IT seems a long wait for the dalits may come to an end soon. The Tamilnadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF), All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU) have taken up cudgels to retrieve the panchami lands (conditional lands for depressed classes). These lands were distributed to the dalits in Tamilnadu during the colonial rule, during the period 1918 to 1931. But a substantial amount of these lands are in the hands of vested interests, as caste Hindus usurped them. There has been a long time demand to verify the title transfers based on the records available with the Registration Department so that these lands may be handed back to the actual owners. This exercise, if successful, will initiate the necessary legal steps to redeem these lands.
The consecutive governments have never shown any interest in solving this issue and hence these lands never remained with the original owners.
The panchami lands in the hands of non-dalits today are not confined to a few acres. The total amount comes to around 3.5 lakh acres. The TNUEF and other organisations have collected the information about these lands through RTI petitions in order to bring out the real picture. As a first step, the information collected was compiled and released during a conference. It was about the northern districts of Tamilnadu, namely Kancheepuram, Villupuram, Vellore, Tiruvannamalai, Cuddalore and Tiruvallur.
The TNUEF, AIKS and AIAWU then resolved to organise a conference to decide the next course of action to retrieve the panchami lands. The conference was held at Chengalpattu in Kancheepuram district on October 21. Initially, the idea was to hold the conference on September 30. But due to the fact that the Ayodhya verdict was to come on the day, the organisers had to postpone it. It is to be noted that Kancheepuram is the place where dalits made a brave attempt to retrieve the panchami lands on October 10, 1994. The administration then sided with the caste Hindus and the resistance claimed two lives. Two youth, John Thomas and Elumalai, were killed in police firing.
TNUEF president P Sampath presided over the conference and Pastor John Suresh of the CRDS welcomed the delegates. AIKS state secretary K Balakrishnan, AIAWU vice president S Tirunavukkarasu, TNUEF general secretary K Samuel Raj, former IAF officer V Karuppan and dalit organisations’ leaders like M Krishna Parayanar, G Karunakaran, Udaya Kumari, Maamallan, M James, M G Dhanapal, N Dhanapal and Fr Raimond spoke during the deliberations. CPI(M) district secretary G Mohanan, TNUEF district convenor Bharathi Anna and AIKS district secretary S Baskar also spoke.
The concluding speech was delivered by AIKS general secretary K Varadarajan. He urged upon the people to join the struggle to retrieve the panchami lands. He lamented that the political parties are not daring enough to take up the dalit issues. Even the claimants of Periyar’s legacy keep mum when it comes to the question of social justice. They fear of losing the caste Hindu votes, K Varadarajan charged. He also reminded that the call for the movement to retrieve the land is not an election-time slogan; it is for redeeming for the dalits the lands they have lost.
The conference asked the state government to bring out the real picture on panchami lands and hand them over to the actual owners. If no fruitful action from the government comes, within a month or two, direct action will be carried out. The organisations will directly hand over the lands to the title holders. For this purpose, Kancheepuram, Madurai, Tiruvannamalai and Krishnagiri districts have been identified for the first phase of agitation. Left organisations, democratic movements, dalit organisations and NGOs will be taking part in organising the movement.
ANOTHER WALL OF UNTOUCHABILITY
Whenever mediapersons find a wall or a fence that segregates dalits from the caste Hindus, calling it as "Another Uthapuram" has become very common for them. This has happened many times in the recent past and the media again used it as a caption when a team of the CPI (M) and TNUEF leaders visited Edamalaipatti Pudur in Trichy.
The team found yet another Untouchability Wall hetre in Edamalaipatti Pudur which falls in Ward No 40 of Trichy corporation. Around two thousand dalits are residing in Mariamman Koil Street here, and the land where they reside was given them by the government. Their place is adjacent to the Madurai-Trichy Highway, and it was enough for them to cross the Sakthivel Colony to reach the highway. However, the caste Hindu residents of Sakthivel Colony cooked some bogus reasons to bar the passage of dalits through their colony and built a wall across the road that the dalits used. This happened in the year 1986.
Numerous petitions were sent to the district administration, but to no avail. A clear-cut case of practice of untouchability was visible here. This wall, 15 feet in height and 80 feet in length, prevented the dalits from reaching the highway through the Sakthivel Colony. But CPI(M) city secretary K Annadurai took up the issue and sent a letter to the chief minister, urging him to take initiative to end the injustice being meted out to the dalits. A team of the party, DYFI, AIDWA leaders and councillors also visited the spot. Dalit residents showed them the map of the area in which the path was clearly mentioned.
On October 23, TNUEF president P Sampath visited the area and assured the people that the TNUEF will stand by them in ending the untouchability. He also appealed to the state government, district administration and the local body to remove the structure immediately. But no response was forthcoming from these bodies. CPI (M) state secretary G Ramakrishnan also wrote a letter to the chief minister, explaining the reasons for urgent demolition of the wall. He pointed out that the wall was constructed across the common path 25 years ago to prevent the dalits from entering the caste Hindus’ colony. However, while the district administration did not bother to redresss the grievance, patta was issued to the very person who had constructed the wall.
On October 27, a demonstration was organised in which dalits took part in good numbers. Momentum has picked up and now the mood is against this case of untouchability. The leaders referred to the untouchability wall in Uthapuram in Madurai district and Periyar Nagar in Coimbatore, which came down due to the powerful movements organised by democratic forces.
As the government has not taken any action to date, the city unit of the CPI (M) has given a call to demolish the wall on November 9. P Sampath will lead the movement in which hundreds of volunteers from various organisations are expected to take part.
Source: www.pd.cpim.org
Vol. XXXIV, No. 44, October 31, 2010
Sunday, October 31, 2010
TAMILNADU: DALITS FIGHT TO REDEEM THEIR LOST LANDS - GANESH
Monday, October 25, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
CRISIS OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN US AND UK - Vijender Sharma
THE UPA-2 government is out to change the entire framework of higher education system in the country with tremendous haste, without required consultation and debate, without any regard to opposition of academia and states. With its ever growing strategic relationship with the USA in several fields, this government is under the pressure of the US and of other developed countries including the UK. These countries are looking for alternative destinations for export of their higher education and for business so that their crisis-ridden higher education systems could be bailed out. The prime minister and HRD minister are already engaged in high level talks with their counterparts in the US and UK in this regard.
SERIES OF TALKS
The union minister for human resource development, Kapil Sibal, met the US under secretary of state for political affairs, William Burns, on October 15, 2009 in New Delhi. India and the US are proposing to set up an India-US Education Council which will include representatives of industry and education. The council will coordinate the moving forward of bilateral relations in education between the two countries.
In November 2009, India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, saw enormous opportunities for the university systems of India and the US to work together and launched an Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative between the US and Indian universities.
Kapil Sibal met the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, on June 2, 2010 in Washington and discussed a wide range of issues related to bilateral cooperation in the field of education. Welcoming the Singh-Obama knowledge initiative and India-US Education Council, Sibal mentioned about the Innovation Universities that are being set up in India and said, "The two nations could partner in setting up some of these Innovation Universities, one of which could be announced during the proposed visit of President Obama to India later this year." They also discussed the interest shown by US universities in establishing institutions in India.
Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, wrote in The Times of India on June 4, 2010 that a delegation from India's government had arrived in Washington in that week for the first-ever strategic dialogue between India and the United States. The new Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative will build partnerships between Indian and American universities. And India is now poised to undertake a significant educational reform: allowing foreign universities to open campuses in India.
The Bureau of South and Central Asia Affairs, US State Department, hosted a higher education roundtable on September 16, 2010 to identify successful and sustainable models for collaboration and partnerships in all types of higher educational institutions in India including research institutions, professional schools, undergraduate liberal arts schools and community colleges.
In July 2010, UK prime minister, David Cameron, who visited India along with a big trade delegation, said: "Education is not just vital for national success; it is one of the best growth businesses of the 21st century. I want us in Britain and India to pool some of our advantages for our mutual benefit."
Through the UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI) collaboration, the two nations will join hands to set up new institutes, increase skills development programmes, hold leadership programmes and work on quality assurance of courses offered to students. The UK has formally expressed interest in developing Innovation Universities and other institutions.
UK higher education and science minister, David Willetts, who accompanied Cameron, said: "Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Essex, Birmingham, Newcastle, Exeter and the Open University are eager to forge links during the design and eventual creation of the new innovation universities." He would be visiting India again in November 2010, accompanied by leading British vice chancellors, to establish a framework for collaboration between British institutions and the innovation universities.
SEVERE CRISIS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
These high level talks are taking place in the backdrop of an unprecedented crisis in higher education that these two countries are facing. Huge budget cuts, skyrocketing fees and other charges, closure of departments and courses, and large scale retrenchment of teachers and workers have led to students, teachers, workers, parents and people at large to organise massive protest actions across the two countries and mobilise support for their forthcoming actions.
After the March 4, 2010 protest demonstrations across the United States, the second national day of action to defend public education was observed on October 7 with militant programmes, and now they are preparing for their January 2011 actions. In United Kingdom, after May 5 --- the day of action and strike --- the National Union of Students (NUS) and University and College Union of Teachers (UCU) have given a clarion call to make history on November 10. There would be a national demonstration on the day in the streets of central London to fight against the looming, savage education cuts, demanding “Fund Our Future: Stop Education Cuts.”
EDUCATION BUDGET CUTS IN THE USA
In the United States, the higher education system is in a deep crisis since the last recession and meltdown. The universities and colleges across the country are facing tremendous problems due to large scale budgetary cuts. According to the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities, at least 43 states have implemented cuts to public colleges and universities and/or made large increases in college tuition fees to make up for insufficient state funding. States made these cuts because revenues from income taxes, sales taxes and other revenue sources, used to pay for these services, have declined due to the recession.
Due to budget cuts by the American states, tuition fee hikes for 2010-11 range from 8 per cent to 23 per cent in Alabama, depending on the institution. In Arizona’s three public universities this hike is between 9 to 20 per cent along with a salary cut by 2.75 per cent. The University of California increased the tuition fees by 32 per cent and reduced the enrolment by 2,300 students; the California State University system cut the enrolment by 40,000 students. Colorado funding for higher education was reduced by 62 million dollars from 2010 onward. Florida’s 11 public universities raised tuition fees by 15 per cent for the academic year 2010-11. This tuition hike, combined with a similar increase in 2009-10, results in a total two-year increase of 32 per cent.
Georgia cut state funding for public higher education for 2011 by 151 million dollars, or 7 per cent. As a result, undergraduate tuition fees for the fall 2010 semester at Georgia’s four public research universities will increase by 500 dollars per semester, or 16 per cent. Michigan reduced student financial aid by 135 million dollars (over 61 per cent), including decreases of 50 per cent in competitive scholarships and 44 per cent in tuition grants. New York’s state university system increased resident undergraduate tuition by 14 per cent beginning with the spring 2009 semester. University of North Carolina has raised tuition by 750 dollars in the 2010-11. Funding for the University of Washington has been reduced by 26 per cent for the current biennium. Washington State University increased tuition by almost 30 per cent over two years. The budget for public colleges and universities in Washington has also been reduced by 26 per cent. Over the next two years, the University of Virginia will see a cut of 27 million dollars; Virginia Tech, 32 million dollars; and James Madison University, 14.5 million dollars. The state’s Community College system will lose a total of 66 million dollars.
Like many other prestigious American institutions, MIT was hard hit by the recession. Its endowment, which funds about 20 per cent of the university's annual operating budget, decreased by about 25 per cent during the crisis, falling from a pre-recession high of 10.1 billion dollars to just 7.6 billion dollars. In Harvard and Yale, the endowments which reached the top values of 37 billion and 23 billion dollars prior to the recession, fell by 23 and 30 per cent respectively.
PROTEST IN THE USA
Therefore, these institutions have been forced to take measures such as academic reorganisation, layoffs, furloughs (leave without pay), position eliminations, hiring fewer tenure-eligible faculty, and higher teaching workloads, larger number of students in a class, higher employee contributions to health and retirement benefits, elimination of scholarships, cut in need-based aid, administrative cuts, salary cuts and other cuts. The students have been worst hit; they faced decreased number of seats and large scale rise in fees.
These measures angered the students, teachers and parents, and resulted in widespread unrest among them. Protests have been going on across the colleges and universities in the United States for over two years now. Tuition fee for students at the 23 California State University campuses, including San Francisco state, was increased by 30 per cent in 2009. After months of actions against the steep decline in state financing for public universities, the students occupied a building of the San Francisco State University. They locked themselves inside that building by chaining the doors from inside for about 24 hours, to protest the budget cuts and tuition fee increases across the state’s public university system. The police broke through a window to get in and arrested 26 students on December 10, 2009. On this day, students on at least three campuses, including Berkeley, took over buildings and many were arrested. They also raised the issues of layoffs, faculty furloughs and other cuts and demanded forgiveness of all student loans.
The protests in California against the budget cuts of one billion dollars to the state's university system grew into a nationwide movement. Students and teachers in many states organised demonstrations against the budget cuts and tuition fee hikes on March 4, 2010. Thousands of students, parents and faculty members protested at colleges and universities across California. In Oakland, California, police arrested 160 protesters who blocked a major interstate highway. Protesters in Davis, outside Sacramento, also tried to block an interstate highway but were prevented by the authorities using pepper spray. Protests were held in other states, too, with at least 16 people arrested at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, when protesters tried to force their way into administration offices and threw ice chunks at campus officers.
Called a “strike and national day of action to defend public education” by organisers, campus and building entrances were blocked at several places. One of the largest demonstrations in California took place on the north steps of the Capital, where more than 1,000 people used drums and bullhorns to try to get their message across.
A call was given to observe October 7, 2010 as the “National Day of Action to Defend Public Education.” At Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, several hundred people gathered on the campus's parade grounds for a jazz-inspired "funeral" for higher education. Some participants, dressed in black carried a coffin labelled "education," while others carried flags representing language programs that the university has cut to cope with shrinking state appropriations. More programme cuts and job cuts are likely, as the state’s higher education funds could be cut by as much as 35 per cent next year.
On several campuses of the University of California, which lost 637 million dollars in state appropriations last year, groups also held events to mark October 7 as the National Day of Action. At the University of California at Berkeley, demonstrators at a variety of events protested the cuts and their effects on public colleges and universities. One event, a sit-in in a library reading room, drew some 500 participants before the campus police blocked access. The demonstrators banged on desks and chanted "Whose university? Our university!" and several hundred remained in the room till late afternoon.
The militant protests that emanated from the University of California, Berkeley, have become a national affair across the United States. On this day, thousands of people, particularly college students and faculty members, marched, rallied and held panel discussions. They charged the federal government of spending trillions of dollars on the military abroad, while it was cutting public education and privatising it.
Massive protest actions were reported from the Portland State and Western Washington universities, Southern Illinois, Wayne state universities, University of Iowa, LSU, New England, Massachusetts and at the University of Albany and Brooklyn College in New York. In San Diego, students, parents, teachers and workers organised a funeral procession to the downtown to mourn the assassination of public education. Members of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) also participated as part of its “Higher Education is a Public Good” week, which, according to AAUP, was “a week of action to demonstrate the importance of not-for-profit higher education.”
The press release of the organising committee on its website, defendeducation.org stated, “As public funds that once made the US the best education system in the world disappear, private investors seek to deform public education for their purposes, adjusting education to meet the market,” The students, teachers and all the stakeholders are now preparing for further actions in January 2011.
EDUCATION BUDGET CUTS IN THE UK
In the United Kingdom, a similar situation is obtaining with large scale cuts, tuition fee hikes and rising protests by students and teachers. Struggling to reduce a large budget deficit, the government in recent months has announced cuts amounting to some 1.1 billion pounds sterling (1.59 billion dollars) to the UK universities. Some university leaders fear future cuts could be even more severe and undermine one of the UK's most important industries — higher education. Anger sparked protests at many places, including Middlesex. Proposals to cut more than 100 jobs at the University of Sussex in southern England led students to occupy university buildings in March 2010, and break into the vice chancellor's office. The police were called in.
Teachers at several universities, including King's College, London and Westminster University, have organised strikes in recent months to protest job cuts. According to an estimate, a few thousand job cuts have been announced so far. The University of Leeds in northern England has said it may need to eliminate as many as 400 jobs if further funding cuts are announced --- a warning that has provoked several student protests. Russell Group universities are lobbying for tuition fees to be gradually raised and then freed from state control, to allow the best universities to charge more.
The government announced cut in university funding in England by a total of 398 million pounds for 2010-11. In all, the budgets of around half of universities were cut, including 10 members of the elite Russell Group – Birmingham, Bristol, Imperial College London, King’s College, Leeds, the London School of Economics (LSE), Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and Southampton.
Biggest cuts were made to the London Business School, where budgets were slashed by almost 12 per cent to 5.8 million pounds, and Reading, which saw spending cut by almost eight per cent to 50.7 million pounds. The LSE saw cuts of more than six per cent. Oxford and Cambridge universities are also hit by budget cuts.
Record numbers of students are expected to graduate with debts of more than 20,000 pounds, according to a study. The study found that almost a third of students had considered dropping out of university at some point. Almost half of them cited “financial difficulties.” There is clearly a large financial strain on students who had to reduce spend on food and are eating less healthily.
Some universities were preparing to increase the number of international students, who can be charged as much as 10 times that of British undergraduates, to bring in more money. According to Policy Exchange, an organisation interested in free market and localist solutions to public policy questions, fees should rise to a minimum of 5,000 pounds but long-term consideration should be given to removing the existing fees limit altogether. It said some vice chancellors were pushing for a rise of 20,000 pounds. A many-fold increase!
Three quarters of UK university heads who took part in a survey think public spending cuts will lead to the disappearance of some institutions. Some two-thirds of the 43 university bosses who responded, said they planned to develop an international presence. Universities charge foreign students much higher tuition fees than domestic students. Therefore, developing campuses abroad could lead to more students coming to study at their UK bases.
Leaders of the UK's most prestigious universities have warned that the government plans to cut funding will lead to a higher education "meltdown." There will be a loss of 22,584 university jobs in England alone, if the Government pushes ahead with plans for 25 per cent funding cuts.
PROTEST IN THE UK
On May 5, 2010, the day of action and strike, hundreds of UCU members and students gathered at the King's College, London, before marching to the Westminster to rally at the Church House. University College, London, Westminster and Sussex universities and London colleges also witnessed protest actions, with the strike at the King’s College, London, continuing until next day.
Actions such as sit-ins, demonstrations and strikes took place in Richmond-upon-Thames College, Croydon College, Sussex University, Bradford College, Doncaster college, Loughborough College, Birmingham Metropolitan College, Bournville College, City College Birmingham and South Birmingham College.
Universities have been told to make savings of one billion pounds, while further education must cut its budget by 340 million pounds in the next academic year. After May 5 action, the UCU prepared for further actions and mobilized opinion across colleges and universities. On June 21, 2010, students and staff at 100 UK colleges and universities protested against funding cuts in higher education. The protests included a demonstration at Parliament.
The protests were organised by a coalition of seven unions --- the UCU, NUS, Unite, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, the GMB (workers’ trade union), the Education Institute of Scotland and Unison.
While the students, teachers and workers were preparing for the future course of action, they got further devastating news with the former CEO of British Petroleum, Lord Browne, releasing his report on October 12 on the review of university funding. He recommended a massive cut in direct state funding for university degrees and passed the burden onto students. He called for abolition of the existing cap of 3,290 pounds a year on tuition fees, allowing universities to charge as much as 14,000 pounds, and removal of public funding from all but "priority" subjects like medicine, science and engineering. The interest rate on student loans also will be increased. This will lead to 80 per cent cut in teaching budgets of universities in the UK. They are likely to face a cut of 3.2 billion pounds in teaching and a reduction of one billion pounds in research budgets. In anticipation of further cuts, many institutions are beginning to lay off instructors, reduce the number of classes and shut down departments.
The UCU said that cuts on this scale would leave cities and towns without a local university and our students would pay the highest public fees in the world. It has described this as the most challenging time for its students, members and for the movement, and called upon them to act together.
On a joint call by the NUS and UCU, several tens of thousands of students, teachers, parents, workers and others will take part in a national demonstration in London on November 10 to protest against funding cuts to higher education. The march will also raise concerns about higher tuition fees and the increasing privatisation of the education sector. About 2,00,000 students could not get admission in universities this year. With manifold rise in tuition fees, many more students will be left out in future.
PRESSURE ON INDIA
The introduction of four bills in parliament on May 3, 2010, regarding entry and operation of foreign educational providers, mandatory assessment and accreditation, prevention and prohibition of malpractices, and establishment of a tribunal to fast-track adjudication; and circulation of draft bills on national commission for higher education and research and universities for innovation should also be seen in the light of the above scenario and pressures coming on the Indian government. The prime minister and HRD minister are already having talks with their counterparts, as mentioned above.
Through these bills, the UPA-2 government is creating a framework that would enable the implementation of its agenda of neo-liberal ‘reforms’ in higher education system and for meeting the requirements of private local and foreign educational institutions.
The new framework, with no social control over higher education institutions, with the denial of constitutional right to teachers and other employees to take recourse to high courts, with no remedial mechanism for the solution of problems of students and with mandatory accreditation, will facilitate trade in higher education in the country.
The all-powerful national commission will provide single-window clearance to foreign institutions to start their shops. The Universities for Innovation Bill will provide them an alternative route for establishing their campuses with greater power, freedom and prestige, with the removal of most of the restrictions proposed in the foreign educational institutions bill.
We have to force the government of India to protect education from these predators. For that purpose, let all stakeholders, viz students, teachers, non-teaching employees and officers of schools, colleges and universities, youth, parents, people’s science movement, etc converge to Delhi on December 2, 2010 to make the rally called by the national forum in defence of education a grand success.
Courtesy: www.pd.cpim.org
Vol. XXXIV, No. 43, October 24, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
FLAWED AFGHAN ELECTIONS - Yohannan Chemerapally
DESPITE claims by Afghan and US officials of having conducted a comparatively fair and free elections this time, there are widespread allegations of fraud. Afghanistan went to the polls on September 18 to elect a new parliament, the Wolesi Jirga. It was the second parliamentary elections since the American invasion in 2001. The first parliament, elected in 2005, was packed with many notorious warlords and their henchmen. This time too, history seems to be repeating itself. The new assembly could even see supporters of Gulbudin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami party taking their seats. Hekmatyar, who even now is formally aligned to the Taliban, has put up many candidates in his area of influence. The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai seems to have been successful in persuading Hekmatyar, with the blessings of Islamabad, to enter into negotiations with the government.
Another notorious warlord in the fray is Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayyaf. In the early nineties, Sayyaf, then with the American backed mujahedin fighting against a secular government in Kabul, was involved in the massacre of hundreds of the minority Hazaras. None of the warlords facing grave charges of human rights violations have been prosecuted. Instead they have been rehabilitated politically by Washington for lending a helping hand in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. President Karzai signed an amnesty bill in 2007 granting amnesty from war crimes for all the warlords and their followers. Malai Joya, the outspoken former parliamentarian said that the majority of the seats in the new parliament will go to “photocopies of Sayyaf”. She was expelled from parliament in 2007 for her criticism of Karzai’s policies and his patronage of warlords and drug lords.
With the warlords and their proxies in the fray and the Taliban calling for a boycott, it was no surprise that vote rigging, intimidation and violence were widespread. It has been reported that out of 2500 candidates contesting for 249 seats, the majority have been tainted by accusations of corruption and bloodletting. In the 2005 parliamentary polls, according to the independent Afghanistan Human Rights Commission, more than 80 per cent of the legislators from the provinces and 60 per cent of those elected form Kabul, had “links to armed groups”. Many of those who won the last elections have managed to become owners of luxurious villas in Dubai.
INABILITY TO PROTECT CIVILIANS
The outgoing Wolesi Jirga was not been taken seriously by president Karzai. After the parliament passed no confidence motions against some of his ministers, Karzai used his executive powers to allow them to stay on. An election decree issued by Karzai that was rejected by parliament went on to become law. Power though concentrated in the presidency does give legislators a platform to air divergent views. Many parliamentarians, for instance, had called for strong action by the government, after NATO forces raided a house in Nangrahar, killing the close relatives of the female member of parliament, Safia Saddiqi. Parliamentarians had said that the incident highlighted president Karzai’s inability to protect Afghans from the foreign forces. However, a friendly Loya Jirga will help president Karzai to rewrite the constitution so that term limits on the presidency can be removed. The constitution in its present form prohibits Karzai from seeking a third term. A pliable legislature is also needed to rubber stamp the US plans to have a long term military presence, in the form of military bases, in Afghanistan.
The Election Commission had issued 17.5 million voter registration cards. Most observers were of the view that this was a very high number as the number of registered voters is not known to exceed 12.5 million. Besides this, election observers reported that millions more of fake registration cards came from Pakistan, allowing voters to cast ballots many times over. The security situation had discouraged large numbers of foreign observers from coming to Afghanistan. In contrast, hundreds of international observers were present to witness the presidential elections held last year. For the parliamentary polls, the government in Kabul had deployed 280,000 police and soldiers to provide security at the polling booths. In the presidential elections last year, only 150,000 security personnel were deployed.
WORSENING SECURITY
The latest quarterly report from the Canadian government stated that the security situation in Afghanistan is worsening. The report describes Afghanistan as an “increasingly volatile” nation, where assassinations are growing and casualties reaching new record levels. US and NATO troops have suffered the highest number of casualties this year since the invasion of the country in 2001 and there are still three months for the year to end.
The UN special representative in Kabul, Stefan de Mistura, implicitly suggested that the international community should learn to live with the facts of life in Afghanistan and accept the election results. “Let’s remember we are not in Switzerland, we are in Afghanistan at the most critical period of the conflict”, he told the media. Haroun Mir, the director of the Afghan Centre for Research and Policy Studies, a think tank in Kabul, said what Afghans hope for is an “acceptable election”, not a “fair and transparent election”. Abdullah Abdullah, who had contested against Karzai in the controversial presidential elections last year, warned that if elections were again rigged, it would only strengthen the hands of the Taliban resistance.
In the run-up to the elections, four candidates and twenty of their supporters were killed. The turnout for the vote was uneven. In many provinces, the polling booths were empty. The Election Commission had to remove more than 400 voting centres as the government was unable to provide security. The Taliban had issued a call urging Afghans to boycott the elections and instead focus “on driving away the invaders” from the country. Voters turned out in Kabul but were absent in many areas like the troubled Helmand province. The Afghan Independent Electoral Commission reported that many constituencies reported more than 100 per cent polling, especially in south eastern part of the country where the Taliban is in control of the countryside. The only way this can happen is when election officials stuff ballot boxes without verification of election identity cards. A campaigner for the influential politician and strongman, Haji Abdul Latif Ahmadzai, contesting from southern Logar province was caught with 300 fake voter cards. Police also detained a man with 600 fake registration cards in Jalalabad city.
Reports by observers indicated that the levels of violence were higher than that witnessed in last year’s flawed presidential polls. A private security firm based in Kabul has enumerated 600 insurgent attacks on the day the parliamentary poll was held. A Taliban attack on a polling station in northern Afghanistan killed six people. In the presidential elections held last year there were only 450 reported attacks. President Karzai has however hailed the elections as a success and “a positive step towards democracy”. The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon praised the Afghan people for their “courage and determination”.
The statement of the US embassy in Kabul was more nuanced. “The results and the quality of the elections will not be immediately evident”, the statement said. The statement added that the US will support the Independent Afghan Electoral Commission’s efforts in carrying out “thorough measures to detect and adjudicate fraud”. In a press conference in May, president Obama had said that the holding of “credible parliamentary elections” was a crucial part of the US and Afghan administration’s efforts to improve governance.
DISTANT GOAL
That goal, going from the evidence of the parliamentary poll, seems to be a distant one. The Afghan government itself says that only 3.6 million people cast their votes constituting only 31 per cent of the 11.3 million registered voters. The Independent Election Commission’s claim of more than 17 million registered voters is generally treated with scepticism. In the presidential elections, more than 7 million votes were cast, though there is widespread acknowledgement that a significant number of the votes resulted from ballot rigging. The Afghan defence minster, Abdul Rahim Wardak, blamed the Taliban propaganda for the low turnout, saying that it had “affected the psyche of the people”.
The Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, in a statement said that it “had serious concerns about the quality of the elections”. The organisation had sent out 7000 observers to monitor the elections. “Violence by candidates, their agents and local power brokers were reported in several areas and so were a worrying number of instances of government officials interfering in the voting centres to sway the results in favour of their chosen candidates. Ballot stuffing was seen in varying extents in most provinces, as were proxy voting and underage voting”, the statement from the Foundation said. The New York Times reported that in Kunduz city, journalists and election observers witnessed election officials and party workers stuffing votes behind locked doors. Preliminary election results are expected in early October but if the previous elections were any indicators, a deluge of complaints by the defeated candidates to the Election Commission is bound to further delay the announcements of final results.
Courtesy: www.pd.cpim.org
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
"PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY" EDITORIAL DATED 03-10-2010 ON PRICE RISE
DESPITE an unprecedented discussion in both the houses of the parliament on a motion moved by the Chair “urging the government to protect the aam admi from the negative effects of inflation”, the rise in the prices of essential commodities continues to eat into the living standards of the people.
The government has adopted a new series of inflation index with 2004-05 as the base year. Often, changes are made in the series of index numbers in order to throw up statistics that conceal more and paint a rosier picture of the economy. Despite this, food inflation reached 15.10 per cent for the week ending September 4, 2010. This is the third consecutive week when food inflation has shown an upward trend. Cereal prices rose by 7.16 per cent while pulses became dearer by 6.10 per cent. Wheat prices rose by 10.16 per cent and that of rice by 5.74 per cent. Milk prices soared by 23.41 per cent while prices of vegetables and fruits also rose.
Amongst the various suggestions made by the massive public protest actions that led to this parliamentary discussion was the demand to ban all futures/forward trading in essential commodities to prevent speculation-led food inflation. The finance minister, in his reply, had assured that this issue would be examined and, if necessary, such a measure would be undertaken, at least temporarily. However, nothing substantial has happened on this score.
This is not surprising since such a measure would directly dampen massive profit generation for speculative trading corporates. The arguments that the CPI (M) had advanced both in the parliament and in these columns in the past have always been evaded under the plea that such trading does not lead to inflation. In a sense, a resounding vindication of our position has now come in the report of the UN special rapporteur on the right to food. Appointed directly by the United Nations Human Rights Council, the rapporteur reports directly to the UN general assembly. In his briefing note on the impact of speculation on the volatility of the prices of basic food commodities and the global food crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2008, he says, “A significant portion of the increases in price and volatility of essential food commodities can only be explained by the emergence of a speculative bubble.”
“In particular, there is a reason to believe that a significant role was played by the entry into markets for derivatives based on food commodities of large, powerful institutional investors such as hedge funds, pension funds and investment banks, all of which are generally unconcerned with agricultural market fundamentals. Such entry was made possible because of deregulation in important commodity derivatives markets beginning in 2000. These factors have yet to be comprehensively addressed, and to that extent, are still capable of fuelling price rises beyond those levels which would be justified by movements in supply and demand fundamentals. Therefore, fundamental reform of the broader global financial sector is urgently required in order to avert another food price crisis.”
It is precisely such a tendency that is happening in India which has contributed to this unprecedented rise in prices. On a year to year basis, the total value of trade in agricultural commodities in the commodity exchanges during the fortnight ending January 31, increased by a huge 64.14 per cent. The cumulative value of trade in agricultural commodities during the year from April 1, 2009 to January 31, 2010 grew by a whopping 102.59 per cent, in absolute terms valuing over Rs 10,13,379.97 crores. Now, any forward trading can make profits only when the prices of these commodities are higher than what they were when the trading initially took place. Such huge volumes and value of trade can only happen if the prices continuously rise generating super profits. The people are paying higher prices to feed such profits.
The UN report describes a similar process that took place globally in 2007-08 and states, “It was possibly the first price crisis that occurred in an economic environment characterised by massive amounts of novel forms of speculation in commodity derivative markets.” It points out that the value of outstanding `over the counter’ derivatives grew from $ 440 billion in 1998 to $ 770 billion in 2002, jumping to $ 7500 billion in June 2007.
“The particular area of concern is speculation in derivatives based on food commodities. A study conducted by Lehman Brothers just before its bankruptcy revealed that the volume of index fund speculation increased by 1,900 per cent between 2003 and March 2008. Morgan Stanley estimated that the number of outstanding contracts in maize futures increased from 500,000 in 2003 to almost 2.5 million in 2008. Holdings in commodity index funds ballooned from US $ 13 billion in 2003 to US $ 317 billion by 2008. In the light of such developments, the UNCTAD Trade and Development Report 2009 found that `the trend towards greater financialisation of commodity trading is likely to have increased the number and relative size of price changes that are unrelated to market fundamentals’.”
Describing such speculation, report says: “If the buyer is willing to offer a higher price for a future than before, it means that she expects the eventual price of the commodity to increase further. As such, if the price of commodity futures goes up, it signals to sellers on stock markets to raise their prices. Indeed, the grain futures prices quoted by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange tend to be incorporated directly into grain trade contracts the world over.” Further, it points out that a speculator, unlike other investors in agriculture does not create any new capital. If a speculator goes bankrupt, the creditors will have nothing to fall back upon to reclaim their debts.
Having established that this run away inflation had little to do with market fundamentals, the report also debunks the IMF’s theses, infamously articulated by George Bush, that the food price increases were the result of per capita income growth in China and India, by establishing that, “China and India exhibited falling aggregate and per capita foodgrain consumption.”
Amongst the various recommendations calling for a “comprehensive reform of all derivatives trading”, the report calls for a legal distinction to be made between commodity derivatives and financial derivatives and genuine commercial traders and sheer speculators. The report calls on all UN member states to seriously consider these recommendations, “to enable states to fulfill their legal obligations arising under the human right to food”.
Given the widespread influence of `crony capitalism’ in India, which continues to further grow as reflected in the recent telecom 2G, illegal mining, IPL, Commonwealth Games scams, to expect market regulations to deliver relief to the people would be like asking for the moon. If the interests of the aam admi have to be protected and the unanimous sentiment of the parliament respected, then this UPA-II government must immediately ban all speculative trading in the commodity exchanges. (September 29, 2010)
Source: www.pd.cpim.org