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Leading News
Govt pushing country towards
disaster: AL
Sheikh Hasina determined not to abandon
politics under pressure
Staff Correspondent
Awami League president Sheikh Hasina has expressed her
firm determination not to abandon politics under pressure.
"The people of this country and I will decide whether I
shall remain in politics or not. But I shall not cease to
continue politics under the pressure or instruction of
anybody. Specially, although I wanted to forsake politics,
the present critical scenario has fortified me not to give
up politics", she said this to her lawyers in the
courtroom after hearing of the Mig-29 corruption case
against her.
In reaction to Dr Kamal Hossain's statement calling for
punishment to those who demand release of Hasina, she
heavily came down upon Dr Kamal saying, "He whitened Tk
102 crore of black money. What is the source of this
money? I make it clear that I did not do any corruption.
Not only I, but also my family members or relatives have
not whitened black money. Thus I am not afraid of anybody
except Allah."
She claimed that today those who are raising my corruption
issue are feeding people rice at the cost of Tk 40 per kg
which was Tk 10 during her regime.
Meanwhile, Awami League presidium member Amir Hossain Amu
on Sunday claimed that the present Caretaker Government is
pushing the country towards disaster.
"People are passing a very tough time at present. Prices
of essentials have gone beyond the reach of common people.
Besides, city dwellers are suffering a lot due to
inadequate water supply and electricity crisis," he
observed adding "None but an elected government can
resolve the existing crises."
Addressing a discussion meeting of Dhaka city unit of Jubo
League, Amu vowed that AL would take part in the next
general election under the leadership of the detained AL
president Sheikh Hasina.
Amir Hossain Amu said, "We, led by Hasina, daughter of the
Father of Nation, earlier took to street for ensuring a
free, fair and credible general election and AL wants to
participate in the next general election alongwith Hasina."
AL presidium member Abdur Razzaque called upon the
partymen to involve more people in Mass Signature Campaign
and tomorrow's Hunger Strike in a large scale so that the
five point demand of AL can be realised as early as
possible.
He demanded of the government to arrange the Parliamentary
election first and restore democracy by handing over the
state-power to the elected representatives through a free,
fair and credible election within the stipulated timeframe
of the Election Commission (EC).
Another AL presidium member Tofael Ahmed said, "We reached
a consensus on the issue of Hasina's release and during
the bilateral talks between the AL and the Election
Commission, we have given priority to only one issue that
is release of the AL chief and other detained party
leaders."
"People are very much confused; they are doubtful whether
the election will be held or not. The Caretaker Government
should take necessary steps to remove the confusion among
the people both at home and abroad by announcing polls
schedule within the shortest possible time," he observed.
Setting an instance of his local area in Bhola where he
recently visited, the former AL Minister said, "Rural
people are facing severe food crises; there is no work, no
food for them, but government does not pay any attention
towards them."
Tofael called upon the JL leaders and activists to gear up
their party strength for the next course of action
programme "If detained Hasina is not freed immediately,
the ongoing in-house agitation will spread city to streets
and then allover the country. People will wage
mass-upsurge to press home their demands and the
government will have to face dire consequences," he said.
Meanwhile, a meeting of AL Secretaries held at Dhanmondi
AL office on Sunday where it was discussed how to make
Tuesday's Hunger Strike a success. About 22 members were
present in the meeting.
EC-BNP splinter talks
Khandoker Delwar labels it as a ‘staged
drama’
Delwar Hossain is Khaleda-appointed Sec Gen: Lt Gen (retd)
Mahbub
Taib Ahmed, FM Masum and M Waliullah
The pro-reformist splinter group of BNP has at last
admitted that Khandoker Delwar Hossain is the Khaleda Zia-appointed
legitimate Secretary General of the party which they were
refusing to accept so long, although they are reluctant to
merge with the mainstream.
"We could have come here under the leadership of our
secretary general Khandoker Delwar Hossain, who is
appointed by the party chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia, and
we also made our proposal to him, but he refused," Lt. Gen
(retd) Mahbubur Rahman, a standing committee member of BNP
of reformist camp who was leading a 15-member delegation
in talks with the EC, told newsmen emerging from the
two-hour-long much-awaited EC-BNP dialogue held at the EC
secretariat on Sunday.
"However, the process of reunification in the party is on.
Our different leaders are communicating with leaders of
different stages of rival camps to bring unity in the
party and I hope a united BNP will take part in the next
general election and will secure the victory," Mahbubur
Rahman observed in reply to a question as to why the
much-talked-about unity did not take place in the party
before April 27, as reformist Hafiz Uddin Ahmed earlier
spoke of attending the EC-sponsored dialogue unitedly.
Referring to another query, he said, "BNP is a big party
and we are representing the whole entity of BNP. However,
the party needs to be strengthened further and we will
definitely be united before the next election."
Meanwhile, when the leaders of the BNP reformist faction
were holding dialogue with the EC inside, a large number
of garment workers were kept waiting outside in an effort
to show their political strength.
According to sources, garment workers were hired and
mobilized around the EC to demonstrate that the reformist
group too has enough mass support.
"We are the workers of Creative Seawater Factory. Our
owner, Fazlul Azim brought us forcibly. Before coming to
the spot, we have been asked by our owner that we would
have work as the supporters of the reformist faction of
BNP. Besides, we would have to demonstrate outside the
Election Commission as the activists of Jubodal and
Chhatradal," talking to this correspondent a group of
garment workers said.
Besides, many rootless people were also hired from Gabtali,
Gulistan, Jatrabari, Sayedabad and other places in the
city. "If you want know the identity of the people who are
now gathering here, you can ask them, we think most of
them will tell you that they are not involved in politics.
They were hired or taken here forcibly," they added.
Replying to a query whether the people, who were gathering
here, violate the emergency rule or not, Monir Hossain, a
former Jatiytatbadi Chhatradal leader said as the people
love BNP, they have come here to show their solidarity.
After initiating a tug-of-war over BNP leadership, the EC
invited the pro-government splinter of BNP for the
much-awaited dialogue on electoral reforms disregarding
the requests of six out of eight standing committee
members of the party.
Meanwhile, during his concluding remarks, CEC ATM Shamsul
Huda reiterated the hope that all (members) of their party
(BNP) would come as one unified party and would contest
the next election.
Calling upon the EC to take necessary steps to empower the
armed forces during the election period to ensure a free
and fair election, Mahbub said, "We have to consider how
the army can be engaged more and it will be my request to
authorise them with the magistracy power." The splinter
faction of BNP has also demanded a specific date for the
general election and lifting of the state of emergency
soon.
On the other hand, BNP Secretary General Khandoker Delwar
Hossain termed the EC-reformists dialogue a "staged drama"
and alleged that it was held as part of a conspiracy to
propel a set of stooges in the next government.
"The EC has invited Hafiz in accordance with their
blue-print. A conspiracy is being hatched to keep Begum
Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina out of the election process,
but their conspiracy would never succeed. BNP would join
neither the government-sponsored dialogue nor the next
general election," Khandoker Delwar Hossain told newsmen
at his Nam residence while briefing newsmen.
He said, "without participation of Begum Khaleda Zia,
neither dialogue nor the election would be meaningful. The
people as well as the BNP would not accept any move to set
up an arranged-parliament."
Responding to a query, the BNP Secretary General warned
about going for a tough movement even amid the state of
emergency saying, "There are the precedents in history of
Bangladesh of waging movement under special situations."
About presence of a heavy contingent of law enforcers
around the EC during the dialogue, Delwar Hossain
questioned, "how can they, who want and need police
protection for holding dialogue with the EC, go for the
next election? They would not reach the grassroots level
leaders even if they get BNP's election symbol the sheaf
of paddy."
Govt to soon announce schedule for formal dialogue with
political parties
Staff Correspondent
Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed will announce soon the
schedule for the formal dialogue between the government
and political party.
"We will submit a report on pre-dialogue talks held
between the government and the political parties, to the
Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed on April 30. Then the Chief
Adviser will announce the schedule of final talks. As per
government initiative, it is holding pre-dialogue talks
with the political parties and the pre-dialogue talks will
end within April 29," Commerce Adviser Hossain Zillur
Rahman told journalists after a meeting on dialogue held
at the Communication Ministry.
Law Adviser AF Hassan Ariff, Communication Adviser Ghulam
Quader and Commerce Adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman held a
closed door meeting. In the meeting they discussed the
outcome of the pre-dialogue talks held between the
government and political parties. On the basis of outcome
of the pre-dialogue talks, a report will be prepared and
then it will be placed before the Chief Adviser.
Replying to a query as to when the government will hold
talks with Begum Khaleda Zia led BNP faction, the Commerce
Adviser said it will complete the talks by April 29. "On
the basis of pre-dialogue talks report, the agenda for the
final round talks will be fixed," he added.
Economists
urge policies for agri and industrial growth
Staff Correspondent
Bangladesh cannot be self reliant in food production due
to non-cultivation of huge lands captured by different
government and private corporations, lack of highbred
seeds, non-use of knowledge of local agriculturists and
improper government policy.
This was said by economist Prof Abul Barakat at a seminar
on "The Economic Condition and Price Hike in Bangladesh"
organised by Bangladesh Economy Association at Planning
and Development Academy on Saturday.
"The food crisis and price hike are increasing day by day
as the country is not self reliant in food sector due to
negligence of government, non-use of huge lands under
different public and private corporations and
non-introduction of highbred seeds and lack of long-term
policy", he said.
He said while price of rice, oil and other food items has
increased by 50 to 60 per cent, some 4 crore people are
suffering from unemployment due to winding up of many
business houses and lack of new investment in different
sectors in the midst of anti-corruption drive.
He said that the government ought to make a balance
between anti-corruption drive and development but it has
failed to control the repercussion of anti-corruption
drive discouraging normal business activities as well as
new investment.
Quoting theories of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, he
stated that sometime invisible hands operate price hike
from the behind and the government has failed to identify
whether any invisible hands or political links are
contributing to price hike and food crisis in the country.
Recommending short term steps, he urged the government to
give food donation to landless and poor people, introduce
rationing for middle-class people, store 20 lac ton of
rice immediately and introduce market monitoring system.
As long term steps, he said the government ought to create
new cultivation land by vacating huge lands which are
captured by different government and private organisations,
facilitate new industrialisation and secure proper
distribution of wealth and a secular society.
Economist Khaliquzzaman said the government ought to
prepare budget in such a way that more people will be
employed and secure the supply of gas, electricity and
water to the industries for long-run development of the
country.
He expressed his concern that if the government does not
have policy, within 40 to 50 years the agricultural and
industrial sector will face a setback in the face of
global competition and free market economy.
Chevron
suspends seismic survey at Lawachhara forest
UNB, Dhaka
International oil company Chevron on Sunday suspended its
3D seismic survey at Lawachhara national forest in
Moulvibazar district following an incident of fire on
Saturday.
Chevron officials said the survey remained suspended until
a full-fledged investigation is completed to identify the
reason for the fire.
The Lawachhara forest is located within the Moulvibazar
gas field area where the Chevron has launched a 3D seismic
survey to further delineate the gas reserve.
According to Petrobangla officials, the fire broke out
from an area of the forest adjacent to a rail-track that
passed through the forest. However, the fire damaged only
a small area of the forest and there was no report of any
injury to people or animal from the fire.
Petrobangla Director (PSC) Major (retd) Muktadir Ali told
UNB that they have sent a general manager of the
organisation to visit the area and investigate into the
incident of fire. He said normally the seismic survey does
not cause any fire as very small-scale explosives are used
underground, not on the surface. "But after only the
investigation by our official, we can reach a conclusion
about the cause of the fire." Local environmentalist
groups blamed Chevron for the fire incident and demanded
immediate suspension of the survey work.
But Chevron refuted the allegation and said they were in
no way involved in the fire incident.
Fire in garments
Staff Correspondent
A
devastating fire gutted machineries, cotton, clothes and
other valuables of a seven-storey garments factory named
Starlight Sweater at Boardbazar area under Joydebpur
police station in Gajipur district in the early hours of
Sunday.
According to Fire brigade and local police sources, the
fire originating from an electric short-circuit at the
fifth floor at about 3.30 am, started engulfing the whole
area of the floor and within a few moments the fire also
engulfed the fourth floor. Later the fire took a serious
turn and burnt to ashes all things housed in both floors.
During the fire there was no workers or employees on duty.
Seeing flame and smoke, local people came out on the
street and informed the police and fire service. On
receipt of the information, fire fighters from different
zones rushed the spot and brought the fire under control
after 10 hours hectic effort. However, no causality has
been reported till filing of the report.
Talking to this correspondent, officials of police and
fire service said the damage caused by the fire is yet to
be estimated it is now under investigation. "Initially, it
is predicted that the loss is estimated about worth Tk. 4
crore," they added.
However, the owner of the garment alleged that had fire
fighters come sooner, the destruction caused by the fire
could be reduced.
On the other hand, in the morning the workers and
employees, who work in the garment, came to their
workplace and saw their factory burning. Seeing the flame
of the fire many of them burst into tears.
Back Page
BD must be part of
the New Asian Era or lag behind
Staff Correspondent
Foreign Adviser Iftekhar
Ahmed Chowdhury on Sunday said there is a new Asian era
beginning and Bangladesh needs to adjust her foreign
policy to these new circumstances.
"We have remained linked too long to the metropolitan
powers of the former colonial age, and may be so long our
interests also demanded that. But the times are rapidly
changing. Asia is forging ahead at an unprecedented speed.
Our policies need to be realigned to these global changes,
or we will lag behind," the Foreign Adviser told reporters
at his office.
He said we must break out of the clap-trap of
donor-recipient relationship which is a legacy of the
past.
"Perhaps we do not realize there is more reverse transfer
of resources to those developed countries who buy from us.
We pay many times more in duties to them, than we receive
in aid. Our efforts for easier market access will and must
continue, but the system is unfairly skewed against us,"
he said adding on the other hand, it is the booming
economies of Asia that might help shape our future.
He said the power players of contemporary times are China,
Japan, South Korea, ASEAN, India, and the Gulf States.
"We must be vigorous in strengthening our linkages with
these actors, and this government has already begun the
process, which governments in the future will hopefully
continue," Iftekhar Chowdhury said.
He said these countries can help build our infrastructures
and invest in our agriculture and industry. "Our
contractual manpower exports go mainly to these countries
from whom we earn huge amounts in remittances. Our food
shortages can only be made up by procurements largely from
these nations. Our cultural heritage, our linguistic
predilections, and the great religion of Islam will assist
this process", the Foreign Adviser further said.
He said our policies run the risk of the same experience.
"If we can cooperate with one another in a new concept of
an Asian Home we will be able to fly together like the
formation of a flock of birds towards a new horizon of
hope and prosperity," Iftekhar added.
"Of course, relations with the West will remain important.
We must continue to cultivate the US and Western Europe.
But Russia, Central, South and South East Asia, Middle and
the Far East are opening up new possibilities. I think our
people, our media, our intelligentsia, and our common man
and woman already see this. In a spirit of democracy our
governments have no option but to follow the citizens'
lead", Iftekhar Chowdhury said.
Govt
should scrap unfavourable offshore bidding
Staff Correspondent
Experts and economists on Sunday said if the Production
Sharing Contract (PSC) model 2008 is implemented,
government will have to subsidise more money in the energy
sector.
"If the proposed PSC is signed, the government has to
increase the prices of fuel and gas further and the amount
of subsidy will increase to a large extent. The government
will have no option but to export gas abroad to lessen
subsidy and also to raise the gas price in the country,"
they said at a discussion on "Salient Feature of Model PSC
2008" held at Curzon Hall on Dhaka University campus
yesterday.
Economists Anu Mohammad and MM Akash, Petrobangla Chairman
Jalal Ahmed and Director Maqbul Elahi took part in the
discussion. Besides, Dhaka University teachers and
journalists were also present.
The economists said that at first we will have to protect
the national interest. "We are urging the government to
fix up the sea area upon which Bangladesh will be able to
exercise its rights as against the areas of the
neighbouring countries like India and Myanmar before
handing over 27 blocks of our sea to foreign companies.
Simultaneously, we will have to protect our interest,"
they said adding if the sea area is not demarcated, India
and Myanmar may demand any oil and gas which may be
discovered by the foreign companies from the territory of
Bangladesh.
They further said as Myanmar and India claiming themselves
owners of the seashore area, are inviting tenders, our
government should place the issue before the international
forum to resolve the problems. "In the interest of the
country, the government should stop the whole process for
leasing out the deep sea area. `
The proposed PSC Model is not in favour of the country's
interest. But the government has already invited tenders
under the PSC Model. If the bidders take part in the
tender invitation under the new Model, the government will
have no alternative but to sign agreements with the
successful bidders in compliance with the model. So, the
government should immediately scrap the on-going process
in this regard keeping in view greater national interest.
IMF projects 6 percent GDP during 2007-’08
Staff Correspondent
Despite severe economic recession in Bangladesh over the
last one year, the country is expected to achieve a GDP
growth of 6 percent during the current fiscal year, said
an advisor to the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
Thomas Rumbaugh, at a press conference at the Bangladesh
Bank auditorium in the city on Sunday.
An IMF delegation lead by Thomas Rumbaugh, adviser in the
Asia and Pacific Department of the IMF, was on a six-day
visit to Bangladesh from April 22 to review recent
economic development and the outlook for the next fiscal
year.
The economy withstood multiple shocks in the current
fiscal year, Thomas Rumbaugh said adding, while growth
slowed earlier in the year, recent improvements in export
performance and agricultural production are contributing
to a rebound. "With exports recovering and a strong Boro
crop being harvested, real GDP growth of 5.50 percent to
6.00 percent appears possible for the fiscal year
2007-08," hoped the senior IMF official.
However, he said, inflation, driven thus far by food
prices, has remained around 10 percent and it will
continue to be a policy challenge for the Bangladesh
government going forward.
Regarding negative impact of inflation on the economy, he
said soaring prices of essentials are mainly responsible
for inflation. The monetary authorities will need to
remain vigilant in monitoring inflation.
Appreciating the improved revenue performance in the
current fiscal, he said there is considerable scope
further increase revenue income through improved
administration by reducing exemptions, expanding the
coverage of income tax and VAT, and increasing the number
of registered taxpayers.
Stressing the need for transparency in tax system, Thomas
Rumbaugh said, in the near future, fundamental changes to
tax legislation will be needed to establish a simple and
transparent tax system in Bangladesh.
About the new national budget, he said, significant
additional safety net measures are planned for the fiscal
year 2008-09 budget as improved revenue performance in the
current fiscal has provided needed financial space to
address subsidies and safety net concerns. Terming the
government decision regarding increased spending to help
protect vulnerable groups from the impact of high
commodity prices appropriate, Rumbaugh said, to finance
this spending, however, continued improvements in revenue
performance and reducing substantial state-owned
enterprises' losses through price adjustments will be
necessary.
Regarding the role of the country's financial sector in
the national economy, he said financial sector development
is critical to support sustained growth. There have been
significant improvements in the primary market for
government securities, but further development of the
secondary market is necessary for a broader bond market
that is needed to finance future growth. Further
improvements in state-owned commercial banks are also
needed.
He said the boards of the newly-corporatized state-owned
banks need to be strengthened and staffed with people who
have financial sector experience.
During their visit, the members of the IMF mission called
on Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, finance adviser Mirza
Azizul Islam and NBR chairman Abdul Mazid.
SAARC convention on legal assistance
BSS, Dhaka
The second meeting of legal
advisers for finalizing the draft SAARC convention on
mutual legal assistance in criminal matters was held in
Sri Lankan capital of Colombo last week. The convention
when adopted by the member states, would provide a legal
framework for increased cooperation among the member
states in addressing criminal issues like investigation
and prosecution of criminals, a foreign ministry source
said on Sunday.
The important features of the convention include
assistance in locating and identifying those involved in
criminal activities in each other's territory and also to
facilitate appearance of witnesses, official sources said.
Once the convention is ratified, cooperation in dealing
with criminals will be strengthened and help curb
transnational crimes, the sources said.
Chaired by Dr. Rohan Perere, President' s Counsel and
Legal adviser , Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka,
representatives of member states attended the event.
Joint Secretary (political) of the Ministry of Home
Affairs led the Bangladesh delegation to the meeting.
Drive to shut shops at 8 pm
Bdnews24, Dhaka
Utility agencies are set to
launch a drive on Sunday to ensure that shops are closed
at 8.00pm in the city, now reeling under acute power
outages, a senior government official said.
"Those who keep shops open past 8:00pm have to lower
shutters. We will not cut off power connections in the
initial stage. Power connections will be disconnected if
they do not listen to our advice and continue to keep
their shops open beyond the cut-off time," power secretary
M Fouzul Kabir Khan told bdnews24.com.
He said the decision had been taken in discussion with the
leaders of Shop Owners' Association.
A senior official of the Power Division said a probe found
that many shops remained open after 8.00pm in violation of
rules.
Shop owners' defiance prompted the Power Division to ask
DESA, DESCO and the Rural Electrification Board to launch
the drive.
The official said that 150 megawatts power could be saved
a day if shops were closed after 8.00pm.
The control room of the Power Development Board said
demand for electricity in the country was 4650 megawatts
Sunday and projected production was 3601 megawatts.
Load-shedding was 811 megawatts on Saturday and 736
megawatts on Friday.
Acute power outages disrupted the normal life of people in
the city and elsewhere.
Crime
Two
commit suicide
BSS, Rangpur
Two persons including an honours student and a
mentally retarded housewife allegedly committed suicide
by hanging themselves in two separate incidents here on
Friday, police said.
Fourth-year honours student Moshiur Rahman, 22 of the
department of Physics of Rangpur Carmichael University
College allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself
with ceiling fan in his room at Sinthi Hostel on the
day.
He was the son of Tara Mian of village Shahapara in
Badarganj upazila of the district and allegedly
committed suicide following love affairs with a girl.
Mentally retarded Manjila Khatun, 50, wife of Mokbul
Hossain of village Ismailpur in Mithapukur upazila
committed suicide by hanging herself at her house on
Friday.
She had been suffering from mental diseases for a long
time. Separate UD cases were filed in these connections
with the respective police stations, the sources said.
3 get life in murder case
UNB, Naogaon
A court here on Sunday sentenced three siblings to life
term imprisonment in a murder case. The Additional
District and Sessions Judge Court also fined the
convicted Tk 5,000 each, in default, to serve one month
more in jail.
The lifers are: Mofizuddin, Khairul Islam and Makbul
Hossain, sons of late Abdul Gafur Mondol, of
Madyachandpur village in Dhamoirhat upazila.
Ten people, however, were acquitted from the charge as
their guilt was not proved.
According to the prosecution, the convicted picked up
Habibur Rahman and his brother Firoz Hossain from their
house and took to a nearby bamboo cluster on the night
of June 8, 2002. They severely injured Habibur and Firoz
and left the place. Habibur died at a hospital the
following day. After examining the records and
witnesses, Judge Abu Ahmed Jamadar handed down the
verdict.
Trawler driver slaughtered
UNB, Narayanganj
A trawler driver was slaughtered by assailants in
Roopganj upazila of the district on Friday.
The deceased was identified as Abul Kashem, 47, of Yakub
Ali of Shikolbaha village in Karnaphuli upazila of
Chittagong district. Local people found his body in
Mangalkhali Char area on the bank of Sitalakkhya River.
On information, police recovered the body and sent it to
hospital morgue for autopsy.
Police also arrested nine trawler workers suspecting
their involvement with the killing.
Bodies recovered
UNB, Sylhet
Police recovered slaughtered body of an unidentified
young woman from the bank of Dhalai River in Companiganj
upazila on Saturday.
Local people found the body of the victim, aged around
24, in the morning and informed the police.
Later, police recovered the body and sent it to Sylhet
Osmani Medical College Hospital morgue for autopsy. A
case was filed.
Another report from Kishoreganj adds: Police recovered
the body of a young housewife from a pond at Bongram
Bhitipara village in Kotiadi upazila Thursday morning.
The deceased was identified as Ambiya Begum, 26, wife of
Shahid of the village. The body bore some injury marks.
Police also arrested Ambiya's husband Shahid,
brother-in-laws Zaman and Shamim suspecting their
involvement with the killing.
Victim's father Giasuddin alleged that Shahid and his
family members used to torture Ambiya for dowry since
long.
Extortionist held
Our Correspondent, Rajshahi
The Rapid Action Battalion of Rajshahi arrested a toll
collector on Sunday.
The toll collector is identified as Esarul Haque alias
Tutul of Alimganj village under Paba upazila of the
district.
According to the sources Tutul collected toll everyday
from the kitchen markets at Saheb Bazaar identifying
himself as police personnel.
He also collected toll from the truck owners and
smugglers by the same way.
The kitchen market's businessmen informed RAB about the
matter recently, sources said. Based on the information,
a plain cloth RAB team caught Tutul at the kitchen
market of Masterpara area at about 6:00 am when he was
collected toll from the businessmen. A case was filed.
One gets life for violating girl
A Correspondent, Kurigram
One youth was sentenced to life term imprisonment by a
court here for violating a girl two years ago.
The convict was identified as Jahangir Alom (19), son of
Asir Uddin, village of Pathokpara at Chakirpasa union
under Rajarhat Upazila in Kurigram district.
Additional district and session's judge of Kurigram,
Vobani Proshad Sing, delivered the verdict on Sunday
noon.
6 dacoits held
A Correspondent, Kurigram
Rowmari thana polices arrested six members of a gang of
armed dacoits went to the house of dacoits leader Tulu
Mia at Satkoribari village under Rowmari Upazila on
Saturday mid-night. The arrested persons were identified
as dacoits leader Tulu Mia, 40, Raja Mia, 33, Mohor Ali,
50, Yousuf, 33, Ful-Babu, 35, and Chand Mia, 30, all of
them were of Satkoribari village.
The court in the district sent them to jail, the sources
said.
Drug-peddler arrested
BSS, Rangamati
Members of the Department of Narcotics Control (DNC)
arrested a woman drug-peddler with nine bottles of
phensidyl from the forest colony area at the town here
on Saturday, police said.
On secret information, members of the DNC led by M
Solaiman, Assistant Director of the department
concerned, raided the house of Sobhan driver at the no-1
forest colony and arrested Manjura Begum, 25, wife of
Abdul Aziz, inhabitant of Barama village under
Chandanish upazila of Chittagong district. They also
seized nine bottles of phensidyl searching her house,
sources said. The peddler with the seized goods was
handed over to Kotwali police. A case was lodged against
her with concerned police station.
Abdul Aziz, husband of the arrested woman, was also
arrested.
96 held
BSS, Rangpur
Police in separate drives arrested 38 people from
different places of the district during the past 24
hours till this noon, police sources said.
The arrested persons included absconding warrantees,
accused in different cases, drug-peddlers and
traffickers, criminals, antisocial elements, thieves and
suspected criminals.
Police also seized huge quantities of smuggled ganja,
fermented wine and phensidyl, stolen goods and other
illegal things during the raids.
The police arrested drug traffickers Motiar Rahman, 35,
Habibur Rahman, 40 and Solaiman Ali, 42 with four
bottles of phensidyl from Mithapukur upazila last night.
Of them, Kotwali police picked up 15 persons, Gangachara
two, Badarganj seven, Taraganj two, Mithapukur eight and
Pirganj police arrested four persons during the period.
The arrested persons were sent to jail hajat when police
produced them before the concerned Rangpur courts, the
sources said.
UNB from Bagerhat adds: Police, in a special drive,
arrested 58 people from nine upazilas of the district on
various charges Friday night.
They also recovered a pipe gun and one round of bullet
from Sonapur village in Mollahat upazila during the
drive.
Police Super AKM Shahidur Rahman said they have launched
a 72-hour special drive on Thursday night to nab the
underground extremists, banned JMB cadres and other
wanted criminals and recover arms and ammunition.
The arrested people were sent to district judicial
magistrate court after interrogation on Saturday.
Earlier, on Thursday night 42 people were arrested from
different areas of the district, police said.
Editorial
Bangladesh-China Friendship
China
did not support the independence of Bangladesh considering the
War of Liberation in 1971 to be an "internal affair" of
Pakistan to whom China has always been a firm "friend".
Nonetheless, a couple of years later China recognized the
existence of Bangladesh and began providing considerable
amount of support to it, initially in the form of equipping
the Bangladesh armed forces with weapons, war-ships and
fighter aircrafts as well as providing special facilities for
training its personnel. By the 1980s China had established a
footing and a basis for "firm friendship" with Bangladesh not
only through military to military cooperation but also through
large scale involvement in infrastructural developments of the
country, a very visible symbol of which is the
China-Bangladesh Friendship Center in Agargaon, Dhaka.
However, starting from the late 1990s, China relegated
relationship to Bangladesh to a routine status rather than a
special "friendship" status, thereby allowing US, European and
Indian influences to increase, as China tried to mend fences
with India in an attempt to link-up with the burgeoning Indian
economy.
The reasons for such a friendship, between China, a rising
superpower and Bangladesh, a striving developing country, are
of course strategic. China's biggest neighbor, both in
economic and military terms is India; indeed India is a
competitor to China in both these respects and India is
increasingly assertive in its foreign policy particularly
towards smaller countries in the South Asian region such as
Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Burma. Add to that, the rising
US influence in the Asiatic region after the demise of the
USSR as well as the strong US-India linkages and it becomes
clear why China would like to have more and firmer friends in
the countries bordering India. The recent Tibet episode, many
would say, had been instigated by the USA with tacit support
of India to embarrass China, forcing it to loose "face" in the
international comity of nations on the prestigious and
media-focused issue of the Olympics. The Indians are pretty
concerned, not to say consternated by the successful Maoist
revolution in Nepal, a Nepal which India considers to be
spiritually and physically almost a part of itself. The
Indians were not slow in showing that they were as good in the
"Great Game" as China and that they were not going to sit
around while China gradually extends its influence right at
the door-steps of India; it is precisely for such an
eventuality that the Dalai Lama has found shelter and support
in India.
Under the circumstance, China has decided to "renew and
reinvigorate" old friendships which it had allowed to
hibernate for various reasons. This China overture comes at a
critical moment in the history of Bangladesh when its politics
and economy are at a nadir and Bangladesh ought to take full
advantage of it particularly in the sectors of power,
agriculture and infrastructural developments - these sectors
being critical to the very survival of Bangladesh.
Additionally, Bangladesh also ought to try for certain
advantages from China in the garments sector which has been
badly affected because of China's massive and aggressive
international marketing of both its garments and fabrics which
has virtually driven out small competitors like Bangladesh. We
might well say "Long Live China-Bangladesh Friendship".
The need for a new leader
The need for a
leader is one of the most desperate wants of the nation today.
The sheer lack of one de facto leaves us no alternative but to
retort to the past leadership. This can be the most vital
cause leading towards an apparent failure of the present
efforts and drives of this current emergency government.
Resorting to the past leadership at once brings into play the
groups that have been responsible for this state of affairs
existing today in Bangladesh. And it is appalling to try and
foster that thought if we really believe in the intentions and
actions of the present regime. It is a contradiction in praxis
to that extent where we ask ourselves only one crucial
question: So on whom shall we put our mandate and trust to
lead Bangladesh to a prosperous and peaceful future where we
all shall have the best of the good life and our flourishing
environments ensured for us? We have seen and for a good 37
years we have been witnessing that the leaders we have been
supporting have always been the next best alternative. That
practice has not only carried us to a next best thing to a
good State, but that whole process nearly destroyed us in an
almost failed State with chaos at hand. Do we now have any
leader whom we can support whole-heartedly and with vigor,
than to resort to the past and think and support a leader only
because the other leaders are not so good and further, that
there is actually no true leader? As a matter of fact, we note
that because of a want of a true leader, we are falling back
in our reform agendas, and as the days go by, we are going
back to the leadership we had before, by sheer lack of any
alternatives. Together with pressures of rising prices of
food, fuel and accommodation, which are now most pressing, we
are also facing a situation where our public and semi-public
institutions are very much politicized along party lines to
the extent where they are de jure shut to new leadership and
often very much against the current and future needs of the
Nation. So our fate is pressing: we need a leader!
Analysis
America’s Strategic Opportunity With
India
The New U.S.-India Partnership
In the past decade, both President Bill Clinton
and President George W. Bush recognized this opportunity and
acted to construct a completely new foundation for U.S. ties
with India.
R. Nicholas Burns
As
we Americans consider our future role in the world, the rise
of a democratic and increasingly powerful India represents a
singularly positive opportunity to advance our global
interests. There is a tremendous strategic upside to our
growing engagement with India. That is why building a close
U.S.-India partnership should be one of the United States'
highest priorities for the future. It is a unique opportunity
with real promise for the global balance of power.
We share an abundance of political, economic, and military
interests with India today. Our open societies face similar
threats from terrorism and organized crime. Our market-based
economies embrace trade and commerce as engines of prosperity.
Our peoples value education and a strong work ethic. We share
an attachment to democracy and individual rights founded on an
instinctive mistrust of authoritarianism. And in an age of
anti-Americanism, according to the most recent Pew Global
Attitudes survey, nearly six in ten Indians view the United
States favorably.
In the past decade, both President Bill Clinton and President
George W. Bush recognized this opportunity and acted to
construct a completely new foundation for U.S. ties with
India. Our relationship with India now is our
fastest-developing friendship with any major country in the
world. I have visited India eight times in the last two years
to help construct this partnership. I have seen firsthand the
remarkable growth in trust between the leaderships of the two
countries. I have also observed the corresponding explosion in
private-sector ties, the greatest strength in the
relationship. The progress between the United States and India
has been remarkable: a new and historic agreement on civil
nuclear energy, closer collaboration on scientific and
technological innovation, burgeoning trade and commercial
links, common efforts to stabilize South Asia, and a growing
U.S.-India campaign to promote stable, well-governed
democracies around the world. And the United States is only
just beginning to realize the benefits of this relationship
for its interests in South and East Asia.
Still, there are obstacles that the United States and India
need to overcome before they can attain a true global
partnership. The two countries need to work more effectively
to counter terrorism, drug trafficking, and nuclear
proliferation. Progress so far has shown how effectively we
can work together to settle past differences and meet future
challenges. If it is sustained, we will have an even greater
opportunity to put American and Indian principles and power
together and shape a more stable, peaceful, and prosperous
global community.
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
The realization of this vision of a broad U.S.-India
friendship has long eluded U.S. presidents and Indian prime
ministers. When India broke free from the British Raj 60 years
ago, it was entirely reasonable to think that the United
States would become one of India's foremost friends and
partners. President Franklin Roosevelt had been an ardent
champion of India's cause; many Americans saw the vision of
the United States' separation from the British Empire
reflected in the hopes and dreams of Indian freedom fighters.
But despite some successes in those early years, U.S.-India
relations during the postwar period consisted largely of
missed opportunities. The two countries found a common
connection as large multiethnic, multireligious democracies.
The United States was India's largest aid donor in the first
decades after its independence; collaborated on India's
extraordinary "green revolution," which helped end India's
famines; and rushed military assistance to India during its
border war with China in 1962. Yet none of this was enough to
bridge the chasm of the Cold War. From the American point of
view, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's nonalignment
policy and warm relations with the Soviet Union made close
political cooperation unachievable, and Nehru's mostly
autarkic socialist economic policies limited trade and
investment ties. President Richard Nixon's "tilt" toward
Pakistan in 1971 and India's "Smiling Buddha" nuclear test in
1974 planted the United States and India squarely on opposite
sides of the political and nonproliferation barricades.
As is so often the case with proud and great countries, this
rather bitter history overwhelmed efforts to mend fences and
postponed the long-desired partnership between India and the
United States. Even as the Cold War came to an end, Washington
focused on deepening its alliances with Europe and Japan and
engaging a rising China. India was left off the list of U.S.
foreign policy priorities.
But all that is history. Over the past 15 years, three
significant developments have helped bring about the recent
dramatic strengthening of U.S.-India ties. First, the end of
the Cold War removed the U.S.-Soviet rivalry as the principal
focus of U.S. foreign relations and the rationale for India's
nonalignment policy. Second, India's historic economic reforms
of the early 1990s, led by Manmohan Singh, then finance
minister and now prime minister, opened India to the global
economy for the first time and catalyzed the extraordinary
boom in private-sector trade and investment between the United
States and India that continues today. Finally, as the
twenty-first century began, the global order started to
undergo a tectonic shift, and India's emergence as a global
force was obvious for all to see.
The arrival of globalization as a defining feature of the age
caused Americans to understand that Washington needs
like-minded global allies to succeed in an increasingly
interdependent world. As Washington thought about how best to
contend with the greatest of globalization's challenges --
international drug and other criminal cartels, trafficking in
women and children, climate change, and especially the rise of
terrorism and its potential intersection with weapons of mass
destruction -- it became clear to most of us in the U.S.
government that we needed to combine forces with powerful
emerging countries such as India (Brazil, Indonesia, and South
Africa are others) to respond to these threats. In this
radically changed global landscape, the basic interests of
India and the United States -- the world's largest democracy
and the world's oldest -- increasingly converged.
That this new U.S.-India partnership is supported by a
bipartisan consensus in both countries considerably
strengthens the prospects for its success. In India, both the
ruling Indian National Congress and the opposition Bharatiya
Janata Party have worked for over a decade to elevate India's
ties with the United States. In the United States, shortly
after the beginning of India's economic liberalization,
President Clinton signaled Washington's desire to forge a new
era of commerce and investment between the two countries. And
after India's May 1998 nuclear tests, then Deputy Secretary of
State Strobe Talbott engaged India's then foreign minister,
Jaswant Singh, in 14 rounds of talks over two and a half
years. Talbott's negotiations with Singh were Washington's
first truly sustained strategic engagement with the Indian
leadership.
When he entered office in 2001, President Bush recognized
early on the power and importance of India's large and vibrant
democracy in global politics. He essentially doubled the
United States' strategic bet on India, pursuing an uncommonly
ambitious and wide-ranging opening toward it and displaying
the courage and foresight to take on the complex
nonproliferation issues that had separated the two countries
for three decades. President Bush called for the two countries
to jump-start their relationship in four strategic areas:
civil nuclear energy, civilian space programs, high-tech
commerce, and missile defense.
NUCLEAR SPRING
When Condoleezza Rice visited India in March 2005, shortly
after taking office as secretary of state, she set out to lay
a new cornerstone for the transformed relationship. She
emphasized to Prime Minister Singh that the United States
would alter its long-held framework that tied and balanced its
relations with "India-Pakistan." We would effectively
"de-hyphenate" our South Asia policy by seeking highly
individual relations with both India and Pakistan. That meant
an entirely new and comprehensive engagement between the
United States and India. Secretary Rice also told Prime
Minister Singh that the United States would break with
long-standing nonproliferation orthodoxy and work to establish
full civil nuclear cooperation with energy-starved India.
At the start of President Bush's second term, we knew that the
nuclear issue was the proverbial elephant in the room in the
U.S. relationship with India. We also understood that
resolving it would allow us to define a more truly ambitious
partnership. India had decided not to participate in the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in the 1970s, and the
United States and other NPT countries had, for three decades,
sanctioned India for developing a nuclear weapons program
outside the NPT regime. The result was India's isolation from
the rest of the world on all nuclear issues.
Yet by 2005 it had become clear -- especially to those of us
who wished to see a more effective nonproliferation regime --
that this state of affairs benefited no one. One of the
world's largest and most peaceful states with advanced nuclear
technology was outside the regime, whereas countries that
cheated, such as Iran and North Korea, had been inside it.
Despite India's outsider nuclear status, it had been a largely
responsible steward of its nuclear material and had played by
the rules of a system to which it did not belong. By bringing
India into the nonproliferation regime, we would modernize and
strengthen it while allowing India and the United States to
forge a larger and more ambitious partnership.
When Prime Minister Singh visited Washington in July 2005,
President Bush made this bold proposition: after 30 years, the
United States was prepared to offer India the benefits of full
civil nuclear energy cooperation. We would not assist India's
nuclear weapons program, but we would help India construct new
power plants and would provide it with the latest in nuclear
fuel and technology to run them. In New Delhi in March 2006,
President Bush and Prime Minister Singh announced the
realization of this vision through the U.S.-India Civil
Nuclear Cooperation Initiative.
Nine months later, in December 2006, a strong bipartisan
majority in Congress passed the Hyde Act, which approved the
initiative, permitting American investment in India's civil
nuclear power industry. These steps marked a huge change in
U.S. and global thinking about how to work with India. They
transformed India overnight from a target of the international
nonproliferation regime to a stakeholder in it. Beyond those
first moves, the U.S. Atomic Energy Act required a formal
agreement to lay the legal basis for bilateral nuclear
collaboration. We concluded the "123 agreement" this July,
after long and sometimes difficult negotiations.
The benefits of these historic agreements are very real for
the United States. For the first time in three decades, India
will submit its entire civil nuclear program to international
inspection by permanently placing 14 of its 22 nuclear power
plants and all of its future civil reactors under the
safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Within a generation, nearly 90 percent of India's reactors
will likely be covered by the agreement. Without the
arrangement, India's nuclear power program would have remained
a black box. With it, India will be brought into the
international nuclear nonproliferation mainstream.
Some have criticized this dramatic break from past orthodoxy,
especially the decision to grant India consent rights to
reprocess spent fuel. But in fact, the United States has
granted reprocessing consent before, to Japan and the European
Atomic Energy Community. Moreover, these rights will come into
effect only once India builds a state-of-the-art reprocessing
facility fully monitored by the IAEA and we agree on the
specific arrangements and procedures for it. The agreement
with India will not assist the country's nuclear weapons
program in any way. And should India decide to conduct a
nuclear test in the future, then the United States would have
the right under U.S. law to seek the return of all nuclear
fuel and technology shipped by U.S. firms.
In short, the civil nuclear agreement serves the national
security interests of the United States. It has already become
the symbolic centerpiece of the new U.S.-India friendship and
is wildly popular among millions of Indians who see it as a
mark of U.S. respect for India. Despite the objections voiced
by the Communist Party of India in August of this year, the
Indian government has stood firm and is meeting its
commitments under the agreement. This agreement will deepen
the strategic partnership, create new opportunities for U.S.
businesses in India, enhance global energy security, and
reduce India's carbon emissions. It will also send a powerful
message to nuclear outlaws such as Iran: if you play by the
rules, as India has, you will be rewarded; if you do not, you
will face sanctions and isolation.
Several further steps remain. India must conclude a safeguards
agreement with the IAEA, following which the 45-nation Nuclear
Suppliers Group must change its international practice to
permit free civil nuclear trade with India. Then Congress will
vote a final time to permit, once and for all, U.S. firms to
work with India to construct nuclear power plants to meet its
need for electricity.
During the two years of this diplomatic marathon of
negotiations, my Indian counterparts and I worked more closely
and intensively than we ever had before. We were sometimes
forced to dig deep into our reserves of creativity and
tenacity. But the outcome demonstrates that Americans and
Indians can work together to achieve important goals on the
most vital international issues -- something once thought
impossible.
SECURING SOUTH ASIA
Another fundamental change in the United States' relationship
with India has been newfound cooperation in South Asia. Since
the attacks of September 11, 2001, South Asia has been viewed
in Washington as a region of vital importance to our future.
It is the region from which the United States was attacked by
al Qaeda. It is home to Pakistan, the most important U.S.
partner in the struggle against al Qaeda. And it is home to
the United States' friend and partner Afghanistan.
India is, of course, the region's largest country and its
dominant economic and military power. We are now working
closely with India for the very first time to limit conflict
and build long-term peace throughout South Asia. We see India
as a stabilizing force in an often violent and unstable part
of the world.
The United States and India share a particular interest in
defeating the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan and in
helping to support that country's fledgling democracy. India
has made important contributions there. It has pledged over
$750 million for reconstruction, making it the largest South
Asian donor to the government of President Hamid Karzai. It
has helped renovate and build hospitals, granaries, and
schools; it is training Afghan parliamentary officials in
governance and parliamentary processes; and it has committed
to building dams, roads, power projects, and a new parliament
building. India's continuing involvement in Afghanistan is
essential to that country's stabilization and long-term
success, and cooperation between the United States and India
in Afghanistan has been close and encouraging.
In Sri Lanka, the United States and India have come together
to call for a political settlement with the Tamil minority
through a power-sharing agreement so as to end the island's
bloody conflict. Our countries have stood together in
denouncing the terrorism and human rights violations that have
plagued Sri Lanka during the past year. In Bangladesh, we
share both influence and similar concerns over instability. We
have encouraged the caretaker government there to restore
democracy and fulfill the desire of Bangladeshis to replace
corruption with good governance. And to the north, we are
shoring up Nepal's democracy: helping the government restore
its reach into the countryside and supporting the efforts of
the Election Commission to hold constituent assembly
elections.
The United States places a very high priority on improving
relations between India and Pakistan. It is in the United
States' strong interest to see the two countries develop a
lasting and productive peace, including by resolving the
conflict over Kashmir -- a potential nuclear flashpoint. This
is a vital U.S. interest and is essential to securing South
Asian stability. Both President Bush and Secretary Rice have
made it a high priority to encourage both countries to
overcome the historic and deep enmity between them. We will
continue to support the promising "composite dialogue" between
the two governments as well as efforts to stimulate greater
contacts between the people on opposite sides of the Line of
Control. Prime Minister Singh and Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf have achieved more in quiet talks toward resolving
their bilateral difficulties than anyone thought possible a
few years ago. That the composite dialogue continues as a
channel of discussion marks remarkable progress from the 1999
Kargil conflict and from 2002, when the United States feared
that India and Pakistan would go to war. In this light, the
gradually increasing civil-society contacts between the two
countries offer the prospect of a slow but sure development of
constituencies for peace on both sides. A considerable peace
dividend awaits both India and Pakistan if they can sustain
this newfound momentum.
Leadership in South Asia is, of course, just one part of
India's increasingly important global role. As India is both a
rising power and a democracy, we in Washington view its
growing influence in the world as broadly congruent with U.S.
interests. Both countries seek to promote democratic
principles and institutions around the world because we know
that stable democracies are largely peaceful and better able
to manage the consequences of globalization. Whether it comes
to ensuring that China's rise is peaceful or preventing the
Muslim world from turning its back on modernity or stopping
rising economies from being ruined by rising temperatures, it
is hard to think of two other countries with as much at stake
or as much to offer to global stability.
With this in mind, the United States and India have worked
hard to come together on global issues in recent years. Prime
Minister Singh and President Bush jointly launched the UN
Democracy Fund in 2005 and are its largest contributors. The
fund is already having a tangible impact, having awarded more
than 100 grants to civil-society organizations in countries
that are democratizing or strengthening their democracies.
Both nations are also active leaders in the Community of
Democracies, a group of over 120 nations committed to
assisting other countries on their path to democratization.
Together, the United States and India have also made real
advances in cooperation on health issues. India is an
important participant in the International Partnership on
Avian and Pandemic Influenza, which has helped put avian flu
on the national agendas of countries around the world. India
and the United States are also actively involved in fighting
HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. We are working
together to eradicate polio and to promote maternal and child
health. We are natural global partners joined by a comparative
advantage in science, advanced information technologies, and
health services.
Continued on page-5
Viewpoints
Continued from page-4
A LONG
JOURNEY
Despite the enormous promise of the U.S. relationship with
India, there are still considerable hurdles ahead as we seek
to form a truly effective global partnership. First, it is
critical that Americans consider their future with India
realistically, guarding against undue optimism and excessive
expectations. Differing histories, cultures, and geographies
will make for a healthy but sometimes argumentative
friendship. The United States and India will need to work
together more effectively in four primary areas: military and
intelligence, agriculture and education, energy and the
environment, and freedom and democracy.
The first challenge will be to counter terrorism, drug
trafficking, and nuclear proliferation, and to do so, the two
countries will have to strengthen their military,
intelligence, and law enforcement relationships. The potential
of U.S.-India military cooperation became clear in the
aftermath of the December 2004 tsunami in South and Southeast
Asia, when the Indian and U.S. navies and air forces were
among the first to rush humanitarian assistance to those in
need. Since then, the U.S.-India defense relationship has
become much more active, including annual joint air force and
naval exercises. Interoperability between the two militaries
has also increased, helping to preserve stability in Asia.
India's robust navy travels the sea-lanes linking the Middle
East and Africa with East Asia, and we are working with it to
expand the surveillance of suspect cargo vessels and real-time
communication. Washington is also increasing military
education and training exchanges, particularly in
peacekeeping, an area in which India is a major global force.
Military cooperation is impeded by the fact that much of the
Indian military still uses a considerable amount of Soviet-era
equipment. Barriers to closer coordination in training and the
sharing of military doctrine remain in both governments. A
significant Indian defense purchase from the United States --
for example, of the new advanced multirole combat aircraft
that the Indian air force seeks -- would be a great leap
forward and signal a real commitment to long-term military
partnership.
Meanwhile, the United States and India must also achieve more
advanced cooperation on counterterrorism, intelligence, and
law enforcement, based on the recognition that terrorism is a
central threat to both countries. This means, among other
things, working more closely to disrupt the flow of funds to
terrorists. We also urge India to participate in our Container
Security Initiative (which, among other things, allows the
United States to check suspect U.S.-bound cargo containers at
their foreign ports of departure) and to unleash its proven
expertise in information technology to meet a new generation
of threats from cyberspace.
The second major challenge is for the United States to help
India address some of its most urgent domestic problems,
particularly in agriculture and education. When Prime Minister
Singh first met with President Bush in 2005, he expressed a
strong desire to work with the United States on a second green
revolution to help India's rural poor. This is an urgent task:
despite India's progress, nearly 700 million of its citizens
-- 25 percent of the world's poor -- live on less than $2 a
day. Americans such as the Nobel Prize-winning scientist
Norman Borlaug were key actors in India's first green
revolution, and Prime Minister Singh has suggested that the
United States' famous midwestern land-grant institutions could
assist India through the implementation of public-private
partnerships, market-oriented agriculture, and new
agricultural methods. U.S. private-sector expertise and
investment could help India create the cold-storage
facilities, supply chains, and food-processing technology that
form the backbone of a sophisticated agricultural market. The
two countries could also collaborate on spreading
environmentally sustainable farming methods, such as land
conservation and water-resource management.
As India's rural poor become integrated into global markets,
the United States and India must also find a way to bridge
differences on global trade. We have differed with India on
critical issues during the long Doha Round of trade
negotiations. We continue to believe that the completion of
the Doha Round talks offers the best hope for expanding global
economic growth and prosperity. An Indian global trade policy
that increases liberalization and stimulates significant and
sustained trade in agriculture and manufactured goods would
benefit all, and so would the opening of India's retail,
banking, and insurance sectors.
As with agriculture, the United States helped establish some
of India's finest educational institutions, including one of
the Indian Institutes of Management and one of the Indian
Institutes of Technology. Now an even more ambitious education
agenda with India is needed. Education has been and will be a
driving engine of U.S.-India relations -- it will constitute
the foundation of a shared future and be a wellspring of
personal relationships and dreams that go far beyond
government-to-government cooperation. There are now more
students from India at colleges and universities in the United
States than there are students from any other country.
Graduating Indian students have spawned new businesses, with
new technologies and extended families that build new bridges
between our countries. As India looks to expand educational
opportunity for its citizens, the United States will be ready
to cooperate. The announcement that the Georgia Institute of
Technology will open a campus in India and the variety of
joint ventures being considered are signs of much more to
come. On the government side, we have agreed to expand the
Fulbright Program in India and the exchange of scholars
between the United States and India.
The third major area in which the two countries must work
together more effectively is energy and the environment. If
global climate change will be the most significant challenge
of the future, India and the United States must face it
together. The United States and China are currently the
largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world, but India
is about to join us in that inauspicious grouping. India has
traditionally seen global warming as a developed-world problem
and has argued that a country's responsibility for it ought to
be measured in per capita, rather than absolute, terms. That
will have to change. How a hugely populous and rapidly growing
India addresses its energy needs is a question whose answer
will have urgent consequences for the global environment. Even
with clean nuclear energy in the future, India will need
additional energy sources to fuel its growth.
Part of the solution will come from drawing on the strengths
of the United States and India as increasingly dynamic,
creative, and high-tech societies. As the United States
invests in alternative energy sources, it can partner with
India, home to some of the world's most innovative
initiatives: the production of biofuels, the expanded use of
compressed natural gas in public transport, and the world's
most profitable wind energy company. Indian and American
business leaders, scientists, and engineers must become a
major part of the solution to the challenge of global climate
change. We have already begun that process through the
Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate,
which seeks to accelerate the development of clean energy
technologies and bring together the public and private sectors
to tackle this critical challenge. India is also a charter
member of the major economies group that met at the State
Department in September 2007 to plan for an effective
post-Kyoto global regime on climate change.
The fourth major challenge is to work with India more
effectively to promote freedom and democracy worldwide.
Standing up for people who have not yet secured their right to
have a say in their government should be an essential
component of the new U.S.-India relationship. Truly moving
forward on promoting democracy will require new ways of
thinking, and both countries will need to make some tough
choices, commensurate with their global responsibilities.
Some of India's fellow nonaligned countries are among the
world's most oppressive and antidemocratic regimes. India's
defense of those countries in resolutions at the United
Nations and its political and military cooperation with some
of them -- most notably Burma -- is anachronistic. Burma is a
cruel dictatorship, and its continued detention of the heroic
dissident and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who lived in
India in her youth and studied at the University of Delhi,
serves as a rebuke to all who believe in democratic values.
India will also need to be careful about its long-term
relationship with Iran. Indians will need to ask themselves if
their civilizational link with the Iranian people shall be
confused with support for the interests of the irresponsible
theocratic regime in Tehran.
For its part, the United States must adjust to a friendship
with India that will feature a wider margin of disagreement
than we are accustomed to -- but a friendship in which the
extra effort will be made up for by rich long-term rewards.
Finally, the United States and India should work together more
effectively in the United Nations and other multilateral
organizations, which I believe will play a larger role in our
interdependent world in the future. It remains a curious irony
that our ability to work together bilaterally has far
outdistanced our sometimes contrary and disputatious work
together at the UN. We must find a way to trust each other
more and work in common cause in the world's global forums,
and to do so with other rising democracies, such as Brazil and
Indonesia. The United States welcomes the rise of a
responsible, active India that engages on these issues. We
urge the world to understand that international institutions,
including the UN, will need to adapt to permit a greater
leadership role for a rising India.
NATURAL ALLIES
As the United States and India look ahead to a new kind of
partnership, we in the U.S. government should not forget that
the big breakthrough in U.S.-India relations was achieved
originally by the private sector. The strength of that
private-sector engagement ensures that the change now under
way is real -- and will last. In many respects, both
governments are playing catch-up with the extraordinary
business-led trade and investment growth of the last two
decades. Since 1991 -- the year of the launch of the economic
reforms in India -- trade between the United States and India
has grown more than sixfold, reaching $32 billion in 2006.
Boeing alone sold $11 billion worth of aircraft last year to
India, one of the world's fastest-growing aviation markets.
General Electric houses its second-largest research center in
Bangalore. A number of India's blue-chip companies -- in
banking, pharmaceuticals, and information technology -- are
listed on U.S. stock exchanges.
I saw this phenomenal growth firsthand on a visit to Hyderabad
last autumn. Standing in the lobby of the city's
state-of-the-art business school, I caught a glimpse of a vast
and sparkling office complex in the distance -- Microsoft's
largest such enterprise outside of Redmond, Washington. On the
same trip, I visited a high-tech Indian firm founded by Indian
Americans who got their start in California. The virtual
bridge between U.S. high-tech centers and the
Hyderabad-Bangalore corridor in India is the most obvious
example of the high-tech future. According to a recent Duke
University study, more than one in seven start-ups in Silicon
Valley is founded by an immigrant from India.
As businesses multiply, our societies are increasingly being
woven together, thanks in part to the 2.5 million Indian
Americans in the United States, the wealthiest and
best-educated immigrant community in the country.
People-to-people contacts -- for work, education, and tourism
-- have reached new heights. The U.S. embassy and consulates
in India are on track to process a staggering 720,000 Indian
U.S. visa applications this year; the U.S. consulate in
Chennai issues more U.S. visas for skilled workers (43,000
last year) than any other U.S. diplomatic post in the world.
Each year, the United States accepts more students from India
-- 76,000 this year -- than from any other country. Many of
them have gone on to make substantial contributions in both
countries and across diverse fields. The Stanford graduates
Sabeer Bhatia and Vinod Khosla founded Hotmail and Sun
Microsystems, respectively; the Yale graduate Indra Nooyi
became the CEO of PepsiCo last year; the Harvard Business
School graduate Rajat Gupta went on to head McKinsey
worldwide. The late heroic astronaut Kalpana Chawla left
Punjab for the University of Texas, parlaying her aeronautical
engineering degree into a distinguished career with NASA.
The rise of a new U.S.-India strategic partnership over the
last two decades is one of the most significant and positive
developments in international politics. If the old U.S.-India
relationship could barely lift anchor, the new one has clearly
set sail. Today there is more of a strategic upside to our
relationship with India than there is with any other major
power. Our great opportunity and challenge is what we do with
it and how we put it to work to serve our hopes for global
security and peace. Indians and Americans have a unique
opportunity over the next generation to rewrite history as it
ought to have been written in the first place: the world's
oldest democracy will finally count the world's largest as one
of its closest partners. By reaching out to India, we have
made the bet that the planet's future lies in pluralism,
democracy, and market economics rather than in intolerance,
despotism, and state planning. Sixty years ago, our countries
failed to chart a common course. Sixty years from now, no one
will be able to accuse us of making the same mistake twice.
(R.
NICHOLAS BURNS is U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political
Affairs. Source:
www.foreignaffairs.org)
Can the Elephant dance with the Dragon?
The heady days of "Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai", the
slogan coined by Nehruvian India to welcome Chou En-Lai in
1955, gave way to the humiliation of the 1962 border war,
after which it was "Hindi-Chini bye-bye" for decades.
Shashi Tharoor
It
has become rather fashionable these days, in bien-pensant
circles in the West, to speak of India and China in the same
breath. These are the two big countries said to be taking over
the world, the new contenders for global eminence after
centuries of Western domination, the Oriental answer to
generations of Occidental economic success. Two new books have
even come out, explicitly twinning the two countries: Forbes
magazine correspondent Robyn Meredith's "The Elephant and the
Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All
of Us" and Harvard business professor Tarun Khanna's "Billions
of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping their
Futures - and Yours". Both books, though different in scope
and tone, see the recent rise of India and China as literally
shifting the world's economic and political tectonic plates.
Jairam Ramesh's famous notion of "Chindia" has evidently come
to roost in the American imagination.
Personally, count me amongst the sceptics. It's not just that,
aside from the fact that both countries occupy a rather vast
landmass called "Asia", they have very little in common. It's
also that the two countries are already at very different
stages of development - China started its liberalization a
good decade and a half before India, shot up faster, hit
double-digit growth when India was still hovering around 5%,
and with compound growth, has put itself in a totally
different league from India, continuing to grow faster from a
larger base. And it's also that the two countries' systems are
totally dissimilar. If China wants to build a new six-lane
expressway, it can bulldoze its way past any number of
villages in its path; in India, if you want to widen a
two-lane road, you could be tied up in court for a dozen years
over compensation entitlements. When China built the Three
Gorges dam, it created a 660-kilometer long reservoir that
necessitated the displacement of a staggering 2 million
people, all accomplished in 15 years without a fuss in the
interests of generating electricity; when India began the
Narmada Dam project, aiming to bring irrigation, drinking
water and power to millions, it has spent 34 years (so far)
fighting environmental groups, human rights activists, and
advocates for the displaced all the way to the Supreme Court,
while still being thwarted in the streets by the protesters of
the Narmada Bachao Andolan. That is how it should be; we are a
fractious democracy, China is not. But let us not even pretend
we can compete in the global growth stakes with China.
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