Congress accused the Modi Government of “destroying” the economy and said growth can be achieved only if the country is rescued from “incompetent economic managers”. The party also adopted a resolution on the economy at its Plenary session with former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking to know the fate of the promised two crore jobs. Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram accused the Modi Government of squandering a golden opportunity to catapult India’s growth after economic gains during the previous UPA Government. Singh rued that at a time the world economy had grown from 2.8 per cent to 3.8 per cent from 2014 to 2018, the Indian economy had “decoupled itself ” from the world economy. He claimed India grew by 7.8 per cent under the UPA regime led by him. He lamented that only about 1.6 per cent of the country’s GDP was spent on defence expenditure, which, he said, could not meet the challenges that the security apparatus posed. He also alleged that there were many issues on the foreign policy front that had been poorly handled by the Modi Government. “The BJP Government has messed up the economy. When Modi ji was campaigning he made lots of tall promises. Those promises have not been fulfilled,” he said. Singh said the BJP claimed in 2014 that if it came to power it would provide 2 crore jobs. “But we have not seen even two lakh jobs,” he said. The “ill-thought and illconceived” demonetisation and “hastily put forward” legislation for GST had destroyed many jobs and created problems for the small and medium industry and the informal sector, both in terms of production and providing jobs, he said.

When the former prime minister spoke on foreign policy and defence, he was accorded a thunderous applause and a standing ovation by party leaders. Singh accused the BJP-led Government of having “mismanaged” the dispute in Jammu and Kashmir and said the Government’s talk of fighting two and a half wars was “yet another hollow promise”. On his part, Chidambaram said the crisis which the country faces can worsen in the last year of the Modi Government as the budget has provided no answers. “This budget is the handiwork of a government which is completely helpless, clueless and directionless. I am afraid, 12 months from today, whoever comes into the Government, will face a major crisis,” he said. The resolution moved by Chidambaram said that the tenure of the Narendra Modiled Government was replete with Governance and management misadventures and mistakes. “The most colossal failure has been its mismanagement of the economy,” said the resolution moved by Chidambaram. “The one party which can bring this country out of crisis is the Congress. Why do I say that? I say that not out of arrogance, not out of conceit, I say this because we have done it before and we can do it again beginning next year,” the former Union Minister said. “The Congress reiterates that the abysmal economic management of the Modi Government has resulted in lack of jobs for millions of India’s youth, stagnant real incomes for hundreds of millions of farmers, collapse of the manufacturing sector, destruction of micro, small and medium businesses, paralysis of India’s banking sector,” the resolution mentioned. “The economy is in the hands of ignorant and incompetent policy makers who have derailed economic growth through reckless and bizarre policies such as demonetisation and a hasty imposition of a flawed Goods and Services Tax regime,” it said. “They said we will abolish black money, we will put an end to corruption. We will stop fake currency. Have they put an end to black money? Every rally, every public meeting of the prime minister is financed by any money other than black money. Have they put an end to corruption, fake currency?” Chidambaram asked.

By Opinion Express News Services

Author Rajyogi Brahmakumar Nikunj Ji says that the three significant truths to give equality to all people in Indian caste system, irrespective of their caste, color and religion are that the human must have integrity and reason, characteristic value and dignity and they should act towards one another in a spirit of equality and brotherhood. This means that a person must have humanity to bring equality to the entire system as a whole.

The Indian caste system is historically one of the main dimensions where people are socially differentiated through class, religion, region, tribe, gender and language. Although this or other forms of differentiation exist in all human societies, it becomes a problem when one or more of these dimensions overlap each other and become the sole basis of systematic ranking and unequal access to valued resources like wealth, income, power and prestige. The phrase “without any discrimination, based on race, colour, caste, creed, sex and religious belief” is now commonly used when such part of any Act, Article or rule that puts emphasis on justice and equality is to be suitably worded. Thus, the phrase has been used in a number of Articles and clauses or sub-clauses in the Indian Constitution and also in other statutory laws. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948, also has used this phrase with addition of words like property, birth, national origin and distinction of any kind.

However, Article 2 of the Declaration, which has this phrase, does not include the word “caste” because caste system, as it is prevalent in India, is not prevalent in most other countries. But the aforesaid article uses the word “social origin” and also the word “birth” and these words should jointly imply the distinction made on the ground of caste that is nowadays based on birth and social origin.

There is no doubt that the use of this or similarly-worded phrases is the right thing done to meet the requirements of law and legislation that make it mandatory for and obligatory on the citizens of a country or the world not to discriminate on the basis of anyone of these. The simple reason for this is that the discrimination results in inequality, based on extraneous factors, and also in injustice and inhuman treatment of some people and deprivation of certain classes. But an important thing that seems to have been missed all along in this connection is that legal luminaries, social scientists and public have, perhaps, never applied any serious thought as to why distinctions based on race, colour, nationality, language, gender, etc are sought to be set aside when these distinctions really exist and qualify or disqualify a person or certain worldly roles.

Also, why is discrimination, based on any one of these, considered as an obstacle to justice or roadblock to equality? Never have the legal experts who prepare the draft of a legislation, or the legislators who vote for or against a Bill introduced in the legislature, thought as to what, after all, is the real identity and nature of a person, divested of these distinctions of race, colour, nationality, sex and even of belief or creed.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that “all human beings are endowed with reason and conscience” and it asks all “to act towards one another in the spirit of brotherhood.” This forms the very basis of the Declaration and has been numbered as Article 1. The Preamble to the Declaration says that “the people of the United Nations have, in the Charter, reaffirmed their faith in the dignity and the worth of the human person.” These three important truths, namely  that the human has reason and conscience, that it has inherent worth and dignity and that the human beings should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood, together mean that the human person is a soul and a child of Supreme, for then only can human beings act towards one another as “brothers” and then only do they have inherent worth and dignity.

All human beings cannot be termed as “brothers” on the basis of their physical relationships nor is their worth and dignity based on any physical consideration because the moral dimension is related to the non-physical soul. The soul has inherent dignity not because of any gross possessions but because it is a child of the Supreme Almighty who is the most exalted and illumined One. The soul has worth also because it is the inheritor of HIS treasures. So, in a way, the Human Rights Declaration and all the laws that declare justice an obligatory act of all human beings have a spiritual basis.

Furthermore, the law, whether it is international or national, asks us to discard all kinds of distinctions, based on race, colour, nationality, sex, social origin, property, language, birth and so on because these are based on the body of a person and not on the person. This implicitly and explicitly means that the real human person is a soul in a human body. It makes distinction between body and soul and wants us to keep in mind the soul and forget his or her physical particulars while treating another person. Now this aspect of the law has been forgotten in course of time and it has become a mere ritual or a formality to say that there should not be any discrimination, based on body. The present-day deterioration in moral values is because of this.

It should not be difficult to understand that there are certain laws that govern our mutual relationships or human behaviour in general. These are known as moral laws or ethical principles. Based on these, are certain norms, codes of conduct or rules and regulations to be followed in life in an organised society. If we follow these laws, the quality and quantity of happiness in our life is enhanced and if we violate these, then we have to face so many problems and disturbances. The observance of these moral norms is of great value if we wish to be happy and build a society free from friction.

It is not that science and technology or management skills have caused our present sufferings. On the other hand, it is fall in the standards of morality that has prevented even technology from adding value to our lives. Moreover, it is not that people do not know that moral values are necessary to build a happy and peaceful society. People wish to have moral qualities in their life but they do not have that spiritual knowledge that should enable them to follow successfully these values in their life. Thus the need of the hour is to create a mass awareness among people for values like tolerance, humility and mutual respect where there is peace, happiness and harmony.

Writer: Rajyogi Brahmakumar Nikunj

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The blame for wrecking parliamentary proceedings goes to both, the Government and the Opposition. This wrecking may just lead to a loss in confidence of public representatives by the people.

No one should be surprised at the headlines in newspapers and prime-time television channels that the current Winter Session of Parliament is heading towards a washout. This is the 12th straight session wasted so far.  In fact, we have been seeing almost the same headlines at the close of every Parliament session in the past two decades. People are becoming disenchanted with the MPs for not doing their duties.

What are the functions and duties of an elected Member of Parliament? There are four important functions: Budget scrutiny, protecting the interests of the constituents, function as a watchdog over the Government and above all, making laws.

Are they performing their duties for which they have been elected? This belligerence is not pertaining to the Congress-led Opposition now as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) too was doing the same thing when it was in the Opposition.

While the Government blames the Opposition, the latter blames the BJP for not reaching out to them. Congress president Rahul Gandhi in a rally in Karnataka on March 25 said, “In Parliament, a no-confidence motion against the Modi Government has been moved. For the past 10 days it has been stalled because the Government is afraid”.

Hence, the blame-game continues. While political parties used to keep up pretensions that they were willing to work, it was clear from day one that neither the Government nor the Opposition had any intention of allowing the Parliament to function during this session.

Significantly, this is the first time the Narendra Modi Government is facing a no-confidence motion brought separately by the Congress, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) is threatening to bring another.

Both the presiding officers had been pleading with the members to allow the House to function but to no avail. The Chairman of Rajya Sabha M Venkaiah Naidu lamented, “ I am filled with sadness at the disorder, indiscipline and inappropriate conduct in the House”.

Naidu made several appeals to the members, asking them not to further erode the “quality of polity”. He finally succeeded in making the Rajya Sabha bid farewell to 60 retiring members last week. Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan had no such success.

The Upper House was only able to pass the Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill 2017, while the Lok Sabha cleared the Finance Bill 2018 without any discussion, including a Rs 89 crore spending plan for the next fiscal year in less than half an hour.

The House passed the 21 amendments for taxation proposals in the Bill by a voice vote and also the appropriation Bill containing the budgetary plans for 99 Government departments and Ministries.The Opposition blocked the Government in both Houses on various issues. Mainly, the four regional parties from the south — AIADMK, TRS, YSR Congress and TDS — supported by the other opposition parties stalled the business.

Every day as soon as the House began its proceedings, 37 AIADMK members trooped into the well of the House, demanding setting up of the Cauvery Water Management Board as ordered by the Supreme Court. The TRS wanted its 12 per cent reservation for Muslims in the State to be notified under Ninth Schedule.

TDS, an ally of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), after quitting the alliance last month, became more belligerent, demanding special status for Andhra Pradesh as promised at the time of the bifurcation of the State in 2014. Not to be outdone, the YSR Congress too is demanding the same and both parties have separately given a no-confidence motion against the Modi Government.

Politically, it is not unexpected in view of the upcoming Assembly election to Karnataka where both the Congress and the BJP are engaged in direct fight.

As for the AIADMK, it is competitive local politics which is playing out in Parliament. Same is the case with TDP and YSRC. The TRS is indeed playing to the tune of its home constituency. Losing one more Session does not auger well for the Government as well as the Opposition. There are many issues  which are important, like the agrarian crisis, the Nirav Modi-PNB scam, Iraq issue, Cambridge Analytica data sale, Ramnavami clashes in West Bengal and Bihar and so on.

Certainly, it is for the Government to ensure that business is transacted in both Houses and it must reach out to the Opposition. But the Opposition too has a responsibilities to debate, discuss and expose the Government.

Right now, the relationship between the Government and the Opposition has completely broken down. The Government should also note the growing north-south divide, with the southern States complaining of a stepmotherly treatment.

If this continues, the people of the country may no longer have trust in politicians, who they believe, are taking them for a ride.  They are already disenchanted with the political class with the increasing number of NOTA votes in the ballot paper indicating their anger. Parliament is a temple of democracy and if this breaks down, the democracy will also be shattered.

(The writer is a senior political commentator and syndicated columnist)

Writer: Kalyani Shankar

Courtesy: The Pioneer

After defeating the war in Syria and Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan are the new target for the Islamic State. Although the world is uniting to destroy the base of terror, the Afghan Government must take the initiative.

After uprooting from Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State (IS) is trying to establish itself in Afghanistan and Pakistan as both these countries are totally radicalised and, hence, it will be easier for them to set their bases over there. The creation of Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISK-P) by the IS fascinated large number of semi-literate, fanatic and disenchanted Muslim youths all over the world who came to Afghanistan and joined the outfit. The ISK-P earned the support of not just extremist Muslims but several Muslim writers, thinkers and intellectuals also extended their assistance.

ISK-P contacted leaders of various terrorist outfits in Afghanistan and Pakistan and persuaded them to join ISK-P. The organisation also made alliances with few groups while encouraging smaller groups to amalgamate in the IS. Besides these groups, dissidents of numerous terrorist outfits, especially of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Afghan and Pakistan Taliban, Al Qaeda, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan joined the IS. Haji Mehsud, former Chief of TTP, and several important Afghan Taliban leaders, particularly Mullah Nemat Mufti, Mullah Sufu Qayum and Mullah Rasool also joined the IS with their followers.

The outfit is against Shias and alleges that they “pretend” to be Muslims and should be purged even before non-Muslims. Hence, fighters from anti-Shia organisations like Jundullah, Lashlar-e-Jhangvi al Alami, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan also joined the IS.

ISK-P announced Hafiz Saeed Khan as its leader while Mullah Abdul Rauf Aliza as its deputy leader. Hafiz Saeed was from Pakistan and leader of TTP, while Mullah Aliza was an Afghan national. In this way, the IS inculcated its sway both in Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan and fighters from both these countries joined the outfit. Saeed was killed in 2016 while Aliza lost life in 2015 but both of them worked hard to popularise ISK-P.

Afghanistan being a poor country and unemployment rate at about 40 per cent, it was easy for ISK-P to recruit Afghans. They were paying more than double the amount paid by the Afghan Government. Hence, several personnel of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) joined the IS along with their weapons. Large number of Afghans are uneducated and are ready to sacrifice their lives in the name of Islam. This is why more and more people are joining the outfit.

ISK-P distributed literature in Dari and Pashto languages, denouncing the Taliban and Al Qaeda and mentioning that the IS is the only organisation which can save Muslims from persecution and establish Islamic rule based on Shariat. In literature, the IS also mentioned about several terrorist activities carried by the outfit.

Large number of foreign fighters mainly from Pakistan, Tajikistan, Chechnya and Uzbekistan also joined the IS. Besides these countries, fighters from African countries and European countries, especially from France, Algeria and the UK, are also residing in Afghanistan. Analysts claim that the number of foreign fighters in Afghanistan are more than 3,000 and it will further enhance once the IS is completely ousted from Iraq and Syria as most foreign fighters would not return back to their native soil but will reach Afghanistan to reinforce the IS.

The IS successfully carried out several terrorist attacks in the recent past in different places in Afghanistan. On January 20, terrorists laid siege into Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel and killed more than 20 persons, including four foreigners. On January 27, terrorists attacked with an ambulance full of explosives in Kabul in which death toll crossed 100. Again, on January 28, few terrorists attacked an Army post near military academy, Kabul, and killed 11 soldiers. Few days after, terrorists also attacked an NGO office in Jalalabad. ISK-P also killed 41 Shias in a cultural centre while more than 150 persons were exterminated in Kabul. The IS also successfully carried out terrorist acts in Ghor, Qushtapa and other places.

Analysts claim that terrorists killed more than 10,000 Afghan security personnel and injured more than 15,000 persons in 2017 alone. This year appears to be bloodier and more security personnel and civilians would be killed if effective measures are not taken by the Afghan Government and the US-led NATO troops. ANSF is unable to control the mounting pressure by terrorists, especially the IS, because of rampant corruption, lack of will to fight, old and rusted weapons, unsatisfactory training and no actionable intelligence. In fact, the intelligence machinery of terrorists is working better than the intelligence setup of ANSF.

The Afghan Government is losing ground and according to analysts, about seventy per cent of the area is under control of terrorists including, the IS. Besides Afghanistan, quite a few areas of Pakistan abutting Afghanistan, including Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Waziristan, Balochistan among others, are also under the control of terrorists. Recent surge in terrorist activities also indicate that only aerial bombings would not wipe out terrorist outfits and there will be no use negotiating with them as terrorist outfits utilise time of negotiations in regrouping themselves.

The strength of NATO troops must be enhanced as 15,000 troops would fail to control various terrorist outfits in the country. If NATO troops leave Afghanistan before eradicating the IS, it will be disastrous not only for the region but for the whole world. The world powers, which jointly or separately ruined the IS in Iraq and Syria, should work together to destroy it from Afghanistan. Hence, it is essential that all world powers opposed to the IS work together to destroy it permanently. The US dropped most powerful non-nuclear bomb in Achin district in April 2017 and destroyed weapons, tunnels and killed more than 90 IS fighters. It conducted more than 400 air raids in February and March 2017 against IS strongholds but air raids are not enough. Land forces are required for area domination.

Terrorist activities in Afghanistan cannot be curbed unless Pakistan, which is providing safe heaven to various terrorist outfits, is controlled. Although US President Donald Trump has suspended $1.9 billion aid to Pakistan but it is not enough as China has promised to compensate. NATO troops should bombard the infrastructure created by sinister Inter-Services Intelligence to train and shelter the terrorists. The NATO troops should not only destroy terrorists’ hideouts but should also exterminate their trainers. Leaders of terrorist outfits should also be eliminated either by bombardments or by special operations. Pakistan Government cannot take action against terrorist outfits as their leaders have mass following but NATO troops can destroy them.

The Afghan Government must galvanise ANSF and personnel should be well-trained and must be provided with latest weapons. Working conditions and salary structure should be improved and feeling of patriotism should be inculcated. The intelligence network of the country is in shambles, no security forces can trounce terrorist outfits unless the intelligence organisations provide pin-pointed actionable intelligence. The Afghan Government should send intelligence personnel to India so that they are methodically trained in collection, analysis and timely dissemination of intelligence.

The Government should take stringent action against corrupt officials and rectify genuine problems of the masses. The Government should also try to win the confidence of the masses through launching poverty elimination and employment generation schemes. Leaders of political parties must contact the masses and broaden their base. The election system should be honest and transparent so that the public does not give any importance to the allegations of defeated candidates about the use of malpractices by the winning candidates.

(The writer is member of United Services Institute of India, and the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses)

Writer: Jai Kumar

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Beijing’s decision to remove the two-term limit for the Chinese president shows their contempt for the Western liberal democracy “facade”

The amendments to the Chinese Constitution raised to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, removing the formal two-term limit to presidential appointments, marked a welcome step in striving towards a vision of a society and internationalism governed by the principles rooted in communal harmony. This is happening at a time when the Western democracy, since a long time has been degenerated into a carefully managed puppet of the big capital, punctuated by periodic elections every few years which give the people the illusion of the exercise of political power.

The election of Donald Trump in the US, the popularity of Putin in Russia, the resurgence of the BJP across India, the resurgence of French people led by a President who has taken the entrenched lethargic socialist interests head-on, and, now the overwhelming support for instituting back the ‘President for life’ system in China, show that the people world-over are revolting against the carefully managed façade of Western liberal democracy.

The Chinese have been accustomed to the idea of ‘President for life’, first, in the form of monarchical rule and then during the years of Mao Zedong. It was only after 1976 that Mao’s liberal successor, Deng Xiaoping, along with several other changes to usher in the capitalist economy in China, did away with the ‘President for life’ policy and, instead, introduced formal two-term limit to the re-election of the President. But because the Communist Party of China (CPC), along with the Central Military Commission (CMC), continued to reign supremely over the Chinese polity and foreign and defence affairs, the institution of the two-term limit could not mean much. The removal of the two-term Presidential election limit is just a formal change, as Xi Jinping was already the leader of the CPC and the CMC — two most powerful institutions in Chinese polity — and they, in any case, have no term limits. So, Xi would have continued to hold sway well into the future, with or without this small formal change. But with the removal of the term-limit, the emergence of an unnecessary parallel power centre is precluded and a smooth functioning of the domestic and foreign affairs can take place.

For apologists of the two-term limit, at best, such a limit could inspire competitive politics within the CPC for higher positions — but this intra-party politics is hardly ‘democratic’ politics. It is quite the contrary, in fact. Intra-party competition within CPC — without there being any political parties in the public arena and no typical elections, gave rise to a corrupt system based on politics of patronage, where individual members and those belonging to powerful and wealthy families could try to take advantage by lobbying those at the top or themselves harbor ambitions to rule the country.

All the while, this unhealthy competition remained confined within the CPC, thereby giving rise to a privileged corrupt class of Chinese ‘princelings’ against whom even public revolts had started a few years back. How such a system could be called ‘democratic’ in even the remotest sense of the word is baffling. To put it mildly, one wonders why, then, critics are decrying the passage of such a system, which was ushered in when Xi Jinping assumed power. With Xi’s ascendance to power, one of the most palpable first actions was, precisely, to root out this entrenched corruption from the system. Obviously, the international media — with Indian media parroting their international counterparts — liked to term this as suppression of ‘political dissent’ and suppression of anyone who could pose a threat to Xi. But these remain mere speculations in an age where ‘dissent’ itself has become a manufactured and sponsored process — like how the West commonly funds ‘democratic dissent’ in various parts of the world to overthrow recalcitrant regimes.

In the Chinese case of the rise of Xi, the suppression of dissent theory does not hold because his measures, his re-election and the imprinting of his thought on socialism have had widespread support in the party and the Government as well as in the public. The only few dissenting voices are limited to Western-educated or Western-backed Chinese living in the USA — their numbers as well as their location rendering their voices largely irrelevant.

The democracy they seem to be trying to usher in in China — at a time when the West is failing — has never even existed in the one-party system of China, as economic capitalism never gave way to political capitalism. The tightly-knit political system, especially under Xi, became an instrument for the revival of traditional Chinese values and a threat to the onslaught of Semitic religions, which had gained a substantial foothold in China.

Much like the crusade against the corrupt elite of China, it was, again, under Xi’s leadership that the voices of the Confucian scholars began to be heard seriously by the Government. For more than a decade, they had been lamenting the ‘Western cultural invasion’ of China, but it was only under Xi that the Government displayed the gumption to officially adopt the policy of recognizing this cultural invasion and fight it by a policy of national cultural revival, aligned with the principles of Xi’s ideas of socialism.

This staunch nationalism, under which Xi is uniting the CPC, the CMC and the entire nation, is one of the reasons for the rise of China and the public popularity of Xi. As for the questions of democracy and socialism, it must be emphasised that the present spirit of Chinese socialism (and not Communism) is not at all the regimented and selfish economic socialism of the West. The effort in Asia has always been towards a spirit of socialism grounded in spiritual harmony — China, under Xi, is consciously trying to move towards that.

The assertion that this Asiatic idea of polity would degenerate into dictatorship is problematic. Only regimented systems, arising out of the material-vital spirit to cater to the selfish interests of a utilitarian and commercialized society (be it communism or capitalism or socialism), can so degenerate into dictatorships. Dictatorships are a very common modern phenomenon — a result of democratic revolt itself. Almost all anti-colonial nationalist movements, spanning Asia, Africa and the Middle east, were born out of a discourse of rights, democracy and equality — India’s Nehru was a leader and product of that age. Yet, except for India, almost all these democratic struggles — including the later ones like the creation of Bangladesh — ended in abject and irrevocable dictatorships, with some theocracies like Pakistan. Witness that no country on the Indian subcontinent is a democracy except India herself, in any legitimate sense of the word. So, on what historical or psychological basis can it possibly be said that Xi’s transition to power would lead to a personality-cult type of dictatorship? In an age where democracy is celebrated as mere dissent without any further positive movement to truly ground it, the more the competition and strife and demands — no matter what their nature or how degenerate they are — the better the prospects for democracy.

In contrast, Xi’s new transition to power is based on charting out a separate vision. The Modi Government, here, seems to be supporting the new development, with both India and China making favourable statements for each other and two key Union Ministers from India flying to China to discuss bilateral relations. But these overtures will be of little use unless India fully grasps the historicity and potential of India-China relationship.

(The writer is with the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies  and writes for The Resurgent India Trust)

Writer: Garima Maheshwari

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The U.S. presidential elections have always been a good example of excellence and superiority. It has developed the entire environment excellent and smooth. The elections rely a great deal on homespun and China made confetti with the stature of the American President being, “the most powerful and significant personage” in the entire realm of the international ecosystem. Rhetoric, verbiage and stand-up comedy tracks run amok in the homeland to attract the denizens of the land along with propelling the candidates for a larger-than-life political and diplomatic serenade.

Recently, the eye of the storm is being caught by the name of Steve Bannon, who was the master strategist of the Candidate Trump’s electoral campaign, who recruited the United Kingdom-based Consultancy Cambridge Analytica with the connivance of a few Cambridge University denizens. Thus, the Facebook data of personal nature from thousands of FB pages was roped in as a grand and matrix- like strategy by Cambridge Analytica in order to shore up the electoral fortunes and the mathematics of the Donald Trump’s election campaign trail. The leak by one of the employees of the UK-based firm bears uncanny resemblance to the Snowden exposes of the WikiLeaks a few years back. Also, in the name of sustaining the security and steadfast health of the American society and polity, personal norms of privacy have been breached where personal posts and uploads have been utilised clandestinely and the resultant hoopla has belittled the corporate ethics of the UK-based firm, along with casting bad light on Steve Bannon and President Donald Trump. The Washington Post reported that the reach and the influence of the Cambridge Analytica went beyond influencing the US Elections.

The questions and posers related to ethics in journalism and media coverage, neutrality, transparency and objectivity have once again raised their uncomfortable heads with the “Aiyarri- espionage” carried out by ordinary mainstream data guzzling firm to influence the larger political process of a superpower nation. The reputed British SCL Group founded the Cambridge Analytica in order to work on American politics. The website of the company includes offices in Malaysia and Brazil along with those in the United States and Britain, and also beyond the American territory. The era and aura of globalisation and convergence, particularly the flip side of the coin, comes to the fore as an assiduous affront to the steadfast territoriality and sovereignty of nations such as China and United Sates of America. Recently, in his televised address to the Chinese nation on the occasion of the CPC summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned the national population that the integrity and the internal functionality of a nation and its population depends fervently upon the concern of its territoriality remaining intact in a world system marred by the seething ideas of globalisation and convergence. Even, the Indian political class is expressing its nervousness about the utilisation of Cambridge Analytica to snoop over the other political outfits in the fray and frame a perspective to shore up their political fortunes and mar the prospects of the antagonist. This episode also brings up the tenets of corporate responsibility and the question as to how far global establishments play with the homeland themes even in a nation as overbearing and paramount as the United States of America. In a news piece broadcast all over the world, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica took the credit for shoring up the fortunes of the Candidate Donald Trump’s election campaign. Thus, it amounts to an allegation that Baudrillard’s “Simulacra” plays a handsome hand in the making and marring the prospects in nations as self-sufficient and chink-free as United States of America. The UK-based daily Guardian reported that the officials of Cambridge Analytica literally boasted about winning the elections for Donald Trump.

Data protection is a clichéd business and nomenclature in the US, which has does not have a singular legislation unlike in places such as the European Union. The right to privacy at the federal level includes:

“The right to be free from search and seizure by the Government.”

“The right to have one’s communications free from interception.”

“The right to keep one’s personal information private.”

Still, what is explicitly stated in the American law is that these rights are not absolute and un-amendable by their nature and function. The American Government can intercept and utilise related data for the purposes of national wellbeing and homeland security, which is the same sentiment reflected in the Homeland Security Act. And, going by the gung ho drive of the Trump campaign, it was a national emergency that emergency measures had to be implemented; what was amplified during the campaign is further executed during President Trump’s Presidency.

The Federal Trade Commission in the United States, too, has a word about the juxtaposed coupling of privacy and security. The Gramm Leich Billy Act contends that concern about privacy and security, “The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act requires financial institutions — companies that offer consumers financial products or services like loans, financial or investment advice, or insurance — to explain their information-sharing practices to their customers and to safeguard sensitive data.” Thus, it is part of the corporate liability that information of private individuals ought to be confidential and should not be subjected to sneak peek even by the American establishment. Still, when the American homeland is in a quandary, the corporate should have no qualms about the dictum that, “With great power comes great responsibility”.

There is an inherent antagonism in the perspectives between an agency such as Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the American Government which has to be broodingly amalgamated. The language goes that, “The FTC now considers information that can reasonably be used to contact or distinguish a person, including IP addresses and device identifiers, as personal data. However, a few US federal or state privacy laws define “personal information” as including information that on its own does not actually identify a person. The bottleneck can be that by now, the American nation and the attendant political system does not possess a data protection authority such as the one on media, which is the FCC, the Federal Communication Commission. Do we also say that, trolling also is data? It is definitely a true statement if these are posted on the social media.

(The writer teaches International Relations at Indian Institute of Public Administration, Delhi)

Writer: Manan Dwivedi

Courtesy: The Pioneer

If the next general election get summed up with all state-level battles, the opposition seems to succeed in dislocating PM Narendra Modi.

Unless my secular pundit friends are claiming that the forthcoming Lok Sabha poll is going to be a lamppost election — in the anti-Emergency wave of 1977 it was said even a lamppost would be elected if fighting on a Janata Party ticket — and there is little sign of that with even BJP-baiters conceding that Narendra Modi is still by far the most popular politician in the country, I can’t see how the Opposition is going to win a much talked about famous victory come 2019. Factoring in even a visceral hatred for the ruling party, surely most sober independent-minded professionals despite our varying views on the issues of the day and differing political assessments can agree on the following:

i) The Lok Sabha by-election wins for SP-BSP in Uttar Pradesh and RJD in Bihar, which followed a spirited Congress showing first in the Gujarat Assembly poll,then upsetting the BJP in two Lok Sabha by-elections in Rajasthan and last month retaining two Assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh by-polls albeit with reduced margins are significant signs of an Opposition pushback;

ii) There is an articulation of a measure of anti-incumbency against the Narendra Modi regime on the ground and in professional/social media which was not the case six months ago. Both the Opposition’s messaging and anti-BJP groups’ cohesion has got much better;

iii) The BJP win in Tripura and improved showing in other North-eastern States’ Assembly polls, its gains in the Orissa local bodies poll mainly at the expense of the Congress and its emergence as the, if distant, second party in West Bengal shows clearly that the Amit Shah-led party is not in retreat in spite of the expectation versus delivery gap being apparent;

iv) Despite the sustained and at times viciously personal attacks on the Prime Minister by those enraged at the sheer audacity of the Indian electorate which dared elect a “Sanghi” to high office, the sense one gets is that the people still give him the benefit of the doubt. His intent is not yet suspect though his Government’s less than exemplary supervision of the banking sector and other sectors of the economy are coming in for criticism given that expectations were raised inordinately high;

v) The North Korean news television channels, to use a phrase reportedly coined by Arun Shourie, are doing the ruling party more damage than good;

vi) But this is more than evened out by the supercilious, in the main shallow and entirely entitled TV stations which despite their recent attempts to break into baba-log Hindi as an imprimatur of their massy credentials are guaranteed to continue turning off the neutrals and enraging those simpatico to a nation-first worldview;

vii) Social media narratives will likely continue to be an influencer for the younger demographic with FB/Twitter/WhatsApp 75:25 in favour of the ruling combine; professional media including print and digital platforms are possibly 65:35 for the Government with the skew in Hindi and regional languages particularly pronounced.

It is in this context that we need to look, as objectively as possible, at assessing the possible outcome of the forthcoming General Election. Arithmetically, backroom players on the Opposition side know exactly what needs to be done — to ensure, State-wise, that as far as possible there is only one Opposition candidate against every BJP candidate. For this to come to fruition, the country will have to be carved up into ‘spheres of influence’ of non-BJP political parties dominant in each State which will also have the final say in their respective States. Like everything in life, this is easier said than done.

Take a minute to think about the possible outcome of any negotiation for who is to be considered primus inter pares between Mamata Banerjee and CPI-M in West Bengal; K Chandrashekhar Rao and Congress in Telangana; TDP, Congress and YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh; Congress and CPI-M in Kerala; Congress and JD-S in pockets of Karnataka; Congress and BJD in Orissa; NCP, Congress and MNS in Maharashtra; AAP, Congress and BSP in Punjab; Congress, Goa Forward and MGP in Goa; Congress and AUDF in Assam; CPI-M and Congress in Tripura; AAP and Congress in Delhi; NC and PDP in the Kashmir Valley (we are assuming PDP will not go into the election in alliance with the BJP with which it runs a coalition in Jammu and Kashmir at the moment) plus Congress, NC and PDP in Jammu. And this is by no means an exhaustive list.

Yes, a BSP-SP alliance in Uttar Pradesh and a RJD-Congress alliance in Bihar does seem on the cards but, especially in the case of the former, it is unlikely to be for all seats in the State. The just concluded Rajya Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh provide an early pointer to the number of problematic areas Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati will have to deal with despite the surface bonhomie.

Also, do remember that regional parties which are keenest on allying with long-standing adversaries in their States of operation are the ones not in power and so have no monies to keep their party relevant in the elaborate web of public exchequer-funded patronage which includes largesse to kinship groups and the like which has been their hallmark. An SP, BSP or DMK may, for example, be keen on such an arrangement as they have been out of power for five years or more but the same cannot be said of, say, a BJD, TDP or TRS. Lastly, apart from its ideological foes like the Communist parties or a Mamata Banerjee who governs a State where the Muslim population is large and electorally very significant, most of the other parties have no deep-seated ideological aversion to the BJP; in fact, many of them have been NDA constituents at some point or the other. Ergo, they will be free to choose which party and/or alliance to support post-poll.

For a real challenge to the BJP to emerge, it is the Congress which will have to revive and radically reinvent itself as the second pole of Indian politics. To do so, it must necessarily engage with the notion of a non-supremacist Indian exceptionalism and our nation-state’s Indic/Hindu civilizational ethos, address the issues of an entitled leadership and a lack of organizational meritocracy, and come up with an economic plan that works. Suffice it to say even in the unlikely event the Congress does as is being suggested, its efforts are unlikely to bear fruit before 2024.

It could gainfully occupy itself in the interim with coming to terms with the fact that a presidential, broadly two-party/alliance system is a more effective democratic system of governance for India than the Westminster parliamentary model. But those who look at the nation’s interests safely ensconced in their rent-seeking, ideologically blinkered positions, shifting their stance depending on who is in power or more pertinently whom they want to keep out, have refused to engage with the issue seriously till now. They are likely to have five years more to think about it, provided the Modi-Shah combine has the nous — and indications are it certainly does — to work out its weaknesses, ensure the index of Opposition unity is not too high, focus on delivery of development initiatives and explain much better the need for the structural reforms initiated and those yet to come.

The BJP will also have to pursue with far more finesse and less virulence then it has hitherto exhibited the project of providing an ambient environment in which an Indic cultural consciousness flourishes while simultaneously a folk multiculturalism — modes of prayer, sartorial choices, culinary preferences et.al. of bona fide Indian citizens — is celebrated without a de facto differential citizenship model such as the one we were quite casually slipping into pre-2014. Equally, curbing growing lumpen anti-intellectualism within the fold is nothing less than a categorical imperative in the construction of a modern state wherein individual rights are never trumped by group rights. Put the BJP Marg Darshak Mandal to some use, perhaps? Its members certainly have the credentials and experience to make a go of carrying out this balancing act leaving the Government to focus on governance.

At any rate, a lot can and will change over the coming year. But on the evidence available my money is on the BJP coming back. Not with 200-220 seats for itself and another 50-70 from post/pre-poll allies as the drawing room conversation consensus seems to be but with a decisive win. Either that, or it will be reduced to struggling in the 120-180 seats band which is where it was stuck in the pre-Modi era, effectively making it a lamppost election. I am convinced that an aspirational and very impatient India has neither the time nor the luxury for a fractured mandate which would inevitably give birth to an even more fractious polity than extant.

Modi remains the most popular and, something which is often not understood fully, the most recognizable politician across India.The latter is important to internalize because in a chaotic ecology sans a counter-narrative that can capture the popular imagination, the Centre tends to hold. It is more than just TINA. WB Yeats in The Second Coming is perhaps apposite on the alternative the Opposition presents as of today:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,/The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/The ceremony of innocence is drowned;/The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.

(The author is Consulting Editor, The Pioneer.)

Writer: Ishan Joshi

Courtesy: The Pioneer

India has set the red carpet for Nepal’s PM, KP Oli on his first official visit. India’s trust on Nepal’s government will be attentive of its sincere security interests that includes honoring nation’s traditional red lines.

Nepal Prime Minister KP Oli who lambasted India after the 2015 blockade, accused it of toppling his Government in 2016 and travelled to Beijing in the interregnum to sign Nepal’s first ever trade and transit treaty with China, will be on his first official state visit to India commencing April 7. The last time he was invited was in 2016 when he urged Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to do so and she obliged but only after he had passed the first amendment to Nepal’s Constitution, which only minimally granted rights to the Madhesis and other marginalised classes. On his last visit, he was ruling a shaky coalition Government.

Now Oli is a political colossus, following the strategic alliance with the Prachanda-led Maoist Center and will soon be heading a Government with more than two-third majority, having swept the local Government elections and captured six out of seven Provinces and also won a commanding majority in the new upper House. No one in Nepal’s tryst with democracy has amassed such infinite political power.

If this was not enough, he has concentrated in the Prime Minister’s Office, all investigative, intelligence and enforcement agencies, making Oli the master of all that he surveys. If power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely? Whether we will see an authoritarian and dictatorial Oli, only time will tell.

In this column, on December 20 last year, after Oli’s dramatic political success, this writer had predicted that despite the pro-China and ultra nationalistic halo he had acquired, he would visit India first, before any pilgrimage to China as all elected Prime Ministers have done.

Despite teasing India with an interview to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post and an invitation to Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, to which Kathmandu media attributed several creative reasons, including exploring the whereabouts of former Inter-Services Intelligence official, Lt Col Zahir Hussain who was kidnapped from Nepal ostensibly by the Research and Analysis Wing in 2017, the substance of the Oli messaging to India was China — that ‘it will enable deepening explore additional options and leverages in dealing with India’. In 2008, shortly before Prachanda became the Prime Minister, he told a Nepali TV channel that Nepal needed China to balance India. In later years, Prachanda had a change in preference.

The second issue raised by Oli in the interview was about the recruitment of Nepali Gorkhas in the Indian Army. Two connections China desperately wants broken in the high Himalayas are India’s special relations with Nepal and Bhutan.

Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj did some nimble diplomacy to woo Oli. Swaraj’s surprise visit to Kathmandu to congratulate and invite him to the Dilli Durbar was both spontaneous and an expression of regret over past misunderstandings, blockade et al.

Modi, meanwhile, worked the phone lines repeating his Mann ki Baat of forgiving, forgetting and looking at the future. This diplomatic coup, coupled with Oli’s missive to Modi on Republic Day, more than mad up for one of India’s greatest foreign policy blunders, pushed Nepal towards China. During Holi, while in Pokhara, Nepal, this writer learnt a new Nepali phrase. It goes like this: ‘Dukh payo Mangala le; afno hi dhang le’ (the pain India suffered was due to its own fault.) The Madhesi cause has been put on the back burner and the fractious Nepali Congress party marginalised.

China will extract maximum political, economic and people-to-people benefit from a pro-China Left alliance Government which it inspired and invested in putting together. China’s rise in Nepal is unstoppable. Nepal wishes to draw economic gains from the world’s two fastest growing economies. It also wants to reduce its dependence on India but realises that geography, culture, language and religion point otherwise. Still, Chinese presence, investment, involvement in domestic politics and creeping interest in the military and police have magnified rapidly. They have already bagged most of the rail, road, hydropower and airport projects. The new Pokhara and Bhairwa (Lumbini) airports and the expansion of the existing Tribhuvan International Airport are all with Chinese companies, financed by loans given by Exim Bank.

China has built a new $350 million Armed Police Force Academy for which Prime Minister Modi had laid the plaque. Now India is making the police academy instead. The 800 MW Buddha Koshi hydro project will also be restored to China. The Chinese are investing heavily in Pokhara lakeside area. Thirty five to 40 Confucian Centres have come up in Terai. Chinese tourists arriving by air are second only to those coming from India. There is an unconfirmed report that a Chinese General was conferred an honorary General’s rank like the ritual followed between the Army Chiefs of India and Nepal.

China seeks parity with India. The Belt and Road Initiative blueprint is at an advanced stage. Nepalese are worried about a Sri Lanka-like debt trap. No one understands how Chinese invest and construct their projects. There is never any criticism of China in Nepal — which is reserved for India — even if fraud is involved.

Nepal can look forward to Achche din. The two entities of the Left alliance — Unified Marxist-Leninist and Maoists — were to merge this month but the coming together has been postponed to April. Not everyone, especially among  the Maoists, is happy with playing second fiddle, especially Prachanda who led the revolution of making new Nepal secular, democratic and a republic.

One senior Maoist leader told this writer that the merger could lead to ‘indigestion’! Nepal will be stable, for the first two years as no-confidence motion is not permissible by the new Constitution. This writer heard conflicting accounts on a gentleman’s agreement on power sharing — all five years for Oli; two-and-a-half years each; and three years Oli, two years Prachanda. It is inconceivable that Prachanda will be satisfied with co-chairman of the merged Communist Party of Nepal.

India will want political stability after 25 Prime Ministers in 27 years. Its focus is on geo-economics (the economic package for the current year has been doubled from Rs 375 crore to Rs 650 crore), people-to-people, especially outreach to  the youth and timely delivery of projects. India trusts the Oli Government will be mindful of its legitimate security interests, including honouring its traditional red lines.

The red carpet is being laid out. No Nepali Prime Minister has been given the honour and respect Oli will receive, including being seted by Modi. It’s to make Oli feel respected and help him consider India as Nepal’s first neighbour.

(The writer is a retired Major General of the Indian Army and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the revamped Integrated Defence Staff)

Writer:  Ashok K Mehta

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The Indian legislature many a times fail to conduct debates on serious issues to come to a solution which, in turn, can have consequential implications. This negligence can lead to the questioning of the existence of budget allocated to the Parliament and the Parliament itself and no justification could possibly justify its existence in such a case.

The dysfunctionality of India’s Parliament has been a matter of concern for many years now but even the worst sceptics would not have expected the institution, which is at the apex of the country’s democratic structure, to fall to such depths as it did during the passage of the Union Budget a fortnight ago.

Normally, the Budget Session begins with the presentation of the Railway Budget, followed by a detailed discussion on the working of the Railways and passage of the Railway Minister’s budgetary proposals. The passage of the Union Budget would fall into four stages and run through the Budget Session of Parliament from mid-February to mid-May every year. After the Finance Minister presented his Budget proposals, several days were earmarked in both Houses for a general discussion on the budget. Thereafter, the Demands for Grants of several Ministries would be taken up for discussion.

In the old days, these discussions, which enable MPs to speak on the performance of specific Ministries and departments, would be spread over several weeks. Finally, at an appointed date and hour, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha would apply the guillotine (closure to the debate on the Demands for Grants) and put all the demands to the vote of the House. But this would happen several weeks after the debate on the Demands began in the House. Thereafter, the House would discuss and pass the Appropriation Bill and finally, in the later stages of the Budget Session, the Finance Bill containing the financial proposals of the Government, would be passed after much deliberation.

These traditions have been built over the last several decades not merely to keep the two Houses active but also to fulfill an important Constitutional obligation. Parliament is mandated by the Constitution to diligently scrutinise the expenditure and taxation proposals of the Union Government. Articles 112 to 119 deal with the procedure to follow in respect of the annual financial statement of the Union Government, the Demands for Grants and the method by which Government can secure Parliament’s sanction for expenditure, supplementary demands and votes on account.

Thus, from the time the Budget is presented and till the passage of the Appropriation and Finance Bills to give effect to the Government’s expenditure and taxation proposals, MPs got at least four opportunities to address issues relating to the Union Budget. A table published in “Practice and Procedure of Parliament” by MN Kaul and SL Shakdher about the time spent by the Lok Sabha to discuss the Railway Budget, the General Budget and the Demands for Grants in 1986-87 in revealing.

That year, the Lok Sabha spent 19 hours discussing the Railway Budget and the Railway Demand for Grants; close to 20 hours on the general discussion of the Union Budget and 92 hours to discuss the Demands for Grants of the various Ministries. In all, the House spent about 130 hours debating various aspects of the Budget. The time spent in 1986-87 on various aspects of the budgetary exercise is fairly representative of how Parliament carried out this responsibility since the inception of the two Houses in 1952.        

Contrast this with how the budgetary process went through the Lok Sabha this year. After the presentation of the budget on February 1, there was a general discussion on the Budget in the Lok Sabha on February 7 and 8, lasting approximately 12 hours. Thereafter, as is the practice, both Houses adjourned to enable the Departmentally Related Standing Committees to examine the Demands for Grants relating to various Ministers.

The Houses reconvened on March 5. Since then, both Houses have been unable to function because of disruptions caused by the MPs from Andhra Pradesh who are demanding a special status for the State; MPs from Tamil Nadu who are aggrieved about defilement of a statue and several other sundry protestors.

Since there is no sign of an end to this chaos and no indication of MPs wanting to utilise Parliament’s time for discussion on the Union Budget, the Speaker decided to put the Demands for Grants, the Appropriation Bill and the Finance Bill to the vote of the House on March 14.

On that day, the Speaker took up the passage of the Demands for Grants at 12.03 pm. She first put all cut motions to vote. These are motions given generally by Opposition MPs to show their displeasure in regard to a particular demand. It has an element of censure in it and, therefore, it is incumbent on the treasury benches to defeat these motions. The Speaker put all of them to vote in one go and they were rejected. At 12.04 pm, the Speaker announced that she was putting all the Demands for Grants to vote. The House adopted the motion. At 12.05 pm, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley moved the Appropriation Bill. The House passed the Bill after clause by clause consideration. At 12.06 pm, the Finance Minister moved the Finance Bill. This took a little longer than the other Bill because there were 21 Government amendments and three new clauses had to be inserted. Thereafter, after passage of another Budget-related matter, the House was adjourned at 12.38 pm.

In other words, the Lok Sabha devoted just one minute to give its consent to the Demands of all Government Ministries and departments — an exercise which took around 80 to 100 hours in the past. Overall, the Lok Sabha devoted just 12 hours and 35 minutes for Budget-related business which in the past took around 130 hours. This only means that Parliament has abdicated a primary responsibility given to it by the Constitution. The events of March 14 are even more disturbing because in the early days, at least 40 per cent of the Demands would be discussed in Parliament. Ten years ago, it dropped to about 25 percent. This year, not a single demand was discussed and the overall Government expenditure in this year’s Budget is estimated to be Rs 24.42 lakh crore.

Venkaiah Naidu, the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha and Sumitra Mahajan, the Lok Sabha Speaker have time and again appealed to members, but without much success. Naidu, with a tinge of exasperation, warned MPs that if the disruptions continued, people would lose faith in lawmakers. If Parliament does not have the time or the inclination to scrutinise the Union Budget, it will find it difficult to justify its existence and the huge Budget allocated to it. Will good sense prevail? We must keep our fingers crossed!

Writer: A Surya Prakash

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The Cambridge Analytica scandal is much more than a mere data leak. Finding this scandal a bit puzzling, a number of political reporters in India, especially those who have three decades experience in covering elections, did a little digging.  It appears that Cambridge Analytica scraped, that is illegally acquired information of 50 million Facebook users in the United States.

This has gotten privacy activists, including the ‘destroy the Aadhaar’ crowd, up in arms about privacy and user rights and what not. But data, particularly user information, in itself does not matter for much — it is how Cambridge Analytica studied that information and used it for their clients that made all the difference. The advent of supercomputers and artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse thousands of pieces of information has led to what marketers call ‘Big Data’. AI can analyse trends over millions of users and transactions, and can immediately red-flag any anomalies. This is what the tax authorities across the world are increasingly doing; and because linkages can be easily established, big data can go after tax evaders. It can also be used to better map traffic and population dynamics, helping city planners and policy makers. But AI can also be used to analyse the sentiments of users and drive them to a particular position or cause by feeding them information. This is not only limited to politics. Have you ever wondered why an e-commerce site often knows exactly what you want to buy and suggests it to you? Or when you do a series of searches, sometimes, a large search engine will suggest precisely what you are looking for. Suppose you are searching for a vacation, a search engine might already know your details without you ever explicitly informing them. Your information has already been put into various buckets. This can be creepy at times, there was a case of an e-commerce site knowing that a woman was already pregnant before she knew, based on her purchases. Another person was puzzled that a website knew that he wanted to acquire a dog without his even talking about it to anyone. AI makes large-scale behavioural analysis possible and when everyone puts their information onto a site, such as Facebook, it can easily be manipulated.

But in Indian politics, politicians and political managers have always had information. Electoral lists could and would be manually analysed for caste and economic data. Before the age of social media, local party workers often knew which buttons to press during campaigning. Social media and vulnerable data storage makes it much easier, AI removes the need for a comprehensive party machine, although not totally because the ‘get out the vote machine’ still needs to operate. That said, young voters with short-term memories and easily excitable have been manipulated by AI driven insights on often illegally acquired data. Have you wondered why so many strange electoral decisions have been made across the world? From Greece to Austria, from the US to New Zealand, AI is making it possible to better analyse data. The BJP and the Congress are both being hypocritical if either of them emerge as the party of ‘data protection’. This is a problem across the world and a global solution has to be found. But when power and politics get involved, it is doubtful if anything will be done, 2019 will still be a big data and AI driven election. Machines are truly taking over democracy.

Writer: Pioneer

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The Indo-France connection defined that how the France President, Emmanuel Macron, visit could be more beneficial if we get our hold right.

From solar power to defence deals, Asia-Pacific security to the possibility of France replacing Russia as India’s all-weather ally at a time when Moscow seems recalibrating its position in a fluid geostrategic environment in which some see a new global bi-polarity emerging with the US and China forming the poles, New Delhi has engaged with Paris at an apt juncture. Prime Minister Narendra Modi pulled out all the stops in ensuring President Emmanuel Macron’s recently concluded four-day visit to India, which had a hectic and by all accounts very productive itinerary, went off well. Indeed, even as you read, the navies of India and France are engaged in a joint bilateral exercise — Varuna-18 — in the Arabian Sea off the Goa coast which aims to enhance operational synchronicities.

Yet, the whole is not in the sum of these parts but dependent on the X Factor, as it were, which is the forging of a state-to state ideological and values-based relationship reflecting the affinity between the Indic and French civilisational ethos. This is a consummation devoutly to be wished as a countervailing force to the narrative of the global triad of multiculturalists, mullahs and Marxists which threatens to reduce contemporary narratives on individual (especially women’s) rights, personal liberty, the agency of nationalism, the role of the nation-state, issues of security related to terror and/or migration and cultural particularities into a communitarian discourse. Worse still, it is a narrative which champions membership of fundamentally illiberal groups and denies, by implication and/or directly, the notion of both an Indian and a French exceptionalism.

India has a similar affinity with Israel given the notion of an exceptionalism that runs through all three civilizational cultures and a common danger to all of them emanates from an ideological architecture that has enabled the arming, quite literally, of the enemies of the nation-state in general and the abovementioned nation-states in particular. The good news is that our engagement with the State of Israel has acquired some depth and is in the process of acquiring the breadth that would make for a lasting alliance, credit for which much go first to PV Narasimha Rao and his team of strategic thinkers in the early 1990s who had the moral courage and intellectual nous to grapple with the changing contours of a post-Cold War world and the, till then under-theorized, radicalization of the ‘Muslim World’ despite those from within the fold who tried then and haven’t, one eye on domestic politics, given up trying even now, to undermine them. Similarly, credit is due to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and President Jacques Chirac who started the process of a deep engagement between India and France as defined strategic partners in 1998.

India’s French connection is still far from having been explored to its fullest potential, though, in part at least due to the language issue. Now the French establishment has always been as keen as mustard to spread globally the “language of freedom”, as it were, but in Macron it seems to have found a nuts-and-bolts man who has a plan — “plot”, according to the Brit tabloids, god bless them — to bring this to fruition. Speaking a couple of days ago, the French President announced an allocation of millions of euros to double the number of teachers and students learning French in schools worldwide, begin a sustained push in Africa to promote the language across the continent so it is not limited only to the former French colonies there and, post-Brexit, increase its use as the preferred language of communication in the European Union in place of English. Macron’s description of this effort as a “new moment in history”, however, has not gone down terribly well in the Francophone world especially in Africa where allegations of a colonial hangover and French meddling slip easily off the tongue, which is why the President asserted that France saw itself merely as “a country among others” in the French-speaking world.

Macron, who unlike previous French presidents loves to speak English at summits and regularly uses English slogans such as “start-up nation” and “make our planet great again”, makes no apologies for regularly speaking English, saying it has become an international language of business. But he iterates that speaking French is also a way to highlight French “values”. Therein lies the rub.

For India, which has an English-advantage in the modern world albeit the language spoken nowadays is more Queenie Singh’s than the Queen’s (but that’s just this writer being a youngish fogey and aesthete), the promotion of French isn’t what excites us. Equally, we should waste neither time nor resources on the promotion of Hindi globally — all three languages are, as the chips have fallen in world history, merely functional outside national borders though some more than others. (They are rightly cherished at home, of course, and lovers of each of these languages should always be encouraged to pursue them.) If anything, our emphasis should be to ensure that Sanskrit, along with Latin and Hebrew, are promoted as global languages of antiquity which enable access to pre-medieval primary sources and help us understand our cultural origins warts, glories and all.

The X Factor in our French connection is not, and very unlikely to be in the foreseeable future, a common language and we can safely elide Anglo-French competitiveness around which should be the lingua franca of the world. It is the ideas conveyed by the language, which it is fallacious to assume are lost in translation, which are of immediate import.

Professor Bhiku Parekh’s seminal work on the cultural particularity of liberal democracy is now widely accepted as historically evident and the Indian approximation of the same is today a work in progress. But the notion that individual rights can never be trumped by group rights, the imperative of gender equity and an uncompromising adherence to personal liberty all premised on a uniquely inclusive civilizational impulse within an Indic cultural context that India ought to attempt to institutionalise via state instrumentalities will gain immeasurably from a deepening of strategic, security and cultural ties with France.

Within this rubric, practicalities such as an Indo-French outreach in Africa makes a lot of sense given our weaknesses and strengths on that continent are broadly complimentary. Apart from gaining strategic depth including enhancing our energy security, such a move would provide a fillip to economic growth/capacity-building in individual African nation-states while boosting investment opportunities/growth for India and France as well as serve to counter the aggressive push over the past decade by an increasingly authoritarian China in Africa. Leveraging the French connection to deepen both economic and security ties with the EU, and Paris understands our concerns better than most in Europe, must be the other area of focus. Bilaterally, the sky is the limit if the Indo-French entente cordiale is actively transformed into a multi-faceted strategic partnership given the cultural affinity of our respective liberal, inclusive and secular heritages though both India and France, as nations, arrived at them via very different routes. In fact, it is these very values which are under attack from communitarian ideologies.

Nearly three centuries after the Carnatic Wars were fought on the Indian peninsula by the then dominant colonial powers for control over the sub-continent, a conflation of ideas and interests between New Delhi and Paris has come to pass.

(The writer is Consulting Editor, The Pioneer)

Writer: Ishan Joshi

Courtesy: The Pioneer