Monthly Archives: August 2018

Pak army chief’s offer of non-interference demands close scrutiny

t was reverse swing perfected on a tampered ball that made Imran Khan almost unplayable; and now in his political avatar, he has thrown something akin to his famed deceptive in-swinger at India’s foreign ministry pundits, who are still shuffling at the crease without a response. The Pakistan Prime Minister made a peace overture on Wednesday while inaugurating the first edition of the Islamabad Security Dialogue, claiming that India and Pakistan can settle the Kashmir issue through dialogue and establish a relationship like civilised neighbours. After his failed rabble-rousing attempt at the UN General Assembly, it was only in September 2019 that Imran had called for a jihad against India.

From an all-out religious war to peaceful coexistence through dialogue is a reversal too sharp, and while the Indian officialdom is still reading Imran’s delivery, Pakistan army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa literally bowled India over on Thursday. Bajwa’s astonishing promise of ‘non-interference of any kind in the internal affairs of our neighbour’ is so staggering that nobody in India can afford to take it seriously. By promising to ‘recast Pakistan’s image as a peace-loving nation and a useful member of the international community’, Bajwa has even confessed to his country’s true characteristics. Pakistan’s spin doctors are explaining the statements of Imran and Bajwa from the perspective of national security in terms of economic priorities over military compulsions — the primacy of economic security.

Shorn of all jargon, it could simply mean the fear of the anti-terror Financial Action Task Force (FATF) keeping Pakistan on the grey list beyond June. The FATF sanctions have indeed cost Pakistan a GDP loss of $38 billion in exports and inward foreign direct investment in recent years; yet this startling U-turn seeking peace with India has more to it than financial distress. This could well be a realisation of the futility of getting on the wrong side of the US-China competition, particularly after the Quad summit and the publication of the joint op-ed by the leaders of the US, India, Japan and Australia. Or simply a reverse swing yorker meant to deceive and defeat.

India has said the onus is on Pakistan to create an environment free of terror and hostility

Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. AP/PTI file

Islamabad, March 18

Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa said on Thursday that it was time for India and Pakistan to “bury the past and move forward” as he asserted that the peace between the two neighbours would help to “unlock” the potential of South and Central Asia.

Addressing a session of the first-ever Islamabad Security Dialogue here, Gen Bajwa also said the potential for regional peace and development always remained hostage to the disputes and issues between Pakistan and India – the two “nuclear-armed neighbours”.

“We feel it is time to bury the past and move forward,” he said, adding that the responsibility for a meaningful dialogue rested with India.

India last month said it desires normal neighbourly relations with Pakistan in an environment free of terror, hostility and violence. India has said the onus is on Pakistan to create an environment free of terror and hostility.

India has also told Pakistan that “talks and terror” cannot go together and has asked Islamabad to take demonstrable steps against terror groups responsible for launching various attacks on India.

“Our neighbour will have to create a conducive environment, particularly” in Kashmir, Gen Bajwa said, adding that any effort to improve ties without addressing the core issue would be vulnerable to external political factors.

“The Kashmir issue is at the heart of this. It is important to understand that without the resolution of the Kashmir dispute through peaceful means, the process will always remain susceptible to derailment to politically motivated bellicosity,” he said.

The powerful army, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half of its 70 plus years of existence, has hitherto wielded considerable power in the matters of security and foreign policy.

Gen Bajwa’s remarks came a day after Prime Minister Imran Khan made a similar statement at the same venue.

Gen Bajwa also said peace between Pakistan and India would help to “unlock the potential of South and Central Asia” by ensuring connectivity between East and West Asia

 Prime Minister Khan said on Wednesday said India will be benefitted economically by having peace with Pakistan as it will enable New Delhi to directly access the resource-rich Central Asia region through Pakistani territory.

“India will have to take the first step. Unless they do so, we cannot do much,” Khan said while delivering the inaugural address at the launch of the two-day Dialogue.

Khan said having a direct route to the Central Asian region will economically benefit India. Central Asia is rich in oil and gas.

Central Asia, in the modern context, generally includes five resource-rich countries—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Gen Bajwa also said peace between Pakistan and India would help to “unlock the potential of South and Central Asia” by ensuring connectivity between East and West Asia.

Though, both Prime Minister Khan and Gen Bajwa didn’t specify the minimum steps that India should take but many experts in Pakistan believe that some positive measures in Kashmir could ease pressure on the Pakistan government before entering into talks or restoring the normal diplomatic ties.

Gen Bajwa also talked about poverty which he said was linked with the regional tension that had hindered the regional connectivity and integration.

“Despite being impoverished, we end up spending a lot of our money on defence, which naturally comes at the expense of human development,” he said.

However, he added that Pakistan was resisting the temptation to become part of the arms race or increase defence budget despite rising security challenges.

“This has not been easy, especially when you live in a hostile and unstable neighbourhood. But having said that, let me say that we are ready to improve our environment by resolving all our outstanding issues with our neighbours through dialogue in a dignified and peaceful manner,” he said.

India and Pakistan had announced on February 25 that they have agreed to strictly observe all agreements on ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir and other sectors.

Ties between India and Pakistan nose-dived after a terror attack on the Pathankot Air Force base in 2016 by terror groups based in the neighbouring country.

Subsequent attacks, including one on Indian Army camp in Uri, further deteriorated the relationship.

The relationship dipped further after India’s war planes pounded a Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist training camp deep inside Pakistan on February 26, 2019 in response to the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF jawans were killed.

The relations deteriorated after India announced withdrawing special powers of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcation of the state into two union territories in August, 2019.

Talking about the concept of national security, Gen Bajwa said that it was not just about protecting countries from an external and internal threat.

“Today, the leading drivers of change in the world are demography, economy and technology…However, one issue that remains central to this concept is economic security and cooperation,” he said.

He said that since national security involved ensuring human security, national progress and development, it was not solely the function of the armed forces and required a national effort to safeguard a nation. PTI

Trial court had ordered Major General and Defence Estate Officer be sent to civil prison for two months for their wilful disobedience and violation of the decree

ribune News Service

New Delhi, March 18

The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed Telangana court’s order to send a Major General of Indian Army and Defence Estate Officer to two-month civil prison in connection with execution proceedings in a land dispute.

“We stay the entire order passed in execution proceedings,” said a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted that urgent invention was needed in view of the fact that the Telangana High Court had refused to stay the order.

The Central government had moved a court in Telangana claiming ownership of land alleged to have been encroached by one Veera Raghav Reddy.

The Centre contended that the land in question was under military occupation and was used for parade and as a training ground. It alleged that Reddy upon encroached 9-acre land.

However, Reddy had claimed that his family had been in continuous, open and adverse possession for over 160 years and the rights alleged to have been acquired by the other party had become completely extinguished by the lapse of time.

A civil court in Secunderabad had dismissed the suit. While an appeal was pending before the Telangana High Court, the defendant sold more than 5 acres of disputed land.

The trial court decreed a counter petition in favour of the legal heirs of the original defendant and restrained the Central government from interfering with the peaceful possession of the land by the heirs of original defendant.

In execution proceedings, the trial court ordered the Major General of Indian Army and Defence Estate Officer be sent to civil prison for two months for their wilful disobedience and violation of the decree.

The Centre moved the top court as the High Court refused to stay the order.

Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat | File photo: ANIText Size: A- A+

New Delhi: The armed forces will completely ban the import of clothing, required to sustain its soldiers at extreme temperatures across the country, if the Indian textile industry is able to innovate and manufacture them, said Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat on Wednesday.

“We are looking at the kind of clothing that can sustain our soldiers in the kind of extreme cold climate (near northern borders of Ladakh) and in the hot, dry and humid climate in the deserts and the north-eastern regions where we have the jungle and semi-mountainous terrain,” he said in his speech at an event organised by industry body FICCI.

As of now, a large amount of clothing for the armed forces is being imported but in the past one or two years, there has been a lot of innovation by the Indian industry as far as high altitude clothing is concerned, he said.

“We have now started placing orders for such clothing. And if we find that this thing can take off and support us, we will not hesitate in putting the entire clothing or the entire ‘techno clothing’ that we are using in the armed forces on the positive indigenisation list, which we were earlier calling the negative list for imports,” Rawat said.

“This means we will completely ban the import of these items and make sure that the defence services have to depend only on the Indian industry as part of our Atmanirbhar Bharat support that we wish to give to the industry,” he added.https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.447.1_en.html#goog_1128851600

Techno clothing is special clothing that is developed by incorporating new technology to make it usable in special circumstances and places such as extremely cold areas, biomedical equipment, aircraft, etc.

The government in August last year announced a ‘negative list for imports’ that restricted purchase of 101 defence items such as light combat helicopters, transport aircraft, conventional submarines and cruise missiles from foreign entities.

Rawat said, “As far as defence services are concerned, we have a huge stake in techno textiles. We are large users of textiles that use technology and we will continue to use them in the years ahead.”

Today, soldiers are serving in altitudes at the northern borders where the temperature falls to as low as minus 50 degree celsius in the winters, he said.

“We have our jawans operating in the deserts where the temperature rises to as high as 58 degree celsius in the summers. I’m not saying the same textile should suffice and meet both the parameters,” he added.

Also read: China will continue to assert itself, seeks to dominate Indian Ocean Region, says CDS Rawat

Tribune Web Desk
Chandigarh, March 19

Shamrock Bhangra, a folk dancing group, were caught doing Bhangra in front of Castletown House in County Kildare, Ireland.

RTE News, in a Twitter post, shared the video featuring the folk dance group. So far, the video has been shared over six lakh times.

The choreographers—Gurpreet Singh, Charnjit Singh and Kanwar Singh—performed the socially-distanced routine by an Irish band and the UK-based The Dhol Foundation—a Bhangra musical group—on St Patrick’s Day, according to RTE News

blob:https://www.rte.ie/34370fb8-8b88-496f-ba3e-f7e3d3de07f3

In traditional outfits, the folk group danced their hearts out.

The video has gone viral on all social media platforms.

“This is absolutely brilliant. A great way of embracing the Irish culture with a new spin,” a user said. Another comment reads, “This makes me so happy! I need to see a Bhangra dancer every day!”, another wrote: “Love this Punjabi Irish jig!”

The economic argument in support of market reforms, claiming that farm incomes go up when the number of farmers recedes, has turned out to be untrue. America has lost more than 5 million farms in less than 100 years, and Australia 25 per cent of its farms between 1980 and 2002. The speed at which farmers across the globe have got out of agriculture hasn’t increased farm incomes, but has only worsened the agrarian crisis.

Grain of truth: Globally declining wheat prices have been pushing small farmers out of farming. Reuters

Devinder Sharma

Food & Agriculture Specialist

It’s difficult to imagine. At a time when free markets are generally believed to provide farmers with a higher price, thereby enhancing farm incomes, the farm gate price for wheat in Canada happens to be much lower in 2017 than what it was 150 years back in 1867. This is not only true for Canada. Even in the US, as per media reports, farmers say the price they receive for wheat is much lower than what was prevalent at the time the four-year American Civil War ended in 1865.

So what happened to markets? After all, wheat is a staple food and its demand, considering the population boom the world has witnessed in the past 150 years, has grown exponentially over the centuries. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), wheat production forecast is pegged at 780 million tonnes in 2020-21, an increase of 7.5 million tonnes this year. Given the food insecurity the world is faced with, FAO considers the cereal production estimates (including that for wheat) to be positive.

Now, before you wonder how this could be possible, given the fact that economic curriculum in colleges and universities teaches us that markets provide the rightful price, take a look at an analysis by the US National Farmer Unions (NFU) which explains how the continuously declining peanut prices since 1965 had pushed three out of four peanut farmers out of business in America, and that too, at a time when peanut consumption was on the rise. Defying the supply demand logic, the peanut prices slumped from $1 per pound in 1965 to less than $0.25 per pound in 2020, a drop of more than 75 per cent. And if you are still thinking it probably happened because of surplus production, a Washington Post report tells us how just three companies, controlling the entire peanut market, had actually fixed the purchase price. After a lawsuit filed by 12,000 peanut growers, these companies finally agreed to pay $103 million in compensation for deliberately keeping the prices low.

Peanut is no exception. This kind of match-fixing has been going on for decades. Whether in America, Europe or India, what the farmers need to understand is that the match is already fixed. It is not without any reason that market prices, when adjusted for inflation, have remained frozen or have been on a decline over the years.

Coming back to the issue of wheat prices, a Canadian author and critic, Darrin Qualman, has in an insightful series of blog posts, explained how the prices have been on a steep decline since 1867. Adjusted for inflation, the price of wheat per bushel (27 kg) was close to $30 in 1867. Like on a ski slope, the average price had continuously been on the downward slide ever since. With global emphasis shifting to agricultural exports in the mid-1980s, the prices began to slump further. In 2017, the wheat price collapsed to a little over $5 per bushel. The price a Canadian wheat farmer sold his wheat for in 2017 was less by $25 per bushel than what his great-grandfather sold it for

150 years back.

No wonder, while small farmers abandoned agriculture in large numbers, the average size of a Canadian farm has grown to 3,000 acres with the big farms several times larger. While the number of farmers declined drastically, the economic argument in support of market reforms claiming that farm incomes go up when the number of farmers recedes too has turned out to be untrue. America has lost more than 5 million farms in less than 100 years, and Australia has lost 25 per cent of its farms between 1980 and 2002. Economists will say this is a healthy development, and will make farming profitable. But surprisingly, the speed at which farmers across the globe have got out of agriculture hasn’t increased farm incomes, but on the contrary, it has only worsened the agrarian crisis.

This is the same flawed argument that Niti Aayog too is promoting, saying that farm incomes will double when the number of people on the farm comes down. If this be true, I don’t understand why in Canada, for instance, the farm debt should be exceeding $102 billion, more than double than what it was in 2000. In the US, where hardly 1.5 per cent of the population remains in agriculture, farm debt has multiplied to a staggering $425 billion in 2020. In France, with only 7 per cent workforce employed in agriculture, more than 44 per cent farmers carry a debt burden of 400,000 euros and 25 per cent farmers earn less than 350 euros per month, below the poverty line.

While farmers have been denied the rightful price, the consumer prices have been on the rise. In another blog post, Qualman explains that while the price of a bushel of wheat in Canada and US has remained static since 1975, the retail price of 60 loaves of bread produced from each bushel in the US had increased by $50 on an average, from $25 in 1975 to a little over $75 in 2015. The same holds true for other food products as well. How can efficiency be only measured in terms of reducing farm gate prices whereas the food processing and retail giants continue to increase prices, walking away with a larger share of the end consumer price? If the markets were efficient, why the food processing and retail giants continue to thrive in inefficiency?

There is nothing sacrosanct about markets. To believe that markets provide farmers with a higher price is an outdated economic thinking (and education). Markets have historically failed to prop up farm incomes anywhere in the world, a fact that economists failed to acknowledge. Demanding no trading to be allowed below the MSP, protesting farmers are actually seeking a historic

correction in economic policy and thinking. This holds the future for a reverberating agriculture, and a new economic design that provides for Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas. 

Tribune News Service
Hisar, March 18

A women farmers’ panchayat was organised at Kandela village in Jind district today against the three agriculture laws. They said that there was need to recognise women as farmers, as they are equal partners in agriculture with their men.

Muktsar farmer dies at Tikri

Jhajjar: One more Punjab farmer, identified as Bhagan Singh (65) of Muktsar district, reportedly died of cardiac arrest at the Tikri border on Thursday. Bhagan had been actively participating in the ongoing protests, said a farmer. TNS

Santosh Dahiya, a woman khap leader, said that they had adopted a resolution demanding the withdrawal of the three agriculture laws and removal of the GST on essential farm implements. “There is 12 per cent GST on farm implements and 5 per cent tax on fertilisers, which entail extra financial burden on farmers,” she said. The farmers were neck deep in debt due to accumulated losses over the years.

Santosh said that women had been equally participating in the farmers’ agitation from the beginning. “Now, we have consolidated our strength. We will not go back until the government takes back the three laws,” she said.

Sudesh Goyat, a farmer leader, said that they wated to organise a women panchayat on their own and were happy to hold it today.

Vijay Inder Singla

Ropar, March 18

To pacify the protesting farmers demanding higher compensation for their lands for two national highways Delhi-Amritsar-Katra and Jalandhar-Ajmer, the state government has tweaked the rules. This was stated by PWD and Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla here today.

Singla, who was here to list achievements of his government in the last four years, said the government had increased the multiplier factor for land acquisition following which there would be substantial increase in the compensation to farmers.

The NHAI would acquire land in 12 districts for the two projects. Farmers had refused to give their lands for the projects, citing lower compensation. He said in Punjab, the collector rates were lesser as compared to the market rate on demand of people so that they had to spend less on stamp duty at the time of the purchase of land. This was the reason for lesser compensation. Now, the compensation would be near double. — TNS

ahul Gandhi. PTI file photo

New Delhi, March 18

Attacking the government for not paying tributes to farmers who died during their protest, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said his two-minute silence in the memory of the 300 men who sacrificed their lives is not acceptable to the BJP.

He used the hashtag ‘300DeathsAtProtest’ to highlight that 300 farmers have so far lost their lives in the farmers’ agitation.

“My 2 minute silence for the farmers who died during the agitation is not acceptable to the BJP. I will pay my tributes to the sacrifices of my farmers and labourers again and again. I am not afraid of those who fear my silence,” Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.

In another tweet, he again attacked the government over job losses and cited a report claiming that a large number of EPF accounts were shut during the pandemic. He said that this was another achievement of the BJP government’s “eradicate employment campaign”.

“You lost your job and had to close down your EPF account. Another achievement of the Central Government’s ‘eradicate employment campaign’,” he said in a tweet in Hindi.

The unnamed news report claimed that a large number of people lost their jobs during the coronavirus pandemic and 71 lakh EPF accounts were closed in nine months.

Gandhi has been attacking the government over the handling of the farmers’ agitation and the pandemic, claiming many people lost their jobs during the lockdown. — PTI