Is Pakistan dividing again

Over the last 5 months, i have written about 8 posts on Pakistan emphasizing that the current turn of events are only stages of what could be the end of the nation state of Pakistan.

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation_17.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/02/did-obama-force-zardaris-hand.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation_20.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation_18.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-wont-pakistan-make-it-as-nation.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/12/next-terror-attack-on-us-will-originate.html

http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/11/us-suspects-kashmir-based-group-behind.html

This post is a reproduction of an article by Shaun Gregory, former British high commissioner to Pakistan.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Sunday-TOI/All-That-Matters/Losing-integrity-Is-Pakistan-dividing-again/articleshow/4206486.cms

There is a school of thought which has long argued that the creation of Pakistan in 1947 was a geographical, ethnic, cultural, economic, and political artifice sewn and held together only by the weak thread of a questionable religious homogeneity, and that consequently the project of Pakistan would eventually be torn apart by its own contradictions.

History may well record that the abject surrender of Swat in a phoney ‘peace deal’ marked an important stepping stone on the path to Pakistan’s destruction. 

While the weak and hapless Zardari/Gilani government continues to waste precious political capital on PPP infighting and avoidable confrontation with Nawaz Sharif, to the west of the Indus river dynamics are unfolding which have placed Pakistan’s integrity once more in question.

Since 2001, the Pakistan Army and ISI have been playing a dangerous game in providing sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban in the Pashtun areas of Northern Balochistan and in the FATA, in the expectation that Mullah Omar would orchestrate a comeback in Afghanistan, displace the Karzai regime or any of its western-backed successors, force NATO from the region, and reverse India’s growing influence in Afghanistan.

 In early 2009, this strategy appears to be working. The Afghan Taliban are influential across all but the most northerly areas of Afghanistan and a peace deal of some sort with Mullah Omar is predicted this year or next. 

Pakistan has, however, entered a Faustian pact with Mullah Omar and the Quetta Shura, and the darker implications of that bargain have only now begun to dawn on Pakistan’s ruling elite. 

As the Afghan Taliban have regained power and momentum from sanctuaries in Pakistan, they have also created and driven the context for the emergence and evolution of virulent forms of Pakistani militancy and terrorism, both in Pakistan’s Pashtun areas and across Pakistan. 

These dynamics have been reinforced by the Pakistan army/ISI’s continued embrace of Punjabi terrorists, and by the military focus of the US-led war on terror which has fuelled radicalisation on both sides of the Durand Line. 

In this context tribal armies in the FATA have mutated into new forms of radical extremist groups such as Baitullah Mehsud’s TTP and Fazlullah’s TNSM. Al-Qaida has re-emerged and re-established something of its global reach, foreign fighters from as far as Algeria, European diasporas, western China and the Philippines have once again poured into the region, and the huge expansion of largely Saudi and locally-funded madrassas has ensured a continual supply of young Afghans and Pakistanis ready to die for the militant cause. 

The Pakistan army and ISI have presided over this rising tide of terrorism and religious extremism in the expectation that they could achieve their aims in Afghanistan through the Afghan Taliban while keeping control of Pakistani militancy and terrorism on their own side of the border. 

In the wake of the bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad in September 2008, and of the escalation of terrorist violence in Pakistan’s cities which preceded it, that calculation has proven disastrously wrong. 

Given the perilous situation in which the Pakistani state now finds itself, the question of why the Pakistan army/ISI has still not thrown its lot in with the US and NATO and unleashed the full force of the Army and the ISI against the Afghan Taliban, the tribal militants, and al-Qaida, requires an answer. 

Only two arguments make any sense: either the Pakistan Army-ISI is unwilling to do so or it is unable to do so. If the former, then that can only be because the Army-ISI still believes it can contain the militancy and terrorism within Pakistan. 

If this is the case, then one wonders why the Army-ISI continues to think that and how many more Marriotts on the push side, and what western incentives on the pull side will it take before the Army and ISI make a decisive break with past policy? 

More gravely for Pakistan, for its neighbours, and for the West, the other possibility is that the Pakistan Army and ISI may genuinely have reached the practical limits of their ability to control militancy and terrorism. 

Pakistan has committed up to 120,000 troops to the FATA region and since September 2008 has not been able to make a substantive impact in Bajaur and Mohmand Agencies. 

Mullah Omar and the Quetta Shura is understood, through a decentralised command structure and with the support of al-Qaida, to broadly control the tribal militants in Pakistan, such as the TTP and TNSM, which pose the most direct threat to the state of Pakistan. 

Mullah Omar and the Pakistan Army-ISI are, thus, locked in a fearful stalemate: Mullah Omar checks the power of Pakistan’s militants and holds them back from escalating violence against the Pakistani state, and in return the Pakistan Army-ISI continues the support and protection of Mullah Omar and the Quetta Shura and pays lip-service to western demands for tough action against the Afghan Taliban. 

Either way, the Pashtun areas of Pakistan are beyond the reach of the Pakistani state and it is difficult to see that they can be recovered. 

The situation in Swat, thus, stands as an expression of a larger crisis of state legitimacy which for all practical purposes will likely see another piece of Pakistan break away. 

Delhi: Running out of time on Commonwealth

A sequel to my earlier post : A system in Rot, http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/03/system-in-rot.html, this blog post takes the lack of seriousness of governance and Bureaucracy to the next level: How is it going to affect the 2010 Commonwealth games in Delhi?

China's Beijing Olympic dazzle left the world glittered in its awe and won it some great acclaim world over. In 2006, Melbourne hosted the Commonwealth Games and rasied the bar ever so much. In 2010, the Commonwealth games move into India and Delhi. Its less than 18 months here on to the games and Delhi looks not even to have started the preparedness to the Commonwealth. A parliamentary report tabled at the Rajya Sabha has slammed Delhi Government's preparedness on the Commonwealth and yet the Delhi sport minister, Manohar Singh Gill has side stepped the concern, likening the preparation for Commonwealth to a great Indian wedding, where everything comes together just on time before the opening ceremony. For the government that was elected on its progress agenda, Shiela Dixit and her men, are in adenial to face realities that they face. Worse, adhocism and procastrination in terms of infrastructure development leading to this event may dent India's image significantly in the world communities but no one seems to be bothered about it really. All that is in the air, is the election and its doesnot seem like there will be any awareness and action on this till about June 2009, which will only leave 15 months to the Opening ceremony.

The Games Village, the facilities around, the roads and transport, the security, the airports,the  water and power supply, nothing seems to be in place for this spectacle. In absence of any serious call to action, the image that India may project in front of the 71 participating nations may not be a very flattering one. According to press reports, the Commonwealth boxing championships have already been pushed back from December 2009 and the vice president of the international swimming federation has already slammed the organisers for the poor facilities.

The ministers answers, the CAG report on delays in project completion, ruefully point to the deliberate lack of seriousness in efforts to develop infrastructure. If this be the case in Delhi, which is the capital of this country, imagine what be it in far off places (India being a geographical and economically diverse country!). Corruption, schedule overruns, rampant mis-use of public funds, lack of foresight in policy decisions and ballooning funds are going to sink the ship, even before it takes to the high seas. A damning statistic over here: out of 519 infrastructure projects scheduled by the central government, 258 are running behind schedule (50%) and the cost overruns are 13.4% (from 344119 crores to 390230 crores). 

It is time to step up the gas, and probably at this time, it is worth inviting private participation of infrastructure companies to speeden things up for a change.

A system in rot

In one of my earliest blog posts in September 2008, i had debated the state of Indian roads with the Mint editor Raju Narisetti.
http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/08/of-infrsatructure-and-capital.html
http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/09/of-infrastructure-and-capital.html

The debate on accountability for the bad state of infrastructure has been re kindled by the CAG report which was reported by TOI:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Delhi/55_of_roads_okayed_by_MCD_substandard_CAG/articleshow/4203120.cms
The report brings forth the following points

1. MCD accepts substandard road work from contractors insteda of opting for minimum quality standards. Third party checks on 20 roads built between 2003 and 2008 reported 55% of the roads below standard.
   42 roads have been damaged during the warranty period and there have been no repairs made on to them. This was while the warranty covered all costs of repairs.


2. 5 newly built roads made at a cost of Rs.3.18 crores were accpeted by the MCD where as third party checks by the CAG have found them to be substandard.


3. Of 304 RWAs (resident welfare associations) surveyed 77% have reported bad roads in their colonies and 71% have said that the roads in their colonies have not been repaired even once in the last 5 years.


4. Of the total allocation of monies for road development, MCD has routinely diverted the money to purchase of vehicles, computers, hiring of vehicles and office work constructions.


5. Contractors delay the road work routinely, and though they should be fined for it, none of they are ever penalised courtesy MCD.


6. On an average 87% of the total project contractual work amounts are duly paid up to the contractors, with out any completion of work.


7. Monies collected from other agencies for road development lies sorely under utilised.


8. MCD has been commissioning quality checks without mandatory quality checks 53% of the times.


9. A third of MCD assets such as drainage, sewage, roads and subways are in a state of neglect.
   

These are just about gaping wide craters in the system, sucking up the taxpayers money and distributing it to a few pockets in the MCD and the Government machinery. While fraudsters and scamsters are tried, penalised and punished, the MCD - Government nexus which is probably a shade worse in fraud, scmas and misuse of public money go about becoming more powerful and more irresponsible and more corrupt in their ways. One would have to give the kudos to CAG to bring such facts on the table. But one needs a more wilful, accountable and "aware" governance to fight se evils of the system.

Receeding Glaciers: Earth's natural heritage at terrible risk (Part II)

The scale of the problem can be realised when you factor in that huge populations dependent on glacier-fed rivers in Asia - 360 million on the Ganges in India and 388 million on the Yangtze in China alone - will not be able to feed themselves, with devastating effect on already rising global food prices. The problem is the most acute in Asia, where glaciers are an important source for nine major rivers which run through land occupied by 2.4 billion people. In Pakistan, for example, 80 per cent of agricultural land is irrigated by the Indus, which the WWF last year highlighted as one of the world's 10 big at-risk rivers because retreating glaciers provide 70-80 per cent of its flow.

According to a report by the world Glacier monitoring service, from 1850 to 1970, net losses averaged about 30cm a year; between 1970 to 2000 they rose to 60-90cm a year; and since 2000 the average has been more than one metre a year. Last year the total net loss was the biggest ever, 1.3m, and only one glacier became larger. Worldwide, the vast majority of the planet's 160,000 glaciers are receding at least at this rate or more! According to a UNEP report two-thirds of China's glaciers would disappear by 2050, and 'almost all would be gone by 2100'.

In North America, 99-plus per cent of Alaskan glaciers are either retreating or stagnating. In the European Alps, a report last year by UNEP said glaciers declined, from a peak in the 1850s, by 35 per cent by 1970 and by 50 per cent by 2000, and lost 5-10 per cent in the mega-hot year of 2003 alone. UNEP has also reported declines in the last 50-150 years of 1.3 per cent in the Arctic islands to 50 per cent in the North Caucasus in Russia, 25-50 per cent in central Asia, a 2km retreat of the massive Gangotri glacier which feeds the Ganges, 49 to 61 per cent in New Zealand, and 80 per cent in the high mountains of southern Africa. There is also 'considerable' shrinking of medium and small glaciers in central Chile and Argentina accompanied by 'drastic retreat' of glaciers in Patagonia to the south.

On a global level, scientists warn that melting glaciers are contributing more than ever to rising sea levels: expansion of warmer water is estimated to cause two-thirds of the problem, but melting glaciers and icecaps are the second biggest contributor. A recent paper published by Science calculated acceleration of glacier melt could add 0.1-0.25m to sea-level rise by 2100.

At a policy level, leaders around the world are still debating the means to address problems such as greenhouse emissions and carbon footprints. Outside in the wilderness, the last signs of earth's heritage, its glaciers are melting away more rapidly than we care to think about.

(reproduced from http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/16/glaciers.climatechange)

Receeding Glaciers: Earth's natural heritage at terrible risk (Part I)

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Earth/Glaciers-in-Tibet-shrinking-/articleshow/4175959.cms

Glaciers in the Qinghai - Tibet Plateau in Yangtze source area, have receded 196 sq.kms over the last 40 years!

Glaciers at the headwaters of the Yangtze, China's longest river, now cover 1,051 square km compared to 1,247 square km in 1971, a loss of nearly a billion cubic metres of water.

The tongue of the Yuzhu glacier, the highest in the Kunlun Mountains, fell by 1,500 metres over the same period, showed the study

In the short term, melting glacier waters brings more fresh water to rivers, but as the source dies down, the river beds will dry out and have droughts every cycle. This will disturb the population around the banks and the agricultural patterns, which depend on the river as a lifeline. On the other hand melting water in glaciers are also submerging pastures in higher Himalayas impacting the domestic, trade, fauna and flora of the regions. Tibet today faces this problem where Glaciers and their rapid cooling are causing changes both in life and economy of the country.

While Tibet is the just the stating bell, this is an ominous sound of coming disaster which will impact the planet as a whole. As they retreat, glacial lakes will burst, debris and ice will fall in avalanches, rivers will flood and then dry up, and sea levels will rise even further, say the climate experts. Communities will be deprived of essential water, crops will be ruined and power stations which rely on river flows paralysed.