Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has blasted US policies in a letter to President Trump. He slammed the travel ban, the US “dominance” in the UN, and said that the US brought “insecurity, war, division, killing and displacement of nations.”

In the 3,500-word letter, sent by the former leader to the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, Ahmadinejad blasts Trump’s travel ban imposed in January on seven Muslim-majority countries including Iran. The ban was later blocked by a judge, with an appeals court refusing to put it back into force.

Ahmadinejad noted that there are 1 million people with Iranian roots living in the US, and added that the US should “value respect toward the diversity of nations and races.”

“The developments and the current existence of America today is the result of immigration of a variety of nations to that land,” he wrote.

“The presence and constructive effort of the elite and scientists of different nations, including the million-plus population of my Iranian compatriots, has had a major role in the development of the US.”

“In other words, the contemporary US belongs to all nations, including the natives of the land. No one may consider themselves the owner and view others as guests or immigrants.”

The former Iranian president also slammed US “dominance” in the United Nations, and Washington’s interfering with world affairs, saying this only led to “insecurity, war, division, killing and [the] displacement of nations.”

At the same time, Ahmadinejad said Trump had “truthfully described the US political system and electoral structure as corrupt.”

“The US electoral system has for decades enslaved people’s votes to benefit a certain minority; i.e. a group that seemingly rules in the form of two parties, but in fact represents a minority, i.e. the tyrants of global wealth and power.”

“Four years is a long period, but it ends quickly,” he warned. “The opportunity needs to be valued, and all its moments need to be used in the best way.”

It isn’t the first letter sent by Ahmadinejad, who also wrote to US Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Ahmadinejad was the Iranian president from 2005 to 2013, and in September, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned the former president that he shouldn’t run in the next election.

Khamenei said that Ahmadinejad’s candidacy would bring about a “polarized situation” that would turn out to be “harmful for the country.”

Ahmadinejad’s letter comes as US-Iranian tensions are flaring up: Tehran is staging large-scale military exercises and its officials said that they would only use weapons in self-defense, while the US rolled out new sanctions against Iran and warned it was putting Iran “on notice” over the ballistic missile launch and the war games.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday urged regional cooperation for resolution of environmental problems, in particular dust particle pollution.

He made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the 16th Iran International Environment Exhibition on Friday, IRNA reported.

Wrong policies in the region led to a particle pollution crisis, water crisis and desertification of the region, the foreign minister added.

He urged Iran’s neighbors to start serious cooperation for formulating a program to counter environmental damages caused during the ruling of former rulers of the region, including former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, and terrorist groups, Daesh in particular.

“The Islamic Republic extends a hand of cooperation to all its neighbors in order to provide a better life for our children and to counter the dangers threatening the life of our generation and the future generations,” Zarif added.

“This action is not only an environmental necessity, but also a political and security issue,” he said.

A total of 300 domestic and 20 foreign companies from Germany, South Korea, UK, the Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, China, Sweden, Finland, New Zealand, France, Japan, Russia, Norway and Austria have attended the four-day event.

Dust storms in Khuzestan

Since 2002, Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzestan has been reeling from sandstorms, 75 percent of which is said to originate in Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia, but a combination of events recently have brought Khuzestan to the brink of virtual collapse, Press TV reported.

Heavy rains have washed filaments of dust and sand into power transmission equipment, leading to long outages. Water supplies are not unscathed, crippling life in the provincial capital Ahvaz and other cities.

President Hassan Rouhani arrived in the province on Thursday at the head of a delegation of several cabinet ministers and vice presidents to closely examine the environmental crisis in the oil-rich province.

Upon his arrival, Rouhani pointed to power outrages and the problems facing water supplies, saying, “The government paid attention from the very first day, and we examined the issue and outlined plans.”

Iran’s Khuzestan Province is struggling to emerge from back-to-back power outages which have severely disrupted life and led to expressions of discontent with local authorities and the government.

He added that based on a report submitted by the energy minister, water distribution issues will be resolved in the coming days.

Iran is currently implementing plans to resolve the root causes of dust storms inside the country, but there is a need for regional and international cooperation to eliminate the origins of such storms in Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia, Rouhani noted.

*Source: Iran-Daily

By Obja Borah Hazarika*

The National League for Democracy which came to power in Myanmar in April 2016 has the daunting task of tackling several critical issues pertaining to ensuring peace, promoting rights of ethnic groups, preventing sectarian violence, ensuring economic development and constitutional amendments, among others.

Struggles for rights by ethnic groups have been a marked feature of Myanmar’s recent history. Such struggles have led to insurgencies committed by various ethnic groups against the regime in power. Such struggles and offensives by these groups have led to the destabilisation of various regions as well as displacement of the masses due to the retaliation by the army.

With a view to resolving these ethnic demands, the government of President U Htin Kyaw held the first Union Peace Conference in Nay Pyi Taw from August 31 to September 3, 2016. This conference allowed various ethnic groups which had been rebelling against the government to present their demands in an open forum. However, the conference did not yield any substantive resolutions and more importantly, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance (MNDA), Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), and Arakan Army (AA), which are three of the fiercest ethnic rebel groups in Myanmar, were not part of the ‘21st Century Panglong Conference’ thus diminishing the success of the conference.

Even after the coming into power of the NLD-led government and in the aftermath of peace efforts like the ‘21st Century Panglong Conference’, Myanmar continues to face sectarian clashes in Rakhine state where about 145,000 people have been displaced by violence since 2012. On October 9, 2016 three Border Guard Police posts in Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships were attacked and 62 weapons and over 10,000 rounds of ammunition were stolen. The attack also left nine policemen dead. The International Crisis Group claimed that the perpetrators of this attack were linked to the Harakah al-Yaqin — a group having connections with the Rohingya diaspora in Saudi Arabia. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both have alleged ill-treatment, arbitrary detention and sexual violence and the burning of as many as 1,500 buildings in the region.

Apart from violence in Rakhine, intense fighting continues in Kachin between the Myanmar army and ethnic rebel groups of Kachin state. Conflict is also currently underway in the Shan states between the Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army South (RCSS/SSA-S) and the TNLA. On November 20, 2016, the Northern Alliance – Burma (NA-B) — a newly-formed alliance comprising of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the Arakan Army (AA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) — attacked police stations and military targets close to Muse, a town on the border with China. This attack was viewed as a sign of frustration with the NLD-led government for not acquiescing to the demands of federalism and autonomy of these groups. Failure to accommodate demands of these rebel groups has kept most of the powerful groups away from national reconciliation which has rendered the peace process of the NLD rather tenuous and precarious. Several rebel groups were outliers to the peace process and had refused to sign the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), a peace deal between Myanmar’s previous quasi-civilian government and eight rebels groups in October 2015.

Despite the steps taken in the Panglong Conference to ensure peace, the situation in Myanmar with regard to insurgency continues to dominate the socio-political landscape of the country at great humanitarian costs. These conflicts which are mainly concentrated in Northern Myanmar, along a region which borders China, have led to people being internally displaced as well as mass scale flight of people into China. According to the United Nations, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) due to these conflicts stands at 218,000, including 87,000 in Kachin state and 11,000 in Shan state. Nearly 80 percent of those displaced are women and children, some of whom have suffered displacement multiple times.

The National Ceasefire Agreement which was signed in 2015 between the government and some of the rebel groups has all but collapsed especially with the military offensives in Kachin and Shan. The transition to democracy of the country has come into question due to the gross violations of human rights as is prevailing in Myanmar at the moment.

Thus, the government is saddled with sectarian problems in Rakhine and violence due to rebel ethnic groups in Kachin and Shan states. Aung San Suu Kyi, First State Counsellor and Leader of the National League for Democracy, has been criticised for not doing enough to prevent such unrest and violence. In the latest of such criticisms was an open letter to the United Nations signed by 12 Nobel Prize winners condemning Suu Kyi for her lack of resolve to solve the situation in Rakhine. The letter observed that Rakhine had the makings of a humanitarian tragedy similar to Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Suu Kyi’s government has faced international flak from Human Rights Watch for not ensuring human rights in violence-ridden areas. It has been reported that abuses on civilians, including extra-judicial killings, torture, destruction of property, have been carried out by the military without being held accountable. Attempts to reform laws relating to the powers of the military or to ensure human rights have also not been undertaken by the NLD-led government. The NLD-led government is accused of following the framework of the previous Thein Sein-led government which insisted that rebel groups wanting to join the peace process should first disarm, a clause which was not acceptable to many of the rebel outfits.

With regard to the ethnic insurgency, Suu Kyi’s government has been criticised for treading too cautiously and appeasing the army. The cautiousness behind the approach of the NLD-led government with regard to the issue of fulfilling the demands of the rebel groups can be understood to be a result of the Suu Kyi-led government being limited by the 2008 Constitution which does not allow for the accommodation of the demands of the ethnic groups as any amendment to it requires the acquiescence of the army.

The question of insurgency in Myanmar is related to a number of complex issues including the role of the army and its staunch ‘six point policy’ on peace which consist of a keen desire to reach eternal peace, to keep promises agreed to in peace deals, to avoid capitalising on the peace agreement, to avoid placing a heavy burden on the local people, to strictly abide by the existing laws, and to march towards a democratic nation in accordance with the 2008 constitution. Such an insistence on the six point policy is problematic for resolving the issue of ethnic insurgency — for instance, the Constitution of 2008 does not allow meaningful self-rule or self-autonomy and only mentions self-administrative zones, which does not meet the demands of the groups.

India too is keen on the success of the national reconciliation process as it is expected that with the entry of rebel outliers in the formal political process of Myanmar they would stop cooperating and aiding insurgents operating in the Northeast of India. Ethnic outfits in Myanmar have been reinforcing the insurgent groups of India with training, arms and other wherewithal with the help of which the latter has been carrying out its subterfuges against the State. For instance, the ULFA received training from Myanmar’s Kachin Liberation Army, which has not yet signed the NCA. An end to the ethnic rebel groups in Myanmar would thus prevent such aid from being given to their counterparts in India thereby effectively preventing them from engaging in violent activities.

It is also hoped that the end of insurgency in Myanmar would alleviate the refugee issue in India. India, although not a party to the Refugee Convention of 1951, does have a presence of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees which states that India is home to a sizeable number of documented and undocumented refugees from Myanmar. It estimates that out of 28,000 refugees registered with it in India, around 16,341 are from Myanmar. The refugees are mainly either Rohingya Muslims who have been denied citizenship in Myanmar since 1982 or members of the Chin community who have also been targeted with multiple human rights violations and/or are political refugees. The conditions in which they live in India are quite pitiable and in need of immediate redress.

Apart from ensuring that basic needs of the Rohingya are ensured, India is keen on Myanmar solving the issue of Rohingya domestically so that they come to be recognised as political entities, which will enable a repatriation of these refugees to be worked out which in turn would greatly alleviate the hardships faced by members of the community residing in India. The other groups are the Chins who have been seeking refuge in Delhi and the northeast states of India. Most of them are facing difficulties and have been demanding basic rights. Although the Chin National Front (CNF) which was the rebel outfit of the Chins signed a bilateral ceasefire on January 6, 2012 and is also a signatory to the NCA, without the reconciliation process being complete a repatriation of the Chin refugees in Delhi will remain elusive.

A holistic approach is required in order to tackle the issue of ethnic insurgency which should include mitigating illicit drug trade, ensuring federal arrangement of powers, involvement of all stakeholders, changes in the constitution, fair representation to all ethnic groups, preventing of depletion of natural resources and ensuring that decisions with regard to development of resources are made with the involvement of ethnic groups.

Without the military relinquishing its veto powers over constitutional amendments, it is but certain that the NLD-led government will not be in a position to effect political reform which will lead to the persistence of offensives by rebel groups which will yield further crackdowns by the army and the circle of violence will lamentably continue.

*Obja Borah Hazarika is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Dibrugarh University, Assam. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsinidia.in

By Chayanika Saxena*

It is for no small reason that the game of cricket is called a ‘religion’ in its own right. What had till now done many in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka proud internationally is making just the right kind of noise in a country that has been hearing nothing but the din of chaos – Afghanistan.

Having made their mark in international cricket, two players from the Afghan national cricket team – Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi – have been plugged into a team that plays the pompous and exuberant Indian Premier League. The Indian Premier League is a domestically played series of T-20 matches between teams that are named after different regions/cities of the country.

Domestic cricket in its essence, the IPL however has a unique international flavor as it draws talent from different national teams from around the world. South Asian representation too is a feature of this format, with the IPL seeing players from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka participating in them. In fact, until a while ago, even Pakistani players were bid for huge bags of money till they victims of the India-Pakistan political and diplomatic estrangement.

The two Afghan players – Khan who has been selected by Sunrisers Hyderabad for a massive sum of INR 4 crore and Nabi who is in the same team and was picked up first for INR 30 lakh – are spinners who have a good record to boast. Prior to their upcoming stint in the Indian Premier League, both Nabi and Khan have played in Bangladesh Premier League and the Pakistan Premier League, both poorer cousins of IPL in terms of money earned by the players and their drawing power.

More than their performances, which will be keenly followed, it is the rise of the Afghan national cricket team and its sportspersons that is catching attention. Braving many odds, the country’s endless violence, sectarian conflicts, poor infrastructure, including the absence of a well-functioning cricket stadium for practice in their home country (the Afghan team has been allowed to adopt the Greater Noida cricket stadium as their home pitch), the team has come a long way to assume the 9th spot internationally among the best T20 teams and has a huge fan following in an otherwise divided country.

*Chayanika Saxena is a Research Associate at the Society for Policy Studies. He can be contacted at chayanika.saxena@spsindia.in

(RFE/RL) — Bosnia on February 23 formally asked the United Nations’ top court to review its 2007 ruling that cleared Serbia of charges it committed genocide during the 1990s civil war.

The move prompted an angry response from Bosnian Serbs and Serbia and a rare joint statement from the ambassadors of major powers — including Russia and the United States — urging all parties in Bosnia to pursue dialogue and avoid worsening tensions.

Many officials in Bosnia had argued against the move, saying it could spark a new political crisis in the ethnically divided country.

Bosnian Serb politicians have threatened to block the work of the federal parliament in Sarajevo over the matter, potentially halting reforms Bosnia needs to draw closer to the European Union and secure more loans from the International Monetary Fund.

“I am afraid that we have entered a really serious crisis,” said Mladen Ivanic, the Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency. He said the request should have been made unanimously by the presidency.

Serbia’s leader had warned on February 22 that reviving the genocide case would open old wounds in the region.

“Our relations have been pushed backward 25 or 22 years,” Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said. “The little trust we built over the years…is now gone.”

But Bakir Izetbegovic, the Muslim member of Bosnia’s Presidency, said there was no need for all members of the presidency to unite behind the request for review, since a recommendation to make such a request before the International Court of Justice was originally made by a lawyer representing the entire presidency.

“We’ve been accused of triggering the crisis in Bosnia and the region,” Izetbegovic said. “The crisis was caused by those who committed an aggression… I think that I am on the path of truth and justice.”

In the original case launched by the Muslim-dominated government of Bosnia in 1993, Sarajevo accused Belgrade of masterminding a genocide through widespread “ethnic cleansing” during the war, which claimed more than 100,000 lives.

On February 26, 2007, The Hague court found only one act of genocide — the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica — and said there was not enough evidence to suggest that Belgrade was directly responsible.

Serb forces captured the eastern town of Srebrenica in July 1995, in the final months of the war, then summarily killed its males in Europe’s worst single atrocity since World War II.

The court did find, however, that Serbia, which gave political and military backing to Bosnian Serbs, had breached international law by failing to prevent the slaughter.

Izetbegovic said Bosnia now has “new arguments” that can be presented to the court to further the case, notably those presented during the trial of Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb wartime army chief who is awaiting judgement by a UN tribunal.

Bosnia’s request for review of the UN court’s 2007 decision was prompted by the impending expiration on February 26 of a 10-year period for requesting such a review.

The ambassadors from outside powers involved in putting together Bosnia’s peace agreement met in Sarajevo on February 23 to discuss the growing tensions in the region.

In the joint statement they issued afterward, they said: “All political leaders should refrain from unilateral actions and return to the principles of compromise, dialogue, and consensus in making decisions, as well as respecting the Bosnian constitution, institutions, and the rule of law.”

By Joanna Lillis*

Polina Ibrayeva is now a frail old lady with sparkling brown eyes. Seventy-three years ago, she was a three-month-old infant suddenly uprooted from the Chechen mountain village where she was born and deported thousands of kilometers east to the steppes of northern Kazakhstan.

Ibrayeva was one of over half a million souls — the entire population of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic — who were bundled into cattle cars, and endured a 2,500-kilometer journey into Central Asian exile. Chechens and Ingush are marking the anniversary of the deportation this week.

“They called us enemies of the people,” Ibrayeva said plainly in a quavering voice, sitting dressed in a tulip-patterned headscarf and polka-dot dress in her neat wooden cottage in the village of Krasnaya Polyana, a plump gray cat snoozing contentedly beside her.

February 23, 1944, is etched into the memory of the Vainakh people — the collective name for Chechens and Ingush — as the traumatic start of the Aardakh: the Exodus. The mass deportation to Central Asia was the collective punishment devised by Josef Stalin and his secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria for perceived treachery to the Motherland.

The expulsion happened during the Great Patriotic War (the Soviet name for World War II), two years after Nazi troops had invaded the Caucasus in a doomed bid to gain control of oilfields there. “They supposedly deported us to save the Caucasus,” explained Ansar Ibrayev, Polina Ibrayeva’s son, who currently serves as the mayor of Krasnaya Polyana, where many deportees were settled and their descendants live on 70 years later.

“The policy was that Chechens could go over to the side of the Germans in the Caucasus, although the Germans didn’t reach Grozny and didn’t reach the [River] Terek. But Russian policy labeled them traitors and enemies of the people,” Ibrayev said.

Chechen communities in Kazakhstan have clung faithfully to their native customs and retain strong ties to the homeland. Sitting in the town hall, dressed in a traditional blue velvet Chechen skullcap, Ibrayev displayed photos on his computer of his visits to Chechnya.

The insults against Chechen pride sting even after seven decades. “We were not traitors!” said Ibrayev, a historian by training. “There were 50,000 [Chechens] fighting on the front, heroes, yet their wives and mothers were deported!”

Having struggled to quell a Chechen insurgency that began in 1940, when the Soviet Union was allied with Hitler under a non-aggression pact, the Kremlin perceived the Chechens a fifth column that might side with the Nazis — although the tide in the Battle of the Caucasus had turned in the Red Army’s favor a year before the Aardakh was set into motion.

Ibrayeva was too young to have first-hand recollections of Operation Lentil, as the Soviets codenamed the deportation. The Russian for lentil is chechevitsa, making the codename a cruel piece of wordplay.

But Ibrayeva lucidly recounted memories passed down by her mother, who traveled from Chechnya to Kazakhstan alone with five children, her husband having disappeared in Stalin’s purges, presumed shot. They were dumped in a village in Kazakhstan’s Kostanay Region. But for the Kazakhs that fed and clothed them, the family might well have perished. “My mother always tells me: Ansar, you’re alive because the Kazakh people didn’t let us die,” said the mayor, who recounted the hardships experienced by his paternal relatives amid the deportation.

His father “would always remember how … they arrived [in Kazakhstan] in March, him aged 14, and his sister and mother died of starvation, on the same day. He took them to the cemetery, buried them, came home, and his second sister was lying there dead. They’re buried here, at our cemetery.”

Krasnaya Polyana is 300 kilometers northwest of Astana in Kazakhstan’s agricultural heartlands, where fields of wheat — plump and golden in the late fall — seem to stretch to the horizon.

The road from the nearest town, Atbasar, turns into a muddy track that passes through villages where old German ladies in headscarves tend their hay bales — another legacy of Stalin’s deportations, for the Chechens were neither the first nor last to suffer deportation from their homeland.

Ethnic Germans from Russia and Ukraine, Koreans from the Far East, Kurds from the Caucasus, Tatars from Crimea were all among those deported in the 1930s and 1940s to Central Asia, which became a dumping ground for peoples singled out for collective punishment.

Many died during the arduous journey. The survivors toiled in factories and on collective farms, serving as cogs that powered Stalin’s agricultural and industrial revolutions.

The deportations left a demographic imprint that reverberates to this day on Kazakhstan, where President Nursultan Nazarbayev has made a virtue of the legacy of diversity inherited from the Soviet Union. Minorities accounted for around 60 percent of the population when the country gained independence in 1991, but the emigration of ethnic Slavs, Germans and others, combined with the inflow of ethnic Kazakhs from other countries, including Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, China and Mongolia, has lowered the ratio to around one-third.

Astana preaches ethnic harmony and tolerance as national values — and certainly in Krasnaya Polyana, Chechen culture is thriving. The village’s school is the only one in Kazakhstan offering the Chechen language on the curriculum. Vibrant cultural traditions, such as dancing the zikr — the Chechen version of a Whirling Dervish dance — are faithfully preserved. “We shouldn’t lose our culture,” said the mayor, who says Kazakhstan will always be home for him and his children. “That’s our rich asset.”

The Chechens of northern Kazakhstan have also fashioned new traditions: they are known as the beloshapochniki, the White Hats, after the shaggy sheepskin papakha headgear they wear.

The village has another distinguishing feature: it is dry. Drinking alcohol is not prohibited, but it is not sold. Prohibition is not motivated by religious beliefs (Chechens are Muslim), but to discourage alcoholism — often a blight in rural Kazakhstan.

Krasnaya Polyana was founded by Slavic settlers in 1863, but after the great migratory shifts of the 1990s, the village is these days almost entirely Chechen. In addition to just over one thousand Chechens, the village has 14 Russian, three German and three Kazakh residents.

Polina Ibrayeva also has a namesake. She was named after a Russian nurse billeted on her family with a Soviet captain in their Chechen village in 1943. Later, her mother realized they were part of an advance party to prepare for the Aardakh.

In 1957, four years after Stalin’s death, Chechens were allowed to return home. Ibrayeva returned with her family to Chechnya, although not to their home village, Lyunki, which was by then occupied by “other people.”

She lived her teenage years in Chechnya and expected to spend the rest of her life there, but fate intervened. In 1962, her family came to Krasnaya Polyana to visit relatives and betrothed her to a local Chechen. Tradition dictates that the bride join the husband’s family, so she stayed behind when the rest of her family returned to Chechnya.

The old lady says she loves Kazakhstan (and its president too), but her eyes glitter with longing when she talks of Chechnya. “I’ve been living here for 54 years, but I still miss it. It’s my place, where my people are,” she said.

“Sometimes I sit up at night and cry and I think: why are those [siblings] in a different place and I’m here? That’s not something you forget. We were cast adrift.”

*Joanna Lillis is a freelance writer who specializes in Central Asia.

(Civil.Ge) — The announced closure of two crossing points along the Administrative Boundary Line of Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia – Nabakevi-Khurcha and Meore Otobaia-Orsantia “will be detrimental to the freedom of movement of the population, including school children, on both sides of the Administrative Boundary Line” and “will likely increase the risk of incidents, especially detentions,” spokesperson for EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement on February 25.

The de-facto Abkhaz government decided to close two out of four crossing points along the administrative boundary line (ABL) between Abkhazia’s predominantly ethnic Georgian Gali district and its adjoining Zugdidi district of Samegrelo region at its session on December 28.

“Such a unilateral decision would go against commitments to work towards enhanced security and improved living conditions for the conflict-affected population,” reads the statement by EU foreign policy chief’s spokesperson.

“Furthermore, it would be contrary to efforts to normalize the situation by creating an atmosphere that is not conducive to longer-term conflict resolution and overall stability in the region,” it also says.

In its the statement, the European Union, “calls for the maintenance of the opening of the crossing points to ensure the freedom of movement, including humanitarian crossings.”

“Furthermore, the participants in the Geneva International Discussions should engage constructively in enhancing security and improving living conditions for the conflict-affected population,” it also states.

The European Union “continues to closely follow the situation along the Administrative Boundary Line” and “reaffirms its full support to Georgia’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders,” according to the statement.

The European Union Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM), which has unarmed monitors on the ground without being able to access the breakaway region, expressed “serious concern” about the planned closure at 42nd meeting of Gali Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism on January 24.

The U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi expressed “deep concern” over the proposed closing following Ambassador Ian Kelly’s visit to the two ABL crossings on January 26.

Similar concerns were expressed by the United Nations Georgia office as well. “The United Nations are concerned that the announced restrictions will have negative consequences for the humanitarian and development needs of those living in Abkhazia, Georgia,” UN Resident Coordinator Niels Scott’s January 26 statement said.

The issue was also raised by the U.S. Mission to the OSCE. In a statement delivered at the Permanent Council on January 19, the Deputy Chief of Mission Kate M. Byrnes said that the planned closure could “further restrict freedom of movement, including of schoolchildren and patients requiring medical treatment.”

At the same meeting, the European Union delivered a statement saying that the closure “will severely restrict the freedom of movement of the population, including school children, on both sides of the Administrative Boundary Line” and called on “corrective measures” to guarantee the freedom of movement.

Residents of Nabakevi and surrounding villages in Gali district organized a protest rally against the planned closure of two crossing points on January 25. Locals travel to nearby villages in neighboring Zugdidi district through the two crossing points for schooling, medical services and commercial activities. The alternative route, running through the main crossing point over the Enguri River, close to village Chuburkhinji, would lengthen the journey for locals by at least 30 kilometers.

By Brig Anil Gupta (Retd)*

As and when the Kashmiri leaders visualise any threat to their power they raise the bogey of “Article 370” to arouse Kashmiri sentiments in pursuance of their finely mastered craft of vote-bank politics. The recent statements of Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti on the floor of the state assembly have once again sparked the controversy regarding the future of the said article of the Constitution of India that grants autonomous status to the border state.

Article 35A has been inserted in the Constitution through a Presidential Order invoking the authority vested by Article 370. This article defines the “Permanent Resident” of the state and enables grant of special privileges to the “Permanent Residents.” Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has gone to the extent of terming those opposed to Article 370 as “anti-national”, thus in one stroke glorifying the stone-pelters, secessionists and separatists as “nationalists”. The prophetic statement of noted Urdu poet Maulana Hasrat Mohani, made before the Constituent Assembly of India on October 17, 1949 that “The grant of special status would enable Kashmir to assume independence afterwards” appears to be proving true.

Col (Dr) Tej Kumar Tikoo, in his book titled “Kashmir: Its Aborigines and their Exodus”, has stated, “To the gullible people of Kashmir, the abolition of Article 370 is projected as a catastrophic event that will sound the death knell of Kashmiri Muslim culture, but in actual fact, this argument is a ploy to prevent assimilation of Kashmiris into the national mainstream. That way, these power brokers continue to expand their fiefdom, perpetuate their hold on political and economic power and build a communal and obscurantist mind set, which in due course serves as a breeding ground for creating a separatist mentality.”

Thus, Article 370 is not only misused by these power brokers to further their political fortunes but also to fuel the psychological isolation of the Kashmiris from the rest of the nation and encouraging fissiparous tendency. The vested interests in Kashmir, be it the politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen or professionals, have used Article 370 to further their own business/political interests at the expense of poor and down-trodden people of the state who do not enjoy any political patronage. A few influential families have also amassed huge wealth due to lack of competition and virtual monopoly assisted by state machinery that frames laws and statutes to suit their interests misusing Article 370. They are the most vocal and ardent supporters of Article 370 in addition to the political power brokers.

However, the common Kashmiri and the people of the other two regions of the state who perceive themselves as ‘denied and deprived lots’ due to the misuse of Article 370 form the silent majority who question its continuation but lack the political and economic muscle to make their angst public. Let the power brokers give a chance to the majority to decide the future of article 370 rather than them continuing to use it as a tool of political blackmail to further their agenda.

Article 370 was inserted in the Constitution of India at the behest of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to please his friend Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah who nurtured the ambition of ruling the ‘riyasat’ (state). In fact, it facilitated the transfer of power from the Dogra rulers to Kashmiri Muslim rulers. Sheikh Abdullah hailed the insertion of Article 370 as a victory for the Kashmiri Quom (people) while the Indian nationalist leaders like Sardar Patel, Baba Saheb Ambedkar and Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee vehemently opposed it.

Unfortunately, Nehru was so enamoured with Sheikh Abdullah that Jammu and Ladakh regions figured nowhere in his thinking as Hindus and Buddhists were in majority there. Sheikh Abdullah, on the other hand, followed the policy of “Muslim precedence” and supported ethnic exclusion by using Muslim majority character of Kashmir as a leverage with the union government. His practice of phony secularism marginalised the Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs and encouraged the emergence of Kashmiri Muslims as a dominant community in all spheres — a practice that continues till date.

Our political leadership in Delhi made the cardinal mistake of ignoring the people and patronising a few individuals to run the affairs of the state. These political power brokers practised phony secularism and exploited religion and Kashmiri identity to blackmail the central leadership. Their communal actions were camouflaged by concept of phony secularism and their hunger of power never prevented them from using religion and anti-India rhetoric as their pet themes during elections. They mastered the art of soft-separatism to use it as part of power game while dealing with the central leadership. The successive governments in Delhi resorted to the policy of appeasement and pampering to keep these political leaders in good humour. In turn, the Kashmiri leaders misled the innocent Kashmiris to believe that they are the sole custodian of their interests. Some people argue that erosion of Article 370 is responsible for the alleged ‘alienation’ of the Kashmiris. The fact is that continuous bad governance, rampant corruption and systematic erosion of composite Kashmiri culture under the garb of Article 370 are the major causes of dissatisfaction among the people of the state.

The people of the state need to discuss the pros and cons of Article 370 to decide whether its continuation is in their interest or in the interest of power brokers. In my view, continuation of the article denies the people of Jammu & Kashmir the benefits of economic, social and cultural development of India. It also hampers the economic progress of the state. The rich have consistently used the article to ensure that no central financial legislation that hurts their interests is introduced in the state and they are thus able to continue their financial plunder without the fear of law. Some of these include the Gift Tax, Wealth Tax and Urban Land Ceiling Act. The recent opposition to SARFAESI Act and GST are also intended for that purpose.

Through the misuse of “Roshni Act”, the influential politico-bureaucratic nexus has amassed vast land resources at the expense of the deprived and downtrodden, the targeted beneficiaries of the Act. Article 370 has also been misused by the political masters to further their political interests by preventing many people-friendly legislations being applied to the state. Some of these are “Anti-Defection Law”, Prevention of Corruption Act, and RTI-2005 — non-application of these promotes corruption and poor governance.

Article 370 is being unfairly used by valley-based Kashmiri leaders, who have monopolised political power in the state, to perpetuate regional discrimination. Hindus and Sikhs are minorities but do not get any benefits. Insulting the Indian Flag and other national symbols is not a crime.

The weaker and vulnerable sections of the society have been rendered voiceless by Article 370. Despite 20 per cent population of the state belonging to the SC/ST category, centralised welfare schemes and constitutional safeguards meant for them have not reached to the SC/ST category of the state. There is no political reservation for the ST. The hapless West Pakistan refugees, Valmikis and Gorkhas are glaring examples of deprived communities.

Article 335 of the Constitution of India that safeguards the interests of SC/ST is not applicable in the state. The vulnerable segments like children and women have also been deprived benefits of central acts protecting their interests. Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection of Children) Act, 2000 and Domestic Violence Act, 2005 are a few examples. There is no surprise then that intellectual and oppressed classes are clamouring for abolition of Article 370.

Unemployment, lack of employment-generating industry, poor health infrastructure and defunct higher institutions of education are also the outcome of Article 370. All of these affect the common man who has no other alternative unlike his influential counterparts who can easily afford these abroad or in other cities of the country.

The youth of Jammu & Kashmir, though highly talented and ambitious, is plagued with the problem of unemployment. Recent figures given in the state assembly bear testimony to the fact that there is glaring lack of private jobs. The restrictive nature of Article 35A discourages private investment in the state leading to dearth of jobs. Kashmir’s major chunk of youth is struggling for jobs. Despite the salubrious climate of Kashmir, no business house is willing to establish IT industry there. There is tremendous scope for investment in tourism and hospitality, health and education sectors to generate employment. But there are no takers. The reason is no secret but the youth needs to decide if Article 370 is to their benefit or it serves the interests of the separatists or political power brokers or both of them.

The continuation of Article 370 will gradually erode the bonding between the state and rest of the country while continuing to deprive the vast majority of the fruits of economic boom enjoyed by their counterparts in other states of the union. The time has come to have a rethink on continuation of the article. The people need to decide between isolation and integration, between phony secularism and equal opportunities for all, between exclusion and inclusion — and last but not the least status quo and a bright future.

*The writer is a Jammu-based political commentator, columnist, and security and strategic analyst. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in

Will Sean Connery’s dream of independent Scotland come true?

As recently as two weeks ago, a repeat Scottish independent referendum seemed improbable.

As Reuters reported on February 10, according to a senior British minister, Britain saw no need for a second Scottish independence referendum and the devolved Scottish government should focus on improving the economy and tacking domestic issues rather than “flirting with secession.”

Meanwhile, an opinion poll published in early February showed support for Scottish independence rose after PM Theresa May proposed making a clean break with the European Union, stoking speculation that Scotland could demand another secession vote. Such a move would present yet another major challenge for the ruling Conservative party as a demand for a second independence referendum from Scotland’s devolved government would throw the United Kingdom into a constitutional crisis just as PM May seeks to negotiate the terms of the Brexit divorce with the EU’s 27 other members.

May had repeatedly said she does not believe there is any need for a second independence vote in Scotland as 55.3% of Scots voted to stay in a 2014 referendum. In that vote, 44.7% of Scots voted for independence.

When asked whether she would allow a second referendum, May told reporters: “We had the independence referendum in 2014.” “The Scottish people determined at that time that they wanted Scotland to remain a part of the United Kingdom. The SNP at the time said it was a ‘once in a generation vote’,” May said.

But the pro-EU Scottish National Party (SNP), whose ultimate aim is independence for Scotland, said May’s drive for what they call a “hard Brexit” against the will of most Scots had put independence back on the agenda.

It now appears that the SNP has gotten its wishes, and despite her stern denials, Theresa May’s team is preparing for Scotland to potentially call independence referendum in March to coincide with triggering of Article 50, the Times of London reported late on Sunday, citing unidentified senior government sources. According to the UK publication, May could agree to new Scottish vote, but on condition it’s held after U.K. leaves EU.

From the Sunday Times:

Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May are heading for a showdown over who has the right to call another independence referendum and when it should be held.

As the prime minister prepares to head north to speak at the Scottish Conservative conference this week, it has emerged that the SNP government raised the issue of a second referendum at a private meeting with her administration on Wednesday.

The first minister looks set to call a vote by the Scottish parliament — following next month’s SNP conference and triggering of article 50 — to strengthen her mandate to stage a second referendum. At her party conference, Sturgeon is expected to call for Holyrood to have the right to call a referendum.

While there has been no official statement from UK officials in this late hour on Sunday, the prospect of even more politcal chaos, not to mention the sudden possibility of Scotland declaring independence has sent cable into a tailspin, with sterling plunging 70 pips in thin trade, sliding below 1.24 on the news.

By Sudip Bhattacharyya*

The happenings at Tata’s and Infosys are not only a matter of concern from the point of view of their future prospects but more so from the angle of corporate governance and accountability.

In a surprise boardroom coup on October 24, Dean Nitin Nohria of Harvard Business School along with other Tata Sons Directors voted to oust the then Tata Sons Chairman Mr. Cyrus Mistry. John C. Coffee, Director of the Centre on Corporate Governance at Columbia Law School, says: “A Dean or University President cannot be an adequate independent director on the board of a company that is a major donor. Tata is a very major donor to HBS and its Dean is thereby compromised.”

Moreover, to raise ethical questions about corporate governance in the context of Nohria’s connection with Ajay Piramal as well as his brother-in-law Amit Chandra (of Bain Capital India), who were brought on the board of Tata Sons just before Cyrus Mistry’s sacking, is only very logical

Further, of the over 50 companies under the Group’s umbrella, only TCS and Tata Motors JLR are doing well. Mistry reportedly wanted to right matters by taking bold, if uncomfortable, decisions that would have diminished Tata’s legacy.
Be that as it may, the reason for removal of a Chairman appointed with much fanfare, as was done in the Tata group, need to be clearly spelt out so that his failings /misdemeanours are identified and accountability fixed. The need for transparency of this high stature company — even if it is in the private sector — can’t be over emphasised.

The allegations against Infosys’ board raise much suspicion of breach of corporate governance and serious lack of transparency. As alleged, the Israeli software company, Panaya was purchased at a mark-up much above the valuation of the company and despite the opposition of the then CFO. Also the reason for the mark-up was reportedly not explained/ recorded anywhere. Further, there are hints at insider trading.

Issues also include the huge severance packages given to two outgoing employees including the then CFO as well as the stratospheric compensation awarded to CEO Vishal Sikka. All this still remain shrouded in mystery.

The company got a clean chit from an independent investigation done by Mumbai-headquartered law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. The same law firm has been hired to engage with shareholders, including the founders, on governance lapses. Infosys has maintained that it complied with fiduciary duties and adopted good governance norms. It also said that the acquisition was made at a price within the band recommended by Deutsche Bank, the third-party valuer.

All said and done, there comes to the fore the problem of inadequate corporate communication. Firms which talk of corporate social responsibility, and claim the high ground of ethics, have to communicate in a different way to society.

The two companies obviously have so far failed miserably in this respect. They must — much sooner than later — come out of the self-imposed shroud of secrecy and start communicating to shareholders and public clearly and transparently on all their outstanding issues of corporate governance.

*The author is a commentator on contemporary issues in economy, politics and society. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in

By Jai Kumar Verma*

There are reports that international Islamic terrorist outfits, particularly the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, are recruiting young Rohingya Muslims for carrying out terrorist activities in the name of jihad. There are also reports that Pakistan’s sinister Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is also enrolling immature Rohingya Muslims for terrorist activities in India after imparting them training in terrorist camps in Pakistan.

In October, foreign-trained Rohingya Muslims killed nine Myanmar Border Guard personnel on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border. Again on November 3, six Rohingya Muslims attacked 11 Myanmar police personnel killing one police officer and injuring several others. Besides these attacks, there were reports that Rohingyas were radicalised and they clashed with Buddhists in Rakhine state.

After these attacks, the present government launched a massive clearance operation in Rakhine state which is the home of Rohingya Muslims. The Myanmar security personnel resorted to extra judicial killings, rapes and merciless beatings of Rohingya Muslims. A large number of suspected extremists and their supporters were imprisoned. According to United Nations observers, about 65,000 Rohingya Muslims took refuge in Bangladesh.

There are widespread allegations that after the communal violence of 2012 between Muslim and Buddhist communities in Rakhine state, the atrocities on Rohingya Muslims have considerably increased and more than 810,000 Rohingyas were displaced and are living without any citizenship in Myanmar. About 200,000 Rohingyas are residing in unofficial camps where the living conditions are deplorable. The majority Buddhist community, with the connivance of security forces, damaged mosques and ruined business enterprises of Muslims.

The Myanmar security forces deal with Rohingya Muslims mercilessly and when they migrate to Bangladesh, which is an Islamic country, their troubles do not end as Bangladesh also treats them equally cruelly.

The present National League of Democracy (NLD) government has barred the entry of media as well as of human right activists in the troubled areas. Hence, the international community partially remained in the dark but mainly took little interest in the pitiable plight of Rohingyas. Recently Pope Francis condemned the atrocities on Rohingyas which is good as it will attract international attention.

In view of the pitiable condition of Rohingya Muslims, various international terrorist organisations, primarily Islamic terrorist outfits, are making efforts to convert them as extremists and recruiting them for carrying out terrorist activities in various countries.

According to latest intelligence output, ISI-sponsored terrorist outfits like Lashkar-e-Toiba, (LeT) and Jaish-e- Mohammed (JeM) are recruiting Rohingyas through support agents. Once young Rohingyas are recruited they are sent to Pakistan via Nepal or Middle Eastern countries. In Pakistan, first they are given lessons on extremist Islam and once they became fanatic Muslims they are given training in arms and ammunition, preparation of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and carrying out terrorist activities. ISI will like to use them as suicide bombers as these Rohingyas have suffered lot of atrocities from non-Muslims and have thus inculcated ingrained hatred towards other religions hence it may not be difficult to convert them as suicide bombers.

The present Indian government has taken a stringent view about the infiltration of Pakistani terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir and, according to reports, the Indian Army as well as the Para-Military Forces are exterminating Pakistani infiltrators under the search operations. Hence, ISI would like to utilise Rohingyas for carrying out terrorist activities in J&K. There are reports that Rohingyas have taken refuge in J&K hence it would be easy for ISI agents to recruit them for terrorist activities.

The analysts claim that ISI would use Rohingyas not only in India but also utilise them to carry out terrorist activities in Myanmar and Bangladesh and a few would also be sent to Afghanistan for carrying out bomb blasts. Rohingyas have deep-rooted hatred towards Myanmar and Bangladesh as residents of both these countries were vindictive towards them.

Myanmar’s newly-appointed National Security Advisor (NSA) U Thanog Tun visited India in the first week of February and met Indian NSAAjit Doval and others. Ajit Doval, who visited Myanmar earlier and possesses deep knowledge about the security scenario of the region, emphatically told the visiting NSA that Rohingya Muslims are being radicalised and extremist forces are converting them into Jihadists which is very dangerous for Myanmar as well as for India.

Indian security personnel impressed upon the visiting delegation that Rohingyas should be treated in such a way that they do not become fanatic Jihadists as it may be a great danger to the region.

Majority of about 1.2 million Rohingya Muslims are devoid of basic amenities, they have no employment and are tormented in Myanmar as well as in the country where they take refuge. Hence the young Rohingyas can easily be converted into Jihadists. In view of large population of displaced Rohingya, and constant efforts of various Islamic terrorist outfits, the possibility of Rohingyas becoming Jihadists cannot be ruled out and a small proportion of 1.2 million will be enough to create a major disaster in the region.

Deputy Defence Chief of Myanmar Rear Admiral Myint Nwe stated on January 23 that the world must give some “time and space” to the present government so that it can sort out the problem of Rohingya Muslims. He further mentioned that the government is aware of the condition of Rakhine state.

It is heartening to note that democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has taken a few measures to mitigate the miseries of Rohingya Muslims. Her government promised the economic development of Rakhine State and also constituted the Central Committee for Implementation of Peace and Development in the area. The government also created an Advisory Commission on Rakhine State headed by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to look after the grievances of Rohingya Muslims.

Besides Myanmar authorities, international organisations should also provide basic amenities to these displaced Rohingya Muslims so that the extremist Islamic organisations do not succeed in their nefarious motives.

*Jai Kumar Verma is a Delhi-based strategic analyst. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in

Researchers from 20 of the world’s leading oceanographic research centers today warned that the world’s largest habitat – the deep ocean floor – may face starvation and sweeping ecological change by the year 2100.

Warming ocean temperatures, increased acidification and the spread of low-oxygen zones will drastically alter the biodiversity of the deep ocean floor from 200 to 6,000 meters below the surface. The impact of these ecosystems to society is just becoming appreciated, yet these environments and their role in the functioning of the planet may be altered by these sweeping impacts.

Results of the study, which was supported by the Foundation Total and other organizations, were published this week in the journal Elementa.

“Biodiversity in many of these areas is defined by the meager amount of food reaching the seafloor and over the next 80-plus years – in certain parts of the world – that amount of food will be cut in half,” said Andrew Thurber, an Oregon State University marine ecologist and co-author on the study. “We likely will see a shift in dominance to smaller organisms. Some species will thrive, some will migrate to other areas, and many will die.

“Parts of the world will likely have more jellyfish and squid, for example, and fewer fish and cold water corals.”

The study used the projections from 31 earth system models developed for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to predict how the temperature, amount of oxygen, acidity (pH) and food supply to the deep-sea floor will change by the year 2100. The authors found these models predict that deep ocean temperatures in the “abyssal” seafloor (3,000 to 6,000 meters deep) will increase as much as 0.5 to 1.0 degrees (Celsius) in the North Atlantic, Southern and Arctic oceans by 2100 compared to what they are now.

Temperatures in the “bathyal” depths (200 to 3,000 meters deep) will increase even more – parts of this deep-sea floor are predicted to see an increase of nearly 4 degrees (C) in the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans.

“While four degrees doesn’t seem like much on land, that is a massive temperature change in these environments,” Thurber said. “It is the equivalent of having summer for the first time in thousands to millions of years.”

The over-arching lack of food will be exacerbated by warming temperatures, Thurber pointed out.

“The increase in temperature will increase the metabolism of organisms that live at the ocean floor, meaning they will require more food at a time when less is available.”

Most of the deep sea already experiences a severe lack of food, but it is about to become a famine, according to Andrew Sweetman, a researcher at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and lead author on the study.

“Abyssal ocean environments, which are over 3,000 meters deep, are some of the most food-deprived regions on the planet,” Sweetman said. “These habitats currently rely on less carbon per meter-squared each year than is present in a single sugar cube. Large areas of the abyss will have this tiny amount of food halved and for a habitat that covers half the Earth, the impacts of this will be enormous.”

The impacts on the deep ocean are unlikely to remain there, the researchers say. Warming ocean temperatures are expected to increase stratification in some areas yet increase upwelling in others. This can change the amount of nutrients and oxygen in the water that is brought back to the surface from the deep sea. This low-oxygen water can affect coastal communities, including commercial fishing industries, which harvest groundfish from the deep sea globally and especially in areas like the Pacific Coast of North America, Thurber said.

“A decade ago, we even saw low-oxygen water come shallow enough to kill vast numbers of Dungeness crabs,” Thurber pointed out. “The die-off was massive.”

Areas most likely to be affected by the decline in food are the North and South Pacific, North and South Atlantic, and North and South Indian oceans.

“The North Atlantic in particular will be affected by warmer temperatures, acidification, a lack of food and lower oxygen,” Thurber said. “Water in the region is soaking up the carbon from the atmosphere and then sending it on its path around the globe, so it likely will be the first to feel the brunt of the changes.”

Thurber, who is a faculty member in Oregon State’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, has previously published on the “services” or benefits provided by the deep ocean environments. The deep sea is important to many of the processes affecting the Earth’s climate, including acting as a “sink” for greenhouse gases and helping to offset growing amounts of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere.

These habitats are not only threatened by warm temperatures and increasing carbon dioxide; they increasingly are being used by fishing and explored by mining industries for extraction of mineral resources.

“If we look back in Earth’s history, we can see that small changes to the deep ocean caused massive shifts in biodiversity,” Thurber said. “These shifts were driven by those same impacts that our model predict are coming in the near future. We think of the deep ocean as incredibly stable and too vast to impact, but it doesn’t take much of a deviation to create a radically altered environment.

In a world increasingly reliant on high-speed networks, introducing microsecond delays into such systems can have profound effects. In this Policy Forum, Neil F. Johnson discussed the need to better understand how these micro-delays may drive more extreme behaviors, particularly in the context of the financial market, but also in other fields.

In fall 2016, the U.S’s fast­est and largest financial network was subjected to its first ever intentional delay. The seemingly minute delay of 350 microseconds was significant enough to give traders the false impression of an increase in market activity, which can trigger trading algorithms and create a feedback effect on the price dynamics.

Johnson said that policy-makers justify this delay because it levels out highly asymmetric advantages avail­able to faster participants. The impact of these delays needs to be better understood, however, before their broader use, he said.

For example, data-capturing a 500 microsecond delay and bunched delays resulted in substantially more extreme trading behavior. The need for a better understanding of the impact of delays is increasingly urgent, as similar techniques are poised to be extended beyond the financial market, for example to navigational networks in driverless cars or drones.

The core scientific challenge, Johnson said, is to be able to predict the types of extreme behaviors that an intentional time delay will generate. Classifying a system’s sensitivity to such delays could help policy-makers tailor policies to cope with different market scenarios, Johnson concluded.

If one had been reading Russian newspapers in the first weeks of 1917, there would have been little indication that the country was on the brink of a revolutionary explosion; but if one had been listening to the rumors spread among people waiting in line for bread, one would have had no doubt that the Romanov dynasty was living through its last days.

Indeed, Svobodnaya press commentator Georgy Yans argues, these lines and the rumors spread along them were “’the social networks’ of that time” and “the catalyst of the February revolution,” an insight that says a great deal about Russia a century ago and perhaps even more about Russia and other countries today (svpressa.ru/post/article/166166/).

“Few supposed that the demand for bread would lead to revolution,” he writes. “The paradox consisted in the fact that an important component part of social protest which in the end led to the overthrow of Nicholas Romanov consisted of rumors” spread like wildfire as people waited in lines.

“’The social networks’ of that time were the unending lines. There was sufficient supply [of food] in Petrograd, but the authorities weren’t able to take into consideration the factor of rumors.” And they didn’t recognize that shortages were being created because people believed that there were shortages and were buying up more than they needed.

One Russian historian has written, Yans continues, that “the significance of rumors at that period was great also because” residents, as they came to rely on rumors rather than the news media, underwent” a definite kind of psychological change.” And that led them to behave differently than they had up to then.

Having become a crowd rather than a group of residents, the historian adds, the people of Petrograd began to manifest “a collective unconsciousness” and to engage in “mass pogroms” and thefts from stores, apartments and state institutions. And they were aided and abetted in this by criminals recently released from prison.

Very rapidly, “these processes began to take on an irreversible character and prompted Aleksandr Kerensky to ask the people of Petrograd “What are we? Free citizens or revolting slaves?” Were they citizens or slaves? Yans asks now a century later. It didn’t really matter because “de facto the Russian autocracy had ceased to exist.”

What remained was to give this de jure form.

By Md. Muddassir Quamar*

India has good relations with countries in the Gulf and Middle East. In fact, it has no outstanding issues with any country in the region. Through delicate balancing it has been able to maintain excellent relations even with regional adversaries — amidst conflicts and soaring tensions.

However, one country stands out in this relationship as far as New Delhi’s engagement with the Middle East is concerned — especially under the Narendra Modi government — and that is the United Arab Emirates. Since August 2015, when Prime Minister Modi visited the UAE, there have been several high level exchanges including the two visits of Crown Prince Sheikh Muhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in February 2016 and January 2017. In between, UAE’s Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan (September 2015) visited New Delhi and Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parikkar visited UAE (May 2016).

There are three key issues that define the longevity and the current bonhomie in India-UAE relations, thus explaining the diplomatic energy Prime Minister Modi has invested in reinvigorating the bilateral ties.

Firstly, it is the mutuality of economic interests: India is a large, fast developing market with significant energy needs and potential for returns on investments and the UAE has ability and appetite to invest in foreign shores. Its quest to find alternative destinations to the stagnating EU and Western market makes India an attractive and viable option.

The only obstacle to this is the slow and chaotic Indian system that dampens foreign investors, including from the Gulf. At the same time, the UAE is a major market for Indian exports along with being the regional hub for re-exports. It means that India-UAE trade is significant at $49.7 billion in 2015-16 and set to increase further with agreements on enhancing trade and having strategic oil reserves in India.

Secondly, India-UAE defence and security interests converge and go beyond the pattern. India has enhanced security cooperation with the Gulf countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, to combat radicalization and counter jihadi terrorism. However, UAE has a special place in the Indian calculus because of its cleaner record and potential for military-to-military cooperation including joint exercises, officer’s training and maritime security.

Possibilities of joint defence manufacturing and supply of equipment to the UAE are attractive propositions for India and hence, both have agreed to explore this further. That India and the UAE are serious about taking their defence ties to another level is exemplified from Parikkar’s visit to the UAE — the first ever by an Indian defence minister — and meeting of the Joint Defence Cooperation Committee in December 2016.

The third component is cultural: India’s diversity and democratic ethos and the UAE’s multicultural and cosmopolitan environment are complementary to each other. It offers a unique degree of comfort to India and complements the strong commercial relations and growing defence ties. India looks to the UAE as a unique place that allows religious freedom and public places for worship for non-Islamic faiths. While there are already a Gurudwara and a Hindu temple in Dubai, Abu Dhabi will soon have its first Hindu temple. Prime Minister Modi during his visit attended the foundation-laying ceremony for the temple, the land for which was donated by the ruling family of Abu Dhabi.

India-UAE relations continue to flourish as India considers the UAE as a strong regional player that has no strategic ambitions while the UAE sees India as a major economic partner that is committed to peace and security in both South Asia and Middle East. Extraordinary commercial potential, growing defence ties and the cultural connect make the bilateral relations unique and thriving.

*Md. Muddassir Quamar is Associate Fellow at the Institute of Defence Studies & Analyses, New Delhi. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in

By C Uday Bhaskar*

February has been a particularly bloody month by way of the innocents killed across south Asia by religious zealots wedded to the ideology of terrorism. This pre-meditated cycle of bloodshed, often perpetrated by suicide-bombers, was done ostensibly to purify Islam and punish those deemed to have deviated from the puritanical path prescribed by the virulent Sunni-led ‘true believers’.

An attack on a major Sufi shrine in Sehwan in the Sindh province of Pakistan on Thursday (February 16) resulted in the death of 88 innocent people and injuries to more than 200. The Islamic State (IS) and its ideological affiliate in Pakistan, the Jamat-ul-Ahrar (JA), claimed responsibility for this attack and threatened that this is only the beginning of such an anti-Sufi/Shia campaign to exterminate the apostate –- or ‘non-believers’.

On the same day, a car bomb killed 55 people and injured scores more in a Shia-dominated locality of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. The attack was claimed by the IS and this was the third attack during that week in battle-scarred Iraq.

In Pakistan, the Sindh suicide bomber attack was preceded by a major terror attack in Lahore, Punjab, on Monday (February 13) and this was followed by similar attacks in the other two provinces of Pakistan on Tuesday and Wednesday. In both cases, the TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan), an anti-Shia terror group, claimed responsibility.

It may be recalled that the same group had carried out the attack on an army school in Peshawar in December 2014 that resulted in the death of more than 140 innocents — of whom 132 were children. At the time, it was believed that Peshawar represented a tipping-point in the domestic Pakistani resolve to eliminate terror groups and the radical ideology that enabled such violence.

The root of the current pattern of terror-related bloodshed in Pakistan can be traced to the cynical political manipulation of intra-Islamic sectarian identity and related practice that prioritises the dominant Sunni faction at the expense of the other sects. This political ploy goes back to the early 1950s and has been exacerbated by the special status accorded to the Saudi form of Wahabi-Salafi Islam.

The IS and the virulent anti-Sunni ideology associated with it is currently under increasing military pressure in West Asia (Syria-Iraq) and being forced to re-group and assert its appeal and credibility. Pakistan is fertile ground for this kind of sectarian violence for it has deliberately nurtured an arid, anti-minority eco-system wherein all non-Sunni denominations within the Islamic faith have been either ex-communicated (for example, the Ahmediyas) and declared apostate — or larger constituencies such as the Shia have become targets of organised killings.

The current pattern of intense terror-triggered violence targeting the Sufi-Shia combine in Pakistan and Iraq is a manifestation of this undercurrent. Alas, this is not the end of this internal contestation and Pakistan, in particular, has to objectively and courageously resolve its internal political contradictions of stoking hatred and selectively supporting the ‘good’ terrorist.

After the Sindh carnage, the Nawaz Sharif government launched a crackdown and claims to have killed over 100 militants. It is also trying to rein in some of the more high profile terror leaders — and the current restrictions imposed on Hafiz Saeed, leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is a small step.

In an unusual departure, the Pakistani government has described Saeed as a ‘serious threat’ to the country — and this may trigger a backlash from the right-wing clergy that may pose a challenge to the Nawaz Sharif government. Over the last few years, the religious right in Pakistan that subscribes to the ideology of the Islamic State (IS) has made deep inroads into the fabric of the state apparatus. The assassination of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer in January 2011 by his own bodyguard is illustrative of this indoctrination.

The challenge for the Pakistani state and society is to embark on a socio-political de-radicalisation programme and the persecution of any one religion or sect must cease. One can only hope that notwithstanding the daunting nature of this internal challenge, the mass appeal of Lal Qalandar (the Sufi saint who is venerated in Sehwan) can bring about a change of mind-set in Pakistan that the enormity of Peshawar could not.

*The author is Director, Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi. Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to editor@spsindia.in

The contours of globalisation are being reshaped. The Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump mark a strong anti-globalisation sentiment even as leaders in China, India and Russia successfully marry nationalist rhetoric with a cleverly crafted overseas strategy, premised on the very tenets of globalisation. There seems to be a ‘pause’ in the unbalanced progress of globalisation of the last three decades—and this could have many positive outcomes.

By Rohinton Medhora*

Is globalisation in reverse? The question animates discussion. The evidence is mixed at best, and does not warrant some of the more dire scenarios [1] being bruited about. But globalisation’s contours are changing, and this is not a bad thing.

The Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump are presented as Exhibits A and B of the manifestation of a change in public attitudes to globalisation. These votes did show the power of populist electioneering, much of it having a strong anti-global tinge to it. But in Brexit, turnout by age and socio-economic characteristics played a crucial role [2] in the final result. Turnout was high among older and non-urban voters and low among younger urban ones. Had the turnout been reversed, the results would have been different.

In the case of the United States election, President Donald Trump lost the popular vote by almost three million votes. Besides, not all votes for his ticket reflected anti-global tendencies just as not all votes for the Hillary Clinton ticket embodied pro-global sentiments. The electoral college system magnified what was a qualified victory into a seemingly overwhelming one. Neither the British nor the U.S. votes suggest a large change in underlying attitudes to globalisation.

Other smaller, but no less troubling, instances currently cited, such as elections in Hungary and the Philippines, appear to be driven as much by domestic considerations as by perceptions about the world writ large. There are important unknowns about what the continued strength or ascension of leaders in China, India and Russia signifies. While each of them, and especially President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has espoused nationalist rhetoric, they have also embarked upon a series of ventures that project their countries overseas and craft a global strategy that is premised on the very tenets of globalisation—trade, and more generally economics first, international alliances, and an eye to making the best of the information age. How else do we explain Prime Minister Modi’s visits to 45 countries, (many of them repeat visits) and the resulting accords? China is on nothing less than a global tear, with the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Silk Road Initiative, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and positioning itself [3] as (at least) half of a “G2”.

Such multi-country surveys [4] as there are suggest that support for globalisation, especially its economic aspects, is stronger in emerging countries than in developed countries

, and that attitudes towards it are more positive among young people than older ones. But on political and social issues, such differences disappear, or at least require nuance [5] in interpretation. We must recognise that the sample size of such surveys is minuscule and seldom representative of the population as a whole, and that we do not have enough of a time series in the results to discern trends.

The broad storyline of support for globalisation in developing countries (especially the larger ones) and scepticism about it in developed countries is consistent with the underlying economics. Writing in 1995, Adrian Wood was among the first to present globalisation as it was likely to unfold [6], and its implications. To wit, so long as globalisation was driven by freer movement in goods, services and capital, educated and skilled workers in developed and developing countries would benefit, while unskilled workers in developing countries would gain at the expense of unskilled workers in developed countries. When coupled with the lack of compensating [7] retraining, safety net and other social policies in developed countries (especially the U.S. and U.K.), the resulting backlash was predictable.

Globalisation, particularly in trade, has always been a hard sell [8]. The International Trade Organization, proposed at Bretton Woods in 1944, never got off the ground because of opposition in many countries’ legislatures, especially in the U.S. It wasn’t until 1995 that the World Trade Organization came into being. By then, the GATT Rounds had lowered tariffs to the point where only the tough nuts—like agriculture and a host of “behind the border” issues like competition and investment policy—remained, grinding multilateral global trade negotiations to a crawl.

What next? As the contours of globalisation are reshaped, a pause might seem like reversal. It isn’t; the pause might even be desirable. The globalisation of the past three decades has been unbalanced – high in movement of finance and the spread of information and communications technologies; medium in trade in goods and services; and low in movement of people and the development of regulatory and other policy responses at the national and supranational levels. If the pause is about, at the very least, managing global capital movement more sensibly, developing regimes to promote green technologies and their spread, building up an arsenal of domestic social policies [9], and, more broadly, creating a national consensus around a country’s place in the world, then it will be time well spent.

Meanwhile, there is one wild card that no one appears to control. Technological change in areas come to be known as the fourth industrial revolution [10] proceeds apace. We do not know all the risks and opportunities that this movement presents, and—crucially—to whom they will present themselves. But technology is at least as powerful a driver of economic change [11]—and vitally, job displacement—as government policy is. In the absence of a clear sense about this trend, policy responses will either be non-existent or imperfect. The seeds of a reaction to the next wave of globalisation are already being sown, and it too will seem mistakenly like reversal.

About the author:
*Rohinton P. Medhora is President, the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Canada. Rohinton is also on twitter, and his handle is @RohintonMedhora.

Source:
This article was written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations.

References:
[1] Barbieri, Pierpaolo, ‘The Losers of Deglobalization’, Foreign Affairs, 13 November 2016, <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2016-11-13/losers-deglobalization>

[2] Burn-Murdoch, John, ‘Brexit: voter turnout by age’, Financial Times, 24 June 2016 <http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2016/06/24/brexit-demographic-divide-eu-referendum-results/>

[3] Xi, Jingpin, ‘Opening Plenary at Davos 2017’, speech delivered at Davos, 17 January 2017, <https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/full-text-of-xi-jinping-keynote-at-the-world-economic-forum> (Accessed on 8 February 2017)

[4] ‘What the world thinks about globalisation’, The Economist, 18 November 2016, <http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/11/daily-chart-12>

[5] ‘Faith and Skepticism about Trade, Foreign Investment’, Pew Research Center, 16 September 2014, <http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/09/16/faith-and-skepticism-about-trade-foreign-investment/>

[6] Wood, Adrian, ‘North-South Trade, Employment and Inequality: Changing Fortunes in a Skill-Driven World’, Oxford University Press, 1995

[7] Atkinson, Anthony B., ‘Is Rising Inequality Inevitable? A Critique of the Transatlantic Consensus’, United Nations University, November 1999, <https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/AL03-1999.pdf>

[8] Medhora, Rohinton P., ‘Refreshing Global Trade Governance’, Council of Councils, 19 January 2017, <http://www.cfr.org/councilofcouncils/global_memos/p38685>

[9] Daniels, Ronald J., Michael Trebilcock, ‘A Better Way to Help U.S. Victims of Free Trade’, Bloomberg, 2 December 2016, <https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-02/a-better-way-to-help-u-s-victims-of-free-trade >

[10] Schwab, Klaus, ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’, World Economic Forum, January 2016, <http://www3.weforum.org/docs/Media/KSC_4IR.pdf>

[11] Rotman, David, ‘How Technology Is Destroying Jobs’, MIT Technology Review, 12 June 2013, <https://www.technologyreview.com/s/515926/how-technology-is-destroying-jobs/>

By Sinisa Jakov Marusic

Macedonia’s main opposition party, the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) formally nominated its leader, Zoran Zaev, as a prime ministerial candidate Saturday, after securing support for a parliamentary majority.

At a meeting which took place on Saturday afternoon, the party’s central presidency formally nominated Zaev to run for prime minister. Zaev will go on to claim the mandate to form a new government from the head of state, President Gjorge Ivanov.

“It is both my and SDSM’s honour to be given the opportunity to form the new democratic government of Macedonia after 11 years of a regime” said Zaev, referring to the past decade of rule by the conservative Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO DPMNE), which has faced criticism for authoritarian tendencies and widespread corruption.

Zaev himself said Friday that he expects to be able to form his team within the next two weeks.

On Friday night, Macedonia’s main ethnic Albanian party, the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) said it would back SDSM in its attempts to form a new government.

“The governmental talks [between DUI and SDSM] will continue” said DUI spokesperson, Bujar Osmani, on Friday, adding that “the signatures [by DUI MPs for Zaev] do not mean that we are definitely going to make a government. We are offering our signatures to preserve the deadlines and not to waste too much time.”

Macedonia has not yet formed a new government since elections on December 11 which ended in a near-tie between VMRO DPMNE and SDSM.

The delay has been largely down to DUI indecisiveness about who to back following the election.

The party, which was a coalition partner with VMRO DPMNE from 2008, insisted it needed more time to decide which of the main parties to support this time.

The SDSM won 49 of 120 possible seats but it needed the support of at least 61 MPs to command a majority.

Two smaller ethnic Albanian parties, the Alliance for Albanians and the Besa (‘Oath’) party, which together control eight MPs, have already pledged their support. However, the support of the DUI’s ten MPs was crucial for the SDSM to muster the necessary majority.

The efforts to form a new opposition-led government comes after more than ten years of VMRO DPMNE rule.

VMRO DPMNE now warns of ‘tensions’ in Macedonia should their bitter rivals form a government. It accuses SDSM of disregarding national interests and has attempted to woo the DUI by accepting DUI demands for a new law that would extend the use of the Albanian language throughout Macedonia.
– See more at: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/macedonia-opposition-nominates-zaev-as-pm-candidate-02-25-2017#sthash.ey7gYk5M.dpuf

By Richard Kraemer*

(FPRI) — With Mary Mapes Dodge’s Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates, the English-speaking world took to heart the tale of a Dutch boy who saves his beloved homeland from certain flood by plugging a leaky dike.  Briefly: Happening home as dark approached, the lad espied a leak in one of Haarlem’s many dikes. Grasping the potential calamity, the boy stemmed the flow with his finger, suffering cold and solitude through the night until the townspeople discover him and mend the leak. The boy becomes a hero, having saved Haarlem from deluge.

The boy-cum-hero was more than brave. He demonstrated prescient awareness, grasping the potential magnitude of the situation. He responded with appropriate measure, running for help or stuffing the dike with soil would have left the danger unguarded. The boy then readily called for help at first chance.

The analogy to Ankara?  With Turkey’s economy threatened by turbulent waters, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to pose as his country’s indispensable protector. However,  he shows poorly in comparison to Haarlem’s little savior. The president’s most recent maneuver to keep the country’s economic ship aright—an enormous transfer of state-owned corporate shares to Turkey’s first sovereign wealth fund—will fail to achieve its intended aims. Any dissenting counsel to this undertaking will be prone to the president’s usual dismissal.

The republic’s economy will instead likely worsen. As growth slows and consequent discontent rises, Erdogan will not retreat from his autocratic drive to direct the economy himself. For now, Turkey’s once-emerging democracy will instead continue to deconsolidate as Erdogan adds further economic power to his already dominant political role.

The Economy:  Red Sky at Morning

On February 6, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government’s privatization administration announced the transfer of billions of dollars worth of  government-owned shares into a new sovereign wealth fund (SWF). These involve several of Turkey’s best performing companies and banks, including Turkish Airlines  and Halkbank with a combined value of $3 billion, in which the state has 49.1 and 59.1 percent of the shares, respectively. Also included in the mass transfer were the Borsa stock exchange and BOTAS—the state-owned natural gas pipeline operator. The stated purpose of this asset transfer is to reassure foreign lenders whose confidence in Turkey has steeply declined.

Why will this move fail? Turkey’s SWF is a sharp departure from the international norm. SWFs are commonly funded out of revenue generated by a country’s natural resources or foreign exchange reserves and established when there exists a significant budgetary surplus.  Moreover, SWFs typically invest globally. In contrast, the assets transferred this month come from domestic banks and firms, not from commodity revenues or reserves.  Although Turkey’s budget deficit is currently somewhere between 1-2%, 2016 saw a marked increase in budget expenditures on health, welfare, and pensions; and none are poised to abate. Furthermore, the AKP government is likely to use the SWF as leverage to borrow for mega-infrastructure projects at home, rather than pursue investment opportunities abroad. Such a build-up of debt is likely to decrease rather than increase investor confidence in the Turkish economy.

There are few indicators suggesting that the Turkish economy will resume the robust growth that propelled it to become the world’s 17^th largest economy. The attempted coup on July 15, 2016, and its aftermath greatly shook investors and creditors alike. In the third quarter of 2016, Turkey’s economy contracted for the first time in several years to levels lower than predicted. Last September, Moody’s Investor Service downgraded Turkey’s sovereign credit rating to junk status.  The Turkish lira has dramatically declined against the dollar, falling 23.73 percent between September 2016 and February 2017.

Not all of Turkey’s current economic woes are linked to July 15^th fallout. Turkey continues to struggle with a growing current account deficit. It is forecasted at $34.3 billion for 2016 (an increase of $2.1 billion from the previous year). This is nothing new—Turkey has been struggling to keep its current account out of a deep red since 2010.  And due to Russian boycotts and terror attacks, Turkey’s tourism industry was already suffering mightily before the attempted coup. Tourism’s contribution to GDP dropped from  twelve percent in 2014 to 4.5 percent in 2015. Employing eight percent of the country’s workforce, this industry’s shrinkage is being felt.

Governance: Bad Crescent Moon Rising

The sweeping shift of wealth into Turkey’s SWF is the latest step in Erdogan’s drive to centralize authority under his own personal executive control. Should he win April’s referendum on the expansion of Turkey’s presidential powers, authority over the SWF would no doubt transfer to him, since the position of its current overseer, the prime minister, would be abolished. This is especially dangerous, as SWF transactions will be unaccountable to either parliament or Turkey’s High Court of Auditors, thereby giving a uniquely dominating president tremendous sway over the use of state funds.

This would conform with a consistent pattern of incremental power consolidation, in economic affairs as well as in the political realm. The AKP party has unrelentingly relied on the crony issuance of tenders for unnecessary infrastructure projects as a key means of securing political influence; Turkey’s SWF is simply another chapter. Furthermore, AKP’s leader regularly disregards sound economic counsel in favor of political expediency. For example, Erdogan has for years shouted down top economic advisors seeking to stem inflation by increasing interest rates, a widely accepted remedy. The Gulenist witch hunt following the July 15 coup attempt provides a further example of damaging market interference. By executive order under a state of emergency, hundreds of businesses were shuttered, eliminating in many cases competitors of AKP-aligned enterprises and banks.

Given the breadth of Turkey’s current economic challenges, Erdogan’s continued reliance on his tried playbook will turn up insufficient. The demographic bulge that fueled Turkey’s post-2002 Wirtschaftswunder is coming to a close. Of Turkey’s top ten export destinations, six are presently European Union member states, a trade zone whose “outlook is surrounded by higher-than-usual uncertainty” and moderate recovery remains nascent. Nor will the resumption of trade with Russia via the recent rapprochement do much. At best, the countries may return to the same steady levels that preceded the crisis-provoking downing of a Russian jet in November 2015. And don’t expect a return of Russia’s tourist masses as long as ISIS and PKK terror attacks continue. This insecurity and Turkey’s noteworthy political risk are especially damaging to prospects of foreign direct investment at a time when multinational corporations appear on a full-fledged retreat worldwide.

Despite Turkey’s autocratic regression over the past several years of AKP rule, Erdogan and his party could become vulnerable. When polled, Turks regularly assign their greatest concerns to security and the economy. Although the AKP won 40.9 and 49.5 percent in the last two multiparty parliamentary elections, there is now no end in sight to the current fighting with the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). If, added to this, there is a severe contraction of Turkey’s economy, it could cost AKP and the president dearly at the ballot box.

In sum Erdogan’s “finger in the dike” does not seem likely to bar the flood. And, absent an uncharacteristic change of tack—such as a willingness to better heed sound economic counsel or greater inclusion of private sector actors unsupportive of his political agenda—the dyke could well give way.

Unfortunately, Erdogan’s reliance on political charisma and personal power-projection tends to preclude rethinking or retreat, particularly before the looming mid-April referendum. Unfortunately for our Turkish friends, it may thus be a long time before they see a red sky on the evening’s horizon.

About the author:
*Richard Kraemer is a Fellow of FPRI’s Eurasia Program and the senior program officer for Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey at the National Endowment for Democracy. Previously, he oversaw projects in the aforementioned countries and the Levant at the Center for International Private Enterprise. Earlier, he further taught and researched at the Jagellonian University in Poland. He is also an affiliated expert of the Public International Law and Policy Group, having advised the governments of Georgia and Montenegro.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

The overwhelming success of India’s space missions has highlighted the role of the country’s women scientists.

By Manoj Joshi and B R Srikanth*

Think Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), think Vikram Sarabhai, Satish Dhawan, G. Madhavan Nair, Rodham Narsimha and a host of geniuses. They build on an earlier generation of scientists who worked to push India’s space frontiers, men who came to define the contours of the country’s scientific rediscovery — C.V. Raman and Meghnad Saha. But times are changing.

Two years ago, as Indian scientists successfully put a satellite Mangalyaan into orbit around Mars, history was scripted. Away from the dour image of spectacled and formally suited nerds working on complex diagrams and theories, this snapshot of Indian scientists, who achieved the feat in a record 15 months, was warmly refreshing — women dressed in resplendent saris, chatting gaily as they went about their work.

Given that they have to work hard at home as well, faced as they are with societal discrimination, the Isro story remains a landmark not just for Indian science, but the women behind it.

Ritu Karidhal — from sky watcher to scientist

Ritu Karidhal is the Lucknow-born deputy operations director of the Mars Orbiter Mission. As a little girl growing up in Lucknow, Ritu was an avid sky watcher who “used to wonder about the size of the moon, why it increases and decreases. I wanted to know what lay behind the dark spaces,” she says.

A student of science, she scoured newspapers for information about Nasa and Isro projects, collected news clippings and read every detail about anything related to space science. After getting her PG degree, “I applied for a job at Isro and that’s how I became a space scientist,” she says.

Eighteen years later, she has worked on several projects at Isro, including the prestigious Mars mission, which thrust her and her colleagues into the limelight. She told a news portal in 2015 that she had to conceptualise and ensure the execution of the craft’s autonomous brain so that it could function on its own and even overcome malfunctions.

In the final campaign period of 10 months leading to the launch, she would sit with her kids for their homework and then resume her work between midnight and 4 am. Some stamina and perseverance that.

Although women scientists were part of the mission right from the time of conception, Ritu says its success was due to the great team effort. “We used to sit with the engineers, irrespective of the time, we often worked the weekends,” she reminisces. A mother of two young children, she says it was not easy to maintain a work-life balance, but “I got the support I needed from my family, my husband and my siblings.”

Nandini Harinath — An ardent Star Trek and sci-fi fan

Another such peerless example is the deputy director operations, Nandini Harinath, missions system leader Isro of Nisar, a joint Nasa-Isro satellite being developed for launch in 2020. Her first exposure to science came from Star Trek, the iconic American science fiction entertainment, which had the world in its thrall when it first hit TV screens decades ago. Says Harinath, “My mother is a maths teacher and my father is an engineer with great liking for physics and as a family we were all so fond of Star Trek and science fiction that we would sit together and watch it on TV.”

At that time, thoughts of becoming a space scientist never crossed her mind. For her, Isro “just happened”. “It was the first job I applied for and I got through. It’s been 20 years now and there’s been no looking back,” Harinath says with pride. Being part of the Mars mission was the high point of her life. “It was very important for India, not just for Isro. It put us on a different pedestal, foreign countries are looking at us for collaborations and the importance and attention we got was justified,” she points out.

The Isro scientist is candid enough to admit that women have to put in “twice the effort to stand on a same platform as men.” Speaking at an event in 2015, Harinath said that there was no gender bias in Isro, and one of the reasons that women constituted just 24 per cent of the technical workforce is that fewer numbers of women sought jobs there in the 1990s when she joined the organisation.

Now, she says, with equal numbers coming to join, the scenario would change drastically, as it should. Harinath points to one key issue confronting women not just in India, but even in developed countries — the cultural stereotype that women are uncomfortable with maths, science and computing. In her remarks, she also cited a McKinsey study showing that men were often promoted on the basis of their potential, while women were judged on their actual accomplishments.

There was something else. “It was also the first time that Isro allowed the public to look at what was happening inside. We were on social media, we had our own Facebook page and the world took notice. I feel proud of our achievement. Sometimes, I feel honoured and flattered, but sometimes I’m also embarrassed,” she says. Fame, it appears, is something that even scientists like. “Now the way people look at you, it’s very different. People recognise you for being a scientist. And I’m enjoying it thoroughly.”

Harinath says she takes “immense pride” in Mangalyaan and was “really thrilled” to see its photograph on the new `2,000 notes. But it was not an easy assignment and working days were long. In the beginning, the scientists worked about 10 hours a day, but as the launch date came closer, it went up to 12 to 14 bruising hours of work. At the time of the actual launch, they barely left office.

“During the launch, I don’t think we went home at all. We’d come in the morning, spend the day and night, probably go home for a short time the next afternoon to eat and sleep for a few hours and come back. But for an important mission like that, which is time bound, we needed to work like that. We spent many sleepless nights. We encountered lots of problems as we progressed, in the design as well as in the mission. But coming up with quick solutions and innovations was the key,” she remembers.

Sandwiched in between were travails of the typical Indian woman: Her daughter’s crucial school leaving exams fell right in the middle of the mission. “Those few months were very demanding at work and at home. It looked like a race at the time. I’d wake up at 4 am with my daughter to give her company while she studied. But now, we look back on that time with fondness. She did extremely well in her exams, scoring 100 in maths. Today, she’s in medical school and doing really well, so I think it was worth all the effort,” she says.

Anuradha T.K. — A role model for other women scientists

Isro’s senior-most woman officer, Anuradha T.K., who joined in 1982 when there were just a handful of women engineers, says that gender is no longer an issue in Isro and that there is no discrimination, just as women do not seek or get any special treatment.

As the Geosat programme director at the Isro Satellite Centre, she works in the key area of geo-synchronous satellites, which are parked in the orbit of the sun in such a way that they beam over the same part of the earth at all times. They are vital for telecom and data links. The scientist, who has worked with Isro for the past 34 years, first thought about space when she was nine.

“It was the Apollo launch, when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. We had no television in those days, so I heard about it from my parents and teachers. It really ignited my imagination. I wrote a poem on a man landing on the moon in Kannada, my native language,” she recalls.

Considered a role model by other women scientists at Isro, Anuradha disagrees that women and science don’t gel. “I never liked subjects where I needed to remember a lot and science looked logical to me. I don’t believe that Indian girls think science is not meant for them and I think maths is their favourite subject,” she says, turning a well-accepted shibboleth on its head. When Anuradha joined Isro in 1982, there were only a few women and even fewer in its engineering department.

“In my batch, five-six women engineers joined Isro. We stood out and everyone knew us. Today, more than 20-25 per cent of Isro’s over 16,000 employees are women and we no longer feel special,” she points out. At Isro, she says, gender is not an issue and recruitment and promotional policies are all dependent on “what we know and what we contribute”.

“Sometimes, I say that I forget that I’m a woman here. You don’t get any special treatment because you’re a woman, you’re also not discriminated against because you’re a woman. You’re treated as an equal here.”

Anuradha laughs at the suggestion that her colleagues consider her an inspiration, but agrees that having more women in the workplace can be a motivating factor for other women. Although the numbers of women staff has consistently grown at Isro, it is still way below the halfway mark. That’s because “we are still carrying cultural loads on our backs and many women think their priorities lie elsewhere, at home,” she points out.

Her advice to women who want to be rocket scientists is simple: make arrangements. “Once I had made up my mind that I needed a purposeful career where my passion lay, I created a good set up at home. My husband and parents-in-law were always cooperative, so I didn’t have to worry much about my children,” she says.

She owes her success to this ‘arrangement’ that she made. “You have to give something to get something. But life is like that. So when there was work to do, when I was needed at the office, I was here, working with passion. And when there was an absolute need for me to be at home, I was there.” Perfect harmony, you could say.

Seetha S. — A PhD in Astronomy

Happily for the country, the list of Isro women scientists seems to be growing. Seetha S, programme director at Isro, who joined the technical physics division at Isro’s Satellite Centre (ISAC) Bengaluru, after acquiring a Masters Degree in electronics at IIT, Chennai, later secured a PhD at the Indian Institute of Science in astronomy. She believes it has been an exciting and long journey of developing scientific payloads for several satellites. “Now there are lots of opportunities for more scientific payloads, which are more complex but can provide crucial scientific data,” she explains.

What brought her to Isro? Says Seetha: “I like instrumentation and that is what brought me to Isro. I did not experience the glass ceiling, as we were allowed to grow at our own pace. There is no reason why women should not pursue a career at Isro because they have the ability to take up challenging projects, whether in electronics or designing software for different missions or carrying out simulations to test a number of systems.” Seetha has important things to look forward to. There are two key projects ahead for her team: India’s second outing to the moon, the Chandrayaan-II next year and Aditya, a satellite to study the moon.

Minal Rohit – From Ahmedabad to Bengaluru

Ditto for Minal Rohit, a scientist/engineer at the Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad. A B.Tech in electronics and communications from the Nirma Institute of Technology, Ahmedabad, she joined Isro in Bengaluru in 1999, inspired by the live telecast of a flawless flight of the PSLV rocket as a student.

Interestingly, she wanted to pursue a career either in medicine or engineering, but missed a seat in the dental course by a single mark and opted for engineering.

Moving from Bengaluru to SAC in 2004, Minal had the opportunity to work under the current Isro chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar, when he was her group director in SAC, Ahmedabad. “Looking back, it has been a wonderful experience at Isro because of discussions and support from everyone in the team,” she says.

Her current engagements include working on the meteorological payload for
Insat-3DS satellite, which will replace an ageing Insat satellite soon, and a
couple of instrumentsfor Chandrayaan-II.

B Codanayaguy — A life dedicated to ISRO

1984. Codanayaguy, group head, Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota Range, too falls into this August category. As a student, she read about the baby steps of Isro, in the form of the launch of APPLE satellite and the first series of rockets, Satellite Launch Vehicle. It fired her passion to work for India’s premier space organisation. Codanayaguy joined Isro at Sriharikota Range, the country’s space port, soon after her graduation in engineering (electronics and communications) from the Government College of Technology, Coimbatore, in 1984.

She has handled many tough missions — such as the launch of Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV) by calibrating a variety of instruments, which ensure that precise amount of fuel is loaded on to complex rockets. Besides, she has been part of an expanding laboratory for testing and qualifying instruments, igniters and other components for rockets at Sriharikota Range.

“We started with small amounts of hazardous chemicals, which form the fuel for solid motors of rockets, but now we handle several hundred tonnes of these chemicals. We also carry out ground tests of these motors, and use our instruments to make sure that precise amount of liquid propellant is loaded to rockets. We also calibrate instruments for the fuel used by Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV),” she adds.

A spinster, whose life has been devoted to Isro, she says that she has not encountered any gender problems at Isro. “We are treated on par and that is one of the reasons why I feel proud to work here. Of course, the work culture is unique as we have complete freedom to express our ideas and views,” she says.

Lalithambika V.R. — Winner of several awards

Lalithambika V.R., deputy director at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram, has a distinguished background. A Masters Degree in control engineering, she joined VSSC, Thiruvananthapuram in 1988 and now heads control, guidance and simulation entity at the institution.

Her list of awards is impressive. Among the many honours she has bagged are the Space Gold Medal 2001, (Astronautical society of India for excellence in launch vehicle technology), Isro individual merit award, 2010 and Isro performance excellence award, 2013.

Her group works on optimising fuel for all rockets (PSLV, GSLV, even the single flight of Reusable Launch Vehicle or RLV), the autopilot of rockets, development of software for onboard computers of all rockets and the hardware which holds the computer, as well as reviews the design of rockets. The recent launch of 104 satellites — which has won great international acclaim bringing accolades for the country — during a single flight of PSLV, was her team’s most challenging mission as an end-to-end test of all systems.

It was carried out to ensure that the satellites are placed in the right orbit without colliding against each other. No easy task that. The launch and flight of PSLV for this critical mission was simulated on the computer several times, including for rough weather conditions, to ensure that the mission was accomplished without a glitch. And that is the way it worked out.

“It is extremely satisfying to work in this organisation because even juniors are allowed to voice their ideas and concerns and every mission is achieved through team work so that nobody’s ego comes in the way. We have set an example for all organisations, private or government, that team work matters most to achieve the most challenging goal,” she points out. Lalithambika has now discovered that most young people want to join Isro, to become proud members of teams working on future missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

There are other names too, which have cropped up in recent years. Pramodha Hegde and Anuradha Prakasham, who worked with Anuradha TK on the launch of the GSAT 12 and N. Valarmathi, who led the launch of Risat I.

Sadly, organisations like the Department of Atomic Energy (DEA) and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) have long clouded the achievements of ISRO. That, happily, appears to be changing.

*This article being reproduced by courtesy of Deccan Chronicle where it originally appeared on February 26, 2017 12:16 am IST. Original link: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/science/science/260217/indias-rocket-women.html