malayalees through his many books and countless articles on matters of interest to Kerala.
Srenivasan explains how such a virtual outsider, who was not proficient in the local language and had never lived in Kerala, overcame the several impediments he faced and generated a veritable Tharoor wave. With a team of aides, which included some of his friends and well wishers from abroad, Tharoor slowly but steadily worked his way up , neutralizing opposition and enlarging his support base. The campaign was hectic in the sense that on many days Tharoor was up and about for 22 hours a day, leaving just two hours for a catnap.
The book, which makes absorbing reading, gives rare insight into the manner in which Tharoor successfully overcame opposition to his candidature from within the Congress and outside. This included how he managed to negate the threat from two strong contenders for the party ticket, former MP V S Sivakumar and Vijayan Thomas,who was the main support base for the party’s television channel. According to Sreenivasan, Tharoor mollified these two with the help of the Congress High Command. Once he was sure of the party ticket, Tharoor sought to neutralize opposition from BJP leader and former Union Minister O Rajagopal who was most likely to be the BJP nominee.Though Rajagopal would not have won the seat he was sure of garnering a good chunk of the votes, reducing Tharoor’s chances of victory. Srenivasan says that it was through the good offices of Mata Amritanandamayi that Tharoor ensured that Rajagopal, her disciple, opted out of contest.
Statistics of the poll results apart, Sreenivasan has included guest essays from two journalists and some people involved with the campaign to supplement his views. Many of Sreenivasan’s articles on Tharoor during and after his abortive bid for the top post in the UN also find a place in the book. It has a Foreword by Dr Babu Paul,former Chief Secretary,Kerala, who does not conceal his fascination for Tharoor. ‘There is a certain charisma about the man. It is as if there is a magnet implanted somewhere in his thoracic cavity,’ he says.
Though the book was probably planned after his victory in the polls and his elevation to the Union Council of Ministers as Minister of State for External Affairs, by the time it was out Tharoor was embroiled in a series of controversies from Twitter to IPL and was out of the ministry.The book makes a detailed reference to these events, as also to his subsequent marriage to Sunanda Pushkar, in an epilogue which sums up the sordid resignation drama thus:
“The glittering image that Tharoor brought with him after his elitist and western upbringing and his life in rarefied circles dazzled many people. His apparent ability to play down that elitism and be one with the people in dress, food and language made him an instant hit. His impeccable image gave the impression that he would be the harbinger of change in Indian politics, which had become corrupt and inefficient. But the messiah image was marred when his elitism manifested itself in his five- star life style and fondness for fame, wealth and other pleasures of life. He is perceived today as clever and shrewd but not much different from others before him. He may well return to prominence and political leadership, not because of the promise that he will change the system, but because he is far less guilty than many others who have flourished in politics with fewer talents and skills.
“In George Bernard Shaw’s play Saint Joan, the executioner says after burning Joan of Arc at the stake that we have heard the last of her. Warwick, another character in the play, responds: ‘The last of her? Hm! I wonder!’
“We have not heard the last of Shashi Tharoor.”

Mattering to India The Shashi Tharoor Campaign
By T P Sreenivasan
Pearson
Pp 165 Price Rs 550

2011-06-21T14:40:00.000-07:00

Illusion of Immunity: Strauss-Kahn and Krittika Biswas

By T.P.Sreenivasan

The US State Department has responded on June 14 formally to India's protests over the arrest of Krittika Biswas. The reply is sugar coated, but the answer is an unambiguous assertion that dependents of officers of the Consular Corps are not entitled to diplomatic immunity.

Diplomatic immunity gives a sense of security to those who "lie abroad" for their nations, but it is best when it is not tested. Fortunate are those who enjoy the privileges such as duty and tax free facilities, but do not ever have to resort to immunity to escape action against criminal offenses. The cases of Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) and Krittika Biswas clearly illustrate that police authorities, particularly of the New York variety, have little respect for diplomatic niceties. For them, they are criminals first and Managing Director of the IMF and an Indian Vice-Consul's daughter later. They know that the lawyers will fight endlessly over the fine points of law,but they believe in instant justice for those who are criminals in their eyes.

The way the world has reacted differently to the two cases of violation of diplomatic immunity, however, indicates that the public accepts technical violations in the case of serious crimes, but questions them in cases of juvenile or light crimes. The way DSK was pulled out of a plane and taken handcuffed to jail for an alleged rape attempt, which had not yet been proved, inspired awe rather than derision, while the narration of the travails of an 18 year old hapless Krittika aroused sympathy for her and condemnation for the police. Popular perception, rather than diplomatic immunity, was the decisive factor, which determined public reaction to the two events. The Managing Director of the IMF, doubtless, had diplomatic immunity, but it became irrelevant, while Krittika's immunity was in question, but her humiliation stood condemned.

Diplomatic immunities and privileges should be the same in every country that has ratified the related Vienna Conventions, but in actual practice, different countries apply them differently. The more developed the country, the less respect for privileges and immunities. In India, for instance, even the junior most diplomats and consular staff are treated with respect even if they do not have privileges by the book. In New York, on the other hand, people complain about special parking spots and tax concessions for diplomats. Those in the line at a department store in New York openly protested when I handed my tax exemption card to the cashier and no amount of explanation that this was a reciprocal facility available also to the American diplomats in India satisfied them. "They should also not have such privileges", was the answer. Parking fines and towing were made applicable to diplomatic cars in New York after a public outcry. At one point, there was even a move to ship the UN out of New York on account of the presence of too many diplomats disturbing peace in New York even while building peace in other corners of the globe. The city appeared to be willing to give up the vast amount of revenue it earned from the UN presence there.

In most developing countries, diplomatic passport holders are waved off at immigration and customs counters, but in many western capitals, such privileges cannot be taken for granted. Terrorism and drug trafficking have made diplomatic privileges less relevant today than before.

In the case of Krittika, diplomatic privilege is only a side issue. The questions being asked in India are whether her alleged crime was serious enough to call the police and whether the police treated her harshly because of her colour and nationality. The answer may well be negative to both these questions. Diplomatic immunity for the children of the Consular staff is a matter of interpretation of the Vienna Convention and the US interprets it narrowly. The first mistake was made by the teacher by calling the police, which took disproportionate action. The details of her humiliation, which were given by Krittika, were abhorrent, to say the least. Like the Indian police, the New York police seemed unaware of the basic human rights of a teenager. Whether she had diplomatic privileges or not was not an issue here.

The racial overtone was given to the incident by the subsequent revelation that the actual culprit, a Chinese boy, was treated differently even after his guilt was established. Here, a charitable explanation could be that having faced charges by the Indian Consulate and others in the case of Kirttika, the police went soft on the Chinese boy. The mystery is that this incident, which took place in February, did not come to public attention till Krittika announced her intention to sue the New York City for one and a half million US Dollars. Was her decision to sue the city prompted by the subsequent soft handling of the Chinese case?

It is quite out of place to bring into this case India-US relations and China-US relations and their respective importance for the US. The State Department could never have instructed the police to run foreign policy. There could well be a certain animosity in certain circles towards foreigners in general, but it will not be limited only to brown colour. One far-fetched explanation could be that Indian children in American schools are so bright that there could be some envy towards them and an over zealous teacher may have tried to fix one of them.

Indians in the US are great achievers and they have begun to be noticed everywhere from the White House to the Board Rooms of big corporations. Inevitably, therefore, there have been instances of targeting them for harsh action even on suspicion of demeanor. Average Indians constantly complain of racial discrimination in matters of promotion and crucial appointments. But the success stories are overwhelmingly higher than instances of discrimination. Discrimination is certainly not the policy of the Government even if it is being practiced in certain circles. The US is still a country of equal opportunities even if some may feel deprived of their jobs by immigrants. In the case of Krittika, it could be a conspiracy between a teacher and a police official, but not racial discrimination or anti-Indian feeling. Even the earlier cases of disrespect to diplomats should not be construed as anti-Indian.

The Government of India was right in taking up the case in right earnest and in allowing Krittika to sue the city, but this case should not be mixed up with politics or with immunity issues. Some have called for reciprocity in applying the immunity provisions to American diplomats, which is fine, but there should not be any action that smacks of revenge. Diplomatic immunity is meant for ease of functioning, not to shield offenders and it should be applied more as an art rather than as a science. The New York police was praised for dealing with DSK, but was criticised in the case of Krittika and that is a lesson in itself.

2011-06-16T04:14:00.000-07:00

Legacy of Dr.Mathew Illickal

(Eulogy at the Memorial Service-- New York June 15, 2011)

My son has already spoken, more poignantly than I could, on our family ties to Dr. Mathew Illickal and his family. I have myself spoken yesterday how indebted we are to the Illickal family for enriching our lives in the last 31 years. Today, I shall speak more broadly, not just from the perspective of our family, about the legacy of Dr.Illickal, a legacy that makes us all feel proud.

First and foremost, his legacy is the family he has left behind. Lilykutty herself is his creation. She is not the same bride he brought along to these shores: she is today an accomplished lady, who is an asset to the community and to the society at large. His children, Mohan, Manoj and Maya and his grandchildren are the greatest gifts he has bequeathed to us. He will live on in them and remind us of him. His values will remain immortal.

Dr. Mathew’s professional legacy shall also last very long. I am sure his motivation to come to the US was to gain professional skills in this land of technology and research. He became one of the best in his profession as a surgeon, but he retained the traditional values of his Indian training. He relied on his touch, his instinctive understanding of the human body to heal, not merely on machines. I have never heard him speak of his accomplishments, which celebrities he has operated upon etc. But we knew his professional skills. We called him whether we had a cold or broken bones and he gave us the cure with his thoughtfulness and sympathy. He healed us in a way only God could, by giving us strength and confidence.

His legacy as an Indian immigrant to the United States is also a noble one. He did not leave India because he had a grievance or because he could not make a living there. And having come here, he did not ever denounce India or Indian medicine. He gave his life of service to his country of adoption and earned the respect and confidence of his patients at a time when Indian doctors were few and far between. If Indian Americans have won a place for themselves here and enhanced India’s prestige and influence, it is because of the hard work and talents of people like Dr. Illickal. He has done more to India-US relations than any ambassador could. Like other Indian Americans, he was a true ambassador of his country here. He did not speak nostalgically about returning home, but his wish to have his ashes sent home has revealed his passion for his motherland. If lekha was here, she would have spoken of the support he has extended to “Karuna”, the charity organisation to help the poor that Lilykutty heads in New York.

And more than anything else, his is the legacy of a perfect human being. He had no malice, no ill will. He had a beatific smile for everyone, a word of encouragement and comfort for everyone. He will be remembered for his aristocratic upbringing and unfailing humanity and humility. We are the poorer for his parting, but richer for his legacy. May his soul rest in peace.

2011-06-11T06:53:00.000-07:00

Engaging Global Indians

(My Remarks at the Plenary Seminar of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, Toronto. June 10, 2011)

I suspect that I am on this panel because I have had the experience of engaging global Indians in diverse situations in different times. I have dealt with the impoverished Indian farmers in Burma after the Indian exodus of the sixties, I have witnessed the military coup in Fiji against the Indians who made those islands a paradise on earth, I have been in Kenya where the Indians had virtual control over the economy, I have seen the emergence of Indian Americans as a powerful force in the United States since the eighties and I have engaged the largely professional Indian expatriates in Europe. As someone who lives in Kerala, I cannot be unaware of the problems and prospects of the Indians in the Gulf.

One conclusion I have reached from this experience is that there is no single formula that India can deploy to engage the diverse Diaspora it has around the world. India’s policies and approaches have also evolved over the years. In the early years of our independence, India had left Indian immigrants to find their feet in foreign lands with no expectation from them and no promises. India was a passive witness to the upheavals in Kenya, Uganda and the Caribbean, though India warmly welcomed those who returned to their motherland. In the second phase, India began to realize the value of engaging the Indian community abroad to seek technology and investment. That was a period of discovery for both India and the overseas Indians, but the bewildering diversity of demands on their side and limitations of action abroad by India led to a searching of souls by both. Today, we are in the third phase, in which the expectations on both sides have been toned down to a realistic level and India and her children abroad have begun to work in a cohesive manner.
India is today aware that engaging the global Indians should not be single dimensional. There are limits to the extent of investments that they can bring in. Other than the expatriates in the Gulf, the community will not make remittances to India. Demands for dual citizenship have been partially met. Welfare measures have been drawn up for those in need, particularly in the Gulf. The engagement is now deeper, multidimensional and mutually beneficial. The institutional framework has been established by the sagacious Indian leadership, particularly the Minister responsible for Overseas Indian Affairs.

Two major developments have helped to create the right atmosphere for engaging the global Indians for the benefit of the country. First, India’s unprecedented economic growth and its influence in the world have given global Indians greater pride and incentive to be partners in the great game. Their opportunities back in India have grown to such an extent that the thought of return to India is no more far-fetched. This does not mean that there will be a massive return to India. The psychological sense of security about a safe and prosperous homeland gives them greater confidence. I remember that during the Fiji crisis, Indians came to me not for Indian visas, but for Australian and American visas. India does not bewilder them anymore.

The second reason is the political and economic instability in certain parts of the globe. The power and economic centres of the world are shifting. During the recession in developed countries, India presented a relatively stable trajectory of growth. Some regions, who were considered stable and steady sources of energy, are witnessing dramatic changes and democratic aspirations. India presents an alternative in the event of instability and uncertainty and this creates a stake for the community in India’s growth and development.

The new situation has transformed the chemistry between India and the Indian community abroad. Today, Indian communities abroad are seeking innovative ways and means to participate in the exciting events in India. Tomorrow I shall be at a meeting of Indian professionals from Kerala in Chicago to draw up a programme to give professional support to the Government of Kerala. This initiative has come without any prodding from Kerala itself. This is just one example of how global Indians are seeking to network in India for mutual benefit.

India is also in the process of orienting its policies for the benefit of Indian communities abroad. Memories are still fresh about the role played by Indian Americans in finalizing the nuclear deal and in taking India-US relations to a higher level. The growth in this relationship will serve the interests of the Indian Americans. Similarly, the growth in cooperation with Canada is of benefit to the Indian community here. There is a greater emphasis today on developing close ties with countries which have large Indian communities in the developed and developing world. Strategies are being worked out to turn the Indian communities abroad as a powerful resource in our foreign policy. The maturity that has developed between India and the Indians abroad will be of immense benefit to both.

2011-06-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

Indians in the UN System

By T.P.Sreenivasan

You cannot throw a stone into the UN or its Specialized Agencies without hitting an Indian, but there are no Indians as chiefs in any of these bodies. Indians may do all the work and win approbation, but they continue to be sherpas and not summiteers. Even today, the highest level Indian in the UN system, Vijay Nambiar, is only the Chef d' cabinet, a glorified executive assistant to the UN Secretary General. None of the nearly twenty Specialised Agencies is headed by an Indian today, even though many Indians in key places may well be doing the work of these Agencies. After Arcot Ramachandran headed the UN Habitat in Nairobi many years ago, we have not been able to get a similar post even though we have highly qualified experts in many areas.

The reason for this sorry state of affairs is that we do not have a policy to create opportunities for deserving individuals to enable them to grow in the system. Even those who go fairly high do so by their own initiative and by pulling wires in the Government to gain support for one post or another. Many posts in the UN system are the preserves of different countries and the countries concerned plan the careers of successors in such a way that the jobs remain within the countries concerned or in the regional groups.

Even the Indian candidature for the post of the UN Secretary General was at the initiative of the candidate himself. The Government did not give any thought to finding a winnable candidate for the post and merely made Shashi Tharoor India's candidate after he decided to make a bid and influenced high places in India. Even after he became the official candidate, he did not get the whole-hearted support of those in the field and many of them were happy that he lost, as was predicted. It was argued that his candidature would stand in the way of reform of the UN and India winning a permanent seat in the Security Council.

The Asian Group in the UN is so diverse that there is hardly any possibility of agreement on a common candidate except on a rotational basis. There were already several Asian candidates, including Ban Ki-Moon when the Indian candidate emerged. Countries like Japan and Korea are able to get even posts considered preserves of other countries and groups by putting up candidates with relevant experience by keeping them in the mainstream for years. In our system, rotation is so sacrosanct that no individual is allowed to grow in any organisation beyond a few years.

Dr. Homi Bhabha helped establish the IAEA and his bust is still there outside the IAEA boardroom. But no Indian has risen to even the second level in the IAEA since then, though some of our scientists aspired to senior positions. Of course, our not signing the NPT had made several areas in the IAEA out of bounds for Indians.

The Indians who rise in the UN system are the objects of envy of their colleagues and every effort is made to get them back as soon as possible. Many diplomats have been forced to return to the country to protect their promotions in their own services, though now the Government is a bit more liberal in extending their deputation to the UN and other organisations.

We do not subscribe to the dictum that having Indians in high places in the UN system is helpful to India. Those who rise to these positions go out of their way to erase their Indian identity to become truly international civil servants. This is one of the reasons why those in the Government do not care to secure these jobs for Indians. Only personal networking enables them to get these jobs and the next time they look for the Indian ambassador is when they are due for a promotion or an extension. Most Indians in the UN system are no assets to the Indian missions accredited to them.

Most Indian PRs to the UN have managed to get positions in the UN, but not beyond Under Secretary General. None of them has contested for elected posts. Most heads of Specialised Agencies are elected and India is extremely reluctant to put up candidates. The myth is that contesting these posts will affect our chances for becoming a permanent member in the Security Council.

The World Bank and the IMF are even less democratic than the rest of the UN system because they operate on the basis of weighted votes. Even though we have good candidates and there is a general sentiment in favour of the highest jobs being made available to those outside the US or Europe, it will be very hard for India to get the top position in the IMF. India will be offered second or third positions as a compromise in the end.

There have been a few instances where it has suited the big powers to offer some high level positions to Indians. A few years ago, India got a very important post, but we paid a very high price for it by helping to bring down a fellow developing country head from another organization. Such deals may become increasingly possible, but we have to plan ahead and present acceptable candidates. No one gets top positions in the UN system by sheer merit. Major Powers should be made to develop vested interests in India or in certain Indians if Indians have to become chiefs in the UN system. Till then, Indians will be playing second fiddle or lead peacekeeping units under civilian bosses from the western world.

2011-05-31T16:20:00.000-07:00

Nuclear Power: The Third Way

By T.P.Sreenivasan

The expectation of the nuclear establishments around the globe soon after the Fukushima disaster was that the extreme anxiety about nuclear power would die down sooner or later and that business would be as usual thereafter. The world is not there yet, but time is not far when Fukushima will be just a bad memory except for those who were affected by radiation. Not to learn its lessons from Fukushima is a grave error that humanity can make.

Globally, polarization has taken place between those who are confident that the world can rely on nuclear power for all time to come and those who want to abandon nuclear power altogether immediately even if it means a drop in economic growth. Both these alternatives are not in the long term interests of the countries concerned. By holding future generations hostage to nuclear power, we are doing them a great injustice when we know that no nuclear reactor is absolutely safe. We have every right to jeopardize our own generation, but those unborn should not be victims of our blind faith or lack of innovation or imagination. By dotting our coast with nuclear domes, we are leaving the future generations to live under the hood of a cobra.

Those who insist that nuclear power should be abandoned altogether at this instant and switch to other sources seem to be in a dream world. The investments made in the development of nuclear energy, particularly in the developing world, have paid rich dividends. As of now, the cost of nuclear power production is comparable with other sources and helps reduce greenhouse gaseemissions. More than anything else, the current shortages of power cannot be met without expanding nuclear power in the short term.

In the present situation, where public opinion is divided between pro-nuclear and ant-nuclear activists, different Governments have responded differently to the Fukushima tragedy. Germany and Switzerland were unequivocal in their decision to phase out nuclear power. Others, including Japan, the US, China and India announced investigations and innovations to reduce dangers. Those who were on the threshold of the nuclear age have quietly dropped their plans. Even some of the countries, which have pledged to stay on course, will alter their plans, slow them down and look for alternatives, particularly if the safety reviews reveal inadequacies as in the case of the US. The studies have already concluded that the US reactors cannot withstand multiple natural disasters, as it happened in Japan. China has lost some of its enthusiasm for nuclear power. In India, the mood in the establishment is cool confidence that nothing will go wrong here. Inspections and studies are pro forma as the conclusion is known. India will continue to develop nuclear power to meet its energy needs, even if there is an element of risk in it. The Prime Minister has ruled out phasing out of nuclear power, regardless of the outcome of the studies. It calls into question the purpose of the studies themselves.

There must be a third way, since committing the world to perpetual use of nuclear power is hazardous and we are in no position to switch to alternatives immediately. India should be able to visualize a world without nuclear power after 20 or 30 years. The optimum average age of a nuclear reactor is 30 years and it will not be unreasonable to phase out the reactors, including the ones being installed now in a period of 30 years. Once we establish this as an objective, the entire planning of energy in India should be revised to ensure that we have sufficient capacity to develop alternative sources of energy within that period. Scientists speculate that if India had invested its resources and time on other forms of energy, we would not have needed nuclear power at all

India was the first country to give the world the vision of a world without nuclear weapons. The point that it was an impractical idea did not deter us from sketching the various steps that would lead to global zero. After the deadline that we had set for it passed, the world has woken up to the wisdom of it. Why do we not put on our thinking caps again and draw up a plan of phasing out nuclear power in 30 years? Such a timeframe will not immediately affect our nuclear programme, including acquisition of reactors from abroad. We can commission the French reactors, if the location is acceptable to the people in the area and develop an adequate safety system for a short period, rather than for an indefinite length of time. Inevitably, we need to develop alternatives like solar and wind energy, in addition to traditional sources, which have to be tamed to protect the environment. If fusion technology or any other safe method of using the atom develops in the meantime, we shall be prepared to adopt them in place of fission.

Fukushima has roused the conscience of humanity in a way Three Mile Island and Chernobyl had not done. Faster communications and deeper knowledge of what happened there has dramatically altered the way the world looks at nuclear power. To argue that nobody has died of radiation, while thousands have perished in the raging waves and the falling bricks is to underestimate the impact of Fukushima on the minds of the people.
What India says to the Ministerial Meeting of the IAEA, when it convenes in Vienna in the third week of June, 2011 will be hugely significant. If we merely say that we will undertake inspections and make our inspectors fiercely independent and our processes transparent, we will miss an opportunity to give humanity a way to break away from fear. The choice should not be between fear of radiation and lack of development. A proposal by India to strive towards a nuclear power free world by 2040, with adequate development of alternative sources will be a major contribution to the outcome of the June conference.

2011-05-27T06:23:00.000-07:00

Obama Embraces the Arab Spring

T.P.Sreenivasan

President Barack Obama can never be faulted for his choice of words. His assessment of the Arab Spring and the US role in it was no exception. "Change cannot be denied", he said and proceeded to endorse the movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain. Claiming to open a new chapter in American diplomacy, Obama spoke out clearly in favour of democratic change, urging the leaders of the region either to lead the transition or get out of the way. "America values the dignity of the street vendor in Tunisia against the raw power of the dictator", he declared.

What pleased the President about the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and the demands for change in other parts of the Middle East and North Africa was that they meant rejection of the ways of Osama Bin Laden, who believed that violent extremism alone would take the Islamic world to the promised land. As Tom Friedman pointed out, Laden lived long enough to see the death of his philosophy in the Arab world. The people in the region had taken their future into their own hands and they had achieved more in six months than terrorists had accomplished in decades. In the circumstances, the rest of the world, particularly the US should readjust their policies to remain relevant.

President Obama admitted that the core interests the US had pursued in the region, such as counter terrorism, non-proliferation, free trade, security, Israeli friendship and Arab- Israeli peace had not helped to eliminate mistrust. Self determination of individuals would be as important as stability and , therefore, the US would oppose repression and support universal human rights.In dealing with specific cases, President Obama sought to find common elements in all of them, which deserved the US support. Seeking democratic change in the Arab world was an opportunity for the US.

But more importantly, President Obama recognized that politics alone did not put protesters into the streets. Though there were islands of prosperity in these countries, many had difficulty putting the food on the table. Talents were in plenty, but corruption and authoritarianism denied opportunity to young people. President Obama outlined a number of measures ranging from writing off Egypt's debt to multilateral and bilateral assistance to the countries that emerged from repressive regimes.

No speech on the Arab world could conclude without a road map for Israel and Palestine. In fact, it would have made no sense if the President had made no mention of this core issue on which the future of US- Arab relations would depend. A day before receiving Prime Minister Natenyahu in the White House, Barack Obama became the first US President to explicitly state that the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps. He was categorical about the unshakable US commitment to Israel's security, but the principles he laid down for an eventual solution based on Israel and Palestine existing within recognized and secure borders were unexceptionable, The plans were opposed instantly by Israel, Hamas and the Republican Party, a sure sign that Obama plans had the potential to move towards a compromise.

Like the Cairo speech two years ago, the Arab Spring speech too was an effort to build bridges with the Islamic world. Coming as it did after the elimination of Bin Laden, the speech was particularly conciliatory except in the case of Iran and Syria, which were clubbed together for supporting terrorism and repressing their own people. A heavy dose of economic measures will be welcomed by the new regimes, which have to grapple with depleted treasuries and development challenges. The President sought to justify US intervention in Libya and hinted that the US would not hesitate to step in wherever the new spirit of democracy faced resistance.

Barack Obama mentioned virtually every country, which had shown signs of unrest, but steered clear of even mentioning Saudi Arabia, an omission, which was carefully noted by analysts. But the sweeping generalisations he made about the elements of the Arab Spring cannot but apply to Saudi Arabia also. But there is no denying the fact that each situation would require a different principle and policy.

President Obama has a greater reputation as an orator rather than as a statesman. His readiness to pursue American national interests at any cost, even by initiating new wars and other forms of intervention has detracted from his messiah image he had before the election. The US foreign policy has shown no great change since Barack Obama became President. Expectations about peace breaking out on all fronts, on the basis of which President Obama was given a Nobel Prize for Peace were belied. Against such a record, the Arab Spring speech would also be read with skepticism, cynicism and even disbelief. The world will welcome the lofty ideas that have figured in the speech, but the credibility deficit will remain till the US conduct on the ground matches the President's golden vocabulary.

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2011-05-14T18:21:00.000-07:00

India-US Relations at Crossroads

By T.P.Sreenivasan

The killing of Osama Bin Laden came at a time when India-US relations were at a low point of the roller coaster ride to which these relations have often been compared. After the visit of President Obama, which kindled hopes of raising those relations to a higher level, it appeared as though India was distancing itself from Washington to assert its independence. The US too had other preoccupations, particularly the "Arab Spring"in which an Indian partnership was ruled out. The postponement of the strategic dialogue, India's vote on Libya in the United Nations Security Council, India's overtures to Iran and its role in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit were seen as straws in the wind. To crown it all, India announced that it had shortlisted two European fighters, ignoring American demarches at the highest level that acquisition of US fighters would contribute to the strategic relationship between the two countries.

While India has maintained that the choice of the fighters was motivated solely by the technical specifications, many strategic thinkers in the US and India felt that India had missed an opportunity to cement the strategic relationship at a time when India faced multiple threats. But an Indian-American executive of one of the firms, which unsuccessfully bid for the Indian contract for 126 Multi- Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA), was surprisingly unperturbed by the news of the Indian decision to go for one of the European fighters.He said that the US had known for some time that India was apprehensive about the US fighters because of the US involvement with Pakistan. In the event of a war with Pakistan, India would be disadvantaged by the superior capability that Pakistan might have already obtained from the US.. Moreover, there would be many linkages between the suppliers of aircraft to India and Pakistan. But he said that he was much relieved that India had not chosen the Russian aircraft. The US would gain substantial profits from the Indian deal with Europe and, therefore, he saw no reason for the new deal to have any impact on India-US relations.The joint ventures between the two countries and proposals for Indian investments would balance the loss in the aircraft deal. Even the delay in orders for nuclear reactors on account of the Nuclear Liability Bill would be of no consequence, he said.

On the contrary, the resignation of the US Ambassador to India, Tim Roemer, was clearly linked to the strenuous efforts he had put in to persuade India to purchase the planes from his country. His parting message that he was satisfied with the state of relations between the two countries did not carry conviction. His embarrassment about the revelations in Wikileaks about his assessment of the events and people in India would have also contributed to his predicament.

The full story of the postponement of Hillary Clinton's visit to India for continuing the strategic dialogue has not yet come to light. Some speculate that it was the fear of direct pressure on the MCRA deal that prompted India to seek a postponement. The visit is now scheduled to take place in July 2011.

The Nuclear Liability Bill was a big blow to the US businesses, which were poised to get a captive contract worth ten billion dollars as a direct outcome of the nuclear deal. Promises given to find a way around the liability of suppliers by elaborating rules on the bill have remained unfulfilled. The US India Business Council and other business groups must be frustrated that the heavy investments made in getting the nuclear deal through gave no returns. The Fukushima disaster has also cast its shadow on the use of nuclear power.

For the US, "the most unkindest cut of all" must be the role played by India at the BRICS summit in China. The summit sought to undermine the role of the dollar and also embraced the Chinese economic and financial agenda. India's abstention on the vote on Libya in the Security Council was a meaningless gesture against intervention, when it had nothing to gain from Gaddafi and when the Arabs and the Africans had no qualms about supporting the west. The BRICS rubbed the point in, much to the chagrin of the US and NATO. The fact that India gained little in the summit and the subsequent bilateral talks with China gave India no alibi for taking these positions. China diluted the position of the other four in BRICS on Security Council reform, making it even less supportive than the US position.

India's overtures to Iran, leading to a possible visit to Tehran by the Prime Minister must also be of concern to the US. Even in the best of times, the hoards of American think tankers, who came to Delhi had only one question to ask of India - whether India would be willing to dissuade Iran from taking the nuclear weapon route. Our standard reply that we have a civilisational link with Iran and even today, we meet a large chunk of our energy needs from Iran has never impressed them.The revival of the pipeline must be anathema to the Americans.

The US too has contributed to the decline in the relationship by seemingly unintended acts of omission and commission. Airport officials did not mean any offence to India, when in two separate and unconnected incidents, they were discourteous to two Indian envoys, but the Indian media played them up as deliberate anti-Indian moves. The treatment meted out to the Indian students, who became the victims of an education scam did not help either. President Obama's remark that the Americans will not need to go to India for cheap health care was not taken kindly in India. None of these had a any substantive content, but the cumulative effect was far from favourable to the atmospherics.

In actual fact, however, the two countries are quietly working on many issues of vital concern to them. Much more needs to be done to coordinate efforts for stability in West Asia and Africa, not to speak of the traditional areas of cooperation, such as nuclear non-proliferation, climate change, piracy and disaster management.The post -Fukushima concerns on nuclear safety is another area for joint research and effort. India has more to gain from the US than from any other country at this time. Frittering away the gains of the Bush era and the early days of Obama for the sake of appearing to be distancing ourselves from the west may hurt our interests. If the US begins to be vengeful and strike where it hurts most like technology transfer, Indian American interests, Indian education and work visas, the losses will be substantial.

The killing of Osama bin Laden is an opportunity and a challenge for India-US relations, though its importance should not be exaggerated. The elimination of the most significant symbol of international terrorism should give us reason for comfort. Though the Indian Prime Minister was not on the list of the world leaders, whom Obama called soon after his success in bringing a closure to 9/11, Dr. Manmohan Singh reached out to him in a matter of days and presumably congratulated him. He must have expressed the hope that Pakistan would now be more receptive to India's demand for bringing the culprits of 26/11 to book. The US itself has been forthcoming in revealing that ISI operatives may have been behind the Mumbai attack.

The perceived deterioration in the relations between the US and Pakistan may have no impact on India-US relations, essentially because the present phase will be temporary, if not imaginary.US-Pakistan relations will return to normal in a very short time as they have a logic and resilience going back to half a century. India cannot step into the role that Pakistan had assumed in 2001both because of the nature of our polity and our national pride.

A thought has also arisen that India should rush to normalise relations with Pakistan and be supportive to Pakistan at this difficult juncture. In fact, such a suggestion was made by some at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. They felt that India and Pakistan should form a united front against the Soviet Union to stop the intervention in Afghanistan. It may we ll have happened if Indira Gandhi had not returned to power before such a move gained currency. Any effort to befriend Pakistan at this point in misplaced sympathy will be dangerous. If anything, India should go slow in its ebngagement with Pakistan till Pakistan sets its house in order after the trauma of Abbottabad.

The best hope is that the present phase is the inevitable descent of the roller coaster before it gains momentum again to climb even higher. The imperatives of cooperation are much stronger than the impulse to appear distant from the Dhritarashtra's embrace that the US connection is considered to be..

2011-05-05T23:44:00.000-07:00

A Sting Operation

By T.P.Sreenivasan

A recording of the scene is still available on Youtube. President Barack Obama is in the White House, giving a serious interview on live television. A fly enters and hovers around the President, much to his annoyance. He gets distracted, tries to chase it away with his hands. The fly settles down on his knee and the President, as it befits the Supreme Commander of the armed forces of a Super Power, kills the fly with a sudden swift blow and throws the carcass on to the white carpet. The interviewer stares first at the President and then at the the fly reeling in pain in its last moments. The President resumes the interview as though nothing has happened.

My experience, though similar to Obama's, ended differently. First of all, it was not a fly, but a wasp that came into the studio as I was recording my weekly programme. I had the possibility of stopping the recording and dealing with the wasp, but I did not want to interrupt the lively conversation with my guest. When the wasp settled down on my right hand, I should have killed it with my left hand. But not being trained even in Kerala's martial arts, I decided to follow the principle of coexistence. But the wasp had not heard of such principles and did what comes naturally to him, or maybe her, a sharp sting that sent shivers into my spine. The producer must have noticed the grimace on my face, but he realised that I had no intention to ask for a cut. I proceeded to ask the next question and the next till I finished the programme. I am sure, my viewers noticed the change in my demeanor, but thought that the subject was too serious to permit a pleasant face.

The sting, I found, is in the tail as I watched my hand growing in dimension as hours passed. Remedies were suggested by everyone who saw my hand or an image on facebook posted by me to alert the world about the hazards of broadcasters. These ranged from taking an ant-histamine tablet (which is what I did on my way back from the studio) to going to a doctor immediately for an injection.. Home remedies like rubbing shallot juice, warm salt water, turmeric paste and lime juice were suggested.The most amusing advice was that I should see a doctor if swelling lasted for more than four hours, reflecting a commercial about a tablet meant for a different purpose.

Theories too were in abundance. Someone suggested that the wasp was sent by someone who had an argument with me on an election campaign recently. Another had no doubt that it was a diplomatic sting, a tit for tat for the diplomatic stings I may have inflicted on others. (He mentioned Fiji specifically) Yet another thought that my views on endosulfan may have provoked the wasp. But actually my view that the poisonous insecticide should be banned should be helpful to insects.The best description of the action of the wasp was that it was a sting operation. A touching comment was simply 'sad'. Someone even claimed responsibility for the sting and threatened to do it again, if I did not improve!

Someone recalled the scene in Kalidasa's 'Shakuntala', in which King Dushyant enters in the pretext of saving a damsel in distress, being chased by a bee. Struck by the infinite beauty of Shakuntala, he was waiting in the wings to get close to her. We know the consequences of the bee episode in the play.

All is well that ends well. I did not appear cruel to animals on the screen.The avil tablet and some shallot juice healed me and I can now play golf and even manage a Bharatanatyam mudra with my right hand.

The New Indian Express May 6,2011

2011-05-05T00:30:00.001-07:00

Implications of Osama's killing exaggerated.

By T.P.Sreenivasan

Children say the damnedest of things. They also make the wisest of statements. A Malayalam poet wrote, "Children, who cannot put words together, you are the ones, who have the vision and the knowledge of God's will." This has been proved once again, when my granddaughter, Durga's response to the news of Osama Bin Laden's death was, "Oh! I thought he was dead long ago!" Apparently,other children reacted similarly, according to facebook entries from around the globe. Then why are the adults so excited? Why are they over analyzing the impact of a death that occurred, at least figuratively, quite some time ago? Are we not exaggerating the importance of Osama's death to the US, to President Obama, to Pakistan, to international terrorism, and most of all, to India?

I do not dispute President Obama's claim that Osama was found hiding under the nose of the Pakistanis and that, in a swift and efficient operation, US soldiers killed him in a firefight, with no losses to American lives. I do not also dispute the claim that Osama was given a decent burial, with Islamic funeral rites.in the deep sea. I am sure the DNA has been preserved before the body was disposed off. But this was clearly the whirlwind which came after the wind was sewn decades ago.The world will move on,more or less in the same wayward way as before, even after his death. Osama could well have lived on without making much of a difference to the world.

There was only one logic in the timing. President Obama's reelection campaign had begun and it was time that he justified his Nobel Prize for Peace by getting out of at least one of his wars. The timing of the killing was chosen by him to register a victory and to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan after installing a hotch-potch government which would not threaten his homeland security. He may well win his second term on account of bringing Osama to justice, though public memory may not outlast any other event that may affect the verdict. Osama had become irrelevant to Al Queda except as a symbol of Jihad. The terrorist outfit will survive and regroup itself to give cause for concern to the west and others, but this was inevitable whether Osama died in his bed or killed in battle.

As for the war on terror, this is a milestone, but the road extends beyond the horizon. There are enough individuals, organisations and states, which believe in terrorism as a justifiable way of gaining the advantages that cannot be obtained by legitimate means. No reason exists for jubilation, as was seen in the streets of the US. The US and the world cannot afford to bring their guard down. The massive investments made for security around the world will still be justified as terrorists look for new and innovative methods to beat the system. In fact, one of the legacies of Osama is the suffering undergone by ordinary people at the airports and elsewhere. As someone observed rightly, the best punishment for Osama would have been to make him go through airport security day in and day out for the rest of his life.

Pakistan will not change a bit even after Osama. Someone said that Pakistan has not yet decided whether it should take cash or credit for Osama's killing. They are inclined to claim cash from the US rather than deny the US the credit for the masterly operation. It suits them to protest about violation of sovereignty and appear disgruntled, having done nothing to protect their prized possession. The whole point of protecting him was to fatten him and to hand him over to the US at the most opportune moment as Pakistan had no use for him. No one believes that Pakistan was unaware of Osama's whereabouts or the timing of the US operations. More information will become available about Pakistan's complicity and duplicity, but that will not add anything to the information the world already has, if it wants to punish Pakistan. Pakistan's friends, particularly China, will continue to nurse it as a potential guarantee against India's unbridled rise politically and economically. Nothing will change even in the US position that Pakistan should not be allowed to fail. The US does not want Pakistan either to break up or fall into the hands of fundamentalists. the US has been saying for long that India should work with those in power in Pakistan, because those who came after them would have longer beards! Osama or no Osama, Obama or no Obama, the US-Pakistan relations will remain robust. Tensions and differences of opinion will persist between them, but, in the ultimate analysis, the big brother will prevail.

India has no reason to rejoice in Osama's exit from the scene. Laskar-e-Toiba and the other outfits are nurtured not by Al Queda, but by the Pakistani intelligence and state.They will not change their spots. The hope that the world will be convinced that Pakistan was culpable for 26/11, now that it has been caught cheating the US is far-fetched. Nobody is looking for new evidence. Whether we begin the dialogue or not, the perpetrators of 26/11, including Kasab will survive one way or another. Brave words have been spoken by our hawks that we should follow the US example and take out the criminals ourselves, but there are more who say we do not have either the will or the capability to do that. Even nuclear war is considered a possibility in the event of any dirty trick. We have no lesson to learn from the Obama killing. Our enemies are better protected than the hapless, sick (and reportedly phoneless and internetless) and fragile Osama, who found his watery grave. They do not face the wrath of a super power as Osama did. India has to muddle its way through the perfidy of Pakistan, blowing hot and cold, using the carrot and the stick. The dead Osama will not influence war or peace with Pakistan, just as the living Osama did not.

Elimination of Osama was a declared objective of the war on terror. His killing was essential for the US to declare victory before beginning its withdrawal from Afghanistan. An Afghan dispensation friendly to Pakistan will more than compensate for the present loss of face for Pakistan. Sacrificing Osama is a small price to pay for such a long term gain for Pakistan. The timing of the killing of Osama may have suited the US strategy in the Afpak region and it may have executed it on its own, but Pakistan may well stand to gain by the action, whether there is already a deal or not On previous occasions, reports on Osama's death were exaggerated, but this time the implications of his death are unduly exaggerated.

2011-04-26T19:20:00.000-07:00

Column in New Indian Express titled New Five Make Right Noise
April 27,2011

Brick By Brick- India in New Five to Assert Independence

By T.P.Sreenivasan

India appears to be building a wall between itself and the Unites States brick by brick after five years of building bridges with Washington. The BRICS summit in Sanya in China was the latest instance of the demonstration by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that his strategic partnership with the US does not preclude other coalitions of convenience.The Libya vote in the UN Security Council, friendly gestures to Iran and cricket diplomacy with Pakistan were the other signals.The BRICS summit did not advance any of India's vital interests, but provided another forum for India to assert its independent foreign policy.

Diverse as they may be, with little political glue, the BRICS states made tentative steps towards a common position not only on economic matters, but also on some sensitive political issues. China characterised it as "a defining force to shape the new international political and economic order." But the US, like Banquo's ghost, hovered around the room in Sanya and moderated and diluted the outcome. Each one of the New Five has more to gain from the US than from each other, however keen they are to find a common cause. The presence of two of the P-5 in the New Five makes it a strange mix.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa have more things that divide them than those that unite them. Russia and China and China and India are more adversarial than comradely.Brazil and South Africa have their own grievances against India as they had voluntarily given up their nuclear option, while India gained the best of both worlds by testing and later signing the nuclear deal with the United States. Brazil and South Africa are bitter about Chinese economic policies, which have impacted them adversely. There is no precedent to a name coined by a private financial institution becoming the nomenclature of an international economic or political grouping. The term, BRIC was coined by Goldman Sachs to characterise the phenomenon of four large and emerging economies, not to turn them into power brokers. The Chairman of Goldman Sachs has noted that the five countries do not have same interests, their wealth per head is different and their politics and philosophy are different.

Another grouping, India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) is already in existence with democracy and development goals as a platform and the emergence of BRICS is likely to weaken this useful association. As the largest developing countries with global aspirations, the three countries have a clear political and economic agenda, which must be pursued.

Although the initial steps to turn BRIC into a viable grouping were taken by Russia, China has now taken charge by first inducting South Africa and then hosting the first BRICS summit.With the addition of South Africa, BRIC not only became BRICS, but also a new reality with representation from all continents. Two of them are permanent members of the Security Council and three are non-permanent members with aspiration for permanent membership. Such a group as this cannot but command attention.

What transpired in Sanya was no less impressive. Apart from the expected call for reform of global financial and monetary institutions, the New Five decided to take law into their own hands by deciding to use their currencies for the transactions among themselves, though it will not amount to more than 1 percent of world trade. China extracted its pound of flesh by getting the five to endorse its own agenda of seeking Yuan to be in the basket of currencies for SDRs even though it is not fully convertible. China's currency revaluation, a matter of urgency for the other participants, was not on the agenda. China, however, agreed to import more value added products from the other four states. Russia gained support for its membership of the World Trade Organisation. India did not get much except vague support for Security Council reform without any mention of expansion of permanent membership, despite the fact that four out of the five are committed to it. Even the lukewarm US support for India goes beyond "comprehensive reform of the UN, including its Security Council" advocated by BRICS. As the host, China has orchestrated the outcome to its advantage.

Russia and China were in a position to veto the Libya resolution in the Security Council, authorising humanitarian intervention in Libya, but chose to abstain, thus enabling the US and NATO to have their way. South Africa had actually voted for the resolution. India and Brazil, which abstained more to distance themselves from US interventionism than to support Gaddafi, found some consolation in the group favouring a negotiated rather than a forced settlement in Libya. "We share the principle that the use of force should be avoided", they said, extending support for the efforts of the African Union.The clear signal from Sanya was that BRICS will be a pressure group within the G-20 and the Security Council to counter the US. But care was taken not to be provocative or confrontational as they have to gain much from their partnership with the US.The P-5 spirit may well remain intact even after the Sanya summit.

India found another brick for its wall by mending fences with China. India announced resumption of defence exchanges with China without a solution for the issue which prompted the suspension of the exchanges in the first place. China has not yet withdrawn its practice of issuing residents of Jammu and Kashmir "paper visa" for China. India made another concession by accepting unwritten conditions on the composition of defence delegations, which will visit China.Even the formation of a new mechanism to tackle issues arising on the border was no concession by China. If anything, it recognised the Chinese position that the border issue was too complex to be resolved in a hurry.Improvement of relations without any notable change in the Chinese assertiveness is of no value except as a signal to the United States.The Chinese encouragement to Pakistan's belligerence and its border claims remained untouched.

Like in the old days of the Non-aligned Movement, the signatories to the declaration will rush to Washington to put the best possible construction on the wording to convince the United States that they did not mean to offend its sensitivities. The old game of public declarations and private confessions will continue. But, for each member of the group, BRICS has its uses.They have to build their defences against the United States brick by brick

2011-04-23T07:04:00.000-07:00

IAEA- The Way to go after Fukushima.

By T.P.Sreenivasan

A distressed Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),who helplessly witnessed a nuclear catastrophe in his own homeland with no authority or capability to help, has invited the foreign ministers of member countries to Vienna in June to devise ways and means to strengthen the safety role of the Agency. Normally, conclaves of the IAEA are gatherings of top nuclear scientists and Vienna based diplomats, who claim monopoly of wisdom on matters nuclear and insist that the greatest danger to the world arises from proliferation of nuclear weapons beyond the designated nuclear weapon powers. But this time, the invitees are policy makers, who have to think out of the box to rid the world of the scourge of nuclear accidents.Safety is too important a subject to be left to those with vested interests.

Perhaps, the June meeting may eventually be attended only by the scientists, now that the horrors of Fukushima have gone off the television screens and comfort is being sought in the thought that no one has died of radiation as against the thousands that perished on account of the earthquakes and tsunami. The two workers who were found dead in the reactors may have, after all, died of falling debris.Like the Three Mile island and Chernobyl, Fukushima will fade into history as another accident that did not need any more attention than its predecessors.But it will be unconscionable for the June meeting to just pay lip service to the safety mantra and move on with the business as usual in the comfort that God is in his heaven and all is well with the world.

The world seems to have long forgotten that the IAEA was created to harness atoms for peace safely without diverting them for military use.The subsequent emergence of the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) turned the Agency into a proliferation watchdog, with much of its resources devoted to the safeguards aspect of its activities. Rightly did the Director General lament that the IAEA was not a safety watchdog and it had no choice but to be on response mode when a meltdown took place in Fukushima. It took several days before the IAEA was given any responsibility. It had no source other than the operators to tell them about the seriousness of the situation.

Prevention of accidents should be the highest priority for the IAEA. Its role should start from the designing of reactors and continue through installation and operation. Presently, such responsibilities rest with private companies, for whom profitability is paramount. Even state authorities give importance to efficiency and cost rather than safety. Apart from setting standards, the IAEA should be involved in selecting venues to ensure that the places, which are vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis are excluded. It should be mandatory to involve the IAEA at every stage and the IAEA should, in turn, be given the resources necessary to respond to requests immediately and meaningfully. Peer reviews organised under the aegis of the Agency must also be mandatory for member states to accept.

Should an accident occur, the IAEA should be instantly involved in minimizing the danger of radiation and in defending the population against its evil impact. Questions of sovereignty should be set aside as in the case of humanitarian intervention in the event of internal conflicts.To equip the IAEA to perform such functions, there should be a team at the disposal of the Director General, which can be deployed at short notice, much like the rapid deployment forces maintained by Governments.

When a group of eminent persons formulated a vision for the IAEA in 2020, the focus was on a nuclear renaissance, which seemed to be in the offing. Today, the priority is to restore confidence in the people, particularly in the vicinity of reactors. The Governments have little credibility in this matter and the IAEA should fill the gap.

The June conference should restore the balance originally envisaged between promotion of nuclear energy, safety and safeguards. The overwhelming importance given to safeguards has deprived the Agency of its safety dimension.Nuclear power will inevitably lose much of its sheen in the aftermath of Fukushima. Only after safety is ensured can the IAEA engage in promotion of nuclear power.The IAEA should become as much a watchdog of safety as it is of non-proliferation.

The world, still in the throes of the nightmare of Fukushima, looks to the Vienna conclave with hope and expectations.Its success lies in enabling the IAEA to play its role in preventing nuclear accidents and assisting countries to battle the aftermath of accidents, if any. The future of nuclear power will depend on the confidence that that the IAEA can eventually instill in humanity.

2011-04-18T08:08:00.000-07:00

Nuclear Power After Fukushima

(An All India radio Talk recorded on April 18, 2011)

The Fukushima nuclear disaster could not have come at a more inopportune moment for nuclear power around the world, particularly in India. The stage was set for an exponential expansion of nuclear power as a source of energy because of the scientific evidence that use of fossil fuels was positively harmful to the environment on account of the emission of greenhouse gases. Nuclear power, on the other hand, was seen as clean, long lasting and economical, compared to the other energy sources.

The world was on the verge of a nuclear renaissance, with nearly fifty new countries opting for the generation of nuclear power. The United States, which had built no nuclear reactors for more than twenty years, began construction of new nuclear reactors. China was poised to expand its nuclear power generation dramatically. India, which had an ambitious plan for generation of nuclear power, but was hampered by shortage of uranium and a ban on exports of nuclear material to India, was ushered into an era of expansion of nuclear power when the India – US civilian nuclear deal opened the option for India to import nuclear fuel and reactors from diverse sources. India saw nuclear power as the panacea for its power shortage and development constraints.

The world was not unaware of the danger of nuclear accidents when reactors were initially designed and built. The locations of reactors were chosen with extreme care to protect them from natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis. Heavily populated areas were excluded to the extent possible for fear of radiation in the event of a meltdown. Two major nuclear accidents, one on the Three Mile Island in the United States and the other in Chernobyl in Ukraine shocked the world, but they both turned out to be on account of human error, not design or functional faults. Other minor accidents also did not reveal any fundamental flaws in the science of nuclear power generation. Nuclear reactors withstood the onslaught of earthquakes and tsunamis by shutting themselves down and maintaining cooling systems to contain the generation of heat. There was a sense of comfort that nuclear reactors were safe, as long as normal precautions were taken and strict safety standards were observed.

Fukushima shook us in to the realization that calculations with regard to the intensity of earthquakes and tsunamis could go dangerously wrong and a combination of the two natural phenomena could bring havoc to reactors and endanger humanity itself. The Fukushima earthquake was more than 9 on the Richter scale and the tsunami, which followed, was of unprecedented proportions. Though the safety systems installed in the reactors kicked in as expected, they were knocked out one after the other, leading to a meltdown with grave consequences for human, animal and plant life. The reactors shut down instantly and the cooling systems began working, but both the electric systems as well as the diesel generators were devoured by the high tsunami waves, leaving pumping massive amounts of sea water as the only option to cool the reactor. It took the heroic Japanese workers several days to contain the damage, but not before Fukushima went into history as the worst nuclear accident in history, with consequences, as yet, unknown.

Many years will pass before we realize the full extent of the damage inflicted by Fukushima, but it has shaken the faith in the minds of many about the safety of nuclear power. Whatever may be its other benefits, nuclear reactors have begun to be seen as potential killers with transnational reach. Germany instantly announced its intention to phase out nuclear power as a source of energy. So did Switzerland. Other countries announced thorough reviews of their nuclear installations to reassure themselves of foolproof safety. Construction of new reactors was delayed, pending installation of additional safety features. Regulatory authorities were strengthened and peer reviews were invited. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) discovered its own weaknesses in ensuring safety and called an international conference in June 2011 to take remedial action. Fears of a terrorist attack on nuclear reactors were also revived in the minds of the people in vulnerable countries. The traditional anti-nuclear countries and lobbies began a crusade against nuclear power.

The inveterate optimists, however, began searching for the silver linings on the dark clouds. They argued that deaths caused by the nuclear meltdown were much lower than those on account of fallen buildings and floods. They also took comfort in the thought that earthquakes and tsunamis of Fukushima were unprecedented in scale and might never occur again. The lessons of Fukushima would make the future reactors more safe and secure. It was also pointed out that it would not be easy for countries like France, China, the United States and India to abandon nuclear power for decades to come even if other sources of energy were developed at a fast pace. The only feasible proposition would be to strengthen safety and security to the extent possible and accept the risks.

In India, the Fukushima disaster has only caused some ripples, not waves. The official reaction is that Fukushima is a wake-up call and that all efforts should be made to make nuclear power generation safer and more secure. The scientists involved swear that the Indian facilities are safe and that the locations selected for the old and the new reactors are not prone to earthquakes and tsunamis. Further precautions will be taken by building additional features. But reconsideration of the role of nuclear energy is out of the question. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said as recently as on April 15, 2011: “I am convinced that when all is said and done, when cool headed discussions take place about the future of energy, what are the problems with coal, what are the problems with hydrocarbons, in terms of their impact on climate change, there would be no reconsideration about the role of nuclear energy.”

The question, however, is whether Fukushima will fade away into memory like its predecessors did and business will continue as usual, with minor modifications in design and construction of nuclear reactors. Will the people of India, particularly those who live in the vicinity of nuclear reactors, accept the inevitability of living in the shadow of danger? Is it conscionable for us to condemn the future generations to constant fear of another Fukushima? Should we not think in terms of making a long term plan for developing alternate sources to such an extent that we can reduce and eliminate our dependence on nuclear power? India gave to the world a vision of a nuclear weapon free world. Should we not give to the world a vision of a nuclear power free world?

In my view, these questions have to be answered after relooking at the options available to us at this critical time. No doubt, India cannot abandon its path of relying on nuclear power in the short term. But while reviewing its policy, no option should be excluded, not even the option of a carefully orchestrated exit from dependence on nuclear power. Future generations should not challenge our wisdom in dotting our coastal areas with daunting metal domes of nuclear reactors, rather than the soothing windmills that rotate in the breeze and fuel our energy generation. The victims of Fukushima will not have died in vain if the accident leads to a relook at nuclear power policy around the world to ensure generation of power without undue risk to mankind.

2011-04-07T09:12:00.000-07:00

Make the IAEA the Nuclear Safety Watchdog.

By T.P.Sreenivasan (From Vienna)

A glaring irony created by the United Nations is that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), its specialised body for promotion of atoms for peace has been located in the capital of a country, Austria, which is opposed to promoting nuclear power as a panacea for global energy shortage. Geneva would have been a natural choice, but Austria's offer of terms for the venue for the IAEA were attractive. The legend also has it that Homi Bhabha's love for western music was also a factor in the choice of Vienna. IAEA's gradual evolution as a nuclear watch dog and a regulatory rather than a promotional agency made it acceptable to Austria, which has been a champion of nonproliferation. The location of the IAEA in Vienna enabled Kurt Waldheim to locate an impressive array of other UN offices on the Danube.

Not only Japan,but also the IAEA is in crisis over the Fukushima disaster, which the IAEA still euphemistically calls a "nuclear accident". Safety,one of the main pillars of the Agency, is badly shaken and its credibility as a crisis management body in the event of a nuclear accident has been called into question. The open admission by its Director General, Yukio Amano, himself a Japanese, that the IAEA is not mandated to intervene either to prevent accidents or to force itself into emergency situations have exposed the chinks in the armour of the agency. The impression on the ground in Vienna is that the Agency has failed to play its role in a nuclear emergency, for which it was supposed to be prepared.

The IAEA has its own alphabetical soup to deal with nuclear emergencies. IEC (International Emergency Centre), ISSC (International Seismic Safety Centre), RANET (Response Assistance Network) and INES (International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) are only some of the acronyms being heard in Vienna these days as the emergency response capabilities, some of which were in existence right from the inception of the IAEA and others added after the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents. But a study of the daily updates given on the IAEA website have little to show for action or intervention in Fukushima. The updates simply reproduce the data given by the Japanese authorities, without any interpretation or conclusion on the part of the IAEA. For radiation levels, there are reports from neighbouring countries. Among these reports was one from Singapore, which was subsequently denied. Even the down-gradation of the situation from "very serious" to "serious" is attributed to the Japanese authorities.

The daily updates from March 11, 2011 onwards show that the IAEA went by the book in dealing with an unprecedented tragedy of gigantic proportions. The Director General expressed condolences on the accident and went into "full response mode" and did virtually nothing else. Even after three full days of fast developments of alarming proportions, the the IAEA kept saying on its website that "the IAEA stands ready to provide technical assistance of any kind" The approach was cautious, sensitive and aimed at not causing alarm or loss of faith in nuclear power. IAEA could only offer "good offices" and the Japanese Government took time to assign some responsibilities to the IAEA.

A brief visit by the DG himself to Tokyo a week after the accident and his report to the IAEA Board of Governors pointed to the limitations of the IAEA in dealing with nuclear emergencies.The IAEA was given only the responsibility to take radiation measurements and the identification of Japanese needs for a future environmental monitoring programme. The Agency neither sought, nor was it asked to do any fire fighting at Fukushima.

Amano's report to the Board on March 21 was frank and forthright. "I explained that we are not a "nuclear safety watchdog" and that responsibility for nuclear safety lies with our Member States. The IAEA acts as a hub for international cooperation, helping to establish safety standards and providing expert advice on best practices. But, in contrast to the Agency's role in nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear safety measures are applied voluntarily by each individual country and our role is supportive", he said. In an atmosphere of overwhelming sympathy for Japan, the Governors did not take issue with the Director General, but it was clear that, for the IAEA, the main priority was safeguards and not safety.

The founding fathers of the IAEA was acutely aware of the safety dimension of nuclear activities and had given considerable attention to safety, together with safeguards and nuclear applications. But over the years, the call for "balance" among the activities of the IAEA became taboo as the IAEA began to stress safeguards to the detriment of its other activities. The situation became more complex after 9/11 because of the new concerns of nuclear security. The new duties of security were assigned to the safety wing of the Agency, with consequent downgrading of safety concerns.

The Three Mile Island accident as well as Chernobyl had prompted reviews of the safety dimensions of the Agency. New institutions were created, but it was left to the initiative of member states to make use of them, subject to the availability of resources.For instance, the Operational Safety Review Team (OSART) Programme set up after the Three Mile Island accident is available for peer review, but some countries, including India, have declined offers by OSART of safety inspections. The former Director General raised this issue with me on my first call on him and reminded me of the importance of India accepting OSART missions in its own interest. But we have remained adamant about not using it on the ground that we have sufficient safety measures and that we are members of the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), which was established after Chernobyl. OSART missions have been found useful by countries like France and it is time for us to reassess its value.

In response to the criticism that IAEA has been ineffective in dealing with nuclear emergencies, the IAEA has convened a High Level Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety in Vienna from 20 to 24 of June, 2011. This is indeed a timely and important initiative, bringing together foreign ministers of IAEA member states, the UN Secretary General and the heads of international organisations that are participating in the Joint Radiation Emergency Management Plan, led by the IAEA. The Director General has already indicated the direction the Conference could take on the basis that "nuclear power will remain an important and viable option for many countries as a stable and clean source of energy." The Agency's role in safety will need to be reexamined and safety standards may have to be made more stringent. The current international emergency response framework must be reassessed. A rapid deployment team of nuclear experts may be placed at the disposal of the Director General for emergency consultations and action. The possibilities are endless.

The need for the hour is to make the IAEA "the nuclear saety watchdog", a role which may be more important, in many ways, than being a non-proliferation watchdog. It should be given the authority,the resources, including technical capability to intervene expeditiously as and when necessary. For India, this is a splendid opportunity to make imaginative suggestions and offers, which go beyond our present hesitation to use the IAEA mechanisms for safety. It is not enough for the leader of the Indian delegation to the conference to place his hand on his chest and say that our nuclear facilities are safe. We should open up our reports on previous incidents in our facilities and accept expert opinion, including the services of the OSART programme. With the separation of our civilian facilities for safeguards, there should be no objection to intrusive safety inspections. A large contingent of Indian experts are already in Vienna to attend the fifth review meeting of the contracting parties to the Convention on Nuclear Safety.(April 4 to 14).The chance meeting of this body at this time should be fully exploited to test the waters before the June conference.

The IAEA is not the forum to raise issues relating to alternate sources of energy to replace nuclear power. But the reverberations for the persistent calls for the use of other forms of energy will certainly reverberate in the halls of the UN complex in Vienna.The Director General has gone on record as saying that "the worries of millions of people throughout the world about whether nuclear power is safe must be taken seriously." This is more than what some of the members of the IAEA are not prepared to say. The expectation of the nuclear renaissance will elude further as the focus shifts from appetite for energy to safety. The IAEA 2020 will be somewhat different from the picture envisaged in the report by the Eminent Persons Group, (Vision for the Future)of which I was the Executive Director. The IAEA should brace itself for change.

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2011-03-23T22:52:00.000-07:00

My conversation with Nuclear Intelligence Weekly

This was in line with what nearly every other nuclear country
in the world had done, but it remained defensive. Indian
nuclear regulator the Atomic Energy Review Board (AERB)
noted that “all the reactors in India are designed to withstand
the effects of earthquake and tsunamis of specific magnitudes
which are decided based on conservative criteria.”

This was probably not enough. “The number of people
who have lost faith in nuclear power has also increased,”
retired Ambassador T.P. Sreenivasan, who is intimately
familiar with the Indian nuclear scene, told NIW. “Many are
now debating whether India should go on the path of what
the Germans have done. There are demands of that kind.”
Indeed, even Sreenivasan, despite his years of nuclear
advocacy and four years serving as India’s ambassador to the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is having
doubts. “Even I’ve been saying that maybe in the long term
that it’s better to look at alternatives, and to have an action
plan that could move away from nuclear power,”
Sreenivasan said.

“What you see on television every day is very frightening,”
he continued, and “the Japanese are the most disciplined
and scientifically advanced people on the planet.”
India would be unable to respond as effectively as the
Japanese have, he said.

2011-02-24T17:00:00.000-08:00

Nuclear Disarmament Timeline Challenges
Nuclear Base Camp: The Numbers Conundrum
T.P.Sreenivasan
Ever since J.Robert Oppenheimer invoked the Bhagavad Gita to create the mother of all metaphors, “the radiance of a thousand suns” and “the destroyer of worlds”, the nuclear weapons and disarmament efforts have given us many images and metaphors. But they were all images of mutually assured destruction and inevitability of a nuclear catastrophe. There was even a telling image of the world resting comfortably under the hood of a cobra. But more recently, despair has turned into hope with the metaphor of a mountain which, though distant and high, does hold the promise of a panoramic view of a nuclear weapon free and non-violent world, if we reach the summit. The world realizes that the climb up the mountain will be slow and hazardous, but there appears to be a universal desire to make a determined effort.
The metaphor of the mountain has led to the image of a base camp, which is necessary to equip ourselves and to prepare for the climb. It is indeed a practical and necessary stage and translated into practical measures, it encourages all nations, whether they possess nuclear weapons or not, to build a staging ground. It means the establishment of intermediate goals towards disarmament on which there could be a consensus. The proponents of this concept have explained that the idea is to agree to proportional disarmament instead of smaller nuclear countries waiting till the others come down to their levels before they contemplate disarmament. They would like to craft a treaty, whereby countries, coming from different levels, could agree to work at reciprocal and proportional cuts, which would aim at all countries reaching the same lower number of weapons at a future date. William Perry characterizes the base camp as a place that would be safer than where we are today. It also serves as an organizing principle to “lead, but hedge”, in keeping with the US nuclear posture.
While the base camp concept is novel in the new context of optimism, it has been part of every plan that has been put forward in the past. Though the general and complete disarmament is the ultimate objective, giving priority to nuclear disarmament and that too through various intermediate stages is not very different from the base camp idea. The Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan of 1988 and the other practical steps put forward by various powers have contemplated intermediate stages of various descriptions. The proposal for a complete freeze was another logical step, which did not find acceptance by the nuclear weapon states. The proposed FMCT is another interim measure which is desirable and logical. We should welcome any step that reduces arsenals, strengthens non-proliferation and leads to elimination of nuclear weapons.
It is not clear, however, whether we can approach the base camp concept on the basis of numbers. Such an approach has been adopted in the case of START, but the world is skeptical about the numbers involved in the negotiations as all categories of weapons are not included in the numbers game. Transparency is highly desirable, but often absent when it comes to counting weapons. Fixing agreed numbers to reach the base camp is likely to elude us. The idea of proportionate reduction in arsenals regardless of the present size of the holdings will be anathema to those countries, which have only a minimum deterrent. India, for instance, has not revealed the number of weapons it considers necessary to have a credible minimum deterrent and the numbers are a matter of speculation. How would India participate in negotiations in reduction without revealing the numbers?
A broader approach, which takes into account the new optimism, generated by President Obama’s Prague speech, the sighting of the mountain, the encouraging signs at the latest NPT Review Conference and the Nuclear Security Summit, should move the disarmament effort forward.
India and the United States attempted precisely that at the summit level in their Joint Statement last year. The Prime Minister of India and the President of the United States agreed to join in a “strong partnership to lead global efforts for non-proliferation and universal and non-discriminatory global disarmament.” Further, “they affirmed the need for a meaningful dialogue among all states possessing nuclear weapons to build trust and confidence and for reducing the salience of nuclear weapons in international affairs and security doctrines.” The key words here are “trust and confidence” and “reducing the salience of nuclear weapons” in strategies. This will be a very good start for our journey to the base camp and beyond, but not easy to do as it requires fundamental rethinking in many capitals of the world. As the Norwegian foreign minister observed, “Every small demonstration of our willingness to move forward towards abolition make many of the intermediate obstacles more surmountable.”
The nuclear weapon states, sadly, still consider nuclear weapons important for their security and do not wish to consider a timeline for their elimination. In my view, the base camp will not be meaningful unless there is a collective commitment to a multilateral framework for negotiations within a time frame. Neither the NPT nor the CTBT has succeeded in accomplishing this. The FMCT negotiations remain stalled. An alternate route will be, as India has suggested, working on a global non-first use agreement as the first step towards delegitimisation of nuclear weapons. Hesitation on delegitimisation on the ground that it will outlaw retaliation seems unfounded as any use of the weapons will be unthinkable if there is delegitimisation. A commitment to negotiating a Nuclear Weapons Convention may also be an appropriate element of the base camp.
Changing of postures, rather than agreeing on nuclear force sizes may be a practical approach to the base camp. In the case of the two countries, which possess 95% of the nuclear warheads, numbers are relevant to build mutual confidence, but for the others, the doctrinal commitment to nuclear weapons, regardless of numbers, is the greater threat. It is no great comfort for the world to know that the nuclear weapons can now destroy the world only a dozen times, not dozens of times.
The coming to force of the START treaty on February 5 has been universally welcomed. But further progress may be stalled on account of fears of China’s growth. The focus is likely to shift to Asia, where the numbers game will be even more complex. In the Asian context, it will also be difficult to count the numbers considered necessary for minimum deterrent by different countries. Here again, a review of doctrines rather than entering a debate on numbers will have the desired impact.
The optimism that has entered the disarmament debate in recent years has not been fully justified by the latest signals from the major nuclear weapon states. The mountain and base camp images raise hope, but do not instill confidence. The urgency for nuclear disarmament, going beyond legal obligations has also been sidestepped in the process of setting up long term and intermediate stages. The time frame to reach global zero must be shorter if the world has to be safer.

2011-02-19T05:56:00.000-08:00

Reform of Global Institutions
(Remarks by Mr. T.P.Sreenivasan, former Ambassador of India at the Lunch Session of the India-UK Roundtable on February 19, 2011)
Global institutions, by their very nature, have to remain dynamic and ready for change. The mere change of membership, the entry and exit of member states, brings in changes in priorities, agenda and nature of functioning, as the sovereignty of member states continues to be the guiding principle in international relations. Changes in the global power structure, sometimes gradual and quiet and sometimes sudden and dramatic, also do force changes in global institutions. Continuous reform, therefore, is essential for global institutions to remain relevant, effective and efficient. History has shown that only resilient global bodies have survived and gained acceptance of their members.
Reforms are cyclical in nature for all global institutions and the process can never be completed once and for all. The challenges of the time impose reform to meet immediate needs and it gets formalized only subsequently to bring the practice in line with the statutes of the organizations.
The most significant restructuring of global institutions in recent years is the emergence of G-20 in the wake of the global economic crisis. The speed and efficiency with which this was accomplished should be a model for other global institutions. Even the financial institutions, which were considered extremely conservative, have begun to see changes sweeping through them, as a result of the transformation of the world economy.
The Commonwealth underwent a fundamental change when India decided to remain within it as a Republic and its agenda has also been flexible and responsive to the demands of the time.
The United Nations itself is the classic example of an international organization, which has changed beyond recognition without any change in its Charter. The agenda of the UN and its priorities today were not dreamt of by the authors of the Charter. From peacekeeping to human rights, from terrorism to climate change, the UN has taken on tasks and responsibilities not envisaged in the Charter. They are subsumed in the general concept of maintenance of international peace and security. Fight against apartheid and the concept of humanitarian intervention have amended the basic tenet of non-interference in internal affairs of states. The existence in the Charter of outdated words and phrases, which make a mockery of the present state of the world, has not inhibited the functioning of the UN.
The adoption of the ‘Agenda for Peace and the ‘Agenda for Development’ and the massive array of declarations, treaties and resolutions have made the UN richer and relevant. The recent changes in the working methods of the Security Council and the General Assembly are far reaching enough to meet the aspirations of the members for change to a great extent.
The history of the UN has shown that one thing that cannot be changed without a formal amendment to the Charter is the composition of the Security Council. The UN went through the difficult process of amendment to the Charter in 1965 to raise the number of non-permanent members from 6 to 10. We have now reached a stage when a change in the Charter is necessary to reflect the realities, not only of the enhanced membership of the UN, but also of the power structure in the world, which is dramatically different from the days after the end of the Second World War.
This is one forum where I do not need to dwell upon the need for increase in the permanent and non-permanent categories in the Security Council as I shall be preaching to the converted. The UK and India are of one mind on this issue and what we can do is to compare notes on the situation today and work out a common strategy.
India is of the view that time for concrete action has come after 30 years of discussions on this matter. On a personal note, I was at the UN as a young diplomat when India introduced the relevant agenda item in the General Assembly in 1979. Every aspect of the issue has been considered and there is now a consensus that expansion is necessary in both categories of Security Council membership. Today, we have reached text based negotiations with different formulas and numbers. What is required is political will to act here and now.
In his report ‘In Larger Freedom’, Secretary General Kofi Annan had brought down the options to two and in our view, Plan A is clearly preferable for the simple reason that creating a new category of members, as outlined in Plan B, will be clearly invidious. Plan A, which envisages the addition of 6 new permanent members and three new non-permanent members should resolve the problems of size, balance and equity.
In discussing strategy, the one thing that we have to remember is that support to one country or another, however strongly worded, will not lead to a decision. Members, preferably the permanent members, should promote a formula, like Kofi Annan’s Plan A, which has the potential of securing a two thirds majority in the General Assembly. The UK is in a position to take the lead in this regard.
The G-4 countries, Japan, Germany, Brazil and India have taken certain initiatives to speed up the process of reform forward. The group has recently decided to make an effort to establish a time frame of a year to bring about change. It would be helpful to know whether the UK and the other permanent members will go along with this time frame. If not, what is the timeframe that you have in mind? Would delaying a decision in the best interests of the UN, as China seems to suggest.
As for the identity of the new permanent members, India has held the view that criteria should be established for them. An agreement on expansion with regard to categories and members and the criteria can be established this year, it would be a major accomplishment. The difficult question of veto can, perhaps, be tackled at a later stage. The India-UK Roundtable appears to be an ideal venue for reaching an understanding on this important issue.

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2011-02-14T03:20:00.000-08:00

UN GAFFES ARE NOT RARE

By T.P.Sreenivasan

No wonder only the Indian Ambassador realized that our Minister of External Affairs was reading the wrong speech at the UN Security Council. The others were not listening, not even the Portuguese delegate who authored the text. In the UN, delegates develop selective hearing, because no one can listen to the millions of words spoken every day. Everyone knows that the first few minutes of the speeches in the Security Council will be devoted to congratulating the present President on his assumption of the position even though it is by rotation and thanking the previous President for his accomplishments, even if he did not achieve anything during his month long presidency. The members of the Council were waiting for our Minister to come to the substance of the debate to give him some attention. If he had said anything new or original, it would not have gone unnoticed.

But what happened to the practice in our Permanent Mission in New York of one officer being assigned to every politician to keep a copy of the speech and to make sure that every word is delivered correctly? In the case of the Minister of External Affairs, this used to be done at the level of the Deputy Permanent Representative himself. How could the officers occupying the four chairs behind the Minister not know he was reading the wrong speech for full three minutes?

Has the good custom of having a heading and even a separate cover sheet for the speeches of the Ministers been abandoned? Did the Portuguese Mission also circulate the speech without a heading or a cover? We need to have answers to these questions if we have to understand where the system went wrong. Such things are too important to be left to the Minister himself. After all, Ministers have too many things on their mind to check whether the text placed before them is the right one. The topic of the debate was also a motherhood issue, development, not any controversial matter.

I have had some experience of gaffes by our political delegates misreading or mispronouncing words. One distinguished Minister of State read 'Namibia" as "Nambiar" repeatedly from the podium of the General Assembly. Unlike in the Security Council, no one sits or stands behind the speaker when he speaks and there is no way to communicate with him quickly to correct any mistake. Another delegate, this time a lady, accustomed as she was during the decolonisation days to condemnations of various policies of imperial powers, decided to "condemn" UNESCO for helping a non-self governing territory to preserve its cultural heritage. The text, of course, meant to commend the UN Agency!

Speaking of pronunciation, my Indonesian colleague, sitting next to me in the General Assembly hall asked me once what language our delegate was speaking in. Normally if a delegate does not speak in any of the six languages of the UN, someone would read the English text from the booth. My Indonesian friend could not catch the English version as our delegate was actually speaking in his version of English.

On one occasion, we had a truly sick External Affairs Minister, who should have stayed at home without taking the strain of travelling to New York. In fact, the Minister of State was also sent to New York at the same time in case the Minister needed any help. But our Minister insisted on doing everything that the Ministers were expected to do, like making speeches and holding bilateral meetings. He resented any suggestion that he might want to rest after a few meetings. That was one occasion when I had smuggled myself behind the podium with the permission of the chair when the Minister spoke to help him, if necessary. In replying to the Minister's comments on Jammu & Kashmir, a particularly vicious Pakistani delegate referred to India as "the sick man of Asia", hitting somewhat below the belt.

The same Minister left us in a quandary when he called on the Secretary General. The Minister described all the problems we were having with Pakistan and repeatedly asked the Secretary General to intervene in some way. The Secretary General, who was very keen to intervene, knew the Indian policy too well to take the request seriously. Still, we did not feel comfortable till we wrote a letter to the Secretary General, on our return to the mission, that the Minister did not really mean to request for mediation.

We also had political delegates, who wanted to change policy when they were at the UN. A very senior delegate was convinced that our policy on Afghanistan was wrong. He was inclined to support the resolutions, which criticised the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but our policy was to abstain on them. We had abstained on the main resolution already, but in one of the committees, a similar resolution was introduced. Knowing his views, I tried to send him for coffee to the delegates' lounge when the vote came up. He was not interested in shopping or sightseeing. He was also very conscientious and did not leave the chair in the committee. When a roll call vote was announced and India's name was called, he said "yes", but I shouted loudly "abstention" from behind him. The secretariat official, who knew the Indian position well, recorded our vote as abstention and our delegate was not any wiser. He was hard of hearing.

We had another delegate, who was convinced that our policy on East Timor was faulty. He was seen hobnobbing with the Portuguese delegation in the lounge occasionally. He tried to persuade me to change our position on East Timor and denounce Indonesian colonialism. I explained to him the rationale of our policy and said that he could take the matter up with Delhi, which he was not inclined to do. He watered down the language of the speech I gave him, but as long as the speech conformed to the established policy of the Government, I had no problem. I kept a close watch on him as he read the speech and, sure enough, he deliberately changed a phrase to dilute it further. The statement that the people of East Timor had already exercised their right to self-determination was changed to suggest that we were not convinced that it was so. I was astonished by his dishonesty, but without saying a word, I went to the secretariat and handed over a copy of the speech and said that it should be reflected faithfully and the electronic recording should be ignored.

The secretariat normally obliges in such cases, but it does insist occasionally on showing the original and the correction. If a delegation votes wrongly on a particular resolution, the original vote will be recorded together with the amendment submitted subsequently. In the case of the Security Council, I do not know whether the secretariat will insist on recording the pleasure of our Minister in seeing two countries of the Portuguese speaking community in the Security Council.

India is not the only country that generates such gaffes in the UN. Uganda had a big problem once when no Ugandan delegate was present in the General assembly hall. When Uganda’s name was called, someone walked to the podium and made a speech denouncing the reigning President of Uganda, Idi Amin. By the time the official delegates heard about it and rushed to the hall to challenge him, the damage was done and the news was already in the air. The whole Ugandan team was recalled and a new team was sent with instructions that the Ugandan chairs should never be left vacant. Pakistan had to contend with a politician, a member of the official delegation, who denounced the regime in Islamabad. Knowing his views, the mission had refused to print out his speech, but he managed to type it on the teleprinter. Once when the Iraqi delegate referred to the Kuwaitis as small people, the interpreter referred to them as “pygmies”. The Zaire delegate protested and the Iraqi did not know why. “Pygmies” is not a politically correct word in Zaire! A delegate was asked to repeat his vote four times till the secretariat was convinced that he was acting as instructed.

Gaffes in the UN create some red faces and send a few chuckles around, but do not harm anyone as each country’s position is known and the situation can easily be retrieved. These add some entertainment to the rest of the dull proceedings and go down to the archives, which have plenty of faux pas recorded for posterity.

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2011-01-27T15:26:00.000-08:00

A Wedding to Remember

My brother-in –law, Mohan and his wife, Latha, were in Indianapolis last May on a significant mission. Their daughter, Prarthana (‘Papu’ for us) a budding film director, who had already won a prize for her student production, chose to marry her friend from her institute, Edward Timpe. They went to convey not only their own blessings, but of the entire family to the couple and to meet Edward’s family. My son, Sreenath and his daughter, Durga, were at hand to celebrate the happy occasion. It was a matter of joy for all of us that Prathana had found her life partner.
It was really hectic for Mohan, Latha and the rest of the family ever since, planning and executing a grand wedding in a matter of 9 months. Shopping seemed endless as Latha, with her sisters, Madhu and Shanti, travelled to Delhi, Jaipur and other cities to hunt for the best for the children and the guests. Deepa and Sharu, two avid shoppers in the family, provided local expertise. Lekha was on her own hunt for clothes for herself and the rest of the family and for the best gift for Prarthana.
The first sign of the fruition of their efforts came when the invitation cards for the various events came in a golden box with goodies inside. Anyone, who received the box, could not have resisted the invitation. It must have been hard to choose the right people for the right events, though some of us received the entire package. Lekha and I set aside four days, Jan 22 to 25, 2011 and returned early from the US to get ready for the event. Lekha was busy before our trip to the US and after, handing out invitations to the large group of relatives and friends. Radhika and Hari also helped out. Mohan and Latha came to Thiruvananthapuram to invite some important guests. Many of them, including Princess Aswathy Thirunal. made the journey to Chennai to be part of the celebration.
The first event was a magnificent Chinese dinner at ‘Mainland China’ hosted by Latha’s youngest sister, Shanti and her globe- trotting husband, Ashok Kumar. This was within the family and the bridegroom’s party, consisting of Edward himself and his parents, were introduced to the family. They endeared themselves to everyone with their simple, but sophisticated ways. Till Ed met Prarthana, India was to them just the first two syllables of Indiana! They were travelling outside the US for the first time, but they did not seem to suffer from culture shock. The conservative “Indianaians” had no problem merging with Indians of three generations. The gifts that they brought from Indiana gladdened hearts all around.
The Mehendi Day the next day was primarily for women to get dressed for the wedding, to make merry and to celebrate the last day of Prarthana as a single girl. Artists adorned the palms of women with henna and the women were seen walking around with hands raised to get the henna dry. Dancing came naturally and as the men joined, there was a riot of colours in Hotel Park as magicians, tarot card readers, portrait painters entertained. Colourful bangles were available to adorn the slender female hands. The feast was but a harbinger of many more to come in the next two days.
The day of the wedding, January 24, also the wedding anniversary day of Mohan and Latha, started early when we drove at daybreak to the Shirdi Temple in the outskirts of Chennai for the ‘mangalsutra’ ceremony. In traditional Kerala clothes, Ed tied the ‘thali’ on his bride’s neck with Gopika’s help, perhaps the most important ceremony of a Nair wedding. The rest of the short ceremony ordained by the Nair community took place in a large hall, to the accompaniment, not only of the mandated ‘nadaswaram’, but also the lively ‘chenda’, the masterly percussion instrument of Kerala. The backdrop of the ceremony was the facade of a Kerala temple. The thirty-course sadya on plantain leaves completed the wedding ceremony with an endless line of well wishers lining up to greet the couple.
Those who missed the morning event and some of us who did not want to miss any event assembled for a grand dinner that evening. The bride and groom and the family were in new clothes, lined up against a new backdrop. Between the two events, the Who’s Who in Chennai was covered. We spotted Deputy Chief Minister Stalin, with machine gun wielding black cats, P. Suseela and S.Janaki, the legendary singers, Elayaraja and M.Jayachandran, music directors, Sujatha and Vijay Jesudas, the singers and many others.
The scene shifted to the Radisson Resort in Mahabalipuram for the grand finale on January 25, a gala dinner hosted by Vicky, the bride’s only brother. The youth took over the show, with toasts, singing and dancing. A video presentation showed the bride and bridegroom as they grew from tiny tots to adulthood. Speeches by elders were full of sentiments and love. I said that I was making up for not being present at Mohan’s wedding more than 30 years ago. I mentioned that it was appropriate that the bridegroom for the first international wedding in the family had come from the only super power. Prarthana had done more for India-US relations in a couple of years than what I could through diplomacy over ten years. I said that my son and grand daughter, who went to Indianapolis to meet Ed’s family, had reported that the Timpe family was a great asset. The cake, the food, the décor and the music were without blemish. It was past midnight when the tempo of the music reached feverish pitch and the young took over the dance floor and the elders took leave.
Presiding over the entire proceedings from the day one to the climax was the the bride’s grandfather, maestro M.S.Viswanathan, who strode the southern Indian film music scene like a colossus for half a century, and his wife. They had tears of joy in their eyes as they came to terms with the first granddaughter bidding goodbye. Mohan and Latha, who were so engrossed in making sure that everything went well, perhaps had no time to think of the distant home their daughter had acquired. The bridegroom and his parents, the only people in the bridegroom’s party, appeared to be enjoying the pomp and show of an Indian wedding, without having to worry about doing much, except to play their roles in the choreography. The absence of a self-important and demanding bridegroom’s party must be the dream of parents of every Indian bride!
For us, the bonus was catching up with youngsters in the family, whom we had met some years ago when they were much younger. Some of them had become adults and had their own families. As we boarded the flight for home after a hectic four days of feasting and bonding, the overwhelming thought was one of fulfillment that we were part of a joyous event of bringing together two cultures, two families and two souls in love.

2011-01-22T18:41:00.000-08:00

India's Smart Power in the US
January 19, 2011 19:59 IST

As India's [ Images ] involvement in the growth of the US deepens, the search for the soul of India gains momentum, says T P Sreenivasan.

Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World may well be in the making as the East rises and the West declines. But New York is still vibrant and lively, majestic and magical. It has not lost its colour and noise, its variety and verve. Kishore Mahbubani's (the leading thinker on Asian and world affairs and professor at the National University of Singapore) comment that going from New York to New Delhi [ Images ] is like going from a funeral to a wedding seems to be an overstatement.

President Obama [ Images ] may have brought business deals and jobs from India, but what is in evidence everywhere is the Indian smart power. It is palpable not only in the traditional 'Little Indias' in different cities, but in mainstream newspapers, Ivy League universities, and the boardrooms of American companies. Most news channels have Indian anchors and most newspapers have Indian bylines. Indian authors, who write on India, get bought by major publishing houses.

Travel in the US in winter is hazardous even in the best of times. We missed flights, stayed indoors for three days as a snow storm consumed Manhattan and sprinted across five concourses at Atlanta airport to make it to the departure gate at midnight when the monorail came to a grinding halt.

The mayor of New York was taken to task for not cleaning up the roads on time. The snow played havoc with the subway system and yellow cabs disappeared from the streets when they were wanted most. But New York seemed to have recovered from the worst of its recession woes.

India is very much a part of the recovery of the US. The gifts that President Obama brought back from India do not tell the whole story.

New York is a happening place whether it is frozen cold or steaming hot. A peep into the control room of a CNN live show, featuring the media star Anderson Cooper, is enough to know the zest that goes into television production here. In the electronic maze of the control room are multiple men and women glued to television and computer screens, performing specialised functions which a single individual may be required to do in an Indian studio.

Cooper has about 40 people working for him in his production team -- this is for a single, nightly one-hour show. But his stardom does not keep Cooper from being as charming in personal conversations as he is on camera. He recalled his visits to India and said that India was an exciting place to cover. It was nice to see the walls and screens of the CNN office feature its Indian stars, Fareed Zakaria [ Images ] and Dr Sanjay Gupta.

Stars aren't just on television in America; the best chefs are celebrities, too. Manhattan's proud Indian fusion restaurant, Tabla, with its legendary Goan chef, Floyd Cardoz, closed its doors at the end of 2010. Its innovative Indian cuisine had held New Yorkers spellbound for ten years. But the owners of the restaurant found it harder after the recession to fill its massive dining rooms night after night. But I am sure Cardoz will not be wasted in the city that loves its Indian haute cuisine.

An equally resplendent, expensive Indian restaurant, Junoon, has opened its doors just around the corner from where Tabla thrived. Vikas Khanna, a young chef from Amritsar [ Images ], who began cooking at the age of eleven, has become the talk of the town.

The owner of Junoon, Rajesh Bhardwaj, originally from the Taj group, whose Cafe Spice chain is popular with New Yorkers, seemed confident that the US economy was on its way to full recovery and invested in a first-class gourmet place for Indian food. And just last week, Chef Hemant Mathur, part of the widely-acclaimed Devi with Suvir Saran, has opened another high-end Indian eatery, Tulsi.

Talking of the Taj group and the Tatas, it was an experience to walk into the Pierre Hotel on Fifth Avenue, the place I spent my first day in New York back in 1979, then famous for having been Nixon's campaign headquarters.

Today, it is a Taj establishment with special Indian decor in many suites. Anand Giridharadas of The New York Times launched his India Calling, An Intimate Portrait of a Nation's Remaking at the hotel's Rajput suite. His launching his book at a Tata enterprise in New York in the presence of his parents had its own story to tell. His father had left a Tata establishment many years ago in pursuit of the American dream, but now Tatas had become part of the American dream, the story that Giridharadas tells in his book in his own inimitable way.

Giridharadas tells the familiar story of the Indian miracle from the point of a returning native to whom India is an enigma wrapped up in mystery. But the style is refreshing and his keen eye for detail makes it enthralling reading. Living in India and reporting on a country he had to understand first and analyse it for the West, makes his book a must-read.

But like any number of foreign correspondents, Giridharadas spends too much time pondering over India's contradictions than its promises. He uses the technique of comparing what he heard about three generations of Giridharidases to the real people who met in India to explore modern India's dreams, ambition, pride, anger and love. The fault of this methodology is evident, but the book is an intimate account of his encounters.

The growth of literature on India by Indian and American authors, which began in earnest at the turn of the century, continues steadily. US bookstores are filled with new fiction and nonfiction about India and about other topics by Indians. They include familiar names -- Salman Rushdie [ Images ] (Luka and the Fire of Life), William Dalrymple (Nine Lives), Parag Khanna (How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance) -- as well as newcomers: Shilpi Somaya Gowda (Secret Daughter).

Meanwhile, presiding over the entire US publishing industry is its most powerful editor and impresario, Sonny Mehta, editor-in-chief of Alfred A Knopf. While I was there, the news came that Mehta, the man who had earlier bought Bill Clinton's [ Images ] memoirs for $10 million and Pope John Paul II's for $8.5 million, has also clinched a deal with Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame.

One of the books that Mehta personally championed last year, Cutting for Stone by Dr Abraham Verghese, has been on the NYT bestseller list for 50 straight weeks. Mehta is the son of Ambassador Amrik Mehta, one of my predecessors in Vienna [ Images ].

Business with India is very much on the minds even of immigration officers. Among the intriguing questions that an immigration agent of Thai origin asked me on my arrival in Atlanta from a short trip to Montego Bay was whether India was purchasing defence equipment from Atlanta.

While the other members of the family moved past the immigration with ease, the immigration officer suddenly got interested in a bundle of five diplomatic passports I passed to him as the US visa was on the oldest one. He began examining every page, reading out the names of countries I had visited in the last 10 years.

Then he began asking me political questions, which were of no relevance to my visit to the US. "Why did India accept Partition?" he asked with the curiosity of a research scholar. I was not in a mood to recount the history of the subcontinent and mumbled something about the colonial legacy.

Then came the interesting question about purchase of military aircraft. Apparently, he was referring to F-16s, which Lockheed Martin manufactures in Atlanta. He also asked about my views on China! My mind was more on my connecting flight I was sure to miss than on the future of China. I was relieved to see him stamping my passport.

An American friend saw a pattern of harassment of Indian diplomats in the questioning of the immigration official, having heard recently about the experiences of other diplomats. Perhaps, the days of diplomats breezing through immigration and customs lines are over in the US.

Reports that certain countries might be issuing diplomatic passports at a price must have alerted the Americans to the danger of terrorists masquerading as diplomats. But the question on F-16s lingered in my mind.

I am not sure if there are Indians building F-16s, but Indians continue to play a major role in US business. Two of the most powerful CEOs in New York are Pepsico's Indira Nooyi [ Images ] (named by Fortune magazine for the fifth year in a row to the top of its '50 most powerful women' list) and Vikram Pandit of Citigroup (who has successfully brought the bank back from the depths of the economic meltdown), not to speak of many other Indian business wizards at different levels in hundreds of US firms.

As India's involvement in the growth of the US deepens, the search for the soul of India gains momentum. India's smart power gets projected in the US in very many ways. The effort of Indian public diplomacy in the US should be to accentuate the positive elements.

T P Sreenivasan is a former ambassador of India to the United Nations, Vienna, and a former Governor for India at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna. For

2011-01-02T09:14:00.001-08:00

Clear Objectives in Foreign Policy in 2010

By T.P.Sreenivasan

At the end of the first decade of the new millennium, Indian foreign policy has clear objectives. These are not vague or ideological. India pursues them with dogged determination. Had it not been for multiple scams and signs of emerging political instability, India could have accomplished much more in 2010.

The significance of 2010 was not that the leaders of the permanent five and others visited India in one year. India never had any dearth of visitors, particularly in the salubrious winter months in Delhi. Our hospitality and accessibility are legendary. Perhaps the largest number of important foreign visitors came to India when sweeping changes took place in Delhi in 1977, 1980 and in 1998. There was always curiosity about Indian openness, just as there was curiosity about the Chinese enigma. But the visits in 2010 were not exploratory. They came to do business, to firm up long term relationships, to give and take. The balance sheet, in the end, was in favour of India.

India is no more the “elephant in the room” in multilateral negotiations. Nor are we the peace makers or honest brokers anymore. We are the builders of coalitions, not in pursuit of some vague idealistic goals, but with clear political and economic objectives. India now has a clear agenda and the world is willing to go more than half way to meet it. The world is convinced that the emergence of India on the global scene is largely beneficial as India plays by the rules. Bilateral relationships with India are now the building blocks of global governance.

Combating terrorism is not a new priority for India. But it was never the touchstone of our bilateral relationships as it has become today. We have blown hot and cold even with Pakistan on this issue and tolerance of terrorism was no sin for our friends if they saw it as an instrument of freedom fighters. For fear of our anti-terrorist policy being construed as anti-Pakistan, we set the conclusion of a comprehensive convention against terrorism as our goal, which has eluded us even in the aftermath of 9/11. Today, a country’s position and policies towards Pakistan’s trade in terrorism is a major factor in our bilateral relations. For this reason, the UK and Russia gained, the US and France won points and China failed in Indian eyes.

Nuclear policy is determined today not just by pursuit of disarmament, but by the need for energy. NPT may be taboo and CTBT may be problematic still, but FMCT is not untouchable. Nuclear cooperation is paramount in our calculations and that explains why it was possible to conclude the reprocessing agreement with the US and to sign the Vienna Convention of Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage. India was also able to overcome the objections to the purchase of the French Evolutionary Power Reactors. Non-prolifertion is part of our global agenda today and we are willing to be part of the NSG and MTCR. We are willing to consider even other arrangements relating to chemicals and conventional weapons if these bodies enhance fruitful cooperation. We object to China building nuclear reactors in Pakistan and Iran experimenting with explosion technology because of the risk of proliferation in our neighbourhood. We have no quarrel with either country developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Pragmatism and clarity of purpose are visible in trade and environment also, though the path to be pursued appears confusing. We have begun to look at our own protective tendencies in return for major concessions from the rest of the industrial world. Even at the risk of diluting the principle of “common, but differentiated responsibility” and the concept of per capita emissions, we have moved from no binding commitments to voluntary commitments on reduction of greenhouse gases, subject to international monitoring and verification. The nation has not accepted the new approach, but these are issues in which we are more than willing to tango with the Chinese. India has matured enough to find our causes and our allies in different fields.

The pursuit of permanent membership of the UN Security Council is another clearly stated objective that has emerged in 2010. It may not be attainable in the near future, the sacrifices we have to make to pursue it may be too big and even its value as an objective may be called into question. But at no time had this objective been clearer since we first mooted the expansion in 1979. India knows well that individual commitments to India without a universally acceptable formula are meaningless. But we expect that the contours of such a formula will emerge sooner than later and we should not be wanting in support at that time. France, the UK, Russia and the US, perhaps in that order of warmth, acceded to the wishes of India and even China could not remain altogether silent. The objective of entering the Security Council, even without a veto is clear. What is not clear is the value of being there, except as an acceptance of our political status, commensurate with our economic growth. G-20 is an accomplished fact, which has whetted our appetite for a larger horse-shoe table at the United Nations.

In 2010, India demonstrated that it is possible to secure political concessions from others for economic deals, even when such deals are mutually beneficial. In the old days, Santa Claus came with a bag full of gifts, but went back empty handed. But in 2010, his bag was more than full on his return journey too. Each one of our visitors had something to show to his people as the gains from India. Except for China, they made gestures of various kinds in return in areas of our priority- anti-terrorism, energy, environment, trade and a role in global governance. Such gains at the global level have not been forthcoming in the past. India demanded reciprocity and equity on issues ranging from diplomatic immunity to Jammu and Kashmir, without being brow beaten by more powerful nations.

We seem to have succeeded in insulating foreign policy from chaos at home. One telling example was delaying the firing of the Maharashtra Chief Minister till Air Force One was clearly out of sight. India may have lost heavily in the Commonwealth Games, but the foreign athletes went back fairly happy. The communications network survived the 2 G spectrum scandal. The world has not lost faith in our democracy even after an entire parliament session was wasted. The steady course of our foreign policy may well have helped us survive 2010

2011-01-02T09:07:00.000-08:00

NEW YEAR WISHES AND THOUGHTS 2011

I have the privilege this year to greet you in the New Year from the island paradise of Jamaica, where all the Sreenivasans have assembled. For some of us, it is a holiday from holiday, but for our children and grandchildren, it is a welcome change from hectic work and study. The holiday was meticulously planned by Sreenath and Roopa. Sharavati, Sreekanth’s wife, who joined the family in November 2009 was also actively involved. The most excited are our grandchildren, Durga and Krishna, who have begun to value family bonding.

The year 2010 was a year more of continuity than change for us. I continued my second career as a writer, broadcaster and an evangelist for foreign policy. As a member of the National Security Advisory Board, I travelled frequently to Delhi and participated in intellectually stimulating discussions with some of the best minds in India. The Kerala International Centre today is a credible think tank with an impressive membership and interesting activities. I had more invitations for talks in India and abroad than I could accept, but I did as many as I could. My third book went to the publishers this year and it should be out in the New Year.

Lekha continued her artistic and charitable pursuits. She realized her dream of setting up a Karuna Charities home for the sick and the destitute in Thiruvananthapuram, which has the facility to put up and look after about 20 people at a time. She finds peace and joy in giving attention to the sick and the poor.

My elder son, Sreenath, who is in his 17th year at Columbia, turned 40 and used it as an excuse to connect 40-year-olds around the world in a social-media effort to help those who live where life expectancy is less than 40, via Giftof40.com. He has added social media to his academic repertoire, and was named by the prestigious Poynter Institute as one of the 35 most influential people in social media and by the Society of Professional Journalists as of the 20 journalists to follow on Twitter (but as a teacher, he was most proud of the fact that three of his students were on the same list!). If you are on Twitter yourself, you can follow him at @sree.

Sreenath's wife, Roopa, (@roopaonline) continues to play senior roles at Pfizer, the world's largest pharma company. She is now a vice president of strategy for the company, which is going through major changes as it transitions in a new CEO and deals with the integration of another pharma giant Wyeth, which it bought for $68 billion. I continue to marvel at how Roopa does it all: being a corporate executive while being a highly engaged mother to her twins. She's a role model for working mothers everywhere.

The twins, Durga and Krishna, now 7.5 years old, are thriving in second grade. Their extracurriculars include fencing and basketball for Krishna; fencing and Bharata Natyam for Durga. They both study Hindi on Saturdays. One of the highlights for me this year is that I've gotten to spend more time with them, including on this extended Jamaica vacation. Though I have been nervous as they, like their mother, have become daredevils. My heart has been in my throat as they do things like parasailing, whitewater rafting, snorkeling and ziplining.

My younger son, Sreekanth and his wife, Sharavati have just celebrated their first wedding anniversary and settled down well in Gurgaon. Shree is now the General Manager of Netra India Limited which has made much headway in establishing its business in India. His passion for music of all kinds and social networking has won him a broad circle of friends around the globe. You may follow him at @shreedel.

Sharavati, who left her position as an anchor in ‘Headlines Today’ just before marriage, partnered me in my new book as a researcher and writer.

As for the wider family circle, my brothers and their families have done well in the year. One significant decision taken by my elder brother and his daughter, Suni and her husband Jayakumar to rebuild our family home in Kayamkulam gladdened all of us. My younger brother, Madhu retired as an Air Vice Marshall and moved to Jamshedpur to serve the Tatas. My brother in the Foreign Service, Seetharam, enjoyed his tenure as the Joint Secretary (West Europe) in the Ministry of External Affairs. The younger generation too brought laurels to the family.

The first international marriage by a member of the family was fixed during the year. We look forward in the New Year to the wedding of Prarthana, the daughter of my brother-in-law, Mohan, and Ed Timpe of Indiana.

The overwhelming sense about India in the year, despite our many accomplishments, particularly in foreign policy, was one of despondency about corruption growing deeper and deeper. The sense of resignation about this cancer is terrifying. In my view, the danger of this trend is that fewer people will be willing to make sacrifices for the country since the fruits of their labour will go the crooked and the corrupt. The best we can hope for the future is that the corrupt will be brought to book and that a sense of responsibility and fair play will prevail. My year-end analysis of India's foreign policy is available at http://bit.ly/tpsfp2010

The end of the year is the time to learn from our experiences and to plan for the future. We may still make mistakes, but the history of mistakes will not repeat itself. Good New Year resolutions should be made even if some of them are broken.

Lekha and I thank you for your kindness and friendship in the year 2010, for the messages of good wishes in various forms that we have received in the past weeks and wish you and yours the very best in 2011. We hope our paths will cross in the New Year and we will have much to share and cherish.

Sincerely,

Sreeni
(@sreeniv)

December 31, 2010

2010-12-28T07:27:00.001-08:00

Art of Dealing with the Weather-George and Bowie

By T.P.Sreenivasan

This may be an apocryphal story, but worth recounting as the weather has turned the United States topsy turvy, with flights canceled, trains stranded, roads blocked, holiday plans scuttled and people put to endless misery. The most powerful and scientifically advanced nation bowed to mother nature.

The story is about the visit to Washington by the President of India, Dr.Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan at the time of President John F.Kennedy. The presidential helicopter landed on the White House lawns in torrential rain and the entire welcome ceremony was ruined. As President Radhakrishnan braved the rain and finally stepped into the White House, President Kennedy said: "Mr.President, I am sorry, we have not yet developed the science of controlling the weather." President Radhakrishnan did not miss the arrogance in that statement. "Don't worry, Mr.President," he said, "we in India mastered the art of dealing with the weather centuries ago."

The ancient Indian art of dealing with the weather came in handy this Christmas Day for us. Having complained that the Christmas was not white this year for the sake of my daughter-in-law, Sharavati, who preferred the cold New York to the warm Bali for a holiday, eight Sreenivasans set out for La Guardia airport, ready to fly out for Montego Bay via Atlanta. The Delta lines appeared thin for Christmas day and we congratulated ourselves for booking our flights after Christmas eve. Then came the shocker that all flights to Atlanta were canceled because of bad weather there and we should remain in line for alternate flights to Montego Bay. There were rumours that there was nothing wrong with the weather and that the Delta employees were on a slow down strike.

Of course, the Delta employee, with whom we spent the next hour, with children sleeping on chairs and all of us making various suggestions, was indeed slow, but helpful. She took a long time to locate the Sreenivasans, an Unnikrishnan and a Choksi and finally when she did, she decided to arbitrarily make us into pairs and send us in different directions such as Cincinnati, Colorado and Sacramento. When we wanted to make changes in the pairings, she adamantly refused, as though her computer would not accept such logic.But our persistence paid off and she found seats on a direct flight to Montego Bay from JFK, but not without insisting that she would book us only two at a time. As Roopa and Durga were the last pair ordained by the computer, they had to wait the longest.

As we were lounging in exhaustion in a corner, a huge African- American employee in Delta uniform walked towards us menacingly and we were ready for some stern advice about airport behaviour. We could barely make out his accent when he asked us: "What remains short even if we add anything to it?" Then only we realised he was trying to keep us amused with a riddle. We dont know, we said in consternation. "The word"short"!", he said triumphantly and walked off to the next group of weary passengers!

Having obtained the seats on a direct flight the next day, we started to deal with the situation. The first thing to remember was that Roopa's parents would arrive in the next hours expecting to have an empty apartment for themselves and they would have to cope with eight Sreenivasans for a night. But we had faith in their ability to put up with us just for a night. We gave them a surprise by not telling them the happy news that we would be there to receive them. The weather was still good, though there were predictions of a snow storm the next day afternoon. We said triumphantly that we would take off before the snow arrived and settled on inflated mattresses and convertible sofas.

We drove the next morning to JFK with the confidence that all of us had confirmed tickets. There were hardly any passengers to be seen and we thought we had a whole plane to ourselves. Armed with boarding passes, we breezed through immigration and security, feeling great that there was no pat-down on any of us except little Durga, who was given special treatment.

After two hours of joyful savouring of sandwiches and cofee and coconut water in anticipation of the tropics, we were invited to board and as we stood in line, we heard an announcement seeking volunteers to stay back and get a package of some Delta dollars, hotel room, food vouchers and taxi fares, together with confirmed booking in Business Class three days later. We joked that we could volunteer and stay back, but dismissed the thought immediately as we wanted to be together in the balmy Jamaica before the arrival of the snow storm in New york. We decided to help the airline by spreading the news of the offer to those in line, but no one obliged. Then came the surprises of surprises. Delta was seeking volunteers to find seats for us, Lekha, myself and a Jamaican lady, whom we had seen even on the previous day. There was only one seat for the three of us. We became the reluctant volunteers as both of us could not go and the Jamaican lady boarded with our children, who wished us a happy stay in New York as they bid a reluctant goodbye.

Delta kept the promise and gave us a handful of vouchers and sent us back home in a stately limousine to be received by smiling Unnikrishnans and snow flurries, which had begun to dance in the wind. Within hours, a snow storm, unprecedented since 1996, turned New york into a mountain of snow. We sent out the news on Facebook and Twitter to get an avalanche of messages and phone calls suggesting activities ranging from reading to honeymoon. We saw the power of social networking.

We too called our fellow KICian, Attorney Ram Cheerath,who, we heard, had already spent a day at JFK, not knowing when he would leave. Apparently, 'Etihad' had told him that their flight was on time and he took seven hours to get to the airport only to find that the counter was closed. He could not return home and he told us there was not enough food and water there to go round. We could give him nothing but a lot of sympathy.

Only one caller to us, Bowie, the wife of the musician, George Mathew, a close friend of Sree, who had visited us in Trivandrum a few months ago, said that she and her husband would like to come over with some food. Mathew, who had brought symphonic music to focus on global humanitarian issues,had raised funds for war victims in Darfur and flood victims in Pakistan. I had heard about his new project, "Beethoven for the Indus Valley."

I assured Bowie that we had stocked up food and that the Gristedes next door was still open. But she insisted on coming and I agreed, thinking that they would not be able to make it. But there they were, not only with a bag of chicken stew and material to make the Kerala specialty, puttu, but also a bundle of joy, their three months old son, Akbar, about whom we were not even aware!

They made puttu in our own kitchen and after a delightful meal, they walked into the pouring snow, not even sure of getting a cab. We could only pray that they reached home safely and they did. As we settled down to our snow prison term for the next three days, we wondered what prompted the Mathews to brave into the brutal weather outside with a little baby. The art of dealing with the weather was never on such splendid display! Bowie was not even born in India. She had learnt the Indian art from her husband.

2010-12-23T12:47:00.000-08:00

China Reacts to my Rediff Article

I am flattered that 'Global Times' China has responded to my Rediff article on India China relations.
(http://www.rediff.com/news/column/column-india-china-relations-worse-than-in-1962/20101221.htm)

By using selective quotations from the article, the newspaper has characterised my article as "irresponsible" and contrasted it with the statements made by the Foreign Secretary and the President of India. This is standard practice for the Chinese press. Interestingly, the paper has not listed among the examples the J&K related developments ie the stapled visas and the disappearance of the length of the border. This indicates that they see those as the more negative elements in Chinese policy. A colleague has just sent me an English translation, which is below. I wish the Chinese themselves had denied the assessment instead of using public statements of Indian dignitaries!

The article appeared in the Global Times (Huanqiu Shibao)

‘Some people in India continue to make provocative statements with regard to China-India relations. A few days ago, former Indian ambassador to the US Mr. T.P. Sreenivasan made an irresponsible assertion that the future of China-India relations is bound to result in conflict. He also said that the current state of China-India relations is even worse than 1962.

According to Rediff India news report on 21st December, in a commentary on India-China relations, Mr. Sreenivasan said, “Those who know China would not be complacent enough to think that the China threat is an illusion”. He said, “It is no more a question whether there will be a confrontation between India and China, but when it will take place”.

He further said that the current state of China-India relations is worse than 1962. Sreenivasan listed the following examples: In 1962, China had not gifted Pakistan with nuclear weapons; however, it has gifted two nuclear reactors to Pakistan in 2010. In 1962, there was only a border dispute; however, in 2010, there is not only a border dispute, but “China also occupies tens of thousands of square kilometers of Indian territory”.

Mr. Sreenivasan is currently the Director General of Kerala International Centre which is an Indian foreign policy think-tank. He is also a member of Indian National Security Advisory Board. His remarks above seem to run contrary to the views of Indian authorities. Commenting on the recent visit of Premier Wen to India, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said that this visit has deepened the understanding and trust between the two countries and is important in the context of further development of relations between the two countries. On December 16, President Prathiba Patil said after meeting with Premier Wen that she hopes that the friendly relations between the two peoples would last for generations and also said that this visit is significant, coming as it does on the 60th anniversary year of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.’

2010-12-23T12:44:00.000-08:00

India-China Relations in 2010 worse than in 1962

The bewildering questions that haunt mankind like “who?” and “when?” may have nothing to do with the names of Chinese leaders, Hu and Wen, but they bewilder us as much today as the eternal questions always did. Even the best Indian minds are unable to fathom the intentions and inclinations of the duo, which is poised to take the leadership of the world. After the latest Wen visit, it is no more a question whether there will be a confrontation between India and China, but “when” it will take place and “who” the dramatis personae will be when it occurs.

We have assurances from those who know China well that 1962 will not happen again. They contend that China is no more an isolated dragon, learning the art of breathing fire into the neighbourhood. As it has grown huge and powerful, it has become domesticated and responsible and would like to tango with the elephant. The elephant can relax in the thought that the dragon will not step on its toes or its fiery breath will not incinerate it. But there is one condition: the elephant has to tango to the tune of the dragon. The dragon, in the meantime, grows big enough to swallow the elephant at short notice. But we are also assured that the dragon is not as strong as it appears and it has bad entrails, which may afflict it at any time.

The year 2010 is certainly not 1962. At that time, there was only a border dispute and the presence of the Dalai Lama to provoke a war. Today, those two still remain and China misses no opportunity to remind us that there was “a certain unpleasantness” in the relationship sometime in the past. According to our calculations, China still occupies 38,000 square kilometers of Indian territory in Ladakh and another 5000 square kilometers, ceded to it by China in Kashmir. Nothing has changed in that situation since the devastating defeat of 1962.

On the other hand, there is much at the close of 2010 which should cause us concern. In 2010, 1600 km of the border between India and China suddenly disappeared from Chinese maps, which amounts to nothing but handing over Kashmir to Pakistan. It is not even a disputed territory anymore. One has to see whether China has extended its border with Pakistan by the same extent. In 1962, China had not gifted Pakistan with nuclear weapons. In 2010, China has added two more nuclear reactors to a country, which has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world. In 1962, people of Jammu and Kashmir and those who worked there could get Chinese visa on their Indian passports. Today, they have to use Chinese staples to attach themselves to their motherland. In 1962, China did not characterize India-China relations as fragile, but in 2010, China warns us that it is so fragile that India should take the responsibility not to let it break.

India and China were not incommunicado in the years preceding 1962. Prime Ministers met and talked, but China gave no inkling of its intentions to take law into its own hands. The dozen meetings our Prime Minister had with Prime Minister Wen, including the one at the end of 2010 should give us no cause for comfort. Stung by India’s attendance at the Oslo ceremony, Prime Minister Wen made it a point not to concede an inch on the core issues of concern to India. Is there any precedent for such a result in previous meetings?

The trend of 2010 was for the most powerful states in the world to come to India to sign contracts, which could have been signed at other levels. In fact, many of those contracts were finalized years ago at the level of experts. President Obama got USD 15 billion, President Sarkozy got USD 16 billion and Prime Minister Wen got even more. President Medvedev must be having his own package to carry home. The friendliest among them all was the one who got the least, Prime Minister Cameron of the UK, who put Pakistan on notice for terrorism against India in so many words. President Obama at least reprimanded Pakistan for giving safe havens to terrorists and expressed his hope that one day India would be a permanent member of the Security Council. President Sarkozy expressed dismay that India was not on the Security Council as yet. All of them sang for their supper, but Prime Minister Wen took the contracts and gave nothing in return. No opposition to Pakistani terrorism, no talk of permanent membership of the Security Council. He cannot even do without staples! The increase in trade envisaged (USD 100 billion by 2015) will benefit China more than India. Unlike the others, he did not think it was necessary to make political concessions for economic benefits.

Indian assertiveness in response too is a far cry from 1962. At that time, India had just completed its mission to get the Peoples Republic of China its rightful place in the world, having even declined the permanent seat in the Security Council offered to it, instead of China. We had not challenged Chinese suzerainty over Tibet. India had never provoked China even to the extent of taking the position we have taken in 2010 that if Tibet is important for China, Jammu and Kashmir is equally important for India.

Prime Minister Wen offered the panacea of trade for all the ills in the relationship. To think that the situation today is better than that of 1962, one has to be an optimist with a vengeance. Perhaps, war clouds are not gathering over the Himalayas because of the nuclear status of the two countries. Perhaps, the future war will be in cyberspace and there will be no clouds to detect. We could take comfort in the fact that China’s rise is peaceful and the dragon is more than willing to tango with the elephant. We may also take comfort in the fact that we are cooperating with China in Doha, Copenhagen and Cancun. Otherwise, those who know China would not be complacent enough to think that the Chinese threat is an illusion.

“Grandpa Wen” played with the children and spread sunshine and cheer. But his visit was a clear signal that, if anything, India-China relations are worse in 2010 than it was in 1962.

2010-12-15T09:57:00.000-08:00

Impact of IT on Diplomacy

I am delighted that I have been invited to address the IT Summit 2010, even though I feel a little out of place in the company of technologists and technocrats. I am quite innocent of technology and as for computers, I had thought till recently that personal computers made excellent hat or book stands. For fear of being treated as an illiterate, I learnt from my children and grandchildren to handle email, facebook and twitter. Now I feel very technologically savvy when I see my contemporaries think that facebook is a book on cosmetology and that twitter was invented by Dr. Shashi Tharoor.

Indeed, I represent the generation in transition, someone who has worked mostly with typewriters, carbon paper, stenographers and innumerable drafts and now coping with paperless workplaces. It is a bewildering world, with two kinds of IT posing some of the grave challenges of the 21st century, Information Technology and International Terrorism. One IT was benign so far and the other IT deadly and widespread. Today even the first IT is assuming dangerous proportions, with the prospect of the next world war being fought not with bombs or guns, but with laptops and cell phones. Is IT another Frankenstein monster that man has created?

Our topic today is E-governance, the art of governing a corporation or a country with the gifts of IT. We are entering a world of digital interaction between the Government and citizens, Government and business and between Government agencies. This is still in its infancy in India as our connectivity and network of computers are still very low. But the fact is that the growth of IT has made a big difference to the way Governments function and whether we like it or not, the age of E-governance are upon us.

You will understand if I draw upon my experience in the field of diplomacy to show how IT has transformed the way the Government functions. Perhaps IT has revolutionized the art of diplomacy more than any other profession. There was a time when ambassadors were truly “extraordinary and plenipotentiary” and they were sent to lie abroad for their country largely on their own. Armed with the credentials with the sign and seal of their heads of state, they became masters of their areas of accreditation. They had the authority to make peace or declare war as they deemed fit to secure the interests of their nation. They negotiated treaties, acquired territories and won hearts and minds of foreign nations. Their masters came to know of their accomplishments only when they dispatched a messenger or when they themselves returned to recount their exploits. They enjoyed victories and suffered defeats by themselves. Their dispatches, written at leisure in flowery language traveled to their Governments by the venerable diplomatic bag at snail’s pace. No instructions came and they came late, if at all, leaving ambassadors to their own devices.

Today, both Information Technology and International Terrorism have changed diplomacy beyond recognition. The communication revolution has transformed the way diplomacy works. Diplomats cannot lie abroad anymore because news, both good and bad, travel fast and unless they employ the latest IT tools, they cannot cope with the flow of information. Foreign ministers and heads of state meet frequently and talk to each other on phone, giving the Governments diverse channels of communication at multiple levels. Ambassadors have to struggle hard to remain relevant today. As for the impact of the other IT, International Terrorism, ambassadors have become suspects, being patted down at airports, not to speak of those who have been injured and killed in terrorist attacks.

More than any other department of the Government of India, it is the foreign office and our missions abroad that will have to use IT tools effectively. I recall my days in Fiji, when the paradise was plagued by the first military coup in the South Pacific in 1987. The first thing that Sitiveni Rabuka, the coup leader did was to cut the telephone and teleprinter links with the rest of the world, a standard practice for coup leaders. For three days, I had no contact with Delhi and all I did was entirely on my own. But the British High Commissioner told us that his fax line was not cut as the authorities were not aware of its existence. We learnt our lesson and our High Commission in Fiji became our first mission abroad to be equipped with a fax machine. Today the fax machine has become too antiquated. No military dictator can ever cut communications in the cyber era and no ambassador can claim that he had no way of seeking instructions from home.

The way we report from abroad has also changed dramatically. Till the advent of the fax machine, diplomats used to read newspapers and magazines in their countries of accreditation, absorb them, analyze them and send only the most relevant portions with their considered comments and recommendations to the headquarters. With the introduction of fax machines, we began transmitting texts of everything important, shifting the burden of reading to headquarters. Today, with the world press at the finger tips of decision makers at home, diplomatic reporting is relevant only if it contains instant analysis of a confidential nature. Of course, the confidentiality of diplomatic correspondence, considered sacrosanct has also been violated by Wikileaks, a fall out of technology. When messages were coded and decoded by human hands and transmitted by telegrams, it was possible to share frank assessments without fear of compromise and embarrassment. Not anymore. Wikileaks must have changed the way ambassadors, at least American ambassadors, report.

Today, the Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs has not only an interactive website, but also facebook and twitter accounts. How times have changed!

IT has brought speed and efficiency and transparency in Governments, it reduces corruption and error of human judgment, but at the same time, opens out possibilities of hacking, manipulation of data and total loss of valuable material. The overarching danger of cyber warfare looms over the horizon. But one thing is certain. No Government, no profession can stem the tide of IT and even if we can, it would be unwise to attempt it. There may be paperless Governments and phoneless conversations, but there can never be Governments without the human touch. Compassion and consideration must remain as important ingredients of Governments. E-governance, however efficient, cannot serve the people without the human touch.
Although India takes pride in being the software super power of the world, we are not even one of the 50 countries in the world, which have e-government ready status. So we have to go a long way in terms of connectivity, adaptation, innovation and creativity before e-governance becomes a reality.

Turning to Kerala itself, I recently had a glimpse of the achievements in this field as a member of the jury which chose products and processes for the e-governance awards. From imaginative websites to user friendly services, there was an array of innovative measures adopted by different departments of the Government. Among them were innovative citizen services of the Kozhikode Collectorate, digital base of doctoral theses of Mahatma Gandhi University and the selection process of engineering and medical students online. These are major accomplishments, but they also show that we have to travel much before we reach anywhere near e-governance becoming a reality. More than anything else, a change in the mindset and attitude is absolutely essential.

I have no doubt that this conference has contributed to the development of IT in Kerala, including the development of our e-governance skills.

2010-12-08T06:38:00.001-08:00

‘First Draft’ by B.G.Verghese
A conversation with the author after the release of the book
Justice V.R.Krishna Iyer released the autobiography of Shri. B.G.Verghese today in Kochi under the auspices of Kerala Press Academy. I was invited to receive the book and to have a book chat with the author. My remarks and the questions are below. The lines of his replies are indicated, but not full answers.
If I was asked to speak of B.G.Verghese ten days ago, I would have described him as a journalist, who has become a legend in his own lifetime. His outstanding work at the ‘Times of India’, the ‘Hindustan Times’ and the ‘Indian Express’ is the stuff that legends are made of. But today, having read his ‘First Draft’, I would describe him as one of the builders of modern India. As an editor, he has been a sentinel of personal and press freedoms, as an adviser to the Prime Minister he has been the architect of domestic and foreign policy and, as an activist, he continues to provide policy options on intractable issues ranging from human rights, environment, water resource and terrorism to Naxalism. ‘First Draft’ is testimony to the way he has helped shape modern India.
Verghese is a nationalist and an internationalist, having been born in Burma and educated at the Doon School, St Stephen’s and Cambridge and lived in different places in India, with short spells in Kerala. His story is also the story of modern India from the last days of the Raj to this day. In this narrative, the hero often fades into the background and his country comes to the forefront. But his portrayal of history is very personal, given his deep involvement as an influential commentator. As adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, he did not confine himself to public relations and made policy recommendations on domestic and foreign policy. His disillusionment with the emergency and his passion for freedom landed him in the Janata camp, leading to his defeat in his only foray into electoral politics in Mavelikara. He was also a consultant to Defence Minister Jaswant Singh.
Today, he has the status of an elder statesman, with involvement in many causes, a highly respected voice of the conscience of India. We are fortunate to have him with us to present his memoirs to us and also to answer some of the questions arising from it.
1. Allow me, Sir, to drag you directly to the raging controversy about journalism today. Your book gives the impression that as a senior editor, you not only reported history, but also shaped it. You say in the book, “Indeed it was a routine ploy for us at the TOI to ring up party contacts and drop a hint about rumours of a possible Cabinet reshuffle to get the man salivating and ready to share insider knowledge about political goings-on.” In other places, there are hints of your getting politicians together to resolve one issue or another. Do you think Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi went beyond such legitimate activities and brought discredit to journalism?

(BGV said that there was a fine line between contacts for the sake of gathering news and journalists getting close to lobbyists of corporations. Transgressions should not take place, but, happily, in the instant cases, there was no evidence of corruption. They themselves had admitted misjudgment.)

2. You were on the frontline in 1962 to witness what you call the psychological defeat, which was more than the military debacle at the hands of China. You deplore the “imbecility and paralysis that had come to characterize Delhi” at that time. In the last chapter of the book, you list the problems with China. But you say that “it is unlikely that 1962 can ever be repeated” because of China’s own vulnerabilities. But don’t you think China may decide to teach India a lesson again?

(BGV said that relations with China would remain complex. China had become assertive and there were instances of provocation from their side. But China would not embark on any adventure because of its position in the world and its own inherent weaknesses. But India should remain vigilant and also have a pragmatic relationship.)

3. During your stint with Indira Gandhi, you found policy making generally unsatisfactory with last minute changes in speeches and acceptance of ideas on the spot etc. You are specific about little integration between foreign policy and defence. “We did not have a clear world view or security doctrine”, you say. Do you think the situation has changed?

(BGV said that things had improved, but there were some problems. He quoted the response to 26/11 as an example of lack of coordination and cohesion in dealing with issues.)

4. Sir, let me take you back to your campaign in Mavelikara with the support of the non-Congress Parties including the Communists. Why was it that the anti-Congress wave was absent in Kerala? Why was it that your personality and passion for freedom did not get you votes?

(BGV explained the circumstances in which he entered the fray. Unlike in the rest of India, Congress did well in Kerala. He felt that though he did not get elected, his cause had won in 1977.)

5. You have dealt with relations with Pakistan at some length in your book. Do you think that the back channel solution on Kashmir will ever be accepted by the people of the two countries? As an expert on water, do you think that we can use the Indus Water Treaty as a pressure point on Pakistan?

(BVG explained the history of the Indus Water Treaty. It was the expectation that the deficiencies in the Treaty would be rectified when the relations improved. If the proposal to make the borders irrelevant were to succeed, it would be possible for both the countries to make optimum use of water.)

6. You speak in the book on the reasons for the Naxal violence. Obviously, you have considerable sympathy for the tribal people and you think that the Government’s plan for socio-economic development will not work. Do you think the Maoists are “Gandhis with guns”? What is your solution to the Maoist menace?

(BVG explained the reason for disaffection among the tribals, who revolted against injustice. The Maoists exploited the situation, leading to the present serious situation. Law and order should be preserved, but the grievances of the tribals should also be addressed. He did not agree that they could be called Gandhis with guns. Arundhati Roy, he said, was a good writer, but she should not overdramatize issues as she did in the case of Kashmir. He felt that she should not have been charged.)

In reply to questions from the audience, BGV said that the media made it out as though everybody was corrupt. He blamed the media for spelling disaster. Much was being said and written for the sake of breaking news. He was optimistic that, after the churning, which would bring up some scum, there would be a cleansing and India would emerge stronger.

2010-12-08T06:38:00.000-08:00

2010-12-03T08:17:00.001-08:00

WIKILEAKS--THE MIDNIGHT SUN

By T.P.Sreenivasan

A dreaded thought for many is the possibility of the sun rising at midnight without warning. People will be caught in the wrong places doing the wrong things. The embarrassment will be not that these things happen, but that these come unexpectedly to public view. At the time of the normal break of day, they will be prim and proper. To change the image, no one wants to be seen in the green room of a play, when the actors are putting on make up or having a drink, even when dressed up as Mahatma Gandhi. Once the curtains are up, they will play their roles perfectly and receive approbation. The embarrassment of the US today is that of people caught in the midnight sun, actors caught in the green room.

The world of diplomacy is an elegant and beautiful world. Diplomats dress well, say the right things at the right time, respect other people's views and even appear to change their positions for the good of the world. They are totally rational and reasonable and there are no harsh words. But that does not mean there is no struggle, no rancor, no arm twisting, no name calling, no plain speaking behind the scenes. It is in the strong rooms of the chanceries that honest opinions are aired, cold calculations are made and strategies and tactics are shaped to subdue the enemy and to put the friend to the best use. Deals are made, concessions are given and the IOUs are counted. This is not the preserve of the big powers and all nations play the game by their own rules before everything is formalized in accordance with the provisions of the Vienna and Geneva conventions. In fact, it is the struggle behind the scenes that leads to the photo opportunities and signature ceremonies with flowers and smiles all around.

The unwritten rules for protection and promotion of national interests are as important as the code of conduct of diplomats ranging from sartorial propriety to acting for the common good. Confidentiality of communications within an individual Government should be sacrosanct at least for a reasonable period so that the diplomats can be brutally frank in their assessments. These assessments enable the Governments concerned to understand each other and according to their best interests. Such frank assessments and forthright predictions contribute to peace and stability in the world. Indeed, it is the "cables" that make the diplomatic world go round.

We should not rejoice over the loss of face that the US has suffered on account of the leakage of its cable traffic. This can happen to any country, even though some countries are more discreet than others and maintain a certain decorum in even confidential communications. But if diplomatic cables leak even in India, there will be many red faces. What we write in these cables cannot but offend the people whose conduct or conversations are reported in what we call "telegrams". Unless the confidentiality of these communications are assured, the very functioning of our missions will be in jeopardy.

The Wikileaks have, however, come as a bonanza for US watchers as they give a rare glimpse of the workings of US diplomacy and the private views of US diplomats expressed in privileged communications to their Government. Such leaks may even have a beneficial effect if the US Government takes corrective measures to remove the irritants that may be generated by the leaks.

One point to remember is that diplomatic "cables" or "telegrams"have undergone many changes over the years. From a situation where each word or each letter was painstakingly coded by hand, we have reached a stage when words keyed into a computer automatically get coded and then get decoded for the recipients. Neither the sender nor the recipient needs to worry about any unauthorized person reading the messages. Without that comfort and confidence, no one will convey his frank opinions and assessments.

Diplomats are generally the worst critics of their host countries because they watch and learn about their hosts on a day to day basis. They also experience culture shocks each time they change their assignments. The excellent relations the countries may have do not prevent them from expressing their views among themselves. The hosts will not be too pleased to hear these views. Such conversations take place in diplomatic circles in every capital.

The US Government had already warned several countries, including India. about the likelihood of irritants emerging on account of the leaks. We do not know the nature and extent of the damage that is likely to result when the thousands of pages, which have been leaked, are published and analyzed. The early revelation about India's aspirations for permanent membership of the UN Security Council had no real surprise in it. We knew for a fact that the US had not yet arrived at a formula for the expansion of the Security Council, which it can expect to accomplish. It had "enthusiastically" supported Japan and Germany in the past, but could not succeed in promoting them. The hope to see India as a permanent member may be genuine, but the hope can be fulfilled only if there is a workable formula, involving the nature and size of the expansion. The US is still searching for such a formula.

Hillary's instructions in the leaked document reveals that the US mission in New York would go to the extent of spying on the concerned countries to learn about their moves in this connection. The issues to be followed are listed in these words:

"B. Key Continuing Issues

1) UN Security Council Reform (FPOL-1).

-- Positions, attitudes, and divisions among member states on

UN Security Council (UNSC) reform.

-- Views, plans and intentions of Perm 5 and other member

states on the issue of UNSC enlargement, revision of UNSC

procedures or limitation of Perm 5 privileges.

-- International deliberations regarding UNSC expansion among

key groups of countries: self-appointed front runners for

permanent UNSC membership Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan

(the Group of Four or G-4); the Uniting for Consensus group

(especially Mexico, Italy, and Pakistan) that opposes

additional permanent UNSC seats; the African Group; and the

EU, as well as key UN officials within the Secretariat and

the UN General Assembly (UNGA) Presidency.

-- Willingness of member states to implement proposed reforms.

-- Reactions of UN senior leadership towards member

recommendations for UNSC reform."

The objection is to the description of "a key group of countries", India, Brazil, Japan and Germany, as "self-appointed front runners". This description need not be seen as derogatory because they are seen as front runners, but not recognized formally by anyone else. India is of the view that it has substantial support, but this is not a matter of public record. The other criticism is that Obama's statement of support for India voiced in the Indian Parliament is proved hollow by the statement of the US state secretary that India is nothing but a self appointed front runner. Here, it is a matter of interpretation of the intent of the US President. What he expressed was the consensus view in New York that if and when the Security Council is expanded, India should have a place in it as a permanent member. This is indeed a significant shift in the US position as no US leader had expressed this sentiment so far. But too much should not be read into it. Our dream may be a little nearer to reality now than before, but not enough.

There may still be worse revelations in the coming weeks when more documents get published. As long as they are seen in their right perspective, no serious damage will be done to India-US relations. Some of them may even help clarify some of the mysteries of US behaviour around the world.

2010-11-30T08:13:00.000-08:00

Remarks by T.P.Sreenivasan at a function to release Gautaman Bhaskaran's Book on Adoor Gopalakrishnan November 30, 2010

‘Adoor Gopalakrishnan- A Life in Cinema’ is an extraordinary book on an exceptional film maker. I have been an ardent admirer of Adoor for a long time. I am now an admirer also of Gautaman Bhaskaran for elevating the genre of biography to an artistically higher level, close to a novel for readability and felicity of language. Adoor and his movies come out of this book as a composite whole, inseparable and indistinguishable from each other. The man and the movies are one. Adoor hopes that the book will throw some light on his life and work. Gautaman Bhaskaran does more than that- he shows Adoor and his work in a new light.
For practicing diplomats like me, India’s icons, whether they are writers, artists, poets or film personalities constitute the soft power of India, which has been an instrument of our foreign policy. Different film personalities captivated the imagination of people in different countries-Raj Kapoor and Nargis in the Soviet Union, Amitabh Bachan and Sharukh Khan in West and East Asia and Satyajit Ray in earlier years and Adoor more recently in the US and Europe. Adoor retrospectives were common in the US as well as in Austria, where I was invited to share the honour with the film maker and India. I was glad to see that connoisseurs in these and other countries related to the art films of India more than to the mélange of dance and music of Bollywood.
It is difficult to capture in a few minutes the doors that Gautaman Bhaskaran has opened to Adoor and his cinema in his book. All of us knew well that Adoor made films about real people and real situations and that there was nothing artificial or superficial in them. But the author takes us through Adoor’s background, upbringing, interest in Kathakali and theatre, the profound influence of Gandhi on him and the expertise he acquired in Krishnanattam and Koodiyattam and shows us how each of these facets comes through in his work. Whether the author is narrating the events of Adoor’s early life, as a biographer should or whether he is reviewing each of his films as a critic should, his focus is on the unique features of the Adoor cinema. The two sections of the book, the first on Adoor’s life and the second on his movies, merge into each other to reveal the genius of Adoor and its manifestation on the screen. His accomplishment is in persuading Adoor, a reluctant conversationalist, to talk and weave his insights into a remarkable biography.
Gautaman Bhaskaran deals with some of the misconceptions about Adoor’s work. For instance, many people place Adoor in the Satyajit Rray School of movie-making. The criticism that Ray exploited Indian poverty has been hurled at Adoor also. Adoor may have been attracted to Ray’s cinema, but the very fact that Ray considered Adoor his most favourite Indian director shows that his work is far different from Ray’s own. “Had my work resembled Ray’s, he would have had nothing but disdain for me”, the author quotes Adoor as saying, although Adoor considered Ray a constant source of creative energy and inspiration.
Gautaman Bhaskaran also examines the unease that spectators feel when there is silence on the screen, a feature of Adoor’s work. Adoor’s sparing use of background music has also been criticized. In Kodiyettam, Adoor did not use background score at all. The author explores the world of other sounds that Adoor uses and the great lengths to which he goes to record the commonest of sounds to be used with great effect to accomplish the right balance of sound and silence. People with the ear for these sounds will not miss the musical score in Adoor’s movies. Adoor believes that silence exists with sound, between sounds. Sometimes, silence accentuates sound.
An amusing section of the book is on the non-human actors, the birds, the animals and the fish which make Adoor’s films richer with their presence and histrionics. The rat becomes an actor in Elipathayam, crows and mynahs come to life in Mathilukal. The story of how a Swiss- bred cow, masquerading as a nadan pasu, made Adoor rewrite the scene in Kathapurushan is amusing indeed.
The last few days since Kurien Sabarigiri invited me to this event have been Adoor Gopalakrishnan days for me. After I began reading the book, I heard Adoor speaking on Koodiyattam, saw him at the Hay Festival and watched three of his latest movies, starting with Nizhalkkuthu, my all time favourite among Adoor’s movies. As I conclude this brief comment on the book on Adoor Gopalakrishnan, the thought that occurs to me is one of gratitude that we, in Thiruvananthapuram, are blessed that we are Adoor’s contemporaries and we have the privilege of seeing this great film maker not only on celluloid, but also in flesh and blood. I am glad that Gautaman Bhaskaran has given us a glimpse of the genius of this great son of Kerala. When we see Kodiyettam, Elippathayam, Nizhalkkuthu or a new creation by Adoor, we will enjoy these creations even more, thanks to this brilliant biography.