Afghanistan: Sending more troops not enough

Obama has recently announced that he will send additional NATO troops to Afghanistan to stabilize the situation. However, troops cannot solve the larger issues faced by Afghanistan.

The major stumbling block is corruption, where the enemy is ironically far better placed. To fight corruption in its ranks, the Taliban has set up its own anti-corruption committees in 33 provinces. It also runs its own courts, which are known for quick justice without the need to pay bribes. The US is trying to win over mid-level Taliban commanders with lucrative job offers and offering them good money, which is, to a large extent, not working! In comparison, the Afghan military is hopelessly incompetent, ill-equipped and highly corrupt. Afghanistan supplies over 90% of the world’s opium and heroin, which brings in billions in revenue each year. So much so that even the US Drug Enforcement Administration reports, “Heroin is more valuable than oil. Example: A ton of crude oil costs less than $290 - but a ton of heroin cost $67 million in Europe; and a ton of heroin in New York cost between $300-$900 million.” The warlords of the region are facilitating the whole trade.

President Hamid Karzai has stressed on ending “the culture of impunity and violations of law.” Opposition leader Dr.Abdullah has blamed overseas interests for the malaise, as he comments, “For that sort of corruption, it’s the international community that also shares responsibility with us.” To contend with the growing Talibanism in 2001, the US had turned to  these warlords for help. Even today, NATO still has to rely on some of them for security in the provinces. According to American officers in Afghanistan, tribals will gladly take money and assure the eradication of insurgents without taking up arms. But the resulting corruption is going to stand in the way of all attempts to bring long term stability to Afghanistan.

If Obama is serious about saving Afghanistan, he needs to tackle this parallel economy at the earliest. Soldiers simply cannot win this war.

Regional union: South Asia

Thank you Dr Yunus!

This is the right time to set the ball rolling for South Asia Union

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus' speech on South Asia Union (SAU) in the Indian Parliament on December 09, 2009 has resuscitated the age-old debate of unification of South Asia by 2030. He stressed on facilitating border-free movement along with having a common flag, currency, visa, trade policies. This idea is being criticised heavily by the main steam media. But then for once let’s just not criticise this vision but conversely analyse the benefit out of it. At the time when European Union is flourishing (both socially & politically) and is all set to emerge as a new world power and at the time when unification of Africa (a continent torn apart by wars, conflict & numerous social ailments) and South America is being worked out — the concept of SAU seems more achievable.

Every south Asian country is unique in itself and does hold an exclusive success story. Thus, on unification, each of these success stories (or success models) can be implemented Pan-SAU and thus many problems like poverty, employment, health and terrorism can be addressed. SAU can easily benefit from success mantra of Singapore, India, UAE, Turkey, Maldives, Iran, China – to name a few. If one of the south Asian union members has achieved zenith in international relations and lobbying then others are good at reducing poverty, fighting recession, becoming oil and real estate hub, generating tourism, eliminating conservative behaviour, outsourcing hub, generating employment, nuclear and scientific research and so on and so forth.

However, amidst this rosy dream, the ongoing tension in south Asia acts as a nightmare. However, an unification can, to a large extent, dilute this issue too. Take for instant, the European Union (EU). None of the south Asian countries have been more hostile than Germany and France and Italy. And today we see Germany, Italy and France working together (as members of EU) and have recently appointed a common president for the union (with enforcement of Lisbon treaty on Nov 30, 2009). Even Slovakia and the Czech Republic (born out of Czechoslovakia) and are part of the union. Same can be iterated for the whole Balkan region.

We are far better-off as we share lot of common culture, festive (other soft power) and still have feeling of brotherhood for each other even across the border.

SAU will allow the countries to share resources so that 'resource-dearth' countries can grow and develop. This will in long run address more social problems (ranging from poverty to employment). The ball has already been set rolling with the inception of SAARC or South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. SAARC should now work towards uplifting all proposed SAU countries, economically and also help them in becoming politically more stable, so that in next two decades or so they are all ready for unification. Issues like migration, terrorism, conflicts needs to be addressed on urgent basis if SAU dream is to be realised. Twenty years is a plenty of time for SAARC member to eliminate all hurdles and start talks on SAU. SAU will be, if formed, one of the most powerful unions and beating EU, African Union and South American Union or for that matter even the US. Before we get reduced to ruins (because of ongoing tensions), we need to realise that sharing a few aspects will make each of us more developed and will inculcate trust and prosperity.

 

Punctuality

Sample these: In spite of the West Bengal state government’s circular asking all employees to be punctual and to follow the 10 am to 5 pm official working hours, there was hardly any change in the ‘late work culture’ at Kolkata Writers’ Building (the West Bengal Secretariat and Assembly). This state circular also had a clause that made sure that the employees who failed to maintain the schedule would face penal action. According to various reports, most employees still arrive amicably between 11.15 am to 11.30 am and then leave at around 5 pm. Recent reports now also show the obvious, that even our MPs do not attend Parliament sessions regularly (if at all), what to talk about public appearances where they keep masses waiting for hours, if they appear that is.

Chidambaram, despite all the acrimony that he seems to scrape on to his personality, might have hit the truants with the hammer right where it hurts – the finger. In order to counter the problem of late attendances, the Home Minister has introduced bio-metric scanners at the offices of the Home Ministry. Chidambaram announced a few months back that a ten-minute delay three times a month will count as one day of leave. In the first stage of the scheme, 5000 home ministry employees – regardless of rank – will have their index fingers scanned to enable them to be tracked with respect to their attendance time and leaves. On week post the system, the Ministry claimed that 90% of their ‘subordinate staff’ and 70% of ‘junior officers’ were in office by 9.05 am (comparative pre-system figures were not provided; but one assumes it’s an uppish curve). Endgame? Not so fast Wodehouse.

One, the system only checks fingers and not whether the person stays in office post ‘fingering’ in his attendance! Two, it won’t be long before an employee takes the equipment to court claiming it malfunctions. Three, vandalism! Still, what would get the cheasel of the weasels is the fact that now even the tax department is thinking of issuing biomentric PAN cards! As Indians would put it quite crassly, attendance was a game for their left hands once upon a time... now their right